The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c39.s4.35

v2.c39.s4.35

But the identification of the waters with truth or reality is not the only identification: the earth is also truth, for it is of all the worlds the most obviously genuine.¹⁰ Gold again is reality; lead, being neither iron nor gold, is a mere appearance.¹¹ Truth, therefore, is nothing but a species of existence, which the term used, Satya, also properly expresses. But the most important side remains ritual accuracy: the best pair is the union of faith and truth as ritual accuracy.¹² The sacrifice is formally identified with the truth, and so is the threefold Veda, and the Brahman as holy writ, to which conception we must refer the doctrine of Hiraṇyadant Baida that truth rests on the Brahman. More simply, however, the rite is simple fact: the eye is asserted to be truth, because, unlike the mind and speech, it is not prone to give false witness. From this fact, however, there is deduced a doctrine of some value for the guidance of the sacrificer: as in the case of the wife and her lovers, he must see that in the rite he shall duly bring himself into harmony with the truth by the use of true speech.¹³ When he is about to undertake a vow, he should realize that he passes from the inaccuracy of ordinary life to the exactitude, which is characteristic in ritual of the god, and, at the end when he lays down the vow, he ceases to be under the bond of accuracy. But in the rite he does not say so openly:¹⁴ he contents himself with the declaration that he is once more as he was—that is one who lives among men, whose nature is inaccuracy.