Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/135

Rh V E D A N T A 119 ultimate residuum of abstraction, to be spoken of only under negative predicates, sarvanifihcdkdvadhi. It transcends duality, the world of subject and object, jndtrijkeyabhdvdtirikta. It is one only without internal and external differences. &quot; There is nothing before it, nor after it, nor within it, nor without it.&quot; It is ever lasting, objectless cognition, nityam nirvishayam jhdnam. &quot; Of the sight of the seer there is no intermission, for it is imperishable.&quot; It is no object of the understanding, and it cannot be expounded in language. &quot; From it words turn back, with the thinking faculty, not reaching it.&quot; And this Brahman, this impersonal self, is I, aham brahmdsmi. The impersonal self, Brahman, is &quot;existent, intelligence, beati tude,&quot; saclichlddnanda : existent, as imparting existence and manifestations to everything that is known and seems to be, sat- tdsphurtipradatayd ; intelligence, as being self-luminous, as giving light to all things, making to appear all things that do appear, svaprdkdsaka, sarvdvabhdsaka ; beatitude, as exempt from all the miseries of metempsychosis, from evil, pain, and sorrow, a beati tude in which there is no distinction between the bliss and the blissful subject, dnanda and dnandin, a beatitude like the repose of dreamless sleep. It is &quot;ever pure, intelligent, and free,&quot; nitya- suddhabmidhamukta : pure, as free from desire and aversion, and passionless, and as unaffected by illusory limitations, nirupddhika ; intelligent, as irradiating all things, illuminating the otherwise dark or unconscious modifications of the sensories and intellects of personal spirits, and as illuminating the objects of those modifica tions ; free, as unaffected by the experiences of those spirits, exempt from implication in the unreal. It is unmodifiable, and therefore neither knows, nor acts, nor suffers. All cognition, action, and passion belong to the unreal world of duality, and are the modifi cations of the sensory and intellect of personal souls. These modi fications would be dark, that is unconscious, but for the light of the underlying real self, in which they shine forth. In the absence of that real self the whole transmigratory order would be involved in blindness, tadabhdve jagaddndhyam prasajycta. It is the wit ness, that is, the inner light of the cognitions of the intellects of all personal souls, sarvabuddhipratyayasdkshin. It is &quot;the light of lights beyond the darkness.&quot; &quot;To it the sun gives no light, nor the moon and the stars, nor the lightning, how then this fire ? That, as it shines, all the world shines after. By the light of that all this world shines forth.&quot; Brahman is said to abide especially within the heart, for it is there that the internal faculties are lodged, and it is by the light of Brahman that they are illumined. It is &quot;the one spirit internal to all sentiencies,&quot; ekah sarvabhutdntardtmd. It is present to them all, as the one sun is mirrored upon many watery surfaces, as the ether one and indivisible in many water-jars. The personal self, the jivdtman, is said to be resolved into the impersonal Brahman in three states, in dreamless sleep, in a period of dissolution between two {eons, and in emancipation. Dreamless sleep is called a &quot;daily dissolution,&quot; dainandinah pralayah. To Brahman alone belongs existence in the strict sense of the term, pdramdrthiki sattd. It is ; everything else appears to be. The things of daily life have a conventional existence, sufficient for acting upon, insiifh cient to the reason, vydvahdrikl sattd. The silver seen upon the shell, the snake seen in the piece of rope, have an apparent existence, prdtibhdsiki sattd. For the sage conven tional existence is only apparent existence. At the foot of the scale of being stand things impossible or absurd, tuchcha, as the flowers of the sky, the horns of the hare. Brahman is both the real and the operative cause of the world, the updddna and the nimitta. It is the real cause, inasmuch as the transmigratory series fictitiously overlies it. &quot; Over this the sky, the earth, the welkin, are woven.&quot; &quot;Illusion,&quot; says Sankar- acharya, &quot;the aggregate of the powers of all causes and effects, reposes upon Brahman, woven across and across it, as the potentiality of the banyan-tree reposes in the seed of the tree.&quot; &quot;A fictitious object,&quot; says Anandagiri, &quot;such as the snake seen in a piece of rope, has a relatively real substratum in the piece of rope ; the transmigratory series, unreal because phenomenal, has a real sub stance beneath it.&quot; Brahman is the operative cause of the world, inasmuch as the world-projecting illusion, inert of itself, becomes active by proximity to Brahman, as iron is set in motion by the loadstone, the iron being inert of itself, and the loadstone unmoved and unchanged. A process of evolution is called a &quot; differentiation under name and form,&quot; ndmarupavydkarana. Processes of evolution and of dissolution follow one another from eternity to eternity. Embodi ments have proceeded from works, and works from embodiments, in a series without beginning, as plants proceed from seeds ami seeds from plants. The series must proceed for each individual until he learns his real nature, and becomes re-immersed in the fontal unity. The one, the ultimate spiritual reality, is knowledge. The many is ignorance, the semblance of knowledge, fictitious cognition, illusion. Ignorance is not mere privation of knowledge : it has a kind of being ; it is a false identification of self with not- self, bhdvarupam ajiidnam, viparUajndnam a jhdnam. A process of evolution is as follows : (1) Brahman overspread with illusion manifests itself as Isvara, the Demiurgus. The illusion of Isvara is one with the illusion of each and every sentiency, and of all sentiencies, or jlvas. It is at once one and many. As one it is the causal body of the Demiurgus ; as many it is the beatific involucra of sentiencies, their dnandama- yakusha. The Demiurgus and the sentiencies are one. Their state is a state of dreamless sleep, a state of beatitude. Isvara, the Demiurgus, is the first figment of the cosmical illusion. The Demiurgus allots to transmigrating spirits their several bodies and spheres of fruition, in accordance with the law of retribution, and retracts them into himself at the dissolution of the a;on. Know ledge of the real nature of his soul frees a man from all fear of Isvara. (2) Brahman overspread with illusion next manifests itself as Hiranyagarbha. As one it manifests itself as Hiranyagarbha ; as many it is the sentiencies or jlvas in the state of dreaming sleep, taijasa. Illusion has two powers, that with which it envelops the soul, hiding from it its proper nature, the dvaranasakti, and that with which it projects the seeming bodies and their seeming spheres, the vikshcpasakti. The elements, as yet imperceptible, come into being. Out of these the tenuous involucra, the vestures of the spirit in its passage from body to body, are evolved. Out of the imperceptible elements the perceptible are afterwards evolved. The soul clothed upon with a tenuous involucrum, and passing with it from body to body, from sphere to sphere, is the individual soul, the jivdtman. Hiranyagarbha is spirit identifying itself with the as yet imperceptible elements, and with the tenuous involucra. It passes through them as a thread passes through the beads of a necklace, and is called the thread-soul, Sutratman. (3) Brahman overspread with illusion finally manifests itself as Vaisvanara or Virat. As one it is Vaisviinara, as many it is the sentiencies or jlvas in the waking state, visva. Vaisvanara is the Purusha of the Purushasukta : &quot; A thousand heads has Purusha, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet.&quot; Purusha is Brahman, illusorily identifying itself with the perceptible elements, and with the bodies of all transmigrating spirits. Every sentiency, every man, in the waking state, is Brahman illusively identified with this or that visible and tangible organism. The perceptible are evolved out of the imperceptible elements by the process of quintuplication, pa/hcliikarana. Each of the later of the five elements has the pro perty of the earlier elements in addition to its own. Ether has the property of sound ; air the properties of sound and tangibility ; fire the properties of sound, tangibility, and colour ; water the properties of sound, tangibility, colour, and taste ; earth the pro perties of sound, tangibility, colour, taste, and smell. Of these elements the bodies of transmigrating spirits, and their several spheres of fruition, are composed. Such is the order of evolution. An evolution is conceived by the Vedantins as an instantaneous process, rapid as a flash of light. There are, then, three orders of intelligence in three states of ex perience (1) the Demiurgus, and the individual soul in the state of dreamless sleep ; (2) Hiranyagarbha, and the individual soul in the state of dreaming sleep ; (3) Vaisvanara, and the individual soul in the waking state. There are for these three orders of bodies (1) the causal body of the Demiurgus, and the wrapper of bliss ; (2) the tenuous in volucra of transmigrating spirits (these are made up of three wrappers, laid above the wrapper of bliss, viz., the cognitional wrapper, or the intellect and the organs of sense ; the sensorial wrapper, or the common sensory and the organs of action ; the respiratory wrapper, or the five vital airs, and the organs of action); (3) the gross involucre, the visible and tangible bodies of transmigrating spirits, or nntrimentitious wrapper. Invested in these five successive wrappers, one above the other, the impersonal self manifests itself in the shape of innumerable sentiencies, as beast, as man, as god. It is present in all, as the one sun reflects itself upon many pools, as the one ether spreads itself through man} water-jars. It is at the same time, apart from these illusory adjuncts, untouched with mundane sorrows, as the sun looks down upon the impurities of the earth without defilement. Out of these successive involucra the individual soul, to extricate itself from metempsychosis, has to extract itself &quot;like the pith out of a reed.&quot; It extracts itself by returning to its proper nature. And to learn and recover his proper nature, his real self, a man must purify his intellect, perhaps through several lives, and must put himself under a spiritual preceptor to whom the Vedantic doc trine has descended through an unbroken line of authorized expon ents. Brahman is to be known by traditional exponents, not by the mere exercise of the intellect. &quot; Not he that has not ceased from evil, not he that rests not from sensations, not he that is not concentrated, not he whose faculties are not quiescent, can reach that self by the intuition.&quot; &quot;This spiritual reality is not to be reached by learning, by memory, by much spiritual study. But if he choose this reality it may be reached by him ; to him the self unfolds its own essence.&quot; The aspirant to extrication, the mumukshu, must renounce every-