The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris JastrowHopkins, Edward Washburn
Religion
The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow
Hopkins, Edward Washburn
India -- Religion
I am silence. I am knowledge.
There is no end of my divine manifestations."
The knight now asks to see the real form of the deity, which was
revealed to him. "If in heaven the glory of a thousand suns should
appear at once, such would be his glory."
After this comes the real animus of the Divine Song in its present
shape. The believer that has faith in this Vishnu is even better than
the devotee who finds _brahma_ by knowledge.
The philosophy of knowledge (which here is anything but Vedantic) is
now communicated to the knight, in the course of which the distinction
between nature and spirit is explained: "Nature, Prakriti, and spirit,
Purusha (person), are both without beginning. All changes and
qualities spring from nature. Nature is said to be the cause of the
body's and the senses' activity. Spirit is the cause of enjoyment
(appreciation) of pleasure and pain; for the Spirit, standing in
nature, appreciates the nature-born qualities. The cause of the
Spirit's re-birth is its connection with the qualities, (This is
S[=a]nkhya doctrine, and the same with that propounded above in regard
to activity.) The Supreme Spirit is the Support and great Lord of all,
the _[=a]tm[=a]_, while _brahma_ (=_prakriti_) is the womb in which I
place My seed, and from that is the origin of all things. The great
_brahma_ is the womb, and I am the seed-giving father of all the forms
which come into being. The three 'qualities' (conditions, attributes),
goodness, passion, and darkness, are born of nature and bind the
inexhaustible incorporate (Spirit) in the body. The quality (or
attribute) of goodness binds the soul with pleasure and knowledge;
that of passion (activity), with desire and action; that of darkness
(dulness), with ignorance. One that has the attribute of goodness
chiefly goes after death to the highest heaven; one that has chiefly
passion is born again among men of action; one that has chiefly
darkness is born among the ignorant. One that sees that these
attributes are the only agents, one that knows what is higher than the
attributes, enters into my being. The incorporate spirit that has
passed above the three attributes (the origin of bodies), being
released from birth, death, age, and pain, obtains immortality. To
pass above these attributes one must become indifferent to all change,
be undisturbed by anything, and worship Me with devotion.... I am to
be learned from all the Vedas; I made the Ved[=a]nta; I alone know the
Vedas. There are two persons in the world, one destructible and one
indestructible; the destructible one is all created things; the
indestructible one is called the Unchanging one. But there is still a
third highest person, called the Supreme Spirit, who, pervading the
three worlds, supports them, the inexhaustible Lord. Inasmuch as I
surpass the destructible and am higher than the indestructible,
therefore am I known in the world and in the Veda as the Highest
Person."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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