"Perfect beatitude, unalloyed, absolute, the essence whereof is luminousness, undifferenced, "From which all troubles are fallen away, knowable, tranquil, self-recognised: "Fixing the internal organ upon that, seeing the whole universe manifested, made of pure intelligence, "The aspirant even in this life attains to the absolute, his bondage to works annulled." A Vedic text also declares: That is Rasa (mercury), having obtained this he becomes beatitude. Thus, then, it has been shown that mercury alone is the means of passing beyond the burden of transmigratory pains. And conformably we have a verse which sets forth the identity between mercury and the supreme self-- "May that mercury, which is the very self, preserve us from dejection and from the terrors of metempsychosis, "Which is naturally to be applied again and again by those that aspire to liberation from the enveloping illusion, "Which perfected endures, which plays not again when the soul awakes, "Which, when it arises, pains no other soul, which shines forth by itself from itself." A. E. G. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 153: Cf. Marco Polo's account of the Indian yogís in Colonel Yule's edit. vol. ii. p. 300. _Párada-pána_ is one of the practices of the Siddhopásakas in the Śaṅkara-digvijaya, § 49, to obviate _apamṛityu_, _akálamṛityu_, &c.] CHAPTER X. THE VAIŚESHIKA OR AULÚKYA DARŚANA.[154] Whoso wishes to escape the reality of pain, which is established by the consciousness of every soul through its being felt to be essentially contrary to every rational being, and wishes therefore to know the means of such escape,--learns that the knowledge of the Supreme Being is the true means thereof, from the authority of such passages as these (_Śvetáśvatara Upan_. vi. 20)-- "When men shall roll up the sky as a piece of leather, "Then shall there be an end of pain without the knowledge of Śiva." Now the knowledge of the Supreme is to be gained by hearing (_śravaṇa_), thought (_manana_), and reflection (_bhávaná_), as it has been said-- "By scripture, by inference, and by the force of repeated meditation,-- "By these three methods producing knowledge, he gains the highest union (_yoga_)." Here thought depends on inference, and inference depends on the knowledge of the _vyápti_ (or universal proposition), and the knowledge of the _vyápti_ follows the right understanding of the categories,--hence the saint Kaṇáda[155] establishes the six categories in his tenfold treatise, commencing with the words, "Now, therefore, we shall explain duty."