antagonistic to all evil and essentially composed of infinite knowledge and bliss--whereby it differs from all other souls--possesses an infinite number of qualities of unimaginable excellence, and, analogously, a divine form suitable to its nature and intentions, i.e. adorned with infinite, supremely excellent and wonderful qualities-- splendour, beauty, fragrance, tenderness, loveliness, youthfulness, and so on. And in order to gratify his devotees he individualises that form so as to render it suitable to their apprehension--he who is a boundless ocean as it were of compassion, kindness and lordly power, whom no shadow of evil may touch---he who is the highest Self, the highest Brahman, the supreme soul, Nârâyana!--Certain texts tell us that the highest Brahman is the sole cause of the entire world: 'From which these beings originate' (Taitt. Up.); 'Being only was this in the beginning' (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 1); 'The Self only was this in the beginning' (Ai. Up. I, 1); 'Nârâyana alone existed, not Brahmâ nor Siva.' Other texts define his nature: 'The True, knowledge, infinite is Brahman' (Taitt. Up. II, 1, 1); 'Knowledge, bliss is Brahman' (Bri. Up. III. 9. 28); and others again deny of Brahman all connexion with evil qualities and inferior bodies sprung from Prakriti, and all dependence on karman, and proclaim his glorious qualities and glorious forms: 'Free from qualities' (?); 'Free from taint' (Svet. Up. VI, 19); 'Free from old age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, realising his wishes and purposes' (Ch. Up. VIII, 1, 5); 'There is no effect and no cause known of him, no one is seen like to him or superior: his high power is revealed as manifold, as inherent action of force and knowledge' (Svet. Up. VI, 8); 'That highest great lord of lords, the highest deity of deities' (Svet. Up. VI, 7); 'He is the cause, the lord of the lords of the organs, and there is of him neither parent nor lord' (Svet. Up. VI, 9); 'Having created all forms and given names to them the wise one goes on calling them by those names' (Taitt. Âr. III, 12, 7); 'I know that great Person of sunlike lustre beyond the darkness' (Svet. Up. III, 8); 'All moments originated from the Person shining like lightning' (Mahânâr. Up. I, 6).--This essential form of his the most compassionate Lord by his mere will individualises as a shape human or divine or otherwise, so as to render it suitable to the apprehension of the devotee and thus satisfy him. This the following scriptural passage declares, 'Unborn he is born in many ways' (Gau. Kâ. III, 24); and likewise Smriti. 'Though unborn I, the imperishable Self, the Lord of the beings, presiding over my Nature, manifest myself by my Mâya for the protection of the Good and the destruction of the evil doers '(Bha. Gî. IV, 6. 8). The 'Good' here are the Devotees; and by 'Mâya' is meant the purpose, the knowledge of the Divine Being--; in agreement with the Naighantukas who register 'Mâya' as a synonym of jñâna (knowledge).