ON THE SUSTENTATION AND DISSOLUTION OF THE BODY.
Argument.--Exposition of the animation of the complicate Body, and its
ultimate decomposition at death.
The god continued:--Hear me, holy sage! now relate to you, how the
active and oscillating principle of the intellect, acts on the human
body and actuates it to all its actions, whereby it receives the noble
title of its active agent. (The disembodied and nameless intellect,
gets many appellations in its embodied state, according to its various
temporal and spiritual avocations and occupations in life. gloss).
2. But the mind of man which is impelled by its former (or pristine)
propensities, prevails over the (good) intellect; and being hardened
in its vicious deeds, pursues its changeful wishes and desires. (The
former evil propensities refer to those of past lives, and allude to
the original depravity of human nature and will).
3. The mind being strengthened by illusion (máyá), the intellect
becomes dull and stultified as stone; and this power of delusion
growing stronger by divine dispensation, displayed the universe to
view. (The máyá is otherwise called _Brahma Sakti_ Divine omnipotence,
which overpowers on the omniscience of God in the acts of creation, &c.
Hence the neutral omniscience is called the Intellect _chit_, and the
active omnipotence is styled the mind).
4. It is by the good grace of this power, that the intellect is allowed
to perceive sometimes, the fallacy of the aerial city of this world,
and at others to think it as a reality. (_i.e._ It comes to detect the
fallacy by exercise of its intellection, and thinks it real by its
subjection-illusion).
5. The body remains as dumb as stone, without the presence of the
intellect, the mind and its egoism in it; and it moves about with their
presence in it, as when a stone is flung in the air.
6. As the dull iron is made to move, by its contiguity to or attraction
of the loadstone; so doth the living soul _jíva_ act its parts, by the
presence of the omnipresent soul in it. (The actions of the living soul
are its respirations, and direction of the organs of action to their
respective function).
7. It is by the power of the all pervading soul, that the living
principle shoots out in infinity forever, as the germs of trees sprout
forth the seed in all places. And as the recipient mirror receives the
reflexion of objects situated at a distance from it, so the living soul
gets the reflex or image of the distant supreme spirit in itself. (God
made man in his own image).
8. It is by forgetfulness of its own and real nature, that the living
soul contracts its foul gross object, as a legitimate twice-born man
mistakes himself for a sudra by forgetting his birth by such error or
illusion.
9. It is by unmindfulness of its own essence, that the intellect is
transformed to the sensuous mind; as some great souls are deceived to
believe their miserableness in the distractedness of their intellect
percipience. (Men are often misled to believe themselves otherwise than
what they are, as it was the case with the princes Lavana, Gádhi, and
Harischandra mentioned before and as it turns out with all miserable
mortals, who forget their immortal and celestial natures).
10. It is the intellect which moves the dull and inert body, as the
force of the winds shakes the waters of the deep to roll and range
about in chains and trains of waves.
11. The active mind which is always prone to action, leads the machine
of the body together, with the passive and helpless living soul at
random, as the winds drive about in different directions, together with
the inert stones (ballast) contained in it. (_i.e._ The mind is the
mover of both the body and soul, but the intellect is the primum mobile
of all).
12. The body is the vehicle, and God has employed the mind and the
vital breath, as the two horses or bullocks for driving it. (The mind
is said also to be its driver, the soul its rider, and the breaths are
its coursers).
13. Others say, that the rarefied intellect assumes a compact form,
which becomes the living soul; and this riding on the car of the mind,
drives it by the vital airs as its racers. (Hence the course of the
mind and its thoughts, are stopped with the stoppage of respiratory
breaths).
14. Sometimes the intellect seems as something born and to be in being,
as in its state of waking and witnessing the objects all around; at
others it seems to be dead and lost as in the state of its profound
sleep. Again it appears as many, as in its dreaming state; and at
last it comes to know itself as one and a unit, when it comes to the
knowledge of truth and of its identity with the sole unity.
15. Sometimes it seems to be of a different form, without forsaking its
own nature; as the milk becomes the butter and curd etc. and as the
water appears in the shape of a billow or wave or of its foam or froth.
(That changed in all, yet in all the same &c. Pope).
16. As all things depend upon light, to show their different forms
and colours to view, so the mental powers and faculties, do all of
them depend upon the intellectual soul for their several actions. (The
intellect in the form of the soul, directs and exhibits the actions of
the mind).
17. Again the Supreme Spirit being situated in the mind within the
body, the animal soul has its life and action; as all things appear to
sight, while the lighted lamp shines inside the room. (As the silent
soul directs the mind, so the active mind keeps the soul alive).
18. The ungoverned mind gives rise to all diseases and difficulties,
that rise as fastly and thickly, as the perturbed waters rise in waves,
which foam out with thickening froth.
19. The living soul dwelling like the bee in the lotus-bed of the body,
is also subject to diseases and difficulties as the bee to the rains
and flood; and it is as disturbed by the casualties of life, as the
calm sea-water are perturbed to waves by the blowing winds.
20. The dubitation that, "the divine soul is omnipotent, and the
living soul is impotent and limited in its powers; and therefore
the human soul is not the same with the Divine"; is the cause of our
woe, and serves to darken the understanding; as the clouds raised by
the sunlight, serve to obscure the solar disk (this doubt leading to
dualism, cuts us from God and exposes us to all the calamities of life).
21. The sentient soul passes under many transmigrations in its
insensibility, and in utter want of its self consciousness; like one
subdued to dull obtuseness by some morphia drug, which makes him
insensible of the pain inflicted upon his own person, (This drug is
some anaesthetic agent as opium, chloroform and the like).
22. But as it comes to know itself afterwards by some means or other,
it recovers from its dull insensibility, and regains its state of
original purity; as a drunken or deluded person turns to his duty,
after he comes to remember himself. (So the lost and stray sheep,
returns to its fold and master).
23. The sentient soul that fills the body, and is employed in
enlivening all its members, does not strive to know the cause of its
consciousness; as a leper never attempts to make use of any part of
his body, which he is incapable to raise. (So the soul that is drowned
in ignorance and dead in its sin, will never rise to reclaim its
redemption by reproving itself).
24. When the soul is devoid of its consciousness, it does not enable
the tube of the lotus-like heart to beat and vibrate with the breath
of respiration; but makes it as motionless as a sacrificial vessel
unhandled by the priest.
25. The action of the lotiform heart having ceased, the motion of the
vital breaths is stopped also; as the fanning of the palmleaf fan being
over, there is no more the current of the outer air.
26. The cessation of the vital air in the body, and its flight to some
other form, sets the life to silence and sink in the original soul;
just as the suspension of the blowing winds, sets the flying dusts to
rest on the ground.
27. At this time, O sage, the mind alone remains on its unsullied state
and without its support; until it gets another body, wherein it rests
as the embryonic seed lies in the earth and water.
28. Thus the causes of life being deranged on all sides, and the eight
principles of the body inert and extinct (in their actions); the body
droops down and becomes defunct and motionless. (The eight principles
called the _puryashtakas_).
29. Forgetfulness of the intellect, the intelligible (truth) and
intelligence, produces the desires of them to vibrate; these give to
remembrances of the past, and their want buries them to oblivion.
30. The expansion of the lotus-like heart, causes the _puryashtaka_
body to expand also; but when the organ of the heart ceases to blow and
breathe, the body ceases to move.
31. As long as the puryashtaka elements remain in the body, so long it
lives and breathes; but these elementary powers being quiet and still,
the body becomes inert and is said to be dead.
32. When the contrary humours, the feelings and passions and sensible
perceptions, and the outward wounds and strokes, cause the inward
action of the organic heart to stop:--
33. Then the puryashtaka forces are pent up in the cavity of the heart,
as the force of the blowing winds, is lost in the hollow of a pair of
blowing bellows.
34. When a living body has its inward consciousness, and becomes inert
and motionless in its outer parts and members, it is still alive by the
action of breathing in the inner organ of the heart.
35. Those whose pure and holy desires never forsake their hearts, they
live in one quiet and even state of life, and are known as the living
liberated and long living seers. (The pure desires are free from the
influence of passions, and tendency to earthly enjoyments; which cause
holy life and give longevity to man). (An unperturbed mind is the best
preservative of health).
36. When the action of the lotus like machine of the heart has
ceased, and the breath ceases to circulate in the body, it loses its
steadiness, and falls unsupported on the ground as a block of wood or
stone.
37. As the octuple body mixes with the air in the vacuum of the sky, so
is the mind also absorbed in it at the same time.
38. But being accompanied with the thoughts, to which it has been long
accustomed, it continues to wander about in the air, and amidst the
regions of heaven and hell, which it has long believed to await on its
exit from the body.
39. The body becomes a dead corpse, after the mind has fled from it
in the air; and it remains as an empty house, after its occupant has
departed from it.
40. The all pervading intellect, becomes by its power of intellection
both the living soul as well as the mind; and after passing from its
embodied form (of puryashtaka), it assumes its spiritual (átiváhika)
nature afterwards.
41. It fosters in its bosom the quintessence (pancha tan mátram) of the
subtile elemental mind, which assumes a grosser form afterwards, as the
thoughts of things appear in dream.
42. Then as the intensity of its thoughts, makes the unreal world and
all its unrealities, appear as real before it, it comes to forget and
forsake its spiritual nature, and transform itself to a gross body.
43. It thinks by mistake the unreal body as substantial, and believes
the unreal as real and the real as unreal. (_i.e._ It takes the unreal
material as real; and the real spiritual as nothing).
44. It is but a particle of the all pervading Intellect, that makes
the living soul, which reflects itself afterwards in the form of the
intelligent mind. (The understanding is a partial reflection of the
Intellect. Gloss). The mind then ascends on the vehicle of the octuple
body, and surveys the phenomenal world as a sober reality. (_i.e._ The
senses of the body, represent the universe as real).
45. The intellect is the prime mobile power, that gives force to the
octuple material (puryashtaka) body to move itself; and the action of
the breath in the heart which is called life, resembles the spiritual
force of a ghost raising an inert body. (The power of spirits entering
and moving inert bodies, forms a firm belief in India).
46. When the aerial mind flies into the vacuous air, after the material
frame is weakened and worn out; then the lifeless body remains as a
block of wood or stone, and is called a dead mass by those that are
living.
47. As the living soul forgets its spiritual nature, and becomes
decayed in course of time and according to the frail nature of material
things; so it fades and falls away in the manner of the withered leaves
of trees.
48. When the vital power forsakes the body, and the action of the
pericardium is stopped; the breath of life becomes extinct, and the
animated being is said to die away.
49. As all beings that are born and have come to life, fade away in
time like all created things in the world; so do human bodies also fade
and fall away in time, like the withered leaves of trees.
50. The bodies of all embodied beings, are equally doomed to be born
and die also in their time; as the leaves of trees, are seen to be
incessantly growing and falling off at all seasons; why then should we
lament at the loss of what is surely to be lost.
51. Look at these chains of living bodies, which are indiscriminately
and incessantly rising and falling like bubbles and billows, in the
vast ocean of the divine Intellect, and there is no difference of any
one of them from another; why then should the wise make any distinction
between objects that are equally frail in their nature, and proceed
from and return to the same source.
52. The all-pervading intellect reflects itself only in the mind of
man, and no where else; as it is the mirror only that receives the
reflexions of objects, and no other opaque substance besides.
53. The acts and fates of men are all imprinted in the spacious and
clear page of the Divine intellect, and yet are all embodied beings
loud in their cries and complaints against the decrees of Heaven which
is owing to their ignorance, and tending to their bitter grief and vain
lamentation.