DESCRIPTION OF THE SUPREME DEITY PARAMESWARA.
Argument.--Description of god as the Producer of all, and present in
every form; his purity from his intangibleness and his great grandeur.
The god added:--Know now the lord god Rudra, who in the form of one
self-same intellect, is situated within every form of being, as is of
the nature of self-conscious (Swanubhiati) in every one.
2. He is the seed of seeds, and the pith and marrow of the course of
nature; know it also as the agent of all actions, and the pure gist of
the intellect also.
3. He is the pure cause of all causes, without any cause of himself;
he is the producer and sustainer of all, without being produced or
supported himself by another.
4. He is the sensation of all sensible beings, and the sense of all
sensitive things; he is the sensibility of all sensuous objects, and
the highest object of our sensuousness, and the source of endless
varieties.
5. He is the pure light of all lights (of the sight, luminaries &c.),
and yet invisible by all of them. He is the increate and supernatural
light, the source of all sources of light and the great mass of the
light of Intellect.
6. He is no positive (or material) existence, but the real (or
essential) entity; he is all quiet and beyond the common acceptations
of reality and unreality (Being no absolute or relative entity
or non-entity). And among the positive ideas of the great entity
&c. (mahásattwádi), know him as the Intellect alone and no other.
(Many kinds of Entities are enumerated in Indian philosophy,
such as:--[Sanskrit: matyena chávahárikena | satyena prátibha
sikenábasthátva yena |] Again [Sanskrit: mahásatta, jagat satta, ádisattá
karana vyáktatasattá |])
7. He becomes the colour, colouring and colouror; He becomes as high as
the lofty sky, and as low as the lowly hut. (The colour--_rága_ means
the passion and feelings also; and the sky and hut mean the empty space
and decorated cottage).
8. There are in the expanded mind of this Intellect millions of worlds
like sands in the desert, likewise many of these like blossoms of
trees, have blown away, others are full blown, and many more will come
to blow here after.
9. It is ever burning, as an inextinguishable flame by its own inherent
fire; and though it is ever emitting innumerable sparks of its essence
all about, yet there is no end of its light and heat and fire.
10. It contains in its bowels the great mountains, likening the
particles of dust (or rather as the roes of a fish); it covers also
the highest mountains, as the lofty sky hides the dusts on earth. So
the sruti--Greater than the greatest and smaller than the smallest.
[Sanskrit: aníraníyan mahatimahiyát]
11. It comprehends the great--_mahákalpa_ millennium, like a twinkling
of the eye; and is also contained in a kalpa age, in its quick motion
of a twinkling. (_i.e._ He is eternity as well as jot of time).
12. Though minuter than the point of a hair, yet it encompasses the
whole earth (as its boundary line); and the seven oceans that encircle
the earth with their vests, cannot gird the great Infinity.
13. He is called the great creator of the universe, though he creates
nothing (Like the makers of other things); and though he does all
actions, yet he remains as doing nothing (by his calm quietness).
14. Though the deity is included under the category of substance, yet
he is no substance at all; and though there be no substantiality in
him, yet his spirit is the substratum of all things. (All along he
is the figure of _vaiparitya_ or opposition, which well applies to
Brahma who is all and nil or the _omnium et nullum_, _Sarvamasarvam_.
(Though bodiless, he is the great body of the universe _corpus
mundi_--_viswarúpa_ or _virát_).)
15. He is _adya_--(hodie) today, and _prátar_--practer tomorrow, and
though the preter and future, yet he is always present. Wherefore he
is neither now or then, but sempiternal and for ever.
16. He is not in the babbling and prattling of babes and boys, nor in
the bawling of beasts and brutes, nor in the jargon of savages; but
equally understood by all in their peculiar modes of speech. (This
is the interpretation of the gloss; but the words of the text are
unintelligible and meaningless).
17. These words are meaningless and are yet true, like the obsolete
words occurring in the vedas. Therefore no words can truly express
what is God, because they are not what he is (but mere emblems). These
difficult passages are not explained in the gloss and left out in the
Calcutta edition.
18. I bow down to him who is all, in whom all reside and from whom they
all proceed, and who is in all place and time, and who is diffused
through all and called the one and all--_to pan_.
19. In this verbiology of obscure words, there will be found some fully
expressive of the meaning, as in a forest of thick wood we happen to
fragrant flowers, which we pluck and bear with us in handfuls. (The
entangled phraseology of the stanza will bear no literal translation).