DESCRIPTION OF THE FORM OF VIRÁT OR THE ALL
COMPREHENDING DEITY.
Argument:—The Essence of the Living soul, and of the undivided
and Individual bodies; and Distinction of things with regard to
their distinct natures and actions.
Ráma said:—Tell me sir, regarding the nature of the living soul, and the
manner of its assuming its different forms; and tell me also its
original form, and those which it takes at different times and places.
2. Vasishtha replied:—The infinite intelligence of God, which fills all
space and vacuum; takes of its own will a subtile and minute form, which
is intelligible under the name of Intellect; and it is this which is
expressed by the term living soul—_jíva_ or _zoa_.
3. Its original form is neither that of a minute atom, nor a bulky mass;
not an empty vacuity, nor anything having its solidity. It is the pure
intellect with consciousness of itself, it is omnipresent and is called
the living soul. (It is neither the empty space, nor anything contained
therein).
4. It is the minutest of the minute, and the hugest of the huge; it is
nothing at all, and yet the all, which the learned designate as the
living soul. (The preceding one is a negative proposition, and this an
affirmative one).
5. Know it as identic with the nature, property and quality, of any
object whatever that exists any where; It is the light and soul of all
existence, and selfsame with all, by its engrossing the knowledge of
everything in itself. (Because nothing is existent in reality but in its
idea, and the soul having all ideas in itself, is identic with all of
them).
6. Whatever this soul thinks in any manner, of anything at any place or
time, it immediately becomes the same by its notion thereof. (_i.e._
Being full with the idea of a thing, it is said to be identified with
the same). (The collective soul becomes all whatever it thinks or wills,
as the soul of God; but the individual soul thinks as it becomes at any
place or time—as the soul of man or any particular being. Gloss).
7. The soul possesses the power of thinking, as the air has its force in
the winds; but its thoughts are directed by the knowledge of things
(that it derives by means of the senses); and not by the guidance of
anyone, as the _appearance of ghosts to boys_.
8. As the existent air appears to be inexistent, without the motion of
the wind; so the living soul desisting from its function of thinking, is
said to be extinct in the Supreme Deity.
9. The living soul is misled to think of its individuality as the _ego_,
by the density or dullness of its intellect; and supposes itself to be
confined within a limited space of place and time, and with limited
powers of action and understanding. (Thus the infinite soul mistakes
itself for a finite being, by the dulness of its understanding).
10. Being thus circumscribed by time and space, and endowed with
substance and properties of action &c., it assumes to itself an unreal
form or body, with the belief of its being or sober reality. (Thus the
incorporeal soul, is incorporated in a corporeal frame).
11. It then thinks itself to be enclosed in an ideal atom; as one sees
himself in his dream to be involved in his unreal death.
12. And as one finds in its mind his features and the members of his
body, to another form in his dream; so the soul forgets her intellectual
entity in her state of ignorance, and becomes of the same nature and
form, as she constantly thinks upon. (It forgets its pure spiritual
form, and becomes a dull material body of some kind).
13. Thinking itself to be thus transformed to a gross and material form,
as that of Virát the macrocosm (who combines the whole material universe
in himself); it views itself as bright and spotted, as the disk of the
moon with the black spot upon it.
14. It then finds in its person resembling the lunar disk, the sudden
union of the five senses of perception, appearing in him of themselves.
15. These five senses are then found to have the five organs of
sensation for their inlets, by which the soul perceives the sensation of
their respective objects.
16. Then the _Purusha_ or first male power known as Virát, manifests
himself in five other forms said to be the members of his person; and
these are the sun, the sides, water, air, and the land, which are the
objects of five senses said before. He then becomes of endless forms
according to the infinity of objects of his knowledge: (_i.e._ the
thoughts in this mind). He is thus manifested in his objective forms,
but is quite unknown to us in his subjective or causal form, which is
unchangeable and undecaying.
17. He sprang up at first from the supreme being, as its mental energy
or the mind; and was manifest in the form of the calm and clear
firmament, with the splendour of eternal delight.
18. He was not of the five elemental forms, but was the soul of the five
elements, he is called the _Virát Purusha_—the macrocosm of the world,
and the supreme lord of all. (He was the collective body of all
individual ones).
19. He rises spontaneously of himself, and then subsides in himself; he
expands his own essence all over the universe, and at last contracts the
whole in himself.
20. He rose in a moment with his power of volition, and with all his
desires in himself; he rises of his own will at first, and after lasting
long in himself, dissolves again in himself.
21. He is the selfsame one with the mind of God, and he is the great
body of the material world; and his body is called the _puryashtaka_ or
container of the eight elementary principles, as also the _átiváhika_ or
of the spiritual form.
22. He is as the subtile and gross air, manifest as the sky, but
invisible as the subtile ether; he is both within and as well as without
everything, and is yet nothing in himself.
23. His body consists of eight members, _viz_—the five senses, the mind,
the living principle and egoism, together with the different states of
their being and not being, _i.e._, of their visible and invisible form
(such as outward and inward organs of perception &c.).
24. He (in the form of Brahmá), sang at first the four vedas with his
four mouths; he determined the significations of words, and it was he
who established the rules of conduct, which are in vogue to this time.
25. The high and boundless heaven, is the crown of his head; and the
lower earth is the footstool of his feet; the unbounded sky is his
capacious belly, and the whole universe is the temple over his body.
26. The multitudes of worlds all about, are the members of his body on
all sides; the waters of seas are the blood of the scars upon his body;
the mountains are his muscles, and the rivers and streams are the veins
and arteries of his body.
27. The seas are his blood vessels, and the islands are the ligatures
round his persons; his arms are the sides of the sky, and the stars are
the hairs on his body.
28. The forty-nine winds are its vital airs, the orb of the sun is its
eye-ball, while its heat is the fiery bile inside its belly.
29. The lunar orb is the sheath of his life, and its cooling beams are
the humid humours of his body; his mind is the receptacle of his
desires, and the pith of his soul is the ambrosia of his immortality.
30. He is the root of the tree of the body, and the seed of the forest
of actions; he is the source of all existence, and he is as the cooling
moonlight diffusing delight to all beings by the heating beams of that
balmy planet _oshadhísa_.
31. The orb of the moon, is said in the sruti as the lord of life, the
cause of the body and thoughts and actions of all living beings (by
growing the vegetable food for their subsistance and sustenance of their
lives).
32. It is from this moon like Virát, that contains all vitality in
himself, that all other living beings in the universe take their rise;
hence the moon is the container of life, mind, action and the sweet
ambrosia of all living beings.
33. It is the will or desire of Virát, that produced the gods Brahmá,
Vishnu and Siva from himself; and all the celestial deities and demons,
are the miraculous creation of his mind.
34. It is the wonderful nature of the intelligent Intellect, that
whatever it thinks upon in its form of an infinitesimal atom, the same
appears immediately before it in its gigantic form and size.
35. Know Ráma, the whole universe to be seat of the soul of Virát
(_i.e._ the whole universe to be teeming with life), and the five
elements to compose the five component parts of his body. (Whose body is
all nature and whose soul is God).
36. Virát that shines as the collective or universal soul of the world,
in the bright orb of the moon, diffuses light and life to all
individuals by spreading the moonbeams which produces the vegetable food
for the supportance and sustenance of living beings.
37. The vegetable substances, which supply the animal bodies with their
sustenance; and thereby produce the life of living beings; produce also
the mind which becomes the cause of the actions and future births of
persons by its efforts towards the same.
38. In this manner a thousand viráts and hundreds of Mahákalpa periods
have passed away; and, there many such still existing and yet to appear,
with varieties of customs and manners of peoples in different ages and
climes.
39. The first and best and supremely blest Virát—the male Deity, resides
in this manner of our conception of him, and indistinct in his essence
from the state of transcendent divinity; with his huge body extending
beyond the limits of space and time. (This Virát or Brahmá is the
Demiurgus of platonic philosophy).