Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 2242

CHAPTER XXXVI, 12.
387
and includes movables and immovables, receives light from the radiance of the sun and moon, is adorned with planets and nakshatras, and is decked on all sides with nets of rivers and mountains, and always beautified likewise by various (descriptions of) waters; it is the means of) subsistence for all entities', and it is the goal of all living creatures. In this the Kshetragña always moves about. Whatever entities (there are) in this world, movable or immovable, they are the very first to be dissolved; and next the developments produced from the elements 8; and (after) these developments, all the elements. Such is the upward gradation* among entities. Gods, men, Gandharvas, Pisakas, Asuras, Rakshasas, all have been created by nature ', not by actions, nor by a cause. These Brahmanas, the creators of the world, are born here again and again. And what
' Cf. p. 371 supra.
• Another reading means they are dissolved in the waters' As to the order, cf. Vedanta Paribhasha, p. 48, and p. 335 supra.
' I take these to mean the gross elements of which things movable and immovable may be said to be made, if one may use a non-idealist phrase in the Sankhya philosophy. Then the elements next spoken of are the subtle ones or tanmatras. Cf. the references in note a. As to developments, see p. 382, note 4.
• Viz. gross object, gross element, subtle element.
• The original is svabhava, which Arguna Misra renders by Prakriti. Actions' both Nflakantha and Arguna Misra take to mean sacrifices, &c, and 'cause the former interprets by Brahman; the latter by tanmatras or subtle elements, and adds, 'the sense is not by sacrifice or lanmålras only.' Nflakantha says, 'The gods, &c., are produced by nature, as the gods, &c., seen in a dream.' The meaning seems to be that there are energies in nature which evolve these forms of being. Cl. also Gil, p. 65.
• I presume this means that the patriarchs (Marlki and others, says Nilakanika) are also born again and again that is to say, in different kalpas, I suppose-by nature only.
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