________________
236
SVETASVATARA-UPANISHAD.
The one god rules the perishable (the pradhâna) and the (living) self1. From meditating on him, from joining him, from becoming one with him there is further cessation of all illusion in the end.
II. When that god is known, all fetters fall off, sufferings are destroyed, and birth and death cease. From meditating on him there arises, on the dissolution of the body, the third state, that of universal lordship; but he only who is alone, is satisfied3.
12. This, which rests eternally within the self, should be known; and beyond this not anything has to be known. By knowing the enjoyer*, the enjoyed, and the ruler, everything has been declared to be threefold, and this is Brahman.
13. As the form of fire, while it exists in the under-wood, is not seen, nor is its seed destroyed,
avidyâder haranât, taking away ignorance. He would seem to be meant for the îsvara or deva, the one god, though immediately afterwards he is taken for the true Brahman, and not for its phenomenal divine personification only.
1 The self, âtman, used here, as before, for purusha, the individual soul, or rather the individual souls.
2 A blissful state in the Brahma-world, which, however, is not yet perfect freedom, but may lead on to it. Thus it is said in the Sivadharmottara:
Dhyânâd aisvaryam atulam aisvaryât sukham uttamam, Gñânena tat parityagya videho muktim âpnuyât.
This alone-ness, kevalatvam, is produced by the knowledge that the individual self is one with the divine self, and that both the individual and the divine self are only phenomenal forms of the true Self, the Brahman.
* Bhoktâ, possibly for bhoktrâ, unless it is a Khândasa form. It was quoted before, Bibl. Ind. p. 292, 1. 5. The enjoyer is the purusha, the individual soul, the subject; the enjoyed is prakriti, nature, the object; and the ruler is the îsvara, that is, Brahman, as god. I take brahmam etat in the same sense here as in verse 9. This metaphor, like most philosophical metaphors in Sanskrit,
Digitized by
Google