Indian Antiquary Vol 26

SR No.: 032518
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 360
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1897.
The position taken up by the Mandúkya may be described psychologically, cosmologically and theologically, the idea being that the macrocosin and the microcosm are involved and evolved in the same way, the whole process being symbolized by Om, the real Brahman. It is the doctrine of Atman trikdula or three-sheathed Soul.
From psychological point of view we have a representation of the states known as the conscious, the sub-conscious and the super-conscious, here called vaisva, taijay and prajas corresponding to the three Kôšas named annamaya, the sheath of nourishment, of the gross body; jágraurisaná, the sheath of the subtle body; and ánandamaya, the sheath of bliss, of unity and liberty. In later books the qualities tamas, rajas and sattva are similarly conceived and applied. According to Indian psychology ahosūkára, individuality, consists of Sarira the solid frame, indriya the sensor nerves, manas the motor nerves, and Atman the subsuming and controlling Spirit, certain phases of Atman being sometimes distinguished as buddhi the faculty of decision and citta the faculty of ineniory.
The Atma, represented by our Upanishad in three states, appears first of all as what metaphysicians of the older schools used to call bahishkarana; that is to say, the human spirit manifests itself through the physical temple in manifold activity of body and brain as Atma vaikvånara. The Atlantic cable and the telephone, the railroad and the ironelad, the Taj Mahal, the statues and chryselephantine products of Aegina, the Mahabharata and the Iliad, the Prometheus, Antigone and Hamlet, the Ninth Symphony and the Hymn of Praise; all the creations of genius, the highest achievements of science and of art come under this head. We have, in fact, the action and re-action of indriya and snanas, resulting in the many-colored activities of an ordered world. Pravritti of Purusha or Visva of Atman is thus the first modal expression of what Spinoza would call Natura naturans, the primary form of Natura naturata.
In the second place we have Nivritti or Åtman taijasa. This is the sab-conscious state, in which the soul withdraws from the outside world in order to pass in review the forms and, fancies of the Kosmos kuown to atmâ vàiśvinara. It is antahkarana, the dream of the doer the Mâyå of the mind. In the words of the great poet of the Middle Age, it is U*' alma sola, che vive e sente e sè in sè rigira.
The third phase is the super-conscious, in which the Atman prajna beholds, as it were, its own apotheosis, the Many is resolved into the One, trikosa is again Okakos, in the blissful state of samyasvastha.
Cosmologically the theory is that the universe, when it comes out of the Absolute. manifests itself from finer to grosser states in three stages and goes into the Absolute in the opposite way, and he who knows this secret, which has been symbolized by the threefold Om and by the Atman, becomes master of his own different states of existence and knows the truth.
Bat the theological, or rather theosophical, standpoint is the really important one, to which the other two are altogether subsidiary. "I pray Thee, tell me Thy name' is the prayer of che poet in all ages, struggling, like another Jacob, with the thought that is within him. About the same time that Rishi Manduka was whispering this rahasya, the old Persian prophet Zarathushtra exclaimed (Ormard Yasht, i. v.) :
"Tell me Thy name, O holy Ahura Mazda, that name which is the greatest, the best, the most beautiful, the most efficacious, the strokes of which are the most victorious, which succours best, which best confounda the malice of demons and of men, that I may overcome both, and Yâtug and Pairikas, so that none may destroy me."