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enables it to comprehend and to know. The knowing property is the exclusive characteristic of soul. No other substance has that property.
On the other hand, the body is the aggregation of lifeless matter called Pudgal. It does not have knowing capability. Touch, taste, sight and smell are its principal attributes. Heavy or light, rough or smooth, hot or cold, and sticky or dry are the eight types of touch, of which every Pudgal particle has four types. Sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and acrid are the five types of taste, and every particle can have one or more of those tastes. Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red are the seven colors (The scriptures specify only five, viz. white, black, yellow, red, and green.). Every particle has one of those or a color derived therefrom. Good or and bad odor are two types of smell and every particle has one of them.
green, yeli, and every particitypes. Sweet, ose the eight
But soul does not have any of those attributes. Thus body and soul are totally different substances. They have distinctly different characteristics. During the embodied state, however, the soul has to stay within some body and occupies the same space that the body occupies. They thus stay together during the life span. That concurrent occupation creates the illusion of identification. That illusory approach is termed as Adhyäs. Under the influence of that Adhyäs, one thinks itself as the body and treats the comforts and discomforts of the body as its own. If there is some injury to the body, the soul feels as if it is experiencing the pain. If the body needs food for recouping its energy, the soul feels as if it is hungry. Such Adhyäs leads to desires, and desire is the root cause of wandering from birth to birth. During that wandering it migrates from one body to another. But its Adhyas continues to stay and the soul tends to identify itself with the body that it gets from time to time. It is the purpose of religion to show that the soul is different from the body.
The identification of soul with the body is comparable to the mixture of milk and water. In that mixture, water and milk are homogenized and they seem to have assumed one form; they also look as one substance. Actually, however, it is a mixture of the two substances, which can be separated by appropriate process.
Bhäsyo Dehädhyästhi, Ätmä Deha Samän; Pan Te Banne Bhinna Chhe, Jem Asi Ne Myän.
The soul seems the same as the body due to the illusory identification with the embodiment; both of them are, however, distinct and different like a sword and its sheath. (50)
Explanation & Discussion:
This stanza once again states that soul and body seem identical only on account of false identification. That repetition is made in order to emphasize the difference between the two. But their separateness is here compared with a sword and a sheath. When a sword is within its sheath, it does not come to the notice and both of them look as one object, but no one can doubt the separate existence of the sword from its sheath. Similarly the soul, though it is not noticeable, is separate from the body. Moreover, as the sword occupies the entire space of the sheath, the soul stays within every part of the body.
The Adhyäs pertaining to the body, which is called Dehädhyas in these two stanzas, was discussed earlier. But there is also an Adhyäs relating to the senses. It is called
