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174
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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JULY, 1897.
etymological explanation. The heart is called hridayam instead of hridyayam, 1. e., He who is in the heart. He who knows this, that He is in the heart, goes day by day when in deep sleep (sushupti) into heaven (svarga), i. e., into the Brahman of the heart.' Says the Katha Upanishad :
Svapnântam jagaritintam cha ubhâu yênánapasyati
Mahintam vibhamâtmanam matva dhirô na sôchati 11 . That wise man sorrows not, who, awake or in a dream or in both, beholds the great and omnipresent Self!'
It is from the Mandúkya that Sadananda, the author of the Védánta-sdra, seems to have drawn his inspiration. "A follower of Kumirila Bhatta," he says, " is of opinion that the soul is intellect conditioned by iguorance, according to Scriptore which saith : Soul which is fall of joy is also replete with knowledge' (M. U. v.), because in deep sleep light and darkness are #like really present, and because one is under the impression that one does not know oneself."
The Satapatha-Brahmanan well says (x. iii. z. b) :. Yadê vai parushah svapiti, praņu tarbi vägapi-êti, pranam chakshob, prânari manal, pranam śrotram. Sa yadâ prabudhyaté, prâņâd êva adhi-punar jayante.
• When a man sleeps, speech is merged in life, eye in life, mind in life, ear in life. And wben be wakes they are reborn from life.'
Professor Deussen has put this into modern metaphysical phraseology. The Will, as the objectification of which every man and every animal appears, is originally and essentially unconscious. It is only in a limited sphere of animal life, becoming narrower as we descend the scale, that it furnishes itself with consciousness. Nothing proves moro clearly the secondary and so to say borrowed nature of all conscious life than the necessity of sleep. In sleep, owing to the isolation of the brain from the motor and sensory nerves, consciousness is periodically extinguished, that is, the union between will and intellect is suspended, and the latter, for the sake of its (that is the brain's) nourishment, is merged completely in unconscious life, which, as the central and essential entity, unwearingly exercises its functions, whether we sleep or wake.' In two other Satras of the Pédánta-Sára (47, 57) we read :
Sarvoparamatvat sushuptih 1
Since everything attains rest (or realises itself) in Him, He is deep sleep!' As regards the way in which the Mandúkya deals with the three letters of the mystical syllable we can have no better commentary, whether by Gaudapada or Samkara, than the remarkablo words of Prasna Upanishad :
The three letters of Om when daly contemplated and in their respective order set free the devotee from the troubles of this world. The contemplation of the first måtra confers upon him the most exalted state of existence possible on this earth, that of the second fills him with the joys of the spiritual world, and the contemplation of the last blesses him with Móksha.'
And here I may mention & very interesting fact in the theology of Islâm. The first verse of the second Sûra of the Kurán consists entirely of three letters - A, L, M. That is to say, the chapter begins: 'In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful - A, L, M; this is the Book, there can be no doubt about it!' Of these letters the explanations have been many and various, bat nearly all commentators agree that they refer to the Deity. A modern Vedantin goes so far as to hold that we have here simply another form of Om (i, e., A, U, M). Bat though I venture to think that no Semitic scholar would agree to this, we may certainly admit that such a form in Semitic divinity is sufficiently striking.
* HÅr Narayana : Vidic Philosophy, p. 74.
