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I ADHYÂVA, I PÂDA, 18.
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Aditya and other divine beings; that its bliss is ever só much superior to all other bliss; and many other points. Now, all at once, the clause from whence speech returns' is said to mean that neither speech nor mind applies to Brahman, and that thus there are no means whatever of knowing Brahman! This is idle talk indeed! In the clause '(that) from which speech returns,' the relative pronoun from which' denotes bliss; this bliss is again explicitly referred to in the clause knowing the bliss of Brahman'-the genitive of Brahman' intimating that the bliss belongs to Brahman; what then could be the meaning of this clause which distinctly speaks of a knowledge of Brahman, if Brahman had at the same time to be conceived as transcending all thought and speech? What the clause really means rather is that if one undertakes to state the definite amount of the bliss of Brahman-the superabundance of which is illustrated by the successive multiplications with hundred-mind and speech have to turn back powerless, since no such definite amount can be assigned. He who knows the bliss of Brahman as not to be defined by any definite amount, does not fear anything.
-That, moreover, the all-wise being referred to in the mantra is other than the individual soul in the state of release, is rendered perfectly clear by what-in passages such as 'it desired,' &c.- is said about its effecting, through its mere volition, the origination and subsistence of the world, its being the inner Self of the world, and so on.
18. And on account of the declaration of difference.
The part of the chapter-beginning with the words From that same Self there sprang ether'—which sets forth the nature of the Brahman referred to in the mantra, declares its difference from the individual soul, no less than from the Selfs consisting of food, breath, and mind, viz. in the clause different from this which consists of knowledge, is the other inner Self which consists of bliss.'-Through this declaration of difference from the individual soul we
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