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INTRODUCTION.
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the pious effects its desires by its mere determination, or uses some other means. The former alternative is accepted. According to Râmânuga the adhikarana simply continues the consideration of the state of the released, begun in the preceding adhikarana. Of the released soul it is said in Kh. Up. VIII, 12, 3 that after it has manifested itself in its true nature it moves about playing and rejoicing with women, carriages, and so on. The question then arises whether it effects all this by its mere samkalpa (it having been shown in the preceding adhikarana that the released soul is, like the Lord, satyasamkalpa), or not. The answer is in favour of the former alternative, on account of the explicit declaration made in Kh. Up. VIII, 2,' By his mere will the fathers come to receive him.'
Adhik. V (10-14) decides that the released are embodied or disembodied according to their wish and will.
Adhik. VI (11, 12) explains how the soul of the released can animate several bodies at the same time.--Sūtra 12 gives, according to Sankara, the additional explanation that those passages which declare the absence of all specific cognition on the part of the released soul do not refer to the partly released soul of the devotee, but either to the soul in the state of deep sleep (svâpyaya = sushupti), or to the fully released soul of the sage (sampatti = kaivalya).-Råmânuga explains that the passages speaking of absence of consciousness refer either to the state of deep sleep, or to the time of dying (sampatti = maranam according to 'vân manasi sampadyate,' &c.).
Adhik. VII (17-21).-The released givas participate in all . the perfections and powers of the Lord, with the exception of the power of creating and sustaining the world. They do not return to new forms of embodied existence.
Aster having, in this way, rendered ourselves acquainted with the contents of the Brahma-sútras according to the views of Sankara as well as Râmânuga, we have now to consider the question which of the two modes of interpretation represents-or at any rate more closely approximates to-the true meaning of the Sûtras. That
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