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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
The Vedas
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the Brahman. Brahman is supposed to be the ultimate reality, the final resort of all things of the world. It is the source, the sustainer and the final resort of all the things. From the Brahman is born the world-soul, the Hiranyagarbha, as the first evolute. The world-soul is to the world as the individual soul is to the individual body. The RgVedic thinkers hold that the Hiraṇyagarbha is the mind of the world. As the mind is always associated with living body, so the world as a body must be possessing its own cosmic mind, being possessed of consciousness and will. As Paul Deussen says about the Hiranyagarbha that as the individual subjects are mortal, they come into existence and pass away, but there must remain behind all these mortal subjects some stable and permanent subject that abides for the maintenance of law and order of the world. The Hiranyagarbha is the sustainer of the individual souls. As “Space and time are derived from this subject, it is itself accordingly not in space and does not belong to time and, therefore, from an empirical point of view it is in general non-existent. It has no empirical only a metaphysical reality."2 The Hiranyagarbha can be broadly compared with the 'Nous' of Anaxagoras. His 'Nous' is the cosmic-reason' and is responsible for the order of the universe as it intelligently guides the affairs of the cosmos. The Hiranyagarbha possesses
1 Griffith R. T. H. (Tr.): The Hymns of the RgVeda. R.V.-X, 121.1-3. Tr. Vol. II, pp. 565, 566.
2 Deussen Paul : The Philosophy of the Upanisads, p. 201.
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