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13. The Self consisting of Bliss (is the highest Self) on account of multiplication.
We read in the text of the Taittiriyas, 'Different from this Self, which consists of Understanding, is the other inner Self which consists of bliss' (Taitt. Up. II, 5).--Here the doubt arises whether the Self consisting of bliss be the highest Self, which is different from the inner Self subject to bondage and release, and termed 'giva.' (i.e. living self or individual soul), or whether it be that very inner Self, i.e. the giva.--It is that inner Self, the Purvapakshin contends. For the text says 'of that this, i.e. the Self consisting of bliss, is the sarira Self'; and sarira means that which is joined to a body, in other words, the so-called giva.--But, an objection is raised, the text enumerates the different Selfs, beginning with the Self consisting of bliss, to the end that man may obtain the bliss of Brahman, which was, at the outset, stated to be the cause of the world (II, 1), and in the end teaches that the Self consisting of bliss is the cause of the world (II, 6). And that the cause of the world is the all-knowing Lord, since Scripture says of him that 'he thought,' we have already explained.--That cause of the world, the Purvapakshin rejoins, is not different from the giva; for in the text of the Khandogyas that Being which first is described as the creator of the world is exhibited, in two passages, in co-ordination with the giva ('having entered into them with that living Self' and 'Thou art that, O Svetaketu').
And the purport of co-ordination is to express oneness of being, as when we say, 'This person here is that Devadatta we knew before.' And creation preceded by thought can very well be ascribed to an intelligent giva. The connexion of the whole Taittiriya-text then is as follows. In the introductory clause, 'He who knows Brahman attains the Highest,' the true nature of the giva, free from all connexion with matter, is referred to as something to be attained; and of this nature a definition is given in the words, 'The True, knowledge, the Infinite is Brahman.' The attainment of the giva in this form is what constitutes Release, in agreement with the text, 'So long as he is in the body he cannot get free from pleasure and pain; but when he is free from the body then neither pleasure nor pain touches him' (Kh. Up. VIII, 12, 1).
This true nature of the Self, free from all avidya, which the text begins by presenting as an object to be attained, is thereupon declared to be the Self consisting of bliss. In order to lead up to this--just as a man points out to another the moon by first pointing out the branch of a tree near which the moon is to be seen--the text at first refers to the body ('Man consists of food'); next to the vital breath with its five modifications which is within the body and supports it; then to the manas within the vital breath; then to the buddhi within the manas--'the Self consisting of breath'; 'the Self consisting of mind' (manas); 'the Self consisting of understanding' (vignana). Having thus gradually led up to the giva, the text finally points out the latter, which is the innermost of all ('Different from that is the inner Self which consists of bliss'), and thus completes the series of Selfs one inside the other. We hence conclude that the Self consisting of bliss is that same giva-self which was at the outset pointed out as the Brahman to be attained.--But the clause immediately following, 'Brahman is the tail, the support (of the Self of bliss'), indicates that Brahman is something different from the Self of bliss!--By no means (the Purvapakshin rejoins). Brahman is, owing to its different characteristics, there compared to an animal body, and head, wings, and tail are ascribed to it, just as in a preceding clause the body consisting of food had also been imagined as having head, wings, and tail--these members not being something different from the body, but the body itself. Joy, satisfaction, great satisfaction, bliss, are imagined as the members, non-different from it, of Brahman consisting of bliss, and of them all the unmixed bliss-constituted.
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