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The Deity said :
Again I will declare (to you) the highest knowledge, the best of (all sorts of) knowledge, having learnt which, all sages have reached perfection beyond (the bonds of) this (body). Those who, resorting to this knowledge, reach assimilation with my essence, are not born at the creation, and are not afflicted 1 at the destruction (of the universe). The great Brahman 2 is a womb for me, in which I cast the seed. From that, O descendant of Bharata! is the birth of all things. Of the bodies, O son of Kuntī! which are born from all wombs, the (main) womb is the great Brahman, and I (am) the father, the giver of the seed. Goodness, passion, darkness, these qualities 3 born from nature, O you of mighty arms! bind down the inexhaustible soul in the body. Of these, goodness, which, in consequence of being untainted, is enlightening and free from (all) misery, binds the soul, O sinless one! with the bond of pleasure and the bond of knowledge 4. Know that passion consists in being enamoured, and is produced from craving and attachment. That, O son of Kuntī! binds down the embodied (self) with the bond of action. Darkness (you must) know to be born of ignorance, it deludes all embodied (selfs). And that, O descendant of Bharata! binds down (the self) with heedlessness 5, indolence, and sleep. Goodness unites (the self) with pleasure; passion, O descendant of Bharata! with action; and darkness with heedlessness, after shrouding up knowledge. Passion and darkness being repressed, goodness stands, O descendant of Bharata! Passion and goodness (being repressed), darkness; and likewise darkness and goodness (being repressed), passion 6. When in this body at all portals 7 light (that is to say) knowledge prevails, then should one know goodness to be developed. Avarice, activity 8, performance of actions, want of tranquillity, desire, these are produced, O chief of the descendants of Bharata! when passion is developed. Want of light, want of activity 9, heedlessness, and delusion, these are produced, O descendant of Kuru! when darkness is developed.
Foot Notes :
1. I. e. 'are not destroyed,' Madhusūdana; 'do not fall,' Sankara; are not born,' Srīdhara, and apparently Rāmānuga.
2.. I. e. the 'nature' spoken of before.
3. These constitute nature. We must understand nature, with Professor Bhāndārkar, as the hypothetical cause of the soul's feeling itself limited and conditioned. If nature is understood, as it usually is, to mean matter, its being made up of the qualities is inexplicable. Interpreted idealistically, as suggested by Professor Bhāndārkar, the destruction of it spoken of at the close of the last chapter also becomes intelligible. By means of knowledge of the soul, the unreality of these manifestations is understood and nature is destroyed.
4. Pleasure and knowledge appertain to the mind, not the self, hence they are described as constituting bonds, when erroneously connected with the self, Sankara and Srīdhara. They constitute 'bonds,' because the self when brought into contact with them, strives to obtain them, Rāmānuga.
5. Carelessness about duty, owing to being intent on something else. Cf. Sutta Nipāta, Dhammapada. stanza 21; Kathopanishad,
6. The effects of each quality assert themselves, when the other two are held in check.
7. I. e. the senses of perception.
8. Activity = always doing something or another; performance, &c. = rearing large mansions, &c. want of tranquillity = perpetual agitation of mind, 'this I will do now, then, that, and next the other;' desire = to obtain everything that one comes across.
9. I. e. doing absolutely nothing.
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