The Rákshasí said:—Well said, O counsellor! Thy sayings are sanctifying and fraught with spiritual doctrines; now let the prince with his eyes like lotus-leaves answer to the other queries.
2. The Prince answered:—He whose belief consists in the relinquishment of all reliance in this world, and whose attainment depends upon forsaking all the desires of the heart:—
3. He whose expansion and contraction causes the creation and extinction of the world, who is the object of the doctrines of Vedánta, and who is inexpressible by words or speech of humankind:—
4. Who is betwixt the two extremities of doubt (whether he is or is not), and is the midst of both extremities (that both he is and is not); and the pleasure (Will) of whose mind, displays the world with all its movables and immovables to view:—
5. He whose Universal pervasion does not destroy his unity; who being the soul of all is still but one; it is he alone, O lady! who is truly said to be the eternal Brahma (so far the Exordium).
6. This minute particle is erroneously conceived as spirit (air), from its invisibleness to the naked eye; but it is in truth neither air nor any other thing except the only pure Intellect. (Answer to the question, “what is it of the form of air and not air?”).
7. This minim is said to be sound (or the words), but it is error to say it so: because it is far beyond the reach of sound or the sense of words. (So the Sruti ‘natatravákgacchati’, no word (vox or voice) can reach unto him—express his nature. (In answer to the query “what is sound and no sound?”)).
8. That particle is all yet nothing, it is neither I, thou or he. It is the Almighty soul and its power is the cause of all. (The gloss explains pratibha as sakti or power, in preference to the other meanings of the word, as—knowledge, design, light, reflexion and influence. (This is in answer to “who is all yet no one omnium et nullum, and what are I, thou and he, which are viewed as the ego, tu and ille, the subjective and objective realities”)).
9. It is the soul that is attainable with great pains (i.e. the knowledge of which is gained with pains of Yoga), and which being gained adds nothing to our stock (as we are already in possession of our souls); but its attainment is attended with the gain of the supreme soul, than which there is no better gain. (So the Sruti yalalábhat naparamlabha. In answer to ‘what gain is no gain’).
10. But ignorance of the soul, stretches the bonds of our worldliness and repeated transmigrations, with their evils growing like the rankest weeds in spring; until they are rooted out by spiritual knowledge.