CHAPTER LIII.
Explanation of Nirvána—Anaesthesia.
Argument:—Ascertainment of the source of cause of the visible world.
Ráma said:—How there is sensibility in sensible beings, and there is durability in time; how vacuum is a perfect void, and how inertness abides in dull material substances:—
2. How does fluctuation reside in air, and what is the state of things in futuro, and those that absent at present; how doth motion reside in moving things, and how doth plasmic bodies receive their forms.
3. Whence is the difference of different things, and the infinity of infinite natures; how there is visibility in the visibles, (i.e. how the visibles appear to view), and how does the creation of created things come to take place:—
4. Tell me, O most eloquent Brahman, all these things one by one, and explain them from the first to last, in such manner, that they may be intelligible to the lowest understanding.
5. Vasishtha replied:—That endless great vacuum, is known as the great and solid intellect itself; but this is not to be known any more, than as a tranquil and self-existent unity.
6. The Gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva and others, are reduced to their origin at the last dissolution of the world; and there remains only that pure source whence they have sprung.
7. There is however no cause to be assigned in this prime cause of all, who is also the seed of matter and form, as well as of delusion, ignorance and error. (These being but counterparts of spirit and knowledge, are all mingled in Him).
8. The original cause is quite transparent and tranquil, and having neither its beginning nor end, and the subtile ether itself is dense and solid, in comparison with the rarity of the other.