2. And some (state the Self to be) the shaper (creator); sons and so on (being the lovely things which he shapes).
Moreover the members of one jakha state that the Self is, in that intermediate state, the shaper of lovely things, ‘He, the person who is awake in us while we are asleep, shaping one lovely thing after another ’ (Ka. Up. II, 5, 8).
*34 vedanta-sOtras. Kama (lovely things) in this passage means sons, &c., that are so called because they are beloved.—But may not the term ‘kama^’ denote desires merely?—No,we reply; the word kama is here used with reference to sons, &c.; for those form the general subject of discussion, as we see from some preceding passages, ‘ Choose sons and grand¬ sons/ &c., and C I make thee the enjoyer of all kamas 1 (Ka. Up. I, i, 23; 24).—And that that shaper is the highest Self (pr&£7za) we infer from the general subject-matter and from the complementary sentence. That the highest Self is the general subject-matter appears from II, 14, c That which thou seest as neither this nor that/ And to that highest Self there also refers the complementary sentence II, 5, 8, ‘That indeed is the Bright, that is Brahman, that alone is called the Immortal. All worlds are contained in it, and no one goes beyond/—Now it is admitted that the world (creation) of our waking state of which the highest Self (pra^a) is the maker is real; hence the world of our dreaming state must likewise be real. That the same reason¬ ing applies to the waking and the sleeping state a scriptural passage also declares, ‘Here they say: No, this is the same as the place of waking, for what he sees while awake the same he sees while asleep’ (Bn. Up. IV, 3, 14).—Hence the world of dreams is real.—To this we reply as follows.
3. But it (viz. the dream world) is mere illusion (m&ya), on account of its nature not manifesting itself with the totality (of the attributes of reality).
The word ‘but* discards the purvapaksha. It is not true that the world of dreams is real; it is mere illusion and there is not a particle of reality in it.—Why?—‘On account of its nature not manifesting itself with the totality/ i.e. because the nature of the dream world does not manifest itself with the totality of the attributes of real things.— What then do you mean by the ‘ totality *?—The fulfilment of the conditions of place, time, and cause, and the circum¬ stance of non-refutation. All these have their sphere in real things, but cannot be applied to dreams. In the first place there is, in a dream, no space for chariots and the like; for those cannot possibly find room in the limited confines of the body.—Well, but why should not the dreaming person see the objects of his dream outside of his body? He does as a matter of fact perceive things as separated from him¬ self by space; and 6ruti, moreover, declares that the dream is outside the body, 4 Away from the nest the Immortal moves; that immortal one goes wherever he likes ’ (B ri. Up. IV, 3, 12). And this distinction of the conceptions of staying and going would have no good sense if the being (the soul) did not really go out.—What you maintain is inadmissible, we reply. A sleeping being cannot possibly possess the power to go and return in a moment the distance of a hundred yo^anas. Sometimes, moreover, a person recounts a dream in which he went to some place without returning from it, 4 Lying on my bed in the land of the Kurus I was overcome by sleep and went in my dream to the country of the Pa^alas, and being there I awoke/ If, now, that person had really gone out of his country, he would on waking find himself in the country of the Pa^alas to which he had gone in his dream; but as a matter of fact he awakes in the country of the Kurus.—Moreover, while a man imagines himself in his dream going, in his body, to another place, the bystanders see that very same body lying on the couch. Further, a dreaming person does not see, in his dream, other places such as they really are. But if he in seeing them did actually go about, they would appear to him like the things he sees in his waking state. Sruti, moreover, declares that the dream is within the body, cp. the passage beginning 4 But when he moves about in dream,' and terminating 4 He moves about, according to his plea¬ sure, within his own body’ (B ru Up. II, 1, 18). Hence the passage about the dreamer moving away from his nest must be taken in a metaphorical sense, as otherwise we should contradict scripture as well as reason; he who while remaining within his own body does not use it for any pur¬ pose may be said to be outside the body as it were. The difference of the ideas of staying within the body and going outside must, therefore, be viewed as a mere deception.— In the second place we see that dreams are in conflict with 136 vedanta-s6tras.
the conditions of time. One person lying asleep at night dreams that it is day in the Bharata Varsha; another lives, during a dream which lasts one muhtirta only, through many crowds of years.—In the third place there do not exist in the state of dreaming the requisite efficient causes for either thought or action; for as, in sleep, the organs are drawn inward, the dreaming person has no eyes, &c. for perceiving chariots and other things; and whence should he, in the space of the twinkling of an eye, have the power of—or procure the material for—making chariots and the like?— In the fourth place the chariots, horses, &c., which the dream creates, are refuted, i. e. shown not to exist by the waking state. And apart from this, the dream itself refutes what it creates, as its end often contradicts its beginning; what at first was considered to be a chariot turns, in a moment, into a man, and what was conceived to be a man has all at once become a tree.—Scripture itself, moreover, clearly declares the chariots, &c., of a dream to have no real existence, ‘There are no chariots in that state, no horses, no roads, &c.’—Hence the visions of a dream are mere illusion.
4. (Not altogether) for it (the dream) is indicative (of the future), according to. 5 ruti; the experts also declare this. Well then, as dreams are mere illusion, they do not contain a particle of reality?—Not so, we reply; for dreams are prophetic of future good and bad fortune. For scripture teaches as follows, ‘ When a man engaged in some work undertaken for a special wish sees in his dreams a woman, he may infer success from that dream-vision.’ Other scriptural passages declare that certain dreams indicate speedy death, so, e.g. ‘If he sees a black man with black teeth, that man will kill him.’—Those also who understand the science of dreams hold the opinion that to dream of riding on an elephant and the like is lucky; while it is unlucky to dream of riding on a donkey, &c.; and that certain other dreams also caused by special mantras or devatas or substances contain a particle of truth.—In all these cases the thing indicated may be real; the indicating dream, however, remains unreal as it is refuted by the waking state. The doctrine that the dream itself is mere illusion thus remains uncontradicted.—On this account the Vedic passage to which the first Sutra of this pada refers is to be explained metaphorically. When we say ‘ the plough bears, i.e. supports the bullocks/ we say so because the plough is the indirect cause of the bullocks being kept \ not because we mean that the plough directly supports the bullocks. Analogously scripture says that the dream¬ ing person creates chariots, &c., and is their maker, not because he creates them directly but because he is the cause of their creation. By his being their cause we have to understand that he is that one who performs the good and evil deeds which are the cause of the delight and fear produced by the apparition, in his dream, of chariots and other things 1 2.—Moreover, as in the waking state, owing to the contact of the senses and their objects and the resulting interference of the light of the sun, &c., the self-luminousness of the Self is, for the beholder, difficult to discriminate, scripture gives the description of the dreaming state for the purpose of that discrimination. If then the statements about the creation of chariots, &c., were taken as they stand (i.e. literally) we could not ascertain that the Self is self-luminous 3. Hence we have to explain the passage relative to the creation of chariots, &c., in a metaphorical sense, so as to make it agree with the statement about the non-existence of chariots, &c.
This explains also the scriptural passage about the shaping (III, 2, 2). The statement made above that in the Ka//zaka the highest Self is spoken of as the shaper 1 Bullocks have to be kept because the fields must be tilled.
2 The dreams have the purpose of either cheering or saddening and frightening the sleeper; so as to requite him for his good and evil works. His adrfsh/a thus furnishes the efficient cause of the dreams.
3 Because then there would be no difference between the dream¬ ing and the waking state.
i3§ of dreams is untrue; for another scriptural passage ascribes that activity to the individual soul, ‘ He him¬ self destroying, he himself shaping dreams with his own splendour, with his own light’ (Bri. Up. IV, 3, 9) 1. And in the Kanaka Upanishad itself also we infer from the form of the sentence, ‘ That one who wakes in us while we are asleep,’—which is an anuvada, i.e. an additional statement about something well known—that he who is there proclaimed as the shaper of lovely things is nobody else than the (well-known) individual soul. The other passage which forms the complementary continuation of the one just quoted (‘ That indeed is the Bright, that is Brahman ’) discards the notion of the separate existence of the individual soul and teaches that it is nothing but Brah¬ man, analogously to the passage ‘ That art thou.’ And this interpretation does not conflict with Brahman being the general subject-matter.—Nor do we thereby deny altogether that the highest (pra^a) Self is active in dreams; for as being the Lord of all it may be considered as the guide and ruler of the soul in all its states. We only maintain that the world connected with the intermediate state (i.e.
the world of dreams) is not real in the same sense as the world consisting of ether and so on is real. On the other hand we must remember that also the so-called real crea¬ tion with its ether, air, &c., is not absolutely real; for as we have proved before (II, 1, 14) the entire expanse of things is mere illusion. The world consisting of ether, &c., remains fixed and distinct up to the moment when the soul cognizes that Brahman is the Self of all; the world of dreams on the other hand is daily sublated by the waking state. That the latter is mere illusion has, therefore, to be understood with a distinction.
5. But by the meditation on the highest that which is hidden (viz. the equality of the Lord and 1 Svayazrc vihatya purvadehaw nh#esh/a m kr/tva svayazrc nirmayapfirva/72 vasanamayaw deha m sampadya svena bhasa svakiyabuddhivn'ttya svena ^yotisha svarupa/fcaitanyenety artha^. An. Gi.
the soul, becomes manifest); for from him (the Lord) are its (the soul’s) bondage and release.
Well, but the individual soul is a part of the highest Self as the spark is a part of the fire. And as fire and spark have in common the powers of burning and giving light, so the individual soul and the Lord have in common the powers of knowledge and rulership; hence the individual soul may, by means of its lordship, effect in the dreaming state a creation of chariots and the like, springing from its wishes (sa;^kalpa).—To this we reply that although the Lord and the individual soul stand to each other in the relation of whole and part, yet it is manifest to perception that the attributes of the two are of a different nature.— Do you then mean to say that the individual soul has no common attributes with the Lord?—We do not maintain that; but we say that the equality of attributes, although existing, is hidden by the veil of Nescience. In the case of some persons indeed who strenuously meditate on the Lord and who, their ignorance being dispelled at last, obtain through the favour of the Lord extraordinary powers and insight, that hidden equality becomes mani¬ fest—just as through the action of strong medicines the power of sight of a blind man becomes manifest; but it does not on its own account reveal itself to all men.—Why not?—Because ‘from him/ i.e. from the Lord there are bondage and release of it, viz. the individual soul. That means: bondage is due to the absence of knowledge of the Lords true nature; release is due to the presence of such knowledge. Thus 5 ruti declares, ‘ When that god is known all fetters fall off; sufferings are destroyed and birth and death cease. From meditating on him there arises, on the dissolution of the body, a third state, that of universal Lordship; he who is alone is satisfied ’ (SVet.
Up. I, ji), and similar passages.
6. Or that (viz. the concealment of the soul's powers springs) from its connexion with the body.
But if the soul is a part of the highest Self, why should its knowledge and lordship be hidden? We should rather vedAnta-s£jtras.
expect them to be as manifest as the light and the heat of the spark.—True, we reply; but the state of concealment of the soul’s knowledge and lordship is due to its being joined to a body, i.e. to a body, sense-organs, mind, buddhi, sense-objects, sensations, &c. And to this state of things there applies the simile: As the heat and light of the fire are hidden as long as the fire is still hidden in the wood from which it will be produced by friction, or as long as it is covered by ashes; so, in consequence of the soul being connected with limiting adjuncts in the form of a body, &c., founded on name and form as presented by Nescience, its knowledge and lordship remain hidden as long as it is possessed by the erroneous notion of not being distinct from those adjuncts.—The word ‘ or ’ in the Sutra is meant to discard the suspicion that the Lord and the soul might be separate entities.—But why should not the soul be separate from the Lord, considering the state of concealment of its knowledge and power? If we allow the two to be fundamentally separate, we need not assume that their separateness is due to the soul’s connexion with the body.—It is impossible, we reply, to assume the soul to be separate from the Lord. For in the scriptural pas¬ sage beginning with 4 That divinity thought’ &c. ( Kh. Up.
VI, 3, 2) we meet with the clause, ‘ It entered into those beings with this living Self ’ (^iva atman); where the individual soul is referred to as the Self. And then we have the other passage, ‘It is the True; it is the Self; that art thou, O vSvetaketu,’ which again teaches that the Lord is the Self of the soul. Hence the soul is nondifferent from the Lord, but its knowledge and power are obscured by its connexion with the body. From this it follows that the dreaming soul is not able to create, from its mere wishes, chariots and other things. If the soul possessed that power, nobody would ever have an un¬ pleasant dream; for nobody ever wishes for something unpleasant to himself.—We finally deny that the scriptural passage about the waking state (‘ dream is the same as the place of waking ’ &c.) indicates the reality of dreams. The statement made there about the equality of the two states is not meant to indicate that dreams are real, for that would conflict with the soul’s self-luminousness (referred to above), and scripture, moreover, expressly declares that the chariots, &c., of a dream have no real existence; it merely means that dreams, because due to mental impressions (vasana) received in the waking state, are equal to the latter in ap¬ pearance.—From all this it follows that dreams are mere illusion.
7. The absence of that (i.e. of dreams, i.e. dream¬ less sleep) takes place in the na^/is and in the Self; according to scriptural statement.
The state of dream has been discussed; we are now going to enquire into the state of deep sleep. A number of scriptural passages refer to that state. In one place we read, 4 When a man is asleep, reposing and at perfect rest so that he sees no dream, then he has entered into those navis’ ( Kh. Up. VIII, 6, 3). In another place it is said with reference to the na^/is, 4 Through them he moves forth and rests in the surrounding body’ (B ri. Up. II, 1,19). So also in another place, 4 In these the person is when sleeping he sees no dream. Then he becomes one with the pra^a alone’ (Kau. Up. IV, 20). Again in another place, 4 That ether which is within the heart in that he reposes 5 (B ri. Up. IV, 4, 22). Again, 4 Then he becomes united with that which is; he is gone to his Self 5 (. Kh. Up. VI, 8, 1). And, 4 Embraced by the highest Self (pra^a) he knows nothing that is without,nothing that is within’ (B ri. Up. IV, 3, 21). Here the doubt arises whether the na^is, &c., mentioned in the above passages are independent from each other and constitute various places for the soul in the state of deep sleep, or if they stand in mutual relation so as to constitute one such place only. The purvapakshin takes the former view on account of the various places mentioned serving one and the same purpose. Things serving the same purpose, as, e.g. rice and barley 1, are never seen to be dependent 1 Either of which may be employed for making the sacrificial cake. on each other. That the naafis, &c., actually serve the same purpose appears from the circumstance of their being all of them exhibited equally in the locative case, 4 he has entered into the na*/is/ 4 he rests in the pericardium/ &C. 1 —But in some of the passages quoted the locative case is not employed, so, e.g. in 4 He becomes united with that which is’ (sata, instrumental case)!—That makes no differ¬ ence, we reply, because there also the locative case is meant. For in the complementary passage the text states that the soul desirous of rest enters into the Self, 4 Finding no rest elsewhere it settles down on breath ’ ( Kh. Up. VI, 8, 2); a passage in which the word 4 breath 5 refers to that which is (the sat). A place of rest of course implies the idea of the locative case. The latter case is, moreover, actually exhibited in a further complementary passage, 4 When they have become merged in that which is (sati), they know not that they are merged in it.’—In all these passages one and the same state is referred to, viz. the state of deep sleep which is characterised by the suspension of all special cognition. Hence we conclude that in the state of deep sleep the soul optionally goes to any one of those places, either the nadis, or that which is, <$tc.
To this we make the following reply— 4 The absence of that/ i.e. the absence of dreams—which absence constitutes the essence of deep sleep—takes place 4 in the nadls and in the Self;’ i.e. in deep sleep the soul goes into both to¬ gether, not optionally into either.—How is this known?— 4 From scripture.’—Scripture says of all those things, the nadis, &c. } that they are the place of deep sleep; and those statements we must combine into one, as the hypothesis of option would involve partial refutation 2. The assertion 1 The argument of the purvapakshin is that the different places in which the soul is said to abide in the state of deep sleep are all exhibited by the text in the same case and are on that account co-ordinate. Mutual relation implying subordination would require them to be exhibited in different cases enabling us to infer the exact manner and degree of relation.
2 By allowing option between two Vedic statements we lessen the H3 made above that we are compelled to allow option because the ncU/is, &c., serve one and the same purpose, is without foundation; for from the mere fact of two things being exhibited in the same case it does not follow by any means that they serve the same purpose, and that for that reason we have to choose between them. We on the contrary see that one and the same case is employed even where things serve different purposes and have to be combined; we say, e.g. ‘ he sleeps in the palace, he sleeps on the couch 1. 9 So in the present case also the different statements can be combined into one, 4 He sleeps in the nddts, in the sur¬ rounding body, in Brahman. 5 Moreover, the scriptural passage, ‘ In these the person is when sleeping he sees no dream; then he becomes one with the prana alone, 5 de¬ clares, by mentioning them together in one sentence, that the n&dis and the pra^a are to be combined in the state of deep sleep. That by pra^a Brahman is meant we have already shown (I, 1, 28). Although in another text the nfh/is are spoken of as an independent place of deep sleep as it were (‘ then he has entered into those nadis 5 ), yet, in order not to contradict other passages in which Brahman is spoken of as the place of deep sleep, we must explain that text to mean that the soul abides in Brahman through the nchfts. Nor is this interpretation opposed to the employ¬ ment of the locative case (‘ into—or in—those nadis ’); for if the soul enters into Brahman by means of the nadis it is at the same time in the na^is; just as a man who descends to the sea by means of the river Ganga is at the same time on the Gangd.—Moreover that passage about the nadis, because its purpose is to describe the road, consisting of the rays and ndafts, to the Brahma world, mentions the entering of the soul into the na^is in order to glorify the latter (not in order to describe the state of deep sleep); for the clause following upon the one which refers to the enterauthority of the Veda; for the adoption of either alternative sublates, for the time, the other alternative.
1 Where the two locatives are to be combined into one statement, 1 he sleeps on the couch in the palace.'
vedanta-s£jtras.
ing praises the nadis, ‘There no evil touches him.’ The text, moreover, adds a reason for the absence of all evil, in the words, 4 For then he has become united with the light.* That means that on account of the light contained in the naafts (which is called bile) having overpowered the organs the person no longer sees the sense-objects. Or else Brah¬ man may be meant by the 4 light; ’ which term is applied to Brahman in another passage also, 4 It is Brahman only, light only 5 (B ri. Up. IV, 4, 7). The passage would then mean that the soul becomes, by means of the naafis, united with Brahman, and that hence no evil touches it. That the union with Brahman is the reason for the absence of all contact with evil, is known from other scriptural passages, such as, 4 All evils turn back from it; for the world of Brahman is free from all evil* ( Kh. Up. VIII, 4, 1). On that account we have to combine the naafts with Brahman, which from other passages is known to be the place of deep sleep.—Analogously we conclude that the pericardium also, because it is mentioned in a passage treating of Brahman, is a place of deep sleep only in subordination to Brahman.
For the ether within the heart is at first spoken of as the place of sleep (‘He lies in the ether which is in the heart/ B ri. Up. II, 1, 17), and with reference thereto it is said later on, 4 He rests in the pericardium* (II, 1, 19). Peri¬ cardium (puritat) is a name of that which envelops the heart; hence that which rests within the ether of the heart —which is contained in the pericardium—can itself be said to rest within the pericardium; just as a man living in a town surrounded by walls is said to live within the walls. That the ether within the heart is Brahman has already been shown (I, 3, 14).—That again the nadis and the peri¬ cardium have to be combined as places of deep sleep appears from their being mentioned together in one sentence ( 4 Through them he moves forth and rests in the puritat). That that which is (sat) and the intelligent Self (pra^a) are only names of Brahman is well known; hence scripture mentions only three places of deep sleep, viz. the nadis,! the pericardium, and Brahman. Among these three again I Brahman alone is the lasting place of deep sleep; the