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v., which sets forth the three degrees of reward for meditation upon one, two, or three elements of this word; cf. S'ankara on Brahma-sutra, I. iii. 13. See also section section 8, 24. S'ankara (on Brahma-sutra, II. iii. 29) claims that wherever the Vedas and Upanishads represent the absolute Brahma under the form of "determinations" ( section 12), this is for the purpose of worship of Brahma as qualified Supreme, saguna, e.g. in Ch. III. xiv. The conception of the soul's [p. 49] relation to God as that of a servant to his master is justified by him (on II. iii. 43 f.), inasmuch as Brahma by his supreme "determinations" regulates the activity of the empiric soul in the exercise of its inferior "determinations." He permits the worship of this "qualified Brahma," i.e. the Absolute conceived under the forms of empiric thought, but regards it as inferior in saving power to the true knowledge (see section section 24, 25). The works of religion--ritual and devotion--are of value only as aids to enlightenment; they are not necessary, and after enlightenment is gained they lose all significance (on III. iv. 25 f., IV. i. 1 f.). Footnotes ^47:1 Predestination for empiric life, B.A. III. viii. 9, IV. iv. 5, Ch. III. xiv. 1, VIII, i. 5; Unconscious freedom of transcendental Self, Ch. VIII. iii. 2; Absolute freedom in enlightenment, Ch. VII. xxv. 2, VII. i. 6, v. 4. Brahma Knowledge, by L. D. Barnett, [1911], at sacred-texts.com section 23. BRAHMA THE DESTROYER.--As we saw, the Upanishads are full of cosmogonies inherited from Vedic religion; but apparently they have not yet arrived at the belief in a periodical course of alternate creation, maintenance, and dissolution of worlds which later became general in India. The earlier texts several times describe Brahma or some cognate power as consuming his creatures separately; but a collective destruction is nowhere mentioned in them. [*1] In the later Vedanta the theory of periodical cataclysms is formally accepted. Again and again the universe is created, and after a time dissolved again into indiscrete potentiality; this cycle of birth and death is without beginning and [p. 50] without end ( section 12). In the intervals between destruction and the following creation the eternal Veda, with its Brahmanas and Upanishads, rests as a potential force in the thought of Brahma; and at the beginning of creation the ideas contained in it serve as archetypes for the formation of all phenomena in the now emerging universe, and are revealed to inspired sages, its karma-kanda or practical section (the four Vedas and the bulk of the Brahmanas) to guide men to ritual and consequent worldly welfare, its jnana-kanda or theoretical section (chiefly the Upanishads) to teach them the true knowledge of Brahma. Footnotes ^49:1 See especially B.A. I. ii. 1, Ch. I. ix. 1, Taitt. III. 1, Kath. II. 25. Universal dissolution appears first in S'vet. III. 2, IV. 1. Brahma Knowledge, by L. D. Barnett, [1911], at sacred-texts.com section 24. SALVATION.--I. Upanishads.--Release of the soul (mukti, moksha), which falls to the lot of the elect few, consists in enlightenment, intuitive vision of the eternal unity of the thinker's Self with Brahma, to which he has hitherto been blind. When once this saving knowledge has been gained, the enlightened man is no longer under the power of "works." He has everything in himself, for he is one with the All; together with the false idea of a self distinct from the universal Self the forces of former works have vanished away; thus he has no desire and no pain, and can have none. And when his soul has cast off the body, it will be reborn nevermore; it is united for ever with the Absolute Brahma. See especially the fine exposition in B.A. IV. ii.-iv.; also Ch. VII. xxvi. 2, Taitt. II. 9, Kena 11-12, [p. 51] [paragraph continues] Mund. II. ii. 8, III. ii. 9, and S'ankara on Brahma-sutra, I. i. 4, III. iv. 1 f., IV. i. 13 f. II. Later Vedanta.--S'ankara points out that this saving intuition is unattainable by effort of will or thought; it arises from the power of the inner self, the metaphysical ego within us, which from a theistic and therefore empiric standpoint may be conceived as personal God, "the Lord," or "qualified Brahma" ( section section 12, 22). This knowledge annuls not only all sins, but likewise all works, no matter whether good or bad, which have not yet begun to bear fruit in present experience. The works however which are the cause of the present series of experience must continue in operation even after the attainment of enlightenment, until their power is exhausted, whereupon the soul leaves the flesh for ever, as the potter's wheel continues to run round for a while after the potter's hand has been removed; but this subsequent bodily experience no longer has any influence upon the soul. The B.A. IV. iv. 6 teaches that, whereas on death the souls of those who have only exoteric knowledge or no knowledge at all go forth to continue in empiric conditions, the Self of the enlightened man does not "go out" (na utkramanti), but enters into Brahma, with entire annihilation of spatial conditions; its upadhis or "determinations" wholly vanish, and it is absorbed in abstract entirety into the abstract Brahma (on Brahma-sutra III. iii. 30, IV. ii. 12 f.). See section 15. [p. 52] There has been much speculation upon the divisions of karma. A common classification is that which divides it into sanchita, prarabdha, and kriyamana. The sanchita or "accumulated" karma is that which was created in former births and has not yet begun to operate upon the soul. Prarabdha or "commenced" karma is that which has already begun to affect the soul. Kriyamana is "being made," that is, it is the activity of the present which will influence the soul in future births. The intellectual illumination of perfect "Brahma-knowledge" annuls both sanchita and kriyamana; only the prarabdha remains, and this exhausts itself mechanically by prolonging the sage's physical life until all influence of karma is spent, and his body then dies. The later Vedanta designates by the term jivanmukti the condition of the enlightened sage previous to death, while his prarabdha karma is exhausting itself; his subsequent condition is called videha-mukti, "emancipation in freedom from the body." Brahma Knowledge, by L. D. Barnett, [1911], at sacred-texts.com section 25. THE AFTER LIFE.--I. Upanishads.--Good deeds are requited, according to the Veda, in another world, the heaven of the gods and the fathers. The Brahmanas regard the heaven of the gods as a place of recompense for the good, and the abode of the fathers as a hell in which men are reborn to lives of suffering proportioned to their sins in this world. Finally we meet the [p. 53] doctrine of transmigration definitively set forth in the Upanishads, by which retribution is effected, in part at any rate, by rebirth in this world. The fullest eschatological scheme in the Upanishads is given in the parallel passages Ch. V. iii.-x., B.A. VI. ii. The first half of these sections (Ch. V. iii.-ix., B.A. VI. ii. 1-14) sets forth the theory that on death the soul goes to heaven in a sublimated form, here allegorically styled "waters" and "faith" (a conception in which are united the two ideas of "subtle body" and "works"), and from heaven returns at once to earthly birth, being sacrificed by the gods successively in the fires of heaven, the atmosphere, earth, man, and woman. Here there is no idea of requital in any world but this. The further paragraphs expound a more complicated theory of requital both in the other world and here. The souls of the sages who "worship Faith as their mortification in the woods" (they who have the saving knowledge) ascend by a series of stages which lead to the sun, thence to the moon, thence to the lightning, and thence to Brahma, the "supreme light," from which they never return. This is the "Way of the Gods," deva-yana. The souls of those who do pious works in the village (but have not won full enlightenment and withdrawn from the world) rise by the "Way of the Fathers," pitri-yana, which leads finally to the moon, where in the company of the gods they enjoy the full recompense [p. 54] of their good deeds; after this they pass down to honourable rebirth on earth through successive stages (ether, wind, smoke, mist, cloud, rain, vegetation, food, and seed). The sinful, according to Ch. V. x. 7, have also a proportionate share in the joys of the moon, and are afterwards reborn in the forms of base animals or equally degraded races of men; according to B.A. this rebirth is immediate. On the other hand the famous passage B.A. IV. iv. 2-6 knows only of rebirth in recompense. II. Later Vedanta.--S'ankara's system in the main follows these doctrines. He holds that the truly enlightened become immediately one with Brahma ( section 24). But those souls which are bound in the empirical world must accordingly pass through empirical spheres of recompense. They who have the lower or exoteric knowledge and worship the "qualified Brahma" ( section 12) pass through the "Way of the Gods" to the paradise called the "world of Brahma"; here according to their merits they either gain by degrees the saving knowledge which transports them for ever to the Absolute Brahma (krama-mukti), or else they have due enjoyment of heavenly bliss until their "works" have shrunk to a residue (anus'aya), whereupon they descend to honourable earthly incarnations. They who have done pious works travel by the "Way of the Fathers" to the moon, where they share the pleasures of paradise [p. 55] with the gods, and thence in due time return to earth. Those who have neither knowledge nor good works pass to hell, there to expiate their sins in part before rebirth in lower forms; and besides hell S'ankara, following the obscure words of the Ch., admits a "third place" of punishment, viz.