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and Is' vara are described as follows; — 'Know that inexplicable M^y^ is (si^fcT) Nature, and (Tnfy) Mdyi — the May<i-associated one — is >oR) the great Lord. The whole world is filled with his parts. Maya may be regarded in three ways, as ( an absurdity, or ( a mystery, a reality, according to the three sources of knowledge, viz. revelation, argument, and the unphilosophic consciousness. Maya makes this world of phenomena appear and disappear just as the folding or unfolding of the picture-canvass ( exhibits or conceals the picture ). MA,yA. cannot be ( ) an independent entity, for 1. The PancJiadas'i is translated in part into English by Mr. Arthur Venis, M. A., Principal, Benai-es College, and published in the Pandiia, Vols. V, VI, VIII. ( 1883,84 and 86 ). 107 apart from Intelligence she cannot be present to consciousness. Again, she may be regarded as in- dependent in that she modifies ( seemingly ) the unrelated (Reality). Maya makes the impersonal, unchanging, unrelated Self appear under the form of the phenomenal ( sc. personal consciousness, &c. ), and creates ( f ) the tiord and the personal soul by means of ( ) a refiection ( upon her- self) of the absolute Intelligence {Chit, the Reality). ( Just as) fluidity in water, heat in fire, hardness in stone, ( are taken to be iiatural attiibutes ) so, in ]\[aya the power of iiroducing or accomplish- ing things difficult, is self-jn-oved. A man Avonders so long as he does not clearly know this power, but when knowledge has come, he rests satisfied with it; this is the inscrutable Majni No question can be raised against Maya, which is ( ) essen- tially a questioning. And since Mayi\, consisting pi-e-emineutly of wondei-, is in the form of a question let Avise ]nen diligently seek to overthroAV it. If you Avmukl knoAV the nature of Maya, deliberate and examine the definition of Maya, as knoAAUi in the Avorld. tShe is that Avhich cannot bo explained and yet is clearly manifest. This is Avhat ordinary men accept AAuth regard to magic and the like. The phenomenal world is clearly manifest ; an explana- tion of it is impossible. Regard it impartially, there- fore, as made by MayJ. When even all the Avise start to give an explanation. Nescience — May4 — in some one quarter or anothei*, appears before them. And, therefore, they ascribe ( ) a magical character to this Avorld. And Avhat greater magic than this, that a germ taking up its abode in a -womb 108 should become conscious, gifted with the off-shoots springing from it — head, hand and foot — and passing in order through the stages of child-hood, youth and old age, should see, hear, smell, and come and go ! Pondering well the case of the seed of the baniaii tree, like that of our body, look now at the tiny seed and now at the mighty tree ! This, therefore, is M4ya, rest assured. Things unthinkable we should not force into our deliberations. The world, forsooth, as a product is ( ) unthinkable by the mind. Be assured that the cause endowed with ( 5rf^) the pow’er of producing unthinkable things is M^yfl. Tliis cause, M^yfi, is alone present to cons- ciousness during dreamless sleep. That germinal Maytl, with that very reflection upon her of im- personal Intelligence, is modified ( into personal consciousness ) in the form of the phenomenal mind. Hence it is that the reflection of Intelligence clearly shines upon the mind. "Maya produces the personal •‘oul and the Lord by means of a reflection” ( upon herself of Intelligence ); thus it has been revealed in (^f^) fbe Scripture. These two ( the Lord and the personal soul ) are practically like the cloud-ether and the water-ether. That reflection of Intelligence which has May^ as Its subordinate is revealed as the Maya-associated one, ( the great Lord, the Archimegus. The same is ( ) the internal ruler, ( ) the om- niscient, ) the source of the world. All is possible with M^ya. "(The Lord) residing in the mind ; within the mind ; unperceived by mind ; whose body mind is : ( who ) rules the mind:” — ^thus the Veda proclaims ( ) the internal ruler. The 109 Bhagvad-GitS, (xviii; 61) proclaims: — is'cara, the Lord, dwelleth in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna 1 by His Maya whirling all beings as though mounted on a machine." M&y^ is also described as follows: — "M^ya is confined to the name and form of a thing, and not to its substance. The ever-changing pheno- menal world is termed M4ya. All the transient states which matter assumes are called Mayti,. Change is the criterion which will tell you whether a thing is within the province of May^ or not. Whatever is subject to change is unreal, false, mirage-like, M^y^, If you can go beyond the world of changes, if you can peep through the veil of phenomenon and catch a glimpse of noumenon, you will be able to go beyond the range of ( Illusion ). The substra- tum and the noumenon of all things, consciousness pure and simple, is alone beyond the pale of M^yd, The univei’se is the phenomenal appearance of consciousness, a mere show of ever-changing names and forms. All states of matter are unreal. The hard solid block of ice melts into the soft liquid water; the latter in its turn becomes steamy vapour, the steam is tranformed into something else, and so forth. Now all these unreal, ever-changing, pheno- menal states of matter are within the province of M4y^, unreality or illusion. The substance into which matter merges in its most refined state is ^'mind," and mind, too, loses itself in Absolute Consciousness. This is the Advaita doctrine.’^ 1. The MdhA~Bhdrctta. S. C. Mukhopfidhy&ya’s Esoteric Com- mentary, p. 11. 10 110 What the Ved^ntin calls M^ya, Plato calls 'a world of shadows, not of realities’, and Kant calls ' appearance only, not the thing in itself.’ In brief, then, there is an unknown element at the bottom of the varieties of creation, whether we agree to call that element a volition of a supernatural be- ing, or an undiscovered set of facts in embryology, or the shadow — distorted shadow — of the Almighty, or modes of the unconditioned as presented under the conditions of our consciousness. This inscrutable something that cannot be further resolved is Ma)A. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in an Article on “Religious Retrospect and Prospect,” says : — “ Scientidc progress is a gradational transfigura- tion of Nature. Where ordinary perception saw per- fect simplicity, it reveals great complexity ; where there seemed absolute inertness, it discloses intense activity ; and in what appears mere vacancy, it finds a marvellous play of forces behind every group of phenomenal manifestations there is always a nexus, which is the reality, tliat remains fixed amidst appearances which are variable Science enlarges the sphere for religious senti- ment the astronomer sees in the Sun a mass so vast that even into one of his spots our earth might be plunged without touching its edges ; and who, by every finer telescope, is shown an increased multitude of such suns, many of them far larger But amid the mysteries (the Ved4nta-M^y& ) which become the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute Ill certainty that he is ever in presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed.** M4y4 is assumed to be a point in the immensity of Brahman. It is an assumption, but is the only assumption necessary for the construction of a science. That once admitted, the existence of Non- Ego (Andtman) as a })roduct of Jiva^ the Ego, follows as a necessary consequence, and the problems of the Universe ( are solved ; and the most perfect harmony reigns, Maytl or Avidya is, therefore, not supposed altogether unreal, because she has at all events caused all that seems to be real though for a time. Her reality, however, consists only in the fact that she has to be assumed, and that there is no other assumption possible to account for what is called the real world. It is no use to go beyond human depth in this matter. As no natural philo- sopher, with all his pretensions to discoveries busies himself with the attempt to discover the cause of attraction ; so we must content ourselves advancing to a certain point with knowing that there is M^yk, that ' thitherto man shall go, and no farther.* In celestial physics ( astronomy ) 'and all terrestrial physics universal gravitation is a condition, so is MUy^ the condition of all the phenomena of inorgan- ised and organised bodies. It is impossible to know M^y^, the universal il- lusion and its cause. Knowing pre-supposes some light. When a true light appi'oaches M&yd, she disappears, like darkness, leaving no trace behind. She is a long dream. While we are under her in- fluence, Ave do not doubt the reality of the Samsdra, the world; but the moment we are duly awakened by 112 the VedlLnta knowledge she is nowhere, and gives place to a truer reality, which we were not aware of while dreaming. The Ved3,ntin does not enter into the labyrinth of M&y4. He honestly confesses his own nescience, ignorance, and ascribes all that we cannot understand in the phenomenal universe to the principle of the subjective Nescience which is in- herent in our nature as men. To know the way out of this M^y^ or Avidya, to raise his individuality out of the shadow into the light, is the highest wisdom for man, says he. The aim of the Veddnta is, according to him, to show that there is only the one highest Lord ever-unchanging, whose substance is cognition, and who, by means of M&yd, manifests Himself in various ways.