The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,582 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4.

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,582 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4.

’Brahmana said, From Egoism were verily born the five great elements.  They are earth, air, ether, water, and light numbering the fifth.  In these five great elements, in the matter of the sound, touch, colour, taste, and smell, all creatures become deluded.  When at the close of the destruction of the great elements, the dissolution of the universe approaches, ye that are possessed of wisdom, a great fear comes upon all living creatures.  Every existent object is dissolved into that from which it is produced.  The dissolution takes place in an order that is the reverse of that in which creation takes place.  Indeed, as regards birth, they are born from one another.  Then, when all existent objects, mobile and immobile, become dissolved, wise men endued with powerful memory never dissolve.  Sound, touch, colour, taste, and smell numbering the fifth, are effects.  They are, however, inconstant, and called by the name of delusion.  Caused by the production of cupidity, not different from one another, without reality, connected with flesh and blood, and depending upon one another, existing outside the soul, these are all helpless and powerless.  Prana and Apana, and Udana and Samana and Vyana,—­these five winds are always closely attached to the soul.  Together with speech, mind, and understanding, they constitute the universe of eight ingredients.  He whose skin, nose, ear, eyes, tongue, and speech are restrained, whose mind is pure, and whose understanding deviates not (from the right path), and whose mind is never burnt by those eight fires, succeeds in attaining to that auspicious Brahman to which nothing superior exists.  Those which have been called the eleven organs and which have sprung from Egoism, I shall now, ye regenerate ones, mention particularly.  They are the ear, the skin, the two eyes, the tongue, the nose numbering the fifth, the two feet, the lower duct, the organ of generation, the two hands, and speech forming the tenth.  These constitute the group of organs, with mind numbering as the eleventh.  One should first subdue this group.  Then will Brahman shine forth (in him).  Five amongst these are called organs of knowledge, and five, organs of action.  The five beginning with the ear are truly said to be connected with knowledge.  The rest, however, that are connected with action, are without distinction.  The mind should be regarded as belonging to both.  The understanding is the twelfth in the top.  Thus have been enumerated the eleven organs in due order.  Learned men, having understood these, think they have accomplished everything.  I shall, after this, enumerate all the various organs.  Space (or Ether) is the first entity.  As connected with the soul, it is called the ear.  As connected with objects, that is sound.  The presiding deity (of this) is the quarters.  The Wind is the second entity.  As connected with the soul, it is known as the skin.  As connected with objects, it is known as objects of touch; and the presiding deity

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The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.