goal, but holds that all persons should act in accordance with the Vedic injunctions for the attainment of good and the removal of evil.  But Vedanta holds that though the purport of the earlier Vedas is as Mima@msa has it, yet this is meant only for ordinary people, whereas for the elect the goal is clearly as the Upani@sads indicate it, namely the attainment of the highest knowledge.  The performance of Vedic duties is intended only for ordinary men, but yet it was believed by many (e.g.  Vacaspati Mis’ra and his followers) that due performance of Vedic duties helped a man to acquire a great keenness for the attainment of right knowledge; others believed (e.g.  Prakas’atma and his followers) that it served to bring about suitable opportunities by securing good preceptors, etc. and to remove many obstacles from the way so that it became easier for a person to attain the desired right knowledge.  In the acquirement of ordinary knowledge the ajnanas removed

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[Footnote 1:  See Vedantasara and Advaitabrahmasiddhi.]

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are only smaller states of ajnana, whereas when the Brahma-knowledge dawns the ajnana as a whole is removed.  Brahma-knowledge at the stage of its first rise is itself also a state of knowledge, but such is its special strength that when this knowledge once dawns, even the state of knowledge which at first reflects it (and which being a state is itself ajnana modification) is destroyed by it.  The state itself being destroyed, only the pure infinite and unlimited Brahman shines forth in its own true light.  Thus it is said that just as fire riding on a piece of wood would burn the whole city and after that would burn the very same wood, so in the last state of mind the Brahma-knowledge would destroy all the illusory world-appearance and at last destroy even that final state [Footnote ref l].

The mukti stage is one in which the pure light of Brahman as the identity of pure intelligence, being and complete bliss shines forth in its unique glory, and all the rest vanishes as illusory nothing.  As all being of the world-appearance is but limited manifestations of that one being, so all pleasures also are but limited manifestations of that supreme bliss, a taste of which we all can get in deep dreamless sleep.  The being of Brahman however is not an abstraction from all existent beings as the satta (being as class notion) of the naiyayika, but the concrete, the real, which in its aspect as pure consciousness and pure bliss is always identical with itself.  Being (sat) is pure bliss and pure consciousness.  What becomes of the avidya during mukti (emancipation) is as difficult for one to answer as the question, how the avidya came forth and stayed during the world-appearance.  It is best to remember that the category of the indefinite avidya is indefinite as regards its origin, manifestation