(with the reflected Self) the impossibility of having
the qualities of immortality and so on attributed to
it. Although the cognitional Self is in reality
not different from the highest Self, still there are
fictitiously ascribed to it (adhyaropita) the effects
of nescience, desire and works, viz, mortality and
fear; so that neither immortality nor fearlessness
belongs to it. The qualities of being the sa/m/yadvama,
&c. also cannot properly be ascribed to the cognitional
Self, which is not distinguished by lordly power (ai/s/varya).—In
the third place, although the Self of a deity (viz.
the sun) has its station in the eye—according
to the scriptural passage, ’He rests with his
rays in him’—still Selfhood cannot
be ascribed to the sun, on account of his externality
(paragrupatva). Immortality, &c. also cannot
be predicated of him, as Scripture speaks of his origin
and his dissolution. For the (so-called) deathlessness
of the gods only means their (comparatively) long
existence. And their lordly power also is based
on the highest Lord and does not naturally belong
to them; as the mantra declares, ’From terror
of it (Brahman) the wind blows, from terror the sun
rises; from terror of it Agni and Indra, yea, Death
runs as the fifth.’—Hence the person
in the eye must be viewed as the highest Lord only.
In the case of this explanation being adopted the
mention (of the person in the eye) as something well
known and established, which is contained in the words
‘is seen’ (in the phrase ’the person
that is seen in the eye’), has to be taken as
referring to (the mental perception founded on) the
sastra which belongs to those who know; and
the glorification (of devout meditation) has to be
understood as its purpose.
18. The internal ruler over the devas and so
on (is Brahman), because the attributes of that (Brahman)
are designated.
In B/ri/. Up. III, 7, 1 ff. we read, ’He
who within rules this world and the other world and
all beings,’ and later on, ’He who dwells
in the earth and within the earth, whom the earth
does not know, whose body the earth is, who rules
the earth within, he is thy Self, the ruler within,
the immortal,’ &c. The entire chapter (to
sum up its contents) speaks of a being, called the
antaryamin (the internal ruler), who, dwelling within,
rules with reference to the gods, the world, the Veda,
the sacrifice, the beings, the Self.—Here
now, owing to the unusualness of the term (antaryamin),
there arises a doubt whether it denotes the Self of
some deity which presides over the gods and so on,
or some Yogin who has acquired extraordinary powers,
such as, for instance, the capability of making his
body subtle, or the highest Self, or some other being.
What alternative then does recommend itself?