CHAPTER IV.

ATMAN THE ONE EXISTENCE AND LIGHT.

Fourth Stanza of the Hymn.

All this world shines after Him alone shining in the consciousness "I know,"--after Him alone whose consciousness, luminous like the light of a mighty lamp standing in the bosom of a many-holed pot, moves outwards through the sense-organs such as the eye. To Him who is incarnate in the Teacher, to Him in the Effulgent Form Facing the South, to Him (Siva) be this bow!

Objection to the Vedic doctrine of the one Existence and Light.

The identity of Brahman and Jiva, thus far set forth as the teaching of the Vedas, is objected to by some who allege that it is opposed to all evidence furnished by pratyaksha and other right sources of knowledge. By way of answering their objections, the Vedic doctrine of the identity of Jiva and Brahman will be more firmly established in this and the two following chapters:

1. "Self-existent do the pot, the cloth, and other phenomena shine,--not because of Isvara entering into them." To this as a reply is (the fourth stanza) chanted.

The Vedic doctrine that there is only one Existence and Light which is Atman (vide chap. iii. 3) is objected to on the ground that it is opposed to our immediate experience. It is, some say, an uncontradicted fact of experience that a pot exists and shines by itself; and they contend that there is no evidence whatever to show that Isvara has entered into the phenomena so that they all shine by His light.

The meaning of the fourth stanza may be explained as follows:

External objects have no existence and light of their own.

2. If in the objective consciousness "I know it," the thinker were not to manifest himself as 'I,' what is there to shine, or to whom? And the whole world would be like one asleep.

If an object were to shine alone by itself, then there would be no manifestation of the Thinker as the cogniser of the object, in the form "I am conscious of the object." Then, like a lamp burning in a mountain-cave closed up on every side by solid rocks, no object will present itself to the consciousness of any individual. Thus unconscious, as in sushupti, of the universe around, man would ever be quite as inert and unconcerned in the universe around as he is during. sleep. Wherefore it must be admitted that the universe depends on something else for its manifestation. That something else, that light upon which the universe depends for its manifestation, must be a constant and independent light, itself not depending on another for manifestation.

Just as the universe depends for its manifestation upon a light beyond itself, so also it depends

on another for its existence. So, the Vartikakara says: