13. The name 'maya' is given to an appearance which cannot be accounted for. It is not non-existent, because it appears; neither is it existent, because it is nullified.

14. It is not distinct from the Light, as the dark shadow is distinct from the sun. Neither is it identical with the Light because it is insentient. Nor can it be both distinct from and identical with the Light, because it is a contradiction in terms.

Or, Maya may be compared to the shadow which conceals the sun from the view of those who are blind by day. Here the sun's light itself appears to be a shadow; and the shadow, therefore, has no distinct existence from the light.

15. It is not said to be made up of parts, because no parts caused it. Neither

is it devoid of parts, since in the effects it is made up of parts.

16. This harlot of a Maya, appearing only so long as not scrutinised, does deceive the Atman by her false affectations of coquetry.

Moksha is the eradication of Maya.

17. Some seek not her radical destruction. How, in their view, can there be a release from manas?

18. Manas is subject to the three avasthas of jagrat, svapna, and sushupti, which revolve like a wheel, as the chief cause of the illusions of duality.

19. On account of these (illusions) manas performs acts and is again bound by them. A mere witness of manas is the Atman beyond, just as the sun (is the witness of our acts).

20. Just as the sun is never affected by acts which are done by creatures below, so also, Atman, witness as He is, is never bound by the doings of manas.

21. That Atman does acts, that He is bound by them, and that He is released from them, is true only in a figurative sense; it is a mere illusion.

22. Just as the sun, though untouched by smoke, clouds, dust and fog, yet looks as if he were covered by them, so

[paragraph continues] Atman looks as if He were covered by Maya.

23-24. Just as a young lad whirling round and round in sport, sees the world around him revolving round and round and the heavens containing hundreds of moons; so Jiva, deluded by Maya, in virtue of the vasanas (tendencies caused by former experience) sees this whole universe revolving in various forms.

25. In contact with manas, the Divine Atman looks as if He were coursing through the world, just as the sun, by contact with water, appears to move in many a form.

26. That man who, by practice of Yoga, has freed manas from objects, becomes abstracted from this world, and he shall, at once, grow into a Jivanmukta.

27. The Sruti says: By Maya, Siva became two birds always associated together; the One, clinging to the one unborn (Prakriti), became many as it were (vide Mundaka-Up. 3-1; Yajniki-Upanishad 12-5).

28. Thus ends the Eighth chapter in brief in the work called Manasollasa which expounds the meaning of the Hymn to the Blessed Dakshinamurti.