dik (akas) and the rest. Dik, vata (air),
arka (sun), pracheta (water), Aswini, bahni (fire), Indra, Upendra,
Mrityu (death), Chandra (moon), Brahma, Rudra, and Kshetrajnesvara,*
which is the great Creator and cause of everything. These are the
presiding powers of ear, and the others in the order in which they
occur.

All these taken together form the linga sarira.** It is also said in
the Shastras:--

The five vital airs, manas, buddhi, and the ten organs form the subtile
body, which arises from the subtile elements, undifferentiated into the
five gross ones, and which is the means of the perception of pleasure
and pain.

Q. What is the Karana sarira?

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* The principle of intellect (Buddhi) in the macrocosm. For further
explanation of this term, see Sankara's commentaries on the Brahma
Sutras.

** Linga means that which conveys meaning, characteristic mark.
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A. It is ignorance [of different monads] (avidya), which is the cause
of the other two bodies, and which is without beginning [in the present
manvantara],* ineffable, reflection [of Brahma] and productive of the
concept of non-identity between self and Brahma. It is also said:--

"Without a beginning, ineffable avidya is called the upadhi (vehicle)--
karana (cause). Know the Spirit to be truly different from the three
upadhis--i.e., bodies."

Q. What is Not-Spirit?

A. It is the three bodies [described above], which are impermanent,
inanimate (jada), essentially painful and subject to congregation and
segregation.

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* It must not be supposed that avidya is here confounded with prakriti.
What is meant by avidya being without beginning, is that it forms no
link in the Karmic chain leading to succession of births and deaths, it
is evolved by a law embodied in prakriti itself. Avidya is ignorance or
matter as related to distinct monads, whereas the ignorance mentioned
before is cosmic ignorance, or maya-Avidya begins and ends with this
manvantara. Maya is eternal. The Vedanta philosophy of the school of
Sankara regards the universe as consisting of one substance, Brahman
(the one ego, the highest abstraction of subjectivity from our
standpoint), having an infinity of attributes, or modes of manifestation
from which it is only logically separable. These attributes or modes in
their collectivity form Prakriti (the abstract objectivity). It is
evident that Brahman per se does not admit of any description other than
"