ion. The existence of such a causal potentiality
renders it moreover possible that the released souls should not enter on
new courses of existence, as it is destroyed by perfect knowledge. For
that causal potentiality is of the nature of Nescience; it is rightly
denoted by the term 'undeveloped;' it has the highest Lord for its
substratum; it is of the nature of an illusion; it is a universal sleep
in which are lying the transmigrating souls destitute for the time of
the consciousness of their individual character.[230] This undeveloped
principle is sometimes denoted by the term aka/s/a, ether; so, for
instance, in the passage, 'In that Imperishable then, O Gargi, the ether
is woven like warp and woof' (B/ri/. Up. III, 8, 11). Sometimes, again,
it is denoted by the term akshara, the Imperishable; so, for instance
(Mu. Up. II, 1, 2), 'Higher, than the high Imperishable.' Sometimes it
is spoken of as Maya, illusion; so, for instance (/S/ve. Up. IV, 10),
'Know then Prak/ri/ti is Maya, and the great Lord he who is affected
with Maya.' For Maya is properly called undeveloped or non-manifested
since it cannot be defined either as that which is or that which is
not.--The statement of the Ka/th/aka that 'the Undeveloped is beyond the
Great one' is based on the fact of the Great one originating from the
Undeveloped, if the Great one be the intellect of Hira/n/yagarbha. If,
on the other hand, we understand by the Great one the individual soul,
the statement is founded on the fact of the existence of the individual
soul depending on the Undeveloped, i.e. Nescience. For the continued
existence of the individual soul as such is altogether owing to the
relation in which it stands to Nescience. The quality of being beyond
the Great one which in the first place belongs to the Undeveloped, i.e.
Nescience, is attributed to the body which is the product of Nescience,
the cause and the effect being considered as identical. Although the
senses, &c. are no less products of Nescience, the term 'the
Undeveloped' here refers to the body only, the senses, &c. having
already been specially mentioned by their individual names, and the body
alone being left.--Other interpreters of the two last Sutras give a
somewhat different explanation[231].--There are, they say, two kinds of
body, the gross one and the subtle one. The gross body is the one which
is perceived; the nature of the subtle one will be explained later on.
(Ved. Su. III, 1, 1.) Both these