Yudhishthira said Tell me, O grandfather, what is the spiritual science of man and whence does it originate.

Bhishma said Helped by the spiritual science, one may know everything. It is, again, superior to all things. I shall, with the help of my intelligence, explain to you that spiritual science about which you ask me. Listen, O son, to my explanation.

Earth, Wind, Ether, Water, and Light forming the fifth, are the great elements. These are the origin and the destruction of all creatures.

The bodies of living creatures, O foremost of Bharata's race, are the result of the combination of the virtues of these five. Those virtues repeatedly come into being and repeatedly merge into the Supreme Soul.

From those five primal elements are created all creatures, and into those five great elements all creatures resolve themselves, again and again, like the numberless waves of the Ocean rising from the Ocean and merging into that which causes thein.

As a tortoise stretches forth its legs and withdraws them again into itself, so the numberless creatures originate from (and enter) these five great essences.

Verily, sound originates from ether, and all dense matter is the attribute of Earth. Life springs from Wind. Taste is from Water. From is the property of Light.

The entire mobile and immobile universe is thus the outcome of the combination of these five great essences. When Destruction sets in, the infinite variety of creatures resolve themselves into those five, and once more, when Creation begins, they originate from the same five.

The Creator puts in all creatures the same five great elements in proportions that He thinks fit.

Sound, the cars, and all cavities,-these three-have ether for their cause. Taste, all watery or juicy substances, and the tongue, are the properties of Water.

From, the eye, and the digestive fire in the stomach, are the properties of Light. Smell, the organ of smelling, and the body, are the properties of Earth.

Life, touch, and action are the properties of Wind. I have thus explained to you, O king, all the properties of the five principal elements.

Having created these, the Supreme God, O Bharata, united with them the qualities of Goodness, Darkness, and Ignorance, Time, Consciousness of functions, and Mind forming the sixth.

What is called the Understanding lives in the interior of what you see above the soles of the feet and below the crown of the heat.

In man there are five senses. The sixth (sense) is the Mind. The seventh is called the Understanding. The Kshetrajna or Soul is the eighth.

The senses and the Actor should be determined by apprehension of their respective functions. The states called Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, depend upon the senses for their formation.

The senses exist for simply catching the impressions of their respective objects. Doubt is the function of the Mind. The Understanding is for ascertainment. The soul is said to be only an inactive witness.

Sattva, Rajas, Tamas, Time, and Acts, O Bharata, these attributes govern the Understanding. The Understanding is the senses and the five attributes.

When the Understanding is not, the senses with the mind, and the five other attributes, cease to be. That by which the understanding sees is called the eye. When she smells, the becomes the organ of smell; and when she tastes the various objects, she is called tongue.

When again she feels the touch of the various objects, she becomes the organ of touch. It is the Understanding that becomes modified variously and frequently. When the Understanding wishes for anything, she becomes Mind.

The five senses with the Mind, which separately form the foundations (of the Understanding), are the creations of the Understanding. They are called Indriyas or organs. When they become stained, the Understanding also becomes sullied.

The Understanding, living in individual Soul, exists in three states. Sometimes she rejoices, sometimes she grieves, and sometimes she exists in a state which is neither pleasure nor pain. Having for her essence these states, of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas), the Understanding passes through these three states.

As the lord of rivers, viz., the Ocean, always keeps within his bounds, so the Understanding, which exists united with the (three) states, exists in the Mind.

When the state of Rajas is awakened, the Understanding becomes changed into Rajas. Delight, joy, gladness, happiness, and contentment, these when somehow excited, are the properties of Sattva. Heart-burning, grief, sorrow, discontentment, and unforgiveness, arising from particular causes, are the outcome of Rajas. Ignorance, attachment and mistake, carelessness, stupefaction, and terror, meanness, cheerlessness. sleep and procrastination,-these, when engendered by particular causes, are the properties of Tamas.

Whatever state of body of mind, either joy or happiness, arises, should be considered as due to the state of Sattva.

Whatever, again, is full of sorrow and is disagreeable to oneself, should be considered as originating from Rajas. Without undertaking any such act, one should turn his attention to it.

Whatever is full of error or stupefaction in either body or mind, and is inconceivable and mysterious, should be known as being outcome to Tamas.

Thus have I explained to you that all things in this world live in the Understanding. By knowing this one becomes wise. What else can be the characteristics of wisdom?

Know now the difference between these two subtile things, viz., Understanding, the Soul. One of these viz., the Understanding, creates qualities. The other, i.e., the Soul, does not create them.

Although they are, by nature, distinct from each other, yet they always dwell in a state of union. A fish is different from the water in which it lives, but the fish and the water exist together.

The qualities cannot know the Soul. The Soul, however, knows them. The ignorant regard the Soul as existing in a state of union with the qualities like qualities existing with their possessors. This, however, is not the case, for the Soul is only an idle spectator of everything.

The Understanding has no refuge. That which is called life originates from the effects of the qualities coming together. Others, acting as causes, create the Understanding that lives in the body. No one can apprehend the qualities in the true nature or from of existence.

The Understanding, as already said, creates the qualities. The Soul simply sees them. This union between the Understanding and the Soul is eternal.

The Understanding living within, perceives all things through the Senses which are by nature inanimate and unapprehending. In sooth, the senses are only like lamps.

This is there nature. Knowing this, one should live cheerfully, without giving way to either grief or joy. Such a man is above the influence of pride.

Owing to her nature, the Understanding creates all these attributes, as a spider weaves threads. These qualities should be known as the threads the spider weaves.

When destroyed, the qualities do not cease to exist; only, their existence becomes invisible. When, however, a thing is beyond the range of the senses, its existence (or otherwise) is understood by inference. This is the opinion of some persons. Others hold that with destruction the qualities cease to be. are

Solving this hard problem of the understanding and reflection, and removing all doubt, one should renounce sorrow and live happily.

As men not knowing the bottom become distressed when they fall upon this Earth which is like a river filled with the waters of stupefaction, so is that man pained who falls away from that state in which there is a union with the Understanding.

Learned men, however, conversant with spiritual science and armed with fortitu never afflicted, because they can go to the other end of those waters. Indeed, Knowledge is a good vessel.

Men of knowledge have not to meet those fears which terrify them that are shorn of knowledge. Regarding the righteous, none of them attains to an end which is superior to that of any other person amongst them. In fact, the righteous display an equality about it.

Regarding the man of knowledge, whatever acts have been done by him in pristine times out of Ignorance and whatever sinful acts he does, he destroys both by Knowledge as his sole means. Then, again, upon the attainment of Knowledge he ceases to commit these two evils, viz., blaming the wicked acts of others and doing any wicked acts himself under the influence of attachment.