A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

but not an impossibility of existence, a true nothing, to be compared to the horns of a hare or the son of a barren woman. To say that the world was not, that there was no thing, or as in Genesis that all was “ without form and void,” is not to say that nothing was. What was is called pradhana, mitla-prakyti, the Waters, Dark-Inert (¢amas), and by many other names: what was not is the world, life, existence, multiplicity, variety, ens naturata, the Three Worlds.

As to the conception of Godhead in our text: Mrtyu, Death, is lifelessness, and lifelessness, in the technical phraseology of St. Thomas, is “ lack of an intrinsic form,” Sum. Th., Il, Q. 6, A.2. “A prodigy, and is not being . . . (but) prior to motion and prior to intelligence,” Plotinus, Enneads, VI, 9, 6. So the Godhead, Deathabsolute,!® is also called Privation: for “ That ”’ is “ the unexpounded (anivukta), invisible (adysya), not-selfed, (anatmya), placeless (anilayana) ground (pratistha),” Taittirtya Up., 11, 7. ‘‘ Nothing true can be spoken of God,” “God is neither this nor that,” ‘“ Know’st thou of him anything ? He is no such thing,” Eckhart, I, 87, 211, and 246: ‘‘ which hath no ground or byss to stand on, and where there is no place to dwell in . . . it may fitly be compared to nothing,” Béhme, Supersensual Life. Such a negative manner of speaking is inevitable: for here negation, meti, net?,?° ‘“ not so, not thus,” is a denial of limiting conditions, a double negative ; not as with us, who ‘‘make innate denial’’ that we are other than ourselves, an affirmation of limiting conditions. So Godhead is ‘“ void,’ “light and darkness, it is rid of both,” ‘‘ poised in itself in sable stillness,’’ it is “ idle,” “ effects neither this nor that,” is ‘‘ as poor, as naked, and as empty as though it were not; it has not, wills not, wants not,’ “ motionless dark,’’ Eckhart, I, 267-270, 368, 369, 381.71

ASanaya, want, is privation of ‘‘ food,” the means of existence. So in the language of the Upanisads, “ to eat