adjuncts (upâdhi), the fictitious offspring of Mâyâ, and thus looks for
its true Self in the body, the sense organs, and the internal organ
(manas), i.e. the organ of specific cognition. The soul, which in
reality is pure intelligence, non-active, infinite, thus becomes limited
in extent, as it were, limited in knowledge and power, an agent and
enjoyer. Through its actions it burdens itself with merit and demerit,
the consequences of which it has to bear or enjoy in series of future
embodied existences, the Lord--as a retributor and dispenser--allotting
to each soul that form of embodiment to which it is entitled by its
previous actions. At the end of each of the great world periods called
kalpas the Lord retracts the whole world, i.e. the whole material world
is dissolved and merged into non-distinct Mâyâ, while the individual
souls, free for the time from actual connexion with upâdhis, lie in deep
slumber as it were. But as the consequences of their former deeds are
not yet exhausted, they have again to enter on embodied existence as
soon as the Lord sends forth a new material world, and the old round of
birth, action, death begins anew to last to all eternity as it has
lasted from all eternity.

The means of escaping from this endless sa/ms/ára, the way out of which
can never be found by the non-enlightened soul, are furnished by the
Veda. The karmaká/nd/a indeed, whose purport it is to enjoin certain
actions, cannot lead to final release; for even the most meritorious
works necessarily lead to new forms of embodied existence. And in the
j/ñ/ânakâ/nd/a of the Veda also two different parts have to be
distinguished, viz., firstly, those chapters and passages which treat of
Brahman in so far as related to the world, and hence characterised by
various attributes, i.e. of Î/s/vara or the lower Brahman; and,
secondly, those texts which set forth the nature of the highest Brahman
transcending all qualities, and the fundamental identity of the