expand their families. Instead, they became renunciate mendicants who spent the rest
of their lives in preaching and seeking self-realisation which led to their ultimate
emancipation and salvation.
The answers to Narad’s ten questions that dawned upon their mind and intellect
after due diligent contemplation and concerted deliberations are summarised as
follows—
(i) The ‘ling-deha’ (the gross physical body) is the country in which the only
Purush (Authority) who resides to rule it as its sovereign is known as the ‘Atma’, the
pure consciousness that is also called the individual’s ‘soul’.
The only ‘Purush’ or sovereign Authority in this creation is the Supreme Being
known as “Ishwar” or Lord God. The rest of this creation is the city under his control.
(ii) The gross physical body of the creature is the symbolic ‘hole’ in which the
Atma remains trapped for eternity if it does not make efforts to leave it and become
free. It is easy for the Atma to enter a body, but once it does enter the latter it gets so
entangled with the body that it forgets about its true independent identity, and instead
begins to treat this body as its ‘self’. Hence, it never sees an end to this hole as it
remains perpetually ‘holed’ in it.
(iii) Ishwar is supreme and a witness to all. He is the most exalted and almighty.
He is self-sustaining and a sustainer of the rest of this creation. The Atma is a
miniscule form of this Ishwar who lives inside each individual as the individual’s
“self”. Refer: Ram Charit Manas, Uttar Kand, Chaupai line no. 2 that precedes Doha
no. 117.
Once this enlightenment dawns on a person, he enters a state of internal bliss and
obtains spiritual liberation from where there is no re-entering into the hole created by
ignorance and delusions.
(iv) The ‘woman’ is the person’s own “Buddhi” (intellect) which can direct him
in any direction it wishes. A man is subject to the whims of his intellect just like a
man who is under the control of a woman.
(v) The “Maya” (delusions and its attandent ignorance, worldly attachments and
desires) is the so-called ‘woman who changes colours and assumes many forms’. It is
hard to recognise the true intentions of such a deceitful woman known as Maya. It is
like a dancer who assumes so many postures and changes them so frequently that a
man loses his bearings. Refer: Ram Charit Manas, Uttar Kand—(i) Chaupai line no. 4
that precedes Doha no. 116; and (ii) Chaupai line no. 3 that precedes Doha no. 117.
(vi) The ‘river with two banks and flowing both ways’ is the world of birth and
death, the world that has two banks symblised by a beginning and an end, the world
that gives happiness as well as sorrows. On the one hand it gives the creature an
opportunity to attain higher goals in life that provide him with happiness and bliss if
he is careful, and on the other hand it can push him into the slush of miseries and pain
and make him slide further down to the pit of hell. The river flowing upwards and
well as downwards is a metaphor for this world having opposite characteristics.
(vii) The creature’s body made up of 25 elements is that mysterious ‘house’ in
which the Purush (i.e. the pure consciousness known as the Atma representing the
‘self’ and the Supreme Being) lives. These 25 subtle elements are the building-blocks
used to create this house. They are enumerated in the Upanishads as follows—
The Maha Upanishad of Sam Veda, in its Canto 1, verse nos. 4-6 gives a list of
the twenty-five Tattvas in the specific sequence as follows—the five sense organs of
perception (eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin) [these are the 1st five Tattvas] + the five
sense organs of action (hand, leg, mouth, excretory and reproductive) [these are the
2 nd five Tattvas]+ one Mana (mind) [this is the 11th Tattva] + one Ahankar (pride and
ego) [this is the 12th Tattva] + one Pran (vital airs or life-giving winds) [this is the 13th
Tattva] + one Atma (consciousness) [this is the 14th Tattva] + one Buddhi (intellect)
[this is the 15th Tattva] + the five Tanmatras (the five subtle senses of perception such
as seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching) [these are the 16th to 20th Tattvas] +
the five primary elements called the Panch Bhuts (earth, water, fire, air and sky)
kiana
(Kiana)
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