In the words of SB x.5.3.3, Agni should be "intellectually laid and intellectually edified" (manasalvddhiyanta manasaciyanta). "Intellectually laid and intellectually edified": for inasmuch as Agni Himself "performs an intellectual sacrifice" (manasd yajati, RV 1.77.2), it is evident that  one who would attain to Him as like to like must have done likewise, without which a true "Imitation of Agni" would be impossible. Manas. in the Samhitas and Brahmanas, and sometimes in the Upanisads, is the Pure or Possible Intellect, at once a name of God and that in us by which He may be grasped. Thus RV 1.139.2, "We have beheld the Golden one by these our eyes of contemplation and of intellect" (apas'ydma hiranyam dhibhis cana manasa svebhir aksibhih) ; RV 1.145.2, "What He [Agni], contemplative, hath as it were grasped by His own intellect" (sveneva Aim manasd yad agrabhit) ; RV v1.9.5, "Intellect is the swiftest of birds" (mano javistham patayatsu antas) ; RV vlll.100.8, "The Eagle cometh with the speed of intellect" (mano java ayamdna . . . su parnah ; cf. Manojavas as a name of Agni, JB 1.50) ; RV x.i i .i, "Varuna's knowledge of all things is according to His speculation" (visvam sa veda varuno yatha dhiya) ; RV x.181.3, "By an intellectual speculation they found the Godward path" (avindan manasd didhyand . . . devayanam) ; TS 11.5.11.5, "Intellect is virtually Prajapati" (mana iva hi prajdpatih) ; SB x.5.3.1 4, where Intellect (manas) is idenitified with "That which was in the beginning neither Non being nor Being" (RV x.129.1), and this Intellect emanates the Word (vacam asrjata), a function usually assigned to Prajapati; BU 1.5.7, "The Father is Intellect (manas); The Mother, Word (vac); the Child, Spirit or Life (prana)," in agreement with the usual formulation, according to which Intellect and Word, Heaven and Earth, as Knower and Known, are the universal parents of the conceptual universe;(1) and KU iv.ii, "He is attainable intellectually"(manasaivedam aptavyam).
     On the other hand, we meet with such expressions as pakena manasa,(RV VII.I04.8 and x.114.4), implying the distinction of a "mature" from an "unripened" Intellect; and in such characteristic texts as Kena Up. 1.3, "There the intellect does not attain" (na tatra . . . gacchati manah), and MU vL34, "Intellect must be arrested in the heart" (mano niroddhavyam hrdi), as well as wherever the transcendental Person is spoken of as "de mented" (amanas, amanasah),(2) and generally in Buddhism, the Intellect (manas) is the Reason or Practical Intellect that Intellect which in MU vi.30 is described as the seat, not of science, but of opinion and all pros and cons, the term buddhi now coming into use as a designation of the speculative as distinguished from the empirical and dialectic Reason.
     These apparent contradictions are completely resolved in MU vi.34, where "Intellect is for men a means of bondage or liberation (kdranambandha moksayoh) as the case may be "of bondage if it clings to objects of perception (visayasangi), and of liberation if not directed towards these objects (nirvisayam)," i.e., if thought, the only basis of the world-vortex (cittam eva hi samsdram), "is brought to rest in its own source (cittam svayonav (3) upasamyate) by a surcease from fluctuation (vrttiksayat)" "Intellect is said to be twofold, Pure and Impure" (mano hi dvividham, suddham casuddham ca) (4) impure when there is correlation with desire (kamasam parkat), pure by remotion of desire; and when the intellect, sentimentality, and distraction having been subtracted, has been brought to a thorough stillness,(5) when one reaches dementation, that is the last step (layavikseparahitam manah krtvd suniscalam, yadd yaty amanibhdvam tads tat paramam padam), that is, Gnosis and Liberation; all else is but a tale of knots (eta' jnanam ca moksam ca, sesdnye granthavistarah)(6) The quoted passages and whole context show that by amanibhdva, "dementation," nothing so crude is meant as a literal annihilation of the intellect, but rather that the last end has been attained when the intellect no longer intelligizes, that is, when there is no longer a distinction of Knower from Known or of Knowledge and Being, but only a Knowledge as Being and a Being as Knowledge; when, as our text expresses it, "Thought and Being are consubstantial" (yat cittas tanmayo bhavati). BU IV 3 30 similarly states, "Although he does not know, nevertheless lie knows; he does not know but there is no loss on the knower's part, since he is indestructible; it is just that there is no second thing other than and distinct from himself that he might know."(7) Or again, as Aquinas expresses it, "When the Intellect attains to the form of Truth (8) it does not think, but perfectly contemplates the Truth' . . . which means complete identity, because in God the Intellect and the thing understood are altogether the same . . . . God has, of Himself, speculative knowledge only . . . . God does not understand things by an idea existing outside Himself . . . an idea in God is identical with His essence" (Sum. Theol. 1.34.1 ad 2 et 3, 1.14.16, and 1.15.1).
     With further reference to yat cittas tanmayo bhavati, cited above: the whole verse reads, "The world vortex is merely Thought (cittam eva hi samsdram ), labor then to cleanse it (Sodhayet); as is the Thought, such is the mode of Being (yat cittas tanmayo bhavati) ; this is the Eternal Mystery (guhyam . . . sanatanam).(9) Much more is evidently intended than merely the, "character making power of Thought" (Hume), for the whole context has to do with a plane of reference where "Thought does not think." and with the attainment of an uncharacterized goal;(10) there is no question  of a salvation by merit, but only of liberation by gnosis. Nor could we expect the expression "Eternal Secret'' to be applied to anything so obvious as the "character making power of Thought." This character making power is, moreover, explicitly dealt with in BU IV 4 5, where the whole reference is to the plane of conduct; thus, "As one acts, as is one's habit, such is his being (yathakarit yathacdri tatha bhavati) . . . . As one wills (kimo bhavati), so he intends (kratur bhavati) ; as he intends, so he does; and as are his deeds, such is the goal that he attains." In our text, MU vi.34, the reference is likewise to the plane of conduct or active life insofar as Thought has not been cleansed: but how is it when Thought has been cleansed? We know that this means cleansed of the concept of "I and Mine," "I as a Doer," and of all pairs of opposites, Vice and Virtue included, and as specifically stated in our text (mano hi . . . suddham . . . kdmo vivarjitam), of that very "willing" which in BU iv 4.5 is found to be the ultimate basis of "character."(11) Yas cittas tanmayo bhavati has reference, then, to a state of being where "character” has no loner any meaning, and where "identity of Thought and Being" can only mean that the goal of Thought has been attained in a perfect adaequatio rei et intellectus; Thinker and Thought in divinis, in samadhi, being one perfectly simple essence, "characterized" only by "sameness" (samati; cf. Mund. Up. III.i.3, param sdmyam) or "perfect simplicity" (ekavrtatva) and peace (santi).
     "Thither neither sight nor speech nor intellect can go; we neither `know' it nor can we analyze it, so as to be able to communicate it by instruction" (anusisydt,, Kena. Up. I.3) . The realization of the corresponding state in which the Intellect does not intelligize, which is called in our text "the Eternal Mystery" and in KU vi.10, "the Supreme Goal" and which "cannot be taught," is  the ultimate "secret" of initiation. It must not be supposed that any mere description of the "secret," such as can be found in Scripture (sruti) or exegesis, suffices to communicate the secret of "de mentation" (amanibhava); nor that the secret has ever been or could be communicated to an initiate or betrayed to anyone, or discovered by however much learning. It can only be realized by each one for himself; all that can be effected by initiation is the communication of an impulse and an awakening of latent potentialities; the work must be done by the initiate himself, to whom the words of our text, prayatnena sodhayet, are always applicable until the very end of the road (adhvanah param) has been reached.
     We make these remarks only to emphasize that whatever can be said o f it, the secret remains inviolable, guarded by its own essential incommunicability. It is in this sense only that the Sun, the Truth, in JUB 1.5.3, is said to "repel" (apasedhanti) the would be "winner beyond the Sun"(12) (CU 11.10.5 6, JUB 1.6.1), who must "break through" into the Inexhaustible (Mund. Up. 11.2.2, tad eviksaram . . . viddhi)(13) by his own powers and, as in our text MU v1.34, "by effort" (prayatnena). It is not a question of fovos ("jealousy") on the part of an Olympian deity or on the part of any human guru. Esoteric doctrines are not withheld from anyone soever lest he should understand; on the contrary, and although the words of scripture are inevitably "enigmatic," the doctrine is communicated with all possible clarity, and it is for those who have ears to hear, to hear in fact (RV x.71.6, Mark 4 :1 I 12) . It is not for interested reasons that the words or other symbols by which the ultimate secret is adumbrated "are not to be communicated unless to one who is at peace (pras"anta) and has perfect devotion (yasya . . . para bhaktih), being, moreover, either one's own son or a disciple" (Svet. Up. VI.22 23) and therefore fit for initiation (diksa) but, essentially, because any such communication would be useless in the case of an unqualified auditor, for "what is the use of the texts to one who does not know Him" (yas tan na veda kimrca karisyati, RV 1.164.39 = Svet. Up. iv.8) ; and, accidentally, as a matter of "convenience" because of "those who can only approach the Word in sin" (ta ete vacam abhi padya papaya, RV x.71.9) (14)
     The "secret" of what is meant by "dementation" (amanibhava) being inaccessible to "mere learning" (cf. panditam manyamanah . . . mudhah,(15) Mund. Up. 1.2.8; cf. Isa Up. 9), it is thus by definition inaccessible to "scholarship" the modern and philological sense of the word, and from this point of view it must be confessed that the greater part of our "Vedic studies" amounts to nothing more than a "wandering about in ignorance on the part of blind leaders of the blind" (Mund. Up. 1.2.8) and certainly not to such a "comprehension" as is implied by the constantly repeated yam evam vedvan of the texts, a comprehension which is either a matter of experience, or no matter. Learning, then, like other "means" (upaya), may be dispositive "either to bondage or to liberation," and that this is so is a proposition with which even some Western critics of modern educational aims are in hearty agreement.(16) The last end or "value" depends, as usual, on the final cause; when learning becomes an end in itself, a science for the sake of science, then it amounts to no more than what was called by St. Bernard a "vile curiosity" (turpir curiossitas). But if the learning is acquired not for its own sake, but as a means to a further end, and thus becomes a "sacrifice of knowledge . . . offered to Me" (inana yaynam . . . mad arpanam, BG ix 15, 27), it is conducive to the rummum bonum envisaged by all scripture as man's last end.
     We have been led to a discussion of these matters in connection with such hard sayings as "the mind must be arrested" (mono noroddhavyam) and "de mentation" (amanibhdva), partly by the occurrence of such expressions as "ultimate secret" in the same context, and more particularly in order to explain just how it is that in spite of the prestige of modern scientific methods and in spite of their general adoption in Indian seats of learning, there remains an unknown and for various reasons largely inarticulate but far from insignificant body of opinion according to which, apart from the limited field of editorship and publication, the results obtained by modern Vedic scholarship have been fundamentally nil, precisely because in almost all these .studies the heart of the matter has been evaded, either because the "doctrine that escapes beneath the veil of the strange verses" (Dante, Inferno ix.61), the "picture that is not in the colors" (Lankavatara Sutra ii 117-118), has exceeded the capacities of the student or translator or, what amounts to the same thing, has not interested him.
     It is not without reason, then, that the whole Vedic (and likewise the Christian) tradition has insisted on the necessity of "Faith" (isaddha). We assume the Scholastic definition of Fides as a "consent of the intellect to a credible proposition, of which no empirical proof is available."(17) If one has not so much confidence in the texts as to believe that behind the words lies more than can be told in words, if one is not convinced by the technical consistency of the verses that their "authors" could not have spoken thus without themselves possessing a clear understanding and actual experience of what they were speaking of, if one does not so far trust the texts as to realize that they arc not merely fashioned in the literary sense but arc strictly speaking "in formed;" how can one pretend to have grasped or aspire to grasp their true intention, Dante's vera rentenzia? As the Buddhist texts so often express it, the nominalist's preoccupation with the aesthetic surfaces and neglect of their content can only be compared to the case of the man who, when the moon is pointed out, sees nothing but the pointing finger; we refer to the condition which a modern European writer has so aptly diagnosed as an "intellectual myopia."
     The terms of Scripture and Ritual are symbolic (pratilkavat); and merely to submit this self evident proposition is to say that the symbol is not its own meaning but is significant of its referent. (18) Under these circumstances, would it not be a contradiction in terms for one who can say that "such knowledge as is not empirical is meaningless to us" to claim to have understood the texts, however encyclopedic his knowledge o f them might be? Must there not be recognized an element of perversity in one who can stigmatize the Brahmanas as "puerile, arid, and inane" and yet propose to study or translate such works?(19) Under such conditions, what other results could have been expected than have been actually attained? To take only one example: the whole doctrine of "reincarnation" and the supposed "history" of the doctrine have been so distorted by a literal interpretation of symbolic terms as to justify a designation of the doctrine thus presented as "puerile," just as the results of the study of Indian mythology by statistical methods may fairly be described as "arid and inane."
     We should not like it to be supposed that the foregoing remarks are directed against Western scholars as such or personally. The defects of modern Indian scholarship are of the same sort, and no less glaring. The recent adoption of the naturalistic and the nominalistic point of view by Indian scholars has led, for example, to such absurdities as the belief that the "sky faring vehicles" (vimana, etc.)' of .the ancient texts were actually airplanes; we are merely pointing out that such absurdities are no greater than, but of the same sort as, those of Western scholars who have supposed that in the Vedic rescue of Bhujyu from the "sea" there is no more to be seen than the vague reminiscence of the adventure of some man who, once upon a time, fell into the salt sea and was duly rescued, or those who argue that RV v.46.1 represents no more than the case of the royal retainer who follows his leader no matter what befalls not recognizing that verses of this kind, far from being anecdotal, are general equations or forms of which events as such, whether past or present, can only be regarded as special cases. Our only purpose has been to show that to make of Vedic studies nothing more than "an inquiry into human conduct" (to quote the phrase attributed to Socrates) presupposes a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the texts themselves; and in the present case, that those who propose to investigate such terms as manas from this all too human and exclusively humanistic point of view must necessarily fail to distinguish "dementation" from "insanity" and "unknowing" from "ignorance." We maintain, accordingly, that it is an indispensable condition of true scholarship to "believe in order to understand" (crede ut intelligas), and to "understand in order to believe" (intellige ut credas), not, indeed, as distinct and consecutive acts of the will and of the intellect, but as the single activity of both. The time has surely come when we must not merely, as heretofore, consider the meanings of particular terms but also reconsider our whole method of approach to the problems involved. We venture to propound that it is precisely the divorce of intellect and will in the supposed interests of objectivity that primarily explains the relative infirmity of the modern approach.

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2. In BU 111.8.8, the aksara brahman is amanas; in Mund. Up. 11.1.2, the despirated Purusa not in any likeness, i.e., para Brahman, is amanah; in BU vr.2.r5 = CU Iv.r5,5, 6 and v.ro.2, He who acts as Guide on the devayana = brahmapatha beyond the Sun is, according to different readings, the "de mented" or "superhuman" Person (puru;so'mdnasah or 'amnavah). Inasmuch as those who are thus conducted "nevermore return to this human cycle" (imam manavam avartam navartante), it is clear that both Indian commentators, together with Hume, who follows them, are wrong in reading BU vr.2.r5 as puruso manavah without avagraha; the reading must be here just as in the parallel passages, puruso'manavah or 'manasah. For it is obvious that it can only be the Superhuman Person who guides on the superhuman trail, Agni Vaidyuta then, rather than Agni Vaisvanarah; cf. the contrast of "lightning" and "concept" i.e., of immediate vision with theological formulation in Kena Up. 29 3o.

3. Svayonau corresponds to svagocare in Lankavatara Sutra rr.rr5, where the intellect being "in its own pasture, beholds all things at once, as if in a mirror"; cf. Chuang tzu, "The mind of the sage being brought to rest becomes the mirror of the universe." The opposite of svayonau and svagocare (= svastha) is visayagocare in the expression, "as firmly as the intellect is attached in the pasture of the senses" (uisaya gocare, also in MU vr.3q), visaya gocara being further synonymous with indriya gocara in BG xrrr.5. D. T. Suzuki entirely misses the point when he renders Lankavatara Sutra 2.115, sva gocare, by "in its own sense fields"; the meaning really being "in its own pasture" i.e., when not directed toward sense objects. Vrtti k;saya, as in Yoga Sutra, passim, "cessation of the fluctuations of the mind stuff."

4 As also, of course, in Buddhist formulation, where the mind is either defiled by ignorance or as it is in itself, "immutable, although the cause of mutation"; see, for example, Asvaghosa, Sraddhotpada (Acvvaghosha's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, tr, Teitaro Suzuki, Chicago, 1900), p. 79  Cf. the concept of the "two fold mind," in Erwin Goodenough, By Light, Light (New Haven, I935), P. 385

5. Cf. KU vi.10, "That they call the supreme goal, when the five perceptions conjointly with the mind (manas) come to a standstill, and intellect (buddhi) makes no motion"; also Jacob Boehme, The Supersensual Life, p, 227, "But if thou canst, my son, for a while but cease from all thy thinking and willing, then shah thou hear the unspeakable words of God . . . . When thou standest still from the thinking of self, and the willing of self: when both thy intellect and will are quiet . . . above . . . the outward senses."

6. Laya, from t, "to cling, adhere," is here the act of clinging or attachment to desirable things and tantamount to "stickiness" in the modern vernacular sense; c£. asneha in BU 111.8.8. Laya, therefore, can properly be rendered by "sentimentality" or by "materialism," implying both an infatuation with what we like and a worship of what we know as "fact." Grantha is "knot" in the psychological sense of "complex," those Gordian knots of the heart that must be cut before the experience of eternity is possible (CU VII.26.2, KU VLIS, Mulld. Up. III 2.9),

7. That "he" thus na vijanati is, then, an "Unknowing" that is really perfection of knowing, and altogether unlike the "ignorance" of the agnostic (avidvan). Christian parallels could be cited without end. See Erigena's "God does not know what He Himself is, because He is not any what; and this ignorance surpasses all knowledge," and the significant title of the well known anonymous work, A Book, of Contemplation the Which is Called the Cloud of Unknowing in the Which a Soul Is Oned with God. For a further analysis of what is meant by "unconsciousness" (asam jnana) post mortem and in "deep sleep," see SB x.5.2. I I I 5 and BU II. I. I g, II.4. I2 I4, and Iv.5.I3 I5. it is an unconsciousness because it is not a consciousness o f anything, which would be impossible where there is no duality, but so far from being an absence or privation of consciousness, it is a consciousness as all that might otherwise be known only conceptually (samkalpitam), and hence it is described by such expressions as "condensation of discrimination" (vijnana ghana) and "cognoscemt" (samvit).

8. Cf. BG vI.25, atmasamstham manah krtva na kimcid api cintayet.

9. Cf. Svet. Up. VI.22, where there is no question of works, but ~ Gnosis and the Love of God are described as the indispensable and only means of liberation, and "this is the ultimate secret of the Vedanta promulgated in a former aeon" (vedante paramam guhyam purakalpe pracoditam).

10. Cf. Jamt, Lawaih 24; "4nis first characteristic is the lack of all characteristics"; Eckhart, "God's only idiosyncrasy is being."

11. A further definition of the , cleansing of thought is implied in Mund. Up. 111.1.9, "The thought of men is altogether interwoven with the physical functions (pranais cittam sarvam otam prajhnam, tantamount to the Thomist "All our knowledge is derived from the senses"); it is in him whose thought is cleansed (of this contamination) that the Spirit manifests (yasmin visuddhe vibhavati esa atma)."

12. We cannot undertake here a detailed analysis of the stages of deification but may point out that the "breaking through" (the Sun into what lies beyond the Sun) is Eckhart's "second death of the soul and is far more momentous than the first" (Evans ed., I, 275). The prolongation of the brahmapatha beyond the Sun, where neither Sun nor Moon nor Stars give light and the only guidance is that of the superhuman Lightning or immediate vision leading on to the para brahman, describable only by the via remotionis (neti, neti), implies a renunciation even of the Wayfarer's "eternal prototype" (svarupa) in the divine mind, and the last step (param padam), by which one mounts upon the very throne of Brahman (Kaus. Up. 1.5 7) that is, "knowing Brahman as very Brahman" is the Wayfarer's last death, who thus as in BU r.2.7, "becoming Death, dies no more deaths, for Death does not die." All this is implied by the superlative paristad etasyai'tasminn amrte nidadhyat, "should commit himself to that Immortality far beyond this ` (Sun)," JUB 1.6.1, and param adityaj jayati . . . paro hasyadityajayaj jayo bhavati, "wins beyond the Sun, yea, conquers beyond the conquest of the Sun" (CU 11.10.5 6) .

13. In connection with the expression "breaking through" (cf. MU vr.3o, dvaram bhitva), I take this opportunity to point out that Vedic vedhas, commonly rendered by "wise," as if from vid, is far more probably "penetrating," from vyadh, and tantamount to vedhin ("archer") in the sense of Mund. Up. 11.2.2, tad evaksaram viddhi; cf. also BG x1.54, sakyo by aham viddhah. And if, indeed„ vedhas and viddhi are also possible forms of vid, no antinomy is involved, inasmuch as it is precisely by gnosis (jn,ana, vid ya) that the breaking through or hitting of the mark is effected.

14 Cf. Mund. Up. 111.2.10 11 : "The Brahma doctrine may be communicated to such as perform the sacrifice (kriyavantah), who are auditors (srotriyah), who are men of faith (sraddhayantah), who take  their stand in `Brahman,' and making an offering of themselves to the Only Prophet (Agni), bearers of coals of fire on their head . . . . But it is not for one to study who does not practice." It may be remarked, incidentally, that rendered into purely Christian terms, kriyavantah would be "regular celebrants of the Mass."

15 Primarily the Asuras, from whom the Devas are often represented as concealing their procedure, lest these "mortals" should follow them, cf. Genesis 3:22, "lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"; and secondly, the "profane," childish, opinionated and unripe multitude (avidvansah, mudhah, balah, nastikah, prthagjanah, laukikah, etc.), cf. Mark 4:II I2, "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God: but unto them that were without, all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them"; Mark 4:23, "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear"; and Origen, Contra Celsum 1.7, "That there should be certain doctrines not made known to the multitude . . . is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone."
To resume, it is inherently impossible to communicate the highest (anagogic, paramarthika) Truth otherwise than parabolically by means of symbols (verbal, visual, mythical, ritual, dramatic, etc.) and equally undesirable to attempt to communicate the highest Truth to anyone or everyone, because the unqualified auditor must inevitably, if he thinks he understands, misunderstand; cf. Kena Up. 11.3b, "It is not understood by those who `understand' It; but only by those who do not `understand' It." The point of view is unwelcome to a democratic age of pathetic belief in the efficacy of indiscriminate "education," yet even in such an age it is sufficiently evident to what an extent publicity (French, vulgarisation) involves a distortion of all but the most elementary theoria the theory of relativity, for example, being really "forbidden" to all those who cannot think in the technical terms of higher mathematics.

16. C. G. Jung has indeed attributed the "failure" of Western Orientalism partly to pride and partly to a more or less conscious attitude of aloofness assumed by the .scholar, precisely because "a sympathetic understanding might permit compact with an alien spirit to become a serious experience" (Richard Wilhelm and C. G. lung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, and rev. ed., New York, 1962, p. 81). And indeed, there can be no real knowledge of anything from which one holds aloof and cannot love.

17. This briefly resumes the Thomist definitions. It may be observed that tire proposition Ad Inhere duo reqairanour, s. quod credibilia proponatur, es assensus (Sum Then. v.iii.ii and 22.6.1c) excludes the ridiculous interpretation credo quia incredibilis. On the other hand, it may be remarked that the euhemeristic interpretations of metaphysical texts, suggested by most modern exegetes, are literally credible." The fact is that a majority of modern exegetes (rave approached their task from the .standpoint of the anthropologist rather than that of the metaphysician; in which connection the story related by Eusebius and quoted by H. G. Raulinson in "India and Greece: A Note;" Indian Acts said Lacers, X (1936) is very pertinent: "Arisroxenus the musician tells the following story about the Indians. One of these men met Socrates at Athens, and asked him what was the scope of his philosophy. 'An enquiry into human phenomena; replied Socrates. At this the Indian burst out laughing. How can a man enquire into human phenomena; he exclaimed, 'when he is ignorant of divine ones ?"

18. It will hardly be out of place to remind the philologist or anthropologist who undertakes to explain a myth or traditional text that it has long been the recognized method of exegesis to assume that at least four valid meanings a involved in any scriptural text, according to the level of reference considered; the possible levels being, respectively, the literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogic. If the four levels be reduced to two by treating tire three last as collectively "spiriurap" meanings, the consequent "literal and spiritual" correspond to Skr. Pratyaksam and parokpoaa or adhynman and adhidevetam: the "anagogic" or highest spiritual .significance
responding to Skr. paramarthika. The student, evidently, who deliberately restricts himself to die lowest and most obvious (naturalistic and historical) level of reference cannot expect to achieve a great exegetic success; be may, indeed, succeed in depicting the myth as he sees it "objectively"  i.e., as something into which he cannot enter, but can only look at. But in thus describing a myth according to what is, strictly speaking, his "accidental" knowledge of it, he is really discussing only its "actual shape" and leaving altogether out of account its "essential form."

19 Quotations in this and the preceding sentence are from the published works of two of the most distinguished Sanskritists.