' "Behold! He is the male, the female and the neuter."!

Tiruvachakam.

" Sivam santam, advaitam chaturtham manyante .

Ramatapini Upanishat.

Very often it happens, we have to write upon the same subject over and over again, and nobody need wonder why this should be so. We eat the same kind of rice and dish of vegetables, over and over again, day after day, from the year's end to the year's end, and yet, we never ask why this should be so. The answer is plain that this is the best and safest and most wholesome food we require, every day of our life, for its sustenance and nurture and growth. What applies to the body applies to the mind as well. The mind requires also some wholesome and safe and healthy pabulum for it to feed upon, also, every day, nay, every hour; and you can starve the mind, as well as over-feed it; and you may feed it on unwholesome and unhealthy food; and these are irregularities which we should avoid, as we should avoid irregularities in diet. Wholesome food, however often we may repeat, ought not to tire any body. And this is necessary for another reason also. Man is circumstanced more or less by his environment; all sorts of influences are brought to bear on him; and these create doubts and misgivings even in the most well-regulated minds; and the mind vacillates from one extreme to the other. It is therefore good that the mind is made to face the same truth, ever and anon.

And then, indeed, our memory is so weak, we forget what we learnt only yesterday; and what fails to strike our imagination at ii one time may attract it another time. Besides, errors and fallacies are repeated day after day, and it becomes necessary to repeat what we regard as truths as often. As such, we make no further apology for going fully into a subject which we touched upon in our review of "the Minor Upanishats," in our introduction to the Kaivalya Upanishat, and in our article on the "Personality of God". Very often, a controversy is carried on by means of names and words, and the whole fallacy lies in the different parties to the controversy, understanding the word in as many different ways. We have seen how European writers differed in defining the word "Personal" and "Impersonal"; and we have accepted the word "Personal" free from all implication of limitation or anthropomorphism and in the manner defined by Emerson, Lotze, Dr. Iverach etc. We have also noted the different ways of interpreting the word

Saguna and Nirguna. One calls God Saguna, and interprets Nirguna in undoubted and authoritative passages as meaning merely "devoid of bad qualities". And in this sense Saguna must mean full of bad qualities; and yet this one will only call his God Saguna and not Nirguna; and he exhibits a clear prejudice against the word "Nirguna," thus clearly making out that his interpretation is, after all, only a doubtful expedient at avoiding an inconvenient corner. We have, however, referred to its technical and original and philosophic acceptation, in that Guna means the Guna tattva which is the - name and characteristic of Mulaprakriti; and this Guna comprises, the three Gunas, Sattva, and Rajas and Tamas; Saguna accordingly means clothed with Sattva and Rajas and Tamas, gross material qualities, and Nirguna means freedom from these three qualities or gross material veilings; and the definition of God as Nirguna, and not as Saguna, does not therefore conflict with the literal and consistent acceptation of the two words, or our idea of God's Supreme Nature. By the way, an additional proof that our interpretation is correct is furnished by the fact that the Saguna Philosopher actually clothes his God with Sattva-Guna. Comparisons are generally odious, but where principles are at stake they cannot be avoided altogether; and we merely invite our readers' attention to the two descriptions of God-head, given in the appendix to Dr. Muir's "Metrical Translations from Sanskrit writers", which are respectively summarised from the Svetasvatara Upanishat and Uttara-Ramayana. You may omit the names, for they are accidents, due to our ancient religious history, and you may give the bare descriptions to our artist; and we have no doubt he will draw two totally different pictures.

No doubt, we admit their Saguna conception of God, and as for that, any bhavana of God serves the purpose of the aspirant after a higher path to a great extent, on the well-known principle laid down by St. Meykandan, "Choose the form which attracts your love most." But as we have pointed out already, we do not remember at times that this is only a form, a symbol and not the truth itself, that truth is beyond one's ordinary ken

and that yet this vision is possible

when leaving our feeling of 'I' and 'Mine', destroying and annihilating our Pasu and Pasa natureand assisted by His Supreme Grace we reach the place of peace, Nirvana (Literally non-flowing-as-air)

What we, therefore, here wish to lay down and impress upon our readers, is that, whatever names we may use,