The higher orders of Pralayakalas and Vijnanakalas are all Nirguna Beings, and they can never be born again as mortals or human beings.

The Sankhyas and Hindu Idealists postulate Mulaprakriti and the twenty-four tattvas derived therefrom, and for a twenty-fifth they postulate Jiva (souls) or Atman. When the Atman (Brahm) otherwise Nirguna, becomes clothed with a Saguna body, it becomes a lower Brahm or Jiva, but when the question is asked how this is possible, some answer honestly that they do not know, and others practice jugglery with words and phrases, and say that there is no such occurrence as the Nirguna Brahm becoming a Jiva, and that if it appears so, it is all a delusion. But the other side argue that if this is not a delusion, but that there is a Jiva clothed in darkness, and if the other side would not postulate any being other than the Being who falsely appeared as jiva, then the Atma they believe in, cannot be the highest, but only one of the lower Jivas; and the same mistaken identity is here manifest as in the positions of those who took matter or mind (Buddhi) or Indra or Brahma, Vishnu or Rudra as the Highest Being. Before we pass on, we have to notice one class of Suguna-Vadins, who would not admit that God is Nirguna at all, and who seek to explain away all texts which refer to God as a Nirguna Being by saying that Nirguna simply means absence of bad qualities, and Saguna, presence of good qualites, Sattva; and when one is confronted with a text of the Gita itself, one's highest authority, that God is devoid of all the three Gunas, he does not pause to take the plunge, that absence of the three Gunas does not negative the presence of the Sattva-Guna! There is a whole-sale misreading of the texts, and all this quibbling is made necessary, simply because they would not brook the idea that the Saguna Being in whose worship they have become such strong adherents, should turn out after all to be not the Highest. Next above the Sa-kalas (Jivas) come the Pralaya-kalas who have a special body (Nirguna) formed out the tattvas No. 26 to No. 30, and it is so distinctive in kind and form and powers that it has been regarded as a separate tattva almost, called Purusha-tattva or Atma-tattva. This will make clear, passages which assert that Avyakta (unmanifested

Prakriti) is greater than Atman and God, is greater than Avyakta. Here Atman does not mean soul, but this special Purusha-tattva. (What this comparative greatness and small-ness mean we have explained in our article on 'An Another Side' in explaining the meaning of Omnipresence, Vibhutva). All that constitutes, this Purusha-tattva, it will be noticed, proceed from Asuddha-Maya, and Asuddha-Maya itself is constituted as the thirty-first tattva. Mulaprakriti issues from the thirtieth, Kala. The next five, the highest tattvas, constitute a different body, highly spiritual, for the highest order of souls, called Vijnanakalas, and they proceed from Suddha-Maya. The foremost in rank among these Vijnanakalas become Lords, Isvaras of the Universe, and they are variously called Mahesvaras, Sadasivas, Bindu and Nada. These two latter are so nearest God and so potent in their powers that they are almost called Siva and Sakti. And yet all these seven Isvaras, three of which are Sagunas (Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra) and four Nirguna (Mahesvara-Brahm, SadaSiva-Brahm, Bindu-Brahm and Nada-Brahm) are all souls united to ASuddha- and Suddha-Maya bodies; and in the Vedas and Upanishats, all these Saguna and Nirguna Gods, are spoken of as the Highest God, and special Upanishats are devoted to the praise of one or other of these Gods. And great confusion arises from the fact that from Rudra (one of the Trinity) upwards, all the different lsvaras are called by all the names of the most High, Rudra, Siva, Sankara, Sambhu, Bhava, Sarva, Pasupati etc.

The reason for this identity in form and name appears to be that these Isvaras are in a sense immortal, and are not subject to human re-births as Sa-kalas, and that there are no possibilities of reversions among them, and they make a much greater approach to the Majesty of the most High, than other lower Beings. The four Avasthas - Jagra, Svapna, Sushupti and Turiya are all the conditions attaching to the human soul (Sa-kala), and not to the Pralayakala and Vijnanakala. These latter classes of souls are not themselves subject to these Avasthas, which mark the varying and diminishing conditions of the soul's intellectuality. To class God, the Param, as being in the Turiya-avastha condition* is sheer blasphemy. The Siddhantin argues that the Being postulated by the Purva-pakshin, if He is really in the Turiya-avastha cannot be the Highest, and that the latter is only mistaking a lower Being for the Highest. But the term Turiya or Chaturtha is frequently applied to the Supreme, as in the Text 'Sivam, Advaitam, Santam, Chaturtham' but it does not refer there to the avastha at all, but to the enumeration of the Paddrthas, (things or person), in special reference to the Trinity, (Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra). This essential difference and distinction between the Trinity and the 'Fourth' Being, is so much obliterated by the rise of new sects, from time to time, and is so little remembered and understood † now, and much less by European writers, that this has been the cause of a lot of unmerited abuse from the hands of unfriendly critics of Hinduism. In the last number of the Christian College Magazine, in noticing the life and writings of the Telugu Poet Vemana, the writer points out that God is there described as beyond the reach of the Trimurtis, Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra themselves, and that Vemana describes the Highest by such terms as Deva, Paramatma, Brahm and few others, and that he uses the term Siva to denote the Highest also, and he fails to understand how this can possibly be, when, to-day, the term 'Narayana or Vishnu ' is used in the whole of the Telugu country, as the appellation of the most High, and he suggests a probable explanation that it might be due to Lingayit influence.

But in the days of the Author of the Atharvasikha Upanishat and the Mahimnastotra, not to mention many others, which we have quoted at p. 36, no Lingayit sect had come into being, and yet their belief is exactly similar to that of Vemana. The brief survey we have taken of the tattvas will show what great force and real meaning there is, in the texts we have quoted at the head of our article. The enquirer as he proceeds from the knowledge of the visible to that of invisible powers in Nature and in man, and ascends to higher and higher knowledge, rejects the lower knowledge as 'not this', 'not this', and transcending the manifested and un-manifested avyakta (both Maya and Atma), knows "The one God, in every Bhuta hid, pervading all, the inner Atma of every atma, Inspector of all deeds, in Whom everything dwells (the Support), the Witness, Pure Intelligence, and Nirguna Being,"*

* Vide table at p. 7 in "Theosophy of the Vedas" Vol. I. † Those who understand it are unwilling to speak it out for fear of offending the feelings of other religious sects.

"Him, the Isvara of Isvaras, the Mahesvara, the God Supreme of Gods, the King of Kings, the Supreme of the Supreme, the Isa of the Universe."

"The eternal of eternals, the Intelligence of every intelligence, who, the One, of many, the desires dispenses. Knowing that cause, the God to be approached by Sankhya and Yoga etc., † and 'Him having adored,' the 'Mortal from all Pasa (bonds) is free ‡

We have referred to Saguna and Nirguna Beings, and these are often translated as personal and impersonal Beings, but the renderings are not perfectly accurate, and the usage of all these four terms are frequently very loose, and we hope to devote a separate paper for the definition and distinction of these terms.

[* Svetas. Up. VI. II. † Svetas. Up. VI. 7. ‡ Svetas. Up. VI. 13.]