SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

"
favourite and hackneyed
THE ANALOGIES IN THE G1TA. 163
similes of this school, and whether the
similes actually have any bearing on the special tenets of this
school.
The first simile in the book occurs in chapter ii., 13.
"Just
as in this body, childhood and youth and old age
appertain to the embodied man, so also does it
acquire another
body.
y This is a popular enough simile, and its meaning is plain
but it cannot be construed as is done by Sarikara, that the soul
undergoes no change or is not affected by the change of avastas
or change of bodies for it cannot be contended that the intelli
;
gence of Sankara is in the same embryonic stage as that of a
new born babe, and the denial of this would also militate
against all our ideas of evolutionary progress and the necessity
for undergoing many births. In the previous verse, Sri
Krishna postulated the existence of many souls, by asserting,
neither did I not exist, nor thou, nor these rulers of men, and
no one of us will ever hereafter cease to exist;
"and he
reiterates the same fact, in chapter iv, 5, where he alludes to
his own former births, which fact is also mentioned by Sri
Krishna himself again in the AnuSasana Parva and stated
by Vyasa in the Yuddha Parva. By I and thou and
,
these ,
he clearly does not refer to their bodies as Sankara
interprets. The next figure occurs in verse 22 of the same
chapter, "just
as a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts
on others which are new, so the soul casts off worn-out
bodies and enters which are new." Similar instances are that
of the serpent throwing off its skin, the mind passing from the
conscious into the dream condition, and the Yogi into another
body, which are given by Saint Meykandan. The next one
occurs in verse 58, where the Sage withdrawing his senses from
the objects of sense, is compared to the tortoise withdrawing its
limbs, at the approach of anybody.
Tiruixi rutpayan.
The same simile occurs in
In chapter iii., only one illustration occurs, and this in verse