The Serpent Power — Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe) (1924)

subtle body by previous experience, which is recalled when the Jiva reawakes to world experience and recollects the experience temporarily lost in the cosmic dreamless state (Sushupti) which is dissolution (Mahā- pralaya). What is it which arouses this Sangskāra? As an effect (Kārya) it must have a cause (Kārana). This Kārana is the Shabda or name (Nāma), subtle or gross, corresponding to that particular Artha. When the word “Ghata” is uttered this evokes in the mind the image of an object—a jar—just as the presentation of that object does. In the Hiranyagarbha state Shabda as Sangskāra worked to evoke mental images. The whole world is thus Shabda and Artha—that is, name and form (Nāmarūpa). These two are inseparably 2associated. There is no Shabda without Artha or Artha without Shabda. The Greek word Logos also means thought and word combined. There is thus a double line of creation, Shabda and Artha, ideas and language together with their objects. Speech, as that which is heard, or the outer manifestation of Shabda, stands for the Shabda creation. The Artha creation are the inner and outer objects seen by the mental or physical vision. From the cosmic creative standpoint the mind comes first, and from it is evolved the physical world according to the ripened Sangskāras, which led to the existence of the particular existing universe. Therefore the mental Artha precedes the physical Artha, which is an evolution in gross matter of the former. This mental state corresponds to that of dreams (Svapna) when man lives in the mental world only. After creation, which is the waking (Jāgrat) state, there is for the individual an already existing parallelism of names and objects.

Uttered speech is a manifestation of the inner naming or thought. This thought-movement is similar in men of all races. When an Englishman or an Indian thinks of an 3object, the image is to both the same, whether evoked by the object itself or by the utterance of its name. Perhaps for this reason a thought-reader whose cerebral centre is en rapport with that of another may read the hidden “speech”—that is, the thought of one whose spoken speech he cannot understand. Thus, whilst the thoughtmovement is similar in all men, the expression of it as Vaikharī Shabda differs. According to tradition, there was once a universal language. According to the Biblical account, this was so before the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. Similarly in the Rigveda a mysterious passage¹ speaks of the “three fathers and three mothers” by whose action, like that of the Elohim, “all-comprehending speech” was made into that which was not so. Nor is this unlikely when we consider that difference in gross speech is due to difference of races evolved in the course of time. If the instruments by, and conditions under, which thought is revealed in speech were the same for all men, then there would be but one language. But now this is not so. Racial characteristics and physical conditions, such as the nature of the vocal organs, climate, inherited impressions, and so forth, differ. Therefore, so also does language. But for each particular man speaking any particular language the uttered name of any object is the gross expression of his inner thoughtmovement. It evokes that movement and again expresses it. It evokes the idea, and the idea is consciousness as mental operation. That operation can be so intensified as to be itself creative. This is Mantra-chaitanya.

From the above account it will be understood that, when it is said that the “letters” are in the six bodily