Bondage: self-veiling māyā, the six sheaths, and the unfolding of the psycho-cosmic categories

PS_15

That supreme autonomy of the Great Lord, which accomplishes what is [otherwise] impossible — this is the Goddess, the māyā (the Lord's self-veiling power of differentiation)-power (māyāśakti), Śiva's self-veiling of His own Self.

PS_16

Through taking on māyā, consciousness becomes sullied, and the [free] Person becomes a bound soul (paśu (the bound/fettered soul ('beast'))), fettered by the force of Time (kāla), [limited] agency (kalā), and Necessity (niyati), and through Attachment (rāga) and [limited] Knowledge (vidyā).

PS_17

'Only now,' 'only some little [I can do],' 'only this,' 'this alone I know completely' — this sixfold kañcuka (the limiting 'sheaths' (kalā, vidyā, rāga, kāla, niyati)) together with māyā is declared to be the inner [constitution] of the atomic [bound] self (aṇu).

PS_18

Like the husk lodged upon the grain of rice — [seeming] separate, yet [united with it] without [real] separation — that [bondage], however, attains purification by turning eagerly toward the path of Śiva.

PS_19

Prakṛti is the mere [equilibrium of] pleasure, pain, and delusion; then comes the inner organ (antaḥkaraṇa) — in order: intellect (buddhi, the faculty of determination), mind (manas, of conceiving), and ego (ahaṃkāra, of self-appropriation).

PS_20

Ear, skin, eye, tongue, and nose are the organs of knowledge [operating] upon sound and the rest; and again, voice, hand, foot, anus, and genitals are the organs of action.

PS_21

The object grasped by these [organs of knowledge], which is subtle and devoid of [gross] differentiation, is the fivefold tanmātra (the five subtle elements (sound, touch, etc.)): sound, touch, form [sight], taste, and smell.

PS_22

Through the combination of these [subtle elements], the gross object comes to be the fivefold set of [gross] elements: ether, air, fire, water, and earth.

PS_23

As the husk envelops the kernel of rice, so this creation, beginning with Prakṛti and ending in Earth, envelops consciousness (caitanya) in the form of 'the body.'

PS_24

Here the highest [innermost] covering is the impurity (mala); the subtle [covering] is the sheath beginning with māyā (kañcuka (the limiting 'sheaths')); the gross, outer [covering] is the bodily form. Thus the Self is wrapped in a threefold husk (kośa).