e
body, even so the embodied Soul is very closely connected with the body
that confines it. The different kinds of juices, passing through the
network of arteries, nourish men's wind and bile and phlegm, blood and
skin and flesh, intestines and bones and marrow, and the whole body. Know
that there are ten principal ducts. These assist the functions of the
five senses. From those ten branch out thousands of other ducts that are
minuter in form. Like rivers filling the ocean at the proper season, all
these ducts, containing juices nourish the body. Leading to the heart
there is a duct called Manovaha. It draws from every part of the human
body the vital seed which is born of desire. Numerous other ducts
branching out from that principal one extend into every part of the body
and bearing the element of heat cause the sense of vision (and the rest).
As the butter that lies within milk is churned up by churning rods, even
so the desires that are generated in the mind (by the sight or thought of
women) draw together the vital seed that lies within the body. In the
midst of even our dreams passion having birth in imagination assails the
mind, with the result that the duct already named, viz., Manovaha, throws
out the vital seed born of desire. The great and divine Rishi Atri is
well-conversant with the subject of the generation of the vital seed. The
juices that are yielded by food, the duct called Manovaha, and the desire
that is born of imagination,--these three are the causes that originate
the vital seed which has Indra for its presiding deity. The passion that
aids in the emission of this fluid is, therefore, called Indriya. Those
persons who know that the course of vital seed is the cause of (that
sinful state of things called) intermixture of castes, are men of
restrained passions. Their sins are regarded to have been burnt off, and
they are never subjected to rebirth. He that betakes himself to action
simply for the purposes of sustaining his body, reducing with the aid of
the mind the (three) attributes (of Goodness, Passion, and Darkness) into
a state of uniformity, and brings at his last moments the vital breaths
to the duct called Manovaha, escapes the obligation of rebirth.[751] The
Mind is sure to gain Knowledge. It is the Mind that takes the form of all
things. The minds of all high-souled persons, attaining to success
through meditation, become freed from desire, eternal, and luminous.[752]
Therefore, for destroy