xxii श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता गोतार्थं संग्रहोपेता poet, grammarian Ag. is responding to (not actually commenting on) the BG, or just echoing the BG from his ideal life of Saivism, III Let us now try to understand briefly what prin- ciples of Kashmir Saivism Ag. finds in the BG. The Atman, the Self, is beginningless, endless and changeless eventhough the corporeal body is born, changes, decays and dies. It is totally identi- cal with the Paramātman, the Supreme Soul, Parama- siva, who is none but Samvid, the Pure Conscious - ness which is Jñanakriyamaya (i.e. of knowledge and action). Considering its pervasiveness limited by the body-sense-mind-equipment, it is ealled Atman, the Self, the Soul; and considering its unlimited pervasiveness, it is called Universal Soul, known by the terms Brahman, Paramātman, Pară Samvid, Vasudeva, Parasiva etc. The ignorant find difference between Atman and the Paramātman while the men of vision view them identical.5 1. Ch. II, 16-26 etc. 2. The word Samvid is difficult to translate and so also is the word vimarsa we will be speaking of next. Hence the sugge- sted renderings are but tentative. 3. I.e. Prakāśa-Vimarśamaya (the act of self-illuminating and the act of self-awareness). 4. Cf. the cases of the Ghatakaśa 'space limited by the pot', Mathakaśa 'space limited by the building' and Mahakaśa 'the unlimited space'. 5. Ch. IV, 34-35; XIII, 1-2.
