[1106] Patience, reasoning or disputation, remembrance,
forgetfulness or error, imagination, endurance, propensity towards good,
propensity towards evil, and restlessness,--these are the properties of
the mind. Destruction of both good and evil thoughts (i.e., dreamless
slumber), perseverance, concentration, decision, and ascertainment of all
things resting upon direct evidence, constitute the five properties of
the understanding.'
"Yudhishthira said, 'How can the understanding be said to have five
properties? How again, can the five senses be spoken of as properties (of
the five elementary entities)? Expound to me, O grandsire, all this that
seems to be very abstruse.'
"Bhishma said, 'The understanding is said to possess altogether sixty
properties, for the understanding includes the five elements.[1107] All
those properties exist in a state of union with the Soul. The Vedas
declare, O son, that the elements, their (fifty) properties (together
with the mind and the understanding and their nine and five properties)
are all created by Him who is above all deterioration. These (one and
seventy) entities, therefore, are not eternal (like the Soul). The
theories contradicting the Revelation that have in the previous Vedas, O
son, been placed before thee (about the origin of the Universe and its
other incidents) are all defective in the eye of reason. Carefully
attending, however, in this world to all that I have said unto thee about
the Supreme Brahma, do thou, after attaining to the puissance that the
knowledge of Brahma offers, seek to win tranquillity of heart.
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