A History of Indian Philosophy v2.c19.s1.4

v2.c19.s1.4

This *manas*, however, by whose mental creations everything springs forth in appearance, has no proper form, it is merely a name, mere nothingness³. It does not exist outside or subjectively inside us; it is like the vacuity surrounding us everywhere. That anything has come out of it is merely like the production of a mirage stream. All characteristics of forms and existence are like momentary imaginations. Whatever appears and seems to have existence is nothing but *manas*, though this *manas* itself is merely a hypothetical starting-point, having no actual reality. For the *manas* is not different from the dreams of appearance and cannot be separated from them, just as one cannot separate liquidity from water or movement from air. *Manas* is thus nothing but the hypothetical entity from which all the dreams of appearance proceed, though these dreams and *manas* are merely the same and