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Cost Benefit Analysis Concepts and Practice 5th Edition Boardman Test Bank

ANSWERS TO EXERCISES (5th Edition)

Cost-Benefit Analysis: Concepts and Practice

By

Boardman, Greenberg, Vining and Weimer

This document contains answers to all of the exercises in our book. If you find an error please
contact: Anthony.Boardman@Sauder.ubc.ca.

For some exercises, the text indicates that an “instructor-provided spreadsheet” is available.
These spreadsheets are in separate Excel files – one file for each exercise.

For many exercises the spreadsheet contains a complete solution. This pertains, for example, to
Ex 9.6 (Chapter 9, exercise 6) and Ex 17.3. For such exercises, the instructor may wish to modify
the spreadsheet before making it available to students, for example, by keeping the raw data but
eliminating other material. Or the instructor may wish to ask a slightly different question. In Ex
17.3, for example, we provide the solution for Australia, Portugal and Brazil in the first sheet and
ask students to obtain solutions for Norway, New Zealand and Croatia. The solutions for these
countries are contained in the second sheet.

For some exercises, there are spreadsheets available that show the calculations behind the
answers in this answer key. Students are not aware that these spreadsheets are available, but
instructors may find them helpful.

Last revision: 22 May 2018

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 2

Chapter 1 Exercises
Introduction to Cost-Benefit Analysis

1. Imagine that you live in a city that currently does not require bicycle riders to wear
helmets. Furthermore, imagine that you enjoy riding your bicycle without wearing a
helmet.
a) From your perspective, what are the major costs and benefits of a proposed city
ordinance that would require all bicycle riders to wear helmets?
b) What are the categories of costs and benefits from society’s perspective?

1.a. The most significant categories of costs to you as an individual are probably: the
purchase price of a helmet, the reduced pleasure of riding your bicycle while wearing a helmet,
diminished appearance when you take the helmet off (bad hair), and the inconvenience of
keeping the helmet available. The most significant categories of benefits are probably: reduced
risk of serious head injury (morbidity) and reduced risk of death (mortality).

1.b. There are a number of categories of costs and benefits that do not affect you (directly
or are insignificant), but which are important in aggregate. These are:
 program enforcement (a cost)
 reduced health care costs (a benefit), (although this may not be as high as one might
expect if bicyclists ride more aggressively because they feel safer; this is called off-
setting behaviour)
 increased pollution, due to cyclists switching to cars (a cost)

A social cost-benefit analysis would take account of these costs and benefits in addition
to your costs.

2. The effects of a tariff on imported kumquats can be divided into the following categories:
tariff revenues received by the treasury ($8 million); increased use of resources to produce
more kumquats domestically ($6 million); the value of reduced consumption by domestic
consumers ($13 million); and increased profits received by domestic kumquat growers ($5
million). A CBA from the national perspective would find costs of the tariff equal to $19
million-the sum of the costs of increased domestic production and forgone domestic
consumption ($6 million + $13 million). The increased profits received by domestic
kumquat growers and the tariff revenues received by the treasury simply reflect higher
prices paid by domestic consumers on the kumquats that they continue to consume and,
hence, count as neither benefits nor costs. Thus, the net benefits of the tariff are negative (-
$19 million). Consequently, the CBA would recommend against adoption of the tariff.
a) Assuming the agriculture department views kumquat growers as its primary
constituency, how would it calculate net benefits if it behaves as if it is a spender?
b) Assuming the treasury department behaves as if it is a guardian, how would it
calculate net benefits if it believes that domestic growers pay profit taxes at an
average rate of 20 percent?

2.a. If the agriculture department behaved as if it were a "spender," then the benefits
would probably be:
 3

 $5 million domestic grower profits (“constituents”)

 $8 million tariff revenue (income from foreigners)
Total benefits: $13 million
Costs would be $13 million (reduced consumption)
Net benefits: $0 million.

A spender might treat the additional resources devoted to domestic kumquat production
($6 million) as a cost (if the resources go to non-constituents) or as a benefit (if the recipients are
their constituents, such as labour). Either would be okay. However, the description of the
question implies that the growers are the primary constituents, thus we would lean towards the
view that a spender would not treat the $6 million as a benefit.

If the agriculture department behaved as if it were a "spender," then it might consider the
increased prices paid by domestic consumers as a cost. However, again we would argue that the
growers are the primary constituency and, therefore, a spender would probably ignore the
increased prices paid by domestic consumers. For this reason, a “spender” might also ignore the
$13 million loss in consumption benefits.

2.b. If the treasury department behaved as if it were a "guardian," then it would count
only the costs and benefits accruing to the government. If so, benefits would equal $9 million ($8
million in tariff revenue and $1 million = 20% x $5 million in profits tax) and costs would be
zero, so that net benefits would equal $9 million.

3. (Spreadsheet recommended) Your municipality is considering building a public

swimming pool. Analysts have estimated the present values of the following effects over the
expected useful life of the pool:

PV
(million dollars)
National Government grant: 2.2
Construction and maintenance costs: 12.5
Personnel costs: 8.2
Revenue from municipal residents: 8.6
Revenue from non-residents: 2.2
Use value benefit to municipal residents: 16.6
Use value benefit to non-residents: 3.1
Scrap value: 0.8

The national government grant is only available for this purpose. Also, the
construction and maintenance will have to be done by a non-municipal firm.

a) Assuming national-level standing, what is the net social benefit of the project?
b) Assuming municipal-level standing, what is the net social benefit of the project?
c) How would a guardian in the municipal budget office calculate the net benefit?
d) How would a spender in the municipal recreation department calculate the net
benefit?
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 CHAPTER CLXXVI.
B G .A B
M S .
Argument:—The world resembling a dream and an atom
of the Divine mind, and Brahmá’s account of it.

R ÁMA rejoined:—There <are> innumerable worlds in the universe,

many of which have gone before, many are in existence, and many
as yet to be; how then is it sir, that you persuade me to the belief of their
nullity.
2. Vasishtha replied:—you well know, Ráma, the relation which the
world bears to a dream, in that they both mean a passing scene; and this
sense of it, can be denied by no one of this audience.
3. The words which are spoken by the wise, who know their
application and sense; are neither understood nor received in the hearts
of common people, though they are in common use.
4. When you will come to know the knowledge <of> One, then you
will discern the three times clearly and behold them as present before
you.
5. As it is the intellect alone, that displays itself in the form of the
world in our dream; so doth the Divine Intellect also, exhibit the worlds
in itself, in the beginning of creation; and there is no other cause of their
production.
6. Hence there are innumerable worlds, revolving like atoms in the
infinite space of air; and there is no one who can count their number, and
descry their modes and natures.
7. It was of old that my venerable sire—the lotus-born Brahmá, and
all besmeared with the fragrant dust of that flower, has delivered a
discourse on this subject, which I will now relate unto you.
8. It was of old that my sire Brahmá, told me about the number of
worlds, and their respective situations in the heavens, whence they thus
appear unto us. To this he said (as follows).
 9. Brahmá said:—O sage, all this is Brahma, that is manifested as the
world; it is infinite entity of the Deity in its abstract essence; but viewed
in the concrete, the world is a nonentity.
10. Attend to this narration of mine, which is as felicitous to the soul,
as it is pleasant to the ear; it is called the narrative of <the> mundane
egg, or of the mundane body or mass.
11. There is in the infinite vacuum, a vacuous substance known as
the vacuity of the Intellect, in the form of a minute atom only. (Such as
the grain of the mind is, in the hollow cerebrum of the head).
12. It saw as in a dream in itself, of its being as the living soul,
resembling the oscillation of the wind in empty air. (The living principle
or spirit, is a breath of air).
13. The Lord thus became the living being, with forsaking its
vacuous form; and thought itself to become the ego, in its aeriform form.
14. He had then his egoism, and egoistic sense in himself; and this
was the knowledge of himself as an unit, which is an act of delusion
only.
15. Then he thought himself, as changed to the conditions of the
understanding, mind and ego, as in his dream; and was inclined of his
own option, to impose mutability upon his immutable nature.
16. He then saw in his mind as if in dream, the five senses attached to
his body; these are as formless as the appearance of a mountain in dream,
which the ignorant are apt to take as a solid body. (The five formless
faculties of sense, are thought to be composed of the five organs of sense
by the gross corporealist).
17. Then he beheld in the atom of his intellect, that his mental body
(or his mind), was comprised of the three worlds; in their aerial or
abstract forms, apparent to view, but without their substance or solidity
or any basis at all. (This is the mental form of Virát—cosmos).
18. This stupendous form was composed of all beings, whether of the
moving or unmoving kinds.
19. He beheld all things comprised in himself, as they are seen in
dream or reflected in a mirror; and the triple world appeared in his
person, as the picture of a city newly printed on a plate.
 20. He saw the three worlds in his heart, as they are seen in a looking
glass; together with all things contained therein, in their vivid colours of
many kinds (viz. the view, viewer and the act of viewing;—the doer,
deed and the action of doing;—the enjoyer, enjoying and the enjoyment).
21. He observed minuter atoms subsisting within the minute atoms;
and stupendous worlds also on high, clustering together in groups and
rings.
22. These being seen in ignorance of their natures; appear as gross
material bodies; but viewed in the clear light of their essence, they prove
to be the display of the divine mind only.
23. Thus the viewer who views the world, in the light of Brahma,
finds this view of it, as a vision in this dream; and comes to know that
there is no real viewer to view of it, nor any cause thereof nor any duality
whatsoever.
24. All these that appear all around us, are quite quiescent in their
nature, and in the Divine spirit alone as their main substratum; they are
all situated in the universal soul from eternity to eternity.
25. Myriads of worlds that are situated in the Divine spirit, appear to
be settled without the same; just as the waves of the sea, rise above its
waters and scatter its salt spray in the air.
 CHAPTER CLXXVII.
B -G . D .
Argument:—The fallacy of assigning a cause to the
causeless world; which is likened to a dream of the Divine
Mind.

R ÁMA rejoined:—If the world is without a cause, and proceeds of

itself from the essence of Brahma, as our dreams, thoughts and
imaginations, proceed of themselves from the nature of our minds.
2. And if it be possible for anything to proceed from no cause, then
tell me sir, why we can never have anything without its proper causes.
(Such as the production of paddy without its cultivation).
3. Vasishtha replied:—Ráma, I am not speaking of common practice
of men, for the production of anything by application of its proper
causalities; but of the creation of the world, which is not in need of the
atomic principle and material elements, as it is maintained by atomist.
(Text). (Whatever invention is adopted by any one, in order to produce a
certain end, is never effected without the application of its proper means
and appliances).
4. In whatever light this visible world is imagined by anybody, he
views it in the same light; while another sees it in a different manner,
according to his own imagination of it.
5. There are some who imagine it as the diffusion of the Divine soul,
and think it as one with the nature of the Deity; while others think it as
the living body of Virát, with the insensible parts of it, resembling the
hairs and nails growing upon his body.
6. The meanings of the words causality and not causality do both of
them belong to the deity; because the Lord being almighty, has the power
to be either the one or other as he likes.
7. If there be anything whatever, which is supposed to be beside
Brahma in its essence; it is then reasonable to suppose him as the cause
of the same, which could not otherwise come to existence.
 8. But when all things, that appear so different from one another, are
all of them without their beginning or end or co-eternal with the Eternal
One. Then say, which of these can be the cause of the other. (Hence the
world is one with the lord and has no cause of it).
9. Here nothing comes to exist or desist at any time; but are all
eternally existent in the self-existent One; as one and the same with his
vacuous self.
10. What is the cause of anything, and to what purpose should any be
caused at any time; the Lord expects nothing from his creatures, and
therefore their creation is equal to their not being created at all.
11. Here there is no vacuum or plenum, nor any entity nor non-entity
either, nor any thing between them; as there is nothing predicable of the
infinite vacuity of Brahma (as either this or that).
12. Whatever is is, and what not may not be; but all is Brahma only,
whether what is or is not (i.e. what is past or gone or yet to be, i.e. all
what is present, past or to be in future).
13. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, how the Divine spirit is not the
cause of all, when it is believed to be the sole cause, by all who are
ignorant of its quiescent nature (as you maintain).
14. Vasishtha replied:—There is no one ignorant of God, since every
one has an innate conviction of the Divinity as the consciousness of
himself; and whoso knows the vacuous entity of the Deity, knows also
that this nature admits of no scrutiny or discussion.
15. Those who have the knowledge of the unity of God, and his
nature of quiescence and as full of intelligence; know also, his
unknowable nature is beyond all scrutiny.
16. Ignorance of God, abides in the knowledge of God (because one
acknowledges the existence of God, when he says he is ignorant of his
nature); and this is as our dreaming is included under the state of
sleeping. (Gloss. Philosophers dream many false ungodly theories of
causation, while they are sleeping in the quiescent spirit of God.)
17. It is for the instruction of the ignorant, concerning the
omnipresence of God, that I say, He is the soul of all or as all in all;
while in reality his holy spirit is perfectly pure and undecaying.
18. All existences are thought either as caused or uncaused,
according to the view that different understandings entertain respecting
them. (But neither of these views, refutes the doctrine of the unity of the
Deity. Gloss.)
19. Those that have the right conception of things (as manifestations
of the unity in different forms); have no cause to assign any cause to
them whatever (as the atomic principles or elements): therefore the
creation is without any cause whatever.
20. Therefore the assigning of a cause to this creation, either as
matter—prakriti or spirit—purusha, by undermining one’s self-
consciousness of Divine pervasion; is mere verbiage of sophists for their
own confusion only.
21. In absence of any other cause of creation (save that of our
consciousness of it), it is naught beside an appearance in our dream; and
there is nothing as the gross material form or its visible appearance
whatsoever.
22. Say what cause can the ignorant assign, to their sight of the land
in their dream, than to the nature of the Intellect, which exhibits such
phenomena to minds. Say if there can be any other meaning of dreams.
23. Those who are unacquainted with the nature of dreams, are
deluded to believe them as realities; but those that are acquainted with
their falsehood, are not misled to believe them or this world as real ones.
24. It is the impudence of fools to broach any hypothesis of causality,
either by their supposition, arrogance or in the heat of their debate (as it
is the case with all the different schools of philosophy).
25. Is the heat of fire, the coldness of water, and the light of luminous
bodies, and the natures of things their respective causes, as the ignorant
suppose them to be? (Or is it the attribute of Brahma that is so
manifested in these their several causes? The entity of Divine unity, is
the prime sole cause of causes).
26. There be hundreds of speculative theorists, that assign as many
causes to creation without agreeing in any; let them but tell the cause of
the aerial castle of their imagination.
27. The virtues and vices of men are formless things, and are
attended with their fruitions on the spiritual body in the next world; how
can they be causes of our corporeal bodies in this world. (As it is
maintained by Mímámsá philosophers).
 28. How can our finite and shapeless knowledge of things, be the
cause of the incessant rise and fall, of endless, and minute bodies in the
world, as it is maintained by vijnána váda or gnostic school. (These
assert the existence of things depends upon our knowledge or perception
of them as such).
29. It is nature says the naturalist, which is the cause of all events but
as nothing result from the nature of anything, without its combination
with another; it is too indeterminate in its sense.
30. Therefore all things appear as causeless illusions to the ignorant,
and their true cause to be a mystery to them; while they are known to the
intelligent as the wondrous display of the Divine Intellect, that shows
everything in itself.
31. As one knowing the falsehood of dreams, is never sorry at his
loss of anything in dream; so those that have the knowledge of truth in
them, never feel any sorrow even at the possession or separation of their
lives.
32. In the beginning there was no production of the visible world, nor
is it anything more than the vacuum of the intellect; in its own and true
form it appears as a dream, and is no other than that in its essence.
33. There is no other supposition, which is more apposite to it: than
its resemblance to the dream; and our conception of the world, has the
great Brahma only for its ground work.
34. As fluidity, waves and whirlpools, are the inherent properties of
pure water; such are the revolutions of worlds, but appearances on the
surface of the Divine Mind, and have the Divine spirit of Brahma at their
bottom.
35. As velocity and ventilation, are inborn in the nature of pure air;
the creation and preservation of the world, are ingrained and intrinsical
in the nature of God.
36. As infinity and vacuity are the inherent properties of the Great
vacuum, so is the knowledge of all things existent and non-existent, and
of creation and annihilation immanent in the Divine Mind.
37. All things in existence and lying dormant in the Divine Mind, are
yet perceptible to us, because we participate of the very same mind.
38. This creation and its destruction also, both abide side by side in
the dense intellect of the Divine Soul; as the thickening dreams and
sound sleep, both reside together in the calm sleeping state of our soul.
39. As a man passes from one dream to another, in the same dormant
state of his soul; so doth the supreme soul see the succession of
creations, taking place alternately in its own essence.
40. The clear atmosphere of Divine Soul, which is devoid of earthy
and other material substances; yet appears in their utter absence, to be
possessed of them all, in the same manner as the human soul, sees many
things in its dream, without having any of those things in itself.
41. As the human mind sees at a thought the forms of a pot, or
painting rising before it; so the all seeing mind of God, sees at a glance
of its thought, worlds upon worlds appearing at once in its presence.
42. The all seeing soul, sees all things as they are in itself; and finds
them to be of the same intellectual nature with its own intellect; and as
all things are equivalent to the words expressive of them. (As there is a
mutual correspondence between the significant words and their
significates).
43. Of what use then are sástras, and of what good is the reasoning
upon their verbiage, when our inappetency is the best way to felicity; and
there being no creation without its cause, we have nothing to do with
what appears but seemingly so.
44. It being proved, that the want of want is our best bliss below; the
sensation of want or desire, must be the source of perpetual misery to
man; and though our desires are many, yet the feeling of it is one and the
same, and betrays the prurient mind, as the various dreams by night,
disclose the cupidinous nature of the soul.
 CHAPTER CLXXVIII.
B -G . N A .
Argument:—The formlessness of the world, for its
formation from the formless mind.

R ÁMA rejoined:—The world is known to consist of two sorts of

beings, namely the corporeal or solid substances and the incorporeal
or subtile essences.
2. They are styled the subtile ones, which do not strike against one
another; and those again are said to be solid things, which push and dash
against each other.
3. Here we see always the dashing of one solid body against another;
but know nothing of the movement of subtile bodies, or of their coming
in contact with another.
4. We know yet something, about the quick motion of our subtile
senses to their respective objects, and without coming in contact with
them, as we find in our perception of the distant orb of the moon
(without touching it).
5. I repudiate the theory of the half-enlightened, who maintain the
material world to be the production of the will or imagination; nor can I
believe that the immaterial intellect, can either produce or guide the
material body.
6. It is the will I ween, that the material breath of life, moves the
living body to and fro; but tell me sir, what is that power which propels,
the living breath both in and out of the beings.
7. Tell me sir, how the intangible intellect moveth the tangible body;
and carries it about, as a porter bears a load all about.
8. Should the subtile intellect, be capable of moving the solid body at
its will; then tell me sir, why cannot a man move a mountain also by his
own will?
9. Vasishtha replied:—It is the opening and closing of the mouth of
the aorta in the breast, that lets in and out the vital breath, through the
passage of its hole and the lungs.
 10. As you see the bellows of ironsmiths about you, having a hollow
inside them, so it is the hollow of the aorta, which lets in and out the vital
air, by the breathing of the heart.
11. Ráma rejoined:—It is true that the ironsmith closes and expands
the valves of the bellows; but tell me sir, what power blows the wind
pipe of the heart, and lets the air in and out of the inner lungs.
12. How the single breath of inhalation becomes a centuple (in order
to pass into a hundred channels of the arteries), and how these hundreds
combine again into one (in their exhalation); and why are some as
sensible beings, and others as insensible as woods and stones.
13. Tell me sir, why the immovables have no oscillation at all; and
why the moving bodies alone are possessed of their pulsation and
mutation (and why <is> the vegetable creation deprived of motion, when
it is possessed of sensibility in common with the animal creation).
14. Vasishtha replied:—There is an internal percipience (inner man),
which moves the interior cords of the body; just as the ironsmith plies his
bellows in the sight of men.
15. Ráma rejoined:—Say sir, how is it possible for the subtile and
intactile soul, to move the vital airs and tangible entrails in the animal
body.
16. If it be possible for the imperceptible perceptive soul, to put in
motion the intestinal and tactual entrails of the body; then it may be
equally possible for the thirsty soul, to draw the distant water to it. (In
order to quench its thirst, instead of going to the watery pool).
17. If it be possible for the tangible and intangible, to come together
in mutual contact at their will; then what is the use of the active and
passive organs of action (if the will alone be effective of any purpose).
18. As the intangible powers of the soul or spirit, bear no connection
whatever with the outward objects of the world; some think they can
have no effect on the internal organs of the body (in putting them to
action). So please explain it more fully to me.
19. Tell me, how you yogis perceive the outward corporeal things in
your inner incorporeal souls; and how your formless souls, can have any
command over or any contact with solid bodies.
20. Vasishtha replied:—Hear me tell you for rooting out all your
doubts, and these words will not only be pleasing to your ears, but give
you a conception of the unity of all things.
21. There is nothing here, at any time, what you call as a solid
substance or tangible body, but all is a wide and extended vacuum of the
rare and subtile spirit.
22. This spirit is of the nature of the pure Intelligence, quite calm and
intangible; and all material things as the earth, are as visionary as our
dreams, and the creatures of imagination.
23. There was nothing in the beginning, nor shall there be anything at
the end; for want of a cause for its creation or dissolution; the present
existence is an illusion, as any fleeting shape and shadow appearing
before the dreaming mind.
24. The earth and sky, the air and water, and the hills and rivers that
appear to sight; are lost sight of by the abstracted yogi; who by means of
his abstraction, sees them in their ideal and intangible forms.
25. The outer elements and their inner perceptions, the earth, the
wood and stones; are all but empty ideas of the intellect, which is the
only real substratum of the ideas, and there is no reality besides.
26. Attend now to the narrative of Aindava, in elucidation of this
doctrine; this will not fail to gratify your ears, though I have once before
related this to you. (In the former narration the world was identified with
the mind, and here it is represented as identical with the Intellect itself).
27. Attend yet to the present narration, which I am going to relate in
answer to your question; and whereby you will come to know these hills
and others, to be identic with your intellect.
28. There lived once in days of yore, a certain Bráhman in some part
of the world, who was known under the name of Indu, and was famed for
his religious austerities and observance of vedic ceremonies.
29. He had ten sons by whom he was surrounded like the world by its
ten sides (of the compass); who were men of great souls, of
magnanimous spirits, and were revered by all good and great men.
30. In course of time the old father met with his demise, and departed
from his ten sons as the eleventh Rudra, at the time of the dissolution of
the world.
31. His chaste wife followed his funeral (by concremation), for fear
of the miseries of widowhood; just as the evening twilight follows like a
faithful bride, the departing daylight with the evening star shining upon
her forehead (in token of the vermeil spot on women’s forehead).
32. The sons then performed the funeral ceremonies, and in sorrow
for their deceased sire, they left their home and domestic duties and
retired to the woods for holy devotion.
33. They practiced the best method for the intensity of their attention,
and which is best calculated to secure the consummation of their
devotion; and was the constant reflection of their identity with Brahma
(in the formula we are the lords of all, about us).
34. Thinking so in themselves, they sat in lotus like posture; and
wishing to gain the knowledge of the unity of all things, they did what
you shall be glad to learn from me.
35. They thought they sustained in them the whole world, which is
presided over by the lotus-born Brahmá; and believed themselves to be
transformed, to the form of the mundane God in an instant.
36. Believing themselves as Brahma, they sat long with the thought
of supporting the world; and remained all along with their closed eyes, as
if they were mere figures in painting.
37. With this belief they remained fixed and steady at the same spot,
and many a month and year glided over their heads and motionless
bodies.
38. They were reduced to dry skeletons, parts of which were beaten
and devoured by rapacious beasts; and some of their <limbs> were at
once severed and disappeared from their main bodies, like parts of a
shadow by the rising sun.
39. Yet they continued to reflect that they were the God Brahmá and
his creation also, and the world with all its parts, were contained in
themselves (i.e. They considered themselves as Virát the form of
macrocosm).
40. At last their ten bodiless minds, were thought to be converted to
so many different worlds, in their abstract meditation of them. (i.e. Each
of them viewed himself as a cosmos).
41. Thus it was by the will of their intellects, that each of them
became a whole world in himself; and remained so in a clear or abstract
view of it, without being accompanied by its grosser part.
 42. It was in their own consciousness, that they saw the solid earth
with all its hills &c. in themselves; because all things have reference to
the intellect, and are viewed intellectually only (or else they are nothing).
43. What is this triple world, but its knowledge in our consciousness,
without which we have no perception of it, and with which we have a
clear conception of every thing. So all things are of the vacuous nature of
our consciousness, and not otherwise.
44. As the wave is no other than the water of the sea, so there is
nothing movable or immovable whatever, without our conscious
knowledge of it.
45. As the Aindavas remained in their vacuous forms of intellectual
worlds in the open air; so are these blocks of wood and stone also, pure
intellectual beings or concept in the sphere of our minds.
46. As the volitions of the Aindavas, assumed the forms of the world,
so did the will of lotus-born Brahmá take the form of this universe. (So
says the veda: The divine will produced the world, just as the adage
goes, the will is the mother of the act).
47. Therefore this world together with all these hills and trees; as also
these great elements and all other bodies, appertain to the intellect only,
which is thus spread out to infinity.
48. The earth is the intellect, and so are its trees and mountains, and
heaven and sky also the intellect only; there is nothing beside the
intellect, which includes all things in itself, like the intellectual worlds of
the Aindavas.
49. The intellect like a potter, forms every thing upon its own wheel;
and produces this pottery of the world, from the mud of its own body
(out of its own intellectual substance).
50. The sensible will being the cause of creation, and framer of the
universe, could not have made any thing, which is either insensible or
imperfect in its nature, and neither the mineral mountains nor the
vegetable production, are devoid of their sensations.
51. Should the world be said to be the work of design, or of the
reminiscence or former impression or of the Divine will; yet as these are
but different powers of the Intellect, and are included under it; the world
then proves to be the production of the intellect, under some one of its
attributes as it is said before. (Hence there is no gross body as the
product of intelligent Intellect).
52. Therefore there cannot be any gross substance in the Divine
Intellect which blazes as a mine of bright gems, with the gemming light
of consciousness in universal soul of God.
53. Anything however mean or useless, is never apart from the
Divine soul; and as it is the nature of solar light to shine on all objects, so
doth the light of intellect, take everything in the light of the Great
Brahma, which pervades alike on all.
54. As the water flows indiscriminately upon the ground, and as the
sea laves all its shores, with its boisterous waves; so doth the intellect
ever delight, to shed its lustre over all objects of its own accord, and
without any regard to its near or distant relation.
55. As the great creator evolves the world, like the petals of his
lotiform navel, in the first formative period of creation; so doth the
divine intellect, unfold all the parts of the mundane system from its own
penetralia, which are therefore not distinct from itself.
56. The Lord is unborn and increate, and unconfined in his nature
and purely vacuous in his essence; he is calm and quiescent, and is
immanent in the interim of ens and nil (i.e. of existence and non-
existence). This world therefore is no more than a reflexion of the
intellectual or its ideal pattern in Divine Mind.
57. Therefore the ignorant man, who declares the insensibility of
inanimate objects, is laughed at by the wise, who are sensible of their
sensibility in their own kinds. Hence the rocks and trees which are
situated in this ideal world, are not wholly devoid of their sensations and
feelings.
58. The learned know these ideal worlds in the air, to be full with the
Divine soul; and so they know this creation of Brahmá’s will, to be but
an airy utopia only, and without any substantiality in them.
59. No sooner is this material world, viewed in its aerial and
intellectual light, than the distresses of this delusive world betake
themselves to flight, and its miseries disappear from sight.
60. As long as this intellectual view of the world, does not light to the
sight of a man, so long do the miseries of the world, beset him thicker
and thicker and closer on every side.
 61. Men besotted by their continued folly, and remaining blind to
their intellectual view of the world, can never have its respite from the
troubles of the world, nor find their rest from the hardness of the times.
62. There is no creation, nor the existence or inexistence of the
world, or the birth or destruction of any one here; there is no entity nor
nonentity of any thing (beside the essence of the One). There is the
Divine soul only, that glows serenely bright with its own light in this
manner; or there is no light whatever except the manifestation of the
divine spirit.
63. The cosmos resembles a creeper, with the multitude of its
budding worlds; it has no beginning nor end, nor is it possible to find its
root or top at any time, or to discover the boundless extent of its
circumference. Like a crystal pillar, it bears innumerable statues in its
bosoms, which are thickly studded together without having their initium
or end.
64. There is but one endless being, stretching his innumerable arms
to the infinity of space; I am that vacuous soul embracing every thing ad
infinitum, and I find myself as that stupendous pillar, in my uncreated
and all comprehensive soul, which is ever as quiescent and transparent
and without any change in itself.
 CHAPTER CLXXIX.
T D P O
A .
Argument:—The intellectuality and incorporality of the
World, preclude the idea of its materiality.

V ASISHTHA continued:—Now as the triple world is known, to be a

purely intellectual entity; there is no possibility of the existence of
any material substance herein, as it is believed by the ignorant majority
of mankind.
2. How then can there be a tangible body, or any material substance
at all; and all these that appear all around to our sight, is only an intactile
extension of pure vacuity.
3. It is the emptiness of our intellectuality, and contained in the
vacuity of the Divine Intellect; it is all an extension of calm and quiet
intelligence, subsisting in the serene intelligence of the supreme One.
4. All this is but the quiescent consciousness, and as a dream that we
are conscious of in our waking state; it is a pure spiritual extension,
though appearing as a consolidated expanse of substantial forms.
5. What are these living bodies and their limbs and members, what
are these entrails of theirs, and these bony frames of them? Are they not
but mere shadows of ghosts and spirits, appearing as visible and tangible
to us. (Or very likely they resemble the phantoms of our dreams, and the
apparitions that we see in the dark. Gloss).
6. The hands, the head, and all the members of the body, are seats of
consciousness or percipience; where it is seated imperceptible and
intangible, in the form of the sensorium or sensuousness.
7. The cosmos appears as a dream in the vacuum of the Divine Mind;
and may be called both as caused and uncaused in its nature, owing to its
repeated appearance and eternal inherence in the eternal Mind.
8. It is true that nothing can come out from nothing, or without its
cause; but what can be the cause of what is eternally destined or ordained
in the eternal mind. (Predestination and Preordination being the uncaused
cause of all events).
9. It is possible for a thing to come to existence, without any
assignable cause or causality of it; and such is the presence of every
thing that we think of in our minds (and so also is the appearance of this
world in its intellectual light).
10. If it is possible for things, ever to appear in their various forms in
our dreams, and even in the unconscious state of our sleep; why should it
<be> impossible for them to appear also in the day dream of our waking
hours, the mind being equally watchful in both states of its being.
11. Things of various kinds, are present at all times, in the all
comprehensive mind of the universal soul; these are uncaused entities of
the Divine Mind, and are called to be caused also, when they are brought
to appearance.
12. As each of the Aindavas, thought himself to have become a
hundred in his imagination; so every one of these imaginary worlds,
teemed with millions of beings—the mere creatures of our fancy.
13. So is every body conscious of his being many, either
consecutively or simultaneously at the same time; as we think of our
multiformity in the different parts and members of our bodies. (Or as the
king Vipaschit viewed himself, as dilated in the sun, moon and stars, so
also one man thinks himself as many, in different states of his life).
14. As the one universal body of waters, diverges itself into a
thousand beds and basins, and branches into innumerable channels and
creeks, and as one undivided duration, is divided into all the divisions of
time and seasons (so doth the one and uniform soul become multiform
and many). (As the sruti says:—aham-bahu-syam).
15. All compact bodies are but the airy phantoms of our dream, rising
in the empty space of our consciousness; they are as formless and
rarefied, as the hollow mountain in a dream, and giving us a void notion
of it.
16. As our consciousness consists of the mere notions and ideas of
things, the world must therefore be considered, as a mere ideal existence;
and it appears in the sights of it and observes in the same light; as the
fleeting notions of things glide over the void of the intellect. (The mind
is conversant only with the ideas and not with the substance of things).
 17. Our knowledge and nescience of things, resemble the dreaming
and sleeping states of the soul; and the world is same as the intellect, like
the identity of the air with its breeze.
18. The noumenon and the phenomenon, are both the one and same
state of the Intellect; being the subjectivity of its vacuous self, and the
objectivity of its own intellections and reveries; Therefore this world
appears as a protracted dream, in the hollow cavity of the sleeping mind.
19. The world is a non-entity, and the error of its entity, is caused by
our ignorance of the nature of God from the very beginning of creation.
In our dream of the world, we see many terrific aspects of ghosts and the
like; but our knowledge of its non-entity, and of the vanity of
worldliness, dispel all our fears and cares about it.
20. As our single self-consciousness, sees many things in itself; so
does it behold an endless variety of forms, appearing in the infinite
vacuity of the Divine Mind.
21. As the many lighted lamps in a room, combine to emit one great
blaze of light; so the appearance of this multiform creation, displays the
Omnipotence of one Almighty Power.
22. The creation is as the bursting bubble, or foam and froth of the
mantling ocean of omnipotence; it appears as a wood and wilderness in
the clouded face of the firmament, but disappears in the clear vacuous
atmosphere of the Divine Mind; and there is no speck nor spot of
creation in the infinite ocean of the Supreme Intellect.
 CHAPTER CLXXX.
B G A
D .
Argument:—Vasishtha’s elucidation of the story of
Kunda-danta at the request of Ráma.

R ÁMA rejoined:—I pray you sir, to remove the shade of a doubt

from my mind, as the sunshine dispels the darkness from before it;
in order to bring to light whatever is dark and obscure in the world.
2. I beheld once a self-governed ascetic, who came to the seminary,
where I was sitting amidst the synod of the sages and learned men, and
conversing on subjects of theology and divinity.
3. He was a learned Bráhman, and of a godly appearance; he came
from the land of the Videhas or the Mithilas, and was practiced in
religious austerities, and was as unbearable in the lustre of his person as
the terrific seer Durvásas self.
4. On entering the assembly, he made his obeisance to the illustrious
persons; when we also saluted him in return and advanced his seat for
him to sit down.
5. The Bráhman being well seated, I picked up many discourses with
him from the Vedánta, Sánkhya, and Siddhánta philosophy, and when his
weariness was gone, I made this question to him, saying:—
6. Sir, you seem to be tired with your long journey to this place,
please tell me, O eloquent sir, from where you have started here today.
7. The Bráhman replied:—so it is, O fortunate prince, I have taken
great pains to come up to this place; and now hear me to tell you the
reason, that brings me hither to you.
8. There is a district here, known by the name of Vaideha, it is
equally populous as well as prosperous in all respects; and is a
resemblance of its semblance of the heavenly paradise.
9. There I was born and educated, and held my residence at the same
place; and named as Kundadanta from the whiteness of my teeth, bearing
resemblance to the buds of Kunda flowers.
10. I resigned afterwards my worldly concerns, and betook myself to
travel far and wide about this earth; and resorted to the asylums of holy
sages and saints, and to the shrines of gods to rest from my fatigue.
11. I retired next to <a> sacred mountain, where I sat silent for a long
period, practicing my devotional austerities.
12. There I found a desert, which was devoid of grassy pastures and
woody trees; and where the light of the sun and the shade of night,
reigned by turns, as it was the open sky on earth.
13. There is in the midst of it a branching tree, with little of its
verdant leaves and leaf-lets; and the luminous sun dispensed his gentle
beams, from the upper sky and through cooling foliage.
14. There hung suspended under one of its boughs, a man of a holy
mien; who blazed as the resplendent sun pendent in the open air, by the
cords of his wide extending beams and radiating rays.
15. His feet were tied upwards by a clotted cord of munja grass, and
his head hung downward towards the ground beneath; and this gave him
the appearance of an offshoot of the banian tree rooted in the earth
below.
16. Having then after a while, approached to him at that place, I saw
him to have his two folded palms affixed to his breast (as if he was intent
upon the meditation of the lord, with the devoutness of his heart).
17. Advancing nearer to the body of the Bráhman, I found it to be
alive by its respiration, and from its having the feeling of touch, and the
perception of heat and cold, and that of the breeze and change of
weather.
18. Afterwards I employed myself solely, in my attendance on that
devout personage only; and underwent all the rigours of the sun and
seasons, until I was received into his confidence.
19. I then asked him saying; who art thou lord, that hast thus betaken
thyself to this sort of painful devotion; say, O long sighted seer, what is
the aim and object of this thy protracted state of self-mortification at the
peril-expense of thy precious life.
20. He then replied to my question saying:—Tell me first O devotee,
what is the object of thy devotion and those of all other persons, that are