Page:Bengal Vaishnavism - Bipin Chandra Pal.djvu/43

the Absolute. The Absolute or Paranmtattva,
which may be translated into English as the
Ultimate Reality, in Bengal Vaishnavism is
not without form or body, but has a spiritual
body of its own. This physical body, which
evolves from what is called a primary cell
in biology, must have for its Regulative
Idea a perfect and eternally realised form
of the body into which it ultimately develops.
This ‘form’ is not a thing of flesh and blood.
Flesh and blood merely organise the idea.
Behind our physical body this idea can only
be what is called a spiritual idea. Our phy-
sical bodies posit, therefore, at the back of
their biological evolution an eternally realised
idea or spiritual form. In comparing the beauty
of difterent human bodies we refer them to a
universal human form, universal or infinite
not as covering all space but as an embodi-
ment of the highest perfection of the body.
It is in the light of this eternally realised
and absolutely perfect human body or form
that we make these comparisons of good,
better and best, and are able to pass our
aesthetic judgment on them. This perfected
human form is the logic of all our conceptions
of and judgment on the beauty of the human
body. In the realisations of Bengal Vaish-