Imatges de pàgina
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LXVI. Sanctitas via intelligentiæ: Holiness the road to knowledge.

Mahabharata v. 1382.

The man who every sin forsakes,

Whose breast with love of goodness glows,

He Nature's primal essence knows,

And all the changing forms she takes.

LXVII. The extinction of Sin leads to Knowledge.
Mahabharata xii. 7447.

As sinful passion's fires grow cold,
Men ever deeper knowledge gain,

Until, at length, when free from stain,
They in themselves the Soul behold.

LXVIII. final beatitude; and the self-evidencing power of the doctrine regarding it.

Mahābhārata iii. 13982; xii. 8959, ff.; 11380, ff.; 11692, ff. xiv. 1455, ff.

Let men all worldly longings quell,
And, sunk in contemplation, dwell
On th' inmost, deepest truth of things,
From which the spirit's freedom springs.
Composed and calm, ascetics feel
No longer outward woe and weal:
Within themselves enclosed they rest,
And self-sufficing, live most blest.
Their state resembles placid sleep,
'Mid men who troubled vigils keep.
"Tis as,-when winds by night repose,-
A lamp's clear flame unflickering glows.

And thus as seasons onward roll,

The saint, with meagre fare content,
On deep self-contemplation bent,
Within himself beholds the Soul.*

Now see in this most wholesome lore
The Vedas' deep esoteric core.
On no tradition old it rests:
Its truth at once itself attests.
Whatever precious gems you find
In sacred tales, are here combined.
Extracted here, you taste distilled
The nectar thousand verses yield.

LXIX. A guide through the gloom.

Mahabharata xii. 12064.

The night approaches now: hold fast
The lamp of holy knowledge, bright
With ever slowly kindling light,
To guide thee till the gloom is past.

* Compare, though of a different character, the phenomenon described by Professor Reuss, Histoire des Israelites, p. 295, note 3, as quoted in the Appendix.

[Although in subsequent verses (8967 f.), systems founded on reasoning, and ignorance of the Vedas, are condemned, we seem to have in the passage before us a recognition of the self-evidencing power of certain doctrines, independently of any revealed authority. In the pieces preceding, pp. 11-13, entitled "An Indian Free-thinker's fate," and "The Indian Rationalist in ancient times," strict orthodoxy is required.]

D

LXX. Janaka's saying: The Blessedness of dispassion.

Mahābhārata xii. 529, 6641, 9917, 9919; (also 7981).

"As having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

How vast my wealth, what joy I taste,
Who nothing own and nought desire!
Were this fair city wrapped in fire,
The flame no goods of mine would waste.

A purer, sweeter bliss he knows
Whom quelled desire no more annoys
Than springs from earth's exciting joys,
Or even than paradise bestows.

LXXI. Whither knowledge leads.

Satapatha Brahmana x. 5, 4. 16.

By knowledge mortals thither soar
Where all desires have passed away;
Alms, penance, cannot there convey
The man who lacks this holy lore.

LXXII. Death is not the extinction of the good.

Mahābhārata xii. 12121.

Let no one deem the wise are dead,
Who've "shuffled off this mortal coil,"
The wise whose lives were pure from soil,
Who never fell, by lust misled.

LXXIII. The Watchtower of Wisdom.*

Mahabharata xii. 530 (= xii. 5623).

As men who climb a hill behold
The plain beneath them all unrolled,
And thence with searching eye survey
The crowds that pass along the way,
So those on wisdom's mount who stand
A lofty vantage-ground command.
They thence can scan the world below,
Immersed in error, sin and woe;
Can mark how mortals vainly grieve,
The true reject, the false receive,
The good forsake, the bad embrace,
The substance flee and shadows chase.
But none who have not gained that height,
Can good and ill discern aright.

LXXIV. The Endian Martha and Mary.

(Illustrative of the Vedantic doctrine of absorption
into Brahma).

Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad ii. 4, 1, ff; and iv. 5, 1, ff.

Two wives, as Indian rules allowed,

Called pious Yajnavalkya lord.

* This passage has some resemblance to Lucretius, ii. 10 f. Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere edita doctrinâ sapientum templa serena, despicere unde queas alios passimque videre errare atque viam palantis quærere vitæ, etc. "But nothing is more welcome than to hold the lofty and serene positions well fortified by the learning of the wise, from which you may look down upon others and see them wandering all abroad and going astray in their search for the path of life," etc.-MUNRO.

They dwelt in peace and good accord, With varying powers and tastes endowed.

Maitreyi studied, grave and wise,
The depths of sacred lore to sound;
In fair Katyāyanī were found
Such gifts as women mostly prize.

Now Yajnavalkya longed to gain
A higher stage of saintly life,
And wander far from home and wife,
Domestic ties esteeming vain.

He thus addressed his elder bride :
I now go forth alone to roam :
So let me, e'er I quit my home,
Between you twain my goods divide."

She asked him then, that thoughtful wife: "If earth, with boundless treasures filled, Were mine, should then my fears be stilled, That Yama soon will claim my life?"

*

He said: "Hadst thou such treasures won,
Thy lot would but be that of those
Round whom her halo fortune throws,
Whose life with pleasure overflows :—
The grasp of death thou couldst not shun."

"What profits wealth," Maitreyī cried, "If I must die and leave it soon? Immortal life, that envied boon,

To gain, if thou canst guide me, guide."

*The Indian Pluto.

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