Chapter CXXX: Conclusion

The whole vision of Lílá, like that of Mirza, shows the state of human life, with its various incidents and phases to its last termination by death. It is not so compact and allegorical as that of the western essayist; but as idle effusions of those ideal reveries or loose vagaries which are characteristic of the wild imagination of eastern rhapsodists. The discontented Bráhmana longs for royal dignity, imagines to himself all its enjoyments in the person of Padma, and sees at last all its evils in the character of Vidúratha; which serves as a lesson to aspirants from aiming at high worldly honours which end in their destruction.

Lílá by her wisdom sees in her silent meditation, the whole course and vicissitudes of the world, and the rise and fall of human glory in the aspirations of her husband. These parables serve to show the nature of Yoga philosophy to be no other, than an absolute idealism or mental abstraction, consisting in the abstract knowledge of all things appertaining to our temporal as well as Spiritual concerns.

The knowledge is derived either by intuition as that of the Bráhmana and Padma, or by inspiration like that of the genius of wisdom to her votary Lílá. It may also be had by means of communication with others, as in the discourse of Ráma and his preceptor; as also from the attentive perusal of such works as the present one, treating both of temporal and spiritual subjects, and reviewing them with the eye of the mind.

The Yogi is said to know all things through the medium of his intellectual eye (jnána chakshu), apart from his connection with every thing in the world called _nihsanga_, as it is expressed by the Persian sophist;—“_amokhteh Oniamekhteh az harche hast_”.—“Knowing and not mixing with all that is.”

From this view of Yoga, it will appear that, all kinds of knowledge, whether as it existed among the ancients, or is in the course of its improvement in modern times, forms a subject of the Yoga or meditative philosophy, which embraces and comprehends in itself a knowledge of all practical arts and sciences, as the military art and other things treated of in this work. Hence it is evident, that a large fund of learning forms the greatest Yoga, and the most learned among men, were the greatest thinkers or Yogis amongst mankind in all ages. No rational being therefore can either refrain from thinking, or employing his mind to the acquisition of knowledge, both of which are termed Yoga in Indian philosophy.

But the yogi is commonly believed to be an inspired sage or seer, viewing all things appearing before him in his dream and vision. These are sometimes retrospective, and resultants of the vibrations of waking feelings and imagination, as in the case of the Bráhmana’s anticipation of royalty as a coming reality.

In many instances they are believed as prospective and prophetic of future events, as in Padma’s dread of his future life and fate. In Lílá’s case however they were “no dreams but visions strange” of supernatural sights, and prophetical of the future state of her husband, as it was revealed to her by the goddess.

But as there are few that rely any faith “in the baseless fabric of a vision”, they require to be told that the books of revelation in all religions are based upon these dreams and visions, which are believed to be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into the souls of saints, in the sacred records of all nations.

The holy scriptures furnish us with many texts on the divine origin of dreams and visions as the following.

“But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God. I shall pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

“And on my servants and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy;

“And I will shew wonders, in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire and vapour of smoke:

“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood &c.”

The Book of Acts, Chap II. v. 16-20.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

GENEALOGY

I. Kálí Mitra.[24]
II. Srídhara Mitra.
III. Sukti Mitra.
IV. Sauveri Mitra.
V. Hari Mitra.
VI. Soma Mitra.
VII. Kesava Mitra.
VIII. Mrityunjaya Mitra.
IX. Dhui Mitra.[25]
X. Nísápati Mitra.
XI. Lambodara Mitra Alias Kuvera.
XII. Parameswara Mitra.[26]
XIII. Dánapati Mitra.
XIV. Jayadeva Mitra.
XV. Shashthivara Mitra.
XVI. Sríkánta Mitra.
XVII. Sivaráma Mitra.
XVIII. Krishnaráma Mitra.
XIX. Sítáráma Mitra.[27]
XX. Gocula Chandra Mitra.
XXI. Jagamohana Mitra.
XXII. Rasika Lála Mitra
XXIII. Vihári Lála Mitra.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cicero “_De senectute._”

[2] Kant says:—‘The pure Ego is the condition of all consciousness, the condition of the sum total of experience, consequently the Ego is the source from which the universe is to be deduced.’ Again: “The thing _per se_ underlying all phenomena, is one and the same substance with Ego. We know not wherein the Ego is different from it. This identity of both is only an affirmation of Monism, not of Idealism.” Lewis: Hist.-Phil. Vol. II. pp. 356-7. Fichte says:—The Non-Ego is a product of the Ego. It is the Ego which thus creates the necessity for a Non-Ego and the Non-Ego wanted. Ibid. p. 358.

[3] Because the visible and destructible bodies could not proceed from the invisible and indestructible essence of God, nor the invisible and indestructible souls of persons, which are _utpanna_ or produced from the essence of the eternal and infinite spirit, can have their extinction except in their main source, when they become instinct in and identic with the supreme spirit.

[4] The _khecarí_ or aerial mode of meditation is said to confer liberation from sickness and acts and the grasp of death. Thus;

_Napídyate rogena nacha lipyate karmaná, Bádhyate sa na kalena, yo mudrám-vetti khecarím._

The mode of conducting it is described as follows.

_Kapála kuhare jihvá, pravesitá viparítagá, Bhruvorantargatá drishtir, mudrá-bhavati khecarí._

[5] This passage contradicts the belief of his rising and sleeping by turns at the end of each _kalpa_ of the creation and dissolution of the world, as well as the popular faith of Hari’s, _sayana_ and Utthána at the opposite tropics.

[6] The pre-existent substratum is the Noumenon underlying all phenomena. It is the support of qualities, and something in which all accidents inhere. Berkeley.

[7] It contradicts the well known axiom of Locke, that, “it is impossible for the same thing to be and not be at the same time.”

[8] The unknown substance is the known cause, a spiritual substance—God. Berkeley.

[9] The venerable Vasishtha would not raise question “where is the shadow of a shadow?” (_prativimbasya prativambam kutak_), had he known the discoveries of the modern science of Optics, and the achievements of photography and phonography, the refractions of prismatic lens and the vibrations of musical wires.

[10] The gods Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Sun, Indra and all others, are assimilated into the Supreme Spirit in their state of rest. He is beyond all attribute and out of the sphere of the universe, and is of the form of an immutable Intellect.

[11] The living soul is the creative spirit of God, represented by the divine hypostasis of _Hiranyagarbha_ or Demiurgus, which is dependent on the Supreme spirit.

[12] _Tanmátra_ or tat-mátra might be rendered from its affinity as “that matter,” but the idealistic theory of vedánta being opposed to that of the materialistic, it expresses only the idea and not the matter.

[13] The conceptualism of Europe, is a doctrine between Realism and Nominalism and betwixt Idealism and Relationism. The realist says, universal genera are real and independent existences; but the nominalist (_like the Pratyaksávádi_) says that, things only exist and universals are _Flatus venti-pralápa_.

[14] Note. It is the mind that lengthens time by the quick succession of its thoughts, and shortens it by its quiescence.

[15] This means the demons to have first peopled the borders and skirts of the earth. See Hesiod. Works and Days. Book I. v. 200.

[16] That the Meru or Altain chain in Scythia, was the great hive of human race is an undisputed truth in history. So Moses speaks of the giant race in Genesis chapter VI. v. 2 and 4. “And there were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that. And when the sons of God saw the daughters of men fair, they took them to wives, of all which they chose.”

And again: “when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown”.

[17] The whole of this chapter abounds in onomatopoeian alliterations, and is more a play upon words than display of sense. It is interesting however, for these jingling words in the language, as also for the names of the warlike weapons in use among the ancients.

[18] Notwithstanding the reward of heavenly abodes promised to the slayer and slain in war, in the Sástra and Koran, the Asiatics are far backward now-a-days, both to kill and to be killed than the Europeans, who are forbidden by the Holy writ, to slay and shed human blood. Thus there is a laxity of the injunction and prohibition on both sides.

[19] P. mujosi S. Yátudhána, H. Jádugar = juggler.

[20] The battle ground is compared firstly with the sky, then with the sea, next with a forest, and lastly with the last dooms-day.

[21] It was easy for the lively Lílá, to learn about these peoples and their native lands in her lonely Yoga meditation, by the help of the goddess of learning; but it is hard for us to identify them without subjecting ourselves to a long labour of love, which is a sort of Yoga also, called _vidya Yoga_, or intense application and self devotion to learning.

[22] Note. It is not easy to say, whether this continuation and lengthy description of the warfare, is Vasishtha’s or Válmíki’s own making; both of them being well acquainted with military tactics: the former having been the general of King Sudása against the Persians, and the latter the epic poet of Ráma’s wars with Rávana in the celebrated Ramáyana.

These descriptions are left out in the vernacular translations of this work as entirely useless in Yoga philosophy, without minding, that they formed the preliminary step to Ráma’s military education, which he was soon after called to complete under the guidance of Viswámitra in the hermitage.

[23] I have always thought the Daivástras or superhuman arms, described in the Ramáyana and Mahábhárata epics, as a display of pyrotechnic contrivances much in use in early warfare. Or they may have been some kinds of electric, hydraulic, pneumatic and steam engines emitting gusts of fire, water, wind and smoke in the field of war. Halhead in his Gentoo Laws, tells them to be shot from a kind of cross-bow used by the Crusadiers of old.

[24] He was formerly an inhabitatnt of Kánya Kubjya, North Western Provinces, India. He being invited on an occasion of a ceremony (yajna) by Ádisura, Rájá of Gour Bengal, paid a visit at his court on Thursday 12th Kartick (October-November) Sakábda 994 (Tenth-Eleventh Century A.D.), and on his request he settled there and became the founder of Gour Mitra Family, at Maldah in Bengal.

[25] Barisá, Twenty four Pargannahs, District Alipur, Bengal.

[26] Báli. Boro Pargunah, District Hugli.

[27] Bágbázar, Calcutta.