THE

LIGHT OF TRUTH

OR THE

Siddhanta Dipika and Agamic Review.

A Monthly Journal Devoted to the Study of the AGAMANTA
or the SAIVA-SIDDHANTA Philosophy and Mysticism,
Prognostic Astronomy, Indo-Dravidian
Culture, &c., &c.

V. V. RAMADAN,

f.z.s(lond.) ; OM.D^F.v( B erlin) ; M.O 5 -M i(t’.vkis ; etc., etc ;
DIRECTOR OF ‘ THE AGAMIC BUREAU CORRESPONDING DIRECTOR
OF • THE ORIENTAL PROGNOSTIC OBSERVATORY ETC., ETC.

VOLUME X.

JULY 1909 — JUNE 1910.

Subject Index to Volume X.

OF

THE LIGHT OF TROTH

OR tHB

"SIDDHANTA DIPIKA AND AGAMIC REVIEW ”

A Colloquy with Mr. P. Ramanathan, k.c., c.m.g., p. 168.
Adharas and the Kuqcjalinj, p. 479.

Agamic Bureau Notes, p. 5 16.

An European Orientalist on the AgamSota* p. 473.-
Ardra-Darsanam — In Praise of Chit-Ambairam, p. 263.

Atjunas-. KiUojdhaVa Forest and the Selvas of South America,
p. 51.

Astrology, — a New Manual of, pp. 2 22, 279.

Do. Judicial— foroe experiences, p. 500.

Do. Judidal-f-A'Rqoiflderi p, 505.

Bta^motsavam, p. 90.

"Cosmic Consciousness”— Mr.'NanjupdaRao’s, pp. 139, tpi, 327-
Current Literature (Oriehtalia), p. 123.
Dharm&nanda-Mahabharati— Late Sv3mi, p. 233 .

Did Omichand die Mad; pi 47.

Epigraphy in 1908-1909, p. 83.

French Methods in Corporal Punishment, p. 137.

Happiness, p. 59.

Hindu Astrology, pi 443.

Hinduism for Hindus— The value of, pp. 433, 489.
ttWdu Ideals and their Preservation, pp. 337, 399-
How Nilakapfha’s BhSsbya is getting appreciated in the West,
p. 48.

Ipuyanar-Agapporul, pp. 261, 293, 35®-
Is the Soul Immortal- ? p. 291.

JfUna Vasishfham or me Dialogues of Vasishtha oti Wisdom,
pp. 205, 247, 287, 350, 385.

Karapatram — What is it? p. 362.

King-Emperor Edward VII — Death of, p. 45^-

IV

Letter* to Mr. V. V Ramatjan. pp. 433, 514

Madura Tamil Sa<yp^-r-E‘*MkAnivcrs4ry ot the * P- M '

Mapimekhalai, p. 75-

Maritime Activity and Enterprise in India, p. 409.

Nandi kfcalaqtbagaip, PP- >65. *to-
New year — The, p. 331.

Notes and Comments, pp. 63, 95, 131, 1 73 > **4. * 7 S< 3*9-
Our Book Shelf, pp. 339, 337.

“ PaUi " — The Etymology of the word, p. 413.

Psychology of the Sha<}adhvans, pp. 383, 339, 377, 4*3.

R thorn aU of Symbolic Worship, pp. 1—8, 9 — 16* '7—30, 318,
Reform of Indian Calendar, p. 438.

Relation of the Buddhists Tenets to the Experiences of the
Anointed of God, pp. 153, 371.

Reviews of Books, pp. 374, 417, 47*-

Silva Siddhlnta Conference at Trichinopoly,, p. 509.

Saiva Religion and the feiva-AdvalU'Siddhitata Phlloadphy,

p. t.

^iva-Darkanam — The,- p- 4*6.

Sivlgrayogin — The Mystic works of, p. 470-
South Indian Myatic Conference, p. 733.

St. Francis of Assisi, His order and' his work, pt 308.

Story of a Dead Seif, p. 360.

Stray thoughts on Life, p. 468.

Symbology of §ri-Nutar2ja, p. 440.

Synopsis of the Lectures on the SaivSgamas, p. t id.

Thesis on the Vlraiaiva Religion, pp. 71, 105, 814, 350.

Thompson's, Sir J. J.— Address before the British Association
for the Advancement of Science, pp. 149, 399.

Teachings of St. Viglta, p. 483.

Ttrumantiram'of St. Tirumolar, pp. 39, 67, 99, 135, 183.

Ten Spiritual Triumphs of the Soul, pp. 43* 143.

ytyu-Purana the same as the Siva-Maha-Purioa? — Is the, p. 109.

What is the Soul? p. 93

Work before us — "I4ie, pp. 300, 368, 393, 453.

THE SAIVA RELIGION

AND

SAlVA ADVAITA SIDDHANTA PHILOSOPHY*

Professor Max Muller in his last great work on the “Six
Systems of Hindu Philosophy’’ has remarked ‘as follows: —

“ The longer I have studied the various systems the more
have I become impressed with the view taken by Vignana
Bikshu and others that there is behind the variety of the Six
Systems, a common fund of what may be called National or
Popular Philosophy, a large Manasa lake of philosophical
thought and language, far away in the distant north and in
the distant past from which each thinker was allowed to draw
for his own purposes.”

And it would have certainly surprised him if one had told
him that one need not go neither to the distant north nor to
the distant past to discover whpt ibis National of Popular
Philosophy was, frpm which each thinker drew his own in-
spiration, and a study of the two popular Hindu Religions of
Modern India, we mean Saivaism and Vaishnavism, will
convince any one that they inherit to-day all the thought and
traditions of by-gone ages, as the Modern Hindus themselves
represent lineally their old ancestors who were settled in the
Bharata Kanda since the days of the Rig Veda; and their
religion of to-day is as much a living faith, suited to all sorts
and conditions of men, whether peasant or pandit, sinner or
saved.

•4 mper read before the Convention of Beligiotu, at Calcutta, by Mr. J. M ttallaawaai
Altai, B A., B.L

a

THE 5 AIVA RELIGION.

Saivaism comprising in its fold, SaktaismandGnanapatyam
and worshippers of God Subrahmanya &c
n huvd o« in* counts among its followers the majority of
▼*d»4ad Aftmmt. Hindus and it accordingly. claims to repre-
sent the old traditional and parent religion
of the days of the Vedas and Upanishads, Agamas or Tantras
and Itihasas and Puranas and bases its authority on these
ancient Revealed books and histories. It claims God Siva to
be the author of the Vedas and Agamas. Says Sri Nilakanta
Sivacharya in his Sutra Bashya.

“We see no difference between the Veda and the
Sivagama. Even the Vedas may properly be called Sivagama,
Siva being the author thereof, Accordingly Sivagama is two-
fold, one being intended for the three higher castes, the other
being intended for all. The Vedas are intended for people of
the three castes and the other for all. Siva alone is the author
of the Veda is declared in the following passages of Sruti and
Smriti.

•• He is the Lord of all Vidyas,”

'‘(The Veda) is the breath of the Mighty Being.

“ Of these eighteen Vidyas of various paths, the original
author is the wise Sulapani Himself. So says the Sruti."

It will be therefore important to trace Modern Saivaism
from the traditions and thought apd language of the past.

The Supreme polity of the Veda is Sacrifice. Various
Gods, Indra, Vayu, Varuna, Agni, Hiranya-

iii AnoqMj. garbha, Soma, Sun, Moon, Vishnu and
Kudra, are worshipped. Each is addressed
as a most powerful deity and his aid is invoked for all kinds
of earthly blessing and freedom from evil. They are all
supposed to represent various powers of uature and to idealize
man's aspiration after the Supreme. Then we medt the text.
“ Ekam sat Vipradfahudha Vadanti" ; and who is this-one ?

THE SAIVA RELIGION.

3

Was any one God recognised above all others as the Chief, as
the God of Sacrifices, as the Pathi. And we have the following
texts from the Rig Veda.

“ Tasmath Rudra Pasunamadhipateh (Rig Veda)

“ Ghathapathim Medahpathim Jalasha bheshajam Tat
Somyoh Sumnamimahe.’’

We seek from Rudra, the Lord of Songs, the Lord of
Sacrifices, who possesses healing remedies, his auspicious
favour (Rig Veda I. 43. 4.)

As the Pathi of all sacrifices, He is the fulfiller of sacri-
fices, “ Yajna Sadham’’ (I. 114-4) and ‘ Rudram yagnanam
sadhad ishtim apasam’ (111. 2-5). As the God of gods, He is
said to "derive His renown from Himself" ‘ Rudraya
Svayasase' His glory is said to be inherent, independent or
self-dependant God, 4 Svadhavane’ (Rig. VII. 46-1) He is also
called Svafiiva.'a, which is variously explained as meaning
1 readily understanding’ * accessible.’ ‘ gracious,’ ‘he by whom
life is conquered,' 4 he whose command cannot be transgressed,’

' thou by whom prayers (words) are readily received.' He is
called the ‘ father of the worlds ‘Bhuvanasya Pitaram' VI.
4910, and the Rik story of His becoming the Father of the
fatherless Maruts can be recalled in many a Puranic story,
and local legend, and common folklore.

He is anter ichchanti ’ — beyond all thought (VIII. 61-3).
His form as described in the Rig Veda is almost the same as
the Image of later days. He is called the Kapardin, with
‘ spirally braided hair.’ He is of ' Hiranya’ ‘golden formed’
and ‘ brilliant like the sun,’ and 1 shining like gold',* Yahsukra
iva Suryo hiranyam iva ro’ chati” (1. 43-5.) And in Rig Veda,
X. 136-1 to 7, He is the ' long haired being who sustains the
fire, water and the two worlds ; who is to the view the entire
sky ; and who is called this 1 Ligtu' He is IVmd dad (naked)
and drinks Fisha (water or poison) and a Muni is identified
with Rudra in this aspect.

4

THE S A I V A RELIGION

Rudra is derived by Sayana from the roots, Rutdravayita,
meaning ‘ he who drives away sorrow,’ And consistent
with this derivation, Rudra. is called in the Rig Veda itself, as
the ‘ bountiful’ and the ‘Healer’ possessed of various remedies
(the later’Vaidyanath) ' benign’ and ' gracious.’ And the term
Siva clearly appears in the following text of the Rig Veda
(X. 92-9) ” Stoman va adya Rudraya s’ikvase kshyad-viraya
namasa didishtana yebhih Sivah svavan evayavabhir divah
sishakti svayasah nikamabhi.”

(With reverence present ycur Hymn to-day to the mighty
Rudra, the ruler of heroes, (and to the Maruts) those rapid
and ardent-deities with whom the gracious (Sivah) and opu-
lent (Rudra) who derives his renown from himself, protects us
from the sky.”)

If the Gods, Indra, etc., personified individually the
different powers of nature, in the supreme Personality of
Rudra will be found combined all these different powers. He
is a thunderer and storm Cod, the father of the Maruts. He
is Agni. He is Vayu. He is Varuna. He is Soma. He is
the Sun and Moon. We have the high authority of Sayana
that Soma means Sa-uma. He deduces the story of Tiripura-
dabana and Vishabana from two texts in the Rig Veda. We
have in the Rig Veda also the Germ of the later Hindu Cosmo-
logy, in the famous Nasadasaya suktam ; and this is also the
central text of Siva Sakti worship.

“In the beginning there was neither sat nor asat ;

Then there was neither sky nor atmosphere above.

What then enshrouded all this teeming universe ?

In the receptacle of what was it contained ?

Was it enveloped in the gulf profound" of Water ?

Then was there neither death nor immortality ;

Then there was neither day, nor night, nor light,

Nor darkness, only the Existent One breathed without
breath self-contained.

TI1F SAI V A RELIGION.

5

Nought else but he there was, nought else above, beyond.

Then first came darkness hid in darkness, gloom in
gloom ;

Next all was water, all a chaos indiscrete.

In which the one lav void, shrouded in nothingness.

Then turning inwards, he by self-developed force

Of inner fervour and intense abstraction, grew.

First in his mind was formed Desire, the primal germ.

Productive, which the Wise, profoundly searching, say

Is the first subtle bond, connecting Sat with Asat.”

In the Rig Veda also we find the famous text which is
repeated in the Atharva Veda and subsequently in the Sveta-
svatara LTpanishad and also in the Katha and Mundaka
Upanishads, and which forms the chief stronghold of Indian
Theism against Idealism. “ Two birds inseparable friends
cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fruits, the
other ‘Anya’ looks on without eating’’.

The words Brahman, Atman, do not occur in the Rig
Veda.

In the Yajur Veda the position of Rudra becomes more
established as Pasupathi and Lord of

Yajur Veda. sacrifices and as Theone without a second.

“ Pasoonam sarma asi sarma yajamanasya sarma me
yacha Eka Eva Rudro Na Dwithyaya Thasthe Akhusthe Rudra
Pasnuh Thant Jushasva. Esha the Rudra Bhagaha Saha
Swhsra Ambikaya tham Jushasva Bheshajam Gave Asvaya
Purushaya Bheshajam.” This text is repeated in the Sveta-
svatara Upanishad and is the original of the famous text in the
Chandogya Upanishad ‘Ekamevadvitiyam Brahma’. Nadvi-
tiyam is more ancient form than Advitiyara or Advaitam.
And we know this is the central text of the Advaita philo-
sophy. In this veda, His supreme Majesty is fully developed,
and He is expressly called Siva by name ‘ Siva nama’si (Yaj.

£ I MK SAIVA KFI.Il'.ION.

S. j-’jj) and the famous mantra, the Panckabskara, is said to
be placed i n • he very heart of the three Vedas (the name
occurs in Tail. S IV. 5, 1-41 “ iiainnh santbkavt cka mayobave
ch,t niinak Sanbaraya cka tnayaskaraya cka NAMAH SIVAYA
cka Sivataraya cka") And the famous Satarudriyam which is
praised in the Upanishads and in the Mahabharat forms also
the central portion of this central Veda. And this is a des-
cription of God as the all, the all in all, and transcending all,
Visvadevo, ' Viswaswarupo, Visvadiko’ ; and anybody can
see that the famous passage in the Gita in chapters to and 11
merely parodies this other passage and these two chapters
are respectively called Vibkuli Vistara Yoga and Visvarupa
Santiarskana Yoga which is exactly the character of the
Satarudriya. The Yogi who has reached the highest state
“ Sees all in God and God in all.'’ In the Satarudriya and in
the whole Veda, Rudra is called Siva, Sankara, Sambhu, Isana,
Isa, Bhagavan, Bhava, Sarva, Ugra, Soma, Pasupati, Nila-
griva, Girisa, Mahadeva and Maheswara.

The word 1 Pura’ in the Upanishad technically mean ‘ the
body.’ Tiripura means the triple bond (of the soul and Tiri-
pura samhara means the distruction of our human bondage by
the grace of God.

“ The fools say the ancient of days with the braided hair
and the Ganga destroyed the three cities. The three Pura are
*he result of the three mala— who knows what happened after
(pasatchaya)” — Tirumantra.

The story of Tiripurasamhara is much more fully set
forth in the Yajur Veda (6th Kanda 2nd Prasna 3rd Anvaka
and 12th Mantra)

Makapuram Jayantiti la iskum Santas Kurva tog mum
amian Soman Salyam V iskum T ejanam te bruvan ka imam
asukalita Rudra iti aleruvan rudro vai Krura ; Somya twiti,
sobravit V aranimV rina abkam tva Pasx-.nam Adki paterasaniti

THE SAIVA RELIGION.

7

tasmat rudra Pasunam adhipatistan rudrova Sirjat Satisra :
Puro bhiteva ebhyo lokebhys btiran pranudata.

“ There were the three cities of iron, silver, and gold
(belonging) to Asuras. The gods not being able to win them
(by fight) wished to win them by siege. (The great) say that
He (the Brahmin &c.), who knows (what ought to be known)
and he (the non-Brahmin &c.), who does not know — they are
able to win by siege the great city which cannot be overtaken
by fight: (then) the gods made an arrow composed of Agni
as (the bottom hilt) Soma as (the middle) iron and Vishnu as
(the top) and declared (consulted who will discharge it, and
determined Rudra, (was) able : He (the Rudraj said the boon
was made over, I am the Lord of Pasus (both the two-footed
and fourfooted) ; So Rudra the Lord of Pasus discharged it,
broke up these 3 cities, and blown up them all from these
worlds.”

The importance of this lies in the fact that in the chief
festival in each temple, called the Brahmotsava, the important
event is the car-feast in which the charioteer is the four-
headed Brahma, recalling and representing this old old story
referred to in the Rig Veda and Yajur Veda.

The Yajur Veda is the Central Veda and is a most im-
portant one and as such more than ninety per cent, of the
Brahmins of to-day are Yajur Vedies. The occurrence of the
words Pathi, Pasu and Pasam should be noted as their signi-
ficance will be referred to later on.

As we noted above the polity of the vedas was a perform-
ance of sacrifices. This was continued in
The Upamshads. and the Upanishad period and the Brahmanas
Agamas. elaborated the Rituals. But at the same

time the worship of the many Gods was
being given up in favour of the one God and the efficacy of
sacrifices in general was being doubted and a more spiritual

s THE SUVA RELIGION.

form of worship was being substituted ill its place and the
first departure is noted in the story given in the Kena L'pa-
nishad.

Brahmin obtained the victory for the Devas. The Devas
became elated by the victory of Brah-
Ktna I'pamUud. man and they thought, this victory is ours
only. Brahman perceived this and appear-
ed to them. But they did not know it, and said.- “What
yaksha is this ? They said to Agni (fire : ‘ O Gatavedas.
find out what sprite this is.’ 1 Yes,’ he said. He ran toward
it, and Brahman said to him * Who are you ?’ He replied :

* 1 am Agni, I am Gatavedas.’ Brahman said : ‘ What power
is in you ?’ Agni replied I could burn all whatever there is
on earth.’ Brahman put a straw before him, saying : Burn

this.’ He went towards it with all his might, but he could not
burn it. Then he returned thence and said : ‘ I could not
find out what sprite this is.’ Then they said to Vayu air :

■ 0 Vayu, find out what sprite this is.’ • Yes,’ he said. He
ran toward it, and Brahman said to him .- ‘ who are you?’ He
replied ‘ am Vayu, I am Matarisvan ’ Brahman said :

1 What power is in you ?’ Vayu replied : 1 1 could take up all
whatever there is on earth.’ Brahman put a straw before him,
saying ' Take it up.’ He went towards it with all his might,
but he could not take it up. Then he returned thence and
said .- ‘ I could not find out what sprite this is.’ Then they
sai 1 to lndra : * O Baghavan, find out what sprite this is.’
He went towards it, but it disappeared from before him.
Then in the same Akas ether he came towards a woman,
highly adorned : it was Uma, the daughter of Himavat.’ He
said to her * Who is that sprite ?’ She replied : It is

through the victory of Brahman that you have thus become
great.’ After that he knew that it was Brahman.

This is a further step than the position in the Rig Veda
where the F.bfln Sat or Rudra Pasupatiii, is identified in a

THE SAIVA RELIGION.

9

manner with all the Gods. Here, he is not Indra or Varuna,
Vayu or Agni He cannot be comprehended of the Gods
though he is before them and it was left to Uma Himavatim
to point out to the supreme Brahman, as her consort. This
story is frequently repeated in the Puranas and the person
of Rudra-Siva is introduced as Lima's Lord.

This is called the Brahami Upanishad and it introduces
the grand thought “ he by whom Brahman is not thought, by
him it is thought ; he by whom it is thought, knows it not.”

This departure from the old polity of the vedas to the
worship of the One supreme Brahma, Uma's Lord, will be
found illustrated further in the Puranas by the stories of the
Dakshak’s sacrifice and the Tarukavana rishies. Daksha, son
of Brahma (Sabda Brahma or Vedas) simply means sacrifice
and Dakshayani meant the spirit of sacrifice, and so long as
this spirit of sacrifice was devoted to the one supreme Brah-
man. Siva, it was beneficial. But once this sacrifice was
divorced from the worship of the one supreme Brahman, re-
presented in the person of Siva, the consort of Dakshayani, as
Daksha tried to do, then this sacrifice was of no avail. When
the spirit of sacrifice was divorced from the word, then
Dakshayani died and was reborn as Uma Himavatim, the
bearer of Brahma Gnana, and was reunited to Siva. This
reunion or a rebirth of the old gnana is what is celebrated
in every Temple in the important feast of Tirukalyana and is
figured in the oldest sculptures in the Elephanta and EUora
cave Temples. In the Tarakavana story the Vedic sacrifice
was also divorced from the worship of the one supreme
Brahman. The Vedas represented the Sabda Brahman and
the Rishies thought that no God was required, and the
worship of the Sabda Brahman was alone sufficient for secur-
ing salvation. The bleating of the Sabda Brahman repre-
sented by the deer u>itotu>«d,d was found in no way to reach
God.

IO

Tilt SAIVA KEI.IOION

Tl»e Svetasvatara Upanishad the greatest authority of the
Saiva School, repeats the text of the Yajur Veda “ Eka Eva
Rudro Nadwitiyaya Tastah" and the philosophy of Advaita
Siddhanta is fully expounded in this U panishad. This advaita
is neither the Sankhya nor the Yoga, neither Dwaita nor
Advaita as ordinarily understood. Hence Oriental Scholars
like Monier Williams, Professor Macdonnel and Garbe regard
this Upanishad as the oldest representative of the ancient
tcltclic* school of Hindu philosophy. With this book they
couple the Bhagavat Gita

The highest conception of the one God. ‘ Eko Deva,’ is
given here which, as MaxMuller says, corresponds to the con-
ception of God in the Christian theology. “ He is the one
God hidden in all beings all pervading the Antar Atma of
all things, watching over all works, dwelling in all beings, the
witness, the perceiver, the only one Nirguna.’’ “ He is the
eternal and infinite unborn being partless, actionless, tranquil,
without taint, without fault, the highest Bridge to immor-
tality.”

‘‘He is the causeless first cause, the all-knower, the all-
pervader; the creator, sustainer, and liberator of the world,
the end and aim of all religion, and of all philosophy. He is
the Ishwara of Ishwhras, Maheswara, the God supreme of
Gods, the king of kings, the supreme of the supreme, the Isa
of Universe.” “The sun does not shine there, nor the moon
and the stars, nor these lightnings, and much less this fire,
everything shines after him; by his light all this is lightened.'*
God is nirguna; and as I have shown elsewhere, Nirguna does
not mean impersonal, and Saguna is not to be translated
personal. Nirguna simply means beyond the three Gunas,
Satva, Rajas, and Tamas, and Saguna means united to these

• Of the eclectic movement combining sankhya, yoga and Vedanta doctrines, the
oldmt representative (s the S.dasvitan Upanishad, more famous is the Bhcgivat tiita.
ftticdooncU s lLsu," of Sanskrit L.I. p. 40o ‘

THE SA1VA REUGION.

II

three. Personality means, as Emerson and other Christian
writers interpreted, ‘pure spiritual being’, ‘Sat‘ and God can
be personal and Nirguna, absolute. It follows also that God
cannot be born as he is not united to matter, Nirguna. The
meaning of the Rig Veda Suktam we quoted above is brought
out in the following verse. “When there was no darkness nor
day nor night ncr Sat nor Asat then Siva alone existed (Siva
Eva Kevalah). That is the absolute, that is the adorable condition
of the Lord. From that too bad come forth the wisdom of old
(Gnana Sakti).’’ After repeating the text about the two birds,
this is how it proceeds "On the same tree man (Anisa) sits
grieving, immersed bewildered, by his own impotence. But
when he sees the other, Isa, contented and knows his glory
then his grief passes away.” That this is the highest teach-
ing of the Rig Veda is pointed out in the next verse. “He
who does not know that indestructible Being (Akashara) of
the Rig Veda that highest Ether (Paiama Vyomam) wherein
all the Gods reside, of what use is Rig Veda to him? Those
only who know It rest contented.” The otherness of God
(Anyata) referred to in the Rig Veda Mantra is brought up
fully also in the following verses. “ Aye, that one unborn
(Ajasoul) sleeps in the arms of one unborn (nature Pradhana)
enjoying (her of nature, red, white and black), who brings
forth multitudinous progeny like herself. But when her
charms have been enjoyed, he (soul) quits her (prakriti) side
the unborn other, (Anyata) (Lord).”

“In the unperishable, and infinite highest • Brahman,
wherein the two Vidya, (Vignana-Atma) and Avidya are
hidden, the one, Avidya, perishes ; the other, Vidya, is immor-
tal ; but lie who controls both Vidya and Avidya, is another
(Anyatha).” And in the subsequent verses, this another is
clearly pointed out to be the "only one God, without a second,
the ruler of all, the generator of all and the supporter (ripener)
of all.’’ This forms the subject of Discussion in the hands of
Badaray ina in I, II, 21. And the lamous passage in Briha-

I , Tilt f.MVA RF.UOION.

dar.invaka is referred to. “ He who dwells in Atma (Vignana)
and Dtffn ml from Atma, whom the Atma does not know,
whose body Atma is, and who pulls (rules; Atma within, He
is thy Aima, the puller within, the immortal’’ (111, 7, 22).

(3) The Supreme Mantra of the Veda or the Sabda
Brahma is the Pranava or Omkara. It is ordinarily known that
Om.is a compound of the three letters A, U, and M- and
that they represent the deities Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra.
What is not known is that there is a fourth part of this
Omkara called its Ardha Matra sound, this is called the
Chaturtham or Turvam and represents the supreme Brahman
or Siva. This is brought out in several of the Upanishads and
in the following verses it is coupled with Sivam and Sambhu
Shivam Santam Advitam Chaturtam Manyante (Rmatapini.)

“Dhyayeteesanam pradhyayadavyam, Sarvamidam, Brah-
ma Vishnu Rudrendrasthe, Sarve Sampresuyante, Sarvani-
chendrasthe, Sarve Samprasuyante, Sarvanichendryanicha;
Sihabhutaih Nakaranam Karanam Dhata Ohyata Karanantu
Dheyeyah Sarvaiswarya sampannah Sarves warah Sambura-
kasa Madhye. Siva eko Dhyayet : Sivankara, Sarvam Anyat
Parityaja (Atharva Sikha).

The more popular Hymn in the Mahimnastotra addressed
to Siva brings out this idea “ The mystical and accountable
one which being composed of the three letters ‘A’, ‘U’, ‘M\
signify successively the three Vedas, the three states of Life
(Jagra, Swapna and Sushupti), the three worlds (earth, heaven
and hell), the three Gods (Brahma Vishnu and Rudra), and
which by its ardhamatra is indicative of the Fourth office, as
Parameshwara.

(4) 1 he Supreme Upasana of the Upanfshad is the Dahara
Upasana in the Hirid Pundanka, in the akas Vyoma, Parama-
laya. The yogi has to think of the Supreme Brahman in the
cave of the heart, in the midsi of the Chitakasa. ThcTaitriya

THE SAIVA RELIGION’

•3

Upanishad speaks of this Brahman as of the form of Krishna
Pingala. This Krishna Pingala is identified as Umasahaya or
Parvati Paramesvara in several of the Upanishads.

This again is described as a Jyotir (The supreme light).
(The Jyotir Linga).

(5) When the polity of the sacrifice is given up in favor of
the worship of this Jyotir Linga and of the Symbolism of the
sacrificial ground was invested with a more spiritual meaning,
then we would seem to have arrived at the period of the
Agamas and our modern temple worship would seem to have
been started. The Agamas brought into use the very same
mantras as pointed out by Swami Vivekananda,* in his famous
address before the Chicago parliament of Religions used in the
old sacrificial worship, into the new system of worship and
the offer of the self as a sacrificial oblation was made in the
place of animal sacrifice. The Pasu was the animal in man
and when it was offered as sacrifice in Gnana Agni, it became
the Nandi or Siva.

The puranas are the earliest interpretors of the Veda and
the Upanishads. Whole passages from the

Paranas. Upanishads are quoted and explained. The

principles are illustrated by stories and
parables, add the Vedic stories themselves are more elaborated.
All these explain the difference between the old and new system
of worship and thought, bring out fully the difference and
distinction between the supreme Brahman Siva and man and
illustrate the paths to salvation. These stories are the Dhaksba

• The Tantras as we have said represent Vedic rituals in a modified form, and before
any one jumps to the most absurd conclusions about them, I will advise him to read the
tantras in connection with the Brahmanas, especially the adhwarya portion. And-moat of
the Mantras used in the Tantras will be found taken verbatim from these Brahmana*. As
to their influence, apart from the Srputa and Smarta rituals > all other forms of ritua
observed from the Himalayas to the Comorin have been taken from the Tantras and they
direct the u >rship of the flaktas, flaivas and Vaishnavas alive.

•4

THr 4 VIVA KKI.ICION.

sac ri tici', the churning '>f the milky ocean anil Tiripura Samhara
Dursja Pujioic. I he Linga purana specially deals with the
birth of the Jvotir Linga. The largest number of puranas are
saivite and the oldest of them is the Vayu or Siva purana, as
pointed out by Wilson. The Uttara portions of some of the
puranas are clearly later interpolations showing the rise of
new sects and faiths and Skanda Purana accordingly deals
with the same subject.

The only worship universal in.the days of Mahabharata is
that of Siva and Siva Linga and we refer
iisn^s*. to the stories of Krishna's and Arjuna’s

Tapas and the discussion between Asva-
dhama and Vyasa. Most of the temples mentioned in the
Ariya Parva are temples dedicated to Siva. Oriental Scholars
point out that the superior castes in the

Mahabharau. days of Mahabharata were following the
worship of Siva and we quote the follow-
ing passage from Anusasana Parva, which explains at the
same time Rudra’s different aspects, the beneficient and
apparently terrible forms, as the Creator, Protector, and
Destroyer.

Lord Kristna says “Large armed yudhishthira, understand
from me, the greatness of the glorious multiform, many named
Rudra. They called Mahadeva, Agni, Ishanu, Maheswara, one
eyed, Triyambaka, the Universal formed and Siva. Brahmans
versed in the V eda know two bodies of this God, one awful,
one auspicious, and these two bodies have again many forms.
The dire and awful body is fire, lightning, the sun, the auspi-
cious and beautiful body is virtue, water and the moon. The
half of his essence is fire and the other half is called the moon.
The one which is his auspicious body practises chastity, while
the other which is his most dreadful body, destroys the world.
From his beiffg Lord and Great, He is called Mabesvara.
Since be consumes, since be is fiery, fierce, glorious,'' air eater

THE SAIVA RELIGION.

of flesh, blood and marrow he is called Rudra. As he is the
greatest of the Gods, as His domain is wide and as he pre-
serves the vast Universe, He is called Mahadeva. From his
smoky colour he is called Dhuryati. Since he constantly
prospers all men in all their acts seeking their welfare (Siva),
He is therefore called Siva.’’*

“ And how about the dead leaves which season after
season strew the ground beneath the tres ? Is their work
done because when their bright summer life is over, they lie
softly down to rest under the wintry bcughs ? Is it only
death and nothing beyond? Nay, if it is death, it is death
giving place to life. Let us call it rather change, progress,
transformation; It must be progress when the last year's
leaves make the soil for the next year's flowers and in so doing
serve a set purpose and fulfil a given mission. It must be
transformation when one thing passes into another and instead of
being annihilated, begins life again in a new shape and form.

It is interesting to remember that the same snow which
weighs down and breaks those fir branches is the nursing
mother of the flowers. Softly it comes down upon the tiny
seeds and the tender buds and covers them up lovingly, so that
from all the stern vigour of the world without, they are safety
sheltered. Thus they are getting forward, as it were, and life
is already swelling within them. So that when the sun shines
and the snow melts they are ready to burst forth with a
rapidity which seems almost miraculous.

“ It is not the only force gifted with both preserving and
destroying power, according to the aspect in which we view it.
The fire refines and purifies but it also destroys and the same

• And it can be shown that the picture of God as the fierce and the terribie is net
altogether an unchristian idea — The following paras, we cull from a book called “The
Woodlands in Europe intended for Christian * Readers and we could not produce better
arguments for the truth of our conception of the Supreme Bna* the De: trover, and the
creator and the l*rcicivcr (Aide p. 6 Sivaguauabctbam, Eugliih Edition.)

Tilt SAI V A RELIGION.

16

water which rustics down in the cataract with such over-
whelming power, falls in the gentlest of drops upon the thirsty
flower cup and fills the hollow of the leaf with just the quanti-
ty of dew which it needs for its refreshment and sustenance.
And in those higher things of which nature is but the type
and shadow, the same grand truth holds good, and from our
Bibles we learn that the consuming fre and the love thatfasselh
knowledge are two different sides of the same god. Just and yet
merciful that tvill by no means clear the guilty, yet showing
mercy unto thousands .”

Badarayana also touches upon this subject in I. iii. 40 and
we quote below the Purvapaksha and Siddhanta views on this
question from the commentary of Srikanta.

“ Because of trembling (I. iii. 40).

In the Kathavallis, in the section treating of the thumb-
sized purusha, it is said as follows :

" Whatever there is the whole world when gave forth
(from the Brahman) trembles in the breath. (It is) a great
terror, the thunderbolts uplifted, those who know it become
immortal’’ (Cit. 6, 2).

Here a doubt arises as to whether the cause of trembling
is the Parameswara or some other being.

(Purvapaksha: — Here the Sruti speaks of the trembling
of the whole universe by fear caused by the entity denoted by
the word breath." It is not right to say that the Parames-
wara, who is so sweet natured as to afford refuge to the whole
Universe and who is supremely gracious, is the cause of the
trembling of the whole Universe. Therefore, as the word
"thunderbolt occurs here it is the thunderbolt that is the
cause of trembling. Or it isjhe vital air which is the cause
of trembling because the. word breath occurs here. Since the
vital air causes the motion of the body, this whole world which

THE SA1VA RELIGION.

«/

is the body as it were moves on account of the vital air. Then
we can explain the passage, “ whatever there is, the whole
world, when given forth (from the Brahman) trembles in the
breath.” Then we can also explain the statement that it is a
great terror, the thunderbolt uplifted” in as much as lightning,
cloud and rain, the thunderbolt which is the source of great
terror is produced by action of the air itself. It is also
possible to attain immortality by a knowledge of the air as the
following Sruti says.

“ Air is everything itself and the air is all things together.
He who knows this conquers death. ( Bri. Up. 5. 3. 2).

(Siddhanta;. As against the foregoing we say that Para-
meswara himself is the cause of the trembling. It is possible
that as the Ruler, Parameswara is the cause of trembling of
the whoie Universe and by the fear of his cummand, all of us
abstain frurn prohioited actions and engage in the prescribed
duties and it is by the fear of the command that Vayu and
others perform their respective duties as may be learned from
such passages as the following.

“By fear of Him, Vayu (the wind) blows (Tait. 14. 2. 8).

Though gracious in appearance, Parameswara became
awful as the Ruler of all. Hence the Sruti.

Hence the King’s face has to be awful (Tail. Bra. 3. 8.23).

Wherefore as the master, Iswara himself is the cause of
the trembling of the whole Universe.

The Bhagavat Gita epitomises the philosophy of the
Svetasvatara Upai.ishad. Oriental scho-

Th« Giu. lars link both together as expounding an

eclectic school of Hindu Philosophy. .In
it the words Iswara, Isa, Maheswara, Parameshwara, are used

is

Tilt: SAM A KKLIl.lON.

and in the Utura gila, the word Siva is used not to denote
the lower Brahman but the Supreme Brahman.

In the Ramayana, Rudra’s position as the Lord of sacrifices
is affirmed in spite of some dissentients
THr fUmaimna. showing the rise of new faiths. The wor-
ship of Siva and Siva Linga was Universal
as shown by the establishment of the temple at Rameswaram.

All the Sutra Karas recognise Iswara as the Supreme
God an 1 Purusha. Sri Neelakanta’s Bhash-

TUc Sjo»>. yam* on the Brahma Sutras is the earliest

commentary now extant ; and as such
entitled to the greatest weight and it will be found to be the
most accurate and reliable interpreter of the Vedanta Sutras
and he is the accepted authority by the Southern Saiva school.

It is now proved by Thibaut and admitted by Max Muller
that the interpretation by Sankara is not correct Says
Doctor Thibaut.

" If now, I am to sum up the results of the preceding
enquiry, as to the teaching of the Sutras, I must give it as my
opinion that they do not set forth the distinction of a higher
and lower knowledge of Brahman ; that they do not acknow-
ledge the distinction of Brahman and Iswara in Sankara’s
sense ; that they do not hold the doctrine of the unreality of
tbe world ; and that they do not, with Sankara, proclaim the
absolute identity of the Individual and, the Highest Self.”

“ The Upanishads no doubt teach emphatically that the
material world does not owe its existence to any principle
independent from the Lord, like the Pradhanaof theSankhyas;
the world is nothing but a manifestation of the Lord’s won-
derful power and hence is unsubstantial (Asat) if we take the
term substance (Sat) in its stiict sense And again every-

• Tr.m>Luit4i puUiakc'J in vuL 1 lu Vil jfidd'.,aau Ihepika.

THK SA1VA RELIGION.

19

thing material (Achit) is immeasurably inferior in nature to
the highest spiritual principle from which it has emanated
and which it now hides from the individual Soul. But neither
unsubstantiality nor inferiority of the kind mentioned consti-
tutes unreality in the sense in which the Maya of Sankara is
unreal. According to the latter the whole world is nothing
but an erroneous appearance as unreal as the snake for which
a piece of rope is mistaken by the belated traveller, and dis-
appearing just as the imagined snake does as soon as the light
of true knowledge has risen. But this is certainly not the
impression left on the mind by a comprehensive review of the
Upanishads which dwells on their general scope, and does not
confine itself to the undue urging of what may be implied in
some detached passages &c.”

Says Professor Max Muller in his Life of Ramakrishna
Parama Hamsa : ‘ It is difficult to say which of the two schools
was the more ancient and 1 am bound to acknowledge alter
Professor Thebaut’s luminous exposition that Vishistadvaita
interpretation is more in keeping with the Sutras of Badara-
yana.”

Sri Neelakanta Sivacharya in his bashya quotes with
approval, this beautiful text from the Upanishads, “Apiva
yas chandalas Siva iti vacham vadet tena saha samvadet, tena
sasha samvaset, tena saha bhungite" which means: — ' A chan-
dala though a person is, if he utters the name Siva, converse
with him, live with him, dine with him ”

“Wherefore the whole universe is ensouled by Siva. If
any embodied being whatsoever be subjected to constraint, it
will be quite repugnant to the eight-bodied Lord ; as to this
there is no doubt. Doing good to all, kindness to all. afford-
ing shelter to all, this they hold as the worshipping ot Siva.”

During the Buddhist and Jaina period, it was Saivaism
that in»s able to rise above the onslaught of these two creeds

to

THE SAIVA REI.ICION.

*.nd vanquish them, lhe rise of the great acharyas, Gnana
Sambhandha, Appar, Sundarar and Manickavachakar was in
this penod. By the close of the 9th century both Buddism
and Jaimeiu had become inert and dead.

The next few centuries saw the rise of the great teachers
Sri Sankara, Sri Ramanuja and iri Madhva Charya. Following
them dose, came the great Santana Acharyas, St. Meikandan(i)
St- Arui Hanthi,(2) St. Maraignana Sambanthar, and St.
Umapathi Siva Charya(3j and modern Saivaism may be said to
commence from that time.

We will now begin the study of Modern Saivism. Its
form of ritualism and philosophy is determined in the South
by the Agamas or Tantras, 28 in number, from Kamika to
Vathuia, called the Dakshina or Right-handed ; and the differ-
ent temples in Southern I ndia follow the rules prescribed in
one Agama or another, though there are still some temples
like the one at Chidambaram where the pure Vedic Rituals are
followed. This Agama Philosophy has also been greatly
developed and systematised in Tamil by a line of Teachers
beginning with St. Tiru Muiar,^) St. Meikandan, St. Anil
Nandhi Siva Chariar, SL Marai Gnana Sambanthar and St.
Umapathi Sivacharya. Both in the rituals and in the philoso-
phy, the same mantras and forms and words derived from the
old Vedic Times are used. For instance, the temple represents-
the old Yagna Sala symbolising the human body. The Siva
Linga,(5) (it is due to Swami Vivekananda to point out that this

(1) TW author of fiivagnanabntham.

( 8 ) Do 8iY*gnaua Bkkihimr

(8) ik> light of Grace and 8iva Prakaaun.

(4) Author of Tiro mantra.

t** lh * f* 11 wtaccyliKMicu »<lh >11 the uthoritiu io VoU. VH uul Till SjddhMU
Dm pU.

TI’K ?• A I V A RELIGION.

21

was no Phallic{ i ) Symbol and this view was reiterited by
Dr. Ananda K. Kumaraswami in his paper read before the His-
torical Congress of Oriental Religions and in which he shows
that it is the least anthropomorphic of symbols,) lakes the
place of Rudra Pasupati and its form is that of the Pranava(2)
and there is the Balipita at the entrance to the temple with
the Yupastambha and the Pasu or animal offered in sacrifice
in the form of the Bull. Every Brafimotsava still commences
with a sacrifice, (the blood sacrifice is altogether given up in
the South Indian Temples j and the Pasu, in effigy in cloth is
tied up to the Yupastambha and after the Utsava is taken
down. The position of the bull or Pasu will be found to be on
the other side (God side) of the Balipeeta and Stambha, and it
is not called Pasu but Nandi (Blissful) God. Because, accord-
ing to the phraseology of Saivism, the Jiva, or soul, once it had
become freed is no more called Jiva but Siva or Brahman.
What had to be offered in sacrifice was not an animal but the
Jiva, the soul, called also the Ejaman of the sacrifice, had to
offer his Jivatvam, his animal part of himself, his individuality
or Ahankara or Avidya or Ignorance and the Naivethyam in
all temples is now interpreted as this Pasutvam, or Pasubho-
dham as it is called. As soon as he enters the temple, he is

(l)The 8 warn i said that the worship of the Siva Lings originated from the famous liugaw
in the Atharva Veda Samhita sung in praise of the Yupastambha, the sacrificial post.

In that hymn a description is found of the beg inn ingles* and endless Stambha or skhamba
and it is shown that the said Skhamba is put in place of the eternal Brahman. As,
afterwards, the sacrificial fire, its smoke, ashes and flames, the soma plant and the ox
that used to carry on its back, the wood for the Vedic sacrifice gave place to Siva's body,
his yellow matted hair, his blue throat, and the bull, the Yupastamba gave place to the
Siva Lingam and was raised to the High Devahood of Sn Sankara. In the Atharva
Veda Samhita, the sacrificial cows arc also praised with .the. attributes of th** Brahman.

In the Linga Furana, the same hymn is expanded in the shape of stories meant to
establish the glory of the great Stambha and superiority of Mahadeva. Later on he
says the explanation of the Siva Lmgam as a Phallic emblem began in India in her
mud thoughtless and degraded times.

'‘The Whole Lmga is the Oiukara filled by Kada and Blndu. The base is Alcara. The
Santa is Makars, and the round farm Ck-tra”. Ticumfjstrtk

22

Till SUVA HKI.IC.IUN

asked to prostrate in tront of the Yupastambha. Tin's is his
off.'; ol his self as sacrifice; and self-sacrifice thus becomes
tbe centieof Hindu and Saivite Philosophy, on which the
whole (lioccsr, of salvation depends. This is the Arpana or
Sivarpana referred to in Verse 57, chap iS of Gita.

The philosophy also retains the old language for its
techni'a! terms Whereas the newer systems have such
technii-al terms as Chit, Achit. Ishwara, Jagat, Jiva. and Para,
the Saiva Siddhanta technical terms to denote these Padarthas
or categories are Pathi iGodi, Pasu isoul) and Pasa (bondage).
Pasa is the rope with which the Pasu is tied to the sacrificial
stake and this is the word mostly used in the Upanishads also
to describe Man's bondage or Mala. "Pasam dahatih Panditah”
Kaival Upanishad.

The Pathi is accordingly described in the text books as
follows :

This Pathi is Param, neither Rupa, nor Arupa, Nirguna,
without mark, Nirmala, F.ka, Eternal, Chit of Chit, Achala,
Infinite, Ananda, the unapproachable, The Goal, the least
of the leist, and the greatest, of the great. Tat, and Siva
(Sivaprakasa 1)

We have only to notice that the God postulated by Saiva
Siddhanta is not Saguna, hut Nirguna,(i)

■ in* a Niigoaa an*t which as we have pointed out above means
P er “”* h ' only above the three gunas. Satva, Rajas

and Tanias, i.e. above Prakriti i,e. non-material or Chit. We
have condemned ever so often the translation of the words
Nirguna and Saguna into Impersonal and
m* m be Personal and thus scare away the Chris-
in.p,,. ,n.i tians from the Highest Conception of the
Sugremc. Personal is explained to mean 'Pure Being’ the

ill Thcie ihre* -'and lor It.c lhfi-r siatri J.i|;ia, Bwnpra And Bushapti. And

Xifgu. 1 - uvidflcr mean* tally* 'h Cha.uri- ‘Jagra i, Silva, jttn, i, Ejaijina, 'Hanoi
i* 8a.a'J^ll. NUjjUlU I, Ibllli'.t Tuiija T

Tilt SAIVA RELIGION.

2 3

absolute, by Emerson and Lot jc and other Christian Writers
and would correspond to our word Sat And I have shown
therefore that God can be both Nirguna and Personal.

God neither has form nor is formless as ' . t all

derived from matter, but He can assume any form suited to
the conception of his Bhakta and these Forms are not material
forms, but as the text says, "His Form is produced out of
Divine Grace or Love." God is therefore not to be called
Saguna, simply because He is spoken of as L'ma sahaya,
Nilakanta, Sambhu, Umapatheh, Ambika-Pataeh &c. Lord
of Kailas, as Siva, Hara, Rudra.(i)

God is neither he, nor she. nor it, but He can be thought
of in all these forms, as male, female and neuter; and all specific
names of Siva are declinable in all the three genders without
change of meaning Siva- Sivah and Sivam,(2l Sambhu,
Sambuvi and Sambhavam, Isa, Isah and Isanam &c.

ill It has been said, for instance, that ‘.he Svctasvatara upanishad is a sectarian Upa
nishad, because, when speaking of the Highest 8Jf or the Highest Br hman, it rpplies such
names to him as Hara (I, 10), Rudra (II, 17, HI, 8. 4, IV, 18, 81), Siva (III. 14, IV, 10)
Bhagavat till, 14), Agni, Aditya, Vayo, Ac. (IV 8). But here it is simply taken for granted
that the idea of the Highest Self was developed first, and after it had reached its highest
purity was lowered again by an identification with mythological and personal deities. The
question whether the conception of the Highest Sdf was forme;] once and once only,
whether it was formed after all the personal and mythologies 1 deities had been
merged into one Lord (Prajapati), or whether it was discovered behind the veil of an y
other names in the mythological pantheon of the past, have never been mooted. Why
would not an ancient Bishi have said: What we have hitherto called Rudra and what
we worship as Agni, or Siva, is in reality the Highest Self, thus leaving much of the
ancient mythological phraseology to be used with a new meaning? Why should we at
once conclude that late sectarian worshippers of mythological gods replaced again ike
Highest 6elf, after their fathers had discovered it, by their own sectarian names. If we
adopt the former view, the Upanishadsi which still show these Kudras of the a ncie n t
temples, would have to be considered as more primitive even than those in which the
idea of the Brahman of the Highest Self has reached its utmost purity. (Max Mulkr).

(8) This noun form occurs rarely in Sanskrit, but in Tamil, it is very commonly used
as synonymous with the fnasculjrr ferm ‘Siva.

THC S A I V A RELIGION.

M

The Pathi or Siva of the Saiva Religion is not one of the
Trimarties, Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra
and scores of texts could be quoted from
Tnn»y the popular Tamil Hymn books conveying

the same idea as in the hymn of Mahimna Stotra quoted above.
God is ‘Sivam Advaitam Santam Chaturtam.’

As Siva is Nirguna and Turiya the Supreme absolute
Brahman, it follows that God cannot be

c*»no< la bmn m born as a man through the womb of the
»•» woman and that Siva had no avataras or

births is generally known. This is the greatest distinction of
the ancient Hindu Philosophy and of the Saiva School,
making it a purely transcendental Religion, freed of all
anthropomorphic conceptions. It was the late Mr T. Subba
Rao in his “Notes on Bnagavat Gita ” who entered a vigour-
ous protest against the conception of the Supreme Brahman
having human avataras, and we regret that in all the mass of
current writings, no writer has thought fit to bring this view
to prominence But this absolute nature of Siva, does not
prevent Him from His being personal at the same time and
appearing as Guru and Saviour, in the form of man, out of
HiS Great Love and feeling for the sin and sorrow of man-
kind, and helping them to get rid of their bondage. And this
is the reason as shown in Sutra I of
Rosm for Crmtion Sivagnanabotham, why God creates the
Universe, and resolves it for the purpose
of making the souls eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of
Good and Evil* (good and bad karma) and attain salvation.

The necessity for human effort is postulated, but without
God’s appearance as the Divine Guru, in
Th» mcomt for * G«n. human form, and His Divine Grace, the
final salvation is not possible. Man can
b X try and get rid of the cataract covering his eye, but that

* m 7 *» the Tree of KnrmWIgc <Jf Good .uid Evil

THE SAIVA REI.IGION.

2S

he shall enjoy the light of the Sun (Siva Surya) is independent
of his effort ; and without the hope of reaching this Light
(Sivanubhuti) a man can have but poor inducement to get rid
of his cataract (Desire, tanha, the seed of birth) which veils,
him, by undergoing all the trouble and expense (tapas &cjjf
the Doctor were to forbid him to see the Light, after he
regained his sight ; and darkness cannot vanish unless Light
entered.(i)

The doctrine of Grace and Love is the distinguishing
feature of Saivisrti, and God is accordingly
Doctrine of Grace, defined by St. Tirumular in the following
terms.

“ The ignorant think that Love and Siva is different ;

none know that Love and Siva is the same;
G.xl is Live, when every one knows that Love and Siva

is the same, They will rest in Siva as
Love.” Tirumantra.

As God ensouls the Universe of Nature and of Man, Siva is
called the Ashtamurti,(2) the eight bodied
G.-xls immanence. Lord, and He gets a name as He dwells in
earth, water, air, fire, akas, sun and moon

and atma.

(1) To those who would deny this Sivanubhuti, Swami Vivekananda replied by saying ‘He

jests at scars that never felt a wound. ’

(2) Kalidashas this for his Nandi Sloka inSakunlala.

‘Isa preserve you. He who is revealed
In these eight forms by Man perceptible.

Water of all creations work the first
The Fire that bears on high the sacrifice
Presented with solemnity to Heaven
The Priest the holy offerrer of gifts.

The Son and Moon those two majestic orbs
Eternal marshallers of day and night
The subtle Akas vehicle of sound
Diffused throughout the boundless Universe
The Earth by S&ges called the place of birth
Of all material essences aad things
And Ah’ which givelli life to all that breathe.

THE SAIVA Ktl-IOION-

a 6

" Pritiyobhavah, npachcharvah Agncrudrah, Vayur
Bhinu, Akasasya M ’.':a.Lwih. Suryasyograh, Chandrasya
Somah, Atmanah Pasupatih.’’

The famous uij in tlie “th Brahmana of the 3rd
Chapter in the D ih • iiranva Upanishad gives more forms
than these as the Sc.rra of t..«. Brahman, but in the Agamas
and Puranas, these are r. duc.d to eight, as comprising all
other forms.

As God is immanent in the Chetana and Achetana
Prapancha as the soul of all, He is identi-
Ojj-»Tian*.vn.J<iKc. fied with the Universe as the All, and yet
His transcendency is also brought out by
such statements as ‘Antas,’ ‘ Antara’ ‘Anyata’ ‘Neti’ Neti,
‘They are in me, not I in them.’ “ Thou art not aught in the
Universe, naught is there save Thou.”

Siva is Sat Chit Ananda,(i) Somaskanda (Sa-Umas-
kanda);(2) Being, Light and Love. As Pure
Ood u 8.iichiun«uii. Being, the absolute, God is unknowable ;

and as Light and Love He links himself to
Man; and it is possible to Man to approach Him through
Love.

This Light and Love is therefore called His Sakti, and as
our Mother is all this, This Sakti of God
God’s hUi u light •ad becomes . The Mother of the Universe
im, (Buvanasya Mataram) as Siva is the

Buvanasya Pitaram.

St. Arulnanthi accordingly describes Her as follows.

ID Vide Bishop West cot ’s definition, God, the Holy Ghost and Christ, as Spirit Light
ad Lore.

(1) Umi literally means Light or Wisdom.

THE S A I V A KEI.IGIOX.

2 /

“ She, who is Isa’s Kripasakti, (Love and Grace)-Ichcha
Sakti, Kriya Sakti, Gnana Sakti,(i) and
This Li,;hi and Low is Droupava Sakti, who actuates all creation,
the M^her. sustcntat ion and resolution who is Rupa

and Arupa and neither, who is the consort
of Isa in these forms, who is all this world and all this wealth
who begets the whole world and sustains them; the Gracious
Feet of this our Mother , who imparts blissful immortality to
souls, and removes their bonds of birth and who remains
seated with our Father in the hearts of the Freed, let me lift
up my head.”

This Chit sakti (Uraa, Durga)(a) Nirguna, is sharply dis-
tinguished from Maya (Saguna) also a
SA-ii is nm Mitya. Sakti of the Lord ; and inasmuch as God
is in a sense identified with His creation, as
the Upadana Karana(3) of the Universe, inasmuch as it is His
Light that lightens all this world, so Our Mother is also
''identified with Maya, as Mahamaya.

This Maya is matter, the 1 object of western philosophy
and comprises Tanu (bodies), Katana (setts s, internal) Buvana
(the worlds) and Bhoga (sensations) and is defined as follows.
•‘Indestructible, formless, One, seed of all the worlds,
Achit, all-pervasive, a Sakti of tfie Perfect
Mnya defined, One, cause of the soul’s bo y and senses

and worlds, one of the three Malas
(impurities), cause also of delusion, is Maya.”

(1) The description of Her as Ichcha and Kriy % fiikti follow from Her first definition
of Her as Chit. Gnana Sikii. Says Arid Naniu • T"? form of th.s Sakti is unlimited
Intelligence. If asked whether Supreme Will un*l t'o^-jr r.r: i!w ‘ -Jud in this Intelli
gcnce, we answer yes. Wherever there is Intelligence, tlieie Will and Power. As
such P iwcr and Will will also lie manifested by this Cut £> .V.i.

(2) Literary deli vererf from evil, Mahi.dir.sura M.irdhani, 3I»i tslia, meaning buffalo, is
a symbol of Ignorance.

1(3) The words Upadana and Parinama do not occur in the Upwnishads, though the
‘Parinama’ is the text in Bada rat-ana s Sutra (I. 4 27) an I Sriicanta Sivacharya in his
B ishya distinguishes ii fn»m the ordinary concejrtion of Farina ma by calling it 'Apurva
I'urinuma.,

I HE SAIVA RELU.ION

2S

This Maya or natmti, or Pradhana of most Indian
Schools comprise the 24 tatvas from earth
CumpMoiutMuarm to Buddhi or 25 with Mulaprakriti, but the
Saiva School(i) postulates 11 more tatvas
above this 25 ; which are Kalam (Time) Niyati (order), Kala,
V'idya, Ragam or Ichcha, Asuddha Maya, Suddha Vidya,
Sadakkiam, Ishwaram, Hindu or Sakti and Nada or Siva
(Suddha Maya).

This Suddha Maya is the Kudila or Kundalini Sakti of
the Yogis, ol which Mulaprakriti called also Kundalini is the
grossest form. These higher tatvas, and their Powers can
alone be perceived and realised by the Highest Siva Raja
Yogis; and they are so subtle as to be mistaken for the Light
of The Mother Herself, as they reflect Her Light most
perfectly.

This Maya is again to be distinguished from dnava Mala
• (the technical term in the Agamas for

May i ili„tinpiidi«l from Ahankara, or Avidya or Agnana or ignor-
Avidjn, ance) and the definition and distinction is

stated in the following verses by St. Arul Nandi.

“ Anava Mala, with its many Saktis, is One; pervading
through the numberless Jivas, as the dirt
Audy. oi Anava Mala in copper ; it binds them from gnana and
dtfiiKd, Kriya. It also affords them the capacity

lor experience and is ever the source of ignorance.”

“ Do you say ‘there is no other entity as Mala (Anava);

it is only the effect of Maya'? Understand
Kninctum well, that Maya causes Ichcha, Gnana and

Kriya to arise in the Jivas, but Anava
causes the same to disappear. Anava is inherent in Jivas, but
Maya is separate, from them (as one’s ignorance and body can

(1) Bee foi a foil discussion of the 86 tatvas, Sri Kasivasi Sonthinalhier’s 8aiva Siddh
aiuaTatva Prakau Catechism. pul.li>hctl in Biddhartta lfecpika, V.»|. HI. p. 205 tT se<|.

THE SAIVA RELIGION.

29

be called inseparable and separate) and besides manifesting
itself as the Universe, forms the body, senses, and worlds and
enjoyments.’’

According to the Purvapakshin, Maya is the cloud that
hides the light of the Sun. But the Siddhantin answers ‘‘You
cannot speak of the sun being hid by the clouds, unless there
is a seer. The cloud has no capacity to hide the sun but it has
power to hide the seer’s eye. This sun is Siva. The cloud or
cataract in one’s eye is the Anava Mala; the seer or his eye is,
the Jiva or Atma or soul. When the soul is enshrouded by
Anava Mala, without action will and intelligence, it is its night
the Kevala State. When God, out of his
Kevaia, Sakai.i and great love, sets him in evolution giving it
Buddha or Nirvana the body and the worlds out of Maya, for
Condition of the Soul. his enjoyment and experience, whereby his
Kriya Sakti &c., are aroused, this is called itsSakala condition
Anava Mala is night and darkness, and Maya acts as the lamp
light,-the power of million arcs is the Suddha Maya — in dark-
ness. But when the sun rises, all darkness and night vanishes
and there is no need of any lamp, however powerful, and the
soul is fully enveloped in that Supreme Splendour, that " Light
of Truth, that entering body and soul, has melted all faults
and driven away the false daikness.” This is the soul’s
Suddha or Nirvana condition.

“ This day in Thy mercy unto me Thou didst drive
away the darkness, and stand as the Rising Sun .-

Of this, thy way of rising — theie being naught
else but Thou — 1 thought without thought.

I drew nearer and nearer to Thee, wearing away
atom by atom, till I was one with Thee.

O Siva, dweller in the great Holy Shrine,

Though art not aught in the Universe; naught is
there save Thou.

Who can know Thee.”(i)

(1! Prom Bt. Manictm Vachtka'i Tiravachaka-

JO

THf SAIVA REI.IOIOM.

Expresses the kernel'of Saiva Advaita Siddhanta. This
leads us naturally to the discussion of the nature of Advaita
postulated by the Saiva School, and before we do so, we will
glance at the nature of the Jivatma or soul itself, as this is
essential to the understanding of the Advaita itself.

The Sankhyans, Yogins, and Vedantins admit that the
Purusha Atma, soul, is other than Prakriti
s -.I diai^pkhcd from and above Buddhi and 23 tatvas. There is
fiu and A»ai confusion in trying to establish its relation
to God. The soul is not a reflection, a
panicle, a spark of the Partless and Changeless Brahman, nor
one with Him, God is other than the soul. Even where the
Sutrakara postulates Parinama, he does it only in reference to
Maya, but he postulates the difference of the Human Soul and
the Supreme Soul : No harm would arise if we regard Maya as
One with the Brahman as His inseparable Sakti, but all
religion and morality is Sure to die, when we regard the soul
the same as God.(i) There will be no way to account for the
Presence f 'vil or ignorance in the world, and even when we
try to whittle it away as an illusion, delusion or myth, the
presence of this delusion has itself to be accounted for.
Delusion is a conscious experience, and the question who is
under delusion will arise. If the soul other than God, aud
other than b^aya, is in bandha or bondage, then the necessity
for the creation of the world becomes intelligible. We there-

(1) This is poilted oat by a Christian writer in the following words.

“ Bat why do we shrink from Pantheism ? Not from dread of losing the physical
universe in God, bat from dread of Arsing our own soal in God. Pantheism only becomes
deadly to vigorous religion and morality when it makes the man’s sool the man's self, a
portion of God.' Tiicism claims that the human sool is a free cause, a separate island of
individual will in the midst of the greatest ocean of the Divine Will. Leave us m«n con
fronting God, not ab so r be d in him and the conditions are preserved for the ethical life of
the mhvidul and also for the communion of the soul with God as notbcr than itself,
the very possibility of which is destroyed if a separate personality is wiped o«L On this
matter of the (Mflmi of man from God, I hope to say more in a later chapter.*'
*0*1 8 ml by Ejv. llr. ArmOron*.’)

THE SAIVA RELIGION'.

3 «

fore postulate three Padarthas, three planes of existence, or
three centres, the plane of matter, the plane of souls and the
plane of God. In the language of Euclid, God is the point,
that which hath no parts, nor magnitude; that which is every-
where, in and out, above and below; the soul is the centre of the
circle, and the circumference is the Maya that bounds. When
this centre can rise up to the Point, then its Nirvana is possible.

But what are we to do with the Mahavakyr texts 'That
Thou art,’ 1 1 become that,’ I am that’ &c. It ,vill be noted
that these texts are not discussed by the Sutrakara Badarayana
in the First Adhyaya relating to Pramana or Proof of the
nature of the Padarthas, and where he distinctly postulated the
difference, but in the chapter on Sadana
Mahavak,-a Tests relating to the means of salvation. The
Teacher tells the pupil to practise the
Sadana, telling him that he is God; (Tatvamasi) and the pupil
accordingly practises Sohatn bavana or Sivohambavana, by
repeating the mantra ‘Aham Brahmasmi’; there is conscious-
ness, and consciousness of duality, of two Padarthas, Aham
and Brahma. This is Dwaitam, the Yoga or Upanishad or
Vedanta Pada. When by this practice of Sivoham, the cons-
ciousness can disappear, then the soul can become One with
God, Gnathuru, Gnana andGneya all disappearing(The GnaYia
or Siddhanta Pada). And the question arises how can this
oneness be reached, how can the two become one. This
becomes possible on account of the peculiar nature of the soul,
and its relation to God. This peculiar nature of the soul is
alone discussed in the Yoga Sutras and in Saiva Siddhanta
Text books. And the peculiar relation between God and the
Soul is called Advaita.

This nature of the soul consists in its becoming one with
whatever it is united to, losing its own
Nature of the Soul individuality, and its not being able to
exfct independently, except in union with

THE SAIVA REI.ICi ION.

J1

one or the otner !t can only be united to the world or to
God. It can reach God only when it leaves the world. It
cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time. It is the
caterpillar of the Upanishads, which leaves one leaf stalk to
gain another. And when it is united to one thing or the other
like the mimicking caterpillar again, it is indistinguishable from
one leaf or the other. It is the shadow of the one (Maya) or
the light of the other (God) that completely hides its (Soul’s)
individuality. So when in union with matter, with the body,
it is so lost in the nerve centres and so on, that the Scientific
Agnostic fails to discover the soul, by the closest analysis. In
union with God, the Pure Idealist finds no soul there. The
soul identifies itself absolutely with the body or God, and its
individuality or identity disappears but not its personality or
being (Sat).

This law of the Human mind called The Law of Garuda-
dhyana is stated in the terms that we
ibn n > Mino, o, become like what we are associated with, and
Crytui may be called the Law of association or

identity, and Professor Henry Drummond
calls it the Laws of Reflection and Assimilation, and likens
man to a mirror or crystal. “All men are mirrers. That is
the first law on which this formula (of sanctification or corrup-
tion is based. One of the aptest description of a human being
is that he is a mirror."

And we will find this is exactly the simile used by the
Upanishads and Siddhanta writers and the following extracts
contain the illustration and the formula of sanctification.

** Asa metal disk (mirror) tarnished by dust shines bright
again after it has been cleansed, so is the
one incarnate person satisfied and freed
from grief after he has seen the real nature
of himself, And when by the nature of
as by a lamp, the real nature of the

himself he sees

THE SAIVA RELIGION.

33

Brahman, then having known the unborn eternal God who
transcends all tatvas, he is freed from all pasa.” (Svetas
up. ii. 14, 15).

“ From meditating (abhidyanath) on Him, from joining
(yojanath) Him, from becoming (tatvabhavat) one with him,
there is further cessation of all maya in the end.’’ (Svetas
upc i. 10).

And St. Meikandan has this stanza (viii. 3. a.)

“ The soul, who reflecting that the knowledge derived
from the senses is only material, like the colours reflected on a
mirror and that these colour-like sensations are different from
itself, and after perceiving next, false knowledge as false,
understands the Truth will become one with God, who is
different from itself.’’

The formula stated in plain terms would read

“ I see God, I reflect God, I become Godlike, Godly, God,

I am God.”

The crystal or diamond unlike the Sun’s Light which it
reflects, though in its inner core is pure, possesses the defect
of being covered by dirt, mala, (Anavat and requires to be
removed by some other dirt, mala, (Maya) and it is luminous
(Chit) in a sense but unlike the Self-Luminous Sun, (Para-
Chit); and either in darkness or the full blaze of the Sun, the
identity of the mirror cannot be perceived.

We now come to the definition of Advaita. And we may
say at once, all the Saiva Siddhanta writers
Adnin Defined describe their system as ’Advaita’ pure and
simple, though people who hear it casually
described call it Vishistadvaita and fail to note its special fea-
tures. Advaita is defined by St. Meikandan as meaning Anya
nasti or Ananya,(i ) or inseparable; and his disciple calls the

(1) M.l, Drivedi io his 'monism or adfitil* points oat also that adVoiia does
not ika of Abilina or Abbimia bat Ananym and that this is the view of theflatrakara

M

THE SAIVA RF-UGION.

relation ‘as neither one nor two.’ Advaita(2) literally mean-
ing not two, simply denies the separability or duality of God
and soul and matter, but does not postulates Oneness, by
denying the existence of one or other Padartha or by postula-
ting their mutual convertibility as in causation &c. Mind
(unextended) is not matter, (the extended); yet they are ever
inseparable and found as one; how the unextended is preseht
in the extended is the puzzle and the contradiction as stated
by Doctor Alexander Bain. And the illustration of mind and
body, and vowels and consonants (3) is used to denote their
Advaita relation of God to the Universe of nature and of man.
God is 1 he Soul, whose body (Sarira) is the Universe of nature
and man, as so well and forcibly put in the Brihadaranya
Upanishad texts referred to above, beginning from Earth to
Atroa.

'He who dwells in the earth, other than the earth, whom
the earth does not know, whose sarira (body) the earth is, who
rules the earth within, He is thy Atma, the puller within, the
immortal.'

“ He who dwells in Atma (Vignana) other than Atma,
whom Atma does not know, whose Sarira the Atma is, who
rules Atma within, He is thy Atma, the ruler within,
immortal.” III. vii. 22).

Here 'He is thy Atma’, simply means ‘He is the Soul’s
Soul.’

And the analogy of vowel and consonant explains this
relation fully. In Tamil Grammar, the words used to denote
vowels and consonants are the same as the words meaning
mind and body. And we found the following text to our
surprise in the Aitareya Upanishad (II. iv. 1.)

It) Tide Brikmntm’i Bashya on V edema Sutras II i and 22

(•) Dt Bain com pl ain s that there is not even an analogy to illustrate thin unique
shoo of mind and body, but Biiva Biddhantis have this analogy of vowels and conso
n*nts to illustrate this union from Abe very beginning of tueii letters

TIIK SA1VA REI.1CION. 35

‘Its consonants form its body; its vowels the soul
(Atma)’

The vowels are those that can be sounded by themselves
but the consonant cannot be pronounced without the aid of
the vowel. The consonant cannot be brought into being
unless the vowel supports it ; and in union the two are in-
separable ; and One is the word used in the oldest Tamil
Grammar to denote the union of the two. A vowel short has
one matra, a consonant (pure) half a matra ; and yet a vowel-
consonant has only one matra, instead of 14. But- the vowel-
is not the consonant nor the consonant the vowel. God is not
one with the soul and the Universe, and yet without God,
where is the Universe?

“ X hou art not aught in the universe, yet naught is there
save Thou.”

He iimot one, nor different from the Universe, and this
relation is 1 called Ananya, Advaita. The Sutrakara brings out
the naturf of this relation which is neither one nor different in
II. i. 15 and 22. The Saiva Advaita Siddhanta accordingly
postulated that God is neither Abetha with the world, nor
Betha, nor Betha betha, as these terms are ordinarily under-
stood, arid yet He is one with the world, and different from
the world, and Betha betha. (Sivagnanabotham Sutra 2,
Sivagnanasiddhiar II. 1.) And St. Meikandan declares accor-
dingly ‘‘You can indeed say God is One, without a Second, as
when you say without the vowel ‘A’ no other letters exist.”
This is a view of Advaitam or Monism, which is not ordinarily
met with, and which must appeal to the hearts and intelligence
of the people of every nation, and every religion, and which I
commend to your earnest consideration.(i)

(I) See the full discussion oa Advaita Siddhanta in the current numbers of the New
Befonncr and Siddhanta Dsepifca, Madras

J<5

THE SAIVA RELIGION-

I will just glance at the practical aspect of Saiva Religion.

It holds out four paths or margas for the
rr».-tK»i Bdi(ioa spiritual aspirant, called Chariya, Kriya,
Yoga and Gnana, or otherwise called Dasa
Marga, Sat putra marga Saha marga and San marga. When
you want to approach God, you can approach Him as your
Lord and Master, you can approach Him as
Fu<u Ptihs your Father, or as your Friend, or as your
Beloved. The last is no marga at all but
where the , Oneness is reached fnlly and finally. There is
return to birth, while one is in the first three paths. And
these paths are so adjusted in an ascedding scale to suit the
intellectual, moral and spiritual development of the aspirant.
T1>e lowest and the highest have equally a place in this
scheme and are given room for their development and progress
No one path is put in opposition to the other. It will be
noticed this scheme differs from the so-called Karma marga,
Bhakti marga, Yoga marga, and Gnana marga, and the latter
is no logical scheme at all but involves cross division. For it
may be easily perceived that when one approaches his maker,
be must know Him as such (Gnana) and must love him as such
(Bhakti) and must adjust his conduct accordingly (Karma). In
each condition therefore. Karma, Bhakti and Gnana are all
together essential, and from the Dasa to the Sanmargi, this
Karma, Bhakti and Gnana is progressive. There is no
opposition, there is no parting away with one to follow
another. So the practical' Religion offered by Saivism is all in
ell and for all.

Saiva Siddhanta, as representing the old Hinduism and
with its chief scripture, the Svetasvatara
Upanishad and Gita, claims to be an eclec-
tic philosophy and an universal Religion ;
and the various points 1 have brought out
above will show how it brings i»self into

Ptulooft} .ad m

Caina

THE SAIVA RELIGION.

37

agreement with every shade of opinion and Religion and
Philosophy. It describes Philosophy accordingly by such
terms as 'Sara’, ‘Samarasa’, ‘Siddhanta’ meaning ‘essence of
all,' ‘true end’, ‘the Truth’. And we invite the kind attention
of every religionist assembled here, to the definition of an
Universal Religion given by St. Arul Nandi several centuries
ago.

“ Religions, postulates and text books are various and
conflict one with another. It is asked which is the true
religion, and which the true postulate and which the true
book. That is the True Religion and postulate and book, which
not possessing the fault of calling this false and this true and
not conflicting with them comprises reasonably every thing
within its fold. Hence all these are comprised in the Vedas
and Agamas. And these are embedded in the Sacred Foot of
Hara.”

And we will close this paper with culling a few opinions
of European Students of. Saiva Siddhanta.

Rev. Dr. G. U. Pope remarks. "It is the choicest product
of the Dravidian (Indian) intellect. “ The Saiva Siddhanta is
the most elaborate, influential and undoubtedly the most
intrinsically valuable of all the religions of India.”

Rev. Mr. F. Goodwill follows with the remark “Those
who have studied the system unanimously agree that this
eulogy is not a whit too enthusiastic or free worded. That
the system is eclectic is at once apparent ”

Rev. W. F. Goudie writes in the Christian College Maga-
zine as follows: — _

“There is no school of thought and no system of faith or
worship that comes to us with anything like the claims of the
Saiva Sidcihanta.”

THC SAIVA RELIGION.

3 *

•' This system possesses the merits of a great antiquity
In the Religious world the Ssiva system is heir to all that is
most ancient in South India, it is the Religion of the Tamil
people by the side of which every other form is of compara-
tively foreign origin.”

“ In the largeness of its following, as well as in regard to
the antiquity of some of its elements, the Saiva Siddhanta is,
beyond any other form, the religion of the Tamil people and
ought to be studied by all Tamil Missionaries.”

“ We have however left the greatest distinction of this
system till last. As a system of religious thought, as an ex-
pression of faith and life, the Saiva Siddhanta is by far the
bast that South India possesses. Indeed it would not be rash
to include the whole of India, and to maintain that judged by
its intrinsic merits, the Saiva Siddhanta represents the high
water mark of Indian Thought and Indian life, apart of course
from the influences of Christian Evangel (Revd Mr. Goudie
in- the Christian College Magazine xx 9).”

Saivism is based on the Highest morality as a course in
ethics usually precedes the study of Reli-
*** gion, and the subject of ethics is not usually

discussed in text books on Religion The
greatest authority in Tatnil is the sacred Rural by St. Tiru-
valluvar translated into many European languages and pro-
nounced by Rev. Dr. G. U. Pope as a book unparalled in any
language of the world. The Saivism of the South holds to the
a huns a doctrine* as its chief pillar.

THE

SIDDHANTA DEEPIKA

OK THE

LIGHT OF TRUTH

A monthly Journal dr voted to Religion, Philosophy, Literature , Science, do,
COMMENCED ON THE QUEEN’S COMMEMOEATION DAT, 1807.

VOL. X. AUGUST 1909. No. 2

T 1 RUMANTRAM.

AGNIKARYA OR FIRE SACRIFICE.
s/)(i£uQLjit 0S77 wrsu 'fieVSi 6
?Ql i jztj Q^auT^ffiVQpui

6/}«n^«jLcQij0aJaj Qai&rip psvn lc,

jybd.aS'T i-SGcV.

The spotless, matchless heavens, earth and air,

the Disas, and the gods of the Disas,

the victorious Vedas, will all prosper,

when the Brahmans stead-fast in mind offer sacrifice.

NOTES.

Our Saint gives here the esoteric significance of Fire
Sacrifice, in the light of Yoga; and in fact identifies it with
Yoga. The first requisite of the Hotar or Yogi is given here
as being steadied or stead-fast in mind, having fully controlled
his senses. The Tamil word Anthanar used here, means like
the word Brahman itself, a knower of God, a seer, a yogi, and
is used similarly by Saint Tiruvalluvar, and also to denote the
Supreme Brahman. ‘jii^emierdrCuiriijipClaiiir’ ' Jfpmt yl)

Saint Tirumular, uses the same word as meaning Supreme
Brahman also.

“ jfpaiirifiiLiipmeir ^£)uumiuiar
pitQer

40

sipmianta prrriKA.

'.^5 i«w r

4^Hk)0tf pjj-ti Hpnr
p 9 u&ff £ Q mt mm if ,a t;l9

pi u>/£miQ*> jtinuuiLi^miQp

The Brahmans offering oblat.ons to reach
The Path (gati), eat and drink in secret.

Following the law, they reach the true path ,

From such knowledge, they reach, the Highest.

NOTES.

The oblation offered in sacrifice symbolize the sacrifice of
the Self, Aham in man, his Ahamkara and Mamakara which
forms his individuality and divides him from Supreme Self,
his body and senses, the animal portion of the Soul. This is
also the Naivethyam, food, offered in the Temples, jjQurjsaai
an i the food of Pasu Bhoda, What our Lord likes most tp be
offered is this bad portion of ourselves, and in return. He gives
us His Supreme Bliss.

Qsmmt-Qtar jdrtms
*i.a itaniQanGam 9 £iurt
jfifQittm fiitatr pQ pant

V O *yerurra)

Oiemidu^itinSot Qaitmi—G
pQuQuQijimptfmp&aiQar
GuimfQiu a f#f vGairmn— niu

It was Thyself 'Thou didst give and me Thou didst take
Beneficent Lord, who is the gainer ?

Endless Bliss have I gained. What hast Thou gained
from me

O Lord That hadt made my heart Thy Temple, Siva
Dweller in the Holy Shrine

O Father, Sovereign, Thou hast made Thy abode in my
body.

For it 1 have naught to give it in return.

(P. A's translation).
This is the poison which the Supreme Siva swallowed, and
giving His o<fn ambrosia, amrita for us to eat and drink.

1 1 HUM ANT ARAM.

t

41

iQ p jfuSei(2aitvjQ&

Qf,l <Sf)4 iQaX tsBillfift (*,0 LOT
ilij epSosr sarSsoi t8(xp LQQajj)ii*
ftrg)& Sts p ftp-ijQar.

O Thou, The limitless amrita ; The king with the res-
plendent spear.

The giver of knowledge, can I speak of this Thy grace?
The T of myself Thou didst swallow, and
Alone Thou stoodest, The Lord Supreme.

This ambrosia is the Soma drink by the Sacrificer and seer
the moon of verse five, and is the tliss of Soma (Sa-f-uraa) or
Somaskanda, enjoyed in Yoga. The word 'amrita', usually
translated as immortal in the upanishads is a synonym for
Sora or Siva. The Pa.su Bhoda is the Aja or Goat or Pasu
referred to in verse five also. *

That this fire sacrifice is the Guana Yoga and not a
matei i. 1 one is shown by the last two verses. Compare
Ck.ndogya Up. 1. i. to.

"The sacr.fice which a man performs with Gnana, faith and
Yog i is ‘more powerfil. This is the full account of the
Sy dalle Om.”

^Sffisijf.StnaT tut ftaaij

ion- j, Zmt jiitsuiC- Qu/^.n tar

Jfrj&txr-L S»3T JJ/liuCJ tn T JpH'LlQ&J&ljlQlA

The Fire inside the fire is the brahman's Refuge
This inner secret is the same Refuge
Practising Pranayama, and holding this Twinfoot Refuge
One will te landed on the pure path, the true Bridge.

NOTES.

The True Fire that is to be worshipped, the Mulagni or
Gnanagni is the Fire in the Daharakasa, the secret cave of the
Heart where there is neither night nor day, where there shines
neither the fire nor the Sun and the Moon and these stars,
and which is the True Bridge to immortality. And this is

4 *

su>iiiian*i a nit- pika.

Rudra, (He who drives away our sorrow) and Rudra is hire as
the Rig Veda says.

(JutprmmQt-rPu

lcj fditmt—i 0 £^< 9 ^

firmtL-tOjj ptmoBiL -ijoaiMtit
Qw&ftntL-iS Q«n a fi *« t i (2 p

Practising this Sivoham both morn and eve,

The two damsels will to him in Joy appear.

Then the twin birds floating like two leaves

Will be burnt up in the Sacred Vedi.

MOTES.

The two birds are Soma and Surya Kala flying rn The
fbrest of manas. The two damsels are Para and A para Gnana.

Qt,ji£tmQ i vfiiL/ OtSya-L^/ Q&mj>
mxii&m aanaa.^’aii rad.0

m* £m pd! fim tarOuiair jg>Cn
Q»*j£m p wfdr-i'QimiiQui.

From Them, who follow the Tall Flame raised by
'pouring ghee.

And know the way the Aja is burnt up.

Their Pasu Bhoda will fall away, and ecstatic silence will
be reached.

And this sacrificer will become Soma.

MOTES.

The Vedi is altar where the Yogic ghee i& poured is the
Place of Bindhu. The path of the flame is the Place of Agnja.
The Tamil word ‘Mai’ *«•<•’, means black, black goat, and man’s
body («. is the form of the word Qxii in TeluguJ, and means
Pasu and Pasubodha and the word Aja also means both goat
and man in the upani shads. The word u>jpmu> is unmatta, a con-
dition of silence and ecstacy. “ Where one sees nothing, hears
nothing else, understands nothing else, that is the Infinite”.
And He who sees, perceives and understands this (Infinite),
krves God, delights in God, revels in God, delights in God —
be becomes a Svaraj, he is lord and master in all the worlds.
(Chandogya U{>. VII. 24. i, 25. 2)

I. M. Mv

THE TEN SPIRITUAL CONQUESTS OE THE SOUL.

I I >ASA KaRVANI .)

Apropos of the degree of sanctification attained by Master
Srikanthi, the saintly scholiast on. Badarayana’s Sariraka
sutras, the great Appayya remarks in his Sivarkanianidipika
that the Master became a competent sprilual exponent of the
real verities by reason of his being well established in Dahara-
vidya or dahara u^asana. This Dahara upasana is the door
way to the highest stage of godly experience attainable by
man, an experience, the blessedness and peace of which is often
described by Chri tian mystics as “ Fellowship with god.”
The essence of dahara upasana is Siva darsanam, Brahma-
darsanam, or “ Seeing god.” Dahara vidya is “ knowledge of
the mystery of godliness,” “knowledge of the spirit”, and
Dahara upasana is “worship in sprit and in truth”, "waiting on
god". Dahara means ‘subtle’, ‘spritual’, the subtlety and
spirituality here having chiefly to do with the attainment of that
knowledge or degree of sanctification whereby one can ti a ascend
his senses and thought. The upanishads proclaim thaf within
the “Cave of the heart” is the “subtle expanse,” and in it abide
the whole universe (Chhandogya upanishad, VIII, i, 3). This
“ subtle expanse is known as Dahara akasa (the Ponnambalam
of the Tamil mystic literature) and by many another
name. But none of these terms are to be understood in their
material sense, representing as they do living facts of conscious-
ness only to such as have become qualified by due culture to
enter upon the Path of Light, but mere symbols to- others. To
give up the objective world is infinitely more easy than pacify-
ing thoughts, or quieting subjective activities. When the
mind can maintain its one pointedness (ehagrata) for some little
time, it is next trained to drop the object (bija or laksky) and

SltjUUNTA DEEPIKA.

remain in .1 condition of absolute calm. This is a very trying
exercise accompanied by obscuring sleep or swoon, and the
greatest allotness is necessary to hold up the consciousness
until a more vfvid bhumik.i rises to view. As Patanjali
ordains, the posture adopted in spiritual communion should be
easy and pleasant. The Atma darsanam, and Brahma darsanam
arc only possitle m that silence in the interior of one's being, a
sweet silence winch invariably supervenes when titoughts run
down to a. eal.v, a calm which must be absolute and complete.

I lut sJence ,s ne ther tie obscurity of sleep, nor the hush that
is oceas on.illv superinduced when the warring senses are
oViT.,wed by a passing w ve of strong emotion. It is a silence
that is only too audible because of the inaudibility of the senses
and thoughts. The various st ges in the inner progress of the
soul culmmat.ng at last in face to face fellowsh p with God are
well analysed and summed up in the liasa kiiryani of the Saivu
siti/luiiuti. The expression riasa kinyani means “ the ten
achievements " wh.ch fall to the share of every Arurttbshu
engaged in Atmoddharaua before he arrives at the luminous
co iuition known sometimes as snhaj.i sanwdhi or ceaseless

II waking with God " waking or sleeping. These ten spiritual,
experiences, which, according to one set of Jnunis, are further
resolvable into thirty £rsc':tinnn$;tn, occur to the soul only
dur.ng its five a naluvasthas, but the ne plus ultra of the spiri-
tual pilgrimage is the Bhunta glorified in the Ch' andogya-
Upanishad, vii, 23, or the Soyafya siva bhoga. The Lord (S.va)
is described as sat chit anandu, which is the same as saying
th..t He is Life, Light and Love, and no better characterization
Will do justice to His supernal nature.

Mention is made of the stages of this dasn karyani in the
great Jnana sastra, the grea t Siva Juana bodtiam (Instruction in
the knowledge of the spirit) which is an episode of the great
R-iurava agama We have 28 Agarnas or Sivagamas attached
to the mystic philosophy of the Saiva Siddhanta, and they
are the reqtahd truth treating of the science and art of
purging the soul of its cankei ing .mpurities, and enabling it to

45

thf ten spiritual conquests or hie soul,

behold god in all His glory, while yet tabernacled in the flesh.
They are thus listed in Trilochrras Sidcthavta-SaravaU,

Slit TtStWT 3TftalWIHrti g ftHTS^H I
TTTiUjfqra^SfNI I

rmprttfa 'arniwrr i
FRn-uTi'iiiif'j n

3l(r<T?.fora utfzw *nini^T>n i

wT^r-TTyr-iiiir! hsijuh i

Huh laifiiupiP-^WT I

JtTrTTO{tT>JJTS 3 HTWrta^ STTmtH II

vv. 3 and 4 in Chary a pa da. The Rauravagainas thus Raur’ra,
i.e. to say the system of mystic instruct on embodied therein is
adapted to these souls who are not yet healed of their Anava-
mala, the Subtle Corruption which is the earliest to adhere to
the soul and the latest t leave it. If an Agama be clrss“d as
Saiva in the mystic termino'ogy of the Saiva-Siddhanta, the
meaning is that it is applicable to such Vignanakalah ( =
Vignanakevalah, according to Taltva-prakasa an authoritative
treatise on Agamic myst'cism) rs are already rid of the Anava
mala. The terms Vijnanakalah and Vijnanakevalah indicated a
class of souls in whom the only remainning taint is the Anava
mala. Sivajnanabodham is held to be the cream of the
Rauravagama, and has recently been edited in Sanskrit with a
commentary, in the pages of the Pandit, Benares.

What constitute the dasi-karyani we will now see : the
following are their names in ascending order. (1) Tattva-rupa,
(2) Tattva-darsana, (3) Tattva-suddhi, (4) Atma-rupa, (5) Atma-
darsana, (6) Atma-suddhi, (/) Siva-rupa, (8) Si va-darsana,
(9) Sfva-yoga and (10) Siva-bhoga. The experiences or achieve-
ments herein formulated appertain to the five states of the soul,
detailed in the Karna, Svayambhuva and other Agamas, to the
five Suddha-avasthas comprising Jagra, Svapna, Sushupti,
> Turiya, and Turiyatita. These conditions of the soul are men-
tioned also in Iiaiyanarakapporul under the names bnrinji, falai,

, ‘lUCIANTA UEEPIKA

Htul/iiit H&mttvH and iuiuat 1 he Suddha-.ivasthas are also
known as ammUi and uiiumala, in reference to tl 0*e puie states
of the soul, when it becomes cap ble of shining radiant in its
vestment of purity, even as a crystal column, while under the full
blaze of the sun in the zenith (cf. Tiruvarutpayan of Umapati,
v 6 /). In the Up.idesa-k inda of the Sivi-purana (Ixxxiv: vv.
19 and 60) the five avasthas enumerated above are said to
belong equally to the keval ivastha, Sakalavastha, and Suddha-
vastha, while the Mandukyopanishad falls short of even these
five avasthas, by mentioning four. It is probable, however,
that the tuny, of the Mandukya includes the tuhyatit <, and
the four avasthas have reference to the amalavastha. The dasa-
karyani of the Siddhanta system, which are achieved by the
soul only during the five states of the Suddh ivastha, includes
the twelve karyas beginning in the Pancha-bh.ut.-dhikkarna,
and ending with the chaitanya-darsana, as well as the eighteen
karyas beginning in the jnana-darsana and ending with the
Paramanandavasa, and consequently thirty ‘ triumphs ’ in all.
All these Jkaryani (achievements by the soul) and avasthas
(states of the soul) are to be realised in samadhi or spiritual
communion.

Tirumular devotes a large portion of his “ mystic instruc-
tion" (Tirvmantuam) to the dasa-karyani, and Siva-jnans-
vallalar does likewise. Kumara tevar takes his cue from the
God taught wisdom of the Saiva darsana, and endues the
intellectual Advaiia-vedatda with a mystic cult, by speaking of
a so called “ Vedanta dasavastha," and “ Vedanta-dasa karya.”
The total number of avasthas as realised by the Agamic-jnams
in wham the kingdom of Heaven was fully established is
eighteen. There is no doubting the fact that Kumara tevar
was a sanctified soul, but in his hands the presentation of the
advaita vedanta has assumed a complexion which shows it to
be indebted to the Saiva siddhanta, in a real spiritual sense.

There is always a danger for those who are intent an
cleansing their souls and knowing the true methods of finding
G°4 when they Imve recourse to books for spiritual instruction,-

47

THE TEH SPIRITUAL CONQUEST OF THE SOUL.,

which are written by men who never enjoyed “ Atma-puranam.”
Such books explain truths as revealed by the dry light of the
intellect, and never as they are in their real nature. It requires
the most penetrating mind 10 distinguish works recording the
godly experiences of real Svanubhuti, from those that are
misleading parodies of such. Intellect is mischievous, unless
tht Light of God shines through it freely and without stint.
On this object Swami Vivekananda adds (Raja-.cga, p. 70)
"Readonly those books which have been written by persons
who have had realization." The Agamas are never tired of
adding a similar warning against reading books written by
those who are not of God but who affect by the power of their
intellect to be of God. It must of course be confessed that till
a man has entered the Path of Light, he cannot always success-
fully distinguish the utterances of a saint from those of the
worldly that are perhaps drawn, or fell perhaps drawn, to the
reality of the unseen.

V. V. R.

( To be continued )

DID UM 1 CHAND DIE MAD?

Mr. Chandabhoy, b.a., Principal Fort and Proprietory
High School, Bombay says in his well written Student’s
Manual of Indian H story that “according to the latest enquiry
into the subject he (Umichand) proceeded on a pilgrimage to
Malwa soon after the deceit was made known to him and then
returned to his business in Calcutta and prospered till his
death.” If this is true the English Historians of India, who
unanimously say that he died mad on learning that he was to
get nothing as his reward from the conspirators who won the
battle of Plassey for not disclosing the secret of the conspiracy
to his Royal Friend Sirajud daulah, must have been misled by
— upon Umichand had the false report published by Clive that the
trick' he had played succeeded even so far as to cause his death.

T. Verasxdra Mudaliar, b.a., b.i_

a

4 *

SinOHANTA DFFPIKA.

HOW NILAKANTHA'S BHASHYA IS GETTING
APPRECIATE IN THE WEST

The keenest expounder of Sankara in the West at the
present time is Prof . Deussen who has been engaged for some
years in writing a General History of Philosophy in German,
in view to showing the place of Sankara in such a conspectus.
The third instalment of that History is now ready, and we have
great pleasure in extracting the following review thereof from
Lutac’s Oriental List and Book Review, (London), Vol. XX.
Nos. i and 2, January and February, 1909, from the interest it
has for us on account of the mention it makes of Nilakantha’s
Bhashya of the Brahma sutras : —

“It will be welcome news to many students that Professor
Paul Deussen has published the third section in Volume I of
his monumental AUgemeine Gexhichte der PMosopkie. This
latest instalment, a ponderous tome of 728 pages, will greatly
enhance its author's already high reputation for profound
erudition and keen philosophical insight. It deals with the
post Vedic philosophy of India, and falls into two main
divisions, treating respectively of the philosophy of the epic
period, and of the subsequently systematised schools. In the
Mahabharata and the Law book, of Manu, which he regards as
the literary monuments of an “ Epic Period ” beginning about
500B.C., he traces a vigorous though unsystematic course of
speculative activity which formed a bridge from the idealism of
the Upanishads to the systems of the classical age, and specially
to the mature Sankhya, while at the sametime, it was a fertile
breeding ground for the heretical Schools of which the great
representatives are Jainism and Buddhism. The Sankhya and
Yoga in particular appear to bear in the epos primarily the
character, not of two distinct schools, but of two different
methods for attaining the same object, the realization of the
Self, in the case of the Sankhya by reflection upon the manifold
phenomena of ex|Shrience issuing from primal unity, and in the

nilakantha’s bhashya.

49

case of the Yoga by concentration of the mind upon the inward
life. As an appendix to this first section is given an outline of
Buddhism, with some account of the allied system of the Jains.
Then follows the second and by far the longer portion of the
volume of which the kernel is formed by (i) a translation of
M.'.dhava's account in his Sarva darsana sangraha of the nine
heterodox .schools, and (2) a fuller account of the Vaiseshika,
Nyaya, Purva mimamsa, Paniniya, Sankhya, Yoga, and Vedanta
of Sankara, in which are included translations of Isvara Krishna’s
Sankhya Karika, the Yoga sutra, and Sadananda's Vedanta-
sara. The whole work is concluded by an appendix giving a
summary account of philosophical thought in China as repre-
sented by the teachings of Lao tse and Confucius and by
Chinese Buddhism, and finally glancing at Japan, with its
ancient shintQ and its developments of the Confucian and
Buddhist doctrines that reached it through China. Ip a work
of such vast scdpe as this there must inevitably be much that
that arouses criticism. We are not yet quite reconciled to
Dr. Deussen’s view that the classical Sankhya arose out of
(Jpan-shadic idealism “ through accommodation to empirical
consciousness,” though we must admit its plausibility. We
are disposed to question strongly the justice of his dictum
that the Vedanta of Sankara “ returned to the pure doctrine of
the Upamshads” and “is still the creed of the dominent
majority of all those Hindus who feel the need for a philosophi-
cal basis of their conception of the world ” (page 2) The
Professor speaks here more as a partisan than as a critic,
ignoring the just.fiable claims of some millions of e.g. Saivas
and Raitianujiyas (Ve regret too that he has not studied at
first hand the very interesting and valuable system of the
Saiva Siddhautam which is the domment creed of Southern
India. Much might be said, and ought to be said, of the
important developments of the Vedanta in the great Satva-
Bhashya of Nilakantha and of the classical system of the Tamil
Siddhantis.. But Dr. Deussen ha's given us so much material
for study, and that of the first quality, that we can overlook

50

SIDOHANTA UtlllKA

these occasional irregularities of perspective, and gratefully
acknowledge our enormous debt of gratitude to him.”

We will personally review Prof. Deussen’s work in a
subsequent number, giving translations of such portions of the
original as bear on the Siddhanta Philosophy of Nilakaniha.
We cannot say that the Professor is unacquainted with the
Saiva Bhashya, as we have seen a reference to the Benares
edition (published in the Pundit) of the same in his classical
•Das System des Vedanta.’ Nilakanthi- was one of 'the greatest
mystics of ancient India as can be readily seen from the follow-
ing verse which we quote from his Prolegomena to the Saiva-
bhashya, and this feature at once distinguishes him from other
commentators who were for the most part nothing more than
mere intellectual exponents;

JsrtwKi. dfr*iSA SWitkl II

Srikantha had actually seen God and hence lays down his
proposition, from the stand point of his Higher Experience, in
such terse and clear terms. Appayya's gloss on this verse,
though elaborate, will repay careful perusal for its spiritual
insight and illumination. The great initiates and sanctified
spirits who have contributed to the upbuilding of the Saiva
Siddhanta were men who were thoroughly established in God
and were in actual fellowship with him, so much, so that their
words come down to us with a claim which is altogether
magistral and impeceable in every sense.

V. V. R.

ARJ UNA'S KHANDAVA FOREST AND THE SELVAS
OF SOUTH AMERICA.

( Cnyifii/urd from 200 of Vo!. /X. )

The Khand ivadaha Sarga is the last chapter in Adi Parva
and therefore precedes the Sabhakr.y.t Sarga and the Rajasuya
Sarga with which the Sabhi P. rvi commences so that the very
first. step taken by the Pandav, s towards strengthening and
improving the Empire of Khandavaprastha wh.th their powerful
and influential matrimonial aimance with Panchala forced Dhr,-
tarashlra to give them as their share w«s the destruction ol ti e
terrible Khand. 1 va Forest which was therefore the foundation
Stone, as it were, of the future greatness and undisputed
supremacy and glory of the Pandavus over all the states.
After extending the limits and increasing the population and
improving the resources of their Empire, they set out on
conquering expeditions in oifferent quarters and subdued all
the powerful kings and compelled them to acknowledge their
suzerainty; and to make a public demonstration of Iheir
undisputed sovereignly over the Indian World whose limits
were not probably confined to the boundaries of the present
British Empire they performed the Rajasuya sacrifice in which
ail the kings openly took the oath of fealty and paid enormens
tributes to the Panda vas, their suzerain Lords which made their
^treasury simply inexhaustible. This unrivalled power, glory,
'prosperity, strength, wealth and the populousness of the state
excited the mean jealousy of their less competent and powerful
cousin brother Duryodhana which eventually brought about
the Creat War. Therefore if the Mahabharata is rightly
understood the Khandavadaha or the bbrning of the Khandava
Forest appears to be the keystone of the greatness of the
Pandavas which led to the Great War and the description of
the destruction of the Forest becomes therefore very important
in the development of the story of the Mahabharata.

The story of the conflagration of the Forest begins thus in
the Mahabharata : —

Krishna and Balarama came with large dowries from
Dwaraka to Khandavaprastha for bestowal upon Subhadra

SIDUHANTA IIEEPIKA.

5 *

who had |n»t then miamed Aijuna. Bularama and the Vrishni
henes then returned to the city of Dwaravati but Vasudeva
remained behind with Arjuna in the delightful city df
lndraprastha which had been built by the Pandavas soon^
after the Partition. It was about this time that Arjuna and
Krishna proceeded to the banks of the Jumna to spend the
pleasant summer days on the outskirts of the great Khandava
tores t wn.ch must have occupied a large portion of the Empire
of Khandav.iprastha. There summer Mansions and pleasure
gardens h d been erected which contained numerous costly
and well flavoured viands and drinks and other articles of
enjoyment w th floral wreaths aed various perfumes. The two
herers with the women of the party being unsteady with wine
beg in to sport and enjoy the pleasures of the vermal season.

To Vasudeva and Ihhan.injaya thus enjoying the vernal
pleasures in this forest like the twin celestial Aswms, therec^me
a tall, red comp'.exioned Brahman i with a beard which was
bright yellow tinged with green. Oil the approach of the
Brahmana both Arjuna and Krishna hastily rose from their seats
waiting for his commands. The Brahmana said that he was a
voracious Brahman and solicited them for sufficient food “ O
tell us what food will gratify thee so th it we may endeavour
to give it thee" said the warriors. The Brahm tna replied.

“ 1 do not des.re to eat ordinary food. Know that I am Agni.
Give me the food which suiteth me. This Forest of Khandava is
always protected by India and protected as it is by the
illustrious one I always fail to consume it. In. that Forest
dwelleth with his followers and family a Naga called Takshaka
who is the friend of Indra. It is for him that the wielder of the
Thunderbolt protecteth this Forest. Many other creatures also
are thus protected here for the sake of Takshaka. Desiring to
consume the Forest I succeed not in my attempts in consequence
of Indra’s prowess. Beholding me blazing forth Indra always
poureth water from the clouds. Therefore I succeed not in my
attempts in consuming the Forest Khajidava although I very
much desire todtf so. I have now come to you whe are both

ARJUNA's KHANDAVA FOREST AND THE SELVAS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 53

skilled in weapons. If you help me I will surely consume this
Forest for even this is the food that is desired by me. Con-
versant as you are with excellent weapons 1 pray you to prevent
those showers from descending and preventing the creatures
from escaping when I begin to consume this Forest.”

Then follows a description of the circumstances that led
Agni to desire to devour the Forest. We shall refer to those
circumstances before proceeding to the Destrection itself.
It would appear that a great king called Swethaki performed
numerous sacrifices l isting for several long periods so much
so that all the Brahmanas became sicldy in consequience of
having officiated at the several sacrifices and refused to help
Swethaki any longer when he set his heart upon performance'
of another sacrifice which was to last for very many years. In
this difficulty he was left with no other alternative than to pray
to Rudra for help. Rudra appealed to him and said "If thou
canst for twelve years pour without intermission libations of
of clarified butter into the fire, thyself leading all the while the
life of a Brahmachann then thou shalt obtain from me what thou
askest. In that sacrifice of Swethaki Agni had drunk clarified
butter for twelve long years: Indeed butter had been poured
into Agni in a continuous stream for the period."

Having drunk so much butter in Swetaki’s Sacrifice Agni
became pale and lost his colour, could not shine as before and
suffered from a loss of appetite from surfeit and his energy
itself became weakened and sickness afflicted him. In this
affliction Agni went to the abode of Brahma and said “ O
Eralted one Swethaki hath gratified me to excess. Even
now I am suffering from surfeit which 1 cannot dispel. I am
reduced in splendour and strength. 1 desire to regain my
permanent nature” and Brahma replied. "Thou hadst eaten for
twelve long years the sacrificial butter poured into thy mouth
bv Swethaki. It was for this that illness hath afflicted thee.
But O Agni grieve not for it. I shall dispel the surfeit of
thine. The time for it has even come. The dreadful Forest of
Khandava that, abode of the enemies of the Gods which thou

■4

SIPIMUVr.V nUFPlKA.

h,rfM nf old oner consumed to ashes at the request of the Gods
h..th no*' Become ihe ho r.e of numerous creatures. When thou
w.it h-ve eaten the fat of those creatures thou sh-lt reg.i.n thine
own nature. Frjceed thither in hr.ste to consun e th..t Forest
with its living population. Thou w.lt then be cured of thy
mal..dy Accord ugly Agni suddenly blazed forth in anger
ass. sled by Vavu. Beholding Khandava on fire the dwellers of
the Forts! made great efforts to ext.ngu.sh the conflagration.
Tlie Llepliants by hundreds and thousands speeding in anger
brought water in their trunks and scattered it upon the fire and
thousands of many headed snakes mad With anger i ast.ly
began to scatter upon the fire much water troni the.r many
hoods ami so the other creatures by various appliances and
efforts soon extinguished the fire. In tins way Agni biased
forth in KhancLvu repeateuly even for seven times and it was
in this way that the blazing fire w s extinguished there as
often as it blazed forth.

Agni then in despair appealed aga>n to Brahma recounting
to him the circumstances of his failure to consume the forest.
Brahma then reflecting for a moment said "1 seen way by
which thou mayest consume the forest of Khandava to day
in the very sight of Indra. The old deties Nara and Narayana
have become incarnate in the world of men to accomplish the
businessof the celestials. They are called Arjuna and Vasudeva.
They are even now staying in the Forest of Khandava. Solicit
them for aiding thee in consuming the Forest. They shalt
then consume the Forest even if it be protected by celestials.
They will certainly prevent the population of Khandava from
escaping. I have no doubt in this.” On this advice of
Brahma A gni as we have seen approached Arjuna and Krishna
and solicited their aid.

In this account of the reasons which induced Agni to
devour the forest it is interesting to note the important revela-
tion contained in Brahma’s reply above quoted that the Forest
had once before beers, destroyed by Agni at the request of the
Gods and that the Forest has since assumed gigantic

ARJ UNa’s KHAND.WA FOREST AND THE SELVAS OF SOOTH AMERICA. J5

proportions owing to the continuous existence probably of the
same physicil c iuses that led to the primeval growth so that
the conflagration of the Khandava Forest recorded in the
Mahabharata and which is reproduced here is evidently the
second instance of the destruction of the Forest so far as human
traditions and records go.

On this appeal of Agni for help Arjuna said “ I have
numberless excellent cclestu 1 weapons, with which I can
fight many Indras together. But I have no bow suited to the
strength of my arms and capable of beaiing the- might I may
put forth in battle. In consequence of the lightness of my
hands I require arrows that must not be exhausted. My car
also is scarcely able to bear the load of arrows that I would
desire to keep by me. I desire celestial steeds of pure white
possessing the speed of the wind. Then there is no weapon
suited to Krishna’s energy with which he can slay Nagas and
Pisachas. It behoveth thee to give us these means by which
we may thwart Indra from pouring showers upon the extensive
Forest. Thereupon Agni prayed to Varuna " give me without
loss of time that bow and quiver and that ape bannered car
which were obtained from King Soma. Partha will achieve a
great task with Gandiva and Vasudeva with discus. Give
both to me to day. Having got them all from Varuna. Agni
gave to Arjuna the Gandiva with two inexhaustive quirers and
a car furnished with celestial weapons and with a banner
bearing a large ape and to that car were attached steeds
white as silver and born in the region of the Gandarvas.
Pavaka then gave unto Krishna a discus with an iron stick
attached to a hole in the centre and thence forward n became
Krishn-is 1 favourite weapon. Then Arjuna and Vasudeva filled
with Joy s lid unto Pavaka * O exalted one furnished with
weapons knowing their use, possessed of cars with flags we are
now able to fight with even the celestials and Asuras not to
speak ot Indra desirous of fighting for the sake of his friend
Naga, Taxshaka. P rjuna also said “Q Pavaka while Krishna
moves on the battlefield with the discus in hand there is nothing
*

g6 sicgmvkta DrtriKA.

In the three worlds that he will not be able to destroy by
burling this wexpon."

Having obtained the bow Gindiva and this couple of in
exhaustible quivers 1 also am ready to conquer in battle the
three worlds. Therefore O Lord “ Blaze thou forth as thou
likest surrounding this large forest on every side. We are
quite able to help thee. Thus encouraged Agni began to
consume the forest of Khandava exhibiting his all consuming
farm like that at the end of the Yuga. The forest then looked
resplendent like Meru Mazing with the rays of the sun formed
thereupon. The heroes riding on their cars and placing them-
selves on the opposite sides of the forest began a great slaughter
on all sides of the creatures dwell. in Khandava. At whatever

point the creatures would be seen 'tempting to escape thither
rushed those mighty heroes. The cars themselves moved so
fast around tbe Forest that the inmates of the Khandava saw
not an interval of space to escape. Those excellent heroes seemed
to be but one and while the Forest was burning hundreds and
thousands of living creatures uttering frightful yells began to
run about in all directions, some had particular limbs burnt
some were scarsed with excessive heat and some were whithered
therewith and the eyes of some came out and some ran about in
fear and many rose upwards and soon fall whirling into the
blazing element below and some were seen to roll on the ground
with wings, eyes and feel scarred and burnt and the tknks and
ponds within the forest began to boil and the fishes and tortoises
in them all seemed to perish. The burning bodies of various
animals looked as if fire itself had assumed many forms. The
birds that toe* to their wings for escaping from that conflagra-
tion were pierced by /rjuna with his shafts and cut into pieces
they fell down upon the burning element below. Then the
I'.'.viiUv.tioiio dwellers of Heavens went to Indra and complained
*' h_> O Indra doth Agni bum these creatures below ? Hath

th t t.rr<_ come for the destruction of the world ?” Vasava there
upon soon covered the sky with masses =of clouds of every kind
and began to shower rain upon the burning forest. Those

arjuna's khandava forest and the selvas of sooth America. 57

masses of clouds by hundreds and thousands commanded by
In ira began to pour rain u ; Jon Khandava in showers thick as
the flagstaff. But the showers were dried up in the heat of
the fire.

Then Indra collected more masses of clouds and caused a
heavier downfall. The flames contending with the great
showers were terrible to behold. Arjuna covered the sky with
his innumerable arrows like the moon covering the atmosphere
with thick fog. No living creature could therefore escape from
below.

It so happened however that at this conjuncture Takshaka,
the chief of the Nagas was not there having gone at that time
to the field of Kurukshetra. But Aswasena the mighty son of
Takshaka was there and he made great efforts to escape from
that fire but was prevented by Arjuna’s shafts. His mother
then determined to save ’ y his swallowing him and she first
swallowed his head and then his tail. Desirous of saving his
son the she snake rose up while still employed in swallowing
her son’s tail but Arjuna on teholding this, severed her head
from her tody by an arrow. Indra to save his friend's son raised
a violent storm and deprived Arjuna of consciousness and
during those few moments Aswasena succeeded in effecting his
escape. Beholding that manifestation of the power of illusion
and deceived by that snake, Arjuna was much rngered. He
forth with cut every animal scekirg to er :av>e b j the skit s into
t vo, three or n .re | •< _rs. Then Arjura, f" \< ami Krishna
c -se the sn.ke that had escaped so deceitfully “Never shall
thou be famous.” Then there came lor the protect i. u of the
^forest numerous birds of the Garuda type, innumerable Nagas
vomitting virulent poison who w'ere all cut to pieces by A-juna
and there came also innumerable As eras with Ghandarwas,
Yakshas, P..-.kshas..s, Nagas sending ior.h terrific yells. But
all these enemies the Daityas and Dh-navas were destroyed by
Arjuna and Kr shn >. Then these bevies met the celestials with
Indra at their head who caused several limes terrible down-
pours to crush the fire. Then Indra torea large peek from

MI'MI.WT V

5 ®

Mandara arid hurled against Ariuna, his son hut the latter tore
the mountain peak into thousand pieces by his arrow.

And it so happened that Krishna suddenly beheld an
Asura of the name of Mava escaping from the abode of
Takshaka. Agm pursued the Asura. Yasudeva stood
with his weapon upraised v ready to smite him down.
Seeing the discus uplifted and Agm pursing from behind to
bum him Mava ?a d “Come to me O Ariuna and protect me.
Arjuna said • Fear not ’’ l hereupon- Krishna ceased to slay
Maya who was the brother of Namuehi and Agni also bunted
him not and while the forest burned Agm sp ihyd only six of his
dwellers namely Aswasena, May.i, and four birds called
Sarangakas.

Then the story of the four Sarangaka birds which escaped
the fire is related. These birds are the issue of a Rishi called
Mandapala. Wf;n Mandapala attempted to enter Heaven he
found he could not obtain admittance. On enquiring the
reasons he found that he had no offspring and that Heaven was
accordingly refused to him. He then determined to have
offspring and on reflection understood that of all creatures birds
alone were blessed with fecundity. Assuming the form of a
Sarangaka the Rishi had connection with a female bird of the
same species and he begot upon her four sons who were all
reciters of the Vedas. Leaving these four sons with their
mother in the forest the asectic went to another place. There
the Rishi saw that the forest was on fire. He then began to
propitiate Agni who being gratified with the panegyrics of
the Rishi promised to spare his four children in the form of
Sarangakas. Thus of the innumerable population of the
Khandava Forest, only six creatures escaped destruction viz.
Aswasena the son of the Naga Chief Takshaka, Maya who built
the famous Sabha or Assembly Hall of lndraprastha in which
Rajasuya Sacrifice was performed and the four sons of the Rishi
Mandapala.

T. Yerabadra Mldai.iar, B.A., b.l.

* (To be conliiitieil. t

r 9

IIAPHiV!-'*

HAPPINLSS.

Man always tr.es to secure happiness and shun misery.
1 he majority of these seekers after happiness do not make use
of the.r reasoning- faculties in the understanding of what real
happiness is, but they, being deluded by their senses, set their
whole mind on securing the unreal and transitory pleasures of
this world. Let us now see what our shastras say on this
subject^ Happiness is div.ded into three classes : — (i) Lowest
or Adhama, (2) Intermediate or Madhyama, and (3; Highest
or Uttama.

(1) By lowest happiness or Adhama , is meant what is known
in the Srutis as Manushyananda (pleasures of man). It
includes the pleasures of music, of beautiful sights, of sweet-
scented flowers, of delicious foods, of perfumes applied to the
body, of houses filled with wives, carriages and wealth, and of
others of various kinds. It may be surprising to many to hear
that these pleasures which have occupied the minds of a great
many pbople are of the lowest class. From the following
reasons it will be evident that they are really so : —

(i) These pleasures are not always enjoyable, for they
exist only so long as the objects which give us these pleasures,
exist. Not only so, but the very pleasure we teel in them is
more than counterbalanced by the pains we suffer in our efforts
to secure them.

(ii) These pleasures are not viewed alike by all, for what
pleases one's senses does not please those of another. No two
persons agree together in their ideal of sense-pleasure.

(lii) All these pleasures are not enjoyed by any one man.

A king in the enjoyment of many pleasures is grieved by the
absence of a son to inherit his kingdom after his death ; a poor
man, pleased to be the father of many children is grieved for
want of means to support them ; and a sick man, though he

MDOHANTA PF.F.PIKA

(»,

possesses immense wealth, is grieved because he cannot eat
what his tongue desires.

Thus it is seen that man is never in Ihe enjoyment of
unmixed pleasure. These reasons clearly show that these
sense pleasures are unreal and of the lowest 'sfert. If then it is
asked why it is that people call them happiness, no other
answer can be given than that they are ignorant of the .nature
of real happiness.

(2) Intermediate or Madkyama happiness is known in Sruties
as Dev.nanda (pleasures of Devas). By performing the karmas
enjoined on us by the Vedas, by founding charity institutions,
by building temples and by various other good deeds, we
of tain Devatvam and are placed in Swarga Loka. There we
tnjoy pleasures quite different from the worldly ones. There
we enjoy unmix xd pleasures ; we are free from disease and
pain. But in spite of all these advantages there is one defect
in them , and that is, that they last only for a time. It is the
force of our good Karmas that keeps us in Swargam and
naturally when this force is exhausted we must return to earth
to gather fresh experience. And it is because of their short
duration that they occupy an intermediate position'.

(3) The highest or Uttama happiness is known as
Brahmanda or Moksha or eternal bliss. Moksha means
liberation from the sorrowful Samsara of life and death which
may be either in this world or in the higher worlds. From
the moment of conception in the mother’s womb to the
moment of birth and from the moment of birth to the moment
of death, man’s life is full of miseries ; he never enjoys
happiness. Whereas moksha is a state'of unconditioned bliss.
This bliss has an existence independent of time, space and
causation. That is the happiness which every one of us should
strive after ; and it is our duty to work for its attainment,
There is no doubt whatever, that by our efforts, we shall be
able to enjoy it either in this life or in some lives to come. The
man whose mind js fixed sojely on the gratification of sense-

HAPPINESS.

6l

pleasures, never enjoy Brahma nanda or eternal bliss. Our sacred
books point out to us many paths that will finally lead us to that
ocean of pure bliss. They are Sariya, Kriya, Yoga and Gnana
margas, otherwise called Dasa, Satputra, Saha and Sanmarga
The various duties assigned to each are only such as our love of
the master, or father, or friend, or lover will induce js to mani-
fest in .tokens of our love. These duties are meanin /less except
as tokens of our love and as disciplining us to love and love
more God and His creatures.

I quote below a verse from the Gita where all these four
paths are set forth..

“ Therefore with bowing and body bent, I ask grace of
thee, Lord and Adorable, as father to son, as friend to friend, it is
meet, O Lord, to bear with me as Lover to Loved.” It may also
be observed that Saivism of to-day which is regarded as the true
modem representative of the historic religion of the Gita and
Mahabarata period combines all these four paths unlike other
religions which point out only one or other of these paths and
the great saints St. Appar, St. Gnanasambanthar, St. Sundarar
and St. Manickavachakar are regarded as teachers of these four
paths. So Love is the essence of all real religion and real
worship of God is the worship of God’s creatures and loving
them one and all without distinction of caste and creed and
unless this is fully recognised and practised, no real spiritual
progress is possible.

M D.

NOUS ANP COMMENTS.

On the receipt of Mr. NalUswum Fdlai’s thes s.read before
the Calcutta Convent'on of Religions, Mr.

Ah Appreciation. S. Snnitn 'tha Iyer, Secretary Tamil Singam
writes as follows. •* I am exceedingly glad
to acknowledge the receipt of your vol uahle pamphlet and 1
thank you much for the kindness in sending me the same. 1
went though it rather carefully. 1 am glad you have put
forth your arguments with all possih'e clearness and your
geometrical and grammatical illustrations are beautiful.

*• 1 see God, I reflect God, 1 become God like, Godlv God.

1 am God " is simply beautiful. This is the keystone of the
whole pamphlet. 1 simply admire your range of religious study,
why 1 even envy you for the same. The fervour and patriotism
with which you advance you theory is commendable. 1 am
sure you ought to have had a warm reception at the assembly.
Some of the arguments and statements put forth by you may
not be palatable to Vedantins who may differ from you. But
taken as a whole, your paper is very interesting and you
deserve the thanks of the S.iivites of Southern India for abiy
representing their cause at that learned assembly.”

Besides attending the Convention of Religions at Calcutta,
we are glad to note that Mr. Nallaswami
A record of good work. Pjflai was good enough to do some work for
the cause of Saivism during his brief holi-
day On 2 nd May, he presided at an inaugural meeting
for reviving the_ old Vedagamokta Saiva Siddhanta Sabha
founded by his teacher the late Srila Sri Somasundara Nayagar
Avergal and delivered an interesting address in which be dwelt
at length on tHe great message to humanity which Saiva.
Siddhanta contained. The chief point of his address consisted

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

6 3

in his counselling his hearers to live the life of Love and good
will which Saivaism taught, and that love and love alone should
govern their thoughts, speech, and work, and that they
should never offend anybody by their propaganda, otherwise
they would fail : n their cherished object of spreading Saivism.
Their ideal of God is as Love, and it is this bliss of Love they
want others to share and catholicity of spirit and sweetness of
speech are essential if they really wanted others to share in our
‘Master’s Joy.' He also assisted at the Prathishta ceremony
of St. Thayumanavar's holy image at the Sri Thayumanaswami
Mutt at Trichy Rockfort, on 5th May and on 7th and 8th May,
he presided at the Anniversary of TiruchengodeSaiva Siddhanta
Samajam. The leading spirit of this Samajam is Sriman
Muthuswami Konar Avergal, and great credit is due to him,
and the Mittadars of the Taluq for the excellent arrangement
made on the occasion. The celebration consisted of Abhishekams
in the Temple, feeding and clothing of the poor, and a number
of lectures delivered by sever; 1 pundits who attended from far
and near. 'In the first week of June, Mr. Nallaswami Pillai
delivered two lectures at the Saiva Siddli..nta Sabha, Trichi-
nopolv, and one in Tanjore at the Besant Hall. In the first
lecture at Trichy he explained at considerable length the nature
of the Scud or Jiva, and showed how the understanding
of this subject was the keystone to the whole Philosophy.
Mr. A. V Gopala Chariar, m.a., b.l., High Court Vakil
presided on the occasion and the lecture was very much
appreciated, At the special request of the Sabha, he delivered,
a lecture on Srvagnanabodham and gave the gist of the whole
book in a lecture of two hours, duration. The Thambiranswami
of the local Mutt presided on this occasion. At Tanjore, he
briefly spoke on the chief points of Saiva Siddhanta, and as
one of the audience pointed out, his speech was unexceptiopable
in form and conception.

siddhanta ^)rrriKA.

«4

We are glad to announce that Mr. Nallaswami PilUn is also
busy preparing the English translation of the
gnkut* Bsahjs. Bashya published in these pages for being
brought out in book form. He is adding a
lengthy introduction in which the position of Saivaism in the
History of Indian Religions will be fully noticed. It is proposed
to add a translation of nearly all the Rudra Hymns from the
Rig Veda, following the commentary of the great Sayanacharya.
The European translations now existing do not in any way
do justice to the spirit of the original.

Pandit E. Ralnavelu Mudaliar of the Christian College has
laid the Tamil pnblic under a deep debt of
a Tsmil Dtotionwj of gratitude to him for bringing out itoa
jvopcr invaluable work. Mr. j. M. Nallaswami

PiUai has writteu a brief introduction to
it pointing out its importance. The book dealing only with
the proper names has gone into a bulky volume consisting of
J4f) pages and contains a vast deal of information on all the
closatcal names, available in no other book. The book is priced
cbtftp at 3 Rupees and should be in the hands of every Tamil
Student and Scholar.

This was held at Guntur on the 21st and 22nd of August
under the Presidency of Mr. T. Rama-
Ifc — — 1 Mm*- chandra Rao retired Sub-J udge, and it must
Ovmtiu, be pronounced a success in every way. Mr.

V. V. Sivavadhanulu welcomed the mem*
ton in a nice speech and pointed out the important work the
Itosaophical Society was doing. The President’s speech on the
manage of Theosophy was more or less in a similar strain and
he illustrated his subject by taking some stories from the Upani-
shads and Puranas. Mr. C. Nanjundappa of Cuddappah is an
ardest Theaaophical Missionary and spoke in Telugu with great
eloquence. Mr. fiarasimmayya of ChiUur spoke also very

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

<55

w^ll on Hinduism and Theosophy. The couversazione must be
pronounced to be a failure. An interesting feature was intro-
duced into the meeting by organizing two lectures for the
benefit of our woman-kmd. Great credit is due to Mr. Siva-
vadhanulu for the success of the federation.

The one great mistake of the various speakers consisted in
trying to identify Theosophy with some
Mia take* and lome one form or other of the Indian Schools of
misconceptions. Philosophy. If as some speakers admitted,
Theosophy is broad enough to admit atheists
into its fold, why then this identification?! t is a narrow-
ing of the platform which cannot but be detrimental to the
true interests of the Theosophic.il Society. Individuals can no
doubt hold up the excellence of this or that teaching but to say
that that is Theosophy is a far different thing. One grave
error however was committed by the President in his speech or
shall we call it a slip? In giving the famous story from
Kena Upanishad which will be found fully quoted in our last
number, he omitted all reference to Uma Haimavatim’s appear-
ance and Her Message to the gods. " It is through the Victory of
Brahman that you have thus become great.” After that he knew
that it was Brahman.” And he added that Indra meditated and
thus found out Brahman. This message of the President is in
direct conflict with the teaching of Upanishad “that he by
whom Brahman is not thought, by him It is thought. He by
whom It is thought knows it not.” This means that one cannot
know God by his own efforts, by his own knowledge, by his
by his Pasa and Pasugnana but by the Grace
of God, by Pathignana, represented by the Supreme Person
and Majesty of Uma Haimavatim, translated as it is even
by Sankara as Brahmagnana. These two Schools are as
poles asunder, and it may be true that man can by his own
effort know and become God but the Upanishad can give
no support to such a doctrine.

MHOMANTA DCr.PIKA.

In Mr Narasunmayya’s address he advanced a curious
theory. He said Sat Chit and Ananda were attributes of Isvara
and Sat was Brahms, Chit Vishnu, and Ananda Isvara. We
dont know in wh.it Hindu book he gathered this information.
'Satyam Gnanam Ansntam, are not attributes of Cod but it is
the ve-v definition of Brahman, His absolute nature. At any rate
‘Sit ' cannot bean attribute, it is the very Being, God absolute
" In the beginning, my dear only S.it there was, one without a
second. May 1 grow forth.” (Chandog. Up 6-2-2).- It is more
carious how Sat is Brahma, etc., when we know that every one
of the Trinity and even the Jiva is Sat Chit An nda. These
are novel doctr.nes, unknown to Indian Philosophy to say t.ie
least of it.

We beg to draw the attention of our readers to the
enclosed circular of this longstanding firm.

U. R Nakk * Co., This firm has established a reputation for
supplying superior quality of watches and
clocks as will be seen from the various
excellent testimonials they have received.

THE RATIONALE OF' SYMBOLIC WORSHIP*

Too often, ignorance the most gross and inattention the
most heedless have obscured the grandeur of the subject. We
dare sav that among so may preachers who pour forth their
vials of invectives upon poor employers of images, there is not
one, who has unccrstood or made even bona fide .attempts to
understand the principles involved in setting up images in our
public places of worship ; and the reason therefor is not far to
seek. These men have approached the subject, not in a spirit
of reverence and of enquiry as is due to a grand subject, not
with an open mind ready to be impressed with truths as they
occur when pushing on their enquiry, but with a biassed
heart towards “idolatory” as they' dub it, with all their
predilections against it and as such with a jaundiced eye.
We do not altogether blame them for this attitude of their mind.
Often they are men with the best of intentions, but there is the
prejudice lurking in their minds to which they easily,
unconsciously no doubt, succumb, especially when suitable
opportunities do not present themselves to alter their notions.
Ignorance, in this, as in all other kinds of evil, has been at tha
root.

Philanthropic missionaries, we must give them due credit,
the pioneers of the present day civilization, the torch bearers
of knowledge and culture to far off regions of gloom and
darkness, inbued with the sole spirit of “wooing the heathens
to Christ,” begin their labours of love by first aiming blows at
the national institutions of these strangers they come in contact
with ; and this could not be better done, than by bringing into
comtempt the national temples, the idols, the religious proces-
sions and their ceremonies, in schools where our young men

A paper read before the Sid Saiva Saiaaja Soofereuee atNagapataa ISO*.

t THE RATIONALE Of. SYMBOLIC WORSHIP.

resort to /or their moral advancement and culture, and on occa
♦ions of festivals when our men gather, by prophesying their
ruin one day by holding forth on the fates that overtook the
once mighty Rome and Greece, which were also once studded
with temples of Gods and goddesses as India at the present day
is, but of which not a single vestige is left and not a single
votary is now to be found.

In the public schools set up by these wejl meaning
passionaries, oiy young men are taught not veneration for the
sacred institutions of their forefathers, not respect for tiie
cherished ideals which their ancestors preserved at the risk of
their lives and property, but are systematically taught to
abjure their faith, are told that their ancestors were men
removed but one step from the level of the brutes. What
wonder then that our young men, who sat at the feet of these
foreign Gurus either drifted into irrelig on or sought their
mental peace and confort in alien faiths. The contagion
of decrying the use of images has spread from these missionary
Gurus to our own countrymen, which has culminated in
the establishment of new movements with new (?) ideals
as if Vedantha or Siddhinta is not wide enough to
enclose within its tx som such shades of opinions. This would
have deluged the whole of our land had it not been for the
disinterested labours of these very foreigners, the founders of
the Theosophical Society who, by coming here to quench
their thirst of spirituality at the very fountain head,
came to our rescue. Twenty five years ago, any movement
to uphold the setting up of images would have been greeted
with sneers and ridicule, but now that a mighty

wave of revivalism due to the labours of the gifted
Swami Vivckananda (may the memory of this great man
live long) has spread throughout the length and breadth of
this land, we are able not only to maintain our ground
but also to hold ourselves head and shoulders above
all other nations ^f. the earth and prove to the hilt the
inner grandeur of the spirituality of our Rishis and Saints

THE RATIONAL!-; OK SYMBOLIC WORSHIP. 3

whose descendants, we are proud to own, we surely are.
Hence forward our prime duty must be to guard those sacred
treasures of spiritual truths entrusted to our care from 'being
misunderstood, misrepresented and misused and make them
available fur profitable use by others also. In so doing, we
should lay special stress upon the fact that Brahmavidya,
India’s Religion, is not a series of fables or legends, does not
depend upon the truth or otherwise of the historicity of this or
that man, this or that event, though it welcomes the advent of
any man who could enliven spirituality or any event that could
strengthen the spiritual stronghold, but it is a haven of
eternal, unchanging and universal principles. Nations which
have been manufacturing all sorts of liquids to intoxicate man
with, practising all sorts of imaginable cruelties on poor
dumb creations to gorge on their flesh etc., and multiplying
engines of war and oppression, and with enough Christian
char ty, are making huge preparations for taking the lives of
countless millions of human beings, may be slow and may be
even unwilling to recognize this, but we must push on inspite
of all difficulties, and with Light and Love, we are sure to
succeed.

Coming now to the subject on hand, if we carefully examine
the religious history of humanity, of ancient nations of both
the old and new worlds, and scrutinize their traditions and
sacred lores, we will know for certain that they were all idol-
worshippers. 'History tells us that the once mighty
nations of the earth, the ancient Egyptians, the

Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medes and the Persians
and the Phoeniceans were all worshippers of idols. Hie ancient
Greeks and Romans were idol worshippers. Ihe celts, the
Gauls, the Teutens, the Germans, the Slavs, the Icelanders
were all worshippers of idols. We know from the Kuran that
the ancient Ar bs, the tubes that gave birth to the
Renowned Prophet Mahommed, were steeped in idolatory.
The Bible itself makes mention of peoples in and around the
Holy. Land of strange peoples worshipping strange Cods oi

4

THE BATIONAI.E OF SVMBOUC WORSHIP!.

whom Milton speaks with such thrilling horror and telling effect
in Books 1 and 11 of the Paradise Lost when describing the
Glory o! Jehovah in and around Syria, were the Ammonites,
the worshippers of Baal and Moloch. There were also the
Ammonites, the Moabites and others who were worshippers of
Chemos, Astoreth, Thaminuz and other gods.

Before we wish to condemn these various nations for their
idolatrous worship, we must try to seek for a common ground
upon which they all stood, for a common sentiment which
influenced them in setting up material idols. Our prejudice,
or rather, we would grant, our elevated 'notion of God, must
not deter us from finding out this common feeling which
impelled them all to seek material idols, a common sentiment
which prompted them to carve their Gods in stones, bronze and
wood. Let us see.

Our knowledge of things is derived chiefly from our
experience of the world through the organs of sense called
Gnanendriyas, they being carriers of knowledge to the soul.
The organs of hearing and sight are called intellectual senses
by way of pre-eminence, for the great mass of our knowledge
is accumulated in the course of our experience of the
world through the Eye and the Ear. Men are born in
a state of mental and physical nudity, naked in body
and naked in mind; and Nature leaves us free to clothe
ourselves, our body and mind, with the materials
which she herself has supplied us all around. “Men evolve
into a state of perfect knowledge by assimilating into the
living organism whatever the mind appropriates from with
out." “All truths of science are brought home to our mind
either directly by close observation or indirectly by their
,n<- ulc.-.tion by competent teachers or through well written
treatises. The whole world is thus a vast school in which we
are -11 children learning natures lesson's (truths) from the sun,
the moon, the stars, the oceans, the mountains, men, animals and
birds which fenW so »any bsofcs. The mind is thus a blank

THE RATIONALE OF SYMBOLIC WORSHIP.

5

white sheet of paper the impressions whereon of the colors of
the world are being formed by the organs of sense, especially
by the exercise of the e.;r ar.d the Eye. The world, the veda
asserts, is the Bhogya, the soul is the Bhokta and the senses
are the Karanas or instruments of knowledge.”

3WmHlr=1l II

UlfEPjTRt I

wnf ssr EH2T mftt atm *rtt <rai ^.wfMHwpq: 11

As the Upanishad says : — Whether the wonders of creation,
the Infinity of space and time influenced them or whether the
evanescent nature of things around them affected them and
made them seek for a permanent and lasting thing, we know
for certain that in this school they learnt religion. Some
of these nations looked to the darkside of things, such as
the thunders, the Plagues, pestilence and other kinds of horror.
Themselves being hideous and frightful monsters, steeped in
bloody murders and rapines and finding also around them men
alike steeped in blood and rapine, they converted their God or-
Gods who, as they taught, shaped their destinies, into hideous
monsters. Similarly other nations shaped their ideas of God
or Gods from their physical, mental or spiritual standpoints
according as they deemed man as composed of bones,
skull, jaws, and flesh, or as composed of passions gross or
sensual, anger or sympathy, or as a pure noncorporeal spirit
capable of transcending the physical and mental planes; of
course, their views of heaven and its bliss considerably varied
according to these standpoints.

But what made them transfer their thoughts in moulds,
carve their ideas in stones, metals and wood ? In our schools
were we not in the habit of committing what we learned from
our teachers to slates and paper ? Do we not commit to
writing what we learn and know at least for the purpose of
remembering it. Why should we not extend this same
principle to the ancients, who had already learnt religion from

6

rut ratiosai k m svnuoi-k worship.

the school of nature and who had their appropriate shapes of
Cod or Gods, frighful or delightful, already prepared in their
min 's ? How else ought they to remember them than by
transferring the shapes into moulds of stones and metals when
they had already learnt the use of carving in metals and stones?
••If we want to remember a thing well” says Cobbett "put it
in writing even if you burn the paper immediately after
hav.ng done so; for the eye greatly asssists the mind.” The
anc.ent nations transferred their thoughts into .something
concrete, into some tangible forms which they might touch
and feel, which might serve them as models, as guides to
what they thought their summum bonum of life, something
which affected them in life and death. Indeed they served
them as guides to good or bad actions according as they
happened to bj good or bad models. They were the best
suppliers of motives in their bloody wars or in the transcend
ental flights of their imagination. We all know what a
tremendous power religion supplies man with for good or
e.il and we need not be reminded of the crusades and the
lnquis tions for the purpose. Siays an American sage
"condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol
and an audience is electrified. Put the argument into a
concrete shape, into an image — _ome hard and some sound and
solid as a ball, which they can see and handle, and carry home
with them, and the cause is half won". It is this principle which
guided nations to mould their thoughts in wood, stones and
metals. Herein lies the secret of setting up images.

Thus we see that the ancient nations of the earth set up
images of the gods they worshipped according as they conceived
them to be, which was, of course, in proportion to their
advancement in the knowledge of God. These images that they
thus set up often serve as tests of the knowledge of God which
they possessed. Spiritually advanced nations had images
beaming v\ith high spiritual ideas. Horrible images were
the result of horrible ideas. The Ammonites used to set
up images of Baal and Moloch which were frightful to look

thf. rationale of symbolic worship

7

at. Moloch had an image with the head of a calf and arms
extended to receive victims. The sacrifice propitiated in honor
of it concisted in heating the brass image red hot and
and then placing the infants in its extended hands, or in
having the images hollow, kindling a great fire inside and then
dropping theinfints into the fire through an aperture in the
breast of the ideel. Abominable as these practices were,
we must understand that it is not the fault of the image of
Moloch that took the infants into its hands. It is- the
people that were at fault for offering such sacrifices. We
must condemn the evil notions about God that were the cause
of setting up such ignoble images. Suppose a benevolent
Government like the Government of Lord William Bertinck
which put an end to the inhuman custom of suttee, en.xted a
rule makingsuch practices punishatle and inconsequence such
practices were not repeated but that these evil not ons still
lurked in their minds, are not the people then to be condemned
for entertaining such evil notions ? Whether people set up
images or not, evil notions are always evil not ons. They
commonly say that the Hebrews set up no images But we
read in the old Testament that Samuel hewed Agag into pieces
before Jehovah, that Abraham was. tempted to sacrifice “Isaac”
that Jephthah offered his daughter to Jehovah and Hie!, the
Bethlite, built Jericho laying the foundation thereof in Abirani
his first born and setting up the gates thereof on his youngest
son Segab. What do ycu thing of all this ? Is it not as shocking
to hear as the tale of the Ammonite rites ? Does the Jew’s
Jehovah fare better than the Ammonite's Moloch ? As a matter
of fact, this Jehovah, or Jahveh was the deity of one clan while
Moloch was the deity of another clan. The fight between the
various clans recorded in the old Testament was also the fight
about the supremacy of the respective deities. The god of
Israel was, in some instance, more and in some less, powerful
than the Gods of their enmies. Thus David in more. places
than one compares Jehovah with other Gods. "The Lord is a
great god and a great king above all gods”. And Jephthah

fl THr RATION M>: FO SVMBDLir WORSHIP.

ssvs tn the Ammonite kinir "wdt thou not possess that which
Chemoah thy God giveth thee to posses, so whomesoever the
Lord our god shall drive out before us, them shall we
possess. " “ Their Gods " said a Jewish prophet to a king of
Israel "are gods of the hills, therefore they were stronger than
we , but let us fight agiinst them in the plains and certainly
we shall be stronger" Is it a mistake to suppose that the
Israelites alone had true nations about god, while all other
nations, their neighbours on all sides, some of them ' belonging
to their own class, had, as they themselves assert, if we believe
the Testament, cruel and crude notions about God and Re) gion.
The labours of impartial scholars however have clearly proved
that the Israelite Monotheism was developed -from fetichism
and idulatory. Mr. Myron Adams of Boston, America, a
congregational churchman to hoot, in his book “Creation ot
Bible", and especially in the chapter “From Gods to God",
shows this clearly, and proves that the history of wars
recorded in the old Testament were written long after the
development of Monotheism from fetichism by the prophets
and that Jahveh of Ibraham Moses and other Patriarchs was a
simple clannish Deity, the god of Israel. In spite of the
humanizing tendencies of Christianity, Christianity still bases
its claim upon the cruel clannish deity of Israel. Though
Christians elevated this clannish Deity Jehovah to the high
rank of the sovereign Ruler of the universe, it seems that his
taste for human blood is infinitely more increased in proportion
as he is elevated. Mr. John Stuart Mill, that high souled
Champion of Liberty, observes thus. "Such then is your Gospel
— your good news to Mankind and yet you cry out against
the abominations of pagan religions. Let us consider one of the
most cruel. It seems that the Mexican God before whose image
the priests cut open the breasts of living victims in order the
priests may smear its lips with blood from their tom out but
yet palpitating hearts, was a,god of benevolence and mercy
compared with the Divine monster you set up before us. The
Mexican s sufferings after all were short, and he was after all a

THE

SIDDHANTA DEEPIKA

on THE

LIGHT OF TRUTH

A monthly Journal devoted to Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Science. Ac,
COMMENCED ON THE QUEEN’S COMMEMORATION DAY, 18U7.

VOL. X. SEPTEMBER 1909. No. 3.

TIRUMANTRAM.

AGNIKARYA OR FIRE-SACRIFICE.
uttjjaj&QiiQuifhLii^flQuTjyiiL
@lflaj9£!l(y>j>i*B2an(in>riLjueo
out L$Q&lupb)&ILI $ & &SU UttaieB Q£LD
off [flQerujJt btQeS Sear s, ® toff Qld,

When the old old sins committed with the body
lighted as a wick in the lamp of the world,
are poured into the Fire (of Gnana) raised
with songs, they will be burnt up by this Sacred Fire.

NOTES.

Our Tanu (body) Karama (senses) Bhuvana (worlds) and
Bhoga (enjoyment) are all formed out of matter for eating out
our good and bad Karma. So the light gained in this material
evolution is . £p|rib$red to the lamp light (unuuir^gyelmmig).
When with thfrjjg])t, we work out our Karma, and become one
with God (ffijg>8) and offer up our good and bad Karma to
Him (QmpuariiBpn) our anava mala with the body will be
burnt Up. (uaeeunrmiu ^«orQ^9wadenSiBfrsSm(r

Qu0gjQ*«a/ii®«O<-«r jpQpm-QmuaH-pp

liomu #«fl0 i 0 jimir msf!

6S

SIDDHAXTA DEEHKA.

Looking on this great wealth as evil, one must seek
the C reator who gave him this precious life.

Desiring the wealth and Bliss in store for them,

the wise spend all their great fortune in performing sacrifice.

NOTES.

All this life and intelligence and wealth is given to us only
so that we might eke out our salvation. The greater the gifts
the greater our responsibility ; but we often ignore the purpose
and abuse the gifts. The greatest wealth is supposed to be
required for performing a sacrifice. Yes, and unless we are
prepared to give up and sacrifice what we consider as tending
to our greatest happiness in this, world, we cannot get at the
other world. We have got to lose every thing before we can
secure the real inexhaustible treasure. We must die to
ourselves before we can get everlasting life.

Qocutaiaiuit iq. jQjfmQm .

“ Let me sing ‘That 1 lost my 6«lf and became Sivam’ ”

Tiruvachakam.

m <* i_» r 2ar ic/ «v cu9tfl * r p 3w
'Jurem <* <_# t BQilhw ssh »Stm p

asa a i_Qi r us<i p Sso ai fgvus i (?ir .

The Bright Light, the undecaying Lord,
the Bright Light that dwells in my heart
the Light of my eye trancends the. seven worlds
That Cool Light is the Lord of Sacrifice.

NOTES.

St. Tirumular brings out nicely the purpoit of the
following Vedic texts.

“ Experienced Sages bring the invincible Agni to his
station (on the Altar) ; cherishing him in manifold (ways) in
their hearts ; desirous of propitiating him, they worship the
(boon) shedding (Agni) ; and to those men, he is manifest as
the Sun." (Rig Veda II. ii. 7, 146).

“ Percevinig above the darkness (of ignorance) the higher
light (in the sun) as the higher light within the neart, the

TIRUMAOTARaM.

69

Bright Source (of light and life) among the Gods, we have
reached the Highest Light, yea, The Highest Light.” (Chan.
Upanishad. Ill, ly. y. Rig Veda J. 50. 10.)

“ Now that Light which shines above this heaven, higher
than all, higher than everything, in the highest world, beyond
which there are no other worlds, that is the same light which
is within man.” (Chandogya Upanishad III. 13. y.

‘‘He who is in the Fire, He who is in the he irt, and He
who is in the Sun, They are one and the same. (Maitrayani
Upanishad VI. ty.)

“He, the Atma, Isa, is indeed Sambhu, Bava, Rudra,
Frajapati, the generater of all, Hiranyagarbhaythe Sat, Prana,
Hamsa, Iswara, the Eternal, Vishnu, Narayana, And He who
abides in the heart, and he who abides in the Sun, they are one
and the same. To Thee who art this, endowed with all forms,
settled in the true Vyoma (Cl.idambara) be adoration.” (Mait.
Upanishad VII. y.

"Now the Person who is seen in the eye (the inside of-antas)
He is Rik, He is Saman, Uktha, Yajas, Brahman. The form of
that Person (in the eye) is the same as the form of the other
person (in the Sun).” Chandogya Upanishad I. y. 5.)

“Ghatapatim medhapatim Jalashabhesajam tat samyoli
summamimahe.” (Rig Veda 1. 42. 4.) We seek from Rudra,
Lord of Songs, Lord of Sacrifices who possesses healing remedies
His auspicious favour.”

"Tasmath Rudra Pasunanatipateh”.*

• Col. VansKennedy in his excellent book on Ancient and Hindu Mythology
in instancing an older writer's ignorance of the roost common words and
common topics says “ Pasupati is explained Bovis maritus; and that this
strange explanation should not be mistaken it is added ubi notandam Pashu
bovum et vuceam significare ; Pashu however here means a living being. The
book was printed so long ago ns 1831. And yet what do we find modem
writers doing. Prof. A. A. Mncdonnel in Vedic Mythology (Gundriss dei
Indo-ariechen Philologie nnd Altertumskunde) translates it as ‘ lord of beasts ’
and adds an explanation to corroborate his translation. “The epithet Pntupati
4 lord of boaets' which Rudra often receives in the V. S., A. V., and later is
doubtless assigned to him because unhoused ca rile are peculiarly expose! to
his attacks and are therefore especially assigned to hie care” !!! An Indian writer
who at least is expected to know better translated the title of a Tamil book
(Do the Pasu3 (Jivas) possess Satchidananda)
into ‘are cbws happy.’ This is Scholarship with a vengeance !

sidohanta nrrpnu.

£utj0t*£iQ&rpiiQ™ami*mia+

Qmin/i 2Uni*t_«v

(Jmrwji^tniiOif^mrai. qrfQm .

He is in the Fire of iioma, our Lord,

He is in the Fire, that destroys all at the end.

He is in the Fire that is ocean of and causer of Samsara
He is in the Resounding Ocean ol Grace,

SOTF.S.

a s dwelling in each of the five elements and the Sun and
Moon and Hotar (Ejamana, Soul), the Supreme Siva gets eight
names as Bhava, Sarva, Ugra &c. (V. S. 39. 8). But Agni is
Rudra. (Rig V. 2. 1. 6.) and as such, Rudra, Sarva, Pasupati,
llgra, Asani, Bhava, Mahan Devah, are names given to represent
eight different forms of Agni (S. B, 6. 1. 37) and Sarva, Bhava,
Pasupati, Rudra are said to be also all names of Agni (L. B.
1. 7. 38). In the verse before us, The Supreme One is identi-
fied with and as being in the Fire which creates, protects
and destroys and gives grace.

pit fii9(5 (0u« o>*iu0 iii Q* iu/t mi
Qr jpJfPnSZaiuuuQuqfjUMjP
Ourcfi

The Tapobalas who know to establish the Fire in the heart,
they who pointed out the way of establishing this fire accord-
ing to the Vedas, They established this Fire, everywhere and
reached the place of silence. This is their great Praise.

J. M. N.

THESIS ON THE VEERASAIVA RELIGION
(Read before the Calcutta Convention of Religious , /pop )

All those who pay adoration to Siva as the Supreme Being
are called Saivites and in their conception the word represents
a Sentient Being which is all bliss and whose form is of pure
love, transcending the nature of mind and matter. In this
respect, Saivism differs widely from Vaishnavism, in that, the
latter says that mind and matter, though real entities are one
with Vishnu and that God Himself will assume human form now
and then to extend His grace .o His devotees, in this way, the
worship of Rama and Krishna have become Very prominent
among Vaishnavites who insist that even God is born of earthly
parents, His infinite nature is not thereby limited but is as pure
and unstained as if he were not born. But with Saivites,
though God is in his nature different from mind and matter, yet
co-exists with them from all eternity in closest Adwaita relation
and does not assume a human form merely for the sake of saving
souls. He has pre-arranged everything with a settled plan and
this would itself be quite sufficient to produce the desired
result. This main principle distinguishes the one from the
other and here the two lines of thougt run in contrary directions.
In other respects, the two bear so many things in common that
one who has not carefully studied the two systems of thought
will be inclined to think that they are, by no means, different
except in mere naming God.

2. Saivism, on the whole, marks the depth of Philosophic
knowledge, while Vaishnavism is characterised by profound
imaginative flight of thoughts that best satisfy the cravings of a
struggling soul. And the very symbolic representations of
their respective gods will suffice to indicate the two different
mental attitudes of the two Religions. Siva is worshipped in
the form of a Guru or Saint, who having renounced all the
evanescent pleasures of this world is absorbed in deep meditation
the enternal life principle that underlies all vanishing things.
On the contrary Vishnu is set up with all the glorious adornments

MOOHAKTA DEEPtRA,

7 »

of a King that charms the imaginative mind of the worshipper
with a dazzling effect,

y Now coming to the subject, Veerasaiva which forms a
specific class of the whole Religion, stands midway between
Yaishnavism and other Sub-Divisions of Saiva Religion.
Broadly speaking from a Philosophic point of view, Veera-
s..ivism stands closely relattd to Vaishnavism, for it holds that
mind and matter are not different, but are one with the innate
force, i e , Sakti of God Siva ; and again like other Sects of Saiva
Religion, it strongly contradicts Vaishnava Religious Theory
that God would incarnate in human forms to save souls from
misery and put down oppression. And thus it will be seen at
the outset that Yeerasaivism combines in itself the Philosophic
element of Vaishnavism and the common religious principle of
the Saiva Creeds.

4, The meaning of the very term Veerasaiva is full of
significance. It means those staunch and exclusive worshi-
pers of Siva whose creed does not permit the worship of any
other deity. The Great Veda Yyasa gives a very simple
definition of Veerasaiva as follows, in Sankara Samhita of the
Skanda Purana : —

kmffctiwt 11

5, It may be mentioned that the Veerasaivas form an
important Sub-Division among the Saivas. The chief Sub-
Division among the Saivas are four in number accoridng to
Nijaguna Sivayogi, the Author of the well-known work in
Kanarese " Viveka Chintamani", a work which is very popular
and is translated into the Tamil and Telugu Languages. The
four Sub-Civisions are

(1) the Samanya Saivas

(2) the Misra Siavas

f 3) the Suddha Saivas and

(4) the Veera Siavas.

and the chief eharacterestics and differences are described in
detail in Chapter ll of the said work,

I'HESIS ON THE VEERASAIVA RELIGION.

73

6. The Veerasaivas are sometimes known as Sivacharyas
as opposed to Sivaradhyas, but the term is corrupted into
Sivachars. They are also known as Lingayets or Lingavantas.
which is a name given to them perhaps by the Mahomedan
Conquerors of India, who appear to have invented the name
from the Linga or Lingam invariably worn by the Veerasaivas
on their persons.

7- The numerical strength of the Veerasaivas is neariy 2$
millions and are found in large numbers in the Bombay and
the Madras Presidencies, the Mysore Province, the Nizam's
Dominions, Berar and Kholapur States, They are also found
in small numbers in Malabar, Goa, Benares, Khetar in the
Himalayas and Nepal Asa Race, many of their Sub-Divisions
are unmistakably Aryan' in descent ; and there is no admixture
of the Dravidian element amongst them, just as in any other
Hindu Community at the present time.

(8) The Veerasaivas have shown considerable activity in
the field of Literatures from very ancient times, They have
used Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu Languagas as their medium
to express their Poetical ideas. Much credit is due to them for
having preserved the purity of the highly polished Kanarese
language from ancient times ; and many eminent Veerasaiva
Poets could be named in the Liteiature of all the four Languages
named above,

9. Trade and Agriculture are their chief occupations of
the present day. They have in the van of Hindu Society, and
they are shown that they are not inferior to any other Class of
Hindus in point of business capacity or commercial enterprise.
They are very slow to realise the benefits of Western Education
and Western modes of thought and hence their obscurity.

to. The Orthodox Theory about the origin of the Veera-
saivas may be briefly stated as follows : —

“The Veerasaivas claim their descent from the Pramatbas
who belong to the Apprakrut Creation of Siva and contend that
all the Non-Veerasaivas belong to the Prakrut Creation of

SIDOHA.MA IthKPIlU.

74

Hrahma I' he Prakruts follow the Rules and Prescriptions of

Brahma, whereas the Apprakruts follow those oi Siva. Among
the Prakruts who peopled the Earth, the ideas about God were
still undeveloped and people worshipped Eire. Air, Earth and
Water etc As there was no hope of Salvation for the people
without a Religion and a definite form of worship, Kasyapa,
Altri, Bharadhwaja, Gautama and Vasishta obtained instructions
from Siva and preached the Saiva Faith and established the
Sthavaralinga form of worship if., worshipping the Linga as
established in Temples etc. So the Prakruts began to
build Temples and worshipped Sthavaralingas. But in this
Religion, Karma was all important and Gnana or Wisdom was
kept in the bark-ground ; and Salvation was to be obtained
only after three births. So Siva ordered a batch of Pramathas
or devoted adherents, vis' Renuka, Daruka and others who also
belonged to the Apprakrut Creation to restore the Veerasaiva
Faith. Accordingly, these Sages came to the Earth and establi-
shed the Veerasaiva Religion on a strong basis. They also
established important Reiigiotis Seats orCentres in five different
parts of lndi«. and spread the Doctrines of Veerasaiva Religion.
The Veerasaiva Religion progressed fairly well for a long time
when it received a decisive check from the spreading influence
of the Jain Religion. The power of the Jains increased and the
Veerasaiva F< iih began to decline again. During the period
immediately proceeding the age of the Great Reformer Basava,
the Jains had become so powerful that the Veerasaivas had to
find shelter in Hills, Forests and distant countries to avoid
religious persecutions. Siva ordered a fresh batch of Pramathas,
the most prominent among whom was Basava to proceed to the
Earth and revive the Veerasaiva Faith. Basava strengthened
and reformed the Veerasaiva Faith on a popular basis and the
Religion acquired great popularity and rapidly spread frbm one
end of the Country to the other.”

(To bt CQIltiHUtd J

Mammekhalai, canto XXVII,

HER INTERVIEW WITH THE PROFESSORS OF PHILOSOPHY.

Explain ye your best philosophy free from faults: so saying
Manimekhalai approached the assemblage of the Professors of
philosophy and first spoke to the Pramana Vadi, a Vcdic
philosopher, and asked him to come out with his doctrines.
(Pramana — proof or testimony.)

Pramana Vadix

Veda Vyasa, Krtakoti, and Jaimini ; these authors recog-
nised respectively ten, eight and six modes of proofs to suit
their own systems. True knowledge of things ought to be
obtained by perception, inference, comparison, verbal authoritv,
implication, propriety, tradition, negation, reversion and equi-
valence.

Perception (Pratyaksha) is of five kinds. They have said
that colour is to be perceived by the eye, sound by the car,
smell by the nose, taste by the tongue, and touch by the body.
To see, hear, smell, taste, and touch with feelings of pleasure
or pain, with life and sense and mind unobstructed, and in light
and space all right ; and, without the faults of superficiality,
misconception or doubt, to ascertain the place, name, class,
quality and action of a thing is Perception.

Inference (Anumana) is the knowing of the nature of a thing
by the process of reasoning. It is of three kinds: co-existence,
effect and cause. Co-existence is to infer the presence of an
elephant on hearing its trumpeting in the forest (although the
means and the object inferred are not seen together.) Effect is
from floods to infer that there has been rain. Cause is from tin-
sight of a dark cloud to infer that it will rain. With any of
these three attached to the past, present or future, to know tin-

* IDtlH AM A DESWfA.

existence of a thing that is not perceived, with life and other
things free from faults, is inference.

Comparison (Upamft) is to know a thing by similarity, for
example to imagine that bison is like a cow,

Verbal authority (Sabda) is to know that heaven and hell
exist because they are mentioned in the writings of the wiae.

Implication (Arthapatti) is to know that a shepherds'
hamlet is on the banks of the Canges when we are told that it

is on the Ganges.

Propriety (Svabhftva) is, when a man mounted on an
elephant asks for a thing, to give a goad and nothing else.

Tradition (Aitihya) is what is current in the world: to
believe that a spirit resides on a certain tree.

Negation (Abhava) is the denying of a thing when it
cannot be.

Reversion (Pariseshya) is knowing that the unworthy
Ravana was defeated when we are toid that Rama wag
\ictorious.

Equivalence, (Sambhava) is to know that iron changes into
magnet by a certain change in its properties,

There are eight kinds of fallacious mediums : Superficiality,
Misconception, Doubt, Hasty conclusion, Failure of perception.
Perception of the impossible, Belief in what is felt, and Imagi-
nation.

Superficiality is to perceive just the existence of all things.
Misconception is to mistake one thing for another; for example
to mistake a shell for silver. Doubt is to be uncertain cf the
nature of a thing ; for example to remain undecided as to
whether a certain figure is a man or the stump of a tree. Hasty
conclusion is to decide without examination that it is a man
while it is the sftimp of a tree fixed on the polb ground.

MANIMEKHALAI.

77

Failure of perception is not to realise one’s position although
seeing a ferocious tiger approaching. Perception of the impos-
sible is to imagine on mere hearsay the horn of a hare etc.
Belief in what is felt is to think that sitting near a tire will cure
shivering fever. Imagination is without reasons to believe
when you are told that such and such are your parents.

Such is the nature of proofs or sources of knowledge.
The different systems of philosophy are Lokayata, Bauddha,
Naiyayika, Vaiseshika, and Mimamsaka and the founders
of these systems are respectively Brhaspati, Jina, Kapita,
Akshapada, Ksnada and Jaimini. Only six of the proofs viz :
Perception, Inference, Verbal authority, Comparison, Implica-
tion and Negation are recognised in modern times.

When thus the Vedic philosopher has explained his doc-*
trines, the Saiva Vadi met her eye who declared that Siva is
the Lord and she asked him ‘ what is the nature of the Deity
you worship? '

Saiva Vauin.

1 The sun and the moon, soul, the five elements, being these
eight ; he who unites as the soul in the body ; whose form is the
Kalas (arts) ; who creates and enjoys the act as a pastime ; who
destroys and ends all sorrows ; who is not different from any
but is not one of them. Such is the Lord ’ said he.

Brahma Vauin.

The whole universe is an egg laid by the one God said the
Brahma Vadi.

Vaishnava Vauin.

The philosopher who had diligently studied the Vishnu
pur&nas said that the universe was under the protection of
Narkyana.

Veda Vedix.

The Vedin said that* the Veda had the kalpa (ritual fur
its hands, chandas (the science of prosody) Ot : t< leg-.

IIM4I \M V HI I I'lK \

IvotisJi.i iJsiiTiiKiin.vi fix' i in cyi», the Niruktu (etymological
explanation of difficult Well. - words) for its ye.rrs, the Siksha
(The science of proper arti illation and pronunciation) for its
nose, and the Vvaxarana (grammar) for its face, and that it is
self-existent and it has neither beginning nor end.

On hearing these statements site tluntgbt that these were
in direct opixteition to what was taught in books as well as to
what was accepted by the world, ami asked the venerable
p.ofcssorof the Ajivaka creed ‘who is the God thou speakest
oi .us I what do thy books teach i '

Ajivaka Vaimx.

Thv boundless intelligence found associated with everything
and for exec through the boundless Universe is God. Our
books teach five things, the soul and the four kinds of atoms.
The soul may mix with these atoms seeing and. feeling or
separate front them. The atoms are four, the earth, water, fire
and air. They may collect and form mountains, trees or bodies
or may separate and expand through space, and what under-
stands these is the soul. The atoms of earth collect and
Itccome hard ground. The atoms of water are heavy and cool
and rest on the earth and have taste. The atoms of fire are hot
and ascend. The atoms of air spread and move. Chose are
their pmper qualities. Under special conditions they may
acquire dilTcrcnt qualities. The atoms that have no beginning
never cease to exist nor do they come newly into existence and
< liter one into another. An atom of water does not change into
an atom of earth , nor can one atom be split into two; nor is it
flattened out of its shape. The atoms may move, fall or rise.
They may collect and form a mountain etc., or disperse and
resume their shape as atoms. They may gather close and
become hard as diamonds. They may become hollow as
bamboo. I hese atoms that aie spread through the vast universe
like the full moon, when they appear as elements, do not mix
but in the proportion hereinafter described. They may appear

MAM.MIMIAI.AI.

7'J

as 4 whole, three quarters, half of a quarter, and tlie mass will
be named according to the kind ol atoms that preponderate.
Unless they mix thus, they cannot be earth and hard, be water
and flow, be fire and burn, be wind and blow. A single atom,
only those who have divine eyes can see. Others in their
grossness cannot discern it as in the twilight men cannot see a
single hair but can see vividly a mass of hair. Black, blue,
green, red, yellow and white These are six kinds of births.
Born in all these, the soul when it attains a very pure white
birth obtains salvation. Those who do not want to be destroyed
must get that. This is the right course. If this fails, then it
is revolution lor rotation.) To gain, to lose, to meet with
reverses or success, to feel pain or pleasure, to part from asso-
ciations, to be born and to die are destined when the body is
conceived in the work. Pleasure and pain may also be regarded
as atoms. It is the fruit of former deeds that is reaped after-
wards. Such are the teachings of the book of Maikali.

I-eaving this gibberish, she turned to Kigranta V'adin and
said ‘say then, who is the Ixird thou praisest? what entities do
thy Books recognise and the action of or on those entities,
bondage and release? Explain these correctly.

Migrant a Yaihx.

' ‘ The Lord that is worshipped by Indras is our Lord. The

entities recognised in our Books are the wheel of Law, the axle
of Law, Time, Ether, Soul, Eternal atom, good deeds, bad
deeds, bondage created by those deeds, and release. Entities
by their own nature or by the nature of others to which they
are attached are temporary or everlasting. Within the short
duration of a Kshana (second) they may pass through the three
unavoidable stages of appearance, existence and dissolution. The
Margosa’s sprouting and growing is everlasting ’ ; the absence
of that property in the margosa is ‘ temporary.’ Green grass *

* That sugar-cane belongs to the order of graeses was well-known. Vide
chapter ou kllambijal ’ in Tolknppivam. .Ed.)

MOUIlAMA UKUHKA.

So

when nude into a sweetmeat with otlter ingredients does not
lose its nature but loses its form.

The wheel of Law (Dharmisti) is everywhere and moves
all things in order and for ever. In the same way, the
axle of I-aw (Adharmksti) fixes every thing. Time may be
divided into seconds or extend to seons. Ether is of the nature
of giving room to everything. The soul entering into a
body will sense things through the five senses. The Eternal
atom (Paraminu) may become a body or assume other forms.
Good deeds and bad deeds will always multiply. To stop
the origin of good and bad deeds and to experience the effects
of past deeds and thus to cut off bondage is release?

Sankhya Vadin.

After him, the Sankhya Vadin explained his principles
thus: *Thatwhi;h is unknowable, which has three qualities,
which is not acted upon by mind, which is grand and all-
comprising, and which is said to be the source of all things is
the original Producer. (Mula Prakriti.) From that which is
also known as chitta, is born Mahat also known as Buddhi ;
from it. Ether; from it, Air; from it, Fire; from it, Water;
from it, Earth ; from the union of these, the mind : from the
mind is born self-consciousness : from ether sound is produced
through the ear ; from air, touch through the skin ; from fire
light through the eye ; from water, taste through the mouth ;
from earth, smell through the nose ; from the union of these are
produced the tongue, hands, feet, arms, and genitals : by the
union ol the elements again, appear mountains, trees, and other
objects of this world. In the same way as these objects evolve
and appear, they involve and disappear. Till the universal
deluge these will expand continuously through space. That
which can be easily known, which is devoid of three qualities,
which cannot be sensed by the senses, which is not the origin
of anything, but which is the intelligence that can know all
things, which is one, all-pervading and eternal, is the soul
iPurusha). *

MAN1MERHAI.AJ.

8i

The entities are twenty-five : earth, water, fire, air and
ether; the skin, the mouth, the eye, the nose, and the ear; the
aenae of taste, light, touch, sound, and smell ; tongue, feet,
hands, arms, and genitals ; the mind, intelligence (mahat
or buddhl,) self-consciousness, the original Producer, and
the soul,

After listening to this, she turned to the Vaiseshika Vadjn
and sajd : ‘ what hast thou to say ? ’

V aise&hika Vadin,

He said: ‘There are six categories: substance, quality,
action, genus, difference, and co-inherence of these ; substance
possesses quality and action, and is the origin of all objects;
and it is of nine kinds : earth, water, fire, air, ether, space, time,
soul, and mind. Of these earth has five qualities of sound,
tangibility, colour, savour, and odour. The remaining four
have each one quality less (i.e. water — sound, tangibility colour
and savour; fire — sound, tangibility and colour; air — sound and
tangibility; ether — sound.) The qualities of substance are
sound, tangibility, colour, odour, savour, largeness, smallness,
hardness, softness, evenness, tenderness, form, side, etc. Sub-
stance and qualities cause action. The highest genus is being.
As motion and rest are its qualities, dissolution and existence
are natural to substance. Difference is in atoms. Co-inherence
is the intimite connection between subject and attribute.’

Bhuta Vadin.

When she asked the BhOta Vadin to explain his doctrines,
he said: ‘Just as the intoxication of toddy is produced
by adding Jaggery and the flower of the Atti (Bauhinia-
racemosa) to other ingredients, so when the elements mix
together in a body, consciousness makes its appearance. Such
consciousness disappears like the sound of a broken drum when
the elements disperse. The elements which, associated with
life, possess feeling, and dissociated from life, possess no

MOOMANTA DttMKA.

8 *

feeling. •■'re born from their respective elements. This is the
true doctrine In other things and In the matter of entities, we
agree with the l-okayat*. Perception and not inference can
endure. The world and its effects exist in this birth only.
That we reap the fruits of ^our deeds in a future birth
is false.

When she had thus heard all the systems explained to her,
she said, • Although they do not satisfy me, I shall not refute
them now. But I have gained a knowledge of my past birth ;
knows thou any one here ? So saying she laughed to scorn the
doctrine of the Bhota Yadin. He replied: ‘This is just a
phenomenon observed in people who are under delusion induced
by devotion or who are in a dream.’ She rejoined: 'How
knowest thuo thy parents but by inference, in this world?
Without true wisdom. Truth cannot be known. There is no
doubt about it. Speak no more.’ Thus, in disguise, at Vancht,
she knew about the five systems of philosophy.

(Ten systems were spoken of here. But Prams na V&da,
Saiva Vida, Vaishnava Vftda, Brahma Vida, Vedya Vada may
be regarded as one. Ajlvaka and Nigranta Vfldas may be
regarded as one. S&nkhya, Vaiseshika, and Bhfita Vidas are
three. Thus we have only five systems.)

S. Anavaratavinayakam, m.a.

EPIGRAPHY IN 1908-1909.

The report submitted by the Assistant Superintendent for
the Southern Circle for the year 1908— 1909 is a Bulky volume of
nearly 130 pages, and contains a record of a vast deal of work
done in this direction, and reflects great credit on the Assistant
Superintendent and his assistants. The inscriptions copied were
mostly from Saivite Temples and lot of information is forth
coming regarding the old Saivite Muttsand Saivite Nayanmars
and teachers. In 1 iruputtur and’ Tiruvilimizhalai, and other
places there were mutts dedicated to St. Tirugnana Sambanda
and Tirunavukharasu (St. Appar) and Tiruvadavurar (St.
Manickavachaka) and there were provisions made for the
reciting of Tirumurai (Devara Hymns) and seeing that their
inscriptions date for 10th to 13th century, their importance
cannot be ignored. And the assistant Superintendent has some
pertinent remarks to offer on the subject. He points out also
that Sankaracharya Mutt at Tiruvanaikhaval was once a Saivite
Mutt and it had some how passed into other hands. It is
seen also that some of the Mutts were occupied by Saivite Brah-
mans like Srikantasiva all of which have now disappeared-.
This will be intelligible when the Mutt of the great Sivagra
Yogical in Tanjore District is now occupied bv a non-brahmin.
As Para 53 is very interesting from our point of view, we take
the liberty to quote the whole of it.

“Before closing the section on the Cholas, a few remarks on
the Saiva rnathas, to which frequent references have been made
in the inscriptions copied this year, will not be out of place.
The revival of the Siva religion and the consequent disappear-
ance of the Jaina and Buddhist influences in Southern India, is
known tc have commenced about the beginning of the 7th
8

ftnotxKTA mmcA.

u

rortf ary' A.D - When the famous Saiva saints Appar, Tirujnana-
sambamdar and Siruttonda-Nayanar flourished. How these
saints advanced the cause of Saivism, by miracles or by other
mean* U learnt from the stories related in the Ptrryafmranam,
That they must have been very great men,
JU'«U ol gairhia in even so great as to be deified by the people,
Mtkarri lodia. js evident from the fact of their images

being set up and worshipped in almost
every Shra temple of the south.* Tamil records are not wanting
in. which provision is made for the recital of the Tiruppadigam,
Trma tmrmi or the Devaram hymns composed by two of the
above-named saints in praise of the Siva shrines visited by
them. An equally great saint and poet was Manilckavasagar
also called Tiruvadavur-Nayanar whose famous work Tirtt-
vm 0gmm has been edited by the Rev. G.U. Pope. The time
during which Manikkavasagar flourished was about the middle
of the pth century A.D, we do not know of any epigraphic
evidence earlier than the records of Rajaraja
»»p- 1 ., where, the recital of the sacred Saiva

■ parts*. hymns of the Devaram are referred to for

the first time as being instituted by' him
( SmttMmd. Inxrsr Vol. II., p. 252, No. 65.) Rajeridra-Chbia I.,
appears to have supported the cause of Saivism by going a
stop further than his father and setting up the images of some
of the famous Saiva saints, in the temple of Rajarajesvara at
Tanjavur {Ibid. p. 166, N06. 40 and 41). A mat ha or a rest-
house under the name Tiruvagisam-Rajeiidrasolan which was
built in this time has been referred to in
a mt-hooM No. 467 of 1908 at Uyyakkondan-Tirumalai.
or wlW to tb* time Saivism thus appears to have gradually
of FejeMre-CboU I. grown stronger and stronger under the
patronage of the Chola kings so that in the
beginning of the 13 century we notice a numbei of mathas

• Tto ioa|M dt Pviifwruuii SninU could be Been to-tley eleo in the
Unroot Bivrte tkrine fas Senjnngode, s re. [Ed.|

EPIGRAPHY IX 1908 — 1909.

85

presided over by saiva sannyasins, spreading their influence
over a pretty large portion of the Tamil country. All this
must have been in spite of the teachings of the great Advaita
philosopher Sankaracharya whose doctrines
Sankaraeharya are well known. The philosophical exposi-
andSaivism. tions of Advaita teacher do not exclude the
methods of pious devotion to be practised in
the first stages of spiritual development, but insist on strict
adherence to the paths of Karma as laid down in the sastras.
The Saiva creed, o 1 the other hand, does not appear to have
paid much attention to Sastric Karma but, taking unsullied
devotion to Siva as its basis, it received into its fold all classes
of people without any distinction of caste. This catholicity
of the Saiva faith rendered it not very popular with the
orthodox Brahmans but the non-Brahman classes eagerly took
to it and at the beginning of the 1 3th century, as stated already,
it was apparently very influential with its centres in many
places of which the records copied in 1908-1909 disclose two,
viz., one at Thiruchchattimurram and
Saiva centres at another at Sembaikkudi. The mathas of the
Tinicbchattimurram Saiva Samtyasins called Sivayogins (No. 177
and Sembaikkudi. of 1908) or Mahesvaras (No. 164 of 1908/
were mostly named after the famous
Brahman Saiva saint Tirujnanasambandar and the non-Brahman
saint Tirunavukkarasar. Of the mathas with the latter name,
the records occupied this year mention one at Tiruvilimilalai
in the Tanjore District (No. 402 of 1908) arid another at Tiru-
ppalatturai in the Tpchinopoly District (No. 583 of 1908). In
this last mentioned place there was another Saiva mat ha called
Kakku-Nayakan madam. The lineage of the Mudaliyars t of
Tir imhchatt i m u rram appears to have been more famous than that
of Sembaikkudi. Tiruchchattimurram or Tiruchchattimuttam
(as it is now called) is a village in the Tanjore district and con-
tains an old Saiva temple (Swell’s Lists of A ntiqui ties, Vol. I.

t The title of Mudtliar was applied to Brahmans also. The title Siva
Md Btmoherya ate only applied to Brahmans. I.Ed.J

StDMAXTA DEEPikA.

66

p. j8o) No. 39a of 1908 refers to the Tirujna na samba ndan-madam
of the Tiruchchattimurrattu-iffi« 4 j//)ws situated to the east of
the temple of Tiruchchattimurramudaiya-Nayanar at Rajaraja-
puram. As the temple at Rajaraja-puram is called Tiruchchatii-
murramudaiya-Nayanar, we have perhaps to infer that the
modern Tiruchchattimuttam was in (i.e., a hamlet of) Rajaraja-
puram. From two records at Tiruvanaikkaval (Nos. 486 and 487)
wc learn that Tiruchchattimurram was at Kil-Palaiyaru alias
Rajarajapuram ; and Kil-Palaiyaru is perhaps different from
Palaiyaru which has been noticed already in cqnnection with the
Chola king Rajendra-Chola I., as containing
Kil-Pttaiyani, R»j»- one of his palaces. Consequently Kil-Palai-
raj*l>urum and Tiru- yaru and Tiruchchattimurum, appear, to
tbdiaiiiuiurt*ui. have been hamlets of orte and the same
village Rajarajapuram. To the Tirujnana-
sambandan-madani of this village belonged the so-called Tiruch-
chatti murrattu-A/«rfa/<ya»-s of whom Jnanasiva who constructed
the Alagiya-Tiruchchirrambalamudaiyar-niadam at Tiruvilimi-
lalai, was one (No. 392 of 1908). Paripurnasiva who presided
over the Kuttadum-Nayanar-madam at Kovilur (No 218 of 1908)
was still another. No. 220 of 1908 reveals the name of a third
Saiva teacher Isanasivacharya who belonged to the same lineage
(Santana). The Tiruttondattogai-tirumadam at Tiruppulur
in the Madura district (Nos, [04 and 1 16 of 1908) must have
been so called after the Tiruttondars, viz,, the sixty-three Saiva
devotees. The Tirujnanasambandan-tirumadan on the eastern
side of the temple at Tirupputur was presided over by a teacher
Srikanthasiva who was connected with the Mudaliyars of
Acharamalagiyan-tirumadam at Tiruvarur (No. 129 of 1908.)

of special interest are the records on the
MoJalijoja of AcUui-a- walls of the Sankaracharyasvami-jmiMa at
luxlagi v iui'tii'uiusdftm Tiruvanaikkaval (Nos. 486 and 437, copied
nt Tinnamr. at the request of the Brahman prefect
Sankaracharya-svamin of Kumbakonum to
whom it belongs. These are not dated ; but refer ,to the
reign of a certain Tribhuvana-chakravartin Konerinmaikondan.

epigraphy iK- 1908— 1909

Nos. 74, 151, and 152 of 1908 also belong to the reign of 6atne
king and are dated in his 2nd and 15th years.
The Smikaracharya - Tribhuvanachakravartin and Konerinmeikon-
•vami-inatlia at dan were titles assumed by many Chola and
Tiruvanflikkaaval. Pandya kings. Consequenlty, it is difficult
to decide who this Tribhuvanachakravartin
Konerinmaikondan was. No. 74 appears to gi e him the
alternative name Kodandaraman. Nos. 151 and 152 records
gifts to the Virarajendra-Cholisvara temple at Manur ati$$
Virarajendracholanallur. A certain Tribhuvanachakravartin
Konerinmaikondan Virarajendradeva was a comtemporary of
Tribhuvanachakravartin Konerinmaikondan Sundara-Pandya-
deva (Nos. 309, 310 and 314 of 1908). The records at Tiruvani-
kkaval mention the 16th year of Sungandavirtta-Kulottunga-
Choladeva (i.e. Kulottunga-Chola 1 .) Hence, it must be con-
cluded that Tribhuvanachakravartin Konerinmaikondan men-
tioned in the Tiruvanaikkaval inscriptions was either a Chola or 4
Pandya king who reigned subsequent to the
Built in the nair e of time of Kulottunga Chola J. Whoever this
Txibhuvanachakra- Tribhuvanachakravartin Konerinmaikondan
vartiD Konerinmai. may be, the records on the walls of the
koDdan under the Sankaracharyasvami-ma/Aa at Tiruvanik-
name Narpattenna- kaval refer to a certain Narpattennayiravan-
yiia\-au-inadaui. madam built by Avurudaiyan-Solakon on
the northern side of the temple at Tiruvanai-
kkaval. There can be no doubt that this building is identical
with the Sankaracharyasvami-waMa on which the inscriptions
are engraved. The grant of the village of Karumangurai alias
Parakesarimangalam (a hamlet) of Uttamasili-chaturvedi-man-
galam, made in the 22nd year of Tribhuvanachakravartin
Rajarajadeva, to this Narpattennayiravan-madam at Tiruvanai-
kkaval (Nos. 585 and 586 of Appendix B.)
Also called Tirujnana- makes it clear that the latter was also called
aambandan-nwdam. Tirujnanasambandan-madam and was a
brapch of the matha at Rajarajapuram
belonging to the Tiructachatlimurrattu-A/W<tfjp«/-s. Nos. 486

-IIMIAM \ UttltKA

and 4*; state (hat the priests presiding over the >m mthm Tiru-
vanaikkaval were the direct disciples of Namassivayadevar of the
lineage of Tiruchattiniurraltu-.Vwrtla/^'ars. Thus it beoootes
apparent that the present math* of Sankaracharyasvamin at
Tiruvanaikkayal belonged originally to the
rrMi<i«d ovir bv Saiva matha at Tiruchchattimurram and
umImk ol th« Ubm(* was presided over by the teachers of the
oi Tiroebehsui- lineage of the Mudaliyars of that place. How
anmUuV«£iiiy«r>. and when the Brahmans took possession of
it, is not clear. An inscription at Tiruppa-
latturai refeis to a Saiva matha called Andar-Embiran-madam
at Tiruvanaikkaval. No traces of it appear to exist in the
vllage now The non- Brahman Saiva matha at Tiruvadutura 1
in the Tanjorc district is said to have been founded by Nama-
ssivayamurti and the one at Dharmapuram in the Mayavaram
taluka of the same district, bv a certain Jnanasambanda Desikar
about 300 years ago. Perhaps Namassivayamurti, the founder
of the first is the same as Namassivayadevar of the Tiruvanai-
kkaval records and Tirujnanasambanda Desikar of the second
was called after the famous Saiva saint of that name. At
Madura, there exists still a big matha named after Tiru
jnanasambanda where, an image ot the latter is regularly
worshipped." J. M. N.

THE EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
MADURA TAMIL SANGAM.

This was held in the Sethupathi High School on the 26th
May and the two succeeding days. Mr. P. S. Subra mania
Iyer, Pleader, presided on the 24th and delivered an address
on the present State of the Tamil language and the gratitude we
ought to feel towards Mr. Pondithoraisami Thevar, President,
Founder of tlie Tamil Sangam, for having done very much
towards arresting the decay of the Modern Tamil literature.
The Secretary then read the report of work done during the
last official year, winch showed improvement all round, compared
to the work done Jn previous years. The Sangam was regis-

THE EIGHTH ANWVEHSAHY Of THE MADLUa TAMIT. SaJJGAM. 89

.tfljred as a literary society in November last and since then an
executive committee has assumed management. Dr. A. . K.
Ccomarasawmy made a speech eulogising the work of the
Sangam and emphasising the neces sity for a good vernacular
education for all — including the English educated. Mr. T. A.
Ramalingam Chettiar of Coimbatore dwelt on the advantages
tye may expect from the registration of the Sangam and
a ppeale 1 to the Tamil public to come forward and help the
Saagam in all ways. He also dwelt on the unwisdom of the
University in miking vernicular study optional and making it
compulsory with a classical language. There was no classical
language occupying the same position with regard to Tamil
tfent Sanskrit does to the vernaculars of Northern India. The
Tamils had their owncivilization which is portrayed in the Tamil
literature and the University regulation was due to ignorance.
It is necessary that all those who know the true state of
things should agitate and have these regulations modified.
Mr. Palvanna Mudaliar of Tinnevelly dwelt on the importance
and advisability of keeping the Tamil Vocabulary pure and
demonstrated the practicability of speaking and writing in
Tamil without the adulteration of words from other languages.
The Chairman made a few remarks on the ideas conveyed by
the previous speakers. Then Mr. Pandithoraisamy Thevar, the
President founder of the Sangam, to whose untiring zeal the
very existence and progress of the Sangam is due, thanked the
President and others who graced the meeting with their
presence. The meeting came to a close after a Tamil Pandit
■read the verses he had composed for the occasion.

On the 25th and 26th a number of original works and essays
were read by a number of Tamil Pundits which showed that the
power of original composition had not altogether left the land.
0.1 the afith a resolution was passed requesting the University
and the Government of Madras to reconsider the regulations
with regard to the position of the vernaculars and a draft
memorial to his Excellency the Governor which was submitted
was adopted.

v>

bkomanta dcemka.

BRAHMOTSAVAM.

In southern India, every Temple with a decent income
celebrates at some part of the year a grand festival, called
the Hmhmotsavam. The Brahmotsavam, literally the great
festival, is a grand programme of festivals extending over
ten days. During this period, every morning and evenmg the
God of the Temple is taken out seated on a huge vehicle and
carried through the town. Even to the mere sight-seer, the
festival is a grand occasion. The commencement of the
utsavam or festival is marked by a ceremony called the
Dlnvajaiohanam or the hoisting of the flag. In the centre of
the outer court of the temple stands a huge stone-pillar called the
the flag-stand (Dhwajasthamba), and on this occasion a long
strip of new cloth is wound round the pillar with solenin
ceremony

Every religious act public or private, of a Hindu must
begin with a formal Sankalpa or resolution. Everything one
does must be done with a determined will and not in a slipshod
manner. The object of the Sankalpa is only to impress this
idea on the mind. When the act is private, the two hands are
brought together, the left hand is grasped with the right and
both are placed on the right thigh. But when the act is public
the Dhwajarohanam is the outward symbol, It indicates the
vow undertaken by the people of the town to celebrate the
festival. Hence it is that no one who was present within the
limits of the town on the occasion of the Dhwajarohanam may
leave the town or do any other thing such as marriage. etc.,
until the festival is over. The close of the festival is marked by
the Dktvr.j ivarohanam or the lowering of the flag.

During the festival, the God of the Temple is taken out
seated on a vahana or vehicle. The vehicles are many in
number, vn : the swan, the lunar orb, the solar orb, the lion,
the horse, the elephant, the car, the.garuda, etc. To the
intellingent student of religion, every one of these •carries a

slJ)l>ll.\YI A UIIPIkA

yi

world of meaning. To the work-a-day men and women of
the world, these utsavams would appear as mere fun unless the
meaning which underlies each symbol is explaind to them.

The Brahmotsavam proper is intended to teach us the way
to divine self realisation. l.et us see how this divine realisation
is attained ? On the morning of the first day, the God goes
out on no vehicle, but during the night, He is taken out on the
swan. What is this swan ? These swans, according to the
Puranas, live in that inaccessible region, called Manasasaras, the
mental lake. They have a wonderful power of separating the
milk from a mixture of milk and water, AH this is most
suggestive and pregnant with meaning.

The swan represents the Viveki whose life is of the mind,
who is able to discriminate between the transcient and the ever-
fasting, to whom God sends His grace, in whom He loves to
dwell. This then is the first lesson that is taught, that Viveka
is the first acquisition that has to be made, for He loves to reside
in the heart of the Viveki (wise man or sage).

Let us next see what garuda-vahana or the eagle-vehicle
means. The garuda-utsava is considered the most important
ofallanditis also considered more beneficial religiously to
worship Him as He is seated on His favourite vehicle just at the
entrance to the temple than anywhere else. The rational'! of
this will appear by the following explanation.

Garuda, the king of the feathered tribe, represents, like the
Phoenix of olpl, the soul of man. Hence, the great importance of
the garuda-utsava. The Visishtadwaitin holds that Narayana
is the soul of all souls, and the garuda-utsava expresses this
phase of thought. That garuda is intended to typify the soul
of man clearly appears from this ; that while the swan, the horse,
the elephant and the other vahans are representations from
nature, the garuda which should have been a represeutation i f
the eagle which the garuda is supposed to be, is represented as
a human being with an aquiline nose with the addition of a pair

MUhmotsavam

of wings. From « similar consideration it would appear that
the Hanumantha-vahana too represents Man and is intended to
convey an important truth of the Vedanta with reference to
Man as Mind.

The garuda represents Man ; it typifies Man the Perfect.
The garuda vahana is by itself an admirable study. The repre-
sentation is of a man possessed of gigantic muscular power in a
kneeling and self collected attitude, with steadfast, piercing
looks. His open arms seek service, and his extended wings reveal
a readiness to render assistance wherever assistance may be neces-
sary. The brilliant star on his breast is the fire of love that is
burning in his heart with a thousand tongues. The lines on his
heavy brow betray the severe struggles he had to face in his
career. There is a touch of sadness in his countenance as he
looks upon the world enveloped in darkness, but those firm set
lips reveal a smile expressive of hope. His very enemies hiss and
flourish on his bosom, and they that breathed no more when
merely his shadow fell upon them, are exultant in his presence.
He has obtained the crown of glory which he wears, the reward
of his struggles life after life. Standing at the entrance to the
temple, he surveys the world with its teeming millions steeped
in ignorance. On one side of him lies the region of bliss nirvanic,
the abode of Narayana to which he has gained the right of
entrance. On the other lies the wide, wide world steering
without a guide, and shrouded in the thick folds of darkness
and of gloom. Full of compassion to the sufferjng world, he
renounces the bliss of beatitude and resolves to devote himself
to the helping of humanity. So we must worship him as he
stands at the gateway to the temple and full erf compassion,,
makes the great renunciation.

The last festival is called the thirthotsavam, literally water
festival. On this occasion, after the return of the God to the
temple, He goes out once more, this time without any vehicle but
in His prabha and comes back, the whole town following Him
to the temple. Wttnin it, His blissful abode, the bhtiktas flock

SIDDHaNTA deepira.

ii

together, and receiving his praaada or grace, plunge into the
sacred waters of the temple tank. What is all this but a repre-
sentation of what takes place in reality in those higher regions
we read of in our scriptures. Does not the plunging into the
sacred tank typify the entering into Nirvana? Is this not the
end of all religious aspiration? One noteworthy feature in the
last festival is the solicitude of the Godwho goes into the bown
a second time, revealing Himself in all His native glory, to
collect together all His bhaktas and confer on them His prasada.
Realise this idea, and feci how full of hope life becomes. Such
is the inner meaning conveyed in many of the festivals conducted
in our Hindu temples, M. D,

WHAT IS THE SOUI.,

What is the soul ? We know what the physical body is, for we func-
tion in it normally, in our normal waking consiousness. To the physical
body belongs what we call the conscious mind, which is the action of the
brain. The physical brain is part of the physical body. The fore brain,
which is in the head, is the seat of voluntary actions of the muscles of the
body, because the fore brain is the organ of the consicous mind, and
voluntary actions only come from the consious mind. The brain, however,
extends throughout the body down the spine, a part of every nerve in the
body. But this brain is not the instrument or vehicle of the conscious mind.

The body is not controlled completely by the conscious mind, for we
cannot completely control digestion, cell-building and much of the bodily
movements which go on whitbout our knowledge or choice although it is
predicated that we will be ab j e to control even the most minute detail of
functional movement, — when we gain the knowledge and exercise the will.
Man is now a potentate bound in his own castle by the chains of ignorance
and fear.— It has been proven that the brain does not control or order these
many minute bodily functionings. What does control them ? They are
controlled by an unseen, but not unknown or unfelt, ethereal or spiritual
force or organization. We may call this the mind. And it is not blind,
e'se it would not work by system and definite purpose. If you had such
clairvoyant sight that you could see food transform into blood, and blood
into muscle, or the progress of a wound healing, you would not talk about
blind force as a body builder and governor.

u

wH*t » mi ioul.

Tbs bcd y k r-l— by tomthing which ws call a mind, both for
Ha ar jowa ui c anl vofitiowl movements, but doubtless different functionings
or q rah ties of mind for the different orders or bodily movement. We con-
■tW {hs mind a vehida, or an instrument, or a machine, like unto a piano.
S o m e thin g pis ye upon the fhnao. We call this the soul. The soul acts
upon tin maai, the mind on tne braip (which Is only the nervous system)
and the brain upon the body.

But the mind is a body, also. It is material. But of different order of
vibration then tie physical; The soul uses the mind to contact physical
things by means of the physical body, and it contacts mental things by
means of a mental body. The mental things we call thoughts.

The soul ie the personality. It is the man. The hu-man. Not the super-
man. It is the subjective-objective shell. Cut off and separated. And made
this time and place. But as there is something more than the body and the
mind there is something more than the soul. More interior. More perma-
nent. We call it the Ego. The Ego is the everlastii^, deathless, changeless,
personality, beyond all changing personality. — the I AM THAT 1 AM.

What then is the spirit, the spirit of man ? The spirit of man and ego
of man are aspects one of the other, — the same but viewed differently.
Instead of falling into the common error and speaking of the ego and spirit
as something which man possesses, we must reverse the view and consider
that the opposite is true, i.e, that ego and sprit p qw ae ss s man. Man as man,
is the "littJost feller," the ego and spirit are great beyond human compre-
hension.

The Sprit is Noumena, or final source and unfolding causality of being.
The ego is Phenomena, or that unformed cause put Into manifestation.
They cannot be separated. Like subjective-objective noumena-phengmeoa
are two ends, or sides, or phases of a one.

The spirit may be said to be the most exalted, the ego less so, the soul
less, the mind less, and the body less. But we must not err by loosing
sight of the fact that these terms I have used, inner and outer and higher
and lower, are inadequate and really incorrect, but used in order to translate
in a crude and unfinished way, the deeper truths of the spirit which cannot
be fully demo nstra ted in the crude mental material of which the human
mind is at present constituted. Higher and lower, however, relates to
noumera- phenomena, and inner and outer to subjective-objective, while
deeper pertains to both. It is weH to bear this difference in mind, although
I often fall into the common error of confounding them, There are two
different schools, however, who purposely ignore the difference. But (pardon
me) they are quite wrong. More anon.

It is also well to note that some use the word mind to denote what I
have termed spirit I judge the Christian Scientists use the term Divine
Mind In much the same sense that 1 do Spirit, without distinguishing
between noumena- phenomena and subjective-objective. An interesting
subject, and one I will try and simplify a little later.

* (Tite New Age Magatine.)

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

In th is issue we publish a fair translati on of the chapter
in the famous Tamil classic, Mammekhalai ,
Manimthhalat nnd j n which is given a summary of the various
Indian Religion, and forms of Indian Religion and Philosophy
Sohools oi Philosophy, which prevailed at the time of the author;

and we hope it will be useful for purposes
of comparative study and critical research. A fair account of
Purva-Mimamsa, Nyaya, Vaiseshika and Sankhya and different
forms of Jaina systems are given. The account of Saivaism
though brief is yet accurate and gives its chief characteristics.
The Lord is the Indweller of the five elements, Sun and Moon
and Ejaman (soul) and is in union with them as soul in body,
and is immanent in all nature and transcendent and is the
creator, protector and destroyer. Nothing is outside or different
from Him and He is not in them. These few words bring out
the nature of the Divine Personality as held by Saivas and of
the Advaita Philosophy. Vaishnavism is dismissed in two lines
by saying that Narayana is the protector of the world. What
is however of greatest interest is to note that neither Uttara-
Mimamsa nor Vedanta of Sankara, which so looms largely
now, finds absolutely any mention. If as Srikantha takes it that
the real Uttara-Mimamsa Philosophy is identical with Saivisin,
we can understand its omission. Bjt that the Vedanta
of Sankara if it had any professors then would certainly have
found mention. To say that he did not meet any of its pro-
fessors in such a famous seat as Vanchi where Manimekhalai
purposely went out to meet the various religionists will not be
worth much. The author of the book quotes lrom the Sacred Kural
and is supposed to be a contemporary of St. Tiruvalluvar and
his time would accordingly be about the istor2nd century A.C.
Our own idea is that even the Sutras of Badara^aAa were
composed later than the ist or 2nd century and as a fjrther
proof, the earliest of the Tamil works do not contain any
reference to Badarayang's Sutras or to Sankara’s Vedanta.

HOTtS *vn comirsT*.

9 s

The catalogue of books printed during the second quarter
of this year gi\cs rise to some interesting
ft»k< prinieJ hi »mt reflections. In the English Section, we find
gamier M IW no books showing either any originality or
merit, except it be that of Mr. R. Venkata
Subba Row’s Hamlet unveiled, but where merits, we suppose
will be understood by very few as he modestly prices his
book at /tool II The Tamil printed books number so many as
124, and the volumes of drama and fiction are ever increasing.
The Telugu books number about 82 and poetry and drama
figure largely. Malayalam and Canarese are very poor; the
number being only 19 and to respectively and they are not
worth much either. There are 28 Sanskrit books printed in
Nagari and Grantha and \cry few are original treatises of any
merit. It only shows this that Indians if they aspire to be good
writers should try in the Vernaculars and strive hard to
achieve success.

We welcome the new edition of this boo’c of Rev. Mr. Ell-
wein with pleasure. We know him to be a
S** Trwment Bible good Tamil Scholar and the book is very
Skoiies by well written and in an easy and good
R«v. \v. F.llwfin style. It is also profusely illustrated and
should be attractive to children and youug
people for whom the book is intended.

Among other publications of interets to us, is the
reprint of • Professor Sundaram Pillai's
‘ Some mile tones ’ with an introduction by
1,1 'ITa R ao Bahadur M. Yenkayya, brought out by
the Tamilian Archeological Society. The
book was long out of print and the society
has thought it fit to make the book available to all.

SlbbUANTA DtEPlKA. 97

Two other books are note worthy. They are the books
issued by Mr. C. S. Sundaram Mudaliar, on the ‘Life of
Sundaramurti Nayanar’ and Anda Pinda Samatvam.’ We had
hoped to review these books at length but we do not want to
defer doing so any longer, on account of their importance. No
life of the Saivite Saints is so much misunderstood as that of
Saint Sundaramurti and our learned friend deals with all the
incidents of his life in the light of Yoga. It is more or less known
that our saint represents GpnLpuirissw or Saha marga or Yoga and
yet how few understand the mystery of his life. St. Sekkilar
strikes the key nQte when at the very moment he speaks of the
Marriage of our Saint and Paravayvar, he speaks of our Saint
as going into Yoga QiLnawirijnir. We have shown elsewhere
quoting Froude that Religious history has to be read in a
different way. Each incident is the illustration of a principle
in the higher paths and unless they are so, they will be barren
and they wont contain lessons for all lime. Every life in the
Periapuranam is replete with such lessons. Persons not pos-
sessing the key to such books often indulge in detailing
miracles which could neither be facts nor truths, f or' what
could there be in stories of a man swallowing hundreds of
plantain fruits or eating half a dozen dinners at the same time!
One of our friends asked for a solution of our Lord producing
the bond containing the signature of St. Sundara’s ancestors.
Mr. Sundara Mudaiiar quotes from St. Tirumularthe following
stanza to explain the incident.

erdr(yQujnQt~esjeau uGarrQiftfiSIpsStL,

u,en<$ inlSaiep; m

qt? uo u eroc- fipnQaiQg \

&df (TjesQfi&'tf suGettrwQeBrQjiQppptTQvJ'

“My father and mother and ancestors up to the 49 degree
have given a bond to Siva even in the beginning. The
creator (Brahma) of the worid wrote this bond. And the
cloud coloured (Vishnu) attested the document.’’

notes and comments.

Yes, we all entered into a bond to do His will, when out
of His mercy He set us on the wheel of evolution to work out
our salvation, but we have grown wilful and won't recognize
His Lordship and do His will, and brought on ourselves all
our woe. When we make ar/anam of ourselves to Him,
then our salvation is assured. The book
contains gems like this and the only pity is, it is short, and
we hope our friend will give more of it in an English garb.
His other book “ The correspondence of Macrocosm and Micro-
cosm, is again a more serious attempt to explain our Mantra
and Tout ra in the Light of Yoga and Vedangas like astronomy
and astrology, etc. The explanations given here are neither
far-fetched nor puerile as most explanations are but are, fully
supported by quotations from sacred works like Tirumantram,
Devarm and Tiruvaimozhi. There is a separate table of tatvas
and the paths of the sou), combined with the Zodiocal signs,
etc., to explain the whole thesis. These pamphlets are priced
cheap and should be in the hands of every student of Hindu
Mystic lore.

The article on Rationale of Symbolic worship continued in
this number is by our learned brother A. Rengasami Iyer and
not by J. M. Nallaswami Pillai, as stated in the title page of
the last number. Wc hasten to correct the mistake.

THE RATIONAL OF SVMBOI.TC WORSHIP, 0

voluntary victim, but the God you would have us adore
regards without complacency compared with which burning
alive is but a small suffering endured by thousands and
thousands of human beings for an endless duration which we
can only picture to ourselves by millions on millions of years
recurring without end. Such a god we refuse to worship and
come what might, did we believe in his existence we would but
regard him with disdain as well as execration.” Here you
see how the clannish blood thirsty Jah-.veh is magnified into a
monstrous taster of human bloods. Some of the denunciations
we read of in new Testament came from the mouths of Christ
the Savior, John the Evangelist and Saint Paul the great
Apostle, and in the book of Revelation, we are taught of the
damnation. Where then is the boast of the Pro^stants, of the
Presbyterians, of the Lutherans, of the men of high and low
Churches, who profess to have much improved upon Popery ?
Who can say that they set up no images and that they follow
strictly the commandment of the Lord “ye shall not make with me
gods of silver, neither shall you make unto me any graven image’?
The Roman Catholics whose graven images of saint and
saintesses outnumber the Gods and Godesses of the Roman
Pantheon which they overthrew, have at least a force of a
Purgatory, while the protestants, have nothing of the kind.
Our Christian friends who have grave objections to set up
human images for their God hesitate not to convert god
himself into man, to the Holy ghost taking the shape of a dove.

“ And he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and
lighting upon him ” St. Mathew “ He saw the heaven*
opened, and the spirit like a dove descending upon him” St.
Mark. “The Holy ghost descended in a bodily shape like a
dove upon him” St Luke. “ 1 saw the spirit descending from
the heaven like a dove and it abode on him. (St. John).

Here we have to digress a little. A Christian Catechist
was once addressing a huge crowed near a Siva Shrine. He
charged them with paying worship to stocks and stones instead
2

Jo TTJt RaTJOXM.C Ot STtrtOUC WORSHIP.

r.f to the true living God. Of course the people were struck
mute and dumb and the Catechist was also giving illustration
u ith the aid of Magic lanterns of Biblical stories from the
< ■-ration of Adam down to the Aaeemion of Jesus. A friend of
ours happened to pass by that way. Of course he never wanted
to interfere with the pastor's lectures, for he was aware of rhe
fart that while the Christian knew much of his religion, the
masses of the Hindus whom he addressed were ignorant of the
mere fundamentals of their religion. But some one accosted
him saving “ Sir, Please come and answer him. We are
unable to answer him" When he knew that there was a
plaintive cry for help, he thought tt was his duty to interfere
r.nd therefore he returned and asked them what the matter was.
Seeing him fetched by the people; the pastor reiterated with
much force that the Hindus were all worshippers of stocks and
stones. Our friend asked the people if any one in that crowd
could not meet such questions with a proper answer. None came
forward He thought the duty then devolved upon him. He
took a stone in his hand and asked every one if he worshipped
that stone. Every one answered “no”. ‘ Then he took
another stone and repeated the same question, and got the
same answer. Then he pointed to a heap of stones and repeated
the question. Of course “no" was the reply given. Then he
pointed to the figure of a man carved in stone, and wanted
them if they worshipped that figure. “No" was the emphatic
answer given. Then he wanted a chombu to be brought and
wanted to know if it was worshipped. “No" was the reply
given. Then he wanted a man to advance in front and asked
others if they worshipped him. Of course they all burst into
laughter. “Big fools that you are — you begin to laugh when
you ought to weep" so saying he drew a line, a single line,
upon a piece of paper, and asked them if they worshipped that
line. They answered “no" Then he drew the figure of a
woman, and wanted to know if they worshipped either or both.
They answered “no’' Then he drew, a "Sivalingam" and
warned them to answer him if t. / worshipped it. “Yes” was

T1IE RATIONALE Ol SVMBOI.lL WORSIIil’. II

Ihe vociferous reply given. Then he wanted a clump of clay
to be brought and made out of it a human figure. Then
pointing it to the crowd wanted them to answer him if they
worshipped that figure. “No” was the answer given Then he
made a Sivalingam out of it and asked them if they worshipped
it. “Yes" of course was the reply given. Then he took one
of the rejected stones and asked if they could offer worship to a
Sivalingam carved out of it "Yes” was the reply. Then he
turned to the pastor and questioned him “Reverened Sir you
just now charged them with worshipping stocks and stones.
You heard the replies given to my searching questions should
you now charge them worshipping stones, clay and lines ? or
you should admit that they worshipped them not. Now come
round and tell me if they are -worshippers ; of stones or
lines or clay or all. lfon’t you see that they worship an
abstract idea in a concrete form? However inaccurate their
mode of worship may be, the proper kind of attack oil your part
upon them would be to object to the representation of the idea
underlying it or to the idea itself if it be false. In order to
attack the idea you must know some thing of it ; tell me what
you know about Sivalingam Then our Christian friend
thought a little and then answered “ I don’t object to the enter-
tainment of ideas but 1 strongly object to the representation of
such ideas in forms. I object to the Creator being likened unto
the creature, to God being dragged to the level of a creature.
“Well then ” he said are you quite sure that these figures liken
the creator to the creature, drag the creator to the lev el of a
creature. Well let me learn the meaning of the Symbol
Sivalingam as you have understood it. Please do not evade
giving replies to my questions. Answer me plainly if you know
it”. The Catechist gave him a very plain answer which was
"Ido not know” “Well then”, he observed would you
try to learn the meaning and then try to criticize it?
You are at perfect liberty to dwell upon the merits of Chris
tianity, dilate upon the meekness of Christ, his sell sc -i ice for
the cause of truth, but you should not revile reilgions of which

j; TIIK R.\TK1Y\I K OK SVMWM.IC WOHMIIN.

you do not know a bit. Just now you alluded to the creator
being dragged to the level of a creature and yet you want to
teach us Christianity ; while we heartily thank you for your
admonition that the creator should not be dragged, -to the level
t .f a creature, pray tell me whether what you teach will
t lien be Christianity, at least dogmatic Chiistianity? ” Even
our Christian Catechist could not but understand it and pleading
late hour, politely wished us good bye and went away packing
up his fiddle, magic lantern, and canvas etc. The .next day
when not yet dawn, our Christian friend was seen walking on
loot to a village six miles off, and there too we were told, he
began his labour of love towards the sinners for the purposes of
securing to them the kingdom of God by first as usual, opening
Ins harangue against stone worship ; for the preacher knows but
line thing, to preach what he was taught to preach. His duty
is only to preach and reasoning is outside his programme,
lie is paid only to preach and not to reason. The preacher
could not be faithless to his salt. — Our masses, of course do
not know what they worship in the temple, but they are quite
sure that they arc not worshipping stones

«i .

Suppose a Christian or a M uhammadan or a follower of 1 any
! oili looks up to the sky and says •• Our father which art in
I leaven" and fancies in his mental eye a Patriarch — a Father
of venerable age with long flowing beards, snow white in color,
as it watching his children from on high, in what way is he
more advanced than his brother who looks up to the image with
watchlul eyes and beaming countenance, seeing that the mental
l; Tiagc is as unreal as the physical image ? Perhaps the
idol worship|>er might have chosen such a method of worship
because he thought he could not form a correct concep-
tion of the Unknown, the Indescribable and the Absolute God
\; ith his limited intellect and might have intended the image
to serve as a sign-post, (at least he may so defend himself)
but the man of the mental image who abhors tile use of
physical images gives a real shape to God, who is pure Spirit,

THE RATIONALE OF SYMBOLIC WORSHIP. tj

Does not this affect the very constitution of God ? In our
opinion this is more culpable. The employer of images knows
the image to be image because he himself has manufactured it,
and thus he knows it to be evanescent, but the man of the
mental image by giving a mental shape to God indentifies God
the Supreme Spirit with form. If one is true to tne principle
that no idolatory is to be permitted, he must reject both mental
and physical images. A man that gives shape to God in fancy
but at the same time pretends to dislike physical images is but
one who cannot analyse his own thoughts and who deceives
himself and others. Let us ask one question of our Missionary
friends "Reverend Sirs do not the great body of the people in
the west and the converts in the east cling to the belief that
heaven is a geographical place, where God is seated on a great
throne, that therefrom He sqnt his son Jesus who was seated on
His right hand side, as Davni is said to have prophesied,, and
that he ascended to heaven after his crucificatiorv" Let them
not prevaricate. We ask this particularly of our friend the
Reverend Mr. Macnical of Poona who finds fault with Mrs.
Annie Besant for her defence of Image worship on the ground
that the image forms “ a magnetic communication between the
Divine Form and the Worshipper” The Reverend doctor says
" It is not symbols but concrete and gross facts that the great
body of the people (Hindus) worship”. This may or may not be
so. But in the west, the great body of the people actually
believe in the existence of a material heaven, a material God
sitting on a material throne, with material Christ on his right-
hand side where the several hosts of angels sing unto Eternity
the Tedeums, Hallelujahs and AveMarias. Are hot these gross
facts ? Wc may also question our learned MoulVies whether
or not, they believe in a material heaven where Malayiks
(angels) such as Mikayil Gibrayil and others reside and wbo
are said to have led Muhainmed on his way to and return from
God. A sensual heaven, a houri-haunted paradise with lakes
full of crystal waters-ancf with trees full of luscious fruits, which
are not to be found in the sandy deserts of Arabia, ora material

<4

nit RATIONAL* Of SVMMUUC WORSIIII*.

heaven. are not those blessed states to which all righteous and
spiritually minded saints and sages aspire ?

No doubt the Jewish prophets like lsiah and Jeremiah
denounced in strongest language the frightful heart-rending
practices of their neighbouring tribes, and Muhammad, the
Renowned Prophet, gets the great glory for denouncing the
evil rites and frightful orgies which the very tribe that gave
birth to him were then practising. The more shocking the
rites and the more hideous the idols were, louder came the
denunciation, for how long can these practices (which
included human sacrifices as well) prevail without stirring up
the sympathetic chords of at least a few people for instance.
The Greeks were also idol worshippers, and though philosophers
like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle did not countenance them, yet
the denunciation by them were not so loud as they were in the
case of the tribes whom Muhammad and the Jewish prophets
exposed. For intance, the more shocking are the social customs
such as the disfiguration of the widows, the more they excite the
pity of the reformers. Sometimes these religious and social
refo rm ers have a keener eye than all the orhodox sections of
the community. The accounts for the violent iconoclastic
tendencies exhibited by the Moslems in their relation
with other peoples of the earth.

It does not follow therefrom that good paintings, good
specimens of art, good sculpture are bad and should be
abhorred. It would be like condemning Literature as a whole
because somebody wrote flimsy novels with unseemly topics.
Children of course often commit blunders in grammar and
idiom. Is it right on that account to put an end to all sorts of
improvement and study. Nations there were in ancient times
who were in infant stages. Children often delight in grotesque
and fantastic tales and they are often kept in awe by such
tales. So also there were among the nations of the earth. Just
as the value of literature should not be- gauged from the evil
aovda, so art as a u$ole should not be condemned because some

THE RAT10VAJ.E OF SYMBOMf WORSHIP.

»5

nations had hideous images. What the wise Bacon says of
books is also true of images and art. There are some images
which ought to be discarded, some that should only be seen, but
not remembered, some images may be remembered but there
are some images which ought to be studied or “digested " as
Bacon says with reference to some books. Images that
dethrone man to the level of devils ought to be shunned for ever.
Specimens of images which excite the laughter, though not
harmful, are not proper things to be remembered. Specimens
which make men grin are not worthy to be kept in our gallery,
Specimens which depict every day life, every day scenes are
not so very important as they can be seen in nature in brighter
colors. And specimens which rouse our feelings of humanity
just as the Positivists have, can be seen. But the most impor-
tant are the arts which make known the Unknown and
describe the Indescribable and depict His workings. Our Silpa
Sastra says “It is always commendable for the artist to draw
the images of Gods. To make human figures is bad and even
unholy. It is far better to present the figure of a God though
it is not beautiful than to reproduce a remarkably handsome
human figure” Yet what do we see in most religions. Human
figures are carved, human images set up, human paintings hung
up. Sunken eyes, hollow face, upturned looks, down cast
countenance-these are the trophies of the Romish chureh. Man
sitting serene, unmoved, unaffected by pleasures or pains —
keeping a perfect equanimity of mind — this is the trophy of
Buddhism. Have we not seen people crying, people sitting like
stones that we should try to commemorate them in pictures and
statues. We do not condemn them absolutely but we say they
are not specimens which religion and Philosophy must set up in
view to perpetuate. Man may kneel, may bemoan, may dance
with ecstacy, may be silent with the fullness of heart and may
do thousand and other things. These cannot depict the
Divine laws, His Workings. The Unknown must be made
known and the Indescribable must be described. Art must
prepare the wa v for it.

i6 thi rational! ro svvboiic worship.

•• Sci?iwt »nd art" says the child like sage Count Leo Toll
toy “are as necessary to men as food, drink gnd clothes, = even
still more necessary than these, but they become such not because
we decide that what we call Science and art necessary, but
because they are truly necessary to men. Since men have
existed they have always had Science in the plainest and largest
sense of the word. Since mankind has existed, teachers have
appealed in every nation to lorm science. The object of this
Science has always been The Inquiry as to what was. the destiny
and therefore the true welfare of each man and of all men. This
Science has served as a clue to determine the importance and the
expression df a 11 other Sciences. Such information and art as
cooperated with the Science of man's destiny and welfare were
considered highest in public opinion. Since men have existed
great intellects have always appeared, which in the struggle
with the demands of their reason and conscience have put to
themselves questions concerning the calling and welfare, not
only of themselves individually but of every man. What does
that Power, whkh created me, require from r.ie and from each
man? And what am I to do in order to satisfy the craving
ingrafted in me for a personal and a common welfare ? And
from the voice of conscience and from reason and from considera-
tion on what men have said, who lived before, and form con-
temporaries who have asked themselves the same questions,
these great teachers have deduced teachings, plain, clear, in-
telligible to all men, and always such as can be put into practice
Such men were of the first, second, third and all magnitudes
The world is full of such men. The same holds good with act
Wherever a true Science has existed, it has been expressed by-
art. Since men have existed they have always separated out
of all their activities, from their varie«f^nformation r the chief
expression of Science, the knowledge of man's destination and
welfare ; and ait, in the strict sense of the word, has been the
expression of this. Since men have existed, there have always
been persons particularly sensitive to the teaching of man’s wel-
fare and destiny** who have expressed in word, and upon

THE

SIDDHANTA DEEPIKA

OR TILE

UGHT OK TROTH

A monthly Journal devoted to helufton, Philosophy, Literature, Science, do,
COMMENCED ON i'HK IJUKKN:* COMMEMORATION DAY, 18«7.

VOL. X. OCTOBER 190a No. 4.

T 1 RUMANTRA OK Sr. TIRL’MULAR.

UKAHMARA ACHARA.

jyiipaarjirQnin tjniQ/tr^fip^vai(S(Senitir
Q a- i ft, u* gu'SiuiJi^Q&iLl

Sm (jj

9-lh^lLfQoilT js &l-K)AJ!llu(c‘-JITIra(2i>f
Brahmanas are they who perform six kinds of karma.

They raise the Sacred Fire, and worship it three times and
study the Vedanta and perform Sandhya and finish the Sacred
rites.

Qoi lb f *lhiQd’L- r & eB(0)uQun®(lflLJi-JJtU
Qun ib^LOit or i9ireJ9Tsupjbibr7Lj*(g
n>rpr>bjbQeup<rip (rur &*•*&** p far
i& & r Qtbggjii a fan rp. or cy jvQeu r k « Qsn.

Desiring to know the Vedanta, they enter the three-lettered
Pranava, which is Bodbanta, and perceive without thought the
Lord of Nadanta, Vedanta and Bodhanta and enjoy His Bliss.

NOTFS.

The last line of the text is important. The words ' m»Ou
’ literally means ' not saying this,’ i.e., lot perceiving as an
object which our writers call ruh-^af. And the further words
used are ' ' ‘seeing or perceiving’ and ' ‘

enjoying. As we have explained in several places, the soul has to

ino

nunivnta 1*1 MIKA

lose its h«m*n con* iunsness or thought, its /’nsakot/a and
Pasuboda and gain t!:al higher visi >11 and become steeped in
Bliss in advaita; *s stated by St. Tiruvalluvar also in the
following couplet : —

baric ness will leave and Bliss will anse

To them getting rid of ignorance see, the Vision Pure.

The light that dawns at the end i«f this Pasuboda is Bo-
dhanta Vedanta is Yoga as we have elsewhere shown, the Soham
orSivohamarga. Thefruitiunof this Yoga is Vedanta or Yoganta.
• Nadam’ is the first of the 36 ir.aterial tauvas and Nadanla is He
who transcends all n atter. The Vision and Joy spoken of here is
therefore what happens in real muktiand not during the inter-
mediate stages of the soul’s progress. In the lower stages, the
Vision is dualistir and in the absolutely liberated condition, it is
advaita. * To bring it into line with Western Thought, we have
stated the position thus. We may feel and be consciousness of
feeling and these two states have to be distinguished ; but western
metaphysicians will not often make the distinction. In a pure state
of feeling, seeing &c., there is no thou ght or consciousness and
when eonciousness intrudes, the perfect feeling or vision is
disturbed. In the first condition of pure feeling or Vision, it is
one and advaita, the conscious mi id l a ing become merged
with the feeling, and its identity is lost In the

latter condition of feeling and of consciousness, there is dualism.
So in all the Sa^ana stages, even up to the very end of Yoga
the condition is dual ; where the Sadhana has been periecte dinto
Sadhya, Faian, we have reached the condition of Oneness,
when the Soul feels that it is one with all. And the highest
Sadana (Labara Vidyaj repeated i,i almost all the upanishacls is
“to see God in all Beings and a.l beings in God.” (Kaivalva
Up. n). And lienee the direction • The following

we cull from the Hou’ule Mr. P Arunacbalain's address on
‘ Jnana Vishistam ’ delivered before the Ceylon branch of the
Koval Asiatic Society on 18th August 1909.

TIKI JM ANT ARAM:

IOI

*• The g i-c.it ’octweeu the two systems is the doctrine that eonacummtaa

*kay exist withou t thought, wliicli to European philosophers, at least of ttodertf
times, appears to op an absurdity and an impossibility. However, Hindu sagos
(lecture and declare not as a speculation but as tactual experience, that when,
thought is completely suppressed and also its twin brother sleep, the pure
consciousness or spirit long hidden begins to manifest itself. Free from the
strain of thought and oblivion \£^bcul^ fl nd io^uuj Kd), and truly pure
in heart, the soul is bleser.d with the vision of God, wins the peace ot~Qei that
pnsseth all understanding, realizes somewhat of the infinite power, glory and
blias of the Divine Spirit and is finally united to il”

If in the previous passage, ‘ feeling ' was substituted for
eonsenrsness, it would better express our view. It may be
ra'led also ‘consciousnees ’ because the power by which the
Soul perceives the Vision Pure is called Patkiguana or Divine
consci Kisness.

Prana va is the highest mantra and tantra, a Sadana for
rea'ising the oneness with God. And accordingly the Chan-
dog\a upa,,is a i begins with the worship and description of
Om. 1 Om, this letter, Udgita, should be adored. Om is,
chanted, its description.” Its other form is the Panchakshara
which can be pronounced with or without the Omkara, (no other
mantra can be used without the Omkara) ; and the Yoga
practices all deal with ihe meaning and use of this three-lettered
Prana va (some upanishads recogniz“ the ardhamatra also).

(fi b ©fftn.Tfc!(er,4BT63ft

(Jl h ii t ,j, Q j fil&v6i]/ujp<QmtLiji aiirtu

iniTiij# £i, ‘ C2 ; . tu jt ldsbi/oQiuit iai—nQi*.

Meditating on the Sarred mantra, they delight to search
t) at Savitri which is Gay at :i. They ride on the car of love,
and loving, become love, those Biahmarts who would not be
engulfed in Maya.

NOTES.

We quote the famous Gayatri Mantra from H. H. Wilson's
translation, with his notes. It occurs in Rig Veda III. iii. 9, to.
The Rishi of this Sukta is the famous Visvamitra.

102

SlbOHANTA DFEPIKA.

We rnadit&te on that desirable li«ht of the Divine Snvitri, who influ-
ences our pious rites.

Tha a the eeksbereted vamol the Vedas which forms part of the daily
devotions of the Brehnmns, and eras first mad-* known to English readers
byffc W. Jones’ tienslation of % pni-nplirnatic interpretation: he render* it,
La a a dor e the itpremaiy of that divine sun. the godhead, who illuminate*
all. who recreates all. from whom all proceed, to whom all must return,
atom we invoke tc direot our understandings aright in our progress towards
his boiy seat (Works. §vo. vol. XIII V. 867) : the text has merely Tatiaoitur
ssrisyee bkoryo dooaoyo dktmaki dhtgo yo nal* pmhixlayat : the last member
■ay be also reodsred, who may animate or eulighten our intellects': the verse
oooure in the Yojush, Ill, 85, and in the Samau, II. 8, 12: both conimen-
titin are agreed to understand by Sutitn, the soul, «»s one with the soul
of the world, Brahma, but various meanings are also given thus. Sivyan*
baa, ws meditats on ths light which is now with Brahma, his own light,
which, frcui its oonsuraing influence on ignorance and its consequences, is term-
id fl harp as, and is that which is desirable, from its having to be known or wor-
shipped by all (eemtpeie), the property of the supreme being (parsmartoara),
the Creator of the world., and the animator, impeller, or urger (raertrt), through
the internally abiding spirit tsnteryomi) of all creatures : again, vah, although
me ■ noli i in may, by Vaidik licence, be the relative to the neuter noun bhurgas,
thablight which animates all (dhiyak) acts, \karmani), or illumes all Under-
msilinp (buddhik) : again, deyasya savitnh may mean, of the bright or radiant
no, ae the progenitor of all, larvaoya pramvitur, and bhargai may be under-
stood as the superior orb of light, consumer of sins, papanam tap a barn tejo-
momdola m : again, hherpos may bs interpreted, food, and the prayer may only
Implore the sen to provide sustenance, taiga praiadad annadilakihanam
fkalam dkimoki terya adharabhuta bkbvema, wc anticipate from his fn vour the
reward that is characterised by food and the like, that is, may we be supported
by him: Mahidhaia, in his oormnent on the same text in the Yajush, notices
similar varieties of interpretation."

We invits the reader's attention to the following paragraphs taken from
the interesting book of Mr. Namyann Iyengar of Mysore sen ice on Indo- Aryan
Mythology, Though a Vaishnavn, he displays an unprejudiced mind and
liberality of spirit, rare even in this so called enlightened age.

44 The sin of these two Brahmauus seems to ho to show that the Bon God of
Beorifloe and austerity is id* u tic*) with the Bhargas. Light, of Savitar (Father
Projapati) that is worshipped by naans of Visvamitra's Qayatri verse (Rig Veda
III, «, 10)

Ws «mteteWate,(or ponder over) that oovetabfe Bhargas of our Father (so
that) Be might «aiak*e oar intellect sr wisdom.

T! RUM A NT AH AM .

»°3

Our Father Prajapati's Lifrlit, Wisdom, courists in Ifis having nacrittced Him-
•elf and thereby become all the worlds and creatures by, entering them (vide pp,
74 76 ante). He lias become all by enselfing and loving them all us himself.
This His aspect as the loving Child in tlie^ heart's womh of all is the Son -God.

Now the Gayntri verse has eight syllables in each of its three feet, counting
nyarn as two syllables, ni-yam as the Taittriyine dc* ; • and it appears to me that
among the several names of Goddess Vak (Speech) in Rig Veda I. 164.41 (the
tame repeat* I in Taitt. .Annyaku 1. 0), the name Ashtapadi (she of eight syllables)
means her aspect as the Gnxatri metre. Now, as puda means also a word or uame,
the fact that only eight names are selected for the Son God shows the intention to
exhibit Him as Gajatre alias Ashtapada ‘He of eight names’, because He as Bhargas
is the Deity of that Ashtapadi G&yatri which is the verse 111. 62, 10 above quoted.
Moreover the syllables of the eight names of the Son — God according to the
Satapatha Bruhmuna amount to 22, but us they must be 24 iu order to 001 respond
to the 24 syllables of the Gayatri verse, it is noteworthy that the other Brabmaaa
supplies the omission by adding the two syllables de-va to Ugrn. So maoh «a
about the eight names. Now abont the eight forms. The syllables of the words
expressing the forms amount, aoording to Satapatha, to 21, but according to
Kaushituki, to 25 ; but if we read the latter’s ‘Osbadhayo Vsnssputsyah' ns the
compound word Oshadhivsnaspatayuli, the number of the syllables of the words
expressing the forms also woald be exactly 24. These eight forms would represent
the whole universe if the waters are token to moans the stars, the plants and trees
the earth, and the food of »U the creatnres.

By these forms the Son God is shown to be Visvarupa, sa He is the In-dweller
in them all, loving them all as Himself : that is to say, that in making a gift to Him-
self to all forms and oreatares, He has not given Himself, ; no. He as unbounded
Love lias given Himself completely and fully to every one of them and so if we
count this unbounded Love by the number of the counties# creatures in each one of
whom He is full, He is Visvarupa, Multi-form, meaning that He is the One Mani-
fold. In Rudra Sukta II. 33 of the Rig Veda, to emphasise the fact, that He is not
the forms themselves bnt is the invisible Self in them it is said that He has entered
them. He is Kumara, the child, by being ia tbe womb of all forms and creatures.
This His ninth sspect whioh as Bhurgas, Light. Self, premeutes throughout all the
letters of the Gayatri verse in question nb their real meaning — throughout all the
eight forms as their Self — is always the incorruptible, unchangeable One, however-
much we may multiply Him, like the figure 9, which is- tbe Ultimate figure.t The
Mahabharata, in the story about tbe birth of Kumara. in ailing Him by several

• Tbe syllables are Tat Sa-vi-tttr va-re-ni-yam Bbar-go De-va-sya Jhi-uvahi
dhi-yo yo nsh pra-ko-da-yat.

t Nine is the ultimate figure ; over and above it are obtained by adding to the
figures 1 to 9 a cypher or one or other of the same figures ; and it retains He char-
acter as 9 even if the figures got by multiplying any figures by 9 are arteri together
omitting eyphera.

SinOtffcNT* DKKPIKA

IU4

n . mHi «wlU him N'jrsks, l he Oviiug Nine or the Darling New. a* neve means both
mine and new sad ka. en s*a often esed to deeote sndeenrfhjk' Ja*j>afcr»kn), and
tha child ia new samr. Tbs 800 Ood mi the Self ia always ne'fr.Treeh, incorruptible.
I h^ra tried to show Iktl Eadra la the B harass contemplated upon b j the sacred
(fijiln (P. 4M ante) Bhargea ia a Sskamsta neater word In the classical Sanscrit
aaa of the name* <4 ftadrm is Bharga — an akaraata masculine word. It appears to me
that the Vedie Bharpaawms pery eeal y chsnped into the mascoliae Shares in order
to shoe that Rha firms sh<*eM be viewed as Parasha, outwardly man, bo t esotericallj
the fwrw»le*s In-dweller.

(or the same reason the Vedic sakarenta neater Haras seems to have been
r ha s e ed into theak»i*n»a msscnline Kara which is one of the well known classical
name* of ftndva The Tsitt. Brhmsna II. 2, 10. 2. ears that there wns this Haras,
valve r. ia Pnjepavi which is ia this Aditya (aim).* and that obt.Hiniujr it from
f»W«i Iwln became the adhipnti nr Lord of the l)ova«. It appears to me that
the asms Bhargan of G»ystri verse is spoken of here mb llsnp. Tlmt which is in the
sea is the Parasha in the nan Obtaining Him ns bis Vnlonroos Self, Indra Incomes
l»wl

A THESIS ON THE VEERASA 1 VA RELIGION.

(Continued from page 74 of No. 2 Co/. X .)

11. lean quote numerous Authorities in support of the
Orthodox Theory above described, but owing to want of time
and space, I wish to make short references to some of them.

(a) The ninth Patala (Chapter) in Swayambhu Agama
gives a complete description of the five renowned Acharyas in
the Veefasaiva Religion and the Seats which they founded.
The Panchacharyas are Ghanta Kama, Gaja Kama, Renuka,
Daruka and Viswa Kama. These Sages are said to have
acquired different names in different Yugas : and their Seats are
also named after their distinguished successors, who are Ekorama,
Panditardhya, Revanaradhya, Marularadhya and Viswaradhya.
The Seats which they founded are respectively,

(1) Kethar in the Himalayas,

(ii) Sri Sr ila in the Kurnool District of the Madras Presidency,

(iii) Balehonnur in the Kadur District of the Mysore Province

(iv) Ujjain in the BeUary District and

(v) Berares.

The other Authorities are-

fa) Suprabhedagama, (b) Siddhanta Sikhamaui, (c) Sanskrit
Basava Purna by Sankararya and (d) Kriyasara.

These five Acharyas are commonly known as the Founders
of the Veerasaiva Religion. It may be stated that these are the
five Great Canterbury's of the Veerasaivas of great antiquity
situated in different parts of India and that all these Seats are
occupied even now by the Veerasara Bishops, who exercise
considerable EcclesiitLal jurisdiction over the Veerasaivas.

(2) In the “Classical Essay on the Veerasaivas ” written by
the Great Telugu Scholar Mr. C. P. Brown, which is published
in the- XI Volume of the Madras journal of Literature and Science,

Ill*

sint>HA\TA nr.EriKA

then* i- a ill’s.! i pi ion of these Acharyas a id the Author a’so
mentions the hijh reverence shown to the said Acbaryas on all
ceremonial oecasians among the Veera«aivas

1 1) Professor H. H. Wilson mentions of the Veerasaiva
Seats .it Kcderralh, Benares and Sri Sa.la in his “Royal Asiatic

Researches.

(41 Further, Mr. F Kittel has arteally studied Pancha-
ch.'.rv.i Yamsaiau in the Sanskrit Suprabkedngama and he
has given us the benefit of F is study in l.is ‘ Introduction to
Nag.i v.irmn's Prosody" in which he has shown that Revana
Arya referred to by the Celebrated Poet Sadakshari in his
Rajawkhara Vilasa” was the first of the five Acharyas who are
considered to be the Founders of the Veerasaiva Faith.

it. The V-x-rasaivas are the peaceful race of Hindu
Puritans. They do not perform Yajnas in any form and do not
believe in the efficacy of Shraddhas. They worship only one
Gixl Siva and in the opinion of Mr. Bhattacharya the Veera-
saivas a^e the only Hindus who are to be called as pure Saivites.

t^l The Veerasaivas contend that Salvation could be
obtained in a single birth instead of in three births according to
the Sai va Faith and they have done away with the multiplicity of
ceremonies, as their object is to obtain the maximum result or
benefit by performing a minimum number of ceremonies. They
dai.n these to be improvements on the Old Saiva Faith, and the
following Agarric passage briefly points out some of the impor-
tant differences between the Veeraiva Faith and the Old Savva
Faith:-

vlUnlMnN 11

THESIS ON THE VF.F.RASAtVA RELIGION.

107

( 3 ) The Veerasaivas bury their dead and this constitutes
another c'ifference between them and the Saivas ;-and it must be
noted in this connection that such eminent Smrithi Writers, as
Manu, Bhara-lwja and Salatapa prescribe that the Veerasaivas
are to bury their dead and ijot^to burn them...-,

(4) The most distinguishing- feature afrftWijf the Veerasaivas
is the Linga which every orte-wears on bis person, he be man or
woman, young or'old, without any distinctioiv-E-very woman has
got equal rights to obtain Salvation as every man in this Reli-
gion and every man, woman and child ought to \yeat the ; Linga
from the moment of birth, tvery person Ought to worstnp the
Linga as his or her God, and ougfit to sacrifice even the life ih
Case of loss of the Linga under any circomstanDes-.

(5) The Veerasaivas perform ten ceremonies known is the
Dasa-Samskaras and of these, the most important is the Deeksha
Ceremony at which the Doctrines of the Religion are tOrTnally
initiated by a competent Guru or Teacher.

The Pupil gets “ Linga-Sambajidha" or relation with Linga
by means of Deeksha which destroys the three impurities. Hence
it is called Deeksha.

1 3. It is to be added that the' Veerasai va Religion is an all-
embracing proselytising Religion “and it consists of Tope sen ta-
li ves from all classes of Hindu Society”

Our shastras prescribe'diderent ' pbrioas af probation for
people of different Gists,' and admissions dan bd'made after the
probationary period, if the pupils-aeekingadmission are found to
possess real “ Bhakti or Faith!' in the Reirgion. The' pro-
bationary period is

(a) three years for a Brahman

(b) six years for a Kshatriya,

(c) nine years for a Vaisya, and

(d) twelve years for a Sudra.

2

SIDOHANTA DEEPIKA.

to8

The following passage is taken from "Veerasaivachara
Kaustubha (* M h wu <* y O which is a great aOthority on the
subject : —

whmOwIv^ 1

aisrtnnpg t

(ptnutw i

14. (a) The Religious History of India shows that many
p owerful Kings and Rulers of Native States have embraced the
tenets of the Veerasaiva Faith,

(b) There are numerous instances of Brahmans embracing
the Veerasaiva Faith ; and

(1) according to Census Reports hitherto published, large
numbers of Brahmans have joined the Veerasaiva Religion in
recent times in the Bombay Presidency :

(a) the History of Kanada Literature of the 12th Century
A.O affords two such notable instances ;

(3) the Brahman Poet “Tribhuvana Thata” embraced the
Veerasaiva Faith and became the disciple of the Veerasaiva
Poet Padmarasu (1165 A.D.), after being defeated by the latter
in a religious and literary controversy.

(4) Similarly, the Vaishnava Poet “Chakpani Ranganatha,”
embraced the Veerasaiva Faith after being defeated by the
famous poet “Palkurike Somanatha (1195 A.D.).”

(c) The Puranic instance of the conversion of a Brahman into
the Veerasaiva Religion may also be interesting. Veda Vyasa
tdls us in the “Sankara Samhita of the Skanda Purana" that the
Brahman Pingala, son of Sweta, was converted into the Veera-
*aiva Faith by Sage Sadananda.

„ (To be continued ).

IS VAYU-PURANA THE SAME aS THE
SIVA-MAHA-PURANA ?

There has always been some uncertainty as regards the
identity of the so-called Vavu-purana. In his recent able
address on theSaiva Religion before theConventio , of Religions,
Calcutta, Mr. J. M. Nallasami Pillai says, ‘ The largest
number of Puranas are Saivite, and the oldest of them is the
Vayu or Siva Puraija, as pointed out by Wilson ’’ (p. 14 Vol. X
of the Siddhanta Dipika). Prof. Wilson's authority as an
expert in pauranic lore has always been thought to be weighty,
but if the above statement be only half true, it is enough to
shock one’s literary conscience altogether. We are afraid the
great orientalist did not read either the one purana or the other,
else he could not have betrayed himself into such an unscholarly
and ignorant statement. The Sj va-maha-purana, which is often
known as Siva-purana, is a book of considerable importance as
a mystic text-book revealing the teachings of the Sivagamas.
It is chatur-vimsati-sahasra-samhitatmaka (—possessed of 24,000
verses or texts) and divided into six books which go by the
following names : —

1. Jnana-samhita.

2. Vidyesvara-samhita.

3. Kailasa-samhita, (This is very important).

4. Sanatkumara-sa mlita.

r. (a) Vayaviya-samhita. Purva-bhaga. j Tv»se two bhsgu

> mc exceedingly

(b) Do. Uttara-bhaga . ) Niumtiiative.

6. Dharma-samhita.

The best edition is that issued by ‘Sri-Venkateshvara Press'
Bombay. The Vayu-purana, on the other hand, is of a different
description altogether. It is no doubt classed as a Saiva-purana
but its contents are not of such high value as the Siva-maha-
purana for the study of the Agamic Mysticism. It is not
divided into books at all. The only division that is adopted
is the one into chapters of which there are 1 1 2 in the whole

MnnilAK'l < IlHHIKA

I lo

Purina The best edition that is available comes from the
*■ Anandlshrama Sanskrit Series." In the usual lists of the 18
Purlnas which are preserved in tradition, the Vayu-pyraija
is not named as such, but styled a-, the Biahrnanda-purana.
Here is a list which we transcribe from the Kurma-purana : —

mv iw Wefcnn i

fee «mrwt fee wrew arttiee* it
ui+*few»fee ■nX'vfitTi i
fee n

mnsisgUs eeiiefWiMfeTie u Pijrv.hrdha, Adh r.

From the second half of the last couplet it is clear that the
Yjkyu-purlna which brings up the rear is none else than the
Brahininda-purarta, Similar lists of the Puranas are to be
lound in Vishiju-purana, Srimat-bhagavata (“Vaishnava-bha-
gavata), Bhavishya-purana, Matsya-purana, and Liftga-purana,
but in npne ol these is it mentioned that the Brahman^a-
purina has the alternative name of Vayu-puia.na. But on
.examining the contents of the so-called Brahmatitja-purana, we
know mat the opinion of the Kurma-purana rests on fact.

A fanciful classification is adopted however by the Devh
bltagavat* (Vide verses 2-12, Chap. Ill, Prathama-skandha) by
marshalling the 18 puranas according to the initial letters of their
names. The list comprises Matsva, Markaijdeya, Bhavishya,
Bhlgavata Brahma, Brahmlmja, Brahmavaivarta, Vamana.Vaya-
vyai Visfnju, Varaha, Agni, Narada, Padma, Liflga, Garuda,
Karma and Skarida. It is obvious that the Vayavya of the above
is the same as the biva-maha-purana, judging by the number of
verses which the Devi-bhagavata allots to it (to wit, 24,000
verses). The number of verses in the Brahmanda-purana is stated
to be 12,100. The actual number of verses found in the Anand-
Shsrama edition of the Vayu-purana (which is only another name
for the Brahmatufe'Puraija, according to the Kurma-purana quot-
ed a novel is 10,991. It is probable that in order to suft the exi-
gencies of Vers i.ication and symmetry in* numbering, the odd

IS VAVL-PIRANA THE' SAME AS THE SIVA-MAHA-PIIRANA. Ill

integers might- have been rounded off into decimals. Further,
there is no other purana, to our knowledge, which approximates
more than the Vayu-purana, to the number-test given in the
Devi-bhagavata. Consequently, it i£ clear that the Devi-bhaga-
vata styles the so-called Vayu-purana by its right appellation
of Brahmanda-purana, but, at the same breath, invests the
usually so-named biva-maha-purana with the unusual title
Vayavya. Brahmanda-purana Can be styled Vayavya by
reasoH of the circumstance that it was related by Vayu r but
not so the Si va-purana, which has altogether a different story.
Prof. Wilson’s mistaken identity of the Siva-maha-pur&ija
with the Vayu-purana is traceable to the confusing list in
the Devi-bhagavata, althdugh he as a scholar should not have
rest satisfied, till he verified the statement by a first-hand
scrutiny of the original puranas themselves. And this omission
on his part has lead to endless misunderstanding in the oriental
world, as scholars did not care to reopen a question which they
thought had been satisfactory settled after a thorough examin-
ation of the puranas, by such a great expert as Prof. Wilson
himself. To dish up old material over again is far more easy
than cooking afresh. But which process is the more healthy,
we need not stop to answer.

Again in Chap. 2 of Sankara-samhita of ihe Skanda-purana,
a passage occurs in which a division of the .18 Puranas is at-
tempted jn accordance tyitji their dogmatics. There the baiva-
puranas are listed as hereunder: —

11 v. 30.

11 v. 31.

Here also the Brahmanda-purana takes the last place in the
catalogue, and the alternative name of Vayu-purana does not
come in for any mention. Thus, we see, the name Vayu-purana
which tte present-day Oriental -Schofarsbi p, both European, and

*inn»! \XT.\ UKU’IKA.

112

Indiaa is tond nl using, dot's not find any wide- -spread acceptance
in ancient lixii m tradition. Considering the subject-matter, the
diction and the like, the Vayu-puritj i* has been thought to be on
a par with the earliest parts of the Mahabharata and. hence, to
deserve an exceptional treatment at the hands of scholars, as a
literary document coming down to us from a comparatively
more early period than the other puracias is general. Be this as
it ma v. the methods of modern literary criticism in fixing the
ages of the various puranas are hopelessly at sea, when we
rer ember what scholars thought of the Skull, a-puratja. some
thirty years ago, from their notion of the indications ol tlie so-
ca.led internal evidence, and what a rude change of perspective,
so as to push the date back by centuries, was recently necessi-
tated, Dy the crushing scientific reasoning which the late Prof.
Bendall adopted . .nd vindicated, on the discovery of an exceeding-
ly old manuscript of the pur&nu in question, in the Durbar
Library at Khatmandu. When the “Sacred Books of the East”
was originally planned, it was the idea of the standing editorial
committee, which was responsible for the selection of books for
translation and inclusion in the series, to include Vayu-puraija,*
in tne list of “ the Sacred books,” and Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar’s
name was actually put down as the translator. Eventually the
book was struck out of the list and thus left out of consideration.
It is probable that the glamour for the book arose out of the
praise of Prof. Wilson’s, but what led to its final expunging is
still a mystery, unless it be that the name purana carried
with it its own condemnation.

V. V. R.

( To be continued I

tfc* Bivt'Mftbft.fiiirtAA Dot Ua BnJunudk*purufti

THE TEN SPIRITUAL CONQUESTS OK THE SOUL.

( Dasa-karyam ).

(Continued from page jj of No. 2, I'ol. X.J

St. 1 irumular, the Anointed of God, thus sums up the great
verities underlying the actual "Godly Experience” of Jnanis
(the Seers of God).

JT€BTUUSn np**

u^uS^esruQutr /bu

u Jga$%0rr&Q#ar m emi&truu * lot f tit

jb'-i&uirriilaiirQei. of the 1 st Tantra.

“Of the three that are styled Pati (God), Pasa (primeval
corruption, sin), and Pasu (sin-bound soul), Pasuand Pasa are as
eternal as God Himself, but Pasu ar.d Pasa cannot contact Pati,
as they disappear on nearing Him.” This novel relationship
between the three is brought out again under a different
analogy : —

Qifliuanij guQ&wQutTGiQQj

0 ifhus it TfUQaDfjarL- loirili— rr

QlfilUiB&iS i £uS'Zi&®LDIT IT

GOTnfhufm(S(TT? jbpQpar ppu>m)Ki*(Ssr. V . 5. Ibid.

Here the (burning glass) is the soul under

corruption, the ®iju<g* (the surrounding cotton, the enshrouding
lint) is the three sorts of corruption which enchain the soul, and
the (Sun) is God in whose presence or when He becomes

manifest, the fiifh-it/taanb (the burning down of the three strong-
holds of corruption) occurs. The three species of corruption,
the removal of which is known as Pasa-kshaya are Anava-mala,
Maya-mala, and Karma-mala, the nature of the different malas
being of an intricate character. And about the glory of
Illumination (“Orison" or " Luminous Sleep ") the sege goes
on to 6ay : —

14

SIDCHANTA DEEPIKA.

QtmntG p. v. 7. /6if.

<*#« W&#» fiuttu
jtgggdUa p £mrQm m<^«uuti

<3uarffiQftqf0 ««r wJu^Ju^ijSr v, 19. Ibid.

The last verse records an experience the true meaning of
which is better felt than explained, as the Saint himself says a
little previously (v. if) that »t baffles description. In the same
connexion he says also

BliaiBmiCImi*aiAlii<2a Q ptflBjQflti
/!/ tp o #44(jpta«(<s —rg

£g gg SijiMg BggtggJg Smug

QPfiji Qfij0(!fifig»(!fiuujt*(2p. V. IJ. Ibid.

Ugggflgjg gj

^uiSgvga>gmiad^BQfrgaf)Lfi(ga
Qauu&figj 0ae4OT0 jg *gQ pvfi*
puufigga auBgi jS(5*#»<J#. v. 19. Ibid.

The Saint here gives expression to the greatest of truths in
soul-culture which is within the actual ex'perience of those who
rest in God. Such souls “ swallow up” (a_i-LG««ir(?i_irii) or extin-
guish the operations of ‘corruption’ irr the 36 ’“Fudiments" (Gala-
tians IV. 9) beginning-with the grossest evolute (#,#,*(y>i4.^=.Pri-
thvi) and ending with the finest or subtlest evolute
and dethrone “death”. They have crossed the “3.wastes" (<yii
and become indistinguishable fronrGod (cf. or

8-“ **&•■'*, v. jfj). 4n Tamil mystic literature urij is the name
given to.that critical state which marks off theshading of one sort
of consciousness into-another. The “crossing” has refer-

ence pnly to successful “crossing”,, whereby the “ critical state”
which usually robs a man of continuity of consciousness between
one kind of Anschauung and another, is'rendered proof against

THE TEN SPIRITUAL CONQUEST OF THE Sp¥L. H5

stupefication. The ordinary man cannot with the best of care
and di igence carry with him his so-called waking conscious-
ness into dream or sleep. But when the soul is cleansed of its
impurities, "sleep” in the ordinary sense becomes a thing of
the past. And the degrees of illumination or sanctified perfection
are sometimes classified as those of ‘The Knower of God,’ ‘The
Seer of God, ‘The Rester in God,’ and ‘The Walker with God',

(55/f &r unr a Qppfin rstr ^ fbOD* ujKQinQ&mtiiLi

Qi rrarfisir LS iruieS,# jpe hgbt& tfiujn&p m/fith-eor

6BTQJIT itauuoir^u) •••••••x/.

eSetr&*uuL-G)ti f

GlT)&>3li£)G9lU$GH$tiUD.

Kaivalya-navanitam of Tandavarayasvami is an able sum-
mary of the Vedanta of Sankara in Tamil, but the mysticism
which imparts the greatest interest to that work is drawn
unreservedly from the J fiana-sastras which form the bulk of the
Saiva-Siddhanta literature. Our observation will find its
justification in the commentary of Ponnampalasvami on
Kaivalya-navanitam, entitled Tattvarthadipam, in which all the
mystic experiences and truths detailed in the Text, are illustrat-
ed and explained by apt quotations from valuable sacred books
of the Saiva Siddhanta, such as those of .©ggp eoi, Qataasitt-a and
the like. There is a living mystic tradition, kept by regular
spiritual successions of Masters injif«,*,©i u*_i_u> of and

elsewhere, Masters who draw their inspiration from the Jnana-
Sastras of the Saiva-Siddhanta. and to whom the “pure in
heart " flock when seeking tl* true light of “Illumination.”

The relation between soail and God, which finds such per-
plexing apparently and self-contradictory albeit fine, expression,
amongst Safikarins cannot be better put than in the following
words of l irumalar: —

Qaiihanmujira)

O-uQuearuQuirQu ^ jpQjQfibffaiaiQ
jfuiSofip iuO,#ir«(y<3 icirjpGut/i

QruiS stflfl jy<_ ®(j<7u>. V. 24, of the 1st Tflntfd.

»

■6

SIDOHAWTa IifEPIKA.

In the highest sense, therefore, that relation reminds us of
the brine in sea-water and the peculiar intimacy attaching
between the two. That relation is the crown and glory ot the
toilsome march which every godly soul feels necessiated to
undertake, in order to work out to emptiness, in tears and
tribulation, the various satit.tkaras aud vjsanas which it has in-
herited from an infinite past. And the march is described in Aga-
mic Mysticism in terms of avasthas and karyas, whose meaning
was previously explained in a Measure in a different connexion.

The dasa-kiryini may now be considered in detail. It goes
without saying that they are associated with the Jiiana-pada or
Vidyi-pida of the Agamas, and hence are sometimes comprised
in the term Agamintam (in contradistinction to the intellectual
Vtdiniam which is only a theoretical and summary formula-
tion of the highest spiritual truths). To show how sacred and
God-leading the AgamitUam has been deemed by the God-
taUght Mystics of the MahS-pdsupata order, who are the
“chosen seed” of God amongst the Vaidiks, a quotation from
the Skinda-puriija will suffice : —

fiWNl'itifiiMH |

TOlHfwr. II Sambhava-kattda, III. 51.

Consequently, the dasa-karyani of the AgamStnta stand
revealed only to the duly initiated in the mysteries of the Spirit,
who are thenceforward recognised as the fit heirs to the King-
dom of Heaven.

The first change that comes over the soul is known
as TtUiva-ritpam which means the apperception of the 1 form 1
or actual constitution of the Tattvam. In Agamic Mysticism,
Tsttva is used in the sense of an evolute of Matter. The
Thirty-six Tattvas which are said in a sense to sum up the vari-
ous modifications of Matter, constitute the ‘Road of Matter’, ‘the
Way of the Flesh’, the modes of Old Adam’, or in fact, the so-
called ‘ Tattv&dhvan’. These Tattvas eventually drop off one
after another, leaving the soul pure and’serene, and fit to work

TIU. TEN SPIRITUAL CONQUEST OF THE SOUL. l i/

grossest evolutes of matter or the most obscuring veils of the
out its salvation, under the gracious mercy of the Lord. The
soul are designated Atma-tattvas or tattvas for the salvation
of the soul par excellence , which are twenty-four in number*
The earliest evolute of these is the “ Mula-prakriti,” Sthala-
prakfiti ” or, " Praknti ” simply. The terms mean the ‘rudi-
ment of gross matter' or its equivalent. Paushkara, an Upa-
gama of the Paramesvara, thus describes the evolution of the
Mu’a-prakriti : —

0 T --r H I N1 -PA N FI |) V . 1 7 .

q ,J i i In f£tiNAA'n d-A .iMnaUTtl i

ll v. 18, 6th Patala.

The three gunas which are nothing else than affections,
phases or modifications of the Mula-prakriti brought on by a
change in the motion ( kshobhana ) of its particles, are the real
cause of the apparent cumbrousness which enshrouds the Web.
of Matter, and of the glamour which the prapancha assumes for
the man in the street. Hence, to dethrone effectively the fasci-
nations of matter we should get to understand its real springs
of mischief and blandishment. And the springs are to be found
on that plane of matter where the gunas take tt,eir rise from the
Mula-prakriti. The first step in the unravelling of the mystery
of the flesh, and of the soul’s bondage to it is the “Tattva-
rupam ” of the Dasa-karyani. When this stage is attained the
soul is. able to look behind the glamour of the Atma-tattvas,
right into the cause of “the tides” known as “ the gunas ”, is
able, so to say, to understand the genuine svarupam of the
tattva-parinama. The soul, in its spiritual enlightenment, now
understands the relation of the three gunas to its salvation by
the operative agency of the karma-mala, and their exact signifi-
cance in the Divine Dispensation.

(To be continued.)

V. V. R.

1 1 8 SIUOHANTA DEKMKA.

A SYNOPSIS

OF

THB LECTURES ON THE &A 1 VAGAMAS,

D« LIVE RED BY

Mr. V. V. RAMANAN, f.z.s. (lond ); o.m.d.s.f.v. (berun);
m.o.s.m.f. (paris); &c„

AT THE HALL OF THEOSOPHY, MADUR/ .

On the 2$lh and the 26th of September /pop.

Reprinted from a bulletin issued by the Madura Hall of Theosophy.

I. The Sivagamas— Some Reasons for their Study.

1. The Etymology of the word ‘Agama’; sometimes it is
used in the sense of Upanishads, and sometimes in the sense of
wysttc exegetics giving explicit instructions about Gnosis.

a. The Upanishads are classified into Brahmic, Saivic, and
Vaiatooavaic ; a similar classification of the Agamas is recognised
by the Skinda-purina . Sdta-Samhita mentions Pancha-ratra-
Igamas, Sakta-igamas,- Kipalika-Sgamas etc. The 28 Agamas
known as §aiva-£gamas come in for special recognition. The
relation of Satva-agamas to Tantras (e. g. Mahanirvana-tantra,
Rudraylmi)a, and the like), Mantra-Sastras, and Yantra-Sastras.
The Agamas of the Buddhists and the Jains.

3. The appreciative references to Saivagamas as teaching
the Highest Mysticism, in Siva-maha-purana, Lihga-puraija,
Korma-purana, Vayu-purSna, the Advaitabrahmasiddhi, the
Si vlrka mapidlpika and other treatises.

4. The archaic nature of the Siva-igamas, patent from a
study of their peculiar versification, the nature of words fre-
quently employed and the sublimity and mystery of the themes
dwelt on. External evidence pointing to the same conclusion
by a consideration of the age of the iSkanda-puripa, the age of
Mopikkavtchakar, Tirumular and the rest. Prof. Bendal’s dis-
covery of the Nepaulese Mss. of Skanda, dates that Parana at
the 3rd Century B.'C., to give the latest li.nrt, the Mss. being

I.F(TI.'RF.S u\ SAlVAOfXMAS.

•9

preserved in very ancient script. Dr. Stein’s reseaqches in
Central Asia and the light they indirectly throw on the ancient
character of the Agamas. In fine, the Siva-agamas are not
later than the First Buddhist Council

5 Sankara's Anandalahari, the Spanda-pradipika, Siva-
Sutras, Siva-Sutra-Vimarsini, Suresvara’s Manasollasa, Siva-
tattvaviveka, and the Sarvadarsana-sangraha— all these and
others persume a close knowledge of the Sivagamas.

6. The catalogues of public libraries in Europe, including
Aufrecht's Catalogus Catalogorum, Gough’s Report on the
collection of Mss. in the N. W. Provinces and Oudh for the
Sixties and Seventies, and other Reports on the search for Sans-
krit Mss., record finds of Siva-agamas in Cashmere, Assam,
Nepaul and even Thibet. The widespread influence of Agamas
in ancient days.

7. The Subdivisions of tbe Agamic School : The Nakulisa
headed by Haradatta. The Mahapasupata (Vaidifc) based on
Siva-agamas represented latterly by Srikanfha. The Avaidika-
pasupata School known as the Vamachara School. The Prat-
yabhijna School. The Rasayana School. The Sivagama
School is the best, as being a living tradition comprising the
greatest God-taught } ranis.

8. Vaidika Mahapasupata, the greatest School of Indian Mys-
ticism, including a number of working Jnanis. Edward Carpen-
ter’s Testimony. Agastya-kufam, the head-quarters of the
Southern Section. Kailas (Cashmere), the head-quarters of the
Northern Section. The Vindhyas, of the Central Section.

9. Quotations from Vayu-pucaoa and Skanda-purana to
show that Agamas (Sivagamas) teach the Higher Mysticism
which is simply adumbrated by the Upanishads. The extreme
rahasyam attaching to the Agamantam.

10. Some of the abstruse positions of the Upanishads find
the clearest exegesis only in tlie Sivagamas. The hierarchies

SIM1HANTA DE.EPIKA.

'nwors and Intelligences which are outlined in Theosophical
books find a most elaborate and significant detailing in the
Agamas. Psychoses, Gnosis, Orison, and Decrees of Sanctifi-
cation, a specialty with the &va-4gamas.

ii The Kriya-p 5 da of the Agamas bear on temple-architec-
ture, and temple-worship. Etymology of flanraiajii and j/iiurii.
Temples are representations of human subtle-bodies and of side-
real systems.

ii. No temple-worship in Vedic times. Temple-worship
in post-Vedic times. How to account for the sudden origin of
temple-worship ? Animal-sacrifices were a misinterpreting tra-
vesty of the esoteric truths sought to be taught by such
expressions as Asva-medha, Agnishthoma, Pasupati, Pasu-
bandha etc., in the Samhitas. Rise of Jn£nis showing the true
way. Agamas, coeval with the Upanishads. Temples and
Temple-worship were introduced as sanctifying exoteric memen-
tos, as sound reminders of subjective rejuvenation.

13. Sahkara same of a family of Vaidika-mahi-pasuptas.
§ 4 hkarins have the greatest claim to interpret his teachings in
the light of the Agamas.

14. Appayya’s ^ivarkamanidipikS is the most magistral
exposition of the Agamic lore.

II. The Relation of Siva-Agamas to Higher Mysticism.

1. Siva-Agamas : their structure and composition : Charys-
pida, Kriya-pada, Yoga-pada, and Vidya-pada or Jnana-pada :
Their Panchanana origin from Siva : Another division into
Saiva and Raudra : The Parampara by which the Mystic Teach-
ing came to be finally recorded in the Siva-Agamas : Charya,
Kriya, Yoga, and Jnana divisions of the Agamas correspond in
measure to the Mantra, Brahmaija, Aranvaka, and Upanishad
divisions of the Veda. The contents of the various Padas. The
greatest importance of the Jnana-padas, The Upagamas like
Paushkara, Mrigendra etc.

LECTURES ON SAIVAGAMAS.

121

2. The Kriya-pida, a specialty with the Kamika, Supra-
bheda, Parakhya, etc. Sacred architecture, a replica of the
Sukshma-Sarira, and the Saura-Jagat. The parts of the dev, i-
laya, and the religious rites conducted therein, compared with
the subtle organs, and psychoses leading to Gnosis.

3. The Charya-pada reminds one of the Grihya, Dharma,
and Sulva Sutras. Its contents.

4. The Yoga-pada and its contents contrasted with theYoga-
darsana of Patanjali. Puryashfaka, Dvadasanta, and the Pri-
mary and Secondary Sushumnas and their points of intercross-
ing. The Primary and Secondary Sushumnas are the analogues
of the -'iptic and the celestial equator, and their points of
Junction, of the Lquinoxes.

5. The Jnana-pada and the Illumination. The classes of
souls recognised by the Agamas, e.g. the pure, the mixed, and
the impure. The sub-divisions under these. The Trimurti are
only impure souls in whom the Sattvic Gupa is predominant.
The meaning of Saguna, Nirguna and Gunatita. The 18 Ava-
sthas of the souls. The 6 Adhvans. The 5 Kalas. The Souls
put in charge of various Powers, and Dominions : Mantresvaras,
Vidyesvaras, Bhuvanadhipatis, Andadhipatis. The celestial
hierarchy and the sub-celestial hierarchy. The progress of the
celestial beings is boundless.

6. The soul-culture. The 10 karyas (psychoses), and thp
30 sub-processes coming thereunder. Sakti-nipata. The three
kinds of Maya and Mala. The 36 evolutes relate to matter
alone. Siva and Para-Sakti. The Light descending into
matter. The methods.

7. The Viraja-diksha, a great initiation amongst the Maha-
Pasupata Order of Vaidiks. Rama, Krishna and Svetasvatjra
are initiates of this Order. Paurapic proofs culled from 1 3
sources.

8. Yogacharyas — Who are they ? They are samyak-darsins
or illuminati, of the Mah'apasupata Order. Appayya’s references

I It

SIDDHANTA DCEPIKA.

to them Srikaijt' a's, Haradatta’s and Agamic references to the
same The references found in the Karma and the Siva-puriija.

g. fiyy »*, uu, and $«m represent three extreme

sub-orders of the MahtkpAsupatas.

10. The mysti ism of the Ro6ierurians, Gnostics, Neo-Plato-
nists, the early Christian Fathers, Plotinus, Safis and the Bud-
dhistic Mysti s of the Mahayina School (e g. Santi-deva and
the rest), stop short at the Turiya-pranava-yoga. The plane of
the fourth dimension. The "Solar Plexus " of the Rosicrucians.

11. The Phenomena attendant on Illumination. The Sun,
Moon, and Stars. The blowing of trumpets. The Silver Glory.
The Golden Temple. The Blue Luminous Ether. The Kstla-
vanchana.

ti. The Agamic mysticism excels all by the importance it
attaches to the various grades of psychoses, and to the minute
analysis of the various factors entering into each subjective ex-
perience, and by the explicit declarations it makes as regards
all Degrees of sanctification. “In My Father's House are
Many Mansions.”

13. Paushkara, Vatula, Jnanasiddhi and Parakhya are the
greatest Mystic Scriptures of the World.

14. The Upanishads teach the highest Paroksha Truths
fjjom the intellectual plane. The Agamas have a practical end
in view, and begin where the Upanishads leave; In other
words, the Agamas teach men how to make the Paroksha Truths
actual facts of Afarokshanubhava, while still in the flesh.

OM-TAT-SAT-OM.

CURRENT LITERATURE (ORIENT ALIA),

Prof. Karl fr . Geldner of Marburg has come out with a
dissertation on the Cosmogony of the Rig-Veda entitled “ Zur
Kosrr.o^onie c’es Ri^veda, mit besonderer Beruksichtigung des
Levies ’’ (Ur iveni atsprograinm, Marburg, 1908) which purports
to show that there are some unmistakable elements in the
Cosmogony of the Rigveda painting to something akin to the
Lttga-worsh: p of the later times. He says that the Sanskrit
verb Jan (=to generate sexually) is used in the earlier parts
of the Fig-veda, in place of the more common, but later use of
the verb Snj (=to let fly, to discharge) whenever any notion
of ‘Creation’ is sought to be brought out. According to him
the “ Creation” of the world is represented by such concrete
symbols as embryo, egg, liquor amr.ii and so on (cf. Chandogya
Upanishad, III, 19, 2). The great Nasacasiya-sflkta (Rig-
Veda, X, 129) which is thought to be the most philosophical of
the early hymns is cited as a proof that the origin of the Cosmos
is conceived as an act of generation pure and simple. And
many an other verse is quoted to support the Professor’s view.
But we may point out that the idea of ‘Creation ’ in the Chris-
tian sense, \iz., of matter being ‘Created ' by God out of nothing
is entirely fortign to the Agamic teaching. Matter, however
subtle, is an eternal factor in the Divine Dispensation, as
much as Souls are : only they pass through various phases in
order to carry out the Divine Will. Prof. Geldner is minded to
regard the later Lifiga-Worsl ip as phallic in origin, but we are
afraid he is misreading the entire religious evolution of which
the Vedas and the Agamas are the outer expression. The
Lifiga-Worship in its real sense is neither phallic nor later in
origin. The true meaning of “ Lifiga-Worship " is to be found
in the Jiva-maha-purana and the Linga-purana and in
Tirumular's Tirumantiram. The phallic interpretation given
to the Lifiga-Worship is altogether unfounded, is, in fact, as
uncharitable as that given to the Christian Cross, and is the
outcome of a peculiar craze with which some ot the Modern
Orientalists are seized. It was most ably and unanswerably
rebutted by the late Svami Vivekananda years ago, in one
of his memorable lectures, and more recently by Dr. Ananda
4

MllWIANTA UHIMK.V

'?4

K. Kum.Uasvimi in a paper read by Hm before the epoch-making
Historical Congress of Oriental Keligions. The Liflga-Worship
is as early as the rise of godliness in the Bhirata-varsha.and its
true significance is only known to such as have attained spiritual
illumination. The expiession Jyotir-Li'igam (—the “ Pillar of
Fire " of the mystics) is the sanest commentary on what we are
expected to do by the term * Liftga- Worship ’

In'the September Number of The Theosof>hist there is a read-
able communication from Johan von Manen on “ Sivan as
NaVarija' ” from which we quote the following: "An occult
explanation of the symbolic dance is that Nafaraja symbolises
the rising and falling flame of pure Chit or Intelligence dancing
in Akasa, in an inner cavity of the heart (or, according to others,
the centre between the eyebrows), in deep meditation. It
manifests in “ Chidambara ” which is variously translated as
“ the envelope of Mind", or as “ Mind-Akasa ” with reference to
one of the meanings of Ambara— Akasa (hridi akasa-mayam
kosam ; Maitrayapa Up. VI. 2 7)". But we may say that
Nataraja is none else than the Deva-Savitri (=Sivarka) to whom
Rig-Veda ( 111 , v, 62, 10) refers. He is also known as Sadasiva
or Sidakhya (cf. Siva-maha-purana, Kailasa-samhita, X, 42):
He dances in Chidambaram or Qundraruiuauij or

dahar&k&sa, and hence the Siva-maha-purapa styles him
“ SadisivassaraashUssyat-akasidhipatih-prabhuh ” (=He is
the sum-total of All, He is Sadasiva, He is the Lord of the
Akisa and He is the Supreme). This is a high

theme, and we can do no better than refer our readers to the
Ijivapraklsam where Umapati gives one enough hint to under-
stand who Na^artja is.

Messrs. John M. Watkins, of 2S, Cecil Court, Charing Cross
Road, London, have issued a reprint of “ The High and deep
searching out of the threefold life of man through the three
principles, by Jacob Boehme alias Teutonicus Philosophicus ;
written in the German Language Anno 1620 ; Englished by
J. Sparrow, Bar-at-Law of the Inner Temple, London, 1650."

125

CURRENT LITERATURE (ORIENT ALIA.)

This is only the first instalment of the entire works of the great
mystic which it is the intention of the present editor, Mr. C. J.
Barker, to issue. The book contains 54/ pages and is priced at
125 6 <i net. An interesting introduction by the Rev. George
W Allen, as well as appendices giving complete lists of
Boehme's works and their English translations, add considerably
to the book's value. We should think it would have been far
better to dress the qiant translation of 1650 in the garb of
modern English, so as to make it more readable. One of the
greatest Jnanis whom the modern world cannot afford to neglect
or ignore, Jacob Boehme is a standing light, who " being dead
yet speaketh.” His teachings considerably gravitate towards
those of the hi vagarr as, and as a God-taught Philosopher full of
“ Atma-puranam,” it is what one should expect of him. We
commend his works to the more spiritually-inclined of our
readers.

***

An indigenous undertaking which deserves the hearty
sympathy of all true Hindus is the “Sacred Books of the
Hindus ” planned under the editorship of Mr. S. C. Vasu, the
translator of Partini’s Ashtddhyayi and Bhaftoji Dikshit’s
SuMhanta Kaumudi. The publisher is Sudbindra Nath Basu,
Panini Office, Bafadurganj, Allahatad. Looking at the pro*
gramme which the energetic editor has laid out, the labour
which will be involved seems almost herculean. “.The Sacred
Books of the Hindus " are to include the older Upanishads, the
more important treatises bearing on the Shad-darsana, as well
as the commentaries of Vallabhacharya, Srikanthachatya and
others on the barira. ultras, the leading Smritis, Vedafigas,
Puranas, and Upavec’as. Among the list of contributors and
collaborators are included A. Mahadeva Sastrin of the Mahar
raja’s Sanskrit Library, Mysore (who translated the Snkaotba-
bhashya originally in our pages, and who. we understand, is
going to furnish an amended version, illustrated with fresh
notes, to the series under notice), Professor Ganga Nath Jha of
Muir’s College, Allahatad (who, in conjunction with Dr. Thibaut,
ls the Editor of the “Indian Thought ”), MahamahopadhySya
Dr Satis Chandra Vidyabhushari of the Presidency College.

lt6

SIIMNIaM V hlH'IKV

Calcutta (a great student of Buddhist Sa iskrit a id Pa'i, who is
now on a short trip to Colombo, aid engaged on writing a
history of mediaeval Indian Logi: by a first-hand investigation
of the “ Nadiya-School ” and the wii i lgs of such Buddhist
Logicians as Dig-nSga, Dharmakirli, Itharmapal t and others),
Dr. Ananda K. Kumarasvami, who i; a keen student of Indian
Sacred Architecture in general and of Ceylon Archaeology in
particular, and many others. Such a bri.iait roll of names
cannot but give us an idea of the seri ms nature of the under-
taking, and of the scholarly manner ii whi-h the translations
entrusted to their charge will be turned out. Part 1 of Vol. 1
of the Series is now ready, and it includes the text and transla-
tion of the two Upanishads, Mundaka ar.d Maidukya, as well
as the translation of Ananda irtha’s (==Sri Madhvacharya’s)
Commentary thereon. The translator i; Mr. Vasu, the editor of
the entire scries, who illustrates lii translation with notes
taken from Kri diijachurya Suri s 'Ii.ta. This is the first time
that Sii nadhvacharya s Bhashya on the two Upanishads is
englished, and we hope his commentaries on the other Upani-
shads will be published in due course. Sri-Sadkaracharya has
engaged the reading public so long, and it is but meet that the
claims of the other Achiryas should be brought prominently to
the notice of scholars. All things considered, we should say
the translation is well done, though i. lucks that academic and
critical purity which is the. hall-mark of translations into
German, French or Russian. Our readers may remember that
Mr. Vasu is much interested in Aga nic mysticism, and his
translation of fiiva-Samhita (one of the Northern Tantras
belonging to the Saktic School)- was published years ago. In
the Yoga Chapter of “The Six Systems of Incli m Philosophy ”
Prof. Max Mailer refers to k>me of the feats of Sabhapati Svami
who was the quondam Guru of Mr. Vasu, and who is said to
have lived near Madras before going North.

' .**•

Vol. 63, No. 1 of Zeitschrift dtr dcutschen morgerUi ndischtn
Geseilschaft is ready, and the following are some of the interest-
ing items found therein. What Hermann Gunke) has done for
the new “ B i blical Criticism ” is being done now by Prof. R. Otto

CURRENT LITERATURE (oRIENTALIa).

12 ;

Franke of the University of Kenigsburg (Piussii) for the
Buddhist Tripit; ,ka, which will hardly be appreciated by pious
Buddhists. The Professor is preparing a “Critique of the Pali
Canon" with a view to show that the contents of the Tripitaka
are not genuine, and reveal a disorderly array of many hands
that have contributed to them from ti ne to time. As a first
stepping-stone to that work, he has come out with an article
entitled “ The Suttanipata Gathas and their Parallels” thereby
laying the foundation for a complete concordance of the
Gathas (these being the oldest elements, for the most part, of the
Pali canonical literature) to be found in the Trip. taka. The
preparation of this concordance is a stupendous piece of business
and none but a German Professor is capable of dcing full justice
to it. Jarl Charpentier is going on with his “Studies in Indian
folk-lore " and examines in this issue the Matanga-Jataka and
compares it with the corresponding Jaina story of the Utta-
rajjhayana. There are a few other valuable papers bearing on
Hebrew, Arabic and Egyptological subjects. Our readers will
do well to remember that in this Journal the first European
translation of AruJ-nandi-Sivacharya’s Siva-jnana-siddhiyar
appeared some 54 years ago. The great work was translated
into German by the Rev. Dr. Graul and the translation was
published in Vol. 8 of the “ Zeitschrift 1 "

**.

The April N umber of “ Mind ” is not lacking in articles of
considerable interest. F. C. S. Schiller, the reputed author of
"The Riddles of the Sphinx ’’ and a great admirer of the late
Mr. Myers of the Psychical Research fame has an article on
"Solipsism”. Solipsism is the doctrine that all existence is
experience, but that there is only one experiencer. The Vedanta
is to the writer’s mind “a distressing sort of philosophic
megalomania ” In his view, very many philosophers are or
have been solipsists or at least crypto-solipsists, without, some-
times, their being aware of tbe situation. Prof. Bailie continue!
his review of "Prof. Laurie's Natural Realism.” It deals with

siumiavi .\ nr r pi lev.

11#

the ontological thesis ot the great original Thinker whose death
has been a serious loss to the philosophical world. There is a
good deal in Laurie's Meditations which reminds us of the
Anubhava-Advaita of Vasishtfw’s Tattva-rasSyana, of which the
great Appayya Dikshit was an ardent admirer. A few quota-
tions from the Meditations will give the readers an idea of
Laurie's devotional musings : “ The continuance of life beyond
the grave may depend on the extent to which the potential in
each man has here become actual “ He who has not found
eternal life here will not, it may he said, find it hereafter “ A
man striving after union with God here and now is ipso facto
making himself immortal, in as much as he is bringing lii.s finite
spiiit within the very life of the Eternal Spirit, and he is
being borne along in the current of that which cannot die.”
T. Loveday writes “On certain Objections to Psychology” and
he proposes a topsy-turvy demolition of the entire science. His
arguments may be marshalled under three heads, and they are
(a) Psychology cannot exist except as a tissue of deceptive
fictions, (b) It cannot exist alone as an empirical study, and
(c) Certain portions of it are possible only as a department of
philosophy. There are many other thoughtful papers which we
have to pass by for lack of space. We will however give the
name of one as it may interest our readers. “ Mr. RashdalTs
Defence of Personal Idealism " by John Watson is a gem.
Rashdall seems to maintain, in common with Laurie’s “ Monistic
Pluralism,” a ’limitation of the Power of God, in order to solve
the problem of evil, and that the Absolute consists of God and
the Souls with their respective subjective experiences, and those
alone.

**•

Prof. Louis de la Vallee Poussin has issued recently a
volume entitled " Bonddhisme Opinions sur i' Histoire de la
Dogmatiqne " which is a mine of information embodying the ripe
fruit of many year’s research. He surveys the various strata of
Buddhist "TTtou ght with sympathy and impartiality, tracing their
aemWahces and incongruities with- -a eh arm of manner add

CURRENT LITERATURE (ORIENT ALIA). 1 29

diction that captivates the reader. M. Poussin, like M. Senart
the editor of the Mahd-vastu, is of opinion that the Buddha lived
and taught in the latter half of the Sixth century B.C., and that
the leading tenets which go to make up the Pali Canon received
their permanent form early enough in the history of Buddhism.
These leading tenets, according to M. Poussin, are “Karma”,
“ Karmaphala”, “Samsara ”, “ Nairatmya ” and “Nirvana ” or
the Salvation of the Arhat by surrendering desire, and following
the teaching of the Buddha, agreeably to the “Middle Way”
which is the sheet-anchor of the whole system. Although these
tenets are mutually irreconcilable, their concatenation stands
easily explained when we remember that “ Buddhism " was not
a darfana or coherent system of dogmatics, but a positivist
admission of the facts of experience as they appeared to the
Buddha who was a Hindu (“ Karma ” and “ Samsara ”) coupled
with a practical method of getting rid of them by qualifying
for Nirvana through the suppression of desire. The outstanding
dogmas in the Buddha's teachings about which a unanimity of
opinion prevails, and which give them their special character,
are non-annihilation after death, “ Karma ” and the irreversible
nature of its operation, “ Samsara ”, “ Nirodha ”, and the unsub-
stantiality of objects of thought. The Mahiyina with its
mystic theology and philosophy and the Tantrqydna with its
cryptic gospel of “ black magic ” are well summed up in the
book. Altogether, M. Poussin has acquitted himself creditably
in the task he has imposed on himself. The book is published
in Paris (1909), and a fuller survey of Buddhism with special
knowledge of details cannot be expected from any other scholar
at the present day.

The Bulletin de VEcole Franfaise cf Extreme-Orient for
January-March opens with an article styled “Notes d’Arckeolo-
gie Bouddhique ” by M. A. Foucher, the past-master of Buddhist
Archaeology, on the remains of the Stdpa of Boro-Budurin Java,
which is of extieme interest on account Of the richness and

5IDOHA-TTA DEEPIKA.

»*>

beauty of its well-preserved reliefs. In the reliefs of the north-
western lonier of the first gallery, M. Foucher traces scenes
topicting the early experiences of the Buddha in his religious
career, the legend of Rudviyaija, and a Kinnara-Jataka (proba-
bly identifiable, with the Bhattiliya-jJtaka). The identification
of such scenes in this and other comers leads one to the conclu-
sion that the artists closely followed the Fivyavadana and its
sources. Hence M. Foucher argues that the Canon of Scripture
which was generally adopted by the Javanese wr.s that of the
Mola-sar vast i vari ns. He concludes his monograph with a sec-
tion on the Buddhist Iconography of Java.

.%

A Leipzig publisher issues a book named ‘‘Die Phtiosofhie
ttmd Wisstnstkmft drs Vedanta und Raja-yoga oder das Eingehen
m dmGottkeit" the author of wl ich is M. J. G. Y. Sabhapa'i
Svimi. It is a translation into German, from English, by Dr.
F. Hartmann Mr. S. C. Vasu, as we already remarked, was a
disciple of the Svami whose reputation as a soul of some Svanu-
bhava with “ graces ” and “ powers " of the spirit attracted the
attention of Prof. Max Mailer in his declining years. Dr. Hart-
mann, the translator, is a mystic of some err inence and a Rosi,
crucian.' It is wonderful that the mystic teacl ings of the East
are slowly percolating the materialistic thinking of the West-
and what a change should we expect in the entire attitude of
spiritually-inclined folk in Europe and America when the flood-
gates of the Agamic teachings are thrown open ! The God-
Taught Wisdom which ..is the imperishable inheritance of the
great Jnanis of India, is now locked up in the Sanskrit Eivaga-
mas, and it should be thie endeavour of all sincere followers of
£iva-darsana, to render it available to the hungry souls, the
wide world over, by englishing the Agamas.

V. V. R.

NO I KS AND COM MK NTS.

We are glad to welcome our learned Brother, Mr. V V. Rama*
nan to our ranks once more. Our readers
Lectures un blnnvu- would remember his masterly articles in our'
agurnas. pagesi n ‘Ci iental Research' and ‘Review of

Max Mailer’s Six Systems of Indian Philo-
sophy ' and would have noted his vast erudition and critical
research. We „re glad to announce that he will be our constant
contributor, and would give us the benefit of his varied know-
ledge and lean ing. He has been making a study of the Agamant a,
and as the the full fruit of I is labours in this almost unbroken
field, he delivered two interesting lectures on ‘‘ The Sivagamas —
Some reasons for the.r Study ", “ The relation of £iva-Agamas
to Higher Mysticism", at the Madura Hall of Theosophy on the
25th & the 20th of last month. There is considerable prejudice, or
rathtr, say, there is complete ignorance as to the contents of the
Agatnas ; and our le .rned brother’s lectures were a triumphant
vindication of their true claim to be Siddhanta. We learn that
the lectures were addressed to crowded audiences and excited
great enthusiasm. We unlkipated as much when we received
intimation about the proposed lectures, and we are glad to find
that the lectures have aroused a spirit of enquiry and a desire to
know more about the Agamas. The Madura Hall of Theosophy
has printed a syllabus of the lectures which cover a vast field, and
we wonder how our Brother was able to condense all this vast
knowledge into two lectures. We are presenting the syllabus
in our current issue, and we pray to that Yogi of Yogis and
Lord of all the Vidyas, to bless him with His Grace and a long
life, to preach and spread these soul-sav ing truths.

S1DDHAJCTA DEEP1KA.

« 3 »

We have to thank Mr. Frederick Grubb of ‘Temperance’ fame
for his excellent pamphlet under the above
Which i> the t™ title. He, in a vision, as it were, passes in
Religion? review the condition of various creeds and
religions existing at present, and comes to
fhe conclusion that not one religion or creed has the sole possess-
jon of the door to Heaven, and that godly men and true are
found in every religion and sect, and he alone who doetb the will of
our Father in Heaven shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and not
everyone who crieth ‘Lord!’ ‘Lord!’. Mr. Frederick Grubb though
a layman is not unique in his views. Many Indian Missionaries
in the intimasy of private correspondence and conversations with
rs have acknowledged that it is not by Christianity alone man
can derive salvation. Not only to Christians but to dogmatists of
every land and religion, the truth of the following verse quoted
by Mr. F. Grubb should be bought home,.*' What doth the Lord
require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly
with thy God." Micah VI. 8. We wish the pamphlet could
be reprinted and circulated largely among all classes in India.

Anent the same subject, the writer of this pamphlet
criticises in rather strong language the
Ho« to precch Chrutf deficiencies of the Priesthood of Christ in
India, and how it tends against the spread
of Christianity. He sums up the indictment in these words,
“In dedicating themselves to God at their ordination, these
clergymen and preachers promise to consecrate the whole of
their influence, the whole of their wealth, to the establishment of
the Kingdom of Christ, to work and preach and study and write
for Christ, and to make all the labours of their life terminate in
Christ. But, on the other hand, the majority of them spend their
time, influence and wealth not in training souls for Christ, not in
preaching the word of Christ, not in helping the poor, comforting
the sick and strengthening the dying, but in meddling in politics,

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

133

editing newspapers, counting coins, checking accounts, manag-
ing schools, leaning to earwigs— in short, in doing all that
which makes the religion of Christ lose its pristine glory and
splendour and put on that appearance of Western Materialism
and Western Civilization.” We italicise the words ‘Western
Materialism ’ as we pointed out long ago how thk is the
characteristic of Christianity of to-day, being altogether tinged
to this torm by the materialism of the ancient Greeks add
Romans, as distinguished from the spiritualism of the East, of
which Christ was the greatest Glory. The eastern ideal of
religion is different and would not attract the missionary
with his family and children, who indulges in shooting,
and golf-playingand tennis-playing, and attends dances and
concerts. The would bow their heads before a Sanyasi of any
religion sitting on the roadside, covered with dust or ashes and
without a care lor the morrow. It is renunciation of the utmost
type coming from any man of any religion that will Easterns
attract the people of the East. Our religious books teach asceti-
cism not because a man in family life cannot attain to

Heaven and they instance king Janaka, St. Tiruvalluvaf and St.
Sundar.i and other Saints of the Periapurana, — but because it is
so difficult for tin aspirant to reach this high ideal of renuncia-
tion ; family and children act as great trammels — we know
people even after assuming sanyasam trying to care for people
left behind — and especially in a preacher of Religion our people
insist on a high degree of perfection. We do not mean to* say
that there are no people among Christian Missionaries Who are
not imbued with this spirit of self-sacrifice, yet our sincere belief
is that, instead of spending millions in winning the heathen to
Christianity, they should more truly exhibit the great Spirit of
Christ in their own persons as an example unto others.

In response to a requisition for the Secretary to the CoitneB
of Native Education. Mr. J. M. Nallaswami Pillar! has senf the
following opinion : —

* 54

sinomxTA i*i n ik \

l-'o* the last ij year* or more I liav - h *.11 giv ins: expression to m\ sims
at the subject through the c.i u nn- of I're Sntdlinnta
Pnrf laittvWiir'i Deepika. and have quot s' eve v au’lroritv, Kjro jean
Barks briar* tha end Indian, who liave urged the stuck of the Vema-

Uairrrrfty culan as of para nouit rnpo, lance, horn every point

r* the re iiiuodoeiion of the view. Among them are, o coins. , ition: o' the

of v rraaraUr* Chancellors and Sento -s like Si V. M. (iatvr 1 rir

Captain Mvixrr, Pkonssok K vni.vvvoh sm and others
who rfehvered the convocation addresses and u ho appealed in the strongest
poaible terms to the graduates to improv.* theii study of the verracuars
and to carry tin torch of western learning and know'edge into every nook
r rwt comer of their country and their ho nes by interpreting to the masses
in the vernaculars what they have learnt. This r.oble policy has in a
maaper borne fruit, and a large number of graduates have taken to write
in rite vernaculars. 1 coosrdercd it therefore as n retrograde policy, when
tfa university abolished the vernaculars as a co npulsary subject for the
higher examinations, especially after the abortive attempt made by Dr.
Duncan and Sir S. Subnunania Iyer to institute a Degree in Oriental
Lcarninig, which 1 am now happy to say is revived by the Hon'ble.
V. Krishnasami Iyer's morion. But the object of securing a class o ' good
}*andrts and Teachers would be altogether frustrated, when we diminish
the □ amber of pupils themselves. 1 have quoted passages from the Eng-
hsh Writersdhemaelves to show that the principle of art for art's sake is not
found to hold good even in Europe. Of much less force is it so in India,
where the struggle for existence is so keen. A Master of Arts in Sanskrit
and the Vernaculars is rated far below a Master of Arts in other
branches. And it must be patent now, that in many a college, they have
had to abolish the post of additional Munshi in tlie Vemacu'ars and
Sanskrit The Government introduced the co npu'sury examination in
Vernacular Composition in deference to public representation Irorn all
quarters, and in as much as it was too late to ask the University to remodel
the whole thing. My finu conviction is that, under the present regulations,
the already noticeable improvement in tire study of Vemacu'ars will
altogether disappear and Sanskrit will also sutler as much as the Vernacu-
lars, if not mare. It will be painiut to contemplate that the growing class
of graduates who. are working both in the field of Sanskrit and the
Vernaculars should diminish and disappear, gradually. The only way out
of the difficulty seems to nre to remtrodu.t the second language as before.
And 1 w elc o me Hraf. fti. Hangar ha rya's motion as of imperative necessity
wd as beneficial.

THF. RATIONALE OK SYMBOLIC WORSHIP. 17

destiny who have expressed in word, and upon paslterv and
cymbals, their human struggle with deceit which led them aside
from their true destiny and their sufferings in this struggle,
thei- hopes about the Victor y of Good, their despair about the
triumph of evil, and their raptures in expectation of coming
welfare. Since men have existed, the. true art, that which has
been valued most highly by men had no other destiny
than to be the expression of Science on man's destiny and
welfare” “Art and Science promise to fulfil the mental activity
of mankind, for the welfare of society, or even of the whole of
mankind.

Therefore we have a right to call only such activity art and
science which has this aim in view, and attains it. A true art and
a true science have two unmistakable characteristics — the
first an interior one, that a minister of Art or Science fulfils Ins
ca ling, not for the sake of gain, but with self-deni rl ; and the
second, an exteri nr one, that his productions are intelligible to
all men whose welfare he is aiming at ” In fine he says what-
ever men may consider to be their destiny and welfare Science
will be the teacher of this destiny and welfare, and art the
expression of this teaching.” Such is the opinion of a great
man who attacks virulently and unflinchingly the homages daily
paid by his own countrymen, his own kith and kin as he considers
them to be, to icons and images oflSaints. Why ? Can you call
the inventors of new guns and explosive substances scientists ?
“We have no right to call the activities of these inventors
and composers of obscene operas and operettas, the activities of
Art and Science, because this activity has not in view the welfare
of mankind, but on the contrary are directed to the harm of
men. Without knowledge as to what constitutes the calling and
welfare of all men, all other arts and sciences became only an
idle and pernicious amusement.

“What is that true Science wbose expression alone is defined
as true art ? To what ary the minds of the>oly sages, the Rishis
as we used to call them, devoted ?

I <4 -|}|fr MATNINAI I •'V.MHUl.H WORMIN'

It is said that a man's ch.iiactcr may oc gauged from the
llmvom of lie writings he often indulges in. A nation's inner
lift miv ix similarly gauged irom tlie literature which thatnation
has | in xl need. The theology of the Hindus is based upon the
Vedentas which are not biogrophies of this or that man credited
with Having done this or that miracle and deified on that account
out ire treasure-houses t»f spiritual thoughts of these innumerable
hoarv -ages who preceded even the Brahmavadis of the Upani-
>hads as they themselves often refer to the authority of bygone
ancient sages to whom also Ek ahmavidva was only handed down
by stiil more am tent sages whose names and personal histories
are lost in the eternity of ages. “ sfojjgJtgrnaf ’’ “ ”

“ Thus hear we from the wise men." “Thus hear we from the
ancient sages" Though attempts have been made in the
Bri hadaranyaka and other Upanishads to hand down to pos-
terity the names, and the names alone, of a few Rishis, we know
nothing, absolutely nothing, of their personal histories, the
necessity for selecting and singling out he or she not having
arisen then, as almost ill the individual units composing that
ancient society possessed the same mental, moral and spiritual
calibre as evidenced in the averment, found in alomost all the Pura-
nas, that in the Krit.i yuga there was only one caste, people then
being highly advanced in Spirituality, and in the other yugas
when people fell from their lofty position, attempts were made to
divide communities and to place the few spiritually-inclined at
the top and that, when people still more deteriorated, one or
more persons who upheld virtue and righteousness and
denounced vice and sin were singled and pointed out as God,
sons of God or Prophets, as evidenced in the accounts connected
with Krishna, Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha, Christ and
Mohamad and a host of other reformecs great and small. The
\edantas form thus the chief authorities. The most ancient
Sbtrakaras, or Samayacharikas, as they are called, such as
Asvalayana, Katyayana, Sankhayana, Bodhayana and others
assert that the Upanishads are the sources wherefrom Brahma-*
Vidya should be^obtained. All our Puranas are popularly held

THE RATIONALE OF SYMBOLIC WORSHIP. I9

to l he Upabrimhanas or amplifications, at least in some parts, of
these Upanishads, and the Brahma-sutras which are only a
synopsis of these Upanishads, have Deeen the religion of the
Aryas and their decendants. This had no name, through in the
Upanishads it has been called Atyasrama from the nature of the
vow which the Rishis had to take before they were initiated into
the secrets of the Brahmavidya. It had, of course, no set of
dogmas, chimerical or visionary, but it has been the very life of
the people. That has been their consciousness. Men and
women breathed in this atmosphere and lived in the ocean of
this spiritual consciousness, just as fishes live in water. Call it
strength or weaknesss, that has been the very truth about them.
Space forbids me from quoting mantras from the Rigveda, texts
from the Yajurveda, songs from the Samaveda and expositions
from the Atharvana to show that this has been the case with
them. A nation with such lofty consciousness could not have
had lower conceptions of the Deity or the Supreme Spirit.

ipj VRRt McUHHIWW Wt sM-tHSUH”

“ Not big, not small not short, not long, not red, not sticky,
hot shadowy, not darkness, not air not ether, not taste, not smell
not audible, not visible, not describable, not thinkable, not light,
not measurable, not inside, not outside” This is the definition of
the Supreme spirit. If a positive mode of describing Him is
required, there is the Satyam-Jnanam-Anantam-Brahma ; Ritam-
Satyam-Param-Brahma ; Akasa-§ariram-Brahma ; which des-
cribe Him as the True, Real, Conscious and Unchanging Eternal
Spirit. Where is He? " W I MW I WM ’ W
rm— rnrTTT't'UMWMHqw-aiTT. flSfcwfidi: 'tsiWifMH wnfaspf

stTHtM: tmifar: ” “This Atma is the
great Protector of all beings, is the Ruler of all beings. Just
as the spokes of a wheel are resting on the naae and the outer
rim so do all beings, all Devas, all worlds, all breaths, and all
these Atmac rest in this Atma” Here we are assured that God
is the centre as well as the circumference of the huge circle of the

JU HIE RATIONALE TO SYMBOLIC WORSHIP.

Universe. God is not only the centre of all things collectively
but also the centre of every thing individually. To put it more
explicitly. God, One Spirit, one indivisible conscious Person and
thus void of parts is complete, that is to say, God is entirely
within you, within me, and within all brings. All prayers, all
kneelings, and all prostrations have thtir meanings as He exists
in all in His entirety. The best kind of worship is to wors' ip
Him as dwelling within us. And this is the only rational
method enj( ined in the Vedantas ..nd Siddhantas. ' Hence an
IJpaoishad sa vs : — “ riUTCT — ^kq-
q y ri rWi n f'iT«rtqfwm ” This God is Gnat, of inco
prehem- iolc nature, m.inuter than the minutest, far far away from
the farthest, nearer and nearer than the nearest. To those who
know Him, He exists here in their own hiatts. “ qrSiPtf^tfyklt
" He who knows Him as existing in his own Hri-
dakasa enjoys with Him all bliss.” “ RBft sf W q"

“In the great golden hall of the Hricakasa (in the ether of the heart
cave) lives the Nishkala .Brahm.” “ tftiwrcnmw ”

“The ethereal temple of the heart-cave is the great abode
of the Lord." All Upanishads again and again reiterate this
central truth. Ai-f T S^T T fr-j h iH 1T%R~>TT i

TtT*ijfo " “Of what use are these riks, these scrip-

tures, to him who does not know Him as existing within the
Ethereal space of his heart.” Indeed Chidambaram is the place
where He is.

How does He work : — qtr^rat^Pi. flkMfirf.K pitT

" This one God rules all these worlds by His Ruling
powers His Saktis. His Saktis are “ qq^ntNKHPfa wmww ii M
•Hkaftaiw " His Sakthi is denoted by various names Swabha-
viki, Gnana, Bala and Kriya. The Kailas Samhita commenting
ontlustext has this “ q wtamtafi i i Ftwrf*#

The Sages that belong to the Swetasvatara
branch call this Sakai as Swahhaviki, Jfilna, Bala and Kriya; and

THE

SIDDHANTA DEEPIKA

OK THE

LIGHT OF TRUTH

A motethltj Journal devoted to Religion , Philosophy, Literature , Science, de.
COMMENCED OX THE QUEEN'S COMMEMORATION DAY, 1897.

VOL. X. NOVEMBER 1909. No. 5.

T 1 RUMANTIRAM OF St. TIRUMULAR.

BRAHMANA ACHARA.

( Continued from page 104 of No. 4 Co/. X.)

Qufnfo.'e fi-djncer cSsaaojQujncci^j
£(vf2*fi<uctair ^t(^se>auS(Tf0^lf

Q&aQutopn^cisycgiaefliouertuunQ!!. ( 4 )

Meditating on the great Path of the Prana va
And realising its meaning with the help of the Guru,

And reaching the Divine Seat of the Vedas

These sinless Brahmins become One with the Supreme.

NOTES.

There is an Upanishat called ‘The Pranava Upanishat’
which forms part of the Gopatha Brahmana ( 1 , i, vv. 16 to 30)
Attached to the most mystical of the Vec'as, the Atharvan, as
alsoa Gayatri Upanishat (I, i, vv. 31 to 38). The Brahman creates
Brahma upon a lotus leaf. The latter by means of penance
perceives the syllable Om of two letters, four morae. And from
these letters the whole evolution of Cosmos proceeds : water,
moisture and heat; earth, atmosphere and heaven; fire, wind and
the Sun ; Bhur, Bhuvah, Svah ; Gayatri, Trishtubh, Jagati; Rik,
Yajus, Saman, and itihdsa, purana; Brahma, Vishpu, Ishana
and sarva. In the conflict between the Asuras and the Gods
about the city of Aindranagaram, the Gods become victorious

SIDOHANTA DtEPIKA.

I3 6

under the leadership of On i, the eldest son of Brahma. The
reward of the Om is that no holy text should be chanted
without Om.

In this account, Om is divided into letters of 3 matr&s and
also into four, the fourth matrS being called the ardhamatrfi.
The Mamjukya Up ishat adopts the four-fold classification
and the first three are the three parts of Om, A, U 8 c. M and the
4th is the partless Om described in the 7th & the 12th mantras,
as Adpshfam (invisible) Avyavaharyam (imperceptible), AgrSh-
yam (unseizablc) Alakshapam (incapable of proof), Achintyam
(beyond thought), Avyapade^yam (not to be defined); perceivable
by the soul only when becoming one with Him, and as Santara-
Sivam-Advaitam-Chaturtham. This amatra Fourth and second-
less Sivam, is as we have seen, named as Sarva, (in Copatha-
br.ihmana), the name by which Rudra-Pa^upali is described in the
Atharva Veda. 1 he same four-fold classification is followed in the
Atharva«,ikha Upanishat where the first three letters are identi-
fied with Brahma-Vishnu-Rudra-Indradi and described as pro-
ductions. and the Fourth with SambhO, the Cause of causes. In
the Yoga Sutras of Patafijali, in I. 27, the Supreme Brahman is
said to be described by the term Prapava and in VySsa’s
commentary on I. 25, the sentence, “ Consequently, the knowledge
of particular nanus is to be looked for in the Scripture ” is com-
mented on by Vachaspati Mifra, the author of Bhamatl, a gloss
on Sri Safikara’s great Commentary, in the following words:

By the words etc., particular names (SamjnSdi) such as Siva, Rudra,
Mahe.varldi, etc., His possession of the Shaijangas and the ten Avyayas is
understood. As said in the Vayu-puripa, Omniscience (Sarvajnata),
Satisfaction (Tppti), Eternal Knowledge (Anadi-Bodhara), Seif-Dependence
(Svatantia), Constancy of Power (Alupta Sakti), and Infinity of Power
(Atlanta Sakti), Knowledge (Jnanara), Desirdessness (Vairigyam), Power
(Aifvaryam), Tapes, Satyam, Forgiveness (Kshama), Endurance (Dhpti)
Act of Creating (Spihptvam) and Self-Knowledge (Atma-sambodha), Being
the Sabatiatum of All Activities, these ten immutable qualities (Avyayas)
exist always in Saakanu*

’ Adapted from Rjjna Prasad's Tm* Hinduism, Part the first, p. 215.

tirumantiram.

»JT

The referen' e to the Viyu-purana, as Vachaspati would
lave it or to the ayaviya-samhita of Siva-Mahi-Puripa as ray
brother Mr. V. \ Ramaijan would have it, is Uttara Bhaga,’
chap. VII, *3:

H'Rt' MWS ffa w qt mw : 1

Vijfianabiksh a in his Yogasarasafigraha (Jha’s Translation,
pp. 94, et seq) sums up th.s in the following words :

The Srutis, having spoken of the three raatras of the pranava (Cm) —
a, u and m, as being the three deities, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, declare
a fourth matra of the same, as indicating the Supreme Brahma, over
above the three aforesaid deities of the praijava. And this fourth matra,
apart from the first three, is nothing more than the spho(a. It is this
again which is called the ardha-rrutra. When like a heap, the lettw and
word are not separated, one half may be said to be the letter and the other
half the word. Just as the whole can never be talked of as apart from its
parts, so a word cannot be altered apart from it constituent letters. Hence
the Stniiti, ‘ The Goddess is the Ardha-raatra which is inutterable in any
specific way (i.e , apart from the letters).’

Sri Appayya Diksl.ita in his Sivatattvaviveka refers,
to all these authorities in the commentary on verse 59.

Mrs. Anr.ie Besant, in concluding the article on the Science'
of Peace in the October No. of The Theosophist describes this
Word Power in the following beautiful language:

M Sam ski it is a language in which natural facts are expressed in
sounds which are creative ; every Name of a Great Being expresses the
Being, every letter a fact. There are names which are “ Words of Power ”
which are not descriptive but creative. Hence the secrecy with which
names have been concealed ; names bind and loose. “ Why askest thou my
name, seeing it is secret ? ” asks an “ Angel ” of the Hebrew wrestler.
Words of Power were known to the Egyptians, the early Americans, the
Hebrews, the Hindus, the Gnostics. They are graven on Gnostic's gems,'
names meaningless to the modern mind but potent in the speech of one
who knows. They are words compacted of letters each one of which
expresses a fact ; when the relation of the facts to each other is a vital

•Compare also chap. XV, w. tot, 102:

t|8

SIDOIIANTA 1‘F.EPIKA

(retli then Um letters expressing I ho facts make a Word of Power. The
«e (rf tl» word summons the forces of natu-e connected with the facts
i |j |- J in its compooont letters. Such Wards are potent, magical.

Now what Samslrit word sum* up all evolution, all becoming, all
tam, all eternity ? The Vedas, the Upanishats, declare that there is such
n word, awl alto that the three letters of the word are severally indicative
of the three states of consciousness. This word is AUM.

She seems to be however unaware of the amitra Fourth,
and gives her own interpreta'i >n of the Pranava which we
could not find in any of the authorises we referred to above.
However, what she says about the pronounceatility of the word
as a Unity or as a TriplLity is important. And as we have
identified the Samashti Pranava wilh the Partless Fourth as
&vam-Advaitam-Chaturtham or Turiyam, the Vyashfc Praoava
can only he pronounced as a Triplicity by the term UM A, and
in no other form. And for this we have the direct authority
of our great Srikanfha Sivlchirya and the Laiftga Purina :

* Who as coloured by the Supreme Energy, the Pariifakti, called Urol
—a ward famed of the constituent sounds of the Pranava in their reversed
•crier — is described as dark and yellowish (Kfishpa Piftgaja) who is the
Supreme, All- t re ea r m e tin g Brahman." ($aiva-bhashya on the VedSnta
S^ins I. iii. it).

enuiHiriWiiwflthwVfcwi: i

sroiwfcg n

i Laiftga-purana (Chap. 85,
verses 44 to 46.)

“ Thy pcapava is the one, and mine is, likewise, the other. There is no
doubt, Oh Devi, that your praoava imparts power to all Mantras. In
Oty pranava the lettas stand as A, U and M ; but mark you that your
pranava is distinguished by the arrangement of its letters in the ordkr
y, M and A, a pranava which is at once tri partite, prolattd in sound. and
superb I" (Translation).

(To be continued)

J. M. N.

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS*

The book under review is the first of its kind to issue from
a Madras press, and its author is a popular member of the
medical profession, who came some years ago under the influ-
ence of a Brahmin Saintess that had attained sanctification and
been living at Komajeshvaranpet, Madras, Her name was
Sakkarai-ammM. Her house was the meeting-phce of a select
coterie of her admirers, friends and disciples, many of whom
she endeavoured to turn from their worldly vanities ; a few she
helped, so far as it is possible for a Master to help an aspirant
after Godliness, to enter on the Path. Perhaps the best-known
of her spiritual disciples, who has attained to some measure the
“Peace that passeth understanding ”, is Mr. C. V. Svaminatha
Ayyar, Editor of the Vivekachintdmani, Madras. After her death
which took place within recent years, she was interred at
Tiruvanmiyar where a modest sepulchre marks the spot of her
interment. As a memento of his living devotion to the memory
of the Saintess, the author of the present book has caused a
graceful little chapel of exquisite workmanship and art to be
built quite close to his house, and this satictum is adorned with
a life-like gypsum-model of the great woman in her usual
squatting posture. It will interest our readers to know that
the lady had come of a family of Adishalvas{‘Gurukka]s') and as
a consequence her physical heredity had been quite conducive
to the momentous spiritual regeneration which was to be her
glorious lot in her after-years.

The question of the psychology of " Sanctification ” alias
“Saintliness” which is only another name for the attainment
of the so-called Cosmic Consciousness has been engaging the
attention of serious Western savants for sometime past, and

•Cosmic CoraciouBne**. or the Vedantic idea of Realization or Mnkfti fin
the light of modem psychology) by M. C. Ifonjonda Row, b.a., m.m. t C.M., r.c*.
Firvt Awnhat to the Chemical Examiner to the Government of Madras.
Madia*: €h A. Natcaan A Co., 19 09, pp. x + 297., Bs. 18-0.

SIDDHANTA deepika

* 4 °

it is no wonder that the same spirit of enquiry should have
appealed to the more cultured of the Hindus. Books like Prof.
William James' The Varieties o] Religious Experience, Prof.
Edwin D. Starbuck’s The Psycholog y of Religion; Dr. Richard
Maurice Bucke’s Cosmic Consciousness; Dr. W. R. Inge’s
Christian Mysticism; Prof. A. Coe's The Spiritual Life; Mystica
Theologia of Vallgornera, * vols; Ribet’s Mystioue Divine',
» vols ; and Gorres' Christliche Myslik, have attacked the pro-
blem in all fairness and earnestness and convinced, or
rather tended to convince tbe reading public of the deep and
unshakable sense of reality underlying the subjective experience
known as “Sanctification”. In fact the sense, as Prof. James
says, is “ more deep and more general than any of the special
and particular ‘senses’ by which the current psychology sup-
poses existent realities to be originally revealed.” (The Variet-
ies of Religious Experience, p. 58 ). This view is corroborated
by Svimi Viveksnanda in his RCxja-yoga (London, 1896), by
Svimi Abhedananda in his Spiritual Unfoldment (New York,
1901), by Edward Carpenter in his From Adam’s Peak to
Elephanta * (London, 1903), by P. Ramanithan (known also as
&ri Parana nda) in his luminous expositions of St. Matthew t
(London) and St. John (London), his The Mystery of Godliness
(189;), The Culture of the Soul among IVestem Nations (New
York, 1906), and The Miscarriage of Life in the West (London,
1908), and by P. Arunachalam in his Luminous Sleep (Colombo,
1903), and Juana Vasishtham or The dialogues of Vasishtha on
IVisdom-t Two recent tracts also deserve mention in this
connexion, viz., The Unity of Religion and the Variety of Creeds
(Madras, 1908) by C. V. Svaminatha Aiyyar, and Spirituality
and Psychism (Benare s, 1909) by Jnanendranath Chakravarti.
* Chap*. VIII— XI (“A visit to a Jntni”)
t 8ao especially hii commentaries on Chaps. 24 and 25.
t This is only s summary of the smaller work with special reference to the
Deration ” known as “ Sanctification ", Bat for fall information the reader
ia referred to tbe larger work called Yaga-Vasishtha-inaha-Ramuyana, trans-
lated into English by Vihari Lala Mitre in 4 vols., Calcutta, 1801-99. The trana-
ktkm is not accurate kyit it will be enough to five one an idea of the contents.

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

141

And hence though our author is the first Hindu to systematically
approach the subject in the light of modern psychology, agree-
ably to the methods inaugurated by Westerns, the field has not
been without earnest Hindu labourers who, by culture and incli-'
nation, have been eminently qualified for the task. Mr. Nanjupda
Rao has bought to his theme a feeling of sincerity and devotion
which is unmistakable. He has availed himself to the fullest
of all the literature on the subject that he can lay hold of, and
presented the fruits of the investigators in a clear and terse
form, amply illustrating the conclusions with quotations from
Hindu mystic literature of an indigenous type, which may be
said to be a novel feature of the book. As he himself acknow-
ledges in his Preface and elsewhere, he has unreservedly drawn on
the classical material furnished by authors like James Bucfce
and Starbuck, though we may add that even his very mode of
analysing the subjective conditions and phenomena reminds one
very strongly of those eminent psychologists. He has also laid
under free contribution “The Dialogues of Ramakrishna Parama-
hamsa ”, the works of Svami Vivekananda including even his
“ Inspired Talks ", and Butler's Lives of Fathers, Martyrs and
Saints, the writings of Jacob Bohme, Walt Whitman and St.
John of the Cross, and the “ Epistles of St. Paul ”, the book'
of “Ecclesiastes" and the “Song of Solomon". The author's
range of indebtedness is thus fairly wide, and when we take
into account his quotations from Hindu Saints, both ancient
and modern, we may be quite convinced of the workmanlike
manner in which he has laboured at the materials before him,
and of the judicious sifting and condensation to which' they
have been subjected. Altogether, the book is nothing mbre
than a delicious garland of extracts, with the unifying thread
of the author running in between the multi-coloured ilowers,
and imparting strength and added grace to their setting.
It is a pity that the author is apparently unaware of the veins
of purest gold lying buried in those Books of Light and
Wisdom called Saivagamas which are the Scriptures for those
who aspire after Godliness, and which in the words of

StOOMANTA OCEPIKA.

P. Rlaaittthan ‘treat of the science and art of baling the
Sad of it* impuiitin But within the limits he has Imposed
on kimsetf, Mr. NaAjuipJ* Rao is dispassionate and convincing
in bis isAeclioas. and expounds his subject in a lucid, out-spoken
and level-headed manner, not even forgetting withal the
otilitariiiiT scepticism of the kudos-hunting worldly, in reapect
of aod -culture.

The Prelace gives an account of as to how the took came to
he written. The author read a paper at the 76th Birthday
Anri .ersary of £rl Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, which at the
request of many friends lie has amplified into the present book,
and which, again, as he says, is only a prelude to a more
extended work on the same lines dealing with the Life ahdf
Teachings of his Master and Guide, Sri fekkarai Ammsj.
After ten years of strenuous striving she suddenly attained
* Rlumiration ’ in her 30th year, and ever afterwards she
‘rested in God ’, with all the ‘ graces of the spirit as long as
she remained in the flesh. The author says that the Cosmic
Consciousness is nothing more nor less than the Vedantic idea
of “ Realization " or “Mukti", an averment which we can
accept only with certain reservations, and to which we will revert
in the sequel. The cognate proposition that " Cosmic Consci-
ousness ” represents the ut- plus ultra ot the evolution of
SS is at best, again, only a presumption, as the actuaf
experiences of the 'Sanctified' amongst the Vaidika-ir.aha-pashu-

f »U Orders, as recorded in mystic treatises and testified to by
viefg Illuminati (Jfianis), throw a doubt on the universality
of Its application. We shall take up these and other questions
Mriatim when we get on to the subject-matter of the book.

The book is divided into six chapters, to which is also
added an appendix dealing with the stages of the evolution of
animal consciousness. The first chapter ex-mines the prevail-

• See hie brochure, 'he Mystery of Goillineu (1395). For pon:e more
pertin ent remarks see his The Culture of the Scut a'norj Western Uotione
traosi, pf. lse, h

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

*43

mg misconceptions regarding Mukti among theoretical Veaan-
■tin3 of learning, and the general public. And a passage touch-
ing Mukti, which the author quotes from Sishir Kumar Ghose’s •
paper on ‘The Religious Convention and Its Work ' written for
the Convention of Religions recently held at Calcutta makes us
Wonder as to how such men can properly understand the real
springs of religious emotion in man. Ghose says, “The liberated
man loses his identity and !vs soul. A child can understand that
loss of identity means annihilation.” But the facts are otherwise,
for, in the state of Mukti, the Soul becomes intensely conscious,
and hence enjoys the bliss, of its advaita relation with God, which'
it then knows to have existed fully and permanently from all eter-
nity. And a perfect Advaita relation renders God and the Soul
thoroughly indistinguishable. That this is the true meaning of
Mukti which may certainly be attained by the duly-qualified,
whilst in the flesh, the author endeavours to show in a number of
places in his book, and we are in complete agreement with him so
far. As he says, “ It is given but to a lew only to experience
evena glimpse cf that consciousness which alone clears all doubts
and leads to freedom.”

The Stages of Mental Evolution " is the head-line of
Chap. II which purport, to give a summary of the results of
the latest psycho-physiologists as far as they throw any light
on the evolution of the animal mind. A study of the various
grades of animals from the amoeba to the highest sage reveals the
successive development, in almost a linear series, of “percepts",
“ recepts ”, “ concepts ” and “intutions”. We will summarise
the conclusions reached in the author's own words (p. 19) :

“ Thus we have four distinct stages of intellect, all abundantly illus-
trated in the animal and human worlds about us. The four stages are : —
first, thi perceptual mind, the mind made up of percepts or sense-impressions
as manifested amongst the lowest of the animal creation ; second, the
receptual mini, the mind made up of percepts and recepts and capable of
idealising the sense-impressions into images projected into space outside
• The author of “ A Life of Lcrd G iuranga” and editor of The Hindu
Spirit**! Jfiiffttcinc.

•44

SinWlASTA DEEPIK.V

Itself, that IS, tlio miml of simfU centcitmmns as man tested amongst higher
animals, third, we have the mind made u? of percepts, recepts and cmcepts
tailed llu (tmtfimal mUd capable of forming ideas of objects, or other-
wise the self coociota mind or mind of W/ariuoasisni as manifested in
man ; and fourth and last, we have ttu iituitionci mind, the mind whose
highest element is not a recept or a concept but an mtuitim. This is the
mind in which snsotin, simpU ccnsckmsmi: and stlf-atsci»uu<eu are supple-
mented and crowned with sapri-constinsnrsu as manifested amongst the
fi tented great ones of all religions.”

The evolution here traced is phyiogeneii:, which the author
confirms by an ontogenetic psychological survey of man from
the cradle to the grave. He emphasises the circumstance that,
in the course of evolution, ontogenetic or phylogenetic, supra-
consciousness is bound to follow upon self-consciousness, as a
natural consequence. This reminds us of the analogous thesis
of Mrs. Annie Besant worked out with a dazzling wealth of
illustration and imagery in her remarkable book, "A Study
in Consciousness The author says that self-consciousness
becomes an established condition in animal evolution only after
the formation of concepts and the attendant genesis of articulate
speech, and that language is fhe otyective of which self-consci-
ousness is only the subjective. The birth of supra-conscious-
ness in a person is very much like the origin of self-consci-
ousness. The mind becoming surcharged with changing and
expanding concepts which, with every instant, multiply in
complexity and number, a certain stage is reached when “the
conditions being all favourable, the fusion of several of them
with certain moral elements takes place. The result is an intuition
and the establishment of an intuitional mind, or, in other words,
supra-consciousness ". And now the man is said to own an
illuminated mi ld which enables him to view the cosmos from
a higher and more spiritual point of view. How does the
cosmos strike the illuminated mind ? The author says :

“This corsciousiess shows the cosmos to consist r.ot of dead matter
governed by unconscious, rigid and unir.tecding law, it shows it, on the
toonarv. as cutn-ly immaterial, cmire'y spiritual and entirely alive ; it

COSMIC CONSCiaUSNESS.

145

shows that death is an absurdity and that every one and everything has
eternal life ; it shows that the universe is God and God is the universe,
and that no evil ever did or ever will enter into it. A great many of
these intuitive tru.hs, f. om the point of view of self-consciousness or the
ordinary human standpoint, may seem absmtf , they are, nevertheless,
undoubtedly true and they will strike ali that have had even glimpses of
supra-consciou--ness as clear truths.”

And the attainment of supra-consciousness which is only
that degree of sanctification which goes by the appellation of
Alir.a-carslianam in Agamic mysticism, is nothing rise than the
removal of those vestments of darkness wl ich have clung to the
soul from a remote past. The whole psychological evolution of
the human mind leading up to Atma-darshanam is nothing less
than a way erf God to mercifully emancipate the Soul and take it
beck. Mr. Nanjunrtu Rao quotes Svami Vivekananda’s transla-
tion of, and running commentary on, the following two aphorisms
in Pataiijali's Yoga-sutias, to bear out the above truth: —

riWn Tr .fiv f m : ut^njrr^ 1

STffr’.t driwitg fw 1 Aph. 2 & 3,

Kaivatya-pada.

We will transcribe the Svami’s translation as it appears at
p. 209 in his Raja-yoga (London, 1896): —

a. The change into another species is by the filling in of nature.

3. Good deeds, etc., axe not the direct causes in the transformations
of nature, but they act as breakers of obstacles to the evolutions of nature :
as a farmer breaks the obstacles to the course of water, which then runs
down by its own nature.

As can be ca ily seen, the Svami translates A ptirana as
‘the filling in’ w*hich our author explains, ‘i.e., by the accumul-
ation of concepts'. The Svami renders nimitta into ‘good deeds,
etc’ • wf.Lh our author explains, ‘ representing here the effects
produced fay the accumulation of concepts’. The great virtue

• Mr. Nunjuuda Rao givel “ Good and bad dec da ” (p. IS) which ia olvi-
ooaly due to a mistake in trenacription.

MOMIAKTA HFfrlKA.

1 4*

with lh«' Sv.imi's translatrn is its directness and force, evincing
in a remarkable degree native insight into spiritual truths,
and Mr Nafljupda Rao’s explanations add great value to the
quotation. The sense, not to mention the interpretation, of
these aphorisms, has always remained a puzzle to the ordinary
run of plodding translators, as might be exemplified from a recent
second translation of the same put forth by Gariganath Jha (The
Yoga Darfana, Bombay, 190;), which we here append as an
'Merest i ns variant: —

Sutra (2). The transformation into another kind (results) from the
transmutation of the material cause.

Sutra (3). To the material causes, the inatrumenr is non -efficient ;

from it (proceeds) the piercing of the covering, as in the case of the

husbandman (pp. 135 et itq).

The mode of version adopted by Jha is too literal and
wooden be plain.* Of a different type is Prof. Paul Deussen
of Kiel who is not only an expert Sanskritist but also a skilled
philosopher. Mis recent workt contains some luminous and
extremely suggestive chapters on the metaphysics, psychology
and practice of Yoga, amid a wealth of other material. And we
subjoin a translation of the sutras in question from that treatise
(pp. 536 el set/.), to show how clearness and grace can co-exist
with scrupulous fidelity to the Sanskrit original : —

♦. a-

Dabei entspringt seine Umwandlung in etne andere Geburt
arts einer UeberfOlle seiner eigenen Natur.

4 > 3 *

Hin_ gen sind fOr die Naturen ihr nimittam (ihre Werke
in einem frtthem Dascin) nicht das Bewirkende, doch kann es
mitbehilflich sein zur Durchbrechung der Hindemisse, wie bei
dem Bauer.

• Mr. Jb& buys that ht has availed himself of the help offered by Vijns.no-
bhiksha's Yofa-varlika, but there is no indication that )»e baa profited by it.
On pp. 269, 240 and 261 llUmakrisknurostri-potavordhan’s edition, Medico)'
Hall Press, Benares, 1CC-4) there ic an entrancing exposition of the two sutras,
which will repay careful ptiuuil. Though we are tempted to quote Vijnana-
bhikshu’* racy Boaskxit couai^k- rations of sf>ace prevent us from doing sex

t Die Jijisir edi$ehe DhUv9<>j>Jiie da Indcr , 19W*.

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

14*7

As the great scholar and philosopner remarks a few lines
previously, " L'iese andere Verkorperung entspringt aus der
UeoerfUlle seiner Natur(4, 2),nicht aberaus den hier wie Safikhya-
Karika 42 nimittam genannten Verdiensten in einem frOhern
Dasein, wenn auch diese milbehilflich se n konnen, wie die
Bawksserung beim Wachstum der Pflanzen (4, 3)” We have
purposely dropped from the translation of the sutras, the
explanations within rectangular brackets, which he now and
again intercalates in the body of the version, as we desire to give
the reader an opportunity of testing the accuracy of a literal and
at the same time readable and scholarly version. Ernest Bose
(Trade dc Yoga, Paris) is equally clear and accurate, but we
refrain from quoting him as there is no material difference
between his French and Deussen’s German.

The stages of the evolution of animal consciousness are
'■plained in some detail in the appendix already referred to,
which is properly speaking a pendant to the chapter under
notice. George John Romanes 1 Mental Evolution in Man and
Mental Evolution in Animals, not to mention the works of
James and Bucke have furnished the author with the requisite
materials for writing up the chapter and its pendant, the argu-
ment of which may generally he stated to be the phylogenetic
evolution of the human mind.

Chap. Ill is a recapitulation of the conclusions reached in the
previous chapter, as applied to the various sorts of human beings
that we meet with at the present day, and is entitled, “The Stages
of Evolution in Man.” Svami Vivekananda’s apt definition that
“man is a compound of animality, humanity and divinity" is
almost taken as a motto, and a number of explanatory observa-
tions are made to render his meaning clear, and to show that
human beings can be roughly divided into three classes, to wit,
animal-merr; human-men and divine-men. The mental condition of
the self-conscious man who corresponds to the second of these
classes is thus graphically described by the author:

“ The self-conscious man is a needle pivoted by its centre, fixed at one
point, namely, ‘his self, but revolving freely on that centre. Subject to

STODMANTA decpika.

•a influences o i dan, sen*-objccts and pas ak i ra , thi needle is in

mi inreeaant state of cecilkaou, to and fro, and knows no stoppage or
mi ; and this vet y aptly typifies tin restless and vain activities of the
various nations of the world, in search of peace and happiness, through
't)» acquisition of external objects of desire, such as wealth, women,
name, fame, etc.”

And yet self-consciousness is the God-appointed path to
Jjmn-darfanam. The divine-men are they in whom self-consci-
ousness is supplemented by supra-consciousness or becomes
indistinguishable from it. Tl is indistinguishability is, according
to opr author, the “ nt trying of self-consciousness or its apparent
vamsbing on the wake of the larger supra-consciousness ”
wl ich “ is described in the vedintic works as Mukti." We
have italicised a few words in order to bring into bolder
relief the author's idea of Mukti which is so true to the Agamic
teaching (cf. Tirumantiram, I, i, 24). A man who has attained
Sanctification is conscious not only of his subjective self but
also of the cosmos that surrounds him on all sides, " has
sh ifted his mental equilibrium from self-centre to God-centre ”
and remains a bridge connecting the seen and the unseen.
But as Prof. Starbuck makes out, cases of backsliding are not
unusual even in those that are blessed witli glimpses of the
Higher Experience, though the backsliding is mainly restricted
to individuals in whom the glimpses are of an exceedingly evane-
scent' character. They are frequently to be found in the ranks
of religious enthusiasts who librate pitiably and painfully
between the catching anlinotr.ian self-indulgence of worldly
well-being, and the tantalising glories of the Kingdom erf
Heaven. Such men are yet to be weaned from all the entangle-
ments of corruption.

(To be continued.)

V. V. R.

“The Sum of Knowledge” — Sir J. J. Thompson’s Address.

ANALYSIS OF CONTFNTS.

Sir Oliver Lodge's protest against the flippancy of “ the man in the
street " — Sir J. J. Thompson's Address— Radium and
Radio-Activity— Mount Kailas— "7/ie fact of existence"
and its mode — The theory of Radio-active change — From
Kala to Kala — Mrs. Grundy and Maya — “ The suggestive
power of erroneous ideas ” — The life of the -world, a recur-
ring decimal — The Unit of Conception — The Ultimate Unit
— the highest realisation of Unity in Diversity and Diversity
in Unity — " the most entrancing problems'' — Their solution.

1 deeply sympathise with Sir Oliver Lodge’s simple and
sober but manly protest against the flippancy of the leading
articles in the Times and the Daily Mail cn Sir J. J. Thompson’s
masterly address. "The man in the street” is ever a stumbling-
block in the way of the true advancement of society. Himself
too idle to think or “too busy” as he imagines himself to be,
he is ever ready to poke his nose in everything he comes across
and pronounce judgment off-hand. The leader-writers of the
“ Modem" newspaper professing to represent “ the man in the
street” often unconsciously aim at levelling down instead of
levelling up the common intelligence of Society to the thought-
less frivolity often indulged in by " the man in the street ” with
the result which is woeful to contemplate, and which makes
itself felt in course of time.* In every walk of life and in every
branch of knowledge the pioneer-workers have much spade-work
to do. They undertake it willingly and joyously and pursue
their path undaunted by difficulties, disappointments, and
failures in the hope of cutting a way through the dark shades of
Ignorance that hang round Society like a pall. All this they do
in the hope that once the way is clear they will find intrepid
souls to follow them in the new-found path of Liebt ■■ nd

* The beutcijcj is loosely urucu, uuo )u tunbcijiiitiiik, ». lutuinug

which is exceedingly hurtful to the sense intended Ly the author Ed. L. T.

SIUUHaNTA bttl’lKA.

IJO

Kmwkdge But when leader-writers like those of the (London)-
.Tima and the Daily Mail join the idle chorus of " the man in the
street ” and pooh-pooh the newly discovered truths as mere
speculations, they are doing a double disservice— a ( isservicc
to the cause of Progress, and a disservice to those Pioneers of
Progress who work and wear themselves out in the cause of
Truth I beg to add my feeble, but none-the-less earnest and
sinrere voice of protest to that of Sir Oliver Lodge, for the
Daily Press in India is to a large extent guided by the example
of these mammoth enterprises of journalism in the West
Their perriebus example is catching but the remedy is not so
easily applied ! For, the thoughtful atmosphere of the Thinker
and the Scientist, in the midst of which their London proteges
live and move and have their being, is denied to these who live
in a dose self-made atmosphere of their own. /Hue Wes
lackrtma l

• •••••

Now for a few remarks on Sir. J. J. Thompson’s address.
The New President of the Bri' sh Association, the distinguished
Physicist of his time who has followed and contributed in a great
measure to the progress of his branch of science with keen
interest, in closing his very interesting and highly instructive
resume of the progress made, indulged in these remarks, the
poetry of which is more touching and exhilarating to the ancient
culture of the Last than all the great discoveries so full of
possibilities to the Western Mind, which the Leading Organs
of Public Opinion in the West, like the (London) Times and the
Daily Mail, have not yet learnt to appreciate at their true
worth ! He said* : —

The sum of Knowledge is, at present, at any rate, a diverging npt a
converging series. As we conquer peek after peak, we see in bant of uc
■gioas full of interest and beauty bet we do not see our Goal, we do not see
•he horizon; in the distance tower still higher peaks, which will yield to those

• 1 tdr hie inaugural imuiea* at the 79th nnuujil meeting of Uie British
AsaociaVoo for Ui** Advancement of Science, held at Winnipeg, Canada, iu
AAgart last.

THE SUM OF KNOWLEDGE.

who ascend them still wider prospects and deepen the feeling whose truth
is emphasized by every advance in Science, that “ Great are the Works of
the Lord".

Sir Oliver Lodge’s letter of protest in the Times of London
has brought to my trind the saying and injunction of an
acknowledged Master of mankind, (‘Cast not thy pearls before
swine but, letting alone “ the man in the Street” and even the
Great " Thunderer ” and that New “ Boomer ” of Harmsworth,
to wallow in the mire of “ street-knowledge ” (if 1 may .use that
new compound to indicate the levelling down influence and
intelligence of “ the man in the street”), 1 must eonfess to a
deep sense of holiness that thrilled rpy soul as,J read th^ highly
suggestive and lucid thoughts of the President of the British
Association. As I read through that interesting addtesjs full of
facts and achievements, I felt myself quite uplifted and , carried
to the higher regions of Existence which point to the Goal in
Vietv, the ultimate aim of human knowledge and endeavour, nay
of Human Existence! But this last remark of the learned Presi-
dent, highly poetic and inspring as it was, threw me into
reflections that deflected my rising energies, so to' speak, and
clipped the wings of Thought on which my enthused Soul Was
soaring aloft in the higher regions of Existence. For, it showed
what a gulf there yet was to bridge between the ancient arid
established culture of the East and the New and Rising cult
(not yet become a culture !) of the West ! O tempora 1 O more 's I

• • * * « f

When Sir J, J Thompson discoursed on the properties jtf
Radium and Rodio- Activity, J felt my soul (the intelligence. that
simply is and knows) sporting itself in fact on the heights of
Mount Kailas — a puranic story merely to “ the man in the
street ” but a great scientific fact to be realised in actual
experience by the earnest student living the ‘‘Dedicated life ”
of Dikshi to seek the Truth that giveth to the Mind (ever-
seeking and never-resting), that Rest and Peace that passeth
understanding. I say “ in fact ”, because 11 the fact of Existence,"

8

ilDOHAXTA DEEPIKA.

m distinguished from “ the mode of Existence" is the first aim
ml object of realisation for which the spiiitual student initiated
by the Mastei^Soul in the Mysteries of Nature, unceasingly
ilrfve* : And until this fundamental fact is realised, he does not
fed h«Tlf competent to enquire into the Higher Laws of
Kwimti~nrr. and his Master and Guide never encourages him to
dimb up the higher and more giddy heights of Truth; lest be
fall down or fail to maintain his stand on a height which he
cannot and could not realise to himself owing to any Stray or
fink in the chain of knowledge he had gained failing to
aland him in good stead in the hour of need I

• « • • • •

We are all aware of the Jitaka-TaUs (Birth-Stories of the
Lord Buddha which he related to Yafodhara his charming and
faithful wife who became his disciple after his Enlightenment or
attainment of Buddha-hood. The Fact of Existence is an un-
broken chain, every link ol which is true to its place and posi-
tion in the Infinite Chain, which Conscience weaves of all the
“moods " it has gone through. Consciousness, when it is fully
gained and realised, reveals all this truth, to the enlightened
Soul, that henceforth is and sees and knows direct, without the
aid of the groping, logic-chopping, unstable and hence unsteady
and incontinent Intellect ! These truths, it may be, are still
wqnders of the “ unseen world,” a tale of Aladdin’s Lamp to
the ignorant and uninitiated, as Sir Joseph’s bare statement of
bets and achievements of Science are “Speculations” to the
leader- writers in the Times and the Daily Mail. But they are
aooc-tbe-less “ facts of Existence

(To be continued.)

C. V. S.

The Experiences of the Godly and tho Buddhist Tenets.

The atneists and agnostic philosophers who flourished in
the West during the last century have written voluminously on
the problems of God, the soul and the existence. 7 ne scientists
too have explored the visible regions with life-long labour and
uhiiiing enfergy with the despondent result that they are unable
to say anything about the Invisible Power which permeates the
universe. They admit that there is a difference between the
dead particle and the living microbe ; but they are unable to
unveil the mystery of this living organism. The scientists do
hot halt at this conclusion, but have gone to the extent of
tortuiingthe texts out of the Holy Scriptures and affording
interpretations' which have thrown Theologians into the clouds.

The inscrutable doctrines of God have been preached
to the world by inspired writers through the spirit of God
which the scientists say and regard as mere hallucinations,
revei ie, dream and figment. Those who have read the writings
of the modern philosophers would confess what amount of
calumny and blasphemy they have hurled on the Holy Bible and
other sacred scriptures. The existence of thosfe Divine men is
ignored by them on the ground that they ire inventions of
human imaginations. These like theories have proceeded from
the strong Laio oi imaginations which are no doubt the products
of the mind and cannot be classified with products of faith.

7 he mind in the sense I understand is only a maya or illusion
and acts as a curtain in dividing the unseen from the seen. As
long as the mind h..s the soveri ignty over the inquiries of man,
it will never know what is bel ind the curtain. Subdue the
mind first and the senses are controlled. The curtain then is
removed and mystery is brought to light. By mystery, it
simply means what we ca'I secret,— a thing for the time concealed
but afterwards to be made known. It is the correlative term to
Revelation.

'54

mooiunta nrrPTKA.

If the mind is not extinguished, however we may attempt
through the arbitrary assumptions and vanities of the mind, we
would not be able to catch a glimpse of the Invisible which the
world designates, as §iva, in Hinduism, Jehovah, in Christianity
and Allah in Mohammedanism etc. For having a conception of
God, wc must become dead to the world and have simple
child like faith reigning supreme over the mind. If faith deepens
and the tendencies of the mind come under its control, we are
no more a slave to the world, but we become conscious of
"something” which makes us happy and peaceful and reveal to
us all that we have been anxious to know. The mysteries
which the mind tries to unravel by metaphysical and philo-
sophical researches and discoveries are revealed in the dead man
but purely superconsciou6, viewing the world— not as two but
one and inseparable — in advaita. The saving Light of God falls
only upon the eye of faith. Then the spirit of\ God directly
shines upon the soul like the meridian Sun and illumines and
warms the entire spiritual nature of men. It bursts like a resist-
less flood into the heart, sweeps away ignorance and doubt, im-
purity and wickedness, and converts even the hard stony heart of
a confirmed sinner into a garden similing in all the luxuriance of
spiritual harvests of faith, love and purity. Faith, hope and
cnarity make up the spiritual man.

No religions of the world have revealed to us explicitly the
conception of God and soul and the universe like the §aiva
Siddhanta system of philosophy, a profound study of which
with a fervent faith in Sivatn will clear all our doubts and
weaknesses and would land us in the area of God’s providence,
(t is no doubt an indigenous growth and there is much food for
thought and meditation. I would refer my Hindu readers, if
they care to know something of 6iva, soul and miya, to
Sivajftlnapotam for philosophic study of the problems, and for
practical knowledge to the study of the sacred utterances of the
four $aiva Saints and Tsyuminavar-padal. The hymns testify
to us in solemn “tone, the presence of Siva both in the mind of

GOO AMD BUDDHISM.

'15

J R3nfs and in the sacied shrines where He loves to reside. We
have no other conclusive and heart-rending evidence than the
spiritual lives of these Saints, who have saved Saivism from
decay and from the religious incursions of the Buddihsts and
Jains.

When I happened to read the life and tcach'ngs of Buddha,
l was surprised to notice the narrow interpretation foisted upon
his ethical teachings and also the fact that he denied the
existence of God. It is impossible to dissert fully upon the
teachings of Buddha and his direct appeal to the Supreme Being
under a metaphysical garb. Buddhist Philosophers are ol
opinion that there is no God and the present existence is only
the result of actions done in former lirth, and Karma is the
c^use of all sufferings and misery. A real understanding of
tfje theory of Karma would throw ample light on the secret
working of an unperceplible Power, to which we can give any
name we choose. Buddlist pi iiosophy is admitted to be the
grandest and most practical course of etl.i :s i:i the world. 1
Would state briefly how Buddha received the light. No one
would gainsay the fact that he must have been first i ii:ia'.ed
into the step ol civine contemplation by having a concrete
object before him or an abstract idea in f is mind's eye. This
he must have developed by deep meditation and which finally
must have melted into his own being. In that state he would
have been no other than a dead man with the world and his
personality as one and undifferentiated. He thdn should have
perceived the world in Him and Him in the world because the
individual self or the lower self, I may say, had been annihilated
to him. It cannot be annihilation but here it means the merging
of the lower self in the Higher Seif. Buddhists may deny God
and liey cannot controvert the fact that at least unconsci-
ously they beli;ve in Buddha who is supposed to oe a divine
incarnation. His mission was to emancipate mankind from the
tyranny of s in, and the sol ution of the problem perplexed him and
dominated his mind. That idea must huveextended into his being

SIDUHANTA DCEFflU.

i;6

and shaped Mm after that. He preached to the world no other
tl tag than the remedy and his purpose was fulfilled. Hcspoke
nothing of the Supreme, because the. natural phenomena are
present to us in brilliant colours, the manifestation of God and His
Omnipotence. His teachings are pregnant with life and vigour
and millions of people are moved to renounce the world. There
is ife and there is power in his teachings and how dare we assert
that he preached atheism? By Nirvana it is meant, the freedom
from egoism — And so on.

As regards Karma the actions always presuppose an actor
wl i h nobody would deprecate in the face of all pervading
witness. The actor or agent has life and courage and possesses
an understanding which guides hint in his struggle for attaining
Nirvana. If that vitality, power or energy is only a dream and
not a living truth and if individual consciousness does not
survive the dissolution of the body, where is the evidence that
the present man, if Buddha-hood is not attainable, will reincarnate
in a future tirth — we cannot for a moment rest satisfied with the
argument that there is a law or order. Law or order is not self*
existent, but presupposes a Divine Law-Giver. Both the taw
and law-giver are one and inseparable. If we say simply order,
the argument falls to the ground.

When I once attended a lecture by a learned Buddhist
priest, 1 heard him saying boldy that there is no God and that
the Buddhists are free-thinkers. 1 was really moved and 1 thought
that 1 must give publicity to my faith in the existence of God.
We do not in the least condemn Buddhism which is as grand,
perfect a religion as any other in the world, but that we slate
our convictions which experience has disclosed to us. A Bengalee
philosopher told me the other day that no man in this world
pretends himself to be an atheist, wl ich is a mere contradiction in
terms. In their flights of imaginations the atheists Blink so
and at the agony of death, as Voltaire confessed, they confess
their ignorance and folly.

(To be continued).

R. T.

FRENCH METHODS IN CORPORAL PUNISHMEN'T*.'

Mons. Henri Daragon, the well-known publi sber of -the
French Revue Generate des Sciences Psyckkfues ha* recently
issued a remarkable book, in French, on the French method* of
corporal punishment, which is a study in punitive barbarities
by the interesting author, Mons. Fernand Mitton. It is divided
into six chapters dealing successively with ( i) criminal justice
under the old order and the new, (2) methods of criminal pro-
cedure under the various enactments and decrees, and of jail-
management from century to century with special reference to
the treatment of convicts, (3) tortures and torments suffered by
offenders, and approved if not egged on by the judiciary, and
the weighty opinions Of Voltaire, Serpillon, Malesherbe*,
Bsccarii and others, shuddering at the unspeakable horrors o,
the penal system of their days, (4) various modes of exqiiisite
torture devised by the legislature, from branding with hot iron
to pillory and "klapperstein", (5) public places of enforced
penal toil and their history, and (6) capital punishment in all- its
forms. The amount of knowledge which- Mons. F. Mi turn
evinces in regard to the judicial, penal, social and ecclesiastical
history of France, is amazing, and the clear and systematic
manner in which he portrays the evolution of all sorts arid
conditions of penal barbarities, illustrated with apt - quotations
from or references to- appropriate literature, deserves praise.
He writes in elegant and dignified French, and Would not
appear to forget for a moment that torture, as a mode of punish-
ing criminals, is exceedingly brutal, and can fimf no justification
in the economy of human society. The contents-analysis wp
have offered cannot give, we fear, any adequate idea of the

‘ Fernand Mitton (F. de Valmondois) : La Ferocite Pcnale -

Tortures et Supplices en France. Paris (IX«j : Henri Daragbo, Editeuf,
96-98, Rue Blanche ; 1909, pp. 383.

SIDUHANTA DEEPIKA.

1 $ 8

extensive survey he makes of the evolution of the inhuman
punishments, closely connected with the administration of justice
in f ranee. There is an excellent bibliography at the end to wf »ch
students of criminal and penal psychology can refer with profit.
The book is adorned with four full-page iilustrati >ns (plates)
relative to some blood-curd li.ig modes of torture ar»d capital
punishment which stand as an indelible stain on the hi ;tory of
criminal justice in France. His sense of justice and compassion
is so keen and universal that he hardly spares hit countrymen,
even when their barbarities were only levelled against an alien
race. “Nousnesaurions terminer ce chapitre’” says, for instance^
our author, “sans parter des iriques traitements inflige* aut
indigenes de la Guirtoe franchise par cettains de nos fonction-
naires eoloniiux qui emploient tan tot la fusillade, tantot les
coupe de cordes.

"En 1900, notre administrateur, sous le pretexte que
Ibrahyma-Koucomba, chef puissant et marabout venere d«
Fouta-Djallon, mettait uqe certaine mauvaise volonle a exdcutftr
sc e. ordres le revoqua et mit a sa place un autre i rid i gene;
Alpha Amadou, qui n'avait aucune autorite. Cette depossessioa
ptovoqua dans le pays une grosse emotion. On accus4 Ibfa-
fayma de conspiration. Jt fut bientot incarcere. M,*i|5, enjbar-
rasse de son prisonnier l’administrateur le fit executer. ■ Dan*
I’unpossibili'.e de transporter Ibrahyma a kqnakru, ecrivait-il qu
tieqtenant-gou verne ur, et craignqnt une tentative d ’enlevement
turn au s»ir sur |a route, Je l’ai Lit juger par les anqiqns et
condamner, lui et k sa famiUe a la peine de mort. J] a ^
execute aujourd'hui' *

“Ibrahyma ayait qn fils, Boubakar, qui, pour venger sa
mort, s empara d’Alpha Amadou et le tua. Selon les ordres de
l'administrateur, sept <jn huit executions s’en suivirent.

1 he* Chap IV headed “ Femes et Chatmieots ” y. V. It.

''jfiunai t$ad du ao novambre J907 (cempte rendu des seances de
la Chambre) .

FRENCH METHODS IN CORPORAL PUNISHMENT* 1 59

"A la Slit.; de ces faits, l’adir.inistrateur demanda au
gouverneur trente tirailleurs ser.egalais pour effecteur, soi-
disant, une simple promenade militaire. II s'agissait d’en
imposer aux populations d’une maniere toute patifique sans,
lirer un seul coup de fusil. Le gouverneur refusa etant donnd
la brutalite et la cruaute des tirailleurs. 11 ceda, cependant.
devant l'insistance de son subordonne. En possession des
soldats, l’adir.inistrateur, organisa l'expedition et en confia le
commandement a un jeune homme de vingt-huit ans. Ce chef
improvise voulut rcchercher les complices de l'assassinat commis
quelques mcis auparavant par Boubakar, sur la personne
d'Alpha Amadou. II demanda aux Foulahs de lui designer les
coupables ; les indigenes rdpondirent qu’ils dtaient en fuite. Le
jeune fonclionnaire convoqua alors les chefs du ciwal sous'
pretexte de leur faire chciiir leur chef. Quand ils furent reunis,
il se si.isit de quatre et sans instruction, sans jugement, les fit
executer par un feu de salve d’une section de tirailleurs en
presence de tous les Foulahs assembles. Peu apres, ce fonc-
tionnaire sanguinaire donna l’ordre de braler la marga qu
village de Kourako, il s’empara du chef et lui fit appliquer cent
violents coups de corde.

“ Le lendemain le me me fonctionnaire fit incendier la marga
Kourgou et bousculer les gens de Diankana.

“ Qu’est-ce que l'opdration de la bousculade ? On raande
les habitants de plusieurs villages, hommes, femmes, vieillards.
enfants. Lorsque tous ces gens sont assembles, le commandant
du poste on de l’expedition leur adresse un discours en termes
trts vifs et lance contre eux les tirailleurs auxquels
tout est perrnis, excepte l’effusion du sang. Chacun frappe 4
coups redoubles, pille, vole, viole, jetant la terreur, l’epouvante.

"Notre bandit-fonctionnaire fit encore proceder 4 trois
executions sommaires. La troisieme journee ce tortionnaire
ordonra d' ‘ administrer cent coups de cordes aux gens-qui
avaient reconnu avcir pille la case d'Alpha Amadou, apres son
4

rto

sincm-wi a rrrriKA.

asaassirtat Bien plus, pour clore sa brillantc tournde if it
encore arrdter et exdcuter quatrc individqs.

Les chefs de village sont incaredrds pendant que Ics
hommes valides sont contraints k porter dcs'briqucs. Les pri-
sonniers ne recouvrent la liberte que lorsque le travail est
termine sur la route. Ces a:tcs scandalcux ont ete denonces k
la Chambre des Deputes au cours de la deuxiene seance du
19 novembre 1937, par M. Louis Puech, depute de Paris."

Such a scathing disapproval of a grave scandal redounds
to the humanity and good sense of M. Louis Puech. We
quoted the passage at such length, as it may be taken to be
typical of the author’s general tenor of writing. For a higher
key we may turn to a Hindu sage whose feeling for the
sanctity of animal life is so tender that he sings : —

ucruf*r&i($fiiuftrgj

(? • .t

Qsu (Su n Oet'sir g, Q% .7 is?

*9 9 «s /» jrQsrzi £> lA) \ f! sS ao j

jprj snipes*

* M a B( £uDm u ij(£jQjj&fia/n §9dmjn 7 p gj

Qmrn tt S ufQm. sQioJ

QatjiarQr±jfiB*Qg€w<2mir pjrGn'.

V. V. R.

■ Jmrml tftid da ao WKembre 1907 (compte rendu des stances de

hGbunbn)

* Ravaflkrtdhya's Sirtjltwdifvm (Taint! metrical version), podu, v. 5

h»)

A THESIS ON THE VEERASAIVA RELIGION.

(Continued from finite 10S of No. 4 Vol.\X.)

1 5 . The Viraijr.ivas acknowledge the supremacy of the.Vedas,
Agamas and Saiva Puraras. They do not perform Yajfias or
Animal Sacrifices, but they perform the following “Pancha Siva
Yajfias" instead : —

3r7nsn^m* 3 j7ft- srnrpjratr^r 1
WflMrfvTnajT^t 1

v7 7TnLi^t:^e'-ifT. T 4

fSmsntrftffcr: 11

Be: ides, the performance of Yajfas re’ates to the attainment
of desires such as, admission into svarga and so on. The Vira-
<,aivas discard all such desires and goone step higher, since their
object is to attain oneness with the Deity. Hence they reject
the Yajfas and perform such of the ceremonies only as relate to
the attainment of Jiiar.a or Knowledge.

16. The Virapuva Religion is founded on the Jfiana Kanda
of the Vec’as, and its founders have written learned Bhashyas
on the Brahma Sutras. They contend that Liiigadharana is
authorised by the Vedas according to some celebrated passages in
the Rig Veda and the Yajur Veda wl ich form the common field
for literary activity and which have given rise to different
Religions among the Hindus.

The Svayambhuva Agama, Suprabheda Agama, Vira
Agama, the Vira<,aiva Bhashyas, Kriyasu’a, Siddhiinta-Sikha-
matii, Lingadharara-CI andrika and others clearly prove the
unmistakable origin of the Vira<,aiva Religion.

(2) The Lihgadharana-Chandrika shows that Liiigadharana
is a Vedic injunction and the recent commentary on this learned
work by Mahamahopadhyayi Saiva Kumara Pandit of
Benaras repays perusal, and forms a valuable and instructive
addition to the “Vira^aiva Literature."

l6 2

sidohanta decpika.

(3) Further, the interpretations of the Vira9aivas are fully
supported by Veda-Vyasa in unambiguous language in the
Uhga Purjija and the Skinda Purapa. It may be mentioned
here that of all the representations of the Lteity which India has
conceived, the Linga is the least materialistic, and is a form
devoid of all attributes, and hence, nearly approaching perfection;
and the very choice of this symbol by the Vlragaivas to the
exclusion of every other, to represent the Supreme Being, reflects
no small credit on their Founders.

(4) The following passage from the Yajur Veda also treats
of the same subject : —

(5) Again, the learned Author of "Kriyasara” which is a
Karika of the “ Nilakaijtha Bhashya ” on the Brahma Sutras of
Vyasa, points out in Chapter XXIX of Part II of his work, that
Lifigadharana is prescribed by the Vedas, and that Vira^aivas
wear the Liftga in the same way as the §aivas wear Yajnopa-
vitam and with a better effect, in as much as it is a symbol
which shows our constant touch with God.

(6) The same subject is also discussed in detail in the
Sanskrit work known as the “ Siddhanta Sikhamani.”

(7) Another Sanskrit work known as “ Viraijaiva Dharma
Siromapi " points out that each of the “ Ashta-Avarapas ” or
eight accompaniments viz., Guru, Lihga, Jadgama, Vibhuti,
Rudraksha, Prasad a, Padodaka, and Mantra, is prescribed by the
Vedas. These eight qualities are the characteristic marks of
every pious Vira^aiva and form the practical basis of his daily
religious observances. Any devotee wanting in any one or more
of these marks, cannot come within the pale of the Vira9aivas.

17. Love is the most essential principle in the Vira^aiva
Religion, which teaches that there is Divinity in every Vira^aiva.
According to its Etoctrines, we are ia essence one with God.
God alone is true, and His Power is infinite. This Religion

THESIS ON THE VEERASA1VA RELIGION. l6$

teaches the Doctrine of Renunciation, and the very Institution
of Virakta Jafigamas, the spiritual leaders in our community is
based on this sacred Doctrine. Safikaracharya declared that
oneness with the Deity is the great object to be attained, and the
Virasaiva Religion assures that this Union is attainable in
this life. The knowledge of the three things, viz., Linga (God),
Afiga (Body), and Samarasya (Union), is a great assistance to
the attainment of Salvation. The union of Linga and the Anga
is oneness with the Deity. It is explained in Sukshma-Agama,
Chapter VII.

18. The Philosophy of the Vira?aivas is called the “ §akti-
Vi(;isht,a- Advaita”, because, according to them, God is associated
with Sakti which is the infinite divine Light or Power.

The great exponent of the Philosophy of Saktiviijishtadvaita
is Nilakaijtha Sivacharya, one of the great commentators on the
11 Brahma-Sutras.” Sankara makes many references to Nila-
kantha in his commentary and refutes his arguments. There is a
wide-spread erroneous notion that Saflkara was the Founder of
“Advaita,” Ramanuja that of Vi<;ishta- Advaita” and Madbva-
charya of “ Dvaita” and so on. On the other hand, these ideas
were already prevalent and were undergoing a hard process
of agitated discussion and disputation. But they acquired
definite and settled characteristics of their own by the very
clear and lucid interpretations of several Great Thinkers on whose
name they have as a consequence been fathered, and to whom they
owe their very existence in a sense. §akti-Visish(ia-Advaita is
essentially a branch of Advaita, or, more correctly, Advaita, quali-
fied and conditioned. It differs from the idealistic philosophy of
Sankara’s Advaita in that it does not ignore the so-called
illusory world of matter and the numberless beings that are
found in it. The idealist says that all matter and mind are mere
reflections of an underlying and intelligent Principle of Unity
which alone is real. But for Brahman, there can come
nothing into manifestation and therefore is it that the sacred
Upanishats declare Ekam eva adviityam brahma, that Brahman is

&1DDHANTA DEEPIKA.

>64

The Ore only without a second. The other finite beings and matter
•re mere notlings. But, it is very difficult to comprehend this
ideal reality, ignoring entirely the fundamental knowledge we
derive from sense-perceptions. Matter is a great receptacle and
transmitter -of Divine force which the souls imbibe through this
very utter. How then can we call our only medium Of
knowledge, an illusion, a Maya ? Both irind and matter are
inseparably bound up andtheoneis urintelligible without the
aid of the other. Nobody has shown that the undeveloped soul
can evolve apart from the body. The vital force underlying
both matter and mind is not separable from substance. Science
stows that wherever there ii substance, there is force, ajid
wherever there is force, there is substance, mentally or
materially. If we want to undersland the nature of force, we
amnot do it without subslance from which alone it emanates.
Hence they are not separate entities, but are identical with each
other. “Of course, it is true that when the soul has attained a
certain stage in which the splendour of its intelligence will have
grown up into perfection, it does stand independently of matter,
requiring its assistance to longer. But this will not prove that
matter is illusory.” The essence of the paddy grain is certainly
in the rice and not in the husk ; and to all appearance the one rs
separable and distinct from the other. But yet in order to raise
a crop we cannot sow hare rice, solely on the pretext that it is
the very essence of paddy removed from the husk ; nor again can
the mere husk without rice, show any sign of sprouting. The
two are so united together that each is essential to the other.
Similarly Sakti, the innate force, is inseparably associated with
God through Whom It manifests Itself.

(To be Continued.)

H. K. V.

NANDI-KKALAMBAGAM.

A kalantbagam is a variety of poetic composition in Tamil
in which the hero is praised in a variety of metres on a number
of turais or topics, and should consist of ioo, 95, 90, 70, 50, or 30
verses according as it is in praise of a deity, a saint, a king, a
minister, a merchant or a velalan. The verses should run in
antadt fashion, i.e., the last word of each verse should begin the
suceeding one.’ The most famous compositions of this kind are
T\ruvaranga=kkalambagam of Pi]lai=p Perumal=ayyafig4r
and the Alagar-kalambagam by an unknown author.

The Nandi= kkalambagam is a poem in praise of a king called
Nandi and contains strangely enough no verses, having ten
verses more than even- the highest number which is prescribed for
a deity by the Pannirn-pattiyal. It is commonly ascribed to a
younger brother of the hero of the poem, though from the way
ill which the author speaks of himself this does not appear to be
the truth. In the final verse of the poem in describing the hero’s
death, the poet feelingly says:

“ Your countenance has gone to the moon in the heavens.
Your fame has entered the dark ocean,

Your valour has passed to the tiger in the wilds,

Your fingers have attained the kalpaka tree,

She of the honeyed lotus flower (Lakshmi) has joined Hart,
The ruddy fire has claimed your body,

O ! Nandi, the all-bountiful ! where shall 1 and my poverty
find refuge? " *

1 This article oiginally appeared as No I of “Tamil Historical Texts”
inlthe "Indian Antiquary”, and is reprinted here with the kind permission
of the authors— Ed. L.T.

’ See the Panniru-palUyal under the head kalambagam.

* This verse follows the idea of the hymn in the funeral rites portion
(i.s., the socalled Pitri-medha-pracna — Ed. L.T ) of the Taittiriya Aranyaka,
in which the several elements are asked to take unto themselves their own
contribution to the physical body of the dead man. The king's counten-
ance is said to have gone to the moon because during his lifetime his face
rivalled the moon in its brightness, and after his death it is left as the sole
h»ir to all the brightness, and beauty which was once shared by them both.
His fame likewise was vast and unfathomable as the ocean, his valour
was like the tiger's, his fingers would yield every request and wish of the
suppliant, like the kalpaka tree. Lakshmi is said to have re-joined Hari,
because during the king's lifetime tlie Goddess 0/ Fortune was undivided
from him. [Vide Prafathka 6, Anutaka 1, section 4.]

sidohakt.a iirtpncA.

ifii

The impression produced by the verse is also corroborated
by the general tenor of the whole work. The hem, Nant i, is
desn toed in tl ii work as tx ing a Pallava I ing -.—PaUavar bet*
Numii — verse 2 of Introduction, verses 15, 35, 40. 70, etc., of
the poem. (The Pallava king Nanr i.) PaUavar loured— v. 1
(born of the Pallava dynasty). PaUavar bdlari—v. 59 (a lion
among the Pallavas). Paltavap—vv. 65, 83. Kadavan—v. 29.

In verse 30 the king is sr id to have belonged to the race of
the moon: — thandra-kula jrabdsan (the light of the Chandra
— kula or the Lunar Race).

His capitals appear to have been Kinchi, modem Conjee-
varam— vv. 8, 10, 22, 29 and 80; Mali: i,‘ the modern Mahibali-
puram, situated in the Cfingleput District — vv. 1, 3, 4 < 5 , 54, 72
and 83; and May ilr.i, or Mai'ippflr, the Modern Mailapur, a
suburb of Madras— vv. 44, 51,55 and 69.

His rule extended over ( 1) the Tondairftiju — *>*>■ 4. 5 and 39 ;
(2) the country watered by the Kaveri : — Kaviri-vala-nddan — vv.
1 1, 17, 27, 28, and 44. Ponni nanneutu rnannan — (king of the
prosperous country watered by the Ponni, i r., the KavCri).
Sonatina — (owner of the Ch6|a country) v. 74. (3) Over the
Chdra country: — Siranadan—v. 74. (4) Over the Koftgu
country: — Kouga ! — v. 41. (5) Over the Alagai Nadu: — Alagai
nation — v. 39. (6) Over the western regions: — Kudakh=udai
vrndan — v. 65.

In verse 28, he is described as " Kaviri vala nadan Kumari=
bbongan Gangai-mandlan kurai, kalal vira=.Naudi ” — “the
valiant Nandi, lord of the prosperous country watered by the
Kavtri, of the sea-coast round Kumari (the Cape Comorin) and
the spouse of the Ganges.”

* Id b*. 54 and 83, the place is called Katjan-Mallai, which is the name
by winch it is known to the Vaishjjava Alvar Tirumangai (see the two
d rradrs on Kadan-M allai-Uaiasayanam, and the decades or T trued It and
Tmmaratyur). The Alvdr describes it as a flourishing sea- port ( Tirumdun -
tdmdogom, verse 9.) The place was also praised by BkAtoUdlvdr in verse
70 at his lytrfri. -

NANDl-KK A LAM BAG AM .

167

He is said to have held sway over the Bana kings \—"Vada
V engada-nadudai mannar pirdn " — v. 55. “ Lord over the kings
of the nothern Venkata (hills)." See also vv. 33 and 67, where
he is described as vada Vengadattan (lord of the northern
Venkafa hills).

Nandi is said to have won battles at the following places: —
(1) TeUbru—vv. 28, 33, 38, 49, 52, 53, 71, 75, 79, 80, 85, 86, and
96. (2) Kuvukodu — vv. 2, 35, and 84. (3) Palaiyaru — v. 31.
(4) Velldru — v. 23. (5) Nalldru — v. 61.

In verse 27, the Chera, Chela, Pandya kings of the northern
regions are said to have paid tribute to him. He had fought
with the Cheras and the Cho\as (vv. 42 and 81), and also with
the Pandyas (vv. 4 and 81).

In verse 8x he is described as having thwarted the
intentions of his younger brothers, thus: —

“ Kula virar=dgam=*ahyat-

tambiyar=ennam=e!!dm paludaga venra talai mdna virattuva#
Sembiyar Tennar Serar=^edir vandu mayach =tkmevennt
& c. &c."

“The great hero who conquered so as to destroy the hered-
itary warriors [who perhaps helped his younger brothers] and
so as to defeat the intentions of his younger brothers ; and who
killed the Sembiyar (the ChOja), the Tei)t)avar (the Pandya) and
the Cherar who opposed him in battle." From this we can
infer that the phrase “hereditary warriors” may refer to the
ChOlas, the Pandyas and the Cheras, who might have helped
the younger brothers of Nandi against himself.

Nandi seems to have been a patron of Tamil Li terature—
paindamilaiy=ayginra Nandi (the king Nandi who studies
classic Tamil) — v. 104. Tamil Nandi— v. 107.

(To be continued.)

6

M. K. N.
T. A. C.

SI1>IM!ANT\ DEEPIKA.

1 6*

PUBLIC LIFE— lb THERE ANY IN CEYLON?*

A CHAT WITH MR. RAMANATHAN— PUBLIC SPIRIT AND HOW TO
DEVELOP IT— THE NEED OF THE MOMENT.

It was understood it was to be entirely a matter of opinions, good
aw and Ibot^htfuJ ones ; opinions of the cultured and the great ; opinions
of men in a position to express them ; opinions that would lead to thought
and enquiry. So much was undentrood.

The wisdom of the management determind on “Public Life in Ceylon"
as the theme, and I eras let loose to get requisite opinion, as best as I
could!

1 pondered ; “Public life in Ceylon." All 1 could think of the subject
was little, and the more I thought an it the more vague it all s eemed, till it
was home in on me that the task was no light one.

It was not as if 1 was to get a button that would suit a shirt ; 1 was
really to get a shirt that would suit a destitute button ! For, after all, the
opinions were the thing and the subject a — mere bagatelle !

Well then — “Public Life in Ceylon" ! 1 pondered long and deep. 1
cast about me for a likely mine to dig my opinions from. It was just such
a subject, thought I, that Mr. Ramanathan would consent to tackle.
Light at last ! It was abstruse ; it was illusory ; It was vague — just the
features that would commend it to him. It was the sort of subject one
fancied he knew all about till he came to sketch in the details for himself
—end it was just such a subject that Mr. Ramanathan would have thought
over and analysed and satisfied himself about

Somebody said that Mr. Ramanathan was one of the /Hants of Asia.
I do no* pretend to know all about that, but for years I had looked on him
as one of the brain-boxes of the Island, and 1 felt convinced if anybody
could tell me, at a pinch, all there was to say on “Public life”, why it was
Mr. Ramanathan.

And to him I went

AN IMPRESSION.

1 found my way to his pretty mansion in the Cinnamon Gardens, with
a crnsciotoness that all my trials were over ; but as 1 sat awaiting him

* BoprieAed from TAc Public Opinio r, „ jlombo, 9tb October 1009.

H:r.i.ic — is iiii.kk any in ceyi.gn * 169

misgivings assailed me. Whom was I going to meet,— the Hindu
philosopher, Sri Paiunanda,* the mystic recluse, the clelver into abstruse
psychology; or the late So icitoi -General of Ceylon, the silver-tongued
orator, Mr. P. Ramanathai., k.c., c.m.g. ?

1 could not say, when 1 was ushered into his study, and cannot say even
now, who it was that I really met, for that fascinating courtesy of his, that
reposeful look on his face, that ca m dignity that seemed to sit so naturally
on him made it impossible for me to think. But it made an impressive
picture — and with the Master, I suppose I should call him so, in his
clinging China silk coat, seated at his study desk, in the middle of that
superbly appointed library, lined, right up to the ceiling, with expensively
bound books, the picture seemed to be in its best setting. And then the
solemn, silvery tones, the well turned phrases, the clear-cut enunciation,
the scintillating descriptions — all made a lasting impression on me.

That w as the work of a moment, however. Then I told him my
mission, hesitatingly, haltingly.

“Public Life in Ceylon ? W hat is public life” ?

I told him, as best I could, my own individual conception of it. 1
confessed a definition was indispensable, but that a definition that was
definitely definite was beyond me.

And he smiled, and that told me that Mr. Ramanathan had considered
it all out beforehand and knew it all of by heart. “Public Life” — and he
puckered his brow and set his thinking machinary in motion, after that the
thoughts came with the spontaneity and f illness of the master-mind that
Mr. Ramanathan undoubtedly is.

I wrill not interrupt the thread of his thoughts with any questions of
mine and I will let the reader fancy the roll of his diction, undisturbed as
it issued in measured tones, in the most tuneful of voices and with an
exactness of utterance which almost verged on the superfluous.

WIIAT IS PUBLIC LIFE?

“Public life is devotion to the welfare of the public. Whence that
devotion ? Some are not at all devoted to it. They prefer their own selfish
interests ; they would do nothing for the public. “Cui bona" they ask “and
how do I know my labours in this direction will meet with success ? Best

* This is the name assumed l»y Mr. Ramanathan as n mark of his beirg
*' dead to the world ” at heart. Ed. L. T.

siduhanta nrrrtKA.

170

•o mind your own business" they sey, ‘ end if you don't mind your business
it will woo fell to peaces end your own comforts and the wants and nee ds
of the family will suffer greatly .” This is the creed of the selfish man. He
does not know the destiny of humanity. Human power was not given to
spirits to feed fat selfishness or to be steeped in commercialism and pro-
fessionalism. There is no objection to a person taking to trade or to the
professions. These callings bring money, which is absolutely necessary for
the maintenance of life and to practise charity. But if a man forgets that
money is only a meant to an end and thinks of money as a goal in itself,
he will be spiritually ruined. He would miss the opportunity of a life
time to grow in love and light The great object of human birth is to
utilise our talents lor the expansion of knowledge and love. We must pass
bom self-love — that is love of the body and its fleshly needs — to neighbour-
ly-love and from neighbourly-love to infinite love, which the Christians call
Christly love and the Hindus /tee Kdnuyum, that is mercy to all living
beings and protection of their interests,

PUBLIC SPIRIT.

“Devotion to public welfare is baaed upon the possession of what is
known in English as public spirit. What is “public spirit' ? That is the spirit
which prefers to work for the good of others than for itself or its own
corporeal relations. A public -spirted man will sacrifice money or his own
bodily comforts and pleasures in order to promote the bodily and spiritual
welfare of his countrymen or even of those who are not socially or religiously
related to him. Mr. Gladstone, for instance, worked day and night for the
mitigation of Bulgarian horrors. He was one of the finest types of public -
sprited men. So was Mr. Bright, and others too numerous to mention, of
the past and present generation. Public-cprited men are men grown in
neighbourly love and are bound to become philanthropists. Beyond this
is Christly love or jfva kdruuytm, which charcterises God in His merciful
works towards all natiuus and creatures.

A PUBLIC SPIRIT MAY BE DEVELOPED.

“If we would work like God caring naught for praise or abuse, but
bent only on the achievement of the good of others, we would be really
ministers of God. No man can attain to this status unless he fosters
public sprit within him. The selfish man must devote a little of his time
and attention to the <^3nsid eiation of the needs of others and must labour
for the promotion of the welfare of others. If he has the slightest desi-e to

PUB 1 .IC I.II'E — IS THERE ANY IN < EY 1 ...N ? 171

improve himself, his mind, being under the dominion of error, may refuse
to work for others but he should force his mind to think otherwise, to think
of the great work done by good men in the world and to follow in their
footsteps. The mind, if trained in this way, daily, will soon become
habituated to the consideration of the welfare of others and. delight in
making sacrifices for the sake of others. In the absence of the spirit which
is not watchful of the need and troubles of others it is impost ole to under-
take public work.

“It is only the best spirits of a country that are drawn to public work
and persist in it, notwithstanding its trials and inconveniences. In Ceylon,
and in many big cities, love of bodily comforts and bodily pleasures and
mistaken views of life are so rampant that it is difficult now-a-days to find
even a handful of men devoted to public welfare, unless they are heavily
paid for it

TWENTY YEARS AGO !

Twenty years ago things were not so bad as now. When my friends
met in those days, they would allow their minds to run on the needs and
grievances of the people for days together, cautiously consider the measures
necessary for the amelioration of the evils, and work from day to day in
giving effect to such measures. Now you cannot get even six men to meet
for a short hour to discuss a public question! In the course of that short
hour they would say that they had a tennis engagement, or had promised
to their wives to go out for a drive, or had to meet a professional or
mercantile friend upon some important business, and they would leave
one after another, pleading all manner of excuses and expressing their
great regret they are obliged to go. They will promise to meet again but
would not respond to the notice of the next meeting !

A HAPLESS PASS.

The public spirit of twenty years ago, which 1 thought would grow
more and more in our community, is all but quenched now in the minds of
those who, by their education and their status in the mercantile and
professional world, are entitled to undertake the duty of leading the people.
When I retired fiom official life 1 was pressed on all sides to take up the
cause of the peop'e as in days of yore, and to do something for their
betterment in many respects. The people were anxious to follow those
who were able to lead them but, alas, there were not a sufficiant number

SIDMIaNTA deepika.

O I leaders, ol the ngbt short, to work for them im tb prtfn i ri of

fk~ ftrpn / mm . 1 hole who would lead, were much too entangled in their
own private business to think consecutively and effectually for the people
and the time for proper action was, aa a rule, allowed to pass. The good
Iwaon which that great governor, Sir Arthur Havelock, often preached to
■cbool boys, about the greatness of the three Pa, via, promptitude, pro-
cbaun, and pimctimlity, eras never observed by those who were entitled to
lead the people in matters of public interest. They were very Careful to
mind the three Ps in their own petty businesses but in public affairs the
three virtues were replaced by the vices of procrastination, indefiniteness
and dilatoriness.'*

Here a chance question on the education and development of the mind
in public affairs and the force of environment in the same particular, side-
tr eked the dissertation — which also threatened to end aburptly by
the announcement of another visitor. “But is there no message you
would like to give" ? I pleaded. “It will be expected."

THE MESSAGE.

“You can say my hope now is in the youth of the country, especially
those who are pursuing their studies in the schools and colleges of
different sorts. Measures ought to be taken to develop public spirit in
them and if an assiduous effort is made in this direction, J think, in tlw
course of about fifteen years, we shall realise the dowers and fruits of our
work. We ought to have a free institute for students of all kinds to mt
sack other and elderly men, especially, ripe thinkers, and energetic actor;.
By friendly intercourse and constant thoughts upon the pacing events of
the day, here, in India, and in Western countries, the dominion of selfish-
ness can be separated from the heart ana in place of it the divine flame,
called public spirit, may be lighted and made to expand with prolific
results."

I would have delayed a while longer, or possibly, ( s i vmJ the con-
■idf ralaiu of the subject a step further, but the visitor was grower;;
sopslient and k looked rapardonably selfish to monopolse Mr. Rama
saffian any longer. But a second visit to his stmtum cannot Is fang -
comirg !

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

We are very much obliged to our learned brother Mf.

A. Govindacharya for favouring us with the
.1 ..The Vade-mecum marginally-noted pamphlets. They »ne
of Vodante. written in his own original and inimitable
a Vedration and style and abound in .wealth of ill ustratiops

Theosophy. gathered from all sources. In his ‘ Vade-
mecum', he establishes the position of
Visishtadvaita Philosophy in reference to other systems of
Vedanta and heterodox schools. He classifies these in a most
original way under the permutations and combinations of the
three letters S, G and M, meaning the Tri-padartha or Ta-ttva-
traya, Soul, God and Matter, in so far as these schools postulate
the existence of one or more of these padii thas, and the promi-
nence given to each. He reviews first the authorities followed
by Visishtadvaita, namely the Vetjas, Upanishats, Ilihasa,
Purana, etc., under the head of PramSpa, and then the teaching
of these under the heading of Prameya. Under none of these,
and nowhere else, in fact, is mentioned Saiva-Advaita-Siddhant^,
and our brother explains that all his writings mean it and me
know he speaks the truth. Vaishtjavism and Saivism are-the
strongest support of each other and these are the dominant
religions of India and the truth proclaimed by these religions,
which in essence is that of every world-religion is sure to win
its way in the end. In his second pamphlet, he voices the feelings
within and without the fold of the Theosophical Society who feel
that it is trying to add one more of the hide-bound and warring
sects and creeds, by sticking to new names and forms. There is
also the feeling that in the exposition of the so-called Vedanta by
its leaders and followers, a great departure is being observed
from True Hinduism and Real Vedanta. Of course, the
Society is not responsible for any opinions expressed by any
■one, and in any of the pages of its official organs. But in. the
following of any movement, however broad-based and innocuous

•74

SIDCHANTA DEFI IKA.

it may be, there is always an ignorant and credulous class of
di mtele who gulp down anything and everything emanating
from this or that leader among them We know how the
reading of • Tht Vision of King A(o*a,' before a select audience
was received with bated breath and bowed heads. We
have since known members more bigoted than the most
bigoted among the so-called sectarians. Theosophy is tht
Religion, and every other form of Religion is 1 a religion.' Theo-
sophic writers and lecturers always identify their outpourings
with Real Theosophy. Tl is is no doubt due to the bane of
every human nature by which it identifies itself with whatever
it ii associated with, #<r iifpm a a i i w mra*. This ‘I '-ness is becom-
ing more and more prominent every day, and it may possibly
tend against realising the benefit arising from such an essen-
tially-needed good movement as the Theosophical Society.
The critics of the Society are not its enemies but are old
members and friends of the Society. It is their duty, as our
brother does, to raise their voice whenever anything goes wrong
in the machinery. No doubt our brother’s words may be mistaken
when he pleads for orthodoxy, but our brother explains, "ortho-
doxy is a very delicate term in these days, as its own definition
is lost to the moderns. Allow me to say that seeing the undesir-
able lengths to which heterodoxy is running, 1 feel often that it
would do us good to put on as brake a more stringent sort
of orthodoxy. Orthodoxy means purity and restraint. But
moderns imagine it as superstition. But 1 am never against
the genius of the times. But what is this genius? The world
is made up of names and forms. Where is the fun of giving
them up ? lam sure if you give up one set, you would be run
into another. So why not stick to forms and names hallowed
by age and tradition? God himself has given us coats and
differentiates one from the other in the most acute way. And
yet there is no reason why we should fall out. Is not my own
son, wife, etc., entirely different from myself? Differentiation,
may even bind us ajl the more." And we are disposed to agree
with him entirely in this view.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

175

A neat little tract entitled KemTirpfdfl meufletp iranm ff u)ir

issued as No. 13 by the Madura Hall
The Slaving of sin. 0 f Theosophy has now reached a second
edition. Its author is Mr. P. Narayarta
Ayyar, b.a., b.l., a gentleman who is well-known for his generous
intentions and philanthrophy. He endeavours to unveil the
symbolism of the parable, “ the killing of the buffalo-headed
■demon", in the light of Theosophy, and we congratulate him
upon the success which has attended his performance. The
parable is enshrined in an episode of the Markandeya-puraija,
the Devi-mahatmya. Its real sense has been misunderstood by
the public and made into a hideous mockery by means of bloody
hecatombs in which it finds expression in many an Hindu temple
dedicated 10 Sakti, and which the author bewails. He says
that every sacred parable is to be interpreted both objectively
and subjectively and that in the opinion of the Wise, the Vedas
must be explained in seven ways. The surface-meaning is not
always to be depended upon, and in the opinion of Sankara as
given out in his commentaries on the Chandogya-Upanishat and
Brihadarariyaka-Upanishat, the ceaseless struggles between
Devas and Asuras which are described in the Puranas stand only
for the war between the flesh and the spirit in the abyssal depths
of human nature. A consistent and sound grasp of the Jnana-
pastras will show that the Tri-murtis of the parable stand for that
phase of the sthula-prakriti which stands out as the three gunas,
and which has to be coaxed into willing service before any real
progress in the culture of the soul can be made. The Para-
^akti (—Chit-pakti) is the Light of the Lord and the gracious
Helper of the sin-stifled soul towards emancipation. Her
"appearance” is often known as Sakti-nipata. Her riding a lion
symbolises her capacity to transmute the wildest passion of
man after sensuality and wordly pomp into an unsparing hatred
of the same, the lion itself standing for the five groups of evolutes
which make up the atma-tattvas : the sense is that the instru-
ments of the soul which run riot in the field of carnality, and
thus prove its veriest enemies, become its most valiant soldiers
6

SIDOMANTA deepika.

tj6

in slaying sin. Himavat stands for Paraprakriti of which all the
entanglements of Corruption are but gross products. He is the
father o( Para-«;akti in so far as " the Light shinfcth in darkness
and the darkness comprehended it not,” and the manifestation
of Light is necessitated by the presence of darkness. In other
words, the existence of Para-prakriti, the would-be Mahish&sura,
gives birth to the operation of the Lord’s £akti in the universe
and in man. The Lord mercifully reveals Himself to man only
by His illumining Grace and Love, to wit, through Para-cakti.
The bow and arrow in Her hands, reminding us of the form of
Prana va and the thrill of Nada, typify the mystery of Redemp-
tion and the God-furthered means of its achievement. "The nava-
ritri”, the " nine nights of the soul ”, culminating at last in the
Vijaya-dacjami, the tenth day of real 'triumph', stand for the
nine " Katyas ” whose crowning edifice is the “ Lord’s fellow-
ship,” the Siva-bhoga. The Kriya-pada of the Agamas with its
true fulfilment of the Vedic Brahmanas put an end to the animal
sacrifices, the outcome of a mistaken and mischievous interpret-
ation of the ordinances enjoined in the Brahmanas. Mr.
Nlriyana Ayyar published a tract under the name ‘Yajna’, some
months ago, in which the correct import of the so-called Yajnas
(—‘sacrifices’) is attempted. The Agamas are the fruit and
fulfilment of the Vedas, as the New Testament of the Christian
Bible is of the Old Testament. The Vamacharanusfhana of
the “blind” and the “ignorant" in Hindu Society, has taken its
cue from the sacrifices of animal victims, which are sometimes
kept up in the name of the Vedas, even to this day, by men who
should have known better. Mr. Narayana Ayyar’s interpretations
fa the brodmrt under review though very sensible, need supple-
menting in the light of the Jnana-i^stras which are the
Saiv&gamas, and the hints we have so fully thrown out are sure
to be helpful for a third edition. We recommend a perusal of
the leaflet for -its out-spoken remarks on the subject of
" animal sacrifices ” both Vedic and popula'

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

m

We are sure it will prove a welcome item of news to our
readers to learn that that golden treasury of
Tiruuiantiram with mystic wisdom which is the glory of Tamil
Tamil Commentaries, literature, the Tirumantiram which the
God-taught Tirumular revealed in infinite,
pity for the sin-tossed souls of all ages, is shortly to be
published with an elaborate commentary in Tamil. The publish-:
er is Mr. S. Siva^ahkara Chettiyar, b.a., b.l., the talented and
enterprising Proprietor of the Ripon Press, Madras, which haa
done so much in S. India for the dissemination of Sanskrit
philosophic literature in Tamil translations, and indigenous.
Tamil philosophic literature bearing on different creeds. The
commentary is original and novel, and was prepared some years
ago under the directorate of a staff of Pandits. Mr. V. Vi^va-
natha Pillai is entrusted with the scholarly task ot seeing the
commentary through the press, while Mr. V. V. Ramanan, r.z.s. :
(Lond.), etc, to whose proficiency in the Agamanta and the
Saiva-Siddhanta we invited attention in our last number, acts
as the philosophic redacteur and will, we feel confident, spare no
pains to make his revision of the commentary as careful and
illuminative as possible. We also learn that Mr. J. M. Nallasarni
Pillai, b.a., b.l., who is engaged in englishing Tirumantiram iq
our pages, with such full and learned notes, will contribute his
share towards the revision, and that Mr. Ramanan is writing an
extensive introduction in English dealing inter alia with the
following points : — (i) A life of Tirumular with special reference
to his time and place. (2) Etymology of the expressions ‘Tiru-
mantiram’ and ‘Tantiram’: the significance of styling the various
* books ’ as ‘ tantiraiikaV, and the ‘ verses ’ as ‘ mantirartkaP: the
sense of the utter inadequacy and poverty of understanding to
which the ‘flesh’-bound intellect becomes alive, in the

hallowed presence of the unquenchable “Altar-Fire ” that burn*
so unmistakably in every ‘mantiram’: and the raison <f tire of the
arrangement of spiritual themes in the manner and sequent*
adopted by Tirumular, and of marshalling the entire subject-
matter under ‘nine’ books. (3) A resume of Tinimolar’s

sidohanta DfrriKA.

17 «

teachings as a God-taught mystic, supported and illustrated by
a ck*e syt»pais of Tirumantiram. (4) The essentially Ugammntic
basis of. TiromOlars teachings, and their relation to other
indigenous cults, orthodox and heterodox, sacred and scholastic
(«— and Lip** and the flood of helpful light
thrown by Tirumantiram on some of the puzzling positions of
£afikarm's ‘Monism' which cannot be comprehended in their
unified totality by a mere cloistered student of hooks or dialectic
word-juggler. And (4) the 'mysticism of Tirumular’s compared
and contrasted with that of other schools, oriental and occidental
ancient and modem, at some length. Such an introduction as
that sketched out above is sure to prove a great help towards a
proper understanding of the true greatness of Tirumalar, as a
" walker with God”. Mr. Ramanan is in touch with a few sancti-
fied spirits (— Jfiims), which is the imprimatur of soundness and
accuracy in a work of this kind. A second commentary which is
entirely mystic in character is also in preparation under the
guiding inspiration of a great Jivaumuhta, a veritable Mautra-
drash/i, but it will be some years before that work sees the light
pf day, and consequently the present undertaking seeks, in a
tense, to pave the way therefor.

Wt have great pleasure in introducing to our readers the
new journal started at Calcutta by Mrs.

Xk« Onutal Ujitio M. C. Robinson, A. O. U. M. It is called
“ The Oriental Mystic Magazine ” and has
already run through five issues. The last
Is a double number (Oct. and Nov. 1909) and contains an
interesting budget of articles of which we may invite special
attention to Dr. R. Ernest's “Buddhism and Science ” which
endeavours to probe into the recondite psychological subtleties
of the Abhidhamma-pipika and seeks to justify Buddhist
metaphysics in the light of recent science, to Parananda
Yoglframi’s "The Efficacy of Mantras” which shows how
MapnaaT mud emnktrlmnmms are able to avert calamities, individual
or national, by means of the subtle vibrations they set up in the

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

*79

ethereal medium known as aka^a, and to Svami Dharmananda
Mahabharati's “ Yoga and the Yogis ” in which he describes the
phenomena t/ “Prave^a" resorted to by some Yogis' fond of-
exhibiting "signs" and “wonders,” and records arecetit historic
ease that occurred at Jubbalpore. By the power of pnaveyt a
Yogi is enabled to animate the body of a corpse that may have
btien perchanet in an advanced stage of decomposition for
months, and fully revive it A classical example is to' be found
itt the ' tradition connected with that prince o' South Indian
MtUftiriurti, Saint Tlhunmlar, who only came to be known as such
After a Cowherd of that name, whose corpse he first vivified ‘by
the process of para-kaya-prave^a, and subsequently tenanted
all his life because of a ■contretemps. Altogether, Mrs. Robmsort'S
Journal is imbued with a catholic spirit, and as she says in her
■Announcement,’ “Those who see this Magazine for the first
time will scarcely be able to get anything like a comprehension
6f the general object and import of the Work it represents, for
the work probably covers more ground, or in other words, it
Comprehends more that is virtually new to the common faith of
humanity than most if not all other magazines.” We also hope
that Mrs. Robinson will not fail to do her share of work in
unearthing the mystic treasures of the finest quality lying
buried in the Saivagamas.

Mr. A. GoviNDACHARYAhas also sent us a copy of the valuable
book written in Kanarese by S. Venkoba
Port-Puberty Marriage Row, B.A.of the Mysore Medical Service, with
U the Hindu Aryan a preface in English by our learned brother
Women, A. Mahadeva Sastri. That such a great Pan-

dit and orthodox scholar should have ranged
himself on, the side of the Reform Party is a veritable gain to the
movement. He declares, •* By insisting on a rigorous applicat-
ion of the principles of Vedic Exegesis to the interpretation of
the Shastraic texts bearing on marriage, I have made out that
the true law of marriage is .the one embodied in the Vedic Mmm-
tras which constitute the scriptures of highest authority and

SIDOHANTa df.epiha.

i8n

which clearly imply that woman as well as man should be,
married only after attaining age of maturity when she may be
able to t taiiu tkt responsibilities of Ike house-holder's lift
capable, by previoms training, of fully discharging the duties per-,
taining to it." We have underlined the words just to show that,
the attaining the puberty does not mean false puberty— how
many little girls do we see every day perish before us at the
first act of maternity, owing to the nuptials of these girls being
performed soon after date of this false puberty— but real
development of the body and mind. So much has already been
written on the subject; and we only expect our educated brethren
to carry out the courage of their convictions, and not halt
midways, and thus save our nation from ruin more and more,
•nd themselves much of misery

In the excellent address on Jnana Vasisbtham (the full text
of which we hope to publish in our jnext
. fMutw-bfcMSr* issue) delivered before the Ceylon branch
ud ainjMMbudSa. of the Royal Asiatic Society on the i£th
August last, under the Presidency of H, Ej
the Colonial Governor, by the Hon’ble Mr. P. ArupSchalam, m.a*
he refers to the Philosophy of &nkaqtha and the §&iva StddhJnta
in the following terms

The 'philosophy was at an early period systematized h Certain Atros
or aphorisms 1 attributed to Bldariyana alias Vyksa, which have been
copiously I n terp re ted and expounded. The best known exposition' is that
af Sri Sadkar&chirya Svami, the Hindu philosopher, who lived shoot -the
■nth century of the Christian eta. Hie writings and apostolic wnl were
mainly resp ons ible for the downfall of Buddhism in India. He founded
the abbey of £fidgsri (in Mysore), the abbot of which is still the Spiritual
bead of many millions of Hindus. Sadkaracharya’s views are often err on-
maty id e ntified , especially by European scholars, with the Vedanta, as if

_ 1 Known vsrioosly •• the Faddnia Sutra,, Vyita Sutra,, BraKma SulTat,
tNteram’wdeua S litre, or Bdriraku Mtmamta Sutra,.

ifM ted ttetehim S e a t e r a B ke,»ee w .

MOTES AND COMMENTS.

:ISl

'there wen no tther authoritative view. An earlier comtwtttatorWaa ifri
Nilakaptha Svirai, who is of great repute and authority among tl» Smrvn,
.hr those Who worship God under die name of Siva. Nilakaqtha’t work’ ia so
little known outside the circle of Saiva theologians that the kaattd
Dr. Thibaut, who has translated the Vyisa Sutras and Sartkarachiija’e
commentary, for the Sacred Books of the East series of the Oxford Claren-
don Press, was not aware that in some of the points in which Sahkarach2xya
appeared to him to misunderstand the original, Nilakanfha took a diSwajt
and truer view. Another commentary'' is that of Sri Ramanuja Svuni,
which enjoys great authority among the Vaishpavas, pr those who worship
God under the name of Vishpu. The three expositions’ may briefly, if
roughly, be thus distinguished in regard to their conception of the relations
between God, soul, and matter. Sankaracharya is a Monist, Nilakaptha
a pure Nondualist (Suddhadvaita), Ramanuja a qualified Nondualist
(Visishfadvaita). All take their stand on the Upanishads, while putting
forward each his view to be the true one. The expositions are.not easy to
follow, and require the same effort of attention and study as Western
students have to devote to the intricate arguments of Aristotle or Kant

Satikaracharya is sometimes described as “ a Monist or NonduaHsti”
But the terms are not regarded as synonymous by the pure Nondualist^
especially by that school of pure Nondualism, which is the glory of Tamil
philosophy and is known as the Saiva Siddhanta. Its chief authority, the
Siva jnanapo tarn, draws this important distinction (»., 2 and 3) : —

“One," say the Vedas. Behold, it is'said of the One. The One -is the
Lord. Thou who gayest “ One," art the souL Lo, in bondage art thon. If

the One were not, . If vowel A were not, letters there would be none.

In this wise Bay the Vedas “ One.

Like song And its tune, like fruit and its flavour, the Lord's energy every-
where pervadeth, nondual. Therefore say the great Vedas not “One' 1
but “ Not two."

The meaning is this : When the Vedas say 41 Ekam Sat,” 44 All that isi
is one,” they do not mean the identity of God and the soul, but that God

8 Called after him NUakantka or Brikantha bfuuhyam* and alto Bom*
bhashyam pr Suddhadvaita bhashyam.

4 Galled after him Ramanuja bhashyam.

5 There are two other commentaries in current use, one by Madhvscharya
and another by Vallabhacharya. Two others, little known and said to be older
even than Nilakantha's, are attributed to Bodhayaua and BhuBkara.

SIDCHAXTA DEEPIKA.

180

which clearly imply that woman as well as man should be,
married only after attaining age of maturity when she may be
able to realise Ik* responsibilities of the house-holder's life ami
eetpahle, hy previous training, of fully discharging the duties per-,
timing to H " We have underlined the words just to show that,
the attaining the puberty does not mean false puberty — -how
many little girls do we see every day perish before us at the?
first act of maternity, owing to the nuptials of these girls being
performed soon after date of this false puberty— but real
development of the body and mind. So much has already beta
written on the subject; and we only expect our educated brethren
to carry out the courage of their convictions, and not halt
midways and thus save our nation from ruin more and more,
and themselves much of misery

In the excellent address on Jnana Vasishtham (the full teal
of which we hope to Rublish in our pert
. MkuO*-tikuiir» issue) delivered before the Ceylon branch
ud 8inj»uwbodk* of the Royal Asiatic Society on the i£th
August last, under the Presidency of H, E|
the Colonial Governor, by the Hon’ble Mr. P. Arunachalam, a. a.,
he refers to the Philosophy of £rikai}tha and the §aiva Siddhhnta
in the following terms

The philosophy was at an earty period systematized In dertaia stttrat
or aphorisms' attributed to Bidarayana otias Vyisa, which have been
copiously Interpreted and expounded. The belt knows exposition* is that
at Sri SaAkarichlrya Svimi, the Hindu philosopher, who lived about the
e nrlh century of die Christian eta, His writings and apostolic w«»l were
mainly responsible for the downfall of Buddhism in India. He founded
the abbey of SfiAgeri (in Mysore), the abbot of which is still the Spiritual
head of many millions of Hindus. SaAkaracharya’s views are of t en arrow
aotaly identified, especially by European scholars, with the Vedanta, as if

1 Known rsriowly u tbeF«Un<a SiWrae, Yydta Sutrat, Brahma Sulrat,
rntmimmimimim 8 i trot or tUrinha kimuu, Setree.

MOTES AND COMMENTS.

viSi

there were no Other authoritative view. An earlier commentator Vnt i 6 yi
Nilakaptha Svami, who is of great repute aid authority among the Satyrs,
tx those Who worship God under the name of Siva. Nilakaptha't wori’iaso
little known outside the circle of Saiva theologians that the, leaaMd
Dr. Thibaut, who has translated the Vyasa Sutras and SaAkajacharya’e
commentary, for the Sacred Books of the East series of the Oxford Claren-
don Press, was not aware that in some of the points in which Sankaruchirya
appealed to him to misunderstand the original, Nilakanfha took a djfisra*
and truer view. Another commentary' is that of Sri Ramanuja SVatni,
which enjoys great authority among the Vaishpavas, pr those who worship
God under the name of Vishpu. The three expositions" may briefly, if
roughly, be thus distinguished in regard to their conception of the relations
between God, soul, and matter. Sankaracharya is a Monist, Nilakaptha
a pure Non-dualist (§uddhadvaita), Ramanuja a qualified Non-dualist
(Visishtadvaita). All take their stand on the Upanishads, while putting
forward each his view to be the true one. The expositions are. not easy to
follow, and require the same effort of attention and study as Western
students have to devote to the intricate arguments of Aristotle or Kant.

Sahkaracharya is sometimes described as “ a Monist or Non-dualist:"
But the terms are not regarded as synonymous by the pure Non-dualist^
especially by that school of pure Non-dualism, which is the glory of Tamil
philosophy and is known as the Saiva Siddhanta. Its chief authority, the
Sivajnanapotam, draws this important distinction (ii., 2 and 3) : —

“ One," say the Vedas. Behold, it is'aaid of the One. The -One. is the
Lord. Thou who say est "One," art the souL Lo, in bondage art tbou. If

the One were not, . If vcwel A were not, letters there weald be none.

In this wise say the Vedas “ One.

Like song and its time, like fruit and its flavour, the Lord’s energy every-
where pervadeth, non-dual. Therefore say the greet Vedas not “One”
but “ Not-two."

The meaning is this : When the Vedas say “ Ekam Sat,” “ All that is,
is one," they do not mean the identity of God and the soul, but that God

a Called after him Nilakantha or Brikaniha bhashyam, and alio Bairn*
bhaahyam or Suddhadvaita bhashyam.

4 Called after him Ramanuja bhashyam.

5 There are two other commentaries in current UBe, one by Madhvscharya
and another by Vallabhacharya. Two others, little known and said to be older
even than Nilukantha’s, are attributed to Bodhayana and Bhaakara.

Its

SZCOHANTA DEEPIKA.

Ths brtt sound uttered u the mouth
^ai ■ da sound erf U in tut, which sound is represented in Indian
alptahsts by their initial latter, the vowel A (Sanskrit W, Tamil -*r>.
Xha toad ssists in, and is indispensable to the (ormatioo of, the sound
tayareMtod by svwy other letttf. Thus, the Indian letter A, while it may
aji so p n> M h and energise every other letter, remains also a d i st i nc t
-jU tfat chid latter. So God aid the soul. Also souls are pervaded and
oa^Mad by God, as all letters by A, as a song by its tune, . as a fruit by
la fcvour. Nevertheless, hire A, God stands apart, Himself, of all things the
eotoce ami ttw chief. ” One, “ therefore, in the Vedas, must be undersood
to m tan not unity, but non-duality, of God and soul. The same argument is
pithily t rp*- 1 * by the poet Tiruva])uvar in his celebrated Kuni :

' all letters have for source the letter A,
the world for source hath the Ancient One,

The Adorable.”

This traditional illustration of the pure Non-dualists, prominently' set
forth in the very opening verse of the poem, shows that the author — who,
in spite Of his outcast birth, is “ the venerated sage and law-giver of the
Thai people," whom every Hindu sect is proud to claim — was a Vkdan-
tast of the pbre Non-dualist type.

We extract the following from a private letter received by
Mr. J. M. Nallaswami Pillai from one of hisr
Aasppmutiun. colleagues:

“The range of your scholarship is immense and
puts fhahmins, Madras, etc, to shame. Would you believe me Mr. — ■
bold me on the Sunday morning when I met him at home that he did
t h i nk of rising to speak something in the Hall on Saturday, but when he
■sw such scholars as yourself sitting silent, he refrained on second thoughts.

I know Mr is not a gentleman that will easily acknowledge merit

ift othssf. The perusal of your lecture has quite corroborated the impres-

■oa of Mr. . I only hope and pray that you will be long spared to

8*** 7°w intellect and energy to the subject in which you take so much
delight, and that 1 shall have several opportunities in years to come to
coma in closer contact with you.

THE

LIGHT OF TRUTH

OB THE

SIDDHANTA DIPIKA

A Monthly Journal devoted to the Search for Truth as revealed in the
Ancient Hindu Mystic Philosophy Jojoem as Saiva-Siddhanta or Agamanta.

VOL. X. DECEMBER 1909. No. 6.

TIRUMANTIRAM OF St. TIRUMOLAR.

BRAHMANA ACHARA.

(Continued from page 138 of No. 5, Col. X.)

We have shown that the Path of the Pranava is the
Path of Yoga. But the symbol is used in all the lower
paths also, that the meaning may dawn on the aspirant little
by little. The exoteric form of worship corresponding to the
Yoga is the worship of the Siva-liftga. We have often and
again shown that the Siva-lifiga is nothing but the Praijava in
a visible form and has no sex meaning. The word liiiga itself
means a sign, a perceptible sign of the Imperceptible Deity,
And as such it is used in several passages of the Upanishats :

II Kalha-Upanishat II. vi. 8.

ddWfad tfa fl^Tar+ddftldl ^ddwfolf I

^K«jq,<uitfi|MifJ|MlddW<t,f«ildftdHdl(^'t:ll SvetaS vatara-Up. VI. 9.

II Par afar a-purana.

And Haradatta quotes it also in his Sruti-Soktimala.

We know that the Praijava is the highest sign and symbol
of the Deity. As shown in the Pranava Upanishat, Om is the

SIDOtlAXTA DtEPIEA.

*«4

eldest son of Brahma, God Gapapati, and the PiJlaiySr tu|i «*
with which every one begins a writing b nothing but Prapava.
The visible from of the Prapava is g and this form is 'composed
of an arc and a line. The arc of Ardhachandra form is the
Bindu, and the Hne(Dap<Ja) is the Nidam. And the Liiiga b
formed of the letters of the Prapava. Says St. TirumtBar in
another place : —

Jf tit Qp p<& a

m-siBQp peotL/tSi p

to{

Jiairiei*iriU)eSliiMw0tTQj>.

As 'A' it is the All.

As ‘ U ’ it is life of the All.

If ‘A’ and ‘ U ’ is to be known.

This ‘A’ and 1 U is the Liiiga.

QtSistpseiri-jBejijriLii}) i&tirffw
£tSi>sws*tiBeBjDs3igiifirpQLD.

In the Plfha of the Liiiga is the Onkara
In the Kapfha of the LiAga is the Mak&ra
In the inner arch (Yoni) of the Linga is the Ukara
In the (Ordhava) Linga of Akara is present Bindu
and Nadam.

That the Linga is the Prapava is the gist of LiAga-purapa
and the famous Pillar of Fire that arose, without beginning or
end, and which became the Siva-liAga of Prapava form is clear
from the following passage : —

.. |

TIRUMANTTOAM.

<8f

rlil'Wt+HIddH li
^I'jT'IH-t.Hq J'-f,H-qirv(rvi: |

TOtmWPIT I
Ot'Ji'rftwtR'r I

'PT’tTcTTchhpf I

i^SrS. swi^wwtlwi I

tPHsn^rnHN 6w®rwprrn%icTJi i

3Tll*iv^iTW^rt I

rinwwtpjslci*! II Linga-Purand, Put*
vardha, chap. 18, w. 49 to j6.

The worship of Hva-linga is essentially a yoga worship
and the Agamic rituals are all yoga practices. The Priest who
is entitled to perform the Puja in the Siva-Poja has to undergo
accordingly Nirvana diksha and Acharya-abhisheka, a qualifica-
tion which would require him to be an adept in yoga and not
a mere aspirant. As the higest upasana in Yoga is the Dahara-
vidya or the heart-worship symobolised by the Akafa-Lihga of
Chidambara Pundarika Kshetra, the Chidambaram Tempie
priests are all supposed to be yogis and one with Sri Nataraja
(in the Saha Marga(. Vira9aivism which marks this high-water
mark of Esoteric Atma-linga worship of the Heart abjures
accordingly the worship of Sthavara-Iinga, though they are now
in fact their most devoted worshippers. That is also why they
wear the Lihga next to their heart. Vemana, the great yogi
frequently pcints out the difference between the real heart-
worship of the Lihga and the purely formal worship. Says he:—

“How would he who worshipped the Jiva-lihga worship images of
stone ? Would he taste the bitter who had drunk the honey ? '

SIDOHANTA DEEP1KA.

|K

From the Lifiga-puriO* account this Siva-linga of Prana va
Form is the Fire, or Agni, and Agni is Rudra. And we are
extremely indebted to Mr. Nirayapa Aiyyahgar for pointing out
how the worship of the Siva-lihga and the sacrificial worship of
Agni or Rudra is connected, and how this in its esoteric signifi-
cation is the Dahara-Vidyi. The pit of the altar is the yoni,
the heart or Dahara Puprjarika of all creatures. The Fire
generated from it by friction of Atma and Prapava* and rising
upwards is the Lirtga of the Alihga Parametvara or Rudra.
We accordingly make no apology for quoting the following
passages':—

"This son Agni Mahideva is the bellowing Bull that has entered all
the mortals (Rig Veda IV. 58, 3). He is Vi^viyu that has gone into all
the caves or hearts (Rig Veda I. 67, 3, vide p. 398 ante). In other words
He is Vitvanipa, tte multiform and yet the One. He is the one fire that
it maintain ed in the houses, hearts, of all sacaficers. As Agni is identical
With Rudra, one of the Rurlra-suktas of the Rig Veda, viz, II. 33, mentions
Rudra as I (Ana, the Lord, who is Puru-rupa and Vif va-rupa, both meaning
that He is Multiform (verses 9 and ro), and as the lion-like Youth sealed
garta (verse 1 1). Garta means the pit and may be taken to mean here the
fiiealtar, representing esoterically the sacrificer's heart. He is the youth
heranse He is the strong Son-God, able to kill all the dark passions ; His
youth should be taken to be a metaphorical expression denoting the
spiritual vigour and strength of the formless Infinite Son that is in all
forms. This Vifvarfipa Rudra is identical with Indra who, according to
ttu Rig Veda, has become multiform (p. 338 ante) and who is another
aspect oi the valiant Son of Sacrifice, Prajapari. In Rig Veda X. 99, 7,
larks is called Asmat Sujita, 'our lovely Son'; and the Taitt-Brahmapa
111 7, 7, 8, has a vena in which the sacrifices addresses Agni thus : —

l am thine and Thou art this (wealth of) mine. Thou art my yoni,
Womb, and I am thine womb. Being mine, O Agni, carry my oblations.
Thou art, O Titmvedas, the Son that achieves the World for the fatter.
(Putmh pstn krka-kpit Jitavedab).

* MnhRRMl I

11 Katvalya-upomshat.

TIRUMANTIRAM.

187

O Agni, be seated in thine own place, — 'Agne Svim yonin Ssida

Agni is the womb in which the sacrificer is bom spiritually (vide p.
330 ante). The sacrificer is Agni’s womb or place, because Agni is
symbolical of the Son-God cherished in his heart’s worn a. As Agni
represents the spiritual Son, the Self, it is the Son who is Lokalqit, the
achiever of Heaven, to the father, the knower, that has kindled Him in
himself. The Mantra used in making atmasamaropana of Agni i.e.,
establishing Agni mentally in one’s own heart (Vide p. 361 ante), says : —
t. O Agni, who art the Self (of me and all) ! That (spiritual) form of
thine which is fit to be sacrificed, with that (form) do thou ascend (my)
self (mind or heart), making for us all those wealths in abundance which
are fit for men. Becoming sacrifice, be thou seated in (me who am)
sacrifice, in (me who am) thine own womb or place. Born (or rising)
from the (sacrificial) ground, come on, O Jata-vedas, (into me) together
with thine home (the altar).

This mantra is found in the Taitt. Brahma ija, II, 3. 8. 8, and the
Taitt. Samhita also (III. 4. 10. 5.) quotes it and says that by it the sacrificer
places Agni in himself (Atman Samarohayate) and that the sacrificer is
the womb for Agni (Yajamano va Agner yonih). Agni’s Yajniya form,
which is to be sacrificed, is identical with the primeval Purusha alias
yajna, the victim, that was sacrificed according to the Purusha-sukta.
The sacrificer, by realizing Him in himself, become? a sacrifice (self-
sacrifice) and so he too calls himself sacrifice. Thus the whole altar glow-
ing with the sacred fire is placed in the knower’s heart at the end of the
rite ; and when he worships the sacred fire again he says the next mantJH
“ Upavaroha Jatavedah,” etc., by which he beseeches Agni-Purusha in
the heart to descend from there into the fire in order to carry his oblations
to the Gods.

Thus Agni-Rudra is the In-dweller, Purusha, the formless Infinite Self
in the heart’s womb of the knower. Vishnu, from Vif , to pervade or
penetrate, is one who has penetrated Himself into all creatures and things
and Vishnu is one of the names of Agni. There are two kinds of creation,
spiritual and animal. Those who are blind to the former think that
their creation takes place simply by animal lust and union of the
sexes and that there is no higher power (Bhagavadgita XVI. 8.) Their
world extends from the stomach downwards, as they indulge in gluttony
and lust. To them even the holy name of Prajapati, the Genitor,
means nothing more than the Jaghanya member, and they likewise degrade

1 88

SIDWIANTA DEF.PIKA.

Vishpu-Purush* from the lovely In-dweller to simply purusha, man, and
(ton to man’s sex. As a contrast to this purusha of animal creation and
in order to entice souls to the Purusha of Spiritual creation, the same
names of purusha and yoni are employed, but their locality is lifted up to
the heart which, being alike in man and woman and therefore sexless,
gives a new meaning altogether to them, namely the Self as the sexless
Purusha glowing, or the sacred fire in the sexless womb of the altar of
Vidya or Snddtw, Knowledge or Faith. Similarly the word retas in the
Jagbanya sense is the seed of animal creation ; but lifted up to the region
ol the heart it means the Rig-vedic Mind’s Retas or Supreme Self's effu-
sion of sexless love, by realizing which the Knower also creates himself
spiritually as the One-Manifold in order to love all creatures as himself.
“ O ye men ! Here is the Purusha who b the formless Self in the Puras,
bodies, of all creatures, who is sexless, who, nevertheless, is the most
valiant youth conquering all by loving all creatures as himself and thereby
leaving no second or enemy to war with, who is most manly, putting down
all sins and temptations. Realize Him as your spiritual manliness and
procreate yourselves in the womb of Faith or Knowledge.” It appears to
me that the Lirga symbol that is embedded in the stony seat and worship-
ped in Saiva temples represents esoterically the Lovely Purusha established
as the sacred Agni in the womb or altar of the hearts of all knowers.
Even Brahmin asjetics of the great smarta community, who have studi-
ed the Vedanta and renounced home and all worldly desires pay reverence
to the Lihga, which they would not do if there was anything rexual in it.
In some temples the Lifiga is called Jyotir-Lirga, Symbol of Light, and
Akata-Liihga, Symbol of Sky, meaning thereby that the God worshipped
is Formless and Infinite like the Sky. Phallus worship seems to have pre-
vailed among other ancient nations also. According to Webster, the
Phallus-symbol was carried in procession in the Bacchic orgies, or wor-
shipped in various ways. I cannot bring myself to believe that a nation,
which in other respects was highly civilized, worshipped the Phallus-
symbol as meaning only the emblem of the generative power in nature.
To worship that power no religious teaching or symbol is necessary. Even
beasts know that kind of worship. At all events, so far as the ancient,
riddle- loving, Samskgi(-India is concerned, the Lifga-worship wms to me
to have been invented as an etymological Vedantic riddle by pandering
over the Vedic ritual of placing Agni-Purusha in the womb of the heart.
The double meaning of Purusha and Yoni is at the root of the riddle,

TIRUM ANTIRAM..

i3t»

which seemingly is gross and sexual but really sublime and spiritual
[Essays in Indo- Aryan Mythology, part I., by Narayana
Aiyyarigar (vide pp. 103, 104, 105, 106, and 107).]

Professor H. H.- Wilson has the following remarks’ to offer
on the subject and he elsewhere remarks that the form of the
Siva Lifiga is unobjectionable.

“ There is nothing like the phallic orgies of antiquity ; it is all
mystical and spiritual. The Linga is two-fold, external and internal.
The ignorant who needs a visible sign, worship Siva as a “ Mark ” or
“ type ” — which is the proper meaning of the word “ Linga ”, — of wood or
stone ; but the wise look upon this outward emblem as nothing, and
contemplate, in their minds, the invisible, inscrutable type, which is Siva
himself. Whatever may have been the origin of this form Of worship in
India, the notion upon which it was founded, according to the impure
fancies of European writers, are not to be traced in even the Saiva
Puranas,"

Elsewhere he remarks '

‘The worship of Siva, under the type of the Liiga, it has been
observed, is almost the only form in which that Deity is reverenced. It is
also perhaps the most ancient object of homage adopted in India subse-
quently to the ritual of the Vedas which was chiefly, if not wholly,
addressed to the elements and particularly to Fire. How far the worship
of the Linga is authorised by the Vedas, is doubtful, but it is the main
purport of several of the Purapas. There can be no doubt of its universa-
lity at the period of the Mahommedan invasion of India. The idol
destroyed by Mahmud of Ghizni was nothing more than a Lirtga, being
according to Mirkhered, a block of stone four or five cubits long and of
proportionate thickness. It was, in fact, one of the twelve great I.iAgas
then set up in various parts of India, several of which besides Somepvara,
or Somanatha, which was the name, of the Siva demolished by Mahmutj,
were destroyed by the early Mohammedan conquerors. Most, if not all
of them, also are named in works, of which the date cannot be much later
than the eighth or ninth century, and it is therefore to be inferred with as
much certainty as anything short of positive testimony can afford, that
the worship of Siva, under this type, prevailed throughout India at least as

1 H. H. Wilson on the Purapas, p. 7a.

* H. H. Wilson, ha, f.r.s. in “ Hindu Religions ", p. J39.

SIDOHANTA DEEPIKA.

early u the fifth or nxth century of the Christian era. Considered as one
g~i tnnch of the universal public worship, its prevalence, no doubt,
dates much earlier; but the particular modifications under which the
several types received their local designations, and' became entitled to
special revenue*, are not in every case of remote antiquity.

My brother Mr. Rafigasvami Aiyyar has dwelt on the subject
at great length and in all its aspects in his paper on the Inner
Meaning of the Siva-lihga published in Volumes VII and VIII of
this journal.

Col. Vans Kennedy points out how this Siva-linga symbol
has no sex origin.

Max MQUer translates ‘Aliftga ' as 1 imperceptible,’ and. Sri-
Sanitar&chirya explains Linga of the SveUyvatara-Upanishat
text as a sign on whose cogency His existence could be inferred:
That is, the Linga is the perceptible sign of the Imperceptible
Deity. The Satrakara, Bsdarayapa, also uses the word Liftga
frequently to mean the sign or characteristic mark, a? in the
following Sotra ;

tm wn ri fc fin I L i- *3-

Appaiyya Dlkshit in his Sivarkamaijidfpika on

a. a. 38, quotes the following text from Rig-Veda, 5th
Mantjala, 3rd Sukta, 3rd Mantra : —

The word used is ‘ Janima ’ and it is interpreted as mean-
ing the Siva-linga in the following upabpmhaija passage of the

Parfi9fira-purfiQa ; —

II

In this passage the word “ Lifiga ” is used for "Janima",
and its qualification as "Charuchitra " points to the Rigvedic
mantra.

(To be continued.)

J. M. N.

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

(Continued from page 14.8 of No. s Vot. X.)

The next Chapter (Chap. IV.), covers nearly a third of thte
book and deals with the “ Effects of Liberation," or tha fruits of
Sanctification, Saintliness (—“ Saintship " according to the
author) or At ma-darfanam. It is consequently a description
of the subjective experiences and the related objective charac*
teristics of Jfianis to whom the Kingdom of Heaven has become
a living reality. As those experiences transcend the plane of
the senses and thought, it is rather trying to clothe them in the
language of man, that is to say, in the language of self-eonscfoas*
ness. The author happily terms them, the ‘effects of liberation/
which • exactly corresponds to the Sanskrit ** K&rylgi.'' The
order of illuminati who are a pride to the spiritual glory of
India, and whose books of Light and Wisdom are the SaivSga-
mas, Call such experiences, only “ KSryagi " (—literally,

■ effects ’). These subjective experiences and the related objec-
tive features are well analysed in the light of modern psycho-
logy, so far as that process is possible, by Prof. James and
Dr. Bucke in their respective works, and their analyses are fully
utilised by our author in the present Chapter, The ‘effects’
of ‘ Mukti’ are marshalled under six heads and they are
(1) The sense of inflowing Light, (2) The indescribable Ecstacy
of Happiness or Bliss, (3) The sense pf. Immortality and of
dethronement Of Death, (4) The sense of the universal absence
of Sin, (5) Intellectual Illumination, and (6) The added Charm to
the Personality. The author’s own words on the sense of
inflowing light will bear quoting in full .

" The person, suddenly and without warning has a sense of hung
immersed in a flame, a sweet, cooling, brilliant light, rase -coloured perhaps;
or lather, he feels that his heart is filled with silch a light ; and at the same
instant he is, as it were, bathed in an emotion of joy, assurance, triiaupb
or salvation."

He adds, further on, that this luminous pbenomenon

*• Is described by psychologists as a form of sensory automation
which gives rise to hallucinatory Or pseudo-hallucinatory vision. TM*

2

SroOHAKT* DEEPIKA.

* 9 >

tWob, which leaval * kiting, kpprmaicc on the hearts of the illumined
jg always accompanied with emotional exaltation. It is this pheno-
whfcVis liwriilml in mr writings as Jyatif, PtnJijyctis, Permit,
/fr * Ur a. fl h f ub k w . t Um d t ir **,

in' 00 worrta of Art Ramakpshna Paramahamsa, “The
living Light u» which the earnest devotee is drawn doth not
bum. It is like the light coming from a gem, shining, yet soft,
cool and soothing. It borne th not, it giveth peace and joy”.
Numerous recent instances of this subjective experience of light-
acnwttg an tn bn iauod in Prof. Star buck's The Psychology of
fhlgiom. We Will quote a- few recorded cases, in common with

our. author :

"The vary hMVsos Kuril to open and pour down rays of light and
glory not for a ntxnoot only, bat all day and night floods of light and
glory snamnd to pour through my soul and oh I how I was changed and
everything became new " — -- ■ “ All at ooce the glory of God shone upon
and round about me in a manner almost marvellous. A light perfectly
ineffable and sweet and cool shone in my soul, that almost prostrated me
to the ground ; the light seemed like the brightness of The Sun in every

direction. It was too intense for the eyes ”■ *A strange light which

seemed to light up the whole room (for it was dark), a conscious, supreme
Uise wbicb caused me to repeat, ‘Glory to God,’ for a long time.”

Raraakpshtya Paramahamsa attained his “Illumination”
after a sore struggle ranging over twelve years, which is
said to have been like "a torrent of spiritual light delug-
ing his mind." And Walt Whitman characterizes that light

as “ineffable light light rare, untellable, lighting the very

light beyond all signs, description and language.” This

light-sensing feeling is almost a commonplace in the §aiva-
Siddhanta mystic literature, and one and all the “Anointed of
God” like Tirumular, MaoikkavSchakar, Vagt^ar, Jnana.-
sambandhar, Sundarar, Veokadar, Tayumanavar, and others
refer to it again and again. The phenomenon is known to
Christian Saints as the “ opening of heaven ” which Sri-Pars.-
nanda thus describes :

• The rpmof »/ Win is. the sudden manifestation of the Spirit, which
takae place in the last stage of spiritual communion. Just as when «ne

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS. I9J

awakes from sleep, the world suddenly presents itself, and one may then
be said to ' see the world open 1 so when in deep yoga (communion) one
recedes from sense-perception and thought, the Spirit suddenly manifests
itself limitlessly in glory. This spiritual experience or experience of the find-
ing of the Spirit, within the Body, like infinite space illumined, is the

‘opening of heaven’ in man” and again, “These signs (witnessed by

the spirit at its Resurrection) consist of sounds like trumpet-blasts, and
blowing of gales, sights like lightning flashes, and the feeling of all one’s
I-ness or I-hood consumed, in a great melting furnace. Then amidst the
distressing sense of a general conflagration and crumbling up of the very
foundations of one’s existence, comes an indescribable Calm accompanied
with a great and hallowing Effulgence which, growing every moment in all
directions, stands forth presently as Love Absolute, as Love without a second

to love, permeating all through the now infinitely extended Be-ing ” “ In

deep spiritual communion the manifestation of God takes place not only as a
realization of an all-pervading cognition, but often as an austerely luminous
glow all through the infinitely expanded spirit. This illumination is tha
very opposite of Darkness. Thus the doctrine, “God is Light,” is founded
on actual experience during spiritual communion.’' 1

The phenomenon of light-sensing in ‘Resurrection’ is
therefore a widely-recognised truth.

The above effect of Atmoddharana need not necessarily be
felt by every one of the iUuminati, but the ineffable Ecstacy of
Happiness or Bliss is a fundamental, and hence universal feature,
“ When the ecstacy occurs”, says Mr. Nafijuijda Rao, “it seems
as if the person illuminated became aware of a Presence, of a
higher and friendly Power, of Universal Life, which seems to
wrap him round with friendliness and swallow him up in bliss”,
and there succeeds "an immense elation and freedom, as if the

* An Eastern Exposition of St John, London, 1903 ; pp. 56, jao, 33,
The second sentence of the second quotation appears 00 p. 145 of his
The Cultureof the Soul among Western Nations (New York, 1906) with soma
variation : “ Amidst a distressing sense of a general conflagration and
‘ melting ' of the elements of thought, and of a crumbling up of all mental
states, comes an indescribable Calm, accompanied with. a great ana hallow-
ing Effulgence, which, growing every instant, inundates the whole body
and, getting beyond its bounds, like a river that has swept over its banks,
flows in every direction far and wide as Love Absclitt, 15 Love unconditioned
by quantity or quality.”

UCGHAKTA DEEPHCA.

r*

Mrtline* of tcnfinhig odHiood had mdted away." It is too
aubtic and piercing a delight for self-conscious words to convey.
The sense* and thought are both extinguished when it super-
Veres. St. Teresa’ speaks of It as " penetrating to the marrow
of the bones, whilst earthly pleasures affect only the surface of
the senses. I think that this is a just description, and I cannot
make it better.” And in the same though stronger vein
Sl TlrumQlar exclaims

(y>eg,fi,A»nbO*irn*r0 anaiaWkp^fi-istar
jfa j paaiaQar air® attmuOfuiermf

aa jam faQa amtQaa m&p

Our author quotes St. Ma<tikkavaehakar and St. John of
the Cross, Solomon and Sada^vabrahmam, Lord Gauraftga and
Vivekinanda, for a further confirmation of the ecstatic bliss that
co-exists with Atma-darfanam, and adds (p. 65) that

“ This «»p»ri— m» is interpreted or expressed in two ways, namely, in
its personal and impersonal aspect. Ia its persona] aspect, which is by
far the most common, the devotee speaks of the Holy, Loving Power which
dwmflows op his individuality, as if were in bliss, as a vision of his Ideal
finds* wham he need to appeal fhr dsHwawace before the attainment.
Tksa mperifce of the Loving 1‘rtmnca, though a subjective phenomenon,
» that objectified, aad it ia this which has led to the conception of a
pa umai God, with various attributes, the conception being according to
the intellectual advancement and the degree of tender feeling of the

devotee, towards his Ideal God.._ But a few, especially the more iatd-

fectual and philosophical ones, have interpreted the same in its imp ersonal
aspect, because they have felt that the Holy Presence is not only outside
rham bat also in their heart of hearts, and that it extends through infinite
space, and is in, above, taxhr and arouad them. These, especially among

the Hindus, have iVer 1 if ed it ee A Um a da tat -rkti tma a da “ indivisible

er Iidteba Exiebmce, Knowledge aad Bkas Absolute." These have laid
SQhes os lb fatting tf tin nun eeretffefine »f tiu awe */ "f ", and have
i dmdifU t t kmm h m milk tkt Htty r*mm » had tmaidar ti it to h timr ttry
Stif, or AtmanT

' Imtenor cattti, gth Abode, Chap. 1.

* Timmantiram, IX, xviii, 9.

COSH 1C CONSCIOUSNESS

199

The italics are our own. If the impersonal aspect of God here
given is really the view of the intellectual advaita-vedSnta of
the PaijcJits, we should indeed be glad although we are not much
concerned with k. What we wish to lay stress on here is that
the view which Mr. Nafijuntja Rao formulates is identical with
that of the great Jfiana-?5stras, the Divyagamas (=» Saivaga-
mas). “The feeling of the utter annihilation of the sense of ‘I’”
is the sense of the death of the "worldly I ” ( =- Jiva-ahaftkara).
The “worldly I" exists only when one is conscious of
differentiated names and forms, Le., thoughts. And the death
of Jlva-ahankdra is also known as nima-rupa-na^a, both of
which expressions denote cessation from differentiation in spirit-
ual communion. The 1 feeling’ of the utter annihilation of Jiva-
ahankara is the same as the appearance of the parama-ahankdra,
which always finds its be-ing in God. The Muktas are said in
the above citation to have "identified themselves with 1 the Holy
Presence” and to have "considered d to be' their very Self or
Atman”, aVerments which plainly show that the advaity
relation between Soul and God is not abhinnatva, as is usually
presumed by the book-learned section of pseudo-£aftkaric
persuasion, but only anarryatva (non-difference, or isdistinF
guishability). And that this is the right view 'and the actual
fact we leam from the Agamas, and their living expositions
by such sanctified souls as TirumOlar and Arunanti. One verse
will suffice to illustrate the true meaning of advaita : —

1 cf. mrih—idirtirtB &Q(y>iBmai>a/pf8tt-a>

iLjeaa rraSeu%v p aafUSoo

GjLii-QPiiSdibso #aia*aig)Gu>. Tirumantiram, III, viii, 7.

'cf. gt off of Cuirg|tlua<ir»C(-i>£

#oigi&$arCar

geSujihGuiraj 6ii«mrri5jf9aifrmr9<v>
isirs&iuVairisf isSp/SmsGu. Ibid , V, Vii, 3-

StDOHANTA tiEEPICA.

196

iHm>0uoQ***crs

Sm^rtaajSrosortmOQnt

Q*m0S±n**0i&tfiii09tP<2*i. Tirumattitram, V, iii, 11.

A third effect of Atma-danpmam is a sense of Immortality,
and of dethronement of Death, which arises in the words of our
author “ as a simple and elementary instinct, which can be com-
pared with the certainty of individuality that arises from self-
consciousness." As Ramakrishija Paramahamsa once told Nar-
endra (the subsequent Svimi Vivekananda) : “ Diving deep into
the Divine sea thou needst not be afraid of death. Remember
Sat-chit-ananda sea is the sea of immortality. The water of
this sea never causeth death but is water of everlasting life.
F rom this sea of immortality drink the Ckit-inanda rasa — the
nectar of absolute existence, knowledge and joy.” The sense of
the universal absence of Sin is another effect of ‘ Regeneration’.
The sanctified soul is not aware of any sin from which to escape.
Mr. Nanjunda Rao says,

“ Of itself there is neither sin nor virtue. The ideas of right and
wrong, gpod and evil are not only relative but are true only in so far as
self-conscious life is concerned. All the inhibitions anH proprieties that
guide men on the plane of self-conscious life, no longer affect the doings
of those who have attained cosmic consciousness or liberation ; and hence
die actions of some of the liberated cues are considered whimsical and
foolish."

As revealed by “the anointed ” of the Lord, ‘sin’ is only the
transgression of the path of duty laid down by the Lord for the
worldly-minded, 1 and “death of sin”, the ceasing of the operative
force of worldly convententionalites, in the human consciousness.*
Therefore our author is obliged to state, “ I do not mean to say
that liberated souls will do anything which is impure, or sinful,
for they are generally the essence of purity in their thoughts,

1 Cf, /. Timothy, i, 9 ; Romans, viii, 7 ; Provtrbs, ii, 13 ; and II. Pittr, i, 4.

* Cf., Romatss, v, 13 and vii, 8.

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

*97

words and deeds; but that tkty do not rtcogmttamy st» ia others.' '
The italics are our own, and what we have italicised is the most
conspicuous trait of the Uluminati. The fifth symptom of 'Resur-
rection’ is intellectual illumination of an exceedingly high order
which will hardly bear description in the language of senses
and thought. Describing the same symptom in a different
connexion Svami VivekShanda says,*

"When a minute portion of the energy of action travels along . p
nerve fibre and causes reaction from centres, the.perceDttion is either
dream or imagination. But wnen the vast mass of this energy stored up
by the power of long internal meditation travels along the Sushumpa, and
strikes the centres, the reaction is tremendous, immensely superior to hie re-
action or dream or imagination, immensely more-intense than the tmeddb
of sense- perception. It is super-sensuous perception, and the mind' in that
state is called super-conscious. Ar>d when it reaches the metropolis ot aS
sensations, the brain, the whole brain, as it ware, reacts, and e W T/ p«ai»
ing molecule in the body, as it ware, reacts, and the result is.tha (pit Haas
of illumination, the perception of the Self. A» this kupjalinl forca. tt a s als
from centre to centre, layer after layer of the mind, as it were, will be open-
ed up, and this universe will be perceived, by the Xcgl in its has. or
coarse, form. Then alone the causes of this universe, both as sensation sad
reaction, will be known as they are, ana nence win came all ttaowtodaa.
The causes being known, the knowledge ot tne enects is sure to follow."

Jesus, Sakya-muni, Plotinus the nep-platoout, ; whp Jived MB
the 3rd Century A.C., Dionysius who lived, in the Century
A C., and the great Christian Mystic, Meister Eckhart, and -our
own Ramakrishpa Paramahamsa, Tillainsthaa Svamj and many
others too numerous to mention were fully possessed of , this
quality of ojas. And we cannot refrain from qupMog
Mr. Nafljunda Rao on its intrinsic effect :

“ Like a flash there is presented to the cdnscnisuea of ’the Matte, A
clear conception and vision in outline of the meaning and drift of the
universe. He does not come to believe merely, he sees and knows that
the codnos, which to the self-conscious man seems to be made up ot dead

• Svami Vrvek&nanda 00 Raja-Yoga or Conquering the Internal Nature

London, 1896, p. 54.

sochanta otrpflL*.

metm, m in very truth n Irving prawmee. H« aeet toot, Inrt—rl a t mm
l— ^ u K war^ petrhn o f life a: Ad o r ed through an infinite ton of uoo-
(ufaatanc% they are, in reality, species of death in an infi ni te ocean
of hie. He sees that the life which is in man is eternal, aa all life is
eSKial, that the soul of man is as immortal as God, and nothing exists
bm Mmt one soul of which be is a part. The ill rained one will lean
to a few seconds much that no study ever taught or can teach: Especi-
ally does he obtain such a conception of the whole as dwarfs aH imagi-
aaHons, and speculations t i ling up from and belonging to ordinary adf-
coe e ckms n es s ; and the old attempts made to grasp toe universe and its
meaning seem petty and ridiculous."

The Mukta has, in the word* of Rlmairistoa Paramahanra,
“a aever failing supply of Divine Wisdom — truths directly
revealed— which rise superior to the Wisdom taught by the
boats." A weU-worn statement of Jacob Boehaae'a rises to oar
lips, in this connexion, which Is, “The gate was opened to me
and m one quarter of an hour 1 saw and knew more than if I bad
been many yean tog e th e r at an University." Such intensely
nal ex p erienc e of a tr a nscendental nature, which becomes the
heritage of the soul, objectively manifests itself in the added
(harm to the personalty of the sage, which, in extreme cases
like those of Jesus and Sakya-muni, might amount to “ trans-
figuration." Of the Spanish Mystic, St. John of the Cross, it is
described In Butter’s Lives of Fathers, Martyrs and. ’Saints
fp. $54) thaft “a certain brightness darted from his countenance
MB many occasions, especially when be came from the altar or
froea prayer ; and a heavenly light at times shone from his
snambmaate." Thja beaming, bewitching radiance is the outer
■fwaan of the haffl' emtatic bliss which the “anointed*' one
teds on sighting the Super-sensual plane of Light and its
ravwhang Beauty and Chun.

( To be continued).

V. V. R,

“The Sum of Knowledge” — Sir J. J. Thompson’s Addreas

( Continued from page 152 of No. j Vol. X.)

When Sir J. J. Thompson ciscoursed eloquently on the
“ theory of Radio-Active change ” and affirmed the fact that
“ the radio-active elements are not permanent but breaking up
into elements of lower atomic weight,” and further on said
“ that the radiations are a kind of Swan’s song emitted by the
atoms when they pass from one form to . another ”, I found the
poetry of his thought enter my soul and wake it up to a realisa-
tion in my own experience of the glorious Transformation* of
Jesus on the Mount, by the mere fact of my singing the Swan’s
Song of the Yogin, who is taught to pass from one form to
another singing sweetly the song of Hamsaham— a beautiful
and uplifting “Swan's Song ” to sing, or Mantra to chant, by
one who has realised in himself the fundamental fact of Existence
— the noumenon that underlies the phenomena of Existence.

• •••••

As the learned President of the British Association address-
ing his compeers in science and through them the World of
Iatefiigence all over this cosmic plane, spoke of the life of the
atoms of the radio-active elements as “ ranging from thousands
of millions of years in the case of Uranium to a second or so in
the case of the gaseous emanation from Actinum ” my disciplin-
ed soul with its inherited capacity of ages of high culture and
the refined sensibility of the ancient seers of Truth, handed
down from seer to seer until my last Guru who by a magic
touch of the awakened and uplifted Soul made my own slumber-
ing soul “awake and arise ” and bade it with the voice of Love
Supreme “Stop not till the Goal is reached ! ” — my waking
Soul ever on the alert and ready to act on the least suggestion
of Truth, found itself carried on the wings of Time (the old
Deceiver whom it has deceived by the practice of " KtUavaO-
ckana ” *) which willingly showed it the various divisions of its

• Tie author is referring to the phenomenon known as “Transfiguration’'
among Christian theologians, [Ed. L.7 .]

1 Vide, Varahepamshat.

S

SlDOt'ANTA DEEPIKA.

Existence from the “ twinkling of the eye ’’ to Yuga and Kalpa
merging in Prafaya in the ascending series, and, again, from
Mitra and Bind* through Lava to various divisions of Time
which produce each an octave of Subtle Vibrations in the ether
giving rise to "supernatural forms and powers” that are all
instinct with divine Intelligence, and have their places in due
gradations in the Grand and Infinite Scale of Nature that
extends from the manifested Prakriti to the unmanifested
Avyakta and Avydkrtia merging through half-Lava or Unmana-
iakti into Purna-Kala and Kiima-Kald, the Unit, so to speak,
of Eternity — the Life which is at-one-with the only true God
though a knowledge of Christ or the Sanctified Soul of Man
who is the Son of God, according to that Great Mystic, St. John,
author of the Fourth Gospel of Christ. There is no reason why
the peering intelligence of the purified Soul, argus-eyed, should
stop with Uranium and Radium in the ascending scale, or
Actinum in the descending scale. It is the arbitrary limita-
tion of Man, self-imposed, that limits his vision to these subtle
manifestations of Nature, which, however plain to the practiced
eye of the scientist and the Research Student trained up to his
work, are yet but vague speculations to the leader-writers of
the Times and the Daily Mail, who represent “ the man in the
street," a hackneyed term for the average intelligence of Society.
Society has its own imposts to levy, and social conditions must
be fulfilled even at the risk of losing one’s Soul, or Mrs. Grundy
will be angry.

• • • • • *

This Mrs. Grundy of fashionable London Society, the
tyrant who rules her subjects with a rod of iron, with her ficti-
tious importance and fickleness of purpose with an ever varying
mood ushering in an endless series of ever-changing fashions
and fancies, that hold the best and elite of London Society by
the iron grip of fashion and frivolity (of circumstance or environ-
ment) is but a representative in miniature of her larger, wider
and infinite self* iii the Cosmic order of things with her ever-
changing moods and ever-shifting iorms known to the Seers of

THE SUM OF KNOWLEDGE.

901

Truth by the nick-name of Maya. To get out of her grip la
as essential to the Seer as it is essential to the true man of
Science and Research to get out of the conventional ideas and
notions ot society! For, “ the suggestive power of erroneous
ideas " is so great that it will play the cruel Mrs. Grundy and
reduce him to be at his wit's end whose edge has already been
blunted and made smooth for a dullard to sit square upon!
Such the difficulties in the way of original Research! Mind is
in itself a grand Museum of conventions, of settled ideas swayed
by the law of action and reaction. It knows not how to rest
itself, unless it be overcome with sleep, which is the power of
Darkness to throw the Veil over the mysterious power of
recoupment, whiqh Nature in her generosity lavishes so freely,
but keeps the secret so carefully to herself. “The Light
shineth in Darkness and the Darkness comprehendeth it not 1 "
So the Mind merged in Darkness comprehends nothing of the
mysterious process by which it regains its lost rigour. The
Power of Darkness is like a recurring decimal. The numbers
of the recurring decimal are known ; but their value changeth
every time you repeat them. You can carry the process ad
infinitum until you fall down of sheer exhaustion and yet you
have not reached the end of the fraction 1

• • • • * *

Even so is the “Theory of radio-active change.” Every
substance possessing radio-activity can be separated “into two
portions one of which is radio-active and the other, not.” "If
these two portions were kept for several months, the part
which was not radio-active to begin with, regained radio-acti-
vity, while the part which was radio-active to begin with, had
lost its radio-activity.” This is the recurring decimal on which
the working of the universe is based ! From Spirit to Matter and
Matter to Spirit, the transformations are gcing on in an endless
series. The true value of the working of the Universe is based
on a knowledge of Infinity (of names and forms) as Denominator
and a grouping of them in a definitely recurring series but
infinitely varying in value as the Numerator. This is explained

M michakta deepixa.

by the axioms which state that “Number is the Law of the
Universe" and that “Unity is the Law of God." Make the
first axiom the Numerator and the second the Denominator and
you have a fractional value corresponding to the recurring
Decimal, which is the Life of the Universe. This is expressed
by the axiom “Evolution is the Law of Life.”

• •••••

Life is like a recurring decimal: It moves in definite
cycles but its motion is spiral and not merely circular. Hence
by ascending up the spiral motion of Life, or descending, you
reach to infinity. 9/10 when made into a recurring decimal of

•999 will lead you to a conception of the Unit of parts which

constitute the infinity of forms into which the first number in
the denominator “Unity” is divided by the addition to it of
mere ciphers (mSyi forms) which have no intrinsic value erf their
own, but considerably affect the value of the Unit by which the
Numerator falls short of the Denominator. The Recurring
Decimal Nine is the " Vyuha ” or primal group of the series
which goes on recurring up to Infinity and yet falling short of
Infinity by a single unit, which is the difference between Infinity
and itself. So is the difference between the manifested Universe
and the manifested God, or between N umber and Unity.

• •••••

The Law of the Universe, which is “Number,” is based on
the conception of the N umber One which is the Unit of concep-
tion. While the Law of God, which is " Unity ", is ’placed on
the uninterrupted continuity of that conception on which the
first conception of Unit is based. Physics may carry that
conception up to “corpuscles” and there get itself stranded
in “the unit of negative electricity” and may still be flounder-
ing as to “the unit of Positive Electricity." But the con-
ception of the unit of which the whole is made up, and which
forms the homogeneous particle, and knowing which the whole
series of names and forms are known as but perumutations
and combinations of different series and forms, is the chief thing
for the Mind to grasp. Unless the Mind knows itself — grasps

THE SUM OF KNOWLEDGE.

the primary Unit of its own elementary particle and learns to
separate the “ radio-active element ” in it from the other which
is not, it cannot form a right conception of the Ultimate Unit.
The Ultimate Unit is the conceiving mind itself which is made
up of (i) the conceiver (the radio-active element), (2) the thing
conceived (non radio-active element) and (3) the con* eption. (the
law of conjunction, corresponding to the theory of radio-active
change). With this Knowledge of itself it would have attained
a keenness of vision, which will beat the X-Rays into the shade.
For it fills a space which has four dimensions to it — viz., length,
breadth, thickness and last but not the least “ all-pervasiveness.’’
This fourth-dimension is hard to get at by the Mind that is ever
projecting itself outwards. It has first to withdraw it within
itself and there see its own tripartite constitution.. Then doth
the scales of Maya fall from its “seeing eye ” and it becomes
the “Seer” from being merely the instrument of seeing for the
Soul (the Seer within). The eternal Unit of parts of which all
other units are but permutations and combinations, is then
revealed to it, and " Sadakhya " the eternal kala or part, forming
the undivisible unit of part, being Known, all that is, is Known
also, as they are all but emanations in successive forms and
residues of the one eternal part. With this knowledge of the
primary impartible kala or part forming the basic Unit, it is
easy to create by the Law of Number, the Universe of Names
and Forms or Rest from the work of creation in the Unity
which is the Law of God.

• ••«••

But he who sees Unity (God) in diversity (Number,
Universe), and diversity (Universe) in Unity (God), he alone has
attained to the Highest, as Sri Krishna says in the Gita. He
who sees One in Many and Many in one, he alone is the greatest
Mathematician. Even so, he who sees the Principle of Unity
in the multiplicity of forms, and the multiplicity of form in the
Principle of Unity, he alone has attained to the highest of
realization.

*04

stochanta deepika.

With this realization in one's heart of hearts, arid well-
established in it by constant practice, one is prepared to face
the most entrancing problems that may be set for solution, even
by such a distinguished scientist as the elected President of the
British Association for the 8oth year of its existence. So it
was ! And 1 have but to state here “ one of the most entrancing
problems in chemistry and physics it is possible to conceive ”
as stated by Sir Joseph Thompson in the exuberance of Thought
which quite entranced his soul. For said he:

■ Consider for a moment, the problem presented by any plant — the
c twine tenstic and often exquisite detail of flower, leaf, and habit — and
remember that the mechanism that controls this almost infinite complexity
was once contained in a seed, perhaps hardly large enough to be visible.
We have here one of the most entrancing problems in chemistry and
physics it is possible to conceive.''

Yes! This “entrancing problem" is set to us, Initiates, to
solve not merely once or twice nor yet only in the form of a
tiny seed of plant life, but in a subtler and still subtler form
and that over and over again in which we have to trace the life
of Sun, Moon and Stars and the Great Powers of Nature that
create, protect and destroy the Forms of Life (not Life itself,
mind, it is indestructible ! ) from the ameeba or protoplasm and
the insect to the Solar System and Beyond ! This we do, “ the
better Mind of India ” is ever engaged in solving such problems,
but who cares to Know the Truth ! The rulers of India once did
care. But now they care as little about it as “ the man in the
street " cares about the weighty pronouncements of the Presi-
dent of the British Association ! Q tempora / O worts!

C. V. s.

jnana vasishtam

OR

THE DIALOGUES OF VASISHTA ON WISDOM*

I. — Introduction.

The Jttana Vasishtam is a Tamil poem of authority in that
collection of the spiritual traditions of Ancient India known as
the Vedanta, and consists of a series of discourses said to hav$
been delivered by the sage Vasishta to Rama, the hero of the.
Ramayana, the Iliad of India. Seized in early youth with an
aversion to worldly life, he longed to abandon his royal state and
to retire as a hermit into the forest. By. these discourses the
sage persuaded him that, even amidst the pomp and temptations
of royalty, it was possible to attain to the highest spiritual state.
He showed the way to the goal, which the prince in due time
reached. From the name of the sage (Vasishta) and from the
fact that Jhanam , 1 or the spiritual science known of old as
Wisdom, is the subject of the discourses, the work has been
called JTiana Vdsishfam.

The original discourses were in Sanskrit, and are said to Rave'
been reported by Valmiki, the author of the Ramiyana, for the
benefit of his pupil Bharadvaja in 100,000 stanzas, of which
36,000 are extant under the name of the Yoga Vasishta Mahi
Ramayana. They were reduced to 6,o0o by Abhinandana,
generally known as the Kashmir Pandit, whose abridgment
passes under the name of Laghu (i.e., little) Yoga Vasishta.

The Tamil work consists of 43 chapters of 2,055 quatrains,
and was composed oy Alavantar Madavappaftar of Virai, a

* A Paper read at a meeting of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 1909, with His Excellency Sir
Hugh Clifford, k.c.m.g., the Colonial Governor, in the chair. It is here
reprinted with the kind permission of the Author, Hon. Mr. P. ArUpacha-
lam , m.a.. Camb., c.ca. Vice President, R. A. S(C. B.). — Ed. L. T.

1 Another form of a Greek expression meaning " a seekinv to know”
and of knou-Udgi, the root being jna, gno, to know.

BBGMAKTA OCCPtKA.

v»lk*e new VembattOr in the Madura district of the Madras
Presidency. I have not been able to ascertain his date. He
probably lived about three hundred years ago. He is said to
have belonged tp a family distinguished in literature during
many centuries and still holding lands and titles conferred on
them by the Plijdiyan kings in reward of their merit. A valua-
ble commentary was made on the poem ' about eighty years ago
by Arunichala Svimiof Piraiiai near Negapatam, who lived in
Madras many years and had a great reputation as a teacher of
philosophy. The Tamil author and commentator are regarded
as no mere translators or commentators, but rather as men of
spiritual insight confirming by their testimony the truth of the
experiences related by Vasishfa.

Vedanta means the end of the Vedas, the most sacred books
of the Hindus, and was so called because it taught the ultimate
aim and scope of the Vedas. It was in short the Goal of the
Law. The Vedanta, as Oriental scholars have pointed out, is
the basis of the popular creed of the Hindus of the present day.
Of the Vedanta Professor Max MQller, lecturing in March 1894,
at the Royal Institution, London, said : “ A philosopher so
thoroughly acquainted with all the historical systems of philo-
sophy as Schopenhauer, and certainly not a man given to deal
in extravagant praise of any philosophy but his own, delivered
his opinion of the Vedanta philosophy as contained in the
Upanishads in the following words: — ‘In the whole world there
is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanis-
hads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of
my death.’ If (adds Professor Max Moller) these words of
Schopenhauer’s required any endorsement, I should willingly
give it as the result of my own experience during a long life
devoted to the study of many religions. If philosophy is meant

1 The first edition of the Tamil poem and commentary appears to
have been printed in 1843, having previously existed in M S. {aim leaf,
and is very rare. The two next editions were of 1850 and 1831.

JN*NA VASISHTAM. aof

to be a preparation for a happy death or euthanasia, I know of
no better preparation for it than the Vedanta philosophy.”

This philosophy was at an early period systematized in
certain slitras or aphorisms' attributed to Badarayana alias
Vyasa, which have been copiously interpreted and expounded.
The best known exposition* is that of Sri Sarikaracharya Svami,
the Hindu philosopher, who lived about the sixth century of the
Christian era. His writings and apostolic zeal were mainly
responsible for the downfall of Buddhism in India. He founded
the abbey of Sringeri (in Mysore), the abbot of which is still the
spiritual head of many millions of Hindus. Sankaracharya's
views are often erroneously identified, especially by European
scholars, with the Vedanta, as if there were no other authoritative
. view. An earlier commentator was Sri Nilakanfha Svami, who is
of great repute and authority among the Saivas, or those who
worship God under the name of Siva. Nilakantha’s work * is so
little known outside the circle of Saiva theologians that the
learned Dr. Thibaut, who has translated the Vyasa Sutras and
Sankaracharya’s commentary for the Sacred Books of the East
series of the Oxford Clarendon Press, was not aware that in some
of the points in which Sahkaracharya appeared to him to
misunderstand the original, Nilakantha took a different and
truer view. Another commentary* is that of Sri Ramanuja
Svami, which enjoys great authority among the Vaishnavas, or
those who worship God under the name of Vishiju. The three
expositions’ may briefly, if roughly, be thus distinguished in
regard to their conception of the relations between God, soul,

1 Known variously as the Vedanta Sutras, VySsa Sutras, Brahma Sutras,
Uttaramimamsa Sutras or Sariraraka Mimamsa Sutras.

’ Called after him Sankara Bashyam.

• Called after him Nilakantha or Srikantha bhashyam, and also Saiva
bushyam Suddahdvaita bashyam.

* Called after him Ramanuja bashyam.

p There are two other commentaries in current use, one by MadhavS-
charya and another by Vallabhacharya. Two others, little known and
said to be older even than Ndakantha's, are attributed to Bodebyana
ynd Bhaskara.

4

StUDHAMTA DEEPne*.

■m) Witter. SaftkarSchirya is a Monist, Nilakantha a pure
Non-dualist (Suddhidvaita), Ramanuja a qualified Non-dualist
(Visishtfdvaita). AU take their stand on the Upapishads, while
puuing lorward each his view to oe tne true one. The expqsi-
uons are npt easy to follow, and require the same effort of atten-
tion and study as Western students have to devote to the
intricate arguments of Aristotle or Kant.

Sahkartchlrya is sometimes described as “• a Monist or
Non-dualist." But the terms are not regarded as synonymous
by the pure Non-dualists, especially by that school of pure
Non-dualism, which is the glory of Tamil philosophy and is
known as the Saiva Siddhinta. Its chief authority, the
SiuifMM pitkam, draws this important distinction (ii., z
and 3)

“One,” say the Vedas. Behold, it is said of the One, The
One is the Lord Tbou who sayest “One,” art the soul. Lo,

in bondage art thou. If the One were not,- . If vowel A

Were not. letters there would be none. In this wise say the
Vedas " One."

Like song and its tune, like fruit and its flavour, the Lord's
energy everywhere pervadeth, non-dual. Therefore say the
great Vedas not “One.” but “Not-two.”

The meaning is this: When the Vedas say “Ekam Sat,"
•AH that is, is one,” they do not mean the identity of God and
the soul, but that God pervades and energizes the soul. The
first sound uttered as the mouth opens is the sound af U in but.
Which sound is represented in Indian alphabets by their initial
letter, the vowel A (Sanskrit *f, Tamil jj). This sound exists in,
and is indispensable to the formation of, the sound represented
by every other letter. Thus the Indian letter A, while it may
be said to pervade and energize every other letter, remains also
a distinct and the chief letter. So God and the soul. All souls
*te pervaded and energized by God, as all letters by A, as a
song by its tune, ag fruit by its tlavour. Nevertheless, like A,

JKiSMA VASISHTiUb

God stands apart. Himself,' of all things the Sdvlrce and the chiefs
“One,” therefore, in the Vedas must be understood to mean not
unity, but non-dualitv, of God anu soul. The same, argument
is pithily expressed by the poet f lruvaj|uvar in ms celeDrated
Kuril :

" All letters have for source the letter A»

The world for source hath the Ancient Onet
The Adorable. ”

This traditional illustration of the pure rton-auausts,
prominently set forth in the very opening verse ot tne poem,
shows that the author — who, iri spite of his outcast birth; is “ tne
venerated sage and law-giver of the Tamil people,” Whom evdry
Hindu 9ect is proud to claims- wds a Vedantist of the pun
Norwiualist type.

The Study of the Vedanta is held in high esteem iri Iridia a|
the most effective cuie for the disease ajnanam, or ignorance^
which keeps the soul irom Goo. The aoctnnes ol the Vedanta
are expounded in the Jiiana Vistshfain mainly on the lines ot
Safikdracharya, with endless variety of illustration, in tne form
Of stones which cortvey to the thougntiul reader, witll all flie
interest of a rofriance, an easy underStdnaing of the most difficult
problems of philosophy — Who ani I ? Whence ? Whithef? It is
no uncommon thing in the towns and villages of Tamfl-land tor
groups of earnest seekers to meet in the quiet hours of the day
or night to listen to the reading and exposition ot tne poem and
ponder on the great questions. At such seances women are no,
the least interested of the listeners nor the least keen of the
questioners.

(To be continued.)

P. A.

SiDOHAKTA PEF.PIKA.

•«»

NANDI-KKALAMBAGAM

(ComhtJtd from fag* 167 of No. 5 Vol. X.)

He is called by several surnames in the poem : — (1) Avatjt-
N 4 rm*a 9 —v*nc 4 of the Introduction, w. 18, 22, 64, and 66 of
the Text. (2) Vifrl-vtjugii—vv. 11, 13 and 74. (3 ) Ukkirama-

Hpan'—m. ao and 55. (4) KuvaJaya-mnrttandan—v. 29. (5)

Mdlttdayan—v. 48. (6) Manodayan—v. 63. (7) Varatuiigan

— p.89. (8) Mdnaiitaratt — v. 109. (9) Nandi— chchiraman—v. 106
(10) DHa-banfiri — ». 96.

Having now summarised all the information of any histori-
cal interest in the poem, we shall proceed to discuss them in the
light of inscriptions. The king, who is the hero of this poem,
cannot be Nanwvarman-Paixava*au.a who was opposed by the
Dramilas in about 760 A. D, since of the numerous battles which
he and his general Udayachandra are said to have fought * not
one of those given in this peom are mentioned. We are there-
fore compelled to conclude that he must be the same person as
the Nandi, who was the son of Dantivarman mentioned in the
BahOr plates. * Wehave inscriptions of NandippOttarasar, who
fought the battle of TeJliru, at Conjeevaram * in the Chingleput
District, at Sendalai,* Khviladi ‘ and Tillaisth&nam ' in the
Tanjore District, and at Tiruvadi * in the South Arcot District.
We know from the poem that one of his surnames was Avapi-
Nlranan. In one inscription to Nandi varman, found in the
MuktlSvara temple at K&verippakkam, * the place is named

’ Perhaps Ug r» U f a f (a man of fierce anger).

■ S 1 . 1 , VoL IL, pp. 363-364.

‘Ep. lad, Vol IV, p. 181.

* No. ra of the Government Epigraphist's Collection lor 1895.

* No. 11 of the same for 1899.

•No. 283 of the same for 1901.

' No. 52 of the same for 1893.

• No. 36 of the same for 1903.

• No. 406 of the saint for 1905.

nandi-kkalamhagam.

ill

as KAvadipp&kkam, while in the inscriptions of Nripatungavar-
nian and the Chdja kings who came after him the place is called
Kflvadippakam alias Avani-N arayana-chaturvedimangalam. ’•
The inscriptions thus corroborate our poem in these particulars.
That “NandippOttarasar who was victorious at TeJlaru” should
be the same person as Kfr-visaiya-Nandivikramavarman is
evident from the fact that Kaduvetp=Tamila=pPeraraiyan,
who is mentioned as an officer of the one 11 is also mentioned as
an officer of the other. 1 * The Bahflr platessay that Nandivarman
was the son of Dantivarman. This Dantivarman was a contem-
porary of the Rashfrakuta Govinda III. (A. D. 782-814). There-
fore the Nandi of our poem must have belonged to the midd 1 /
of the 9th century A. D. We do not propose in this paper to
enter into the question of the necessity of postulating a Gaflga-
Pallava dynasty, which has been dealt with by one of us already
in the Madras Christian College Magazine ” and which will be
dealt with again in detail in a forthcoming paper in the Epigra-
phia Indices.

In the Bharata-venbi of PerundevahAr mention . is made
of a king who was victorious at Tenant. If this reference is to
“NandippOttarasar who was victorious at TeJlacu,” we can fairly
infer that PerundOvapar was a contemporary of his.

As to the country that he ruled over, we find inscriptions of
his, as already pointed out, in the Ch6)a, and the Topdai-nadus,
but we have not as yet succeeded in getting any from the Chora
and Kongu countries. We cannot say what particular region
is denoted by Alagainidu, but there is a village called A|aga-
puri in the PudukkOffai State. That he was a Suzerain of the
Banas who ruled over the Vada V engada-nadu, is proved by a
number of his inscriptions in the Vehgada-nAdu, which is said

** Cf. Inscriptions Nos. 391, 394 and 393 of the same for 1905.

11 No. 12 of the same for 1895.

" No. 304 of the same for 1897.

[‘Christian College Magazine for April, 1907.

ait

SIDDHANTA deepika.

therein to belong to the B*ija country. Nandi’s predecessor,
Dantivarman, is mentioned as the overlord of the Bina king
VuAYtotTYA Mjivau VAnarAya, '* and his successor, Nripatufiga,
as overlord of VAna VijjAdhara." NandippOttaraiar himself in an
inscription belonging to the 23rd year of his reign is mentioned
as suzerain over VhcramAditya MAvali VAnarAya. 14

The poem unfortunately leaves us entirely in the dark as to
the person or persons against whom he fought the several battles
mentioned. The following passage in verse 64 :—“T/Harru=-
aflaari (*>* Vaigai muninda Nandi" (Nandi who fought on the
banks of the golden Vaigai (river) on the same day as at Te|IAru)
leads us to suspect that about the time of the battle at TejlAru,
the king's forces must have fought another battle on the banks
of the Vaigai river in the Madura District.

Of the king’s surnames, we have already dealt with Avapi-
Narapap. Vltjel-vitjugu occurs in inscriptions found at Tiru-
vallam, TiruppalAtturai, Conjeevaram, &c. The meaning of
.this term is not clear. But we meet with similar names such
as Mirpiijugu,” Pagappitjugu 1 * for Dantivarnlan and
Mahendravarman respectively. The last part of the surname
means the thunderbolt in the Kannada and Telugu languages.
The other surnames given in the poem are not met with in
inscriptions.

The following places are mentioned in the poem as the
scenes of the king’s battles, viz., Te)laru, Na]jAru, Palaiyapi,
Kurugddu and VelJaru. Of these Tejla^u is a village in the
Wandiwash Taluk of the North Arcot District ; NaJlaju
is famous for its Saiva temple of DarbharanyeSvara, and is

“ No. 236 of the Government Epigraphist's Collection for the
year 1903.

14 N®. 228 of the same for the year 1903.

14 No. 229 of the same for the year 1903.

" ^* 0> 54 1 of the same for the year 1905.

5 . /. /, VoL p. 331, See also the footnote 5 on the page.

NAND1-KKALAMBAGAV. J|J

situated in the French Settlement of Karaikkal in the Tanjore
District ; Palaiv&cu is perhaps the same as Palaiyajrai, a village
about three miles to the south of Kumbbakonam, also in the
Tanjore District. There are two places called KurugOdu, one
in the Bellary Taluk of the Bellary District and another in the
Kolar District of the Mysore Province. The former is called
simply Kurugode, while the latter is called Doijda Kurugode.
In the first mentioned are several ruins, consisting of beautiful
temples of the Chalukya style of architecture, a fine fort on a
hill, and it was one of the strongholds of Tippu Sultan. The
latter is believed to be an old capital of the Gangas. Vellaru is
the name of two rivers, one of which runs between the South
Arcot and the Trichinopoly Districts, while the other passes
through the PudukkOtpai State. Which of these two rivers is
meant by the poem we are not able to judge from the reference.

The Bahdr plates assert that Dantivarman, the father, and
Nripptungavarman, the son of Nandivarman, were devout
worshippers of the lotus feet of Vishnu. The ftplambogam
describes Nandi as “Sivanai muludu^maravdda chintatyan,"
verse 97 (one whose mind never forgot S^vaj.

M. K. N.
T. A. G.

1 14 udohamta deepika.

A THESIS ON THE VIRASaIVA REUGION.

(Contmmtel from pagt 164 of No. 4 Vol. X.)

All this philosophy is splendid but can ODly be considered
as intellectual gymnastics for highly developed minds ; but if it
stops there, it is of no practical importance as Religion and does
not bring any comfort or peace to an eager soul thirsting for
highest bliss. The greatest merit of the ViraSaiva Religion is
that it has rendered this philosophy highly practical by what is
called Shatsthalajfilna, the practical side of our Religion. By
this, our religious tenets become part and parcel of a Vira-
iaiva's daily life and, without any effort or knowing, he lives his
Religion in the same way we b ins the without knowing that we
do so. and that it is one of the most vital acts of life.

The terms Shatsthala and Liiigaiigasamarasya are pre-
gnant with philosophical meaning among the Virasaivas.
According to them Lirtga is of six kinds and Artga is of six kinds,
and the union of each Lifiga with each Aftga marks a stage
known as sthala. The term Shatsthala denotes six such stages
of spiritual development and the term “ Lihgattgasamarasya ”
denotes oneness with the Deity in those several stages.

The Six sthalas or stages are : —

Bhakta, Mahefa, Pras&da, pranalirtga, Sara ha and Aikya.

19. The Philosophy of the Vira9aivas may be said to
resemble Sahkara's Philosophy in certain respects, and it is
bequeiMy quoted for purposes of comparison in the Religious
works of th* Brahmins of which the following is an instance : —

iwwCTfr. y g aftroftwqjft n

fffWrt 3 l% &c.

From “ Jflana-Sarvafva-Sahgraha, Chapter VI, leaf 57, by
Narasimha, SmSrta Brahmin."

THESIS ON THE VEERASAIVA RELIGION.

20. The Sankarin uses “Tat” for which the Vira^aivaa
use “ Lihga The former uses " Tvam ” for which the lattef
use “Ahga." The union of the two is denoted by the Smartas
by “Asi”, whereas the Vira^aivas denote the same union by the
expression “Samyoga or Samarasya” so that the Tattvamasi Of
Saflkara corresponds to the Lingahgasamyoga of the Virl-
caivas.

21. Mr. C. P. Brown is of opinion that there is Some
similarity between the Virac;ai va Philosophy and the system of
Philosophy of some of the ancient writers of Greece and ftotoe<
He compares the two systems as follows : —

“There is so remarkable an analogy between the Pythogo*
rean Monad and the deity ofViraijaivas that I cannot fvell avoid
adducing the following brief deduction from the philosophic;
statements as represented in “Cudworth’s Intellectual System,”
Second Edition, Chapter IV, pages 370 and 376. Pythagoras
calls the four principles by numerical names, the Monad, Puad.
Triad and Tetrad. A Vira^ai va calls them by specific names, viz.,
the Lirtgam, Bhakta, Guru and Svami i.e., the deity, the disci-
ple, the teacher and the Supreme Spirit which pervadeS'Utii
unites all three.”

“The subordinate beings (gods, heroes and demobs) of
Pythagoras answer to the Vira^aiva Saints ; alt of whom art
supposed to be embodied forms of the prime existenbe or litigant
which answers to the Monad who is also “Zen.” The Puad f*
the passive principle or disciple, he whose mind is theUbW'foif
impression. The link between these two is the third principle,
the Guru or Teacher. In his creative office, the deity to
mingled with nature by Pythagoras and is all nature ip the
creed of Vira<;aivas.”

“ Love was the first orphic principle and so it is throughout
the Viracaiva Creed. Yet it is a created Being ; for it is a form
or appearance of the deity. Thus the Lirtgam and the &vam
being the first and .the fourth principles are one. and the same.
The Monas and the Tetractys are one.”

«

SIBOHAKTA DF.IPnU.

Ill

t>. Now I proceed to say a few words about the Great
Reformer Basava, and no Thesis about the Vira^aiva Religion
can be said to be complete without a reference to this distils*
guished personage. It was hitherto supposed by sonde, that
Basava was the Founder of the Vlrafaiva Religion and that the
Vlrafaivas have based their Religion on the Basava Puritja.
It needs no comment to state that both these theories are
erroneous. Recent researches have proved beyond a shadow
of doubt that Basava was not the Founder of the Religion,
that it existed long before he was bom and that Basava
embraced the Virafaiva Faith just as so many others did,
before and after him.

23. It now remains to deal with the antiquity of the Vira-
faiva Religion. Recent researches have shown that the Religion
existed long befo.e Basava and there can be no doubt that the
Incorrect opinions hitherto entertained were all based on in-
sufficient materials.

(a) There is sufficient internal evidence in the Basava
Pur&Qa itself to show that the Religion existed before Basava.
For instance, Virafaivas and Jartgamas are said to have been
Incited and respected at the marriage ceremony of Basava.
Basava relates to Bijjala, the superhuman powers of Virafaivas
who lived in previous ages. Further, numerous Virafaivas
are said to have gone to Kalyin to pay respects to Basava from
distant countries.

This shows that the Religion was not only existing before
Basava, but had also spread over a large pa»t of India. These
visitors are described as wearing Liflga in the palm of the hand,
chest, head, neck and armpit (being the five authorised places),
as having restrained the organs of sense, following the pure
practices of the Virafaivas, kind to the Jahgamas and well
versed in the Vedas and Agamar

(b) Ther? is a good deal of external evidence to prove the
antiquity of the Virafaiva Relig 1.

THESIS ON THE VEERASA1VA RELIGION. 81/

(i) In the first place, the principles of the Vlra^aiva
! Religion are described in the Vedas, Agamas and PurSijas.
The follow ing story occurs in the Karr.ika-Agama : —

" During their travels, one Ajamila and his wife, were
attacked by a band of robbers and at the suggestion of his wife,
Ajamija tied up in a kerchief, all the precious jewels he had in
the form of a Liftga and put it round his neck so as to make it
appear that he was a Virajaiva wearing Lirtga. This stratagem
succeeded very well, for the Robber Chieftain Mitra Gupta
ordered at once the release of the two people, as he always had
great respect and regard for Virasaivas, whom, as a rule, he
did not molest.”

This certainly indicates the existence of the Religion before
the composition of the Kamika-Agama, and also shows that the
Vlrayaiva Viraktas had sometimes the rare privilege of com*
manding respect even from Robber Chiefs.

(2) In the next place, the discussion between DharmarSja
and Bhishma in the Anufasana Parva of the Mahabharata,
shows that the Vtra<,aiva Religion was existing at that time.

(3) Again, the writings of such reputed Scholars as Pro*
fessor H. H. Wilson, Professor Monier Williams, Rev. F. Kittel,
Rev. Barth, Mr. Edward Moore and Messrs. Deshpande and
V. R. Katti, sufficiently show that the Vira^aiva Religion is
an ancient branch of the Hindu Religion, that it existed even
before the rise of Buddhism and that it is a mistake to suppose
that it was founded by Basava.

(To be continued).

' H. K. V.

THE RATIONALE OF SYMBOLIC WORSHIP.

( Continued from pogt to* of No. 4.V0I. X.)

How does He work : — gti^IlJNrWR. twfau-flftt: fSRT

" This one God rules all these worlds by His Ruling
powers, His Saktis. His Calais are vjiftwuufa^I

DHribn". His $akt» is denoted by various names Svabhiviki,
JMm, Bala and Kpys. The Kailasa Samhitt commenting on
(his text has this “Hk UtTHllfti 1 RMlWl |R

jedtan^ttRgr^Rt”. The Sages that belong to the SvetaSvatira
branch call this Sakti as Svabhaviki, Jnana, Bala and Kriyi; and
the Yiyusamhita says ‘‘tmw ft ft vu rffc: f^rptwif^lwnT 1 amafaq i -
frww iIW> vf»l t Wl' 11 . In the £ruti, His Sakti is denoted by the names
Svabhiviki, Jfiana, Hal* and Kriya. All these are referred to
Vt ibcSutra of BadarSyana as the Dabaravidyi

itself ia referred to m the Satra. (IT 3 WT What does His Sakti
Ck>? of cqurse all evolution is Her handiwork. Sentient beings
know and non-sentient things move, being acted on by her. As
explained Tn the SvetaSvatara Upanishat it is God’s Samaveta
Chit-Sakti that does the function of creation, sustension and
dissolution of the' universe as well as the Retention of the souls
in bondage and their release therefrom. Her functions are called
the Pafichakptyas.

What consitutes His bliss : —

“He is Bliss. Reaching Him one becomes Nandi, taster of Bliss.”
It is>dn account of the fact lhat the soul seeks pleasure in every
sphere of life that the highest Brahman anda is vouchsafed to
it and that it is enjoined to seek God even for the sake of obtain-
ing unutterable bliss, for while the pleasures in ' the other

* The hist nke tines are reprinted from p. 22, to keep to the system
of beginning a continuation with a paragraph, and thus add to the ease
o t the reader’s personal — Ed. L. T.

THE RATIONALE OF SYMBOLIC WORSHIP.

219

planes are often tainted with pains, God’s joy is pure and un-
alloyed arising out of His Righteousness and Holiness. Hence
the Upanishat says rT VT*OTtU.'lh , T? nyrontw?!ry:

“This is the great end, this is the great treasure, this
is the great abode, this is the great joy.” Where there is pain
there is fear, but in God there is no fear, “r 1

gdft*WK«l I vnOTTS-TT? rtT*T3T?r” MhPg

” “When man rests in the unseen
and unconditioned God for the purpose of seeking Fearlessness,
then he is not troubled with Fear. Knowing Brahmananda, the
soul never gets fear at any place or time.”

Indeed Chaitanyam is Drik-kriya-rupam, consciousness is
the capacity to know and to act “ %?r^t 7 fawh
But individual coociousness is bound by Avidya, as the Yajur-
veda says, "li^arenr^ sngrfrPTO: hr 5W1 — 'narfenr Ttotpr ^
apttTff JPTffifT — “Papma or ignorance is Darkness.
Dispelling that ignorance man is enabled to reach the Great Light.

“ — "awn. •nr. isjctJ

“Let us be released from the sins, from the world (matter),
let the Pasu be freed from the Pasa — let the bonds be loosened,
Prostration! to Pasupathy!” In the first Prapafhaka of the Chando*
gya-Upanishat, it is said that the Asuras were unable to conquer
the Devas, owing to their bondage to this Darkness, but the Devas,
who are also bound by this Darkness as theYajur-veda says,

“ f’Rrff StJRTTU^. rT 3T*1»TEFT 'ROtR fd T S3? •i'Hhuiri”

(There were Devas as there are men. They thought “Let us
all by destroying darkness or sin or ignorance, reach the Divine
presence.”) They were able to conquer the Asuras by the power
of the Pranava Upasana or the Udgitavidya”, vide also the
Vajasaneyi text. “u^nUtl^cugdlHi ^’•Hi ’jnatHtjaj aTTjat” God the
ViSva-Chaitanya, is all powerful and Omniscient, He being
eternally free from Sin or Darkness. He is ApahatapapmS.

“ 71 Individual souls get their dark-

SIDOHAHTA DEEP1KA.

3*0

ness dispelled by the grace of the Supreme Lord as the Sutra
* HW»W iwa" explains.

Though equipped with ten senses which are the means of
deriving knowledge, the souls are incapable of knowing the

THE RATIONALE OF SYMBOLIC WORSHIP 2tt

grosser and subtler things of the past, present add future, for they
are enveloped by Mala and Maya. Though void of these equip-
ments which are the means of deriving knowledge, Siva, without
any effort on His part knows the true nature of all things. Hence
He is Omniscient. As these qualities abide in Him, the Spirit
of all, eternally, and there being no other Supreme Being- than
Himself, £iva is Himself the Paramatman"

Siva is thus defined in the Vatuja-agama

PV-Mw-jich. i

y»pn<tfti'igf<8 mmS'HWHH, i

IWWqfaftttittld. I

“Hear from me in brief the characteristics of Siva, who is Love,
Siva transcends all things, is Subtle, Eternal, Omnipresent*
Void of decay, incorruptible, incomparable, Immeasurable and
Void of pains. It is called Sivam being pure. It is ParatDara.
transcending all great things ; Being subtler than ether it is
■Snkshma ; Having nothing for its source or cause, it is Nitya.
Being present everywhere it is Sarvaga. Being void of decay
it is called Avyaya. Not being bound by Mala, it is Incorrupt.
There being nothing that can equal it, it is called Anaupama.
As it cannot be measured, it is Aprameya.”

(To be continued.)

A. R.

Ml

SIDOHANTA DCEP1KA.

A NEW MANUAL OF ASTROLOGY *

There is no doubt that the study of astrology has been
making rapid strides for some years past, through the labours of
specialists who are successfully building on the researches of
the ancients. Many students may not fail to remember the
sensation produced last year when Mons. Pierre Piobb brought
out his annotated translation, in French, of Robert Fludd’s
“TraitC D’Astrologie GCnprale", a work which is weighty in
every sense of the word. Its Publisher Mons. H. Daragon now
presents us with a copy of the dainty, neat, newly-written volume
of Mons. A. de Thyane on the subject of practical astrology.
It is, as its name indicates, an essentially working manual
summing up the substance of astrology in about a hundred
pages. The author would appear to have been a keen votary
of the science for a long number of years, and bas, in conse-
quence, been able to do full justice to his performance by draw-
ing on his rich store of knowledge based on his varied, personal
experience, which is so useful and expedient in developing an
empirical science like astrology. Before we can formulate
a law in astrology, it is necessary to subject our conclusions to
a rigid process of practical testing in the light of a number of
known instances. In this manner we gradually get over the
purely experimental, hypothetical or tentative stage, and pass
into the domain of scientific certainty. Later on we become
absolutely certain of our readings. The exact significance of the
planets Uranus-and Neptune is becoming known day by’ day,
and in a few years every factor of uncertainty regarding them
will have become things of the past. Mons. A. de Thyane
explains to the reader, without reserve or obscurity, every import-
ant point connected with the horoscope, its component parts,

its casting and its judgment, and winds up with a pointed

conside ration of the important themes, to wit, health and disease,

• A de Thyane: Petit Manuel pratique d’Astrologie ; H. Daragon,
Editeur, 96 — 98, Rue Blanche, Paris (IX°) ; 1909 ; pp. 108 ; r Franc.

m

A NEW MANUAL OF ASTROLOGY.

223

the hyleg, riches, love and marriage, children, friends and enemies,
travel, profession and honour. There is a specially compiled
astrological glossary at the end of the book, which should, Surely,
prove useful to beginners in astrology, for whom the book is,
presumably, primarily intended. On the whole we should say
the book is exceedingly clear, concise and. full, as far as the
judgment from the Radix is concerned, though we regret to
find that the author has omitted to delineate the influence
of Neptune, when posited in different signs and houses and whefi
in aspect to other planets, on the score that its significante is un-
certain and not yet properly made out. We think, on the othef
hand, that the Neptunian influence in a given horoscope is as
nearly clear as that of any other planet, and we affirm so, from
a firsthand experience of many nativities. On p. 70, in line 1,
there is an error which should be corrected ('Satume dans le
Llort’ must have been “Satume dans le Capricorne’). ThC
question bf “directions ’ is not tackled at all, and the author
assigns the following reasons for such a procedure (p. lot}:— ,

“ 1. Parce que la place nous manquait.
i. Parce qde c’est la partie moins sore de toute l’astrologie

et pent-ctre faut-il se rejouir qu’il en soil alnsl.

3. Parce qu’elle offre des difficultes trop grandes pour les
commen9ants."

We do not know whether the first can be advanced aS a
legitimate reason at all, but, with the third we may, in a measure,
agree, though from the second we are obliged to totally dissent,
as it all depends upon the system of ‘directing’ which the
practitioner cares to adopt. “ Primary directions” as taught by
Simmohite and Pearce yield the best results, and yet the
astrologer cannot be too wary in ‘ rectifying ’ the horoscope so
as to arrive at the true Ascendant without which they can be
but of small avail.

V.V. R.

6

NOTES ANl» COMMENTS.

The following Communication under the heading, “ The
Saiva Religion and §aiva Advaita Siddhinta Philosophy,”
appears in Tht Hindu Organ, Jaffna, dated October 27, 1909: —

The above is the tide oi the paper read by Mr. J. M. NaUasvami
Filial B. A, B. L., the ardent worker in the cause of the Siddhinta, before
the convention of Religions at Calcutta. The July Number of the
Siddh&nta Diptld is entirely devoted to the publication of this instructive
article and wbea we were poring through its pages with the rapidity
associated with the short respite after business, the merit of the work
arrested our attention so much so that we resolved to notice its contents
in tlwse col urns for the benefit of our readers.

Time was when our noble religion, the Sana tana Dharma commonly
known as Hinduism took a back seat in the public arena of religious
thought, owing to misinterpretation and misrepresentation on the one
hand and paucity of qualified expositors on the other, but thanks to the
labours of eminent savants of the West and the East, among whom no
doubt there were prejudiced writers too, the tide has changed and with
the recent revival which spread like wild fire following the heels of the
illustrious Svimi Vivekananda of Chicago fame, the religion of our fore-
fathers is once more to the forefront of civilisation, light and leading: The
lank is not yet done Hinduism is a general name for all religious
thoughts having for their basis the sacred Vedas and, broadly speaking,
we have the Dvaita school — dualists who emphatically assert the sepa-
rata existence of God and Soul ; Viaishtadvaita school — qualified non-
dualists who postulate a closer relationship emphasising on the special
qualities of Paiam ; the Kevala Advaita mcnists who believe in the one
universal Atman; and the Suddha Advaita — pure non-dualists who explain
that Advaita is not one, nor two, but non-dual, non-separateness, ananya.
The several aspects of the question have been discussed by great Achar-
yas — Masters — Madhva, Ramanuja, Sankara and Snkaptha respectively,
and what has been before the educated world under the name of Vedanta
la the monistic school of Saiikaricharya. Among these the exposition of Sri
Nllahaptha is the oldest, and the least known to the English-knowing peo-
ple apd it, the NUakaptha Bhishyam, is the accepted authority of the £ai-
vites as establ i s h i n g the truth, the true end, the Siddhanta of the Advaita-

NOTES AND DOMMENTS. 22f

This phase of thought whichi clears many a knotty point met with
in the Others schools of philosophy, and offers a practical religion to suit the
various stages and conditions of man has yet to be held up before the
world as the common basis of the different systems of philosophy, as the
oldest living faith having Love as its central doctrine, and as the higest
pinnacle towering above all the rest, with no contemptuous disregard of
them, but with the ladder-way of Love inviting them to a higher stand-
point, for a larger perspective. Much of the Siddhanta Literature, though
made available to the Tamil-knowing people, remains a sealed book to
others and much more is still in old (palm-leaf) manuscripts, piled up in the
Adhinoms in India, at the mercy of rats and white-ants. If, in this enlight-
ened age, efforts are not made to bring this store of knowledge within
the reach of all, what may become of it in the future, and what the future
generations will say as regards our responsibility in the matter, are
worthy of our serious thought.

We do not hesitate to say that Mr. Nallasvami Piljai was urged by
such serious considerations, while he embarked on his mission of love,
in translating and publishing works on the Siddhanta, and in conducting
the valuable journal called the Siddhanta Dipika, with great self-
sacrifice and perseverance. To the few books in English on the Siddhanta,
we understand, another important work is shortly to be added in the transla-
tion of Sri Nilakapjha Bhashyam on the Vedanta Sutras. It is our earnest
hope that others will join him in this field of work, and earn the thanks of
their co-religionists and all seekers after Truth.

Though all the works of this writer are, by magnitude and contents,
worthy of long and careful study, none is so remarkable i as the paper now
before us for its conciseness, and clear statements of the salient points, and
for the author's depth of thought and breadth of view. After dwelling
on the antiquity of fsaivism as testified to by the hymns of the Rig and
Yajur Vedas, he quotes amply from the Upanishats to show that it was
the predominant religion of the past, and that the ritirais of the Vedic
sacrifices conducted according to the Brahmanas were modified into the
more spiritual worship carried on in the temples according to the Agamas,
the mantras being the same in both cases. The quotation from the Ken a
Upanishat, where our Mother Uma instructs Indra and other gods (devas
—the celestials) about the greatness of Brahman, strengthens the position
and the inner meaning of Tripuradahanam, Dakshayagam, Tirukkalyapam
etc, throwing further light on the point The true relation of the PurOgM

SiDDHANTA DEIPIKA.

aa&

.pd It ilum as popular commentaries on the Vedas and Upanjshats is
and the Bhagmvat Glti, one of the three principal book* (Pra-
atbanatrava) of the northern schools of Vedanta, is shown to be an epitome
of the Svettcvatara Upanishat quoted by the southern school, specially
Iptown as the Siddhanta. We ace then led into Modem &aivism and the
moteric meaning of temple worship, followed by an exposincn of the attri-
bute* of God (Patilakshajpa). The doctrines of Grace and Love, of Jfcnafakti
apd. MAvicakti. and of the Anavamala and Gurudiksha, are briefly explain-
-a, ami we an treated to a discussion ot the true meaning of Advaiia and
the nature of the soul : and this is fallowed by a brief notice of the practi-
cal aspect of £aivism which is shown to be an Eclectic Philosophy and an
Universal Religion, bringing itself into agreement with every shade of
thought in the vast held of Religion and Philosophy.

Those who are ignorant of the true spirit of Saivism and charge it
with fostering caste and rituals, would do well to remember that the
higher aspect of it is yet unknown to them and what they are fa miliar with
are the abuses of frail humanity in spite of the teachings and warnings of
tW-ir Masters. It is &aivisra that has canonised chaodalas. erected temples
for them and offers warship at their feet as they would to God Himself.
“A chaotjtla though a person is, if he utters the name of Siva, converse
with him, live with him, dine with him" is the teaching of Saivism and
our Saint Tirun&vukkarafu Swami emphatically declares that if a
devotee of our Lard is found even among the beef-eating, dirty, deformed
and diseased /ariaAs, be is the God to be worshipped by us.

The few Western scholars, clergymen to boot, who had the opportu-
nity: of studying the Siddhanta have expressed their admiration, and among
tbps* spa to-be found Rev. Dr. Pope, Rev. Goodwill, Rev. Goudie whose
o pin i on s are quoted in the paper. We sincerely hope that every English-
s d u c j f ad Sajvite will read and study this paper carefully, as a first course,
in ader to understand the pre-eminence of his religion, to follow the Right
P*Jth to Sayujya and to be thankful to the Gracious Lard far letting him be
bam in the Rel i g ion of Truth — the £aiva Siddhanta. After his researches
into all the ioast r as, he will surely say with us that it is equally good, as
the last course.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

217

Tfe Rosicrucians or Brothers of the Rosy «vom aifc am at
olass of mystic closely allied to the Agantfntic orders of the
"■Rasayana school ” of mystics. We are glad to be able t» fur-J
nish our Readers with a few excerpts from Uargave lenmngsc
wonderful book, “ The Rosicrucians : Their Rites »nd Myste-
ries.” The quotations we offer bear particular relation to tflw
teachings of the Brotherhood on Creation, Alchemy, Music; etc :

“The Rosicrucians, through the revelations concerning them of tbeic
celebrated English representative, Robertus de Fluctibus, 01 Robert Fludd;
declare, in accordance with the Mosaic account. of creation — which, they
maintain, is in no instance to be taken literally, but metaphorically, — that
two original principles, in the beginning, proceeded from the Divine Father.
These are Light and Darkness, or form or idea, and matter or plasticity.

“ The Rosicrucians held that, all things visible and invisible having,
been produced by the contention of light and darkness, the earth has dense- -
ness in its innumerable heavy concomitants downwards; and they canton
less and less of the original divine light as they thicken and solidify tbei
grosser and heavier in matter. They, taught, nevertheless, that every object
however stifled or delaved in its operation, and darkmnd and thickened in
the solid blackness at the base, yet contains a certain, possible deposit, m
jewel, of light — which light, although by natural process it may take ages,
tp evolve, as light will tend at last by its owm native, irresistible force
upward (when it has opportunity), can be liberated; that dead, matter
will yield this spirit in a space more or less expeditious by thmatt of the
alchemist There are worlds within worlds— we, human organisms, only
living in a deceiving, or Buddhistic, ‘dreamlike phase' of the grand pa n o r am a .
Unseen and unsuspected (because in it lies magic), there is an inner
magnetism, or divine aura, or ethereal spirit, or possible eager fire, shut and
confined, as in a prison, in the body, or in all sensible solid objects, which
have more or less of spiritually sensitive life as they can more successfully
free themselves from this ponderable, material obstruction.

“Now a few words as to the theory of alchemy. The alch e m i sts
boasted of the power, after the elimination and dispersion of the ultimate
elements of bodies by fire (represented by tbe absent difference of their
weights before and after their dissolution), to recover them back out of
that exterior, unkn own world surrounding this world : which world man
reason against as if it had no existence, when it has real existence ; and

Mt

STOOHANTA DCEPIKA.

hi which tjwy were in ignorance in their * Pre-State,' as they will be
(pwtwpe »l«" in ignorance) in their * After-State.’ It is this other world
(jwt off this real world) into which the Rosicrucians say they can enter,
•pd brim back, as proofs that they have been there, the old things
(thought escaped), metamorphosed into new things. This act is tramsmm-
tf— This product is magic gold or 1 fairy gold,' condensed as real gold.
This growing gold, or self-generating and multiplying gold, is obtained by
hrrisibk trasnutatioo (and in other light) in another world out of this
world; immaterial to us creatures of limited faculties, but material enough,
farther on, oo the heavenly side, or on the side opposite to our human side.
In other words the Rosicrucians claim not to be bound by the limits of the
present world, but to be sble to pass into this next world (inaccessible
only in appearance), and to be able to work in it, and to come back safe
(and self-same) out of it, bringing their trophies with them, which were
«*«. obtained out of this master-circle, or outside elementary circle,
d ifc i a l from ordinary life, though enclosing it ; and the elixir vita, or the
of the renewal or the perpetuation of human life through this
•reversal immortal medicine, or magisterial*, which, being a portion of the
light outside, or magic, or breath of the spirits, fleeing from man, and only
to ha woe in the audacity of God-aided alchemic exploration, was inde-
pendent of those mastered natural elements, or nutritions, necessary to
redinary common Life.

“ The Roocrucian Cabala teaches that the three great worlds above
— Empymm, ALthenrum, and Elementary Region — have their copies in
Are three points of the body of man : that his head answers to the first ;
his breast, or heart, to the second ; and his ventral region to the third.

“ The fallowing is a fair view of the Rosicrucian theory concerning
mtnic. The whole world is taken as a musital instrument ; that is, a
chromatic, sensible instrument The common axis or pole of the world
celestial is intersected — where this superior diapason, or heavenly concord
re chord, is divided — by the spiritual sun, or centre of sentience. Every
has a little spark (sun) in his own bosom. Time is only protracted
cooreioaBness, because there is no world out of the mind conceiving it
Earthly music is the faintesttraditioo of the angelic state; it remains in the
Bind of man as the dream of, and the sorrow for, the lost paradise. Music
is yet master of the man’s emotions, and therefore of the man.”

OUR BOOK-SHELF.

The following Exchanges have been received since the
publication of our last number : —
i. Reason. Nov. 1909.

а. The Hindu Spiritual Magazine. Nov. 1909.

3. The Brahmavadin, Decern. 1909.

4. The Maha-Bodhi and the United Buddhist World, Decem.1909.

5. Modern Astrology. Nov. 1909; Decem. 1909.

б. The Critic, 9th Decem. 1909.

7. Theosophy in India, Nov. 1909; Dec. 1909.

8. The Open Court, Nov. 1909.

9. The Theosophist, Decem. 1909.

10. The Vegetarian Magazine, Aug. 1909.

n. Prabuddha Bharata, Nov. 1909,

12. The Health Record, Nov. 1909.

13. The Public, Oct. 29, Nov. 5, Nov. 12, and Nov. rg, 36 of 1909:

14. The Carlylean, November 2nd Week, 1909.

15. The Indian Nation, Nov. 22, Nov. 29, Dec. 6 and Dec. 13 of 1909.
rfc The Arya Patrika, Nov. 20, Nov. 27, Dec. 4, n.and 18, of 1909.

17. The Harbinger of Light, Dec. 1909.

18. The Hindu Organ, Nov. 24, Dec. 1, 8, 13 and 22 of 1909.

19. rnparih, Dec. i and 15, of 1909.

20. C«»ir*ijsr*-6u«r, Dec. 11, 1909.

21. Slifinjir, Nov. 27 and Dec. 11 and 25, of 1909.

22. (gifiGiiJirf iuii (L'Aurore) Nov. 28, 1909.

23. The Theist Nov. 1909.

24. The Indian Student, Nov. 1909.

35. Krishna Sulcti, October 1909.

36. Industrial India, September. 1909.

37. The Astrological Magazine, Septem. 1909.

39. Q&ipiAyi, sir.rfifiaosuP r

39. The Herald of the Golden Age, October 1909.

30. The Trained Teacher, Dec. 1909.

31. The Kalpaka, Dec. 1909.

33. Luzac's Oriental list and Book Review, July — Aug. 1909.

33. The Oriental Mystic Magaznie, Dec. 19C9.

»J0

SIDEMANTA DEEP1KA.

The following books are awaiting Review

u, f. NMjnw Aiyysr. On Vidyls, with apsdal reference to Shnjafa-
kaU-poruaha-Vidyl, 1909.

5. Pandit R. S. VedAchalam. Winter Lectures on tha Philosophy of

Seiva-Siddhinta and Raja-yoga, 1906.

y A. Porte Da Trait Das Agee. L'EnvoOtement (Hatoira d'Uha
aoggewkn), 1908.

4. Dr. Phil. Wilhelm Jahn. Das SaurapurEgam, Eia Kompeadiian
apatindischer Kultur-gaschichte and das Sivaloniia 1908.

j. L' Anuta llnguistique Publiie sons las auspices de la Socittt da
Phikdogia, Tome III 1905 — 1907, 1908,

6. Vox Stallarum or Moore's Almanac for 1910, 1909.

7. Ptolemy's Teaabibios or Quadripartite, by J, M. Aahmand, 189&

8. Zaita ahr ift der Deutsches Morgan! Sndiachea Gesellschaft, Acbtar

Band, IV Heft, 1834.

9. Dr. Paul Deusaan. DU nachvadiaehe PhilasophU der lndST, 1908,

10. C V. SvSminaths Aiyyar. God ward Ho! A Symposiums.

11. Julian Vinson. Le premier vocabularie tamoul iroprimS, pp. 7; 1909.

t THE

| LIGHT OF TRUTH

OB THE

SIDDHANTA DiPlKA

A Monthly Journal devoted to the Starch for Truth at revealed in the
Ancient Hindu Mystic Philosophy known as Saiva-Siddkauta or Agamlata.

VOL. X. JANUARY, 1910. No. 7.

THE NEW YEAR.

This is a year of grave significance in many respects.
There is no doubt that a new wave of spiritual quickening has
begun to flood the West, and counter-breakers are already in
evidence in this hallowed land of the Agamas and the Vedas in
response to it. Levi's Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ may
be said to be the first fruits of the spiritual harvest which the
West is reaping. More fruits are in store and await a good
knowledge of the Saivagatnas, which, we feel sure, will alter the
entire face of the Western conceptions of spirit, soul and matter.
The Translation of the immortal Saiva-bhashya of Sri-NUa-
kaqtha Si vacharya, on the Sariraka Sutras of Badaiayaqa,
which we will shortly put forth, will prove the first formal
introduction to a competent study of the Agamas, since in the
exhaustive and illuminative notes that accompany that Transla-
tion it will be our strenuous endeavour not only to expound the
God-taught verities voiced forth by the Agamas, but also to
furnish the reader with a florilegium of extracts from those
Books of Light, serving the purpose of a holy anthology for
the spiritual-minded in search of God.

On January 11th, 1910, at the time of new moon, when the
sun is within an ace of the sign Malura of the Hindu Zodiac 1 ,

SDOHJbfTA DiPIKA.

« 3 »

we find Man and Satum at the beginning, Neptune at 90*.
Jupiter at 180*. and the Sun, Moon and Uranus at 2/0*, of the
same Zodiac. A configuration such as the above is exceedingly
significant, especially when we remember that for a repetition
of the phenomenon in the heavens, in the past or future, a period
of ten thousand yean at least must be turned over. A great
spiritual out-pouring is thus very clear on or about January
nth 1910, and, if we may depend on our intuition, the awe-inspir-
ing configuration points to some palpable Divine Interference
ushering in the appearance of a special "Apostle of God ”, a
fsiva-nishfha, in the words of §ri Nilakanfha Sivicharya, to
bring about a reclamation of sin-tossed souls. On this God-
voicing date we have begun the printing of the Translation of
the Saiva-bh&shya, praying for the blessings of God on our
undertaking. As is well known, spiritual quickening is always
accompanied by material disasters of which the planets give
large indications in the present year in a number of ways. As
we have no time to discuss, on this occasion, all the factors of
Mundane Astrology and Astro-meteorology, we shall confine
our attention to a fevg salient features.

The Sun’s Capricomal Ingress occurs in Madras on Decem-
ber 22, 1909, at 4' 1 40" 59" p . m ., 17*20' of Gemini rising on the
eastern horizon. The ingress occurs at 5 b 13 1 " 20" p.u., in
Calcutta, Gemini 29*20’ rising. The ruler of the scheme in both
the places is Mercury who occupies the 7th house in Calcutta
and is about to leave the same in Madras. In Madras, Pisces 9*
occupies the meridian and its ruler Jupiter is in the 5th house,
receiving the quartile aspects of Uranus and Mercury from the
«tb, the oppositions of Mars and Saturn from the 1 ith, and the
quartile of Neptune in the 2nd. The only good points are the
trines of Venus and Ascendant to which Jupiter is applying.
Mercury is applying to the conjunction of Uranus and the oppo-
sition of Neptune, and about to form a square with Mars and
Saturn. But the£un is just getting clear ot a trine with the
Moon in the nth. Public mortality of a strange, sudden and

THE NEW YEAR.

233

■ extraordinary character, such as explosions and accidents, fevers
rand eruptive diseases will be only too common, and the hand
> of Death might, if we correctly understand the planetary indica-
tions, be conspicuously laid on the servants, friends and advisers
of Government, which God forbid ! Commercial firms may have
■ a bad time of it with their finance, and there may be a fall in
the public revenue, or a drain thereon. Deaths a long school-
j going and college-going population and sensation-hunters oif
j every description will be rather prominent. Unhealthy debates
j in the legislative council leading to much stirring of bad blood
and bitterness of feeling may not improbably happen. Railway
j servants and Postal officials might be put to much worry and
| trouble for lack of sympathetic treatment at the hands of their
! superiors, and some changes in the administration of these two
I departments will prove disquieting to both the public and the
j employes. Some changes in the educational system might be
i inaugurated by the Government, which would be hotly contest-
} ed by the public as well as the advisory council' of Government,

; and eventually put on one side. The trine of Moon to Sun
| points, however, to the Government’s accession to the wishes of
the public after a measure of hesitancy and tandying of words.

The conjunction of Mars and Saturn occurs in Aries 16*27'
39" at Madras on 29th December, 1909, at o h 22 m 29* Noon,
j The Sign Aries rises, with Saturn and Mars skirting the Ascen-
I dant. The entire scheme looks exceedingly ominous, mostly
j partaking of the character of horrid and untimely and violent
! deaths among public servants and the people in general, very
j poor crops for the agriculturists and public sickness of an
I inflammatory type. Some very high functionary of Govern-
ment may have a sad accident which might in all probability
cost him his life. May the All-Merciful God intervene and ward
off the calamities ! Though, according to an old aphorism, the
red planet is held to presage success when in the Ascendant and
Aries, we cannot shut our eyes to the exceedingly malevolent
configurations which considerably detract from the strength of

mdt«*nta Kim*.

Mars. Journalists, Publishers and Printers may be treated
without consideration by the Government, if they give even the
least offence. The configurations point, in fact, to a few being
dragged rightly or wrongly into the throes of painful criminal
prosecutions and severely dealt with. Altogether, the whole
situation is hardly encouraging from a worldly point of
view and we hope the great God sends such miseries to the
people at large lor their spiritual edification in the long run, for
thur becoming “dead to the World" at heart and in truth.

Our readers may not have been unaware of the change for
the better, which we have been slowly endeavouring to intro-
duce into our Journal, for sometime past. It will be our system-
atic endeavour to bring to the notice of our readers the invalu-
able treasures hidden within those encyclopaedic monuments
of Light and Wisdom, called the Divyigamas or Saivagamas
whose verses, all told, count, according to the great Nijagutja-
Sivayogi, to 20,100,010,193,844,000. The KamikSgama puts
the number of verses at 1,011,000,008,000,000,193,344^(00. The
number given by the V&tulagama and the Kanupagama ap-
proximate to that of the Karaika. As regards the paramount
spiritual supremacy and the exceedingly holy character of the
Saivagamas, we have a great deal to say, but we reserve it
for a future number of this Journal, although for the fullest
treatment of the whole theme, we must refer our readers to the
notes that we are appending to our Translation of the §aiva-
bhashya, the printing of which has, as we already remarked,
been begun.

Peace be to all deings t

THE EDITOR.

THE LATE SV'AMl DHARMANANDA MAHABHARATI.

It is indeed with much regret 1 have to record the death of
Svami Dharmananda Mahabharati, which sad event occurred on
December 14th 1909 at his residence 23/1, Sitaram Ghose’s
Street, Calcutta, quite unexpectedly, whilst he was engaged in
conversation with some of his relatives, who are now residing in
Calcutta. He was truly a man of the religion of faith, love
and works. His pen has rendered invaluable services to liengali
language and literature. He was the contributor-in-chief to
the Bengali Magazines, Reviews, and Periodicals. There was
something always original, something charming, something
devotional, and something fascinating in his articles. The first
volume of his Bengali Essays, embraces a wide range of subjects,
— to wit, history, biography, philology, theology, literature and
travels. He had travelled over Europe, America, Australia,
Japan, Siam, China, Turkey, Persia, Burma, Ceylon and many
other countries. He was conversant with many languages.
His “Siddhanta Samudra " is a complete social history of
the origin, growth, migration and gradual development of all
Hindu castes and sub-castes, from the highly dignified Brahmans
down to the neglected Chandalas and Chamars and is pregnant
with profundity in thoughts, original researches and real insight
into the minds of Indian Sages.

He has translated St. Paul’s Epistles to the Hebrews, into the
Bengali language. When I last had occasion to see him, he
informed me that he had two other publications in hand, one, a
text-book which was to be given me, for the use of students of a
Universal Brotherhood, which I had in my mind, and another, on
the six or seven hundred different languages in the world : which
two books, the Svami informed me were complete and awaited
publication. If these will ever see the light of day, 1 cannot say.
The room in which he lived is padlocked, and the land-lord
awaits a “duly qualified and attested ” party to take possession
of the Svami’s property.

STDOHANTA DlPlI/t.

I can do no belter, however, in dosing this little notice of
one whom 1 much respected, admired and loved, than by quot-
ing the following from his Book, "Tht Yogi and Hit Mtssagt ”
which lies here on my table and which I very frequently read:

The Christians have rejected, and do still reject, the sacred
books of the Hindus, hut let us honour their Dharma-iastra,
the Bible, which is the Message of Christ”.

“This wonderful book was written by inspired men, who
were moved by the Holy Spirit of God. Indeed it is a message
of God unto thee. On his death-bed, Sir Walter Scott wanted
to have a portion of the Bible read out to him, and he asked his
son-in-law to bring * The book from the library shelf ’. His
son-in-law, not knowing which of the books he meant by Tht
Book, asked him to name it, and the great Sir Walter Scott
said ‘The Bible is The Only Book for a dying man.’ My
friends, I say, read and comprehend this wonderful book. We
need to read the Bible and to search it and to study it. Verily,

1 find that this book is filled with sanctifying power to my own
soul, and that it is the word of God to the lost and perishing.
The Bible may only be to you, a book for exercise of dialectic
skill, but to me it is sacred — even the Word of God. My friends,
read and know, search and study. The Bible is the holy and
divine message of the most perfect Yogi — the highest Jewish
Yogi, even Christ Jesus of Israel.”

It may interest you, dear reader, to know that, when I had
occasion to ask the Svami what his religion was, he pointed to
the picture of Christ, which was in lront of him on the wall, and
to an elegantly-bound copy of a Reference Bible, which was
always by his side on a table, and which he said he used to read
' always ’ ! Such was his belief, and 1 verily believe, that though
a ‘Hindu of Hindus,' as he slid he was, yet "he was a true
Christian of Christians,” too! — R.l.P.

M. C. R.

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

(Concluded from page ig8 of No. 6, Vol. X.)

All the above six characteristics are to be found in all
genuine cases of “ sanctification ” or “ saintliness,” and who so
f| passes for a Jnini in whom they are not to be seen, is either a
j clever impostor, a self-deluded charlatan, or, perhaps, an intellec-
! tual crank. The author’s observations on the generally prevail-
ing fallacy amongst Hindus regarding the capabilities of those
who have attained to Atma-darsanam are worth reproduction :

“ It does not follow that when a man has attained to this state of
consciousness he knows all about the universe, and he r an do anything he
likes. On the contrary, as there are vast differences between one man
of self-consciousness and another, between a savage and a Gladstone or
a Herbert Spencer, so there will be differences between those who have
attained cosmic consciousness. They all possess the potentiality of higher
powers, but the powers manif ested are as varied as can be imagined.
But just as man, however savage, is far removed from the most highly
developed animal, so a person who has had this cosmic sense is similarly
very far removed from an ordinary man of self-consciousness."

And Dr. Bucke also says in his ‘ Cosmic Consciousness’ :

j

“ Given a world peopled with men having cosmic consciousness they
would vary in the way of greater and less intellectual ability and greater
and less moral and spiritual elevation, and also in the way of variety oi
character more than would the inhabitants of a planet on a plane of self-
consciousness. Within the plane of cosmic consciousness one man shall
be a god, while another shall not be, to casual observation, lifted so very,
much above ordinary humanity, however much his inward life may he
exalted, strengthened and purified by the new sense. But as the self-
conscious man (however degraded) is in fact almost infinitely above the
animal with merely Simple consciousness, so any man permanently
endowed with the cosmic sense would be almost infinitely higher
and nobler than a man who is self-conscious merely. And not only so,
but the man who has had the cosmic sense for even a few moments only
will probably never again descend to the spiritual level of the merely eelf-
conscious man; but twenty, thirty or forty years afterwards be will still

*

SimiA-NTA DiPIKA.

• 3 *

M within bin the paHyiaf, (tr—gtbeouig and exalting effect of that
dmoe ill am— bop, tod many of tbaae about him wiO recognise that hi*
tpintml Pat— a ia above that of the average man".

The variations between soul and soul even after sanctifica-
l—n are due to the degree of spiritual culture in the case of
each. There are degrees and degrees of sanctification recognised
by the §aivigamas, and the degree of sanctification on which
Mr. Nailjuoda Rao dwells with such fervour and emphasis is only
Atma^arianam, the fifth kirya of the daia-karyani. Bhumika
after Bhumika rises to view as the mumukshu progresses with his
inward * triumphs,’ and what seems permanent and absolute for
him as his real experience at one stage may suddenly give place
to a different bkumiki, when the past reality will pale into a
chimera. It is a grave error to suppose that the sort of consci-
ousness which goes by the name of "cosmic consciousness" is the
be-all and end-all of conscious existence. Beyond the plane of the

— called “cosmic consciousness", the Jftanis of India recognise

— (acts of actual experience five more planes which are resolva-
ble into seventeen states of consciousness. As the soul gets
isolated more and more from its entanglements of corruption, it
certainly grows purer and purer, able to see the Glory of God
with clearer and clearer vision. A man with a cataract in l.is
eye b certainly much inferior to a man with normal vision :
but tbe man with normal vision is transcended by one who has
developed nocturnal vision. Thus the decortication or eedysis
of tbe soul will go on from plane to plane revealing new modes
or phases of consciousness and novel “ powers ” and “ graces ”
of the spirit, but we must beware lest we dogmatise with the
•paring knowledge placed at our disposal by the truly
"Anointed ” of tbe Lord. This “cosmic consciousness" alias
Atraa-darSanam is the only sort of subjective experience which
tbe ordinary run of Illuminati care to speak about, can
intelligibly explain or da attain. The vestments of corruption
arhicb the soul wean are not, all of them, doffed, even when it
transcends the Seventeen states of consciousness mentioned

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

*39

above. It is then relatively very pure, so pure indeed that its
field of vision is almost full. But it has got only to the end of
the “ Rclad of Matter ” (= TattvUdhvin of the AgamSnta). The
most subtle film of rarest matter, albeit hyaline and radiant,
stands yet between the soul and God, but a further course of
ecdysis along the “ Bridge,” the “ Road of Inscrutable Fusion
between Matter and Spirit,” the KalOdhvan, is necessary. The
allurements of that Glorious Pilgrimage are so ravishingly plea-
sant and enduring that even some of the most advanced souls
love to linger along the “Bridge” mindless of their Bourne. But
the Grace of the Lord soon redeems them taking them unto His
own Bosom. Now the soul has reached its “Mother's Womb” and
rightly can it exclaim in the words of Job 1 , “Naked came I from
my Mother’s Womb, and naked shall I return Thither.” Yes,
naked shall we return, as every one of us must stand naked
before the Lord! The “ Cosmic Consciousness ” of Bucke,
Carpenter and others which Mr. Nanjmjda Rao equates with the
final contemplated by the Vedantic Jnanis, is only “ sighting
the soul ” through “ Matter" of a more rarified quality. The Para-
prakriti (=Mahamaya) which is so lustrous and transparent in its
sheen and so enduring in its delicious form, nay, “so near to God”
as to transmit His glory without the flaws of the mOla-prakriti,
that a man to whom that bhumika is newly revealed, will swear
by everything that he holds sacred and dear, to have seen the
Real Plane of Light. And yet the plane of Para-prakfiti is matter,
pure and simple, though of an exceedingly subtle and refined
nature, while the plane of “ Cosmic Consciousness” which is the
goal of the turiya-franava-yoga contemplated in many of the
Upanishats is decidedly much inferior to that plane of Para-?
prakriti .*

1 Job I, 21.

’ Mr. P. Ramanathan {Soul Culture, p. 98) is right whan he says that
there are only two fundamental experiences of human nature, viz., know
ledge of soul, and knowledge of God, and that after atta inm ent of the latter,
there is nothing more to attain here or else where. But those fnndnmrnttt
experiences are moat often, if not nearly always, (pottfaei (of teat
2

sidwiAvta niPiKA.

Again Mr. NafijinjiJa Rao associates ' black magic’ with the
« powers of the spirit", which is obviously due to a misapprehen-
sion. The “ powers of tho spirit,” devolve, under the gracious
will of the Lord, on the various “dominions”, “principalities" etc.,
which constitute the different “services” in the celestial hierarchy.
The souls appointed to them are known as BhuvanSdhipatis,
Andidhipatis, Brahma, Vishpu and soon. The various degrees
of sanctification have as their God-ordained prizes, tlie various
“powers of the spirit”, and the “graces of the spirit” gain also in
purity and lustre as one climbs higher and higher up the ladder
of 'sanctification'. • Black Magic' and 'Occult Phenomena’ are
the work of matter in its grossest form, of the ocean of mOla-
pmknti that is lashed into fury by a storm ot gunas. The Lord,
sometimes, delegates His own “ powers of the spirit” to chosen
souls, for special work, but such instances are not very common.

Chapter V is styled “ Methods of attainment ” in which the
the author freely quotes from RSrmkrishtja Paramahamsa’s

.ratal experiences, but the mistake is certainly found at last, if the soul
instead « resting on its laurels continues its spiritual conquests. Step by
step, tne more real proves to be the less real, and every time a novel ex-
perience intro locates and deluges the soul, it gains in knowledge and wis-
dom and learns to look upon its past asseverations with dismay and
shame, fesus truly said, “ In my Father's House are Many Mansions'*.
Mr. Edward Carpenter ( from Adams Ptak to Eltpkanta, p. 160) remarks
with considerable insight that the plane of Cosmic Consciousiess might
roly be the outermost approaches of a boundless realm enshrining incom-
prehensible glories, and that, when we get inured to its conditions, we will
ae also the troubles connected with it. A blind man when bis sight is
resteed is overjoyed at day -light. After a time day-light proves a common-
place having its sweets and bitters, although day-light is, on all hands,
superior to darkness ; again, when the sexual sense first dawns in man be
fads he has come by a priceless source of bliss, goes to shrieks over the
carnal felicity to which it contributes, and thinks that the only happiness
worth striving after is its cultivation and gratification at any cost. Gra-
dually, the ot j^wn of sexual congress proves a tame affair, though, as a plea-
aematkxk, it is jd^cod at the top of the group of corpoeal sweets.

COSMIC COXSCIOUSNKSS. *4t'

“ Dialogues ” to give the reader a few hints on the subject. In
effect, Ramakrishna says, “ Thou mayest see God if thy
love for him is as strong as the three attachments put together,
viz., the attachment of a worclly man to things of the world, the
attachment of the mother to her child, and the attachment of a
chaste and devoted wife to her husband.” The conditions
which precede attainment are thus summed up in the words
of James' “The Varieties of Religious Experience”:

“ There must be in the seeker a complete loss of consolation from
things wordly and an intense and incessant longing to get peace and
attain grace. It is only when such a longing amounts tc madness, and
the person has no other desire but to see his God and attain grace and
when the intensity of his longing has reached white-heat that the threshold
is gained. And then when he feels his utter incapacity to reach the state
himself, and gives up the attempt, the veil is rent asunder and he sees
face to face the object of his search and attains heaven."

The above observations strongly remind us of the phenome-
non known as Sakti-nifiuia to the Agamic Mystics. The "exer-
cises in godliness” preparatory to “spiritual communion” are the
special province of the Yoga-pada of the Agamas, and nowhere
else in the whole range of mystic literature do the methods of
attaining God-Consciousness (=Siva-bhoga) find such a graduat-
ed elaboration, agreeably to the varying conditions of the human
soul. The author inclines to the view that emotional devotion is
the easiest and surest way <,f finding God, and bewails the lack of
that element amongst the Theosophists. He makes some serio-
comic remarks on the pranayama school of self-deluded Yogis,
on the book-learning evinced by the Fellows of the Theosophical
Society seeking for a knowledge of the Invisible Helpers, the three
bodies, the five kosas and the seven * sheaths' of man and the several
planes beginning with the ‘Astral’, on the pet lines of discoursing
adopted by Blavatsky, Olcott and Besant, and the confusing
differences that divide them. He emphasises the importance of
ceremonial bhajanas as an incentive to bhaktj, and advises the
Theosophists to adopt them. He go'-s further and adds that “the

SIOOHANTA DitMKA.

U»

Tbeosophical teachers do not show by their lectures and writings
the attainment of cosmic consciousness or liberation as described
in the foregoing pages, and illustrated by the lives and the words
of saints and sages of all religions." All that we can say to this
remark of the author is that it is hardlyt^uiie deserved especially
as he must remember that the present President of the Theosophi-
cal Society, Mrs. Annie Besant, is as good a student of Janies,
Bucke, Strabuck, Jacob Boehme, and the rest, as all of us put
together, that the same James, whom our author adores,
characterises her as a "high-souled woman”,* that, in her
remarkable books, "A study in Consciousness” and "Theosophy
and New Psychology ”, she shows a profound grasp of the
propositions propounded by James, that she herself recommends
elsewhere a study of James’ “The varieties of Religious
Experience ” to which the author is under great obligation
for his ideas and even modes of expression, and that her creed
is merely an extension of James’ propositions, and nothing
else. There is nothing, in all that the author has endeavoured
to say in his book, which runs counter to Mrs. Besant’s position :
on the other hand, some of his statements go to confirm it.
Mrs. Besant will perhaps simply rejoin that the author's Cosmic
Consciousness is merely self-consciousness in relation to a higher
Cosmic Consciousness which again is the same, to a still higher
Cosmic Consciousness, ad infinitum. The doctrine may not please
some mental temperaments, but Mrs. Besant will be positive
ms to its truth, as she always claims, in her own way, to speak
from living gnosis.

Our author deprecates the study of ‘occult chemistry’ ‘the
unseen world’ etc., as being unprofitable for moksha. In our
opinion, a sound application of genuine ‘occult chemistry’ to the
plane of moksha is sure to bear good fruits. It is true that the
human mind prefers simplicity of conception before everything
else. Unfortunately our conceptions do not usually correspond
with facts as they are. It is very refreshing to know that Cosmic

* The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 23.

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

243

■> J Consciousness is our summum bonum, and that, when it is reach*
''a ed, one has gained his purushartha. But the next question is,
"'■4 what is the objective of Cosmic Consciousness ? And then, what
! < ‘ stuff ' is that objective made of? Is the Cosmic Sense*, unaid-
•-'3 ed, fully competent to understand its nature? Will not a
’*• ‘microscopic’ investigation of that objective with a Higher
•s-3 Sense show variety where there is now unity? Can we be
n*’ sure that Cosmic Consciousness is the ne plus ultra of the evolu-
■ v wl tion of Animal Consciousness ? If we believe in the factors
'■ 1 of the psychological evolution of animals, where is the
[r 'i guarantee that Cosmic Consciousness will not be succeeded by
i a higher, yet a still higher, Consciousness ? Where is the proof
snij that animal evolution has stopped or will stop with man-?
■a I What is the relation of the attainment of Cosmic Consciousness
I to the doctrine of metempsychosis ? How does moksha attained
" j by the attainment of Cosmic Consciousness whilst in the flesh
■■r affect the soul’s condition after its bodily death? These are a
1 few of the many questions that assail the mind when we find
| our author dismissing lightly the investigations of the Theoso*
j phists. Nor has the author tackled the equally important
j question whether the mukti obtained by means of Cosmic Cons-
j ciousness, or rather whether the Cosmic Consciousness itself,

I survives the extinction of the body. If the author had taken up
thfe question of the content of the Cosmic Consciousness, and
discussed the relation of that content to the invisible bhuvanas

• It is sometimes said that in the Cosmic Sense there is a “fusion” or
^absence” of Triputi. There is a “dark” fusion in the “laya” stage and a
1 « luminous” fusion in the “jnana” stage, but the Tripuprahitya, both
gind dha and suddha, is experienced in every bbumika worth the name.
There is a gulf of difference between the conditions of Tripuprahitya in
! the laya, j'KSna, Suddha and aSuddha stages, which we cannot stop to explain
i tee. The tripoJirShitya in the jfiana condition, be the triputi Suddha or
! aSuddha, is the climax of the sabdarthajflana of the Jnanayogin’s sam-
j yarfta Hftice the “ Cosmic Consciousness" is never without an “objective”

! in the truest sense, in spite of the * fusion ’ of ‘ subject ’, ‘ object ’ and
| ‘ sensation

SIIHXI.VVTA Dil’IKA.

u*

mentioned in our J fiAna-sistras, the unseen "worlds” and
" planes ” of the Theosophists, and the starry realms that elude
the field of even the most powerf ul telescopes known to man,
and the legions of exceedingly tiny organisms which the best
microscopes are unable to detect, the relation of that content, we
say, to the content of the Consciousness of God, the reason why
that content of the Cosmic Consciousness attained by man
cannot include omnipresence and omniscience in every sense
of the word, even if omnipotence be out of the question,
and such other points, it would have been far better than
merely exposing the follies of Theosophical Students, in their
misled investigation of supra-physical states of “Matter”.
We have to bear in mind, therefore, that though the problem
of the attainment of tlie Cosmic Consciousness is enunciated
in a simple and smooth fashion, its relation to the work of
genuine, experimental occultists has to be thoroughly enquired
into. Are not the physical and the supra-physical worlds
meant for our probation and training ? Will we be worthy
at the ultimate Cosmic Consciousness in the Infinite, without
an experience of all the involutions of Life and the evolutions
of Form, and vice versa ?

The author is perfectly right in his insisting on emotional
bkakti as the most powerful engine of influence for the attain-
ment of Cosmic Consciousness and running down miracle-work-
ing, thought-reading, divination etc. He is equally right in
saying that Theosophical Teachings “do not go sufficiently near
the heart,” and that the present-day academic study of the
Vedanta as pursued by the Pandits and their misled admirers
ends solely as a scholastic exercise or in idle talk, and never
contributes to soul-culture in any manner whatsoever. We
should therefore cultivate our emotional nature and endeavour
to “find” the Lord through the heart and not through the
intellect. Book-learning, by itself, is absolutely of no avail in
our search after God, but a deep-loving emotional devotion
towards God coupled with a constant passionate memory of

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

*45

Him, and intelligent and purposeful association with the
“ Sanctified-in-Spirit” that rest in Him, will surely “reveal"
Him to us before long.

The last Chapter* of the book is styled " Cosmic Conscious-
ness as it affects our present condition,” in which the authdr
passes in review the social evils existing in Hindu Society at
the present day, and offers sympathetic suggestions to prune
them. He bemoans the false notions of vairagyam adopted by
the ignorant for the sake of leading a religious life, the selfish
and self-seeking spirit found in many, which is dead to all sense
of fellow-feeling, the decadence in the general standard of
morality, the general want of enthusiasm for the digpity of
honest labour, the early mortality of the youths through pre-
mature decay and new contagious diseases, the cringing depend-
ence on foreign employ, the lack of real interest in civic duties,
the neglect of dharma appropriate to each person's station in life,
and similar defects, and recommends home-industries for our
women, suited to their refined intuitive sense and spirituality.
He quotes the following from James’ “The Varieties of
Religious Experience," as a good summation of the funda-
mental truths underlying all religions : —

“ (i) That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from
which its draws its chief significance (2) That union, or a harmomoua
relationship with that higher universe is our true end and (3) That prayer or
serene communion with the spirit thereof — be that spirit called God, or
Law, is a process whereby work is really done and spiritual energy flows
in and produces effects, psychological or material, in this phenanenal
world.”

And so, the author says, we should endeavour to rouse this
faith amongst ourselves and supplement it by an "education of
the heart, the cultivation of love, and the total annihilation of
selfishness” as preparatory to our regeneration. By doing our

• The subject-matter of this Chapter reminds us strongly of P. Rama-
tothan’s “The Miscarriage of Life in the West ” appearing in VoU VTI
No. 1 of iht Hibbert Journal (October 1308):

shwiAnta ninicA.

* 4 >

•ecular duties without attachment according to the grade of
each man's society, we can surely attain Cosmic Conscious nes
as the Great Ones have done in the past. We ought not to take
our tue from the “gross and greedy commercialism ” of the
West, but should revive our moribund indigenous arts and
industries, and withal should never lose sight of their spiritual
aspect. Remembering our common substratum in God, we
must do our level-best to uplift the depressed classes and
improve our treatment towards them. And unless and until
some men among us set their heart upon seeing the above
suggestions an accomplished fact, and work for that consumma-
tion, with the blood warm and tingling in their veins, ‘National
India ’ will be nothing more than an idle vision.

We have made a long review of the book, as the issues
raised by our author seemed to require it, and have no hesitation
in saying that the book is eminently readable and ought to be
“inwardly digested" by all true Hindus who have the welfare
—spiritual and secular — of their mother-country at heart. The
book might have been fuller on a few themes but we think the
author has reserved the ampler treatment for the future volume.
There area number of typographical errors, which is an eye-sore,
hut such defective proof-reading is tending to become the sole
SMOopoly of Madras printing-firms. The author has approached
his subject with all clearness of perspective and ralmpfc of
investigation, which is what we should have expected from bis
scientific training in an empirical science, and his wide culture.
Altogether, the book is a neat little treasury of the latest learning
on the subject of Cosmic Consciousness.

V. V. R.

jnana VASISHTHAM

OR

THE DIALOGUES OF V.ASISHTHA ON WISDOM.*

( Continued from page 209 of No. 6 Vo/. X.)

The Jnana VUsish/ham not only explains the doctrines of tie
Vedanta as to the nature of God, the soul and the universe;
4but teaches the practical methods by which the soul maji
effect its union with God. The mode of effecting this union
'4 or * yoking ’ is called Yoga, a word having the same root as
■'-S the English yoke. It is treated here under two heads:.

Karma Yoga or the Way of Work, and Jnana Yoga or the Way
1 ’oj of Knowledge. It is the latter form of Yoga of which the book
ni mainly treats. Karma Yoga in its higher forms — work for
■■•v work’s sake, duty for duty's sake, without reference to any
-,ij : ulterior motive or reward — is given a prominent place and
u-r shown to have the same goal as Jnana Yoga. Four chapters
: — the stories of Uttalakan, Vitakavyan, Pusundan, and
vf Sikitvasan — discuss Karma Yoga in its lower forms (bodily
if penances and mortifications), which are said tb be rewarded
v; with wonderful powers over nature called the Siddhis. But
their pursuit is generally discouraged by the sages as likely
to involve the soul in the bonds of desire and to perpetuate its
.3 ignorance and separation from God. Another and most
important form of Yoga called Bhakti Yoga, the Way of
'■* Love, which is fostered by the ordinary worship of the temples
and churches, is but lightly touched in this work.

It is difficult to give an adequate idea of the JTtdtta Vasish-
• ' / ham in a summary or even in a translation. 1 have, however,

attempted to summarize a few discourses and to translate a
few others, adding to each some explanatory comments. One
| of the most memorable of the discourses, entitled “ The Wor-
ship of God, ” is included in the translations.

• In note 1 on page 205 of this volume the Greek expression re f erred
to is Gnosis, and its meaning, ‘knowledge or wisdom’. The meanin g givai
there — “ a seeking to know” is due to a mistake in our reprint-

ing. — [Ed. L.T ]
i

T

stodhAnta Dim*.

*4*

In reading them it should be borne in mind that interpreta-
tion from one language to another is seldom successful and
never easy. The difficulty is in this case greatly increased by
the nature of the subject, a metaphysical one so profound as
confessedly to be beyond the reach of word or even thought.
The Hindu system of metaphysics, moreover, is in many
respects different from modern European systems, and suitable
English equivalents are not easily found for its tethnical terms.
For example, the word maiuis, though philologically the same
as ihe Latin mens and the English mind, cannot be translated
as mind without _ serious confusion of ideas. Mind, in
m<>derii European metaphysics, is understood to mean the
sum-total of the intellectual, volitional, and emotional
faculties of man and to be antithetical to matter. But manas
is regarded by Hindu philosophers as a subtle form of matter,
an organ by which the soul receives from the gates of the senses
impressions of external objects, and is enabled to know them
and thereby to experience pains and pleasures, which it utilizes
for its development and progress to God. The antithesis of
matter according to Hindu philosophers would thus be not
mind, but the soul or spirit ( at man ), which is conscious
of thought and for its salvation has to free itself from the
fetters of thought.

The great gulf between the two systems is the doctrine that
consciousness may exist without thought, which to European
philosophers, at least of modern times, appears to be an
absurdity and an impossibility. However, Hindu sages declare,
and declare not as a speculation but as actual experience, that
when thought is completely suppressed and also its twin-
brother sleep, the pure consciousness or spirit long hidden
begins to manifest itself . 1 Free from the stain of thought and
oblivion and truly pure in heart, the soul is blessed with the

1 See the writer’s article on * Luminous Sleep" in the Wtstwwuter
Kmw of November 190a, republished in 1903 by the Government
Winter, Ceylon.

JNANA VASISHTHAU.

249

Vision of God, wins the peace of God that passeth all under-
standing, realizes somewhat of the infinite power, glory, and
bliss of the Divine Spirit, and finally is united to it.

A kindred experience is thus described by Tennyson: —

“ For more than once when 1
Sat all alone, revolving in myself
The word that is the symbol of myself,

The mortal limit of the Self was loosed

And past into the nameless, as a cloud

Melts into Heaven. I touched my limbs, the limbs

Were strange, not mine — and yet no shade of doubt

But utter clearness, and thro’ loss of Self

The gain of such large life as match’d with ours

Were Sun to spark — unshadowable in words,

Themselves but shadows of a shadow-world."

The Ancient Sage.

Notwithstanding the difficulties of interpreting such a work
as the Jnana Vasishfham, the attempt has been made in the
hope that, even in the garb in which it is here presented, a
poem which has been of inestimable help to the best spirits
among countless generations of Hindus will be of interest to
Western students, and perhaps be of service to some among
that large and increasing number of cultured men and women,
in the West as in the East, who are sick of church or temple,
sick of ritual and prayer, and are left stranded on the shore of
atheism or agnosticism without hope or comfort. Here they
will find, and perhaps have comfort in finding, what the sages
of ancient India conceived, and their successors still conceive,
to be the true worship of God, and as a preparation for which
has been established the Hindu religious system with its
diversity of methods, providing spiritual food for all according
to their needs, and significantly called the Sopana Mirga or
“ tbe ladder-way.”

(To be continued.)

P. A.

SIDOHJINTA DlPIKJt.

»$0

A THESIS ON THE VIRASAIVA RELIGION.

(Concluded from page 164 of No. 5 Vol. X.)

(4) Further, it is to be observed that the historical events
related in the Basava PurSija belongs to the 12th Century inclu-
ding the period of Basava’s Ministry in the Kingdom of Bijjala.
But the Inscriptions of Mysore and Captain Mackenzie's Memoirs
of the Hassan District prove the existence of the Virasaiva
Religion in the ninth century A. D. The Inscriptions of Sravapa
Belagoht take us back to the middle of the ninth century while
Dr Fleet's Inscriptions of Aihola (Aryapura) clearly show
that the Virasaiva Religion existed in the eighth century A. D.
And recent researches in the Tamil Literature of South India
have brought to light the interesting fact that the Great Tamil
Saint Manikkavachakar (300 A. D.J and TiruvaUuv? Nayanar
(too B. C.), author of the sacred Ku[aj in Tamil, were Vira-
saivas in Religion.

(5) Lastly, the numerous unmistakable references to the
Virasaiva Religion in the Sahkara-Vijaya itself proves the
existence of the Religion at the time of the great Sahkaracharya.
This fact is purely historical and is corroborated by the writings
of both Professors H. H. Wilson and Monier Williams. In the
Sahkara-Vijaya, the Virasaivas are described as wearing the
Lihga on the head. The Virasaiva sect was one of the six Saiva
sects in existence at the time of Safikaracharya who is said to
have come into contact with them in the course of his religious
controversies. It may be interesting to note the following fact
in this connexion :

“The Parents of the great Sahkara had no children for a
long time just as in the case of Basava's parents. They were
also Saivas and they prayed to Siva who blessed the pair and
Sankara was bom. But the fact that Sankara’s mother parti-
cularly selected Siva in his Jangama form for worship shows
that the Jahgamas were certainly in existence to the knowledge
of Sankara's parents and that the Jahgamas were universally
respected at that time also by all classes of Hindus. The

THESIS ON THE VlRASAIVA RELIGION! 2J|

following is the text and is taken from the Second Sarga of the
Safikara-Vijiya ; —

T^.rPtr flij inf'wuiH it

24. Basava Purana is only a record of Basava’s life and it
is clear from the observations already made in the above
paragraphs that the Virasaiva Religion is not brsed on the
Basava Purana. It is nowhere to be found in the Basava
Puranas that Basava founded the religion and that the
Religion of the Virasaivas is based on his biogra phj'. Basava
belongs to the Divine batch of Pramathas, and he is said to have
come to the Earth as the Saviour of Mankind. He is always
the inseparable companion of Siva ; and it may be noticed that
in every one of the thousands of Siva temples throughout India,
Basava is invariably placed prominently in front of Siva. In
fact, no Siva temple is built without Basava, and there is no
Hindu who does not attach some sacredness to Siva’s vehicle.
A certain amount of sacredness has gathered round the very
name “Basava” and even to this day, it is the commonest name
made use of by the Virasaivas in every part of the country.
Siva is known to have placed Basava nearest to His heart.

While yet a boy, Basava showed much intelligence and
soon acquired much knowledge in the Shastras. When he
attained the age of eight years, his father wanted to invest him
with the sacred thread. But the boy refused to be so invested
on the ground that he was a Virasaiva and that he did not belong
to the creation of Brahma i.e., Prakrita creation. Baladeva, the
Prime Minister at the Court of Bijjala in Kalyana, was struck
with the singular wisdom and piety of this boy who was his
nephew' (sister's son) and gave his daughter Gahgambika in
marriage. Basava’s fame rapidly spread, and people admired
his marvellous powers, and he eventually became the Prime
Minister of Kalyaij.

Basava was a Historical personage and one of the noblest
characters in Indian History. His views were very liberal,
and he was far in advance of the age in which he lived. He had
the courage of his convictions and boldly gave expression to

* 5 *

ummAxta iHpik*.

his religious opinions, in spite of the persecutions of Bnhroini
and |ains He was a great Reformer, and Western Scholar*
class him with Jesus, Muhommad and Buddha. He imparted a
popular complexion to the Vtraiiiva Religion.

The very essence of Hasava's Reforms consists in the up-
lifting of the masses without any distinction of class or creed.
While Sankara po ached to the developed few and Raminuja
converted to his Faith the persons of even the lowest class and
tried to transform them into Brahmans, Basava went a step
higher and proclaimed to the world that "whatever profession
a man may follow for his daily bread, it did not deter him from
embracing a true Religion and trying to get Salvation. ’*

What Rousseau was to France, Basava was to Southern
India ; and what is remarkable is that so early as in the twelfth
century A.D., Basava proclaimed that famous doctrine of the
equality of mankind, which seven centuries later upset the
whole of Europe and convulsed half of the modem world. But
this great man has yet but been imperfectly understood. His
teachings have yet to be rescued from obscurity ; the good
services which he has rendered to India and her Religion, and the
noble and heroic struggle which he undertook in the sacred
cause of the depressed classes, and the remarkable success
which he achieved in his own life-time, have yet all to be pro-
perly recorded, judged and appreciated by posterity.

*5- Gentlemen, 1 take this opportunity of thanking the
Committee on behalf of the Viraiai vas, for having allowed them
to represent their Religion at this unique Convention. This
humble thesis does not pretend to be an exhaustive exposition
of the Vlra&aiva Religion. The details have been omitted along
with many other matters intimately connected with the said
Religion. This is placed before you by way of an introduction,
and it is only intended to bring the existence of the Religion to
your notice, with a few observations on its Origin, Nature,
Development and Philosophy. Here is a vast field for his-
torical investigation, and my chief aim is to awaken some active
i n t <Tes t in the matter and stimulate further enquiry, into
very ancient branch of the §aiva Religion.

H. K. V.

THE SOUTH INDIAN MYSTIC CONFERENCE.

(“The Saiva-SiddhAnta SamAja
The fourth annual sittings of this philosophic and mystic
synod were held on Dec. 59, 30 and 31 of the year just closed,
's at the Hall of the National High School, Trichinopoly, under
the presidency of the Hon’ble Mr. A. Kanakasabhai, b. a'.,
M 5 Member of the Ceylon Legislative Council. The hall was fuff
”ii‘ to overflowing, the attendance counting not less than 1200 to
1500 members, with a fair sprinkling of Europeans, which was
» a special feature. A large number of ladies, both young and
1 old, graced the Conference with their presence, bearing silent
testimony to the deeply spiritual nature of vyomankind in
’* the East. The strains of the sweet “ Tirumupii ” psalms
with which the proceedings were diversified to the melodious
accompaniment of violin and cymbals, added greatly to the
solemnity and spiritual sanctity of the meeting. The proceedings
were inaugurated with a prayer to God, and Mr. T. S. Appa-
malai Pijlai, retired Tahsildar of Trichinopoly, welcomed,- as
Chairman of the Reception Committee, the President, lecturers,
members and delegates returned from various branch Associa-
tions. He had received the President the previous day on the
platform of the Trichinopoly Junction Railway Station and
conducted him in pompous and gorgeous procession to the place
engaged for his sojourn in the premises of the National High
School. Mr. T. S. Svaminatha PiJlai, Head-Clerk of the
Trichinopoly Railway Auditor’s Office, read the fourth Annual
i Report, dwelling with satisfaction on the useful work turned out
r by the Conference in the past. Pandit R- S. Vedachalam PiUai
j of the Madras Christian College, read next his address of
| welcome to the President, pointing out how proud and ennobled
the Conference felt in having such a learned and highly-placed
gentleman like the Hon. Mr. A. Kanakasabhai, in its midst, to
preside over its proceedings. The Hon. Mr. A. Kanakasabhai
in thanking the Paijdit for the address of welcome, delivered a
most interesting speech, full of common sense and wisdom,
which the audience greeted by deafening cheers now and again.

•S4

smntfKTA DtPIfX.

Th» Pusnurr’s SeercH.

Ha aid in effect t>»t he felt feme diffidence in occupying a seat that
was an worthily Mad in previous yean by such eminent men of learning
mi apjritfl culture a* Maaers. P. Rlmtnathan, P. Plp<}itorai Tevar, and
J. 1C NaDaavlmi Pi;]ai ; but that ha had come all the way from Colombo
tt Inn the mystic *■»«■» of the glorious &aiva-Siddhanta Philosophy,
n s» tlmn to teach or preach it, feeling that he had almost a Divine
Call to respond to when a request from Pandit Vedachalam went forth,
Siting him for the presidentship. He then referred to the efforts of the
aarly pioneers of the Saiva-Siddhinta movement to expound its cult and
rtiasamhn*- its teachings in South India and Ceylon. Arumuga Navalar
of Jaffna and RamaliAga sv*mi of Chidambaram were the two lights that
helped in a great measure to give to the public practical proofs of the
pf iirw.pl. lr«l and mystical aspects of the §aiva-Siddhanta. The early
European missionaries like the Rev. Mr. Hoisington could not be thought
of without the sense of a debt of gratitude for their efforts to bring to
light through the medium of English what was till then locked up in
Tamil libraries. He then contrasted the past conditions of Saivism in
Ceylon and in India, pointing out that in the farmer country the aggressive
religious policy adopted by the Portugese Government, resulted in the
damolibon of two Saiva shrines (to rebuild which early steps will in the
near future be taken), and the less aggressive if not neutral policy adopted
by the Dutch Government, could at best only leave the shock, sustained
by Saivisir., unrepaired. It was only with the advent of the British rule
that Saivism might be said to have enjoyed a season of equable peace
and salutary activity. The case of India was different and consequently
Indian Saivism bad the advantage of an earlier start and continued
culture. Any way, Saivism was a system of religious philosophy which
was destined, at no distant date, to become the basis of a universal article
of, faith. It was a system whose date and origin could be traced to a
vb y remote period of antiquity, and all modem schools of thought would,
eventually find in it the, real spiritual food for human salvation, and the
miution of the deeper problems of the spirit. It was built upon
Universal love, a love that was not merely neighbourly love, nor even
universal brotherhood, but love of the whole universe including man, love
of the whole creation. Such a' universal love was a consummation to be
devoutly wished for. If from any religion or any system of thought, the
••otimem of universal love were taken away, what remained was like a

SAIVA-S1DDHANTA CONFERENCE.

•is

deserted house, incapable of being occupied. The President then refer red
to the teachings of Buddhism about non-killing, arguing from the
evidence' afforded thereby that there should have been indiscriminate
slaughtering of animals at the time of their advent. But the £aiva<
Siddhanta philosophy had abjured killing in no uncertain tones, in the
name of all that man holds sacred and dear, long before the birth
Buddhism. It therefore devolved upon all the Saivites to look upon
killing of animals with dismay and shame, and to put an end to flesh-
eating which encouraged that evil instinct. One of the first duties of the
gentlemen that were assembled for the Conference was to put an end to
the eating of flesh, and to discourage it in all sternness wherever it might
be prevalent. Even the most superficial students of the Saiva-SiddhSntn
faith would know that kindliness and toleration were the earliest virtues
taught by it. Divine Grace which had animated saints and sages like
Manikkavichagar and Tiruvalluvar, was the bed-rock of the Saiva-
Siddhanta Movement, a rock which was firmer than the yonder rock at
whose base the Conference was met to do honour to the great God. BJ
the force of that grace, one was enabled to practise virtue ; and when that
power of Divine Grace was once acquired, it struck every pulse of Man’s
Mature, and dominated the whole course of his conduct. It was that
power again which induced the practice of toleration towards others which,
when constantly cultivated as a habit, led, in the fulness of time, tp
universal love which was necessary for the uplifting of mankind. Another
leading tenet of the £aiva-Siddhanta was the belief in the operation of thf
karmic law which acted as surely in the moral world as in the physical
in both of which, man reaped as he sowed. Altogether, the four distin-
guishing points of the Saiva-Siddhanta were ‘ Jiva-karupyam, love
towards all life, animal and human, or rational and dumb, and its con-
comitant, the non-killing of animals under any pretext, 1 Karma’,

* Toleration,’ and the doctrine of ‘ Divine Grace* connected with the
salvation of souls. And these were pre-eminently the basic elements of
the cult of Saivism from Pre-Buddhistic days. The position that Saiva-
Siddhanta occupied at present and the knowledge that was possessed of it
was inadequate to its importance as a soul-saving system. Savants in
Europe and America had not yet begun to study it as much as they had
studied and understood other systems, — the Vedic Religion in its intellec-
tual ■ Vedantic ’ aspect for instance. Before resuming his seat, the
President gracefully acknowledged the indebtedness of the Saiva-Siddham*
4

SIEOHJtNTA DiPIKJt.

* 5 «

to the «orh and laboon of the late Dr. Pope which were calculated
to convey a rueful knowledge of that system to those who were unable to
nad the origitwla, and thorn of others like Mr. Nallasvami Pi||ai, who had
to to d their Brea to its study and propagation. He read to the audience
a nafatr of tdegiams received from various places wishing God-speed
to the conference.

If a. V. V. Ramazan's Discourse.

Mr. V. V. Ramadan, r.z.s (Lond)., etc., then delivered a
brilliant discourse on the " Psychology of the Shaijadhvans ”
which, as the President remarked, was exceedingly interesting
and clear, entering into some of the most abstruse positions
connected with the subjective culture of the soul.

Other Lectures or the 29TH.

In the afternoon of the 29th, Pandit R. S. Vedachalam dis-
coursed on the " Inner Meaning of Siva-Liiiga” drawing apt
analogies from the results of recent experimental sciences, like
physics and chemistry, to illustrate the deeper conceptions
involved in the structure of that pratika, as a symbol of medita-
tion. Mr. G. SadaSivam Pil|ai, Editor of Nag at NUalochant,
lectured on “ Devotion to Guru," and Mr. A. Rahgasvami Iyer,
on the esoteric meaning of the "Four Paths” recognised by
the Agamic Philosophy, drawing largely on Sanskrit autho-
rities, and making his treatment of the theme practical and easily
understood.

Mas. AijdAlammal’s Address.

The most noteworthy feature of the conference during its
past session was the pillar of intellectual strength it had found
in the pious young lady, Mrs. AurJalammaJ, who treated it to a
most solemn and thrilling discourse on the “ Significance of the
Sacred Ashes ” on the morning of the 30th. Her delivery was
impeccable, and the calm poise of her high thinking, and the
rippling flow of her pure eloquence terminating with beautiful
effect in a sonorous climax, whenever the dignity of the topics
demanded it, was a matter for extreme praise. As a fluent and
cultured speaker of»TamiL she could hold her own, by the side

SA1VA-SIDDI1ANTA CONFERENCE.

*5 7

of the best of the sterner sex known to fame. The lecture
assumed a much wider scope in her hands than the title seemed
to require, and she gave an elaborate and telling resume of the
subtler spiritual aspects of the Saiva-Siddhanta, staggering the
audience by the wealth of her resources, culture, and Sanskrit
and Tamil authorities and quotations. The President compli*
mented the lady-lecturer in suitably graceful terms for her
accomplishments and piety, and presented her with two lots of
books as souvenirs of esteem and admiration, after announcing
the names of the gentlemen whose presents they were. The
following encomium in Tamil verse was compiled in her honour
by A. Shanmuga Pillai of Solavandan, one( of the greatest
Tamil pandits of the present day : —

Qjnco>svr<l]Qu>'3ireiDGjiLi(ri)£Qpn€Br(ir?Q0ii$Biitraflp

u-Aieuir it (pen? pjpnljuujearsSifluutiQsC-U-ppiS p

&6uz\)ii(T2i!Sfb(ir?nGunp!iiTLi£ii$£Brirr'ti$GNG!j.

Mr. J. M. Nallasvami Pillai's Lecture.

Mr. Nallasami Pillai then addressed the conference on the
doctrine of Karma-samya pointing out that its real sense re-
quired men to look alike on, the sweets and bitters of life, and
not to be buoyed up by the one, nor depressed by the other.
The pleasures and calamities had their unavoidable functions in
the life of this world, and the wise man was he who with his
mind ever fixed on God, was not swayed by these pairs of
opposites. Such a step would pave the way for the dawning
of Divine Grace on his soul.

Mr. A. V. GqpALACHARiYAR's Lecture.

Mr. A. V, Gopalachariyar, m.a., b.l., High Court Vakil,
Trichinopoly, then lectured on the Philosophy of the Bhagavad-
gita as expounded by Sri-Ramanujacharya, entering into a full
analysis of the contents of the Gita, and pointing out that they
embraced the three modes of finding God, to wit, Karma-Yoga,
Jnana-Yoga and Bhakti-Yoga. He said that by means of

SjnOH/tVTA DlPlU.

* 5 »

Karma-Yoga the aspirant brought his senses and thoughts
under perfect control, by the second, he beheld his Atman, and
by the third, he saw God. He also dwelt on the fact that both
Saivism and Vaishoavism were completely at one in their
philosophical and mystical basis, by comparing the teachings of
Srtkaotha with those of Ramanuja, on the Sesha-Seshl-bhava,
the so-called pratitantra, the Karya-kirapa-bhava, the sama-
nidhikarana and so on. He came to the conclusion that both
the systems were Sakti-visishfadvaita, and interpreted Visish-
tadvaita to mean the unity or oneness of Sakshma-ehit-Achit-
viSishta-Brahman with Sthola-chit-Achit-viSishta-Brahman. He
quoted from Appayya’s works freely to show that even the
terminology of the two forms of faith had a common basis and
concept.

In the afternoon of the 30th Mr. T. Bhaktavatsalam PiUai,
b.a., read a paper on “ Devotion to God," in which he deprecated
materialistic thinking which was one of the fruits of the system
of Western Education imparted to the youtjis of this country at
the present day.

Pandit Vedachalam then discoursed on "The Social aspects
of §aiva-Siddhanta " in the course of which he brought grave
charges against the ethic of Hindu Idealism, as being mischie-
vous in practice, and inapplicable to social conditions of any age
or clime.

Pwssident's Remarks.

The President in his remarks on P»o<jit Vedichalam’s speech went
folly into the subject of the Social aspects of Saiva-Siddhanta. He
quoted a psalm from Appar’s Tevaram, and the well-worn Svetas vatara
text cited by Ntlalrapjfra in his Bhishya 00 the Brahma-siitras, and said
that so far as principles were concerned, there was everything in &aivism
to inculcate and uphold the social equality of all men, but in practice it
was not possible to abolish all caste-distinctions at one stroke. But
reform in the direction of equalization of castes was exceedingly desirable
and necessary, and as a first step it behoved on the Saivaites to elevate
the depressed clssees Ijgr adopting towards them a more sympathetic and
compassionate treatment, and by rendering them worthy of greater

Saiva-siddhanta conference.

259

■ufhumanity and consideration. And thus the reform could begin in small and
'-3* easy things, and proceed step by step to greater and radical changes.
1 8 There was no use talking glibly about social equality, as a mere platitude,
r d and shunning the questions when it came to practical test, and eventually
1 making of one’s vaunted profession a grave mockery. Even inter-dining
'I between the various sections of Saivaites was not an accomplished fact
l] In spite of the living dicta laid down by Sambandha, Vagisa and 5ri-
•T kaptha, the real reformation in the amelioration of castes was carried out
'! mostly by Free-thinkers, Arya-samajists and Brahmo-samijists.

Mr. N. Gopalaknshna PiJlai, Sub-editor, Svadesamitran,
then read a communication made by Mr. R. S. Subrahmaijyam
b.a., of Colombo entitled “ The work before us" which was able
and full of sound sense, almost putting forward every conceiva-
ble plea for the up-lifting of the lower and down-trodden orders
of the Hindu Community.

Other Activities.

The President then announced the invitation of H. H. the
Raja of Ramnad to the Saiva-SiddhSnta Conference to come
over to Madura and hold its next Session there during the
Christmas of December 1910. This was cheerfully and grate-
fully accepted by the Conference, and a standing committee of
fifteen members was at once formed to arrange therefor. The
President placed also before the Conference a letter received from
the Private Secretary to H. H. The Gaekwar of Baroda intima-
ting the inability of His Highness to attend the Conference from
pressure of his duties and conveying his best wishes for the
success of the Conference. Commenting on that letter, the
President eulogised the enthusiasm of H. H. the Gaekwar for
salutary social reforms, and the steadiness with which he had
accomplished them in many directions by brightening the lot of
the depressed classes, education of women, amelioration of caste
distinctions etc., within the confines of his own state.

Lectures on the Morning of the 31ST.

The first lecture on the 31st was delivered by Mr. P. Kal-
yaijasundara Mudaliyar on “Truth]’ in which he established

l6o

sinonANTA DiPiKA.

the excellence of the Saiva-Siddhanta Philosophy, as a system of
faith. The second was by Mr. S. Palvanna Mudaliyar on the
“ State of Mukfi The third was by Svami Rudrakofisvara
on •' Saiva-Siddhanta and Kindness to Animals".

Mh. D> kodak a.m Pillai's Address.

In the afternoon, Mr. Damodaram Pil|ai, editor of Jfiana-
siddhi, Jaffna, treated the audience to an informing lecture on
the " Nature and Characteristics of the Soul ". The exposition
of the various complex issues involved in the Agamic conception
of the “ Soul" and its distinction from “ Matter" on the one hand
and God on the other, was of enthralling interest, both on
account of the sublimity of the theme and the lecturer’s facility
and felicity of expression. Mr. P. M. Muttaiya PiJlai ofTuticorin
then addressed the Conference on “The Gnosis of the Soul ”.

A Group-photo of the President, and lecturers and leading
members of the Saiva Siddhanta Conference was afterwards
taken in the evening, at the combined desire of all concerned.

Pandit R. S. Vedachalam PiJ|:ii, once more addressed the
assembly on the advaiia relation between God and the Universe,
taking as his text Sri Umapatiii viicharya’s hymn beginning
“njDjjiuufjmiiaQQmnu etc.,", and the Presi-

dent brought the proceedings to a close with his concluding
remarks in which he conveyed at some length his best wishes
for the continued success and prosperity of the Conference in
years to come. As the Secretary to the Conference, Pag<Jit
Vedachalam thanked all present, including the President, lec-
turers, delegates and members, for the trouble they had taken
to go to Trichinopoly and make the Conference the success that
it had proved itself to be. And with the pronouncement of a
Benediction in the name of God, the Conference terminated.

‘A MYSTIC”.

1RA1YANAR = AGAPPORUL*

Nature of the work.— This is a treatise on the subject of love
{agapporul). It deals mainly with the analysis of the mind in
love and incidentally also with courtship, elopement, marriage,
and such other topics. To give an exact idea of what is meant by
agapporul we shall take the definitions of porul and agam as
given in the commentary of nachchinarkkimyar on that classical
Tamil gammar, tolkappiyaM . 1 Porul is defined as the three
“purushdrthas" ( dkartna, artha and kama or in Tamil aram, porul
and inbam), their transitoriness and ( moksha ), liberation from
these three ; and that division of rhetoric, which deals with
porul, as defined above, is called porul = adigdram : thus we see
that porul - adigdram is universal in its character and embraces
every variety of subject bearing on human life. Porul = adi-
gdram is divided into two classes, purapporul and agapporul •
Of these purapporul deals with the deeds of the warrior hero
outside the family circle, — mainly with war; agapporul has for
its subject love, pure and simple, which is defined in Tolkdppi-
yam (p. 2 ) ; as “ the happiness which is generated by the coming
together or meeting of two lovers equally devoted in their love,
which happiness continues even in their separation as an inner
feeling towards the other, indescribable in its nature.” Agap-
porul i s further divided into kafaviyal and karpiyal. Kalaviyal
is described both in Tolkdppiyam and Iraiyanar = agapporul as
‘ being the same as the gandharva system of marriage described
■ in the Sashas of the Brahmanas,' while karpu is defined ‘as the
\ union in marriage of a woman and a man of proper lineage and
with proper ceremonies.’ The essential distinction therefore
between the two consists in that kalaviyal analyses the senti-

* This article originally appeared as No. II of “ Tamil Historical
Texts ” in the “ Indian Antiquary ’’ and is reprinted here with the kind
permission of the authors. — Ed. L. T.

Page 167 of this volume For tambiyar=t»nam=elldm read tnriam

1 See page 8r of Tolkdppiyam— poruladikdram, edited by Damddaram
Pi))ai, Madras, 1885.

SlDOHAftTA DiPIEA.

*6t

ment of love as exhibited in secret courtship, whereas karpu
deals with that sentiment in the married state. Iraiyanac =
mjapporul, in treating of agapporul, comprehends within its
scope both kafavu and karpu.

Description or the wore:— The work consists of sixty
storms and there is attached to it a very masterly commentary
in the finest Tamil prose. The commentary gives a very
interesting tradition of the three Tamil Sahgams, about which
so many conflicting things have been written. For fuller inform-
ation regarding the subject the reader is referred to Prof.
M. Seshagiri Sistri’s Essay oh Tamil Literature , and to Mr.
V. Kanakasabhai Pil|ai’s “Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years
Ago."

Authorship. Sutras. The pdyiram portion of the Com-
mentary attributes the work to SOmasundara, the Siva deity at
Madura, and the story it gives as to its origin is shortly this :* —
In the time of the last of the Forty-nine Kings, who patronised
the third or the last Saftgam, and went by the name of Ugra =
pperu = Valudi, there was a severe famine, and the king, find-
ing it impossible to support the learned men who were gather-
ed round him, requested them to scatter themselves to seek
their livelihood. After the lapse of twelve years, when the
rains fell and the country attained its normal state, the king
sent his emissaries to gather the scattered scholars. They were
able to bring only those who were versed in orthography,
syntax and prosody. But they could find none who were versed
in poru/adigdram. The king exclaimed : "Are not these three
subjects useful only as aids to the porufadigdram ? My getting
these is as though I never got them.”

(To be continued.)

M. K. N.

T. A. G.

' The references to the IfiyniT-agapporu] in this work axe to Mr.
f^AmOdaram Pillai's second edition printed at Madras, which contains a
long but very misleading introduction. See for this account, pp. 6 to 8.

ARDRA darsanam*— the day of mercy.

The Lord Sri Krishna in the Gita says : "Among the months
I am the month of Murgaiiras known as Dhanus' ” The reason
for this will be the same as for the earlier hour of Dawn being
called Brahma-niuhurtam.'‘ God is Love, Light, and Bliss. Love
ever is; and its Light shines self-effulgent; while the Bliss of
Union is ever-full. “ Love, Light, and Bliss ” is the Be all and
End-all of things. Without Love “Existence 1 ’ is as nought.
Without Light, “ Knowledge ” is impossible. And without
Bliss, Life is hardly worth living. Love, Light and Bliss are
eternal. When Love and Light was one (identically the same)
there was none else but Bliss Supreme (which is the Union of
Love and Light in “ Advaita-Relation " to each other). When
Love and Light was differentiated, they became transmuted

* Ardra-darsana means 1 Vision of Ardra’. Ardra is the star, Alpha
Betelgeux, and located in the Hindu Sign, Mithuna. It is also known as
Betelguese and its celestial ( o ordinates were as follow on the ist January
1900: Longitude, 27 “ Gemini 22 ; Latitude, 1 6” .South 2'; and Declination,
7* North 23'. It symbolises Giriia, according to Hindu Astrology. Ardra
also means ‘moisture’, ‘ fluidity’, ‘compassion’ and hence ‘ Divine Grace
that transforms man’. Ardra-darsana is a mystic rite closely connected
with the momentous step in spiritual regeneration known as ‘ Sakti-N’ipata’,
and celebrated when the moon is in the lunar mansion Ardra, during the
solar month Dhanus and the lunar month Margasirsha. — Ed L. T.

1 The passage occurs in the Bhagavad-gita at x, 35, and the translat-
ion given above is a paraphrase which is rather wide of the mark. The
correct rendering will be “ Of months 1 am Margasirsha". This month
opens the Sayanottarayaija beginning with the Makarayapasarikramaga
and not with the popular Nirayanasankrunti, and thus ushers in the
Tropical yejir. And the month is synodic and not solar. The name ‘ Marga-
sirsha’ means ‘ the crown of the path (of Illumination) '. At the Makara-
yapapravesa the Sun turns ba:k from the Southern and gets into the
Northern course.' The year par exuUtnu for spiritual purposes is Tropical
anH not Equinoctial, and the month, synodic and not solar : hence Marga-
fircha is the first sacred month of the sacred year. — Ed. L. T.

’ Brahma-muhurta means literally * the moment of the spirit ’, 1 the
Divine hour ' and derivatively ‘ thei supreme moment’. In a higher sense
the expression signifies ‘the hour of sanctification' when the Light “dawns"
upon the soul. — Ed. E, T.

6

sidmiAjita iHpika

*<U

into Light and Shade. And this was the beginning of Evolu-
tion. "In the beginning was the Word.” The undifferentiated
A-U-M. became the differentiated U-M-.V* That was “ the
Word” (I-ogos) “in the beginning ” of Evolution. This Word
"I'-M-.V "was with God." And the Word (U-M-A) (Svara
and Anusvara) was God (A-U-M). When the Primary form of
Light Supreme t •• Pra kasa " ) became transformed into the second-
ary form of "the Morning Rose of Dawn” (“ Vimaria”), it has
acquired a certain purpose. The "Chit-Agni-Kuijda-Sambodha”
has become “ Devakirya-samuddhata" "The Holy Mother;
the Great Queen ; the Ruler of the Lion-Throne ; Who was bom
from the Altar of the Fire of Consciousness ; manifested Herself
for fulfilling the objects of the Devas.”

And the Brahma-muhurtam is the psychological moment of
Her -manifestation in Vitjiaria Form out of Her ever-present
Prakaki Form. In time, she manifests herself as Day and
Night or Light and Darkness. But " the Light shineth in
Darkness,” and " the Darkness comprehended it not.” In space
She manifests Herself as Vibration and Sound.

The month of "Margali" when the Sun passes into the
Dbanur-Risi is ever a symbol of the parting of the Ways (of
Light and Darkness). The Day waxeth and the Night waneth
after this month.* It is the ushurer in and forerunner of vernal
equinox* which brings with it the spring-tide of Life. The
followers of the Path of Light first perceive the Vimarsa Form
erf the Lord on the bright full-moon day which falls on the Day of

•Om( = A-U-M) is the Samashp-prapava and Uma, the Vyashp-
pranava. — Ed. L. T.

* The statement ‘afttr this month' is not wholly correct, for, from the
moment the Sun is clear of the Winter Solstice until the time the Sumirer
Solstice is reached “ the Day waxeth and the Night waneth”. And so
“ the waxing of the Day and the waning of the night " begins is ikt solar
■ mmlk DU no and mol of Ur it.— Ed. L. T.

* The Solar aonth of Dhanus ( = utiaifi in Tamil) ushers in Maka-
riyanavishu (Wirte^ Solstice) and ->t Meshayanamahavishu (Vernal
Djuioox/ — Ed. L. T.

ARbUA DARSAN’AM.

2G5

Ardra 8 — the Day of Mercy par excellence. The Yogin who
has been contemplating the Light in his heart of hearts percei-
veth It taking the form of his “ Ishta-Devata.” And this is cele-
brated in every Siva temple as the Manifestation of God in the
economy of the Universe. That is the meaning of Ardra-dar-
sanam ; and as the shrine at Chidambaram is dedicated to the
Light of Knowledge, it is most fittingly celebrated there by
pre-eminence. This Chidambaram is but the symbolical repre-
sentation of the worship that is offered in the Inner Sanctuary of
Man, in the DaharakaSa of his heart. St. Manikkavachakar, who
realized this both inwardly and outwardly, is honoured in all
the temples, for it is to him (the type of a ripe Soul abiding in
Truth) the Lord revealeth Himself. He sings in “the Sacred
Temple Lyric " (Hymn XXII) of his famous Tiruvachakam : —

" O King, my body hast Thou made Thine home ; henceforth
What blessings shall thy suppliant ask of Thee ? "

• • • * •

“ That I may ever ask and melt, within my mind,

0 Light, Thou dost arise ! In beauty shines
On heavenly heads the lotus of Thy roseate feet 1

+ The good that in the large and changeless heart of the Holy doth abide!
The boundless ether, water, earth, fire ; — all these
Thou art ; and none of these Thou art ; but dwellest
In these concealed, O formless One ! My heart is glad
That with these eyes THIS DAY I’ve seen THEE clear I”

• • • * •

“ THIS DAY on me in grace Thou risest bright, a Sun,

Bidding from out my mind this darkness flee
Transcending thought, upon Thy nature manifest,

1 think. Beside Thee all that is, is nought, —

Moving ever, — as atoms ever wasting — Thou art One !

t The good that in the large and changeless heart of the Holy doth abide!
Thou art not anything ; without Thee nothing is ;

Who are they that can know Thee as Thou art ?

« The day of Ardra-darsana succeeds MargaSirshi-paurnamdsl in the
lunar month Margasirsha. — Ed. L. T.

f Externally it is : “ Sivan, who dwellest in Perunt-turrai’s Shrine 1 *

*56

STDOHXNTA DiPtltf.

• Expanse of Light that everywhere through

Every world, o'er earth and heaven springs forth and spreads aloneT —
“ O Farm, beheld in radiant light made manifest !

Thou peerless Mystic all-in-one that in sooth hath no form.

Though First! Thou Midst! Thou Last! Great Sea of Rapturous Joy!
Thou that dost loose our being's bonds !

Thou Sacred Hill of Grace and Good, from evil free I ”

These are some of the expressions which the ecstatic seer
of Ardra-darSanam, — the seer of the Lord’s "Vimarsa Form
of Grace," doth use to express tht unutterable Joy of his inmost
soul. The secret of the whole is the worship of God in spirit
and in truth, in the cave of one's heart. It is called “ Daharopa-
sana" and the Light within, “ Daharakasa" (Small Light).' This
' The words DahariUcala and Daharopasana need a word of explana-
tion. The expression Daharakasa is made up of two parts, Dahaia and
Alcala. The word ‘Dahara’ does not mean ‘small', when used in connexion
with AlcUa. It is associated with the Sanskrit roots ‘Dah’ and 'Dabh',
and means primarily 'destroying ’, ‘ consuming ' or ‘ subtle ’. We get the
real meaning of ‘consuming’ in the sentence ' Our Lord is a consuming Fire’.
There is ‘ melting of elements ', ‘ conflagration ’, when the soul is blessed
with Sakti-niplta. These ‘effects’ are sought to be conveyed by the word
‘Dahara'. Again the ‘manifestation of Light' is the “ Peace mhick passcth
understanding” , that is to say, the “flesh" cannot “see” It, though the “spirit’'
can. The Lord is said to be ‘avahmanasagocharam’ but ‘vedyam’. Hence
He is said to be ‘Dahara’, i.e., not to be rea: hed by the senses and
thought, but nulizabU by the “ soul ” In other words, Dahara means
*spiritual' in the highest sense. Alcala is made up of two elements, A and
Kala. 'A' means ‘ On all sides', and ‘ kala', ‘ Refulgent ’. The expression
•Alcala’ therefore means ' Refulgent everywhere', • Present everywhere' or
‘Omni present’ And now when we combine the elements • Dahara’ and
'Alaila' into the expression ‘Daharakasa,’ we get the meaning ‘The Reful-
gent Plane of the Spirit, Which is Omni-present, Which the “ flesh” can-
not find, and in the presence of Which ‘ corruption’ is nowhere”. This
“ Plane of the Spirit ’’ is the “ Chidambara", “ The Robe of Light which
the Lord Wears’, “ The Omniscient Holy Spit it”. ‘ Daharopasana’ is again
made up of two elements, ‘ Dahara’ and ‘ Upasana’. ‘ L’pasana’ mean s
■attendance’, and lienee 1 Daharoplsana’ means ‘Attending on Dahara,’

Ardra darSanam.

267

worship is the only worship which the true worsmpper prac-
tises ; and the external temple-worship is to get oneself confirm-
ed in the inmost experience which one hath gained. The one is
wholly spiritual, the other is spiritual worship applied to the
social sphere of man’s existence.

To give one an idea of the prevalence of this rue worship
among our people, 1 will transcribe here an English rendering
of an ordinary invitation to the “Kumbhabhishekam” 8 of a great
soul that has attained deliverance by "Daharopasana.” But,
before doing so, I should transcribe the Master’s words as to
the cqjning of the Kingdom of God : — “And one said unto him,
Master, when shall the Kingdom come ? ”

“And He answered and said, when that which is without
shall be as that which is within, and that which is within shall
be as that which is without, and the male with the female,
neither male, nor female, but the two in one. They who have
ears to hear, let them hear.”

The self-experience of Truth in the heart of hearts must
coincide with and be attuned to Its manifestation outside our-
selves. That is the greatest "Svanubhavam” or Self-experience.
Intuition and Reason must support and confirm each other.

IN PRAISE OF C H IT- AM BARA M .

(DAHAROPASANA).

The following is a free rendering into English of an invita-
tion to a Kumbhabhishekam in Tamil. The Master Soul con-
cerned was the Guru, I am told, of St. Tayumanavar.

‘Tendiug the Fire’, ‘Agnikarya’ or ‘Agnyadheya’. The ‘ Fire' referred to
here is the “Consuming Fire” of the Holy Spirit Which “manifests Itself ”
in man only through his “ceaseless tending”, “attendance”, “ worship in
spirit and in truth”. The glory of Daharakasa is described in Chapter
XXI of the Book of Apocalypse. — Ed. L. T.

•Kumbhabhishekam is again a real mystic experience sometimes
spoken of as the ‘somadharavarsha’, or ‘the opening of the fountains of the
Deep’.' — Ed. 4, T.

*54

SfWXlAXTA DiPIKX.

The Invocation.

l live men of Light end Grace, Dev as right and all animated
Beings else.

May the Cool Waters pour down their soft influence I May the King
prosper 1

May all that's Evil go down, and the Name of Hara fie.) Path of
Renunciation

Spread through, and the World be rid of all its woea :

The Invitation.

I.

Know ye not “ Bhaktas " true of ‘ Chit-Arr.baram' (fair),

That Space on Earth made holy by the subtle five-fold-dance of
Siva Supreme I

Who to save thirsty souls from Evil path of Birth and Death I
And grant them sure His Grace Divine in easy wise
Perfarmeth for all time with subtleness supreme the dances-five :

In that Spacious Hall of Subtle Ether Supreme
Wherein stands unmoved His beloved ‘ Sivakaml ’

Abiding in Love as Mother Supreme, a mute witness
Of the Lord's dances, who, lording it over all, performeth
The Sacred-functions-five filling the Mother-Heart of His Spouse
With joy unsurpassed, and thrilling the souls of His devotees true,
Shedding softly therein His Self-Effulgent Light,

In gentle waves that seem to chase the Darkness of their bruised
hearts,

And in ravishing Beauty shine impressing His Holy Form
In the molten stuff of their soft white hearts which like • Living
Crystals '

Show the Origin of Life (and its end) revealing to the astonished
soul's single eye 1

The eternal sheen of Life Divine in living Green in that Great Light I
That Infinite stood in dazzling White, One blaze of Light,

Which the Devas Bright saw but understood not,

Until the Divine Umi in ravishing Beauty revealed to them
The Infinite Brahm, the * Over -lord ' of All whoee infinite form and
might

Men ot Grace on Earth and Devas Bright in Heaven but reflect
in -part

Such the Glory of ‘Tillai field ’ where the Lord with eternal dances,
Teacheth the Truth of His-F unction-Five to His Children true?

IN PRAISE OF CHIT-AMBARAM.

Know ye not that sacred spot Divine
That defying the subtlety of Geometric Point
Exists on Earth unseen yet seen,

The “Chit-ambara " or “ DaharakaSa”

The Sacred Little Hall (space) where the Lord Supreme

His Court doth hold in splendour unsurpassed

With Devas Bright and Siddha Hosts attending

While the Rishis great of “Chandogya” and “Kaivalya” sit by and chant

The Srutis old that sing the praise of “DaharakaSa”

Otherwise known and worshipped as “ Chit-ambara”

There, in that “ little space ” of subtle Ether Supreme
Is a fane designed for the worship of the True in truth I
There, in that “little space” Divine, whoever a little charity
Doth do, reapeth it manifold in abounding Faith ;

Whoever worshippeth a little m truth and spirit therein
That worship in truth doth increase manifold and yield
The Fruit of the Tree of Life, which by the sense of Different utnen
The Soul had lost, losing therewith the Sense of Unity that maketh
ever for Good.

This Sense of Unity Divine that in “ Chit-ambaram” abides
Is none else but “ Sivam” that ever doth Good and worketh for Good.
This identity of the two, the Seers of Truth, by * direct perception’,
do know,

And knowing, make no difference where Unity doth reign Suprane,
For Difference as such exists not when the Actual in the Ideal is merged.
And the Ideal in the Actual reigneth Supreme pervading it through
and through.

Interlude.

UI.

[The former * process the “ Vedanta ” doth teach, and the latter * by
“ Siddhanta" do we learn.

Where then is the difference that learned Scholiasts draw ?

When the teachings of the “Vedanta" blend so harmoniously
With the conclusions of the “ Siddhanta ”, as the Seers of Truth is
spirit do testify.]

• The merging of tne Actual in the Ideal.

* The realizing of the Ideal in the ActuaL

• 7 ®

sitohAnta DlPIKA.

Witness for instance the testimony of these two Seers!
The Vedintic Seer of Truth revelling in the clear vision of
the Ideal says:—

* Tt» Visioo, * Chittambalam in Tillai ", y : elds food meet for eternity.
Nay more, it yields the power of enjoying the Ideal Beauty of Heaven
an Earth.

firing the Way of Salvation have 1 seen this Vision Sweet.

Will it yield me yet this crop of woe we ween as Bird) ! "

1'he Siddhintin sage revelling in the enjoyment of the Ideal
in the Actualities of tlie world, and seeing the one Ideal of
Perfection pervading it All through and through, gives utter-
ance in epigrammatic form to the distilled essence of his Joy
infinite, by traversing through Earth and Heaven and all the
world in one sweeping stride which makes all the world merge
in the distilled essence of his Joy, which soon solidifies so to
speafc. St. TirumOlar,” “ the practical Idealist ” “the Siddhan-
tm fmr exceUeixe", in simple guise of “ Mantra ”, utters the
same grand truth in the following

“ Nandi ” (the Blissful) taught that 11 Guru and Sivam ” are one.

That “ Guru “ is in essence the same as “ Sivam ” ( Daharakasam)
they know not who enter not the field of consciousness pure.

The “ Guru " (the inner monitor) stands revealed as (the subtle)
Sivam and as the (mare personal) Lord
And anon the Lord Supreme, transcending speech and knowledge
(the Tripuji of knower, known, and knowledge).

IV.

Now to our purpose : In such a Holy place of earth
As Chit-ambaram fair, dire.tly to the south
In the Presence of the Lord, there indwells a soul
Passing rich in the realization of Siva.

And in Holy Communion blended with the Lord,

In S a m a dhi long continued and known to his disciples true,

As transcending all distinctions of caste or colour,

Or Stage of Life, revelling right in the silent Bliss
Of Wisdom true, a Teacher good of Truth and Wisdom,

A Divinity an garth 1 In his honour we hold
A celebration great of hie Regeneration true,

COD AND BUDDHISM.

271

By bathing his Kumbha body in the Waters of Life,

A striking festival — ‘ Maha-kumbhabhishekam ’ by name,

On the date of the month and phase of the Moon and Star.

That in footnote signed we give in detail below !

To that festival Great and Celebration true

We invite ye All that in the Love of Siva excel 1

Come ye one and all Bhaktas true to enjoy the Holy Sight,

Of this worship true, and in coming bring your loved ones too !

Haste ye friends one and all and make sure to be.

In the Holy place and matt, in advance of the time and date prescribed,
We, the Servants true of the Teacher, abiding in the Mutt,

Invite you one and all with reverent heart and devotion true.

And our humble prayers add : “ That the Grace of the Lord may

descend on you ! ”

Here are given particulars of the date and time prescribed
for the Maha-kumbhabhishekam.

C. V. s.

The Experiences of the Godly and the Buddhist Tenets.

( Concluded from page 136 of No. 3 V ?l. X.)

Jiianis and Sages of India who are the divine missionaries,
have left behind them for our illumination, the truths of the
existence of a Higher Being. The world has accepted in toto,
the sublime teachings of the sages, and we, the Hindus of the
Twentieth Century, are guided by their counsel in our aspira-
tions after spiritual life, and we are convinced of the truths
and feel within us the highest significance of their immortal
sayings.

After the dawn of the Christian Era there lived in South India
many saints and yogis who had been engrossed in the affairs
of the world as we are, and after having studied the Vedas
(the eternal revelations) they perceived the instability of the
body and this mundane life, and renouncing the world they led
a highly spiritual life by which they were freed from -the
thraldom of the flesh. The yogis practised control of the mind by
s

V*

sigohAnta dIpikA.

the suppression of breath* according to the prescribed methods
as laid down in the yoga iistras and were illumined. They
too have revealed to us supernatural things, such as walking
on the sea, floating in the air and so on, which to the modem
scientists, would seem legendary and imaginary. The so-called
saints started with a firm faith in a Supreme Being whom they
designated as Siva, Nataraja, Pi||aiyar, etc., as suited their form
of worship, and they developed their faith in God till they per-
ceived that they are one with £iva in advaitic union a

state of perfection when father, mother, and brother were perceiv-
ed with an eye of equality “ balanced in pleasure and pain, self-
reliant, to whom a lump of earth, a rock and gold, are alike, the
same to be loved and unloved, firm, the same in censure and in
praise, the same in honour and ignominy, the same to friend
and foe, abandoning all undertakings, they are said to have cross-
ed over the qualities ". They suffered not the mortal death but
were absorbed in union with Siva with the mortal coil. During
the state of divine ecstasy, they have given utterance to spont-
aneous out-pouring of verses which appeal to the burning heart
of aspiring souls, and many thousands of such souls, both educated
and the illiterate, are to be found strewn over the vast jungles and
mountains of India. The divine saints have viewed the world
as a manifestation of Siva in a visible shape (He is both
visible and invisible) and this concrete symbolism is only a
projection of the Maya. To them matter and spirit which
we conceive as two different entities are one and insepa-
rable. Consequently we read in their verses, the visible object
such as rivers, mountains, stones and so on invested with the
spirit of God, and they perceived with an eye of wisdom the
Omnipresence of God in every particle and atom. Those who
have the eyes, let them see. Every human being is endowed
with a latent power which when worked out will reveal the
Light within. Th ose who attempt to wade through the sea of

• The writer is obviously referring to one of the “exercises in godli-
■m ", known as the gtagiyama which has, however, nothing to do with
the “ suppression of breath " as people understand “ breath " Ed. L. T.

COD AND BUDDHISM.

2 73

i misery like a sailor with a compass, will reach the Land where
1 Eternal Peace and Happiness reign.

For infants, that is to say, those who are babes in Christ
in Pauline phraseology, first an object in the form of a picture
should be placed before the eyes, and when the object has been
seen, felt, and stamped upon the tablet of the mind, it is removed,
and it now exists only in imagination as an ideal picture.
Again by years of spiritual culture, the ideal too vanishes from
the stronghold of the mind, i.e., in simple words it has been
assimilated and made into his ov/n being. The ideal is the
God’s picture which when it is brought into advaitic union,
ceases to distinguish the real from the ideal. This is only a
succinct explanation of a gradual spiritual unfoldment.

In the West, Christianity has been presented to the people
with an insufficiency of facts, that it failed to exercise any
potent and healthy influence over the seekers after God ; and it
is no wonder that they have fallen into irreligious condition,

| the outcome of which has been doubt and scepticism. The
j cultured, practically speaking, have no religion, and they are
| either freethinkers or agnostics. Materialism has supplanted
| Spiritualism, and it looks as if in the next generation there will
| be no more talk about God and Christ. The gratification of the
j senses is considered to be the siwimuni bonuni. Europe can-
j not pursue the present policy of indiflferentism and convention-
| alism for long ; for Spiritualism will triumph over Materialism,.

I No beaten brass, no iron walls can imprison the valiant spirit.

In India, besides the peasants and working classes who
are made of a divine stuff, the cultured few as a whole, vvith-
i out any exception, even those who have swallowed the
| Western ideas and notions, are profoundly religious and
! stoical in regard to the affairs of the world. The lovers of
! India are filled with the spirit of God, and are moved to espouse
i the Indian cause with fervour and enthusiasm, foregoing wealth
j and position, because they know that India is the cradle of
1 spirituality. They care little for the conveniences of this life.

*74

SIDDMiNTA DiPIKA.

Their love is universal. Has any nation maintained its national
and spiritual impress, with so little of physical vitality and
such lack of material resources ? And the Indian people have
survived all the misfortunes that overran this country, time out
of mind, from the days of the Bhagavad-GitS, because they have
possessed the spirit of God and been conscious of the Justice of
the Divine Law. He is everywhere, and He is in each of us.
Divorce God from our life, we become worse than beasts, and
drag on a miserable existence.

The spiritual man may suffer the stings and arrows of this
life, but the love to God he accumulates would make him stronger
and stronger, such that in this life he turns out to be a rock of
virtue and righteousness. He would be filled with joy and hope,
and the end will be one of peace and happiness. We, every one
of us, have witnessed the lives of good and religious men, and
though we are far behind them, we do not try to live after them.
God is not unjust. To the good He is good ; To the wicked
He is bad, and unless we change our life and see God in every-
thing, we would not be able to emerge from this ocean of
existence.

It is because many of the educated young men have a
rationalistic turn of mind and they question the existence of
God, that I thought I could say something of what I think of
God and this life. The Buddhists also have no faith in God,
and I have touched upon the teachings of Buddha briefly,
and I have pointed out the Aecessity of a Supreme Being to
rule over us.

In fine, I would humbly ask the reader to ponder over the
following verses from Bkagavad-CUi:

(i) “ United to the Reason, purified, controlling the self by
firmness, having abandoned sound and other objects of the
senses, having laid aside passion and malice, (2) Dwelling
in solitude, abstemious, speech and mind subdued, constantly
fixed in meditation and yoga, taking refuge in dispassion,
(3) Having cast aside egoism, violence, arrogance, desire,
wrath, covetousness, selfless and peaceful— he is fit to become
the Eternal R, T.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

This is an extraordinary book of high pretensions, issued
recently by the Royal Publishing Company,
The Aquarian Gospel Los Angeles, California, and priced at nine
ot Jesus the Christ, shillings. It will specially attract such
students as are curious to know the life of
Jesus between his thirteenth and thirtieth years, a period of
great silence, as we all know, in the accepted synoptic Gospels.
The book claims to be the Scripture of the so-called Aquarian
Age which, it is said, will shortly dawn on the world. The
story of how it came to be written may briefly be toid. Under
the leadership of " Levi ”, well-known for his oratorical ability
and strength of character, a congregation assembled in Los
Angeles regularly and for long, to whom the substance of the
book was progressively delivered, as a transcript from the
Book of God’s Remembrances, known as the Akasic Records.
The finer ethers, called by Oriental Scholars AkaSa, are sensi-
tized films on which every sound, colour, word, even every
thought, is registered. Henry A. CofTeen writes an extensive
and brilliant introduction in the course of which he gives an
account of what he considers to be a revelation now newly
made to the world, and also points out that the contents of the
present volume represent but a tithe, albeit substantial, of many
similar things to be in time made known to the w'orld. Chapters
21 — 35 constituting Section VI and giving an account of the
life and works of Jesus in India, and Chapters 36 and 37 making
up the next Section (Life and Works of Jesus in Tibet and
Western India) will prove of absorbing interest to our readers.
In Section VI, Jesus becomes the ward of Ravaiia, a Hindu
Prince, and proceeds with him to India. He spends four years
in the Brahmanic temple at Jagannath, where he vigorously
criticises the Brahmanic beliefs and preaches the doctrine of
human equality, for which he is chased by the priests from the
temple, as a heretic. But he is well received by the common
people, becomes a pupil of Udraka, the great Hindu teacher of
healing in Benares, and is finally driven from the country by

siodhAkta rtPiKA.

» 7 «

the priests. He goes to Northern India where he is cheerfully
welcomed by the Buddhist priests, and meets Vidyipita, the
greatest Indian Sage of the period. A portion of Section VII
shows him on a visit to Lahore where he is entertained by the
priests. Chap. 26 of Section VI, contains an account of Jesus’
Sermon to the Brahmins assembled at Katak for the "car-
festival ” Referring to the car of Jagannath which was hauled
along by hundreds of men, he says, “ Behold, a form without a
spirit passes by ; a body with no soul ; a temple with no altar-

fires ” (v. 3) “God's meeting place with man is in the heart,

and in a still small voice he speaks ; and he who hears is still ”
(v. y\ and, again, referring to the futility of animal sacrifices,
he says, “ Make human hearts your altars, and bum your
sacrifices with the fire of love ” ( v . 22). In a word, Jesus’ dis-
cussions with the sages of his day, his initiations and disciplines
in sundry mystic schools of different countries, constitute
an entrancing study, though the source from which the inform-
ation contained in the book has been derived will, to be sure,
be the subject of honest enquiries for some time, at any rate, to
come. If the book can be taken to be authentic, and we see
no reason why it ought not to be, there is every evidence to
show that Jesus was considerably indebted to the Hindu
Agamantic J flams for his “ Illumination ”, and deep knowledge
of the “ Kingdom of Heaven”.

***

We gave sometime back an extract from the Epigraphical
Report of last year, showing the condition of
Condition of 8»iv;»na £aivism from the tenth century upwards,
in U12 s uixl 7 th Ceii- and a propos thereof we extract now a para-
turn-i A D. graph from the iearned address of Mr. Ven-
kayya, the Epigraphist with the Govern-
ment of India, on the Pallavas :

“ The Pallavas appear to have been Saivas at first and accordingly
adopted the bull for their crest and the club (Khatvariga) for their banner.
Some of the kings who issued the Sanskrit charters were probably

OUR BOOK-SHELF.

m

j adherthts of the Vaishpava faith, as I have already remarked. Jainism wma
to have flourished along with these two creeds and, if the Tamil Periya-
} purapam is to be believed, was in the ascendant about the beginning of the
1 seventh century A. D. There was a big monastery at Patalipuram, the.
"modem Tiruppapuliyur, near Cuddalore. At Mayilappur, where this
Taddress is being read, there were Jainas at the time when Tirujfgina-
i sambandhar visited the place. The Pardiya king Nedumaran was originally
[cured by Tirujnanasambandhar. According to the Periyapurapam the
| Saint Tirunavukkarasar or Appar, an elder contemporary of Tirujfiana-
; sambandhar, was first persecuted and subsequently patronized by a Pallava
i king, who is said to have demolished the Jaina monastery at Pafalipuram
i and built a temple of Siva called Gupadaravicharam. As the younger
; Tirujnanasambandhar appears to have been a contemporary of the Pallava
i (ring, Narasimbavarman I., the elder Appar may be taken to have spent
most of his life in the reign of Narasimhavarman’s father, Mahendravannan
I, one of whose surnames was Gupabhara, according to the Trichinopoly
Cave Sanskrit Inscriptions. The conversion of Mahendravarman I., to the
Saiva creed from a hostile faith seems to be implied in the wording of the
same inscriptions. If all this be true, the Pallava king Mahendravarman I.,
must have excavated a number of rock-cut caves, and dedicated most of
them to Siva with the proverbial zeal of the hew convert. Buddhism had
also its own votaries, for the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang, who visited
Kafichi about A. D. 640, speaks thus of the religions of Draviija, i.e, tho
Pallava country : “ There are some hundreds of Sahgharamas and lojofo
priests. They all study the teaching of the Sthavira School belonging to
the Great Vehicle. There are some eighty Deva temples, and many heretics
called Nirgranthas."

•**

OUR BOOK-SHEU.

The following Exchanges have been received since the
publication of our last number : —

1. The Hindu Spiritual Magazine, Dec. 1909, Jan. rgro.

2 . The Brahmavadin, Jan; 19'ro, Feb. rgio.

3. The Maha-Bodhi and the United Buddhist World, Jan; Feb. 1910.

4. Modern Astrology, Feb. 1910.

5. The Critic, r5th Feb. rgro.

6. Theosophy in India, Jan. 15, rgro; Feb, rj, rgro,

SIDDHXirtA DtpmX.

*78

7. The Open Co«t, Doc. 1909, Jan. 1910.

8. The Theoaophtst, Jan. and Feb. 1910.

9. The Vegetarian Magazine, Oct and Nov. 1909.
la Ptabaddha Bhgrata, Dec. 1909, Jan. 1910.

II. The Health Record, Dec. 1909, Jan. 1910.

ta. The Public, Dec. 3, 10, 17, 34, 31, 1909; Jan. 7, 14, 21, 1910.

13. The Carlylean, Dec. 1st and 3rd Weeks, 1909 ; Jan. 1st and 3rd

Weeks, 1910.

14. The Nation, Dec. 37, 1909; Jan. 3, 10, 17, 34, 31 and Feb. 7,

14, ai, 191a

15. The Arya Patriki, Dec. 35, 1909; Jan. 8, 15, 33, 29, and Feb. 5, 12,

19, 191a

16. The Harbinger of Light, Jan. 1, Feb. 1, 1910.

17. The Hindu Organ, Dec. 29, 1909; Jan. 5, 12, 19, 26, Feb. 2,9,

16, 1910.

18. Dec. 29, 1909; Jan. 12, 26, Feb. 9, 1910.

19. Jan. 1, 8, 22, 29, Feb. 19, 1910.
ao. The Indian Student, Dec. 1909; Jan. igto.
at. 5 rt Krishna Sukti, Nov. and Dec. 1909.

ei. Industrial India, Oct., Nov. and Dec. 1909.

13. The Astrological Magazine, Oct. and Nov. 1909 ; Dec. 1909 and

Jan. 1910.

14. The Herald of the Golden Age, Jan. 1910.

*3. The Trained Teacher, Jan. 1910.

36. The Kalpaka, Jan. and Feb. 1910.

ay. The Dawn and Dawn Society's Magazine, Jan. and Feb. 1910.
a8. The Malabar Quarterly Review, Dec. 1909.

39. The Maadaxnan, Dec. 1909; Jan. 1910; Feb. 1910.

JO. Revue Ginirale des Sciences Psychiques, 15 Oct. Nov. Dec. 1908 ;

Janvier 1909 and and Annie, Nos. 3, 6, 7, (1909).

31. World's Advance Thought and Universal Republic, Nov. 1909.

JJ. The Psychic, Capricorn, 1910; Aquarius, 1910.

33. aaS , Oct. and Nov. 1909.

34. Abkfiri, Jan. 1910.

35. ereOiLMifi, Jan. 1910.

36. Old Moore's Monthly Messenger, Feb. 191a

37. .Reason, Jan. 1910.

38. e»w»«*£,Jeb. 12, 1910.

39. BUa BhfUata, Jan. and Feb. 191a

VOL. X.

FEBRUARY, 1910. No: 'J;

ASTROLOGY FROM AN OCCULT STANDPODS^' ’ ~

In many parts of the world records have been found that
suggest a universal belief in Astrology, traces of its teaching
having been discovered in all nations of the earth, whether they
be living, or dead.

For in very ancient civilizations a knowledge of asttnfngy
appears to have been essential to those who held high dflftiat
positions, and more especially to those who were connected WMf
the religious welfare of the nations. In the light of +ecerrf
occult information there is good reason why astrology shoxfM
reveal the fundamental and abstract ideas of cosmogony, also
why our earliest teachers of humanity were known as Divine
Kings. In this respect it is closely allied to Theosophy- which
supports the teachings of ancient philosophers that “ God is
an intelligent Spirit, incorporeal, eternal, immovable, indivisible,
and the Mover of all things”, and that all things are an
emanation of Deity.

A study of astronomy, and its further expansion into a more
metaphysical' study of astrology must inevitably enlarge our
conception of the universe. Astronomy teaches the theory of
innumerable Solar systems, the vastness and fullness of space,
and the orderly motions of the heavenly bodies. Astrology
accepts these theories and becomes an exceedingly practical
study by confining the attention of its students to the solar
system in which we dwell ; considering the solar orb as the
centre of that system, anjJ ‘ the outward glory ’ or, in more
material terms, ‘ the physical txfey ’ of the Logos, and the planets,
as the vehicles of His ministering angels, the Lords or Rulers,
who carry out His Will:

a lo sidmiAmta DfriK*.

The rise and fall of nations, the decadence of empires, and
the mighty changes that periodically take place upon our
globe are all mapped out in the heavens. Scribes may err,
scriptures may lose their potency, and religions may fall into
decay, but the heavens falter never.

The whole cyclic story of the descent of spirit into matter,
and its rise again to a self-conscious knowledge of itself, is told
in plain and poetic language to all who can blend the concrete
and subjective mind into the ideal comparison which intuitively
perceives the existence of a perfect correspondence between the
the moving lives and forms.

The Logos whose life is ever permeating our solar system
is an intelligent Spirit. His ministers, whose mansions we see as
the planets, are mighty Intelligences, and with the slow but sure
expansion of our own individual intelligence, we shall more
clearly see the skilful parts they are playing in the moulding
and shaping of the universe in which we live. To those who
study astrology theologised, the universe is a simple unfolding
of the life of the Logos within His own system. In the mineral
kingdom this life is sleeping, in the vegetable it is awakening,
in the animal it is conscious, in the man it is self-conscious, and
in the god it is super-conscious. Astrology interprets this idea
in a series of simple and uncompounded symbols. A single
step in mathematics produces a more complex series, to be still
further compounded as the symbology becomes more and more
detailed.

The Circle, O , is the symbol of the Sun, astrologically
representing spirit, mind, individuality, and the unit ray of
consciousness. The half circle, D , is the symbol of the Moon,
representing the animal and human states of the Soul, the
changing modes of consciousness, the emotions, feelings, sensa-
tions, and the fluctuating personality. The Cross, X, is the
symbol of matter in its dense form, the earth, the physical body

"Take up thy Cross and follow Me is a mystical saying,
to be intelligently understood by the philosopher, and completely
realised by the occultist or the mystic.

ASTROLOGY FROM AN OCCULT STANDPOINT.

281

Our body erect, with arms extended is the symbolic cross ;
our hands entwined, and knees bent is the symbol of the soul in
prayer and supplication ; the body composed in easy posture,
and enveloped by a meditative or contemplative mind is the
symbol of the spirit seeking union with the source o. which it is
a “ divine fragment.”

It is the complexity of man and the compounding of the
symbols that represent him as he advances in evolution, which
make the science of astrology so difficult to understand from
any other standpoint than an occult or mystical one. 9

The spirit, or life, of God having become involved in matter,
has to evolve, to return back to its simple and uncompounded
state, plus all the experience it has gained during the pilgrimage.

“ The pupil must regain the child-state he has last ere the
first sound can fall upon his ear”. Thus spake one whom the
writer will never cease to revere.

Lost amid the innumerable threads of matter, his Karma
binds him to the wheels of necessity, and life after life he spins
the web of a finer, or coarser, nativity.

To all who discountenance psychic impressions, or doubtful
mediumship, and those whose temperaments are not sufficiently
receptive to favour clairvoyant methods, or whose minds are
not flexible enough to respond to those who have attained to
super-consciousness, astrology contains a wonderful mine of
real higher knowledge. It proves and explains the unity of
spirit amid the diversity of forms. It shows the utility and
necessity for the inequalities of the human race, and above all
it leads to a tolerance that is compelled by the knowledge that
no two persons can be bom exactly alike, and although there
may be a certain number of fixed temperaments, the combina-
tions of those temperaments are as manifold as the combina-
tions of a kaleidoscope.

A. L.

SIDOtUffTA DtFtKA.

tSi

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHAPADHVANS .•

Sisters and Brothers in Goo!

At the very threshold of our subject, the enquiry begins,
" What arc Adhvans ? The term Adhvans can be translated
into ‘ paths ' or ‘ roads and consequently the Shacjadhvans,
into 'si* paths ’ or ‘six roads Then comes the question, what
sort of roads are these six Adhvans and what are their characters
or characteristics ? The answer is they constitute the tissues
of which the little world called Man or microcosm, and the large
Universe called macrocosm are built. The Adhvans are thus the
structural elements of the form-side of the I>ord’s Creation. In
the miniature Universe called Man they make up, par excellence,
that portion of his corporeal nature which absorbs all the effects
of his karma-mala, the various samsk&ras and vUsanas which he
inherits from a hoary past, which leave their mark on his soul
and which renders a tiresome round of metempsychosis so
necessary in order that the consequences of his acts may be
fully reaped by himself and that, in his own interests'. This is
one function of the Adhvans. The other function is their use as
instruments, for his furtherence in the culture ol his soul, in this
probationary school of our visible universe. The Shadadhvans
are consequently six strands of matter-made stuff which enter
into the corporeal composition of man, and they serve not only
to register and in some cases to take the colour of his karma-
mala and even undergo a metamorphosis, but also to render

• A Discoune delivered by Mr. V. V. Ramadan, F.Z.S. (Lend),
etc, on the 19th December 1909, at the Hall of the National High School,
Trichinopoiy, before the South Indian Mystic Conference, with the
HnVe Mr. A. Kanakaxabhai, BA, Member of the Ceylon Legislative
Cornell, in the chair. — Ed. L. T,

1 The stare of Karma which, in the fulness of time, develop into
fkerertir and iiitimj, is divisible into saflehita, prttrabdha and Sg 4 min.
The St ada dh vmns constitute, as it were, a six-chambered nursery in which
the reeds of figiminTkanna are town, and the fruits of Mfriiita-laniq
ripen for harvest.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHADADHVANS, 283

him aid when he strives after a life of purity and godliness, as
all of us are meant to do by our Heavenly Father. When the
Adhvans are considered in relation to the Cosmos or the
manifested Prapaiicha, they are to be taken as the roads along
which Cosmic Evolution has proceeded in the Infinite Wisdom
of the Lord to bring about the Salvation of Souls. Man is only
the Universe in miniature in every respect, and so what is true
of the Adhvans in its maerocosmic aspect is also true of it in its
lesser aspect.

The great Mystic, Master Nilakantha, whom Appaya and
Nijaguna, two godly spirits of repute, revere as a prince of
daharop&sakas, and who is one of the pillars of the Agamanta,
refers twice to the Shadadhvans in his classical Bhashya on
Badaray ana's Sariraka-Sutras, once under the Aphorism fartr ^
iii, 15) and again under the Aphorism SHiffa:
OTIffc TPT1H (IV, iv, 22). I shall quote his very words : ysfaw

vytw: art fawfaTW Ria&a 3»wg fawn: qrn

f| WIWHIM firaWFt rtitfiri TajH. In both the

instances the Master is commenting on the sense of the well-
known passage of the Kafha-Upanishat : tit voiifri (Tfjwir.

TT»t T? n , and makes out that the aftTt: Tit is the ajEm: Tit.

The great point to note here is that the Master recognises a
six-fold Adhvan or Path whose ne plus ultra is the Supreme God.
Another of our “ Anointed ” ones, Master Aruijanti, uses the
Tamil word as a synonym for Adhvan, in one of the verses
of the SivafiuIna-SutdJiiyar, and it will indeed be a very helpful
conception in our Pasubodha to regard the Shadadhvans as so
many “ Roads of Matter" ” till we clear our ground by a more
detailed consideration of our subject. We will eventually find
that the word Adhvan eludes definition, however skilfully we
may endeavour to put forth one. The Shadadhvans are some-
times described as the form of the Lord, and the reason therefor
is thus vindicated by Arupanti :

* Or, perhaps, "Furrows in the seed-bed for Karma”.

*84

sidohAnta Dime*.

yjjfuirs atmftm «a«Mr

£*>?**> **?•&•* *•&>-• ’itwtfv'i gpti
0' 0 gfi_m 01*0^3 rQ*w*'* a 3 jC- 0 - 0 fM ^jeiitgtui
0W a jf0f/&r*HU> AMf^a/cr rtAtevnm.

We may consequently say that within the term Sha<Jadh-
vans the whole teaching of the Agamanta, as revealed to us by
its God-Taught, Illuminati , from personal, actual knowledge of
the ferities, is comprised. We get the best description of the
constitution of the Adhvans, but chiefly, however, in their
cosmic aspect, in the Third Chapter of the Jflana-Pada of the
Suprabheda-Agama, entitled and an equally

graphic account on the same scale, and more or less of a like
character, is to be found in the 13th Pa fa la of the Mfigen-
dragama, an Upagama of the magistral Kamikagama, styled
the There is again a magnificent chapter in the

Siva-Maha-purana, I refer to Chapter 25 in the POrvardha
portion of the entitled tWITO:, which will repay care-

ful perusal for its balanced and equable exposition of the theme,
with doe regard to its cosmic and human aspects. After looking
up what is said in the above authorities, and in Chapter XV of
Part 11 of jFjpfjftr on the subject of 31VT5TN4, a great symbolic
rite connected with an important Mystic Sacrament of which
more anon, under the heading and in Chapter X. of

fewwSt 31 of the same Purina, under and other

miscellaneous references too numerous to detail, I think it will
be an apt description of the general nature and character of the
Adhvans, if I borrow a term from the physiological psychology
of the Westerns and say that the Shadadhvans are the “ Six
Conduction-Paths " of Matter in Universe and in. Man, along
which the Light of the Father, or the Holy Spirit works, to
bring about the redemption of Souls'. Without a knowledge
of the constitution of these channels Man can, in the opinion of
the *‘ Shadadhva-nirpaya " Chapter of the Vayu-Samhita, have

* Under another aspect, the Shaijadhvans are also the pigeon-holes of
“ the subtler mind- stuff" in which the ki rm a-mt lt of man is packed away.

THE ^PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHADAPHVaKS.. 285

no Mukti. This is a grave statement and it should make us
look upon the question with some awe.

The highest of these Channels is known as the Kalsdhvan,
the Channel along which the Para-Sakti or the Holy Spirit
operates in varying phases on the “ Prodigal Son ”, through the
Tattvadhvan, the true “ Roadof Matter ” whose different reaches
are in specific relationship with those of the Kaladhvan. We
may render Kaladhvan as the “ Artery of the Holy Spirit
Then there is the BhuvanSdhvan, the “Chain of the World-
Systems or Universes ” consisting of 234 Macroeosmic Realms,
the “ Road of Matter ” being related to the "Cham of World-
Systems ” in a definite fashion, to wit, certain world-systems
being exclusively formed of certain tattvas, certain others being
formed of certain other tattvaSi and so on. Next comes the
Varnadhvan, the “Path of Sounds ” related to the “Systemsxrf
Worlds” quite in a Pythogorean sense, the! “Music, of the
Spheres " being the consequence of the evolution of the Bhuvana-
dhvan, which being only a reflex of the “ Imperishable ” in Its
condition of Nada, is called equally ‘varna 4 ’ or 1 akshara’.
Certain kinds of sounds have influence over certain Bhuvanadhi-
patis and certain Andadhipatis. In Hindu Astrology, the grea-
test planetary and sidereal afflictions are sought to be averted bv
special incantations, mystic spells, and prayers, addressed to
the respective planets and celestial bodies, as described in
Karma-Vipaka Granthas, and the rationale of the process is best
known only to the Agamantic mystics who hold in the hollow
of their hand the mystery of sound and number. The fiftysme
sounds which constitute the Varnadhvan are in truth only
variations of the eternal “ Voice of Silence ”, the Prapava, the
“ Word ” which in 1 he words of the Christian Mystic, St. John,
“was with God" in the beginning, and "which was God”,
and which is ever to be heard in the Dahara-Purujarika of Man.
Then we have the Padadhvan, the ‘ Path of Words ’, w hich con-

* The relation of ‘ colour ’ or ‘ colour-made form ’ (varna) to ‘ sound *
(nada ) is that of 'effect' to 'cause’ and hides a great truth in the general
plan of Evolution both in its samashjic and vyashpc phases.

samJUn-A Dint*.

•K

abts cf eighty-one words of great mystic potency in Atmo*
ddhtn uw and livartfevlna. The padaa are formed of v arcus as
every one knows. Last but not kast comes the Mantradhvan,
the ■* Path of Thought Articulate and rational speech can-
not kag continue without thought, and mantra is nothing
short af “thought thrice distilled". It is the result of a process
of intensely ruminating over pa das, which is the same as
"tMrtng thought". A special order of intelligences called
Maotradevas or Mantreavaras respond to such thought-vibra-
tions, and their relation to the BhuvanJdhipatis and other
Adtahthtna-devatu is very intimate and well-marked. The
ilantrtdhvan is the path along which the Turiya-prapava-
yogi ns work, which takes them to the bkkmika of Atma-
darkana among the da£a-karylpi, on which plane the true
Dhtan-Uptsani in which Master Nilakapfha was such an-
expert and adept, begins. For the man that is anxious to enter
at once on the path of Spiritual Culture without many of the
hardships which are usually associated with it, the Mantra-
dhvan is the easiest to pursue and the nearest to approach.
Although the Mantradhvan is usually placed as the last of the
Adhvans, it is really the Adhvan in which the Lord always
loves to linger, in the form of the Mahamantra, the Pafichak-
shara, as Arupanti, Suprabheda-Agama, and the Viseshadlkshi-
vidhi ' Chapter of the Viyu-Samhiti, point out. It is placed
lowest because it is nearest if not next to us. 1 shall quote
Arupanti to bear out the importance of the Mantradhvan as
the “ Holy Acre " of the Lord : —

i m u it s

aa ffiffitga.ua fnt riiv
^atfifimdiLaiaSs&a^
Qiaafuaiaififieaa* OatajfiGaiaf Sjxgw
aff ttaS i ft fat afli> Qaada Aiuoia anagwi'n
•ifif^tSdaUffi iS*kfaaiaaifiilif.f^iQatiam(}L.
+i&&**- l jM<yifi OiaRjja*a>*iJg)iQsai(3p
mmppatamafi aiam axf Qmmru^flaOaa^etniiji.

* (To be continued).

V. V. R.

jnana vasishtham

OR

THE DIALOGUES OF VASISHTHA ON WISDOM.

( Continued from page 249 of No. 7 Vol. X.)

II. — Renunciation.

The Vedanta is not taught indiscriminately to all* for, as
Vasishfa says, "The study of the great books is fraught with
danger to persons of little understanding It will breed de-
grading folly in them, no other books wiH breed so much,”—
an observation verified in the case of students who take to
idle, useless, and even vicious lives, pleading the principles of
the Vedanta. Hence, before admitting a pupil to these studies,
the teacher is enjoined to test his moral and spiritual fitness,
The pupil should be imbued with a sense of the impermanence
of life and the worthlessness of all worldly things, all desire
must have died in him for the so-called goods of this world or the
next. He should be truly poor in spirit and hanker and thirst
after wisdom, in the pursuit of which he must be ready to give
up all else. Rama was the type of the qualified student, and
the chapter called VairOgya prakaranam, or the Chapter of
Renunciation, describes his spiritual condition just before bis
initiation.

He was the heir to a great kingdom and had just returned
from a pilgrimage, which in those days, as now, apart from its
spiritual uses, is the popular form of travel, in India and covers
the face of the land with happy troops of pilgiims of all grades,
ages, and sexes, for whose counterpart in England one must go
back to the time of Chaucer. Rama was transformed on his
return. His royal duties, the pleasures of the court and the
chase, became irksome to him ; he went through them mechani-
cally for a time, and finally gave them up altogether. His
religious duties, to which be had been devoted, had no interest
for him. He neglected food and sleep, sought solitude and
contemplation, and pined away until his attendants were filled
with anxiety and reported his condition to his father who doted
2

S1DDHXMTA DiPtKX.

Ill

on him. The king sent for him and questioned him with much
concern, hut could get no due to his troubles. Shortly after-
wards the sage ViSvlmitra came on a visit to the king in order
to obtain the. help of Rima against some wild men who were
molesting him in his forest retreat. With great reluctance
the king consented to part with his son for the purpose. Rama
being sent for comes to the king's presence and, instead of
taking his usual place in the assembly, sects himself on the
floor to the consternation of the king and his courtiers.
Vasish.a, the guru or spiritual preceptor of the royal family,
who was present, and the visitor Viivamitra speak to Rama
and beg him to explain the cause of his melancholy. Unable to
disobey them, he breaks silence and answers :

•« IVirn of this king, reared by him, trained in the knowledge
of various arts and sciences, I duly performed my religious
and ro; :.! cities. I have now returned from a pilgrimage to
sacred shrir.es, and straightway all desire for the things of the
world hath ceased in me. There is no pleasure in them. We
die but to be bom, and are born but to die. All, all, are fleeting.
What good is there in the fictitious things which constitute
wealth? What good in wordly enjoyment, in royalty?
Who are we ? Whence this body ? All false, false, false.*
One who reflects and asks himself • Who hath obtained what ? ' ,
will ’have no desire for them, even as a wayfarer desires not
to drink water which be knows to be a mirage. I bum, 1 choke,
seeking a way out of this delusion and sorrow."

Rlma then proceeds to analyse worldly things and makes
them out, one and all, to be worthless. Wealth, he says like
kings, favours its courtiers without regard to merit, dissipates
energy by manifold acts, harbours the snakes “ like ” -and
“ dislike," ahuns the teaching of the wise and good. Whom
doth wealth not corrupt ? It is like the flower of a plant in a
snake-encircled pit. Life is like a water-drop at the tip of
a pendent leaf, a mad man rushing out at unexpected,

1 Cf. Boasuet : On trouve an food de tout le vide et io DhuX

jnJna VASISHTHAM.

289

I unseasonable times, a flash of lightning in the cloudrdesire,

! a stumbling-block to the unwise. Life is harder to guard
than to cleave space, to grasp the air or to string the waves
of the sea. Unstable as a rain cloud, as the light of an oil-less
lamp, as a wave, life causeth pain to those who desire it, as the
pearl is the death of its oyster-mother. The life, except of
the wise man, the Juini, is the life of an old donkey. No
enemy so great as egoism. All acts, religious and other,
mixed with it are false. As the ego-cloud grows, so doth the
jasmin-creeper desire. The ego is the seed of desire, the
breeding ground of fatal delusion and ignorance.

Thought wanders in vain like a feather tossed in a storm or
like an ownerless dog ; it is like water flowing from a broken
pot. Mind, a dog running after the bitch desire, tears me,
says Rama, to pieces, drives me about as if I were possessed
with a devil, entangles me in vain acts as though I tried with
a rotton rope to pull a beam from the bottom of a well. The
mind-devil is fiercer than fire, more impassable than mountains,
harder to control than to pull the Himalayas by their roots, to
dry up the ocean, or swallow the submarine fire. If thought
dies, the universe dies. If thought springs, the universe springs.
Gladness and sorrow thrive in the mind as forests on moun-
tains, and with the mind disappear.

These strictures on the mind may seem extravagant. But
what is here condemned is not the use but the abuse of mind,
the tyranny of thought of which we are the victims. What
reflecting person but is conscious of the difficulty of the habit
of undivided concentration on the thing in hand, conscious of
the wandering of the mind, of its division and distraction, its
openness to attack by brigand cares and anxieties ? Man
prides himself on mastery of sea and land and air, but how rare
the mas.tery of the mind ? The weary and care-worn faces of
thousands, especially among the wealthy and educated classes,
with their projects and plans and purposes, bear eloquent
witness to the fever of thought by which man is dominated

*9°

SIDOMUfTA DtPUJl.

and over-ridden, a miserable prey to the bat-winged phantoms
that (lit through the corridors of his brain. Until one is
able to expel a thought from his mind as easily as he would
shake a pebble out of his boot, it is absurd to talk of man
as the heir of all the ages and master of nature. A slave
rather. But if while at work you can concentrate your
thought absolutely on it, pounding away like a great engine,
with great power and perfect economy, no wear and tear
of friction, and then when the work is finished and there is no
more occasion for the use of the machine, you can stop it
equally absolutely, no worrying, as if a parcel of boys were
allowed to play their devilments with a locomotive as soon as it
was in the shed, — if you have gained this mastery over thought,
only then would you be deemed by the sages of India on the
way to freedom. But the effacement of thought does not mean
its giving place to sleep. This too must be conquered, a no
less difficult conquest, and then according to them the veil
lifts and you pass into that region of your consciousness where
your true self dwells and where, in the words of Tennyson, is the
gain of such large life as matched with ours were Sun to spark.

To return to’ our hero, he continues : — In the dark night,
desire, the owls, lust, anger, and the rest haunt the sky of
the _soul. Good qualities are destroyed by desire, as the
strings of a violin by mice. Caught in desire like a bird in a
net, 1 faint, I bum. Desire makes cowards of heroes, blinds
the clear-sighted, makes the wise tremble, is like a courtesan
who runs in vain after men though her charms have long
departed, or like a dancer attempting dances beyond her
power, seeks things 'hard to get, is not satisfied even when
they are got, is ever on the move like a monkey or a bee,
traverseth earth and heaven in a second, is the root of all
sorrow. Desire masters and ruins the greatest of men in a
moment : its only cure is the riddance of thought.

* (To be continued.)

P. A.

IS THE SOUL IMMORTAL?

( Continued from page 257 of No. 12 Vol. IX.)

To disprove the arguments ol Materialism and assert the
reality of a life beyond, Philosophy and Religion have done their
best in ways of their own. But in the present essay 1 have
nothing to do with them. I lay aside with the greatest reve-
rence the Paleys and Butlers of theological fame and would
discuss the question purely on the ground of observation
and experiment. For the question of immortality to be of
scientific value should be discussed on no other ground than
such as are appealed to in other matters for dear objective proof.

What then has science to say on this question? Science
admits that there is some power in man by which he can assert
himself without sensory agency. This fact was known to the
Indian sages before it was even dreamt of by any of the Western
nations. And the Yoga Satras of Pataiijali teach us how this
power can be realised by a steadying of the mind. There
is sufficient evidence to believe that by steadying the mind
in the ways prescribed by Patahjali, great and wonderful powers
can be achieved. Says Svami Tayumanavar :

<* si jpSLDpisfimtu ai&wnii 6t—00eonw
L/aSamGBujiijLC

slIlsoii Qwir@@iB3 QpgtQarQiAfliQ&iTjrGm-irth
sC-Q&eS Qiu®00iTLLL-eviiih
Qeuisp tfi&SafljTpui 6a>6u06a>0i^G6virs0€nj0iL]Lb
Gajfipgl q 3 f r* ajar eair sun u>

Q&lQ (1? (TTjGUt S n I QJGUrrw

eSeareoa eueaiir Quj&jeoQ&iTar&iirx

^evGiitean—ssekiniii Mrs vOutoSf^Msattrii
06 raflsifi** GjJd&up&j/TLh.”

• • • • •

Says Svami Vivekananda in his Raja Yoga, a book that never
fails to create in those that read it a deep interest in the Yoga

SIDOHXNTA DiPIXA.

»9i

Philosophy : * The mind can exist on a still higher plane, the
super-conscious. When the mind has attained to that state
which is called SamSdhi— perfect concentration, super-conscious
nrss— it goes beyond the limits of reason and comes face to face
with facts which no instinct or reason can ever know. All these
manipulations of the subtle forces of the body, the different
manifestations of Pr 40 ». if trained, give a push to the mind and
the mind Joes up higher and becomes Super-conscious and from
that plane it acts.”

Many of the sages of India have lived in this ‘super-
conscious’ plane and exerted their influence over every-
thing, animate and inanimate. Among such sages, Agastya,
Vitvlmitra, Kapila, Kasyapa, Vylsa, N&rada, Vslmlki, Buddha,
Rimakrishqa and hundreds of others can be mentioned. Even
to-day there can be seen many of the above type near the
Himalaya mountains.

The fact that there is some power in man by which he can
do wonderful things is now recognised in the Western countries,
and one phenomenon after another of those discovered by
De Puysegur, Esdaile, Elliotson and others has passed into
orthodox science. The researchers of the Psychical Society
who have brought to the light of day many of the hitherto-
considered -occult phenomena, and the learned editor of the
" Review of Reviews" whose Julia’s Bureau is destined to connect
this world with the next, deserve the thanks of every one inte-
rested in their researches. And it is hoped the time is not far
distant when one and all will be convinced of the reality of their
researches which mark a distinct period in the growth of
Western philosophy.

But, whether'it is due to the want of philosophical instinct
in their nature or their training along materialistic lines, some
even of the cultured intellects of the West are inclined to dis-
credit the researches of the Psychical Society and throw cold
water on the spirit of tfieir inquiry. In the January number of
the "Nineteenth Century” (1909) Prof. Newcomb has boldly

IS THE SOUL IMMORTAL? 293

asserted in an article on “ Modern Occultism " that "nothing has
been brought out by the researches of the Psychical Society
• • • * — except what we should expect to find in the ordinary
course of Nature.” But in the whole of that otherwise learned
article the Professor has not shown one instance of careless
observation or random speculation on the part of the researchers
of the Psychical Society. That he has not even read their
reports is evident from the way he has treated the subject.
Such well known psychologists as M. Ribot and M. Manlier in
France, Prof. William James of Harvard in America, and
Prof. Sidgwick of Cambridge in England who have contributed
much to the researches of the Psychical Society are men who
can be safely depended on for accurate observation and system-
atic thinking. The Professor quotes an instance of spirit commu-
nication from " Occultism and Common sense ” (by Beckles
Wilson) which runs thus: “One week ago, last Tuesday at
eleven o'clock, my wife who had just retired to bed upstairs
called out to me ‘ Arthur ! Arthur ' in a tone of alarm. I
sprang up and ran upstairs to see what was the matter. The
servants had all gone to bed. ‘Arthur’ said my wife ‘I have
just seen mother 1 and she began to cry. ‘ Why ! ’ 1 said 1 Why 1
Your mother is in Scarborough.’ ‘lknow, she said ‘but she
appeared before me just there (pointing to the foot of the bed)
two minutes ago as plainly as you do.’ Well, the next morning
there was a telegram on the break-fast table — -‘ Mother died at
eleven last night ’ — now, How do you account for it.” The
professor has accounted for it, and given it a summary dismissal
in these words, 11 1 would not be at all surprised, could the facts
be made known, if the wife had said something of the kind to
her husband every day of night for a week especially if the
mother were known to be very ill.” Let the professor be not
surprised. Let him only devote his learned leisure to a more
careful study of the subject to find more things than are dreamt
of in his philosophy. These prophetic lines

“ Star to star vibrates light ; may soul to soul
Strike through some finer element of her own ? ”

*94

SIDOHXNTA DtPIEJt

which the professor has learnt in his school days in the beautiful
but pathetic story of Leolin and Edith may serve as a keynote
to begin his inquiries afresh. The reply to Prof. Newcomb by
Sir Oliver Lodge, F. R. S., published in the next number of the
same magazine has clearly shown the unsoundness of the
professor's arguments, his bias, and his inability to grasp any
fact that lies beyond the phenomenal world. From which able
and instructive reply 1 quote the following, which have an
important bearing on our subject.

Says Sir Oliver Lodge :

" For at the present time, telepathy has become almost
a sort of bug-bear, which constantly obstructs our view and
increases our difficulties, because it is a vrra causa which we
feel bound to stretch to the utmost as a working hypothesis
before advancing to some further and more questionable
hypothesis.”

“ Men of letters and distinction are now willing to discuss
our results, and presently even the courts of orthodox science
will be open to receive communications on this subject even as
they have at last had to recognise hypnotism in spite of its
alien appearance.”

“ I assert therefore much more strongly than Prof. Newcomb
can deny, that direct experiment has established the possi-
bility of an immediate kind of thought tranference between
individipls.”

(To be continued.)

iraiyanAr=agapporul.

( Continued from page 262 of No. 7 Vot. X.)

The god Sdrcasundara, perceiving his trouble of mind,
determined to remove it, — seeing that it was in pursuit of know-
ledge. He, therefore, composed these sixty sutras, engraved
them upon three copper-plates and placed them underneath the
pifha, or platform, on which the image of the deity was placed.
The next morning, the priest of the temple, after sweeping and
cleaning the whole temple, unlike his usual custom, began to
clean the base of the platform also, when he was overjoyed to
find the set of copper-plates with the porn/adigdram engraved
upon them. He ran with the copper-plates to the king, who
saw the special grace of the deity towards him and gave the
work to the poets of the Safi gam, to be interpreted and explained.
The several poets gave conflicting interpretations and, finding
themselves unable to come to an understanding, went to the
king and requested him to nominate an umpire to give an
authoritative decision. The king replied that the forty-nine
poets of the Safigam were the best literati of the land and that
it was impossible for him to nominate one better than them-
selves, and advised them to pray Somasundara himself’ to
vouchsafe to them an umpire. While they all lay within the
temple praying to the deity, a voice washeared thrice repeated,
which said: “In this place is a dumb boy aged five years,
named Rudra-sarman, who is the son of Uppuri-kur i-kijar
( = the headman of the village of Uppuri-kudi). Do not slight
him as a mere boy, but seat him on a pedestal and recite to him
the various commentaries composed by you. Whenever he
hears the true interpretation, tears will come into his eyes and
he will manifest symptoms of pleasure, but he will remain
unmoved when the interpretation is not correct. He is the deity

• The reference is here to the custom, according to which people will
not leave the temple "until the deity vouchsafes their requests to them.

3

S1D0HANTA PiPIK*.

KumAra (i. t. Subrahmagya) and has taken this birth owing to
a curse." Hearing this voice, all the poets arose and, after cir-
cumambulating the temple, they approached L’ppuri kuci-kilir,
related to him these circumstances and requested him to permit
his son to be taken with him. With his permission, they adorn-
ed the boy, and seating him on the elevated Saftga platform,
they all sat down below and recited their respective commen-
taries. He heard all without any symptoms of pleasure, except
occasionally when the commentary of Madurai-Marudapilapa-
ganar was recited. But at every word of Nakkirar’s Commen-
tary there were evident signs of pleasure exhibited by him.
Thus was Nakkirar's established to be the truest intrepretation.

The Commentary then continues the story thus: — "On
account of this some say that the Commentary is by Rudra-
arman, the son of Uppuri-kudi-kilar. But he did not compose
it, he only heard it. Thus the fact is that the work itself was
composed by the deity of Alavay,' the Commentary by
Nakkirar, and that the latter was heard by the deity Kumara.
We shall now relate how the Commentary was handed down.

1. Nakkirar, the son of Maduraik-kanakkayapar taught it
to Kiravi-konapar ;

2. He taught it to Tcour-kijar ;

3. He taught it to Padiyap-gorrapar ;

4. He taught it to Selvatt-asiriyar Peruiijuvapar ;*

5. He taught it to Manalur-asiriyar — PuJiyaPkayp-

peru&jcndapar ;

6. He taught it to SellUr-asiriyar Andaip-perurtkuma-

raoir ;

7. He taught it to Tiruk-kupratt-asiriyar ;

8. He taught it to Msdavajapar IJanagapar ;

9. He taught it to MuSiriy-Ssiriyar Nilakantanar.

1 hus does the Commentary come."

;

* >. 1. Madura.

Evidently a mislection of ParttTijuvarov.ar.

IR UVANAIt AGAPl"ORLT..

297

This is a free rendering of the very interesting account
given in the Commentary regarding the origin of the work.
The tradition is that all these events took place in the reign of
Ugra-pperu = Valudi and that the Commentary itself was
written at that time by Nakkirar, the president of the Safigam.
The date of the work we shall discuss later on in thi light of the
facts disclosed by the verses quoted in the Comnv ntary. But
we may observe that the Commentary itself clea ly negatives
the tradition that it was actually written down by Nakkirar.
No doubt it might have been the fact that the substance of the
work was what was propounded and taught by Nakkirar to his
disciples ; and this seems to have been handed down from gene-
ration to generation, till at last Mu 5 iriy = asiriyar Nilakan-
7ANAR, or his disciple, might have reduced the work to writing.

Illustrative verses in the Commentary. — There are more
than 400 of these, of which 315 only, in praise of a king going
by various names, such as Nedumaran, &c., are serially number-
ed. These 315 form the larger portion of a species of compo-
sition called Kovai, which according to the Tamil grammars
should consist of 400 verses in the kalitturai metre. These
verses will form the material for our study. From an analysis
of these only one conclusion is possible, viz., that they refer to
one individual alone.

The hero of the KOvai.” — The hero is named Nedumaran
of the Pandya Dynasty. That he is a Pandya is evident from
the following verses and designations which denote a Pandya ; —
Vv., i,7, 44, 83, 89, &c. Mirjavai)— v. n, &c. Neriyap— vv.
19, 80, &c. Panchavai) — vv. 20, 51, &c. Tennavan — vv. 23, 36,
65, 76, &c.

The surnames of the king: — (1) Uchitap, 7 (2) Parart-
kusan,* (3) Vicharitan,’ (4) Var&dayap, 14 (5) Arikdsari,"

4 See Panniru-pdttiyal under kovai, 7 w. 1, 7, 44 > ® 9 » ^ c -

■ w. 3, 13, 27, 35, 71. &c. 4 vv. 12, 48, 63, 161, 170, 176, &c.

W . 16, 36, 41, 56, 87, &c. 11 W . 22, 28, 47, 52, 55, 144, &C.

SDDHJlNTA DiPMtl.

r*

(6) Rapantakan,'* ( 7 ) Satturu-durandaran" («) ViSaiya-
charitao.’* (9) Kali-madanao,'* (10) Maoadao," (11) Rap6-
dayan," (Ta) Mlrao," (13) NetjumlraO-'*

Personai. characteristics of the king.

That he was a dark man appears from the descriptions:

' kurn-ma-matf! vapfiaB,’ v. 141 (he who has the complexion of
the large blue jewel), and 1 kir-vat*va» Pot vannaB,' v. 145 (he
whose complexion was as that of the cloud-coloured Vishtiu).
He was a great lover of the Tamil language, as he is called : —
tin -Jamil vemtatt, w. 1, 26, 6;, &c. (the king who belongs to a
race having sweet Tamil as its language), and antu^Agall*-
yawvay -urai—taru tin— Jamil ieUoth v. 89 (he who learnt
classic Tamil as spoken in the days of old by the sage Agastya.)**
In verse 228, NedumArao is described as having churned the
ocean and obtaining nectar therefrom given it to the Devas.
The same facts are mentioned in verses 234 and 304. Perhaps
he was regarded by the poet as the incarnation of Vishqu.

Battles won by the king : —

(1) Sennilam, vv. 1, 17, 20, 58, 65, See.

12) Pali w . 3, 13, 51, 78, 88, &c.

(3) Vijifiam, vv. 4, 7, 10, 30, 59, &c.

(4) Kdttaru, vv. 5, 36, 86, 149, 234, See.

(5) Airukkudi, vv. 6, 1 1, 26, 29, 43, &c.

(6) Polandai, w. 8, 12, 27, 31, 37, Sec.

(7) Stvdr, w. 9, 16, 44* 46. 5*. &c.

(8) NaraiyJru, w. 15, 18, 23, 57. too, & c.

" w. 13J. ’* vv. 149, 172, 196.

" 1 53, J 39* ^ “ m. 175, 189, 264, 291.

'* »• >63. ,r v. 315.

" w. 6, 25, 68, 74, 77, 80, 4c. *• vv. 24, 49, 70, 72, 79, 81, 84, 4c.

H Agastya is said to be the author of Pirvgaitiyvm, the earliest grant"
mar of the Tamil language, which is now known only by quotations.
The author of the earkest extant grammar, Tolhappiya$ar t is said to have
ben his disciple. The work under discussion describes the Pit —
vfaUiyam as t*ing extant in the first and second SaiSg&ms.

1R A1YANAR = AG APPQRUL.

299

(9) Kadaiyal, vv. 19, 21, 24/34, 39,;&c.

(10) Nelvgli, vv. 22, 53, 106, 116, 145, &c.

(n) Maijarri, vv. 38, 42, 175.

(12) Vallam, vv. 40, 99, 108, 119, 131, See.

(13) VeijmSttu, vv. 45, 237.

(14) Kalattur, vv. 120.

(15) Ne<Jufiga]am, vv. 164, 180, 186, 188, 197,

(16) Safigamafigai, w. 202, 2 66.

(17) Irunjirai, vv. 205, 269.

(18) Mandai, vv. 255, 261.

(19) Kulandai w. 257, 293, and

(20) Vftftaru, vv. 305.

Of these battles, those occurring at Afrukkudi,* 1 Palandai,"
isevar,” Ka<Jaiyal,“ Naraiyaru,' 5 K6tta.ru, and Vijinam,*' were
fought with the Cheras. At Kbttaru, Pali and Kadaiyal, the
king is said to have encountered a number of kings (vv. 298,
162 and 39). The battle of Naj-aiyaru was probably a naval
one (w. 57 and 292).

(To be continued.)

M. K. N.

T. A, G.

« v. 6.

“ ». 24.

•' V. 388,

** vv. 8, 94, 1 13, 140. “ ev. 16, 44, 92, ISS-

w< 57i 18;, 292- “ * 49 *

StDOUANTA DiPIKA.

yx>

THE WORK BEFORE US.*

The Hon’ble the President, Sisters and Brothers : —

My thanks first to the organisers of this Conference for the
privilege, the great privilege, accorded me to address this
enlightened assembly of the followers of the sacred Religion of
Truth— the Suddha Advaita Siddhanta Saivam.

A religious Conference is indeed indispensable in this
age for gathering together the followers of Truth from
various lands and climes and keeping up the spirit of revival
lest it be drowned in the ocean of wordly concerns, and grand-
motherly superstitions. It is a sign of the spirit of brotherly
feeling that exists in the hearts of the sons of Truth, not only
towards one another but also towards the rest of the world. It
is characteristic of the spirit of universal love that is induced by
the Divine Grace of the Blissful Lord whose name the Religion
bears. And so, it is a grand and promising undertaking which
should enlist the sympathy and hearty cooperation of all Sons
of Truth and for which one cannot be too thankful to the
organisers. It is fortunate for all that this great idea struck
the organisers, assumed shape and form and is now before us,
year after year, clothed in the spirit and the intellect of its
supporters from different countries. A thousand thanks there-
fore to those who conceived this idea, cherished it, nursed it,
and presented it to us in this tangible form. May the Grace
of the Blissful Lord be with the movement, to shower its Light
and Blessing on all seekers after Truth, and guide their way
up to Him.

The Subject I have chosen for this address is a simple
one — “The Work Before Us" — , and permit me to draw your
attention to only two aspects of the question. Firstly “ The
Work Before Us " as individuals of the Society or Nation.
Secondl y, as followers of the Religion of Truth, the Siddhanta.

* A paper communicated by Mr. R. S. Subrahmapyam of Colombo
to the South Indian Mystic Conference held in Dec. 1909.

SOUTH INDIAN MYSTIC CONFERENCE.

301

Whether viewed from the philosophic standpoint as a willing,
thinking, and acting being or from a worldly stand-point as one
requiring to satisfy hunger and thirst and cover his nakedness,
man is inextricably tied to work and his relation to it, is
fortunate or not, as he makes it. On work depends life, and on
life depends his future and it is towards future happiness all
effort and energy are directed and it may be safely said what
one does or works out is the only foundation upon which his
future rests. Work is then a constitutional necessity, a faithful
companion, and an indispensable redeemer ; in other words eat
to live, live to work, and work to eat should be a cyclic truism
that should be written in bold characters on the threshold of the
palace and the hut alike. When Sir Walter Scott said to his
son, following the well-known words of the Bible, “ Labour is
the condition which God has imposed upon us in every station
of life and there is nothing worth having that can be had with-
out it”, he spoke from the experience of the useful life and but
echoed the distincr command of all scriptures that it is our duty
to work. Although it is true that in the case of some there may
not be the necessity to work for his daily bread owing to their
large inheritance and abundant income, it should not be forgot-
ten that their activity is meant by providence to be directed
into other channels of national usefulness. They were relieved
from one kind of labour in order that they may engage them-
selves in another of more responsibility and higher purpose.
If one part of the machine of the national mill should stop
work, because it has done ample sometime before, it will cer-
tainly get rusty and useless, and be a burden handicapping
the smooth working of the mill. No man should think of him-
self alone while he is in the mill-house. Each is a part, part
only, but indispensable to make up the national whole ; nay
more, each man is a debtor to the nation. His form and shape,
his powers and faculties, his capacity and capability, his
position and all, are not his own making only. They have
come down to him from the interminable line of national
evolution from the immemorial past. For his possession there-

sionilAKTA irtPittA.

5 ™

fore he is indebted to the nation which expects every man to
be at his post to work the debt off. Accordingly no man is
free to say "I have enough and need work no more.” Of the
two lines in which one’s activity should run, the first is
certainly to work for himself lest he, by his idleness, increase
his debt to the nation on whose capital he might be compelled
to draw for his maintenance, and the second is to work for the
nation, lest he, by his ignorance, fail to square his debt off and
leave the national mill-house as a sluggish, shameless, un-
grateful workman. This is why it is said that man is not born
for himself alone. To work is his duty and the fruits of labour
arc the common property of the nation. The right use of one's
wealth and energy is a matter of great concern to the nation,
and those who have enough and more should still work to
increase the national wealth or to protect the nation from decay,
or to safeguard the national interest or uplift others down
below on the lower rungs of light and life. If those blest with
culture or fortune do not stop down to lend a helping hand to
those down below but with self-satisfied hearts roll in their light
and wealth, blind to the hands of the nation raised in agony
and sorrow, deaf to the cry of the less favoured many, and
indifferent to the calls of the nation, are they not worse and
more cruel and detestable than the thieves and burglars arrayed
before the criminal courts? Yea! they are the pirates and
highway robbers of the nation, for, do they not by their
indolence and ignorance live on the national wealth and waste
the national asset.

Just as there are the wants of the individuals there are
the wants of the nation. There is the individual character and
the national character, individual degradation and national
degradation, and no one may justly be said to belong to a
nation until, he possesses the national character, cherishes the
national ideals, feels the national pride and keeps up the national
dignity. The responsibility therefore on the members forming
the nation is very great indeed — a sacred responsibility, as the
nation rises if the members rise, and fall, if they fall. A nation

THE WORK BEFORE US.

JOJ

is judged from the individuals composing it. One’s tnoughts,
words and deeds go a long way to influence those of the nation,
therefore it should be the sacred duty of every one to work for
the advancement of himself in every direction in order that he
may thereby help the national advancement and not be a Canker
of the nation ; and then comes the united efforts to ameliorate the
material, moral, and spiritual condition of one's society or nation.
How easy the work is, provided the communal, social, or
national interests are kept in view by the workers. If, in a palm-
grove, each tree is fresh, and luxuriant, the on-looker thinks of
the grove first and not of the trees themselves. How much
more will be the effect of the union of sentient individuals
into a nation, bach one of whom is a typical citizen, growing
luxuriantly side by side in the national ideals based on right-
eous principles of life. How much more should they join hands,
with hearts anxiously beating for the growth of one another’s
neighbours. When there is the clear understanding of the
communal interests and the willingness to help forward the
common cause, is there anything too difficult to perform,
too high to aspire to, or too low to elevate ? Instead of one
hand, there will be thousands to work together, instead of
one head thousands to think together, instead of one heart,
thousands to beat together, instead of one purse, thousands
to open out. What more assurance is required but that the
national work would be a success beyond measure and
expectation? What is required is an understanding of each
man’s responsibility towards bettering himself and his nation.
No man is too great or too small for this work ; each has his
allotted portion, and the failure to take it up is a serious omis-
sion causing a perilous dislocation in the national machinery.

The sages of yore felt it incumbent upon them to lead
fellow-men to high spiritual ideals without sundering the
national ties, for they knew that it is only the few amongst the
multitude who, strong enough to stand on their own legs, will
eventually reach the goal, the rest having yet to grow strong
4

sidohXnta dIpikA.

y*

(or lb* higher esUle and, in the meantime, leaning upon one
another. To break the tie* would be to cause a great fall
of the nation, and crush it out of existence. This they knew
and made provision accordingly. The interlacing of social and
spiritual laws for the guidance of the people, which many would
in their ignorance condemn, has this noble object at bottom,
namely, to go with the nation and beyond it and not to allow
men to crawl like worms on the slippery path on which giants
alone can tread with ease.

The division of national labour into Vanjas or Castes
and the provision of the ladder-way of Ashramas (estates of
life) show the far-sighted philanthropy of the leaders of the past.
Character and adherence to duty were demanded as a test of
one's caste and not birth alone. Sacrifice of one’s comforts, the
abandonment of selfish interests and the complete surrender of
oneself marked the advancement in the path of Ashramas and not
the beads and orange garbs alone. Those who depended upon
the birth and the garb found disappointment and shame as their
lot. The wise seers did not intend that any one caste was to
lord it over another, tyrannize it, and reduce it to the state of
helpless brute creation. The intention was no doubt that there
should be division of labour, and those most capable of perform-
ing a particular kind of labour, were to take it up and follow it as
their calling, training in the same profession their progeny who
have naturally the most favourable opportunities, circumstances
and tendencies for the purpose. The whole scheme was towards the
progress of the nation as a whole, and no part of the labour that
contributed towards it, was to be despised, while another extolled;
work for the nation in any department of life was to be sacred.
Who will be so foolish as to look down upon the hand which
does all the necessary dirty work for the purification of the
body ? — a useful limb allotted to do a certain work, but not to
be despised by the eye from its seat of eminence. The eye has
its eminence by i(p fine texture and the nature of its work, but
can rt on this account be reluctant 'to look at the other parts

THE WORK BEFORE US.

3PS

of the body or work in unison ? Yet people have been foolish
and the result has been deplorable ! Each Caste despises the one
below it, attaching importance to honour and privilege rather
than to its duty. Instead of helping towards the national solid-
arity the castes sowed seeds of dissension and jealousy and each
one commenced to prey upon the other. Gh, the result of it 1 ft
is heart-rending and shameful ! None retained the purity and the
characteristic virtue of the Caste ; they grasped the husk and
lost the kernel ; degraded, down and down they fell, tin at
last the majority, the milions of the nation became the sheep and
the pigs, not able to know that they have a head over, their
shoulders. If it is essential that a nation should have -its
characteristic virtues and ideals to be attained by the cqc C uer-
ation of the individuals, if it is essential that each individual
should have the fire of national feeling to work this out and, if k
is essential that selfish interests should have no place in the
national cause and that there should be warmth of affection
towards the individuals composing the nation, I ask whether we
now live as a nation, united and progressive, or as decaying
reeds, left to the tender mercies of every passing gust of wind'.

What is the cause of this fall? The moment national
pride gave place to caste pride, disintegration began and the
caste-walls that were once flexible and portable became rigid
and fixed, and each one threw mud on the other’s walls, so
much so, that the injunctions of the Jastras were forgotten,
virtues declined, people began to neglect the caste dharmas and
labour lost its dignity. That is the secret. If once again we should
rise and stand as a nation with other enlightened nations of the,
world, dignity of labour must recover its lost position, and the
loving heart should extend far out to reach the down-trodden, so-
called low castes and raise them that they may stand and feel as
men. Half the nation is plunged in utter darkness, — the mothers
and sisters and daughters at home, the nuises of the nation! Three-
fourths of the men are unaware that they have a head over their
s houlder s !— the bulk of the rest, unable to raise their head and

SDDHJWTA DtPlKJt.

y*

breathe the free air of equality with their neighbours "as units
in the nation! Others earing naught but for their wealth and pos-
sessions! Still others, aware of the perilous situation, but afraid
to sound the warning, and weak to oppose the tide !— a few, a
handful only in comparison with the nation, enlightened, broad-
minded, willing to serve, possessed of the national feeling, stri-
ving to stem the tide, but they are a few only, too few to leaven
the mass of the people. Yet it is they who should work and
administer an antidote against the poisons swallowed for ages.

The national ideals of mildness, generosity and benevolence,
low ot truth and righteousness, devotion to duty and principles,
justice and mercy even in the battle field, fair field and no
favour in every walk of life, the example for the elders and pre-
ceptors, sympathy and help towards the sorrow-stricken and
Ibe homeless, endurance and perseverance, tolerance and for-
giveness, and above all the pre-eminent love for spiritual life ; are
they ndt on the decline ? How many Dharmas and Sahadevas,
Hari&chandras and Bhlshmas, Vasish(has and Nachiketases,
Appars and Sundarars, Sambandhars and Mapikkavachakars,
Tiruvalluvars and Avvais, has our nation produced in all ?
Has their example influenced us to the extent it should ? Have
we. in eratitude to these worthies of the past influenced the
present so that the future generations may rank us with their
benefactors? This is the work before us as individuals of the
nation.

We are still under the influence more or less of the heavy
layer of ignorance which blinded us to the national ideas and
caused the violation of the sacred principles enjoined on us by
the forefathers. Revival in every direction and in all its
aspects should come to our rescue. Man has his many parts, —
the physical, mental and spiritual, has many tendencies — mora^
•octal, political and religious, and no revival is complete and
effective unless the whole . man is re-generated, in order that
one part or tendency may fit in well with the rest. In a Codt
ferrate with essentially religious objects, the consideration of

THE WORK BEFORE IIS.

307

the other aspects of the question may be thought to be out of
place. But my excuse for touching upon them is solely this,
that Religion, the crown of life, will neither be appreciated nor
adopted by a fallen prostrate race, fighting against many a
misfortune. The pinch of hunger and the dark forces of igno-
rance, must lose their hold on the people before they lift their
head to receive the crown. They had the crown once and are
now fallen ; the crown is by them and will fit them well only if
you raise them. Let them be first made to stand up, in order
that our work in the field of Religion may result in complete
success. Due prominence should be given to religious work
(which we shall consider presently), but the fact that the present
state of our nation requires material, ethical and social advance-
ment, should not be lost sight of by a religious worker.
Religious work will not bear fruit on a dry soil, and accordingly
the preparation of the soil forms also a part of the work. If, how-
ever, the consideration of the resources of the workers would com-
pel us to restrict the sphere of work, the last two aspects, ethical
and social, at least, which are very closely connected with the
.religious, might deserve prompt attention.

(To be continued).

R. S. S.

Translation.

Vf ftrit 1

3tfa*tWITU II

Rauravigama.

■ “ Yet, whilst in the sundertd flesh, man walks in the Law
of the Lord and lives up to Him ; and thus, entering into the
Joy of the Lord, man never more knows arty sundering from

H,m V. V. R.

SgmUNTA DiPIKA.

at FraMa ot Amid, HU (Mar and Hla Work.*

THE MIGHT OF MEEKNESS.

■ I wiH Men thee, and magnify thy name, and thou shall be blessed

Genesis, xn. 3.

Dearly Beloved!

1 would ask you to accompany me in thought to a far-off
land, and to

AN AGa WHICH HAS PASSED AWAY

forever. It is an autumn evening in the year of grace 1209.’
We are in Rome. The ill-paved narrow streets art thronged
with people, and noisy with the sounds of the lumbering vehicles
as they rumble over the rough stones. Men-at-arms mingle
with the groups of peaceful citizens, who are out to enjoy the
beauty of the sunset, or return home, their day's work being
done. Some richly attired, haughty in demeanour, bear about
them all the tokens of wealth and rank. Others quietly pursue
their way, seeking neither to see nor to be seen. Others still, and
these the poorest, with outstretched hand importune the charit-
able for an alms. One figure in that throng forcibly attracts
the attention. He is a pilgrim young in years. His face,
though pak and emaciated, is singularly sweet and beautiful.
Fasting and penance have left their mark upon his worn frame
— clad in coarse habit, with a cord as cincture, travel-stained
and foot-sore he may well claim the tribute of a passing sigh.

* An eloquent S er mo n about tbe doings of the great mystic, preached
by Rev. Patuce Tighe, S.J., during the Triduum at the Capuchin Church,
Church Street, Dublin, in celebration of tbe seventh centenary of the
foundation of tbe Franciscan Order, and excerpted from tbe Irish Catholic
of Dec. 35, 1909 .—Ed. L. T-

* St. Francis was bom at Assisi in tbe year 1183 and died on the 4th
October 1336. In him was developed to an extraordinary degree the true
trait of " Sanctification ", which is sometimes known as Jiva-ktnjyam.
He had an overflowing tenderness for the dumb creation, as can be easily
teen from a perusal oi the “ Fkxetti di San Franc eso (= Little Flowers of
St Francis) " — Ed. L.T.

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, HIS ORDER AND HIS WORK.' yjg

Along the busy street the crowd passed to and iro,;
Now and again sonife one touched with pity turned to gaae
upon the way-worn traveller, and perchance to offer him an
aims. Thrice blessed if they did, for this unknown pilgrim was
very dear to God. T^iis poor man, living on charity, was

THE SERAPH OF ASSISI,

the future glory of the Church, and one of her greatest saints,
a' bright star in the firmament of Heaven, founder of an Order
Whose glories would be imperishable. The main features of his
life are familiar to most of us, and we need not dwell upon them
now. During these festive celebrations, his praises and his child-
ren’s praises have resounded in our ears, and found an echo in duf
hearts. Beautifully and eloquently have the story of his life and
the glories of his Order been unfolded'. If remains for us on'
this concluding night of the centennial celebrations to cast one last
lingering look upon the past, that the lesson taught us by the
Saint and his work may be fruitful unto good, when the memories
of this night shall have grown dim and misty with the years.

God in His Divine Providence ever watches over His
Church. In the hour of danger He sends His saints to combat
the errors and cope with the dangers of the times. Such a one
was Francis of Assisi. Few men sent of God have wielded a

WIDER OR HOKE LASTING INFLUENCE

on their own and subsequent ages, and assuredly not one has
ever sought it less. He appears upon the world’s scene in aq
age of strong faith, but of passions fierce and uncontrolled.
The cry to arms resounded on all sides. Constant warfare had
left the minds of men troubled and unsettled, while blunting
their finer feelings. In the East, the Third Crusade, with jts
harvest of lost lives and shattered hopes, was still in progress.
Italy was tom with the rival factions of her petty States.
Guelph and Ghibelline were struggling for the mastery. In
Spain the Albigension heresy was costing the life-blood of many
of her best and bravest. Then, again, and partly by reason of
this continuous warfare, there was on the one band much

SIDOHiNTA DiPMU.

J'O

poverty a no suffering, and on the other, wealth and utter selfish-
ness. The poor were crushed in almost hopeless misery, the
rich wrapped in worldliness and luxury. The one sighed for a
comforter, the other needed a fearless teacher. In Francis they
found both. Bom in the little town of Assisi, which lies in the
lap of tlte Umbrian hills, his early years were passed 'mid
sc enes well calculated to arouse that love of nature, and of all
things beautified by God, for which he was ever so remarkable.
Though fond of the world and the amusements of his age, he
never yielded to base desires. His heart was always pure.
He preserved his Baptismal innocence unsullied. Thus it was
that when God came whispering to his soul he answered gladly
and with marvellous generosity. Lured by the love of Jesus
Christ, and longing to follow more closely in the footsteps of
Him " who had not whereon to lay His head,” he renounced
once and for evir all right to worldly possessions, and
Cnma as his stouse poverty,

despised and rejected of men. Then is it that he leaves the
land of his love, and the home of his birth, the hills so dear to
him from childhood's days— father, mother, and all things of
earth that 'henceforth he may say with greater confidence ‘‘Our
Father Who art in Heaven.” He comes to Rome to beg the
Sovereign Pontiff to bless himself and his companions, and to
set the seal of God's approbation upon the Order which he
desires to found. The story is familiar to us. The great
Pontiff who then sat in the chair of Peter at first refuses the
request. But that same night he beholds in vision a palm tree
which sprouting forth from the ground and swiftly shooting up
into the heavens, casts her boughs on every side, a refreshment
to the weary and a shelter from the heat. Pope Innocent HI.
read the vision aright. The Order, founded by the poor man
of Assisi, was destined to strike deep its roots in the Church of
God, and spread its branches far and wide in the vineyard of
Christ, Recalling St. Francis, the Pope approves the rule, blesses
the Saint and bis companions, and sends them forth in thonama

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, HIS ORDER AND HIS WORK.'

of God to preach Poverty and Penance— to a world greedy for
gold and sunken in sin. The Franciscan Ol der- was founded:
Truly on that day God’s angels in Heaven above must have
rejoiced with exceeding great joy. Clad in sack-cloth, with
poverty as his bride, Francis goes forth to fight the world
and. the powers of darkness. Assuredly a lowly figure
ttfdo great deeds, yet conquering, he will conquer. By the
might of his meekness and the power of his poverty he will

CHANCE THE CURRENT Of MEN S THOUGHTS,

and raise their minds to higher things. He will teach the poor
and rich alike that before God they are brothers — that the rich
have their duties and the poor their rights. In a word, he will
breathe of the love of Jesus Christ, and shed the sweet fragrance
of the Gospel spirit even unto lands and peoples then unknown.
Since St. Francis lived, seven centuries have passed and wrought
wondrous changes in this world of ours. But through the
changing years his spirit lives. " Being dead he yet speaketh ”
by his devoted sons, and softens still the hearts of men. Seven
hundred years. It is a long time to look back. It is no in-
considerable portion of the history of a world where all is rest-
less and unstable as the waves of the tireless ocean. It brings
us back to what are sometimes called the dark ages. But from
the darkness has sprung the light and the day-star which
heralded the dawn was the great saint whose memory we
honour to-night. “ Our little systems have their day, they
have their day and cease to be." Peoples come and go, king-
doms rise and fall, empires have been overturned by revolutions,
crowns snatched from the heads of kings. Nations then great,
are now well-nigh forgotten. Nations then issuing from
barbarism, rule 10-day the destiny of millions. Lands then
untrodden by the foot of the European now teem with towns and
populous cities where the busy hum of life resounds. “ One
generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.”
Families then great, rich, and powerful have long been extinct ;
of their fairest and bravest naught now remains. Their names

SIDOHJLNTA DfPIKX.

■re forgotten. Their very bones have long mouldered into dust.
Thoughts, ideals, modes of life, and manners of men have
changed, so much so, indeed, that in studying the ways and
customs of these far-off days we seem to be contemplating be-
ings of another sphere - Yet through all the changing years the

VISIT 9 THE SOWS OF ST. FSANCIS

is still the same. In the rise and fall of earthly rulers his family
will have no part. Though nations decay and kingdoms crum-
ble into ruin, they enjoy the gift of perpetual youth. The cold
hand of death cannot stay their work ; lapse of years cannot
mar its beauty. Wheresoever nations are in the throes of war
devastated by the foes of the Church, honeycombed by heresy,
or suffering for the faith of Christ, there the sons of St. Francis
will be found in the forefront of the fight, preaching, praying,
comforting, exhorting, labouring— aye, and if needs be, dying
for the faith they profess. What a glorious heritage is theirs
to-day. Well may their hearts thrill as they re-call the past.
Their Order is rich in saints known and unknown. It has given
to the Church legions of Apostles, to Heaven more than a
thousand martyrs. Amongst its members we find Bishops,
Cardinals, and even Sovereign Pontiffs, Doctors, Theologians
perfected in the science of God — illustrious men whose names,
like that of the just, shall be eternal. No honour that could be
bestowed upon man has been wanting to them, and still we see
them humble, meek, and lowly, true children of their holy
Founder — faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Bear with me
for a few moments as we gamer a few grains from the super-
abundant harvest of their works. No sooner is the rule ap-
proved than St. Francis and his disciples spread themselves far
and wide throughout the Continent of Europe. We find them
in Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Hungary, France, Germany. Even
unto distant Norway and Sweden do their labours extend.
Wheresoever they went, men awoke unto a new life. The fierce
heart was tamed, the poor consoled, the wealthy gave largely
and lovingly to their suffering brethren. Europe was too

Sr. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, HIS ORDER AND HIS WORK. 313

small for such devouring zeal. Like his Divine Master,
Francis had come to cast a fire upon the earth, and he will
know no rest until it be enkindled. Longing for martyrdom,
he hastens away to the East. He enters the camp of the
Mahometans, faces the very Sultan on his throne, and
preaches to him of Jesus Crucified. The crown of nartyrdom
may not be his — or rather God has reserved for iim one of

A RARER AND MORE LASTING KIND.

The years go by. He multiplies his labours, and by the sweet
unction of his words and the still more powerful example of his
life wins numbers untold to the love of the Cross. Then when
God's hour comes, and his seraphic soul bursting the frail bonds
of flesh, wings her flight to Heaven, his spirit seems still to
dwell amongst his devoted sons. Full soon they reached the
shores of England, and spread themselves throughout the length
and breadth of that island. There was scarce a town or hamlet
that was not blessed by their ministrations. Wherever there
was a heart to comfort or a soul to save, there was the Franciscan
to be found. Through their means several Colleges were founded
both in Oxford and Cambridge, and in each University the
brilliancy of the Franciscan professors shed a lustre upon their
Order. Yet they themselves lived with the utmost simplicity,
and in the poorest quarters of the town. Time went on, their
Order grew apace ; new churches were opened, new monasteries
were founded, which served as centres for the diffusion of the
Faith. At the end of the 14th century there were sixty
Franciscan monasteries in England alone. But the hour of trial
was at hand. Persecution fierce and bitter broke out, inflicting
sufferings untold upon the Church and her children. The Order
which had done, so much to spread the love of Jesus Christ
must now suffer all the more. As true followers of a suffering
Saviour their hour of crucifixion must come. It found them
ready. They gladly went to death for the Lord they loved so
well, true children of him who had borne in his body the stig-
mata of his Crucified Redeemer. Within a very brief period, 33

3U

SITOHXNTA DtPIKA.

Franciscan Friars gave their lives for the faith. The spirit
which animated one and all of these generous confessors finds
expression in the words of their Provincial, Father Forrest, who
died a martyr at the stake: “O my God, neither fire nor

gallows, nor any other torment whatever shall part me from
Thee." Then, when offered rich rewards, if he renounced his

faith, what is his reply ? “Though you cut me to pieces, joint

by joint, and limb by limb, I shall not swerve from the faith of
my fathers.” Yes, this is the spirit of St. Francis and children.
Love Jesus Christ, and live, or, if needs be, die with joy to spread
that love in the souls of men. Turn to other lands and other
scenes. Away beyond the confines of civilisation we find them
in far Japan kneeling side by side with Jesuit martyrs that their
blood may commingle in one salutary stream. At the same
time other members of the Order bear the glad tidings of the
Gospel throughout the fast-growing colonies of Spain and
Portugal. In the 15th century these two countries were at

THE ZENITH OP THEIR GREATNESS

At home, whilst the one was finally crushing the Mahometan
power, which had for centuries menaced its very life, the other
was rejoicing in a fame destined like all human glory soon to
fade. Abroad they were extending the bounds of empire to
lands hitherto unknown. Spanish galleons bore brave ad-
venturers across the wide Vraste of the Atlantic waters, whilst
the Portuguese were plunging into the very heart of India.
These men were actuated for the most part by greed of gold or
desire erf fame. But they were not alone. With them we find
the lowly Franciscan friar, bravest of the brave, facing fatigue,
danger and death to save souls for whom Jesus Christ had died.
Columbus himself, a tertiary", was aided and encouraged by

* The order at Ternaries or Brethren of Penitence was established
by St Francis in 1221, to enable persons possessed of a spiritual frame
of mind, to lead a godly life whilst retaining their customary employnKnts
in die world. Such, p e rs o n s had to refrain from worldly dissipations and
costly clothing and to look to self-renunciation as the main means tb

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, HIS ORDER AND HIS WORK.

3*5

Franciscans in his attempts to discover the lone land lying to-
wards the gates of the West. Nor must it be forgotten that it
was a Son of St. Francis who first planted the Cross on American
soil ; by a Franciscan , too, the first Mass was celebrated ; a
Franciscan first poured upon the head of the Indian neophyte
the regenerating waters of Baptism. Then as years went by,
and one by one they died at their post, others come to fill the
vacant place. “ The charity of Christ ” ever urged them on to
imprint in all hearts the love of God and of His Divine Son.
Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Florida, the West Indies were sanctified
by their labours and often empurpled with their blood. In
California alone they guarded in their settlements 75,000
happy souls, until with the arrival of non-Catholic colonists
the Franciscan Fathers were banished and their well-loved
children left to wander o’er the plains, or take refuge in the
dark forest. If we turn to the cradle of Christianity — to the land
so dear to every Catholic heart, there too we find the devoted
sons of the Seraph of Assisi. They have been the faithful
custodians of the spots hallowed by the foot-steps of the Son
“ poverty of spirit.” The occasion for the establishment of this order is
said to be the great mystic's stirring preaching at Canari, a small tows
near Assisi, when, moved by the sincerity and emotional tenderness of his
call to a godly life, the whole population wished to desert tn mssse their
homes and social duties and enter straightway the monastic life. But
Francis would not permit them to do so and printed out to than that it
was possible to live a higher religious life and “see God”, without
embracing the austerities of the cloister or the destitution of mendicancy.
The two other leading orders that trace their authority to Francis himself
are the Minorite Friars including the Observants, Conventuals and
Capuchins, and the Franciscan Nuns. For further information on
Franciscan orders, their observances and modes of spiritual communion,
(which have much in common with the “ exercises in godliness ” shadowed
forth in such Agamantic works as Revan aradhya's Sidd h a ntasikfa a ma q i ,
■id the jpsar&Quapw of we might ref a the

leader- to Hase, Front von Assisi, sin Hahgmbild, 1S64. — Ed. L. T r

MDOHJUfTA DiPIKX

JI6

of God— this too at the cost of enormous sacrifices. In the
last century, above 500 of the Order lost their lives there,

THAI a DEATH BEING OllE

directly owing to the severity of their mission or the
cruelty of their task. What shall we say of our own
loved land ? Most graphically has the tale been told from
this pulpit last night Oh, we may not, must not, cannot
forget how deep a debt of gratitude our country owes to
the heroic sons of St. Francis. They came early to our isle
and since that time they have been bound to our people by

BONOS TOO STRONG FOB HAND OF MEN EVER TO BREAK.

They shared our trials and our sorrows. They have been true
to our suffering country through good report and through evil
report, through storm and sunshine, in weal and in woe. In the
days of persecution, when discovery meant cruel torture or
bitter death, they did not flinch. In them the words of Holy
Scripture were literally fulfilled — “They were stoned, they
were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death
by the sword, they wandered about in sheep-skins and in goat-
skins, being in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world
was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in
dens and caves of the earth." Where the faithful people most
suffered there were the zealous disciples of St. Francis most
eager to assist. Cold and nakedness, hunger and thirst were
unheeded. They reeked not of danger ; they feared not death.
Houseless and homeless they wandered on the bleak mountain-
*ide, or hid in the cabins of the peasantry. Then, hunted like
the wolf, they sought shelter in the marshy fens or wild dark
woods. Some were seized in the act of hearing confessions ;
others caught and cut down whilst bringing the last Sacraments
to the dying. In the reign of Elizabeth alone more than one
hundred Franciscan Frairs gave their lives in token of their love
of God and of the Irish people. Nothing could damp their
ardour, nothing retrain their zeal. They worked as labourers
by day and at night stole forth to comfort the sorrow-stricken.

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, HIS ORDER AND HIS WOflK.

317

It might mean death. No matter. Death for them was victory.
“ What was the life ? ” — thus would they reason—" What was the
life of one poor friar as compared with the happiness of recon-
ciling a sinner to God, or of speeding the poor, wearied exile to
the Home 1 where sorrow and death shall be no more ’ ? ” Those
days have gone for ever. Those saints are now with God.
Their bodies lie in lonely graves, unknown, forgotten by men, but

GLORIOUS IN THE SIGHT OF HEAVEN.

The ivy clings to the roofless walls and cloisters of their
monasteries and churches Oh, if these stones could speak
what a tale they might tell, of silent, saintly lives spent in doing
good ; of joyous years when thousands flocked to hear the word
of God ; and then of days of suffering and of sorrow. The
faithful friars pitilessly driven forth or put to cruel death, the
tramp of horses heard where Holy Mass had been daily offered.
Truly those roofless ruins, moss-grown and ivy-clad stand to-
day as links to bind us with the dead past. Eloquent in their
silence they bid us remember how much Ireland owes to the
devoted sons of St. Francis.

In the world to-day a materialistic and unbelieving spirit
is seizing upon the minds of men and strives to drag them from
the knowledge of God and His Church, for Faith and Fatherland.
They are teaching the world both by word and example. Every
land knows them, every land loves them. They are with the
Irish exile in the wild woods of Canada, in the great cities of
the United States, and in the far Australian bush. Away on the
burning sands of Africa they labour for the poor, untutored
savage. The lonely islands of the Pacific are blessed by their
labours. In the Holy Land they welcome the pilgrim to the
Tomb of Christ. They are with ourselves, dwelling in our
cities with the poorest of the poor. They give their labour and
their lives to instil into the hearts of men the sweet love of Jesus
Christ. Behold them in our midst. So quiet, so gentle, so un-
obtrusive. “ They do good by stealth and blush to find it
fame.” It would be impossible to estimate bow much they

SnXMlKTA DlPtKJL

3H

have done and are doing for the betterment of our people— in-
spiring high ideah, combating all that might endanger Faith,
moral, or social good. “ By their works you shall know them."
Blessed is the people for whom they labour, blessed the land
wherein they dwell. They stand before us with the accumulated
honours of the centuries upon them— they breathe to us of
goodness, purity, and love. Yet they feel not one thrill of pride.
Only gratitude, deep and lasting gratitude, to God for all His
mercies. Beloved, if there is a lesson to learn, it is this : All
things of earth must pass. God alone remains. The work we
do for God is ever fruitful. All else is vain. Live then for the
one thing worth living for. live to love Jesus Christ, and
prove that love by our lives. If poor, rejoice, for we are more
like unto Him. If God has given us the good things of this
world, it is that we might share them with His poor. ’Tis the
lesson St. Francis taught — ’tis the lesson his children teach to-
day. May we be aided by their example during life, helped by
their prayers in the dark hour of death, and when the day breaks
and the shadows retire, welcomed by their saints to the Home
of God’s eternal love. Amen 1

P. T.

Ha that is unacquainted with the origin and first cause of the world,
mutt be at a km to know where he is. And he that cannot telf the ends
he was made for, jp ignorupt both of himself and the world too. And he
that is uuinstructed in either of these two points, will never be able to look
into the design of his being. What do you think then of his discretion,
that is anxious about what is said of him, and values either the praise dr
the ensure of those little folks that know neither where they are, nor who ?

— Marcus Aurelius.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

So much has been said in journals for some months past on
the appearance of Halley’s Comet and the
A note on Haiiej'e evils prefigured by it in years gone by, that
Comet. it seems fitting we also should revert to the

subject in our own way and make known a
few facts concerning it. The most recent academic exposition
of the astronomical features of this celestial appearance is due
to the eminent astronomer, Mr. A. C. D. Crommelin, F.R.A.S.,
whose instructive lecture of February 27th 1907, in the rooms of
the British Astronomical Association, London, is a masterpiece
of learning and clearness. An abstract of this lecture appeared
in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association for March
1907, to which we should refer the reader in search of facts and
figures. Taking May 16th 1910 as the date of the next return
of Halley’s Comet, Mr. Crommelin has made out an ephemeris
which he regards will not be very much wide of the mark. He-
adds:

“During 1910, February and March, the Comet would be nearly
stationary in the constellation Pisces. It would be an evening star, but not
very bright, probably a telescopic object Then it would, unfortunately,
pass very near the Sun early in April, becoming then a morning star. It
would not go very far from the Sun in the heavens as a morning star.
On May 8 its R. A. would be 3>> , so that it would rise before the Sun.
But it would be at its best after the next conjunction with tbe Sun, early
in June. It would pass near Pollux on June 9, when it would be at its
maximum brightness. During the following week or fortnight it ought
to be fairly well placed in the evening sky. It was unfortunate that in
June the nights were very short ; in fact that there was no real night at
all, for it was twilight all the time. This would prevent the Comet from
being seen to its best advantage. However, in 1456, the Comet’s perhelian
passage was at about the same time of the year, and it presented a very
striking sight ; so there is reison to hope it might do something as an
evening star at the period mentioned. Its tail would be, probably, about
30 0 to 40 0 long, so that when the Comet itself was below the horizon
they might hope to see something of its tail. In 1835 it eras first seen in
August, and the perhelion passage was in Kovemb®. There was one
6

SIDOHiNTA (ifMKX.

3*°

c 4 ■ Comet havir^ beau observed Dearly up to the orbit of Saturn,
W|, the Comet of 1889. It was observed two-thirds of the way fiom the
orMt of Jupiter to the orbit of Saturn ; and as Halley’s was a fairly bright
Comet, there was a faint chance that it might be pkaUgrepktJ nest
October or November (1908]. It was very desirable that it should be, if
because it would enable the mean motion to be obtained at the
aast return with vary great accuracy.*'

And Dr. Wolf of Heidelberg was the first astronomer to
photograph the re-appearance of Halley’s Comet on September
talh 1909 at 1-30 a.m. in G. M. T. He stated that he found it in
R. A. 6 k i8« u* , and decl. 17® 11' North, just,- within the
confines of the constellation Gemini, near the boundary of Orion
and it was of the 16th Magnitude. Converted into degrees and
minutes this R.A»94®3j' which in longitude works to 4 0
Cancer it*. If the line of the Comet's R. A., for May 8th 1910, as
given by Mr. Croinmelin is correct, then the zodiacal sign and
decante corresponding to that line will be Taurus and Virgo,
and it is by no means likely that the visitation will prove
auspicious to the East, especially when it is considered in rela-
tion to the evil planetary configurations which we noticed in
the last issue of this Journal. In fact the phenomenon points
without a shadow of doubt to sudden deaths, epidemics, seismic
disturbances and all the attendant ills. Its influence upon
particular individuals will depend upon the place and condition,
in their respective genitures, of the zodiacal sign and decanate
occupied by Halley's Comet.

•••

We have great pleasure in publishing the following
report of the Colombo Vivekananda Society,
*■»“ twon UwS o which has been placed at our disposal by
▼fnfauafe Smwty. Mr. A. Chellappa, its energetic Honorary
Secretary:

■The Birthday Anniversary of Srimat Svimi Vivekananda was
mUcatad with much tclat 00 Sunday the 6 th February. The Hall was
toMfuDy decanted with ferns, Sowers, Ac , and presented a very gay
appearance. An unusually large number of members and well-wishers
g^hoed together in flte haU to pay their homage to the memory of the

NOTES ANT) COMMENTS.

1*1

great Patriot-Sage. The proceedings began shortly after 5-30 p. m., with
the singing of TevSram and the chanting of the Vedas. Mudaliyar R. C.
Kailasa Pi])ai, the Vice-President, who presided over the function and to
whose unostentatious efforts much of the Society’s progress must be
attributed, delivered a most impressive address in which he dwelt at
length upon the good and great qualities of the Svlimi, and bis message of
peace to the World in general and to the Sons of India in particular and
laid much stress upon the Svami's spirit of toleration. He appealed to
the members to work heart and soul for the dissemination of the ideals
and teachings of the great Sage with untiring and unselfish efforts. He
also read a telegram just then received from the Batticaloa Vivekananda
Society Then followed readings from the Sastras, a selection from the
English translation of the Svetasvatara Upanishat and one from the
Dravida-Maha-Bhashya, and a recitation in English, the piece sele-ted
being a piece of “ Advice to Mortals.” The Sanskrit slokas of Sivajaana-
bodham from the Raurava Agama, which formed the basis of the Tamil
Siva] Sana bodh am of Sri Meykarda Tevar, were also recited by one of the
members. Mr. A. Talaivasingam, Advocate, who was to deliver a lecture
on the “ life and teachings ” of the Svami, not being able to do so owing
to a sad bereavement in his family, Mr. R. S. Subramaniam filled his
place, and filled it worthily too, and gave the audience a treat, as it were,
expatiating on how the followers of the Svami should emulate his example
and become real workers in the cause of humanity. He quoted from a
communication he received from Svami Narayara and impressed upon his
hearers the importance of the virtue of self-reliance and exhorted them to
continue in the good work. The lecturer occupied about half an hour
during which be kept the audience spell-bound. He concluded with a call
on the members to devote their spare-time and energy in placing the Society
on a firm and solid footing, appealed to the audience on the necessity of a
home for the Society and said that the necessary funds would be readily
forth coming, if the members would only set to work at it. At intervals,
there was the chanting of the Tamil Vedam to the accompaniment of music,
which added to the enlivening of the proceedings. By about 8 p. m., the
proceedings came to a close, and, with the distribution of pansupati and
chandana and the sprinkling of rose-water, the assembly dispersed, after
having spent a very pleasant evening.”

3”

si DOM ANT A PlPlKt.

Mr. Myron H. Phelps, b.a., ll.b., is now turning out an
enormous amount of work in and about
Ha- Jaffna, Ceylon, on behalf of the Saiva
uouiimaiiM. Educational Association, by means of his
admirable series of lectures. This gentle-
man is a native of New York and was a lawyer of extensive
practice in that great city, which he gave up, in order to devote
himself to movements of national regeneration. He is a great
admirer and student of the Agaminta, being the spiritual disciple
of Mr. Ponnambala Ramanlthan k.c., c.m.g., of Colombo. The
teachings of the Agamic Mystics have left such a deep impres-
sion on the mind of Mr. Phelps that he has assumed the Hindu
habit and lives a thorough vegetarian. The great educational
work which Mr. Rimanithan is now engaged in starting in Jaffna
has attracted, for the time, Mr. Phelps into its service and we fully
hope that the combined labours of these two talented servants
of God will prove a powerful incentive to the furthering of
Agamic studies in that Island. Mr. Raman&than has already
completed the preliminary arrangements for the building of a
National Girls’ Boarding College at Maruthanamadam. Mr.
Phelp’s appeal also has, so. far, been not in vain, as in response
to it, the people have already promised to open a number of
schools for boys and girls, in order to counteract the influence
of Christian Missionaries. On Feb. 28, at the Hindu College
Hall, Jaffna, Mr. Phelps addressed *a large and influential
audience on " Hindu Ideals and their Preservation," with the
Hon. Mr. A. Kanakasabhai of the Ceylon Legislative Council
in the chair. The address was one of the noblest utterances ever
made by a Western in the East. The intense sincerity and
feeling with which Mr. Phelps pleaded the holy cause of Hindu
Religion and Civilization cannot be mistaken by any one that
has read the discourse. We will publish the full text of the-
address in our next issue.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

3*3

This is an exposition of Safikara’s Philosophy in Sanskrit,
written by Srimati Kamakshi Atnmal of
AdT»iudi P ik». Mayavaram and published by Messrs. T. S.

Natesa Sastriar and Co., Oriental Book-
Sellers, Mayavaram. Mr. T. S. NateSa Sastriar has added an
English translation to some portions of the original, and the
whole book runs up to about 80 pages. As an endeavour at ori-
ginal Sanskrit composition, in prose, by a lady, the book deserves
all praise, though the diction and subject-matter remind us of the
scholastic disquisitions artificially elaborated by the Navadvipa
Tarkiks of whom GaAgeiop&dhyaya is one of the best known. The
peculiarity of their mode of writing is that it enables a man to
write fluently and learnedly on a subject without edifying him-
self or the reader. It will enable one also to advance the most
preposterous arguments, if arguments they be, to vindicate the
impossible, and make good or prove any proposition that can
occur to the human mind. The book before us betrays a great
deal of the wordy Vedantic lore that one is accustomed to hear
from the lips of pseudo-Safvkarins in, their * debating tourna-
ments ', but there is little to show that the lady has striven
after a life of inward purity and spiritual culture. The
translator is apparently her great admirer and states in an
English preface that she is an Andhra Brahmin and, losing her
husband when she was a girl, took to the study of Sanskrit
Literature and Philosophy. As one of the few Brahmin ladies of
South India, who can read and write Sanskrit with ease and
grace, the authoress has our best wishes for her further progress
in the line she has marked out for herself. But our parting counsel
to her will be that, instead of following the lead of Madhusudana-
sarasvati and Brahmanandasarasvati, she may as well endeavour
to study the writings of Sadasiva-Brahmendra and Appay-
dlkshitachaiya, as their expositions of the right phase of
Saftkara's Mystic Idealism are sure to bring her nearer the
Goal.

J»4

SinUlANTA DtHX*.

The Report of the Tamilian Archaelogical Society for the
year just closed has recently been laid on
Th. Tamilian our table, and it gives us great pleasure
Analogic*] Society. to say that it marks a useful record of
progress in many directions. We extract
the following paragraphs therefrom for the information of our
readers : —

“ At the close of 1908 the Society had 86 members on jts
rolls. There were 14 new admissions during the year while
the Society lost 3 members by death. The total strength
therefore at the close of 1909 stood at 97 including members
in Ceylon, London and Paris.

“The Society regrets to record the loss it has sustained by
the death of three members who were taking a keen interest in
its advancement. The late Pandit Tiruchittambalam PilJai
of Coimbatore was a critical scholar of Tamil Literature
who worked with much historic zeal. In the death of Mr.
S. Kailasam Aiyyar, B.A., of Trichinopoly, the society has
lost one of its chief guiding spirits. He was one of the prime
originators of the T. A. Society and in various matters, literary
and otherwise, connected with it he usually brought to bear a
free, critical and unbiassed mind conspicuous for its wide grasp
and liberal culture. In the years 1902 and 1903 he took a pro-
minent part in working against the proposed abolition of the
vernaculars from the University curriculum of studies and it
may be mentioned that the inception of the T. A. Society was
mainly due to his exertions in this direction. His untimely
death is a great loss to the Society as well as to the Tamil
Country. Mr. R. Sivakojundu Mudaliar of Madura who was
also cut down in the prime of his life was an ardent lover of
Tamil literature and gave promise of becoming a useful mem-
ber of the Society in time.

As announced in the report for 1908, the Tamilian
Antiquary No.* 3 containing a reprint of the late Prof.

NOTES ANT) COMMENTS

3*5

P. Sundaram PilUai’s work entitled Some Milestones in the
History of Tamil Literature or the Age of Tiru JTiina Sambandha
was issued in April 1909 with an introduction from the pen of
M. R. Ry. Rai Bahadur V. Vefikayya Avl., M.A., Government
Epigraphist, Simla, and a biographical sketch of the author by
M. R. Ry. K. G. Sesha Aiyyar Avl., B.A., B.L., High Court
Vakil, Trivandrum. The book was long out of print and ‘the
Society in reprinting it has not only helped to satisfy the
general public demand, but has placed the conclusions of the
late Professor within easy reach of students engaged in active
research work. As evidenced from some recent writings in the
local press, the reprint has been the means of stimulating
thought in the field of South Indian Chronology and thus in-
directly helping the objects of the Association.

“ As regards the collection of essays on the age of Mdnikka
V&Sagar, a portion was issued in December 1909 as Tamilian
Antiquary No. 4. which contained two articles. — (1) “Mapikka-
vasagar and His Date”, by M.R.Ry. K.G. Sesha Aiyar Avl. B.A.,
B.L., M.R.A.S., High Court Vakil, Trivandram, and (zjMapikka-
vasagar and the Early Christians of Malabar ”, by M. R. Ry.
T. Ponnambalam PiUai Avl., M.R.A.S., Retired Excise Com-
missioner, Travancore. The first is a digest of several papers
that have appeared from time to time on the much debated
question of the age of Maijikka Vasa gar and Mr. K. G. Sesha
Aiyyar has done full justice to his work. In the second paper
it has been suggested by Mr. T. Ponnambalam Pillai for the
first time in South Indian Historical researches that the proper
place wherein to search for the Perunturai of Tiruvasagam
would be the West Coast of S. India and not the Papdiyan
Country as the later Puranic writers supposed. This suggest-
ion has naturally thrown open a fertile field for scientific
research.

“No. 5 or the Tamilian Antiquary, also issued in Decem-
ber 1909, contained the following papers

StDCHiWTA DlPIKl.

• “Glimpses of Ancient Dravidians" by M. R. Ry. E.S. W.
Senlthi Rijl Avl„ L.L.B., of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-
Law, M.R.A.S., M.A.S. and M.R.S, of Paris.

*. " The Augustan Age of Tamil Literature " by M. R. Ry.
S. Kpshoasimi Aiyyahgir Avl., M.A., M.R.A.S.

j. “The Ten Tamil Idyls” by the late Prof. P Sundaram
Pillai, M.A.

(4) “Tamilian kingdoms" by Dewan Bahadur T. M. Raftga-
ehtriyar Avl., B.A., B.L. and M. R. Ry. T. Desikichariyar
Avl., B.A., B.L.

“ These learned essays were reprinted from various periodi-
cals with a view to bring them together ready for reference in
connection with the Society's work. The Society takes this
opportunity to offer its thanks to the editors of those journals
for having kindly permitted the articles to be reprinted.

“Programme for 1910: — As far as it can be foreseen it is
proposed to issue as Tamilian Antiquary No. 6., Dr. Pope’s
Pucaporul, an epitome of the ancient work Pura-poru) Veijba
Mllai, illustrated by quotations from Puj-ananuru translated by
him. M. R. Ry. J. M. NallasvSmi Pillai Avl., B.A., B.L., has
kindly consented to write an Introduction to this work.

" It is also proposed to issue, in a collected form, papers and
essays on the subject of Vilmiki Ramayapa and South Indian
Sociology, as No. 7 of the series.

“ It is expected that the second part of the papers relating to
the Age of Mn^ikkaviSagar will also form one of the series.

‘The issue of further publications in 1910 will depend
upon the co-operation and literary assistance the members may
be prepared to render during the year."

OUR BOOK-SHELF.

1. The Public, Jan. 27, Feb. 4, 11, 18, 25.

2. The Hindu Organ, Feb. 23, Mar. 2, 9, 16, 23.

3. asrih, Feb. 23, Mar. 9, 23.

4. The Indian Nation, Feb. 28, Mar. 7, 14, 21, 28.

5. Feb. 4.

6. griroir 90 @, Feb. 26. .

7. The Theosophist, Mar. 1910.

8. Modem Astrology, Mar. 1910.

9. The Dawn and Dawn Society's Magazine, Mar. 1910.

10. The Indian Businessman, Feb. 1910.

11. Astrological Bulletins, Feb. 1910.

12. Planetary Daily Guide for All, 1910.

13. Mazdaznan Messenger, Feb. and Mar. 1910.

14. The Open Court, Feb. 1910.

15. The Arya Patrika, Feb. 26; Mar. 4, 12, 19.

16. The Trained Teacher, Feb. and Mar. 1910.

17. The Carlylean, Feb. 1st and 2nd Weeks, Mar. 1st and 3rd

Weeks.

18. The Hindu Spiritual Magazine, Feb. and Mar. 1910.

19. The Oriental Mystic Magazine, Jan. and Feb. 1910.

20. The West Coast Reformer, Mar. 10.

21. The Maha-Bodhi, Mar. 1910.

22. The Kalpaka, Mar. 1910.

23. Old Moore’s Monthly Messenger, Mar. 1910.

24. Reason, Feb. 1910.

25. The Health Record, Feb. 1910.

26. General Report of the 34th Anniversary and Convention

of the Theosophical Soc, 1910.

27. Sri Krishna Sukti, Jan. 1910.

28. Qfifu Sjfi, Q&aruSuj®) as f iff'

29. The Critic, Mar. 15.

30. The Harbinger of Light, Mar. 1.

31. The Ceylon National Review, Mar. 1910.

32. The Prabuddha Bharata, Feb. and Mar. 1910.

sidohAnta pIpikA.

3 j8

j3 Theosophy in India, Mar. 15, 1910.

34 «*«>“•• Mar 43.

35 The Vegetarian Magazine, Jan. 1910.

/> The Psychic, Pisces, 1910.

37- Saiva Bhashya Sambodhini, Mar. 13.

38 The Mysore and South Indian Review, Jan. 1910.

39 Self-Culture, Mar. 1910.

40. The International Police Service Magazine, Jan. 1910.

THE AMERICAN VEGETARIAN MAGAZINE.

OFFICIAL ORGAN
or

THE VEGETARIAN SOCIETY OF AMERICA,
AND ALL ITS BRANCHES.

ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION 4s. lod. or Rs. 3-10.

SIX MONTHS 2S. 5d. or Rs. 1-13.

Sample copy free. Remit by international P. O. Money Older.
VEGETARIAN MAGAZINE,

80, Dearborn Street,

Chicago, U. S. A.

Names will also be registered for the Vegetarian Maga-
zine at the Light of Truth Office, Madras, N.C., S. India.

The Vegetarian Magazine, Chicago, and The Light of
Truth (or the Siddhanta Dipika), Madras, together for one
year, 9 shilling* foreign, or Rs. 6-iz if ordered from either
of the offices.

THE

LIGHT OF TRUTH

OR THE

SIDDHANTA DiPIKA

A Monthly Journal devoted to the Search for Truth qs revealed in the
Ancient Hindu Mystic Philosophy known as the Saiva-Siddhanta or Agamanta.

VOL. X. MARCH, tg-ro'. NoT^

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHAPADHVANS.

f Continued from page 286 of No. 8 Vol. X ).

There is a further reason for calling or placing the Mantra-
dhvan, as the lowest. As I will point out presently, the
Nivritti-kala. of the Kaladhvan, the so-called Srishti-chakra, in-
spires the Prithvi-tattva of the Tattvadhvan, the lowest evolute
of the Maya-mala or Paraprakriti. This Prithvic plane is
the theatre where the “ first thrill ” begins at the instance
of our Heavenly Father, rousing the Souls from their dark
inanity called Kevalavastha, a condition which has been aptly
compared by our Jiiana-Sastras, to the existence of eyes with
no light to see things by. The process of involution into the
Anava-mala, called by some mystics as ‘ Entanglement ’, is
complete, and the evolution or “disentanglement" now starts
to do its momentous share of work. The Prithvic plane is thus
a “critical plane ” or, the point of the parting of the ways, the
isthmus connecting the yawning abyss of Pravritti and the
spiral and picturesque gallery of Nivyitti. The first momentum
towards Nivritti is imparted to the souls by the Mantrei-
varas or Mantradevas, who are the servants of the Lord, in
charge of the earliest process of the reclamation of the Souls to
the prithvic plane or Nivritti-kala, under the guidance of Brahma
and his deputies and assistants. This fact will furnish those
that care to understand the Divine Mysteries sensed by the

S3 0

SIDOHJWTA ntPIKJk

Agamsntic Mantra-DrashUs of old, with a pregnant hint as to
the import of placing the Mantridhvan as the last in the series
of Shadadhvans. The Divine St. Malar has only three verses
on the subject of Shacjadhvans, on each one of which a whole
volume of illuminative commentary can be written by those that
are of God, as fjtey alone are fit to interpret the words of God.
He brings in the question of the Shacjadhvans, in the midst of his
soul-ravishing discourse on the Eighteen Avasthas of the Souls,
the raison tfUrt of which will be clear as day-light in a moment.
He describes the constitution of the Shacjadhvans thus: —

jdrwfo atfGsrif.

Qattii j jQtwr er _o Gmfiafi

&<3J* P0C5 u, & i *<S

tnmff Ufa > mipGf.

Here the word is significant, referring to the

supernal origin of the Shacjadhvans, as waves of " Matter" of
varying grades of fineness and grossness, from Nadam, the
Infinite Root of Matter, when the Spirit of God moved upon
the “face of the waters”, the “Spirit of God" being the
Light of the Lord, the Pari-Sakti, and the “ face of the waters ",
the Eternal Womb of Form, in which the whole subsequent
Manifestation exists, like the gorgeous sheen of the pea-fowl's
plumage exists in the pea-fowl's egg. We can now go a step
further, and say that the Shacjadhvans are the Cosmic “Conduc-
tion-Paths" by which the Light of the Lord called the Holy
Spirit comes into touch with Matter, and the Corruption-bound
Souls. I say “ Cosmic ", so that they might cover the Apcjam
and the Pincjam, the Universe and Man. They also mark the
Lines of Evolution along which “ Matter ” has unfolded its
potentialities for good or evil, under the guiding Wisdom of
the Divine Law. And they form, again, a Six-Chambered
Nursery in which the Karma of Man ripens or takes effect.
If these ideas were distinctly grasped, both with reference
to the plane of, the Pasu which is paSa-grasta, and to the
plane of the Pati Who, in the words of Master NUakaqtha,

THD PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHADADHVANS.

33 *

is “Sakala-kalyapa-guijopetalj ”, although “ trigunarahitafi ",
and steadily kept in mind, we shall understand what the
Agamas and their inspired Upabrimhanas, the Purajjas,
mean, when they so often harp on the subject of the Shad-
adhvans with dicta similar to these: “The Shadadhvans are
the manifestations of Para-sakti ”, the “Maha-Miya, Kufila
or Prakfiti is transmuted into the Pancha-kalEs ”, “Mola-
prakriti is the author of the Shadadhvans ”, “The Shadadhvans
are the manifested prapancha”, “The Sakti-Tattva pervades
the Santyatita-kala ” and so on.

The higher Adhvan always contains or pervades the lower,
in a definite manner, or they stand, as it is described in the
Divyagamas, in the relation of Vyapaka-Vyapya : the relation is
also Karana-Karya in a sense. The momentous position to note
here is, the Bhuvanadhvan gives birth to the Varnadhvan, and
contains and pervades it, and in noting this step of involution
we must clarify our ideas regarding “content” and “pervasion”.
In the Suprabheda-Agama hints are dropped to visualise, if 1
may so use the term, the conception implied in the statement
that the “Sounds” take their origin in clusters of Sidereal
Systems called Universes. Bhuvanas make Aiidas, or, as we
might say in popular language, Sidereal Systems make Uni-
verses, and Suns and Planets make Sidereal Systems. The
Agamas say that ‘Sounds’ come into manifestation in Bhuvanas,
and, therefore, the Bhuvanadhvan pervades or interpenetrates
the Varpadhvan. The parallel that I furnished, by way of hint,
from the Pythagorean Mysticism, will help us to realize the idea
intellectually, but its real import can be fully sensed, nay, seen
and understood, only by those “Anointed Ones ”, who are esta-
blished in God in sahaja-samadhi, waking or sleeping, who are
.Brahma-vid-varishfhas in whom the Light of the Lord, called
Siva-jnana, shines in ineffable lustre. And you should, at the
same time, not forget for a moment that the Varnadhvan, viewed
from the stand-point of Life, rises from the Bindu, the Fertilized
Ovum of this Prapancha, after the four Vaks, the SOkshna, the

SIDflKjUlNTA

Palyantl. the Madhyama and the Vaikharl : consequently, the
Vainidhvan has for its father, the Vaikhart-vik and for its
mother, the BhuvanSdhvan In other words, the Varnadhvan is
the product formed by the combination of two strands of Matter,
one subtle and the other gross. It will also be useful to remem-
ber that the relation between the Kala-, Tattva-, and Bhuvana-
Adhvans is fully parallelled by that between Varoa-, Pada-,
and Mantra-Adhvans, in every respect. In the first series, the
apparently amorphous " Root of Matter ” develops into forms
of exquisite symmetry and grandeur, and in the second series, the
“ Elementary Notes" of the Celestial Music crystallize into form-
attracting “ thoughts ”, comprising the great Mystic formulas,
and sacred scriptures of a God-inspired character. The parall-
ellism works like this in perfect cohesion : Kaladhvan and Varty-
tdhvan, Tattvidhvan and Padadhvan, BhuvanSdhvan and Man-
trldhvan. The ancient God-Taught Mystics who have ever
stood at the back of the Agaminta have, therefore, classified the
Six Adhvans into two groups or two series, the one called the
Sabdadhvans, and the other, the Arthadhvans ; the one com-
prising the Mantra-, Pada-, and Varna-Adhvans, and the other,
Bhuvana-, Tattva-, and Kala-adhvans. The arrangement, here
adopted, is from the view-point of Involution, or, as the Immortal
Meykaod&n* would say, j>. The terms Sabda and Artha
are used here in the supernal technical sense of Mystics, when
they speak of the Sabda-Artha-Jfilna of the YogarQdha, in his
•amyama-avasara. When the Arurukshu has transcended the
Artha-adhvans, he attains Jfiana, the Siva-Jnana, the Samyak-
darianam of the Lord, and then the “ Motor of Maha-Maya " is
distinctly seen and understood. We may therefore say that
the function of the Shadadhvans is two-fold, laya and bhoga.
The Agaminta again classifies the Shadadhvans into two
groups, the Suddhadhvans and the ASuddhadhvans, the ne plus
*ltra of the Suddhadhvans being the Para-§akti, and that of the
Aiuddhadhvans being Maya, Paraprakriti or Maha-Maya. This
classification is basgd on the ■■ Sud dha and ASuddha grouping”
• His S a nskr it name is Satya-jdam-dar§i-&ivacharya.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHADADHVANS

333

of the Atma-, Vidya-, and Siva-tattvas of the Tattvadhvan,
with which the other five Adhvans are intimately bound up, and
has, as we will see presently, a good deal to do with the mystic
sacramental rite known as Adhva-Suddhi or Adhva-£odhai»,
an anga of the Dikshas or major sacraments prescribed in the
Kriya-pada of the Divyagamas, preparatory to the consecra-
tion of the Soul to the service of the Lord, and with it, to its
baneUta vimochana. The inter-linking of, and the inter-relations
between the various Adhvans, have enough pabulum to offer for
reflection to reverent seekers after God, and well may we
exclaim in dazed wonderment, “ Mysterious are the ways of
God ! ”, though we should not fail to add that they are never
inscrutable to His " true children ”, for whom He removes the
paraclose in the twinkling of an eye.

At the last stage of the Madhya-Jagra-Avastha, the Soul
gets to understand the true Svarupam of the Shadadhvans.
Says that prince of Mystics, St. Tirumular • :

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Q £d(&jL£>RevujiT i &eo g/s,£7iJ)£?<a//rtu(2tf>.

Here is presented in a nut-shell the pith of the Agamantic
teaching as regards the dawning of the knowledge of Shad-
adhvans, and the spiritual triumphs it brings on in its train.
Let us see first of all what the Avasthas are that are recognized
by the Agamanta for the Souls. There are three Karaijavasthas,
causative or radical states : each one of which begetting, in its
turn, a Karyavastha, as a cause begets an effect. Each of
these Karyavasthas is again divided into five Avasthas. The
total number of Avasthas is thus eighteen, the primaries and
• The Uj>amany*bhakttvilasa calls him Sn-mula-deva.

StmUXTA DtPIXjL

3M

secondaries included. The Kevallvasthi, in which the Soul b
wrapped up in the darkness of the Primeval Suddha-Mayi, in
bondage to the Aoa va-mala, from the Dissolution of the Cosmos to
its neat Creation, or, to be more correct, from its final Involution
to its complete Evolution, is often compared by the AgamSntins,
as I already pointed out, to the condition of the waking eyes in
deme gloom. The SakalftvasthA is the state of "awakening ",
when the Soul is redeemed from its Kevalavasthl, and put oa
tbe wheel of Samsira : the condition of the Soul is now com pais
ed to that of the waking eyes in darkness, relieved by larapt
igbt which later on "serves", in the language of Milton,
" only to discover sights of woe, where peace and rest can never
dwell* ". This is the condition in which we all are, I mean, most
of us, the bulk of us. The SuddhAvasthA is that glorious cod*
dition, realizable by all of us, whilst in the. flesh, if we should
(rogress sufficiently far in the culture of our Souls, in which
the phenomenon of Sakti-nipata, or the lighting up of the humap
heart by the saving Light of the Lord, occurs, and the Soul
reaches the Adhvanah par am, referred to in that Aupanishadic
Master-piece of Mystic Wisdom, the Kafha, and glorified as the
BhSuni in the Chhandogya-Upanishat. The Kevalavastha begets
the five "descending states ", Jagra, Svapna, Sushupti, Turiya
and Turiyatita which is sometimes termed Atitakevala. Simi-
larly Sakalavastha begets the five “ascending states”, phases
of the so-called MadhyAvastha, the Jagra-turiyatita, the Jagra-
turiya, the Jagra-sushupti, the Jagra-svapna, and the Jagra-
jAgra. The Suddhavastha begets the five " Pure states ”,
phases of the NirmalSvastha or the sin-less condition, the
Nirroala-jAgra, the Nirmala-svapna, the Nirmala-sushupti, the
Nirmala-turiya, and the Nirrnala-turiyatita. The series of
"psychoses " which go by the name of Dasa-karyani, appertain
to these Nirmalavasthas, and the Adhva-Sodhana is the chief
preparatory sacrament which secures to the Soul, in the fulness
of time, the ten “ Spiritual Triumphs ” The Jagra-JSgra to

• This is a quotation from memory and cannot vouch far verbal'
accuracy.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SH ADADHVANS.

335

which Tirumular refers in the second of the two verses which
I have just recited to you, is the fifth or the highest state of thfe
Madhyavasthas. In the first verse, he alludes to the three
Mandates, and we should endeavour to know what they are.

The three Mandates are known as Chandra-, Aditya-, and
Agni-Mandalas. The lowest is the Agni-maijdate, the Plane of the
Auroral Sheen, the plane that rises to view when the Pratishtha-
kala is reached. It is connected with the three centres of
spiritual energy in the human subtle-body, Muladhara, Svadhi-
shfhana, and Manipuraka. The Aditya-mapdala, the Plane of
the Sunny Glory, is intimately related to the Vidyakala or Sam-
hara-chakra, and connected with the subtle and sensitive spirit-
ual centres, Anahata and Visuddhi. The Chandra-mandala, the
Plane of the Nectarine Light of Gold, is related to the Santya-
tita-kala, and the spiritual centres, Ajna and Sahasrara.
The visions of these Mandates are a commonplace to those that
are in wrapt spiritual communion, as they rise with the
“Serpent-Fire”, the Kundalini, along the path of the Sushumija.
But they usually occur only to such as have touched, by due
culture under initiation from sanctified spirits, the Nirmala-
Jagra-Avastha. The divisions of the Panchakalas which I have
been obliged to name here, and pass over without further ex-
planation, will be dealt with at some length in a short while.

The “Inner Twenty-Five” of which Tirumular speaks, when
he says, “ i ", in the verse under

reference, is a mystic summation of the Thirty-Six Tattvas, by
regarding the Trans-Atma Tattvas as a unity, which they really
are to such as are only in their Jagra-Jagra-Avastha of Madhya-
vasthas. With these explanations, it will now be clear that Tiru-
mular lays down the proposition, based on his actual experience,
that the Six Adhvans reveal themselves to the Arurukshu, when
he has reached the first rung of the Nirmalavastha ladder. At
the same time, the chameleon-like Sthula-prakriti with its
triguijic blandishments, the bane of the worldly-minded, recede*
from his gaze.

JJ*

SIEOHMTA DlPIKl.

Coming now to the question of the evolution of the
Adhvans, we should consider its chronology or sequence. The
time at my disposal is very short, and I can but take a rapid
snap-shot of the field. From what I have already stated, it may
have been gathered that, at the end of every Cosmic Involution,
which is technically called profaya, the latest in evolution dis-
solves into the later, the later into the late, and so on, the whole
process reminding us, if I may be pardoned for the employment
of a mechanical analogy, of that of a telescope, which was length-
ened out to its full length, for actual use, being shortened in,
in order to be put back into its case, or that of a big tree with
its towering trunk, and waving branches of luxuriant foliage,
sinking back to its original condition of an embryo-bearing
seed. All the Adhvans undergo their disintegration or dissolu-
tion in an order that is the reverse of their evolution, till they
are, so to say, lost in the Bindu, Kundalini or Paraprakriti, the
“Drop (or Zero) ", the " Involved Spiral ", or the " Meta-Radix
of Matter ”, as the “ primeval Root-Matter ” is variously styled.
There they rest awaiting the Lord’s next call, as a ball of
thread made up into a skein, awaiting its unwinding or dis-
entanglement. But, our Mother Divine, the Golden-Hued Gaurl,
the Sure Slayer of the “ Buffalo-headed Demon ", the Mahisha-
sura, from day to day, the Radiant Maiden whose sweet smile
has ever been enough to reduce Tripura to ashes, the Light
Inseparable of the Lord, that, in sheen, is sometimes spoken
of as Flashing Green-and-Gold, the Holy Spirit of the Christian
mystics, is totally different from this Paraprakriti or Maha-
Miyl, a phase par excellence of the eternal three-fold Pasa or
" Darkness ”. Yet, to be sure, “ Heaven " and " Earth ” really
get to “kiss” and, aye, warmly, on that " high-way " which
goes by the name Of Kaladhvan, and .it, on that account,
assumes a highly important character, and it will be fully
worth our attention to form some clear notions about its nature
and constitution.

(To be continued).

V. V. R.

HINDU IDEALS AND THEIR PRESERVATION*.

Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen, Friends !

It is with much satisfaction that I rise to address a large
and representative audience of Hindus such as this; for I feel
sure that we shall find common ground— that, in fact, our views
and sentiments are in the main the same. I was born as far
from here as it is possible to get on this terrestrial globe, but
this fact seems only to indicate the truth of the saying that
space does not in fact separate, for in feeling, sentiment and
sympathy I believe that I am as much a Hindu as any of you.
Indeed, before I have completed this address you may think me
more so— too much, in fact.

Well, this fellow-feeling of mine is the result of more than
twenty years’ study of your sacred books and association with
such of your spiritually-minded men as I could reach. These
have conferred upon me, as I will more fully explain later on,
all that I chiefly value in my life, and have caused me to recog-
nize a debt to India which I would gladly make any effort to
repay. It is to give expression to, and to indicate to you, this
fellow-feeling, that I have adopted your dress while among you.

A nation may best be judged byiits ideals. They represent
the goal of aspiration for its people, and the limit of their pos-
sible achievement. Their actual condition at any time will be
measured by the extent to which their ideals find expression in
their lives.

The ideals of the Indian people are noble and beautiful — the
loftiest in the world. They are spiritual. They are embodied
in the religion of your fathers, that soul-inspiring path to God
which has no equal among men.

These precious ideals are threatened with destruction by
Western influences.

* A lecture delivered by Mr. Myron H. Phelps, B.A., LX- B. of New
York, at the Hindu College Hall, Jaffna, on Feb. 28 last. It has been
specially sent to us by the Lecturer for publication, and we do so with
immen se pleasure. — Ed. L.T.

2

J3 8

SlnmiANTA nil’IKA.

The West is not spiritual. It is material— almost a desert
of sensuousness and intellectuality. But in this, its field of
activity, the West is strong and proud of its strength; master-
ful, brilliant. The danger is that it may dazzle you and induce
you to adopt its ways.

Let us then consider, —

First, What the Indian ideals a he,

Second, What the Western life, by which they are threat-
ened, in fact, is,

Third, How the danger which threatens may be averted.

1 will mention first your sublime ideal of Renunciation.
Other peoples have followed the path of Desire, of Attachment.
Your ancestors first learned, and first taught, that to gain God
the world must be discarded. Say the Upanishads, "not by
wealth, not by offspring, by renunciation alone, Immortality is
to be gained”.

And let me not be misunderstood. The renunciation
which 1 mean is not running to the jungle, adopting the San-
nyisin ' s robe, or deserting the duties of the world. It consists
in this — while performing to the uttermost the duties of life,
holding the mind and heart detached; always remembering that
the spirit is free and stands apart; seeking no results, but per-
forming action as duty, for its own sake; realizing the great fact
that it is not I, but the Lord, Who is the actor. “He is the
Constant Renouncer (Nitya Sanuydsi), Who neither likes nor
dislikes ”, says the Blessed Bhagav&n.

Such renunciation belongs to India alone.

Secondly, what is your ancestral ideal of success in Life ? It
is not honor among men, nor wealth, nor enjoyment, but Pro-
gress towards God. That life is held to have succeeded which
carries a man nearer to that Supreme Goal than the last ; that
life has failed which leaves him further from it.

No other people fh the world of whom we know has mea-
sured success in life by this kind of Progress.

HINDI' IDFAI.S.

339

Then, thirdly, your ideal of supreme success, supreme
happiness, supreme achievement, what is it? — Gratification of
the senses, or the intellect? Great wealth, honor, or distinction?
Far from it. It is Union with the Supreme.

Then the Indian ideal of action. Your sages declare it to
be action which is in accordance with Dharma; that is, action
which is appropriate to the character of and acceptable to God.
It is action squared to the rule of conduct declared by holy men.

In the conduct of life, among your ideals are,

Simplicity ; reducing your wants to a minimum and adjust-
ing them so far as possible to what each matt can do for himself,
in order that there may be more time for worshipping the Lord.

Neighbourly Love. Your neighbour is also to be worshipped.
Relations among men should be so adjusted and maintained that
love may grow in the heart. The purpose of life is the develop-
ment of love. Hence the Hindu conception of Law, as a set of
rules for the conduct of life which will best develop love in the
heart; and the Hindu conception of Justice, as doing unto others
as you would that they should do unto you— a norm of action
ingrained in your civilization, ages before it was declared by
Christ.

And Peace ; where but in India shall we find the ideal of
Peace ? Sdnti, Sdnti, Sdnti, Peace, Peace, Peace, is a refrain
which echoes alike from the temple, the palace and the cottage,
for you well know that in peace and quiet only can the path to
God be found.

Another of your ancestral ideals in the conduct of life is
divorce from sensuousness. Your sages knew that gratification
of the senses must be restrained— that sense-gratification chokes
love for God, love for the neighbour, kills the spirit. The West
-does not know this, or has forgotten it.

A distinguished English barrister, Sergeant Ballantyne,
was brought to India to defend a Maharajah accused of murder.
He travelled all over India, and afterwards was heard to remark

SlOOHiWTA DlPIKA.

540

that none of the languages of India contained a word for
••comfort", nor had he found the article. Your people know
that too much attention to the comforts of the body leads one
away from the Lord.

Giving, generosity, unselfishness, is another of your ideals.
Your sacred books say that others must be realized, that there
is no other road to salvation. By the suppression of one's
self, love must be nurtured. One of your wise men has said
•‘The practice of giving suppresses the proclivity of the
mind and hand to receive, and is the directest road to re-
nunciation.”

“ There are two tendencies in living — that in which giving
is habitual, and its opposite. The consciousness becomes trained
in one direction or the other. The habit of giving may be
practised until receiving is a desecration”.

And it is well to note that according to your sacred books,
giving does not result in worldly loss. The bounties of the
Devas come to those who give. Rain does not fall because
men’ s hearts become dry. Whole communities are wiped out
because they have no moisture of love in the heart. It has
been said: —

“ Whenever you see men congregated and prosperous, be
sure that if you examine, you will find some among them who
are true lovers of the Lord and of men. A city may be preserved
because of a few generous people. A country having such men
is punya bhumi. ”

Gentlemen, the contemplation of such ideals as these en-
nobles the soul. They breathe inspiration. They stimulate
aspiration. They are like heaven-wafted mountain air — pure,
invigorating, stimulating.

These ideals and others like them are claimed by all India.
Nowhere else in the world will such ideals be found. They ard
the soul erf your literature and religion. They are your most
precious and splepdid possession; your noblest heritage, em-
bodied in the lives of your ancestors.

HINDU IDEALS.

34 *

Let Western influences mould the minds of your children,
and these ideals will disappear. In what are but a few years in
the life of a nation, they will be forgotten.

And what will take their place? What can take their place,
but the aims, the modes of life, of the West? I do not say
ideals, for they are not ideals — they are not worthy to be so
named.

We must now turn to that picture. Yet, being a West-
erner, why should I tell you things that do not reflect credit
upon the West ? I do so because these are things which you
have a right to know; and because there is a higher loyalty than
loyalty to country, or to locality. There is loyalty to truth, to
God and to our brother man.

You have the right to know two things — first, what is the
true nature of that social structure which demands your
allegiance and which threatens to supplant your own?

Second, what has this much-vaunted Christian Church,
which invites you so urgently to her fold, accomplished in her
own land?

As to the first of the Indian ideals which we have considered,
Rtnunciation or non- Attachment, no such thing is known in the
West. It was taught by Christ, but has been completely for-
gotten. The worker in the West looks first and always to the
results to be accomplished. By them all action is measured and
valued. The actor does not stand separate from the action, nor
has he any thought of the freedom and independence of the
spirit. He is wrapped up in the action and the anticipated
results. It is the sort of action which leads to endless rebirth.

Success in life in the West is esteemed to be the achieve-
ment of wealth, honour, social position, distinction ; the Highest
Happiness is found in gratification of the senses, the tastes and
the intellect, in palaces, yachts, motor-cars, flying-machines ; in
art, literature and sport, one rauch-sought-form of which is the

34 *

MrmX.Tr a rtpiax.

killing rt animals and birds. Progress towards God, Spiritual
Growth, Union with the Supreme, have no place here.

Instead of action according to Dharma , each man in the
West aims to act acconlin" to his desire. Personal will is
pushed to the uttermost. The check is not God's Will, but
not getting found out. It is discovery that is the crime.

Instejd of sini ft icily, we find in the West an ever-increasing
complexity. Year by year the burden of things increases. More
and more numerous become the number of these considered
necessary to living. The burden of possessions has become
well-nigh insupportable. Life is crushed out. Of course little
time is left for worship, or for the consideration of spiritual
things.

I fear that you have already suffered seriously in this
respect from the influence of the West. The apparel of the
people I meet is largely European — and so is the furniture
of your houses. Your horses and carriages are for the most part
imported. Even this hall, in this Hindu seat of learning, has
European furniture. 1 think this is all a most lamentable mis-
take. Your ancestral appointments were more fitting, in every
way better. How much more attractive and harmonious to the
surroundings were the mats spread on the ground in the school
houses in which I have been speaking, than these benches and
chairs! Why should you change, even were the change to your
advantage, instead of to your detriment, as it is? The dignity
of your race should be upheld. European influence is but a
thing of yesterday in the life of India, and will soon be a dream
of the past.

But the important practical fact is that the cost of living is
increasing. 1 am told that it is fourfold what it would be, had
the simple habits of your ancestors been maintained. It follows
that the lime you can give to the real things of life is in like
measure abridged.

Yet notwithstanding the increased cost of your living your
ancestors led a more rational life, and I think you will admit

HINDU IDEALS.

343

that they were happier, than you. They certainly had a greater
control over their time and therefore of their lives; they were
more free.

T1 ' ; should give you pause. It is a most serious reflection.
Complexity is the great burden of Western life. I strongly
counsel you to avoid it.

For Neighbourly Love as a rule of life, the West has
substituted competition— keen, cruel, destructive. That- means,
not taking a fair return for your labour or your goods — not be-
ing satisfied with a fair profit, but getting nil you can, whether
your neighbour lives or starves. Competition is that treatment
of others which will aggrandize you most, at their expense. It
destroys love. It is worse than war. It results in horrible
poverty.

It is said that one third of the population of England are
wretchedly poor, in a state of actual suffering from poverty.

I was in London last October. The nights were cold and wet,
and 1500 to 2000 homeless people spent each night on the street
called the Thames Embankment, shelterless and numb with cold.
It was simply heart-rending.

In the provinces of England the condition is said to be still
worse. Great numbers of people are huddled into factories,
where they lead mechanical, dreary, unhealthy lives. The
operations in many of these factories permit the escape into the
atmosphere of chemical fumes poisonous to life, by which all
vegetation is destroyed for miles about. But people continue
to live there, though they become prematurely old, toothless and
bald. Last June, when the Imperial Press Conference was held
in London, the assembled Editors were taken on a tour all
through the United Kingdom; and one of them wrote to his paper
-in Canada, that the most impressive fact encountered on the
whole journey was the lines and masses of gaunt, hollow, hopeless
faces which lined the streets of the manufacturing towns — the
haunting hopelessness of those faces he should never forget.

344

MOTHANTA DtPIKA.

Ptma is not sought by the West, but avoided. There,
excitement* novelty, is the soul of life. It is sought in politics,
in sports and games, in balls and entertainments, in theatres,
operas and music halls, in sensational journalism, in horse
races, in fast travel, by train, motor-car and flying-machine.
Since the time of St. Paul and the Athenians of old, the men
of the West have ever been alert to " see or bear some new
thing”

Instead of your ideal of non-sensuousness, the West eagerly
seeks sense-gratification, in feasting, wine and strong drink,
women, fast horses, fast means of travel, and all the innumerable
comforts and luxuries of Western life. It has been aptly said
that in the West "civilization” and “comfort" mean the same
thing.

Even its priests, its ministers, its spiritual men, live
luxuriously. Many a clergyman spends upon himself and his
family a sum equivalent to i;,ooo, 20,000, 30,000 rupees, each
year, paid to him for his services as minister of the Gospel.
Nothing can better indicate to you than this, how far asunder
are the Eastern and Western conceptions of spirituality.

From this blindness to the dangers of sensuousness has arisen
the curse of drunkenness, which, having come to Ceylon and
India in the train of Western civilization, is now blighting and
destroying your people.

I rejoice that I can ascribe generosity to the West. That
virtue it has, and it means much. Splendid sums are given to
education; there are magnificent public charities.

Industrial Development is much heard of as an aim of Wes-
tern life. It is a function of properly ordered industry to
minister to the growth of spirituality — to train and sharpen the
mind so that it may at length become a proper instrument for
the unveiling of the spirit. But this, the real purpose of
industry, has nev^r been learned in the West, and Industrial
Envelopment has taken a direction which wholly ignores and

HINDU IDEALS.

345

suppresses this true function of work. Men are cooped up in
factories, thousands in a single building. They are made into
machihes. A man may spend his life in fashioning the points of
pins. Their souls are stifled, their minds dwarfed. And all
this soul-destruction is for what ? To multiply objects of sense-
enjoyment.

Finally, the great Shibboleth of the West is Prc ;ress. Pro-
gress towards what ? No one knows. . It is concei ned with the
multiplication of forms of matter — the subdivision and re-
fashioning of Prakriti, of which the changes are endless. There
is Scientific Progress, Political Progress, Social Progress.
But as to Progress towards God, it is not so much as heard of.
Here too, as in all else which characterizes the West, the
ultimate object of effort is the comfort and convenience of
the body and the diversion of the mind.

So the chief features of Western life — those which charact-
erize it — may be summed up as —

Pursuit of excitement, sensationalism,

Pursuit of wealth, social position and distinction in the state,

Pursuit of gratification of the senses,

Pursuit of those pleasures which minister to the more
refined tastes and the intellect, in the fields of literature,
scholarship and the arts.

And in these pursuits the “rule of the game " is com-
petition —self-aggrandisement, without attention to the suffer-
ings caused thereby to one's neighbour.

So it is, in its broad aspects, a civilization without a God,
without a religion.

I do not mean to say one will not find in the West good
men — spiritual men. There are many of them — some in the
Churches, but more outside of the Churches. There are many
groups and associations of men and women intent on spiritual
growth. There are lovable traits of character and life which,
did time permit, I would gladly picture to you. For instancy
S

SIDWOJfTA niPIKX.

there is the American university life, which for quiet, repose,
dignity and artistic charm, is almost ideal. But these exceptions
only emphasize the main proposition which 1 have advanced.
The social, civic, public life— the life of the masses of men— goes
on just as it would go on if men had actual knowledge that
there was no God Probably at least three-fourths of the men
of America— 1 speak of America because 1 know it best — I think
other parts of the West are much like it in this respect— go
through the business and pleasures ol the day, from the time
they rise in the morning until they retire at night, without a
single thought of God or spiritual things. The Churches have
become for the most part mere social clubs, where men go to
meet their friends and acquaintances. "Religion” is put on
and discarded with Sunday clothes.

It is true that Christianity teaches better things than these;
but it is powerless to guide or control men. Why is that?
I ask you to attend carefully to my answer to this question, for
1 think it lies at the foundation of all the differences between the
East and West, and is most important to be clearly grasped
and always kept in mind. It is because Christianity is prac-
tically, at present, a dead, or dormant, religion. By that
I mean this Christianity was founded 2000 years ago by wise
and spiritual men— men precisely like the jivan-muktas or sages
now, and always in the past, to be found in India. Jesus and
Paul and John, being men of true spiritual discernment, taught
the highest truth. Their words were recorded, and constitute
the new Testament of the Christians. But those wise teachers
have not had a line of successors. It is hundreds and hundreds
of years since there was in the Christian Church a teacher who
had direct knowledge of God and spiritual things. Thus the
Church has forgotten the meaning of its Bible, and has no living
witnesses to interpret it. So men have been forced since ancient,
times to depend upon the mind for discovering the meaning of
the words of Jesus — a task which the mind without spiritual
iBuimnation is inadequate to fulfill. It is the nature of the mind
to diverge and multiply. Thus many interpretations of the

SIDDHiNTA UiPIKA.

348

ing you these things, though some of them do not redound to
the credit of the land of my birth. Religion— the preservation
on the earth of lofty and spiritual ideals — is dearer to me than
a thousand Americas.

Look, then, on this picture and on that. On the one side
these noble and spiritual ideals ; dearer than wealth— dearer
than life itself ; leading directly and luminously to the foot-
stool of the Almighty.

On the other side a waste of arid materialism.

Shall these ideals be submerged by this avalanche of sensu-
ousness and intellectuality ?

This Christian Church which is pressing you so haiJ —
luring you with offers of almost fj^e education for your children
— ask it what it has accomplished in its own land ? Ask it to
explain the empty Churches, the dearth of spirituality, the
carnival of sensuousness, prevalent in the West. Would it
plunge India and Ceylon into this gulf?

No, Gentlemen ; Westerners are not the men to consult
about religion. They are excellent authorities on stocks and
bonds and railways and motor-cars and flying machines. But
don’t ask them about religion, or take their advice. On that
subject they are ignorant.

I am told that great changes have occurred in Jaffna of
recent years : that fifty years ago there were here probably a
thousand pandits, men learned in your sacred books, while
now the number can almost be counted on the fingers, that at
that time there were Hindu schools for primary and higher
education in every village, while now there are hardly a hun-
dred in the entire district. I am told that your boys often
leave school taught to read, write and speak well the English
language, but not Tamil; that many of your educated men do
not know Tamil as a literary language ; that leading men
among you can be eloquent in English but not in Tamil. I am
told that the anci£ht simplicity of your life is departing, — in a
word, that you are becoming denationalized. I have talked

HINDU IDEALS.

349

with some of the greatest living Indians upon the subject, and
I have found that they regard the situation with alarm.

"The coming of Western nations into our country ”, I am
told by one of these, “ is changing India. They bring with
them their selfish mercantile principles, their worship of
manners and wealth, and, as a consequence, the religious sim-
plicity and the beautiful devotion to God and neighbour that
prevailed among us are in danger. It is the wedge of Selfish-
ness and sensuousness that, entering in our midst, will destroy
us if we do not take care

In this Kali-Yuga it is easy to descend, — the tendency is
everywhere downwards. Your books say that in this age
spirituality may be extinguished, even in India ; that the Vedas
themselves may disappear.

And you have much to contend with. The Missionaries
have been very subtle — very adroit. Finding it impossioie to
convert you, they attack your society through your children ;
and if you continue to give them your children for education,
they will certainly succeed. Humanly speaking, there is no
hope for you.

It is a matter of easy demonstration. They are now educat-
ing at least three-fourths of the children of this district. Is it
not certain that these children, though they may for the most
part remain nominal Hindus, will become acquiescent in the
Christian Church — more ready even than you to send thiir
children to Mission schools ? And can anything be more proba-
ble than that their children and grand-children will become,
first nominal and then genuine members of the Christian
community ?

1 think beyond question that unless you arouse yourselves,
Hindu civilization and religion in Jaffna are dpomed. I doubt
whether India is not at present seriously threatened ; but your
numbers and resources are too small to stand against these
onslaughts without the greatest vigilance.

(To be continued). M. H. P.

3 S°

SIDDHANTA DlPIKA.

JNANA vasishtham

OR

the dialogues of vasishtha on wisdom.

( Continued front page 290 of No. 8 Vol. X.)

Nothing is so mean and worthless as this body, the dwelling
place of the ego, with his wife desire, and handmaidens the
organs of sense and action. Fleeting riches and royalty and
body, are they worthy to be sought ? In a little while they
disappear. Rich and poor alike are subject to age, disease,
death. What profiteth this body ? Infancy is more restless
than waves or lightning or woman’s eyes ; it eats dirt, is easily
moved to joy and sorrow, it calls to the moon, is the home of
folly, ever breeds fear to parents and guardians. Passing
from infancy to youth greater dangers wait. Youth is
attacked by the demon lust in the cave of the heart. None so
learned or wise but in youth is deluded and blinded. Youth
is a mirage which torments the deer, mind, sinking in the
slough of external objects. Only those rare ones, who cross
the dangers of youth and in youth attain wisdom, are worthy
to be called men.

What is the attraction of woman’s beauty ? Analyse the
component parts of her lovely body — flesh, bone, blood, mucus,
and the rest — and then, if you think it beautiful, hanker after
it. Women's breasts, once decked with strings of rarest pearl,
become the food of dogs in the burial-ground. Her soft
fragrant locks, her eyes that deal destruction, who can escape
their power ? Pleasant at first, painful in the end, she is
Cupid’ s net to catch men, she is the bait by which the death-
god catches them into hell. I seek not the pleasures of woman,
that chest of love, jealousy, anger, locked with the lock of dire
sorrow. Deliverance from sexual desire is the beginning of
heavenly bliss.

Old age, which follows on youth, is a time of greater
sorrow still. Wisdom runs away from old age as love of first

JNANA VASISHTHAH.

35 *

wife runs away from the heart of him who has married a second.
Weakness of body, disease, excessive desire, inability to satisfy
it, are the lot of the old. Their tottering gait, their failings, are
the laughing-stock of children and women, of servants, kinsmen,
and friends. Desire comes home to roost in old age, fear of the
next world torments it. Gray heads are ripe fruit to feed the
messengers of death. The king of death comes in state
attended by an army of diseases and fanned with chouris ' of
gray hair. He lives in a palace washed with gray, and his
wives are weakness, disease, danger. What availeth life so
beset with pain and sorrow at every step, its string hourly
gnawed by time?

What thing in the universe can escape Time, which swallows
all like the fire that dries up oceans? The greatest and the
least he destroys — he will not grant a moment’ s grace. Oceans
and mighty mountains yield to his power as a leaf or a grain
of dust. Worlds resonant with the buzzing of countless gnats,
are apples dropped by the tree of Time. With his eye, the
sun, Time watches throughout the ancient garden of the universe
and eats the fruit as they are ripe, to wit, the warders 'of the
world. He wears a necklace of world-clusters strung on the
three strands of the gunas.’ He hunts game in the forest of the

' Tail of the Yak (a wild ox of the mountains of Tibet) used by
Eastern princes as fans and fly-flappers.

* Regents or presiding deities appointed for the four cardinal and the
four intermediate points of the compass by Brahma at each creation of
the world.

* The gunas, the three ingredients or constituents of nature, corres-
ponding pretty closely" to the three principles of the soul according to
.Plato (RtfakUc, IV. 441 E, 442 A): —

(1) Sattva (logos) — Purity or goodness, producing ilhaninatinn

and mildness, wisdom, grace, truth, &c.

(2) Rajas (thumos) — Passion or energy, producing activity, and

variability, mental exertion, courage, learning, Ac, and also
worldly covetousness, pride, falsehood, sensual desire.

(3) Tomas (tfilkumia)— Darkness or ignorance, producing slug-
gishness, arrogance, lust and other depraved attachments.

siddhAnta nipiKi.

35 *

universe. He gathers into his death-chest . falling worlds;
at intervals, of ages, at the great Kalpa ' time of destruction,
be. gambols in. the oceans as in a pond. Time, too, yields
to the power, ,of the great Goddess of Destruction, who
rangeth like a tigress through the universe, destroying all, the
earth her drinking cup, the worlds flowers on her neck, her pets
time and the terrible man-lion whose thunder-roar is death, the
unreal her bow, pain her arrow, the celestial regions- her tiara,
the infernal worlds her anklets fastened with the cord of sin,
the mountains Himavan and Mahameru her earrings with
pendants sun and moon. She wears the heads of Brahmas,
Vishijus, Rudras, and, terrible to herself, she danceth the peerless
dance at the final dissolution of the universe.

The universe, according to Hindu philosophers, has been,
created and destroyed times without number, and will be again
and again created and destroyed, not in the sense of being
created out of nothing and reduced to nothing, but in the sense
of being projected or evolved (Srish(i) out of cosmic stuff
(mula prakriti) and of being involved or withdrawn' into it
(Samhara). The manifestation of the creating or evolving
energy of God is called Brahma, of the preserving energy
Vishiju, and of the destroying or involving energy Siva or
Rudra. These three manifestations constitute the Hindu
Trinity, and each has a time-limit counted by thousands of
millions of years. At the end of the cycle they all withdraw
into the absolute Godhead, to come forth again.

The whole universe, continues Rama, is fleeting and unreal.,
It is born and dies, it dies and is born, without end. The
deluded mind faints with desire. Youth wasted flies, the
friendship of the wise unsought, freedom and truth far away.
Attachment to the fleeting things of the world is the chain that
binds to birth.' All living things perish. The names of countries

1 Kalpa, or the duration of the universe, is supposed to be 36,000
tinies 433 million years, at the end of which it is destroyed, and after a
pause again created.

1 Reincarnation, to which the soul is subject until it becomes pure
and ripe for union with God.

jnAna vAsisiitham.

353

change. Mighty mountains become dust. Oceans disappear.
The quarters of the sky vanish. The starry worlds, the celestial
hosts, the holy Rishis pass away. The lord of the polar star
dies. Time, space, law cease. Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, merge in
the One Reality, the pure substance ineffable. The whole
universe is mean and naught by It.

Sunk in petty enjoyments, thinking them so wonderful, the
world perisheth. If the day is not spent in treading in the
footsteps of the wise, whence cometh sleep at night ? Wives
and children and gold are sought and loved as ambrosia. For
them nothing is left undone. When the time of parting comes,
they are more painful than deadly poison. Fvery foe overcome,
surrounded by every prosperity, one liveth happily, sole
emperor. Lo, from somewhere comes sudden death and cuts
him off. Wife, children, and the rest are travellers meeting at
a fair. The lives of Brahmas' are but a second. The difference
between long life and short life is a delusion. Mighty power
and prosperity, learning, deeds all pass away and become mere
fancies — so do we. Pain and pleasure, greatness and smallness,
birth and death, all are for a moment. A hero is killed by a
weakling, one man kills a hundred, the mighty become low and
the low mighty. All goes round and round. " I care for none
of these things. I care for neither life nor death. Grant me,

0 sages, calm and peace of mind. My heart yearns for union
with its Lord, and is distressed as a woman parted from her
beloved. What is that state without pain, fault, doubt, or
delusion ? What is the state incorruptible ? Ye sages know it.
Declare it unto me. I want neither food nor drink nor sleep.

1 will not perform religious rites nor royal duties. Come weal,
come woe. 1 care not. I stand still, doing nothing. I welcome
death.”

1 A day of Brahma = 432 million years of man. 360 such days
constitute a year of Brahma, and too such years his life-time, or a halpt,
which is equal to 36,000 times 432 million years, the duration of
the world.

4

354

siddhAnta DiPIKi.

Such an appeal it was impossible to resist, and the dis-
courses which constitute the Juana V asishfam were the answer

III. — Story of Sukar . 1

The first discourse is attributed to Visvamitra, who relates
to Rama the story of Sukar and comments upon it. Though
short, it is interesting in more respects than one. It shows
that in those times, as now, though not generally known, the
Brahmins were not the sole custodians of spiritual knowledge,
but were even glad to seek it from men of other castes, as in
this instance from one of the royal caste. Indeed it would
appear from the Chandogya Upanishad, V., 3, 7, that in ancient
Vedic times a Brahmin was not deemed fit to receive instruction
in the mysteries of spiritual knowledge. A Brahmin is there
represented as seeking instruction from a king who tells him
that no Brahmin was ever taught such knowledge, this being
reserved for the Kshattriya or the royal caste. The king was,
however, induced to make an exception in this instance. The
fact that verses so prejudicial to the interest and dignity of the
Brahmin-caste occur in writings, which now for three thousand
years have been in their sole charge, is remarkable, and is
strong testimony to the authenticity of this particular
Upanishad.

The term Brahmin had once a purely spiritual meaning,
viz., one who had seen God ( Brahm , or the Supreme). Any
one of whatever caste who had attained the vision or know-
ledge of God, was called a Brahmin. The descendants of such
men gradually crystallized into a caste, which after a time lost
all spiritual culture and even came to be regarded as unfit to
receive spiritual instruction. The Brahmins, as a caste, then
became what they are now, ritual priests, whose duty is to
conduct public worship in the temples and to perform the
countless domestic ceremonies of the Hindus. The aim of this'
ritual is to develop spiritual life in the laity and prepare the

' This is the Tamil form, in the honorific plural, of the Sanskrit Suka.

jhana vAsishtham. 355

soil for the seed of the spiritual priest. The relationship of
the latter to his disciple is a purely personal one, and no caste,
race, or sex-qualification is necessary either for teacher or
pupil, for the Spirit has no caste, race, or sex. A person of a
low caste, or even an outcast, may be a spiritual teacher. This
rule has lightened the burden of the Sudra's lot, for it throws
open to genius the highest of positions. The best known of
modern Hindu sages, Ramakrishna Svami of Bengal, who
died in 1 886, and whose life was written by Professor Max-
Mliller, had for his teacher a woman, who was for him what
Diotima was to Socrates, and inspired in him the same devotion,
love, and gratitude.

It is related of Sankaracharya — the great Hindu philo-
sopher and apostle, to whom I have already referred, — that on
one occasion, while travelling with the pomp suitable to his
dignity, he suddenly met on the road a Paria bearing a load
of beef fresh slaughtered and dripping with blood. Shrinking
from the sight) with a holy Brahmin’s horror, he called out
imperiously to the outcast to move out of sight. “ Whom
dost thou order,” answered the Paria with amazing boldness,

“ to move out of sight — the spirit or the flesh ? ” Safikara-
charya, remembering that the flesh of his own body did not
differ from that of the Paria or the beef, and realizing that
the all-pervading Spirit of God was equally in Paria and
Brahmin, recognized in this outcast his long-waited-for spiritual
teacher, and descending from his palanquin prostrated himself
at the Paria’s feet. The Paria, who was (it is said) no other
than the Lord Siva, vanished, h'aiikaracharya’s conversion
dates from this incident, and to him Hinduism owes more than
to any other man.

( To be continued. )

P. A.

siddhAnta dipikA.

IR AIY AN AR = AGAPPORU L.

(Concluded from page 299 of No. 8 Vol. X.)

His titles. The king is styled Varjavari" (Chera), Sembi-
yan” and Solan" (Ch6la), and Teona van” (Pandya). He was
so styled, because he claimed to have conquered the territories
ruled over by the Chfilas and Cheras. He is also called Popoi-
nadaq (Lord of the Kavftri country), v. 309, and Kanqi =
pPerumao (lord of the country about the Cape Comorin), v. 36.

His date. The two SinnamanOr Plates recently discovered
by Mr. G. Venkoba Rao give the following genealogy for the
early Paodyas” : —

(1) Jayantavarman.

(2) Arikesarin, ParankuSa, Maravar-
man ; conquered the Pallavas at
SankaramaAgai.

( 3 ) Jatila.

(4) Rajasimha I.

(5) Varagupa Maharaja.

(6) Srimara, Sri va’.labha, Ekavira,

ParachakrakOlahala ; conquered
Maya Paridya, Kerala, Simhala,
Pallava and Vallabha.

(7) Varagunavarman. (8) Parantaka, Viranarayaija, Sadaiyaq,
fought at Kharagiri, seized Ugra

” 74, 77, 130, 1 17, &c.

" w. 207, 304, Sembiyan is the same as Cholan.

” «■ “ 7 ; " v. 1 17.

** Annual Report of the Assistant Archaeological Superintendent
for Epigraphy, Madras, for 1907, p. 66.

IRAJYANAR «= AGAPPORtIL.

357

and destroyed Perniagadam
Married Vapavan-Mahadevi.

I

(9) Rajasimha II. alias Mandara-
gaurava, Ambimanameru.

The Apaimalai Inscription of Parantaka alias Maraiija-
<Jaiyan, discovered by one of us and published by Mr.
G. Venkobha Rao, gives the date 770 A. D.” With the aid of
the information gathered from these sources, we can find the
period of Arikesarin Parknkusa alias Maran of the poem we are
discussing. The hero is said to have fought at Sangamangai
and Nelveli against an unmentioned foe. From the fact that
the former place is situated near Conjeevaram, the capital of the
Pallavas, we might infer that it must have been fought with
Pallavas. This conclusion is borne out by the statement made
in the Sinnamanur Plates, where Sangamangai is called by the
more correct name of Safikaramangai. Mr. V. Venkayya rightly
guesses that this battle must have been the same as that fought
by Nandivarman Pallavamalla and his general Udayachandra
at Sankara grama, and hence Maravarman alias Arikesar.
PartAkuSa must be the contemporary of Nandivarman Pallava-
malla of the Udayendram grant. This Pallavamalla is supposed
to have died about 760 A. D. The Parantaka-Maranjadaiyapof
the Apaimalai Inscription has been identified by Mr. G. Venkoba
Rao with No. 3 of the genealogical table given above, and
should therefore be the son of the hero of the poem. Nedu-
mftran of fraiyajiar = agapporul, therefore, being the father
Parantaka alias Marap-Sadaiyap or Jatila, whose date is 770
A. D., and being a contemporary of Nandfvarman Pallavamalla,
who died in 760 A. D., must have lived during the middle of
the 8th century A. D.

The date of the Sutras. — In addition to the narrative we
have given in full above, which occurs in the payiram portion
of the Commentary, there is a passage at the end of that portion

** Ep. Ini., Vol. VIII., p. 317.

SIDDHANTA UiPIKA.

35 *

which says that the Sutras were composed during the time of
the Pandya king Ugra = pperu-valudi, or the last of the 49 kings
who patronised the last or the third Sahgam the reason for its
composition being that the deity of Madura took pity upon the
king, who was sincerely regretting the loss of poru[ = adigaram*
Who this king was we are not in a position to say definitely in
the present state of historical knowledge of that period. But
he does not seem to be identical with the Nedum&ran of the
illustrative verses. This much is certain from the payiram, viz \ ,
that the composition of the Sutras was contemporaneous with
Nakkirar, the original propounder of the Commentary.

We saw above how the payiram portion of the Commentary
relates that the substance of the Commentary was composed by
Nakkirar and handed down to nine generations of disciples.
Thus it appears probable that Nakkirar taught the interpre-
tation orally to his son, which was similarly transmitted by him
down to Musiri-asiriyar Nilakantanar, who, or whose disciple,
probably reduced the matter to writing.

Coming to the body of the Commentary, the fixed point
from which we should start is furnished by the references to
the Pandya king, Nedumaran, in the illustrative verses, whose
age we have assigned to the middle of the 8th century A. D.
In regard to these verses there is but one possible theory, viz.,
that they were subsequently added by the person, whoever he
was, who might have reduced to writing the matter handed
down orally from Nakkirar. Then the date of Nakkirar, and
consequently the date of the Sutras, should be earlier than the
middle of the 8th century A. D. Anyhow it cannot be earlier
than 750— 270 = 480 A. D. ; working backwards by allowing the
usual 30 years for each of the nine generations of pupils.

** See P- 11. This is very strange, since the payiram says that the
Tolkappiyam, which contains the entire pon] = adigdram, was current
during the 2nd and 3rd Sangams and it survives in its entirety to the
present day. What (Tad become of i Tolkdtotiyam in the days of Ugra
=- pperuvaludi ?

1RAIYANAR = AGAPPORUL.

’59

This is the earliest possible date, but perhaps the true period in
which the Sutras were composed lie somewhere between 500
to 700 A. D.

Place names mentioned in the work. Of the places that are
mentioned in the work some might be easily identified ; thus : —

Vijinam is situated on the sea-coast 7 miles South of
Trevandram.

Koft4.ru is a flourishing town near Nigarkoil in South
Travancore.

Ptllandai is perhaps the modern Pplam in the Tinnevelly
District, notorious for its Marava highwaymen.

Kadaiyal is the modern Kadayam, a station on the Quilon-
Maniyachchi branch of the South Indian Railway.

Kulandai is also in the south of the Tinnevelly District and
contains a Vaishnava temple praised by the Srivaishnava
Alvars (saints)."*

Vattaru, another place sacred to Vishnu and sung by
Alvars, is situated in the South Travancore.”

Nelveli is Tinnevelly, the chief town of the district of the
same name.

Sangamangai is near Conjeeveram and is noted as the
birth-place of the Siva devotee Sakya-Nayanar.*'

Sevdr is known to be the scene of a battle fought between
the Chola Parantaka II and Vira Pandya. According to this
work, it was also the site of a battle fought between Nedu-
marau and the Chera king. Hence, it must be looked for in
the south of the Tinnevelly District.

We are unable to identify the rest of the places.

M. K. N.

T. A. G.

“ Nammalvdr. " Nammdlvdr.

” Vidt Sakya NAyopar verse 2, Periyapuraruun.

SIDDHANTA DiPIKA.

THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF

In love-organized labour, there is no question of mine and
thine. Humanities after humanities come and go— without
leaving a trace behind them. Over their fates and deeds
silence falls. Towers of height and statues of stone crumble to
dust. Vast continents and expansive oceans find their graves.
Fiery suns and brilliant stars fall into the gloom of death. This
very Universe lives to die. Nerve and fiction light up the
mysterious senses : the senses work out the wondrous percep-
tions : the perceptions with all their beauty and glory die out into
nothingness. I let malicious slander to sting itself to death.
My courageous and thoughtful patience makes of them a
wreath of flowers of joy. Give me a starless night of poverty,
and a moonless gloom of obscurity — I still have the calm light of
joy. Give me Penury’s roofless hut, and squalid cell, and it
must be to me Pride’s golden palace. Though my crown
appears to be all of thorns of misery, to me it is all interspread
with flowers of joy. Pillowed on the thorns of the present, with
the dreams of the past, I awake myself with pleasure to look
into a dark and dreary future. Enduring the unavoidable
with an indomitable patience, defying with a loving courage
the foul lies, the ridiculous conceit, the idle and malignant pre-
tensions of the vain and villainous I have braved my last hour.
A Shelley, with his whole time devoted to the creation of
beauties of literature, might be an idle vagabond to a society
which worships successful idiots and clever impostors. Not for
profits, not for reputation, — the man of Genius does his work.
Goethe, a most powerful intellect of his day, had to say — “ If
Europe praised me, what has Europe done for me. Nothing.
Even my works have been an expense to me.” But for his wife’s
fortune the brave Carlyle who has torn asunder a thousand shams
would have perished in his earlier days, when Fame was slow, in
coming to him. We are not living amidst gods, Sir. Think of the
Great Past ! Think of the glorious Rome ! What mighty power

THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF

#1

was hers ! Where are the beauties and glories ? Think of Greece !
Where is Alexander the Great— where is that Ambitious Child ?
Think of France ! Where is Napoleon, the terror of Europe,
the Fortune’s Favourite? You see him upon the frightful field
of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wn-ck the far-
tunes of this greatest soldier of modern world. Tb'nk of Julius
Caesar! Think of the daggers that drank his blood . Here you
see the Arch of Titus brought to dust — there you see Nero's
golden palace in ruins ! The Coliseum, the Forum, the beauty and
the glory of Rome — now lie beneath the grass that grows. And
yet look at our gigantic vanity ! If I am true to my own sense
of right, I count as nought a world’s word. And with the noble
utterances of my lovely poet, Leigh Hunt, I take leave of my
kind fellows, — “ Write me as one who loves his fellow-man."

A. S. Mi

LIFE AND DEATH.

Death is an incident of Life Divine.

Life does not die — the mask of Life dissolves
When Life unclothes itself of the person —

Vacates the shell that has served it on earth
As a temporary habitation.

Death breaks the limitation of the form ;

And reveals the spiritual power
Of life in the individual soul.

Death unseals the vision of the spirit
To see the way of endless progression.

Life could not soar to realms above the earth
If held forever in the bonds of flesh.

Life has numberless phases of being
When one phase has subserved its purpose
We enter on another phase of Life !

Just as the caterpillar sheds its form.

But to become a lovely butterfly.

One Life is in both ; the forms but differ.

Life forever and ever reveals Life.

Death we hide most quickly from Life’s vision.

— World’s Mvaru Thought, U. & A.

5

SIDDHANTA Dil'JKA.

KARAPATRAM-WHAT IS IT?

KarapHtram literally means hand and vessel, that is, the hand
utilised as vessel. In the order of ReimnciatiQii, it is the highest
that the Initiate can reach before he attains to Mastership, or
Siddhahood. And it corresponds to the Avadhuta stage in
Sannyas. There are various kinds of Renunciation, beginning
with the renunciation of the Student life to that of Paramahamsa.
But the Avadhuta is the highest. The Paraniahumsa represents
the supreme state of Saiucutlii or the constant merging of the
uplifted Individual soul in the Paramatman or Supreme soul.
But the Avadhuta represents the transcending state of Sahaja
Samadhi, in which the Individual and the universal are so inex-
tricably at one as to be undifferentiated. It is the realisation of
the Advaita relation in everyday life.

The Avadhuta is one who has risen above the shackles of
thought and sense-perceptions and all other limiting conditions.
It is in fact the soul “ alonc-becomc ” realising in full its identity
with the AU-soid. Such an one functions in all planes without
feeling the sense of limitation, for the soul never, even for a
moment, identifies itself with the various upadhies. It knows
them as upadhies and utilises them as such, but never does
it identify itself with them as it is apt to, when the Vdsani
of Ignorance, (Avidya or Maya) is still a predominant factor in
the life of the soul. “The soul is" — Aum Tat Sat. In this
state, ■' Existence ” pure and simple is the basic fact. But what
is it doing ? It is usual to say that it does not function at all.
If the functioning power of the soul cease to exist, it cannot
recover it. “ Evolution is the Law of Life ” says Pythagoras,
and the beginning and end of Evolution have a common source.
Therefore “ That which is" merely must as a matter of necessity
be potentially alive. For, “ the Light is the life of men.” St.
John who traces the Life of Christ from the beginning of Evolu-
tion, says “ In the*beginning was the Word ” — but he does not
stop there, for he could not. He has perforce to add (that he

karapAtram.

363

may be true to the Sakshatkaram or the direct testimony of the
soul) “ the word was wit/i God" and continue it again with the
statement “ the word was God." T hese three affirmations
regarding “ the word cannot be separated or differentiated in
actual experience. The Sat-Ckit-A natida Brahman is, knows
and enjoys. These three functions are inherent in it. That
which is One only without a second becomes the many in One
or Sakala ; and that which knows itself as “ One only without . a
second ” evolves itself into innnumerable names and forms ;
again that which enjoys Itself, being Loic and knowing itself to be
Love, by the continuous realisation of that “ Unity ” which “ is
the Law of God ” enjoys AH by its power of becoming one
with all or tdddtinyam. These functions which are three-fold
are always inherent in the soul, whether it be entirely “ at
Rest ” as Cod, or functioning most actively as Man (Skt. man =
to think) who in reality is “Thought-formed” at his best and
most perfect state. The Indriyas are the instruments of
Thought ! But “ Thought " as “ Saiika/pa Vihalpa ” which is
the Sva-rapa of the Mind, is itself the instrument of the soul.

In its perfect state of Absolute Rest it transcends all states
and merely is, knows and enjoys : It is this Potential Power of
functioning in the “ God at Rest ” that is Its Sakti. Sat, then, is
the patra or vessel, the basic fact of existence ; and that vessel
holds the Chit-Ananda Rasa. Without sat, there can be no chit,
any more than water can exist without a vessel to hold it. But
the same water, by absorbing heat and holding it latent within
it, can exist separately by itself as -Ice. In this state what is it
that holds it together. It is the heat within, which forms the
concentric force and it serves the purpose of the vessel. Make
the ice give out its heat, it becomes water and runs out. It is
not able to hold together as before.

“ srifliueuirsu e. ” says St. Appar. As Agni is the
form of the Lord, to the vision of the Seer, ice is nothing but
water held in the “ vessel ” of Agni, which is Sat. Sat, therefore,
is the vessel, Chit is the Rasa (essence) which the vessel holds

siddhAnta D1PIKA.

364

and Aimida is the Advaita relation between the two. Milk held
a vessel made of mercury partakes of the essenee of mercury
and becomes life-saving. Milk merely is nourishing. But milk
in a mercurial cup is life-saving. It holds in check the kata-
bolical principle af work in Nature. Similarly the mass of
material formed of semen and serum* or Sukla-Sroriita, by the
fact of its advaita relation with the Mother, becomes anabolic or
constructive, instead of its being katabolic or destructure, as
is evident when the advaita relation is cut off, as when a child
dies in the womb ; or the connecting chord or tissue is
affected. God even when “ at Rest ” is tasting the sweet
(Advaita Relation) of Chit (Rasa) in the eternal cup or .vessel
of Sat (Existence).

St. Mariikkavavagar most beautifully sets forth the whole
in the first hymn of his inimitable work Tiruvafagam.

WLOs'ffleuausJirifiS ! sirpesr^araiiTtfis !
$a>iauQurt(y&QwairQargjG asF&airpirairfiy&rwajfa !

(afaraiirt^s 1

si sear sear l ^sa)tDsii0ir r ^jL^.eeiri^s !

The Five-fold letter explains the whole process, so crudely
described above. The rest stand closely related to one another
until it attains to the grand symphony in the last line. “ a sdr,

^fQs&air, ! "

As to the result of the cultivation of the Five-lettered
Mantra which the Lord teaches to all His servants, before they
are admitted to his eternal presence, I would like to quote from
my own experience, or Sv&nubhavam. The realisation of the
God at Rest in the Daharakala of the Heart is the sign and
symbol of the "personal relation” between God and the Devotee.
The Bhakta longs for the union and gets it ; but when he longs
to know the WAY, he is bidden by the Lord to find it out by
* The writer obviously means the “ ovarian serum ” if " serum ” it

can be called. It is the material which the semen vivifies or fertilizes.

Ei. L. T.

karap & tram .

the Yoga-path. As to the realisation erf God within, St.
Markka vasa gar says ; —

(5 £ pasrfyotfT a Q&ffaofL-Qfge 8 rp 6 iir%arr£&Ki& (jit
^/f QetrQevfr&girffr ?

dfs pQ mnar /fieoGvrr ^sarii puQupQpeer ungji
Qu p pQ p n&srQ pesruHTffo ?

@iioDpG!ujQ#tTuS 6 o QsnesrL-QeiiiiQufi^LDnar
Ql/ 0^ gjGnptLj&Dp&enQasr !
gt k sd^Ccuj ! ff&n ! ^L-eSi—iaQsndrL^ndjiijirafi

p /D©cx)C?(g)/r«o<® ibiDttQp.

Happy the Sour who could say this to the Lord. But the
power of Chit , the native inquisitiveness in the soul to know the
why and wherefore of things, is so persistent that it begins to
question how it came to possess such Supreme Bliss? Let me
quote again :

ea&iDLQtT gy pnGofftevQojGsrQ p en&uQun Q&r’ 9 e 8 TjS£l
Qp&rQfG&dQ&traiiir t—iriu

SD&ucu>iT£)/0ff6irfi'%6oQiuar(op GB>&uQuiT{Vjeir Qldiliu
( a uirfitt&esnQQ&irQGrartydj
on%LQLDn jp pnGsftouiiQmin GBranpd aarajtsair&tflm

p 0«r/i0 as>p& gp $&GBBr Gi—ar
GD&thuiiratp iraflleoQ tu&rQp pe&at y$ iu£$Q&(zpj
ptrdjB'&Q&irQtrartyib !

This mandate from the Lord of one’s bosom to enquire into
the Mystery of the Five letters is irresistible and the Devotee
sets to work at it with no little ardour. The result of it all is: —

u -aft&tQ&Qgji jSitiLisQ sujit ejn u>pdrQun (^&r£ Qnj€arQet/Qair«arQu.at !
t Sf(GJjQ*(igp ( 3ptr 'SQujiSl ep mpar Qpis^eS ^j^eerQiuseirOi—ar !
4 /<&Q<f(!£P pQjfidipQ pir^iLfLD per (yi^QfQsrsirtarQeoirp (5
Qi 5 @,&Q£ 8 (§£&( 9 )gS&($i}> m^tsiri—seimL^ariQtu ! n

pitt^Goor t_s j etton lc&gst L-/ 8 aj*iriijaGff !
u@&€B 8 ri— 3 ujarGBru upgtHy^pM^^p^^Quns

see* u.Q Peru u&GstirsiMrxjjfiGtoffjpfiQa) ! ”

366

SIDDHANTA DiPIKA.

Though the enjoyment of the Lord in His formful state* as
Saguna Brahman is highly ecstatic, the true Devotee or Yogi
who yearns to know the Lord and enjoy Him in full as He is
and not as He becomes, to grant grace to his devotees, soon gets
satiated with this enjoyment of Saguna Brahman and longs for
the ineffable joy of union eternal with Nirgutia Brahm. This is
voiced forth in the following verse

** U&l(a JK (t>U<rQ&tT6BX l — (T

p&Gpir&ffiQiuarfcorf pp/Bs&eSi&ileo

'Jf&QjJlT&jffitLlGar'&BT Q$ll<£)li>GlSl—IT0IT&8O
ueuG zrr&eB>GJ jg£)uj<?@iT

The Siddhantin who delights in the symbolical worship of
Sivalihgam is not content to be ever worshipping the symbol.
He longs to attain to the highest, and with his success at every
turn, hf aspires after the higher realisation until he attains to
the Highest Nirguija Brahmanubhavam and then like a Man
he comes out of it and brings the Lord with him (by Samaya
worship) until he realises the One in the Many and the Many
in the One and can say with St. Manikkava9agar :

“ ^6BBrsahLju,\Ger((r?&rGun p* !

Gjzear ^Q^aeor ^/if.cuiTifi-s ! "

This is Nirvana from “ top to toe ” and this, the grertest
spiritual Experience, is the end and aim of all Sannays or Re-
nunciation. The Avadhuta represents the Vedantic presenta-
tion of this the greatest of Soul-Experiences, (vide Avadhuto-
panishat). The “Karapitra-Dikshd ” is the Siddhantic counter-
part of the Avadhuta Diksha or graduation in Soul-Experience.
The Avadhuta at a certain stage goes naked with the simplicity
of a new-born child : And the Karapdtrin gives up everything
external, even the danda and kamandalu of the Sannyasin, and
uses his hand as the vessel for taking the food voluntarily
offered to him by those who feel his hunger. He never accepts’
food from those who offer it to him out of the plenitude of
their worldly goods. He cares to take his food only from those

* The writer means, “ in His sakala-svarupa ”■ — Ed. L. T.

karapAtram.

367

who fed his hunger ! And when he rises above this, he even
refuses to use his hand for feeding his mouth. These in reality
have become spiritualising agents and their bodies are the
perfect mechanism that serves them in spiritualising matter.
Therefore doth St. Tirumular say that food or water offered
to such an one, is equal to offerings and oblations offered to the
Three Gods who maintain this world of manifestation. The
physical hand of the Karapdtram-Soul then represents the
Supreme Sat — It is the Sat-pdtram. The food and water
offered is the Chit or “ Knowledge the Karapatrin hungers
after and thirsts ; and as the food and water accepted by him is
turned into spiritual light in the mechanism of his perfected
body, it is considered and truly so, to be the greatest Yajha
or sacrifice one could make. God as Varahamurti is the
incarnation of the Yajha or sacrifice and the Karapatrin is
“ the living Fire " who turns whatever he accepts with his
hand, into energising spirit. Of this I have a story to relate,
but I have taken too much space already and 1 must here
stop.

C. V. S.

3«8

siddhAnta DiFIKA.

THE WORK BEFORE US.

( Continued from page 307 of No. S Vol. X.)

Agricultural, industrial and commercial interests of the
land have long been neglected and the altered circumstances of
the present day have such a strong grip of the nation that very
few can say, without a blush, that they are dependent on no
other land for their sustenance or comforts and this dependence
means draining of the Country’s resources, which in turn
degrades the people, mentally and moially and makes them
unfit to wear the religious crown. This slow process of degra-
dation should be checked as far as possible by all lovers of
the nation. But from a higher stand-point' all nations are
but brothers working out the plan of Providence, and if it is
our lot to be mendicant teachers of Religion, let us willingly
submit to it and sound the religious note so that those who
have the ears may hear. Let that then become the characteristic
virtue of the people, you will then find that we would have
realized the fourth stage of the asramas — the religious ideal
again attained by a different channel.

But this is impracticable, the moment when all our people
take to mendicancy for the purpose of teaching religion to
the world would be our millennium ; that cannot be and there-
fore something practical should be done to raise ourselves, in
the material ladder of life also.

The ethical side is the basis of Religion. — The duties of
men towards one another, love towards all beings, the dread of
evil deed, gratitude and self-control, honourable conduct and
self-respect, which have been the high ideals of the past are not
held up prominently before the people as often as is desirable ?
All the literature on the subject or at least the important part of
which should be made popular, and the masses gathered to-
gether as often as possible and made to realize the importance of
virtues by means of touching addresses. The present day

TIIK WIIIIK I IE POKE US.

3<59

tendency being to run headlong into foreign literature, those
codes of morals intended for the study of the young, seldom
receive even a passing notice and the young neither possess the
requisite virtue nor the ancient ideals. What then about the
illiterate masses ? The rules of conduct given them by their
illiterate elders is all they know. The importance of moral
excellence cannot be too murh impressed upon the young minds,
both literate and illiterate, for, how can the masses be left to
themselves, without devising means to touch their hearts off
and on ?

Here is an instance which 1 can hardly forget, of a man
who mildly and indirectly rebuked me and my religionists for
our indifference. One morning, some years ago, I was taking
a bath by a well in the compound next to my house. An
Indian cooly, from his appearance a leader of his gang, intelli-
gent and good-looking, happened to go there for the same
purpose, as the well was not reserved for private use but resorted
to by the neighbours owing to purity of the water and the
easy access to it. He waited for some time and started some
conversation. After inquiring whether I was living in the
house in the next compound and after some talk about the
neighbours and himself, he said that the woman who was just
then crossing the compound was sick and he was advised to
give her a morning bath daily for sometime. By this time I had
finished my bath, but it struck me that I should touch upon a
different subject before I left as I found him to be much above
the average cooly. To my inquiry he replied that he was a
Christian. “ Why did you forsake the religion in which you
were born ” was my next question. " Well, sir, people go to
worship and offer drink and sacrifice and dance about rather
than feel penitent. I am convinced, that that will not correct a
-sinner, on the other hand it will further harden his heart ”
was his reply. I understood that he meant the MuniySqdi
worship and such other accretions of our Religion and stated
that there is a higher Religion, ennobling and elevating, reveal-

sinnuANTA niriKA.

37 °

ed by the Gracious Lord Siva and that its teachings are
supremely spiritualizing; to which he said, “You, learned men,
study and understand, how do we know all that ? People go
to temples and do all that, sir, but they hate each other, cut one
another's throats, tell lies, and do other wicked things—”;

But”, 1 interrupted, “ tfffit is the people's fault and not the
religion’s; why can’t you be a good being within the fold of
your own religion”. — “There is none to tell us all this or to
guide ufr’; offering betel and plantains will not save me, how
can it when my heart is wicked ? ” was his rejoinder. Then I
offered to preach to his brethren our Religion if he would
bring all of them about his place to my house or assemble them
in a convenient place. He hesitated to reply, but at last sum-
moned up courage and said, touching his chest, “But, sir, the
religion I am now following is appealing to my heart, it touches
my heart and nothing else will do me good ”, and in this the
woman above also joined and made very sensible remarks; I left
them, convinced of their sincerity and purity of heart.

Need I comment on the words of this illiterate cooly ? Does
it not show how far are the essentials of our noble Religion from
the hearts and minds of the millions of our co-religionists ? The
moral basis, which is the only preliminary to true spiritual life,
and by which the man, like others of his standing, had been
attracted to the Christian Religion, is neither sufficiently well
insisted upon, nor explained or preached by the guardians of
our religion. The sensible word of the man went straight to
my heart and confirmed me in my belief that the enlightened
section of our religionists is oblivious of its duty, deaf to the
calls of the present, and is snoring away under the dose of
fatalism.

The 1 word of honour ’ which should play a prominent part
in the life of every individual is either totally absent or is such
a negligible quantity in a good number of our people as to
warrant the conclusion that when a man says “ yes ” he says
so, generally speaking, having no moral courage to say “no! ”.

THE WORK BEFORE US.

37 •

The nation is judged by the average man and not by the few
golden exceptions among the cultured. Would that our people,
boys, youirg men, and grown-up men, prize honour more than
material possessions, self-respect and national dignity more than
personal comforts and conveniences ! If cultured men, even one
among these, fail to keep up the national dignity, where is the ex-
ample to the masses ? Once a cultured man related with an air
of pride, to a few who looked up to him as a religious man,
that he had been to see a great man and that the latter interpret-
ed a certain passage and wished to know whether that was not
correct. He said to him that the interpretation was excellent
but told his hearers that it was all wrong. This want of moral
courage in the man to contradict the scholar and the want of
self-respect in him with which he came and avowed that when
he said ‘ yes ’ it meant ‘ no are the tests of his national
character. How many of us there are who would, when under
temptation, stand up and turn away from it saying "lama
Tamilian and it is beneath my dignity as such to do this”?
How many of us bear in mind that our bad conduct and
character throw discredit on the nation to which we belong ?
Ask an English boy whether he would join you in a theft or
break his word ? He is sure to say “ 1 am an Englishman and I
wouldn’t do that ” Wasn’t there a time when our ancestors
prized truth and righteousness as the national character, and
would even be the hosts of their enemies whom they knew they
would meet in the battle-field the next day? Why all this
degradation and disgrace now ?

This reminds me of an incident in my life, which has given
me another opportunity of confirming my belief in the present
decay of national virtue. Having had a desire to see the hilly
districts of this beautiful Isle of Lanka, especially Kandy, the
mountain capital, 1 arranged with a friend who knew the place,
to go with him for the Christmas holidays, the day and the
time being fixed as also the place where we should meet to take
the particular train. The day came and I anxiously went to the
friend's place at the appointed hour having sent him before-

372

SIDDHSNTA DiPIKA.

hand my trunk to put his things in with mine. 1 was told that
ho had loft half an hour earlier with the trunk. 1 went to the
station, ho was not there. Yet the train fixed upon came, and 1
took it hoping to meet him at the junction. 1 looked for him all
round, he was not to be found in the junction premises. The
train for up-country from this junction, which it was arranged
we should take, would be there in five minutes. What was I
to do ? — to go alone to Kandy where 1 would be a stranger, or
to return home content with the six miles’ ride I had in the train
that morning as a holiday excursion. I would not return home, I
thought, for, it was shameful that my holiday tripshould thus end
abruptly and 1 had also sent a post-card to a friend in the Tea-
Estates that 1 would be at his place two days after, going there
from Kandy. 1 took courage and entrained to a station, the
closest to the Estate 1 was going to. 1 was travelling with no pro-
visions for the journey. When the train arrived at my destina-
tion I had seven hours’ ride. 1 alighted from it and having
made the necessary enquiries started to walk my way up to the
Estate, which was, as I was told, five miles away, for, convey-
ance of any kind was rare in those parts. I did take my five miles’
walk, and yet others told me that I had to go another three miles.
I did that too, still the Estate was yet farther away. The way was
a steep ascent, and zigzag; it was close upon twilight when, I
had three miles still to go. None to guide or accompany me, Iwas
doing my lonely journey alongside the hills. Down below, there
was the valley resounding with water-falls, clothed in the green-
ery of tea-bushes, among which a careless step might have precipi-
tated me; my legs unaccustomed to such exertion grew heavy
and weary ; and with short breath and pace 1 was still going on
the narrow metalled roads unable to linger to admire the natural
scenery which under other circumstances might have captivated
me. Every turn opened to me views similar to those I had
passed and wearied me more and more ; 1 began to feel for the
first time the coolness of the mountain air and to see the smoky
vapour, almost oBstructing my way ; 1 was passing through it,
and could not then see much of the landscape, nor my way in

THE WORK BEFORE US.

37 3

front of or behind me, beyond a short distance. Darkness was
hovering round me, still I was alone, fatigued, and anxious
to find a shelter for the night, for, it struck me that the dis-
tance yet remaining, might turn out to be six miles or even
more, judged from the experiences of the evening. Just that, I
heard voices behind me and I saw two coolies following me. I
was doubtful whether they would be friends or foes. By nothing
daunted, I endeavoured to keep pace with them, but it was
hopeless. 1 made them know, in reply to their enquiries, where 1
was bound to ; they seemed to know my friend and offered to
take me to his bungalow w"hich was half-a-mile away accord-
ing to their statement. Now the critical moment came, they
led me to a foot-path, across the hills, and when questioned
where this would lead to, they said that it was across-cut joining
the same road at the other end of the hill. Was 1 to follow or
to go alone by the road ? I have heard of murders and robber-
ies in the Estates even for a few rupees. It was dark then, and
I had with me a watch and chain and money, not to mention
my clothes and umbrella ; and the men were two, each more
than a match for me. Prepared even for the worst, I said
ambiguously, “ don’t take me by a path which might lead me
away from my destination”. The elder of the two looked me
straight in the face and said “ Sir, don’t be afraid, I will be
faithful to the last. lam not an AjiiSni". It would be long to
tell what feelings were aroused in me bj^ these words. I under-
stood that he was a Christian; and I took to heart the words
which fell from his lips, but to comment on which I had neither
the mind nor the energy. He was true to his word and sent the
other man with me to the bungalow which I reached at
seven at night. There were other anxious moments of this
trip, but none has left such a deep impression upon my mind as
this— I thought that my Lord had sent me here, all alone from
the pleasant residence in the sea-side village, to this forlorn
hill-country, to hear those significant words from an estate-cooly.

(To be continued ). R. S. S.

374

siddhAnta DiPIKX.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

This is the name of a polemical counterblast issued by
Mr. Sentinatha Iyer of Tirupparafikun<Jram
V»jrn-d»nda and in Tamil in answer to the two pamphlets
Tantrika-tunda- issued by an adversary, entitled "Adi-sai va-
khaiidanu khandana. namaka-kauleya-mukha-bhahga-mudgara ”

and “ Tantrika-tupda-kharujana ". It is
written in a racy style and displays great enthusiasm for the
cause of Saivism and Agamanta, and points out with telling
effect that the Divyagamas are the fulfilment of the mystic
teachings inculcated in the Upanishats. As a combatant of
persuasive acumen and sterling accomplishments, Mr. Senti-
natha Iyer has always been much respected ahd admired,
and we sincerely hope that he will bring to bear his wide
learning on the compilation of some substantial constructive
work, devoted to an exposition of the Agamanta, in its mystic
aspects, in the near future. The adversary who is criticised
by Mr. Sentinatha Iyer seems to be a person not well-grounded
in the teachings of the Agamanta and quite on the wrong track
in his investigation and interpretation of the origins of the
§ai vagamas. We are exceedingly sorry that there should be
so much misunderstanding and misconception about the Saiv-
agamas, in ranks which ought to know a great deal better,
especially as it should be remembered that the Siva-sakshat-
kara, which is the goal of all our spiritual endeavours, forms
the exclusive theme of the higher reaches of the Divyagamas.
And we, at the same time, do not cease to think that the mis-
understanding and misconception are bound to prevail till such
magistral Sanskrit works, devoted to a right exposition of the
Saivagamas, as Sivagra-yogin's Guru-Tikd on the Sivajnana-
bodha of the Rauravagama, are translated and placed before
the public. It is our immense regret that the chiefs of the rich
Mutts, in whose archives the manuscripts of the above work are
preserved, neithertare to publish them themselves, in any form
whatever, nor take it into their heads to aid competent scholars,

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

375

who are engaged in kindred work, into unearthing, editing
and translating them. These Mutts are exceedingly well*
endowed, and it should be an easy matter for them to divert
some of the funds in their charge to the sort of work we think
it is necessary to embark on.

This is the fifth annual edition of a useful handy work
issued by the Portland School of Astrology
Planetary Daily Guide in the United States of America. Astrology
tor All, 1910. is rapidly spreading in America on account
of the significant labours of this great insti-
tute of astrological experts who are determined to see that no
pains are spared in popularising astrology. The Book is a
daily counsellor, indicating all the favourable and unfavourable
dates throughout the year, with directions to use them towards
success in business, social and personal affairs. There is a
foreword with reference to the influence and effects of planetary
aspects, as well as a resume of the leading canons of astrology,
with reference to the delineations based on the positions, by
sign and house, of all the planets and the luminaries. There
are also tables of sidereal times, right ascensions and logarithms
which will surely prove of use in casting horoscopic charts
and horary figures. The book is priced at 50 cents, which we
think is perhaps a little too much for the Indian public, though
we have no doubt in thinking that it is well adapted to the
class of persons for whom it is mainly intended.

This is the well-known Nirayana Almanac and Ephemeris
issued in Tamil by Mr. T. S. Visvanatha
The Saura-ohandra- Srauti, B. A., Sub-Registrar, Tiruccattup-
mana Pauchanga of pa)lee, Tanjore District. It maintains its
Kumbakonam Mutt usual level of accuracy and comprehensive-
for Badharana. ness as in previous years, and contains, as
a new feature for the current year, the
magnitude of precession, on the first-day of the Sadharana,

376 siddhA.nta dIpika.

calculated from the first point of the Nirayana-bhagana, with-
out correction for nutation, and the rate of precession for the
year Sadharana. The magnitude of precession is 22° 25 '40" and
the rate, 50.26” This almanac is, from the view-point of astro-
nomical accuracy, immensely superior to the Nungambaukam
Almanac issued by the descendants of the late Mr. Ragunatha-
chariar and patronized by Government. The latter Almanac
has fallen considerably from the pedestal of purity and accuracy
which it once occupied, when its founder was alive and ready
to bring to bear on its calculations his first-hand scrutiny and
practical skill as an astronomer. And consequently Mr. Srauti’s
Almanac is the only one published within the confines of the
Madras Presidency, which seeks to maintain the traditions for
purity and accuracy so well maintained by all astronomical
publications in Europe. We are informed, on good authority,
that Mr. Srauti intends, from the next year forward, to also
enlist for his Almanac the sympathies of the followers of the
Sayana System, by inserting therein the needful elements for a
Sayana Panchangam, e.g., dates of sayana solar months, tables
of "houses” for the Madras Presidency latitudes, in accord-
ance with the Sayana-bhagana, longitudes, latitudes, right
ascensions and declinations of planets and many other import-
ant details. This is a consummation to be devoutly wished
for by all students of astrology, who wish to pursue conscienti-
ous and scientific methods of prediction, and not merely throw
dust in the eyes of a credulous public by “ nodding through
the fog ” as so many are fond of doing.

»**

We have also received for review “The Jaffna Tamil Drig-
ganita Almanac for Sadharana ” and “The
Reviews of other Almanac for 1910, Saumya and Sadharana”
publications held over, by Messrs. H. Kartikeya Aiyyar of Jaffna
and B. Suryanarayana Rao of Madras. A’
review of these as well as of other important publications, is
reserved for the next issue, for want of space.

THE

LIGHT OF TRUTH

OR THE

SIDDHANTA DIPIKA

A Monthly Journal devoted to the Search for Truth as mealed in the
Ancient Hindu Mystic Philosophy known as the Saiva-Siddhatda or Agamanta,

VOL. X. APRIL, 1910. No. 10.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHADADHVANS.

( Continued from page jj6 of No. 9 Col. X.)

Before I take up the question of the constitution of the
Panchakalas, it will be necessary to state that what I have
described as the characteristics of the Kosmo-pause or Pralaya,
applies mutatis mutandis to the Pralaya or 77 ipura-dahanatn
in the individual man also, as it is an important dictum to
grasp. The Prapanchika-pralayam is a far-off event, but the
Pralaya of the Shadadhvans in each man takes place every
moment, and it has therefore the greatest interest for us. It
must also be remembered that all the other Adhvans are only
a five-fold emanation from the Kaladhvan, and that the Kaladhvan
over-spreads, nay, interpenetrates the remaining Adhvans. In
the course of the Pra(aya, macrocosmic or microcosmic, the Bindu
is resolved into the Nadam, and the Nadam into the Kufilaor
Jdaha-maya ; The Kufila inheres in the Para-Sakti, and the
Para-Sakti, in the Lord, at last. With these facts well
established in our minds, we may now endeavour to understand
something of the dtkshas or sacraments with reference to the
Adhva-sodhana .

SlDDHJtNTA DlPlKA.

J7«

The Agamic Mystics classify souls under three heads, from
the view-point of the pBSa-kshaya. These are Vijnana-kalab or
Vijnana-kevalat), those in whom the only remaining taint of sin or
impurity is the Anava-mala ; PraJayakalaJj or Prajaya-kevalab,
those who are yet caught up in the meshes of the two forms of
corruption, the Anava-mala and the Karma-mala\ and Saka lah
or Sa-kevalafi, those that are inextricably hemmed in by the three
forms of entanglement, the Anava-mala, the Karma-mala, and
the Miyi-mala. The Lord brings about ‘redemption’ or
‘regeneration’ in a Vijnana-kevala soul, when it is fully ripe
therefor, by tenanting it in advaita union with it, and filling it
with His Transcendental Glory, as the Meridian-Sun lights up a
vertically-planted crystal column with the full blaze of its steady
radiance. He saves the mature Prajaya-kevala soul by
revealing Himself to it, in a vision, in one of His sakafa forms,
in His pidna-rupam for choice. But when the Sa-kevala soul
has attained its mala-paripaka, the Lord appears to it as one
of its own kind, i.e., in the person of another human being, of
a human Guru, and rescues it out of its enmeshments. The
redemption of the last class of souls, which should interest us
most in our present condition, is brought about by means of
the seven dikshis or sacraments.

These are ( i) Nayana-dikslta or ocular instruction, (2) SparSa-
diksha or tactile instruction, (3) Vachaka-dikshi or oral instruc-
tion, (4) Sastra-diks'ta or scriptural instruction, (5) Manasa-
dlksha or mental instruction, (6) Yoga-diksha or instruction in
spiritual communion, and (7) Auttari-dikshU , or detailed formal
instruction, which is again of two sorts, (a) Kriyauttari,
instruction by the use of exoteric symbols, and (b) JMnauitari , ,,
instruction by illumination or spiritual initiation which takes
the soul above the symbolic teaching. The above sacraments
for the spiritual illumination of the Sa-kevala souls are dealt
with in considerable detail in the Agamic literature, and I
regret 1 am unable to do anything more than barely naming
the dlkshas in this connexion, on account of the shortness of

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHADADHVANS.

379

the time at my disposal. I must, however, remark, in passing,
that they constitute the very core of the esoteric side of the
Agamanta, as they cannot but be everything in any mystic
system of philosophy that has a practical end in view regard-
ing soul-culture. Of the above seven dikshas, the first six are
administered only to fully-ripe souls, while the seventh, which
consists, as already pointed out, of two parts, s specially
reserved for those who are not yet fully prepared for the
Lord's grace.

A leading feature of the Auttari-dlksbeL is instruction by
means of symbological diagrams and figures of a mystic
import, usually drawn in the sand or on the ground, and homo
oblations. Kriyauttarl, the ceremony of acts and forms, embraces
the sacraments of the “initiation” and the "confirmation" of the
disciple, called respectively the Samaya-diksha and the ViSesha-
diksha. In the Sa;naya-dikshd which is appropriate to the first
stage of religious life, the Charya, the use of mantras plays a
prominent part. In the Visesha-diksha which corresponds to the
second and third stages of spiritual life, Kriya and Yoga, Siva-
fmja and Yoga come into great conspicuity in all their phases of
mystic symbology. Jndnant/ari, the only truly spiritual sacra-
ment that is open to the afakva souls in the Sa-kevala division
to which the bulk of us have the honour to belong, is an intensely
spiritual ceremony, though conducted with all the aids of an
objecti ve mystic symbology. Jodnauttari, called also the Nirvaifa-
diksha , corresponds to the final stage of spiritual life, Vtdya or
Juana, the stage of Sa/ny ak-dars attain or Illumination. This last
sacrament helps to release the soul from under the influence of
the Shadadhvans, in which is accumulated the Karma and other
Malas, and to unite it to the hallowing presence of the I-ord.
The Nirvina-diksha consists of instruction respecting the
Adhvans, their purification which is technically known as
Adhva-Sodhana, and the extrication of the soul from their meshes,
which leads to its union with the Lord. The Adhva-Sodhana is'
a Very elaborate ceremony in the course at which the disciple id

S1DDHAXTA D1P1KA.

380

made, in consonance with the mystic symbology of the Kriyapada
dikshas ordained for unripe souls, to transcend, step by step, the
Shadadh vans, by offering each one of them, and, finally, his own
soul, as a Sacrifice unto the Lord, under cover of various rites.
The Adhva-Sodhana is connected in some instances with another
ceremony called the Nudi-nyasa, the import of which is to inculcate
in the mind of the disciple the idea that after the “Crucifixion of
the Old Adam", the soul has become the tabernacle of God for all
time. The whole round of rites connected with the Nirvana-
diksha, has an exceedingly awe-inspiring and hallowing character,
which cannot be misunderstood by any person, in whom there
is the least vestige of a religious emotion of some sort or another.
But the higher orders of mystics, to whom every symbol
employed in the Nirvdna-diksha is only an objective reflex of a
higher fact of consciousness, actually sensed during SpiritualCom-
munion, will see in that Holy Sacrament, the “Crucifixion of the
Flesh”, and the “Appearance” of the “Transfigured" Soul during
true “Resurrection”, which is not the resurrection of the body,
as Christians would have it, but the “Re-generation” of the Spirit.
In the Nayana-diksha, also, prescribed for the pakva souls among
the Sa-kevaldh, the Adhva-Sodhana is a main feature, but, the
sacrament being of a higher order, the way in which the Malas
that have eaten into the Adhvans are removed by the Guru, is
more spiritual and real than symbolic. At this point we should
leave the question of the dihshdft or sacraments.

The Lord comes into touch with Matter by means of
His' Light, and the relation between His Light and Matter can
best be homologised with that between a room and the lamp
that is lit in.it. The method which the Lord adopts to reclaim
his fallen children, and quicken them out of their dark slumber,"
the so-called kevala condition of the souls, is gracefully ex-
plained by the ancient “Seers of God” in the term Paiicha-
kalait or the five modes by which the Light of the Lord descends
into Matter, or the five characteristics with which He endues It.
These five Katas. afe nothing more than five vortices of Divine

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHADADHVAN5.

3 »*

Energy that steadily direct the redemption of man, so as to
make of him an image like into God Himself. Viewed with
reference to Man, the Pancha-kalas may be described as organised
tissues of Matter, developed from the Kufila or Suddha-Maya ,
that is, Maya free from the Anava-mala, which hold, within their
ample folds, all the corporeal elements of the human Soul,
adhering to it during its entire course of spiritual culture and re-
generation, or, in other words, from its Bandha to its Miikti. The
Kaladhvan embraces not only the five, other Adhvans , but also
other parts of the soul’s complicated physical form, not usually
included in the Shadadhvans. It is usual to distribute or marshal
all the corporeal elements of the human system, under the heads
of the PaTichakalah, and the content of each such KalU is of great
importance to the Yogin, in his meditations, as the grouping
under the different Kalah, determines the order in which he
should proceed, in regular succession, to attain his Sabda-artha-
jiiana of a class of particulars, at a time. The overflowing
kindness of the Lord for His children will be apparent, if we
seek to understand the rationale that lies at the back of the
working of the Paiicha-kalas. The PaTtcha-kalas are styled in
the exquisite mystic terminology of the AgamSntins, the Kala-
dhvan, the Artery of Divine Life, the Path of the Lord’s Pre-
sence, the Mode of Mahadeva's Redemption of Souls. Well did the
Taittiriya-Aranyaka sing, with its heavenly and God-inspired
solemnity, “<Nrf ^ tiHvKt £3”, “The mighty Pentagonal
Wheel Revolves Yes, revolves ever and anon till the Lord
directs It to stop. We can render <Nnf, here, as This

is sometimes spoken of as the Pancha-krityas of the Chii-Sakti
of the Lord, of our affectionate and loving Mother, Gauri. What
. is the kritya of the Mother is the kali of the Father. The
Kalah are named Hfl%, JricTBI, ftsiT, Snfct, and When the

Light of the Lord, or, to be more accurate, when the Life of the Lord
operates on the slumbering souls that sleep the stupefied sleep
of sore sin, the quickening impulse that wakes up the soul to a life
of progress, is styled HfirL The Hifrj is really >>*•>

siddhanta nipiKA.

“Ihe being healed of perverse desires which constitute the will of
Man". In exoteric language, this is known as ufe, i.e., the render-
ing actual of the latent possibilities of the Soul, by getting it into
touch with the lowest rungs of the TattvUdhvan, the “Road of
Matter The karanas or “instruments" of the Soul are evolved
from the “ Root-Principle ” of “ Matter”, that exists in the Un-
fathomable Womb of Infinity, time without end, ready to do the
Will of the Lord. These karanas or, rather, tanu-karana-bhuvana-
bhogas constitute the Soul’s armoury in its path of the
path of return to the Lord, under the aegis of His boundless
grace- Thus the Lord places the soul on the “ upward path”,
in order to rescue it from the “inane abyss”, and here it gets into
the “ groove of gradual unfolding ” The Archangel of the
Lord presiding over this “Wheel of Creation," the Srishfi-Chakra,
is Brahma, and in the person of Brahma, the Light of the Lord
works without stint or intermission, and this Brahma has four
celestial assistants to help him in his work. When we translate
the word, Srishfi, by 1 Creation ’, we should beware lest we run
away with the Christian idea of “ Creation ” in our heads. Our
Agam&ntins have always taught that Matter is indestructible,
resolve it however we may. The word sfe comes from the
Sanskrit root til, ‘to let fly', ‘to release’, ‘to render visible’, and,
hence, means, “rendering visible what has heretofore been invisi-
ble ”, For instance, the future tree is in the plant-embryo which
is, perhaps, a fruit. We may say that God ‘creates’ the tree from
the fruit, in the sense that the fruit contains the future tree
within itself, but there can, in the paramount Wisdom of the
God-Taught Mystics of the AgatnintS, be no “ Creation ” out
of nothing.

The next vortex of Divine Energy is called Pratishfha,
meaning literally ‘establishment’. The rungs of the “ ladder of
Matter " on which Pratishfhd plays, have the peculiar tendency’
of inveigling the soul, if it is not on the qui vive to hearken
unto the Voice of -its Father in its ‘heart’ The tattvas which
are the products or evolutes of the MsyU-mala, the “Fascinating

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHADADHVANS.

Folly", a very apt name for the principle of carnality inMaffc
have a blinding attraction for the Primeval Corruption, tbl
A#ava-mala, that fills his heart. The Primeval Corruption it
called Anava, because it has contributed to render the aoul
“small", with its touch-me-not egotism and exclusiveness, and alF
to-myself rapacity. The Pralishfha-kali of the Lord establish
es the souls longer along the stages from the Ap to the SlkfVa-
prakfiti, that is to say, endues them for a longer time with the \estr
ments or instruments made out of these evolutes, till they leant
from alternations of ephemeral joys and equally ephemeral woes,
playing bo-peep or hide-and-seek with one another in cease-
less succession, that such effects constitute the unavoidably
concomitants of their being wedded ter the “Flesh”, misled
by its blandishments, instead of rating them at their true
worth. We can expect only one kind of progeny from this
sort of illegal wedlock, between sin and sin, between the
soul-blinding Anava-mala and the soul-soaking Miyi-mala.
The karanas made out of the Miyi-mala are meant by the Lore)
to be used as so many surgical instruments, left in t|x
possession of souls, for the removal of the cataract known as
the Aifava-mala. To wake up the souls out of the anaesthesia of
the Kevalivasthi, the Miyi-mala gives them indeed a bewitch-
ing “kiss hut with that “kiss ”, the decoying function of the
Mayi-mala. has commenced and ceased, and, as a further and
more important step, the “ chimney-sweeper ” side of its work
begins for the “ripe” souls. But "unripe” souls make love to the
scavenger-maid, and dignify her to the position of a helpmeet,
the result of it all being that she chucks the broom, the badge of
her appointed or intended duty, on one side, and becomes their
inseparable and “ masterful mistress ”. And the evil is then
patent. Till the vestments of the Mayi-mala are used as so many
surgical instruments by the would-be “ regenerate ” soul, the
Lord’s Sakit-Nipi/a is only a remote possibility. But when the
souls use the karanas as surgical instruments, the Lord is ready
to help them, with His active supervision, in the “ Operation-
Theatre” of this world, as Vaifya-nitha, the Surgeon-General,

91DDHA.NTA dIpikA.

*■«

am) then as soon as the cataract is removed from the eye,
Lord in His Grace allows the Light to beat on it. The
moment the soul has undergone the “Crucifixion”, which is only
Mother name for the “Death of Corruption”, th t PratishlhH-
Mi .becomes saAkalpa-nivritti-pratishfhStmaki, which is its
appointed function, becomes the milestone of the Kaladhvan,
where the soul is established, confirmed or well-grounded
in its disentanglement from Sankalpa or “ enmeshment of
Ungodliness”. This PratishfhH-katd is known in exoteric
symbology as “ The Wheel of Sustentation ” or fwia-TO,
In Reference not only to the great patience exercised by the Lord,
in allowing his apatrva or naughty children, to play with the
Mdya-mala, until they, of their own accord, break down through
Sheer ennui of the vicious circle of bitters and sweets, but also
In reference to the stability and permanence which He imparts
to the pakva soul in its freedom from Saiikalpa, making its
spiritual triumph enduring, and proof against any chance of
back-sliding. This Wheel is in charge of an Archangel named
Vishnu, assisted by four celestial leaders.

(To be continued ).

V. V. R.

The true and educated Astrologer scorns all idea of secrecy in his
science ; those who entertain a contrary feeling know nothing about it,
whilst he proceeds by certain rules, which all men may learn if they will
take the pains ; though he makes no pretensions of infallibility, or perfect-
ion, entirely in his Astronomical judgment, and does not hold himself
accountable for the ill-use which evil-disposed persons may make of these
rules. His skill in Astral science, like real skill in every other branch of
useful knowledge, has a direct tendency to promote a spirit of moderation
and reserve ; of caution and prudence, incompatible with the arrogance,
and presumption of either a mere pretender or an opponent.

The Late Dr. W. J. SIMMONITE,

* M.D., PH.D., ETC.

JNANA vasishjham

OR

THE DIALOGUES OF VAS 1 SHJHA ON WISDOM.

( Concluded from page jjj of No. 9 Vol. X.)

The story of Sukar also shows that to gain the knowledge
of God and participate in the divine bliss, it is not necessary to
abandon the world and retire into the solitude of a forest, nor
is death of the body a condition precedent. King Janaka
attained this high estate while still in the flesh and in the active
exercise of royal power.

Here, too, is briefly enunciated the fundamental doctrine of
the Vedanta that the One and only Reality is the Spirit or pure
consciousness, and that the universe is a differentiation and
evolute of that one Reality resulting from the cosmic illusion
called Maya. Students of modern science will recall Professor
Huxley’s definition of Matter as “ a name for the unknown and
hypothetical cause of certain states of our own consciousness ”
(Lay Sermons, p. 142). A learned Christian Professor, Dr.
Sanday, not long ago wrote in this connexion: —

All sure knowledge is knowledge of states of consciousness and
nothing more. The moment we step outside those states of cons-
ciousness and begin to assign a cause to them, we pass into the region
of hypothesis or assumption. The first effort of thought is to distinguish
between “ self ” and “ not-self,” but neither of the “ self " nor of the
“ not-self ” have we any true knowledge, we do not even know that they
exist, much less how they exist or what they are. We might as well call
the one X and the other Y as give them the names we do. And if this
holds good for a process of thought which seems so elementary, much
more must it hold good for others which are more remote. When we
2

SIDDHANTA DiPIKA.

3 86

call things about us and give them names, as Adam is described as doing >
what we really name is only the states of our own consciousness, not the
things themselves. Judged by the standard of strict logic, the world
which we inhabit is a world of visions, of phantasms, of hypothetical
existences, and hypothetical relations. All thought and all the objects of
thought are at the bottom pure hypothesis. Its validity is only relative.
The propositions which we call true are not true in themselves. When
we call them true, all that we mean is that to assume them gives unity
and harmony to the operations of the thinking mind. The belief that we
can trust our memory, that one' state of consciousness is like another
preceding state of consciousness, that the ego is a centre of permanence,
that nature is uniform, and that what has happened to-day will also
happen to-morrow, all these beliefs stand upon the same footing. They
are working hypotheses, assumptions which enable us to think coherently :
we cannot say more.*

The great divine and philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, has
said in terms which a Vedantist would have used : — “ The
physical universe which I see and feel and infer, is just my
dream, and nothing else. That which you see is your dream,
only it so happens that our dreams agree in many respects."
The Vedanta goes further and declares that underlying this
fiction of the universe there is a very real reality, not as the
Bishop supposed, the mind, which is itself a fiction, but the Spirit
which the Vedanta declares to be the One and Only Reality.
This One Reality is called by many names, Brahm (the
Supreme), Jnanam (wisdom), Atman (the Self), Sivam (auspici-
ous), etc. It is also called Sat-chit-inanda as being sat , —
pure and eternal being or truth, — pure knowledge (chit),
pure bliss ( ananda ): pure in the sense of there being no
distinction between subject and object. Being spirit as
well as infinite, it is frequently called chit-akaSa or jttUntlkUSa, '
Spirit-space.

It was of this chit or pure knowledge Plato spoke in the
Phsdrus (247 d ) Knowledge absolute, not in the form of

* Prolessor Sanday on “Professor Huxley as a theologian.”

JNANA VASISHTHAM.

387

created things or of things relative which men call existence, but
knowledge absolute in existence absolute.” It was of this sat, the
One Reality or Truth, Jesus spoke to Pilate (John XVIII. 37).
"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I unto the
world, that I should bear witness unto the Truth. Every one that
is ot the Truth, heareth my voice.” To Pilate’s next question
“What is Truth?” no answer was vouchsafed, probably
because the question was a mocking one and because the infinite
spirit is not to be described in words. “ It can only be des-
cribed,” says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishut (IV. 515), " by no,
no,” i.e., by protesting against every attribute. The usual
Vedantist illustration is that of a Hindu wife who, asked to
point out her husband from among a number of men, said “no,
no,” to every person pointed out, until her husband was pointed
out, and then she stood bashful and silent. In a dialogue
reported by Saftkaracharya Svami from an Upanishat, “ Vash-
kali said, ‘Sir, tell me Brahm.' Then Bhava became quite still.
When Vashkali had asked a second and a third time, Bhava
replied ‘ We are telling it, but thou dost not understand. That
Brahm is quite still. 1 "

In the absolute unconditioned infinity, the Spirit, there
arises an energy whereby the Spirit seemingly becomes condi-
tioned or limited and differentiates itself — as under a breeze
the calm face of the ocean breaks into waves — into the universe,
countless souls, infinite varieties of matter, endless growth of
sun and satellite and planet, all passing from a state of latency
to manifestation and vice versa. The task of the soul is to emanci-
pate itself from the grasp of this cosmic illusion of Maya, under
the influence of which the soul cherishes the idea of “1” and
•“mine ” (as if each wave were to think itself a separate entity
from other waves and from the ocean) and identifies its
fictitious coats of mind and matter with itself. In other words,
the soul has to go back from the unreal to the only real. What
Maya is, how it originated, how and when it ceases, are
explained in the story of Sukar.

3 88

sinntiSNTA niPiKA.

Having heard Rama’s impassioned address which 1 have
summarized in the last chapter —

Visvamitra says: O Rama, by pure intellect thou hast seen
all things free from fault. There remains naught else for thee
to know clearly. The sage Suka and thou arc peers. Even
they who have attained the knowledge of the real and unreal,
yearn for peace.

Rama inquires: How happened it that Sukar, having

attained the knowledge which destroys "I,” attained not peace
at once but afterwards?

Visvamitra replies as follows : Sukar, filled with the

knowledge that cuts off birth, pondering like thee on the nature
of the universe, grew in understanding and gained the know-
ledge that is without flaw. Yet doubt remained regarding
it, and peace he had not. He sought his sire (Vyasa) who lives
on the northern mountain (Meru) and asked : “ Whence cometh
this dangerous miya ? How shall it perish ? To whom does it
belong? What is its measure? When did it appear? ’’ The
father made answer to these questions so that Sukar should
understand. But Sukar replied : “What thou hast said was
already known to me." Then his father, seeing that Sukar
reached not the excellent state of peace, said : "There is a king
named Janaka, great in the knowledge that is without flaw.
Seek and ask him.” So saying, he graciously sent him, and
Sukar departed. He reached the gate of the golden palace
where Janaka dwelt. The king, hearing of his coming, came
not to meet him, thinking to try him. Seven days tarried Sukar
there, indifferent. Seven more days the king set him in another
place, then he lodged him in the beautiful inner chambers of
gold wherein the women dwell. Slender-waisted maidens served
him with dainty food and pleasures. He bore with them,
being like unto the cold full moon. Neither the pleasures pro-
vided by the king nor his previous insult touched the mind of
Sukar. Can the gentle south wind shake Meru, the greatest of

JNANA vAsishtham.

3*9

mountains ? Seeing his state, the king worshipped and praised
him and said: “ O thou who art rid of the acts of the wcrld and
hast obtained all that is to be obtained, seeking what hast thou
come hither ? ” He replied “ Whence sprang mUya ? How grows
it ? How will it cease ? Tell me truly.” To the sage thus
seeking the truth, the king spake as his. father had spoken. The
sage replied : “ This have I already known by my understanding.
Thou hast spoken even as my father spake. The perfect
Scriptures all declare but one thihg. If the differentiation that
springs within ceases, rniyi I ceases. There is nothing in mUyi.
Such is its nature. Declare unto me the One Reality, O king
who curest the infatuation of all."

The king made answer. “ O sage, what thou hast thyself
ascertained, what thy father has declared to thee, again in
doubt thou askest. That alone is true. Here is infinite Spirit,
nothing else. That Spirit is fettered by thought, it is free when
rid of thought. 'Tis because thou knowest well that Spirit,
thou art rid of desire and of all visible things. Thou hast
attained all that is to be attained by a perfect mind. Thou
inseparably blendest with the One that is beyond sight. Thou
art free. Give up the doubt that troubleth thy mind.”

Thus when Janaka, king of kings, taught, the faultless
Sukar, quenching his restlessness in the Supreme whose place is
Itself, freed from fear, from sorrow, from agitation, from act,
from doubt, went up on the golden mount Meru and, standing
in the calm of undifferentiating abstraction ( samadhi ) for twice
500 years by the sun’s count, like unto the light of a lamp
quenched with the burning out of oil and wick, became blended
with Spirit-space. Rid of the stain of thought and become pure;
the rising thought ceasing as water drops merge and' become
one with the sea, he became one with the Absolute. He was
freed from delusion and desire and so from sorrow. That way
will be thine, O Rama. The manner of the mind which knoweth
all that should be known, is never to think that pleasures and
pains are “ mine."

sjddhAhtta lhpikA.

&>

As the attachment to things which are not realities becometh
established, the fetters are firmly rivetted ; as that attachment
dwindles, the baleful fetters waste away. To crush the
influence of outward objects, O Rama, is to be free; to sink in it
is to be a slave. They who have overcome its might and, rid
of desire, turn away from the enjoyments of the world, they
alone have attained the high state of Jlvan Mukti, of freedom
while still in the flesh.

The purport of this story appears to be that a man may
by investigation and reflection understand’ what is real and
what is unreal, and may reject the unrea. and be rid of
all desire, and yet not attain perfect peace, which is won
only when by the intense abstraction of samddhi he has
realized in actual experience the One Reality. So also Tiru-
valluvar says:

“Though the five senses are under control, still there
is no gain to them who know not the One Reality ” ( Kura( ,
xxxiv. 4).

“ Wisdom is freedom from the delusion which is the cause
of birth, and the vision of the One Reality, the supremely
beautiful " (ibid. 8.) The delusion here referred to is explained
(ibid. i)-as that which takes for real the unreal.

Then turning to the assembly, Visvamitra says: What Rama
has grasped with the mind, that is the reality, and nothing else.
Who save Vasishfhacan teach great Rama this? — - Vasishfha who,
having learnt it from the lips of the wise, hath won peace of
mind and freedom from doubt, who knoweth time past, present,
and future, who is the world's teacher, who looketh on, a witness
to all things that have name and form.* (Addressing Vasishfha:}
Remeraberest thou, O Vasishfha, the words of wisdom which the
Lotus-God Brahma spake to us to heal our enmity and to cure,
good men of their ancient karma and help them to be free.
Declare it , 1 pray 1 * thee, to the learned Rama. The precious

* I j., the manifested universe.

JnAna VaSISHTHAM.

39 1

words spoken to the heart of the pupil that is free from desire,
are indeed knowledge; they are the substance of the Scriptures,
they alone are beautiful. The words spoken to a pupil in the
bonds of desire, will become impure like precious milk poured
into a black dog-skin vessel.

In compliance with the request Vasishtha proceeds to deliver
to Rama the discourses which form the bulk of this work.
Vasishfha, it may be added, is believed by the Hindus to be still
alive, inspiring and enlightening seekers after truth. Tradition
has assigned him a perfect wife, Arundhati, who, translated to
the skies, shines in the Pleiades. Among the interesting and
picturesque ceremonies of a Hindu wedding is the leading of the
bride into the court-yard to point out the star to her as the ideal
to be cherished. Vasishtha himself is one of the seven stars of the
Great Bear, called by the Hindus the Seven Sages.

P. A.

When the Psalmist said : “ Wait on the Lord ”, he meant “ wait
on the spirit realm", for every manifestation of unseen spirit-power in Old
Testament times was considered divine and the intelligences manifesting
were indiscriminately called “men”, '‘angels”, “ Lord ", or “Jehovah”.
Waiting in the silence is, therefore, a long-established custom for spiritual
enfoldment and for communications from the great spirit-realm which has
ever encompassed and influenced humanity so our thoughts and desires
should reach out and up to the heights for the loftiest truths, the mightiest
inspiration and the greatest strength our natures are capable of receiving.
The place should be “ holy ", i.e., consecrated to this special purpose of
“waiting" and should be free from all contaminating magnetisms. A ntw
-room, or a room that has not been indiscriminately used, is preferable. It
should be clean, free from much furniture, clothing or carpets, well venti-
lated and with enough of isolation to enable the sitter to effectively rid
himself of the sights and sounds that distract. Others than the sitter or
sitters should not enter it.

Dr. B. F. Austin in Rauon.

392

SIDDH AN'TA DiPIKA.

THE WORK BEFORE US.

(Continued from page 373 of No. p Vol. X.)

My co-religionists, I was resolved to make this known to
you and all, who are called ajudnis, and here I have done.
What a comment on the moral aspect of our lives! By what
name he referred to us, is not the point ; the conviction he had
of the wickedness of certain members of his race who follow
the religion of their forefathers, is what struck me most.
Where are virtues gone — Truth and Righteousness ? Will our
people understand that these form the very basis of SivajTtanaml
I often thought to myself that if our leaders would not take active
steps to improve the moral tone of our people, it were far better
for the people to join Christian organizations and live Christian
lives in order to' qualify themselves for the spiritual life of the
3 ivajTuinis , for, I have found in my experience, more unity and
sympathy, love and righteousness, in Christian Society, than in
our own. There are organizations and opportunities and here
is none. Truth must be told at any risk, and I say, what 1
think, fearlessly, to this august assembly that moral culture
should form the first item of our programme, so that every man
may be a true citizen before he can be a true lover of God.

The social side of the question is not receiving its due
attention either. The abuse of caste-rules has been ever tending
to separate one from the other to such an extent that the people
have not benefited by the culture and civilization of the few.
Social intercourse, which alone will facilitate mutual improve-
ment and strengthen mutual confidence, has been within only
limited circles, not to mention the inhumane rigour with which'
“ non-touchism ” has been enforced on the majority of the
people, who would have been a strong power in the nation, if
only the chord of brotherly feeling was touched. “Non-touchism”
is a sound rule for sanitary reasons, but to enforce it on those
who deserve sympathy, help and elevation, in the way .it has

THE WORK BEFORE US.

39J

been done for ages is, brutally demoralising ; and the effect of it
is now seen not only in the absence of the national feeling but
also in mutual distrust and contempt and in the domination of
selfish interests. The tyranny of caste is present in the higher
ranks as well as in the lower. The tyranny must cease and
give place to a healthy feeling of fraternal kinship in the
nation. Caste prevails in some form or another in other countries,
but nowhere to the detriment of national interests. People
there are wise enough not to weaken the solidarity of the nation
by demoralising the self-respecting though illiterate masses.
Ours has been an unenviable lot, the subject of ridicule to the
enlightened. No nation or race has left its mark on the sands
of time that did not keep prominently before it, the well-being,
the elevation and the freedom of all classes of its poople The
Romans attempted to draw the invidious line between the
high and the low and perished in consequence. The people of
England have removed all differences of race and language and
they now flourish as the mightiest nation on earth.

Have we at the present day the four main castes of the
Smritis or even the many divisions that once prevailed in the
south ? Can any one enumerate the sects and sub-sects, and
divers groups of each caste ? The number tends to increase and
not to diminish. Does this not indicate the wrong principles that
at present guide the nation ? It will be no wonder if one closes
his door against his own brother for the fault of crossing the
sea or sitting at the same table with his cousin who married in
a different sect, though he is himself a hopeless drunkard. His
conceit of caste is such that drunkenness and other vices would
not degrade him in the eyes of society; but in his view his
brother’s violation. of the caste-law in mixing with others under
the ban is greatly reprehensible. The strict adherence to the
letter of the law, and that only on the social side of it, has so
drawn lines and cross-lines between one another, that we can-
not converse or exchange thoughts with one another without
one d»y or other coming into collision. The evils of our society*

394

SIDDHANTA DIPIKA.

are brought to the light of day by those interested in religious
proselytism, and laid at the doors of the Hindu Religion, without
pausing for a moment to assess its real responsibility in the
matter. The number of child-widows, the degradation of the
Pariahs and other members of the nation, the exclusion of
certain castes from religious worship at the temples, and the
abhorrence with which the high-caste man drives away a fellow-
member of the nation from his sight, are often referred to from
the pulpit and the platform, by the Christian clergy and laymen,
as the outcome of the Hindu Religion. The promise of freedom,
education and position from the opposite camp, will naturally
draw away those who are under the ignominious ban of our
society. No doubt the evil is there: it is not due to our ennobl-
ing Religion but to the degraded Hindus who have mistaken
phantasm for the reality, the poison for the nectar. But is it not
now time that we look around and right the wrong and
remedy the evil ? A re-adjustment in the line is highly de^
sirable, to allow the influence of our religion, the mainspring
of which is love, the reign of unqualified Supreme Love in the
hearts of its followers, to make itself felt even by the now
down-trodden masses, Or shall we sit with folded arms priding
over the achievements of our forefathers and leave our neigh-
bours to point out the cobwebs in our homes, and the dirt in
our teeth ?

It is a relief that reforms have been attempted, organized
and carried into effect by the true sons 'of the soil in the teeth of
opposition, obstruction and ridicule. Not to rise even after
dearly paying for our past cruelty to our own brothers, is a
crime for which each one of us will one day have to account for.
It is a vital question no longer to be shelved in if we really mean
to plant the banner of our religion in the depths of all hearts.

The craze, now, is for political reform. Millions of reeds
-rising to rule and govern! Even according to our Dharmas,
the rulers iwere those who, being able to exercise control over
tjie.rest, granted, "at the same time, liberty to their subject^

THE WORK BEFORE US.

395

with love ol justice and fair play according to their lights.
The privileges and rights enjoyed by the people in the past are
not denied to the present generation. The British nation built
upon principles of equality and justice, will not swerve from
its national virtues. # The non-interference in religion granted
to us, is a gift of a very great order, especially to us to whom
religion is a watch-word. The burden of State is rery heavy;
and our benefactors, the British Nation, have cor e forward to
bear it for us just as our past rulers, the Kshatriya- , had done in
times of yore, allowing ample opportunities to work out our
social and religious ideals. If one nation rules another, there is
of necessity some conflict of interest in a smaller or larger mea-
sure; and if there be any such restriction, shall we fare better
in the hands of others whose love of justice, mercy and fair play,
will not rival that of the British Raj? The latter is a God-send to
our nation, to relieve us from the additional burden of ruling our-
selves. To my mind, all the energy should be directed towards
the ethical, social and religious advancement of our people,
under the kind protection of the British flag. There lies our
sphere of work, elevating and peace-giving, and not among the
thorns of politics. If we succeed in producing noble citizens,
able to appreciate the freedom enjoyed under religious neutral-
ity, and at the same time to nurture their religious ideals, our
task is done. Else, we cease to profit by the golden opportunity
and our energies run to waste.

Now, let us consider “The Work Before Us” in the field of

religion which comes directly within the purview of this Confer-
ence. Bearing in mind that the other aspects of the question
go hand in hand with the religious work, and that the one is a
necessary supplement to the others in the evolution of character,
let us pause for a moment to take stock of our religious achieve-
ments of the present day. Time' was when religious education
formed the chief curriculum of the youth of our land. The special

training the Brahmachari received at the hands of his preceptor,
fitted him to understand his duties in every line of activity, and
^tlipped hija with sufficient knowledge of the DharntSr and- ttitf

siddhAnta DiPIKA.

396

JnaM Sastras, and before he entered the life of a house-holder
he was a master of his religion, able to guide the religious work
of the household. The youth having had to live with the master
who was seldom wanting in the high ideals of life, imbibed the
character, the spirit, and the ideals of his master. Religion was
lived by the masters who held the prominent position in our
society. Kings and chiefs vied with one another in reverencing
the masters of religion whose example influenced all the mem-
bers of the society. People did not hesitate to part with their
wealth and become paupers if that helped them to honour a
master or to establish a religious ideal. The homes re-echoed the
Vedic and other hymns that were chanted there during prayer,
nor were the groves and forests without response to the echo of
the village. Each one, rich or poor, high or low, knew his religion,
lived it, and led others in the same line. The relation between
Guru and Sishya left nothing to be desired, to work out the
religious end. The Gurus, the priests, and the elders of the
land, had a great command or influence over the people and
were gods on earth to lead and bless.

Would that we had the old times back again! A knowledge
of the Sastras at the present day is the special acquisition of
the few, and a religious life, the ideal of the handful. Although
there are enough of instinctive inducements to take up the
religious ideals, people run after worldy enjoyments and pros-
perity, and any education that does not tend towards material
prosperity is not cared for. Even the priests have degenerated
to a very great degree. The Jnana portions of the Scriptures are
left alone by the priests themselves who make it their ambition
to be masters of Kriya, rites and ceremonies. When the people
stray away from the fold in large numbers, the priests are in
the inner chambers of the temple, content to sound the bell
and the gong and to deck their persons and the idols, and
foolishly think that they can transport all to Heaven by the due
performance of certain rites. It does not seem to concern them
what the people think or do, or whether they are morally and
spiritually advancing. Whatever may be the evils that sap

rHE WORK BEFORE US.

397

Ihe Vitals of the society, they would not question the con-
duct of an individual, for fear of losing the measure of rice
and his patronage ! The priests have ceased to exert any moral
influence over the people ; and religion has become synonym-
ous with rites and ^ceremonies, the true import of which is a
hidden secret to a goodly number of even the priests themselves.
The spread of education and civilization has not affected the
guardians of our Religion ; and often it is found that a layman
is more enlightened than the priest who is unable to preach his
own religion, to explain the doubts, or meet the objections of
his opponents.

The Purjnas and the Itihasas beyond which there is no Scrip-
ture for the masses, are misunderstood and ridiculed, and the
demand seems to be for a rational exposition of the principles
of religion without parables or figures of speech. On the
other hand, the majority of the neglected classes is even
without the influence of the Puranic literature, nor are they
able to distinguish their religion from that of others.

One day I asked a Tamil peon in my office what his
religion was. He said that he professed the same religion as
myself. I asked him what he called that religion. He said “ It
is this, sir, Bauddha-Agama.” I told him that I was not a
Buddhist. Yet, he was sure that he followed the same religion
as myself. He now understands that he is not a follower to the
Bauddha-Agama. This ignorance in the man is an index to the
pitiable state to which our people have declined, and the scant
influence (which is sometimes next to nothing) exercised over
them by the priests or other laymen. There are instances where
the illiterate masses frequent famous places of worship of the
Roman Catholics. It does not matter to them whether it is Mary
or Mariyammal, Christ or Krishna, St. Annas or Kannakai, that
they go to worship. The worship of Siva and the teachings of
the Saiva Religion, are yet within their reach.

Even in Temples, worship, festivals and other parapher-
nalia, have no charm for the so-called civilised section of the
people. And their power for good has been declining from day

358 SIDDHANTA D 1 PIKA.

to <lay. Piety and devotion do not influence th£ majority of
men who frequent the temples. One word at least indicates the
retrogression of the system and the demoralization of the wor-
shippers, namely — Deva-adiyaJ (Qpw j) t^u/rsir). With what
good intentions the service of Deva-adiyaJ was allowed in
temples? Does that word now convey its o’riginal significance?
What example did they once set for the women of the land?
Where is now their honour and prestige, their piety and devotion
to God, their pure hearts and clean hands ? They now pollute
the atmospnere of the temples and corrupt the morals of them-
selves and the people ; but still our enlightened men do not see or
at least take steps to remedy this evil which has taken a strong
hold on the places of worship. It seems to me to be a problem,
whether, in other respects as well, the true intentions of the
Sastras have not been violated or degraded, just in the same
way as the institution of Deva-adiyal (Qpeu jyifiurraf) has been
corrupted into Deva<jiyal (Q^eu^uunar ) — the plague-spot in the
sacred temple.

Even in the management of temples, one often finds the pre-
dominance of selfish interest rather than the spiritual advance-
ment of the people. The abuse of temple-funds is a crying
shame on the community; but still it must be said to the credit
of our ancient seers that, if not for the temples and the Puraijas,
however much their object may be misunderstood, our people
would have been much worse and hopelessly behind-hand in
religious ideals. What is required in the trustees or custodians
of the temples is, holding up their true spirit to the eyes of the
masses. Many of the Jfiana Sastras are still in old manuscripts
which are kept back from public view under pain of religious
threat or priestly intimidation, and the enthusiasm of most men
among our leaders or our wealthy, is not for bringing them to
light and preserving them for future generations, but for build-
ing more temples.

(To be continued. j

R. S. S.

HINDU IDEALS AND THEIR PRESERVATION.

( Concluded from page 349 of No. 9. Col. X.)

I have appealed to you as citizens, as members of society-*
to preserve your institutions. I shall now appeal to you as
parents, to preserve your children.

By permitting the Missionaries to educate your children, 1
you are not only allowing them to remain in ignorance of your
institutions and your religion, you are acquiescing jn the
injection into their minds of disrespect and prejudice against
these. Let me give you a conspicuous instance of how this
occurs.

Western Scholars have evolved a theory which tracts, thh
origin of Indian civilization, and of the Aryan race, to Central
Asja. Everybody acquiesces in this theory, and therefore
everybody believes it. Probably it is taught in this very,
institution Let us consider it a moment.

One would expect that when the history of a people Ws ?tf
question, the traditions and literature of that people would be
the first sources of information on the subjeet sought ,Bnt
though you have the oldest civilization and literature in the
world, and records which purport to recite your histoi*V for
many hundreds of thousands of years, the orientalists do not
pay you this compliment. Your books do not anywhere motion
or suggest any other dwelling place for Indians than India.
Their evidence is unanimously and distinctly to the contrary.
For instance, Rama flourished in India and conquered Ceylon
in Treta-Yuga, not far from a million years ago. &ul the
orientalists do not vouchsafe your books or yoqr .Uaj#*4c«*4 the
slightest consideration. They proceed to construet w thnar^ih#
their own, which they introduce hyrentaiAs <tf thtb lddd-Td>qaMM
from pne of their principal books, Mairla SuM Tadte.

400

StDDHANTA DIPIKA.

•< i must begin”, says this scholar, “ with a candid
admission that, so far as 1 know, none of the Sanskrit books, not
even the most ancient, contains any distinct reference to the
foreign origin of the Indians."

The theory is, as I have said, that the Aryans came to
India from Central Asia. At first iooo years or so B. C. was
considered early enough for this migration. Now, I believe,
they have gotten the date back 5,000 or 6,000 years earlier
than that.

On what do they base this theory? I will give you samples
Of their principal arguments, and beg you to note well their
character.

There are many names in the Rig Veda, some of which,
are thought to denote Indian rivers. Now, they say, the
Ganges is mentioned in the Rig Veda but once, and towards the
iiid. But the Indus, or Sindhu, is mentioned early and often.
This shows that your ancestors during most of the time of the
composition of the Rig Veda hymns, were dwelling near the
Indus, that is, in the Punjab and Afghanistan, and did not reach
the Ganges until the later hymns were composed.

Very good; but when we look into the meaning of “ Sindhu",
what do we find?

First, that it is a name of Chandra, the presiding Devata of
the moon.

Second, that is a name for the ofcqan.

r

Third, that it is used to denote any great confluence of
waters, and finally (Sankaracharya, in the Bhashya-Hridaya),
that it is another name for the Ganges itself !

Having adopted the theory, the Orientalists proceed to
build it • up by interpreting everything to support it. For-
W t anee , the Rig Veda mentions the “Sarayu", There is a
river of that name - in Oudh, falling into the Ganges below

THE HINDU IDEALS.

40*

Benares. This river is too far South to fit their theory. So
they say — I quote one of their leading men, Lassen — “ Perhaps
it is an affluent of the Sarasvati (a river of the Punjab); in any
case, it is to be distinguished from the well-known affluent of the
Ganges".

Well this, Mr. Chairman, is circulated to make a lawyer
smile. We know how cases are built up. But perhaps I should
not disclose the secrets of the profession.

Then as to writing. Their theory requires them to make
you illiterate in ancient times, for otherwise how can the silence
of your literature on this important subject be explained ? Your
books must be more recent then these events, if the theory is
to stand.

An illiterate people”, says A, W. von Schlegel, “ignorant
of writing, which has adopted a stationary home after long and
arduous migratu.ii, might, after a few centuries, easily lose all
recollection of its change of habitation”

So they say that, inasmuch as they can find no proof to the
contrary, your ancestors could not write more than 23ooor 2400
years ago. But they cannot deny that you were a greaj
people, with abundant commerce. Megasthenes shows that
even Solomon got merchandise from India. How was your
business conducted without writing? Because no records
are found, is a very slender basis on which to deny th£
knowledge of writing to a great, civilized and commercial
people.

I cannot continue this subject for want of time, but the
examples I have given are sufficient to illustrate the flimsiness
of the arguments of the Orientalists. These theories are the
merest and most random speculations, and impudent speculations
at that. But the point with which we are now concerned, fs the
utter disregard and disrespect with which they treat y Mu-
traditions and the effect which such treatment, endorsed by theft
teachers, necessarily has upon the minds' of yodr children.

4

4 °*

SIDDHANTA DiPIlU.

Then as to the study of History. In the Mission schools
your children learn next to nothing of the history of Ceylon and
India, and that notwithstanding that in the Mahavamsa, you
have one of the oldest and most authentic histories in the world.
They learn nothing of your great men — of the heroes and moral
exemplars of your past. They learn of Rome, Europe, England
—of Caesar, Napoleon, Nelson, Wellington, Cromwell. How
are they benefited by this? They learn how on repeated
occasions a handful of valiant Englishmen put to flight vast
numbers of the “natives” of your country. Are they likely to
gain respect for their ancestors from such tales?

So all through Literature and Science. These seemingly
"exact ” sciences, these instruments and methods of " precision”
seem so unassailable, so unquestionable, that your children are
paralyzed. They have not a word to say in defence of their
ancestral traditions. They are out of court at once.

But if they had studied your books first, their hearts would
have been won by their beauty; and they would have suspected
the wisdom of spending all one's life and energy in measuring
and classifying prakriti, the ever-changing; the absurdity, for
instance, of building up a science of the nervous system and
calling it Psychology.

If you say — our children must have Western learning in
order that they may have the increased earning capacity which
it confers — , 1 reply — It is not Western learning, but the influences
under which it is imparted, that are dangerous. If you teach
your children yourselves, you may teach them what you will.

To the child educated under foreign, i. e. Missionary,
influences, the whole of the Hindu religion becomes unreal and
shadowy. Though he may maintain his nominal allegiance to
it, its compelling force is gone; his religion is practically lost.'
No misfortune in life can be so great as that. For the sanction
of the lost religion i? replaced by no other effective sanction.
A* adopted religion can never mould the character as the

THE HINDU IDEALS.

403

religion of one’s fathers. In most cases a moral death , more to
be deplored than physical death, results. The life is wrecked—
the purpose of life is wholly missed. But I need not dwell upon
this unpleasant subject. You know well the hypocrisy of life
which generally follows upon so-called "conversions” among
you : you know the shockingly common moral degradation of
“native” converts to Christianity. I know it from my own
experience, years ago, in this island, and all men of experience
in the East who are free from self-interest, testify to it.

I have known many young Indians in just this position.
Their lives were spiritually wrecked; whereas they only needed
a fair start, a preliminary grounding in their ancestral learning,
to have carried them safely past this danger.

The injury to your girls is a still greater misfortune.
They will govern your families, they will train your grand-
children.

If you fully grasped the deadly character of the probable
result, I think you would prefer for your child the funeral pyre
to the Mission school.

Yet I wish by no means to be understood as speaking
against the character of the Missionaries. I think that most of
them are sincere and kindly men, who wish you well. But as a
class they are very ignorant on the subject of religion. They
have not studied Hinduism. They do not know its grandeur.
They do not know that religions are all one in origin — all
equally paths to God. They do not know that the religion
of Jesus, as he propounded it, is the same as that of the Aryan
Rishis. They do not realize the terrible responsibility of
unsettling the religious convictions of a human soul. If they
did, they would flee from it as from a conflagration.

Much of the money also which is given in America to
support these mission schools, is given from the best of motives.
The givers really believe that they are doing you great good,
and make genuine sacrifices in parting with their money. But

404

siddhAnta DiPIKi.

it is not all given in this spirit. Great sums are given for this-
purpose by wealthy men whose object is to gain a reputation for
generosity. And much of it is given from a still unworthier
motive — because such gifts are thought to bring commercial
returns. Many of you have heard of John D. Rockefaller, the
Standard Oil magnate, the wealthiest man in the world. He
gives vast sums to foreign Missions. Several years ago I read
in a New York daily paper an interview with his secretary, My.
Gates, in which that gentleman said that Mr. Rockefeller’s
donations to foreign Missions are found to be an excellent
investment, in that they lead to the increase of business trans-
actions with the peoples among whom the missions are located.

Do not overlook the kindly motives which have prompted
many Missionaries and supporters of Missions. But do not let
your gratitude obscure your duty to God and to your children
— your duty to transmit to them the spiritual heritage which
you have received from your ancestors, and which they may
rightfully claim from you.

Since 1 prepared this address, some school statistics have
been furnished me. The Christian population of the district is
less than one-tenth of the whole — more than nine-tenths are
Hindu; but out of a total of 400 schools, 300 are Mission schools.
Having legitimately but one-tenth of the children, the Mission
schools are educating three-fourths of the children of the district.

Still further, but about half the hundred Hindu schools are
aided by Government, while almost all of the other schools are
aided schools. Therefore of the public money, chiefly collected
from taxes on Hindu property, spent for education in this
district, only one-eighth goes to give Hindu education to Hindu
children, while seven-eighths are devoted, for the most part, not
to giving your children a beneficial education, but to leading
them by a short road to moral and spiritual ruin.

A very conservative estimate puts the number of pupils at
50 for each school. There are then at least 20,000 children in
the schools of the district, and doubtless many more.

THE HINDU IDEAIii.

405

Assuming that therfe are as many as 2000 Christian children,
the Mission schools are educating at least 13,000 Hindu children
in this district. For higher education there are in this district
six girls’ boarding schools, all Missionary, and six boys'
colleges, of which but two are Hindu.

Is not this most an alarming situation? Can you regard it
with any sort of equanimity? It dearly calls for the most
energetic and unmeasured efforts on your part. Be assured
that in their contest for your childreh the Missionaries will
never relax their exertions. Their livelihood, the very existence
of their establishments, depends upon holding your children.
13,000 Hindu children in the Mission schools of Jaffna —
what an appeal can be made in America for money on that
statement! It is worth to them many lacs of rupees every year.
So they will fight you hard. If they see that you are in
earnest about building up your schools, they will probably
offer you absolutely free education. But their education would
cost you dear, even did they pay you untold sums to accept it.
This is a matter far above all money values.

Can you disentangle yourselves from these toils? Certainly
you can, if you put forth sufficient effort. Lose no time in
rescuing your children from the Mission schools. Educate them
yourselves. Are your present schools insufficient? Create new
schools. Resolve that whatever is necessary shall be done. If
necessary to accomplish it, impoverish yourselves. What is
money in comparison? If you lack money, simplify your lives.
Discard expensive European habits. Return to the simple ways
of your fathers.

As an example of the crying needs of education among you,
look at this College, In the hall of whist we are to-night. It is
really the only dependence of your boys for higher education;
and yet how precarious is its condition. Without a general
fund, if for any cause the Government grant were delayed or
withheld, it would be in great difficulties. It has no library.

A College without a library! No chemical or physical laboratory,

406

siddhAnta dIpikA.

no play-ground. And because of this lack of equipment the
Madras University will not affiliate it.

If there is still time, I wish to close by reading a passage
written by that great Indian, the Swami Vivekananda. As your
Chairman has said, I knew him. I first saw him at the Chicago
Parliament of Religions in 1893. I shall never forget his
handsome and brilliant face and his fine form, most impressively
set out by his orange robe and turban. When he first spoke,
before many thousands of people in the great auditorium, he
took that vast audience by storm.

I saw him frequently in New York between 1893 and 1896.
For a while he was a guest at my house.

The education of his people was very near his heart. We
had many talks aboqt it.

The passage I am about to read is in a manner a part of
his legacy to India. It is from a manuscript found among his
papers. He had commenced a book, “ India’s Message to the
World”, of the preface of which these words form a part. I
read them because of the splendid ideal of India which they em-
body — that they may sink into your hearts, and remain there
long after what I have said is forgotten.

“What a land is India! Whosoever stands on this sacred
land, alien or a child of the soil, feels, unless his soul is degraded
to the level of brute animals, himself surrounded by the living
thoughts of earth’s best and purest sons, working to raise the
animal to the Divine, through centuries whose beginning history
fails to trace. The very air is full of the pulsations of
spirituality. This land is sacred to philosophy, to ethics and
spirituality, to all that tends to give respite to man in his
incessant struggle for the preservation of the animal, to all
training that makes man throw off the garment of brutality
and stand revealed as the Spirit immortal, the birthless, the
deathless, the ever-blessed, — the land where the cup of pleasure
was full and fullft- has been the cup of misery, till here first
of all man found out that it w-« all vanity; till here first of

THE HINDU IDEALS.

407

all he broke through the fetters of delusion, in the prime of youth*
in the lap of luxury, in the height of glory and plentitude of
power. Here in this ocean of humanity, amidst the sharp
interaction of strong currents of pleasure and pain, of strength
and weakness, of wealth and poverty, of joy and sororw, of smile
and tear, of life and death, in the melting rhythm of eternal
peace and calmless, 1 arose the throne of renunciation. Here in
this land, the great problems of life and death, of the thirst far
life and the vain mad struggle to preserve it only resulting
in accumulation of woes, were first grappled with and solved—
solved as never they were before and never will be hereafter,
for here, here alone, was discovered that even life itself is an evil,
the shadow only of the real. This is the land where alone reli-
gion has been practical and real, and where alone men and
women have plunged boldly in to realize the goal, just as in
other lands they rush madly on to realize the pleasures of life
by robbing their weaker brethren. Here and here alone > the
human heart expanded till it included not only man but birds,
beasts and plants; from the highest gods to grains of sand, the
highest and the lowest all find a place in the heart of man,
grown great, infinite. And here alone the human soul studied
the universe as one unbroken unity whose every pulse was Me
own pulse.

We hear much about the degradation of India. There was
a time when 1 also believed in it. But to-day, standing on the
vantage-ground ot experience, with eyes cleared of obstructive
predispositions, and, above all, the highly coloured pictures of
the countries beyond the seas toned down to their proper
shade and light by actual contact, I confess in all humility thnt
I was wrong. Thou blessed land of the Aryas, thou wert never
degraded. Sceptres have been broken and thrown away, the bkU
of power has rolled from hand to hand, but in India courts and
kings always touched only a few, and the vast mass of the
people have been left to pursue its own inevitable course, the
current of national life flowing at times slower and half-con-
scious, at others stronger and awakened. I stand in awe before

SIDDHANTA D1P1KA.

* 0 »

IM unbroken procession of scores of shining centuries, with here
and there a dim link in the chain but flaring up with added
brilliance in the next. There she is, walking with her own
majestic steps, my motherland, to fulfil her glorious destiny;
which no power on earth or heaven can check — the regeneration
o f man, the brute into man, the God.

Aye, a glorious destiny, my brethern, for as old as the days
of -the Upanishads we have thrown the challenge into the world
"Not by wealth, not by progeny, but by renunciation alone
immortality is reached." Race after race has taken the challenge
up and tried to their uttermost to solve the world-riddle on the
plane of desires. They have all failed in the past, — the elder
have gone down under the weight of wickedness and misery;
which lust for power and gold brings in its train, and the
younger are tottering to their fall. The question has yet to bfc
decided by them whether peace will survive or war, whether
patience will survive or non-forbearance, whether goodness. Will
survive or wickedness, whether muscle will survive or brain,
whether worldliness will survive or spirituality. We have
solved' our problem ages ago, and held on to the solution
through good fortune or evil, and mean to hold on to it till the
end of time. Our solution is unworldliness — renunciation.

This is the theme of Indian life-work, the burden of her
eternal songs, .the backbone of her existence, the foundation of
her being, the raison d’etre of her very existence — the spirit ~
mduatwn of the human race."

— M. H. P.

“The Oriental mysteries, directing the will toward an ideal goal aud exalt-
ing the inner spirit, were less mindful of economic utility, but they could pro-
duce that vibration of the moral being that caused emotions, stronger than any
ratiaa&l faculty, to gush forth from the depths of the soul. Through a sudden*
Ufomination they furnished the intuition of a spiritual life whose intensity made
material happiness appear insipid and contenlptible. This stilling appeal o(
supernatural life made the propoga,nda irresistible. The same ardent entha-
■i aa m guaranteed at the same time the uncontested domination of neo-
platonism among the philosophers. Antiquity expired and a new era was born’*.

Fhanz Oumont (translated by A. M. Thibun)

in The Open Court.

Maritime Activity and Enterprise in Ancient India*.

( Intercourse and Trade by sea with China— I).

In the olden days of Indian History when great waves of Indian
thought were propagated to countries . utside India's
Introductory. borders, the ocean which washes Indi s shores for a
thousand miles and more, formed a: easy highway
which enabled her sons to carry her civilisation and culture as also her
abounding material produce and manufac tures to the very door of every
nation of the then known world — from China and Japan to Arabia and
Egypt, converting the countries lining the whole coast from Pegu to ths
Yunnan (in China) as also the numerous islands in the Southern Seas into
so many outlying Indian provinces. “ Down to the days of the Mahome-
dan conquest went, by the ancient highways of the sea, the intrepid
mariners of the Bengal Coast, founding their colonies in CeyloD, Java and
Sumatra, leaving Aryan blood to mingle with that of the seaboard races
of Burma and Siam, and binding Cathay, China and India, fast in mutual
intercourse." (Ideals of the East by Mr. Kakasu Okakura, pp. 1-2). China
is one of the countries with which India had opened communication and
established commercial relations by sea from very old times carrying on a
flourishing trade till the advent of the European nations in the oriental
seas. And into China also had India poured in by the open door of the
sea much of her culture aud civilisation. For by the sea-route passed
from India many of the great Buddhist missionaries who carried to China
her religion and who by their self-sacrificing zeal and unwearied labour for
centuries, not infrequently in the face of enormous opposition from the
princes and people of China, propagated the principles and the literature
of that religion amongst her millions. It was in Indian merchant vessel*
again that travelled many of those numerous Chinese pilgrims that
flocked to India, studied for years in her Universities, resided in her monas-
teries,. visited her holy places noting dowD, like the Chinese Buddbi*
pilgrim of the 7th centuryA .D., I-tsing, every minute peculiarity in the con-
duct of the Indian iramaoas (monks), every detail of the rules of discipline
as practised by them, and thus imbued w ith the Indian sprit, and inspired
• A paper contributed by Haran Chandra C h a kl a dar , HA, to the
Dame #sd Daau Society's Magazine of May 1910, and reprinted for the
fcenefit of the readers of this Journal .- Ed L.T.

5

4lo

siddhAnta dIpikA.

by Indian ideals, spread this acquired Indian culture wheri back amongst
rtfir own people in their own land. This importation of Indian religion
and culture into China has resulted in a deep lndianisation of Chinese life
and ideals and its art and literature stand imbued to the present day with
Indian ideas and thought. In the language of a distinguished German
scholar well known for his Chinese scholarship and extensive knowledge
of C hinese Buddhism, “to the present day two-thirds of the whole Chinese
Buddhist literature are translations of foreign (».«. Sanskrit ) works. Every
popular Buddhist book is full of Sanskrit phrases. Many of the litanies
which the priests read are Sanskrit prayers transliterated in Chinese
characters, the prayers which exorcise among the common people
recite, the charms and amulets they use, frequently contain Sanskrit
characters”*, and to the present day the images of many of the Indian
missionaries occupy a prominent place in the temples of China.

This high spiritual mission of India as well as the spirit of maritime
enterprise and adventure stirring on the Indians of
rra-Buddhistio old to seek the economic welfare of their country by
Intercourse the extension of commerce in many lands, led them to
by 8e« with China. maintain a continuous intercourse by sea with China
from a very remote age down to quite recent times.
There is evidence both in Sanskrit literature as well as the annals of
China, that this communication between the two countries was opened at
a very remote ancient time, when, it seems, a part of China was colonised
by Indians. “ There is” remarks Sir Henry Yule, ice., ca, x.c.s.1., •‘in a
part of the astronomical systems of the two nations the strongest impli-
cation of very ancient communication between them, so ancient as to
have been forgotten even in the far-reaching “ Annals of China ” which
reach to a period about three thousand years before the Christian era.
(Vide p. xxxiv, ‘Cathay and the Way thiter ' by Sir Henry Yule). In
Sanskrit literature there are many references to the Chinese and to
Chinese silk, camphor, steel, vermilion, etc., and in the Code of
Manu itself we have the remarkable statement that the Chinese were
degenerate Kshatriyas, being one of maqy Ksbatriya tribes who had
gradually sunk in the world to the condition of Sudras in consequence
of the omission of the sacred rites, and of their not consulting Brahmapas.

' m — 8 «■

* Vide pp. 35 and 21, “Buddhism: its Historical, Theoretical 'and
Popular Aspects — by Dr. E. J. Eitel. Third Edition, Hongkong, 1884.

MARITIME ENTERPRISE IN ANCIENT INDIA.

4 ”

Vide p. 412, “The Laws of Manu by George Biihler).* With reference
to this particular point, a distinguished French scholar, M. Pauthier,
makes the following observations in his edition of the * Travels of Marco
Polo ’ (p. 550), “ the statement in the laws of Manu is partially true
and people from India passed into Shensi, the westernmost province
of China, more than one thousand years before our era, and at that
time formed a State named Thsin , the same word as China.” (Quoted by
Sir Henry Yule at p. xxxiv of his “ Cathay and the Way thither.") It is
natural to infer that a part at least of these ancient Kshatriya colonists
passed by the sea, seeing that in the Vedic times the Hindus were well
acquainted with the navigation of the ocean, and merchants are referred
to as frequenting every part of the sea in the Rig-veda, {vide p. 16, “ Indian
Paleography ” by J. G. Biihler and pp. 46 and 47 of this magazine, new
series, Vol. v, March 1909).

Coming down to Buddhist times, there is very clear evidence in the
Chinese records, the annals of the Imperial dynasties.
Increased Intercourse the narratives of the Chinese pilgrims, and the history
by Se* with China of the numerous Indian Buddhist teachers — to show
from the Commence- that from the beginning of the Christian era, Indian
ment of the ships began to ply the Chinese waters in gradually
C hirst ian era. increasing numbers. While it is a remarkable fact

that the Chinese did not send out any ships to the
Indian Ocean till many centuries later. In the Journal of th» Royal Asiatic
Society for 1895 (p. 52 5), we read — “The Indians and Persians most
probably went to China by sea at the commencement of our era. and
continued to do so for many centuries afterwards. The Chinese did not
arrive in the Malay Archipelago before the fifth century, and they did not
extend their voyages to India, Arabia and Persia till a century later.” 1 It
* Manu, chap. X, verses 43-44 :

f^^PTTrTT?.1% ft

iiniW.JW. 1

1 The writer of the article in J. R. A. S., from which we have quoted
is a well-known authority Mr. George Phillips, a British Chinese Scholar,
the author of several books and numerous articles in matters r e l atin g to
China*

412

siiwhAkta hipikA.

is a significant fact that at this time Buddhism secured the royal patronage
in China and began to obtain a wide currency there and the sympathy and
intimacy promoted by a i ornni unity of religion naturally led to an increased
mutual intcrcoure between India and China. Buddhism had found its
entrance into China, perhaps during the life time or shortly after the death
of the great Buddhist Emperor of India, Asoka of the third century B.C.,
whose missionaries carried the faith of Buddha over about the whole
of the then civilised world, “ not only throughout and on the borders of his
own wide empire, but in the distant regions of Western Asia, Eastern
Europe, and Northern Africa.” {Vide p. 42, ‘Asoka,’ by Vincent A. Smith,
2nd edition, ipncj). “As early as 250 B. C., a number of eighteen
Buddhist emissaries reached China, where they are held in reverence
to the present day, their images occupying a conspicuous place in every
larger temple.” {Vide p. 21, “Buddhism” by Dr. E. J. Eitel). By some
scholars this event is placed in 217 B.C., 1 , while others hold " that
Buddhism found its way into China in 221 B. C. However Buddhism
did not make much progress in China until the first century after
Christ (A. D. 67) when in response to a mission from the Emperor of
China, two Indian Buddhist ^ramayas (monks;, Kashyapa Matanga and
Gobhaiana went there in possession of Buddha images and scriptures afid
commen;ed vigoiously the work of preaching the laws of the Buddha and
of translating the Buddhist religious texts into Chinese 8 ; from this time
China entered into a state of spiritual pupilage or disci pleship to India and
inter _ourse by sea naturally underwent a corresponding increase.

The volume of trade carried on by Indians with China by sea,
whatever it might have been before this time, began
Maritime Trade with to increase considerably from this time. Throughout
China Some of its the first and the second centuries after Christ (during
Special feutures A.D. 89-105 under the Chinese Emperor, Hoti and

again in 158-9 under another Chinese Emperor,
Hiwantij, the Chinese annals record the arrival at the Chinese court of

1 Vide p. 77, ‘ Buddhism as a Religion . Its Historical Development
and its present conditions ’ by H. Hackmamn, Lie. Theo., translated
from the German, revised and enlarged by the author ; London, 1910.
^ ee . a ^ so ’ "Chinese Buddhism” by Rev. J. Edkins, D.D., p. 88.

* Mr. Herbert ]. AlleD, in the journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,

1896, p. 223. ^ 3

* Hackmann’s ‘Buddhism’ p. 78 and Edkitfs ‘Chinese Buddhism*,
pp vii and 88.

MARITIME ENTER PRISF IN ANfiFNT INDIA'.

413

many embassies from Indian sovereigns bearing merchandise under the
name of tribute , the trade with foreign nations being a monopoly of the
Court in China Most ol these so-called embassies passed by the sea and
continued to be sent to China from very early times to the days of the
great Mughals. The peculiarity of these embassies was that they were
not mere interchange of compliments between the respective sovereigns;
nor were they always mere religious or diplomatic missions, but more
often these so-called embassies with numerous so-called ambassadors and
rich presents and so-called tributes represented trading expeditions, this
being the recognised official form in which trade had to be conducted
with China. It is necessary to possess a clear comprehension of this
approved system of commercial intercourse with China to understand the
full significance of the numerous “embassies” sent from India to China.
The subject is very ably and fully discussed in the Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society for 1896 fpp. 64-66) by Dr. F. Hirth, Ph. D., a recognised
authority in Chinese matters. Says he, “ Foreign trade bad for a long
time been covered by the name, inseparable from the early foreign enter-
prise of Chinese Courts, of “tribute." The word ‘tribute,’ in Chinese, Kung,
was nothing but a substitute for what might as well have been called
“exchange of produce” or “trade," the trade with foreign nations being a
monopoly of the Court. The latter w ould refuse to trade unless it was done
under its own conditions, viz., the appearance of the offering of gifts as a
sign of submission and admiration on the part of a distant monarch. In
each case the full equivalent was paid for these offerings in the shape of
counter-gifts presented to the so- .ailed ambassadors by the Chinese Court.
If these counter-gifts had not made it worth their while to submit to all
the trouble and even humiliation imposed on the tribute-bearers, we should
not see such a long list of distant nations recorded as regular tribute-
countries, such as India, Persia, and Arabia, who had nothing to gain 01 to
lose by the friendship of China. I am inclined to believe that, with
exceptions of course, these tribute bear trs were in reality rutting better thou
private merchants who purchased the counter-gifts of the Court under the pretext
of bringing tribute in the name of some distant monarch. The description and
quantity of goods returned to such tribute-bearer* as a reward for the
submissive feelings expressed by them on behalf of their monarch* have in
many cases been pla eo on record by the court historians, and if measured
by oter present estimation of their value point to a trade as lucrative as any
carried on under modern treaty regulations. Such relations had existed
between China and the neighbouring countries from the oldest times. The
regularity with which these transactions took place led, of course, to' the
creation of court ollicers connected with their management.” Thus we

4*4

Slni'HAlINTA DIPIKA.

read that in the seventh century A.D , officers were appointed for the
special purpose of receiving the ambassadors of the countnes in the four
directions of the compass, one for each, “whose duty it was to superintend
the ‘exchange of produce’ besides the duties connected with the reception
of the mission.” This shows clearly enough that these early tribute-
missions were ‘mere pretexts for trade under court monopoly’ (Ibid p. 71),
severe penalties being prescribed ‘for clandestinely treating with a foreigner
even to a very limited extent’ (Ibid p. 70.)

The views of Sir Emerson Tennent are also similar on this point. In
his standard work on Ceylon, ( p . 597, vol. I, Part V. chapter III) in speaking
of the numerous embassies from that country to China he observes,
“ Although all these embassies are recorded in the Chinese chronicles as so
many instances of acknowledged subjection, there is every reason to believe
that the magniloquent terms in which they are described are by no means
to be taken in a literal sense, and that the offerings enumerated were merely in
recog lit ion of the privilege of commercial intercourse subsisting between the two
nations ; but as the literati affect a lofty contempt for commerce, all allusion
to trade is omitted; and beyond an incidental remark in some works of
secondary importance, the literature of China observes a dignified silence
on the subjects. India at a very early period, volunteeied this payment
of tribute as a matter of speculation and even as late as the thirteenth
century when the great Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan (of Tartar descent)
tried to. encourage trade with foreign nations, it was only four Indian
kingdoms, and some states in the Anhipelago that welcomed his envoys
and responded to his proposals. ( Vuie’s Cathay and the Way thither., pp.
Jxxvi and Ixxvii.) The island of Ceylon which, to all intents and purposes,
is to be considered as an integral part of India, also entered very
early into this peculiar form with China. Sir Emerson Tennent says
in his work on Ceylon above referred to that all the Chinese accounts,
from the very earliest period attest a continued intercourse and an intimate
familiarity between the people of the two countries, the explanation
being found in the identity of their national worship. The interchange of
courtesies between the two countries, he says, was eagerly encouraged by
their respective sovereigns. “ The Emperors of China w'ere accustomed
to send ambassadors, both laymen and theologians, to obtain images and *
rehes of Buddha, and to collect transcripts of the sacred books, which con-
tained the exposition of his doctrines; — and the kings of Ceylon despatch-
ed embassies in return, authorised to reciprocate these religious sympathies
and do homage to the Imperial Majesty of China” (vide Tennent 's
Ceylon, Vol. I, pp, 595-594) or, in other words, to carry cm « trade with him.

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

Kurunegala, Ceylon.

/ 6th February, 1910.
To

The Editor,

SiddhAnta Dipnu,

Madras.

Dear Sir,

I shall be thankful if you or any of the readers of your
valuable journal will let me know in which part of India the
maritime country mofa-palli (moda-palli) is situated.

The word appears in Prof. MacDonnell’s Sanskrit-Englisb
Dictionary, but no better information is given there than that it
is the ‘ name of a maritime country ’.

This is evidently the name of some Tamil country as the
termination pa[li bears out. This affix which one recognises in
the name Trichinopoly and is perhaps tempted to connect with
the Greek polis (city), is, in Dr. Caldwell's opinion, a word of
Tamil origin. Palli occurs, however, in Sanskrit, in the sense of
‘small village, especially, settlement of wild tribes,' but its claims
to Sanskrit parentage, are as untenable* as those of the Sanskrit-
ised naranga (orange tree), nilaya (dwelling), vala (cave), vaiaya
(bracelet), phala (fruit), lava (corpse) sringavera (Injiver, ginger)
Sankha (conch), etc.

— ..... "■ T -■ — ‘ — — u 'l

* This is a random remark which betrays a lack of linguisty train-
ing and philological insight. The faculty to scent superficial analogies
has always a tendency to mislead, and is at best a dangerous weapon that
will cut both ways, unless its manipulator is a skilled, qualified expert —
Ed. L. T.

416

SIDDHANTA Dir>lKA.

In this connexion I should also be glad to know whether
paffi was originally a settlement of the Pa))i (Vanniya), PaUa,
Pallivili, or Pallava people, or a village belonging to a palli
( temple) by endowment, or where there is a palli (temple,
hermitage, almonry, or school). This word has also acquired
the meaning of ‘sleeping place’, which is probably due to the
fact that wayfarers resort to temples or schools for the night’s
rest.

It is interesting to note here that palli has found its way
even into the Singalese language where it is used to denote a
school or a mosque.

Palli (u««8) in the sense of a ‘herdsman’s village,’ is presum-
ably a doublet of pa)li (udrafi), m and «r being interchangeable.
And it is not improbable that this word is closely connected
with Pallavar the base or many, and Pallavai (ummaosu)

baseness or different things, which are traceable to the root pal
(many). The radical idea of palli would then be the seat or
rendezvous of many or different peoples, or the settlement of a
mixed race or conglomeration.

Faithfully yours,

S. W. CoOMARASWAMY.

[The word 1 palli ' takes on the form ‘ palle ’ in Telugu, as is to be
seen in the names of many a village in the Northern Circars. It appears
as ‘ halh ' in Kanarese, and numerous examples can be instanced from the
village- names in the Bellary and the Anantapur Districts, to bear it out
It is possible that the same word might be met with, under some other
disguise, in Indian languages, that are distinctly extra-Dravidian. But,
what the exact Sanskrit root of all these derivatives, Has been, can only
be a matter of conjecture, since the present Sanskrit words, being what
they are, after years of linguistic vicissitudes, cannot, in any sense, be
taken to represent the true or original elements— Ed. L. T.J

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

Mr. H. Kartikeya Aiyar who is the leader of the Dnggaijiijt
System in Ceylon is the compiler of this
The Jaffna Tamil Almanac. He follows the very same mejhc*^
Drigganita Almanac as those pursued by Mr. T. S. Vikvaaatbft
tor Sadharana. Srautiinhis "Kumbakonam Mutt Almanacs"
The printing and get-up of Mr. H. K. Aiya^’jf
Almanac, are all that can be desired, and, as regards the high
standard of accuracy maintained by him in his Astronomical
calculations, we should think he falls in no way behind his
worthy confrere , Mr. T. S. V. Srauti. Mr. H. K. Aiyar has
signified to us, his intention of starting an Astronomical Asso-,
ciation in South India, so as to bring together all the persons, who
take a lively interest in the propagation of accural^- metbq^s
of almanac-computation, and kindred subjects. If such an aago-,
ciation should become an accomplished fact, it will be the means
of doing immense benefit to students of Modem Astrology in
this country. It is also the idea of Mr. H. K. Ayyar to embody,
in his Almanacs of future years, Sayana elements of great value,
together with information of an otherwise substantial character,
which have at present to be mainly sought in the ephemerides
published by Zadkiel and Raphael, and the Almanacs issued
by European and American Governments.

Our worthy friend, Mr. B. SOryansrayaija Rao, Editor of
the Astrological Magazine , is the Editor of
Tb* Almanac for 1010, this Almanac in English, which, although
8 mhdj» making a belated appearance, thi9 year, maim

and Sadharana. tains, as a substantial compensation therefor,
an increased standard of efficiency, in the full-
er information witli which it is prefaced, than in previous years.
This information has chiefly to do with the canon of “elections "
as laid down in Hindu astrological books, and the author has
endeavoured to bring together, every astrological rule that Is
e

SIDDHiNTA DlPlKX.

418

usually observed by the people of this country in their social and
religious practices. As it is compiled at present, the Almanac can,
however, not be of much use to European Astrologers who may
be eager to practise the Hindu methods of “ prediction ” and
“elections". Once previously we reviewed a prior volume of
this Almanac, in September 1907, on pages 209-1 1 of Vol. VIII of
the “ Light of Truth", when we called attention to the necessity
for certain improvements which, we thought, were required to
widen the usefulness of the Almanac. And we continue to think
that the same improvements are also needed in the issue of the
Almanac under review, since we regret to find that not one of
them has found a place in any of Mr. B. S. Rao’s Almanacs,
issued after the said suggestion. Mr. B. S. Rao is a great admirer
of the methods of calculation based on the Graha-laghava which
follows the elements of the modern Surya-Siddhanta. The modern
Sflrya-Siddhanta is a favourite with the Andhras of the North-
ern circars and^Ceded Districts, and most of its followers have
extraordinary notions about the greatest equation of the Sun’s
centre and the motion of the apse line. And whatever they be, it
does not, perhaps, much matter about the charas, since the great-
est accuracy aimed at by the average run of Astrologers in this
country, is with reference always to the nakshatra-padas, and
never in regard to the actual degrees, minutes and seconds
of celestial longitude. Mr. B. S. Rao took a deal of trouble
with the recent “South Indian Astronomical Conference " held
at Kalati, in the Travancore State, under the auspices of the
present Sahkaraeharya of the Sfingeri Mutt, with a view to
come to some definite understanding as regards the correct
method of computing Almanacs and the starting-point of the
Nirayana-bhagana. We are sorry to hear that the whole ,
thing ended in smoke, for lack of competent referees in cases of
difficulty and of the right sort of adjudicators with technical,
knowledge of Astronomy, both in theory and practice. Mr.
B. S. Rao should„have been considerably disappointed at the
fiasco, especially after the tremendous pains he took, to bring
order into the chaos of Siddhantins that rushed to Kalati with.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

4 r 9

all their antideluvian pomp and ceremonial bumptiousness, each
intent upon getting as good an honorarium for himself as his
flattery and verbal inflation can elicit. Most of the Siddhantins
returned, however, disgusted with their prizes “in gold ” which,
for one thing, is the most potent engine to keep all activities
going. We should think the whole evil arose through lack
of a competent astronomer of proven abilities, to guide the
deliberations through to a successful issue, and of a board of
astronomical experts, to which the Sahkaracharya could look
for helpful light, on any dark problem in practical astronomy.
Mr. B. S. Rao did his best, however, as an astrologer, but, the
“South Indian Astronomical Conference " as held at Kalati, had,
unfortunately, little, nay, precious little, to do with the noble
science of prediction.

We are in receipt of the Annual Report of the Anglo-Indian
Temperance Association for 1909-10, which was adopted at its
annual meeting held in London on the 19th April last. The
resolutions that were passed included the election of Sir J.
Herbert Roberts, Bart., M.P., to the Presidentship and of
Mr. Frederick Grubb, as General Secretary for the ensuing
year, as well as the following motions: "That, having regard
to the responsibility of the British Government for the moral
and material well-being of the people of India, this meeting
expresses its deep concern at the progressive increase of the
revenue derived from the sale of intoxicating liquors and drugs
in that country ; it cordially welcomes the declarations of the
Government as to their desire to p'omot'e sobriety, but is of
opinion that this can only be realised by the adoption of
substantial reforms in the existing system of licensing, especially
in the direction of giving to the inhabitants a more effective
voice in deciding the number and position of shops within their
areas ; and that this meeting, whilst welcoming the steps
already taken by the Department of Public Instruction in some
of the provinces of India with reference to the inclusion of
lessons on Hygiene and Temperance in the school reading-book*

420

BIUDHANTA Dh’IK*.

is of opinion (i) That a syllabus of teaching on these subjects
should be issued by the Education authorities; (2) That definite
and systematic instruction should be given in the schools ; and
(3) That steps should be taken to qualify teachers to give such
instruction. ” The resolutions adopted are exceedingly oppor-
tune, as drink seems to be the besetting sin of not only the
imprudent and hard-worked Indian cooly, but also the circum-
spect and luxurious noblemen who represent the front-ranks of
the Indian Society. And even among those that preach, from
their house-tops, public hygiene and temperance, there is a
great deal of drinking propensity, which can only be put a
stop to, when the high principles, which it is the province of
religion to reveal, are actively lived out, and not merely lectured
to others. If drinking should be increasing by leaps and
bounds in India, it could but be regarded as a sad commentary
on the character of the enthusiasm associated with the Temper-
ance movement, and the fruit borne by that movement, after
years of toil on the part of its promoters.

The Annual Report referred to, is an important document;
worth the attention of every one who may be interested in the
work of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association. The follow-
ing paragraphs, are extracted therefrom, as they are of special
value to the readers of the “ Light of Truth "

“ It is now twenty-one years since the Association was established by
Mr. Caine and Mr. Samuel Smith, acting in conjunction with trusted
leaders of the Indian people. The work persistently earned on during
that period has undoubtedly led to the creation of a healthy public opinion
in India, especially amongst the educated classes, in favour of Temperance
Reform and personal abstinence. Although there has been no diminution,
but, on the contrary, an extension of the drinking habit, it may be fairly
claimed that the work accomplished, has acted as a check upon the rate of
increase. The Temperance Movement has also provided a common plat-
form upon which the members of all races, creeds, and castes have been
able to unite for the purpose of promoting the moral well-being of the
Indian masses. This was once more illustrated at the All-India Temper-
ance Conference, recently held at Lahore, when delegates from all parts of

REVIEWS OF HOOKS.

42*

the country, and representing every religious community, were present,
actuated by one altruistic and unifying spirit.

“ Dealing particularly with Madras, it has been admitted by the repre-
sentative of the Government in the House of Commons that the sales per
shop rose from 138 gallons in 1907, to 152 gallons in 1908, and the latest
returns show that this rate of increase is maintained. In the words of the
Under-Secretary, the figures indicate a serious rise in the consumption of
liquor in the Madras Presidency ; but since these words were spoken,
although there has been a reduction in the Dumber of shops, the liquor
revenue has increased by 24 per cent, in one year.

“The Madras Government have recognised the need for restriction,
but have not carried it to a sufficient extent. The shops weeded out have
been those with small sales, and the trade done by the remainder has prob-
ably been swollen in many instances by the pernicious effects of the
auction system. It is no wonder, in view of these and other contributing
causes, that the present annual Excise Revenue in the Presidency of
Madras exceeds that of the whole of India 35 years ago ”.

The last sentence speaks the whole truth and nothing but
truth, and it is indeed a high tribute paid to the moral stamina of
the average man in the Presidency of Madras. We have the
gravest misgivings as to the effective character of the crusade
waged by the Temperance Movement in India against the vice
of drinking ; for, the crusade can never be effective, so long as
the right weapon is not employed to combat the evil. Drinking
and flesh-eating are twin-sisters, and both of them stand or fall
together. We have known cases in which drinking has provok-
ed flesh-eating, and vice versa : Ale-houses will be an anomaly
where slaughter-houses do not exist, and the truth of the
converse proposition need also not be questioned. If drinking is
to be effectively weeded out, the palate of man has first to be
taught to dread the flavour of carrion, and his moral impulse,
educated into a godly, compassionate feeling for the sanctity of
animal life.

422

siddhAnta IMPIKA.

A propos of the Report of the Anglo-Indian Temperance
Association, we are pleased to acknowledge the receipt of a
booklet meant to be an aid to teachers in giving scientific
instruction on Temperance, and named, “ The Nature and
Effects of Alcohol on the Human Body.” Its author is the
Rev. Alexander Blake, m.a., retired Presbyterian Minister, and
Editor of ‘‘Temperance News” (Bangalore). It is printed in Ban-
galore, and dedicated to Mr. H Bhabha, m.a., Inspector-General
of Education in Mysore. The book discusses with earnestness
and calmness the various ill-effects induced in the human
system by a free-and-easy indulgence in drinks. And it the
merciless havoc which spirituous liquors play on the nervous
system, and which the author so tellingly exposes in the course
of his booklet, does not prove a sufficient deterrent against the
drinking habit, all we can say is, there is no hope for the
drunkard on this side of the grave, and that his grim tenacity in
sticking to the habit, is worthy of a better cause, like the service
of humanity. There is hardly any part of the human body
which alcohol does not reach, and into which it does not
introduce lasting pathological changes; and we recommend a
perusal of the booklet itself to those that desire to have an idea
of the incalculable, and sometimes irremediable, mischiefs
wrought in the human system, by the use of alcohol. Speaking
about the effects of alcohol on the brain and nerves, the author
quotes Dr. J. Ridge, one of the greatest English authorities on
this question; and as we think the quotation will be of value, as
being of general inteiest, we make no apology to transcribe-
it in full : —

“ There are those who speak of men as abusing alcoholic liquors, but it
is much more correct to speak. of alcoholic liquors as abusing men. The ■
temporary effect of what are called moderate doses is unquestionably in the
end a disabling or paralysing one. Please note : It is the highest and most .
recently developed faculties , and those developed and exercised with utost difficulty ,
that are most easily, and therefore, first affected. The vigilance of conscience,
the acuteness of perception, the delicacy of judgment, the power of self-
control, the effort of concentration of mind, — these are dulled or dimin ished.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS. 423

and are often quite abolished for a time by even small doses of alcoholic
liquor.

“ There are times when these higher spiritual powers are more active
than at others, but they have never been said to be too much so. Is it
reasonable to use a drug that is opposed to all that is highest and best,
and certainly puts men off their guard ? ”

***

The following letter has been addressed to us by Mr. Frank
J. French, Scribe, Aquarian Commonwealth, 503 Figuerao,
St. Los Angeles, Calif. U. S. A., and we have great pleasure in
publishing it in extenso for the information of our readers : —

Aquarian Commo.i wealth, 22ni April 70.

503 Figuerao, St. Los Angeles,

Calif. U. S. A.

V. V. Ramanan Esq., f. z. s., (Lond), etc.

Choolai, Madras.

My Dear Sir,

In behalf of our esteemed Teacher, Levi, and the congregation over
which he presides, we desire to extend to you our thanks in appreciation
of your review of the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, in the New
Year number of your excellent magazine, the Light of Truth.

It is with peculiar interest that we read the article, for we appreciate
that it comes from the very centre of truth in that land of highest spiritual
enlightenment, and from an authority, who, from his broad education and
spiritual insight, is most peculiarly fittedito undertake such a review.

It is also with much pleasure that we are able to say to you that both
the book and the Aquarian work, with 'its plan of Universal Brotherhood,
have received most cordial support front the people of India, wherever it
has been presented to them, and several centres have already been formed,
who are earnestly desiring to spread its broad teachings and precepts.

We cannot but feel that the people of that hallowed land will be
specially interested in the account of period, in the life of the great Master
Jesus, which was spent with its great Teachers and Sages.

4*4

siddhAnta DIPIKA.

\V« also feel assured that there are many Master-minds in India, who

will, of themselves, know of the source of this work the Akaiic

records and appreciate the precious heritage the translation will be

to the children of men.

Levi, who after a preparation of 40 years, was permitted to enter
these great galleries and bring hack the account, is still in the enjoyment
of this privilege, and hopes to be permitted to complete the translation of
the life and works of that great Master-Mystic, the Apostle to the
Gentiles, Paul ; and of some others of whom we know much less, but
whose lives were filled with spiritual light. He has also brought to us
many messages in exemplification of the Gospel which he has designated
the Aquarian Key, which is filled with illumination.

We wish also to express to yau our thought as to the grave
significance of this Year 1910 and its portent of great growth in this
spiritual awakening, which is covering the whole world. Levi feels
assured, both from his messages from the Masters on the other side of the
veil, as well as from his Astrological Readings, that this is the great year of
preparation ; and that before its close, great events will have centred the
minds of all those who are awake and watching, with their lights burning,
upon the breaking of the day of the coming Age of the Spirit.

“ In that blessed age the human race will see without the aid
“ of carnal eyes ; will hear the soundless sound ; will know the
“ Spirit-God.” Aquarian Gospel, Chap. 58, v. n.

With kindly greeting, and with the wish that the Spirit of the Masters
may. ever remain with you, 1 am,

Yours in the faith,

(Sd.) FRANK J. FRENCH,

Scrum.

As our readers may be aware, we indicated, at sufficient
length, in our January number (pp. 231-234), the grave signifi-
cance of this year 1910, from Astrological considerations. And
we are glad to note that a good number of our predictions has.
already come to pass with startling suddenness and accuracy.
We have, at the same time, every confidence that, before the
year closes, every one of our statements will prove to be facts,
as we take our stand on experimental knowledge that is at
the back of all true science of prediction.

THE

LIGHT OF TRUTH

OB THE

SIDDHANTA DIPIKA

A Monthly Jour ml devoted to the Search for Truth as revealed in the
Ancient Hindu Mystic Philosophy known as the Saiva-Siddhanta or Agamanta ,

VOL. X. MAY, 1910. No. 11.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHADADHVANS.

( Concluded from page 384 of No. ro Vol. X.)

The next Kala is named Vidya or ‘Wisdom’, in view of the
circumstance that the soul gets real “glimpses ” of the “face of
God ", when functioning in vehicles made out of the Tattvas,
over which this Kala has sway, ter wit, from Purusha to
A$itddha->nay8 or Sukshma-prakriti. The Lord works the
“ Regeneration” of souls on this plane, by allowing his Light to
shine, by degrees, in the Puryashlaka, the eight-walled Taber-
nacle of the human body, which becomes the ‘Temple of God’, as
soon as it is purified, and duly consecrated to Him. The Lord, in
His anxiety for the soul's Redemption, cannot any longer afford
to dally with its frivolous freaks, and allow it to play the truant,
even if it would, as He did, now and again, when the soul was
in its second stage of tuition under the Pratishfha, but works on
the plan of Satnhara, the chastising destruction of sin. “Our
Lord is”, verily, “a Consuming Fire” in the words of one of the
Judaic Seers of old. And His Fire is unquenchable in its samhUra
of Sin. The manifestations of the grosser and lower egoity, the
“ Jiva-ahaftkara”, are burnt down in a fierce and furious confla-
gration, and the “ Kingdom of Heaven" “opens”, leading to the

SIDDHANTA Dil'IKA.

426

"finding” of the “Son”, the “Messiah”, the "Anointed”, the
“Christ”,— the so-called “Atmoddharana”, the “Atma-darsana”.
The Archangel that is in charge of this SainhSra-Cliakra, the
wheel of chastising purification, is Rudra, Rudra in whom the
Will of the Lord works with unerring exactitude, or through
whom the Light of the Lord shines in unquenchable fierceness,
Rudra who is symbolised as the “Lord of the Burning-Ground”,
the burning-ground pointing the “Gehenna” in which all the
beggarly elements of ‘Corruption’ that obscure the vision
of the Soul, are ruthlessly burnt up. You might remember,
the Rig-veda exclaims, iTI'I#r 3TOTWt d-nWi:

when referring to this /fWra-aspect of the Lord. The very
rites connected with the “disposal of the dead” among the
Vaidika Mahapasupatas, are known as pitri-medha, and dealt
with, in ritualistic literature, under the name pitri-medha-kalpa,
the “burning-ground”, being regarded as the sacrificial pavilion,
and the “ medha ” or “ sacrifice ”, being the "offering” of the
“dead body” and, with it, “the soul ( pitri ) ”, as an oblation unto
the Lord. The obsequies, therefore, of those who have kept
the sacrament of the AgnyUdhcya, “The tending of the Fire ”,
not the tending of the Bhautic fire, mark you, but of the real
“Fire" that descends from the Kutila, the "Fire” before whose
radiance, even the light-power of a drillion arcs of electricity,
pales into nothing, or the sacrament of the Acharydbhisheka,
which is closely connected with the NirvUna-diksha, have an
intensely "sacrificial” character about them. The “Regene-
ration” which Rudra inaugurates is rather hard to bear,
and back-slidings from this plane are quite common, especially
when the soul is premature, on account of the inability of
the soul to stand the ordeal of substantial calamities in the
objective world, which, in the form of tears and tribulation,
visit it off and on, to fully extricate it from all the entangle-,
ments of Corruption. When the lumber-room of the Soul’s
Sankalpas, Samikaras and Vasanas, is vacated and cleaned, by
a special act of the Lord, a lot of rubbish and waste has to be
destroyed all at once, so as to leave no trace of any kind

THF PSYCHOI.OGV OF THE SHADAUHVAI*

427

whatsoever, but, this, if left to the normal process of time for
leisurely dissolution, might take, perhaps, aeons after aeons. And
it is this cleaning of the Augean Stable by the Lord, that intro-
duces such a soul-stifling stink in the soul's own environment, for
which it has to blame the “ treasure-house ” of its own Adhvans,
which instead of containing gold, contains brambles thorns and
rats, the very things that ought not to be there. The great
object-lesson set, therefore, for us by the Lord, is t > look on the
process of Mala-paripUkam , the ripening of the abscess of
corruption for a clean and deep plunge of the surgeon’s lancet,
with a feeling of positive joy, in thrilling expectancy of the
11 Beatific Vision ”, and of His “ Loving Fellowship ", The
blandishments of the Sukshma-prakriti or ASuddha-m&yQ, the
subtle “ Meso-Radix " of “Matter”, or "filthy fascination”,
must be looked upon as decoying blandishments, and nothing
else, and the sundering of “ wordly ” joys and comforts, as so
many “scales” of Sin falling from the “eye” of the soul. The
Lord’s exceeding kindness or solicitude for the welfare of His
children will be seen or appreciated at its full worth, only when
the painful surgical operation is finished. He is indeed the
expert Obstetrician that attends on the soul, wide-awake, in its
prolonged “ travail” to “beget” the “Christ” or the “Son”.
Speaking of the trials of such a stage, the great Jnani, St. Paul,
exclaims (Heb. XII, vv. 6-h); "For, whom the Lord loveth. He
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye
endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons : For

what son is he, whom the father chasteneth not ? But if ye be
without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye
bastards and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of
our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence:
shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of
spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us
after their own pleasure ; but He for our profit , that we might be
partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening for the present
seemeth to be joyous, but grievous : nevertheless afterward it
yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them whkh

4*8

siddiiAnta niPiKA.

are exercised thereby.” St. Paul finds it necessary to expatiate
on the Lord’s chastisements at such length, as it is not easy for
the soul, in its pnSu-bodha , to realise that they are only
blessings in disguise. The \^idyd~kallt is so-called because, in
the case of ripe souls, it leads to or ?MT^t or the "dawn of

illumination ", as soon as the pratistbd in ojeal'HM or
becomes an accomplished fact. The Archangel Rudra, the
deliverer of the soul from its worldly vanities, and self-sufficient
and militant sense of egoity, is assisted in his work by four
angels.

Then, we come to that phase of the Lord’s activity or the
Soul’s svarupam , known as the Santi-kald, operating on the
tattvas ranging from the Suddha-vidya to the Sadakhya. It is so
called, because, when the soul has attained to this phase of its
spiritual progress, the Lord blesses it with Sdntt or "sanctifica-
tion ”, the “anointment” of the Christian mystics, the "Peace
that passeth understanding “Egoity ” has been left behind,
and the “ Parama-ahankara ” of the Lord, the real aham-
padetrtha, to use the words of the saintly Srikanfha, the
Scholiast on Badarayana’s Sdriraka-Sutras, lights up the
limpid depths of the soul, and the blossom of God has blown in
the soul’s garden, filling it with sweet fragrance, as St. Mular
so aptly describes. The Santi-ka/a is exoterically symbolised by
the Tirobhava-chakra, the sphere or condition of " unrobing ” or
“disappearance”. The word “ tirobhava ” refers to the almost
complete “dropping off ” or " falling away” of all the “ scales ”
that have beclouded the eyes of the soul till a little while ago.
As soon as the eedysis is over, the state of “tranquillity”
supervenes, and there is a suitti for all vikalpa-jnana. The
souls established in the Santi-kald, are, by the 11 Illumination ”
obtained at the Vidya-kala-level, freed from the control of any.
lingering saiikatpa in the form of vikalpa-jiidna , doubtful or
unsettled beliefs engendered in the course of their “ psychoses”,
and endued with “ Sanctification ” or “Peace”. The Arch-
angel through whom the Lord Works on this plane of “fairly

thf, pyschology of thf. shadaphvans. 429

full Light" We should call it so, because the Light still

shines only through a medium, albeit a hyaline, and inappreciably
thin pellicle or film, and because we can yet trace here the
operations of " Darkness”, though they are perfectly innocuous
is known as Mahesvara, and he too has the usual comple-
ment of four assistants.

Lastly we come to the SdnyatUa-kald which embraces inter
alia only the Anava among the Malas, and in which the Lord is
‘seen’ face to face, as He shines there in His true nature or
stature, with nothing like an Avarana or clcse-set ‘tunic’
about Him, and the soul is also freed of the blinding veils of the
Karma-mala and the Mdyd-mala. The souls, when they have
attained to this state, become Sdntiyatita or super-peaceful, that
is to say, they enjoy a condition which transcends Sdnti,
the condition of actual Fellowship with the Lord, the bliss of
which it is not possible to convey in the language of paiu-
bodha, the language of phenomenal intellectualism. The Lord’s
mode of manifestation in this kald is by means of anugraha-
chakra, the phase of Grace, the sphere of boundless Com-
passion and Love. The soul bathes here in the sea of Life,
Light and Love, having attained its sampunaa-daSd, the con-
dition of its Plenty or its Fill of Bliss, which corresponds to the
Nirmala-Turiyam of the eighteen Avasthds, and to the inter-
mediate kdrya between the Atma-Suddhi and the Siva-ftiipa in
the Dasa-kdrydni. This Sampitrna-daSa is the same as the two
states entitled the Sukha-svarupa and the SukhdtUa of the thirty
kdryas mentioned in p pgiaiuid or the two states called the

Suddhdvasthd and the Sukharupa, in the thirty kdryas cata-
logued by &sar£,(Suirfw. There are higher states of Peace and Joy
over which the tsintydtita-kald has sway, but of these we cannot
form any conception with our flesh-bound intellect, though they
are facts of actual anubhaia to Jiidnis, even while clothed in the
flesh*. As the child of Galilee truly said, “In My Father’s House
are Many Mansions”. The souls eiist in the Sdntyatit a-kald in

• See inter aha figiOripri i xuiSaw^huiawii by tippubueaanp.
ter, passim, and ^QfaSOeoetBiaii by emr§fsf!ri v warm at, pashm.

43 ©

sinniiANTA niriKX.

their paramikdsa-svarupa, highly ethereal forms of bewitching
purify, and posses not even a trace of the self-conscious thought
that they have passed from a state of vikalfia to the state of
Sinti; and because even such memory of the ‘process' of
‘regeneration’, is absent from their minds, we sometimes call the
state AtUa-kala, the transcendental or ineffable condition. The
great God Himself is to be seen here in His limitless glory
by those who have attained to this highest psychosis in
spiritual communion or _/« ana-yoga, a psychosis which forms
the resting goal for the soul, or, in other words, the goal
with which the culture of the soul, as a cultuYe for “Redemp-
tion ”, ends. The Lord alone presides over this kali, for it is
His own Light that works out, in absolute perfection, His Dis-
pensation on the SantyatUa plane, untrammelled by ‘ Matter ’ of
any form or degree, save for the dwindling and dissolving Anava.
It need not be pointed out that all the so-called Archangels men-
tioned under the four other katas, are merely the various phases
or aspects of the supreme God, the Maha-Deva, and not depend-
ent or separate subordinate intelligences carrying out His
Will. Beyond the Sdntydtita is the “ Shadadhvanah pa ram ”,
the Kailasa, “ the Silver Hill ” of the Agamic mystics, on which
is enthroned the "God of gods ”, with Nandikesvara, His Lord
Chamberlain, guarding the entrance thereto. Nandikesvara is
always described as the great Instructor of pakva souls, in
books on mystic wisdom, and, hence, his " guarding ” the
“landing-place”, or “portico” of Kailasa,* means, that souls
are admitted to the Lord's Fellowship only after genuine
living gnosis.

Now, to sum up the five ka/as* constituting the Katidhvan :
the five kalas mark the five stages by which the soul rises to the

* It should be definitely noted that the pavcha-kulas, bear the same ,
relation to the para-prakriti as the tri-gunas bear to the sthula-prakrifi.
When therefore it is stated that the soul can attain to the condition of
nirguratva and nishha\atva, it cannot for a moment be conceded that the
* soul has become anything more than a “ soul ", even accepting Aghora-
•fivacharya's Sdva-sama-vSdt.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SUADAOH VANS.

4?I

full stature of its purity, or the five graduated ways by which
the Lord takes it by the hand, and leads it, step by step, to the
"Mansion” prepared by Him in "Heaven”, which is “His
House” though not " His Sanctum ”, to the “Mansion" into
which “ the thieves of corruption cannot “ steal ", much less
“break” 1 he soul is first “quickened ” by “necessity”, then
there is the "free-will ”, for the easy play of which in the soul’s
sphere of action, as much latitude is allowed as may be expedient,
side by side with the operation of the karma-mala, then comes
the turn of “ illumination ” or “gnosis” which is concurrent with
the "chastisement ” begotten, again, of “necessity”, then the
soul’s utter disentanglement from the snares of corruption, leading
to the “Peace that passeth understanding,” and, lastly, the indes-
cribable bliss of the Lord's Fellowship, the bliss which can only
be described as the “ Bliss that passeth Peace,” the bliss that
begins at th e Sdntyatita level, and increases without limit as the
soul progresses in its Infinite Path of Light and Love, making
fresher and newer conquests, which are limitless and inexhausti-
ble, and are hard even to conceive for our human minds in their
madhya-j&gra-avasthiX. For, the Sdntya/ita level is in time
transcended, and the soul is plunged in a sea of dazzling glory,
the • Adhvanah par am has been reached, and the 1 F'ather’s
House’, entered. And what can we say of the “ Mansicjns "
in our “ Father’s House,” and of our Father’s own “ Sahctum ” ?
The answer is silence, and silence, as we know, is, in such
cases, more eloquent than the best attempt at a graphic
description.

The other Adhvans have already been alluded to in a brief
fashion, and, more than that, it has not been possible to attempt
within the limited time at my disposal. The Shadadhvans
constitute a momentous and grand theme, whether we regard
them in connexion with the corporeal vestments of Man, or
in connexion with the Manifested Prapatwha, which is the
Thought of the Lord in a visible form. And I must not omit to
mention that I have touched but the merest fringe of an exceed-
ingly pregnant subject, reserving details, which should occupy

43 *

SIDPH ANTA triPIKX.

a hundred times as much space as this sketchy bird’s-eye-view,
for future occasions, as circumstances may show.

The Lord is the Adhva-patin , and we must, therefore,
always pray to Him after the manner of the “ Prayer-
Book of the Apastambins " ( Apastamotya-mantra-pSfha )

STVTtt ww 1 wwwpt: qtt arcffcr, for, is not the Lord there,
whithersoever we may turn and seek Him ? Says that Mystic,
Arunanti *, of undying fame, who attained his illumination, as a
spiritual descendant of Nandikesvara, the Lord Chamberlain of
tire Lord Himself: —

filfTjiCc SlTtlSgil&r fs) (fffit! LOGcfi #€&$£&&

QeuQeBrGsrQsu &6nri—QJtTd<§& @eugpi&n i !!y&i6isTt5jQ&
te-QdGl&ITvSI t£l*&!r0#ITeV «T6BT &%60r!LjlD&iT&(9jlb
p_<ot Tffn G1KJ(9jlj> @6\)65T Q-QfrG)’oBrf&ru(\ /) <90U)

eSlgjuunuj em^ennS g)/i pesrp JS) eer er^Qunso

z $£}<£$ ■&&_& i£l(§u>*!ji5l&Q. i B'6)(4ju)

S_n^dsrt soar Qeua LjrrearQp^e^iln-irTi^) g$lll£)

§>rp(£Qig)($uiT60 QqjoPuulLQ ^(Tf^aKsor < £jG8rurr&(}&,

V. V. R.

Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, goodness and faith alone give vitality
to the mechanism of existence. The laugh of mirth that vibrates through
the heart, the tears that freshen the dry wastes within, the music that
brings childhood back, the prayer that calls the future near, the doubt
which makes us meditate, the death which startles us with mystery, the
hardship which forces us to struggle, the anxiety which ends in trust — are
the true nourishment of our natural being.

James Martineau.

Men are not the arbiters of circumstance, but merely the users there-
of. If man can use his opportunities without sacrifice of dignity in mind
or morals, he will effect a lasting good. But those who use without regard
to the moral consequence in themselves, play a losing game all along the
line. It is well that we should consider what we pay for “ success

m Anon.

* Known also as Sivananda-sivacharya.

THE VALUE OF HINDUISM FOR HINDUS.*

Brothers,

I always have great satisfaction in addressing Hindus, and
I find an added satisfaction in speaking at this spot, for I knew
Vivekaranda Svami first in Chicago in 1893, and afterwards in
New York, when he was for a time my guest. He was
certainly one of the most learned, eloquent and engaging men
I have ever met.

Vivekananda Svami did not introduce Hinduism to me.
It had, when I met him, been for six years a familiar subject.
I have for more than twenty-three years been an earnest student
of your sacred books, and have imbibed from that study a deep
sympathy and affection for India and Indians. It is to express
those sentiments that I have adopted your dress while among
you.

I have long desired to spend some years in India, in a
first-hand study of her people and institutions. A few months
ago it became possible for me to leave home for a long absence,
and I embraced the opportunity to gratify those longings. I
came by way of Colombo, and there met my friend of many
years’ standing — my most honored and revered friend, — Mr.
Ramanathan. He told me about the educational work which
he and others were inaugurating in Jaffna, and which he
considered very important, since the social and religious status
and tendencies in that community were far from what they
ought to be, owing chiefly to the decadence of education in
Hindu hands. And he asked me if I would not postpone my
visit to India for a time, and assist him in giving a start to this
work. I readily assented: went to Jaffr.a in February, and was
actively engaged there during six weeks, together with several

• This is an address given by Mr. Myron Phelps in the grounds of
the Vivekananda Reading Hall, Kuala Lumpur, F. M. S., 00 April r6,
1910, and reprinted here with the kind permission of the author— Ed. LT.

434

siddhAnta d'ipjkA.

Hindu gentlemen, in holding meetings throughout the district
and addressing the people on the importance of educating their
children in their own schools. Great interest was developed,
growing enthusiasm, a real spirit of determination to throw off
the Missionary bondage appeared. I became deeply interested
in the situation, and when I was asked to come here with the
Hindu College committee I again assented, since I was willing
to do anything to aid in their very serious crisis.

For my address to you this evening 1 have chosen as a
subject, the value of Hinduism to Hindus, for the reason that I
think my experience and observation in the West enable me to
tell you some things which your own countrymen could not
tell you, and which you ought to know; which I consider it my
duty to say to your people, whenever I have the opportunity.

There are in particular three reasons of signal importance
which should exalt Hinduism in your eyes far above every
other religion, as a religion for Hindus. The first of these is
that it is; in a unique sense, a living religion. The very essence,
and the basis, of Hinduism, is the teaching of the potentiality
which resides in men of reaching a stage of growth when, while
still living in this body, the spiritual world opens to him — when
he becomes a knower of God and a seer of spiritual realities.
He then becomes the true, the divine Teacher, imparting to men
the instructions which he alone can impart, namely, instructions
regarding the path which he has successfully traversed. His
teaching constitutes what is known as religion, and most of the
religious systems of the world have been actually founded in
precisely this way. The teachings of the Founder have been
recorded and form the principal scriptures of the new faith.
T .0 preserve the life and vigor of the religion, there must be a
succession of divine teachers who, as “living witnesses’’, keep
it in touch with spiritual realities and prevent the accretion of
ingenious vagaries invented by the discursive mind. Now
India has always in the past, as she does to-day, possessed her
Sages, but the religions of the West have not had them. Christ

THE VALUE OF HINDUISM FOR HINDUS.

435

and Paul and John were among the wisest of men, but they
have not had a line of successors in the West. It is many
hundreds of years since there was a spiritually illuminated man
in the Christian Church. As a consequence, that Church has
forgotten the meaning of its Scriptures. The original teachings
of Christ are of the highest character. I have for them the utmost
reverence, and if revering and endeavouring to follow then!
makes a man a Christian, then I am one. But the modern
Christian Church, or rather the hundreds of Churches or sects
professing conflicting beliefs which call themselves by that
name, have been for many centuries wandering in the dark, and
for the things which they teach I have no respect. All the
powers of the human mind have been applied to this Bible, to
discover its meaning, with the result that a great variety of
interpretations have been brought forward. These differences
are not trivial or unessential, but fundamental. For instance,
there is the question of punishment for sinners — for all who do
not “believe in’’ Christ. A hundred years or so ago all
Christendom believed that such persons would burn in hell-fire
for ever, and such is now the teaching, I am informed, of the
Missionaries in the East. This doctrine still has some believers
in the West, but most of the Churches have concluded that it
cannot be true. That doctrine has been carried to such a
length in the Church that at times it has been commonly taught
that heathens and infants who could never have heard of Christ
would be eternally damned.

Then there is the doctrine of Atonement— did Christ by his
death make reparation for the sins of all who "believe ” in him

or must each man bear the consequences of his own sins?

Upon this question there is a great difference of opinion among
the Churches.

Then, was Christ the son of God, or was he a man ? Thin
question also divides the Church*

There are many other matters of contention among them,
but these will suffice as examples.

436

911) DH AH NT A WP1KA

Another result of the loss by the Church of the true
meaning of the Bible is, that its teachings, being divorced
from truth, have ceased, in great measure, to be logical, rea-
sonable or convincing. Examples of this are the doctrines of
Eternal Punishment; Atonement, or the transfer of one's own
faults to the shoulders of another; the doctrine of only One
Christ or Redeemer for all mankind, including the countless
millions both before and after him who never heard of him;
Special Creation, which makes man eternal in only one direction
— like V a stick with only one end "; Original sin, which asserts
that God created man with a tendency to sin.

Now such doctrines as these were not taught by Christ, and
are not to be found in the Bible of the Christians, but they are
read into that Bible by perversion of its words, and are taught
by many of the so-called Christian Churches. Thinking men
cannot accept them as true. The consequence of this, and of
the divergence and uncertainty of the teaching of the various and
very numerous sects, is that Religion in the West has quite lost
its hold upon the people— that men who think for themselves,
the leaders of society, have dropped it and, as is always the case,
the masses of men follow this example. The Church in the
West to-day is little more than a social form, a social
convention, without controlling power over the lives of men;
and this deplorable condition has come about because, through
lack of illuminated Teachers, the Church has long lost its touch
with spiritual realities. This is a condition of spiritual death,
and, in comparison with it, Hinduism may well be termed a
living religion. Hinduism has not lost its way amid vague and
doubtful speculations, it has been held to facts by “Living
Witnesses”, it is therefore a true and reliable guide to the Lord,
and as such should be cherished as your most precious
possession.

The second reason which you have for valuing Hinduism
to which I wish to call your attention to-night, is that it is the
original Religion in the world, the oldest Religion, the Religion

THE VALUE OF HINDUISM FOR HINDUS.

437

from which other Religions have sprung, and that it also is the
most highly developed, the most scientific, the most practically
useful of Religions. It is a common, but very great error to
think that because all Religions are from God, all are alike — one
is as good as another. Religions are adapted respectively to
the characters of the various races of men, and differ just a9
those characters differ. A religion perfectly adapted to the
wants of a warlike and primitive people, such as the Arabs were
some 1400 years ago, or one which will meet the requirements
of a people fully occupied with the things of the world, and in no
hurry to get to God, such as the Westerners are, may be a very
poor religion for Hindus, whose one desire for countless ages
has been to come nearer to Him. The Lord, always, in the long
run, gives to men what they most want. He has met the desires
of Western nations with a vast abundance of the things of this
world. He has responded to the dominant longing of the
Hindus by giving them the greatest and best of religions —
that which will lead them to Him in the shortest time.

Hinduism differs from all other religions in form, and
place, as well as in contents. All the principles of religion, the
spiritual laws with which the life of man is concerned, are
compiled and systematically arranged and recorded in the
Vedas. Every thing needed is there, and in this the Mother of
Religions steps forth from the mist of pre-historic times, as
perfect in essentials as she is to-day. Her authority is
dependent upon no man, nor is her teaching involved with the
life of any man. It is your tradition that the Vedas are the
eternal source of religion for the world: and while the claim is of
course incapable of proof in a Western scientific sense, it makes
a strong appeal to reason and common sense.

All other religions rest upon the teachings of a single man;
e.g. Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, Mohammedanism, Zoroas-
trianism. They are even more or less bound up with the
character and life as well as the teaching of that man. Thus the
Christian will tell you that the great strength of Christianity

43 s

SIDDHANTA PiPIKA.

lies in the matchless beauty of the life of Christ. That being so,
suppose it should be proved that such a man as Jesus Christ
never actually lived on earth. What would become of the
Christian Religion? The Church has in the course of its history
been brought face to face with that possibility, and so serious
did the situation appear to the leaders of the Church that, as is
now generally admitted by scholars, the History of the Jews by
Josephus, which tailed to mention Christ, was amended in the
interest of the Church by the interpolation of a forged passage
containing his name.

How insecure, then, is every other religion when compared
with the impregnable position of Hinduism, its foundation on
the Vedas unshaken, though the name of every man ever
connected with it should be swept away !

But besides this inexhaustible mine of principles, Hinduism
has also its Sages, and a thousand when other religions have
but one or two. There are the sixty-three great Tamil Saints:
— There are Rama, Krishna, Sankaracharya, Chaitanya, Rama-
nuja, Ramakfishjia and hundreds of others whose names you
would recognize should 1 mention them. And besides these
Saints whom you know by name, there are thousands of others
whose names are not familiar to you. Now every one of these
wise men had sufficient spiritual wisdom to have founded a new
religion, had he been so minded. But they were not so
disposed: they gave their labors instead, to enriching Hinduism.
It results that there has been accumulated in your sacred books
a vast store of spiritual wisdom absolutely unapproached
elsewhere in the world. In them every phase and aspect of
life is treated, the unseen powers and nature of man, the unseen
powers of the universe, the nature of God, the manner is which •
the divine powers were projected and the universe created.
Other religions are, in comparison, most meagre, and they could*
not well be otherwise ; for how could the labors of one man or
of several men exlending over only a few years, compass the
results achieved By many hu~' ,r eds of men in the course of
scores of centuries ?

THE VALUE OF HINDUISM FOR HINDUS;

4 19

Then turning to the more practical parts of the religion,
what shall be said of the elaborate and seemingly endless
ceremonial of Hinduism? Is it the mere meaningless accretion
of centuries of formal worship? By no means. It was all
planned with a distinct purpose by the Sages of India. That
purpose was to afford all men, of whatever position in life, for
long or even unlimited periods of time, occupation for their
hands and minds, in connection with the worship of the Lord.

For a similar purpose was created the vast sacred literature
of the Itihisas — the Puranag, the Ramayaija, the Mahabharata.
The Mahabharata alone, in its English translation, fills about
70,000 printed pages. The purpose is, that a man may be able
to fill his intellectual life, if he chooses, with this world of
thoughts and pictures relating to God and spiritual things,—
may thus. become "established upon the Lord ”, to the exclusion
for the time of every thing else.

Then as to the Rules given by Hinduism for the conduct of
life. •

Religion is a very practical and very scientific thing: not
at all the indefinite and uncertain thing some of our friends,
especially in the West, are in the habit of thinking it. Brahma
vtdya, knowledge of God, is most difficult of attainment, and
the path to it is the most arduous of paths. Anything which
can help us on that path should be esteemed our greatest
treasure. Now the Agamas and §astras were worked out by
generations ' of wise men for that very purpose— to give us
assistance on this path, and they are indeed most effective aicb'
when understood.

(Ta be continued.)

M. H. P.

«< OpeD wide all the gates of the Soul, so that you no longer shut out
the Sun, so that the Sun of Spirit may stream iD and purify and enlighten,
without any action from your lower self. Devotion is the opening of tho
windows of the Soul. Lecture <m Yoga.

440

siddhAnta DiPIKA.

THE SYMBOLOGY OF SRI NATARAJA.

The inner meaning of this Symbol is very grand and poetic,
and to enter into, and understand it, will certainly be deemed a
privilege by those who are striving to realise for themselves
the truths of mysticism.

Before entering into the meaning itself let me digress a
little in narrating the legend, which explains the occasion
for Siva’s sacred dance at Chidambaram.

Vishiju arose one day from his slumber, and repaired to
the Sacred Mount Kailas, there to pay reverence to the supreme
Siva, Who told him, that, in the neighboring forest of Tiruka
there were multitudes of heretical Rishis or devotees, dwelling
with their wives, and puffed up with the pride of their learning,
and, who regarded themselves as independent of His Authority.
It was the intention of Siva, to visit this forest, in order to
ascertain the state of the Rishis there, and to teach them a lesson.
■ He accordingly asked Vishiju to accompany Him in the guise of
a woman, and the two— Siva as a mendicant, with the usual
insignia including the bowl for the collection of alms, and
Vishiju as His wife — entered the forest.

As soon as the two entered the Darukavana as man and
wife, the Rishis' wives were seized with an unspeakable frenzy
ot passion for the mendicant, while the Rishis were equally
infatuated by the woman that followed Him — Vishiju is dis-
guise. A fierce wrath soon raged throughout the hermitage.
The Rishis speedily perceived that the mendicant and his wife,
who possessed such a mysterious power of attraction, were not
what they seemed. They became ashamed of their ecstasies, of
evil desire, and, gathering in a body, pronounced fierce
imprecations upon the couple. But the Divine visitors remain-
ed unharmed. They then dug a sacrificial pit and proceeded
to burn oblations, in view to ensure the destruction of the
unwelcome intruders. As a result of the sacrificial rites, a
fierce tiger came out of the sacrificial fire and sprang at iiva;

THE SYMBOLOGY OF SRi NATARAjA. 441

Who, smiling gently, seized it with His sacred hands, and, with
the nail of His little finger, ripped off its skin, and, wrapped ft
round Himself like a soft silken garment. This is the origin of
Si va's tiger-skin mantle.

Undiscouraged by the failure, they renewed their sacrificial
offerings, and from the altar-fire came out^a -monstr ius serpent,
which He seized and wreathed round His neck, whe> e it has since
hung for ever; and then began His mystic danct. At last, a
monster named Musalaka (the club-bearer), in the shape of a black
dwarf, hideous and malignant, rushed upon Him, brandishing a
club, with eyes of fire. Upon him, the Lord pressed the tip of
His sacred foot, and broke his back, so that he writhed on the
ground. Thus with His last foe prostrate, Siva resumed the
dance of which all the gods were witnesses, while His hosts
sang enthusiastic choruses.

The Rishis, parched with the heat of their own sacrificial
fires, faint with the fury of their anger, and, overwhelmed with
the splendour of the heavens opening around them, fell to the
ground as dead, and then rising, worshipped the known Gpd,
acknowledging themselves His faithful devotees.

Now entering into the vital part of the symbology, Naja-
raja means the “ Lord of the Stage"*. The idea is that the
world is a stage, which presents the vision and activity of life,
through the power of the omnipresent God, the unseen Lord of
the stage. He represents the teacher or guru whose one of the
most important functions is, to enforce his teachings by example;
and this idea is the key-note to the Nataraja symbol.

The legend teaches that He subdues and wraps round Hint,
like a girdle, the feline fury of human passion. The guile and
malice of mankind He transmutes into His necklace. One of His
feet is planted over and crushes the giant — the endless illusion or

* The expression * Nataraja ’ does not mean Lord of the stage”; it
means only ‘ Master-actor or ‘ Prince of actors ’. The idea, ‘ Lord of the
stage’, corresponds to the Sanskrit compound ‘ Naja-rafiga-raja and not
to'Nata-rija’. The synonyms, NattSa, N at t Star a and Natarija, indicate that
the Lord is the Chief-actor ( = Sutradhara) in the drama of the PrapaJ l*m,
that He is the Ninitta^tarart of the Manifested Uwverse^-£d L. T.

8

44 *

SlDUHlXTA IliHIKA.

monster of human depravity, while the other is raised upward
to aid and comfort those who are shrouded in Mayu, and enable
them to realise His eternal fellowship. The little drum in one of
His right hands, expresses the idea of His being the Preceptor or
Guru, and means also to indicate that He holds in the hollow of
His hand the dispensation of the entir e PrafaT.cha, the cause of all
the world, to be folded or unfolded at His own will. The deer on
one side is the mind, because the latter leaps and jumps from one
thing to another as unsteadily as that animal. On His head, He
wears the Ganges, that is to say, tb e Chit*Sakti or Wisdom which
is most cool and refreshing ; the Moon representing tfie ethereal
light and blissfulness of the Atman or Self. The second right
hand representing the idea of Peace, indicates the blessed calm-
ness of Wisdom. In one of the left hands is held Agni (fire), which
represents the idea that the truth of the Guru’s teachings can
only be fully understood on practical realisation in one’s inner
experience. The place of the dance — the theatre — is the TiUai-
vatiam ( = Ddruka-vana); in other words, the body is spoken of as
the Vanam (forest), because of the multitute of its components.
The platform ( = boards) in that theatre, is the cremation-ground,
the place where all passions, and the names and forms that con-
stitute the vision of the world, are dissolved — pure conscious-
ness devoid of attachment to anything outside, and free from
all taint of illusion.

The above are some of the leading features of the symbol*.
The Guru teaches that Maya — the illusion of the world— should be
crushed down, that the deer-like mind should be left behind, and
ahankara (egoism) destroyed, and that man should ascend
to the regions of pure consciousness, free from passion and
deception, and enjoy the true bliss.

Viewed in the light of this inner meaning, Sri Nataraja is no
more a meaningless idol, an effigy in stone or copper, but a symbol
of the highest import, an incentive to our inspiration and elevation.'
— — J. M. S.

• The allegory, interpreted above, cannot be said to be on the
track of correct solution. Yet, as an attempt, it is commendable, although
for real light, one should search the Agamantic classics. — lid. L, 2.

HINDU A8TR0L0GY.

A KLPLY TO ••SEPH.YltUL

The significant'lettei * of “ Sepharial " appearing on page
220 of the May number of Modern Asirnhoy, in reply to
Mr. Alan Leo’s editorial observations of Marrh, raises up
certain issues which it is not possible to deal with satis-
factorily within the limits of a short note. As it will, how-
ever, be necessary for me to enter into them with adequate
fulness in the course of a series of articles on "Hindu Astro-
logy ”, whicii I intend commencing in these pages, it will
be enough, I think, if, for the present, I briefly indicate in
what points “Sepharial” is wide of the truth.

If, as a practical astrologer, “ Sepharial ” would tackle
the various systems .of prediction propounded by Parasara,
he could not come to any other conclusion regarding them
than this, viz., that they are immensely superior in point of
truth and reliability to the Vimsottari-dasa-system which,
he says, he has personally tested, but which he erroneously
calls ‘ Kalachakradasa 1 at page 231 of his “New Manual of
Astrology ". Kalachakradasi, be it remarked en passant, is
just one of those systems which “Sepharial” is minded to
taboo as lacking in “ guaranteed validity ”, though ParaSara
dwells thereon at convincing length. It is certainly open to
“ Sepharial V to say that the Vim 5 ottari-daSa-system is in
popular use in South India and that it lends itself to easy
exposition within a narrow compass. The fact of the matter,
however, is that it is the only system which, on account of its
simplicity, can be readily approached by the cheap, easy-going
« fortune-teller ” in the South of India, and is hence the first
system to be brought to the notice of any interested European

* This is reproduced, as an Appendix, at the end of this communica-
tion. — Ed. L. T .

SIDDHANTA BiPIKA.

enquirer who visits this country. If the Vim5ottari-daSa-
s vs tern has really fascinated “Sepharial” (Modern Astrology,
O. S., Vol. vi, p. 73), it is a very good indication that the
other systems propounded by ParaSara will not fail to
fascinate him the more, when once he makes an honest
endeavour to master them and apply them in his practice.
The only standard-work extant on the subject of ParaSara’s
“ systems of directing ” is the Brihat-pardsara-hora w'hich is
a portly Sanskrit tome running up to about 800 pages of
royal 8vo. And it is perhaps too much to expect ‘Sepharial’
to be acquainted with its contents, to judge from the
character of the exposition of the Vimsottari-dasa-system in
his ‘New Manual’. The mistakes that he has committed in
the course of that exposition, have been pointed out by me at
sufficient length in the series of papers that I wrote for the
Xth Volume of the Madras “ Astrological Magazine ” (1907-8,
Nos. 1-6). As it might be necessary for me to go over the same
ground, in a different connexion, in the future numbers of
this Journal, I would do no more here than barely observe
that the rules he has framed for the bhdva-sphula (or ‘house-
division ’) at page 212 of his “ New Manual ”, are subversive of
ParaSara’s dicta (Brihat-parasara-hora, Part I, chap, iii, q.v).
Though ‘ Sepharial ’ seems to entertain a genuine love for
ParaSara’s system of VimSottari-dasa-directing, he has appa-
rently not studied it from proper tieatises, under the direction
of a competent Indian astrologer. The result has been, as
it must be, a defective and faulty exposition of the theme,
to which I am compelled to call attention, in the interests
of astrology, actuated by the best of intentions, since my chief
object in doing so, is to see to the removal of the mistakes
in future editions of the “ New Manual " which, had it not been
for them, would be an excellent Vade-Mecum of Astrology.

I urther, Kdldmritam, on which ‘ Sepharial ’, by a strange
irony, fathers the phala-kathana of dasas, antardaSas and
antariintardasas (he has however omitted to mention sukshma-
dasas and pranadasas, though they are of great value in judicial

HINDU ASTRODOG+".

astrology), is neither a work of ParaSirt, as 'SephftViiflH
wrongly fancies it to be, nor d treatise dealing^vitti'JkWW
bhaga fpp. 234 and 247 of the New Manual), it, ot> the 'ottfet*
hand, is, as its name implies, a book devoted to truburla-bkh^e
(or “elections and comprises seven sections (bindaVbty
and 239 verses or aphorisms. Printed editions of this
with the indigenous commentary of Vdnkata-yfcjva, |ll atfe‘tO BKf
had of book-sellers in Madras, either in Gran! ha Or tn 1 TtJUgti
characters. 'No “ Hindu purveyor of Astrological Hteratutt^
will be so unscrupulous as to palm off kaldmritam as a WOrfe :
of ParaSara, as it is common knowledge in South India that*
it is a purely South Indian compilation of comparatively
recent origin. It seems to me, therefore, that the “ Effects
of Periods and Sub-Periods ”, which are detailed in the New.
Manual” (pp. 235-247), as an excerpt from KaUtnlril-am , main
yet prove to be a very free and scrappy summary, in English^
of Mantresvara’s Phaladipika or a kindred work ; the tad?
of identifying “ Sepharial’s ” Sanskrit original, without
actually inspecting it, guided solely by his meagre sum-
mary, being by no means free from elements of uncertainty’,
the more so, because, similar "Effects of Periods and Sub-
Periods ” form, to the very turn and ring of expression, the
stock-in-trade of many a modern catch-penny Sanskrit brockurd.
on the subject. In any case, it is a pity that ‘Sepharial ’ should'
have chosen to draw for his material on a dubious work atf;
indifferent value, when he cpuld so easily find whatever ha.
wanted in the Bfihat-parosara-hora itself, as it accords to the ;
Vimsottari-daSa-system such a full, accurate and exemplary
treatment in pp. 300-404 of Part 1. Not only are the various
systems of time-measures, directions and predictive roles, and ;
modes of finding out the dignities and debilities. of planets, etc.,
through all of which runs an unmistakable under-current at'
judicial acumen and prognostic insight, passed over is .the
"New Manual” without so much as evenaninkkng of their
existence in the classical work of Parasara, but, what 'is a
greater drawback, the enumeration of even the more 'important"

SIDDHANTA P1PIKA.

446

elements of the Hindu horoscopic speculum, is also eschewed.
Whatever may be the complaint of 'narrow limits’, such
omissions as these cannot but detract from the “adequacy
of treatment” accorded to Hindu Astrology in the "New
Manual ”, To show that the Vimsottari-dasa-system is not
regarded by the better classes of astrologers to be as reliable,
accurate or sufficient as “Sepharial" seems inclined to think,
l may instance his favourite author Varaha-mihira, who, as
every student of astrology knows, leaves that system severely
alone, and supplants in its stead a novel system of directing,
which is all his own, in point of depth, finish and reliability.

The question of ayanSmSa is a complex problem which, as
can be seen on a little reflection, is not half so easy of settlement
as “Sepharial” would have us believe. The “specific state-
ment” cf Varaha-mihira to which “Sepharial” refers in his
letter, occurs at Brihat-samhita, Chap. Ill, vv. 1 and 2 , and fixes
the position of the solstitial colure in Varaha-mihira ’s own day,
as well as at a prioi epoch. In the first place, how does this
statement help us to mark off the starting-point of the sidereal
zodiac, without knowing which the determination of the exact
value of ayandmsa is a chimera? For, at best, Varaha-mihira 's
statement will only help us to find out the locus of the Vernal
Equinox, but not the limiting-point of the, sidereal zodiac. And
the limiting-point is regarded by all scientific Hindu astrono-
mers of the past as the “ first point ” of ASvini or the " last
point ” of Revati, or, what, amounts to the same thing, as lyings
in the boundary-line between the two asterisms. It is also
presumed that the Yoga-tara ( = principal star = “ junction-
star”). Revati has no, or almost no longitude- (e.g., in the
Suryasiddhanta, where the dhruvaka of Revati is stated to bo
359 a 5°')- And so, the initial thing to do is to identify, or find
out the exact position of Revati ; but it will not do to assert dog<-
matically that that star is only Zeta piscium and nothing else,
as there are a number of reasonable difficulties in the way of
accepting the identity. In the second place, Varaha-mihira’s
observations t>f the solstitial colure can be looked upon as only

HINDI ASTROLOGY.

447

roughly approximative, since they must have been conducted
with the naked eye, in accordance with the usual methods of
ascertaining the Sun’s place at or about the ayana-sanki amatta
(-solstitial ingress), to wit, through noting the position of the Sun
on the horizon, the heliacal rising of stars, the meridian-transits
ot asterisms at mid-night and the position of the Moon at the
nearest full-moon. As Dr Thibaut remarks discerningly (apud
Varaha-mihira’s Paichasiddhantika, Introduction, p. lix) : “From
the term, the ‘first point of Asviui ' so much indeed follows
that, when it was first coined, the Vernal Fquinox was, accord-
ing to the observations of Hindu astronomers, somewhere to
the west of the Asterism Asvini and to the east of the Asterism
Revati ; but about the exact point meant to be indicated by
that term we know nothing" Tbe italics are my own. The
term, 1 the first point of ASvini,’ may, in other words, have
indeed meant any spot lying to the east of the Yoga-tara
Revati and to the west of the Yoga-tara Asvini, so much so that
in “Stpharial’s” method of computing the ayawuwia- value,
the margin of error is limited by the bhoga ( -space measured
on the ecliptic arc) of the asterism Revati, and the quality
of error is on the side of omission. The bhoga of Revati (the
asterism) is a little over j° or thereabouts, at a rough
estimate. The only way, therefore, to settle this question
of the value of the ayanamsa, for astrological purposes, is
through the employment of the empirical or experimental
method, that is to say, by an appeal to Nadi-granthas , in the
light of the genitures of men with known life-histories. The
modus operandi is, in a sense, a posteriori and, beyond a doubt,
tiresome and complicated, but, fortunately for the cause of
astrology, steady work in this direction has been in progress
for many years past, and the partial result of a similar research
was made available to the public, by the late Mr. N. Cliidambara
Aiyyar, through tbe pages of the Theosophist (Madras), in
April and June 1883. With authentic Nadis on the one hand,
gnd reliable signatures etc., of sundry minute sections of the
sidereal zodiac, as given by Parasara, on the other, to help

448 SIDDHANTA D1P1KA.

us to a careful and critical study of numerous nativities, it
will be but a matter of a few more years of investigation,
before we are, for a certainty, able_to accurately determine
the starting-point of the nirayana-hhagatfa, and thereby
remove one of the greatest stumbling-blocks of modem astro-
logy, in its present progress. But, for a working hypo-
thesis, for the present, Mr. G. E. Sutcliffe’s latest figure in
his reply (p. 243 of The Astrological Magazine, Vol. X) tp my
review of an Indian Almanac (pp. 176-180, The Astrological
Magazine, Vol. X) will do fairly well, and may be adopted with
some reservations. Ihe readers of this Journal cannot find any
difficulty in looking up that communicatioixof Mr. Sutcliffe's,
as it was reprinted in Modern Astrology (N. S., Vol. V, pp. 423
et seq.) A fuller discussion of the topic must, as I remarked
already, stand over for another occasion.

Hipparchus, Plotemy and Theon, though useful, perhaps, as
corroborative authorities in our present difficulty, laboured,
however, under the same disadvantages as Varaha-mihira,
Parasara, Garga and the rest, and are consequently open to the
same general error. Further, so long as the initial point of the
stellar zodiac, as presumed by the Hindu astrologers, is not
known, agreement of observation between the Greek and Hindu
astronomers regarding the movement of the equinoctial and
solstitial colures, is not of much consequence* in our present
quest. "Sepharial” makes a serious mistake in thinking that
the ayanainSa-v alue which he v/orks out from the statements of
the Brihat-samhita, adverted to previously, is not common know-
ledge in India. The truth is that Hindu JyaUtishas discredit
the accuracy and validity of such an inference re the ayandmSa-
value, from those meagre data. There is, qnd must be, a certain,
amount of disagreement between the various Indian almanacs,
in the longitudes assigned to the luminaries and planets,,
because they assume the point of reference, viz , the beginning
of the sidereal zodiac, to ' be situated at different spots of the
kranthyitta (ecliptic). But, as far as astrology is concerned,
there is only a chaitra-paksha and a raivata-f aksha recognised, in

HINDU ASTROLOGY.

449

the matter of determining the initial point of the stellar zodiac,
though the weight of approval is decidedly in favour of the
former paksha (cf., Keskar’s Combined Introductory Astrology ,
p. 297}. The best book to recommend on practical astronomy
for the serious student of the Hindu systems of prediction,' is
Ketakar’s Jyotirganitam (Poona, 1898) in Sanskrit, from which
the celestial co-ordinates of the luminaries, planets (including
Herschel and Neptune), principal stars and the like, the time
and place of occurrence of eclipses, occultations and other
celestial phenomena, and many other useful elements for
astrological work, e.g., equations for anomalies, astronomical
constants and so on, can be readily ascertained for the period
ranging from 2000 B.C., to 3000 A.D. And my friend Mr.
L. D. Svamikkannu, m.a., ll.b. (Lond.)., is at present engaged
in bringing out a similar work in English. The condition of
practical astrology in India is, therefore, as well as it can possi-
bly be, in spite of the disagreement of Indian Almanacs, by which
“ Sepharial " apparently endeavours to set so much store, as
the Hindu Astrologer of the right sort is, if anything, endued
with that judicial insight, which enables him to sense the correct
positions of the Ascendant and the luminaries, with the extensive
help he finds in the indigenous treatises. And the followers of
the VimSottari-da5a-system have, as every student of Hindu
astrological literature is aware, many ready means of fixing
the accurate lunar longitude, even from the merest estimate
premises. In fine, I feel constrained to state, however, that the
unearthing of the astrological treasures of India, is a sacred duty
that devolves upon all sincere students of the fascinating art erf
prediction, whether they be Hindus or Europeans, as a thorough
knowledge of Hindu Prognostics, is sure to result in a
Renaissance of the Astrological Canon, as a whole, profiting both
the Hemispheres, and making the process of puzzling out human
destiny, pleasanter, surer and quicker.

V. V. R.

450

SIDDHANTA nil'IKA.

HINDU ASTROLOGY.*

To

The Editor,

“ Modern Astrology ”,

London.

Dear Sir,

I see some reference was made in a recent issue of your
Journal to my exposition of Hindu Astrology in the pages of
the New Manual , 1897. While quite in agreement with Alan
Leo’s authority so far as regards the partiality of that essay,
I do not think the reader should be misled by the statement
that it is only one of a number of systems included in the
PHriisarahora. The multiplicity of systems attributed to the
great Jyoshi does not guarantee the validity of any one of
them, and in selecting that which was in popular -use in the
south of India, I was guided by the fact that it lent itself most
readily to presentation within my narrow limits, and had been
personally proved by me to contain elements of truth. It is
not my intention to trespass on your valuable space to any
extent, but I would point out that the term, '“inadequate ” or
“ imperfect ” may very easily convey to the casual reader the
idea of being incorrect. If my exposition is indeed incorrect,

I must throw the whole blame upon the Hindu purveyors of
astrological literature, who commonly refer the Kiiamritam
to Parasara.

It may be of interest to note that, in regard to the disputed
value of the ayanimsa to which Mr. Leo refers, there is a
specific statement made by Varaha Mihira, whose date is well- -
known, and this statement was made upon an observation which
sought to fix the position of the Solstice in the Constellations.

• Reprinted from “Modern Astrology" (London), May 1910 — Ed. L.T.

THE WORK HEFOKE US.

451

think the statement of great astronomical value inasmuch
as it determines the ayanamsa to a fraction of a degree, and
when referred to the positions noted by Ptolemy in his Almagest
and compared Ivith the observations of Hipparchus quoted by
him, it works out in,terms of my statement in the Manual. But
that it is not common knowledge in India is proved by the fact
that the Panch, ingams or almanacs most freq uently disagree as to
the longitudes of the planets and the Moon, the latter being that
factor on which the whole of the Dasa-bhukti-antaram periods
( — directions) are based. The condition of practical Astrology
in India, therefore, may be better imagined than described.

Yours, etc.,

SEPHA-IIIAL.

The passing away of that noted astronomer and astrologer Sif William
Huggins, not so long after the death of the astrologer of the British*
Museum, Dr. Richard Garnett, may serve to remind the world that wher-
ever sound judgment and sanity are found, astrology still commands, as
of old, the recognition of the patient and painstaking investigator. Hie
appearance of Halley's comet on the threshold erf England’s ruling sign
has set the tongues of the ignorant agog ; but it must not be forgotten
that Saturn has already for two years been present in Aries and that the
conjunction of Saturn and Mars had but recently taken place in that sign.
Says Raphael, writing in the summer of 1909 : —

Unfavourable influences are again shown to be operating in the King’s
horoscope The conduction of Mars and Saturn falls on a critical point, in
square to the place of Mars and the progressed bun, which is strongly indica-
tive of ill-health but, I hope, not fatal.

But a more remarkable forecast is that of “ SephariaJ ” which
appeared in Ths Grun Booh of Propheciis for 1910 (C. E. Fulford, Ltd.,
Greek Street, Leeds), a calendar published by the proprietors of Zam-
Buk, the well-known healing oimment. This almanac gives a hieroglyph
— a coftm, on which is placed a crown, surrounded by seven wreaths
(representing the seven Royal Courts affected) and the British a»J Danish
flags at half-mast. After alluding to the stay of Saturn in Aries and its
•conjunction with Mars the writer observes; —

The year 1910 is fraught with exceptional interest. If bat of a melancholy
kind, for all those whose heart is in the welfare of our country and our King.

It is with regret that signs of National bereavement are noted. C^n yen dis-
cern the direction in which we shall now meet wiifi this great loss ?

Th* Gault Rfvum.

452

swdiiAnta tu'pikA.

THE WORK BEFORE US.

(Concluded from page j<?8 of No. ro Vol. X.)

A Christian enthusiast once put to me a straightforward
question, “What are the charitable institutions, organised for the
good of the people by your religionists ” ? and added, “ It is a
noteworthy fact that we Christians alone build hospitals, poor
houses, home for the sick and the aged, orphanages, free schools,
etc.” The question was rather unexpected, and I could not help
blushing at our own indifference. The only answer that I could
give was that it did not argue the absence of love in our reli-
gionists towards mankind, but that the Christian nations com-
manded more wealth, and possessed organizing power which
Hindus, unfortunately, did not. It appears to me that the funds
of our temples could very well be devoted to such purposes, as it
would then prove the practical application of our religious princi-
ples. Our religion would, in such a case, be rivalled by no other
religion in its universality, tolerance and spirit of love. Organ-
ised endeavours should also be made to publish theAgamas and
other Jnana-Sastras, and to popularise them and bring them
within the reach of every household. I had occasion to inquire
into the working of the Bible Societies, and have found that
much good work is being done in spreading the Gospel of
Christ without burdening the resources of any particular person
or people of the Christian faith. They not only publish popular
editions of the Gospels, but employ Bible-women to carry the
truths of the Gospel to the hearts of the people. We shall
also surely succeed in our own way, if we can enlist the
co-operation of the temple-managers and the leading citizens of.
our faith in the various districts. The preaching-halls in the
temples may be used for influencing the character and spiritual
life of the people, by delivering sermons during the festivals and
special days of worship. The youths of the land who are obliged

THE WORK liFFORE IIS.

453

to deviate from the course of study prescribed forthe Brahma-
chatins of old, should be approached in their present schools and
colleges, and given occasional courses of lectures to arouse a
spirit of enquiry and enthusiasm towards their religion. The
present-day education, being entirely secular, will not develop the
religious spirit which was characteristic of the Brahmacharins
of the past. Nor should they be left alone to themselves when
they leave their colleges. They should be brought under the
influence of societies conducted for the study and the practice
of religion. As the old order has changed, new institutions
should be brought into existence, to supply what is wanting
in the religious education of the youth. Special preaching-
tours should be arranged for the benefit of the masses, who
neither frequent the temples nor attend colleges.

In order to restore the priestly influence, without which
religious work is not of much value, a congregation of clerics,
having at its head a synod such as the Tillai-mQvayiravar, should
be established on the lines of the council of Buddhist priests in
Burma or Ceylon. The position that our priests now occupy,
is neither very much honoured by the people, nor recognised by
Government. The Government pensioner can sign before a
pastor of the Christian religion and get his life-certificate attested,
but not by a Hindu priest of whatever standing. Marriage
registers can be attested to by Christian priests, bu f not by the
Hindu. Does not all this show the insignificance of the position
of our priests ? Now, the question is, whether we should not
elevate the priesthood by the organization of an ecclesiastical
body.

These would be the means of reviving the true spirit of
Saivism in our land, and spreading its influence elsewhere.
The real meaning of the rites in the temples and homes may thus
be popularised. Instead of the blind sheep that now follow the
priests who are ignorant of the rationale of religious rites, we
will have intelligent men following our religion with a fervour
and zeal unknown to the ignorant. Instead of the many wicked

454

SIDDHANTA dIpikA.

hearts now uninfluenced by the priests and the temples, we
will have pure loving hearts that respond to the symbology of
religious worship, possessing the eight spiritual flowers of non-
kiUing, control of the senses, forbearance, grace, wisdom, truth,
austerity and love. The truths long-hidden in symbology,
should be explained, in order to produce true Saivites free from
caste-shackles, bigotry and superstition. It should not be for-
gotten that the call to the world to partake of the Bliss of §iv»-
jfianam, was raised, not very long ago, in the very place you are
now assembled, by that devoted Bhakta and Jnani, whose hymns
are on the lips of all Tamilians. I mean St. Tayumanavar,
the popular exponent of the Saiva-Siddhanta. May not his call
fall on deaf ears, or lose its significance for want of supporters!
He has indirectly commanded all the followers of his faith to
go forth and preach the excellence of the Saiva Religion, so
that every one might realise within himself the goal of the
Siddhanta as expressed by him in these words : —

mesa TtuneyOia

“ The Earth and Five and all lives known,

O Lord, are graceful forms of Your own

Now to conclude with a summary. It is the bounden duty
of every individual member of the nation, rich or poor, high or
low, to work for himself and for the nation, that he may fulfil
his responsibility, and pay off his debt to the nation. The
possession of national character, and the adherence to the
national ideals, form a sine qua non in the case of every individual
who would faithfully perform his allotted portion of work in the
national mill-house. The division of national labour which was
the secret of the caste-system, and of the ladder-way of the
Asramas, helped the social and the religious advancement of.
the people, in times of yore. But when labour lost its dignity,
and caste-pride sundered the national ties, the nation became de-
graded and lost it% virtues. To bring back the national ideals
of truth and righteousness, love and mildness, exemplified in the

THE WORK BEFORE US.

455

lives of the great men of the past, and to influence the present
generation so that there may be a bright future, constitute
the duty and work which lie before each one of us, as members
of the nation. Religious work must go hand in hand with
ethical and social work, if we are to achieve complete success,
It cannot be easily divorced from the latter without render-
ing the foundation for the stronghold of Religion, shaky and
unstable. The neglect of moral and social work is responsible
for the corruption and wickedness in the majority of the
people. The sense of honour and dignity, rectitude and
moral courage, should be revived in order that the slur cast
upon the nation and its religion may be wiped off; and
this work should form the first item of our programme, in
order to producs true citizens, who alone can evolve into true
lovers of God. Endeavour should be made to elevate the low
castes and the illiterate masses, so that there may be brotherly
feeling, mutual confidence and national solidarity. The conceit
of caste-feeling, in the absence of caste-virtues and national
ideals, has in the main been responsible for the degradation of
our brethren, the majority of whom do not enjoy the benefits of
real education and civilization.

It is high time that we took steps to re-establish the'
reign of supreme love, which is the characteristic of our religion,
in the hearts of all classes of people, by the promotion of social
intercourse and the removal of caste-tyranny. Men regenerat-
ed on the above lines, would be a power in the nation, able to
appreciate the privileges enjoyed under the British rule, which
is a God-send to us that prize Religion most. At the present
day, the influence of the Masters of our Religion and the
priests, is littje or nothing compared with what was exercised
over the Brahmacharins and others in ancient India. Rites and
ceremonies alone form the order of the day, and the priests
neither trouble themselves about the Jnana Sastras, nor preach
to, or otherwise influence the worshippers in the temples.
Purapas and Itihasas influence only a few, one section demanding
more explicit teachings, without figures of speech, allegorical

siddhAnta DiPIKA.

456

language or abstruse parables, and another section being ev«n
below the plane of the exoteric myths of the PurSnas, and igno-
rant of the very idea of Religion. Temple-worship has been
losing its influence over the so-called civilized section and
allowed to become a dead letter. Temple-funds may better be
Utilised for the publication of Jfiana Sastras and the establishing
of charitable institutions. The truths of Religion should be
preached from Temple-halls, Schools and Colleges, and public
places and institutions should be established in the different
districts for the study and practice of Religion. All the above
suggestions would, I trust, be the means of disseminating true
Saivisnt, and producing true Saivites living the life of Siva-
jfl&nis, in the enjoyment of the Grace of God and the Peace and
Bliss of S&yujya, here on earth.

R. S. S.

DEATH OF KING-EMPEROR EDWARD VII.

The greatest
misfortune befell
this country in the
death of its genial
and kind-hearted
Sovereign on May
6th at 11-45 p- m.,
in London. The
moment of his pas-
sing away works
to 5-15 a.m., of the
morning of May

7th in Indian Stand-
ard Time. Sound
astrologers all the
world over antici-
pated with dismay
and deep concern
this sudden tragic
event, and we gave
the clearest indica-
tion thereof in the
New Year Number
of our Journal, as

well again as in the February issue in connexion with the
approach of Halley’s comet towards the earth's orbit. The
scheme of the heavens in ■ Madras at the time of the King-
Emperor s decease reveals t! flrst decan of Taurus on the

DEATH OF KING-EMPEROR EDWARD VII.

eastern horizon, and its ruler at the tail-end of the equinoctial

zodiac, a sure sign that the earthly bondage of the most

important person of the moment has neared its end. To

further confirm the fact that this life temporal is being

departed by the King in comfort and order, that he is

passing from the seen to the Unseen, the scheme-ruler

Venus has well-nigh entered the cusp of the twelfth house,

the house of the mysteries beyond the phenomenal veil.

The death-ruler of the scheme is the benignant Jupiter,

who lies prostrate in the sixth house after disposing Venus,

its regent as well as the scheme-ruler. The sign Libra

on the cusp of the sixth house is hence intended to signify to

the people of Madras that not only is the scheme concerned

with sickness, but that the sickener is being tended by his

fair partner as he lies prostrate in the midst of his well-

ordered surroundings. Mars' application to the quadrature

of Jupiter in the sixth, from the sign Cancer in the third house

is an additional testimony that the sickness ends in a sharp

and fatal collapse, in the thick of kindred and friends and

children and wife. It is noteworthy that pars fortuna is also

in Cancer, that the cardinal signs are prominent by their

accentuation of the planetary quadratures, and the twelfth

house is malignantly tainted by the presence of a violent sign

on its cusp, and the ominous -collocation of the Moon and

Saturn in an exceedingly unhealthy quarter of its range. But

the dignified and serene position of Venus is enough to show

what awaits the King on the other side of the grave, and we

shall therefore say in all humanity truth and grace, •- May

the Soul of King Edward VII rest in Peace ! ” And may we

also add, ‘ Amen ! ’, because he has for a certainty reached the

“Glittering Plain " of Dahara, where the prince and the

peasant are at one in status and stability, in delight and

divinity. _

The Editor.

45 *

SIDDHANTA DiPIKA.

Till- REFORM OF THE INDIAN CALENDAR*

Modern criticism has laid rude hands upon that ancient
and venerable' institution, the Indian Calendar. If hoary anti-
quity, intrinsic worth and practical utility could have saved
any institution from such violence, then the Indian Calendar
might well have claimed the privilege. For, has it not presided
over the destinies of the children of India for more than 2,oop
years, recording with jealous minuteness the hour and the day,
nay the very minute and second of their births, marriages and
..deaths ? Was any event of importance, public or private, ever
done in this country without the fiat of the Indian Calendar?
And was not its veto sufficient to arrest the mightiest conquer-
ors proceeding to battle or to stay their hands in the hour of
victory ? Yet, this venerable witness of Indian history is called
tipon to take its trial before a judge born yesterday, the
Nautical Almanac. In vain does the venerable prisoner appeal
to the public of India whose destinies it has controlled for a
hundred generations. In vain does it appeal to the expert skill
of its custodians, the Jyotishis, the Panchangis and the Astro-
nomical Computers of India. The public looks with pity on sb
old an institution reduced to such sad plight, but says the
public : “ Are not these custodians the men into whose keeping
the calendar, when a child, was entrusted by its parents, the
great Siddhantis of India ? Let these custodians come to the
rescue of their ward and prove their fitness for their charge.'''
Alas, the custodians are at a loss what to urge on behalf of their
ward! They never dreamt that such evil times should ev&-
come upon it or upon themselves, or that they should be called
to render an account to a scrutinising public of a craft whose
origin and methods are to this day wrapped in mystery. Thejy
know only the traditions which enable them to keep up the
ancient forms of*the calendar. In the years that have rolled by,

* This paper appears in the May number of the Indian Review, and |s
.reprinted here by the special permission of the author. — Ed. L. T.

THE REFORM OF THE INDIAN CALENDAR.,

45 »

these traditions have very often deviated, whether on purpose
or unawares, from the path originally appointed by- the Skjf
dhantis ; but of such deviations, any more than of the original
principles of the calendar, its so-called custodians know very
little at the present day.

The above is perhaps a sentimental version of re :ent events-
which have taken place at Kaladi in the State of , ravancdr^
where Astronomical Conferences were held in f -brua’ry arid
March 1910, for the purpose of unifying the Indian Calendar:

What practical results have been achieved as the result of
such Conferences, the public has not yet been informed ; but it
Will be no surprise to the public to learn in course of time that
the proceedings have been barren of result. Whether such
proceedings yield a definite result or not, the suspicion once
cast upon the Indian Calendar continues unabated, and it wilt
be hard for the Almanac-makers of India to rehabilitate, thein
position unless they can produce very good and very palpable
evidence in their favour.

One thing is remarkable about these Conferences, namely,
that considering the hoary antiquity and the hitherto unques-
tioned authority of the Indian Calendar, one might reasonably
expect to see a well-formulated charge or series of charged
against its accuracy, drawn up by expert critics, as the basis
of any proceedings reviewing its past history or assailing itd
present position. No such charges have been published, how-
ever, it being apparently assumed that the charges are well-
known. It is difficult for any one who ha; bestowed seriousi
attention upon a study of the Indian Calendar to conceive what-
possible grounds of dislike the public could suddenly have
found to justify such proceedings. In the absence of definite
charges one is driven to conclude that the causes of dissatisfac-r
tion are of a general nature. But even so, it may be of profit
to reduce them to definite shape and to investigate each of -them;

The most important causes of public dissatisfaction with
the Indian Calendar appear to be the following : —

4<5o

siddhAnta DiPIKA.

(1) The multiplicity of calendars and the too patent fact
that among them there are palpable divergences. Before calen-
dars began to be printed in India, it was seldom possible for
more than one calendar to obtain currency or general recogni-
tion over a local area and the inhabitants of a tract, where a
particular calendar was current, had no reason to suspect that
their neighbours in other tracts followed a different kind of
reckoning ; at any rate, it did not disturb them in their usages
of daily life which were guided by a single calendar of more
or less local origin. At present, however, there is no limit to
the circulation of a printed Almanac, and when several Almanacs
giving different reckonings are current in the same local area,
confusion is the natural result.

(2) Obvious discrepancies between the purely Indian
Almanacs and such European publications of undisputed accu-
racy as the Nautical Almanac. It is found that between the
ordinary Almanacs in use in India and the Nautical Almanac
there is a divergence of an hour or so in the moment of occur-
rence of New and Full-Moons and a divergence of several hours
in the ending moments of stages intermediate between two
New Moons. Suspicion naturally falls upon a method which
yields results so apparently erroneous, and attempts have in
consequence been made and with no small measure of success
to reconstruct the Indian Almanac upon the basis of the
Nautical Almanac.

(3) The difficulty and tediousness, amounting almost to
unintelligibility, of the processes prescribed for the construction
of an Indian Almanac. It is no doubt the case that the best
and the most learned exponents of the system of the Indian
Calendar have not succeeded in opening up the thorny hedge
which has been growing for centuries, as in the fairy tale,
around the residence of this Sleeping Beauty. The earlier
exponents of the system such as Warren (1825) and Jervis
(1836) delighted toTeturn in their primitive crudeness the end-
less multiplications and divisions prescribed by traditional

THE REFORM OF THE INDIAN CALENDAR.

461

methods for arriving at the ending moment of a single tithi.
About 20 years ago, Professor Jacobi of Bonn University
introduced to Indian readers, through the pages of the ‘‘Indian
Antiquary” (1888) a method of calculation of Indian dates
based upon the well-known method of M. Largeteau in France.
This method is more or less the basis of the subsequent
exposition of the Indian Calendar by Messrs. Sewell and
Dikshit (1896). Meanwhile, in the year 1892, Professor Jacobi
had republished his tables in the Epigraphica Ittdica , Vol. I, and
subjoined to them certain special tables, for the purpose of
completing M. Largeteau’s approximations. The same German
authority, who is at this date the greatest and most reliable
living exponent of the Indian Calendar, published in the second
volume of the Epigraphica Indica a method of computing the
moment of sunrise or true local time for any latitude or longti-
tude in India. Valuable as these modern expositions are to the
enthusiast, they fail to comply with the standard of convenience
which ordinary lay readers usually fix for themselves. Apart
from the difficulty of understanding the technical language of
astronomy, used by these writers, there is the difficulty and in-
convenience of having to expend an inordinate length of time on
each calculation, the constant risk of perpetrating Arithmetical
errors in such calculation and the uncertainty of the ordinary
methods of approximation. To meet these difficulties certain
rough and ready methods, intended mainly for the use of
epigraphists and archaeologists, have been devised by Dr.
Schram of Vienna and the late Professor Kielhorn. These
methods are, however, not suited to the purpose of the ordinary
modem lay Hindu enquirer, who wishes to get to the bottom of
the particular Almanac he is using and to verify the results
there stated. Compared with such processes, that of the
.Nautical Almanac for arriving at any of the data of the Indian
Calendar is simple, easily intelligible and accurate. You take
the longitude of the sun and the moon for a particular noon,
then you take the same quantities for the previous noon and
you ascertain by an easy sum in ratio the time when the

462 siddhAnta dipikA.

difference between the two longitudes amounted to an exact
multiple of 12 degrees; and you have without any further
trouble the absolute ending moment of the tithi, to which of
course you have to apply, as a correction, ( 1) a quantity repre-
senting the difference of the terrestrial longitude between
Greenwich and your own place and (2) another quantity giving
the moment of local sunrise. Several Indian Almanacs based
upon this method called Drigganita or “ Computation checked
by Observation ” are at present in use in many parts of India.

The above is a summary of the main charges against the
purely Indian system of calculating astronomical data; and we
are now in a position to enter upon a discussion as to whether
each of these charges is sufficiently grave to be pressed home,
and if pressed, whether it can be held to be proved. One
important point seems to be lost sight of by the generality of
the critics of the Indian Calendar, namely, that there is an
essential difference between a calendar instituted for rhe
ordinary purposes of social or religious life and a Nautical
Almanac intended to assist the navigator in combating and
overcoming the dangers aad risks of a sea-voyage. A civil
calendar, as we might call the former, may or may not lay
claim to a certain degree of.accuracy ; but its objects above all,
are, or ought to bej ease of calculation aud practical utility as'
distinguished from theoretical accuracy. Each nation has its
own standard of practical accuracy to be maintained by its
civil calendar. Most nations that we are acquainted with in
history, including the nations of modern Europe, are satisfied
with dividing the courses of the sun and the moon into integral
days, excluding fractions of a day, and with subdividing the
day from midnight to midnight or from noon to noon into equal
divisions called hours, minutes and seconds. The Indian Calendar,
on the other hand, divides the courses of the sun and the moon
into integral spaces or arcs of a circle and not into integral
days. It takes*account, for example, of the moment when the
sun completes any thirty degrees of its course, of the moment
when the moon gains 12 degrees or an integral number of 12

THE REFORM OF THE INDIAN CALENDAR. 46$

degrees over the sun in her orbit, and of the moment wheat this
moon, irrespective of the sun, completes 13 0 10' of hersM^reht
course or an integral number of such spaces. The first ofidMfe
is called a solar sankranti or the commencement of a month | She
second is called the ending moment of a lunar tithi; and the thhfld'
the ending moment of a lunar nakshatra: It will be noticed that
in these three reckonings the spaces are whole numbers, 'and
therefore the corresponding times must include fractions ofdays,
hours, minutes and seconds. Every year the Almanacrmaher
has to compute 12 such moments for monthly Sankrantis, 360
moments for as many lunar tithis occurring in the course pf,a
lunar year, and about the same number of lunar naksJiatraa.
Where the follower of the European Calendar is satisfied with
reckoning the day that he is passing through as the tstuof
January, the 1st of February and so forth, the Indian does nqt
begin his month till a particular moment of a day is reached:
he cannot know what tithi he is passing through unless he
knows the ending moment of the tithi for the particular day, and
he is in a similar difficulty as regards the nakshatra. No doubt
the calendar or panchang for the year, of which he invariably
has a copy, gives these details in all the desired minuteness;.but
it is not necessary for the purposes of civil or religious life that
each Indian householder should know the absolute ending moment
of a sankranti tithi, or nakshatra. All these occurrences are,
however, calculated in Indian almanacs as taking place so many
hours and minutes or so many ghalikas and polos after local
sun-rise and just as it is necessary to know the moment of a
mean sankarUnti, tithi or nakshatra, it is necessary to know the
moment when the sun rises at a given place in order to be ahle
to reckon the portion of a tithi or nakshatra that has expired
since, or which remained unexpired at the moment of sunrise.
Here again absolute accuracy is claimed by the Almanacs, but
such accuracy is probably not desired by, or necessary for the
householder in the performances of his duties.

The divergence between theoretical accuracy and practical
convenience in Almanacs is, as we have seen, not peculiar to the

464

S1D0HA.NTA niPlKA.

Indian system, but of course it will be readily seen that the
frequency of error and of divergence is more probable under the
Indian than under other systems. Under all systems however
such divergence is, by the common consent of mankind, got
over in certain well-understood ways. One of these is to allow
an error to accumulate until it becomes inconveniently large
and then to remove it by means of a correction. Such a
correction may be applied deliberately as in the adoption or
omission of leap years under the combined Juiian and Gregorian
systems ; or it may be rendered necessary owing to previous
unperceived errors of astronomical computation, as in the well-
known case of the dropping of 1 1 days by Act of Parliament in
the year 1752. The principle applied in such cases is that the
mere existence of an error or divergence between theory and
practice does not matter, so long as we know its magnitude and
are in a position to correct it from time to time. According to
this principle, not only the Indian Calendar, but calendars
pretending to very much less accuracy might, in all reason and
conscience, be regarded and used as instruments of civil time-
reckoning, and no fault whatever need be found with them
during the course of ages. It is not improbable that the
existence of some at least of the errors and divergences pointed
out above in the Indian Calendar were foreseen by the original
authors of the various siddhuntas, and they seem purposely to
have inserted in their systems certain automatic corrections
whereby the errors could never exceed a certain limit, or
whereby, if they did exceed such a limit, they would be removed
on the completion of a cycle of years. Practically, the error in
the ending moment of what we may call intermediate tithis,
that is, the tithis between New Moon and New Moon, is a-
recurring and not an accumulating error. It is caused by the
phenomena known as evection and annual equation and its
operation is confined to the quarters and the eighth parts of the
lunar orbit. No inconvenience can be caused by the occurrence
of such errors so long as their existence is known and their
rectification can, when necessary, be easily effected.

THE REFORM OF THE INDIAN CALENDAR.

465

There is one divergence of considerable importance between
the European and the Indian Calendar which perhaps deserves
more than a passing remark. It is the divergence between
what is called the tropical longitude and the sidereal longitude
of the sun. As the sun measures his annual course round the
earth (which by the way is a familiar example of a practical
divergence between theory and practice, for everybody knows
theoretically, that the earth moves round the sun and yet every-
body, talks in practice of the sun going round the earth) his
longitude or distance from the starting point of his journey
increases. That starting point in European Astronomy is the
first point of Aries, that is the point where the ecliptic or the
path of the sun crosses the celestial equator. Properly speak-
ing, when the sun has completed 360" of his course, he ought to
return to this point ; but, as a matter of fact, owing to the pre-
cession of equinoxes, the point itself meets him instead of bis
coming to meet it. and it has been computed that the first
point of Aries will travel along the whole course of the ecliptic
in a series of 25,868 * years. In Hindu Astronomy, on the
other hand, the longitude of the sun is measured not from
the first point of Aries as it changes from year to year,
but .from the first point of Aries as it stood about the year
3600 Kali Yuga (about 500 A.D.) Consequently the Hindu
Solar year commences every year later than the European
mean solar year which is a strictly tropical year. In the year
3102 B.C., (the first year or year O of Kali Yuga), the Hindu
Solar year commenced at midnight betweeh the 17th and
18th February. In the current year, 1910, A.D., the Hindu
Solar year commenced on the 13th April and it will go on

• It is a remarkable coincidence, for which however no mathematical
reason can be assigned, that the length of the Solar year, according to tit
Arya Siddhanta, contains in the decimal places absolutely tit same Jigunt
as are contained in the cycle of revolution of the vernal equinox, the
leng th of the year according to the Asya Siddkanta being 365-25868055
days, and the modern cycle of revolution of the vernal equinox 25,868
years.

SIDDHANTA DUMKA.

466

advancing by a day or two every century until it has passed
through every day of the European Calendar and returns again
after about 30,000 years to the 17th February. This is an
example of an error adjusting itself through a cycle of years.
The Hindu Astronomy provides an easy rule of calculation for
ascertaining the sun’s tropical longitude when it is really
necessary to ascertain it, eg., for the purpose of determining the
actual moment of sunrise. The rule is merely to add three
degrees to the sidereal longitude of the sun for every 200 years
elapsed since 3600 Kali 'Yuga ; or if the longitude is reckoned
in days, to add one day for every 64 years elapsed since 3600
Kali Yuga.

It may be asked why the Hindu system tolerates such a
divergence from the tropical year when it could easily adopt
the European system. The reason is that the Hindu Solar year
is a Sidereal (practically an anomalistic) year, and it coincides
almost exactly with the period of revolution of the sun’s mean
anomaly or his rate of motion round the earth. By reckoning
the Solar year according to the sun’s anomaly, we are enabled
to obtain without further calculation, certain very important
elements in determining the two most useful data of the Indian
Calendar, namely, the absolute ending moment of a tithi and the
actual moment oj sunrise. The writer of the present article
hopes to publish shortly a method* of calculating Indian dates
which will demonstrate the very great simplification of method
that results from the adoption of the anomalistic, instead of the
tropical year.

In conclusion, it is not pretended that the Indian method of
astronomical computation is without flaw or error of any kind .
all that is claimed for it is that in the long course of years-
through which it has been in use, it has served its purpose with
remarkable fidelity. It has needed no correction on the seals
on which, for example, Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory or the

* Tithis, Nakshafrai and other Indian Dates B.C. 1 to AS). 2000. (In
the Press).

THE REFORM OF THE INDIAN CALENDAR. 467

British Parliament found it necessary to correct the European
civil calendar and its results, deduced uniformly from principles
and constants settled more than a thousand years ago, compare
very favourably with the results of modern observation and
research. As regards the discrepancy between the moment of
New Moon as deduced from the Siddhantas and as given in the
Nautical Almanac, it is important to observe that the reason is
not at all any inaccuracy in the Indian method, but a reason
inherent in the nature of the lunar orbit. It has been ascertained
by enquirers from the time of Laplace onwards that the moon
actually moves faster in her orbit in the present day than she
did two thousand years ago. To make this intelligible to
ordinary readers, we will take the actual orbit of the moon as
determined now and that laid down several thousand years ago.
The orbit of the synodical month, laid down by modern Astro-
nomers, is 29 530887 days. According to Ptolemy, the period
was longer than this by half a second. It is probably the case
that Ptolemy’s period was correct in his day and the present
period is certainly correct in our day. From the difference,
however, there results this practical inconvenience that if we
apply Ptolemy's period to the modern moon for determining
her longitude, that is, her exact position in her monthly course,
she will be found to have advanced less than she has really
done ; and if we apply the modern period to ancient new moons
we shall imagine the ancient eclipses and new moons to have
occurred an hour or so before they actually occurred. In no
system of European Astronomy has there been a continuous
application of the same synodical lunar period for 2,000 years ;
whereas in India we have had to apply such a constant for at
least 1,500 years. The ancient Indian Astronomers seem to have
purposely adopted a shorter synodical month than was correct
in their day in order to provide against future divergencies,
with the result that the synodical month according to the Sirya
Siddhinta (29-530587946 days) is shorter than the modern
period, and consequently New Moons according to the Snrya
S iddhin ta occur a little before the time of their occurrence as

siddhanta DiPikA.

468

predicted in the Nautical Almanac. On the other hand, it is
possible to adopt a synodical period which is midway between
the ancient and modern periods. Dr. Grattan Guinness has
found by actual calculation of New Moons for a period of 3,500
years beginning from 1655 B.C. that a synodical month consist-
ing of 29 5305916 days produces on the whole the least diver-
gence between actual and calculated New Moons at the present
day, while it also gives with sufficient accuracy for practical
purposes the moment of occurrence of ancient New Moons.
Now, the synodical month adopted by the Arya Siddhanta,
which Siddhanta is or to be followed by the Almanac-makers of
Southern India, is almost exactly the same as that of Dr. Grattan
Guinness; for, it is 29 5305925 days, and it may therefore be
inferred that New Moons, deduced according to the Arya
Siddhanta, must cceteris paribus agree very closely with the
New Moons predicted in the Nautical Almanac. We may
remark in conclusion that the error due to lunar acceleration
will as time advances become sensibly less even according to
the Siirya Siddhanta.

L. D. S.

STRAY THOUGHTS ON LIFE.

Life is viewed in different ways by different men holding
different phases of thought. To the great English dramatist,
all the world is a stage and all the men and women are merely
players ; that life is of the stuff that dreams are made of; that
our little life is rounded with a sleep and returning from sleep
to sleep. The devout Theist views life on earth as but a route'
to Heaven where he implicitly believes he will be blessed with
life spiritual ajid eternal in the presence of his beloved God.
The speculative Atheist rightly thinks that the problem of
existence is purely an intellectual one, that men for ages have

STRAY thoughts on life.

469

tired to sc.v- it in devious ways only to find it an insoluble
one. Yet to the peaceful Pantheist all life, all nature is but a mani-
festation of God or Brahm, in Whom we live and have our being.
He reads God's will in the grandeur and majesty of the bound-
less ocean, in the hrilliant galaxy of the heavens, and in the
infinite variety of life on the globe. The Scientific man ex-
pounds nature to be a system of never-erring forces, acting
under uniform and immutable laws, in which chance plays no
part, but every thing determined by the law essential to its very
nature. The Idealist thinks all nature is a vision, ignores in
toto the existence of noumenon, and believes in the reality of no-
thing save his percipient mind. The selfish millionaire
considers that the reason and purpose of life is to amass his
riches, and with the hoarding up of his wealth ends all his
glory. The Trader views the world to be a vast mart in which
each and every man seeks to profit some way ; whilst the poor,
hardy Labourer surely finds life to be a toilsome burden, a
painful struggle for bare existence. The pampered Epicurean
scorns the hungry and feasts himself on the sweets and tastes
which wealth alone could afford. The Optimist mind unhesi-
tatingly believes that every thing in nature is designed and
ordered for the best and finds the finger of God in every
phenomenon of the Universe. But the much-abused Rationalist
in the exercise of his pure Reason sees that nature gives him no
clue of the existence of an All-good and All-loving Ruler. It
on the other hand reveals to him a Being who is thoroughly
unconcerned about the terrible inequalities in the world, a
Being utterly reckless of the countless millions of his creatures
on whom earthquake and volcano, fire and flood, storm and
tempest, pestilence and plague mercilessly inflict agony and
death. Ah ! what is Life after all. A mystery of mysteries,
an inscrutable mystery.

P. J. M.

470

siddhAnta dipikA.

THE MYSTIC WORKS OF S 1 VAGRAY 0 GIN.

The name of Srimat Sivagrayogin, the reputed author of
the magistral Sanskrit commentary on the S ivajTid nabodha of
the Rauravagama, must be familiar to all, as being the greatest
of the latter-day Brahmin Saints of the Vaidika-maha-paSupata
Order, that did so much to expound and propagate the
God-taught doctrine of the Agamanta or Suddhadvaita-
siddhanta, both by his precept and example. He was a
Sivasakshatkarin (=■= ‘ knower of God’) and his works bear,
as a consequence, the impress of his aparokshajhina (‘ direct
knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven ’) in every line. The
profundity of his attainments in Sanskrit was only equalled
by the marvellously limpid character of his utterances in that
language, whenever he undertook to interpret or illustrate the
higher teachings of the Agamanta. And deservedly has he
been styled in all his Sanskrit works as ‘ Ativarna-asrama-
acharya-varya ’ and ' Saiva-paripalaka ', descriptions which
are, however, considerably modest in relation to his inner
greatness. His knowledge, again, of Tamil in which he has
handed to posterity a few works of sterling value, hardly
suffers in comparison with his attainments in Sanskrit. His
writings in Sanskrit and in Tamil are devoted to the Higher
Mysticism, Philosophy and Metaphysics of the Agamanta.

The following is a list of his Sankrit works : —

(i) Sivagra-bhashya alias Guru-fika (on the Siva-jiiana-
bodha) which deservedly cccupies a premier place among the
Agamantic classics, (2) Laghutika (on the Siva-jnana-bodha)
which was recently published in the pages of the Pandit,
Benares, (3) Siddhanta-dipika alias Siddhanta-nirnaya, (4) Pati-
pasu-pasa-nirupana, A) Saiva-sannyasa-paddhati, (6) Kriya-
dipika, and (7) Saiva-paribhasha. an independent Sanskrit
trea'ise on the Agamanta.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

471

And the subpended are his Tamil writings
(8) An elaborate commentary on the Siva-jntna-siddhi
(both svapaksha and parapnksha), (9) a commentary on
Sarvajiianottaragama, and (to) a commentary on Haradatta-
sivacharya's Chaturveda-tatparya-sangraha; The above Tamil
Commentaries are interspersed with very large quotations from
the Sanskrit Agamic literature.

AH these Sanskrit and Tamil writings are, with the
exception of (2) and a portion of (8), to be met with only in
cadjan manuscripts.

V. V. R.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

A rather novel departure in Tamil biographical writing has
recently been inaugurated by the appear-
Life of ance of the “ Life of Raja-dharma-pravipa

T. E. A. Tambu Chetti. T. R. A. Tambu Chetti, C.I.E.” by T. R.

Dhanasami Chetti, formerly Assistant Regis-
trar of the Mysore Chief Court, The book is elegantly printed
by Messrs. Hoe & Co., Madras, and the Tamil in which it is
written, is simple, straightforward and sober. The subject
of the biography filled the high position of the Acting Dewan
of Mysore, a few years before his lamented decease in June 1907,
and was a Christian gentleman of Roman Catholic pursuasion,
who rose, by dint of his talents and accomplishments, to the
high place he came to occupy at last. The biographer is the
younger brother of the late Mr. Tambu Chetti, and states in
the fore-word that he writes the present work as a grateful
tribute to the memory of the person to whom he was indebted
for many good and gracious acts of heart-felt value, and that
he regards the biography as a final act of public duty which

47 *

sidohAhnta mpixA. ♦

he owed to his worthy and saintly brother. The book is con-
conceived on the lines of modern European biographies, and
contains a connected narrative of Mr. Chetti’s life and doings,
interspersed with a number of interesting letters written by or
to him, extracts from his public utterances and private conver-
sations, the whole method of piecing together the chronicler’s
account and the subject’s words, strongly reminding us of
such books as "The Life and Letters of T. H. Huxley ", “The
life and Letters of Lord Tennyson ”, and the like. In a word,
the book has a complete Boswellian ring about it, with every
virtue that should accompany such an aim. As most of the
letters reproduced in the book are necessarily translations from
English originals, and as the bulk of the subjects dealt with,
is of a character that is thoroughly Western in flavour and
thought, it must have cost the translator a great deal of
patience and zeal, to make the Indo-European culture and
atmosphere by which Mr. Chetti’s public and private life was
surrounded, a picture of reality to the average Tamil reader.
We have, however, grave misgivings whether the biographer
has scored a victory in this portion of his task. English-
knowing students of Tamil will, for a certainty, have no
difficulty in reading and following the biography with pleasure
and profit to themselves, but to those for whom it is, apparently,
mainly intended, it is seven to one uncertain that it is adapted
in any real sense. The scene of Mr. Chetti’s last moments
pictured on pp. 1 30 et seq., is pathetically tender, and reveals
in a telling manner the deep trait of godliness that must have
always underlain a disposition, already humane if austere,
compassionate if just.

THE

LIGHT OF TRUTH

OR THE

SIDDHANTA DiPIKA

A Monthly Journal devoted to the Search jor Truth as mealed in the
Ancient Hindu Mystic Philosophy known as the Saiva-Siddhanta or Agamanta.

VOL. X. JUNE, 1910. No. u.

AN EUROPEAN ORIENTALIST ON THE AGAMANTA.

Dr. L. D. Barnett, m.a., litt. d„ of the British Museum,
delivered recently a lecture on the origins of the Agamanta in
the rooms of the Royal Asiatic Society of London, of which a
well-worded summary appeared in the Hindu of the 5th May.
He is probably the only scholar now living, whose equipments in
Sanskrit and Tamil are of equal reliability, and his utterances,
consequently, are entitled to our warm and sincere considera-
tion. His labours in the field of Buddhist Sanskrit and Pali,
and deep acquaintance with the various divisions of Indian
Philosophy and Thought, are of a unique order, and, combined
with this, he wields a mastery of cultured English diction, which
sometimes approaches the best forms of prose-poetry, in sound
and sense. In the lecture under reference, he recognised a
Northern School as well as a Southern School for the Agamanta,
identifying the Pratyabhijna of Abhinavagupta as the latest
crystallization of the Northern, and the Saiva-Siddhanta of
AghoraSivacharya and Sivagrayogin as the lull-blown blossom
of the Southern. At the back of both the Schools, the
SvetaS vatara-Upanishat— which is a puzzle to many orientalists
from the distinctly mystic character of its soundly enunciated
doctrine, and which is the leading scripture on which Sri
Nilakap fha-5i vacharya takes his stand in his exposition of
Vyasa’s Brahma-sutras, barring, perhaps, the Taittirlyamahopa-
nishat — is said to stand as the chief source of inspiration.

474

siddhanta dipikA.

The Divyagamas which are twenty-eight in number, originally
evolved in the character of exegetics or explanatory disquisitions
on the teachings adumbrated in the Svetasvatara-Upanishat.
The origins of the Agamanta are, therefore, as old as the
Upanishats themselves, although the fiist landmark of its
separation as a doctrine of markedly spiritual genesis and real
introspective experience, is represented by the Svetasvatara-
Upanishat and the Divyagamas. The above constitutes the
sum and substance of Dr. Barnett’s view.

The title of Prof. Barnett's lecture, or rather paper, was
“Saiva-Siddhanta”, and the immediate occasion therefor was
the Paramarthasara of Abhinavagupta which the learned
Doctoris publishing, with a Translation and Notes, in the Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society. The Paramdrthasdra is a work of
the 13th century a.c., and the form of religious belief outlined
therein, is nothing else than what passes under the name of
11 Saiva Siddhanta ”, in South India and elsewhere. In origin,
this important system is, according to Dr. Barnett, connected
with the ancient speculative movement which has, for its literary
monument, the Sanskrit Upanishats. "At some date”, to
quote the summary that appeared in the Hindu , “ possibly
about the beginning of the present era, and most probably not
later than the 5th century, the inchoate idealism of the older
Upanishats was harmonised with the growing belief in the
Reality of the Material Principle in Nature. The chief literary
document in; 4 his concordant was the Svetasvatara-Upanishat,
and this body of ideas gradually developed in Kashmir into the
Spanda and Pratyabhijha Schools, meanwhile filtering down,
through various channels, into the hands of the Dravidians, for
whose ancient cults it supplied a theological basis. The
Pratyabhijha was finally codified about 1000 a.d. In that form
it passed, through Agamic and other channels, southwards,
notably into the Kanarese country in the middle of the 12th
century, and reappeared, at the beginning of the 13th, as the
basis of the Tamil Siddhantam Dr. Barnett pointed out, in
other words, the essential identity of the Northern and Southern

AN .EUROPEAN ORIENTALIST ON THE AGAMANTA.

475

Schools, suggesting that they are alike derived from the
teachings expressed in the Svetasvatara-Upanishat, and that
the Southern doctrines were finally moulded into their dassical
forms under the influence of the Pratyabhijbd of Abhinavagupta.
Dr. Barnett is the Keeper of Oriental Books and Manuscripts at
the British Museum, and, as such, has exceptional facilities to
obtain and study all the rare works connected with the evolu-
tion of the Agamanta. His pronouncement, therefore, is of a
weighty character, and we should look upon it, with due
deference thereto. The summary we have given has the
additional support of a letter that he recently addressed to us,
in the course of which he gracefully adds, “But I am very
pleased that you are working upon the Bhashya of Srikanfha
and the Agamas. The field is one that promises rich harvests
to the critical student ”

It is now clear why we have to search for the Agamas in
Kashmir, Nepaul, United Provinces and Oudh, the Southern and
North-Western parts of the Bombay 'Presidency, the Kanarese
districts and elsewhere, and why we can afford to be hopeful of
yet finding some of the rare, or hitherto unseen Agamas, beyond
the confines of this Presidency. And hence Dr. Schrader’s note of
approval * re the migration to the South, of the Saiva Philoso-
phy of Kashmir, is not without circumstantial, if not positive

evidence. The land of Thomas Moore’s “ Lalla Rookh ”

Kashmir — which was called by the ancient Persian poets, “ The
Garden of Paradise”, and which is styled, “The Emerald set
with Pearls”, by Miss Florence Parbury, because of its rich
green rice-fields, surrounded by the everlasting snow-capped
mountains, is thus the head-centre of the Spanda Mysticism and
Pratyabhijhi Philosophy, the ancient stronghold of the God-
Taught Doctrines of the Agamanta. Deservedly has this beauti-
ful Land ol sunshine, fruit and flowers been named by the Sages
of India, " The Bhu-Kailasa " (-■ the earthly paradise ’ or • the

•A Descriptive Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Adyar
Library, Preface, page ix, note f, 1

siddhSnta niPiKj.

476

Garden of Eden’), with a marked reference to the Mount
Kailas which forms a happy foil to its ravishing and spiritua-
lising scenery. It is a glorious land of divine possibilities,
and was, as well-known to most students of Indian History, the
health-resort of the Kings and Queens of Delhi. Francois
Bernier, who went to Kashmir in 1664 with the royal suite,
relates that, on arrival, a bard presented a poem to Aurungzebe,
describing the country as follows : “The summits of the higher
and more distant mountains were clothed resplendently in
white, and the minor and more contiguous, preserved in per-
petual verdure, and embellished with stately trees, because it
was meet that the mistress of the kingdoms of the earth, should
be crowned with the diadem whose top and rays were diamonds
issuing from a base-work of emeralds ”

It may be mentioned in this connexion that the Agamanta
is variously known in different parts of India as Rdddhanta,
RadhyUnta and Siddhdnta. Again, Sakti-ViSishfadvaita,
Btvadvatla-Siddhanta, Suddhadvait a-Saiva-Siddhdnta, Siva-
Siddh&nta, 5 a iva-^iddhanta , Saiva-darsana, Vaidika-mahtt-
paSHpata, Mantra , T antra, Spanda, Pratyabhijni, V ira-
mdheSvara and the like, are also the many-coloured appellations
under which the doctrine of the Agamanta is propounded
in diverse authoritative works. But the core of the Agamanta,
whatever may be the form in which its teaching may manifest
itself, is always Mysticism of the highest quality, as its bed-rock
is formed by the Twenty-Eight Divyagamas or Saivagamas of
spiritually supernal origin. We pointed out in the course of two
lectures, which we delivered at Madura in September last, and the
Syllabus * of which was issued as a Bulletin by the “ Madura
Hall of Theosophy ”, that the Saivagamas are not later in point
of time than the First Buddhist Council. We need not here
traverse the ground of arguments, historical, epigraphical and
literary, that were employed in those lectures, as the curious
may refer to the published Syllabus for their edification. It is to

* This was reprinted in “ The Light of Truth ”, Vol X, pp. 118-123.

AN EUROPEAN ORIENTALIST ON Till AUAMJlNTA.

477

us, however, a matter for just pleasure and confirmatory convic-
tion, that Dr. Barnett has amply ratified the position we took up
in the Madura lectures, as regards the Northern origin of the
Agamas, and the Kashmirian environment of the earliest noble
spirits who, from first-hand knowledge of the “mysteries” of the
“ Kingdom of Heaven ”, revealed the Agamas as the only
“ Books of Light ” *

The Pratyabhijna to which Dr. Barnett invites attention as
being the parent-stock of the finished mysticism of the Southern
Saiva-Siddhanta, as well as the Vira-mahesvara doctrine of
such Sakti-Viiishtadvaitins or Sivadvaita-siddhantins as Nija-
gunasivayogin, Svaprabhananda-sivacharya and others, is dealt
with in a partial and sketchy fashion in Chapter VIII of Madhava
Acharya’s Sarva-darsana-sangraha. Utpalacharya, the son of
Udayakara, Somanandanatha, Abhinavagupta and V'asugupta-
charya, are the four pillars of the Pratyabhijna. which is known
also as Sfianda in its highly introspective and practical phases.
The Northern School decorates its illuminati with the title of
Mahesvara, just as the Southern distinguishes its “sanctified-in-
spirit ” by the customary term of respect, " Sivacharya In
fact, “Mahesvara ” is the special name given to the followers of
such schools as accept the twenty-eight Agamas as a Revela-
tion, and worship the Lord under His mystic name, “ Siva ”.
What the “ Siva-jnana-bodha ” of the Rauravagama is to the
Southern Agamantins, the same is the book of Siva-Sutras ” to
the followers of the Sfianda. It may be explained that Sfianda is
the Ultimate Supporting Principle of the manifested prapancha,
which is none other than “Siva”. The “Siva-Sutras” were
originally “revealed” to Vasugupta by Paramesvara Himself,
and Vasugupta taught them to Bhatfa Kalla ta and a few
others who were the disciples of Vasugupta. Vasugupta also
epitomised the same teachings in his Sfiandakarik <3 which was
published, some years ago, along with the Commentary called
Sfianda fir a-dtfiika of Utpalacharya, as Vol. XVI of the Vista-
nagaram Sanskrit Series. But the Spandakarika is, by one set
of authorities, fathered upon BhaBa Kallata, the disciple of

siddhAnta njpiKA.

478

Vasugupta. The above-mentioned Siva-Sutras are most un-
reservedly and lucidly explained by Kshemaraja in a BhSshya,
and the composite work, including the Sutras and the Bhashya,
goes by the name, “ Siva-Sutra-Vimarsini Unless one reads
the "Siva-Sutra-VimarSini” for oneself, it is l.ot possible to form
a definite idea of the exceedingly ancient beatings of the Saiva-
Siddhanta. The enormous number of book? which Kshemaraja
lays under contribution in the course of his illuminative Com-
mentary, shows the maturity of development the Mahesvara
doctrine had reached, centuries before Vasugupta himself.

According to Buhler’s Tour in Cashmere, Abhinavagupta
lived in the beginning of the elventh century A.C. He wrote a
Commentary on the PratyabhijiiO-Sdstra, the first sutra of which
runs : —

This Pratyabhijna-Sastra is apparently the work of Utpala, the
son of Udayakara, and probably a digest of the “ Siva-Sutras ”
themselves. Utpalacharya is also the author of Sivastotravafi
which has been published with the Commentary of Kshemaraja
in the Chaukhambd Sanskrit Series. This Kshemaraja, the
annotator of the Siva-sutra-vimarZini alluded to above, is also
the author of the Gloss, Spanda-nirnaya , on the Spandakdrikd of
Vasugupta (or, perhaps, of Bhat.ta Kalla taj. Somanandanatha
is the talented author of Swa-drishfi, the most limpid exposition
of the “ psychoses " described in the well-known precepts of the
dasakdrydni of the Saiva-Siddhanta. And the Paramarthasara
of Abhinavagupta, the edition of which, with a Translation and
Notes, has been announced to us by Dr. Barnett, bids fair to be
one of the best expose extant of the Higher Mystic Teachings of
the Divyagam«tS.

V. V. R.

THE ADHARAS AND THE KUNPALINI

OR

FORCE CENTRES AND THE SERPENT-FIRE .•

THE ETHERIC CENTRES.

In each of our vehicles there are certain force-centres which
in Sanskrit are called chakrams — a word which signifies a
wheel or revolving disc. These are points of connexion at
which force flows from one vehicle to another. They may
easily be seen in the etheric double, where they show them-
selves as saucer-like depressions or votices in its surface. They
are often spoken of as corresponding to certain physical organs;
but it must be remembered that the etheric force-centre is not
in the interior of the body, but on the surface of the etheric
double, which projects a quarter of an inch beyond the outline
of the denser matter.

The centres which are usually employed in occult develop-
ment are seven, and they are situated in the following parts of
the body: (i) the base of the spine; (2) the navel; (3) the
spleen; (4) the heart; (5) the throat; (6) the space between
the eyebrows ; and (7) the top of the head. There are other
force-centres in the body besides these, but they are not
employed by students of the White Magic. It may be remem-
bered that Madame Blavatsky speaks of three others which she
calls the lower centres ; there are schools which use these, but
the dangers connected with them are so serious that we should
consider their awakening as the greatest of misfortunes.

These seven are often described as corresponding to the
seven colors and to the notes of the musical scale ; and in the
Indian books certain letters of the alphabet and certain forms of
vitality are mentioned as attached to each of them. They are
also poetically described as resembling flowers, and to each of
them a certain number of petals is assigned.

* Reprinted from the TheotopMst, May 1910. The author of this
paper is Mr. C. W. Leadbeater, the well-known practical occultist, and otr
object in reprinting it is to show to our readers how the teachings of tha
yoga-pida of the Agamas are explained from the Theosophic view-pood.
—Ed. L. T.

480

SIDDHAN'TA DIP'KA.

It must be remembered that they are vortices of etheric
matter, and that they are all in rapid rotation. Into each of
these open mouths, at right angles to the plane of the whirling
disc or saucer, rushes a force from the astral world (which we
will call the primary force) — one of the forces of the Logos.
That force is seven-fold in its nature, and all its forms operate
in all the centres, though in each of them one of the forms is
always greatly predominant.

This inrush of force brings the Divine Life into the physi-
cal body, and without it that body could not exist. These
centres through which the force can enter are therefore actually
necessary to the existence of the vehicle, but they may be whirl-
ing with very different degrees of activity. Their particles
may be in comparatively sluggish motion, just forming the
necessary vortex for tiie force and no more, or they may be
glowing and pulsating with living light so that an enormously
greater amount of force passes through them, with the result
that various additional faculties and possibilities are opened to
the Ego as he functions on that plane. Now, those forces
which rush into the centre from without set up at right angles
to themselves (that is to say, in the surface of the etheric double)
secondary forces in undulatory circular motion, just as a bar-
magnet thrust into an induction coil produces a current of
electricity which flows round the coil at right angles to the
axis or direction of the magnet.

Each of these secondary forces, which sweep round the
saucer-like depression, has its own characteristic wave-length,
just as has light of a certain color ; but instead of moving in a
straight line as light does, it moves along in certain relatively
large undulations of various sizes, each of which is some
multiple of the smaller wave-lengths within it, though the exact
proportions have not as yet been calculated. The wave-lengths
are infinitesimal, and probably some thousands of them are
included withia one of the undulations. As the forces rush
round in the vortex these undulations of different sizes, crossing
one another, produce a wavy appearance which is not inaptly

the adiiaras and the kundalint 481

described in the Hindu books as resembling the petals of a
flower ; or it is still more like certain saucers or shallow vases
of wavy iridescent glass which ! have seen in Venice. All of
these undulations or petals have that shimmering iridescent
effect, like mother-of-pearl, yet each of them has usually its
own predominant color.

In the ordinary man, in whom these centres are just active
enough to be channels for sufficient force to keep his body alive,
these colors glow with a comparatively dull light ; but in those
in whom the centres have been aroused and are in full activity
they are of blinding brilliancy, and the centres themselves,
which have gradually grown from a diameter of about two
inches to the size of an ordinary saucer, are blazing and corus-
cating like miniature suns.

COLORS AND PETALS.

The first centre, at the base of the spine, so arranges its
undulations as to give the effect of its being divided into quad-
rants, with hollows between them. This makes it seem as
though marked with the sign of the cross, and for that reason
the cross is often used to symbolise this centre, and sometimes
a flaming cross is used to indicate the serpent-fire which resides
in it. When aroused into full activity this centre is fiery
orange-red in color.

The second centre, at the navel or solar plexus, vibrates in
such a manner as to divide itself into ten undulations or petals,
and is very closely associated with feelings and emotions of
various kinds, its predominat color is a curious blend of vari-
ous shades of red.

The third centre, at the spleen, gives the effect of sex petals
or undulations, and it seems that all of these are concerned in
the specialisation, sub-division and dispersion of the vitality
which comes to us from the sun. Presumably for that reason
this centre is specially radiant, glowing and sun-like

The fourth centre, at the heart, is of a glowing golden color,
and each of its quadrants is divided into three parts, which
gives it twelve undulations.

2

SIDDIIANTA UiPIKA.

The fifth centre, at the throat, has sixteen such apparent
divisions, but its general effect is silvery and gleaming, with a
kind of suggestion as of moonlight upon rippling water.

The sixth centre, between the eyebrows, has the appearance
of being divided into halves, the one predominantly rose-colored,
and the other predominantly a kind of purplish-blue. Perhaps
it is for this reason that this centre is mentioned in Indian books
as having only two petals, though if we are to count undula-
tions of the same fcharacter as those of the previous centres we
shall find that each half is sub-divided into forty-eight of these,
making ninet 3 '-six in all.

The seventh, the centre at the top of the head, is when stirred
into full activity perhaps the most resplendent of all, full of indes-
cribable chromatic effects and vibrating with almost inconceivable
rapidity. It is described in Indian books as thousand-petalled,
and really this is not very far from the truth, the total number
of its undulations being nine hundred and sixty. Inaddition to
this it has a feature which is possessed by none of the other
centres— a sort of subsidiary whirlpool of gleaming white in its
heart — a minor activity which has twelve undulations of its own.

I have heard it suggested that each of the different petals
of these force-centres represents a moral quality, and that the
development of that quality brings the centre into activity. 1
have not yet met with any facts which confirm this, nor am I
able to see exactly how it can be, because the appearance is
produced by certain quite definite and easily recognisable
forces, and the petals in any particular centre are either active
or not active according as these forces have or have not been
aroused, and their development seems to me to have no more
connexion with morality than has the development of the
biceps. 1 have certainly met with persons in whom some of the
centres were in full activity, though the moral development was
by no means exceptionally high, whereas in other persons of
high spirituality and the noblest possible morality the centres
were not yet vitalised at all, so that there does not seem to me
to be any connexion between the two developments.

(To be continued.)

C. W L.

THE TEACHINGS OF St. VAGISA *

The two decades oi hymns offered in this paper by the
learned Translator for the consideration of those who take an
active interest in spiritual life, are in the purest of Tamil, terse
and sweet beyond measure, in every way worthy of the great
Apostle’s mission to the Tamils as “ the king of sacred (Tamil)
diction” (TirundvukkaraSu). His sayings, like those of Tint
Vajluva Nayanar, show how the deepest spiritual truths may be
expressed in simple Tamil without the aid of Sanskrit words.

Man’s reclamation from the way of sorrow, called shortly
in Sanskrit pravritti mdrgam and in full duhkha pravritti
mdrgam , is the thenae of both the hymns. Our saint calls it
m-teo eurrifsy ( nadalai vdlvu), and desires to impress on those who
have ears to hear that the scope of the Karma Kdndam (works-
section) of the Vedas and Agamas is little understood by even
the learned, and that it is of vital importance for every
Karmddhikdri to know the intent with which the Lord designed
His great Karma Chakram. If the works known as yojtia, ddna
and tapas are done with mind intent on the wordly rewards or
bodily happiness with which they are usually associated as
cause and effect, the doer of such works will abide in pravritti
mdrgam for the gratification of his wishes, donning and
doffing bodies without number, and undergoing all fhe pains
and penalties of repeated births and deaths. But if the doer
enters upon those works with mind divorced from their material
rewards, or with mind intent on God only as the protector and
redeemer of the soul, — the framer of the universe and the
ordainer of the works, — the doer will abide in nivritti mdrgam,
that is, duhkha nivritti mdrgam , drawing nearer and nearer to

* This exceedingly instructive contribution from the pen of Mr.
P. Ramanuthan, K.C., C.M.G., appears as • Foreword ’ to a florilegium erf
St. Vagisa’s Psalms with a sketch of his life and philosophy, compiled by
the late Mr. Bilasubrhmapya Mudaliyar, M A-, and Mr. J. M. Nallasvami
Pil'ai, B.A., B.L., a review of which will appear in a subsequent issue of
this Journal. — Ed. L. T.

> Mr. P. Ramanithan refers to the work mentioned in the previous
note. — Ed. L. T.

swduAnta DiriKA.

484

Cod, and be at last like Him, pure spirit, devoid of all sorrow,
immaculate and eternal.

The average KarinOdliikari is a dchavUn, who thinks his
body and his mind are himself, and who therefore believes that
the joys and sorrows of which he is conscious are his very own,
are forms of himself. He knows nothing of the spirit (atmd)
in the body, or the happiness germane to the spirit. To this
corporeal man, the sensuous enjoyments of this world and of
svarga loka are indispensable. His cravings for them being
great, he would labour for them at any cost, and undertake
every rite or ceremony prescribed, in the hope of gratifying
them. The perishability of worldly happiness and its constant
liability to wane and change wholly into sorrow do not strike
him at all, or if they do occasionally, he soon forgets it all and
works afresh for the same kind of bitter-sweet, misnamed
happiness.

In the Bhagavad GUS (ii. 43-45), the Bhagavan cautioned
prince Arjuna against the mistakes of the short-sighted Karma-
adhik&rl as follows : “ Ignorant men who rejoice in the words
of the Karma Kdnda erf the Vedas — who declare that there is
nothing more valuable for men than works of worship, donation
and austerity — who have set their hearts upon the attainment
of sensuous enjoyments and lordly powers by such works — and
who think that Svarga is the highest happiness, — quote flowery
words from the Karma Kinda enjoining different kinds of works
and praising the superior births ordained as the reward of such
works. But, Arjuna, since the Karma K&nda is concerned
with objects evolved from the fleeting phases of mind and
matter ( prakrit i-gunas ), you should forsake such objects and
the dual conditions of the mind known as pleasure and pain.
You should be established on what is unchangeable and true".

This school of Vedic interpreters, whom the Bhagavan
condemns for their belief that Svarga is the highest goal of life
and must be laboured for by the practice of yajnam, dunam and
ta./>as, are referred to in the Piii va Alimimsa as Karma(hah,

THE TEACHINGS OF ST. VAGibA.

485

which, Papini says, means KarmaSurah, apt workers for sensu-
ous happiness.

The wise Karniadhikari is he who does his yajtiam, datum
and tafias, for their own sakes, and not through love of the sensu-
ous enjoyable things that come of such works ; or he who does
such works through love of God and in grateful acknowledg-
ment of His beneficent care.

The Apostle of God, graciously sent into the land of the
Tamils some two thousand years ago, asked his contemporaries,
as he still asks their remote descendants, Qstres*<2

0 «r Qjftugj — what have ye gained by persisting in pravritti
mirgarn — the way that is steeped in heart-aches, notwith-
standing all its pomp and gloss, throughout the trilokas named
bhu, svar and naraka. In another hymn he confesses that in
the days of the flesh — when its cravings were strong — he did
many a dark deed in ignorance — '2&irSanicuso Q*t it fared, indr 4 ft
Qiudr , — but that he clung day and night to God, Whom he had
not before set high above all things in his heart, and obtained,
as the result of his unflinching love and humility, the grace of
the Lord, which freed his body from its long-standing ailments,
and his spirit from corruption. Proclaiming his transcendent
state of Jlvan-mukti (spiritual freedom), in the psalm beginning
with (fjiq-ujwG&jn ut, iiefteor raj), ttssfftd)

he asks in one of the hymns before us, “are you
not tired of the painful pleasures of the sense-ridden mind ?
do you not know the testimony of the Vedas that pravritti
margarn leads unto death, and back again unto birth and
death, with all their fears, fatigues and sorrows ?

isneab^a, at— fa) Qrnaig; Qrnft ucusrem lo.” Therefore

the prudent man, buddhiman, should turn from this way of
sorrow and love God above all. He should cling to God
unceasingly in whatever line of duty he may be engaged and
appeal for grace. Then will God admit him to the way of
freedom from sorrow — duhkha nivritti mdrgam.

(To be continued.)

P. R.

4 86

siddhAnta DlPJKA

THE SiVA-DARSaNAM.

Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God. — St. Matthew, v. 8.

The phenomenon of Siva-darSanam which is recognised
by Agamantins as the highest achievement of the bond-freed
spirit, has been sedulously sought and realised by such God-
taught souls as Sri-Ramakrishna-Paramahamsa. But there
are others at the present day who have been blessed only with
a glimpse of the Light, or in whom there has only been a feeble
flash of the Beyond, who, in the first flush of that strange jumble
of thought-perception and sense-perception, accompanying the
momentary lifting of the heart, mistake the shadows for the
substance, nay, endeavour to prove that they have attained to
the very Bourne, dazzled by the shimmering sheen of those
shadows. Such visionaries are not in any degree possessed of
that rare “degre? of sanctification” which Hindu Mystics have
always eulogised as Sabdarthajiiana, a condition of superb
truth-piercing “ wakefulness ” which dawns only on ripe and
endowed illuminati, but hardly, if ever, on halting or haphazard
intruders on “ half-real” Realms. “Clairvoyance ” is a dubious
term, meaning nothing more than 1 transparent vision’, and such
‘vision’, making short work of space, time and, finally, of all
notions of ‘succession’, including the so-called phantasm of
“ causation" which is only a sort of succession in disguise, com-
prises, under another classification, vision on the “ temporal”,
"temporal-real" and “real” planes, of which the last leads to the
luring “Spiritual Awareness” which is “Diving into the Deity”
or “Going to God” This is thetrue TuriyUtitam, the Adhvanah-
param of the Kafha-Upanishat, that tantalises the devotee amid
worldly wails, and draws him towards the “Doom of Day”,
known to the Sanctified Spirits of the Romish Church as the
“Beatific Vision ”

The states summed up by the curious combination, “ Clair-
voyance ", are so elusive of grasp and so slippery that a hotch-
potch is the inevitable result, if we do not pause to ponder on
the variety of its versi-coloured revelations. It does not fully
follow., from the sole reason of a person being a clairvoyant on
the physical plane, that he must ^ds be also a “seer” on the

THF. SIVA-nAR§.\NAM.

487

Bosom of the Boundless Blur. But the ecstatic clairvoyant in
his lucifonn vesture, who can soar into the- sweeping stretches
of the Superliminal, has the H HI of the ll iciest Vision in the
hollow of his hand. Yet, even to him, “seeing " is only "sense-
preception ” at best, whatever the sweet subtlety of its objec-
tive, and, hence, he does not deign to such scattering of his
forces, and “dunning of the dust ’’ Real clairvoyants rarely
care to communicate their connings to the public press, and
even if sometimes they would, they could not. And some of the
“ booming " pseudo-clairvoyants of self-deceived dogmatism,
are quite keen on the so-called analysis of sense-experiences or
sensations into thought-perceptions or cerebrations. But if they
would be true to their salt, they should not stop short at a
search for samskaras or vdsanas or the inherited tendencies of
the subtler mind-stuff, but should drive their drill deeper down.
A vaunted knowledge of the mysterious modes of mastering the
powerful "plexuses”, or of meandering around the mandalas,
never even takes us to the back-door of the “Heaven of Heavens”,
of the true Siva pura. The Seeker after God should pro-
ceed further in his quest, and boil down “ thoughts ” into
their ineta-psychical rudiments, and these “rudiments” again
into their very " first principles ”, until they " vanish into thin
air" in the infinite azure of “ Absolute Be-ing The truth. is
that whatever is analysis and reduction from below upwards,
is synthesis and complication from above downwards. Unless
the would-be “Anointed” be prepared to tear "thought” to
tatters, to visualise, if he can, the “ Motor of Kufila ”, it is idle
of him to pose as a Seeker of God, inflicting the. world with his
lisping gabble of shady significance, which has abundantly been
to the fore as much as the existence of babes, ever since the
dawn of time.

But, for those, who, sleeping or waking, rest in the face-to-
face certitude of the true Superliminal, physical hunger and
thirst are absent, for, even their fleshy frame is full of that
"supple essence" which is the "sweet sap”.sustaining the whole
universe. What is observed above is applicable,, by parity of
reasoning, to “Clairaudience” or any other psychical sense. For,
as mystics know, a stage is reached in their ecstasy, where all

4*8

m ni>u Ant a nipiKA.

senses seem to boil and blend, when "seeing” is “hearing 1 ,
and ever v other sensation 1 hat is the true "Translation of
Atma-puranam. The subtle secret of “ finding ” the “ Kingdom
of Heaven” is to be sought for in one’s own "body. As Svami
Vivekananda so frankly says in u different connexion, “1/ the
steam is turned, on the engine must run ” The apt allusion
to the ‘ steam ’ and the ‘ engine ’, has more than a surface sem-
blance. The trouble is, we have to store the ‘steam’, and not
only to store it, but also to know how and where to turn it.
And purity of thought is the fuel which will gently generate the
steam, but never that graceless purity, divorced from compassion,
which will not scruple to spill the life-blood of one’s neighbour,
in the name of parading piety ; on the other hand, the purity
that is capable of bearing fruit, is what pervades the “poverty-
stricken” soul, as it feels the fullest favour of its “ Father in
Heaven ”, alike in the stings of scorpions, and the pleasures of
the passing, phenomenal panorama. Thus tempered in the fires
of the “Valley of the Shadow of Death”, the pining bhakta
perchance probes into the depths of the “Great Be-ing ”, and,
one day, the flood-gates of the Divine Light suddenly lift, and,
in a blaze of dazzling splendour, he sees his real form, and, aye,
behind and through it, the very back-ground of all “forms”.
Such a blessed soul gazes on the fulness of his own reality ,
flaming in ineffable lustre, where, just but a moment ago, he
descried, as he now finds, only an empty, though a seemingly
significant, fata morgana of sighs and tears, a hideous dance
of dire shadows.

Such a sight, even if it should vanish in the twinkling of an
eye, is more confirmatory of the substantiality of our existence,
than anything that the weary world can show. Out of the phan-
tasmal past peer, to be sure, St. John of the Cross and Sri-Mula,
Buddha and Sankara, Santideva and Nagarjuna, Chaitanya
and Srikantha, but what of that ? Has not the living present its
own “ Legion of Honour”? Ramakrishna-Paramahamsa and
Emerson, SadaSiva-brahmam and Tiilainathan-svami, are ever
with us to comfort and cheer us along the " Razor-Path "

V. V. R.

THE VALUE OF HINDUISM FOR HINDUS.

( Concluded from page 439 of No. u. Vol. X.)

Let me give you an illustration. According to Western
psychology there are two principal states of conscio .sness — the
Waking, or thinking state, and the sleeping sta'.e in which
thought and consciousness are partially or wholly suspended.
It ij not suspected that there is another state in which thought
has ceased bpt consciousness is fully alive. It is supposed that
the thinker and the experiencer of consciousness are the same
and that therefore the cessation of thought means the cessation
of consciousness.

But we learn from the Indian sages that the Western
premise is wrong — that the manas or thinker is not the same
as the dtma or spirit, the knower ; and that as a consequence
there is a state of full consciousness possible to man in which
there is no thought. And any earnest man may convince
himself by introspection if he goes about it in the right way;
that the Eastern teaching is right.

Now what is the practical value of knowing that the spirit
— the immortal and changeless — is distinct from the mind, whicH
is mortal and subject to change. The Blessed Bhagavin tells
us in the Gita — a Book by the way not so much prized by you
Tamils as it should be. I have found it the most practical and
valuable of all books. Sri Krishna says :

“ Beeause mind alone is the ally of the spirit and mind
alone is the enemy of the spirit, the mind should not be made
impure The meaning is that the mind being the chief instru-
ment of the spirit given it by the Lord to help it out of this quag-
mire of matter into which the spirit has sunk, and standing in the
closest association with the spirit, is capable, if pure, of being an
immeasurably valuable assistant to the spirit on the path to the
Lord, and, if impure, a most dangerous obstructor of that path.
Every wise man therefore will guard the purity of his mind.

3

49 »

SIDDHANTA D1PIKA.

We are told that only the purified and disciplined mind
can lift the veil which prevents the spirit from knowing itself
and God ; that for getting out of this bondage in which it is,
it is absolutely dependent upon the mind.

Suppose that in your youth your father gives you a servant,
saying — this servant will be with you all your life, will be your
constant companion, and will be the only first-rate servant you
will ever have. Will you not carefully look to the tra'ining of
that servant ? Will you not watch him closely — keep him away
from evil companions, wine and women? — keep him pure?

Unquestionably you will ; and you have just the same
interest in training the mind — in keeping it pure.

And how are you to purify the mind ? The Sastras and
Agamas tell you this; you are to regulate your thoughts — action
will take care of itself if the thoughts are regulated — according
to the rules laid down by holy men. You will avoid sensuous-
ness and vice, you will cultivate love and generosity. Here is
the scientific basis of ethics which the West has so long sought
in vain.

Can anything be more practically valuable than this little
piece of information about the distinction between the mind and
the spirit ?

1 hope that I have now sufficiently impressed upon you the
wonderful development and elaboration which your religion
has received at the hands of these numberless Sages — the
scientific and practical value which they have given it.

The third reason to which I wish to call your attention
to-night, why Hindus should attach the highest value to their
religion, is that it is a part, and the chief part, of your national
character, which cannot be given up without leaving you
emasculated and lifeless as a nation. Every nation has been
given by the lord, or has developed according to divine laws,
certain institutions peculiarly be-fitted to the character of its
people as individuals. These institutions embrace its language,
its customs such as social laws, caste, etc., and its Religion.

THE VALUE OF HINDUISM FOR HINDUS

491

These are all knitted together — correlated to each other, and
together they form the character of the nation or race. They
cannot be given up any more than a man can give up his indivi-
duality. Should a man attempt to do this, he would merely muti-
late himself, and the fraction remaining would have little value for
himself or for others. It is the same with national or racial
character ; and it should also be noted that its several
constituents — Language, Customs, Religion, are so closely
interrelated that no one of them can be dropped or injured
without substantially maiming or wholly destroying each of
the others. Let us trace the effect of abandoning or changing
any of the features of the national character.

First, take up the institution of Language. To give it up,
means what ?

Thousands of Tamil children in Jaffna are practically doing
so to-day. Almost as soon as they enter school, and before
they have at all mastered Tamil, they are set to learn English.
Thereafter English is given the first place, Tamil is sub-
ordinated. All the efforts of the teacher are directed to stimu-
late the child in learning English. The result is that he reaches
adult life without having mastered Tamil even as a spoken
language and unable to manage it at all as a literary language.
He is divorced from the literature of his fathers. He is unable
to draw upon that immense store of the lofty sentiment and
inspiring ideals which lies like a treasure of gold and jewels in
ancient books of every race, in none a richer treasure than in
those of the Tamils, which lies open to all who possess the key
of Language. No man should cut off from this noble heritage
of his race, since it is to him a needed source of strength and
inspiration at times of stress during his life. No foreign litera-
ture can take its place. But the youth who has lost the langu-
age of his fathers has lost also his intellectual and spiritual
inheritance.

And then his religion is likely to go also. For his religion
is embedded in his language. Unless he studies his sacred

492

SIPIlIlANTA 1/lPIKA.

books there, the chances are that he will never study them at
all, and that religion will never be a living force for him. We
can imagine an Englishman, a German, a Frenchman, abandon-
ing his language without forgetting his religion, for, the source
of his religion is foreign to his language and his race. But
with you it is otherwise. Your religion and your literature
are almost synonymous. Your religion is an inherent part of
your racial or national life.

if this is the disastrous effect on the youths of the loss of
his language, what is the meaning of the introduction of a new
language for the use of the educated classes, to the community ?

It means in the first place, of course, an end of the living
literature of thf language, and certainly also a loss of touch
between the masses and the educated classes. The masses
cannot learn the new language ; and therefore there exists np
medium of communication between them and their natural
leaders. The masses necessarily stagnate — they cannot rise or
progress. They degenerate into superstition and ignorance.

This process is taking place both in Jaffna and some parts
of India to-day. The pandits, who used to be the guides and
teachers of the peoples have almost disappeared in certain
localities, and the younger generation of educated men are
incompetent to take their place. The corruption and decay of
religion must follow in time. If it has not already made
noticeable progress, it is because there are still enough men
learned in Tamil to keep the ancient learning fresh.

Such being the destructive effect of the abandonment of the
national language, let us next examine the effects which flow
irom a change of customs in deference to foreign influence,
‘■he general tendency of this influence has been to wholly dis-
organize your social fabric. Thus, you had the custom of
educating your children yourselves. Every village of ancient
India had its schools, both for giving elementary and advanced
education. You hav? let education drift into the hands of foreign-
ers, and what- sort of fitting for life do your children get ?

THF VAl.tlF OK HINDUISM FOR HINDUS.

493

Consider your girls first. The associations of their life in the
Mission boarding schools, the Western ideas which they imbibe
there, both from their teachers and the books which they study,
fill them with the desire to imitate Western life. They want to
wear European clothes, to eat European food, to live in houses
built and furnished in European style, to have the abundant ser-
vice which they see Europeans employing. They are no longer
satisfied with simple Hindu habits of life. They become a heavy
burden of expense to their husbands, a source of constant dis-
comfort to their relations and friends, and, with all that, they are
ever discontented and unhappy themselves.

To avoid these evils many of your parents refuse. to send
their girls to Mission boarding schools preferring to let them
grow up in ignorance, without education, and by so doing they
incur evils only less serious than those which would have
followed from Missionary influence. For it is a great misfortune
to the family to have as its head and directing spirit an
uneducated and untrained mind. The wife cannot sympathize
with the husband in his higher ideals and aspirations, and the
mother cannot walk step by step with her sons and daughters
as their minds are developing, and give them the needed
encouragement of her advice and example. Nothing is so
important for a healthy society as sound training of its women,
in the literature and traditions and customs of the people.

Then as to your boys. They too are unfitted for the duties
of life in these Missionary schools. The building up and
development of character ought to be the first aim of education,
but this is not the case in the mission school, and for that reason
the mission school is of necessity a failure. The first aim of that
school is to make converts of your children, to convince them
of the superiority to Hinduism of the religion of the Missions —
avoid, when possible, calling this religion Christianity, for it is
not the religion which Christ taught — and to equip them, when
so convinced, with arguments maintaining the same proposition,
which they may be ready to use on all occasions, with their

494

SIDDHANTA DiHIKA

parents and friends. All the energy of the missionary teachers
being devoted to this end, they have none left for the real pur-
pose of education, the development of character. The dignity
of labour is not taught your children, and your boys come out
of these schools afraid of work on the farm, iust as your mission
educated girls are afraid of work in the kitchen. Thus agricul-
ture, which ought to be the delight of your best men, the pride
and strength of your people, which is the noblest of all
avocations, is left to shift for itself, while your young men
flock to the offices of government, to spend their lives in
scratching on paper as petty clerks.

These are some of the more practical evils which flow from
your abandonment of your ancient custom and your undoubted
duty of educating your children yourselves. I have not men-
tioned, and it is so self-evident as hardly to require mention by
me, the far greater misfortune, beside which those I have
spoken of are but insignificant, of the loss of your religion,
which will certainly result, from the foreign influence upon the
minds of your children if long enough continued. How can
your children keep their respect for a leligion which their
teachers do not respect — which the authors of the books which
they study do not respect ? They cannot. If they remain long
in these schools they must come from them with their faith,
if not destroyed, at least unsettled ; so that it cannot have for
them a controlling force in the conduct of life — the greatest
misfortune which can happen to a human being.

The Missionary influence is very subtle. If the attack be
indirect, it is even more dangerous than when it is direct.
Read what the Rev. Garrett says in the Wesleyan Report for
1902,— (p. 9) “ Our English Colleges are preparing the way of
Christ in Jaffna, not only by the direct evangelical teaching
which they supply to the students, but also by the Christian
influence which works unseen within them, teaching the young
men to view life anfl its problems with Christian eyes, and
to regard their ancestral superstitions and idolatry in the

THE VALUE OF HINDUISM FOR HINDUS.

495

light which the Gospel radiates upon all who come within
its reach ”,

Rev. Wilkes says in the same Report, — (p. 14) "Out of
nineteen Saivite boys in my top three classes, only one had
lever read a Saivite book. The Vedas are scarcely known by

name, and the term Upanishad was a new word to them ;

to win them for Christ is an aim worth the utmost devotion
and skill

Then the other customs of your Society— they were all
fashioned so as to further the purposes of religion. For your
ancestors realized that life without religion had no meaning.
Now the essence of religion is love, its end will be achieved
when love — love for God and man, — is fully developed in the
human heart. So your wisest men planned your social organ-
ization with this supreme object of life always in view. Love
was cherished in the family and a great number of related
persons were kept in association with each other in the same
family, that love might develop between them. The bounds of
the family were even extended to practically include the depend-
ant classes. Families of servants and dependants dwelt in or
near the family precincts of the master. They were paid, not
in money, but in care. Service descended from generation to
generation — a privilege prized and jealously guarded in which
they took pride. The care of the master was met by the
devotion of the servant.

There were no jails in your ancient polity. The alleged
offender was tried by the village elders, and if found guilty
was not confined with criminals to the ruin of his character by
evil associations, but committed to the custody of his father, to
be dealt with by him on the principles of love.

The rule of decision in those communities was unanimity.
Theibrutal custom of imposing, by force, the will of the majority
upon the minority, was unknown there.

The deadly competition of modem Western life was also
unknown. Skilled labour was organized in various castes and

siddhJnta Dims.

496

its supply regulated by caste rides. Nor could a society in
which the development of love was recognized as an aim, ever
countenance a social system in which private gain is sought at
the cost of the suffering of the neighbour.

These are a few of the features of the most beautiful and
perfect social fabric the world has seen, planned by the wisest
men to lead the soul most quickly to God. Every changing
it, has been a disaster — every change in it has sapped the
strength and effectiveness of your religion.

The remaining institution which I mentioned as going to
make up the national character, is Religion. It is the chief of
all, the heart of your institutions. If you drop that — if you
adopt another religion in its place — you simply and at once
commit suicide, as a race, as a nation. The chief reasons for
preserving your language will no longer exist, and it will
perish. Your racial customs will fade from the memory of
man, for they are the outward expression of your religion.
You will no longer be a force in the world, and your country
will cease to be a land where aspiring men delight to dwell.

You will now see, I think, how the institutions which make
up your national character are interdependent, and all suffer
through injury to one; and how they are essential to your
integrity as a race — to your effectiveness as a force in the
world and to the continuance of your land as a place in which
it is desirable to live — which furnishes, that is, a suitable
environment for evolving spiritually-minded men.

These then, gentlemen, are the three reasons I wish to call
to your attention to-night, because of which you should prize
and cherish your religion — the fact that it is a living religion in
a unique sense, in comparison with which the religion of the
West is dead ; that it is scientific, carefully elaborated and for
you practically valuable, to an extent not approached by any
other religion on the eargh ; and finally that it is a part of your
racial character, knit up with your language and customs, and
no more to be discarded, if you are to retain your integrity and

tiir value of iiindcism for iiindus.

497

effectiveness as a race, than his character or individuality can
be discarded by a man.

Now your possession of this religion is threatened by
foreign influence — very seriously threatened. Tht chief cause
of this danger 1 have already adverted to— that you have let
the education of your children drift out of your own hands, into
those of aliens, who have not the faintest understanding of your
institutions or sympathy with them. Look at the situation iij
the Jaffna District. Out of some 400 schools in 1907, 300 were
Mission schools. More than three-fourths of your children
being educated by the Missionaries! Much more than three-
fourths 1 think, since the Hindu schools are on the average con-
siderably smaller than the Mission schools. I have procured
copies of the annual reports of the Mission, and I find that the
American Mission has iri its schools 11,000 children, the
Wesleyan Mission 5000 children, the Church Mission Society of
England 3000 children. Then there are the Catholics, who are
too shrewd to give us their figures. In all, certainly more than
20,000 Hindu children being educated in Missionary schools!
Is not this a most alarming situation ? Can you regard it with
any sort of equanimity? If matters go on as now, what are the
reasonable probabilities, so far as human judgment can go, as to
the future? Will not these 10,000 children, their minds formed
under Missionary influences, become increasingly well-disposed
towards Mission schools ? Will they not be more ready to send
their children, your grand-children, to these schools even than
you have been to send them ? Will it require more than two or
three generations to make of the Hindu religion and Hindu
institutions merely a fragrant memory in this Jaffna District ?

I think not. I think that is the common-sense view to which we
are driven.

Is the matter then hopeless ? By no means. Education is
the key to the situation. If you take the education of
your children into your own hands, you can turn the
tables on the Missionaries; you have the strength of right
4

siddhanta dihikA.

498

and conviction on your side. And you will find that the
Missionaries are very weak if you once penetrate the armor of
their assurance. They themselves are weak because of their
ignorance of your Religion and their doubts as to their own
Religion. Their followers of your race are weak because they
lack the individual force of conviction.

You have two problems — primary schools and higher
schools. Of these the latter is the most pressing. That is
where you are weakest.

Your chief dependence for higher education is the Hindu
College. For 20 years it has been the one bulwark in the
district against the Missionary flood. It has stood in the breach
and held it successfully. Had it not been there, Hindu
education would probably by this time have been a thing
of the past in Jaffna, and these words would never have
been spoken.

But the strain has been very great, and Hindu College is
to-day in a precarious position. It has no permanent fund; and
has no resource for its running expenses except fees and the
Government Grant. Suppose the latter should for some reason
be withheld or delayed — by no means an impossibility. The
institution would collapse unless some well-disposed person
came - to its rescue. An institution so vastly important to you
should not be left in this insecure position. Then it has no
means with which to secure a European as teacher of English,
a very necessary addition to its faculty, considering the keen
Competition to which it is subjected. It has no gymnasium, no
physical or chemical laboratory and no library ; and finally
because of this lack of funds and equipment it is — and ver’-
properly — denied affiliation by the Madras University.

Gentlemen, the men who have singly supported the Hindu
College during all the^ years have done a noble and patriotic
work. They deserve your gratitude and more than your grati-
tude, your energetic and self-sacrificing support. This is a time
for self-sacrifice and devotion on the part of every one who loves

THE VALUE OF HINDUISM FOR HINDUS.

499

his country, and wishes to pass it on unimpaired to his childr^g
The fact that a man of worth and distinction like Mr. Ramar
nafhan should undertake, to establish a Girl’s College is a great
thing, and furnishes a great opportunity. To establish this
school, adapted to receive three or four hundred girls, and make
it strong and independent, as 1 know is Mr. Kamanath&n’e
intention, is indeed to confer a great boon upon Jaffaat
And just here, I want to refer to a statement to which a Mis*
sionary paper, the Jaffna Morning Star, has given currency!
That sheet stated some weeks ago that Mr. Ramanathan had
collected money in America for his school. That statement I
know to be absolutely untrue. 1 was with Mr. Ramanathan
substantially all the time he was in America. He did not ask
or receive a cent for any purpose while he was there.

Now this public-spirited act of Mr. Ramanathan gives
Jaffna a great opportunity. It ought to excite the generous
emulation of all citizens of Jaffna, and if you all push together,
great results maybe accomplished. There is a decided gnd
growing interest and enthusiasm with regard to the subject
among the masses of the people. During six weeks we address-
ed some thirty audiences, and I found them very responsive.
The meetings constantly grew in size. Three hundred, four
hundred, five hundred people gathered in around those little
school-houses. Then the attendance of the schools increased.
Thus at Mulai there was an accession of fifty pupils within a
week after we were there. The school at Karaitivu had
similarly forty accessions. It is only necessary to keep this
agitation up for a year or two to place the movement on a
secure basis. You can look forward with confidence to the
regeneration of the school system of the district, if you make
the necessary effort.

I know that 1 am to some extent responsible for bringing
matters to the situation in which they are— for throwing down
the gauntlet to the Missionaries in the uncompromising way in
which it has been thrown, and I want to say to you that I

siddhAnta niPiKA.

500

believe that all that is needed for the complete success of this
movement— for the rescuing of your children from the mission
schools and establishing them in your own schools, is the
supply of a moderate amount of money to meet the expenditure
which must be made. If you and the other citizens of Jaffna
will furnish these funds, 1 am prepared to repeat the work of
the past two months or so in Jaffna, as often as may be neces-
sary, in order to satisfactorily establish the movement. But of
course you must furnish the means. That is an essential part
of the programme.

I am glad, my friends, to have had this opportunity to
address you, and I thank you for attentively listening to me
for the long time which I have occupied.

M. H. P.

k Triangular Duel over the Science of Prediction*

1 .

JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY. — SOME EXPERIENCES.

“ He who knows his own divine self knows the whole of the Universe ”

— Jacob Boehmc.

I read with amusing interest the suggestion of your own
correspondent who "in the interests of the larger lay public”
advocates the establishment of “an artrological bureau in a
central place with power to certify qualified men to sit in
judgment over men's fortunes.” It is now some twenty-six
years and more since the present writer, then just out of his
teens and a newly married man, wanted to know what the
Astrologer had to say of the fate awaiting him in the threshold.

* The papers that ^tre printed here under this caption originally
appeared in Tic Indian Patriot , and their main value lies in the instruction
which they are intended to offer on the claims of Astrology as a Science —
Ed. L. T.

JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY — SOME EXPERIENCES.

501

of his life, so full of hope and yet so trembling to contemplate !
The late Sir T. Madhava Rao had just then published a
pamphlet in English exposing the pretensions of Judicial Astro-
logy, and of the numerous quacks who traded on the ignorance
of a gullible people too much inclined to surrender themselves
without a protest to what they conceive to be their fate. A
friend of mine who then had made a name as an Astrologer by
predicting the elevation to the High Court Bench of the then
popular Madura Mani Ayyar (now Sir S. Subraljma^i Ayyar,
K.C.I.E., LL.D., retired Judge of H. M’s High Court of Judica-
ture in Madras, resting on his well-earned laurels) and had won
various other testimonials, sought my aid to publish a rejoinder
to Sir T. Madhava Rao. Before lending my help to him as a
literati (sic), I asked to be convinced of the truth of Judicial
Astrology, and he gave, me several instances of his predictions
as regards high-placed public men, which had come to pass, and
cast out my own horoscope for a period of 36 years, which to me
then appeared to be a long spell of life to enjoy. I have now
outlived his predictions, and also the cloudy notions of my
youth as to the mysterious influences of the stars which the
Judicial Astrologer proposes to interpret for you, and to aid
you in overcoming them if they are adverse or unfavour-
able to you.

To avoid any misapprehension, let me at the outset say,
that I make a distinction between Astrology as the “ science
of the stars ” which is true, and the pretensions of the Judicial
Astrologer, who with human judgment proposes to weigh the
influences of the stars and planets and other heavenly bodies in
the tilting balance of his unconquered mind. To those who
have conquered the mind, the stars and all other heavenly
bodies, when their positions, powers and laws, have been
minutely studied and mastered, do speak in a language which,
like the handwriting on the wall of Bels Chazar’s Hall, is clear
to them, while it remains an enshrouded mystery to everyone
else. Those who have “hitched their wagon to a star" do
perceive the path of human destiny along which the stars move.

502

siddhAnta dIpikA.

But to others they are a mystery and remain a mystery to the
end of the chapter.

“Judge not lest ye be judged,” said the great Prophet
of Nazareth, and immediately added in no uncertain tones:
"And if I judge, I judge after my Father, and my judgment is
true.” To those who have succeeded in merging their individual
wills in the Supreme Universal Will, and surrendered their
individual judgments to the Supreme Judgment of the Uni-
versal Mind called “Mahat or Buddhi ”, Nature has no secrets
to conceal. The Book of Nature ever lies open to them,
to read at every turn. Nature reveals her secrets to them
through everything, from stones to stars; for Nature is not
different from them, and they have realised this great Truth
in their own simple lives.

Now there are books on Astrology which give minute
details for calculation and judgment ; but all these multifarious
rules and minutiae of details as to judgment, are based on the
fundamental fact that Life is One, and all life is a continuity of
that One Eternal Life. When this is grasped and realised,
everything else is easy. But very few of the so-called professors
in Astrology, and none perhaps in the West, have realised
(intellectual grasping is not realisation) this fundamental Truth
of Existence. Like a child that forms a concrete conception of
the unit and works along, making progress in mathematics (both
in its lower and higher branches), and yet stands aghast at the
realisation of Unity which transcends the conceiving mind itself,
even so, students of Astronomy who are drawn into a study of
of the allied subject of Astrology, may prognosticate coming
events from certain ascertained given data: for “ the cosmic
procession ” moves on with mathematical precision to the
grand symphony of the universe, otherwise called the music of
the spheres, which m sooth is attuned to the Infinite. But,
Judicial Astrology in the hands of those who have not yet
attained to self-realisation is, at best, only an interesting study,
a charming intellectual feat whici n itself, deserves admiration

JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY — SOME EXPERIENCES

»OJ

as a feat ; and a subject of absorbing interest to theadv«im4
student who is on the Path of Light, the Way to Self-
Realisation. To worldly men who are complete slaves of
circumstances, the predictions are bound to be tolerably certain;
and it requires a thorough knowledge of Human Nature and of
Human Character to make the predictions, which are clothed
in language of high and sweeping generalisations of events
under certain well-defined heads, to interpret aright the
language of the stars. But there is a constantly variable and
varying quantity in the Human Constitution, which makes it
unsafe to be cock-sure of making predictions, which is liable to
be altered by the play of the Human Will. A man of well-
trained and highly cultivated will is sure to create his own
environment, and make the influences of the stars subserve his
own divinely inspired purpose. St. Tirujnanasambandha
set the Astrologer’s predictions at naught, when he felt the
divine inspiration within him to go to Madura, infested by
Samanars, and ruled by a King who was entirely under their
influence. Savitri (the eternal ideal of Indian Womanhood), while
yet in her teens, set at naught the prediction of the Sage
Narada, as to the age of her self-chosen husband, which the
King, her father, refused to ratify, for fear of her being over-
taken by widowhood, after a brief year of married life. To her,
the fidelity of a woman’s heart to her chosen lord was of
greater consequence than all the adverse influences of the stars,
and the astute sage, Narada, perceiving the strength of her
indomitable will in the cause of righteousness, prevailed upon
the King to let her have her own way, as she was righteous in
her judgment. And She, having married the chosen of her
heart, so kept watch and ward over his life with all the love and
light which a woman’s pure and faithful heart lent her, that she
succeeded in conquering fate and death, by the saintly purity
of her simple unsophisticated will, fed by the ever-lit glowing
altar-fire of love within her chaste bosom. Markaijdeya’s story
is another instance of the power ot pure and chaste will
prevailing over the destinies of fate and stars. This is * fact

SIDDHANTA DiPIKA.

l°4

well-known to all, and the practice of Judicial Astrology, as a
profession, is forbidden to all on pains and penalties that are
terrible to contemplate. To the truly enlightened, they are a
law unto themselves, and they know well how to aid Nature in
her endeavours to lead the Human Soul to the Feet of God, and
when to stand aloof, and be a mere witness of the working
of her unalterable laws. Nature; like woman, is conquered,
not bjl opposing her, but by yielding oneself unreservedly
to her.

As every Hindu consults the Astrologer on prescribed
occasions, and family precedent would allow of no exception to
this rule, there is, no doubt, a vague and general belief in
Astrology as a science, but it is well seasoned with a sound
disbelief in the Astrologer who professes to practice Judicial
Astrology. I have simply to quote a very common proverb
which admirably sums up the popular attitude of mind, which
goes far to give tone and sanity to the will of the people in the
matter of Judicial Astrology and empirical medicine. It runs
thus and is in the mouth of ' every man, woman and child who
are familial with the professional man in Judicial Astrology:
"Is the daughter of the Astrologer immune from widow-
hood ? And the wife of the medicine-man (VaidyaJ free from
death ?” The meaning of it is clear. When these two calamities
are common enough in the case of those near and dear to the
professors who respectively practice the combating of these
evils as a profession, we may let them and their sciences alone
and trust to our intuitive will or inspiration! That is the
popular verdict on J udicial Astrology and empirical medicine,
and no one can question the sanity and soundness of that
verdict.

But to those who, having studied mathematics and astro-
nomy, wish to study their application to abstruse subjects, the
science of Astrology qffers an amount of intellectual exercise,
which no other applied science can afford to the same degree,
either in subtleness of differentiation, or nicety of calculation, or

JUDICIAL ASTROLCGY — A REJOINDER.

5°5

the interminable combinations and permutations of actions and
reactions, aspects and influences. As a subtle science for the
training of the highest powers of the mind, there could be no
better science, unless it be the higher and more universal one of
‘ Sri-Vidya,' that will offer to the student the same intellectual
food and nourishment for assimilation, as Astrolor y. And to
such, I recommed an exhaustive work which my friend Mr.
V. Subraljmanya Sastri, B.A., of Ramprasad, Bangalore, has
brought out. It is an excellent edition, in Sanskrit, of ‘ Jatafca-
parijata ’, with a lucid translation of the same in English. I
await with interest his learned introduction to the whole work
(Jatakaparijata), which is still in preparation, when I may return
again to the subject. Meanwhile, I must continue my study of
the underlying principles, in my own way.

C. V. S.

II

JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY. — A REJOINDER.

“ Mr. Halley, I know the subject ; you do not ”. — Sir Isaac Norton.

A kind friend of mine called my attention to the flippant
effusion that appears in your paper of the 19th instant, under
the above heading. Mr. C. V. Svaminatha Aiyyar has assumed
a new role in coming forward as a critic of Judicial Astrology,
and under the pretext of vilipending the current practitioners
of the science, advertises the manner in which his help was
sought by a quack twenty-six years ago in order to publish a
counterblast against the late Sir T. Mjdhava Rao, as well as
the supremacy of a third-rate Translation of an inane and
untrustworthy Sanskrit astrological book named Jutaiapdrijila,
issued by Mr. V. Subraljmanya Sastri of Bangalore. The
adage truly runs, “The best part of a lady's letter lies in the
postscript.” And there are many that choose to follow tlfc
astute cunning of the womankind in signifying a sinister
s

Sll >1 »l IAI IN' A PI PIKA

Jo6

purpose under a roaring cataract of verbiage. Mr. Subrahinapya
Sastri certainly deserves a better fate than being testified to his
literary and technical proficiency bv one who knows obviously
next to nothing about astrology Overweening vanity can never
amount to, or be mistaken for, strength of will or mastery of
destiny. Above all, astrology requires a balance of mind and a
calmness of disposition for its investigation, which are the very
reverse of lip-‘yoga' and paper- ‘realization.’ If India is really as
full of yogis as it is represented to contain, astrologers will be
nowhere, and every one will be seeking advice at the hands of
those who have “ hitched their wagon to a star." The worst
culprits in the matter of encouraging quacks and mistaking the
the true science for the false and vicc-vctsa, are just those that
cry from their house-tops that they have attuned their “ little
mind” to the “Highest Mind," whatever that may mean in actual
practice. Absurd notions regarding the mathematical basis of
of astrology prevail in India as elsewhere, and the immortal
DeQuincey has facetiously regarded them in his beautiful essay
entitled “Sortilege and Astrology.” To understand Mr. Subrah-
manya Sastri's Translation of Jitakaparijata, no more knowledge
of mathematics is required than the four elementary rules of
arithmetic. But when a critic who poses to “study" astrology
can run off into a peroration of foam and froth, descanting on
abstruse mathematical calculations and so on, as a preparation
for the would-be readers of Jatakaparijata , the man in the
street might surely guess whether a policeman is not commend-
ing a. hotch-potch tapestry in charcoal.

Mr. Svaminatha Aiyyar is glad that he has outlived the
quack-astrologer’s prediction, but is the quack the right person
to represent an exact science like astrology ? And is he
prepared to blackguard the whole band of “medicos” if a
pretentious Hindu midwife pulls out the gut in her search for
the “ product of the womb ” ? Or is he inclined to call a man a
“hitcher of his wagdn to a star” who, in the words of John
Wesley, “sticks at the mud ", and rants in pompous rainbow-
hued .phrases, as he grovels in the dust of filthy words and

JL'i »l< I \I AM Kul.i M'.Y -A lUIOIMilli.

507

filtliicr outbursts of tongue and trill per, in his ordinary acts of
life? I .1 in afraid the right sort of astrologer would lave first
1 tested Mr. Svaminatha Aivyar, before he underwent the
' testing.' He could have seen through the “subtler mind-stuff”
of Mr. Svaminatha Ai vyar, more readily than Mr. Sviiniinatha
Aiyyar saw through the ‘ man ’ behind the astrologer. Destiny
makes character, and an ordinary astrologer, if lie be worthy of
his hire, must certainly be able to analyse both character and.
destiny.

Mr. Svaminatha Aiyyar writes as if he can arrogate to himself
the functions of !. is mighty “Creator ” He cannot, in sooth,
make one hair of his, white or black, in spite of all his vaunted
capacity to read “Nature's secrets." When he thinks he is
over-mastering destiny, he is being over-mastered by it. He
may sooner try to push the earth off its orbit than over-master
his destiny. Il he had a capacity to overmaster his destiny,
the indication would be as clear as day-light in his birth-chart.
It is sheer vanity to say that a man can conquer his “circum-
stances”, for, if he conquered them, they would be no “ t ircutn-
stances ” at all, but should be called by some other name. If
Mr. Svaminatha Aiyyar honestly reviews his past, he will find it
to be a battle-ground between the ‘angel’ and the 'devil,' in
which one or the other has been scoring a victory in accordance
with the unerring “law of Karma.” And astrology is one
of the “seven keys " whereby the lumber-bcut of man called the
“sub-conscious reservoir,” is ‘sounded,’ and an idea is formed
of the procession of ‘thought-forms’ which crystallise them-
selves into his so-called ‘circumstances’ The celestial science
can give us very good hints as regards the interior worth and
character of a man, his aims and aspirations, and the spiritual
goal he will make after, with success. The cases of Tirujfiana-
sambandha and Savitri and-many others, are quite in unison
with the dicta of Astrology, and whatever occured to them
occurred in accordance with Astrology. If the confidence of
standing in the “path of Light ” be too much for Mr. Svami-
natha Aiyyar, and if he thinks he can give convenient lessons to

siddhAnta DIPIKA.

508

astrologers, I shall be glad to ask him through the columns of
your paper to undertake the casting of some nativities with his
‘higher vision’ of yoga, and thus edify the “quacks who trade
on the ignorance of a gullible people,” and set at naught the
“pretensions of the judicial astrologer.” The great advantage
with Mr. Svaminatha Aiyyar is, he can judge nativities after
weighing them in the “steady balance of his conquered mind ”
by means of his ultra-human yogic vision, which the ordinary
“pretentious astrologer” has not. It is better if Mr. Svaminatha
Aiyyar knows that jyautisha is a vedahga , and includes horn
in the fullest acceptation of the term. The greatest service that
one man can do for another, consists in the unravelling of
‘destiny.’ The ancient maharshis of India fully understood the
value of astrology as an interpreter of human destiny, and have
spoken in no uncertain tones about the real merit underlying the
vocation of a sane and expert astrologer. The names of Garga,
Bhrigu and ParaSara are enough for an authority. The late Dr.
Richard Garnett of the British Museum was one of the votaries
of astrology, and his loving regard, nay, passion for its study,
speaks volumes in its favour, as a reliable science that can be
appealed to, by ordinary men, during hours of trial, temptation
and tribulation. Only the mightiest intellects have been the ex-
ponents of the science both in the West and the East, intellects
that Save revolutionised the intellectual world by their discover-
ies and achievements. The mystic Jacob Boehme whom Mr.
Svaminatha Aiyyar quotes with such apparent approval at the
top of his contribution, was a great astrologer. And so also was
the Rosicrucian, Robert Fludd, and many an other name in the
ranks of mysticism. The quotation that introduces the present
communication, constitutes the words of Sir Isaac Newton, a
propos of astrology, and I shall wind up for the present by asking
Mr. Svaminatha Aiyyar to lay the words of that humble student
of nature, whose intellect was as high as the skies, to heart.
Talking of astrology j\jst for the sake of talking and filling up
the columns of a newspaper, is the same as playing with fire.

ASTKOLABUS.

The §aiva siddhanta conference at trichinopoly.*

In the last three days of the year 1909 the Fourth Saiva
Siddhanta Conference took place in Trichinopoly. The aim of
this Conference is to put fresh life into the Saiva Siddhanta
philosophy and religion. As I am interested in this particularly
Tamil branch 1 of the tree of Indian religion, 1 followed the
invitation for the Conference which I had received from Mr.
Nallasvami Pi|]ai — the spiritual father of the attempted
revival — the District Munsiff in Rajahmundry.

At about u o’clock, accompanied by the Rev. O. R. Hand-
mann, who happened to be in Trichinopoly at the time, I went
to the Hindu High School, in the large and well-ventilated hall
of which, the Conference met. We were accorded a friendly
welcome by the leaders, and given good seats near the platform.
The large hall was during the three days of the session packed
to its utmost capacity ; many had to be content with a place in
the verandah. I estimate the number of the audience at 700 dr
800’. Taking into account the large assembly, order and quite
left nothing to be desired. Brahmins were scarcely to be seen’,

• This was contributed by the Rev. H. W. Schomerus of the Leipzig
Lutheran Mission, Erode, to The Gospel Witness. We reprint the article
from that journal, to give our readers an opportunity of studying the atti-
tude of European Missionaries towards our holy religion. A rather
elaborate report of the same function was published in the January
Number of our Journal under the caption, “ The South Indian Mystic
Conference — Ed. L. T.

1 It is a mistake to say so. The writer may as well call the Christian-
ity of the Format community of the Tinnevelly District as the “ Tamil
branch of the tree of Christian religion ”. — Ed. L. T.

The writer’s estimate is wrong. The audience all told was never
less than jooo strong even at the slackest hours. — Ed. L. T.

This is not true. There were as many Brahmins as could possibly
be expected in such strictly religious functions. — Ed. L. T.

5 io

siddhanta dIpikA.

and no wonder, since the Saiva Siddhanta has been from
the beginning chiefly the philosophy of the Sudras'. The
audience consisted probably of residents chiefly of Trichinopoly
and the neighbourhood, but many had also come from other
places. The Chairman of the meeting came from Ceylon,
several of the speakers from Madras, one from Rajahmundry,
Tuticorin, Tinneveliy, Trevandrum, Jaffna, each, and soon.
Many Saiva Siddhanta societies which have sprung up in the
last years in many places, had sent delegates.

Punctually at 1 1 o’clock the Conference was opened by a
"prayer” The “prayer” was a recitation of some verses of
Tevaram and Tiruvasagam, which the Saivaites like to call
their Psalms. After some addresses of welcome, the annual
report about the work of the Conference was first read. Of
this report I mention here only that the first two Conferences
took place in Chidambaram in 1906 and 1907, and the third in
Negapatam ; that the Secretary of the Conference, Mr. Veda-
chalam PiUai, alone, who is a pandit in the Madras Christian
College, has delivered during the last four years more than 75
lectures at, among other places, Negapatam, Panrufti, Madura,
Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Mannargudi, Kumbakonam, Titjdiva-
nam, Bangalore, Conjivaram, Chidambaram and Madras ; that
the Conference publishes since four years a Tamil periodical
in aid of the recuscitation of the Saiva Siddhanta, and since
lately an English magazine also, called The Oriental Mystic
Myna ; and that Prof. William James, an American, and
others support these papers. The same object as that of
these two papers is also pursued by the English periodical
Siddhanta Dtpiki, edited since 1897 by Mr. Nallasvami Pi)lai*.

' This is a baseless assumption, and argues lack of knowledge
of the history of the Agamanta, as preserved in Ancient Sanskrit Litera-
ture. The greatest Apostles of God, whose teachings constitute the Siva-
dvaitasiddhanta, were, for the most part, Brahmans, and they threw open
the flood-gates of the true spiritual life, for al children of God. — Ed. L. T.

* Long before the inauguration of the movement, whose present
upshot is the annual function known as "The Saiva-Siddhanta Conference”,

THE SaIVA SIDDHANTA CONFERENCE.

5 **

I would further mention from the report that the Conferee*
had delegated *Mr. Nallasvami Pijlai to represent Sivaism
on the Conference of Religions held in Calcutta in January,
1909. The English address he delivered there had been
translated into Tamil and distributed gratis. The address
has also been printed and published in English. The
report concluded with a statement of accounts. The income
was Rs. 306 and the expenditure Rs. 284, excluding income
and expenditure of the journals and the Annual Conference
meetings.

After the report was read, the Chairman delivered the
inaugural address partly in English, partly in Tamil. He
praised the tolerance of the English as contrasted with the
intolerance of the Portuguese, who formerly ruled over South
India. Nothing stood in the way of the growth of £aiva
Siddhanta. The men who above all had deserved well of the
Saiva Siddhanta were the American Missionary Hoisington,
who some 60 years ago translated some Siddhanta works
into English ; Arumuganavalar, well-known to us, Tamil
missionaries, by his books written in the choicest Tamil;
one Ramanathan of Ceylon, who wrote, among other things,
commentaries on the Gospel according to St. Matthew and of

our journal was started, and has since been in existence, weathering a
great deal of popular prejudice, indifference and stress, and preaching the
God-taught gospel of the Agamanta to the worldly-minded millions in India
and elsewhere. It will be truer to say that the current Saiva- S i ddhan ta acti-
vities are the direct outcome of the pioneer work turned out in the past by
our Journal. It is better always to state first the facts as they are, and then
to interpret them as suits one's fancy. When the history of the Agamanta
movement in the last century, comes to be written, we are sure the his-
torian will be juster to the claims of the Siddkaala Dipika, as the foremost
revivalist thereof In the Tamil country. Already its claims have won the
weighty recognition of such a well-known orientalist as the late Prof. Max
Muller, in his monumental work, “The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy”
—Ed. L. T

siddhanta DiPIKA.

512

St. lohn', and an explanation of the Psalms, from the standpoint of
the Saiva Siddhanta*; and last, Nallasvami PHlai. The import
ance of the Saiva Siddhanta as philosophy and religion was this,
that it solved all great problems (?) s and that it proclaimed uni-
versal love towards all living creatures and not as other religions,
towards men only. This universal love towards all beings was
the heart of the Saiva Siddhanta and would one day make it
the religion of the world. As it had overcome Buddhism and
Jainism, it would also overcome all other opposed schobls.
Another characteristic was the doctrine of Grace. It was Grace
that caused revival and sanctification. This Grace was attained
by the exercise of the universal love. (1 would mention here

1 The expression, ‘ commentaries on the Gospel according ta St.
Matthew and of St.John’, is significant. The Gospel of St.John is
difficult to understand for the Christians of the intellectual school. The
pertinent question of Frau Luther ( - Mrs. Luther) addressed to her husband,
tc the eschewance of prayer in (the then new cult of) Lutheranism, is a
pious and God-voicing commentary on the so-called ‘rationalistic’ Reform-
ation in the interpretation of the Holy Bible. — Ed. L. T.

’To say that Mr. Ramanathan’s exposition of the Gospels and the
Psalms, is from the view-point of the Saiva- Siddhanta, is misleading. The
Gospels embody such teachings as are based on the deepest, unalterable
facts of spiritual experience, which are absolute, and, as such, can bear inter-
pretation, only in the light of actual, spiritual “Realization", in the depths
of one’s own interior be ing. Mr. Ramanathan’s interpretation satisfies
this test, and is, hence, the only explanation that is true and valid. The
Gospels and the Psalms are not essays which men are at liberty to inter-
pret as they will. Spiritual truths are the same ail the world over, and,
when tested by the experience of the “ anointed of God ”, the spiritual
basis of all true religions, which are not intellect-made, is found to be the
same. Agamanta or Vedanta, Christian mysticism or Sufism, speaks the
sau at truths to, but only to those who have “ found God ”, — Ed. L. T.

“ The sense of the query is perhaps to indicate the scepticism of the
writer as regards the God-f&ught basis of the Agamanta. We would he
drank more deeply at the mystic spring of the fnivadvaitasiddhanta which
tsiches truths ns they are in their real reality— Ed. L. T.

THE SAIVA SIDDHANTA CONFERENCE.

5*3

that the Saiva Siddhanta does not mean by Grace a disposition
of mind, but a Divine Force, Siva's Arul-Sakti '.) Other features
were the assumption of the eternity not only of God and the
Soul, but also of Matter (in'respect to its germ, Maya) and the
principle of Tolerance.

After this, the Sanscrit scholar Ramanan read a very
erudite English paper on the Psychology of the Shadadhvans, or
to put it more intelligibly, on the meaning and significance of
the hexamorphous matter for the soul. The lecture showed how
the whole developed matter in its finest as well as in its
grossest form served as a means to the end 'that the soul be
freed from the primal evil, the so-called Anavamalam, and
described the way of salvation.

(To be continued.)

H. W. S.

‘‘Grace’ ( = Skt. Amgraka) does not mean anything else than a

• disposition ’ or ‘ attitude ’ of mind, though we must keep clear of the

* fiction of language ’ involved, when applying the word ‘ mind ’ to God.

The Lord's Anugraha-sakti is simply another name for His exceed-
ingly compassionate nature. “ Sakti " comes from the Sanskrit root,
“ Sak " ( = to be able), and hence means ‘ ability ’, ' disposition '. One of
the leading traits of the Lord is His 1 disposition ’ to be compassionate,
and not merely stem or just. As a Christian Prayer-Book says, “ God
always blesses us more than we can ever desire or deserve ”, and is thus
the kindes t Father. But to translate the word “ sakti " of the compound
j yjTjsfr ( a Skt. Anugraha-sakti) as* « force ', is as correct or graceful

as to render the word • Spirit ’ of the expression ‘ Holy Spirit ’ ( =

^aS according to the • learned ' translators of the Christian Holy Bible) as
To a cultured Hindu ,ga8 would mean ‘ vapour ', ■ steam ' fume '
and so on, but never ‘Spirit ' as Christians understand it Till a man is
thoroughly conversant with the idiom of a language and able to think
automatically in it, it is dangerous to discuss the real appropriateness and
sense of the vocables appertaining to that language. — Ed. L. T.

5 '4

SlDDllANTA DiHKA.

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.*
To

V. V. RAMANAN, Esq.,

Saiva Siddhantin.

Dear Sir,

In the February issue of the Dipika I read your * Shadadhvans’ with
keen interest. The ^pp gjoinQixeufl of the Supreme is well brought out.
But I see they are called ‘Six paths or roads’. Of course the Qi-LGnfl
form of the Supreme Siva can also be explained into ‘Six roads’ to Him.
It is quite opportune, I think, that I should acquaint you with my lines on
the 1 ^/,pp^i6uiT(cLD€ofl \ in Tamil verse, from my work ‘ Sivanubhavam ’

— ‘ & gpiuftith

&IKJ&SJ <FIKlS U -&L1A-) ©GU

&IEJSIT &&J4HJ 0IKJS2

(1) ^earmirds err^j/sSns Sidlpptjj — entserr

tSfuueor uu^eueer 0/r ^ws/SjQsrr eir <&> /rear
un esr ts>n ($}&(&) ^triasQpun isiaib — g year

LJIT6kJ(Qr)(V}U GD^pSSTiU eSsQjjSOJT

(2) &lL& xit£I $lLgd& U6m gni'&itTebr — *gguj ot

&&emonarr Sarretrsurrar

ui-L&tLiTujfiiujnQtgB) uuj&ar(tp( 63 — @euir

uq.u9(ge&jru>frdjss Su.s&rp<3npv^ihQswmeiin9ar — (*/£/& it)

(3) •*^ eS 6vnu ^HGSunnasuneBr — «sy uuear

'fJ&Pg]t—GOr Qplgl'tesr UJ(SB)£)u$6V i !8&(o0
QuJL£)eoa&& Q&lLi$.uiSI p gieir err near — $)/ip

^Itueouirem Qsuprr&LD lSIujial-illit/dp JfDGL'ir — j

* The writer of the following letter has also sent us a Tamil tract entitled
“Saiva Siddhanta Practiced. I”, dealing with the symbolism of the “sacred
ashes”, which we shall review in a subsequent Number of this Journal. —
Ed. L. T.

A LETTER TO TIIF. EDITOR.

515

f/QjirQjLeirfiiueBraijreijaT>iv — slevaeiri

*0% g.'Q LA(jf. U}.' QfSU) 1 LLO0L^ 3 (§lL)UJ*l*piTSOr

&n ifiujnjf fiuu — *at*£i*

<aSipen>£, i l§ S $ ( 2suQ(trj>(j^i^eo(2seiT — (&iasjr)

ftrpjp*)/ '§<aiSiTjs£' i 'LpjfiijSrreoBr* — (yp&j&eor

0eBT6Bfl0 £)Q&Ut-&<58> ?Quj6BiLjU £ jSL‘u>U
Guirjbflu n&imiiisatrtii Qun ujlc'ii — iSleorgj) yii>
i-l*sv { Tf)LO , 5jshrl lv Q^rirfii'’ ewreoruiV Q^aeoy

zjpp Kpupiii&yi S5CT nuiun jj yi -u€V60r

QeariiMerr &su ear (year — (#/E/«ir)

jdtyf&jbpLDU&Jtl.

This we see explains very well the holy lines of our imperial Saint
Tirumular : —

’* 67iSJ(£jti; jtl(WjQuj6fff) €T (E/0

CTii'C^^P^LOUjli) €1 ■£/(£.? $ (5»5 lLi—UD
6 Ttii-g^&evirn ttSl(W)0g>svff Q6v/5/Qd>«/(^£

Censor (^tl ^6W£$26tr<uffcLt_(? < j*. M

(It will mean the six Adhvans are His Form or Embodiment. The
six Adhvans (this Universe) are controlled by Him we see. That Control
or Power of Him is Siva-Sakti. Where is this Sakti ? It is everywhere as
‘•{dfiitugii, ’ — Juanakasa. How does He work upon the Sakti ?— by
incessant Dance (‘ The Universal Dance of Life,’ Vidt my ‘Siddhanta').

Why should He do so? His (Universal) Whole Nature is 'Love*
(Sivam). Hence we can and do conclude, '^oieararifj «sy**>,*

tun g) % ( = by His Grace and Grace alone we — in fact, every bit — get on.)

I am sorry that ordinary students will not appreciate your ' Divine *
Article. It is intended only for ‘ Jivan-Muktas ’ duly initiated. God
save your vigour, health and Sivananda-Yoga ever !

(You can publish this.)

Yours truly,

R. SHANMUKHAM,

&AJVA SlUDHAKHN.

(4)

(5)

5*6

siddhSnta DIPIKJ.

THE “AGAMIC BUREAU" NOTES.

We are exceedingly pleased to welcome a new and
influential contemporary in the monthly
"Purnachandrodaya.” periodical named Purn^chandrodaya which
is published in Tamil at Madura under the
able joint-editorship of Messrs. P. Naray ana Aiyar, b.a., b.l.,
and A. Rahgasvami Aiyyar, b.a., b.l. Three numbers of this
Journal, viz., those for May, June and July, have already made
their appearance, and we speak the barest truth when we say
that, as an exponent of the Theosophic cult to the vernacular-
favouring public, it is the only organised publication of the kind
that we have yet seen. Judging from the weighty character and
variety of the contents in the issues before us, the Journal bids
fair to occupy the front-rank of Tamil monthlies in this Presi-
dency, and we wish the talented and enterprising editors every
success in the noble task they have imposed on themselves.
The opening number has among others a well-written article on
the aims and objects of the Dharma-rakshana-sabha, a society
recently formed to safeguard the proper up-keep of Hindu
temples, devasthanams, mafhas and the like, with all that such
an up-keep implies, and an account of the ‘ Kalati-pratishfha ’
conducted by Sri-Sivabhinava-Npsimha-BhSrati-Svamin of the
Sringeri Abbey The other two numbers embrace a budget of
very interesting contributions, eg., “ The value of the Theoso-
phical Society for India,” “An appeal to the heads of Mutts,”
being a discourse delivered by Mr. P. Narayana Aiyar before
the Saiva-samaya-vriddhi-sabha at Palamcottah, “God can be
seen, if the I-making faculty is got over ”, and so on. In the
book-reviews, a Tamil translation of Sarva-darSana-sangraha of
Sri-Madhavacharya, by Mr. Ramachandra Sastrin, comes in for
praise, but since we chance to know something of the literary and
philosophic equipment the translator brought to bear on his task,
when the work was in progress, it is but meet that we should
mention the substantial help derived by him, in every way,
from the well-known English translation of Messrs Cowell and

the “Agamic bureau” notes.

517

Gough in the 11 T rObner’s Oriental Series Our own library
was left at the disposal of the said Sastrin at the time, and we
well remember the grave perplexities he encountered in the
course of his Translation, whenever the help of Messrs. Cowell
and Gough was withheld from him. We have felt it necessary
to throw out a hint on the inner history of this Translation, as
our worthy brother of the pen, Mr. C. V. Svaminatha Aiyar,
Editor of the 'Vivekachintamani,' has also indulged in a similar
vein of praise, in its April-and-May Number, without knowing
the exact source of Mr. Sastrin’s knowledge and inspiration
for the Translation. Few perhaps know, however, that the
English Translation is wide of the mark, in the sections relating
to Saiva-darsana, Pratyabhijna and other schools of Vaidika-
maha-paSupatas, which we found to be so, whenever we had an
opportunity to test them. It therefore behoves us to look upon
the Tamil Translation with an air of wistful circumspection,
and not merely swallow it as so much ready-prepared manna.
Mr. Sastrin’s competency as an intellectual student of the
academic Idealism of Safikara, is common knowledge with those
who know him, but an encyclopaedic proficiency in all tbe cults,
mystic, philosophic and metaphysical, which grew up and blosr-
somed in the holy garden of Aryavarta, has never formed a part
of even his remotest visions ; as such, it is passing strange that
a subject so difficult as the exposition of the diverse, enigmatic
phases of observation, on Soul, Spirit and Nature, from view-
points which are, necessarily, relative and changeful, or absolute
and changeless, and so intricate as to tax even the ingenuity of a
Vidyarapya, in an attempt at a sympathetic review, should
be considered easy enough to be satisfactorily circled by the
restricted knowledge which Mr. Sastrin wields of the history of
Sanskrit philosophy in general, and of real religion in particular.

This is the name of another novel Contemporary whose
appearance we greet with pleasure. It is
“The Yedantin". issued in English once in two months under
the auspices of Sri SaftkarSchirya of tbe
Kohlapur Pitha, by Mr. G. S. Pishvikar, the Secretary to that

piixiiiAnta niriKA.

Pitha. The “ Editorial ” of February 1910 says, " The present
Sahkaracharya is extremely anxious that the members should
digest thoroughly whatever may be published in this Magazine,
and should raise questions on those points which are not clear
to them. Difficulties will probably be common to several mem-
bers, and the assistance offered iii this Magazine will be of much
assistance” The aim is noble as far as the policy of the
“ Vedantin ” is concerned, but it should prove an object-lesson
to the highly-endowed Matliadhipatis of Agamic persuasion,
whose very existence in the South has been for the chief purpose
of disseminating the mystic teachings of the God-taught Jfianis
of the Vaidika-maha-pasupata order. What these Mafhadhipatis
are doing, is, however, known to all, and the present canker of
luxurious and riotous living and passion for the prohibited bitter-
sweets of this prapancha, which are eating into the inmost vitals
of Agamic monachism, cannot' be forefended unless the Lord
adopts His own samhiira methods of chastisement, which, we
pray in all meekness, may soon descend. The following captions
of articles taken at random from the two issues before us, to
wit, the February and April Numbers, will give an idea of the
scope of the Journal : “A commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita ”
“A tour to Vidyaranya ", “ The Vedanta Philosophy ” and the
like. We may add, in this connexion, that the Bhagavad-Gita
is a much-abused and grossly-misinterpreted book, as most of its
current expounders are men to whom the plane of the senses and
thought, the horizon of nama-rupa-prapancha, is the only living
reality. Wordy tricks of expression and scholastic sophistry
are the basis on which they take their stand, without realising
for a moment that these are but the shifting sands of mental
ingenuity, which will be blown into the sea of inanition, when-
once the hurricane of real, spiritual Illumination sets in. The
Bhagavad-Gita can never be interpreted in its right sense, unless-
the interpreter is a person that has enjoyed Samyak-darsanam.
The occasion is appropriate for us to mention that that genuine
servant of the Lord, Mr. P. Ramanathan, k.c., c.m.g., of Colombo,
is engaged in writing, at present, such a spiritual Commentary,

the "Agamic bureau” notes.

5*9

which will be published in two languages, English and Tamil.
The same scholar and sage has also on hand an original work
in English, which will be devoted to an exposition of the basic
factors of the entire Divine Dispensation, from the view-point of
“spiritual redemption" and “higher experience” The name of
the book is to be “ Nature and Spirit,” an aptly-chosen title iff
all conscience. It is moreover his intention to publish, in course
of time, an original translation and commentary of Sivajti/ina -
bodha and Nana-jiva-vuda-katlalai. May the Lord bless him
with health, strength and long life, to carry out his plans which
are ever for His glorification!

.**

This is the name of a Journal devoted to the study of
spiritism, auto-hypnotism and psychometry
“ Self-Culture ”, and others of that group. It is edited and

published monthly by Dr. K. T. Rama-
svami, D. Sc., President of the Indian Academy of Science,
Kizhanattam, Tinnevelly District, and the Journal is now
running through its third volume. The research section of the
Journal has essentially in view the trans-physical realms recog-
nised by the Theosophists, and it might interest our readers to
learn that they constitute the lower bhuvanas associated with
the Tattvadhvan of the Agamanta. The main go of the Adhva-
Sodhana -rites is to eschew our interest in such, and to free the
soul from the bondage of mala, of whatever form, degree or sort,
so as to render it eligible to the supernal Kshetra. The Agamas
teach that the antahkarana is nothing more than an “instrument"
made out of mala, and thought is merely antahkarana, and hence
mala, in motion. Our nama-rupa-sahkalpas are the outcome of the
thought-ridden mind, and it is only when the sankalpas cease in
the full blaze of absolute consciousness, that the utter emptiness
of Prakriti’s Kaliedoscope will become patent. The various
Planes of the Theosophists are only projections of the antalt-
kararfa on mala, and an investigation into such projections may
have a value to certain temperaments, though, for sincere search-
ers after God, a substantial knowledge of their micro-embryology
is of greater utility than their adult morphology. In other
words, a study of these Planes will in the long run turn out

530

S1DDHANTA DiPIKA.

to be a study of the emanations from the varied phases of the
‘corruption’-bound mind. The fruits of such a study can of
course be elaborately labelled, and parcelled out into interesting
monographs, but the chase, we fear, will be on wrong lines, for,
instead of finding God, we shall be greeting at every turn the
creatures and products of our own thought-ridden mind. We
have, however, no quarrel with persons who find a greater
interest in such investigations than in searching after God,
though we are certain that, sooner or later, the image-making
or thought-making mind will have to be left behind, if the soul
is to advance in the true path of culture, which is the path of
"finding God”. The June and July issues of “Self-culture”
which are already on our table, include, among Either articles of
interest and value, such contributions as “Drugless healing vs
Medicine”, "Telepathic Suggestions”, “Man’s Astral Aspects”,
" Phrenology and Ancient Aryans”, and “Perverted Faculties”,
and these, we trust, will enable our readers to form an estimate
of the scope of the Journal. It is a matter for congratulation that
Dr. K. T. Ramasvami has secured the services of Dr. J. M.
Peebles and Prof. J. M. Severn as Associate-Editors of the
Journal. Dr. Peebles is obviously on the path of the Charya,
wherein the Vestment of the Lord, which is a “coat of many
colours”, attracts the mind of man over everything else : Says
he, therefore, in the July Number : —

“ I am an optimist of the optimists. This is a whole, is a lively
world. It is God’s world and under the heaven-illumined suns and
stars, there is no place for a personal devil or for a flaming sulphurous
hell. The trials, the tears and the thorns that pierce our feet are but
tonics, or temporary fly-tracks on the broad panorama of Nature — a
panorama beautiful with gardens and groves and flowers and pasture-
lands and grazing herds, murmuring streams, singing birds, blossoming
orchards, broad wheat-fields and playful children ; prophecying of forth-
coming poets and prophets, seers and sages. There is ever a song of joy
in my life. It is the song of the spirit. Conscious of its melody, I feel
that this mighty universe is but a grand anthem of harmony. Everyday
my inmost Ego signs the song of faith, of knowledge, of trust and of a
glorious immortality ". *