[342] Major Jacob, "Manual of Hindu Pantheism," Preface.
[343] "Life and Letters of Gokulaji Sampattirâma Zâlâ and his views of the Vedânta, by Manassukharâma Sûryarâma Tripâthî." Bombay, 1881.
As a young man Gokulaji, the son of a good family, learned Persian and Sanskrit. His chief interest in life, in the midst of a most successful political career, was the "Vedânta." A little insight, we are told, into this knowledge turned his heart to higher objects, promising him freedom from grief, and blessedness, the highest aim of all. This was the turning-point of his inner life. When the celebrated Vedânti anchorite, Râma Bâvâ, visited Junâgadh, Gokulaji became his pupil. When another anchorite, Paramahansa Sakkidânanda, passed through Junâgadh on a pilgrimage to Girnar, Gokulaji was regularly initiated in the secrets of the Vedânta. He soon became highly proficient in it, and through the whole course of his life, whether in power or in disgrace, his belief in the doctrines of the Vedânta supported him, and made him, in the opinion of English statesmen, the model of what a native statesman ought to be.
[344] Professor Kuenen discovers a similar idea in the words placed in the mouth of Jehovah by the prophet Malachi, i. 14: "For I am a great King, and my name is feared among the heathen." "The reference," he says, "is distinctly to the adoration already offered to Yahweh by the people, whenever they serve their own gods with true reverence and honest zeal.(A1) Even in Deuteronomy the adoration of these other gods by the nations is represented as a dispensation of Yahweh. Malachi goes a step further, and accepts their worship as a tribute which in reality falls to Yahweh—to Him, the Only True. Thus the opposition between Yahweh and the other gods, and afterward between the one true God and the imaginary gods, makes room here for the still higher conception that the adoration of Yahweh is the essence and the truth of all religion." "Hibbert Lectures," p. 181.
A1: There is, we believe, not the slightest authority for reading Malachi in this way; any reader of the Old Testament is competent to judge for himself.—Am. Pubs.
[345] The author's enthusiasm has carried him beyond bounds. The weight to be given to Schopenhauer's opinion touching any religious subject may be measured by the following quotation: "The happiest moment of life is the completest forgetfulness of self in sleep, and the wretchedest is the most wakeful and conscious."—Am. Pubs.
[346] "Sacred Books of the East," vol. i, "The Upanishads," translated by M. M.; Introduction, p. lxi.