Have compassion upon us, O Lord, and protect us, who have come to thee for succour from the Daityas (Demons)! They have seized upon the three worlds, and appropriated the offerings which are our portion, taking care not to transgress the precepts of the Veda. Although we, as well as they, are parts of thee[679] ... engaged [as they are] ... in the paths prescribed by the holy writ ... it is impossible for us to destroy them. Do thou, whose wisdom is immeasurable [pg 455](Ameyâtman) instruct us in some device by which we may be able to exterminate the enemies of the Gods!
When the mighty Vishnu heard their request, he emitted from his body an illusory form (Mâyâmoha, the “deluder by illusion”) which he gave to the Gods and thus spake: “This Mâyâmoha shall wholly beguile the Daityas, so that, being led astray from the path of the Vedas, they may be put to death.... Go then and fear not. Let this delusive vision precede you. It shall this day be of great service unto you, O Gods!”
After this, the great Delusion (Mâyâmoha) having proceeded (to earth), beheld the Daityas, engaged in ascetic penances, and approaching them, in the semblance of a Digambara (naked mendicant) with his head shaven ... he thus addressed them, in gentle accents: “Ho, lords of the Daitya race, wherefore is it that you practise these acts of penances?” etc.[680]
Finally the Daityas were seduced by the wily talk of Mâyâmoha, as Eve was seduced by the advice of the Serpent. They became apostates to the Vedas. As Dr. Muir translates the passage:
The great Deceiver, practising illusion, next beguiled other Daityas, by means of many other sorts of heresy. In a very short time, these Asuras (Daityas), deluded by the Deceiver [who was Vishnu] abandoned the entire system founded on the ordinances of the triple Veda. Some reviled the Vedas; others, the ceremonial of sacrifice; and others, the Brâhmans. This (they exclaimed), is a doctrine which will not bear discussion: the slaughter (of animals, in sacrifice), is not conducive to religious merit. (To say, that) oblations of butter consumed in the fire produce any future reward, is the assertion of a child.... If it be a fact that a beast slain in sacrifice is exalted to heaven, why does not the worshipper slaughter his own father?... Infallible utterances do not, great Asuras, fall from the skies; it is only assertions founded on reasoning that are accepted by me and by other [intelligent] persons like yourselves! Thus by numerous methods the Daityas were unsettled by the great Deceiver [Reason].... When the Daityas had entered on the path of error, the Deities mustered all their energies and approached to battle. Then followed a combat between the Gods and the Asuras; and the latter, who had abandoned the right road, were smitten by the former. In previous times they had been defended by the armour of righteousness which they bore; but, when that had been destroyed, they, also, perished.[681]
Whatever may be thought of the Hindûs, no enemy of theirs can regard them as fools. A people, whose holy men and sages have left to the world the greatest and most sublime philosophies that ever emanated from the minds of men, must have known the difference between right and wrong. Even a savage can discern white from black, good from bad, and deceit from sincerity and truthfulness. Those who had narrated this event in the biography of their God, must [pg 456] have seen that in this case it was that God who was the Arch-Deceiver, and the Daityas, who “never transgressed the precepts of the Vedas,” who had the sunny side in the transaction, and who were the true “Gods.” Thence there must have been, and there is a secret meaning hidden under this allegory. In no class of society, in no nation, are deceit and craft considered as divine virtues—except perhaps in the clerical classes of Theologians and modern Jesuitism.
The Vishnu Purâna,[682] like all other works of this kind, passed at a later period into the hands of the Temple-Brâhmans, and the old MSS. have, no doubt, been further tampered with by sectarians. But there was a time when the Purânas were esoteric works, and so they are still for the Initiates who can read them with the key that is in their possession.
Whether the Brâhman Initiates will ever give out the full meaning of these allegories, is a question with which the writer is not concerned. The present object is to show that, while honouring the Creative Powers in their multiple forms, no philosopher could have, or ever has, accepted the allegory for its true spirit, except, perhaps, some philosophers belonging to the present “superior and civilized” Christian races. For, as shown, Jehovah is not one whit the superior of Vishnu on the plane of ethics. This is why the Occultists, and even some Kabalists, whether or not they regard those creative Forces as living and conscious Entities—and one does not see why they should not be so accepted—will never confuse the Cause with the Effect, and accept the Spirit of the Earth for Parabrahman, or Ain Suph. At all events they know well the true nature of what was called by the Greeks Father-Æther, Jupiter-Titan, etc. They know that the Soul of the Astral Light is divine, and its Body—the Light-waves on the lower planes—infernal. This Light is symbolized by the “Magic Head” in the Zohar, the Double Face on the Double Pyramid; the black Pyramid rising against a pure white ground, with a white Head and Face within its black Triangle; the White Pyramid, inverted—the reflection of the first in the dark Waters—showing the black reflection of the white Face.
This is the Astral Light, or Demon est Deus Inversus.