After what has been said above, then, along with what may be added by and by, may I not safely proclaim that M‘Pherson’s prediction, that “the history of Caledonia, before the Roman eagles were displayed beyond the friths, must ever remain in impenetrable darkness,”[378] has now been falsified?
“What are ages and the lapse of time,
Matched against truths as lasting as sublime?
Can length of years on God Himself exact?
Or make that fiction which was once a fact?
No—marble and recording brass decay,
And like the graver’s memory pass away:
The works of man inherit, as is just,
Their author’s frailty, and return to dust;
But truth divine for ever stands secure,
Its head is guarded, as its base is sure;
Fixed in the rolling flood of endless years,
The pillar of the eternal plan appears,
The raving storm and dashing wave defies,
Built by that Architect who built the skies.”[379]
CHAPTER XXIII.
A very industrious contributor to the Asiatic Researches has afforded scope for some jests at his expense, because of the attempt which he has made to identify the British islands with certain Western localities commemorated in the writings of the Hindoos. Had he but known, however, the coincidence of our monuments with those mysteries which the Puranas record, how they mutually support and dovetail into each other, he could not only have laughed to scorn the traducers of his services, but fixed his fame upon a pinnacle of literary pride which no undergrowl of envy could have subverted.
But as it is, unacquainted with the history of the places which he left behind him, and wading, therefore, through an ocean in which he had no compass for his guide, he has, in his puerile endeavours to wrest the text of the Puranas to external prejudices, effected more himself towards the disparagement of his reputation, than what the combined influence of interest and of scepticism could otherwise accomplish.
“There are,” say the Puranas, “many manifestations and forms of Bhagavan, O Muni, but the form which resides in the White Island is the primitive one. Vishnu,” says the author, “recalling all his emanations into the White Island, went into the womb, in the house of Vasu-devi; and on this grand occasion he recalled all his emanations. Bama and Nrisinha are complete forms, O Muni; but Crishna, the most powerful king of the White Island, is the most perfect and complete of all Vishnu’s forms. For this purpose Vishnu, from Potola, rejoins the body of Radhiceswara, the lord of Radha, he who dwells in the White Island with the famous snake, a portion of his essence. The gods sent there portions of their own essences to be consolidated into the person of Crishna, who was going to be incarnated at Gocula.”[380]
The gist of the foregoing, Mr. Wilford would neutralise by this following extract, which he gives as the substance of another notice in the same documents, and which he considers himself as incredible:—
“Bali, an antediluvian, and in the fifth generation from the creation, is introduced, requesting the god of gods, or Vishnu, to allow him to die by his hand, that he might go into his paradise in the White Island. Vishnu told him it was a favour not easily obtained; that he would however grant his request. But, says Vishnu, you cannot come into my paradise now; but you must wait till I become incarnate in the shape of a boar, in order to make the world undergo a total renovation, to establish and secure it upon a most firm and permanent footing: and you must wait a whole yuga till this takes place, and then you will accompany me into my paradise.”