Matali. That, O king! is the mountain of Gandharvas, named Hémacúta: The universe contains not a more excellent place for the successful devotion of the pious. There Casyapa, father of the immortals, ruler of men, son of Marichi, who sprang from the self-existent, resides with his consort Aditi, blessed in holy retirement.—We now enter the sanctuary of him who rules the world, and the groves which are watered by streams from celestial sources.
Dushmanta. I see with equal amazement both the pious and their awful retreat. It becomes, indeed, pure spirits to feed on balmy air in a forest blooming with trees of life; to bathe in rills dyed yellow with the golden dust of the lotus, and to fortify their virtue in the mysterious bath; to meditate in caves, the pebbles of which are unblemished gems; and to restrain their passions, even though nymphs of exquisite beauty frolick around them. In this grove alone is attained the summit of true piety, to which other hermits in vain aspire.—Sacontala.
Her death predoom’d
To that black hour of midnight, when the Moon
Hath turn’d her face away,
Unwilling to behold
The unhappy end of guilt!—VI. p. 50.
I will now speak to thee of that time in which, should a devout man die, he will never return; and of that time in which, dying, he shall return again to earth.
Those holy men who are acquainted with Brahm, departing this life in the fiery light of day, in the bright season of the moon, within the six months of the sun’s northern course, go unto him: but those who depart in the gloomy night of the Moon’s dark season, and whilst the Sun is yet within the southern part of his journey, ascend for a while into the regions of the Moon, and again return to mortal birth. These two, Light and Darkness, are esteemed the World’s eternal ways: he who walketh in the former path returneth not; whilst he who walketh in the latter, cometh back again upon the earth.—Kreeshna, in the Bhagvat Geeta.
Indra.—VI. p. 52.
The Indian God of the visible Heavens is called Indra, or the King; and Divespetir, Lord of the Sky. He has the character of the Roman Genius, or chief of the Good Spirits. His consort is named Sachi; his celestial city Amaravati; his palace Vaijayanta; his garden Nandana; his chief elephant Airevat; his charioteer Matali; and his weapon Vajra, or the thunder-bolt. He is the regent of winds and showers, and, though the East is peculiarly under his care, yet his Olympus is Meru, or the North Pole, allegorically represented as a mountain of gold and gems. He is the Prince of the beneficent Genii.—Sir W. Jones.
A distinct idea of Indra, the King of Immortals, may be collected from a passage in the ninth section of the Geta.
“These having, through virtue, reached the mansion of the king of Suras, feast on the exquisite heavenly food of the Gods; they, who have enjoyed this lofty region of Swerga, but whose virtue is exhausted, revisit the habitation of mortals.”
He is the God of thunder and the five elements, with inferior Genii under his command; and is conceived to govern the eastern quarter of the world, but to preside, like the Genius or Agathodæmon of the ancients, over the celestial bands, which are stationed on the summit of Meru, or the North Pole, where he solaces the Gods with nectar and heavenly music.