167 ([return])
[ Goddess of eloquence. “The waters of the Saraswati” is the classical Hindu phrase for the mirage.]
168 ([return])
[ This story is perhaps the least interesting in the collection. I have translated it literally, in order to give an idea of the original. The reader will remark in it the source of our own nursery tale about the princess who was so high born and delicately bred, that she could discover the three peas laid beneath a straw mattress and four feather beds. The Hindus, however, believe that Sybaritism can be carried so far; I remember my Pandit asserting the truth of the story.]
169 ([return])
[ A minister. The word, as is the case with many in this collection, is quite modern Moslem, and anachronistic.]
170 ([return])
[ The cow is called the mother of the gods, and is declared by Brahma, the first person of the triad, Vishnu and Shiva being the second and the third, to be a proper object of worship. “If a European speak to the Hindu about eating the flesh of cows,” says an old missionary, “they immediately raise their hands to their ears; yet milkmen, carmen, and farmers beat the cow as unmercifully as a carrier of coals beats his ass in England.” The Jains or Jainas (from ji, to conquer; as subduing the passions) are one of the atheistical sects with whom the Brahmans have of old carried on the fiercest religious controversies, ending in many a sanguinary fight. Their tenets are consequently exaggerated and ridiculed, as in the text. They believe that there is no such God as the common notions on the subject point out, and they hold that the highest act of virtue is to abstain from injuring sentient creatures. Man does not possess an immortal spirit: death is the same to Brahma and to a fly. Therefore there is no heaven or hell separate from present pleasure or pain. Hindu Epicureans!—“Epicuri de grege porci.”]
171 ([return])
[ Narak is one of the multitudinous places of Hindu punishment, said to adjoin the residence of Ajarna. The less cultivated Jains believe in a region of torment. The illuminati, however, have a sovereign contempt for the Creator, for a future state, and for all religious ceremonies. As Hindus, however, they believe in future births of mankind, somewhat influenced by present actions. The “next birth” in the mouth of a Hindu, we are told, is the same as “to-morrow” in the mouth of a Christian. The metempsychosis is on an extensive scale: according to some, a person who loses human birth must pass through eight millions of successive incarnations—fish, insects, worms, birds, and beasts—before he can reappear as a man.]