“Whoever deviates from the path of humanity
Is to be accounted a demon, and not of human race.”
According to these sectaries, the worship offered to the forms of Mahadeo and Naráyan, and to the statues of the other spiritual beings, is highly to be commended. Strangers to their faith suppose them to look upon the idol as God, which is by no means the case, their belief being as follows: “The idol is merely a Kiblah, and they adore under that particular form, the Being who has neither accident nor form.”
Moreover, as mankind is an assemblage composed of superiors and inferiors, they have made images of the directors of the people, and constituted them their Kiblah: besides, as all things exhibit the power of the Almighty, they form images according to their similitude. They also say, that as the Avátars are radiant emanations of the divine essence, they therefore make images on their likeness, and pay them worship: so that, whatever is excellent in its kind, in the mineral, vegetable, or animal world, is regarded with veneration, as well as the uncompounded elementary substances, and the starry spheres. Rai Manuhar Kuchwáhhah has said:
“O Moslem! if the Kâbah be the object of thy worship,
Why dost thou reproach the adorers of idols?”
[4] प्रकृति Prakriti, or मूल प्रकृति Mula Prakriti, “the root or Plastic origin of all;” termed प्रधान Pradhána, “the chief one; the universal material cause;” identified by the cosmogony of the Puránás with Maya, or “illusion;” and by mythologists with Bráhmí, “the power or energy of Brahmá” (Colebrooke’s Essays).
Prakriti, in philosophy, “the passive or material cause of the world,” as opposed to the active or spiritual; and in mythology, a goddess united to the primeval male, and the genitress of the world (Wilson).—D. S.
[5] The quotations of our author are too general for being referred to particular parts or passages of the Hindú books. The above doctrine is contained in a great number of their treatises. In the Vedanta sara, or “Essence of the Vedanta doctrine” (p. 16, Calcutta edit.), we find mentioned the fourteen भुवनानि Bhuvanáni, or “worlds.”—A. T.
[6] योजन Yojana, or Jojun, “a measure of distance” equal to four Crosas, which at 8,000 cubits or 4,000 yards to the Crosa, or Cas, will be exactly nine miles: other computations make the Yojana but about five miles, or even no more than four miles and a half (Wilson’s Dict.).—D. S.