[127] Manu (ibid., ch. VIII. sl. 304-305) determines the recompense or punishment of good or bad kings as follows: “A sixth part of the reward for virtuous deeds, performed by the whole people, belongs to the king who protects them; but, if he protect them not, a sixth part of their iniquity lights on him.” The legislator redoubles the amount of punishment to a bad king in a subsequent sloka (308): “That king who gives no protection, yet takes a sixth part of the grain as his revenue, wise men have considered as a prince who draws to him the foulness of his people.”
[128] It is to be regretted that the author has not indicated the precise place of the Smriti, which enjoins the sacrifice of the widows.
Section the fourth, of the followers of the Vedanta (the Vedantians).—This sect belongs to the most learned and wise of this people. We shall give the substance of their creed. They say: The explanation regarding the only really existing Being (God) resembles a science from which a faint likeness of his grandeur may be perceived; this being and his qualities are pure of all imperfections and contradictions; he oversees all beings; he discovers all that is hidden; his existence comprehends all things; decay and deficiency have no access to the boundless area of his existence; he is the lord of life, the greatest of spirits endowed with pure qualities, and this holy Being, this sublime object, they call Brahma uttama,[129] “the most excellent Brahma,” that is, the supreme soul and the most exalted spirit; and the evidence of this meaning, that is, of his existence, is the created world; because a creation without a creator will not come forth from the veil of non-entity into the field of evidence, and the maker of this work is he, the Lord. This explanation is to be supported in the field of certainty by the wise arguments of sagacious people, and by the testimonies of the text of the Véda, that is, of the heavenly book. The truly existing Being (God) has exhibited this world and the heavens in the field of existence, but he has nothing like an odor of being, nor has he taken a color of reality; and this manifestation they call Máyá[130], that is, “the magic of God;” because the universe is “his playful deceit,” and he is the bestower of the imitative existence, himself the unity of reality. With his pure substance, like an imitative actor, he passes every moment into another form, and having again left this, appears in another dress. It is he alone who, coming forth in the forms of Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadeva, exhibits the true unity in a trinity of persons, and who, manifesting his being and unity in three persons, separate from each other, formed this universe. The connexion of the spirits with the holy Being (God), is like the connexion of the billows with the ocean, or that of sparks with fire; on that account, they call the soul and the spirits jívátmá.[131] The soul is uncompounded and distinct from the body and from the material senses; but by the power of selfishness it fell into a captivity from which the soul strives to be liberated.[132] The soul has three conditions or states: the first is the state of being awake, which they call jágaravast´ha,[133] and in this state the soul enjoys quietly the pleasures of nature and bodily delights, such as eating and drinking, and the like; and it suffers from the privation of these just-mentioned enjoyments; that is, it suffers from hunger and thirst, and similar pains; the second state is that of sleep, called svapna avast´ha,[134] and in this state the soul is happy in the possession of what it wishes and desires, such as collecting in dreams gold and silver, and similar things; it is distressed by the want of them; the third state is known by the name of Su svapna avast´ha,[135] that is, “the state of good sleep,” and in this state there is neither gladness nor sadness from possession or privation of what is desired, but freedom from pleasure and pain. It is to be known that they hold sleep to bestow a prophetic sight of events, and the vision is called rúyá in Arabic: in this third state however, which they call sleep by excellence, no events are seen, but it is being plunged in a profound sleep, and this people do not take it simply for sleep, but they distinguish it as a sort of lethargy, which they call su svapna. They believe the souls to be imprisoned in these three states, and wandering about in a circle. The soul in these conditions, although united with a body, yet, by a number of meritorious deeds, and a virtuous conduct, attains to the station of knowing itself and God: it then breaks the net of illusion,[136] and it is the characteristic of saints whom they call Jnání;[137] that, whatever they see in the state of being awake, they reckon to be a vain illusion, as if presenting itself to men in a dream. The saint thinks even a man awake to be deceived by a dream; like one who, from inadvertency, takes a rope for a snake; but it is a rope, not a snake: he knows the world to be a delusion, which, from want of knowledge, is thought to be the universe, although, in truth, it has no reality. This state is called by them Tarbá avast´há.[138]
When the saint becomes free from the ties and impediments of the world, and from the chains of its accidents, then he enters into the region of freedom, which they call mukt.[139] This mukt, according to them, is divided into five parts: the first is, when the sanctified man, having attained the dignity of freedom, in the city of the subordinate divinities (angels), becomes one of them; as in this city are the residences of the deities, such as the city of Brahma, of Vishnu, of Mahadéva, and this part is called “the mukt of the pious.” The second part is, when the devotee, a neighbour and companion of the gods, is surrounded by an abundance of favor, and the society of the celestial beings; and this division of the mukt they call Svámi prémá.[140] The third part is, when the pious assumes the form of the inferior divinities without union with their persons, that is, whichever of the gods he chooses, it is his shape which he appropriates to himself, and this part they name Sára préma.[141] The fourth part of the mukt is, when the pious becomes united with one of the gods, like water with water, that is, when he coalesces with whichever of the gods he chooses, and this is entitled svayukti.[142] The fifth part is, when the soul of the pious, called jívátma, becomes one with the great spirit whom they call paramátmá,[143] and recognise as the only real being, in such a manner that there remains no room for a second to rise between, and this they distinguish by the name of Jnánam uttamam.[144]
This is the substance of the creed of the Védantian: whoever possesses this science is called Inání by the Hindus, and all the principal men among them are conversant with the doctrine of this sect. The sublime discourses and wise histories delivered by Vasishta for the instruction of Rama chandra, are entitled Vasíshta yog; and the speeches which fell from the tongue of Krishna, when he was bestowing advice upon Arjuna, who was one of the Pandus, go under the name of kathá. Sankara Acharya, who ranks highest among the later learned men of India, has written much about this doctrine. The dogmas of this class are as follow: the world and its inhabitants are appearances without reality, and God is but one necessary and self-existing being, whom they call Parama atma; they say, this appearance and diversity of form, this order and aspect of heavens, are like the vapor resembling the sea upon the surface of sandy plains, and like the vision of a dream; good and bad, pleasure and pain, adoration and worship of God, are but objects of imagination, and these various images are illusions;—the deepest pits of hell, the vaults of heaven, the return to earth after death, transmigration, and the retribution of actions, all that is but imagination, and variety of imagination.
Query Should one say, a principle of life acts in us; there is no doubt of it; consequently the one is learned, the other ignorant; the one is happy, the other distressed. How can that be mere imagination, and appearance?
The answer they give to it is—If not in a dream, thou wouldst not see thyself a king issuing mandates, a servant, submissive, imprisoned, free, a slave, a master, sick, healthy, distressed, merry, melancholy, and so on. How often in a dream didst thou not feel pleasure and happiness, or wast overwhelmed by fear, and terror, and anguish? there is no doubt but all this is mere illusion and empty appearance, although the dreamer holds it all to be real truth.
Rayi-Rup, who is reckoned among the learned Rajahs, asked the author of this book: “After having dreamt to have received any wound whatsoever upon my body, if, as soon as I rise from sleep, I do not find the least mark of it, I know that it was an illusion; but if in a dream I converse with a woman, at my waking, I may perhaps not be able to deny the visible effect of it: why should this happen in the second case?”
To this question the following answer was given: “What thou thinkest the state of being awake, this, in the opinion of the enlightened, is also dreaming; and as it often happens that, thinking in a dream to be awake, I perceive whatever appears as if I were really awake, whilst I see it in a dream: in like manner, the usual state of being awake is held by the wise to be nothing else but a dream. Hast thou not heard what Kámyáb Samrádí has said in the Samrád námeh? A man had seven noble sons, each of whom felt the ambition to command in the six parts of the world. With such a desire, they addressed their devotion to God. One day they laid their head upon the pillow of repose, and each had a bright dream. It appeared to each, that he had left his body, and was born again in a king’s house; after the death of the father, each placed the crown upon his head, and bore dominion from east to west; in the seven regions there was no king equal to him, and the reign of each lasted one hundred thousand years; at the time of his passing to the other world, he delivered the empire to his son, and, leaving the body, took his flight to heaven. When they awoke, the dinner which they had been preparing was not yet ready. Afterwards, each of them related what happened to him; each of them pretended to have possessed the seven regions during one hundred thousand years, and each named such and such a town as the capital of his empire. Although awake, they resolved then to go each to his kingdom, and to see that capital, whether true or not. They went first to the town which was the residence of the eldest brother; there they found his son king, and the father knew his palace; in this manner they visited the kingdoms of the other brothers, and saw their sons. Afterwards, the seven returned to their native-place, and said to each other: ‘Each of us was in his dream king of the seven regions, and had no other above himself; being awakened, we heard the same from the men of those towns which we have visited for ascertaining that we had possessed such rank and power in the world.’ Thus it is certain that we are even now in a dream, and that the world is nothing else but an illusive vision.”