[373] Barddas, i, 189-91.
[374] Barddas, i, 177.
[375] Preface to Barddas, xlii.
[376] One of the greatest errors formerly made by European Sanskrit scholars and published broadcast throughout the West, so that now it is popularly accepted there as true, is that Nirvana, the goal of Indian philosophy and religion, means annihilation. It does mean annihilation (evolutionary transmutation of lower into higher), but only of all those forces or elements which constitute man as an animal. The error arose from interpreting exoterically instead of esoterically, and was a natural result of that system of western scholarship which sees and often cares only to examine external aspects. Native Indian scholars who have advised us in this difficult problem prefer to translate Nirvana as ‘Self-realization’, i. e. a state of supernormal consciousness (to be acquired through the evolution of the individual), as much superior to the normal human consciousness as the normal human consciousness is superior to the consciousness existing in the brute kingdom.
[377] De Bel. Gal., lib. vi. 14. 5; vi. 18. 1.
[378] Book V, 31. 4.
[379] De Situ Orbis, iii. c. 2: ‘One point alone of the Druids’ teaching has become generally known among the common people (in order that they should be braver in war), that souls are eternal and there is a second life among the shades.’
[380] i. 449-62.
[381] Lucan, i. 457-8; i. 458-62.
[382] Cf. Le Cycle Myth. Irl., pp. 345, 347 ff.