INTERROGATORIES OF THE ‘RÁKSHASÍ’.
Argument. Seventy questions of Karkatí, which are hard for the
unlearned but too plain to the wise. They are intricate for their
riddling nature to boys, but plain by their double sense to the learned.
Vasishtha continued:—After saying so, the fiend began to put forth her
queries; and you should be attentive to them Ráma, like the prince who
told her to go on.
2. The Rákshasí resumed:—What is that atomic minim which is one yet
many, and as vast as the ocean, and which contains innumerable worlds
like the bubbles of the sea? (It is a minim for its minuteness, an
atom—owing to its imperceptibility, one—as regards its unity, many—on
account of its attributes (upádhis), and vast in respect to its
infinity, containing the passing worlds as the evanescent bubbles of
water).
3. What is that thing which is a void yet no-void, which is something
yet nothing? What is it that makes myself, and thyself, and wherein do I
or thou dost abide and subside? (It is nothing in appearance, but
something in our consciousness, and is both the subjective and
objective).
4. What is it that moveth unmoved and unmoving, and standeth without
stopping; what is it that is intelligent yet as dull as a stone; and
what is it that presents its variety in the vacuity of the
understanding? (Another text reads _vyomni chitra krit_, which means:
who paints the sky with variegated hues).
5. What is it that has the nature of fire without its burning quality;
and what is that unigneous substance which produces the fire and its
flame. (This passage refers to the glory and light of God which shines
without burning).
6. Who is he that is not of the nature of the ever-changing solar, lunar
and stellar lights, but is the neverchanging enlightener of the sun,
moon and stars; and who is that being who having no eyes, gives the eye
its sight?
7. Who is he that gives eyesight to the eyeless vegetables, and the
blind mineral creation? (Whereby they perceive the light of the
luminaries of heaven as the sunflower moonflower—_helioselini_ and
others).
8. Who is the maker of heavens, and who is the author of the natures of
things; who is the source of this gemming world, and whose treasure are
all the gems contained in it? (Man foolishly owns them for a time, but
leaves at last to their true possessor and maker).
9. What is that monad which shines in darkness, and is that point which
is and is not; what is that iota which is imperceptible to all, and what
is that jot which becomes an enormous mountain? (A geometrical monad is
a point without dimension. In the Monadology of Leibnitz, it is the
elementary particle of vital force acting not mechanically, but from
internal principle. It is the entelechy of Aristotle, whose essence
consists in force).
10. To whom is a twinkling of the eye, as long as a _Kalpa_ millennium;
and a whole age but a moment? Who is he whose omnipresence is equal to
his absence, and whose omniscience is alike his total ignorance? (_i.e._
To whom eternity is a moment, and whose omnipresence and omniscience are
unknown to us).
11. Who is called the spirit, but is no air in itself; and who is said
to be the sound or word, but is none of them himself? He is called the
All, but is none at all of all that exists; and he is known as Ego,
but no ego is he himself. (_Spiritus_ or the breathing of
_ventus_-wind-_prána_ and the _sabda-sonus_ or Sruti are not God; nor
is he one and all in his person, nor the ego and non-ego, I not I, and
_le moi et non le moi_, _das Ich und nicht Ich_, the subjective and
objective, and having no personality of his own).
12. What is it that is gained by the greatest application, of a great
many births (lives), and when gained at last, is hard to be retained
(owing to the spiritual carelessness of mankind)? (Liberation by final
extinction—_nirvána_, is hard to be had owing to the interminable
metempsychosis of the soul, according to the doctrine of the
pre-existence and immortality of souls).
13. Who being in easy circumstances in life, has not lost his soul in
it; and who being but an atom in creation, does not reckon the great
mountain of Meru as a particle? _i.e._ the egotist. (It is harder for
the easy rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, than for a camel to enter
the eye of a needle. Gospel. The pride of egotism levels mountains to
dust, and its ambition soars above them).
14. What is that which being no more than an atom, fills a space of many
leagues; and who is an atomic particle; that is not contained (measured)
in many miles? (It is the atomic theism of Kanáda’s Vaiseshika system
and of Ecphantus and Archelaus. The mind is included in the atomism of
Empedocles and Anaxagoras. Epicurus added morality to it, and Lucretius
added to it the beauty of poetry also. See also the Ateistic Atomic
systems of Leucippus and Democritus).
15. At whose glance and nod is it, that all beings act their parts as
players; and what is that ace which contains in its bosom many a
mountain chain? (The mountain was produced from and is contained in the
atom of the divine mind; and so every grain of the human brain, contains
in it the form of a prodigious mountain).
16. Who is it, that is bigger than the mount Meru in his minuteness; and
who is it that being, lesser than the point of a hair, is yet higher
than the highest rock? (So the sruti: _Anor-aniyán mahato mahiyán: i.e._
Minuter than the minutest and bigger than the biggest).
17. Whose light was it, that brought out the lamp of light from the
bosom of darkness; and what minute particle is it, that contains the
minutiae of ideas _ad infinitum_ in it? (God said “_Lux fiat et lux
fit._” Genesis. Hail holy light Heaven’s first born. Milton. Eternal
ideas of immaterial forms of possible existences in the Divine Mind, the
archetype of the ectypal world. These are the Types of things, Plato;
Forms of ditto. Cicero. Eternal exemplars of things. Seneca &c.).
18. Which having no flavour in it, gives savour to all things; and whose
presence being withdrawn from all substances, reduces them to
infinitesimal atoms, (_i.e._ by destruction of cohesion. So the
Sruti.—_Raso vai tat._—He is flavour etc. Attraction of all kinds, is a
manifestation of Divine power—_ákrishti_, personified in the form of
Krishna—the regent of the sun, whose gravity supports the solar world).
19. Who is it that by his self-pervasion, connects the particles
composing the world (as by their power of attraction); and what
imperceptible power is it, that rejoins the detached particles, after
their separation and dissolution for recreation of the new world? (The
atomic powers of attraction and repulsion of particles and bodies).
20. Who being formless, has a thousand hands and eyes; and a twinkling
of whose eye, comprehends the period of many cycles together? (The
divine hypostases of Viráj, is endowed with a thousand hands and eyes,
as in the Purusha Súkta: Sahasra sirsha, sahasra váhu sahasráxa &c.).
21. In what microscopic mite does the world subsist as an arbor in its
seed, and by what power do the unproductive seeds of atoms, become
productive of worlds?
22. Whose glance is it, that causes the production of the world, as from
its seed; and who is it that creates the world without any motive or
material? (The motives are the subjective or internal cause and the
objective or external objects of creation. And material means the matter
of unisubstantism of materialists).
23. What is that being, who without his visual organs, enjoys the
pleasure of seeing—_Drishti_; and is the viewer—_drashtá_ of Himself,
which he makes the object of his view (drishya). _i. e._ God sees all
things in himself as the receptacle of all in the eternal ideas of them
in his mind. Or. The Ego meditates on itself both subjectively as the
viewer, and objectively as the view. (So Milton, “And God saw his works
were good” answering his fair idea).
24. Who is he that having no object of vision before him, sees nothing
without him, but looks upon himself as an infinity void of all visibles
within it. (This is the subjective reflection of the Yogi, like that of
God on his ownself, as abstracted from the thought of all other things.
The Mind is the subjective reality and matter has no objective reality).
25. Who is it, that shows the subjective sight of the soul by itself, as
an objective view; and represents the world as the figure of a bracelet,
in his own metal? (_i.e._ The subjective soul and the metal are the true
realities, and the objective view of the jewel and the world, is but
error and delusion. The Vedantist like Berkeley, held all objective
reality to be subjective).
26. Who is it that has nothing existent beside himself, and in whom all
things exist, like the waves existing in the waters; and who is it whose
will makes them appear as different things? (The one being no more than
fluctuations of the other, and substantially the same).
27. Both time and space are equally infinite and indivisible, as the
essence of God wherein they subsist, why then do we try to differentiate
and separate them like the water from its fluidity?
28. What is the inward cause in us, which makes the believer in the
soul, to view the unreal world as real, and why does this fallacy
continue at all times?
29. The knowledge of the worlds whether as present, past or _in futuro_,
is all a great error; and yet what is that immutable being, which
contains in it the seed of this phenomenal wilderness?
30. What being is that, which shows these phenomena without changing
itself, such as in the shape of the seed of the world, before it
developes itself in creation; and sometimes in the form of a developed
forest of created beings?
31. Tell me, O prince! on what solid basis does the great Meru, stand
like a tender filament of the lotus; and what gigantic form is that,
which contains thousands of Merus and Mandaras within its capacious
womb?
32. Tell me, what is that immeasurable Intellect, which has spread these
myriads of intelligences in all these worlds; what is that which
supplies thee with thy strength for ruling and protecting thy people,
and in conducting thyself through life; and what is it in whose sight,
thou dost either lose thyself or thinkest to exist? Tell me all these, O
clear sighted and fair faced prince, for the satisfaction of my heart.
33. Let thy answer melt down the doubt, that has covered the face of my
heart as with snows. If it fail to efface this dirt of doubt altogether
from the surface of my heart, I will never account it as the saying of
the wise.
34. But if thou fail to lighten my heart of its doubts, and set it at
ease; then know for certain, that thou shalt immediately be made a fuel
to the fire of my bowels at this very moment.
35. I shall then fill this big belly of mine with all the people of thy
realm; but shouldst thou answer rightly, thou shalt reign in peace; or
else thou shalt meet thy end like the ignorant, who are surfeited with
the enjoyments of life.
36. Saying so, the nocturnal fiend made the loud shout of a roaring
cloud, expressive of her joy; and then sat silent with her fearful
features, like a light hearted cloud in autumn (which is of gigantic
shape, but empty of rain waters within).