ADORATION OF THE GREAT GOD MAHÁ-DEVA.
Argument.--Of Mahádeva, the father of Brahmá, Vishnu and Siva and the
manner of his worship.
Vasishtha said:--Then Hara, who is the lake of the lotus of Gaurí
(_i.e._ her husband), being desirous of my enlightenment, glanced on me
for a minute, and gave utterance to his lecture.
2. His eyes flashed with light under his heavenly forehead, and were as
two caskets of his understanding, which scattered its rays about us.
(The eyes are the indexes of men's understanding in Physiognomy).
3. The god said:--O sage, call your thoughts home, and employ them
soon to think of your own essence; and to bring about your ends, as
the breezes of heaven convey the fragrance to the nostrils. (The mind
is usually compared in its fleetness with the winds, and therefore the
task of the breezes is imposed upon the thoughts, which are as vagaries
unless they answer one's purposes).
4. When the object long sought for is got in one's possession, what
else is there for one to desire any more. I who have known and come
to the truth, have nothing to expect as desirable nor any thing to
reject as despicable. (When one is possest of his sole object, he is
indifferent about all others, whether they be good or bad).
5. When you have got your mastery over yourself, both in the states of
your peace and disquiet; you should apply yourself to the investigation
of yourself or soul, without attending to any thing besides. (Nothing
better than self-culture, and the advancement and salvation of one's
own soul).
6. You may at first depend on your observations of the phenomenal, (as
preparatory to your knowledge of the noumenal), which you will now
learn from my lecture, if you will attend to it with diligence.
7. After saying in this manner, the holder of the trident told me, not
to rely on my knowledge of the externals, but to attend to the internal
breathings, which move this abode of the body, as the physical forces
move a machine.
8. The lifeless body being without its breathing, becomes dull and dull
and dumb as a block; its power of movement being derived from the air
of breath, but its powers of thought and knowledge are attributed to
the intellect.
9. This intellect has a form more rare and transparent than the vacuous
air, it is an _ens_ which is the cause of all entities; and is not
destroyed by destruction of the living body for want of vital breath.
10. The intellectual is more rarefied and translucent than the ethereal
air, and never perishes with the body; because it remains as the power
of intellection, in the mental (percipient) and living body. (The sruti
says: it is the life of life, and mind of the mind).
11. As the clear shining mirror, receives the reflexion of external
things; so the mind of God reflects all images from within itself, and
from nothing situated without.
12. As the soiled glass receives no reflexion of outward things, so the
lifeless body has no reflexion of any thing, though it is preserved
to our view. (And so are all thoughtless persons considered as dead
bodies).
13. The all-pervasive intellect, though it is formless itself, is yet
prone towards the movement of sensible objects owing to its sensuous
perceptions; but coming to the pure understanding of its spiritual
nature, it becomes the supreme Siva again.
14. The sages then called this immaculate intellect by the several
names of Hari, Siva, Brahmá, and Indra, who are the givers of the
objects of desire to all living beings.
15. It is also styled the fire and air, the sun and moon, and the
supreme Lord; and it is this which is known as the ubiquious soul and
the intellect, which is the mine of all intelligence.
16. It is the lord of gods, the source of celestials, the Dháta or
Brahmá, the lord of gods, and the lord of heaven. Any body who feels
the influence of this great intellect in himself, is never subject to
illusion.
17. Those great souls that are known in this world, under the names of
Brahmá, Vishnu, Hara and others, are all but offspring of the supreme
Intellect, and endowed with a greater portion of it.
18. They are all as sparks of hot iron, and as particles of water in
the immense ocean of creation; so all those that are mistaken for gods,
have sprung from the source of the supreme Intellect.
19. As long as there exist the seeds of error, and the sources of
endless networks of imagination; so long the arbour of gross illusion
does not cease, to sprout in endless ramifications.
20. The veda, its exposition and the vedic literature, are but tufts of
the tree of ignorance for the bondage of men; and these again produce
many other clumps, to hold men fast in their ignorance.
21. Who can describe the productions of nature, in the course of
time and place; the gods Hari, Hara, and Brahmá are among the
number, and have all their origin in the supreme Being--their common
father. (So says the Atharva Sera Sruti: [Sanskrit: sarvvamidram
brahmávishnurudrendráste sampamúyate sarvvani cíndráyánisahamúteh
sakáranam káranánáma.])
22. Mahádeva the great god is the root of all, as the seed is the
source of the branches of trees; He is called the All (sarva), because
He is the essence of all things, and the sole cause of our knowledge
of all existence. (The Purána says to the same effect). [Sanskrit:
trayaste káranátmánah játáh máhámaheshvarát | tapasá topathitvá tam
pitaram parameshvaram |]
23. He is the giver of strength to all beings, he is self manifest
in all, and is adorable and hallowed by all. He is the object of
perception to them that know him, and is ever present in all places.
(The word Mahádeva commonly applied to Siva, originally meant the
great god, as in the definition of the term in the gloss. [Sanskrit:
mahatyaparicchinne átmajnána yogaishvartye mahíyate pújyate iti
mahádevah] So the sruti also: [Sanskrit: yo átmajnána yogaishvaryye
mahati mahívate tasmáducyate mahádevah].)
24. There is no need of addressing invocatory mantras unto the Lord,
who being omniscient and omnipresent, knows and sees all things as
present before him at all places and times.
25. But being always invoked (or prayed unto) in the mind, this god
who resides in every thing is attainable by us in every place; and in
whatever form doth one's intellect appear to him, it is all for his
good. (This passage means the visible form in which the deity makes his
manifestation to the devotee).
26. He takes upon him the visible form, according to the thought in the
mind of the worshipper, and this form is to be worshipped first of all
with proper homage, as the most adorable Lord of gods.
27. Know this as the ultimate of the knowables of the greatest minds;
and whoso has beheld this self-same soul, is freed from fears and
sorrows and the complaints of old age, and is released from future
transmigration, like a fried grain which vegetates no more.
28. By worshipping this well known and unborn first cause in one's self
and at ease (_i.e._ without the formal rite); every one is freed from
his fears, and attains his supreme felicity, why then do you bewilder
yourselves amidst the visible vanities of the world.