became a Jogi, and began to wander far and wide, living on nothing but
chaff, and practicing his devotions. In order to see Brahma he attended
to the following duties; 1. Hearing; 2. Meditation; 3. Fixing the
Mind; 4. Absorbing the Mind. He combated the three evils, restlessness,
injuriousness, voluptuousness by settling the Deity in his spirit, by
subjecting his senses, and by destroying desire. Thus he would do away
with the illusion (Maya) which conceals all true knowledge. He repeated
the name of the Deity till it appeared to him in the form of a Dry
Light or glory. Though connected with the affairs of life, that is, with
affairs belonging to a body containing blood, bones, and impurities; to
organs which are blind, palsied, and full of weakness and error; to
a mind filled with thirst, hunger, sorrow, infatuation; to confirmed
habits, and to the fruits of former births: still he strove not to view
these things as realities. He made a companion of a dog, honouring it
with his own food, so as the better to think on spirit. He practiced all
the five operations connected with the vital air, or air collected in
the body. He attended much to Pranayama, or the gradual suppression of
breathing, and he secured fixedness of mind as follows. By placing his
sight and thoughts on the tip of his nose he perceived smell; on the
tip of his tongue he realized taste, on the root of his tongue he knew
sound, and so forth. He practiced the eighty-four Asana or postures,
raising his hand to the wonders of the heavens, till he felt no longer
the inconveniences of heat or cold, hunger or thirst. He particularly
preferred the Padma or lotus-posture, which consists of bringing the
feet to the sides, holding the right in the left hand and the left
in the right. In the work of suppressing his breath he permitted its
respiration to reach at furthest twelve fingers’ breadth, and gradually
diminished the distance from his nostrils till he could confine it to
the length of twelve fingers from his nose, and even after restraining
it for some time he would draw it from no greater distance than from
his heart. As respects time, he began by retaining inspiration for
twenty-six seconds, and he enlarged this period gradually till he became
perfect. He sat cross-legged, closing with his fingers all the avenues
of inspiration, and he practiced Prityahara, or the power of restraining
the members of the body and mind, with meditation and concentration, to
which there are four enemies, viz., a sleepy heart, human passions, a
confused mind, and attachment to anything but the one Brahma. He also
cultivated Yama, that is, inoffensiveness, truth, honesty, the forsaking
of all evil in the world, and the refusal of gifts except for sacrifice,
and Nihama, i.e., purity relative to the use of water after defilement,
pleasure in everything whether in prosperity or adversity, renouncing
food when hungry, and keeping down the body. Thus delivered from these
four enemies of the flesh, he resembled the unruffled flame of the lamp,
and by Brahmagnana, or meditating on the Deity, placing his mind on the
sun, moon, fire, or any other luminous body, or within his heart, or at
the bottom of his throat, or in the centre of his skull, he was enabled
to ascend from gross images of omnipotence to the works and the divine
wisdom of the glorious original.
One day Madhusadan, the Jogi, went to a certain house for food, and the
householder having seen him began to say, “Be so good as to take your
food here this day!” The visitor sat down, and when the victuals were
ready, the host caused his feet and hands to be washed, and leading him
to the Chauka, or square place upon which meals are served, seated him
and sat by him. And he quoted the scripture: “No guest must be dismissed
in the evening by a housekeeper: he is sent by the returning sun, and
whether he come in fit season or unseasonably, he must not sojourn
in the house without entertainment: let me not eat any delicate food,
without asking my guest to partake of it: the satisfaction of a guest
will assuredly bring the housekeeper wealth, reputation, long life, and
a place in heaven.”
The householder’s wife then came to serve up the food, rice and split
peas, oil, and spices, all cooked in a new earthen pot with pure
firewood. Part of the meal was served and the rest remained to be
served, when the woman’s little child began to cry aloud and to catch
hold of its mother’s dress. She endeavoured to release herself, but the
boy would not let go, and the more she coaxed the more he cried, and was
obstinate. On this the mother became angry, took up the boy and threw
him upon the fire, which instantly burnt him to ashes.
Madhusadan, the Jogi, seeing this, rose up without eating. The master
of the house said to him, “Why eatest thou not?” He replied, “I am
‘Atithi,’ that is to say, to be entertained at your house, but how
can one eat under the roof of a person who has committed such a
Rakshasa-like (devilish) deed? Is it not said, ‘He who does not govern
his passions, lives in vain’? ‘A foolish king, a person puffed up with
riches, and a weak child, desire that which cannot be procured’? Also,
‘A king destroys his enemies, even when flying; and the touch of an
elephant, as well as the breath of a serpent, are fatal; but the wicked
destroy even while laughing’?”
Hearing this, the householder smiled; presently he arose and went to
another part of the tenement, and brought back with him a book, treating
on Sanjivnividya, or the science of restoring the dead to life. This he
had taken from its hidden place, two beams almost touching one another
with the ends in the opposite wall. The precious volume was in single
leaves, some six inches broad by treble that length, and the paper was
stained with yellow orpiment and the juice of tamarind seeds to keep
away insects.
The householder opened the cloth containing the book, untied the flat
boards at the top and bottom, and took out from it a charm. Having
repeated this Mantra, with many ceremonies, he at once restored the
child to life, saying, “Of all precious things, knowledge is the most
valuable; other riches may be stolen, or diminished by expenditure, but
knowledge is immortal, and the greater the expenditure the greater the
increase; it can be shared with none, and it defies the power of the
thief.”
The Jogi, seeing this marvel, took thought in his heart, “If I could
obtain that book, I would restore my beloved to life, and give up this
course of uncomfortable postures and difficulty of breathing.” With this
resolution he sat down to his food, and remained in the house.
At length night came, and after a time, all, having eaten supper, and
gone to their sleeping-places, lay down. The Jogi also went to rest in
one part of the house, but did not allow sleep to close his eyes. When
he thought that a fourth part of the hours of darkness had sped, and
that all were deep in slumber, then he got up very quietly, and going
into the room of the master of the house, he took down the book from the
beam-ends and went his ways.
Madhusadan, the Jogi, went straight to the place where the beautiful
Sweet Jasmine had been burned. There he found his two rivals sitting
talking together and comparing experiences. They recognized him at once,
and cried aloud to him, “Brother! thou also hast been wandering over the
world; tell us this--hast thou learned anything which can profit us?”
He replied, “I have learned the science of restoring the dead to life”;
upon which they both exclaimed, “If thou hast really learned such
knowledge, restore our beloved to life.”
Madhusadan proceeded to make his incantations, despite terrible sights
in the air, the cries of jackals, owls, crows, cats, asses, vultures,
dogs, and lizards, and the wrath of innumerable invisible beings, such
as messengers of Yama (Pluto), ghosts, devils, demons, imps, fiends,
devas, succubi, and others. All the three lovers drawing blood from
their own bodies, offered it to the goddess Chandi, repeating the
following incantation, “Hail! supreme delusion! Hail! goddess of the
universe! Hail! thou who fulfillest the desires of all. May I presume to
offer thee the blood of my body; and wilt thou deign to accept it, and
be propitious towards me!”
They then made a burnt-offering of their flesh, and each one prayed,
“Grant me, O goddess! to see the maiden alive again, in proportion to
the fervency with which I present thee with mine own flesh, invoking
thee to be propitious to me. Salutation to thee again and again, under
the mysterious syllables any! any!”
Then they made a heap of the bones and the ashes, which had been
carefully kept by Tribikram and Baman. As the Jogi Madhusadan proceeded
with his incantation, a white vapour arose from the ground, and,
gradually condensing, assumed a perispiritual form--the fluid envelope
of the soul. The three spectators felt their blood freeze as the bones
and the ashes were gradually absorbed into the before shadowy shape, and
they were restored to themselves only when the maiden Madhuvati begged
to be taken home to her mother.
Then Kama, God of Love, blinded them, and they began fiercely to quarrel
about who should have the beautiful maid. Each wanted to be her sole
master. Tribikram declared the bones to be the great fact of the
incantation; Baman swore by the ashes; and Madhusadan laughed them both
to scorn. No one could decide the dispute; the wisest doctors were all
nonplussed; and as for the Raja--well! we do not go for wit or wisdom to
kings. I wonder if the great Raja Vikram could decide which person the
woman belonged to?
“To Baman, the man who kept her ashes, fellow!” exclaimed the hero, not
a little offended by the free remarks of the fiend.
“Yet,” rejoined the Baital impudently, “if Tribikram had not preserved
her bones how could she have been restored to life? And if Madhusadan
had not learned the science of restoring the dead to life how could
she have been revivified? At least, so it seems to me. But perhaps your
royal wisdom may explain.”
“Devil!” said the king angrily, “Tribikram, who preserved her bones, by
that act placed himself in the position of her son; therefore he could
not marry her. Madhusadan, who, restoring her to life, gave her life,
was evidently a father to her; he could not, then, become her husband.
Therefore she was the wife of Baman, who had collected her ashes.”
“I am happy to see, O king,” exclaimed the Vampire, “that in spite of my
presentiments, we are not to part company just yet. These little trips
I hold to be, like lovers’ quarrels, the prelude to closer union. With
your leave we will still practice a little suspension.”
And so saying, the Baital again ascended the tree, and was suspended
there.
“Would it not be better,” thought the monarch, after recapturing and
shouldering the fugitive, “for me to sit down this time and listen to
the fellow’s story? Perhaps the double exercise of walking and thinking
confuses me.”
With this idea Vikram placed his bundle upon the ground, well tied up
with turband and waistband; then he seated himself cross-legged before
it, and bade his son do the same.
The Vampire strongly objected to this measure, as it was contrary, he
asserted, to the covenant between him and the Raja. Vikram replied
by citing the very words of the agreement, proving that there was no
allusion to walking or sitting.
Then the Baital became sulky, and swore that he would not utter another
word. But he, too, was bound by the chain of destiny. Presently he
opened his lips, with the normal prelude that he was about to tell a
true tale.
THE VAMPIRE’S SEVENTH STORY -- Showing the Exceeding Folly of Many Wise Fools.
The Baital resumed.
Of all the learned Brahmans in the learnedest university of Gaur
(Bengal) none was so celebrated as Vishnu Swami. He could write verse as
well as prose in dead languages, not very correctly, but still, better
than all his fellows--which constituted him a distinguished writer. He
had history, theosophy, and the four Vedas of Scriptures at his fingers’
ends, he was skilled in the argute science of Nyasa or Disputation, his
mind was a mine of Pauranic or cosmogonico-traditional lore, handed down
from the ancient fathers to the modern fathers: and he had written bulky
commentaries, exhausting all that tongue of man has to say, upon the
obscure text of some old philosopher whose works upon ethics, poetry,
and rhetoric were supposed by the sages of Gaur to contain the germs
of everything knowable. His fame went over all the country; yea, from
country to country. He was a sea of excellent qualities, the father and
mother of Brahmans, cows, and women, and the horror of loose persons,
cut-throats, courtiers, and courtesans. As a benefactor he was equal to
Karna, most liberal of heroes. In regard to truth he was equal to the
veracious king Yudhishtira.
True, he was sometimes at a loss to spell a common word in his mother
tongue, and whilst he knew to a fingerbreadth how many palms and paces
the sun, the moon, and all the stars are distant from the earth, he
would have been puzzled to tell you where the region called Yavana[119]
lies. Whilst he could enumerate, in strict chronological succession,
every important event that happened five or six million years before he
was born, he was profoundly ignorant of those that occurred in his own
day. And once he asked a friend seriously, if a cat let loose in the
jungle would not in time become a tiger.
Yet did all the members of alma mater Kasi, Pandits[120] as well
as students, look with awe upon Vishnu Swami’s livid cheeks, and
lack-lustre eyes, grimed hands and soiled cottons.
Now it so happened that this wise and pious Brahmanic peer had four
sons, whom he brought up in the strictest and most serious way. They
were taught to repeat their prayers long before they understood a word
of them, and when they reached the age of four[121] they had read a
variety of hymns and spiritual songs. Then they were set to learn by
heart precepts that inculcate sacred duties, and arguments relating to
theology, abstract and concrete.
Their father, who was also their tutor, sedulously cultivated, as all
the best works upon education advise, their implicit obedience, humble
respect, warm attachment, and the virtues and sentiments generally. He
praised them secretly and reprehended them openly, to exercise their
humility. He derided their looks, and dressed them coarsely, to preserve
them from vanity and conceit. Whenever they anticipated a “treat,” he
punctually disappointed them, to teach them self-denial. Often when he
had promised them a present, he would revoke, not break his word, in
order that discipline might have a name and habitat in his household.
And knowing by experience how much stronger than love is fear, he
frequently threatened, browbeat, and overawed them with the rod and
the tongue, with the terrors of this world, and with the horrors of the
next, that they might be kept in the right way by dread of falling into
the bottomless pits that bound it on both sides.
At the age of six they were transferred to the Chatushpati[122] or
school. Every morning the teacher and his pupils assembled in the hut
where the different classes were called up by turns. They laboured till
noon, and were allowed only two hours, a moiety of the usual time, for
bathing, eating, sleep, and worship, which took up half the period. At
3 P.M. they resumed their labours, repeating to the tutor what they had
learned by heart, and listening to the meaning of it: this lasted till
twilight. They then worshipped, ate and drank for an hour: after which
came a return of study, repeating the day’s lessons, till 10 P.M.
In their rare days of ease--for the learned priest, mindful of the words
of the wise, did not wish to dull them by everlasting work--they were
enjoined to disport themselves with the gravity and the decorum that
befit young Samditats, not to engage in night frolics, not to use free
jests or light expressions, not to draw pictures on the walls, not
to eat honey, flesh, and sweet substances turned acid, not to talk to
little girls at the well-side, on no account to wear sandals, carry an
umbrella, or handle a die even for love, and by no means to steal their
neighbours’ mangoes.
As they advanced in years their attention during work time was
unremittingly directed to the Vedas. Wordly studies were almost
excluded, or to speak more correctly, whenever wordly studies were
brought upon the carpet, they were so evil entreated, that they well
nigh lost all form and feature. History became “The Annals of India on
Brahminical Principles,” opposed to the Buddhistical; geography “The
Lands of the Vedas,” none other being deemed worthy of notice; and law,
“The Institutes of Manu,” then almost obsolete, despite their exceeding
sanctity.
But Jatu-harini[123] had evidently changed these children before they
were born; and Shani[124] must have been in the ninth mansion when they
came to light.
Each youth as he attained the mature age of twelve was formally entered
at the University of Kasi, where, without loss of time, the first became
a gambler, the second a confirmed libertine, the third a thief, and the
fourth a high Buddhist, or in other words an utter atheist.
Here King Vikram frowned at his son, a hint that he had better not
behave himself as the children of highly moral and religious parents
usually do. The young prince understood him, and briefly remarking that
such things were common in distinguished Brahman families, asked the
Baital what he meant by the word “Atheist.”
Of a truth (answered the Vampire) it is most difficult to explain. The
sages assign to it three or four several meanings: first, one who denies
that the gods exist secondly, one who owns that the gods exist but
denies that they busy themselves with human affairs; and thirdly, one
who believes in the gods and in their providence, but also believes
that they are easily to be set aside. Similarly some atheists derive all
things from dead and unintelligent matter; others from matter living and
energetic but without sense or will: others from matter with forms
and qualities generable and conceptible; and others from a plastic and
methodical nature. Thus the Vishnu Swamis of the world have invested
the subject with some confusion. The simple, that is to say, the mass of
mortality, have confounded that confusion by reproachfully applying the
word atheist to those whose opinions differ materially from their own.
But I being at present, perhaps happily for myself, a Vampire, and
having, just now, none of these human or inhuman ideas, meant simply to
say that the pious priest’s fourth son being great at second and small
in the matter of first causes, adopted to their fullest extent the
doctrines of the philosophical Buddhas.[125] Nothing according to him
exists but the five elements, earth, water, fire, air (or wind), and
vacuum, and from the last proceeded the penultimate, and so forth. With
the sage Patanjali, he held the universe to have the power of perpetual
progression.[126] He called that Matra (matter), which is an eternal
and infinite principle, beginningless and endless. Organization,
intelligence, and design, he opined, are inherent in matter as growth is
in a tree. He did not believe in soul or spirit, because it could not be
detected in the body, and because it was a departure from physiological
analogy. The idea “I am,” according to him, was not the identification
of spirit with matter, but a product of the mutation of matter in this
cloud-like, error-formed world. He believed in Substance (Sat) and
scoffed at Unsubstance (Asat). He asserted the subtlety and globularity
of atoms which are uncreate. He made mind and intellect a mere secretion
of the brain, or rather words expressing not a thing, but a state of
things. Reason was to him developed instinct, and life an element of
the atmosphere affecting certain organisms. He held good and evil to be
merely geographical and chronological expressions, and he opined that
what is called Evil is mostly an active and transitive form of Good. Law
was his great Creator of all things, but he refused a creator of law,
because such a creator would require another creator, and so on in a
quasi-interminable series up to absurdity. This reduced his law to a
manner of haphazard. To those who, arguing against it, asked him their
favourite question, How often might a man after he had jumbled a set of
letters in a bag fling them out upon the ground before they would fall
into an exact poem? he replied that the calculation was beyond his
arithmetic, but that the man had only to jumble and fling long enough
inevitably to arrive at that end. He rejected the necessity as well
as the existence of revelation, and he did not credit the miracles of
Krishna, because, according to him, nature never suspends her laws, and,
moreover, he had never seen aught supernatural. He ridiculed the idea
of Mahapralaya, or the great destruction, for as the world had
no beginning, so it will have no end. He objected to absorption,
facetiously observing with the sage Jamadagni, that it was pleasant
to eat sweetmeats, but that for his part he did not wish to become
the sweetmeat itself. He would not believe that Vishnu had formed the
universe out of the wax in his ears. He positively asserted that trees
are not bodies in which the consequences of merit and demerit are
received. Nor would he conclude that to men were attached rewards
and punishments from all eternity. He made light of the Sanskara,
or sacrament. He admitted Satwa, Raja, and Tama,[127] but only as
properties of matter. He acknowledged gross matter (Sthulasharir), and
atomic matter (Shukshma-sharir), but not Linga-sharir, or the archetype
of bodies. To doubt all things was the foundation of his theory, and to
scoff at all who would not doubt was the corner-stone of his practice.
In debate he preferred logical and mathematical grounds, requiring a
categorical “because” in answer to his “why?” He was full of morality
and natural religion, which some say is no religion at all. He gained
the name of atheist by declaring with Gotama that there are innumerable
worlds, that the earth has nothing beneath it but the circumambient
air, and that the core of the globe is incandescent. And he was called a
practical atheist--a worse form apparently--for supporting the following
dogma: “that though creation may attest that a creator has been, it
supplies no evidence to prove that a creator still exists.” On which
occasion, Shiromani, a nonplussed theologian, asked him, “By whom and
for what purpose werst thou sent on earth?” The youth scoffed at the
word “sent,” and replied, “Not being thy Supreme Intelligence, or
Infinite Nihility, I am unable to explain the phenomenon.” Upon which he
quoted--
How sunk in darkness Gaur must be
Whose guide is blind Shiromani!
At length it so happened that the four young men, having frequently been
surprised in flagrant delict, were summoned to the dread presence of the
university Gurus,[128] who addressed them as follows:--
“There are four different characters in the world: he who perfectly
obeys the commands; he who practices the commands, but follows evil; he
who does neither good nor evil; and he who does nothing but evil. The
third character, it is observed, is also an offender, for he neglects
that which he ought to observe. But ye all belong to the fourth
category.”
Then turning to the elder they said:
“In works written upon the subject of government it is advised, ‘Cut off
the gambler’s nose and ears, hold up his name to public contempt, and
drive him out of the country, that he may thus become an example to
others. For they who play must more often lose than win; and losing,
they must either pay or not pay. In the latter case they forfeit caste,
in the former they utterly reduce themselves. And though a gambler’s
wife and children are in the house, do not consider them to be so, since
it is not known when they will be lost.[129] Thus he is left in a state
of perfect not-twoness (solitude), and he will be reborn in hell.’ O
young man! thou hast set a bad example to others, therefore shalt thou
immediately exchange this university for a country life.”
Then they spoke to the second offender thus:----
“The wise shun woman, who can fascinate a man in the twinkling of an
eye; but the foolish, conceiving an affection for her, forfeit in
the pursuit of pleasure their truthfulness, reputation, and good
disposition, their way of life and mode of thought, their vows and
their religion. And to such the advice of their spiritual teachers comes
amiss, whilst they make others as bad as themselves. For it is said,
‘He who has lost all sense of shame, fears not to disgrace another;
‘and there is the proverb, ‘A wild cat that devours its own young is not
likely to let a rat escape;’ therefore must thou too, O young man! quit
this seat of learning with all possible expedition.”
The young man proceeded to justify himself by quotations from the
Lila-shastra, his text-book, by citing such lines as--
Fortune favours folly and force,
and by advising the elderly professors to improve their skill in the
peace and war of love. But they drove him out with execrations.