. Beacon lights of history. [The world's heroes and master minds] . rnal light, in the world where thesun is placed, — in that immortal, imperishable world,place me, O Soma! . . Where there is happiness anddelight, where joy and pleasures reside, where thedesires of our heart are attained, there make meimmortal. In the oldest Vedic poems there were great sim-plicity and joyousness, without allusion to those rites,ceremonies, and sacrifices which formed so prominenta part of the religion of India at a later period. Four hundred years after the Eig-Veda was com-posed we come to the Brahmanic age
. Beacon lights of history. [The world's heroes and master minds] . rnal light, in the world where thesun is placed, — in that immortal, imperishable world,place me, O Soma! . . Where there is happiness anddelight, where joy and pleasures reside, where thedesires of our heart are attained, there make meimmortal. In the oldest Vedic poems there were great sim-plicity and joyousness, without allusion to those rites,ceremonies, and sacrifices which formed so prominenta part of the religion of India at a later period. Four hundred years after the Eig-Veda was com-posed we come to the Brahmanic age, when the lawsof Menu were written, when the Aryans were livingin the valley of the Ganges, and the caste systemhad become national. The supreme deity is no longerone of the powers of Nature, like Mitra or Indra, butaccording to Menu he is Brahm, or Brahma, — aneternal, unchangeable, absolute being, the soul of allbeings, who, having willed to produce various beings 1 Wilson: Rig-Veda, vol. iii. p. 170. Miiller: Chips from a German Workshop, vol. i. p. From a photograph THE CAE OF JUGGERNAUT BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM. 77 from his own divine substance, created the waters andplaced in them a productive seed. The seed becamean egg, and in that egg he was born, but sat inactivefor a year, when he caused the egg to divide itself;and from its two divisions he framed the heavenabove, and the earth beneath. From the supremesoul Brahma drew forth mind, existing substantially,though unperceived by the senses; and before mind,the reasoning power, he produced consciousness, theinternal monitor; and before them both he producedthe great principle of the soul. . , The soul is, inits substance, from Brahma himself, and is destinedfinally to be resolved into him. The soul, then, issimply an emanation from Brahma; but it will notreturn unto him at death necessarily, but must mi-grate from body to body, until it is purified by pro-found abstraction and emancipated from all desires. This
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