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vol. title: Vol Four of The Theosophical Society of The Arya Samaj of Arya-wart vol. period: Sept 1878 – Sept 1879 pages in vol.: 350 |
< Texts from The Dhammapada (continued from page 8-96) >
The following is a fair sample of the “Dhammapada,” its method of reciting parables and giving their application in the form of a text from the Buddhist sutras or canonical Scriptures:
“In olden time there was in the country of Srâvastî, a certain Brahman teacher called Purâna Kâsyapa, who had five hundred followers who went about the country with their master and were greatly respected by the king and people. Now, it came to pass that after Buddha had attained supreme wisdom [nirvana] and when with his disciples, he had come to Srâvastî, that, on account of his personal dignity and the character of his teaching, the king and his people paid him great respect. On this Kâsyapa was full of jealousy, and he determined to destroy (overthrow) the world-honored in argument and cause his death. Accordingly he went, accompanied by his followers to meet the king, and having found him he spoke thus: ‘In former days, Mahârâja, you and the people used to attend to me as a teacher and supply my wants; but since this Sramana Gôtama has arrived here, who falsely says he has become enlightened (Buddha), you have left me to attend on him. I desire therefore, that you would allow a discussion between us, and whoever is defeated in argument let him he put to death.’ The king being pleased with the proposition, submitted it to the World-honored One, who consented to meet Kâsyapa, as he wished at the end of seven days. Accordingly the king prepared a place standing eastward of the city, smooth and wide, on which he erected two lofty thrones, and adorned them with all sorts of flags and decorations. On these the two disputants were to sit, with their adherents beneath, and the king and his court between the two. The day having came, Kâsyapa and his followers arrived first, and having ascended his throne, lo! an evil spirit, knowing the envy that burned in the heart of the Brahman caused a sudden storm to arise, which blew down the seat which he occupied, and filled the whole arena with dust and flying sand. But now Buddha arrived, and having taken his place, the king came forward and entreated him by his power to convert the people to his doctrine, and confute the heretical views of his opponent. On this the Lord ascended into the air and exhibited his glory, in causing fire and water to proceed from his body; and after various miraculous changes in his appearance, he returned once more to his seat. Then the Nâgas and spirits of the air caused flowers and pleasant perfumes to fall, whilst melodious chants were heard in the sky, and the earth and heavens were shaken. Then Purâna Kâsyapa, knowing that he had no real claim to character of a supreme teacher, hung down his head in shame and dared not lift up his eyes. On this a diamond-Litchavi (hero of Vaisâli), raising his mace, from the head of which proceeded sparks of fire, over Kâsyapa, asked him why he did not also display such wonderful changes as those just witnessed? Whereupon Kâsyapa and his followers fled in every direction, and Buddha and his disciples returned to the Jetavana Vihâra, in Srâvasti. After this Kâsyapa, having met an old female disciple who ridiculed him for attempting to dispute with Buddha, he came to the banks of the river and told his disciples that he was now going to ascend to the heaven of Brahmâ, and if after casting himself into the river he did not return, that they might know he had ascended to that heaven. Accordingly he threw himself in, and not returning his disciples concluded he had gone to heaven; and they also, desiring to join bim there, threw themselves one by one into the river and were lost—going to hell. Then Buddha explained that the two great crimes of Kâsyapa, which led to his destruction were these—1st, pretending falsely to have arrived at supreme wisdom; 2d, having wickedly slandered Buddha. And for these two sins he and his followers have gone to perdition; and then he repeated these stanzas:
“He who by false assumptions, seeks reward, he who having done a thing, has not in so doing acted uprightly, he who has maliciously slandered an innocent man, and would control the world by (such) false pretenses—that man, dragged down by his guilt, must fall into hell; as a man confined in a stronghold outside a city, guarded without and within cannot escape, such is his lot. Carefully guarding one’s heart, no unholy thought can arise; but failing in this, misery accrues, and in the end that man goes to perdition!”
Then follows an ancedote of five hundred monkeys and their king who quarreled with another king and his followers. They also ended their lines in like manner. These monkeys were Kâsyapa and his followers.
Superstition is All Ages*
A volume by this title has been translated and published by Miss Anna Knoop. It was written by John Meslier, for thirty years a Roman Catholic priest in Champagne, France, and published after his death under the title of “Common Sense.” The translator has evidently performed her work with rare fidelity, and being an admirer of the author and his sentiments, is the more competent to render his writings accurately. A few verbal emendations are all that is needed. The volume contains a preface by the editor of the French edition of 1831: a life of the author by Voltaire; a preface by M. Meslier himself, the text of the work and finally an abstract by Voltaire. The date of the French manuscript is “Etrepiguy, March 15th, 1732.”
The book is an extraordinary one. Only a Roman Catholic, abandoning his religion for none, it seems to us, could have written it. Our skeptics who revolt from the Protestant forms of Christianity, are generally less careful in style and logic, but more inclined to be ribaldrous. It is hardly necessary to state that “Common Sense” was not printed till thirty years after the author’s death. The eighteenth century was the final age of despotism; and the publisher of such a book would have been imprisoned either by a lettre de cachet, or on a charge of blasphemy, his goods confiscated and his family beggared. Lucky would he have been to escape a breaking on the wheel. “The true faith,” said the jester, “is always the one which has on its side the prince and the executioner.” Meslier himself kept his work secret, and exercised the priest’s functions till his death, not because he was a hypocrite, but from fear of burning at the stake—the old-time remedy for heterodoxy. The treatise, 366 pages of manuscript, was three times written out by him, that the loss of one copy might not be its destruction. After his death, the book was circulated as in former times by manuscript copies. It is said to have made a deeper impression than the “Thoughts of Pascal.”
He does not hesitate to declare the miracles recorded in the Evangelists, “abused fables, which passed after three hundred years from the lower class to the palace of the emperors, when policy obliged them to adopt the follies of the people in order to subjugate them.” He pronounces all religion “a castle in the air.” “Theology is but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system.” “Everywhere the baneful ideas of Divinity have filled the heart with trouble, and given birth to destructive ideas.” Man was compelled to vegetate in his primitive stupidity. Religion, politics and morals became sanctuaries, into which the profane were not permitted to enter. Men had no other morality than that which their legislators and their priests claimed as descended from unknown Empyrean regions.” “These are the true sources of corruption of habits, to which religion never opposes anything but ideal and ineffectual obstacles; ignorance and servitude have a tendency to make men wicked and unhappy.”
Many of us will be startled at propositions like these: “It is not necessary to believe in a God, and the most reasonable thing is not to think of Him.” “There would have never been any religion if there had never been any dark and barbarous ages.” “Spirituality is a chimera.” “To adore God is to adore a fiction.” “The existence of man does not prove that of God.” “Neither does the order of the universe prove the existence of a God.” “A pure spirit cannot be intelligent, and to adore a Divine Intelligence is a chimera.” “It is not true that the object of the universe was to render men happy.” “No! the world is not governed by an Intelligent Being.” “Evil and good are the necessary effects of natural causes.” “Either the God of theology is not free, or he is more wicked than good.” “The existence of the soul is an absurd supposition, and the existence of an immortal soul is a still more absurd supposition.” “A universal God should have revealed a universal religion.” “The Deist’s God is no less contradictory, no less fanciful, than the theologian’s God.” “Religion is not necessary to morality and to virtue.” “All morality is incompatible with religious opinions.” “The morals of the Gospel are impracticable.” “An Atheist has more motives for acting uprightly, more conscience, than a religious person.” “Religion is Pandora’s box, and this fatal box is open.”
Such were the conclusions of a priest learned and proficient in his theology. The book from beginning to end is devoted to their defence and illustration. It is enough for the reviewer to say that this is done with great force and clearness, characteristic of profound earnestness and conviction.
* Superstition in all Ages. By John Meslier. Translated from the French, by Anna Knoop.
The Great Dionysiak Myth*
The Semitic school of Orientalists have had their attention called to another endeavor to solve the problem of ancient mythology. Mr. Robert Brown, Jun., of Northern England, has given two volumes to the public, purporting to reveal the curious problems of the arcane and popular worships of the East; and a third will complete the task of tracing the central personage, Bacchus, to the country of the Euphrates. Several years ago he published a little monograph, entitled Poseidón. Its purport was that the divinity, miscalled Neptune, was really an Hamitic god. Though Homer had placed him on Olympus, with Zeus and his deity-college, his origin and associations were Æthiopian. He was the father of the Kyklopeans in Libya, of the Proteuses, or first gods of Egypt and Phœnicia, and so on. He was the older god of Greece, sharing temples and worship with Demeter all over the Morea, Boiotia, and even at Eleusis. At Askalon he was the Dagon, or Fish-god; dag (or fish) being the rebus of the name.
In the present volumes, Bacchus, or Dionysos, is the central character, as representing the most conspicuous divinities of Western Asia, Egypt and Greece. The story is as interesting as a romance to the archæological inquirer. A profusion of authors are quoted, to facilitate the investigation and to substantiate the conclusions. It must be acknowledged that they are generally plausible, seldom far-fetched, and altogether appear to constitute a very satisfactory explanation.
Intelligent classical scholars have long been aware of the absurdity of denominating Bacchus the god of wine, as though that was his leading characteristic. “He is lord of the whole humid nature,” say Plutarch; an ancient method of asserting that he was the progenitor o-cause of all generated existence. Hence his figures were often masculo-feminine, to denote that he originated all; they were decorated with the well-known emblem, which in some countries became the chief symbol of the God. Herodotos identifies him with Osiris, or Uasar. and Mr. Brown easily shows him to have been the Baal of Palestine, the Adonis, or Esculapius of Phœnicia, and the Atys of Phrygia, also Moloch, Kronos, Adar, etc. He even, by an apparent stretch of etymological fancy, which he shows to be probable, nevertheless, forms the name Bacchus from that of the Tyrian Hercules. The appellation Meqarth, or Melkazth, the Mel or Baal of the Karth, or chief city, by loss and changing of letters becomes Milcar, Mocar, Macar, Micar; then Boca, Bacar, and finally Malchus, Machus, Bocchus and Bacchus. Languages abound with words which have been as badly transformed as that.
Several identifications of this god seemed almost portentous of trouble to persons having limited knowledge and ideas of the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus, Bacchus was called Iao, the same name, substantially, as Jehovah, or more correctly, Yavá. What seemed to fasten this identity, was the fact that Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, was said to have been born or reared at Nysa in Arabia. Mr. Samuel Sharpe informs us that the Egyptians called Mount Sinai by the name of Nissa, and esteemed it as holy ground ages before Moses. In Diodoros is the remarkable statement that “Osiris, the son of Zeus, was brought up at <... continues on page 8-98 >
* The Great Dionysiak Myth. By Robert Brown, Jr., F. S. A. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
Editor's notes