Reading section 6

Onset of the War 386

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Commingled Fighting 389

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Description of the Battle 392

CHAPTER XXXV.

Description of the Battlefield 398

CHAPTER XXXVI.

SECTION I. Collision of Equal Arms and Armigerents 401

SECTION II.

Catalogue of the Forces 403

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Catalogue of the Forces (continued) 408

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Cessation of the War 414

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Description of The Battle Field Infested by

Nocturnal Fiends 420

CHAPTER XL.

Reflections on Human Life and Mind 423

CHAPTER XLI.

Discrimination of Error 431

CHAPTER XLII.

Philosophy of Dreaming 438

CHAPTER XLIII.

Burning of the City 442

CHAPTER XLIV.

Spiritual Interpretation of the Vision 448

CHAPTER XLV.

Theism consisting in True Knowledge 454

CHAPTER XLVI.

Onslaught of Vidūratha 457

CHAPTER XLVII.

Encounter of Sindhu and Vidūratha 461

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Description of Daivástras or Supernatural Weapons 465

CHAPTER XLIX.

Description of other kinds of Weapons 473

CHAPTER L.

Death of Vidūratha 477

Conclusion 482

Genealogy 485

THE YOGA PHILOSOPHY.

The Yoga or contemplative philosophy of the Hindus, is rich, exuberant, grand and sublime, in as much as it comprehends within its ample sphere and deep recesses of meditation, all that is of the greatest value, best interest and highest importance to mankind, as physical, moral, intellectual and spiritual beings—a knowledge of the cosmos—of the physical and intellectual worlds.

It is rich in the almost exhaustless treasure of works existing on the subject in the sacred and vernacular languages of the country both of ancient and modern times. It is exuberant in the profusion of erudition and prolixity of ingenuity displayed in the Yoga philosophy of Patanjali, commensurate with the extraordinary calibre of the author in his commentary of the Mahábháshya on Pánini (Müller’s A. S. Lit. p. 235). Its grandeur is exhibited in the abstract and abstruse reflections and investigations of philosophers in the intellectual and spiritual worlds as far as human penetration has been able to reach. And its sublimity is manifested in its aspiring disquisition into the nature of the human and divine souls, which it aims to unite with the one self-same and all pervading spirit.

It has employed the minds of gods, sages, and saints, and even those of heroes and monarchs, to the exaltation of their natures above the rest of mankind, and elevation of their dignities to the rank of gods, as nothing less than a godly nature can approach and approximate that of the All-perfect Divinity. So says Plato in his Phaedras; “To contemplate these things is the privilege of the gods, and to do so is also the aspiration of the immortal soul of man generally; though only in a few cases is such aspiration realized.”

The principal gods Brahmá and Siva are represented as Yogis, the chief sages Vyása, Válmiki, Vasishtha and Yájnavalkya were propounders of Yoga systems; the saints one and all were adepts in Yoga; the heroes Ráma and Krishna were initiated in it, and the kings Dasaratha and Janaka and their fellow prince Buddha were both practitioners and preceptors of Yoga. Mohammed held his nightly communions with God and his angels, and Jesus often went over the hills—there to pray and contemplate. Socrates had his demon to communicate with, and in fact every man has his genius with whom he communes on all matters. All this is Yoga, and so is all knowledge derived by intuition, inspiration and revelation, said to be the result of Yoga.

II. SCIENCES CONNECTED WITH YOGA

The yoga philosophy, while it treats of a variety of subjects, is necessarily a congeries of many sciences in itself. It is the Hindu form of metaphysical argument for the existence of the ‘One Eternal’—the Platonic “Reality.” It is ontology in as much as it teaches _a priori_ the being of God. It is psychology in its treatment of the doctrine of feelings and passions, and it is morality in teaching us to keep them under control as brutal propensities, for the sake of securing our final emancipation and ultimate restoration into the spirit of spirits. Thus it partakes of the nature of many sciences in treating of the particular subject of divinity.

The Yoga in its widest sense of the application of the mind to any subject is both practical, called _kriyá Yoga_, as also theoretical, known as _Jnána Yoga_; and includes in itself the two processes of synthesis and analysis alike, in its combination (_Yoga_) of things together, and discrimination (_Viveka_) of one from the other, in its inquiry into the nature of things (_Vastuvichára_), and investigation of their abstract essence called _Satyánusandhánná_. It uses both the _a priori_ (_púrvavat_) and _a posteriori_ (_paravat_) arguments to prove the existence of the world from its Maker and the _vice versa_, as indicated in the two aphorisms of induction and deduction _Yatová imani_ and _Janmadyasya yatah &c._ It views both subjectively and objectively the one self in many and the many in one unto which all is to return, by the two mysterious formulas of _So ham_ and _tat twam &c._

It is the reunion of detached souls with the Supreme that is the chief object of the Yoga philosophy to effect by the aforesaid processes and other means, which we propose fully to elucidate in the following pages; and there is no soul we think so very reprobate, that will feel disinclined to take a deep interest in them, in order to effect its reunion with the main source of its being and the only fountain of all blessings. On the contrary we are led to believe from the revival of the yoga-cult with the spiritualists and theosophists of the present day under the teachings of Madame Blavatsky and the lectures of Col. Olcott, that the Indian public are beginning to appreciate the efficacy of Yoga meditation, and its practice gaining ground among the pious and educated men in this country.

Notwithstanding the various significations of Yoga and the different lights in which it is viewed by several schools, as we shall see afterwards, it is most commonly understood in the sense of the esoteric faith of the Hindus, and the occult adoration of God by spiritual meditation. This is considered on all hands as the only means of one’s ultimate liberation from the general doom of birth and death and the miseries of this world, and the surest way towards the final absorption of one’s-self in the Supreme,—the highest state of perfection and the _Summum bonum_ of the Hindu. The subject of Yoga Vasishtha is no other than the effecting of that union of the human with the Divine Soul, amidst all the trials and tribulations of life.

III. THE YOGA OF ENGLISH WRITERS.

The yoga considered merely as a mode or system of meditation is variously described by European authors, as we shall see below.

Monier Williams says “According to Patanjali—the founder of the system, the word yoga is interpreted to mean the act of “fixing or concentration of the mind in abstract meditation”. Its aim is to teach the means by which the human soul may attain complete union with the Supreme Soul, and of effecting the complete fusion of the individual with the universal spirit even in the body”, Indian Wisdom p. 102.

Weber speaking of the yoga of the Atharvan Upanishads says; “It is the absorption in _átman_, the stages of this absorption and the external means of attaining it.” Again says he; “The yoga in the sense of union with the Supreme Being, is absorption therein by means of meditation. It occurs first in the latter Upanishads, especially the tenth book of the Taittiríya and the Katha Upanishads, where the very doctrine is itself enunciated”, Hist. Ind Lit p. 153-171.

Müllins in his prize essay on Vedanta says, the Sankhya yoga is the union of the body and mind, p. 183. In its Vedantic view, it is the joining of the individual with the Supreme Spirit by holy communion of the one with the other through intermediate grades, whereby the limited soul may be led to approach its unlimited fountain and lose itself in the same.

IV. YOGA-CHARACTERISTIC OF THE HINDUS.

Max Müller characterises the Hindu as naturally disposed to _Yoga_ or a contemplative turn of his mind for his final beatitude in the next life, amidst all his cares, concerns and callings in this world, which he looks upon with indifference as the transient shadows of passing clouds, that serve but to dim for a moment but never shut out from his view the full blaze of his luminous futurity. This description is so exactly graphic of the Hindu mind, that we can not with-hold giving it entire as a mirror of the Hindu mind to our readers on account of the scarcity of the work in this country.

“The Hindu” says he “enters the world as a stranger; all his thoughts are directed to another world, he takes no part even where he is driven to act, and even when he sacrifices his life, it is but to be delivered from it.” Again “They shut their eyes to this world of outward seeming activity, to open them full on the world of thought and rest. Their life was a yearning for eternity; their activity was a struggle to return to that divine essence from which this life seemed to have severed them. Believing as they did in a really existing and eternal Being _to ontos-onton_ they could not believe in the existence of this passing world.”