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Yes, certainly; the Guptas were reigning then, I forgot. But why bother about it? This is Kali-Yuga, and what does anything matter? And you come away with the impression that your non-informant could reveal enough and plenty, if he had a mind to. Which is, indeed, probably the case.
As soon as you touch this country, in the domain of history and chronology, you are certain, as they say, to get 'hoodooed. Kali-Yuga began there in 3102 B.C., and ever since that unfortunate event, not a single soul in the country seems to have had an idea of keeping track of the calendar. So-and-so, you read, reigned. When?
We may put their epoch well before the death of Krishna in 3102 B. C., well before the opening of the Kali-Yuga; we may say that it lasted a very long time; and be content that if all scholarship, all western and modern opinion, laughs at us now, the laugh will probably be with us when we have been dead a long time. Or perhaps sooner.
Having committed a hundred sins, he that bathes in the Ganga, hath all his sins washed off by the waters thereof, even as fuel is consumed by fire. It hath been said that in the Satyayuga all the tirthas were sacred; in the Treta, Pushkara alone was such; in Dwapara, Kurukshetra; and in the Kali-yuga, the Ganga alone is sacred.
I imagine that in that second millennium B. C., in the early centuries of Kali-Yuga, you had a warrior class with their bards, inspired with high Bushido feeling, with chivalry and all that is fine in patricianism but no longer under the leadership of Adept Princes; the esoteric knowledge was now mainly in the hands of the Priest-class.
Oh, in 1000 A.D. Or in 213 A.D. Or in 78 A.D. Or in a few million B.C., or 2100 A.D. Or he did not reign at all. After all, what does it matter? this is Kali-Yuga, and nothing can go right. You fix your eyes on a certain spot in time, which, according to your guesses at the cycles, should be important. Nothing doing there, as we say.
Oh no, nothing at all: this is Kali-Yuga, and what should be doing? .... Well, if you press the point, no doubt somebody was reigning, somewhere. But, pardon my insistence, if seems . Quite so, quite so! as I said, somebody must have been reigning. You scrutinze; you bring your lenses to bear; and the somebody begins to emerge. And it was the Golden Age of Music, and perhaps some other things.
Having committed a hundred sins, he that bathes in the Ganga, hath all his sins washed off by the waters thereof, even as fuel is consumed by fire. It hath been said that in the Satyayuga all the tirthas were sacred; in the Treta, Pushkara alone was such; in Dwapara, Kurukshetra; and in the Kali-yuga, the Ganga alone is sacred.
Our scholars will sneer at the superstition that they ever existed; our theologians will say the world was created somewhat later. Or indeed, no; I think it will not be so. I think we shall have established an abiding perception of truth: Theosophy will have smashed the backbone of this foolish Kali-Yuga as a little, before then.
And then, later, the Priest-cast made its contribution, evolving in the Brahmanas the ritual of their order; with an implication, ever growing after the beginning of the Kali-Yuga, that only by this ritual salvation could be attained. Not that it follows that this was the idea at first.
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