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The object is not to share Brahmâ's heaven but to become temporarily identified with a deity, and this is not a byway of religion but the high road. But there is a further stage of degradation. I have already mentioned that various Bodhisattvas are represented as accompanied by a female deity, particularly Avalokita by Târâ.
The clergy were in consternation, and made an appeal before they published the Bishop's letter to their flocks; but they found his mind made up, and yielded. The lesser stations complied without much difficulty; but at Trichinopoly, Vepery, and Tanjore, there were many Soodras, the soldier-caste, professing to have come from Brahma's shoulders, and second only to the Brahmins.
The laborers, who are told they come out of Brahma's foot, are much ashamed of their low birth. They are called sudras. You would be astonished to hear the great respect the sudras pay to the high and haughty Brahmins. When a sudra meets a Brahmin in the street, he touches the ground three times with his forehead, then, taking the priest's foot in his hand, he kisses his toe.
As all the gods faded away in Indian speculation before Brahma, so Brahma's own turn has come to fade away. The Buddhist speaks of the gods as if they existed, and he makes no attack on the sacrifices; but no living god fills his heart. The Buddha is greater than all the gods; his teaching is for the benefit of gods as well as men. But the Buddha is not an object of worship.
It behoveth thee to discourse on those subjects connected with Siva of universal form about which Yudhishthira has asked me. In days of yore, the Rishi Tandi, sprung from Brahma, recited in Brahma's region and before Brahma himself the thousand names of Mahadeva.
This floating on the leaf is suggestive of ancient Indian myths, and reminds us of Brahma sitting on a lotus and floating across the sea. Vishnu, when, after Brahma's death, the waters have covered all the worlds, sits in the shape of a tiny infant on a leaf of the fig tree, and floats on the sea of milk sucking the toe of his right foot.
Following the lead of the preceptor and the Vedas, he who beholds it hereafter becomes Brahma's self. They that are possessed of wisdom look with an equal eye upon a Brahmana possessed of knowledge and disciples, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a Chandala. Transcending all things, the Soul dwells in all creatures mobile and immobile. Indeed, all things are pervaded by it.
One of the most venerated in India, it was built at the junction of the two sacred rivers, Ganges and Jumna, the waters of which attract pilgrims from every part of the peninsula. The Ganges, according to the legends of the Ramayana, rises in heaven, whence, owing to Brahma's agency, it descends to the earth. Passepartout made it a point, as he made his purchases, to take a good look at the city.
In the beginning, Para-Brahma created the waters and threw into them the seed of procreation, which transformed itself into a brilliant egg, wherein Brahma's image was reflected. Millions of years had passed when Brahma split the egg in two halves, of which the upper one became the heaven, the lower one, the earth.
Sometimes also it is otherwise done by immersing him in a large vessel of water, as Tavernier tells us. Dr. Among the Hindus, to bathe in the Ganges is to be regenerated, and the water is holy because it flows from Brahma's feet.
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