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This history in itself is a mighty act of propitiation, a mighty sacrifice productive of blessed fruit. It should always be heard by a young monarch with his queen, for then they beget a heroic son or a daughter to occupy a throne. This history is the high and sacred science of Dharma, Artha, and also of Moksha; it hath been so said by Vyasa himself of mind that is immeasurable.
The ashes of what once lived and felt, loved and hated, rejoiced and wept, are thus given back again to the four elements: to Earth, which fed it during such a long time and out of which it grew and developed; to Fire, emblem of purity, that has just devoured the body in order that the spirit may be rid of everything impure, and may freely gravitate to the new sphere of posthumous existence, where every sin is a stumbling block on the way to "Moksha," or infinite bliss; to Air, which it inhaled and through which it lived, and to Water, which purified it physically and spiritually, and is now to receive its ashes into her pure bosom.
It is a mistake to imagine that death makes man immortal. Immortality is an attribute of the gods. This condition of awakening, is variously named among Oriental sages and chelas, such for instance as glimpsing the Brahmic splendor; mutki; samadhi; moksha; entering Nirvana; becoming "twice-born."
This teacher, who lived more than a century before the Christian era, dwelt chiefly upon the necessity of pursuing gnyanam in order to obtain moksha that is to say, the importance of secret knowledge to spiritual progress, and the consummation thereof. And he even went so far as to maintain that a man ought to keep all such knowledge secret from his wife.
This tendency is specially definite and dogmatic in Buddhism, but it is a marked characteristic of the Indian temperament and appears in almost every form of devotion and speculation. What salvation or the desire to be saved is to the ordinary Protestant, Mukti or Moksha, deliverance, is to the ordinary Hindu.
The subject is full of interest, as you say. If I had been an Asiatic by birth, I am sure I should have sought to attain moksha, even if it required a lifetime to pass through all the degrees of initiation.
The hermit, busy paving his road to Moksha, had no intercourse with the rest of the world, and nobody knew how he lived and what he ate. She continues his pursuits and speaks with his voice, and often in his name; but she receives worshippers, which was not the practice of her predecessor. We had come too early, and the Pythia did not at first appear.
Then all creatures, with the Pitris, beholding Devala resolved to adopt the religion of Moksha, began to weep, saying, 'Alas, who will henceforth give us food! Hearing these lamentations of all creatures that resounded through the ten points, Devala set his heart upon renouncing the religion of Moksha.
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