Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
As this, however, may have been a later development, let us turn to the ancient Hindû Shâstras, and select one out of the many passages that could be adduced, descriptive of the Ashvattha Tree, the Tree of Life, "the Ashvattha of golden wings," where the bird-souls get their wings and fly away happily, as the Sanatsujátîya tells us.
The three worlds of desire, form and formlessness, consist in thought only; and there is nothing outside thought. Nine centuries after Gautama, Maitreya, or the Buddha of kindness, came down from the heaven of the Bodhisattva to the lecture-hall in the kingdom in central India at the request of the Buddhas elect, and discounted five shastras.
Idleness and sanctity are a powerful combination, and it is written in the shastras that every day in which a holy man does no work for his bread, but lives by begging, is equal in the eyes of the gods to a day spent in fasting; so, though the prospect of power and wealth might tempt a few restless and wayward spirits, the great mass of the Brahmin caste clung to the sacred calling.
And it is the unblushing teaching of the Shastras that obedience to caste is the fulfilment of duty and the summum bonum of life. So omnipotent and omniscient is the arm and head of caste that men dare not defy it. Hence we are compelled to look in India to-day upon the saddest spectacle of abject manhood the world has known.
They were manifestations to the Japanese, before Gautama had become the enlightened one, or the jewel in the lotus, and before the holy wheel of the law or the sacred shastras and sutras had reached the island empire.
The planet Rahu, in consequence of his greater bulk, envelops both the Sun and the Moon in due times. I tell thee this in brief. With the eye of science, O great king, I have now told thee all that thou hadst asked. Let peace be thine. I have now told thee about the construction of the universe as indicated in the Shastras. Therefore, O Kauravya, pacify thy son Duryodhana.
The joyful noise of all the citizens, in expression of their satisfaction on the occasion, was so great that it reached the very heavens in magnifying plaudits. Having studied the whole of the Vedas and sundry other shastras, the Pandavas resided there, respected by all and without apprehension from any one.
Such are the men of the Treta Yuga. In the Dwapara Yuga, religion decreaseth by one half. And Narayana weareth a yellow hue. And the Veda becometh divided into four parts. And on the Shastras becoming thus divided, acts become multiplied. And largely influenced by passion, people engage in asceticism and gifts.
In another place we are told that the worshipper "who is purified by the penance of knowledge has come into my essence." This is the eschatology of all Hindu Shastras. The peculiar teaching of the Bhagavad Gita concerning action and its emphasis upon a strenuous life in this world would have led us to expect the teaching of a future of some kind of activity.
"Narada continued, 'Having cheerfully spoken thus, the illustrious Rishi Pulastya, well-pleased, bidding Bhishma farewell, disappeared there and then. And Bhishma also, O tiger among men, well understanding the true import of the Shastras, wandered over the world at the command of Pulastya.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking