The moral maxims are taught in the form of fables. The book used is what we know as the Fables of Bidpai (“Friend of Science”) from an Indian work, which was rewritten as the _Hitopadesa_ (“Friendly Advice”) some centuries ago. It contains profound ethical wisdom, mixed with some things whimsical and absurd. Proverbs are quoted at every turn, being strung on the thread of the fable, like glittering stones on a necklace. The instruction of the Brahmin’s son extended to the philosophic doctrines of Hindoo pantheism. To understand the nature of this pantheism is most important. There is Brahm—above all the individual gods. Brahm expresses pure abstraction from all distinctions—merely to think it is to become unconscious of all things. Brahma is the personification of that substance (Brahm) as the creator, Vishnu as the preserver, and Siva as the destroyer. Below these high gods there are terrestrial ones presided over by Indra, the Hindoo Jupiter, ruler of the sky. Creation is not an act of the will of deity, but a sort of emanation “like the growth of plants from seed or the hair from the head.” The world proceeds from nothingness, growing out of Brahma, and returns into nothingness—it is all an illusion, a sort of dream, which the Hindoo calls “Maya.” Brahm is the substance of all the gods, and of the beings of the world, and hence all their differences vanish to the Brahmin, who meditates long enough to reach the idea of Brahm. Hence the highest aim of education is to reach this annihilation of all distinction—passing beyond all the gods, even to Brahm. The Sankhya philosophy expresses this doctrine of annihilation of all particular things and beings through reflection: “So through the study of principles the conclusive, incontrovertible, one only knowledge, is attained, that neither I am nor is aught mine, nor do I exist.” One must not suppose that the Hindoo education is so complete that the lower castes remain without aspiration. They learn by degrees in what rests the power of the Brahmin to ascend above the gods by the exercise of meditation and abstraction. This is taught in the Bhagavad Gita—even a Sudra can by meditation come to Brahm.[H] The lower castes may become partakers of the divine life through regeneration—“immense self-denial, torture and penance” are requisite. They become “yogis,” and undertake some painful exercise, such as standing for twelve years without once lying down, then clasping the hands over the head for another twelve years; then a third grade by standing between four fires and the tropical sun, afterward swinging backward and forward over a fire for nearly four hours; lastly, if life is not extinct, being buried alive for the same length of time. If he lives still, the devotee has now become a Brahmin.