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The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations

Religion

The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations

Iran -- Religion; Religions

Without entering here into the details of metaphysical
     refinements which the Hindus exhibit in their various
     systems of philosophy, we may content ourselves to state
     that, in general, they adopt two kinds of bodies or persons,
     a subtile, and a substantial or grosser one. The first
     transmigrates through successive bodies, which it assumes as
     a mimic shifts his disguises to represent various
     characters. In the Bhagavad gita, it is intimated, that soul
     retains the senses and mind in the intervals of migration:
     “At the time that spirit obtains a body, and when it
     abandons one, it migrates, taking with it those senses, as
     the wind wafts along with it the perfumes of the flowers.”
     The grosser body, propagated by generation, is perishable.
     According to Manu (XII. 16): “After death, another body,
     composed of the five rudimental elements, is immediately
     produced, for wicked men, that they may suffer the tortures
     of the infernal regions.” This concords with what is said
     above.

     [303] They are also called _Brahma Sampradáyis_. The founder
     of this sect was Madhwácharya, a Brahman, born in the
     Saka-year 1121 (A. D. 1199), in Tuluva, on the western coast
     of the Indian peninsula; he died in his seventy-ninth year.
     He was early initiated into the order of Anchorets, and
     devoted to Vichnu; he composed thirty-seven works, built
     eight temples, and founded as many _maths_, or “monasteries”
     of his particular sect, which is one of the four great
     sects. The superiors, or “Gurus” of it are Brahmans and
     Sanyásis; their lay-votaries are members of every class of
     society except the lowest; they profess perpetual celibacy.
     These sectaries reside now chiefly in the peninsula, and are
     altogether unknown in Gangetic Hindostan. To what is above
     said of their doctrine, I shall add, that they distinguish
     the principle of life from the supreme Being, or they deny
     the absolute unity of the Deity, and the possibility of
     absorption into the universal spirit, and the loss of
     independent existence after death.――(See an explicit account
     of this sect, by Professor Wilson, _As. Res._, vol. XVI. p.
     100-108.)

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Religion

The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations

Iran -- Religion; Religions

Without entering here into the details of metaphysical
     refinements which the Hindus exhibit in their various
     systems of philosophy, we may content ourselves to state
     that, in general, they adopt two kinds of bodies or persons,
     a subtile, and a substantial or grosser one. The first
     transmigrates through successive bodies, which it assumes as
     a mimic shifts his disguises to represent various
     characters. In the Bhagavad gita, it is intimated, that soul
     retains the senses and mind in the intervals of migration:
     “At the time that spirit obtains a body, and when it
     abandons one, it migrates, taking with it those senses, as
     the wind wafts along with it the perfumes of the flowers.”
     The grosser body, propagated by generation, is perishable.
     According to Manu (XII. 16): “After death, another body,
     composed of the five rudimental elements, is immediately
     produced, for wicked men, that they may suffer the tortures
     of the infernal regions.” This concords with what is said
     above.

     [303] They are also called _Brahma Sampradáyis_. The founder
     of this sect was Madhwácharya, a Brahman, born in the
     Saka-year 1121 (A. D. 1199), in Tuluva, on the western coast
     of the Indian peninsula; he died in his seventy-ninth year.
     He was early initiated into the order of Anchorets, and
     devoted to Vichnu; he composed thirty-seven works, built
     eight temples, and founded as many _maths_, or “monasteries”
     of his particular sect, which is one of the four great
     sects. The superiors, or “Gurus” of it are Brahmans and
     Sanyásis; their lay-votaries are members of every class of
     society except the lowest; they profess perpetual celibacy.
     These sectaries reside now chiefly in the peninsula, and are
     altogether unknown in Gangetic Hindostan. To what is above
     said of their doctrine, I shall add, that they distinguish
     the principle of life from the supreme Being, or they deny
     the absolute unity of the Deity, and the possibility of
     absorption into the universal spirit, and the loss of
     independent existence after death.――(See an explicit account
     of this sect, by Professor Wilson, _As. Res._, vol. XVI. p.
     100-108.)

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations

The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations

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