a bear.” When a person practises the restraining of breath, they observe: “He wishes to imitate a snake.” Of a person in a bath, they say: “He chooses the dwelling of a fish or a frog.” Moreover, when the Hindus relate that Brahma, Vichnu, and Mahadéo, their three great divinities, are the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer of the world, they reply: “They represent nothing else than the sexual organs.”[326] Upon Vichnu’s having four arms, they gloss: “At the time of sexual intercourse, each man and woman has as many.” To the praise of Mahadéo, from whose head the river Ganges flowed, they subjoin the interpretation, that “this means the virile organ in its natural functions.”[327] They meet the statement of Brahma’s being the creator of things, with the reply: “That this is an emblem of the birth of children:” and they proffer many other speeches of a similar import. [319] चार्वाकः a philosopher, a sceptic in many matters of Hindu faith, and considered by the orthodox as an atheist or materialist. [320] रूप स्कन्धः _Skandha_ signifies “a book, a section,” also “the five objects of sense.” [321] विद्या स्कन्धः [322] ज्ञान स्कन्धः [323] ज्ञप्ति स्कन्धः [324] संस्कार स्कन्धः I shall subjoin from Colebrooke’s treatise _On the Philosophy of the Hindus_ (Transact. R. A. S., vol. I. part I. p. 561) the more correct denominations and definitions of the five skandhas: 1. _Rúpa-skandha_, comprehending organs of sense and their objects, considered in relation to the person, or the sensitive and intelligent faculty which is occupied with them. 2. _Vijnnyána-skandha_ consists in intelligence (_chitta_), which is the same with self (_átman_) and (_vijnyána_) knowledge. It is consciousness of sensation, or continuous course and flow of cognition and sentiment. There is not any other agent, nor being, which acts and enjoys; nor is there an eternal soul; but merely succession of thought, attended with individual consciousness abiding within the body. 3. _Védaná-skandha_ comprises pleasure, pain, or the absence of either, and other sentiments excited in the mind by pleasing or displeasing objects. 4. _Sanjnya-skandha_ intends the knowledge or belief arising from names or words: as ox, horse, etc.; or from indications or signs, as a house denoted by a flag, and a man by his staff. 5. _Sanskára-skandha_ includes passions; as desire, hatred, fear, joy, sorrow, etc.; together with illusion, virtue, vice, and every other modification of the fancy or imagination. All sentiments are momentary.