[127] _Manu_ (_ibid._, ch. VIII. sl. 304-305) determines the recompense or punishment of good or bad kings as follows: “A sixth part of the reward for virtuous deeds, performed by the whole people, belongs to the king who protects them; but, if he protect them not, a sixth part of their iniquity lights on him.” The legislator redoubles the amount of punishment to a bad king in a subsequent _sloka_ (308): “That king who gives no protection, yet takes a sixth part of the grain as his revenue, wise men have considered as a prince who draws to him the foulness of his people.” [128] It is to be regretted that the author has not indicated the precise place of the Smriti, which enjoins the sacrifice of the widows. * * * * * SECTION THE FOURTH, OF THE FOLLOWERS OF THE VEDANTA (THE VEDANTIANS).――This sect belongs to the most learned and wise of this people. We shall give the substance of their creed. They say: The explanation regarding the only really existing Being (God) resembles a science from which a faint likeness of his grandeur may be perceived; this being and his qualities are pure of all imperfections and contradictions; he oversees all beings; he discovers all that is hidden; his existence comprehends all things; decay and deficiency have no access to the boundless area of his existence; he is the lord of life, the greatest of spirits endowed with pure qualities, and this holy Being, this sublime object, they call _Brahma uttama_,[129] “the most excellent Brahma,” that is, the supreme soul and the most exalted spirit; and the evidence of this meaning, that is, of his existence, is the created world; because a creation without a creator will not come forth from the veil of non-entity into the field of evidence, and the maker of this work is he, the Lord. This explanation is to be supported in the field of certainty by the wise arguments of sagacious people, and by the testimonies of the text of the Véda, that is, of the heavenly book. The truly existing Being (God) has exhibited this world and the heavens in the field of existence, but he has nothing like an odor of being, nor has he taken a color of reality; and this manifestation they call _Máyá_[130], that is, “the magic of God;” because the universe is “his playful deceit,” and he is the bestower of the imitative existence, himself the unity of reality. With his pure substance, like an imitative actor, he passes every moment into another form, and having again left this, appears in another dress. It is he alone who, coming forth in the forms of Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadeva, exhibits the true unity in a trinity of persons, and who, manifesting his being and unity in three persons, separate from each other, formed this universe. The connexion of the spirits with the holy Being (God), is like the connexion of the billows with the ocean,