THE DESCENT OF THE SUN. [Sanskrit script] (The illusion of a waking dream.) Like a Digit of the Moon In the Shadow of the Earth Spirit undergoeth Swoon In the Vestibule of Birth; Dreameth transitory trouble, Weareth Hues of Heaven, hurled Hither, thither, as a Bubble On the Ocean of the World. [Illustration: Crescent moon] [_vide n. p._ xv.] THE DESCENT OF THE SUN [Sanskrit script] _A CYCLE OF BIRTH_ TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT. BY F. W. BAIN [Sanskrit script] '_and in a dream I saw a lotus fallen from heaven_' THIRD EDITION. James Parker and Co., 31 BEDFORD-STREET, STRAND, LONDON; AND 27 BROAD-STREET, OXFORD. 1906. [Illustration: Title page] _First Edition_, 1903. _Second Edition_, 1903. _Third Edition_, 1906. DEDICATED TO MARGARET. INTRODUCTION. Here is a fairy tale which I found in an old Hindoo manuscript. As the title shows, it is a solar myth. Literally translated, its name is: _The glory of the Going Down of the Sun_. But this is only the exoteric, physical envelope of the inner, mystical meaning, which is: _The Divine Lustre[1] of the Descent_ (Incarnation) _of Him Who took Three Steps_: i.e. Wishnu, or the Sun, the later Krishna, or Hindoo Apollo. And this epithet of the Sun is explained by the well-known passage in the Rig-Weda (I. 22. 17[2]), '_Three steps did Wishnu stride: thrice did he set down his foot._' A mythological expression for the rise, the zenith, and the set of the Sun. But the old magnificent simplicity of the Rig-Weda was perverted by subsequent Pauranik glosses; and Wishnu, according to the new legend, was said to have cheated his adversary, Bali, by striding, in his Dwarf Incarnation, over the three worlds. In our title, a different turn is given to the old idea, which we may express by saying that the steps commence, not with the rise, but the set of the Sun: his Going Down, his mysterious period of Darkness, his Rising again. This is the inverted Race, or Cycle of the Sun, which so much exercised the mind of primitive man, and seemed to be a symbol of the mystery of Birth and Death.