* * * * * Besides the poems falling under the groups discussed above there are many of purely didactic or moralizing tendency, embodying general reflections. It would take us too far, were we to attempt to discuss them, even if their interest were sufficiently great to repay the trouble. We must, however, point out that even the Sanskrit vocabulary is impressed into service to furnish material for such poems. Thus the fact that the word _pāda_ may mean either "foot," "step," or "ray of the moon or sun," is utilized for the last lines of "Vom Monde," p. 368. The meaning of the term _bakravratin_, "acting like a crane," applied to a hypocrite, is used for a poem on p. 363. Similarly the threefold signification of _dvipa_ as "brahman," "bird," and "tooth" suggests "Zweigeboren," p. 423, and more instances might be adduced. It is not to be wondered at that such poetizing should often degenerate into the most inane trifling, so that we get such rhyming efforts as that on p. 326 with its pun on the similarity of _hima_ "winter" with _hēma_ "gold," _Himālaya_ and _himavat_ with _Himmel_ and _Heimat_, or that on p. 385 with its childish juxtaposition of the Vedantic term _māyā_, the Greek name Μαια, and the German word _Magie_. * * * * * If the poems discussed in the preceding pages were found to be largely didactic and gnomic in character, the great collection called _Die Weisheit des Brahmanen_ is entirely so. The poems composing this bulky work appeared in installments during the period 1836-1839, and, while many of them, as will be shown below, are the outcome of Rückert's Oriental studies, the majority simply embody general reflections on anything and everything that happened to engage the poet's attention. "Es muss alles hinein, was ich eben lese: vor acht Wochen Spinoza, vor vierzehn Tagen Astronomie, jetzt Grimms überschwenglich gehaltreiche Deutsche Mythologie, alles unter der nachlässig vorgehaltenen Brahmanenmaske...."[187] These are the author's own words and render further detailed characterization of the work superfluous. It is well known that the sources for the great didactic collection, even for that part of it which is not composed of reflections on matters of contemporary history, politics and literature, or relating to questions of family and friendship, are more Occidental than Oriental.[188] In fact, the Brahmanic character of the wisdom here expounded consists mainly in the contemplative spirit of reposeful didacticism which pervades the entire collection. Nor is there anything Oriental about the form of the poems,--the rhymed Alexandrine reigning supreme with wearisome monotony.