The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris JastrowHopkins, Edward Washburn
Religion
The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow
Hopkins, Edward Washburn
India -- Religion
This discipline it will be observed is enjoined as penance and to get
rid of faults, that is, to subdue the passions. As the same chapter
contains a list of the faults which are to be overcome before one
"arrives at peace" (salvation) they may be cited here: "Anger, joy,
wrath, greed, distraction, injury, threats, lying, over-eating,
calumny, envy, sexual desire, and hate, lack of studying _[=a]tm[=a],_
lack of Yoga--the destruction of these (faults) is based on Yoga"
(mental concentration). On the other hand: "He that devotes himself,
in accordance with the law, to avoiding anger, joy, wrath, greed,
distraction, injury, threats, lies, over-eating, calumny and envy; and
practices liberality, renunciation, uprightness, kindness, subduing
(of the passions), self-control; and is at peace with all creatures;
and practices Yoga; and acts in an [=A]ryan (noble) way; and does not
hurt anything; and has contentment--qualities which, it is agreed,
appertain to all the (four) stadia--he becomes _s[=a]rvag[=a]min"
(ib._ 23.6), that is 'one belonging to the all-pervading' (All-soul).
There appears to be a contradiction between the former passage, where
Yoga is enjoined on ascetics alone; and this, where Yoga is part of
the discipline of all four stadia. But what was in the author's mind
was probably that all these vices and moral virtues are enumerated as
such for all; and he slips in mental concentration as a virtue for the
ascetic, meaning to include all the virtues he knows.
A few further illustrations from that special code which has won for
itself a preeminent name, 'the law-book of Manu,'[26] will give in
epitome the popular religion as taught to the masses; withal even
better than this is taught in the S[=u]tras. For Father Manu's
law-book, as the Hindus call it, is a popular Ç[=a]stra or metrical[27]
composite of law and religion, which reflects the opinion of
Brahmanism in its geographical stronghold, whereas the S[=u]tras
emanate from various localities, north and south. To Manu there is but
one Holy Land, the Kurus' plain and the region round-about it (near
Delhi).
The work takes us forward in time beyond even the latest S[=u]tras,
but the content is such as to show that formal Brahmanism in this
latest stage still keeps to its old norm and to Brahmanic models.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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