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Rh The total number of Hindu scholars is 998, of whom 18 were absent at the time the schools were visited; and the total number of Musalman scholars is 82, of whom 4 were absent. The following is an enumeration of the castes of the Hindu scholars and of the number belonging to each:—

This enumeration shows in what classes of Hindu society vernacular instruction is chiefly found, and in what classes it becomes increasingly deficient. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the latter, as compared with the former, are losing ground. The fact is quite the reverse: they are gaining ground, and are almost imperceptibly acquiring a sense of the value even of that humble instruction which is within their reach, but from which, by the customs of society, they were formerly almost wholly debarred. The time is not distant when it would have been considered contrary to all the maxims of Hindu civilization that individuals of the Mala, Chandal, Kahar, Jalia, Lahari, Bagdhi, Dhoba, and Muchi castes should learn to read, write, and keep accounts; and if some aged and venerable brahman who has passed his life removed from European contamination were told that these low castes are now raising their aspirations so high, he would deplore it as one of the many proofs of the gross and increasing degeneracy


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Rh Huns brought a mickle band before the house. Well the strangers stood their ground, but what booted their doughty prowess? Dead they all must lie. Then in a few short hours there rose a fearful dole. Now ye may hear wonders of a monstrous thing. Nine thousand yeomen lay there slain and thereto twelve good knights of Dankwart’s men. One saw him stand alone still by the foe. The noise was hushed, the din had died away, when Dankwart, the hero, gazed over his shoulders. He spake: “Woe is me, for the friends whom I have lost! Now must I stand, alas, alone among my foes.”

Upon his single person the sword-strokes fell thick and fast. The wife of many a hero must later mourn for this. Higher he raised his shield, the thong he lowered; the rings of many an armor he made to drip with blood. “Woe is me of all this sorrow,” quoth Aldrian’s son. Give way now, Hunnish warriors, and let me out into the breeze, that the air may cool me, fight-weary man.”

Then men saw the warrior walk forth in full lordly wise. As the strife-weary man sprang from the house, how many added swords rang on his helmet! Those that had not seen what wonders his hand had wrought sprang towards the hero of the Burgundian land. “Now would to God,” quoth Dankwart, “that I night find a messenger who could let my brother Hagen know I stand in such a plight before these knights. He would help me hence, or lie dead at my side.”

Then spake the Hunnish champions: “Thou must be the messenger thyself, when we bear thee hence dead before thy brother. For the first time Gunther’s vassal will then become acquaint with grief. Passing great scathe hast thou done King Etzel here.”

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Rh see. Probably the name really means what naturally it would seem to mean, "a man of the Nara family"; that Nārāyaṇa was originally a divine or deified saint, a ṛishi, as the Hindus would call him; and that somehow he became identified with Vishṇu and the Universal Spirit.

This theory really is not by any means as wild as at first sight it may seem to be. Divine saints are sometimes mentioned in the Ṛig-vēda and Brāhmaṇas as being the creators of the universe ; and they appear again and again in legend as equals of the gods, attaining divine powers by their mystic insight into the sacrificial lore. But there is more direct evidence than this.

In the Mahābhārata there are incorporated two documents of first-rate importance for the doctrines of the churches that worshipped Vishṇu. One of these is the Bhagavad-gītā, or Lord's Song (VI. xxv.-xlii.); the other is the Nārāyaṇīya, or Accounmt of Nārāyaṇa (XII.

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76 souls who were seeking for a supreme god of grace, and were not satisfied to find him in Śiva; and they made full use of it, and wholly transformed the personality of Vishṇu.

One of the stages in this transformation was the absorption of Nārāyaṇa in Vishṇu. Nārāyaṇa was originally a god of a different kind. The earliest reference to him is in a Brāhmaṇa which calls him Purusha Nārāyaṇa, which means that it regards him as being the same as the Universal Spirit which creates from itself the cosmos; it relates that Purusha Nārāyaṇa pervaded the whole of nature (ŚB. XII. iii. 4, 1), and that he made himself omnipresent and supreme over all beings by performing a pañcha-rātra sattra, or series of sacrifices lasting over five days (ib. XIII. vi. 1, 1). Somewhat later we find prayers addressed to Nārāyaṇa, Vāsudēva, and Vishṇu as three phases of the same god (Taitt. Āraṇ. X. i. 6). But was Nārāyaṇa in origin merely a variety of the Vēdic Purusha or our old acquaintance Prajāpati? His name must give us pause. The most simple explanation of it is that it is a family name: as Kārshṇāyaṇa means a member of the Kṛishṇa-family and Rāṇāyana a man belonging to the family of Raṇa, so Nārāyaṇa would naturally denote a person of the family of Nara. But Nara itself signifies a man: is the etymology therefore reduced to absurdity? Not at all: Nara is also used as a proper name, as we shall

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is justly called "the father of our song." His greatest poem, Thanatopsis, which established his reputation, was written twenty-eight years before the appearance of Longfellow's first volume of poetry. Bryant was a poet of nature, interpreting her in simple and most musical verse. Though he was a patriot in the best sense of the word, a notable journalist for half a century, and a part of the national life of the American republic, it is as poet that he will be best remembered and best loved.

William Cullen Bryant was born November 3, 1794, at Cummington, Hampshire county, Massachusetts.


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Rh a long record of holy works for the salvation of mankind, a god who delights in moral goodness as well as in ritual propriety, and who from time to time incarnates himself in human or animal form so as to maintain the order of righteousness. Symbolism has further endowed him with a consort, the goddess Śrī or Lakshmī, typifying fortune; sometimes also he is represented with another wife, the Earth-goddess. The divine hawk or kite Garuḍa, who seems to have been originally the same as the eagle who in the Ṛigvēdic legend carried off the sōma for Indra, has been pressed into his service; he now rides on Garuḍa, and bears his figure upon his banner. I have already suggested a possible explanation of this evolution (above, p. 41): owing to his close association with Indra, the most truly popular of Ṛigvēdic deities, the laic imagination transfused some of the live blood of Indra into the veins of the priestly abstraction Vishṇu. To the plain man Indra was very real; and as he frequently heard tales of Indra being aided in his exploits by Vishṇu, he came to regard Vishṇu as a very present helper in trouble. The friend of Indra became the friend of mankind. The post of Indra had already been fixed for him by the theologians; but the functions of Vishṇu, outside the rituals, were still somewhat vaguely defined, and were capable of considerable expansion. Here was a great opportunity for those

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74 tional monarchy of Paradise assigned to him by the Brāhmaṇas; he now figures as the prototype of earthly kings, leading the armies of the gods to war against the demons when occasion requires, and passing the leisure of peace in the enjoyment of celestial dissipation. His morals have not improved: he is a debonair debauchee. Brahmā the Creator, a more popular version of Prajāpati, is still too impersonal to have much hold on the popular imagination; the same is the case with Agni the Fire-god. Plainly there was a vacancy for a supreme deity whose character was powerful enough to move men's souls, either through awe or love; and for this vacancy there were two strong candidates, Vishṇu and Śiva, who in course of time succeeded to the post and divided the supremacy between them.

Vishṇu has altered immensely since last we met him. First, after an extraordinary change in his own character, he has been identified with Nārāyaṇa, and then both of them have been equated with Kṛishṇa. The development is so portentous that it calls for a little study.

We have seen that in the Vēdas Vishṇu appears to be, and in the Brāhmaṇas certainly is, the embodied Spirit of the Sacrifice, and that ritual mysticism has invented for him a supreme home in the highest heaven. But in the Epics he has developed into a radiant and gracious figure of ideal divinity, an almighty saviour with

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262 Quoth he: “Now give over these threats and stand further back, or I’ll wet the armor rings of some with blood. I’ll tell the tale at court myself and make plaint to my lords of my great dole.”

So sorely he dismayed King Etzel’s men that they durst not withstand him with their swords, so they shot such great store of darts into his shield that he must needs lay it from his hand for very heaviness. Then they weened to overpower him, sith he no longer bare a shield. Ho, what deep wounds he struck them through their helmets! From this many a brave man was forced to reel before him, and bold Dankwart gained thereby great praise. From either side they sprang upon him, but in truth a many of them entered the fray too soon. Before his foes he walked, as doth a boar to the woods before the dogs. How might he be more brave? His path was ever wet with reeking blood. Certes, no single champion might ever fight better with his foes than he had done. Men now saw Hagen’s brother go to court in lordly wise. Sewers and cup-bearers heard the ring of swords, and full many a one cast from his hand the drink and whatever food he bare to court. Enow strong foes met Dankwart at the stairs.

“How now, ye sewers,” spake the weary knight. “Forsooth ye should serve well the guests and bear to the lords good cheer and let me bring the tidings to my dear masters.”

Those that sprang towards him on the steps to show their prowess, he dealt so heavy a sword-stroke, that for fear they must needs stand further back. His mighty strength wrought mickle wonders.


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72 bloody battles with the Kauravas and their supporters in the plain of Kurukshētra at last gained the victory, slew the Kauravas, and established Yudhishṭhira as king in Hastināpura. Among the Pāṇḍavas the leading part is played by the eldest, Yudhishṭhira, and the third, Arjuna; of the others, Bhīma, the second, is a Hercules notable only for his strength, courage, and fidelity, while the twins Nakula and Sahadēva are colourless figures, Kṛishṇa plays an important part in the story; for on the return of the Pāṇḍavas to fight the Kauravas he accompanies Arjuna as his charioteer, and on the eve of the first battle delivers to him a discourse on his religion, the Bhagavad-gītā, or Lord's Song, which has become one of the most famous and powerful of all the sacred books of India.

Now if the Mahābhārata were as homogeneous even as the Iliad and Odyssey, which give us a fairly consistent and truthful picture of a single age, we should be in a very happy position. Unfortunately this is not the case. Our epic began as a Bhārata, or Tale of the Bharata Clan, probably of very moderate bulk, not later than 600 B.C., and perhaps considerably earlier; and from that time onward it went on growing bigger and bigger for over a thousand years, as editors stuffed in new episodes and still longer discourses on nearly all the religious and philosophic doc-

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Rh trines admitted within the four walls of Hinduism, until it grew to its present immense bulk, which it claims to amount to 100,000 verses. Thus it pictures the thought not of one century but of more than ten, and we cannot feel sure of the date of any particular statement in it. Nevertheless we can distinguish in a general way between the old skeleton of the story, in which the theme is treated in simple epic fashion, society is far freer than in later days and no one objects to eating beef, from the additional matter, in which the tale is recast in a far more grandiose vein and is padded out with enormous quantities of moral, religious, and philosophic sermons. The religion too is different in the different parts. In the older portions the gods who are most popular are Indra, Agni, and Brahmā — not the neuter abstract Brahma, but the masculine Brahmā, the Demiurge, who corresponds more or less to Prajāpati of the Brāhmaṇas and is represented in classical art as a four-headed old man reciting the Vēdas — and Kṛishṇa seems to figure only as a hero or at best as a demigod; but the later parts with fine impartiality claim the supremacy of heaven variously for Śiva, Brahmā, and Vishṇu; and Vishṇu, as we have seen, is sometimes identified with Kṛishṇa, notably in the chapters known as the Bhagavad-gītā.

The gods have changed somewhat since earlier days. Indra has settled down in the constitu-

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20 in Persia and Bactria worshipping him as a power that maintains the laws of righteousness and guards the sanctity of oaths and engagements, who by means of his watchmen keeps mankind under his observation and with his terrible weapons crushes evil powers. The Indian Aryans tell almost exactly the same tale of their Mitra and his companion Varuṇa, who perhaps is simply a doublet of Mitra with a different name, which perhaps is due to a variety of worship. But they have more to say of Varuṇa than of Mitra. In Varuṇa we have the highest ideal of spirituality that Hindu religion will reach for many centuries. Not only is he described as supreme controller of the order of nature — that is an attribute which these priestly poets ascribe with generous inconsistency to many others of their deities — but he is likewise the omniscient guardian of the moral law and the rule of religion, sternly punishing sin and falsehood with his dreaded noose, but showing mercy to the penitent and graciously communing with the sage who has found favour in his eyes.

But Mitra and Varuṇa will not enjoy this exalted rank for long. Soon the priests will declare that Mitra rules over the day and Varuṇa over the night (TS. II. i. 7, 4; VI. iv. 8, 3), and then Varuṇa will begin to sink in honour. The "noose of Varuṇa" will come to mean merely the disease of dropsy. His connection with the

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Rh ruling his country well and happily. He received his daughter with great delight, and there were universal rejoicings at the return of the lovely princess.

The wedding took place the very next day, and, for many days after, balls, dinners, tournaments, concerts and all sorts of amusements went on all day and all night.

All the fairies were carefully invited, and they came in great state, and promised the young couple their protection and all sorts of good gifts. Prince Blondel and Princess Graziella lived to a good old age, beloved by every one, and loving each other more and more as time went on.

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We now enter upon an age in which the old gods, Indra and Brahmā, retire to the background, while Vishṇu and Śiva stand in the forefront of the stage.

The Hindus are of the same opinion as the Latin poet: ferrea nunc aetas agitur. We are now living in an Iron Age, according to them; and it began in the year 3102 B.C., shortly after the great war described in the Mahābhārata. The date 3102, I need hardly remark, is of no historical value, being based merely upon the theories of comparatively late astronomers; but the statement as a whole is important. The Great War marks an epoch. It came at the end of what may be called the prehistoric period, and was followed by a new age. To be strictly correct, we must say that the age which followed the Great War was not new in the sense that it introduced any startling novelties that had been unknown previously; but it was new in the sense that after the Great War India speedily became the India that we know from historical

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Rh the Ṛig-vēda speaking of the Sun as typifying the supreme bliss to which the enlightened soul arises. This does not tell us very much, and moreover we should remember that here our author, being an Aupanishada, is more interested in what Ghōra preached to Kṛishṇa than in what Kṛishṇa accepted from Ghōra's teaching. But we shall find centuries later in the Bhagavad-gītā, the greatest textbook of the religion of Kṛishṇa, some distant echoes of this paragraph of the Chhāndōgya.

The beginnings of the religion of Kṛishṇa are thus very uncertain. But as we travel down the ages we find it growing and spreading. We see Kṛishṇa himself regarded as a half-divine hero and teacher, and worshipped under the name of Bhagavān, "the Lord," in association with other half-divine heroes. We see him becoming identified with old gods, and finally rising to the rank of the Supreme Deity whose worship he had himself taught in his lifetime, the Brahma of the philosophers and the Most High God of the theists. As has happened many a time, the teacher has become the God of his Church.

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PREFACE ...and we may reasonably presume, that one of its most important desideratum is the cultivation of a right understanding and of a general medium of intercourse between the Government and its Subjects ; between the Natives of Europe who are to rule, and the Inhabitants of India who are to obey. The Romans, a people of little learning and less taste, had no sooner conquered Greece than they applied themselves to the study of Greek: They adopted its Laws even before they could read them, and civilized themselves in subduing their enemies. The English, who have made the capital a progress in the Polite Arts, and who are masters of Bengal may, with more care and greater propriety, add its Language to their acquisitions : that they may explain the benevolent principles of that legislation whose decrees they inforce ; that they may convince while they command; and be at once the dispensers of Laws and of science to an extensive nation. This subject has hitherto been utterly disregarded in Europe; and it is scarcely believed that Bengal ever published a native and peculiar dialect of its own, distinct from that idiom which, under the name of Moor's, has been supposed to prevails over all India. To remove these prejudices, and to contribute my flender mite to the public service, I have attempted the following grammatical explanation of the vernacular language of...


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brave Dankwart was come within the door, he bade King Etzel’s meiny step aside. His garments dripped with blood and in his hand he bare unsheathed a mighty sword. Full loud he called out to the knight: “Brother Hagen, ye sit all too long, forsooth. To you and to God in heaven do I make plaint of our woe. Our knights and squires all lie dead within their lodgements.”

He called in answer: “Who hath done this deed?”

“That Sir Bloedel hath done with his liegemen, but he hath paid for it dearly, as I can tell you, for with mine own hands I struck off his head.”

“It is but little scathe,” quoth Hagen, “if one can only say of a knight that he hath lost his life at a warrior’s hands. Stately dames shall mourn him all the less. Now tell me, brother Dankwart, how comes it that ye be so red of hue? Ye suffer from wounds great dole, I ween. If there be any in the land that hath done you this, ’t will cost his life, and the foul fiend save him not.”

“Ye see me safe and sound; my weeds alone are wet with blood. This hath happed from wounds of other men, of whom I have slain so many a one to-day that, had I to swear it, I could not tell the tale.”

“Brother Dankwart,” he spake, “guard us the door and let not a single Hun go forth. I will hold speech


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Rh records. A certain fusion of different races, cultures, and ideals had to take place in order that the peculiar civilisation of India might unfold itself; and this fusion was accomplished about the time of the Great War, and partly no doubt by means of the Great War, some ten centuries before the Christian era.

The story of the Great War is told with a wild profusion of mythical and legendary colouring in the Mahābhārata, an epic the name of which means literally "The Great Tale of the Bharata Clan." It relates how the blind old King Dhṛitarāshṭra of Hastināpura had a hundred sons, known as the Kuru or Kaurava princes, the eldest of whom was Duryōdhana, and Dhṛitarāshṭra's brother Pāṇḍu had five sons, the Pāṇḍava brethren; how the Pāṇḍavas were ousted by the Kauravas from the kingdom, the eldest Pāṇḍava prince Yudhishṭhira having been induced to stake the fortunes of himself and his brethren on a game of dice, in which he was defeated; how the five Pāṇḍavas, with their common wife Draupadī (observe this curious and ugly feature of polyandry, which is quite opposed to standard Hindu morals, but is by no means unparalleled in early Indian literature ) retired into exile for thirteen years, and then came back with a great army of allies, and after fierce and

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Rh 392 WOMEN OF OHIO body (to which only unmarried men were admitted) remained dead letter for many years. By special decree of Frederick the Great, the University of Halle granted a medical degree to Frau Dortliea Erxleban in 1754, the first in the history of any German University. Frau von Siebold and her daughter took the degree of doctor of obstetrics, at Giessen in 1816 and 1809 respectively. Both had very large practices in obstetrics, the mother officiating at the birth of Queen Victoria. In the American colonies, the history of medical women began deplorably for it is recorded that in the colony of Massachusetts Bay was one Margaret Jones, a female physician accused of witchcraft. Is it not poetic justice that to Massachusetts should belong the credit of establishing the first school of medicine for women in the world? The history of medicine in America since 1849, when Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell graduated at Hobart College, Geneva, New York, is a fa- miliar tale that cannot be told too often. How she was refused per- mission to study at all colleges in Philadelphia and New York until finally the faculty of Geneva put the matter before the student body and they voted to extend to her a unanimous invitation to become a member of their class. The New York Infirmary for Women and Children was established in 1857 by the sisters Dr. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell and a group of those who believed in them; later followed by the opening of the Woman’s College of New York Infirmary in The Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania had been founded fifteen years earlier and was the first college in the world established for the medical education of women. Its first graduating class con- sisted of eight members. The Paris E ’cole de Medicin, actually, though not nominally, closed to women for centuries, was opened by Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi of America and Dr. Garrett Anderson, dean of the London Medical School for Women in 1867. It would take too much space to enumerate the college and hospital positions held by women physicians in the world today. All medical colleges in the United States, with the exception of two, receive women


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A GRAMMAR OF THE BENGALI LANGUAGE BY

NATHANIEL BRASSEY HALHED.

PRINTED AT HOOGLY IN BENGAL

M DCC LXXVIII


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64 means literally a "wandering to and fro," that is, the cycle of births through which each soul must everlastingly pass from infinite time, and Karma means the "acts" of each soul. Each work or act performed by a living being is of a certain degree of righteousness or unrighteousness, and it is requited by a future experience of corresponding pleasure or pain. So every birth and ultimately every experience of a soul is determined by the righteousness of its previous acts; and there is no release for the soul from this endless chain of causes and effects unless it can find some supernatural way of deliverance. The Aupanishadas point to what they believe to be the only way: it is the Brahma-knowledge of the enlightened sage, which releases his soul from the chain of natural causation and raises him to everlasting union with Brahma.

The teaching of the Upanishads has had two very different practical results. On the one hand, it has moved many earnest thinkers to cast off the ties of the world and to wander about as homeless beggars, living on alms and meditating and discoursing upon the teachings of the Upanishads, while they await the coming of death to release their souls from the prison of the flesh and bring it to complete and eternal union with Brahma. These wandering ascetics — sannyāsīs, bhikshus, or parivrājakas they are called — form a class by themselves, which is

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164 districts of Bhaugalpoor and contain each three vernacular two, and three hundred and the police divisions, and adjoins the Monghyr, where Hindi prevails.

There are eight villages that contain each three vernacular schools, fifteen that contain each two, and three hundred and fifty-eight containing each one.

The number of teachers is 412, of whom one is a Christian, four are Musalmans, and the remainder are Hindus. The average age of all the teachers is 38.3 years. The following list exhibits the castes of the Hindu teachers and the number of each:—

The Kalu, Sunri, Dhoba, Mala, and Chandal, castes are of those that were generally deemed to be excluded from the benefits of instruction in letters; but the above enumeration shows that some individuals of those castes have even become instructors of others. The Christian teacher mentioned above is employed in teaching a Missionary school.

There are not fewer than eleven teachers who instruct their scholars gratuitously, and of these there are not less than four in one thana, that of Sakalyapur. The scholars of one are poor, and he is contented to teach them without pay, receiving his subsistence from the other members of his family. Another is the head-man of the village, and from motives of benevolence or piety he instructs the children who please to attend him. A third is a respectable inhabitant of the village in which he resides, who employs his declining age in the gratuitous instruction of the young, having a farm by which he supports himself and family. Five other support themselves and families by farming, of whom one is a paralytic. The paid teachers are remunerated as follows:—


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Rh they are frequently inconsistent. But there are some ideas which are more or less present in all of them. They regard Brahma as absolute and infinite Thought and Being at once, and as such it is one with the consciousness, soul or self, of the individual when the latter rids himself of the illusion of a manifold universe and realises his unity with Brahma. Moreover, Brahma is bliss — the joy of wholly perfect and self-satisfied thought and being. Since Brahma as universal Soul is really identical with each individual soul or ātmā, and vice versa, it follows that each individual soul contains within itself, qua Brahma, the whole of existence, nature, gods, mankind, and all other beings; it creates them all, and all depend upon it. Our Aupanishadas are thorough-going idealists.

Another new idea also appears for the first time in the early Upanishads, and one that henceforth will wield enormous influence in all Indian thought. This is the theory of karma and saṃsāra, rebirth of the soul in accordance with the nature of its previous works. Before the Upanishads we find no evidence of this doctrine: the nearest approach to it is in some passages of the Brāhmaṇas which speak of sinful men dying again in the next world as a punishment for their guilt. But in the Upanishads the doctrine appears full-fledged, and it is fraught with consequences of immense importance. Saṃsāra

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62 in his knowledge he has salvation, and death will lead him to complete union with Brahma.

The Aupanishadas have thus advanced from the pantheism of the orthodox ritualists to a transcendental idealism. The process has been gradual. It was only by degrees that they reached the idea of salvation in knowledge, the knowledge that is union with Brahma; and it was likewise only through slow stages that they were able to conceive of Brahma in itself. Many passages in the Upanishads are full of struggles to represent Brahma by symbols or forms perceptible to the sense, such as ether, breath, the sun, etc. Priests endeavoured to advance through ritual works to the ideas which these works are supposed to symbolise: the ritual is the training-ground for the higher knowledge, the leading-strings for infant philosophy. Gradually men become capable of thinking without the help of these symbols: philosophy grows to manhood, and looks with a certain contempt upon those supports of its infancy.

The nature of Brahma as conceived in the Upanishads is a subject on which endless controversies have raged, and we need not add to them. Besides, the Upanishads themselves are not strictly consistent on this point, or on others, for that matter; for they are not a single homogeneous system of philosophy, but a number of speculations, from often varying standpoints, and

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Rh of Prajāpati (Sāmav. B. I. 1, Gōp. B. I. i. 4); and when they speak of Brahma they think of him not as a power connected with religious ceremony but as a supremely transcendent and absolutely unqualified and impersonal First Existence. But the school of the Aupanishadas has gone further. Seeking through works mystic knowledge as the highest reality, they see in Brahma the perfect knowledge. To them the absolute First Existence is also transcendently full and unqualified Thought. As knowledge is power, the perfect Power is perfect Knowledge.

Brahma then is absolute knowledge; and all that exists is really Brahma, one and indivisible in essence, but presenting itself illusively to the finite consciousness as a world of plurality, of most manifold subjects and objects of thought. The highest wisdom, the greatest of all secrets, is to know this truth, to realise with full consciousness that there exists only the One, Brahma, the infinite Idea; and the sage of the Upanishads is he who has attained this knowledge, understanding that he himself, as individual subject of thought, is really identical with the universal Brahma. He has realised that he is one with the Infinite Thought, he has raised himself to the mystic heights of transcendental Being and Knowledge, immeasurably far above nature and the gods. He knows all things at their fountainhead, and life can nevermore bring harm to him;

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Page:On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground.pdf/9

244 In this table the angle of deviation is taken as head-title. After $$\text{K}$$ and $$\text{W}$$ stand the quantities of carbonic acid and water-vapour traversed by the ray in the above-mentioned units. Under this comes after $i$ obs. the intensity of radiation (reduced) observed by Langley on the bolometer, and after this the corresponding value $i$ calc., calculated by means of the absorption-coefficients given in. $$\text{G}$$ is the "weight" given to the corresponding $i$ obs. in the calculation, using the method of least squares.

For the absorption-coefficients, calculated in this manner, I give the following table. (The common logarithms of the absorption-coefficients are tabulated.)

The signification of these figures may be illustrated by an example. If a ray of heat, corresponding to the angle of deviation 39°.45, passes through the unit of carbonic acid, it de-


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User talk:LucDar

--Jan Kameníček (talk) 12:49, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

The Akerman Steppe
Hello, and thanks very much for contributing here. May I just ask about the source of the translation of the The Akerman Steppe? According to Wikisource rules, both the original text and its translation have to be in public domain to be elligible to be hosted here. Can you provide more information about the translator, too? Thanks very much. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 12:49, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello. I can see that you continue editing the page. Can you answer the questions above too, please? It is necessary so that we know that it is within our scope and that it does not violate somebody's copyright. Thanks! --Jan Kameníček (talk) 10:18, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello, Jan,
 * It is my own translation - I keep on improving it. Not a copy righted hack.
 * Cheers,
 * Darek J. Jezierski LucDar (talk) 23:46, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Your translation has been moved to Translation:The Akerman Steppe. All user-created translations must be placed in the Translations: namespace. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:05, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

 * Perfect, thank you.
 * D J LucDar (talk) 20:42, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Would you be so kind to make STEPPE plural STEPPES in the title of the translation?
 * I tried editing it but I don't have access right to do it...
 * Thank you,
 * DJ LucDar (talk) 19:56, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Should it be Akerman or Akkerman ? -- Beardo (talk) 20:52, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The page uses "The Akerman Steppe", the heading block "The Akkerman Steppes" and then a sub-heading "The Akerman Steppes" - which should it be ? -- Beardo (talk) 19:12, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

title: User talk:LucDar


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60 standpoint of the orthodox ritualist. But there has also arisen a new school among the Brahmans, that of the Aupanishadas, which has laid down for its first doctrine that works are for the sake of understanding, that the practice of ritual is of value only as a help to the mystic knowledge of the All. But here they have not halted; they have gone a further step, and declared that knowledge once attained, works become needless. Some even venture to hint that perhaps the highest knowledge is not to be reached through works at all. And the knowledge that the Aupanishadas seek is of Brahma, and is Brahma.

The word brahma is a neuter noun, and in the Ṛig-vēda it means something that can only be fully translated by a long circumlocution. It may be rendered as "the power of ritual devotion"; that is to say, it denotes the mystic or magic force which is put forth by the poet-priest of the Ṛig-vēda when he performs the rites of sacrifice with appropriate chanting of hymns — in short, ritual magic. This mystic force the Ṛigvēdic poets have represented in personal form as the god Bṛihaspati, in much the same way as they embodied the spirit of the sacrifice in Vishṇu. Their successors, the orthodox ritualists of the Brāhmaṇas, have not made much use of this term; but sometimes they speak of Brahma as an abstract first principle, the highest and ultimate source of all being, even

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264 with the warriors, as our need constraineth us, for our meiny lieth dead before them, undeserved.”

“If I must be chamberlain,” quoth the valiant man, “I well wot how to serve such mighty kings and will guard the stairway, as doth become mine honors.” Naught could have been more loth to Kriemhild’s knights.

“Much it wondereth me,” spake Hagen, “what the Hunnish knights be whispering in here. I ween, they ’d gladly do without the one that standeth at the door, and who told the courtly tale to us Burgundians. Long since I have heard it said of Kriemhild, that she would not leave unavenged her dole of heart. Now let us drink to friendship and pay for the royal wine. The young lord of the Huns shall be the first.”

Then the good knight Hagen smote the child Ortlieb, so that the blood spurted up the sword towards his hand and the head fell into the lap of the queen. At this there began a murdering, grim and great, among the knights. Next he dealt the master who taught the child a fierce sword-stroke with both his hands, so that his head fell quickly beneath the table to the ground. A piteous meed it was, which he meted out to the master. Hagen then spied a gleeman sitting at King Etzel’s board. In his wrath he hied him thither and struck off his right hand upon the fiddle. “Take this as message to the Burgundian land.”

“Woe is me of my hand,” spake the minstrel Werbel. “Sir Hagen of Troneg, what had I done to you? I eame in good faith to your masters’ land. How can I now thrum the tunes, sith I have lost my hand?”

Little reeked Hagen, played he nevermore. In the


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56 men. And if our priesthood in the Brāhmaṇas feel themselves in the pride of spiritual power lifted above the rules of moral law, they are not in practice indifferent to it. Their lives are for the most part gentle and good. Though "truth" in the Brāhmaṇas usually means only accordance with the ritual and mystic teachings of the Triple Science, it sometimes signifies even there veracity and honesty also. Truthfulness in speech is the hall-mark of the Brahman, says Hāridrumata Gautama to Satyakāma Jābāla (Chhānd. Up. IV. iv. 5); and even in the Brāhmaṇas a lie is sometimes a sin. If conservatism compels the priests to keep obscene old practices in their rituals, they are not always satisfied with them, and voices begin to be heard pleading that these rites are really obsolete. In short, a moral sense is beginning to arise among them.

Now the moral law, in order that it may be feared, needs to be embodied in the personality of a god. Most of their gods inspire no fear at all in the souls of the Brahmans; but there is one of whom they have a dread, which is all the greater for being illogical. Prajāpati is a vast impersonality, too remote and abstract to inspire the soul with either fear or love. The other gods — Indra, Agni, Sōma, Varuṇa, Vishṇu, and the rest — are his offspring, and are moved like puppets by the machinery of the ritual of sacrifice created by him. However much they may seem

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 “Let him hang about your neck like a spoilt child”, said grandfather contemptuously.

“After all he is my son, and if I do not stand by him you certainly will not stand by him”, she answered.

It was only then that we children noticed that we had not seen Uncle John. And about him the matter was.

Uncle John was two-and-twenty years old—of an age then when a young man is generally on the look out for a bride, particularly if he has the prospect of a farm, and grandfather’s farm was already as good as John’s.

At this moment a servant from a farm in the neighbouring village came and saluted.

“Welcome, welcome! Krejza”, said grandfather. “What is it you have brought us?”

“Young Mister John sends to say that he will not be at home to dinner; he has stopped with us for dinner”, said Krejza, giving his message.

“Tell him, if you please, Krejza, that if he doesn’t come to dinner to-day he need not come home any more”, said grandfather, almost perfectly coldly.

“Oh! no; don’t take any message, there is no need. Why shouldn’t he stay there for dinner”, interposed grandmother.

“Because I do not wish it. Only be so good as to give my message just as I have told you”, said grandfather yet more precisely.

Krejza departed.

My father and uncles began to excuse Uncle John.

“Well, well, I know what I am doing”, answered grandfather curtly. “So now set on table; who is not here, perhaps will be more punctual another time.”

Dinner was served. Grandfather generally said grace aloud before beginning; but to-day it would have been more a curse than a prayer.

It was a strange repast. No one relished talking and no one relished eating either. To us children it seemed as if we sat at table more for penance; and if we had only known how to do it, we should have fled pell-mell to the court-yard without caring a straw for the victuals. But both fathers and mothers when out visiting take a particular pride in their children behaving well at table. But just now it seemed to us that we dared, verily, ten times more boldly dance a hornpipe than sit quiet and well-behaved at table.


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 After we had been seated thus about half an hour at table Uncle John entered the room.

All rose and greeted him in a friendly manner, but everything was carried on constrainedly, or rather with a kind of indescribable fear as if behind each greeting lurked a dagger. Only formal inquiries were made as to how he was, what he was doing, and so forth. Uncle John answered drily; on his brow was something like spite, and he fixed his eyes on the ground, and would not look at us. And then when we children greeted him he made no response to our salutation, and it never occurred to us that we could possibly have got from him any coppers for goodies.

He sat at table. Grandmother gave him soup on a plate, but Uncle John did not touch it.

“Lord save us,” said grandfather, with the short laugh which was natural to him, “and welladay! When a man cuts his mutton elsewhere he looses his appetite for what he gets at home.”

“Particularly with the seasoning one gets at home”, answered Uncle John, and leant his head on his hands.

Grandfather after that was silent, but his hands trembled. Indeed, he cut some meat and the knife slipped on the plate.

Grandfather certainly did not look at uncle, but all the same he saw what uncle was doing.

“Did you learn to sit slouching thus at Kubista’s?” he said after a while, as if indifferently.

“I cannot always be here merely to be stared at by you”, said Uncle John, as he got up from the table and left the room.

It was well that he left the room, and happy for him that grandfather hobbled on one foot. Grandfather was not aware certainly that he held a knife in his hand, but sure enough he would have hurried after Uncle John with the first thing he got hold of. And perhaps he would actually have run after him had not the by-standers withheld him.

Grandmother trembled all over, but she saw that speaking would be of no avail. But for us children the sitting was over so to say, just as if the word had been passed round, we dispersed in flight to the farmyard, and troubled our heads no further about what was doing in the dining-hall.

We just caught a glimpse of Uncle John as he passed out by the gate.

In the afternoon we went to spend the coppers we had collected from our uncles at the hostinets k poutavé babê [hostelry-sign of the Pilgrim Grandmothers]. Boys with plenty of goodies trouble


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Rh hall he dealt out fierce deadly wounds to Etzel’s warriors, passing many of whom he slew. Enow of folk in the house he did to death. The doughty Folker now sprang up from the board; loud rang in his hands his fiddle bow. Rudely did Gunther’s minstrel play. Ho, what foes he made him among the valiant Huns! The three noble kings, too, sprang up from the table. Gladly would they have parted the fray, or ever greater scathe was done. With all their wit they could not hinder it, when Folker and Hagen gan rage so sore. When that the lord of the Rhine beheld the fray unparted, the prince dealt his foes many gaping wounds himself through the shining armor rings. That he was a here of his hands, he gave great proof. Then the sturdy Gernot joined the strife. Certes, he did many a hero of the Huns to death with a sharp sword, the which Rüdeger had given him. Mighty wounds he dealt King Etzel’s warriors. Now the young son of Lady Uta rushed to the fray. Gloriously his sword rang on the helmets of Etzel’s warriors from the Hunnish land. Full mickle wonders were wrought by bold Giselher’s hand. But how so doughty they all were, the kings and their liegemen, yet Folker was seen to stand before them all against the foe; a good hero he. Many a one he made to fall in his bleed through wounds. Etzel’s men did fend them, too, full well, yet one saw the strangers go hewing with their gleaming swords through the royal hail and on every side was heard great sound of wail. Those without would now fain be with their friends within, but at the entrance towers they found small gain. Those within had gladly been without the hall, but Dankwart let none go either up or down the


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 themselves about nothing in the whole world. But for me I saw very well how Uncle John ordered song after song, and how he drank and danced more than any one at the hostinets.

In the evening every one poured out of the ale-house-children first of all, after them the music, after the music Uncle John, accompanied by a bevy of gay young men, and last of all the old women. Uncle John, be it understood, would have the musicians accompany him home, a thing which even the richest and wildest young men seldom do except in the morning.

As it was in the evening the whole village was afoot, Uncle John whistled, and the musicians had to accompany his whistling. Before grandfather’s house stood all his guests. Grandfather trembled all over.

“And now play till they hear you in the neighbouring village at Kubista’s”, cried Uncle John, and whistled till they became alarmed about him.

They had to lead grandfather away lest he should forget himself and injure uncle, and they had to humour Uncle John somewhat in order to quiet him. The musicians were well paid with drink-money; these went back to the hostinets and the people after them, but this affair which I am relating just as it happened was already in everybody’s mouth.

They led Uncle John away to bed. And they locked fast his door that grandfather might not discover where his son slept.

ETUSKA, daughter of Kubista, fed poultry. First came the cock and chose himself a few nice morsels, but the best he gave to one hen who was before all dear to him. The other hens clucked and said that she was his wife. But for all that the others were not idle either. They jumped on to Betuska’s hand, her shoulder, and into her lap, and complained to her as their good friend that the cock cheated them of their due by paying attention to only one of them, while after all it was they who laid all the eggs for the egg-basket. Betuska was their judge; she cursed the cock for a reprobate and permitted the hens to take their corn out of her lap.

But these chickens were like children: order them with an affable countenance and something for dainties, and they do not desert you. Provided it kept coming they would most willingly have got Rh


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 all their food by themselves. Betuska called them to her with empty maws, and sent them away well-primed. They hopped away clucking, sidled up to the cock, and kept on gabbling that they were not at all inferior to the cock’s wife. They knew thus much about her, and even hinted at her infidelity, until the cock himself ceased to peck, his comb swelled, and he measured them with a look such as a choir master gives to naughty choir boys.

But, indeed, they were not long left to themselves. There flew down to them even the aristocratic birds who dwelt one story higher—there flew down to them the pigeons. Where there was something for the gullet the pigeons forgot about their exalted origin. Only one, a pouter, thereupon cooed something about ancestors, and how many of them used to wear stars. He himself, he said, was formed of better flesh and better leaven than chickens and pullets, and only so far humbled himself as to eat with them, because he wished to show them honour. “Let ’em move out of his road,” said he, “that he might sit down in the first place and show ’em who he was.” And he took their chickens’ food out of their very beaks, like a regular brigand, as Betuska had nicknamed him. And even then he was not satisfied, but disputed until the chickens allowed him some scrap or another which he then ordered to be carried away to the pigeon-cote.

This was about the year 1848: the chickens had not even then a notion of equal rights. They gave where they had anything to give, they always retreated out of the pigeons’ way, and the pigeons took where there was anything to take. Now, however, things are already different.

But the pouter pigeon fared ill with his boastings. Wherever the pigeons betook themselves thither the democratic sparrows betook themselves, and showed up the wisdom of the pigeon-cote without mercy. One sparrow in particular, who to all appearance might have been an editor, smirked at the first nobility until they ran after him. But this did not distract him from his purpose. He described how they, the sparrows, all dwelt in perfect equality, whereas the pigeons settled by themselves, in order that they might look with scorn on other birds. “But a time must come,” said he, “when they will have to look out for another nest”, and the like—briefly he smoked them.

The other sparrows pecked and laughed in full chorus, until they toppled over with their wings flapping against their sides.

But this clique, which wished to live at the expense of others, did not end here. Hither came also the proletarian hog, which


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Rh only the stress of the danger threatening them from their adversaries the demons has induced them to organise themselves into an ordered kingdom under the sovereignty of Indra, who has been anointed by Prajāpati. True, many of the offensive features in this mythology and ritual are survivals from a very ancient past, a prehistoric time in which morals were conspicuously absent from religion; the priesthood has forgotten very little, and as a rule has only added new rituals and new interpretations to this legacy from the days of old. Nevertheless it must be confessed that there is a tone of ritualistic professionalism in the Brāhmaṇas that is unpleasing; the priesthood are consciously superior to nature, God, and morals by virtue of their "Triple Science," and they constantly emphasise this claim. It is difficult for us to realise that these are the same men who have created the Brahmanic culture of India, which, however we may criticise it from the Western point of view, is essentially a gentle life, a field in which moral feeling and intellectual effort have born abundance of goodly fruit. Yet if we look more closely we shall see that even these ritualists, besotted as they may seem to be with their orgies of priestcraft, are not wholly untouched by the better spirit of their race. Extremes of sanctity, whether it be ritualistic or anti-ritualistic sanctity, always tend in India — and in other countries as well — to produce super-

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 routs in the earth and wallows in filth. At one side sneaked and lurked the cat, on the look out to see whether she could not arrest one of those impudent sparrows. Then came the geese and paraded like ladies in long dresses, and after them the little golden goslings, fresh and lively, but the geese so took them in hand with drill and schooling, that they turned out nothing but geese after all. Out of their holes the rabbits crept, and licked their lips and showed their teeth, but hearing the sparrows gasconade, they got frightened and crept back again into their holes. Even the poetical butterfly also hovered here. But, of course, no one gave him a thought, for who could eat a butterfly?

Like a true sage, dog Danube behaved himself. He constantly had for his aim an objective standpoint, frisked and sported in the sun like a Diogenes, and stretched himself idly like a very Sultan; but he had the intellect of a Doctor of Letters, only that he kept it all to himself.

And above it all shone the old sun, and the heaven smiled like the face of Betuska.

Betuska spent many a happy hour with her poultry, and, as it were, they completely understood each other.

She understood housewifery, too, excellently, but the poultry seemed to grow dear to her very heart. So whenever she came to the farmyard all hurried after her as if in procession. The sparrows gave notice on the eaves that Betuska was coming, and from time to time a cackling hen would exhort the rest to renewed efforts that they might at least approach their mistress.

The men might improve their master’s fields and meadows as they liked; to that Betuska did not oppose a single word; but also it never occurred to any one’s mind to meddle with Betuska’s occupation. And the poultry would have stared with astonishment had any one dared to say that Betuska did not take care of them, or if at any time he had wished to effect some reform in the farmyard.

Betuska had known Uncle John ever since the time when they first went to school. Even then the one tried to please the other as it might. If one child learnt its lessons well at school, it chiefly congratulated itself, because the other knew about it, and if Betuska was “mentioned” for good, Uncle John also tried his best to be mentioned that day also. If after school the boys played in a different place from the girls, Uncle John purposely let his ball roll to where the girls were playing, and he might be sure that Betuska would separate herself from her companions in order Rh


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266 steps. Therefore there rose before the towers a mighty press, and helmets rang loudly from the sword-blows. Bold Dankwart came into great stress thereby; this his brother feared, as his loyalty did bid him.

Londly then Hagen called to Folker: “See ye yonder, comrade, my brother stand before the Hunnish warriors amid a rain of blows? Friend, save my brother, or ever we lose the knight.”

“That will I surely,” quoth the minstrel, and through the palace he went a-fiddling, his stout sword ringing often in his hand. Great thanks were tendered by the warriors from the Rhine. Bold Folker spake to Dankwart: “Great discomfiture have ye suffered to-day, therefore your brother bade me hasten to your aid. Will ye stand without, so will I stand within.”

Sturdy Dankwart stood without the door and guarded the staircase against whoever came, wherefore men heard the swords resound in the heroes’ hands. Folker of Burgundy land performed the same within. Across the press the bold fiddler cried: “Friend Hagen, the hall is locked; forsooth King Etzel’s door is bolted well. The hands of two heroes guard it, as with a thousand bars.” When Hagen of Troneg beheld the door so well defended, the famous hero and good slung his shield upon his back and gan avenge the wrongs that had been done him there. His foes had now no sort of hope to live.

When now the lord of Berne, the king of the Amelungs, beheld aright that the mighty Hagen broke so many a helm, upon a bench he sprang and spake: “Hagen poureth out the very worst of drinks.”

The host, too, was sore adread, as behooved him now, for his life was hardly safe from these his foes.


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 to give the ball into his hand. Thereupon she looked down, he pressed her hand, and the boys went on playing. Also Uncle John learnt to catch the ball like any other boy. He knew very well that not only the boys were looking at him, but that there were also two blue eyes watching, which sparkled with delight to see that he was the most skilful of the players. Even then the lads nicknamed him Kubista’s boy. But Uncle John did not at all mind this; rather it encouraged him to say to them, “When I am not Kubista’s boy, then laugh at me.”

Betuska was about three years younger than Uncle John, consequently in her ninth year when he ceased to go to school. Bitterly indeed they missed each other at first, for they were like children who had grown accustomed to one another. And Unele John when afield often looked towards the school, and if Betuska was ever distracted in school-time, it was only when her thoughts fled to the field.

But even then they saw one another sufficiently often though they belonged to different villages. These villages were only about a ten minutes’ walk apart from one another, and grandfather’s fields just bordered Kubista’s fields. Thus it happened more than once, that the cattle of both fed on the same clover, because the young shepherd had so much to say to the young shepherdess.

They grew like plants from water. When Betuska was fifteen and Uncle John eighteen he already did not know where to find all the pictures with which he would compare those lovely blue eyes; for the corn-flowers appeared already pale and bleached. He did not know to what he should compare those beautiful thick raven locks; for night was seldom so black as they were. And Betuska could think about none else except him; for by day he smiled on her, and by night he was present to her dreams.

How he loved her! He never let her stir sickle when she came to cut clover, and he was anywhere near. He took her sickle and before she expected it, he was in full swing. Betuska meantime sat at the boundary, and told all about her domestic life, only pausing now and then to admire Uncle John’s manly figure and athletic attitude, as though he had painted it for her to look at.

Uncle John was now nearly grown up. He went to hear the music, and as he belonged to a wealthy farm he treated those also who were less well off. But whenever a new polka appeared the musicians must take it at once to Uncle John, so that next Sunday he and Betuska might show all the village how it had to be danced. And what a lovely garland hung before Betuska’s


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Rh creases in intensity in the proportion 1 : 0.934 ($\log=-0.0296$), the corresponding value for the unit of water-vapour is 1 : 0.775 ($\log=-0.1105$). These figures are of course only valid for the circumstances in which the observations were made, viz., that the ray should have traversed a quantity of carbonic acid $$\text{K}=1.1$$ and a quantity of water-vapour $$\text{W}=0.3$$ before the absorption in the next quantities of carbonic acid and water-vapour was observed. And these second quantities should not exceed $$\text{K}=1.1$$ and $\text{W}=1.8$, for the observations are not extended over a greater interval than between $$\text{K}=1.1$$ and $\text{K}=2.2$, and $$\text{W}=0.3$$ and $$\text{W}=2.1$$ (the numbers for $$\text{K}$$ and $$\text{W}$$ are a little different for rays of different kind). Below $$\text{A}$$ is written the relative value of the intensity of radiation for a given kind of ray in the moonlight after it has traversed $$\text{K}=1$$ and $\text{W}=0.3$. In some cases the calculation gives positive values for $$\log x$$ or $\log y$. As this is a physical absurdity (it would signify that the ray should be strengthened by its passage through the absorbing gas), I have in these cases, which must depend on errors of observation, assumed the absorption equal to zero for the corresponding gas, and by means of this value calculated the absorption-coefficient of the other gas, and thereafter also $\text{A}$.

As will be seen from an inspection of, the values of $i$ obs. agree in most cases pretty well with the calculated values $i$ calc. But in some eases the agreement is not so good as one could wish. These cases are mostly characterized by a small "weight" $\text{G}$, that is in other words, the material of observation is in these cases relatively insufficient. These cases occur also chiefly for such rays as are strongly absorbed by water-vapour. This effect is probably owing to the circumstance that the aqueous vapour in the atmosphere, which is assumed to have varied proportionally to the humidity at the earth's surface, has not always had the assumed ideal and uniform distribution with the height. From observations made during balloon voyages, we know also that the distribution of the aqueous vapour may be very irregular, and different from the mean ideal distribution. It is also a marked feature that in some groups, for instance the third, nearly all the observed numbers are less than the calculated ones, while in other groups, for instance the fourth, the contrary is the case. This circumstance shows that the division of the statistic material is carried a little too far; and a combination of these two groups would have shown a close agreement between the calculated and the observed figures. As, however, such a combination is without influence on the correctness of the calculated absorption coefficients, I have omitted


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54 and filthily obscene, and that hardly any of them show the least moral feeling, he may be excused for thinking the Brāhmaṇas to be the work of madmen. But there is some method in their madness. However strangely they may express them, they have definite and strictly logical ideas about the sacrificial ritual and its cosmic function. It is more difficult to defend them against the charge of want of morality. It must be admitted that their supreme Being, Prajāpati, is in the main lines of his character utterly impersonal, and where incidentally he shows any human feelings they are as a rule far from creditable to him. He created the universe from mechanical instinct or blind desire, and committed or tried to commit incest with his daughter (the accounts are various). He has begotten both the gods and the demons, dēvas and asuras, who are constantly at war with one another. The gods, who are embodiments of "truth" (that is to say, correct knowledge of the law of ritual), have been often in great danger of being overwhelmed by the demons, who embody "untruth," and they have been saved by Prajāpati; but he has done this not from any sense of right, but merely from blind will or favour, for he can hardly distinguish one party from the other. The gods themselves, in spite of being of "truth," are sadly frail. Dozens of myths charge them with falsehood, hatred, lust, greed, and jealousy, and

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 window on May-day morning. It was certainly the best of all; for only such has the honour of being taken down by the boys, and of being carried round from house to house—and for the last two years this garland had been uncle’s giving, and had hung before Kubista’s dwelling.

Of course Betuska returned the compliment. As soon as Great Night [Easter] drew near she had already chosen her best egg, and no one on the day of the festival had so finely and delicately painted an egg as Uncle John. There was a tiny heart, and round it tiny leaves and flowers, so that Uncle John was sorry to have to crack such a beautiful egg, which afforded great pleasure to Betuska.

Perhaps this was the reason she so loved her poultry, for she congratulated herself all the year on having afforded Uncle John so much pleasure.

The parents thwarted not their two children, who could thus meet openly, for they did so with their parents’ consent and knowledge.

Old Kubista and our grandfather had been comrades since their school-days. They also served together during the French invasion, and together bore all the hardships which that invasion brought upon the farmers. Moreover, one without the other would never undertake anything that they had not previously discussed together, and nothing pleased them more than to see their mutual predilection inherited by their children, and develop in these into true love.

Grandmother doted above measure on Uncle John, for he was the youngest son—who frequently gets a little spoiled. She it was who put into his hand all he had to give to Betuska, and if she had saved a few coppers in her household management she knew perfectly who would be pleased to have them.

But fortune began all at once to become overcast, so that perhaps it was nevermore destined to shine out clear and bright.

Kubista and grandfather were invited to the chase by the nobles and gentry—and they looked upon this as a special mark of distinction, for in those days even farmers scarcely knew the smell of powder, and if the father had not been a poacher the son would scarcely know how to load a gun, and where to pull the trigger.

But grandfather and Kubista were renowned all through the neighbourhood as good shots—granted, their hands shook slightly now when they aimed with their flint-locks they never failed


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Rh fee paid by the sacrificer to the sacrificant priests, which of course materially strengthens the efficacy of the sacrifice; and third comes the sacrificer, holding fast to the dakshiṇā. This ascent of heaven is symbolised in the ceremony called dūrōhaṇa, or "hard mounting" (AB. IV. 20, 21, KB. XXV. 7), and it is ensured by the rite of dīkshā, or consecration, in which the sacrificer is symbolically represented as passing through a new conception, gestation, and birth, by which he is supposed to obtain two bodies. One of these bodies is immortal and spiritual; the other is mortal and material, and is assigned as a victim to all the gods. He then ransoms his material body from the obligation of being sacrificed, as did Prajāpati, and thus ranks literally as a "god on earth," with the certainty of becoming in due course a god in heaven.

When the student on reading the Brāhmaṇas finds them full of interminable ceremonial rules with equally interminable commentaries interpreting them by wildest analogies as symbolical of details of myths or of laws of nature and hence as conferring mystic powers, besides all kinds of myths, some forcibly dragged into the interpretation of the ritual because of some imaginary point of resemblance, others invented or recast on purpose to justify some detail of ceremony, and when moreover he observes that many of these myths and some of the rites are brutally

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 to hit. No considerable shooting-party therefore took place in the neighbourhood without their being invited, and they always accepted the invitation with pleasure.

So then it was, once ofter a shooting-party and the sportsmen had separated and were returning homewards, Kubista had just met grandfather, and forgot that he had yet one barrel loaded, which he did not wish to take home in that state. When he saw grandfather he aimed at him in jest, on a level with his feet, drawing the trigger. As I say, he did it in jest, but it was a jest very much misplaced, and perhaps we may even call it besotted. Grandfather could never have believed that the barrel with which Kubista aimed would injure him, for he must have known that it was only a jest of his faithful friend. But just then there came upon him a kind of pang and sudden panic, and though after that Kubista immediately turned the gun from him and fired in the air, in quite a different direction, yet it seemed to grandfather as though he felt the charge in his foot.

“You have done me an ill turn, Kubista”, said grandfather, and caught himself by the foot.

Kubista fancied this was merely a jest and laughed at grandfather.

But grandfather from that time forth never looked on him again. No entreaty, no protestation of Kubista could affect a reconciliation. He so hardened himself in his heart that he would not be moved from the belief that perhaps Kubista had fired at that place.

They separated. After that grandfather had a restless night. He started continually, for he fancied that Kubista was aiming at him, and these visions repeated themselves even in his waking hours. Briefly, grandfather after some days became so restless that he felt his foot in actual pain, was laid up with it and never recovered the full use of the limb to the day of his death.

Then after he had lain awake many a long night there developed in him so intense a hatred towards Kubista that a year before he would have shuddered at the thought of. This hatred had no substantial foundation—at least none but what reason could overthrow. But just on that very account, grandfather reasoned too much about it, until he actually reasoned himself into his hatred.

Then to the general astonishment all learnt from grandfather that Kubista all his life had abused his friend’s kindness, had cheated him, and even now wished to make capital out of him


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 and prey on him. Moreover, as soon as he was somewhat better, grandfather began to set real disputes afoot between himself and Kubista about a certain boundary-stone which divided their fields, and he ordered to have this boundary-stone pushed forward, thus continually pouring oil on the fire.

At the beginning every one still imagined that it was only a jest, and Kubista least of all of them imagined it to be in earnest. But when there now began to come to him official notices, and he had frequently to present himself to the law-court and there reply to questions about which he had never given a thought—then at last the affair assumed a more serious aspect and he began to think of effecting a reconciliation.

He actually did go to grandfather, but as soon as the latter saw him arrive in the court-yard he went off to his bedroom, locked the door, shut himself in, and nothing on earth would make him alter his mind. At this grandmother was in the highest degree distressed. She accompanied Kubista on his way home and urged him to pay no heed to things which originated solely from grandfather’s state of health, saying that she trusted that these troubles would pass over before their children were old enough to marry, for certainly her husband could not give them his blessing so long as his heart was so overflowing with hatred.

But in all this grandmother showed that she did not know grandfather well. Nothing in the world would induce him to give up an idea which he had once taken into his head and set his heart on.

So also he at once gave notice to Uncle John not to venture a single step in the direction of Kubista’s and gradually to wean himself from all thoughts of a marriage with Betuska.

Such commands, however, are more easy to speak than to execute. While things went well Uncle John and Betuska met openly, and when this was no more possible their meetings were clandestine. Grandfather was not so inventive in his hatred as these young people were in their mutual passion. And had he been a hundred times more watchful his vigilance would have been in vain. Here was it once more demonstrated that nothing can strengthen true passion more than the stimulus of opposition, and if Uncle John and Betuska met often before, they now met oftener than ever. He could not wait for morning to see at least the village in which she dwelt, and when he was afield he could have dragged evening down to earth that he might meet Betuska at the boundary of their field.


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52 spiritual welfare, while meat-offerings and peace-offerings typified the worshipper's sense of gratitude for the Divine love and wisdom that guarded him. Of such relations there is to be found in the Brāhmaṇas no trace. If we may use a modern figure of speech, they conceive the universe of gods, men, and lower creatures as a single immense electric battery, and the sacrifice as a process of charging this battery with ever fresh electricity. The sacrifice is a process, at once material and mystic, which preserves the order of nature as established by the prototypic sacrifice performed by Prajāpati. The gods became divine and immortal through sacrifice (TS. VI. iii. 4, 7, VI. iii. 10, 2, VII. iv. 2, 1, ŚB. I. vi. 2, 1, MS. III. ix. 4, AB. VI. i. 1, etc.); and they live on the gifts of earth, as mankind lives on the gifts of heaven (TS. III. ii. 9, 7, ŚB. I. ii. 5, 24). The sacrifice is thus the life-principle, the soul, of all gods and all beings (ŚB. VIII. vi. 1, 10, IX. iii. 2, 7, XIV. iii. 2, 1); or, what amounts to the same thing, the Triple Science or the knowledge of the ceremonies of the Three Vēdas is their essence (ŚB. X. iv. 2, 21). As Prajāpati created the primeval sacrifice, and as the gods by following this rule obtained their divinity, so man should seek to follow their example and by means of sacrifice rise to godhead and immortality. As one Brāhmaṇa puts it, the sacrifice leads the way to heaven; it is followed by the dakshiṇā, or

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 It must be confessed, however, that their passion manifested itself in a somewhat changed form. What before flowed on in calm delight like a peaceful streamlet, now dashed along like the same streamlet after rain. Heretofore they kissed like turtle-doves; now they wept their fill, now they stifled kisses in sobs, and soothed their sobs with kisses. And all the time they protested that their passion was eternal, with hearts so sincere, so overflowing, that it never occurred to them that it could be doubted. Uncle John exhorted Betuska to constancy, and Betuska in fond despair protested that she would cease to breathe on the day when uncle should turn away from her. Here they came to the conviction that they were promised man and wife, that they were eternally predestined to make each other happy, and on this they built all their future plans.

When evening came and clover and corn-fields were moist with dew, there fell and mingled with the dew, certainly more than one tear from the blue eyes of Betuska. Then she said, poor thing, that it seemed to her that matters must take a bad turn, for she could not realize how she could figure as the dutiful happy daughter in a family where her own father was detested. Only the genuine love and affection which Uncle John felt for her could have succeeded in wholly quieting her, at least long enough to give her breathing-time in her anguish.

Certainly the poultry noticed more than once, that Betuska did not show them the same predilection as formerly. She spread their chicken’s food, it is true, but she did not talk to them: she remained pensive, and if her eyes had not been bedewed with tears, the chickens could not have in the least conjectured why she was thinking of anything except themselves.

The chickens were also from this time most troublesome, and judgment fell upon them. They hopped on to her, fed themselves in her lap, and lodged mutual complaints against one another, till Betuska fairly drove them from her. The cocks had a perfect torment with them.

But at our house, at grandfather’s, it seemed as though contentment was completely banished to some foreign land; it scarcely appeared there once a month, seldomer than the toyman, who stopped to ask whether we wished to buy aught of his wares. Grandfather remained obdurate, and at last no one dared to mention the name of Kubista. Moreover, it ended at last in Kubista winning, to grandfather’s great grief, one side of the disputed boundary. Then every hope of reconciliation was


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Rh O how many dear friends were snatched away before his eyes! He sate full anxious; what booted it him that he was king? Haughty Kriemhild now cried aloud to Dietrich: “Pray help me hence alive, most noble knight, by the virtues of all the princes of the Amelung land. If Hagen reach me, I shall grasp death by the hand.”

“How shall I help you, noble queen?” spake Sir Dietrich. “I fear for myself in sooth. These men of Gunther be so passing wroth that at this hour I cannot guard a soul.”

“Nay, not so, Sir Dietrich, noble knight and good. Let thy chivalrous mood appear to-day and help me hence, or I shall die.” Passing great cause had Kriemhild for this fear.

“I’ll try to see if I may help you, for it is long since that I have seen so many good knights so bitterly enraged. Of a truth I see blood spurting through the helmets from the swords.”

Loudly the chosen knight gan call, so that his voice rang forth as from a bison’s horn, until the broad castle resounded with his force. Sir Dietrich’s strength was passing great in truth.

When Gunther heard this man cry out in the heated strife, he began to heed. He spake: “Dietrich’s voice hath reached mine ears, I ween our champions have bereft him of some friend to-day. I see him on the table, he doth beckon with his hand. Ye friends and kinsmen from Burgundian land, give over the strife. Let’s hear and see what here hath fortuned to the knight from my men-at-arms.”

When Gunther thus begged and bade in the stress of the fray, they sheathed their swords. Passing great


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Rh benefit, forming an image of himself to be the sacrifice, by which he redeemed himself from the gods (ŚB. XI. i. 8, 2-4; cf. AB. VII. 19, KB. XIII. 1, ŚB. III. ii. 1, 11), and that after creation he ascended to heaven (ŚB. X. ii. 2, 1). The thought that lies underneath these bewildering flights of fancy is one of mystic pantheism: all created existence has arisen by emanation from the one Creative Principle, Prajāpati, and in essence is one with Prajāpati; Prajāpati is an impersonal being, a creative force, in which are embodied the laws of Brahmanic ritual, which acts only in these laws, and which is above the moral influences that affect humanity; and the whole of created nature, animate and inanimate, is controlled in every process of its being by these laws, and by the priest who possesses the knowledge of them. Thus there lies a profound significance in the title of "gods on earth" which the Brahmans have assumed.

When we speak of sacrifice in India, we must clear our minds of the ideas which we have formed from reading the Bible. The Mosaic conception of sacrifice was that of a religious ceremony denoting a moral relation between a personal God and His worshippers: in the sin-offerings and trespass-offerings was symbolised a reconciliation between man and his God who was angered by man's conscious or unconscious breach of the laws which had been imposed upon him for his

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 at an end. He did not wait until some one began to talk about Kubista. No, he began himself; in every way and on every occasion looking out for some pretext to abuse his late friend. He said that Kubista had bribed the officials, and by this had put the climax to his dishonesty, and that all his whole life he had been thinking of nothing but how to cause him trouble and expense.

This stubborn immobility had something morbid, not to say spasmodic, in it, which was the more obvious to all because it was quite inconsistent with grandfather’s age and his grey hairs.

Grandmother more than once wished to take upon herself the role of peacemaker. And then she reproached grandfather telling him that he was greatly in fault to give himself to be so blinded in his old age by wrath, and that it became him now least of all when both he and Kubista stood with one foot in the grave.

But this only exasperated his anger to the highest degree. He upbraided her, telling her that she had no affection for him; that she stood up for a man whose affection for himself was shown by his own lame foot; that she depraved Uncle John by her fondness and partiality; that she ought never to have permitted him to begin those visits to Kubista’s, and more to the safe effect. Then no excuses were of any avail. Grandmother did not venture to remind him that he himself had once approved of their son paying court to Betuska.

And now grandfather became hardened not only against Kubista, but also to some extent against grandmother, and against his own son. He vowed that their only wish was to hurry him to the grave in order that they might conclude a match to which while living he would never give his consent. Aye, that he would even disinherit his son by will if he ventured to espouse the daughter of Kubista. Let the gentlemen at the office cancel this will or not, possibly they might, for Kubista had a happy knack of bribing, still he never swerved a hair’s breadth from his fixed determination.

In this state grandfather was an object of pity, but not less so grandmother and Uncle John. Uncle John avoided. his father where and how he could. Already he had given up coming to supper, and always urgently entreated grandmother to lay his meals somewhere in his bedroom. No doubt grandmother did so, but she had thus to bear alone the weight of grandfather’s displeasure. Though what burden would not a mother bear


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50 the world. The idea conveyed by this is that the universe came into existence by the operation of the mystic laws revealed in the Brahmanic rituals, and is maintained in its natural order by the same means. The Brāhmaṇas do not indeed often assert on their own authority that Prajāpati was himself sacrificed in order to produce the world, and in fact they usually give other accounts of the creation; but as their authors live in a rarefied atmosphere of mystical allegory in which fact and fancy are completely confused with one another and consistency ceases to have any meaning, none of them would have difficulty in accepting the Ṛigvēdic statement that he was sacrificed. Hence they tell us on the one hand that Prajāpati has created the world from a blind will for generation or increase, producing from each of his limbs some class of beings corresponding to it (e.g. MS. IV. vi. 3), or copulating with the earth, atmosphere, sky, and speech (ŚB. VI. i. 2, 1), or that he brought it into existence indirectly by entering with the Triple Science or mystic lore of the three Vēdas into the primeval waters and thence forming an egg from which was hatched the personal Demiurge Brahmā, who actually created the world (ŚB. VI. i, 1, 10); and on the other hand they relate that he created sacrifice and performed it, making of himself a victim in order that the gods, his offspring, might perform the rites for their own

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 seeing that by so doing she alleviated the distress of her own son?

Sometimes it happened that grandfather did not see Uncle John for several days, so that he could not give him orders early as to how to arrange his work, and where to go in the field, and more than once grandfather had to look for his son in the field to consult with him about the farm. Once one of the servants was so ill-advised that one evening when grandfather inquired for uncle, the servant replied, “He! Why, he sleeps soundly at Kubista’s, to be sure.”

It was well that grandmother heard this. She scolded the servant thoroughly, and in order to prove to grandfather that the man had lied grossly, she led him to the summer-house where Uncle John now made his bed and had already gone to rest.

Grandfather bade grandmother leave him alone with their son. She immediately complied, but did not go far, for she dreaded lest grandfather should do some injury to his son.

But it was not so bad as that then.

Uncle John did indeed affect to be asleep, but when he heard that grandfather desired to speak with him he sat up and grandfather beside him.

“Listen John,” said grandfather, “to-morrow is the festival, do this for my sake, stop at home to-morrow for the festival that it may not appear to our guests, at least, that we cannot agree.”

Uncle John objected that really on the morrow he had settled with Betuska to go to church with her, and perhaps she would fall ill if he did not keep his word.

Whereupon grandfather said, “Oh! well, I shall see whether you have yet any affection left for me, for I shall not speak to you twice.”

Uncle John did not reply to this, and grandfather left him.

The next day was the festival about which I have narrated from the beginning.

BOUT a week after this they had just sat down to supper at grandfather’s, when a certain man entered having first knocked at the door. Uncle John was not at table.

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 high road. Thus it occasioned no little surprise if ever a stranger stopped there to ask his way.

The neighbours here still lived almost in a state of nature. The slight stock of reading which they had learnt at school, would have been long ago forgotten had not the prayer-books which they took with them to church on Sunday, been printed in plain black letters.

As for writing they remembered just so much that most of them could subscribe their names, he who could not manage it did not trouble his head about it, for three crosses set all right. Without these, indeed, they scarcely ever subscribed their names.

The learning which they called ready reading and running hand they considered to be the privileged possession of the nobility, while it was their business to look after tilth and pasturage.

A book never strayed into this village, and if one had wandered out of the road hither, it would have been like a deserted orphan. No one would have received it into his house, nor even given it a night’s lodging. The parents only bought those ABC’s, first and second part, which they called reading-books. To give money for any other sort of book would have been to squander money godlessly. Even at grandfather’s the calendar formed the whole library; grandmother always put a large pair of spectacles on her nose to read it in winter, and its dog-eared leaves always sufficed just so far that it held out till St. Vaclav’s Day [28th September] when it was changed for a new one.

Now, however, things are somewhat changed there, but not much.

It was fortunate for them that they possessed a good soil, for that was what specially affected them. At that time it had never occurred to any of them to improve their land; if it did not deteriorate still it did not get better.

The furniture which ancestors had used came without change to their descendants who in turn left it unchanged.

Even when a more enlightened age opened for our people they did not pay much attention to it here; it did not speak to them. This is the more curious, because in the surrounding parishes their neighbours comprehend everything that bears the name of progress, and in this respect stand in the van of all our peasantry.


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 "This little book is an interesting monument of missionary labor, full of suggestions as to the manifold difficulties to be encountered in the attempt to Christianize the Indians of America."


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268 was his power, so that none struck a blow. Soon enow he asked the tidings of the knight of Berne. He spake: “Most noble Dietrich, what hath happed to you through these my friends? I am minded to do you remedy and to make amends. If any had done you aught, ’t would grieve me sore.”

Then spake Sir Dietrich; “Naught hath happed to me, but I pray you, let me leave this hall and this fierce strife under your safe-guard, with my men. For this favor I will serve you ever.”

“How entreat ye now so soon,” quoth Wolfhart then. “Forsooth the fiddler hath not barred the door so strong, but what we may open it enow to let us pass.”

“Hold your tongue,” spake Sir Dietrich; “the devil a whit have ye ever done.”

Then spake King Gunther: “I will grant your boon. Lead from the hall as few or as many as ye will, save my foes alone; they must remain within. Right ill have they treated me in the Hunnish land.”

When Dietrich heard these words, he placed his arm around the high-born queen, whose fear was passing great. On his other side he led King Etzel with him hence; with Dietrich there also went six hundred stately men.

Then spake the noble Margrave Rüdeger: “Shall any other who would gladly serve you come from this hall, let us hear the tale, and lasting peace shall well befit good friends.”

To this Giselher of the Burgundian land replied: “Peace and friendship be granted you by us, sith ye are constant in your lealty. Ye and all your men, ye may go hence fearlessly with these your friends.”


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 It is plain enough, indeed, that not only the sea hath its islands: even human progress hath them, and only here and there where the sea is tossed by storms and wind, fall on these islands some benign drops, but only as it would seem by accident.

Then, as I was saying, a knocking at the door was here in reality an event, and grandmother started so that she trembled down to the hand in which she held her spoon.

The man who entered the room saluted very obsequiously and was nothing but bows. Grandmother took Grandmother took against him immediately, at first sight, and specially repugnant to her was his cynical piercing eye. But he impressed grandfather favourably.

Grandfather was a strange man. Come to him and lay your grievance before him frankly and openly that obtained much; but let a man come obsequiously, fawn upon him, and praise him to the skies, and he obtained everything.

Grandmother must immediately lay yet another cover, and the new-comer must sit down to table, which he did with many ceremonious excuses to the effect that he had once before been to our house.

All this pleased grandfather but it disgusted grandmother.

Grandfather asked who he was, whence he came, and the like. But Novak (for such was his name) so managed even in this that after many ceremonious phrases, from their questions and his answers, they should learn little about him except his name.

A kind of secret horror came over grandmother as if this man had come to them as an enemy to the house, and she shuddered at every word he spoke as if it was measured out for their ruin.

After supper he began at last, and then grandmother at once recognized his colours.

I’m told you have an unmarried son”, quoth he inquiringly.

“We have, we have”, answered grandfather, gasping for further questions.

“Is he going to marry?”

“And who ever thought about that yet?” broke in grandmother, not being able to restrain herself.

“And who has thought about it if not we”, said grandfather, taking her up as if he wished to rectify what she had spoiled.

Grandmother said no more, and went out of the house, and there outside she told Uncle John who had come, and what was the matter.


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Rh trace of moral purpose in his activity. Prajāpati himself is not absolutely the first in the course of nature. The Brāhmaṇas, the priestly books composed in this period to expound the rules and mystic significance of the Brahmanic ceremonies, give us varying accounts of his origin, some of them saying that he arose through one or more intermediate stages from non-existence (TB. II. ii. 9, 1-10, ŚB. VI. i. 1, 1-5), others deriving him indirectly from the primitive waters (ŚB, XI. i. 6, 1), others tracing his origin back to the still more impersonal and abstract Brahma (Sāmav. B. I. 1-3, Gōp. B. I. i. 4). All these are attempts to express in the form of myth the idea of an impersonal Principle of Creation as arising from a still more abstract first principle. We have seen the poets of the Ṛig-vēda gradually moving towards the idea of a unity of godhead; in Prajāpati this goal is attained, but unfortunately it is attained by sacrificing almost all that is truly divine in godhead. The conception of Prajāpati that we find in the Brāhmaṇas is also expressed in some of the latest hymns of the Ṛig-vēda. Among these is the famous Purusha-sūkta (RV. X. 90), which throws a peculiar light on the character of Prajāpati. It is in praise of a primitive Purusha or Man, who is, of course, the same as Prajāpati; in some mysterious manner this Purusha is sacrificed, and from the various parts of his body arise the various parts of

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48 and principles of their Ṛigvēdic forefathers. They have now three Vēdas; for to the old Ṛig-vēda they have added a Yajur-vēda for the use of the sacrificant orders of priests and a Sāma-vēda or hymnal containing Ṛigvēdic hymns arranged for the chanting of choristers. The result of these labours is that they have created a vast and intricate system of sacrificial ritual, perhaps the most colossal of its kind that the world has ever seen or ever will see. What is still more remarkable, the logical result of this immense development of ritualism is that the priesthood in theory is practically atheistic, while on the other hand a certain number of its members have arrived at a philosophy of complete idealism which is beginning to turn its back upon ritualism.

The atheist is not so much the man who denies the existence of any god as the man to whom God is not God, who looks upon the Deity as subordinate to powers void of holiness and nobility, the man who will not see in God the highest force in the world of nature and in the realm of the spirit. In this sense the Brahmans are thorough atheists. According to them, the universe with all that is in it — gods, men, and lower things — is created and governed by an iron law of soulless natural necessity. It has arisen by emanation from a cosmic Principle, Prajāpati, "the Lord of Creatures," an impersonal being who shows no

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