The Transmigration of the Seven Brahmans, by Henry David Thoreau, [1932], at sacred-texts.com THE TRANSMIGRATION OF THE SEVEN BRAHMANS A Translation FROM THE HARIVANSA OF LANGLOIS BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU Edited from Manuscript WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY ARTHUR CHRISTY NEW YORK WILLIAM EDWIN RUDGE [1932] Scanned, proofed, and formatted at sacred-texts.com, September 2007 by John Bruno Hare. This text is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright was not renewed in a timely fashion as required by law at the time. These files may be used for any purpose. Title Page Thoreau's manuscript, detail The Transmigration of the Seven Brahmans, by Henry David Thoreau, [1932], at sacred-texts.com [p. V] ACKNOWLEDGMENT THE manuscript and transcription of The Transmigration of the Seven Brahmans are here presented through the kind permission of Mrs. Flora Livingston, Custodian of the Widener Memorial Collection at the Harvard College Library. The introductory quotations from Thoreau's writings are used by permission of the Houghton Mifflin Company. The Transmigration of the Seven Brahmans, by Henry David Thoreau, [1932], at sacred-texts.com [p. VI] CONTENTS The Manuscript facsimile and the French source text have been omitted from this etext for technical reasons--JBH. Page INTRODUCTION THOREAU'S MANUSCRIPT IN FACSIMILE XXIII THE TRANSCRIPTION THE SOURCE 17 The Transmigration of the Seven Brahmans, by Henry David Thoreau, [1932], at sacred-texts.com [p. X] INTRODUCTION The editor has made no changes in the antiquated form of spelling Anglicized Sanskrit words used by Thoreau. In his own discussion the modern form is followed. [p. XI] INTRODUCTION THE fascination which the Orientals possessed for Thoreau is perfectly evident to the reader who skipped no pages in Walden and the Week. The sacred scriptures of the East held his attention through all his creative years, and their effect on his work is so patent that even those who have no eye for inner significance have noticed how interfused is his prose with imported quotations and figures. F. B. Sanborn writes in his biography of Thoreau that it was Emerson who first introduced him to the Orientals. The date is recorded as 1837. Thoreau's Journals indicate that in August, 1838, he had been reading the Persian Zendavesta and Confucius, a fact which corroborates Sanborn. But the extravagant outpouring of praise for the Orientals does not fully commence until 1841. Between 1841 and 1843, it will be remembered, Thoreau lived with the Emersons and assisted his elder friend in the household tasks. There can be no doubt that he made free use of the library. The Journals for these years tell eloquently of the impression made by Emerson's Oriental books. After reading The Laws of Menu, he writes, "They are the laws of you and me, a fragrance wafted down from those old times, and no more to be refuted than the wind . . . I remember the book as an hour before sunrise." And in another instance he confides, "I cannot read a sentence in the book of the Hindoos without being elevated as upon the table land of the Ghauts." [p. X] There was no diminution in Thoreau's ardor for these mysterious books through the rest of his life. The joy he found in them during his last years was even greater than that of his first youthful discovery. The most important story connected with this Oriental interest--that of the Cholmondeley collection--should be better known. Because of its immediate importance it may be related here. In September, 1854, Thomas Cholmondeley, a friend of Arthur Hugh Clough at Oxford, came to Concord with letters which introduced him to Emerson. He wished to remain in Concord for a short period, but the Emersons were not able to accommodate him and he was sent to Mrs. John Thoreau, who took lodgers. The young Englishman was warmly welcomed by Thoreau's mother and an intimate friendship arose between the men. The visit was only too short. It was the time of the Crimean War; Cholmondeley went home to enlist. Just before sailing with his regiment he sent the following letter to his Concord friend: October 3, 1855. My dear THOREAU-- I have been busily collecting a nest of Indian books for you, which, accompanied by this note Mr. Chapman will send you, and you will find them at Boston, carriage prepaid (mind that, and don't let them cheat you), at Crosby and Nichols! I hope, dear Thoreau, you will accept this trifle from one who has received so much from you, and one who [p. XIII] is anxious to become your friend and induce you to visit England. I am just about to start for the Crimea, being a complete soldier; but I fear the game is nearly played, and all my friends tell me I am just too late for the fair. When I return to England, (if ever I do return) I mean to buy a little cottage on the south coast, where I can dwell in Emersonian leisure and where I have a plot to persuade you over. * * * Adieu, dear Thoreau, and immense affluence to you. Ever yours, THOS. CHOLMONDELEY Sanborn records that the books arrived in Concord on November 3o, 1855, when he saw them, in the attic chamber where Thoreau kept his small library, in cases made by his own hands, not failing to mention that upon receiving the first announcement of their coming Thoreau had "fashioned for these treasures a new case, out of drift wood that he had brought home in his voyages along the Musketaquid, thus giving Oriental wisdom an Occidental shrine." On December 9, 1855, writing to his friend H. G. O. Blake, Thoreau described the books in brief: I have arranged my books in a case which I made in the meanwhile, partly of river boards. I have not dipped far into the new ones yet. One is splendidly bound and illuminated. [p. XIV] [paragraph continues] They are in English, French, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. I have not made out the significance of this godsend yet. But by Christmas he had made out the significance of his godsend, for on that day he wrote to the Quaker Daniel Ricketson of New Bedford that he had received a royal gift in the shape of twenty-one distinct works (one in nine volumes--forty-four volumes in all) almost exclusively relating to Hindoo literature and scarcely one of them to be bought in America. I am familiar with many of them and know how to prize them. I send you this information as I might of the birth of a child. These books Thoreau cherished until the day of his death. After his decease, they passed into the hands of his friends--principally Emerson and Alcott. -- II -- IN the Widener Memorial Collection at the Harvard College Library is a large sheaf of miscellaneous manuscript pages in Thoreau's handwriting. There is neither beginning nor end to this material; it is a disorganized mass that would require much labor to collate. One gathers the impression that at one time these pages lay unprotected from a sudden gust of wind which entered the room and scattered them into confusion, only to be subsequently picked up haphazardly by a person utterly ignorant [p. XV] of their worth. In this material I found the manuscript of Thoreau's The Transmigration of the Seven Brahmans, kept intact by a pin which had been inserted in the margin. The story is a translation from Langlois's French rendering of the Harivansa, a scholarly work of forbidding appearance that few men with only a superficial interest in Oriental legend and metaphysics would have tackled. The source was discovered solely through the labor of following all the dews the manuscript offered, and searching through every likely volume of Oriental literature to which I had access. There is no mention, so far as I am aware, of Langlois, the French Orientalist, in the works of any of the Concord writers. All dews as to the nature of the story were necessarily sought in internal evidence. The spelling of the Hindu proper names was in the French manner. This indicated that the source from which Thoreau procured these names was French. The second clew was the name Bharata, which indicated that the story was most likely allied in some way to the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. The frequent and careful insertion of interlinear corrections by Thoreau, which can be readily discerned in the original long-hand draft of the story, leads to the question whether it might not have been an original composition. The content and the technical use of Sanskrit names, however, could scarcely have come from one uninitiated in the original language, unless he had undertaken laborious research in the work of European Orientalists. But Thoreau was a singular man and his manuscript baffled even [p. XVI] several Orientalists whom I consulted. I cannot deny that I hoped to prove it an original composition, solely for the valuable evidence it would have given of the Oriental tang in his mind. But the discovery that the story was a translation from the French, on second thought rather adds to its value. It is the first extensive evidence I have seen of Thoreau's proficiency in French. And its Oriental value, particularly as evidence of his interest in an extensive system of Hindu ascetic practice--the Yoga--becomes the more significant in view of the confession he made to Blake of the true purpose of his life. The Walden years, also, may be viewed from another angle, for although Thoreau made his translation in 1849 or 185o, when he drew on the Harvard College Library for many Oriental volumes, among them being the Harivansa, he had long known of the Yoga way. -- III -- I FEEL. sure that Thoreau brought himself to the task of translating The Transmigration of the Seven Brahmans more because of the Yoga philosophy which it contained than because of the story itself, interesting as that is. I have already suggested that it throws new light on the Walden episode of his life. Various theories have been advanced to explain his living in a hermit's solitude for over two years. Some have argued that it was disappointed love; others have advanced the theory that Walden was a retreat from the smoke and noise of an encroaching industrialism. Again one hears that he bore a grudge against society and [p. XVII] withdrew, like a snail, into his shell; also, that he was an incarnation of another Rousseau, calling "Simplify! Simplify! Back to nature!" to his generation. I have no desire to cross swords with the defenders of these explanations. There may be truth in them all. I would, however, advance another theory of the reason Thoreau went to Walden and it is this: the retreat was a very natural gesture on the part of a man who was temperamentally an ascetic, particularly one so imbued with Orientalism. He was at all times conscious of an affinity between his own conduct and that of a Yogi. In the correspondence between Thoreau and H. G. O. Blake appear these surprising words from the former's pen: Depend upon it that, rude and careless as I am, I would fain practice the yoga faithfully . . . 'The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to creation: he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonderful things. Divine forms traverse him without tearing him, and, united to the nature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts as animating original matter.' To some extent, and at rare intervals even I am a yogi. The italics are mine. They indicate a confession that cannot be ignored. But there is another self-revealing passage in the Journals: One may discover the root of a Hindoo religion in his own private history, when, in the silent intervals of the day or [p. XVIII] night, he does sometimes inflict on himself like austerities with a stern satisfaction. Americans will probably be chary of admitting that a Concord Yankee, particularly a Yankee of Thoreau's independence and crispness, could in any way be a Yogi. With justice they may well ask, "What's in a name?" and argue that if Thoreau had written, "I would fain be a Hottentot," there would have been no more possibility of a change in the essential man and a realization of his aim. Thoreau belonged to the New England scene. In an Oriental shrine he would have been utterly incongruous. Such a contention is irrefutable. But there is the man's intellectual cosmopolitanism that must be taken into consideration. Moncure Conway, who knew both Thoreau and the Orientals writes thus in his volume Emerson At Home and Abroad: Like the pious Yogi, so long motionless whilst gazing on the sun that knotty plants encircled his neck and the cast snakeskin his loins, and the birds built their nests on his shoulders, this poet and naturalist, by equal consecration became a part of the field and the forest. . . . [paragraph continues] Conway was writing specifically of his friend at Walden. The word of a contemporary observer bears out Thoreau's confession. I have already indicated, however briefly, the spirit in which Thoreau read the Orientals. To appreciate his cosmopolitanism, one needs only to be reminded that he lived during, and was an [p. XIX] active figure in, the New England Renaissance, that period of intellectual fermentation commonly called the Transcendental Period. Concord combed the world for books during those decades. The Brahmans of this Massachusetts village knew intimately the currents in the thought-life of their time. So I, for one, cannot see the rustic and uninitiated Yankee in Thoreau. He wrote of that which he knew intimately when he wrote of the Yogi. When he applied the name to himself it may have been in a transient, whimsical mood; but in that case I find difficulty in understanding the following description of the manner in which he spent a day at the Walden hut: Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. There is a shadowy line between the things men sincerely believe and the things they use for artistic purposes. No one can [p. XX] trace that line distinctly. The words of Thoreau which I have quoted--and many others which may be had for the searching --lead me to the conviction that his Puritan heritage and inherent sanity enabled him to strip the Yoga practice of all the superstition and inhuman self-torture native in India. He had no interest in the contemplation of the navel, the drawing of thread through the nostrils, the repetition of magic words, the bed of nails, and all the devices of hypnotism. He was profoundly interested in the means of finding the One Bottom of the universe. A mystic, he sensed his affinity with the sincere Yogi. But his home was Concord, Massachusetts, so instead of taking to the begging-bowl and the road, like his Hindu brethren, he chose Walden. I cannot but believe that as he translated the story which comprises this book, he thought of the waters of Walden in some ways as the waters of Manassa, where the seven Brahman brothers sought deliverance. A. C. Columbia University October 10, 1930. The Transmigration of the Seven Brahmans, by Henry David Thoreau, [1932], at sacred-texts.com [p. 1] THE TRANSCRIPTION The transcription is based on revision and interlinear changes made on the manuscript by Thoreau himself. Only what he seems to have intended to be the final form is presented here. The footnotes are Thoreau's adaptations from those in the French source. The Transmigration of the Seven Brahmans, by Henry David Thoreau, [1932], at sacred-texts.com [p. 2] [p. 3] THE WORLD IS FOUNDED UPON THE SRADDHA [**] RITES IN HONOR OF ANCESTORS THE TRANSMIGRATION OF THE SEVEN BRAHMANS THE divine eye, which Santacoumara had given me, made me perceive the seven Brahmans, of whom he had spoken, unfaithful to their sacred rules, but yet attached to the worship of the Pitris. They bore names answering to their works: they were called Vagdouchta, Crodhana, Hinsa, Pisouna, Cavi, Swasrima and Pitrivarttin: they were sons of Cosica, and disciples of Gargya. Their father dying, they commenced the prescribed ceremonies under the direction of their master. By his order they guarded his foster cow, named Capila, who was accompanied by her calf already as large as herself. On the way, the sight of this magnificent cow, who supplied all the wants of Gargya, tempted them: hunger impelled them, their reason was blinded; they conceived the cruel and mad project of slaying her. Cavi and Swasrima endeavored to prevent them from it. What could they against the others? But Pitrivarttin, that one among them who was always occupied with the sraddha, [**] having his mind then on the duty the thought of which possessed him, said to his wondering brothers with anger: "Since we have a sacrifice to make to the Pitris, let this cow be sacrificed by us with devotion, and her death will profit us. Let us honor the Pitris and no reproach can [p. 4] be made to us." "Well," said they all, and the cow was sacrificed in honor of the Pitris. They told their master afterwards: "Your cow has been slain by a tiger, but here is her calf." The Brahman, without suspecting evil, took the calf which they delivered to him. But they failed in the respect which they owed to their master; and when Time came to take them all together from this world, for having been cruel and wicked, for having rendered themselves guilty of impiety toward their preceptor, they all seven reappeared in life in the family of a hunter, of the country of Dasarna. However, as in sacrificing the cow of their master, they had rendered homage to the Pitris, these brothers, filled with force and intelligence, preserved in this existence the remembrance of the past: they showed themselves attached to their duties, performing their functions with zeal, and abstaining from every act of cupidity and injustice: now holding in their breath as long a time as endured the recitation of a mantra, [**] now plunging themselves into profound meditations on their destiny. These were the names of these pious hunters: Nirvera, Nirvriti, Kchanta, Nirmanyou, Criti, Veghasa, and Matrivarttin. Thus these same men who had formerly loved evil and injustice, were now so changed that they honored their mother bent under the weight of age and rejoiced the heart of their father. When death had taken away their parents, then leaving their bow, they fixed themselves in the forest, where soon after, they themselves also surrendered their souls. [p. 5] As a recompense for their good conduct they retained still in their following life the remembrance of the past: they were born upon the agreeable mountain Calandyara, under the form of stags with high arching horns, by turns experiencing and inspiring fear. Their names were then Ounmoukha, Nityavitrasta, Stabdacarna, Vilotchana, Pandita, Ghasmara and Nadin. Thus going over in memory their ancient actions, they wandered in the woods, detached from every sentiment, from every affection, submitting with resignation to the duties which they had to fulfill, and in their solitude delivering themselves to the exercises of the Yoga. [**] Extenuated by fasting and penitence, they died in the course of pious practices, by which the earth was worn bare and one sees yet, O son of Bharata, upon the mountain Calandyara the mark of their feet. Their piety caused that they passed into a class of beings more elevated; transported into the beautiful country of Sarodwipa, they had the form of those geese which inhabit the abode of the lakes: entirely isolated from all society, true Mounis occupied only with divine things, they were named then Nihspriha, Nirmama, Kchanta, Nirdwandwa, Nichparigraha, Nirvriti, and Nirbhrita. In the midst of their austerities and their fastings they died, and returned to life under the form of swans, frequenting the waves of Manasa. The names of these seven brothers were Padmagarbha, Ravindakcha, Kchiragarbha, Soulotchana, Ourouvindou, Souvindou and Himagarbha. In the remembrance of [p. 6] their past life, they pursued their holy exercises; the fault committed toward their master, when they were Brahmans, had caused them to retrograde in the scale of beings; but the worship which they had then, in the midst even of their slaying, rendered to the Pitris, had procured for them the faculty of adding to their knowledge at each new birth. Finally they returned to the world under the appearance of wild ducks, with the names of Soumanas, Swani, Souvak, Souddha, Tchitradarsana, Sounetra and Soutantra. By the effect of the acts of penitence which they had performed in their various states, their exercises of devotion and their good works, the divine science which they had formerly learned in the lessons of their different masters, formed a treasure which went on always accumulating by their transmigrations. In their new condition of inhabitants of the air, they continued their holy practices; in their language they spoke only of sacred things, and the Yoga was the only object of their meditations. Such was their existence, when Vibhradja, descendant of Pourou and prince of the family of the Nipas, brilliant with beauty, illustrious in power, stately, and surrounded by all his house, entered into the forest where these birds lived. Soutantra saw him, and suddenly dazzled by so much riches, formed this desire: "Might I become like this king, if I have acquired any merit by my austerities and my penitence! I am unhappy to have fasted and mortified myself without any fruit." Then two of the wild ducks his companions said to him: "We [p. 7] wish to follow you, and share the destiny of our friend." "So be it," replied Soutantra, till then only animated by religious thoughts, and they associated themselves all three in this resolution. Souvak said to him: "Since consulting only your passion, you reject our pious exercises, in order to form earthly desires, hear my words. Be cursed by us: you shall be king at Campilya, and these two friends shall follow you there." Thus the four birds, faithful to their vocation, addressed imprecations and reproaches to their old companions, whom the desire of a throne had turned aside from the good way. Cursed, fallen from their devotion, all lost, these three unhappy ones asked pardon from their comrades. Their despair was touching, and Soumanas spoke to them in the name of the others: "Our curse shall have its effect. You shall become men, but you shall return one day to the holy practices of devotion. Soutantra shall know the languages of all animals. It is to him we owe the favors with which the Pitris have loaded us. When we slew the cow of our master, it was he who counselled us to offer her as a sacrifice to the manes: it is therefore to him that we are to attribute the science which we possess, and the devotion which we have practiced. Yes, one day, hearing some words which will recall to you in a concise manner, a past, the knowledge of which shall have been concealed at the bottom of your souls, you shall abandon all to return to devotion." As I was saying, while these seven birds, on the waves of the Manassa, nourishing themselves only on air and water, suffered [p. 8] their bodies to waste away, the king Vibhradja betook himself to these woods, surrounded by all his court, and shining like Indra in the midst of his celestial garden of Nandana. [**] He saw there these seven birds occupied with their pious practices: humbled by the comparison which he made of them and himself, he came back all pensive into his city. He had a son extremely religious who was named Anouha, because forgetting this body composed of material atoms, he elevated himself ever to the contemplation of the soul. Souca gave him for wife his daughter, the illustrious Critwi, no less estimable for her good qualities than for her devotion . . . Vibhradja, having yielded the throne to his son Anouha, gave his last advice to his subjects, made his adieu to the Brahmans, and betook himself to the borders of the lake where he had seen the seven friends, in order to do penance there. There, fasting, contenting himself with air for all nourishment, renouncing every kind of desire, he thought only of mortifying the body. His object, however, was to obtain by force of his austerities the privilege of becoming the son of one of these beings whom he admired. The ardor of his penitence soon gave to Vibhradja a luminous appearance. He was like a sun which enlightened all the forest. O son of Courou, this wood was from his name called Vebhradja, as well as the lake, where the four birds, constant in devotion, and the three others, who had strayed from the good road, abandoned their mortal coil. [p. 9] Then all together and in harmony they betook themselves to Campilya; and there these seven noble and holy souls, purified by science, meditation and penitence, and instructed in the Vedas and the Vedangas, underwent a new birth. But there were only four who preserved a memory of the past; the three others found themselves in the shades of their folly. Soutantra became the son of Anouha, and was the glorious Brahmadatta; the desire which he had formed, when he was a bird, was thus accomplished. As for Tchitradarsana and Sounetra, they were born into a family of Brahmans: they were sons of Babhravya and of Vatsa, able in the science of the Vedas and of the Vedangas, and friends of Brahmadatta, as they had been in their preceding births. One was named Pantchala: it was he who, in the various transmigrations, had been the fifth; the sixth was called then Candarica. Brahmadatta had been the seventh. Pantchala, learned in the Rig-veda, was a great Atcharya; [**] Candarica possessed two Vedas, the Sama and the Yadjour. The king, son of Anouha, had the privilege of knowing the language of all beings. He cultivated the friendship of Pantchala and of Candarica. Delivered, like common men, to the empire of the senses and the passions, on account of what they had done in their preceding births, they nevertheless knew how to distinguish the requirements of duty from desires and from luxury. The excellent prince Anouha, after having crowned king the virtuous Brahmadatta, animated by devotion, entered on the [p. 10] way which leads to heaven. Brahmadatta married the daughter of Devala, called Sannati, and who owed this name to the respect which she inspired. Her father had instructed her himself in the great science of devotion, and her virtue was such that she was destined to be born only once on earth. The four friends, who had followed Pantchala, Candarica, and Brahmadatta to Campilya, were born into a family of Brahmans very poor. These four brothers were named Dhritiman, Soumanas, Vidwan and Tatwadarsin; profound in the reading of the Vedas, and penetrating all the secrets of nature, they united all the knowledge which they had gathered in their previous existences. Happy in the exercise of their devotion, they wished still to go and perfect themselves in solitude. They told it to their father, who cried out: "It is to fail in your duty to abandon me thus. How can you quit me, leaving me in poverty, taking away from me my children who are my only riches, and depriving me of their services." These Brahmans replied to this afflicted and disconsolate father: "We are about to give you the means of coming out of this state of poverty. Hear these words: they will procure you great riches. Go find the virtuous king Brahmadatta, repeat them to him before his counsellors. Happy at hearing you, he will give you lands and riches, he will crown at last all your desires. Go, and be satisfied." Then they told him certain words, and after having honored him as their spiritual master, they gave themselves only to the practice of the Yoga, and obtained the final emancipation. [**] [p. 11] The son of Brahmadatta was Vibhradja himself, born again; animated by piety, and covered with glory, he was named Viswaksena. One day Brahmadatta, his soul content and happy, was walking in a wood with his wife: he resembled Indra accompanied by Satchi. This prince heard there the voice of an ant: it was a lover who sought to bend his mistress by his tender language. In picking up the answer of the passionate lover, and thinking of the littleness of their being, Brahmadatta could not help laughing out loud. Sannati appeared offended at it and blushed. Her resentment went so far as to make her refuse to eat: her husband wished in vain to appease her. She replied to him with a bitter smile: "O prince, you laughed at me, I can no longer live." The king told her the truth such as it was. She was unwilling to believe it, and replied to him with wounded feelings: "O prince, that is not in nature. What man can know the language of the ants? unless it is an effect of the favor of a god recompensing the good actions of a preceding life, or the fruit of a great penitence, or the result of a supernatural science. O king, if it is true that you have this power, if you know the language of all beings, deign to communicate to me your knowledge, or let me die, as truly cursed by you." Brahmadatta was touched by the tender complaints of the queen: he had recourse to the protection of Narayana, lord of all beings. Abstracted and fasting for six nights, he adored him: then this glorious prince, in a vision perceived the god, who is the love of all nature, and who said to him: "Brahmadatta, tomorrow [p. 12] morning thou shalt have good fortune." Thus spoke the god, and disappeared. In the meanwhile the father of the four Brahmans having learned from his children the mysterious words which they had communicated to him, regarded himself as sure of his object. He sought a moment when he might meet the king with his counsellors, and could not for some time find the moment to make him hear the words which he had to say to him. Narayana had rendered his oracle; the king, satisfied with his answer, had performed the ablution of his head, and mounted upon a chariot all shining with gold, was reentering into the city. The chief of the Brahmans, Candarica, was holding the reins of the horses, and the son of Babhravya was bearing the chowri [**] and the royal fan. "This is the moment," said the Brahman to himself, and immediately he addressed these words to the king and to his two companions: "The seven hunters of the country of Dasarna, the stags of mount Calandjara, the geese of Sarodwipa, the swans of Manassa were anciently in Couroukchetra [***] Brahmans instructed in the Vedas: in this long voyage why then do you remain behind?" At these words Brahmadatta remained speechless, as well as his two friends Pantchala and Candarica. Seeing the one let fall the reins and the standard, and the other the royal fan, the spectators and courtiers were struck with astonishment. In a moment, the king elevated upon the car with his two companions, recovered his senses and continued his route. But all three recalling to [p. 13] mind the borders of the sacred lake, recovered at the same time their ancient sentiments of devotion. They loaded with riches the Brahman, giving him precious stones and other presents. Brahmadatta yielded his throne to Viswaksena, and caused him to be crowned king: as for him, he retired into the forest with his wife. There the pious daughter of Devala, Sannati, happy to give herself only to devotion, said to her husband: "O great king, I knew very well that you were acquainted with the language of the ants; but by feigning anger, I wished to warn you that you were in the chains of the passions. We are going now to follow the sublime road which is the object of our desires. It is I who have reawakened in you this love of devotion which was there only slumbering." The prince was charmed at this discourse of his wife: and by means of devotion, to which he consecrated himself with all the forces of his soul he entered into that superior way to which it is difficult to arrive. Candarica, animated by the same zeal, was as able in the science of the Sankhya as in that of the Yoga, and purified by his works, he obtained perfection and the mysterious union with God. Pantchala labored to explain the rules of the holy law, and applied himself to develop all the precepts of pronunciation; he was master in the divine art of devotion, and by his penitence he acquired a high glory. Footnotes ^3:* Worship offered to the Pitris or fathers. ^4:* An act of piety in which the penitent collects himself, and holds his breath, until the prayer which he repeats mentally is ended. ^5:* An exercise of penance or extreme devotion. ^8:* The Elysium of Indra. ^9:* A spiritual teacher. ^10:* That is, they died to be born no more on earth. ^12:* A fly-flap made of the tail of a Tartary cow. ^12:** A part of India.