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not attempt freely to impart a knowledge of them to all man- kind. No man's light is lessened because his neighbour's candle is lighted, and goodness should not grudge to others a portion of the happiness which it enjoys. Yet you distinctly agreed with Sad^nanda, that it was improfitable, if not wrong, to give all men a knowledge of the sacred books of your faith." " How far it is wrong,'' replied Vidydchdrya, " ought to be settled by those sacred books from which the knowledge of our reli/rion proceeds; and it might suffice to observe, that we are f r))idden in the Rig- Veda to give a knowledge of its contents to a Sudra, But it is more in accordance with my own disposition to remark, that the attempt to raise the mere masses of men, in the manner you recommend, has not been successful. So far indeed as very gross and dangerous errors are concerned, the great San- cara exerted himself with more than human wisdom and energy to root them out; you can scarcely be ignorant, how for ex- ample he refuted the worshippers of Sakti, or the mere female principle in nature, as well as the Sauras, the Chdrv^cas, and if it were not for the Miini who is present, I might truly add the Saugatas. In short, it may be said that every heresy of his time was refuted by him, and that his own doctrine was alike pure and lofty, being a revelation of Brahm, or the eternal spirit, as the one cause and supreme ruler of the world. But * in the present impure age,' he said, * the bud of wisdom being blighted by iniquity, men are unable to apprehend pure unity ; they will be apt therefore again to follow the dictates of their own fancies, and it is necessary for the preservation of the world, and the maintenance of civil and religious distinctions, to acknowledge those modifications of the divine spirit which are the work of the supreme .' These reflexions having occurred to Sancara, he sanctioned the many varieties of worship which may be found innocently subsisting among us. The reason however of such sanction, you see, is the necessity which arises from the ignorance or fancifulness of mankind." ^ The passAge is quoted in Wilson*B ffindCt Sects, Calcutta, 1846. UNITY OP SOUL. 81 ^^ Bat is this reason so invincible as you suppose ?'' here again asked Blancombe ; " or how does such a notion agree with what I understood of your doctrine that all men come from God, and to him, I think you said, they return ? Can there be any radical or insuperable difference between persons of one origin, and perhaps of a destiny ultimately alike? Or, are we to retract this doc- trine of the unity of the human race, inasmuch as we despair of a large part of it?" " Your question implies," answered Vidyi- ohirya, '' that there is some inconsistency in deducing all manr kind from the divine Being, and again, in making a difference between them. We do however the first, because religion teaches us so, and the second, because experience compels us. Many men appear bom into this world under a necessity of sinning and suffering, as the just consequence of their guilt in some former state of existence ; and hence they differ widely from those who by holy living had already almost attained libera- tion {m6c8ha)y and who perhaps are only travelling with pure feet the last stage before their deliverance from earthly life, and their absorption into Spiritual Being. Yet there is nothing in the isjcX of such difference to interfere with the identity of their original source. In a thousand drops of water you may find a thousand degrees of purity or of muddiness ; yet they may come nevertheless from one fountain, and be slowly or quickly filtering again into the ocean. Just then as one water may be sprinkled in many different-coloured vessels, or as one string may support many beads of coral, thus one soul is diffused through many forms of nature, and supports the bodies of all living things. Or again, as the Moon, though but one, appear^ multiform in many vessels of water ; thus in all living things^ movable or immovable, dweUs only one soul, by which this universe was spread out. It is one alike in the Brahman, the worm, and the insect; in the Ch&nd4la, the dog, and the elephant ; nor is it deprived of its identity in the goat or the cow, the gadfly, or the gnat. Yet these humbler creatures no one, I suppose, blames us for not teaching: on the same principle, M.P. 6 82 SOUL AND LIFE. then, among men, it is no defect in our religion that the Mlechha differs from the Brahman, or that vicious persons obscure with impurities that in which they participate of the divine soul. Yet for doing so, they will render each man his account." " Are we then to understand from you," asked Blancombe, " that the one divine soul dwells actually in brute creatures, or perhaps by soul do you only mean what we call life, and therefore possibly you assert a certain similarity or unity in kind of the vital principle everywhere?" " If you prefer," answered Vidyi^ ch&ya, " to mean by soul merely ^iVcftmrf, or the vital principle of animated beings, certainly I shall be slow to contradict you ; but the doctrine of the Ved6nta-s&ra, and, as we believe, of the Vedas, is very different. Not but that I know Madhwa Achiiya, though a great teacher, erred in this point, for he distinguished between jiv£tm£ and Paramdtmi in such a way as to make life different from soul, and communicated to matter by God, therefore so far indissolubly connected with him, but still not identical with him. ' As the bird and the string,' said Madhwa, 'as juices and trees, as rivers and oceans, as fresh water and salt, as man and the objects of sense, so are Grod and life distinct, and both are ever imdefinable/ " " What you say of Madhwa," here remarked Blancombe, '^ makes me desire hereafter to learn more of him ; but at present it will be more agreeable that you should proceed to explain how you differ from his doctrine, which appears at first sound not to be an unreasonable one." " We then on the contrary hold," proceeded Vidydchkrya, *^ that whatever is the internal check in man, and whatever is seeing in man, and whatever is breathing in any man or animal, and whatever is etherial above, and whatever is light in heaven or earth, must each be truly and in its innermost being soul, and soul is in one word Grod* ; for it can be nothing less, since all things * Slightly varied, but essenti&lly the same, is the doctrine of the Bhagavat- pitk, in which part of Crishna's speech has been prettily tendered : I am the Best ; from me all beings spring, And rest on me, like pearls upon their string; IDENTITY IN CHANGE. 83 save itself axe inferior to it, and it can be nothing greater, for Grod is the greatest of all things," " But when you say," asked Blaneombe, "that all other things are inferior to soul, you admit a difference in things. Does it not then appear strange to you that such vast diversities and differences of objects should all contain one identity, and that the most divine ? When some beings are ignorant, and animals brutish, and light is ex- tinguished before our eyes often, does not it become manifest that Gk)d cannot be in all, for their qualities are not such as you would ascribe to Him?" "You have exactly hit," said Vidy6ch&rya, " the same objection as Madhwa, only he applied it more to the future. He argued that 'from the difference between omniscience and partial knowledge, omnipotence and inferior power, supremacy and subservience, the union of Gk)d and life cannot take place.' But then he must have failed to notice, that cause and effect are often dissimilar; yet you see hair and nails, which are without sense, grow from a sentient body; and vermin which have life spring every day from sub- stances without life. The same food is transmuted in the animal firame into all sorts of flesh, blood, and bone ; so the same soil produces different plants, and the vast bosom of earth, which is one, becomes pregnant with every variety of vegetable and mineraL There is nothing therefore absurd in saying, that as milk changes into curd, and water into ice, so spirit assumes different shapes ; and as the spider spins a thread, such as you might not expect, out of its own substance, so Brahm, being omnipotent, puts forth the world and all that it contains, in I am the moisture in the moying stream. In fun and moon the bright essential beam; The Mystic Word in Scripture's holy page.