or BRACHMINS, the highest caste of Hindoos, to whom is
confined the priesthood, and, in general, all their ancient learning,
which is locked up in their sacred language, called the Sanscrit. The
Brahmins derive that name from Brahma, the Creator; for they maintain
the doctrine of three embodied energies, the creative, the preserving,
and the destroying; personified under the names of Brahma, Vishnu, and
Shiva, all sprung from Brimh; and to each of them is assigned a kind of
celestial consort, a female deity, which they describe as a passive
energy.
Like the philosophers of Greece, they seem to have had an open and a
secret doctrine: the latter, a species of Spinozism, considering the
great Supreme as “the soul of the world;” endowed with no other quality
than ubiquity; requiring no worship, and exerting no power, but in the
production of the three great energies above mentioned. These are so
ingeniously diversified as to produce three hundred and thirty millions
of gods, or objects of idolatry; so various in character as to suit
every man’s taste or humour, and to furnish examples of every vice and
folly to which humanity is subject.
As it respects a future state, two of the principal doctrines of
Brachminism are transmigration and absorption. After death, the person
is conveyed, by the messengers of Yumu, through the air to the place of
judgment. After receiving his sentence, he wanders about the earth for
twelve months, as an aërial being or ghost; and then takes a body suited
to his future condition, whether he ascend to the gods, or suffer in a
new body, or be hurled into some hell. This is the doctrine of several
“pooranus;” others maintain, that immediately after death and judgment,
the person suffers the pains of hell, and removes his sin by suffering;
and then returns to the earth in some bodily form. The descriptions
which the “pooranus” give of the heavens of the gods are truly in the
eastern style; all things, even the beds of the gods, are made of gold
and precious stones. All the pleasures of these heavens are exactly what
we should expect in a system formed by uninspired and unrenewed men:
like the paradise of Mohammed, they are brothels, rather than places of
rewards for “the pure in heart.” Here all the vicious passions are
personified, or rather, deified: the quarrels and licentious intrigues
of the gods fill these places with perpetual uproar, while their
impurities are described with the same literality and gross detail, as
similar things are talked of among these idolaters on earth.
But the highest degree of happiness is absorption. God, as separated
from matter, the Hindoos contemplate as a being reposing in his own
happiness, destitute of ideas; as infinite placidity; as an unruffled
sea of bliss; as being perfectly abstracted, and void of consciousness.
They therefore deem it the height of perfection to be like this being.
Hence Krishnu, in his discourse to Urjoonu, praises the man “who
forsaketh every desire that entereth into his heart; who is happy of
himself; who is without affection; who rejoiceth not either in good or
evil; who, like the tortoise, can restrain his members from their wonted
purpose; to whom pleasure and pain, gold, iron, and stones are the
same.” “The learned,” adds Krushnu, “behold Brumhu alike in the reverend
‘branhun,’ perfected in knowledge; in the ox, and in the elephant; in
the dog, and in him who eateth of the flesh of dogs.” The person whose
very nature, say they, is absorbed in divine meditation; whose life is
like a sweet sleep, unconscious and undisturbed; who does not even
desire God, and who is thus changed into the image of the ever blessed;
obtains absorption into Brumhu. The ceremonies leading to absorption are
called by the name of “tupushya” and the persons performing them, a
“tupushwee.” Forsaking the world; retiring to a forest; fasting, living
on roots, fruits, &c;--remaining in certain postures; exposure to all
the inclemencies of the weather, &c; these, and many other austere
practices are prescribed, to subdue the passions, to fix the mind,
habituate it to meditation, and fill it with that serenity and
indifference to the world which is to prepare it for absorption, and
place it beyond the reach of future birth.
confined the priesthood, and, in general, all their ancient learning,
which is locked up in their sacred language, called the Sanscrit. The
Brahmins derive that name from Brahma, the Creator; for they maintain
the doctrine of three embodied energies, the creative, the preserving,
and the destroying; personified under the names of Brahma, Vishnu, and
Shiva, all sprung from Brimh; and to each of them is assigned a kind of
celestial consort, a female deity, which they describe as a passive
energy.
Like the philosophers of Greece, they seem to have had an open and a
secret doctrine: the latter, a species of Spinozism, considering the
great Supreme as “the soul of the world;” endowed with no other quality
than ubiquity; requiring no worship, and exerting no power, but in the
production of the three great energies above mentioned. These are so
ingeniously diversified as to produce three hundred and thirty millions
of gods, or objects of idolatry; so various in character as to suit
every man’s taste or humour, and to furnish examples of every vice and
folly to which humanity is subject.
As it respects a future state, two of the principal doctrines of
Brachminism are transmigration and absorption. After death, the person
is conveyed, by the messengers of Yumu, through the air to the place of
judgment. After receiving his sentence, he wanders about the earth for
twelve months, as an aërial being or ghost; and then takes a body suited
to his future condition, whether he ascend to the gods, or suffer in a
new body, or be hurled into some hell. This is the doctrine of several
“pooranus;” others maintain, that immediately after death and judgment,
the person suffers the pains of hell, and removes his sin by suffering;
and then returns to the earth in some bodily form. The descriptions
which the “pooranus” give of the heavens of the gods are truly in the
eastern style; all things, even the beds of the gods, are made of gold
and precious stones. All the pleasures of these heavens are exactly what
we should expect in a system formed by uninspired and unrenewed men:
like the paradise of Mohammed, they are brothels, rather than places of
rewards for “the pure in heart.” Here all the vicious passions are
personified, or rather, deified: the quarrels and licentious intrigues
of the gods fill these places with perpetual uproar, while their
impurities are described with the same literality and gross detail, as
similar things are talked of among these idolaters on earth.
But the highest degree of happiness is absorption. God, as separated
from matter, the Hindoos contemplate as a being reposing in his own
happiness, destitute of ideas; as infinite placidity; as an unruffled
sea of bliss; as being perfectly abstracted, and void of consciousness.
They therefore deem it the height of perfection to be like this being.
Hence Krishnu, in his discourse to Urjoonu, praises the man “who
forsaketh every desire that entereth into his heart; who is happy of
himself; who is without affection; who rejoiceth not either in good or
evil; who, like the tortoise, can restrain his members from their wonted
purpose; to whom pleasure and pain, gold, iron, and stones are the
same.” “The learned,” adds Krushnu, “behold Brumhu alike in the reverend
‘branhun,’ perfected in knowledge; in the ox, and in the elephant; in
the dog, and in him who eateth of the flesh of dogs.” The person whose
very nature, say they, is absorbed in divine meditation; whose life is
like a sweet sleep, unconscious and undisturbed; who does not even
desire God, and who is thus changed into the image of the ever blessed;
obtains absorption into Brumhu. The ceremonies leading to absorption are
called by the name of “tupushya” and the persons performing them, a
“tupushwee.” Forsaking the world; retiring to a forest; fasting, living
on roots, fruits, &c;--remaining in certain postures; exposure to all
the inclemencies of the weather, &c; these, and many other austere
practices are prescribed, to subdue the passions, to fix the mind,
habituate it to meditation, and fill it with that serenity and
indifference to the world which is to prepare it for absorption, and
place it beyond the reach of future birth.