Rudra: A Romance of Ancient India

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G.W. Dillingham Company, 1912 - 447 pages

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Page 429 - From every sentence deep, original, and sublime thoughts arise and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest spirit. ... In the whole world there is no study, except that of the originals, so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death.
Page 223 - That Self cannot be gained by the Veda, nor by understanding, nor by much learning. He whom the Self chooses, by him the Self can be gained.
Page 430 - There is no suffering for him who has finished his journey, and abandoned grief, who has freed himself on all sides, and thrown off all fetters.
Page 438 - ... like the present one, to old age, decay, and death ; and affording opportunity, like the present one, for the commission of errors, ignorances, or sins, which in their turn must inevitably produce their due effect of sickness, disability, or woe. Thus is the soul tossed about from life to life, from billow to billow in the great ocean of transmigration. And there is no escape save for the very few, who, during their birth as men, attain to a right knowledge of the Great Spirit : and thus enter...
Page 436 - That the manifestation of the tendencies of a character may be greatly facilitated, or impeded, by conditions, of which self-discipline, or the absence of it, are among the most important, is indubitable; but that the character itself is modified in this way is by no means so certain ; it is not so sure that the transmitted character of an evil liver is worse, or that of a righteous man better, than that which he received. Indian philosophy, however...
Page 441 - But he, forsooth, who is sanctified by a few only of these forty sacraments, and whose soul is endowed with the eight excellent qualities, will be united with Brahman, and will dwell in his heaven.
Page 438 - Those whose conduct has been good, will quickly attain some good birth, the birth of a Brahmana, or a Kshatriya, or a Vaisya. But those whose conduct has been evil, will quickly attain an evil birth, the birth of a dog, or a hog, or a Kandala.
Page 436 - It is this karma which passed from life to life and linked them in the chain of transmigrations; and they held that it is modified in each life, not merely by confluence of parentage, but by its own acts.
Page 346 - ... attracted to the vice of gambling ? I am almost deprived of my sense, O King, and my heart is overwhelmed with grief, beholding this thy distress and this thy calamity : An old history is cited as an illustration for the truth that men are subjects to the will of God and never to their own wishes. The Supreme lord and ordainer of all ordaineth everything in respect of the weal and woe, the happiness and misery, of all creatures, even prior to their births, guided by the acts of each, which are...
Page 432 - Veda, of a male who is desirous of (and can make use of) sacred knowledge. 10. A Brahmawa declares that the Gayatrl is learnt for the sake of all the (three) Vedas. 1 1. (Coming) out of darkness, he indeed enters darkness, whom a man unlearned in the Vedas, initiates, and (so does he) who, without being learned in the Vedas, (performs the rite of initiation.) That...

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