Researches Concerning the Laws, Theology, Learning, Commerce, Etc. of Ancient and Modern India, Volume 1

Front Cover
T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1817 - 378 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 174 - Let us adore the supremacy of that divine sun, the godhead who illuminates all, who recreates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understandings aright in our progress towards his holy seat.
Page 32 - In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the creator, at the close of which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself. " And from its two divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth beneath; in the midst he placed the subtile ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters.
Page 169 - God, the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments have been esteemed useful engines of government.
Page 28 - ... a spirit of sublime devotion, of benevolence to mankind, and of amiable tenderness to all sentient creatures, pervades the whole work ; the style of it has a certain austere majesty, that sounds like the language of legislation and extorts a respectful awe; the sentiments of independence on all beings but GOD, and the harsh admonitions even to kings, are truly noble...
Page 207 - There is a strong propensity, which dances through every atom, and attracts the minutest particle to some peculiar object; search this universe from its base to its summit, from fire to air, from water to earth, from all below the moon, to all above the celestial spheres, and thou wilt not find a corpuscle destitute of that natural attractibility...
Page 175 - Perfect truth ; perfect happiness ; without equal; immortal; absolute unity; whom neither speech can describe, nor mind comprehend; all-pervading; all-transcending; delighted with his own boundless intelligence, not limited by space, or time ; without feet, moving swiftly; without hands, grasping all worlds ; without eyes...
Page 154 - Rheede has exhibited in a coarse delineation of its leaves only — its flowers, in their perfect state, are among the loveliest objects in the vegetable world ; and appear, through a lens, like minute rubies and emeralds in constant motion from the least breath of air. It is the sweetest and most nutritious pasture for cattle ; and its usefulness added to its beauty induced the Hindus, in their earliest ages, to believe that it was the mansion of a benevolent nymph.
Page 31 - The waters are called nara, because they were the production of Nara, or the spirit of God ; and since they were his first ayana, or place of motion, he thence is named Narayana, or moving on the waters.
Page 184 - They one and all believe in the unity of the Godhead, and although they hold images in high veneration, yet they are by no means idolaters, as the ignorant suppose.
Page 130 - ... has been sanctified and divinized to a greater extent than in any other part of the world. "It seems never to have entered into the heads of the Hindu legislators," said Sir William Jones long since (Works, vol.

Bibliographic information