Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/43

 Chap. 1.]

THE BRAHMIN CASTE.

1

MmiM'

Punch Agnee, or Penance of Five Fires. — From Belnos' "Sindhya,"or

Daily Prayers of the Brahmins.

'•■green lierbs, flowers, roots, and fruits," breaking 'hard fruits with a stone," or a.d. —

letting "his teeth serve as a pestle," and to torture himself by various inflictions,

such as standing a whole day on tiptoe, in the hot season sitting exposed to five Tiurd stage

... 77' -i,"^ *^^^ Brah-

fires — that is, as the commentators explain it, four hlazmg around him with mius life. the sun above — in the rainy season standing un- covered while the clouds pour down showers, and in the cold season wear- ing a humid vesture. This discipline having been increased gi'adually by harsher and harsher mortifications, so as to " diy up his bodily frame," he concludes his third stage by living "without external fire, without a mansion, wholly silent, sleeping on the bare earth, in the haunts of pious hermits, without one selfish afl*ection ; dwelling at the roots of trees, and meditating especially on those chapters of the Veda which treat of the essence and attributes of God. Should these austerities, as is certainly not improbable, destroy his health and terminate in an incurable disease, the injunction is that he is to "advance in a straight path toward the invincible point, feeding on water and air, till his mortal frame totally decay, and his soul become united with the Supreme," for, it is added, "a Brahmin having shufiied off" his body by any of those modes which great sages practised, and becoming void of sorrow and fear, rises to exaltation in the divine essence."

If the Brahmin survived the rigours of the forest life, he entered upon the Fourth stage fourth and last stage, in which, without quitting his solitude, he was to be exempted from all external observances, and spend his remaining years in pre- paring, by pious meditation, for absorption into the divine essence. " Delighted with meditating on the Supreme Spii'it, sitting fixed in such meditation, without needing anything earthly, without one sensual desire, without any companion but his own soul, let him live in this world, seeking the bliss of the next." "Let him not wish for death ; let him not wish for life ; let him expect his appointed time, as a hired servant expects his wages.'" His body, described as "a mansion with bones for its rafters and beams ; with nerves and tendons for cords ; with muscles and blood for mortar; with skin for its outward covering— a mansion infested by age and by sorrow, the seat of malady, harassed with pains, haunted with the quality of darkness, and incapable of standing long," let him cheerfully quit " as a tree leaves the bank of a river when it falls in, or as a bird leaves the branch of a tree at his pleasure."