Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/139

 120 Fragm* LIV. t^seudo-Origen, Philosoph, 24, ed. Delarue, Paris, 1783, vol. I. p. 904. 0/ the Brdhmana and their Philosophy, (Of. Fragm* xli., xliv., xlv.) Of the Brachhmoms in In^ia, There is among the Brachhmans in India a sect of philosophers who adopt an independent life» and ahstain from animal food and all victuals cooked by fire, being content to subsist upon fruits, which they do not so much as gather from the trees, but pick up when they have dropped to the ground, and their drink is the water of the river T a g a b e n a-t Throughout life they go about naked, saying that the body has been given by the Deity as a covering for the soul. J They hold that God is light, § but not such light as we see t Probably the Sanskpt Tnn^venfi, now the Tnnga^ bhadra, a large affluent of the Krishnft. % Vide Ind, Ant vol. V. p. 128, note f, A doctrine of the Ved&nta school of philosophy, according to which the soul is incased as in a sheath, or rather a succession of sheaths^ The first or inner case is the intellectual one, composed of the sheer and simple elements uncombined, and consisting of the intellect joined with the five senses. The second is the mental sheath, in which mind is joined with the pre- ceding, or, as some hold, with the organs of action. The third comprises these organs and the vital faculties, and is called the organic or vital case. These three sheaths {koSa) constitute the subtle frame which attends the soul in its transmigrations. The exterior case is composed of the coarse elements combined in certain proportions, and is called the gross body. See Golebrooke's Essa/y on the Philosophy of the Hivmus, Cowell's ed. pp. 395-6. § The affinity between Grod and light is the burden of the OoMatri or hobest verse of the Veda. Digitized by Google