Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/147

 And in keeping with this is the following which I have heard from the lips of Brahman priests:—

"Let us suppose the case of a youth, capable, eager for knowledge, the quickest, strongest, most powerful of all youths, and that to him should belong the world with all its treasures. That would be a human joy. But a hundred human joys are but as one joy of the heavenly genii; and a hundred joys of the heavenly genii are but as one joy of the gods; and a hundred joys of the gods are but as one joy of the Indra; and a hundred joys of the Indra are but as one joy of the Prajapati; and a hundred joys of the Prajapati are but as one joy of the Brahman. This is the supreme joy, this is the path to the supreme joy."

"Yes, O pilgrim, just as if there stood there an inexperienced child, incapable of sensible reasoning. This child feels in his tooth a burning, boring, stabbing pain, and runs to an eminent and learned physician and pours out his troubles to him. 'I beg thee, honoured sir, to give me by thy skill, a feeling of blissful rapture in place of this pain at present in my tooth.' And the physician answers, 'My dear child, the sole aim of my skill is the removal of pain.' But the spoilt child begins to wail, 'Oh! I have so long endured a burning, stabbing, boring pain in my tooth; is it then not most reasonable that I should now enjoy in its stead a feeling of rapture, of delicious pleasure? And there do exist, as I have heard, learned and experienced physicians whose skill goes so far, and I believed that thou wert one of these.' And then this foolish child runs to a quack, a miracle-worker from the land of the Gandharer, a 'cheap Jack,' who causes the following announcement to be made by a town-crier to the accompaniment of drums and conches: 'Health is the greatest of all gifts, health is