Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/228

 "Not so," he answered, "for thou canst grant me no peace. It were well for thee if thou didst suffer thyself to receive peace from me."

As he thus spoke, he turned round, and motioned to me with a friendly gesture to approach.

"Willingly, Reverend Sir," I humbly said.

"Listen, then, and pay good attention."

He sat down in the shadow of a large tree, and bade me seat myself at his feet. And he began to teach me of good and evil deeds and of their consequences, all the while explaining everything fully as when one speaks to a child. For I was, of course, quite uneducated, whereas the pupils of ascetics are, as a rule, Brahman youths who even know the Veda. I, however, had never listened to speech so fraught with deep thought since I sat in the forest by night at the feet of Vajaçravas, of whom I have already spoken to thee, and whose name thou hast, I imagine, heard from others also.

But when this ascetic now revealed to me that no arbitrary heavenly power, but our own hearts alone, with the thoughts and deeds emanating from these, cause us to be born now here, now there, at one time on earth, at another in heaven, and then again in hell—I could not help thinking of that Vajaçravas and of the way in which he had proved to us by reasons of common sense, and by reference to the sacred writings, that there could be no hell-punishments, and that all the passages in the sacred writings having reference to such had been interpolated by weak and cowardly souls in order that by such threats they might terrify the strong and courageous, and protect themselves from the violence of the latter. "Friend Vajaçravas was never," I thought, "able to convince me quite. I wonder whether this ascetic will be able to do so. Here stands, as a matter of fact, opinion against