Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/286

 THE WILL IN NATURE.

to take in the impressions of the activity of the world; the mucous membrane of the intestinal canal develops into the lung, because the organic body desires to enter into relation with the elementary substances of the universe; organs of generation spring from the vascular system, because the individual only lives in the species, and because the life which has commenced in the individual desires to multiply." This assertion of Burdach's, which so entirely agrees with my doctrine, reminds me of a passage in the ancient Mahabharata, which it is really difficult not to regard as a mythical version of the same truth. It is in the third Canto of "Sundas and Upasunda" in Bopp's Ardschunas Reise zu Indras Himmel, nebst anderen Episoden des Mahabharata, 1 (1824); Brahma has just created Tilottama, the fairest of women, who is walking round the circle of the assembled gods. Shiva conceives so violent a longing to gaze at her as she turns successively round the circle, that four faces arise in him according to her different positions, that is, according to the four cardinal points. This may account for Shiva being represented with five heads, as Pansh Mukhti Shiva. Countless eyes arise on every part of Indra's body likewise on the same occasion. 2 In fact, every organ must be looked upon as the expression of a universal manifestation of the will, i.e. of one made once for all, of a fixed longing, of an act of volition proceeding, not from

1 Bopp, Ardschunas Reise zu Indras Himmel, nebst anderen Episoden des Mahabharata [Ardshuna's Journey to Indra's Heaven, together with other episodes from the Mahabharata], 1824.

2 The Matsya Purana attributes a similar origin to Brahma's four countenances. It relates that, having fallen in love with his daughter Satarupa, and gazed fixedly at her, she stepped aside to avoid his eye; he being ashamed, would not follow her movement whereupon a new face arose on him directed towards the side where she was and, on her once more moving, the same thing occurred, and was repeated, until at last he had four faces. (Asiatic Researches, vol. 6, p. 473.) [Add. to 3rd ed.]

COMPARATIVE