Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/354

 bute to its connotation in this period, viz., that of being a believer in the truths of one or other of these Darsanas, or of one or other of the three antiBrahmanical schisms. And with this we must take leave of the great Darsana sages and come to the period of the Puranas.

IV. The subtleties of the Darsanas were certainly too hard for ordinary minds and some popular exposition of the basic ideas of philosophy and religion was indeed very urgently required. And this necessity began to be felt the more keenly as Sanskrit began to die out as a speaking language and the people to decline in intelligence, in consequence of frequent inroads from abroad. No idea more happy could have been conceived at this stage than that of devising certain tales and fables calculated at once to catch the imagination and enlist the faith of even the most ignorant, and at the same time to suggest to the initiated a clear outline of the secret doctrine of old. It is exactly because Orientalists don't understand this double aspect of Pauranika myths that they amuse themselves with philogical quibbles and talk of the religion of the Puranas as something entirely puerile and not deserving the name of religion. We ought, however, to bear in mind that the Puranas are closely connected with the Vedas, the Sutras, and the Darsanas, and all they claim to accomplish is a popular exposition of the basic ideas of philosophy, religion, and morality set forth in them. In other words, the Puranas are nothing more nor less than broad, clear commentaries on the ancient teaching of the Vedas. For example, it is not because Vyasa, the author of the Puranas, forgot that Vishnu was the name of the sun in the Veda that he talked of a separate god of that name in the Puranas, endowing him with all mortal attributes. This is how the Orientalistic method of interpretation would dispose of the question. The Hindus have better confidence in the insight of Vyasa, and could at once see that inasmuch as he knew perfectly well what part the sun plays in the evolution, maintenance, and dissolution of the world, he represented him symbolically as God Vishnu, the all-pervading, with Laksimi, a personification of the life and prosperity which emanate from the sun for his comfort, with the anauta—popularly the snake of that name, but esoterically the endless circle of eternity—for his couch, and with the eagle, representing the many antaric cycle, for his vehicle. There is in this one symbol sufficient material for the ignorant to build their faith upon and nourish the religious sentiment, and for the initiate to see in it the true secret of Vedic religion. And this nature of the Puranas is an indirect proof that the Vedas are not mere poetical effusions of primitive man nor a conglomeration of solar myths disguised in different shapes.

The cycles just referred to put me in mind of another aspect of Puranika mythology. The theory of cycles known as Kalpas, Manvantaras, and Yugas is clearly set forth in the Puranas and appears to make exorbitant demands upon our credulity. The Kalpa of the Puranas is a cycle of 4,320,000,000 years, and the world continues in activity for one Kalpa, after which