[harvkv] PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY 247 



odours, to which tangibility attaches. Air, in transformation, gave 

 light, which dissipates darkness, and introduced the property of colour. 

 Light, transforming, produced water, with the property of taste, and 

 water earth, with that of smell. ^ 



The lapse of time since the creation began is put in this way. The 

 age of the Gods multiplied by 71 is a period of Manoa (853,000 years?) 

 and these periods are innumerable, the creations and destructions of the 

 ^rorld. The Supreme Being repeats them ad infinitum, as a child at 

 play. 



Laws follow, in great number, respecting caste. In everything 

 the Brahmin is supreme, the Soudra the meanest slave. Superiority 

 is given among the Brahmins by knowledge, among the Kshatriyas by 

 courage, among Vaisyas by riches, among Soudras by nothing but age. 

 This book of Manou is prescribed as the chief subject for Brahminical 

 study, and, among other matters, it treats of transmigration, which is 

 of three kinds, resulting from works, good or bad, and the end of all 

 is final deliverance, when the sioul needs no further purifying and has 

 not to suffer again the labours and pains of re-incarnation. 



Rules of conduot are strictly prescribed,. Of students, the code 

 says one should not speak without being spoken to, or answer irrelevant 

 or misplaced questions. Even when well knowing the subject a wise 

 man will behave as one of a simple mind. It declares that those who 

 are qualified should not disseminate knowledge where there are not 

 the requisite virtues, riches or obedience — any more than one should 

 sow grain in barren land — and it is bett(^ for one who can interpret 

 the Veda to die with his knowledge than to scatter it on sterile soil. 



We get nothing as to the end of the world until we take up a 

 somewhat later book, the Visna Purana, where we learn that the end 

 is to come through fire, and this is acknowledged by all authorities to 

 be one of the myths common to all the branches of the Aryan race. 

 We find it, e.g., in the Norse Eddas. In Snorre Sturleson% 1178-1201, 

 there is a winter of the world as well as its combustion. In the 

 latter, Surtr throws fire on it, the sun is darkened, the stars fall, vapours 

 and fire whirl and lick up the very skies, while the earth sinks below 

 the sea. Heraclitus and the Stoics held the same doctrine, though 

 they did not express it in such lurid words. The Aryan Gauls believed 

 it — teste Cœsare. .The second Epistle of St. Peter, in our scriptures, 

 shows how deeply it filtered even into Jewish thought. 



Incidentally we may glance at Buddhism. The extremely rigid 



rule of Brahminism naturally brought forth rebellion, and a great 



ascetic, one Sakyamouni (the wise man among the Sakya family), a 



* Cf. Thaïes, who said the earth was formed by a precipitate from water. 



