102 Mr. H. T. Colebrooke on the Philosophy of the Hindus. 



Organic aqueous bodies are beings abiding in the realm of Varuna. The 

 organ of taste is aqueous : witness the saliva. Unorganic waters are rivers, 

 seas, rain, snow, hail, &c. 



It is by some maintained, that hail is pure water rendered solid by super- 

 vention of an unseen virtue : others imagine its solidity to be owing to 

 mixture of earthy particles. 



3. Light is coloured, and illumines other substances ; and to the feel, is 

 hot : which is its distinguishing quality. It is defined as a substance hot 

 to the feel. [Heat, then, and light, are identified as one substance.] 



It has the qualities of earth, except smell, taste, and gravity. It is eternal, 

 as atoms ; not so, as aggregates. 



Organic luminous bodies are beings abiding in the solar realm. The 

 visual ray, which is the organ of sight, is lucid [see organs of perception]. 

 Unorganic light is reckoned fourfold : earthy, celestial, alvine, and mineral. 

 Another distinction concerns sight and feel ; as light or heat may be either 

 latent or manifest, in respect of both sight and feel, or differently in regard 

 to either. Thus fire is both seen and felt ; the heat of hot water is felt, but 

 not seen ; moonshine is seen, but not felt ; the visual ray is neither seen 

 nor felt. Terrestrious light is that, of which the fuel is earthy, as fire. 

 Celestial is that, of whicli the fuel is watery, as lightning, and meteors of 

 various sorts. Alvine is that, of which the fuel is both earthy and watery : 

 it is intestinal, which digests food and drink. Mineral is that, which is 

 found in pits, as gold. For some maintain that gold is solid light ; or, at 

 least that the chief ingredient is light, which is rendered solid by mixture 

 with some particles of earth. Were it mere earth, it might be calcined by 

 fire strongly urged. Its light is not latent, but overpowered by the colour 

 of the earthy particles mixed with it. In the Mimdmd, however, it is 

 reckoned a distinct substance, as before observed. 



4. Air is a colourless substance, sensible to the feel : being temperate 

 (neither hot, nor cold). Besides this its distinguishing quality, it has the 

 same common qualities with light, except fluidity (that is, number, quantity, 

 individuality, conjunction, disjunction, priority, subsequence, and faculty of 

 elasticity and velocity). 



Its existence, as a distinct substance, is inferred from feeling. The 

 wind, that blows, is apprehended as temperate, independently of the influence 

 of li"-ht : and this temperature, which is a quality, implies a substratum ; 

 for it cannot subsist without one : that substratum is air ; different from 



