1832.] Analysis of the Purdnas. 221 



peculiar heaven or Goloka, of the holy Rishi Narayana, and of his 

 residence. The style and purport of the whole are peculiar to this 

 Purdna, and similar to the address of the deities, cited above. 

 Goloka is said to be situated 500 millions of Yojanas above the Lokas 

 of Siva and Vishnu. It is a sphere of light, tenanted by Gopas, 

 Gopis, and cows ; the only human persons admissible to its delights 

 are pure Vaishnavas, the faithful votaries of Krishna. It appears, 

 however, that the author of this Purdna, who in all probability is the 

 inventor of Goloka, had no very precise notions of his own work, as 

 he calls it in one place square, and in another round ; and whilst he 

 is content in one passage to give it the moderate diameter of 30 millions 

 of Yojanas, he extends its circumference in another to a thousand 

 millions. 



The next section of this Purdna, is also of a peculiar character. 

 It relates to Prakriti, the passive agent in creation, personified matter, 

 or the goddess nature. The Purdnas, in general, follow in regard to 

 their cosmogony the Sdnkhya school of philosophy, in which Pra- 

 kriti is thus described : Prakriti or Mula Prakriti is the root or 

 plastic origin of all, termed Pradhdna, the chief one, the universal 

 material cause. It is eternal matter, undiscrete, undistinguishable as 

 destitute of parts, inferrible from its effects, being productive, but no 

 production. 



According to the same system, the soul is termed Purush or Pu- 

 mdn, which means man or male ; but the Sdnkhya doctrine is two- 

 fold, one atheistical, the other theistical. The former defines the 

 soul to be neither produced nor productive, not operating upon matter, 

 but independent and co-existent ; the latter identifies soul with Iswara, 

 or God, who is infinite and eternal, and who rules over the world : 

 and it is to this latter system, that the Purdnas appertain, only in 

 this Jswara they recognise the peculiar object of their devotion, which- 

 ever of the Hindd triad that may be, or even as in the work before us, 

 superadding a fourth in Krishna, who is every where else regarded 

 but as a manifestation of Vishnu, and in a remarkable passage of the 

 Mahdbharat is said to be no more than an Avatar of a hair plucked 

 from the head of that divinity. 



In the true spirit of mythology, which is fully as much poetical as 

 religious, the figure of prosopopeia is carried by the Hindus to its utmost 

 verge ; and we need not wonder therefore to find spirit and matter con- 

 verted by the Paurdnic bards into male and female personifications, with 

 the attributes adapted to eiiher sex, or derived from the original source 

 of either representation. Prakriti is consequently held to be not only the 



