538 Analysis of the Pur anas. [D 



EC. 



the Vedas; it comprises the legendary origin of Natmisharanya, and 

 the occasion of the assemblage of the Rishis at that place, and concludes 

 with an account of the incarnations of Siva, which, if we may judge 

 from the way in which that subject is treated in the Kurma Parana, 

 is the succession of teachers of the Yoga doctrines. All these chap- 

 ters are wanting in the only copy of the Vdyu Parana we have 

 been yet able to meet with. They should form the latter half of the 

 Parana. 



In the fourth chapter, the deity who existed before creation is re- 

 presented as eternal, without beginning or end, and the origin of all 

 things, comprehending within himself the two substances or attributes 

 by whose joint operation perceptible objects were formed, or A'tmd, 

 Spirit, and Padhdna or Prakriti, Matter : the mode in which elemen- 

 tary or primitive creation was evolved from the action of these two, is 

 then described in technical language, conformable to the Sdnkhya cos- 

 mogony. The seven principal elements are the Mahatatwa, Ahankdra, 

 A'kds, Vdyu, Teja,Ap, and Prithivi. The first may perhaps be termed 

 the principle of collective animated elementary existence, and the se- 

 cond the principle of individual animated elementary existence, al- 

 though it must be confessed, that no very distinct and definite idea 

 appears to be any where attached to them ; they may be sometimes 

 distinguished as mind, generally and individually, or elementary intel- 

 lect free from passion or emotion in the first case, and joined with it in the 

 second. The Mahatatwa again, might occasionally, be rendered the 

 Divine Spirit connected with substance, but exempt from passion, and 

 which upon addition of the Gunas or qualities, becomes Ahankdra : the 

 difficulty of explaining these terms satisfactorily is however, inseparable 

 from the visionary character of the existence of the things which they 

 denominate. The other five elements, if not more intelligible, are at 

 least more familiar to us, and though as little susceptible of definition 

 are, with one exception, cognisable by our senses, and therefore suggest 

 positive notions. A'kas is ether, a subtile element thinner than air. The 

 other four are air, fire, water, and earth. These partially combined 

 into an egg which lay in water, the water was invested by fire, the fire 

 by air, the air by A'kas, the A'kas by Ahankdra, the Ahankdra by the 

 Mahdtatwa, and the whole by the Avyakta or imperceptible, identified 

 with Prakriti or Nature ; from the egg, Hiranyagerbha, the four 

 headed Brahma was produced, the immediate agent of creation, the 

 materials of which, as far as this universe consisting of fourteen Lokas 

 or worlds, is concerned, lay concealed within the same recess from 

 which he issued. 



