178 On some Bactro-Buddhist Relics from Iidwal Plndi. [No. 2, 



According to popular belief the haiisas have the peculiar power 

 of abstracting the milk from a mixture of milk and water, and leav- 

 ing the water behind. Absurd as this belief is, it has led to the 

 hansa being reckoned as an emblem of superior powers of discrimi- 

 nation, and seldom does a Bengali author write a book in which he 

 does not request his readers to separate, like the hansa, the cream 

 of his composition from its aqueous adjunct. In the Mahabharata 

 this is alluded to in the Udyoga Parva* where a great Brahmana 

 teacher is named the Hansa or " the goose" who was to separate the 

 cream of theology from the dross of secular learning. It is probably 

 from this circumstance that the term, from originally meaning " a 

 duck," " a goose," " a swan," or " a flamingo"f came to mean the omr 

 niscient Brahma. % the benign Vishnu, the plenipotent S iva, the all- 

 observing sun and, metaphorically in composition, " the best," 

 " chief," or " excellent." The Jogis took it up as a term elect to 

 indicate the vital airs, and many mystical prayers were got ready for 

 the adoration of the deity as the Haiisa.§ Those who adopted this 

 mystical piayer were generally ascetics, and hence several sects of 

 Jogis used it as a title for their spiritual teachers. Subsequently the 

 term had the augmentative prefix 'parama added to it, and in that 

 compound form, it occurs frequently in the Bhagavat where S'ridhara 

 Svvami explains it by the words ?Tt'?l 3 Tt3"-1%C3'^-f^' 5 tsiS or " possessed 

 of the knowledge of substance and dross, or truth and untruth." 

 When the term came to be used as indicative of a Vedantist ascetic 

 it is difficult to determine, but it occurs very largely in the polemi- 

 cal literature of mediaeval India. However ridiculous the title may 

 appear in its English version of "the great goose," S'ankara adopt- 

 ed it as pre-eminently his own,|| and most of his successors called 

 themselves BaramaliaTisas. Several teachers of great eminence before 

 the time of Sankara likewise had the same title, and it may be traced 



* Chapter 35, Vol II. p. 137. 

 t Vide my translation of the Chhandogya Upanishad p. 66, foot note. 

 j The vehicle of Brahma is likewise named hansa. 



■^W^ ^f%^Tf?r ^t^tt^ fersra q«r: || 



|] The following is bis definition of hansa as given in his treatise on inference, 

 Aparolclidnubliuti. 



