386 Notes on the preceding Inscription. [July, 



Notes on the preceding Inscription. 



I. — This verse is in a hendecasyllable measure, called Ratha-udgatd, of 

 which an exact idea may be formed by one accustomed to the harmony of 

 classical numbers, from the following slight transposition of a line in the 

 (Edipus Coloneus : 



_ w WW w — w — • w 



Nu| en ofXfJLaoi fieffiiK 6 Ae0 pt a 



four of such lines forming a verse. 



The two first lines are somewhat indistinct on the edge of the stone ; 

 and in the second of them, there might be some considerable doubt as to 

 the syllables <3Sj Xf] and ifj, were not the others connected with them 

 (particularly the fVr^ fej and ^4? ) so clearly marked as to admit no 

 reading consistent with both metre and sense, beside the one here adopt- 

 ed, which is in strict accordance with the Indian notions of metaphysical 

 theology. The ^f^JrTT is here ovala or abstract essence, antecedent to 

 qualities of any kind, of which the Hindu theosophists can discourse as subtly 

 and as unintelligibly as Plato in the Parmenides. Such is exclusively 

 their notion of Deity as existing prior to the developement of the ternary 

 forms or qualities, first in the Supreme Triad [Brahma', Vishnu, Siva,] and 

 next in the several orders of created beings : this first immaterial sub- 

 stance being the neuter ^^jj brahma of the Upanishads and the Vedant — 

 the TJ^T' or male inactive principle of the rival Sankhya school — the 

 BT0O2 or unfathomable depth of some of the Gnostics, who attempted the 

 introduction of these eastern metaphysics into Christianity. All these 

 schools teach that the immaterial essence of the one all-pervading Deity is 

 no otherwise connected with the diversities of created existence, than 

 through an independent feminine principle : which in the Vedantic system 

 is Ma'ya' ITrsjT, or illusion ;— but ^rsUffFT '• °r Radical Nature, the female 

 parent of all, in the Sankhya system, — and ENNOIAinthat of the Gnostics, 

 (in which, as in the Sankhya, NOT2 or Intellect ^f% : otherwise called ff^j «T 

 is the first-born offspring, and then all separate individual essences.) Now^ 

 this common mother of the external world ( #^K ) is identified in the 

 mythological part of Hinduism, with Siva', or Dukga' Ambika', the consort 

 of Siva. This identification is the principal subject of that celebrated 

 section of the Markandeya Purana, called the Chandipatha, or Devi-mahat- 

 mya ; and is thus expressed by the great Sankara A'cha'rya himself, in 

 the first verse of his famous hymn to this goddess, entitled, A'nanda-laharz } 

 (by which he sought to atone to the mother of External Nature, for his 

 efforts as a Vedantist, to lead his disciples from her illusions and fancied 

 diversities, to absorption in the one essence of abstract Deity). 



fan*: wmi ^#T *rf^ WTffT WW- ^farf 



