No. 62. — 1909.] JNANA VASISHTAM. 



315 



on the three strands of the gunas. 1 He hunts game in the 

 forest of the universe. He gathers into his death-chest 

 falling worlds; at intervals of ages, at the great Kalpa 2 

 time of destruction, he gambols in the oceans as in a pond. 

 Time, too, yields to the power of the great Goddess of Destruc- 

 tion, who range th like a tigress through the universe, destroying 

 all, the earth her drinking cup, the worlds flowers on her neck, 

 her pets time and the terrible man-lion whose thunder-roar 

 is death, the unreal her bow, pain her arrow, the celestial 

 regions her tiara, the infernal worlds her anklets fastened with 

 the cord of sin, the mountains Himavan and Mahameru her 

 earrings with pendant sun and moon. She wears the heads of 

 Brahmas, Vishnus, Rudras, and, terrible to herself, she danceth 

 the peerless dance at the final dissolution of the universe. 



The universe, according to Hindu philosophers, has been 

 created and destroyed times without number, and will be again 

 and again created and destroyed, not in the sense of being 

 created out of nothing and reduced to nothing, but in the 

 sense of being projected or evolved (Srishii) out of cosmic stuff 

 (mula prakriti) and of being involved or withdrawn into it 

 (Samhdra). The manifestation of the creating or evolving 

 energy of God is called Brahma, of the preserving energy 

 Vishnu, and of the destroying or involving energy Siva or 

 Kudra. These three manifestations constitute the Hindu 

 Trinity, and each has a time-limit counted by thousands of 

 millions of years. At the end of the cycle they all withdraw 

 into the absolute Godhead, to come forth again. 



1 The gunas, the three ingredients or constituents of nature, corres- 

 ponding pretty closely to the three principles of the soul according to 

 Plato {Republic, IV. 441 E, 442 A):— 



(1) Satvu (\6yoQ or to XoyiariKov). — Purity or goodness, producing 



illumination and mildness, wisdom, grace, truth, &c. 



(2) Rajas (Ovjiog or to Ovfioeioeg). — Passion or energy, producing 



activity, and variability , mental exertion, Courage, learning, 

 &c, and also worldly covetousness, pride, falsehood, 

 sensual desire. 



(3) Tamas (eiriOvftia). — Darkness or ignorance, producing sluggish- 

 ness, arrogance, lust, and other depraved attachments. 



2 Kalpa, or the duration of the universe, is supposed to be 36,000 

 times 432 million years, at the end of which it is destroyed, and 

 after a pause again created . 



