1884.] R, Mitra— Psychological Tenets of the Vaishnavas. 105 
view to deny a supreme intelligent Creator and Preserver of the universe 
that nnicity is insisted upon in regard to the soul of created beings. The 
founders of the Sankhya and the Jaina doctrines, as also some Band- 
dhas are the followers of this theory. They hold that this soul, though 
consciousness itself, is, in its ordinary state, so worked upon by its own 
energy (variously called Mdyd ‘ illusion,’ S'ahti ‘ power,’ Prateriti ‘ na¬ 
ture,’ ajndna ‘ ignorance,’ &c., but meaning in reality the laws of nature) 
that it does not thoroughly perceive itself. It is the ego in a more or 
less latent, or potential, or mystified state, subject to various malign and 
beneficent influences which some times make it more and more mysti¬ 
fied, and at other times less and less so; its aim, however, is to separate 
itself from its energy, or to shake off its unintelligent condition, and in 
course of time under the influence of its beneficent environments and 
earnest exertion gradually becomes more and more manifest, until at last 
its beclouding energy melts away, and the soul abides in its perfect 
purity. This melting of the energy may be compared, and in fact is 
substantially the same, with the progressive evolution theory of the mo¬ 
dern European schools, except that the European Progressionists 
(or most of them) assume a beginning, or a first start, whereas their 
Indian cong^eners believe the universe to be uncreate and eternal. This 
state of perfect purity is the summum honum which the Sankhyas 
and the Jains look upon as mukti or final deliverance, and the Bauddhas 
as Buddhahood or Nirvdna ‘ perfect Intelligence,’ or ‘ absolute quietude.’ 
The goal of the Progressionist is thus eloquently summarised by Brown- 
ing 
“ I, that trace Providence wdthout a break, 
I, the plan of things, drop plumb on this plain truth— 
That man is made in sympathy with man, 
At outset of existence, so to speak ; 
But in dissociation, more and more, 
Man from his fellow, as their lives advance 
In culture ; still humanity that’s born 
A mass, keeps flying off, fining away, 
Ever into a multitude of points. 
And ends in isolation, each from each : 
Peerless above in the sky, the pinnacle,— 
Absolute contact, fusion all below 
At the base of being.” 
Had Browning meant this for the Yogis, it would have been as cor¬ 
rect as it is for the Progressionists, omitting only the first four lines in 
which the idea of Providence and first creation has been sketched, but 
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