Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 452

412
ENERGY AS A GENERATING FORCE
no other deity but the body, and that
sin
and
virtue,
and the successive
birth, life and death,
re-births are
purely
From this ignorance, occasioned by Desire,
chimerical.
such as the affection
originate the inclinations of mankind
of a mother for her children and the care she bestows in
The truly wise man, who is anxious to
bringing them up.
acquire a clear perception of the truth, must, therefore,
renounce all such Desire.
The third sakti is Energy, about which these pretentious
The universe,
philosophers speak still more foolishly.
men lived
according to them, was in a state of chaos
without laws and without caste, in a state of utter in-
To remedy this disorder, a general con-
subordination.
Collect-
Energy spoke first
sultation of bodies was held.
ing from all bodies whatever is found most excellent in
each, I will form a perfect man, who by his beauty, wisdom,
and strength shall make himself master of the whole earth,
;
;
'
:
and shall become its sovereign lord. I will be his spouse
and from our union shall be born bodies innumerable, each
more perfect than another.'
The proposal of Energy was approved and carried into
and from the wife of a Brah-
It fully succeeded
effect.
min called Suddhodana Energy begot the god Buddha,
who was a man incomparable in all his perfections and
the lawgiver of the human race. He promulgated laws, the
And the
transgression of which alone constituted sin.
greatest sin of all is to deny Buddha to be what he is.
He who acknowledges him is the true Buddhist, the genuine
Brahmin, the guru among Brahmins. He knows no other
god than his own body. To his body alone he offers up
sacrifice, and procures for it all possible sensual pleasures.
He has no dread of anything he eats indiscriminately of
;
;
;
food he scruples not to lie in order to attain the object
of his wish
he acknowledges neither Vishnu nor Siva, nor
any other god but himself.
all
;
;
But, seeing that all individual bodies are so many deities,
is it that they do not all possess the same feelings,
the same inclinations, and the same knowledge 8
Why is
there such a great number of them ignorant of so many
beautiful things, of which the Buddhists make so much
Such were substantially the objections which a new prose-
why
I