DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.640#0089
lxx
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
tried by Yumii, the Indian Pluto, who decides upon its future
destiny. It, however, remains in this aSrial vehicle, till the last
shraddM is performed, twelve months after death; when it
passes into happiness or misery, according to the sentence of
Yumii.
The same works teach, that there are many places of happi-
ness for the devout, as well as of misery for the wicked; that
God begins to reward in this life those who have performed
works of merit, and punishes the wicked here by various afflic-
tions ; that indeed all present events, prosperous or adverse, are
the rewards or punishments inevitably connected with merit or
demerit, either in a preceding birth, or in the present life ; that
where merit preponderates, the person, after expiating sin by
death and by sufferings in hell, rises to a higher birth, or ascends
to the heaven of his guardian deity.
The joys of the Hindoo heavens are represented as wholly
sensual, and the miseries of the wicked as consisting in corporal
punishment: the descriptions of the former disgust a chaste
mind by their grossness, and those given of the latter offend the
feelings by their brutal literality.
Anxious to obtain the Confession of Faith of a Bramhun,
from his own pen, I solicited this of a man of superior under-
standing, and I here give a translation of this article:—
' God is invisible, independent, ever-living, glorious, uncor-
rupt, all-wise, the ever-blessed, the almighty; his perfections
are indescribable, and past rinding out; he rules over all, sup-
ports all, destroys all, and remains after the destruction of all;
there is none like him; he is silence; he is free from passion,
from birth, &c. from increase and decrease, from fatigue, the
need of refreshment, &c. He possesses the power of infinite
diminution, and lightness, and is the soul of all.
* He created, and then entered into, all ^things, in which he
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
tried by Yumii, the Indian Pluto, who decides upon its future
destiny. It, however, remains in this aSrial vehicle, till the last
shraddM is performed, twelve months after death; when it
passes into happiness or misery, according to the sentence of
Yumii.
The same works teach, that there are many places of happi-
ness for the devout, as well as of misery for the wicked; that
God begins to reward in this life those who have performed
works of merit, and punishes the wicked here by various afflic-
tions ; that indeed all present events, prosperous or adverse, are
the rewards or punishments inevitably connected with merit or
demerit, either in a preceding birth, or in the present life ; that
where merit preponderates, the person, after expiating sin by
death and by sufferings in hell, rises to a higher birth, or ascends
to the heaven of his guardian deity.
The joys of the Hindoo heavens are represented as wholly
sensual, and the miseries of the wicked as consisting in corporal
punishment: the descriptions of the former disgust a chaste
mind by their grossness, and those given of the latter offend the
feelings by their brutal literality.
Anxious to obtain the Confession of Faith of a Bramhun,
from his own pen, I solicited this of a man of superior under-
standing, and I here give a translation of this article:—
' God is invisible, independent, ever-living, glorious, uncor-
rupt, all-wise, the ever-blessed, the almighty; his perfections
are indescribable, and past rinding out; he rules over all, sup-
ports all, destroys all, and remains after the destruction of all;
there is none like him; he is silence; he is free from passion,
from birth, &c. from increase and decrease, from fatigue, the
need of refreshment, &c. He possesses the power of infinite
diminution, and lightness, and is the soul of all.
* He created, and then entered into, all ^things, in which he