A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

APPENDIX

his own being, and “ faces North,” then indeed the Sun “rises in the North,” he sees only the Light of Heaven, the Light of Nature is in the south behind him.

Observe, of course, that the direction of the rising Sun (whether in the East, South, West, or North “ spiritually”) is always spoken of as “East” (le Levant, Orient) empirically (all our images being derived from sensible experience) : hence when the Bodhisattva takes his seat upon the Adamantine Throne, about to realise the Great Awakening, he is said to face the ‘“ East,” that is locally with respect to his actual séance at Gaya, but spiritually “‘ North.” In the same way are to be explained the various orientations of temples, normally, for example, we should expect that the worshipper must enter from the South, the Devayana (Chinese Shén-tao, Japanese Shinto) which leads directly to the shrine (garbha) running from South to North ; but if the image worshipped be rajastka, the orientation may be actually East or West, and if the image be famdsika, entrance must be trom the North.

Further, the four stages of the course as described above correspond to Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter in pratyaksa, adhyatma sequence, or Autumn, Winter (ut supra), Spring, and Summer in paroksa, adhidaivata sequence: similarly, to Infancy, Youth, Maturity, and Age in our corporeal parlance, that is to Maturity, Age, Youth, and Infancy, spiritually, cf. pandityam nirvidya balyena tisthdset, ‘‘ putting aside learning, let him abide in innocence” (Byhadaranyaka Up., Ul, 5+): and also to the four asyamas in the Brahmanical map of life.

When now the conscience is wholly retroverted, centred

*For the inversion of meaning, cf. Rg Veda, I, 164, 19, “ Those that come hitherward (avvanc), they (viz. the Angels) call ‘ departing ’ ne. literally equivalent to the words of Jesous, “ Except ye become again as little children” ; and of Paulos, Corinthians, I, 3, 18,

“If anyone amongst you thinketh himself to be wise in the world, let him become as one ungrown, that he may be wise indeed.”

Til