Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 2140

CHAPTER XII, 8.
285
The Brahmana said: There is nothing else more delightful than that, when there is no distinction from it. There is nothing more afflicting than that, when there is a distinction from it. There is nothing smaller than that, there is nothing larger than that? There is nothing more subtle than that; there is no other happiness equal to that. Entering it, the twiceborn do not grieve, and do not exults. They are not afraid of anybody, and nobody is afraid of them. In that forest* are seven large trees, seven fruits, and seven guests; seven hermitages, seven (forms of) concentration, and seven (forms of) initiation. This is the description of the forest. That forest is filled with trees producing splendid flowers and fruits of five colours. That forest
" Cf. Khåndogya, pp. 516, 517. • Cl. Sanatsugåtiya, p. 180 and note there. • Cf. as to all this Gita, p. 101.
• This is not the forest spoken of before, but what has been before called the impassable place,' but which also at p. 286 is by implication called a forest, viz. the course of worldly life.
Viz. the eye, ear, tongue, skin, and nose, and the mind, and understanding-these are called trees, as being producers of the fruits, namely, the pleasures and pains derived from their several operations; the guests are the powers of each sense personifiedthey receive the fruits above described ; the bermitages are the trees above mentioned, in which the guests take shelter; the seven forms of concentration are the exclusion from the self of the seven functions of the seven senses &c. already referred to; the seven forms of initiation refer to the initiation into the higher life, by repu. diating as not one's own the actions of each member out of the group of seven. Cl. as to this K'handogya, p. 219, and commentary there.
• Cf. for these different numbers of colours, Yoga-sätra II, 19, and commentary, p. 105, and Sankhya-såra, p. 18. The trees here meant are the Tanmatras, or subtle elements, and the theory is that the Gandha-tanmåır, or subule element of smell, has five qualities, its
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