Story of Nation Buddhist India

SR No.: 035274
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: T Fisher Unwin Ltd
Publication Year: 1916
Total Pages: 356
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 88 MB

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desire anger and no anger; law and no law-in a word, of all things.' We see from this that the soul was supposed to be material the four elements of matter are there-but selected mental qualities are also in it. In another curious and deeply mystical old text the elements of matter come first, and we are told of five souls, each inside the other, each the same yet different from the one outside it, each of them in shape as a man, and made respectively of food, breath, mind, consciousness, and joy.
Certain forms of disease were supposed to be due to the fact that the soul had escaped out of the body; and charms are recorded for bringing it back." In dream sleep also the "soul" is away from the body. "Therefore they say: Let no one wake a man brusquely; for that is a matter difficult to be cured for him if the soul find not its way back to him." 3
During the dream the soul, after leaving the body, wanders at its will builds up a world according to its fancy, creates for itself chariots and houses, lakes and rivers, manifold shapes, a gorgeous playground wherein it acts and enjoys and suffers, "either rejoicing with women, or laughing with its friends, or beholding horrible sights." Till at last, tired out,— just as a falcon after roaming hither and thither in the sky, tired, flaps its wings and is wafted to its nest,- -so the soul returns from that playground of his to the body, when in deep, fast sleep it wants no
BUDDHIST INDIA
1 Bṛhad. iv. 4. 5. See also iii. 7. 14-22.
Atharva Vedla, v. 29. 5; vi. 53. 2; vii. 67.
iii. 2. 4. 7.
3 Bṛhad. iv. 3. 14.
Compare Ait. Ār.