The Bhagavat-Geeta, or dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon ... Sanscrit, Canarese, and English ... / The Sanscrit text from Schlegel's edition ; the Canarese newly translated from the Sanscrit ; the English translation by Sir C. Wilkins, with his preface and notes ... and the introduction, by ... Warren Hastings ... With ... additional notes from Prof. Wilson, Rev. H. Milman, etc. ; and an Essay ... by Baron W. von Humboldt, translated ... by ... G.H. Weigle : the second ed. of Schlegel's Latin version ... with the Sanscrit text revised by Prof. Lassen, etc. Edited by ... J. Garrett.

Date:: 1849

Credit: The Bhagavat-Geeta, or dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon ... Sanscrit, Canarese, and English ... / The Sanscrit text from Schlegel's edition ; the Canarese newly translated from the Sanscrit ; the English translation by Sir C. Wilkins, with his preface and notes ... and the introduction, by ... Warren Hastings ... With ... additional notes from Prof. Wilson, Rev. H. Milman, etc. ; and an Essay ... by Baron W. von Humboldt, translated ... by ... G.H. Weigle : the second ed. of Schlegel's Latin version ... with the Sanscrit text revised by Prof. Lassen, etc. Edited by ... J. Garrett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$cays, the soul passes into some other animal, which is then born, and that after it has made the circuit of beasts, birds, and fishes; through a period of three thousand years, it again becomes the in- habitant of a human body—imeocv <Se -nepttXOri, T.avjn. toc epuoda xoci roc doc\aacrioc xai toc 7rocr£tva, avus ev avdpooTTOv aw/uca yivopcevov eahvviev Tt]v 7repifjAvaiv Se avrrj, yivetrOai ev Tpia-^iTcioiat erecri.—Hero. Lib. II. 123. The prospect thus unfolded is so loathsome and degrading, that in the estimation of Cicero, a total extinction of life would be preferable, to the kind of existence which it promises. “ Nemo est quin emori malit, quam converti in aliquam figuram bestiae, quamvis hominis mentem sit habiturus.” Apud Lact, D. Inst. VIII. The embalmment of the dead, and their careful preservation in the catacombs of that country, are to be assigned to this circumstance. The worship of beasts by the Egyptians, originated in the belief that even the souls of the gods migrated into them. The soul of Osiris, was believed to have passed into the Ox, Apis, and that of Typhon into croco- diles, and other noxious creatures. (Cud. I. 611.) Empedocles declared himself to have been a boy, a girl, a plant, a fish, a bird.” (Ibid 45.) The Pythagorean philosophy, is beautifully explained by Ovid, Lib. XV. “ Then, Death so called, is but old Matter dressed, In some new Figure, and a vary’d Vest. Thus all Things are but alter’d nothing dies; And here, and there, th’unbody’d Spirit flies ; By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossest, And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; Or hunts without, ’till ready Limbs it find, And actuates those according to their Kind; From Tenement to Tenement is toss’d, The Soul is still the same, the Figure only lost; And, as the soften’d Wax, new Seals receives, This Face assumes, and that Impression leaves; Now call’d by one, now by another Name; The Form is only chang’d, the Wax is still the same: So Death, so call’d, can but the Form deface; Th’ immortal Soul, flies out in empty Space, To seek her Fortune, in some other Place.” Dryden. The philosophy of the doctrine of the Metemsy- chosis, as it was received by Hindoos, Egyptians, and Greeks; appears to have been precisely the same; i. e. that all souls being portions of the universal mind, must eventually return to the Divinity. Different souls however, in proportion to the power and inveteracy of their material “bonds,” acquire corresponding degrees of impu- rity, and therefore degrees of purgation of varied length, and adaptation, are indispensible to that return. The necessary purgation is experienced by successive transmigrations. Bad men, would consequently be placed under a severer process, than that needed by the virtuous, and devoted. The Hades of the Greek, and the Naraha of the Hindoo, may be conceived as the region, in which souls immediately on their departure from the body, undergo the remedial regimen. It vere sufficient to our minds, for the refutation of this egregious doctrine, to find it contradicted, at once by the provisions, and teaching of Chris- tianity. To place it however in the category of the fictitious and false, on the authority of Scrip- ture, would be in the case before us, to beg the question. The procul dubio, would not avail. Nor indeed could we bring ourselves to frame any- thing like a connected series of objections to it, did it not so generally obtain, amongst the population of this country. Believers in Christian revelation, would not deem it gratuitous to doubt, or impious to repudiate it. For the matter however, different treatment is demanded, by those in whose views Christianity bears but inferior credentials. We at all events, invite attention to the following strictures. 1. The Metemsychosis is at variance with the universal law of developement. No phenomenon within the realm of created existence, forces itself earlier upon the observation, than the tendency of every thing to advance itself. Such as the nisus natures, the constant and instinctive effort of nature; a primary subjective property, of organized and functional life. Analogies the most exact, are to be found in the grand dispensations of grace, the economy of the moral government of God, and the gradations, which form the epochs of the world’s history. The cycles and epicycles of the heavy thinkers of antiquity, have been displaced for ever, by the fact that the march of nature, is progressive, and not self-revolving. Geology is foremost in avouching this statement. This charming science, comes laden with offerings, from its ample treasure houses; the exuviae of extinct tribes, the insect, the monster, the herb, embedded in the earth’s crust, chronicle periods, when life was inferior in its acti- vities and mechanism, to that which we now be- hold. The earliest forms of organic existence, that present themselves, to the geologist, are of the lowest grade of organization, from which, there is no break in the vast chain of developement, till we reach the present order of things. The crea-$

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