Then their divine spirit, the undying part of them,
separates from the soul and returns to its primitive source; the
soul is reduced to its primordial atoms, and the monad plunges into
the darkness of eternal unconsciousness. This is the only case of
total destruction of personality.
Such is the Vedanta teaching concerning the spiritual man. And
this is why no true Hindu believes in the disembodied souls
voluntarily returning to earth, except in the case of bhutas.
Jubblepore
Leaving Malva and Indore, the quasi-independent country of Holkar,
we found ourselves once more on strictly British territory. We
were going to Jubblepore by railway.
This town is situated in the district of Saugor and Nerbudda;
once it belonged to the Mahrattis, but, in 1817, the English army
took possession of it. We stopped in the town only for a short
time, being anxious to see the celebrated Marble Rocks. As it
would have been a pity to lose a whole day, we hired a boat and
started at 2 A.M., which gave us the double advantage of avoiding
the heat, and enjoying a splendid bit of the river ten miles from
the town.
The neighborhood of Jubblepore is charming; and besides, both a
geologist and a mineralogist would find here the richest field for
scientific researches. The geological formation of the rocks offers
an infinite variety of granites; and the long chains of mountains
might keep a hundred of Cuviers busy for life. The limestone caves
of Jubblepore are a true ossuary of antediluvian India; they are
full of skeletons of mon-strous animals, now disappeared for ever.
At a considerable distance from the rest of the mountain ridges,
and perfectly separate, stand the Marble Rocks, a most wonderful
natural phenomenon, not very rare, though, in India. On the
flattish banks of the Nerbudda, overgrown with thick bushes, you
suddenly perceive a long row of strangely-shaped white cliffs.
They are there without any apparent reason, as if they were a wart
on the smooth cheek of mother nature. White and pure, they are
heaped up on each other as if after some plan, and look exactly
like a huge paperweight from the writing-table of a Titan. We
saw them when we were half-way from the town. They appeared and
disappeared with the sudden capricious turnings of the river;
trembling in the early morning mist like a distant, deceitful
mirage of the desert. Then we lost sight of them altogether.
But just before sunrise they stood out once more before our
charmed eyes, floating above their reflected image in the water.
As if called forth by the wand of a sorcerer, they stood there on
the green bank of the Nerbudda, mirroring their virgin beauty on
the calm surface of the lazy stream, and promising us a cool and
welcome shelter.... And as to the preciousness of every moment of
the cool hours before sunrise, it can be appreciated only by those
who have lived and traveled in this fiery land.
