And What
Is This Transformation, Pray, If Not The Transmigration Of The
Ancient And Modern Hindus, And The Metempsychosis Of The Greeks?"
We had nothing to say against the identity, and even ventured to
observe that, according to Haeckel, it does look like it.
"Exactly!" exclaimed he joyfully. "This shows that our conceptions
are neither silly nor superstitious, as is maintained by some
opponents of Manu. The great Manu, anticipated Darwin and Haeckel.
Judge for yourself; the latter derives the genesis of man from a
group of plastides, from the jelly-like moneron; this moneron,
through the ameoba, the ascidian, the brainless and heartless
amphioxus, and so on, transmigrates in the eighth remove into the
lamprey, is transformed, at last, into a vertebrate amniote, into
a premammalian, into a marsupial animal.... The vampire, in its turn,
belongs to the species of vertebrates. You, being well read people
all of you, cannot contradict this statement." He was right in
his supposition; we did not contradict it.
"In this case, do me the honor to follow my argument...."
We did follow his argument with the greatest attention, but were
at a loss to foresee whither it tended to lead us.
"Darwin," continued Sham Rao, "in his Origin of Species,
re-established almost word for word the palin-genetic teachings
of our Manu. Of this I am perfectly convinced, and, if you like,
I can prove it to you book in hand. Our ancient law-giver, amongst
other sayings, speaks as follows: `The great Parabrahm commanded
man to appear in the universe, after traversing all the grades
of the animal kingdom, and springing primarily from the worm of
the deep sea mud.' The worm be-came a snake, the snake a fish,
the fish a mammal, and so on.
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