It Means That From This Moment, Its
Transformations Depend No Longer On The Blind Laws Of Gradual Evolution,
But On The Least Of A Man's Actions, Which Brings Either A Reward Or
A Punishment.
Now you see that it depends on the man's will whether,
on the one hand, he will start on the way to Moksha, the eternal bliss,
passing from one Loka to another till he reaches Brahmaloka, or, on
the other, owing to his sins, will be thrown back.
You know that the
average soul, once freed from earthly reincarnations, has to ascend
from one Loka to another, always in the human shape, though this
shape will grow and perfect itself with every Loka. Some of our
sects understood these Lokas to mean certain stars. These spirits,
freed from earthly matter, are what we mean by Pitris and Devas,
whom we worship. And did not your Kabalists of the middle ages
designate these Pitris under the expression Planetary Spirits?
But, in the case of a very sinful man, he will have to begin once
more with the animal forms which he had already traversed unconsciously.
Both Darwin and Haeckel lose sight of this, so to speak, second volume
of their incomplete theory, but still neither of them advances any
argument to prove it false. Is it not so?"
"Neither of them does anything of the sort, most assuredly."
"Why, in this case," exclaimed he, suddenly changing his colloquial
tone for an aggressive one, "why am I, I who have studied the most
modern ideas of Western science, I who believe in its representatives -
why am I suspected, pray, by Miss X - - of belonging to the tribe
of the ignorant and superstitious Hindus? Why does she think that
our perfected scientific theories are superstitions, and we
ourselves a fallen inferior race?"
Sham Rao stood before us with tears in his eyes. We were at a
loss what to answer him, being confused to the last degree by
this outburst.
"Mind you, I do not proclaim our popular beliefs to be infallible
dogmas. I consider them as mere theories, and try to the best of
my ability to reconcile the ancient and the modern science. I
formulate hypotheses just like Darwin and Haeckel. Besides, if I
understood rightly, Miss X - - is a spiritualist, so she believes
in bhutas. And, believing that a bhuta is capable of penetrating
the body of a medium, how can she deny that a bhuta, and more so
a less sinful soul, may enter the body of a vampire-bat?"
I own, this logic was a little too condensed for us, and so, avoiding
a direct answer to a metaphysical question of such delicacy, we tried
to apologize and excuse Miss X - -'s rudeness as well as we could.
"She did not mean to offend you," we said, "she only repeated a
calumny, familiar to every European. Besides, if she had taken
the trouble to think it over, she probably would not have said it...."
Little by little we succeeded in pacifying our host. He recovered
his usual cheerfulness, but could not resist the temptation of adding
a few words to his long argumentation. He had just begun to reveal
to us certain peculiarities of his late brother's character, which
induced him to be prepared, judging by the laws of atavism, to see
their repetition in the propensities of a vampire bat, when Mr. Y - -
suddenly dashed in on our small group and spoiled all the results
of our conciliatory words by screaming at the top of his voice:
"The old woman has gone demented! She keeps on cursing us and
says that the murder of this wretched bat is only the forerunner
of a whole series of misfortunes brought on her house by you,
Sham Rao," said he, hastily addressing the bewildered follower
of Haackel. "She says you have polluted your Brahmanical
holiness by inviting us. Colonel, you had better send for the
elephants. In another moment all this crowd will be on us..."
"For goodness' sake!" exclaimed poor Sham Rao, "have some consideration
for my feelings. She is an old woman, she has some superstitions,
but she is my mother. You are educated people, learned people...
Advise me, show me a way out of all these difficulties. What should
you do in my place?"
"What should I do, sir?" exclaimed Mr. Y - -, completely put out
of temper by the utter ludicrousness of our awkward predicament.
"What should I do? Were I a man in your position and a believer
in all you are brought up to believe, I should take my revolver,
and in the first place, shoot all the vampire bats in the neighborhood,
if only to rid all your late relations from the abject bodies of
these creatures, and, in the second place, I should endeavor to
smash the head of the conceited fraud in the shape of a Brahman
who invented all this stupid story. That is what I should do, sir!"
But this advice did not content the miserable descendant of Rama.
No doubt he would have remained a long time undecided as to what
course of action to adopt, torn as he was between the sacred feelings
of hospitality, the innate fear of the Brahman-priest, and his own
superstitions, if our ingenious Babu had not come to our rescue.
Learning that we all felt more or less indignant at all this row,
and that we were preparing to leave the house as quickly as possible,
he persuaded us to stay, if only for an hour, saying that our
hasty departure would be a terrible outrage upon our host, whom,
in any case, we could not find fault with. As to the stupid old
woman, the Babu promised us to pacify her speedily enough: he
had his own plans and views. In the meantime, he said, we had
better go and examine the ruins of an old fortress close by.
We obeyed very reluctantly, feeling an acute interest in his "plans."
We proceeded slowly.
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