But Here The Illustrious Sanskritist Is Very Much Mistaken.

Swami Dayanand and other pandits, who sometimes are far from being Dayanand's allies, maintain that Professor Max Muller has completely misunderstood the meaning of the term hiranya.

Originally it did not mean, and, when united to the word garbha, even now does not mean, gold. So all the Professor's brilliant demonstrations are labor in vain. The word hiranya in this mantram must be translated "divine light" - mystically a symbol of knowledge; analogically the alchemists used the term "sublimated gold" for "light," and hoped to compose the objective metal out of its rays. The two words, hiranya-garbha, taken together, mean, literally, the "radiant bosom," and, when used in the Vedas, designate the first principle, in whose bosom, like gold in the bosom of the earth, rests the light of divine knowledge and truth, the essence of the soul liberated from the sins of the world. In the mantrams, as in the chandas, one must always look for a double meaning: (1) a metaphysical one, purely abstract, and (2) one as purely physical; for everything existing upon the earth is closely bound to the spiritual world, from which it proceeds and by which it is reabsorbed. For instance Indra, the god of thunder, Surya, the sun-god, Vayu, god of the wind, and Agni, god of fire, all four depending on this first divine principle, expand, according to the mantram from hiranya-garbha, the radiant bosom. In this case the gods are the personifications of the forces of Nature. But the initiated Adepts of India understand very clearly that the god Indra, for instance, is nothing more than a mere sound, born of the shock of electrical forces, or simply electricity itself. Surya is not the god of the sun, but simply the centre of fire in our system, the essence whence come fire, warmth, light, and so on; the very thing, namely, which no European scientist, steering an even course between Tyndall and Schropfer, has, as yet, defined. This concealed meaning has totally escaped Professor Max Muller's attention, and this is why, clinging to the dead letter, he never hesitates before cutting a Gordian knot. How then can he be permitted to pronounce upon the antiquity of the Vedas, when he is so far from the right understanding of the language of these ancient writings.

The above is a resume of Dayanand's argument, and to him the Sanskritists must apply for further particulars, which they will certainly find in his Rigvedadi Bhashya Bhoomika. - - - - -

In the cave, every one slept soundly round the fire except myself. None of my companions seemed to mind in the least either the hum of the thousand voices of the fair, or the prolonged, far-away roar of the tigers rising from the valley, or even the loud prayers of the pilgrims who passed to and fro all night long, never fearing to cross the steep passage which, even by daylight, caused us such perplexity. They came in parties of twos and threes, and sometimes there appeared a lonely unescorted woman.

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