Muhsin Fani

“ To this degree is subjoined the dogma of a possible ascension, from the undermost stage of hierarchy to the highest being, by an endless series of periods and revolutions; a new religion is established upon the ruins of the former; the resurrection, the end of the world, the last judgment, the rewards and punishments, are only emblematic expressions of the successive periodical revolutions of the stars and of the universe, of the destruction and renovation of all beings, produced by the disposition and combination of the elements. ”

“ He, the one perfect being, in what a multitude of beings does he not manifest himself! And if he removes from this creation the support of his will and of his providence, nothing remains but himself, the only being. O Saha dév, thou who hast purified thy heart from the attachments of this body, and liberated it from all desires and seductive propensities, thou hast convinced thyself of the trut that, whatever appears before our eyes, is nothing, and has neither reality nor substance ”

“ Vessels of gold are esteemed more pure than those of any other metal. Whenever a Brahman sees an idol-temple, a cow, or a holy personage, he is to walk reverentially round each. He is not to perform the offices of nature in running water, nor in a cow-shed, nor in ashes; before a Brahman, or a cow, or in sight of the great luminary; when he retires to any place for this purpose, he is not in that state of nudity to look towards the stars ”

“ O Rama chander, thy condition is as fortunate as that of Saha dèv; such was his dignity and excellence, that men, by listening to his tale, feel themselves emancipated, and are no more subject to be born again. O Ramachander, he too was impressed with the idea that in no condition this world is permanent, but that all that is seen changes every moment, and passes from one state to another. One guest arrives and comes into the world, another dies and goes out of the world ”

“ In the Bhagavad gita, it is intimated, that soul retains the senses and mind in the intervals of migration: “At the time that spirit obtains a body, and when it abandons one, it migrates, taking with it those senses, as the wind wafts along with it the perfumes of the flowers.” ”

“ Among the Hindus it is an establised custom to bring flowers to God at the time of worship. One day Kabir saw a gardener’s wife who collected flowers for the image of a deity; he said to her: “In the leaves of the flower lives the soul of vegetation, and the idol to whom thou offerest flowers is without feeling, dead, without consciousness, in the sleep of inertness, and has no life; the condition of the vegetable is superior to that of the mineral. ”

“ The Jnánindra says: “Our fire is piety, and in it I burn the wood of duality; instead of a sheep, I sacrifice egotism: this is my Hóm.” Thus he interprets the whole religion of the Hindus, and a great number of men became his disciples. He has a nephew, called Gangu, ten years old, and younger than Sádarshan. One day, Gangu was crying from anger; the author of this book said to him: “Yesterday thou saidst: ‘The world and what it contains are but illusion;’ now, why dost thou cry?” He replied: “If the world is nothing, then my crying has no reality; I am not in contradiction with myself.” ”

“ It is when the worldly desires, connections, and concerns are annihilated, that a man no more returns to nor leaves this world; birth and death upon this earth no more concern him, because the ties formed by his desires are broken.” Saha dév continued: “O rája, what thou hast said, is impressed upon my mind; but tell me, if there remains any thing, however minute it may be, of the account of this world; this too I wish to hear.” The rája Janaka said: “The account of the world is such as thou hast heard. ”

“ Another sect, called Kakan, is in Kachmir; celibacy is their law, and their belief the unity of the divine being. They use much bang; a number of them is devoted to piety; their name of “Kakan” is derived from that of their master, who was Ibrahim Kakak. He lived, they say, in the time of the Pádshah Jehangír, who inhabits heaven, and drew to him whomever he chose; his very sight was such an attraction, that he on whom it fixed was irresistibly thrown at his feet; thus he attached to himself a great number of disciples, Hindus and Muselmans, none of whom he induced to change his religion ”

“ Thus, through the influence of praiseworthy acts, one is honored and opulent; and owing to a subservience to foul deeds, another lives degraded and indigent; the high and dignified agent of opulence and honor falls not into the depths of poverty, nor does the wretched slave to acts of covetousness and avarice ever attain the dignity of honor and riches. The world is the root and productive soil of works, and time is their developer ”

“ The Christians say that every necessitous individual is worthy of charities, to whatever religion or sect he may belong, but the person of the same faith, or a relative, is more deserving of favor. It is a sin, when by choice we perpetrate an action which is in opposition to the pleasure of God, and when we abandon an act which we are commanded to perform. A capital sin is it for a man, by his own choice, to commit an abominable act and deed, such as the unrighteous spilling of blood, and whoredom. ”

“ For the world is a field which is sown for the future, nor is religion put into practice, if not by the world. But religion and government are twin-brothers; religion is the foundation, and the king the guardian; but what wants a foundation, verges to ruin, and what has no guardian, goes off into nothing, etc., etc.” The same intimate junction of religion and civil law, which is acknowledged to prevail in the legislation of the Hindus, as well as in that of the ancient Hebrews and Persians, has passed into that of the Muhammedans. ”

“ Every person performs the Yajna once; but he sacrifices a goat every year; or, if in indigent circumstances, the figure of a goat formed of flour; and if he be a follower of Vishnu, the goat is to be a figure formed of the same materials, as among that sect cruelty towards the animal creation is reckoned as impiety. In their Smriti, or “sacred writing,” it is thus laid down: “Let that person put animals to death who has the power of reanimating them, as the victim thus sacrificed must be restored to life.” ”

“ They declare: “When we say that Jesus is seated at the right side of God, his Father, we mean not to say that God has a body and is any thing corporeal. No! the Divine Being has neither right nor left side. By such a description we intend to be intelligible to the vulgar; for Jesus, in the abstract sense of being the son of God, possesses the same greatness and power which his Father has, and in the abstract sense of his being a man, he dwells in the most glorious and most excellent place, which is in heaven.” ”

“ We know by the application of the intellect that nothing can be like the Lord’s divine power, and that at all times nothing of what is created can be like him, and firmly convinced of it, we think these words are to be considered as a mere simile, such as: ‘God seated upon his throne,’ or such as ‘I created you with my hand, and I preserve you.’ Except these words, which are to be considered as a mere simile, we know no other meaning, and to know thoroughly the meaning and interpretation of it, we feel ourselves perplexed ”

“ The world has neither beginning nor ending; moreover all spirits are enchained in the bonds of their own acts and deeds; so that the spirit of high rank which adopts the practices of the inferior, cannot attain to the sublime rank peculiarly assigned to exalted conduct; and the inferior spirit, sedulously given up to the works of those eminent in dignity, is enabled to obtain that glorious pre-eminence; so that their meritorious works confer on them knowledge; and the purity of their intellects, in proportion to their elevation, conducts them to high degrees and praiseworthy deeds. ”

“ According to the most probable account of historians, it never was Alí who pretended to be a God, but Abdallah, son of Wahab, son of Saba, a Jew converted to Islamism, who was the first instigator of the seditious movements to which Omar fell a victim, promulgated the doctrine, that a particle of divinity resided in Alí, the true Imám, that he is not dead, but only for a time withdrawn from the eyes of men; that he would reappear one day upon the earth, and fill it with justice, in the same manner as it is now filled with iniquities. ”

“ How often in a dream didst thou not feel pleasure and happiness, or wast overwhelmed by fear, and terror, and anguish? there is no doubt but all this is mere illusion and empty appearance, although the dreamer holds it all to be real truth. ”

“ As to those who, after having believed, became infidels by transgressing their compact, and what the prophet had stipulated for them, they shall be thrown into hell, because they have unjustly treated their own souls, and have disobeyed the preaching prophet. These shall be drenched with hot water.
It is God who illuminated the heavens and the earth, as it was his pleasure; who made his choice among the angels and prophets; who placed the latter among the number of believers in the midst of his creatures.—God does what he wills: there is but he, the bountiful and merciful God. ”

“ Hara Ráma púrí was a Sanyási, and one of the Jnánís possessing the perfection of independence. When he came to Kashmír, being vexed by the length of his hair, which was like ropes, he cut it off, on the bank of a river near a house called Bhat jatáyi. Sri Kant Bhat, a Pandit and Hindu judge, saw it and said: “Whenever thou cuttest off thy hair, thou shouldst do it in a tirth, that is, in ‘a house of worship.’” Hara answered: “There is a place in the most holy of mansions, where the heart gets delighted, and on the spot where the dead are burnt, all obscure points are terminated.” ”

“ A tradition is in regular succession, when a great multitude on the authority of a great multitude make the same narration, until it reaches to the mâsúm, in such a manner, that the number of each multitude, in each particular age, shall have been so great as to exclude the idea of their having combined in telling a lie. A tradition is without a regular succession, when the number of narrators does not, in all or several stages, reach to that multitude, as before said, and this kind of tradition is called, in the peculiar idiom of the masters of history, the information of one. ”

“ In the house of Pertábmal was an idol which the Hindus worship. A mouse having made a hole in his furniture, he put the whole idol, instead of a lump of earth, into the mouse-hole, in order to shut the passage. The Hindus said: “What art thou about?” He answered: “The deity who cannot obstruct the road of a mouse, and settle any thing with a mouse, how will he protect me, and preserve me from the tyranny of the Muselmans?” ”