Sattva

“ I must requite him for his food which I have eaten; so take me and sacrifice me to the goddess for his sake.” When the boy Sattvavara said this, Víravara answered him undismayed, “In truth you are my own son.” When king Vikramatunga, who was standing outside, heard this, he said to himself—“Ah! the members of this family are all equally brave.”
Then Víravara took that son Sattvavara on his shoulder, and his wife Dharmavatí took his daughter Víravatí on her back, and the two went to the temple of Durgá by night. ”

“ Then Sattvaśila became a prosperous man, and discarding the life of a dependent, he remained henceforth about the person of king Chandasena.
And one day the king sent him to the island of Ceylon, to demand for him the hand of the king's daughter. He had to go there by sea; so he worshipped his patron divinity, and went on board a ship with the Bráhmans, whom the king appointed to accompany him. And when the ship had gone half-way, there suddenly rose from the sea a banner that excited the wonder of all in the ship. ”

“ When the king had said this to Sattvaśila, who bowed before him, he said to that Daitya maiden, " Now shew me the way to my own city." Then the Daitya maiden gave him a sword named " Invincible," and a fruit to eat, which was a remedy against old age and death, and with these he plunged into the tank which she pointed out, and the next thing that happened to him was, that he rose up in his own laud with all his wishes gratified. And Śattvaśila ruled as king over the cities of the Daitya Princess. ”

“ There he woke up his wife Dharmavatí and told her, that, by the counsel of the goddess Earth, he must offer up his son for the sake of the king. She, when she heard it, said—“We must certainly do what is for the advantage of the king; so wake up our son and tell him.” Then Víravara woke up his son, and told him all that the goddess Earth had told him, as being for the interest of the king, down to the necessity of his own sacrifice. When the child Sattvavara heard this, he, being rightly named, said to his father,11 “Am I not fortunate, my [522] father, in that my life can profit the king? ”

“ That is, since the beginning of the universe, the general tendency which guides all beings is different at different times. Thus at the very outset there was inertia, Tamas. This inertia was got over by Rajas, which predominated in the Prajâpatis, and the life-forms appeared on the globes. There was Tamas again in the mineral kingdom, which had to be conquered by Râjasic activity. And Rajas was in full swing till humanity reached a certain stage. Then Satva manifested itself for the evolution of men. ”

“ Compassion is the result of the Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. Sattwa quality. The Sattwa quality is protective, the Rajas quality is creative, and Tamas is destructive: but Brahman the Absolute is beyond these three qualities, Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas, It is also beyond Prakriti or nature. Where there is abso-lute Reality, no quality of nature can reach. As a thief cannot go to the exact spot where the treasure is, because he is afraid of being caught, so Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas, like thieves, cannot go to the realm where is the treasure of the Absolute. A man was going through the woods. ”

“ Tamas keeps down all beings and enchains them to materiality in the course of evolution, and there is a point in the downfall of beings as well as of globes, beyond which there is a complete break-down. Satva counter-acts Tamas and the preservation and improvement of the Universe, rather of Trilokî, there fore mean the infusion of Satva. Vishnu represents Satva and so Vishnu is the Preservative aspect of Virâta Purusha. When Rajas and Tamas predominate in Trilokî, when the lowest plane Bhûr becomes heavy with Tamas, the Lilâ Avatâras appear and infuse Satva into the Lokas. ”

“ The Bhagavad-Gita which is a treatise on Raj Yoga, gives prominence to three aspects of concentration. Liberation is attained by means of action, by devotion, by spiritual discernment; these aspects correspond respectively to three qualities in man and nature, known as Tamas, Rajas and Satva. The Tamas is the gross, material or dark quality; Rajas is active and passional; the attributes of Satva are light, peace, happiness, wisdom. No one while in the body can escape from the action of the three qualities, for they are brought about by nature which is compounded of them. ”

“ He was aged 32, of about middle height, and had an aristocratic cast of countenance, with a slightly aquiline nose, on the whole a handsome man. As a matter of course he was shown over the ship. In the meantime I had some conversation with a gentleman-like young man of about twenty years of age named Matsuné Kura, son of the principal karô. He said that Satsuma and Uwajima were on very friendly terms, which was natural, as the ex-daimiô and Shimadzu Saburô had been amongst the little band of princes who were disgraced for their opposition to the elevation of the lately deceased Tycoon. ”

“ Satanava thereupon made a vow renouncing his claim to the throne, and said: “If thou wilt give thy daughter unto my sire to be his queen, I, who am his heir, will never accept the throne, nor marry a wife, or be the father of children. If, then, Satyavati will become the mother of a son, he will surely be chosen rajah.” When he had spoken thus, the gods and Apsaras, the mist fairies, caused flowers to fall out of heaven upon the prince's head, and a voice came down the wind, saying: “This one is Bhishma.” ”

“ When Saktideva, in the fifth book of the “Kathásaritságara,” comes after long travel to the Golden City, and is welcomed as her destined husband by its princess, she warns him not to ascend the central terrace of her palace. Of course he does so, and finds three chambers, in each of which lies the lifeless form of a fair maiden. After gazing at these seeming corpses, in one of which he recognizes his first love, he approaches a horse which is grazing beside a lake. The horse kicks him into the water; he sinks deep—and comes up again in his native land. ”

“ When Tama has exhausted its force, Sattwa asserts itself by natural law.
This healthy reaction growing stronger will gradually evolve some order out of the chaos of the closing Kali. A portion of the people will get disgusted with the reign of utmost licence and inharmony, and, endowed with strong mental force to resist the influence of the age, will pierce the veil of darkness enveloping everything and see the light that dwells within. These will stimulate this reaction, and spread the discovered light among others groping in the darkness for that light. ”

“ This, Grom told me, was the realm haunted by Satha, the great serpent.
Let me speak of Satha. There is nothing like him on earth today, nor has there been for countless ages. Like the meat-eating dinosaur, like old sabre-tooth, he was too terrible to exist. Even then he was a survival of a grimmer age when life and its forms were cruder and more hideous. There were not many of his kind then, though they may have existed in great numbers in the reeking ooze of the vast jungle-tangled swamps still further south. ”

“ So from the tendency of the least inequilibrium of the forces of the three Cardinal Attributes, Sattwa, Rāja, Tama (which, having formerly attained equality of force, have lost their different individualities and have become merged and transformed into Pure Sattwa—Illumination) springs the germ-state of Creation, and, passing through its three stages; viz., Vāsudeva, Sankarsana and Pradyumna, reaches its fourth stage, called Aniruddha, where, having attained further development, it sprouts forth into Brahmā, the first visible miniature embodiment of the universe. ”

“ Durgā, who is also called Satī and Annapurnā, is the goddess who distributes rice to the hungry. To the world she is as mother, who cares not for herself, but for her children only; and Çiva is the ideal of a Hindu householder, never ruffled in temper, immoveable, immaculate and merciful, their union representing the fulfilment of the spiritual vows given and accepted in marriage, that two will live for one another and for others. How perfect this mutual love was, is proved in the death of Satī. Her devotion to Çiva was so great that she could not bear to hear him abused by her father Dakṣa. ”

“ The story alluded to by the poet is this;—"Daksha was the son of Brahma and father of Satí, whom, at the recommendation of the Rishis, or Sages, he espoused to Siva, but he was never wholly reconciled to the uncouth figure and practices of his son-in-law. Having undertaken to celebrate a solemn sacrifice, he invited all the Gods except Siva, which so incensed Satí, that she threw herself into the sacrificial fire."— (Wilson, Specimens of Hindu Theatre, Vol. II. p. 263.) The name of Satí meaning good, true, chaste woman, is the modern Suttee, as it is pronounced and corruptly written. ”

“ In the afternoon Willis went to look after the wounded, while I took a walk down to the bookshops in Sanjô-dôri, accompanied by an escort. It was not until I reached this point that the populace seemed to be certain that I was a foreigner; one little boy asked whether I were not a native of Loochoo. The Tokugawa Castle of Nijô struck me as insignificant compared with many a fortress belonging to a small Fudai daimiô. It [pg 337] was then occupied by the troops of Owari; the yashiki which had been the head-quarters of Aidzu as military governor of Kiôto was tenanted by a few of Tosa's troops. ”

“ I met some two-sworded men, who protested that they were determined to prevent the opening of Hiôgo to foreign trade, but they were evidently joking. A Hizen man whom I came across declared that I was an old acquaintance, though I had never set eyes on him before. Afterwards Hayashi Kenzô and I went on board a Satsuma steamer that was lying in port, and made the acquaintance of her captain, Inouyé Shinzayemon. She had brought up from Kagoshima one of the leading Satsuma men named Komatsu Tatéwaki; he had gone up to Ozaka to meet Saigô, the greatest of all the Satsuma leaders. ”

“ Human sins, however, are the immediate cause. The real or latent cause is to be found in the operations of the Cardinal Attributes of Nature. Sattwa and Rāja are absolutely subdued by Tama, which then growing more and more intense bursts into a flame out of the friction of its own forces. This conflagration first manifests itself through etheric matter in the shape of seven suns suddenly appearing in the heavens and with their combined heat burning down the three spheres into ashes. ”

“ In the end every retainer, except the samurai of Satsuma, received an annual allowance of so much rice, in return for which he was bound to perform military service and appear in the field or discharge the ordinary military duties required in time of peace, accompanied by followers proportioned in number to his income. In Satsuma the feudal sub-division of the land was carried out to the fullest extent, so that the vassal of lowest rank held the sword in one hand and the hoe in the other. No taxes were paid by any feudal proprietor. ”

“ We may give Colonel Neale credit for knowing that there was no genuine intention on the part of Satsuma to carry out this promise, but on the other hand there was strong reason to suppose that Shimadzu Saburô himself had actually given the order to cut down the foreigners, and it could hardly be expected that the Satsuma men would ever consent to do punishment upon him. The actual doers of the deed were merely subordinate agents. We could not with justice have insisted on their lives being taken, and at the same time suffer the principal culprit to go scot-free. ”

“ The above is a plain unvarnished statement of facts, such as no Indian on the plains could produce but Satanta. It must be remembered that in cunning or native diplomacy Satanta has no equal. In worth and influence Red Cloud is his rival; but in boldness, daring, and merciless cruelty Satanta is far superior, and yet there are some good points in this dusky chieftain which command admiration. If a white man does him an injury, he never forgives him; but if on the other hand the white man has done him a service, death can alone prevent him from paying the debt. ”

“ On landing at the city we found lodgings had been taken for us at a Buddhist temple close to a burnt Satsuma yashiki called Takamatsu, and no sooner had we seated ourselves than a messenger arrived, in the person of Koba Dennai's secretary, to ask us to stop two or three days in Ozaka so that Willis might see some men who were ill of fever, and that boats to convey us up the river were not obtainable. ”

“ The predominant Sattwa in its extreme purity, which is the essence of physical Nature in the Golden Age, blends with these laws so harmoniously that they form the self-acting mechanism of all motion of its materialized counterpart. So long as these people are in perfect unison with these inner laws, vibrating spontaneously with their vibrations, they are quite unconscious of the operations of these laws, or even of the laws themselves within them: so long they live as unconscious moving manifestations of the laws. ”

“ The road was full of homeward bound Satsuma men and Tokugawa people going to Sumpu. A report had got about that difficulties had arisen between Satsuma and Higo, and that the latter in conjunction with Arima and Chikuzen were going to fall upon the great clan; that in consequence of this the troops were rushing off as fast as possible to forestal the attack. Another rumour, much credited by the French Legation, was that Aidzu surrendered only on condition that the Satsuma troops should be withdrawn from the east and north of the country, and the Mikado come to Yedo. ”