Part 4 — X. EASTERN POETS UPON REINCARNATION.

250Here shalt thou pluck from the most ancient shells

The whitest pearls of wisdom’s treasury.

Edwin Arnold.

Young and enterprising is the West,

Old and meditative is the East.

Turn, O youth! with intellectual zest

Where the sage invites thee to his feast.

Eastward roll the orbs of heaven,

Westward tend the thoughts of men.

Let the poet, nature-driven,

Wander eastward now and then.

Milnes.

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X.

EASTERN POETS UPON REINCARNATION.

All Eastern poetry finds a favorite theme in metempsychosis, and the literature of India is thoroughly saturated with it. The fervent passion, the subtle thought, the luxuriant imagery which permeate Asiatic life are centred upon this common philosophy. But the best portion of this enormous wealth of fantasy is withheld from us, simply because of its revelry in this very thought which is generally unattractive to the West. What oriental poetry enters our language is chiefly erotic or epic, and the most characteristic of all is left for the few educated natives to enjoy. We can therefore only select a few representative gems from this unworked mine, illustrating the Muses of India, Persia, and Arabia. Among the ancient Sanskrit epics are discovered beautiful renderings of the thought of many births. The delicacy and tenderness of Persian poetry furnish charming expressions of the Zoroastrian aspirations for release from earthly bondages to reascend homeward. The Arabian mysticism of the Sufis directs their intense subjectivity into ecstatic phrasings of the same idea.

In the wonderful ancient Sanskrit drama “Sakoontala” by Kalidésa, translated by Monier Williams, occur these passages:—

252This peerless maid is like a fragrant flower

Whose perfumed breath has never been diffused.

A gem of priceless water, just released

Pure and unblemished from its glittering bed.

Or rather is she like the mellowed fruit

Of virtuous actions in some former birth

Now brought to full perfection.

That song has filled me with a most peculiar sweetness.

I seem to yearn after some long forgotten love.

Not seldom in our happy hours of ease

When thought is still, the sight of some fair form,

Or mournful fall of music breathing low

Will stir strange fancies thrilling all the soul

With a mysterious sadness and a sense

Of vague yet earnest longing. Can it be

That the dim memory of events long passed,

Or friendships formed in other states of being

Flits like a passing shadow o’er the spirit?

The Sanskrit “Katha Upanishad,” in Edwin Arnold’s rendering as “The Secret of Death,” contains a full explanation of the Eastern doctrine.

For his noble sacrifice Yama (Death) grants to Nachikêtas the privilege of asking three boons. After naming and receiving the first two Nachikêtas says:—

“Thou dost give peace—is that peace nothingness?

Some say that after death the soul still lives,

Personal, conscious; some say, nay, it ends:

Fain would I know which of these twain be true,

By the enlightened. Be my third boon this.”

Then Yama answered, “This was asked of old,

Even by the gods! This is a subtle thing,

Not to be told, hard to be understood:

Ask me some other boon: I may not grant.”

253Nachikêtas insists upon this, and will not accept the wealths, powers, and pleasures which Death offers as a substitute.

Then Yama yielded, granting the great boon,

And spake: “Know, first of all, that what is Good

And what is Pleasant—these be separate!

By many ways, in diverse instances

Pleasure and Good lay hold upon each man!

Blessed is he who, choosing high, lets go

Pleasure for Good. The Pleasure-seekers lose

Life’s end, so lived. The Pleasant and the Good

Solicit men: the sage, distinguishing

By understanding, followeth the Good,

Being more excellent. The foolish man

Cleaveth to Pleasure, seeking still to have,

To keep, enjoy. The foolish ones who live

In ignorance, holding themselves as wise

And well instructed, tread the round of change

With erring steps, deluded, like the blind

Led by the blind. The necessary road

Which brings to life unchanging is not seen

By such: wealth dazzles heedless hearts: deceived

With shows of sense, they deem their world is real

And the unseen is naught; so, constantly,

Fall they beneath my stroke. To reach to Being

Beyond all seeming Being, to know true life—

This is not gained by many; seeing that few

So much as hear of it, and of those few

The more part understandeth not.

“The uttermost true soul is ill-perceived

By him who, unenlightened, sayeth: I

Am I: thou, thou; and the life divided: He

That knoweth life undifferenced, declares

The spirit, what it is, One with the All.

And this is Truth. But nowise shall the truth

Be compassed, if thou speak of small and great.

254“Excellent youth! the knowledge thou didst crave

Comes not with speech: words are the false world’s signs.

By insight surely comes it if one hears.

Lo! thou hast loved the Truth, and striven for it.

I would that others, Nachikêtas, strove!

“Only the wise who patiently do sever

Their thought from shows and fix it upon truths,

See HIM, the Perfect and Unspeakable,

Hard to be seen, retreating, ever hid

Deeper and deeper in the uttermost;

Whose house was never entered, who abides

Now and before and always; and so seeing

Are freed from griefs and pleasures.”

“Make it known to me,” he saith,

“Who is He? what? whom thou hast knowledge of.”

Then Yama spake:

“The answer whereunto all vedas lead;

The answer whereunto as penance strives;

The answer whereunto those strive that live

As seekers after God—hear this from me.

Who knoweth the word Om (which meaneth God)

With all its purports; what his heart would have

His heart possesseth. This of spoken speech

Is wisest, deepest, best, supremest. He

That speaketh it, and wotteth what he speaks

Is worshiped in the place of Brahm, with Brahm!

Also, the soul which knoweth thus itself

It is not born. It doth not die. It sprang

From none, and it begetteth none. Unmade,

Immortal, changeless, primal. I can break

The body, but that soul I cannot harm.”

“If he that slayeth thinks ‘I slay’; if he

Whom he doth slay thinks ‘I am slain,’ then both

Know not aright. That which was life in each

Cannot be slain nor slay. The untouched soul,

Greater than all the worlds (because the worlds

By it subsist); smaller than subtleties

255Of things minutest; last of ultimates,

Sits in the hollow heart of all that lives!

Whoso hath laid aside desire and fear,

His senses mastered and his spirit still,

Sees in the quiet light of verity

Eternal, safe, majestical—his soul:

Resting it ranges everywhere: asleep

It roams the world, unsleeping: who, save I,

Know that divinest spirit as it is,

Glad beyond joy, existing outside life?

Beholding it in bodies bodiless,

Amid impermanency permanent,

Embracing all things, yet in the midst of all

The mind enlightened casts its grief away:

It is not to be known by knowledge: man

Wotteth it not by wisdom: learning vast

Halts short of it: only by soul itself

Is soul perceived—when the Soul wills it so

There shines no light save its own light to show

Itself unto itself: none compasseth

Its joy who is not wholly ceased from sin,

Who dwells not self-controlled, self-centred, calm,

Lord of himself. It is not gotten else.

Brahm hath it not to give.

“The man unwise, unmindful, evil-lived

Comes not to that fixed place of peace; he falls

Back to the region of sense life again.

The wise and mindful one, heart purified,

Attaineth to the changeless Place, wherefrom

Never again shall births renew for him.

Then hath he freedom over all worlds

And, if it wills the region of the Past,

The fathers and the mothers of the Past

Come to receive it; and that soul is glad:

And if it wills the regions of the Homes,

The Brothers and the Sisters of the Homes

256Come to receive it; and that soul is glad:

And if it wills the region of the Friends,

The well-beloved come to welcome it

With love undying; and that soul is glad.

And if it wills a world of grace and peace

Where garlands are and perfumes and delights

Of delicate meats and drinks, music and song,

Lo! fragrances and blossoms and delights

Of dainty banquets and the streams of song

Come to it; and that soul is glad.

Whoso once perceiveth Him that is

Without a name, Unseen, Impalpable,

Bodiless, Timeless, such an one is saved,

Death hath not power upon him.”

Although not an Asiatic poem in the ordinary sense, we do not hesitate to place in this cluster Edwin Arnold’s “Light of Asia.” After the festival scene in which the prince distributed prizes to the maiden victors in the sports, and his love had centred upon Yasôdhara, the last of the contestants, follow these lines:—

Long after, when enlightenment was full,

Lord Buddha, being prayed why thus his heart

Took fire at first glance of the Sâkya girl,

Answered: “We were not strangers as to us

And all it seemed; in ages long gone by

A hunter’s son, playing with forest girls

By Yamun’s springs, where Nandadevi stands

Sate umpire while they raced beneath the firs

Like hares at eve that run their playful rings;

One with flower-like stars crowned he, one with long plumes,

Plucked from the pheasant and the jungle cock,

One with fir apples; but who ran the last

Came first for him, and unto her the boy

257Gave a tame fawn and his heart’s love beside.

And in the wood they lived many glad years,

And in the wood they undivided died.

Lo! as hid seed shoots after rainless years,

So good and evil, pains and pleasures, hates

And loves, and all dead deeds come forth again

Bearing bright leaves or dark, sweet fruit or sour.

Thus was I he and she Yasôdhara;

And while the wheel of birth and death turns round

That which hath been must be between us two.”

In other passages of the same poem Buddha tells how his athletic triumph over the suitors for Yasôdhara, in which she wore a black and gold veil, was but a new version of an ancient forest battle, when as a tiger he conquered all the rival claimants for the black and gold-striped tigress Yasôdhara; how ages before in time of famine, when he was a Brahman, he compassionately threw himself to a starving tigress; and how his final salvation of Yasôdhara by the enlightened doctrine repeated a transaction centuries old, when he was a pearl merchant and sacrificed the priceless gem containing all his fortune to rescue this same wife Yasôdhara from hunger.

A typical expression of the Zoroastrian phase of reincarnation is found in this poem:—

FROM THE PERSIAN.

BY ARCHBISHOP R. C. TRENCH.

Happy are you, starry brethren, who from heaven do not roam,

In the eternal Father’s mansion from the first have dwelt at home.

258Round the Father’s throne forever standing in his countenance,

Sunning you, you see the seven circling heavens around you dance.

Me he has cast out to exile in a distant land to learn

How I should love Him the Father, how for that true country yearn.

I lie here, a star of heaven, fallen upon this gloomy place,

Scarce remembering what bright courses I was once allowed to trace.

Still in dreams it comes upon me, that I once on wings did soar;

But or e’er my flight commences this my dream must all be o’er.

When the lark is climbing upward in the sunbeam, then I feel

Even as though my spirit also hidden pinions could reveal.

I a rosebud to this lower soil of earth am fastly bound,

And with heavenly dew besprinkled still am rooted to the ground.

Yet the life is struggling upward, stirring still with all their might,

Yearning buds that cry to open to the warmth and heavenly light.

From its stalk released, my flower soars not yet a butterfly,

But meanwhile my fragrant incense evermore I breathe on high.

By my Gardener to his garden I shall once transplanted be,

There where I have been already written from eternity.

259Oh, my brothers blooming yonder, unto Him the ancient—pray

That the hour of my transplanting He will not for long delay.

Hafiz, the prince of Persian poets, figures the soul as the phœnix alighting on Tuba, the Tree of Life:—

My phœnix long ago secured

His nest in the sky-vault’s cope;

In the body’s cage immured

He was weary of life’s hope.

Round and round this heap of ashes

Now flies the bird amain,

But in that odorous niche of heaven

Nestles the bird again.

Once flies he upward he will perch

On Tuba’s golden bough;

His home is on that fruited arch

Which cools the blest below.

If over this sad world of ours

His wings my phœnix spread,

How gracious falls on land and sea

The soul-refreshing shade!

Either world inhabits he,

Sees oft below him planets roll;

His body is all of air compact,

Of Allah’s love, his soul.

The following Sufi poem will illustrate the passionate phase of reincarnation which appears in the spiritual absorption of the Mohammedan mystics. It is 260not surprising that the intensity of their rapturous piety has drawn among their ranks of meditative devotees the most distinguished religionists, philosophers, and poets of the whole Persian and Arabian Orient:

THE SUCCESSFUL SEARCH.

I was ere a name had been named upon earth,—

Ere one trace yet existed of aught that has birth,—

When the locks of the Loved One streamed forth for a sign,

And being was none save the Presence Divine!

Ere the veil of the flesh for Messiah was wrought

To the Godhead I bowed in prostration of thought.

I measured intensely, I pondered with heed

(But ah! fruitless my labor) the Cross and its creed.

To the Pagod I rushed, and the Magian’s shrine,

But my eye caught no glimpse of a glory divine:

The reins of research to the Caaba I bent,

Whither hopefully thronging the old and young went;

Candasai and Herát searched I wistfully through,

Nor above nor beneath came the Loved One to view!

I toiled to the summit, wild, pathless and lone,

Of the globe-girding Kâf, but the Phœnix had flown.

The seventh earth I traversed, the seventh heaven explored,

But in neither discerned I the Court of the Lord.

I questioned the Pen and the Tablet of Fate,

But they whispered not where He pavilions his state.

My vision I strained, but my God-scanning eye

No trace that to Godhead belongs could descry.

But when I my glance turned within my own breast,

Lo! the vainly sought Loved One, the Godhead confessed.

In the whirl of its transport my spirit was tossed

Till each atom of separate being I lost:

And the bright sun of Tanniz a madder than me

Or a wilder, hath never yet seen, nor shall see.

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