[1] Cicero “De senectute.”

[2] Kant says:—‘The pure Ego is the condition of all consciousness, the condition of the sum total of experience, consequently the Ego is the source from which the universe is to be deduced.’ Again: “The thing per se underlying all phenomena, is one and the same substance with Ego. We know not wherein the Ego is different from it. This identity of both is only an affirmation of Monism, not of Idealism.” Lewis: Hist.-Phil. Vol. II. pp. 356-7. Fichte says:—The Non-Ego is a product of the Ego. It is the Ego which thus creates the necessity for a Non-Ego and the Non-Ego wanted. Ibid. p. 358.

[3] Because the visible and destructible bodies could not proceed from the invisible and indestructible essence of God, nor the invisible and indestructible souls of persons, which are utpanna or produced from the essence of the eternal and infinite spirit, can have their extinction except in their main source, when they become instinct in and identic with the supreme spirit.

[4] The khecarí or aerial mode of meditation is said to confer liberation from sickness and acts and the grasp of death. Thus;

Napídyate rogena nacha lipyate karmaná, Bádhyate sa na kalena, yo mudrám-vetti khecarím.

The mode of conducting it is described as follows.

Kapála kuhare jihvá, pravesitá viparítagá, Bhruvorantargatá drishtir, mudrá-bhavati khecarí.

[5] This passage contradicts the belief of his rising and sleeping by turns at the end of each kalpa of the creation and dissolution of the world, as well as the popular faith of Hari’s, sayana and Utthána at the opposite tropics.

[6] The pre-existent substratum is the Noumenon underlying all phenomena. It is the support of qualities, and something in which all accidents inhere. Berkeley.

[7] It contradicts the well known axiom of Locke, that, “it is impossible for the same thing to be and not be at the same time.”

[8] The unknown substance is the known cause, a spiritual substance—God. Berkeley.

[9] The venerable Vasishtha would not raise question “where is the shadow of a shadow?” (prativimbasya prativambam kutak), had he known the discoveries of the modern science of Optics, and the achievements of photography and phonography, the refractions of prismatic lens and the vibrations of musical wires.

[10] The gods Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Sun, Indra and all others, are assimilated into the Supreme Spirit in their state of rest. He is beyond all attribute and out of the sphere of the universe, and is of the form of an immutable Intellect.

[11] The living soul is the creative spirit of God, represented by the divine hypostasis of Hiranyagarbha or Demiurgus, which is dependent on the Supreme spirit.

[12] Tanmátra or tat-mátra might be rendered from its affinity as “that matter,” but the idealistic theory of vedánta being opposed to that of the materialistic, it expresses only the idea and not the matter.

[13] The conceptualism of Europe, is a doctrine between Realism and Nominalism and betwixt Idealism and Relationism. The realist says, universal genera are real and independent existences; but the nominalist (like the Pratyaksávádi) says that, things only exist and universals are Flatus venti-pralápa.

[14] Note. It is the mind that lengthens time by the quick succession of its thoughts, and shortens it by its quiescence.

[15] This means the demons to have first peopled the borders and skirts of the earth. See Hesiod. Works and Days. Book I. v. 200.

[16] That the Meru or Altain chain in Scythia, was the great hive of human race is an undisputed truth in history. So Moses speaks of the giant race in Genesis chapter VI. v. 2 and 4. “And there were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that. And when the sons of God saw the daughters of men fair, they took them to wives, of all which they chose.”

And again: “when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown”.

[17] The whole of this chapter abounds in onomatopoeian alliterations, and is more a play upon words than display of sense. It is interesting however, for these jingling words in the language, as also for the names of the warlike weapons in use among the ancients.

[18] Notwithstanding the reward of heavenly abodes promised to the slayer and slain in war, in the Sástra and Koran, the Asiatics are far backward now-a-days, both to kill and to be killed than the Europeans, who are forbidden by the Holy writ, to slay and shed human blood. Thus there is a laxity of the injunction and prohibition on both sides.

[19] P. mujosi S. Yátudhána, H. Jádugar = juggler.

[20] The battle ground is compared firstly with the sky, then with the sea, next with a forest, and lastly with the last dooms-day.

[21] It was easy for the lively Lílá, to learn about these peoples and their native lands in her lonely Yoga meditation, by the help of the goddess of learning; but it is hard for us to identify them without subjecting ourselves to a long labour of love, which is a sort of Yoga also, called vidya Yoga, or intense application and self devotion to learning.

[22] Note. It is not easy to say, whether this continuation and lengthy description of the warfare, is Vasishtha’s or Válmíki’s own making; both of them being well acquainted with military tactics: the former having been the general of King Sudása against the Persians, and the latter the epic poet of Ráma’s wars with Rávana in the celebrated Ramáyana.

These descriptions are left out in the vernacular translations of this work as entirely useless in Yoga philosophy, without minding, that they formed the preliminary step to Ráma’s military education, which he was soon after called to complete under the guidance of Viswámitra in the hermitage.

[23] I have always thought the Daivástras or superhuman arms, described in the Ramáyana and Mahábhárata epics, as a display of pyrotechnic contrivances much in use in early warfare. Or they may have been some kinds of electric, hydraulic, pneumatic and steam engines emitting gusts of fire, water, wind and smoke in the field of war. Halhead in his Gentoo Laws, tells them to be shot from a kind of cross-bow used by the Crusadiers of old.

[24] He was formerly an inhabitatnt of Kánya Kubjya, North Western Provinces, India. He being invited on an occasion of a ceremony (yajna) by Ádisura, Rájá of Gour Bengal, paid a visit at his court on Thursday 12th Kartick (October-November) Sakábda 994 (Tenth-Eleventh Century A.D.), and on his request he settled there and became the founder of Gour Mitra Family, at Maldah in Bengal.

[25] Barisá, Twenty four Pargannahs, District Alipur, Bengal.

[26] Báli. Boro Pargunah, District Hugli.

[27] Bágbázar, Calcutta.