Page:A Collection of Esoteric Writings.djvu/10

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and disciple Arjun, because of the disinclination expressed by the latter to fight on the battlefield. This description, as a matter of course, as there was no time to be lost, must have been recited in a short space of time, in the form of Aphorisms in short sentences, conveying a deep hidden meaning. Shri Krishna knew that Arjun was able accurately to comprehend in all its fullness the significance of this teaching.

Mr. Subba Row has written a commentary on this Philosophy, and has done his best to make it as elucidative, consistent, and clear as possible. We have printed these lectures in a separate book, and the readers will find on its study what an amount of learning the lecturer must have had.

These very lectures are conspicuous for the fact of having created between Mr. Subba Row and Madame Blavatsky a difference of opinion regarding the Koshas (कोश) or principles of which the human being is formed. This resulted in a written controversy between them, which the reader will find reprinted in this book.

Though most of the articles reproduced here are of controversial character, the reader will find them of sterling worth and merit on account of the originality of thought displayed and the able treatment of the various points controverted. And, moreover, they teem with learned and useful suggestions for progress of the students of Occult Science. Those who had read and studied these articles in the various numbers of the "Theosophist," as they appeared from time to time, had more than once requested us to reprint them in a collected form for the benefit to students of Occult learning.

Besides these articles, we are in possession of several notes of a miscellaneous character, regarding the private instructions given by Mr. T. Subba Row to the "chosen few" who had the good fortune to be in close contact with him. But we are sorry to say that they are incomplete, and were given by him only under the pledge of secrecy. It has, therefore, been thought desirable not to publish them. Mr. T. Subba Row had also made contributions to the local newspapers and magazines, but we think it unnecessary to reprint these, as they are solely on questions political and social.

Here we cannot help thanking our respected brother, the Hon'ble Mr. Subramaniyar for the valuable help, pecuniary and otherwise, he has rendered us in publishing some of our works.

Bombay, 1st April 1895. T. T.