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BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE.
[Chap
give pain to yourself or to others. Not depending upon others, is salvation. Heaven lies in eating food of delicious taste."[1]
It is further preached that immorality is no vice, but this particular passage need not be quoted.
Now let us imagine the effect of such free-thinking on society. Indiscriminate food.The Tāntriks who were dominant all over India in the age of which we are speaking, were known to banquet on things so horrible as, for instance, a putrid corpse. They wanted to shew that in their eyes nothing in creation was unholy. Laxity of marriage laws.The marriage system had become lax. During the flourishing days of Buddhism, the different races of Asia had been brought into close touch with one another. The monasteries were filled with men and women of alien race, and when standards of morality sank low in Buddhistic society in course of time, a population, consisting of children disowned by the communities of both their parents came into existence, and- ↑ The above is the translation of a passage from Vidyonmād-Ṭarañginī a well-known Sanskrit work by Chirañjiv Bhattāchāryya. The author gives an interesting description of religious controversies amongst the various sects of Hindus. The above arguments are put in the mouth of a Buddhist. Vidyonmād-Ṭarañginī was translated into English by the late Rājā Kālī Krisṅa Dev of Shobha Vāzār, Calcutta in 1834. The Sanskrit Text of the passage is given below:—
"ন স্বর্গো নৈব জন্মান্যদপি ন নরকো নাপ্যধর্ম্মো ন ধর্ম্মঃ,
কর্ত্তা নৈবাস্য কশ্চিৎ প্রভবতি জগতো নৈব ভর্ত্তা ন হর্ত্তা।
প্রত্যক্ষান্যন্ন মানং ন সকলফলভুগ্ দেহভিন্নোঽস্তি,
কশ্চিন্মিথ্যাভূতে সমস্তে ঽপ্যনুভবতি জনঃ সর্ব্বমেতদ্বিমোহং।
অহিংসা পরমো ধর্ম্মঃ পাপমাত্ম প্রপীড়নম্।
অপরাধীনতা মুক্তিঃ স্বর্গোঽভিলষিতাশনম্॥
কা সৃষ্টৌ পরিদেবনা যদি পুনঃ পিত্রোরপত্যোদ্ভবঃ।
কুম্ভাদ্যাঃ প্রভবন্তি সন্ততমমী তত্তৎকুলালাদিতঃ॥"
