A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

APP. V PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS OF INDIANS 339

The Jains base human existence on the aggregation of
nine phenomena, or principles, one of which, Jiv, vitality,
may by merit become a Jin, or an immortal spirit. The two
great divisions,' Swetambar ', the white clothed, and ' Digambar', the naked, seem to have few important metaphysical
differences, except that the latter refuses emancipation to
the Jiv, or vital power, in woman, or denies that woman has
a soul capable of immortality.
The six heretical systems of Indian speculation thus
comprise the four Buddhist and two Jain schools; or, if the
Jain be held to be one, the sixth is obtained by including
the Charvak.
The tendency of Indian speculation lies doubtless towards
materialism, and the learned say the mind cannot grasp that
which is without qualities, or which has force without form,
and is irrespective of space. In how much does the philosophy of Humboldt differ from this, when he says he confidently expects what Socrates once desired, 'that Reason
shall be the sole interpreter of Nature '? (Kosmos, Sabine's
trans., i. 154.)
APPENDIX VI
ON THE MAYA OF THE INDIANS
THE Maya of the Hindus may be considered under a threefold aspect, or morally, poetically, and philosophically.
Morally, it means no more than the vanity of Solomon
(Ecclesiastes i and ii), or the nothingness of this world; and
thus Kabir likens it to delusion or evil, or to moral error
in the abstract. (As. Res., xvi. 161.) The Indian reformers,
indeed, made a use of Mdya corresponding with the use
made by the Apostle Saint John of the Logos of Plato, as
Mr. Milman very judiciously observes. (Note in Gibbon,
History, iii. 312.) The one adapted Mdya to the Hindu
notions of a sinful world, and the other explained to Greek
and Roman understandings the nature of Christ's relation
to God by representing the divine intelligence to be manifested in the Messiah.
Poetically, Maya is used to denote a film before the eyes
of gods and heroes, which limits their sight or sets bounds to
their senses (Heereen, Asiatic Nations, iii. 203); and. similarly Pallas dispels a mist from before the eyes of Diomed,
and makes the ethereal forms of divinities apparent to a
mortal. (Iliad, v.) The popular speech of all countries
contains proof of the persuasion that the imperfect powers
z2