again to such choruses of laughter that the robbers flocked
‐
,’
d
or
lar will be
but, on
the co
, occasionally
aband
nd immorality, I
count
ures I have
ever h
eat to
together from all sides of the camp in order to hear what
was going on.
The master also understood how to handle dry
technical questions in an interesting fashion, and I recol‐
lect really fascinating dissertations on — “How to make a
breach in a wall without noise,” or — “How to excavate a
subterranean passage with technical accuracy.” The
proper construction of different kinds of crowbar, partic
ularly of the so‐called ‘snake‐jaw’ and the ‘crab‐leg hook
was most graphically described; the use of soft‐stringed
instruments to discover whether people were awake, an
of the wooden head of a man thrust in at the door
window to ascertain whether the supposed burg
observed — all such things were thoroughly discussed.
His development of the theory that a man, when
carrying out a theft, must unquestionably take the life of
everyone who might bear witness against him, as also his
general consideration of the statement that a thief should
not be afflicted with moral talk and conversation
ntrary, should be coarse and violent
oning himself to drunkenness a
among the most learned and witty lect
eard.
In order, however, to give you a better idea of the
profound mind of this truly original man, I must rep
you the most famous passage from his “Commentary on
the Ancient Kālī‐Sūtras, the Esoteric Doctrine of the
Thieves” — a discourse of all but canonical importance.
71
~ 10 ~
E
SOTERIC DOCTRINE
T
HUS THE SŪTRA READS: “The Divine also, do
you think? ... No! ... Non‐responsibility ... On
account of Space, of Scripture, of Tradition.”
*
*
*
The worshipful Vājashravas comments
follows:
upon this as
n
;
indee
ble
s
“‘
The Divine also...,’ that is punishment.
“For, in the preceding Sūtra, such punishments
w
spoken of as the king or the authorities might
ere
decree upon the robber; these are as follows: the mutilatio
of hand, foot and nose; the seething cauldron; the
pitch garland; the ‘dragon’s mouth’; running the gauntlet
the rack; besprinkling with boiling oil; decapitation;
rending by dogs; impalement of the living body — these
being more than sufficient reason why the robber should,
if possible, not let himself be caught but, if he should
d have been caught, why he should in every possi
way
“Now some people say, ‘Divine punishment also
eek to escape.
threatens the robber.’ ‘No!’ says our Sūtra. Why? Because
‘Non‐responsibility ’ comes into play. Which may be made
clear in three ways: by the aid of reason, from the Veda,
and from the heroic songs handed down to us.
“‘On account of Space...’ by which the following
73
consideration, founded on reason, is meant. If I cut off
the head of a human being or an animal, my sword goes
r
, and a divine
punis
. And if
this b
deeds
which
human law?
cripture.’
The sacred Veda teaches us that that which alone
has an
d, the Brah‐
man.
pty deception.
This t
passage
wher
young Nashiketas
of thi Brahman, and among other things, says:
believes he kills,
not, neither does he kill.’
ed
rn
na
tling
through between the indivisible particles — the atoms; fo
it cannot cut through these particles on account of their
very indivisibility. What it cuts through then, is the empty
space which separates these particles. But, on account of
its very emptiness, one cannot do any harm to this space.
For to harm a nothing is just the same as not to harm
anything. As a consequence one cannot, by this cutting
through of space, incur any responsibility
hment cannot therefore be meted out for it
e true of killing, how much more so then of
are punished less severely by
“Thus far, reason; now comes ‘S
“
y true existence is the Highest Godhea
If this is true, then all killing is an em
he Veda also says in so many words, in the
e Yama, the God of Death, tells the
s
“‘Who, when slaying,
Who, when slain, believes he dies,
Deceived are both this and that one too —
He dies
“Even more convincingly is this awful truth reveal
to us in The Heroic Song of Krishna and Arjuna —
the Bhagavad Gītā. For Krishna himself — having known
no beginning, destined to know no end, the eternal,
almighty, inconceivable Being, the Highest God, who for
the salvation of all living beings caused himself to be bo
as a man — in the last days of his earthly pilgrimage Krish
helped the king of the Pāndavas, the high‐minded Arjuna,
in the war against the Kaurāvas because the latter had
done him and his brothers grievous wrong. Now when
both armies were drawn up in battle array, their bris
74