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BRAHMANISM
in the aspect of its holy mystery, the primary law of the terrible Arthaśāstra: the ruthless struggle for life that prevails in innocence in the realm of nature.10
This food is stored [the hymn continues] in the highest of the upper worlds.
All the gods and the deceased ancestors are the guardians of this food.
Whatever is eaten, or spilt or scattered as an offering, Is altogether but a hundredth part of my whole body.
The two great vessels, Heaven and Earth, have both been filled
By the spotted cow with the milk of but one milking, Pious people, drinking of it, cannot diminish it. It becomes neither more nor less.
The life-substance filling the body of the universe circulates through its creatures in a swift, perpetual flow, as they fall prey to cach other, becoming to each other both the food and the feeder. The portion made visible in this way is but the hundredth part of the total essence, a mere negligible indication of the totality, by far the greater part of it being hidden from the eye. For it is stored in the highest dominion of the universe, where it is guarded both by the gods and by the deceased ancestors who share the celestial abode. The very nature of that divine store is abundance; the portion manifested as the world is but the yield of a single milking of the sublime source, the great spotted cow. Through the continuous tranformation into the energy and substance of the world the infinite store suffers not the least decrease. The cow suffers no diminution, either of life-substance or of productive vigor, in the yield of a single milking.
10 Cf. supra, pp. 36 and 119.
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