Atmâ Read online

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  ATMA.

  A ROMANCE

  BY

  A.C.F.

  (CAROLINE AUGUSTA FRAZER)

  "When atman (nom. sing. Atma) occurs in philosophical treatises ... it has generally been translated by soul, mind, or spirit. I tried myself to use one or other of these words, but the oftener I employed them the more I felt their inadequacy, and was driven at last to adopt ... Self as the least liable to misunderstanding."

  _Max Muller, in North American Review for June_, 1879.

  MONTREAL:

  JOHN LOVELL & SON,

  23 ST. NICHOLAS STREET.

  Entered according to Act of Parliament in the year 1891, by JOHN LOVELL& SON, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics atOttawa.

  ATMA

  CHAPTER I.

  O that Decay were always beautiful! How soft the exit of the dying day, The dying season too, its disarray Is gold and scarlet, hues of gay misrule, So it in festive cheer may pass away; Fading is excellent in earth or air, With it no budding April may compare, Nor fragrant June with long love-laden hours; Sweet is decadence in the quiet bowers Where summer songs and mirth are fallen asleep, And sweet the woe when fading violets weep.

  O that among things dearer in their wane Our fallen faiths might numbered be, that so Religions cherished in their hour of woe Might linger round the god-deserted fane, And worshippers be loath to leave and pray That old-time power return, until there may Issue a virtue, and the faith revive And holiness be there, and all the sphere Be filled with happy altars where shall thrive The mystic plants of faith and hope to bear Immortal fruitage of sweet charity; For I believe that every piety, And every thirst for truth is gift divine, The gifts of God are not to me unclean Though strangely honoured at an unknown shrine. In temples of the past my spirit fain For old-time strength and vigour would implore As in a ruined abbey, fairer for "The unimaginable touch of time" We long for the sincerity of yore.

  But this is not man's mood, in his regime Sweet "calm decay" becomes mischance unmeet, And dying creeds sink to extinction, Hooted, and scorned, and sepultured in hate, Denied their rosary of good deeds and boon Of reverence and holy unction-- First in the list of crimes man writes defeat.

  These purest dreams of this our low estate, White-robed vestals, fond and vain designs, I lay a wreath at your forgotten shrines.

  Nearly four hundred years ago, Nanuk, a man of a gentle spirit, livedin the Punjaub, and taught that God is a spirit. He enunciated thesolemn truth that no soul shall find God until it be first found of Him.This is true religion. The soul that apprehends it readjusts itsaffairs, looks unto God, and quietly waits for Him. The existence of anOmnipresent Holiness was alike the beginning and the burden of histheology, and in the light of that truth all the earth became holy tohim. His followers abjured idolatry and sought to know only theinvisible things of the spirit. He did not seek to establish a church;the truths which he knew, in their essence discountenance a visiblesemblance of divine authority, and Nanuk simply spoke them to him whowould hear,--emperor or beggar,--until in 1540 he went into thatspiritual world, which even here had been for him the real one.

  And then an oft-told story was repeated; a band of followers elected asuccessor, laws were necessary as their number increased, and a choiceof particular assembling places became expedient. And as

  "the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self,"

  so the laws passed into dogmas having equal weight with the truths thatNanuk had delivered, and the places became sacred.

  Nanuk's successors were ten, fulfilling a prophecy which thus limitedtheir number. The compilation of their sayings and doings to form a bookwhich as years went on was venerated more and more, and the founding ofOomritsur, chief of their holy places, were the principal things thattranspired in the history of the Khalsa during a century and a half,save that the brotherhood was greatly strengthened by Moslempersecution, occurring at intervals.

  But with the death of the ninth gooroo, by Moslem violence, and theaccession of his son Govind, the worldly fortunes of the Khalsa changed.Under the leadership of Govind, a young man of genius and enthusiasm,who comes before us in the two-fold character of religionist andmilitary hero, the Sikhs moved on to a national greatness not dreamed ofby Nanuk. Govind, who bestowed on himself and his followers the title ofSingh, or lion-hearted, hitherto an epithet appropriated in thisconnection by the Rajpoot nobility, devoted the strong energies of hisvigourous and daring nature to the purpose of establishing the faith ofNanuk by force of arms. To this end he constituted the sword a religioussymbol, and instituted a sort of worship of steel. The Khalsa became anaggressive force bent on the salvation of surrounding nations byviolence, and succeeded so well, that, eighty-five years after Govind'sdeath, the Sikhs, still retaining their character of a religiousfellowship, were consolidated into a powerful nation under RunjeetSingh. The dream of her tenth and last gooroo was realized, the Khalsawas at her height of worldly prosperity, but her life was no longer thespirit life which had been revealed to her first founder.

  And so under Asiatic skies as well as amid European civilization, manlaboured to redeem the world, making frantic war on the lying creeds ofpast ages and proclaiming the merits of his latest discovery.

  It is a strange development of human nature this animosity to creeds nolonger our own. Why, if I suffer the loss of faith and hope, must Ihasten to introduce my brother to my sad plight? I may do so, andperhaps enjoy good conscience in the act by vaunting that I shed lighton his spiritual vision. God help my brother if his light be from me.And God help me also, if I have attained so high rank among the blessedbefore I have learned that the human soul is beyond human aid; that inits eternal relations each soul travels in an orbit of its own and holdscorrespondence only with its Sun.