Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/235

as atoms. They may become very hard as diamonds, or hollow as bamboo, or appear as other objects. When they appear in large masses as the elements, they may be more or less or eqûal (to each other) or appear as a whole, or three-quarters or half or quarter, and each mass will be named according to the kind of atoms which are excessive in it. If they do not possess these properties they cannot be hard as earth, or flow as water, or burn as fire, or blow as wind. Only those who have divine eyes can see a single atom. Others in their physical bodies cannot discern it, just as in the twilight men cannot perceive a single hair, but can clearly see a mass of hair. Souls are born in bodies of six different colours, viz., black, blue, green, red, yellow and white. When born in pure white bodies souls attain release and happiness. If they fail to attain release, they would again descend in the scale of births and rise up like the turning of a wheel. To gain, to lose, to meet reverses, or successes, to feel pain or pleasure, to part from associations, to be born and to die are destined when the body is conceived in the womb. Pain and pleasure may be also considered eternal atoms, it is the effect of former deeds that is felt afterwards. The book of Markali explains in this manner: "Leaving this confusion of words she asked the Niganta (Nigranta) to state who was his God, and what was taught in his sacred books, and to exclaim correctly how things exist and are formed or dissolved. He said that his God is worshipped by Indras: and that the books revealed by him describe the following :—The wheel of Law, the axle of Law, Time, Ether, Soul, Eternal atoms, good deeds, bad deeds, the bonds created by those deeds and the way to obtain release from those bonds. Things by their own nature, or by the nature of other objects to which they are attached are temporary or everlasting. Within the short period of a Kshana (second) they may pass through the three unavoidable stages, appearance, existence and dissolution. That a margosa tree sprouts and grows is eternal: that it does not possess that property is temporary. Green gram when made into a sweetmeat with other ingredients does not lose its nature, but loses its form. The wheel of Law (Dharma) pervades everywhere and moves all things in order and for ever. In the same