5:13 Pulastya, as will be presently seen, is one of the Rishis, who were the mind-born sons of Brahmá. Pulaha, who is here also named, is another. Pulastya is considered as the ancestor of the Rákshasas, as he is the father of Visravas, the father of Rávana and his brethren. Uttara Rámáyańa. Mahábhárata, Vana Parva, s. 272. Pádma Pur. Linga Pur. s. 63.

5:14 Puráńa sanhitá kerttá Bhaván bha p. 6 vishyati. You shall be a maker of the Sanhitá, or compendium of the Puráńas, or of the Vishńu Puráńa, considered as a summary or compendium of Pauranic traditions. In either sense it is incompatible with the general attribution of all the Puráńas to Vyása.

6:15 Whether performing the usual ceremonies of the Brahmans, or leading a life of devotion and penance, which supersedes the necessity of rites and sacrifices.

6:16 These are, in fact, the brief replies to Maitreya's six questions (p. 3), or, How was the world created? By Vishńu. How will it be? At the periods of dissolution it will be in Vishńu. Whence proceeded animate and inanimate things? From Vishńu. Of what is the substance of the world? Vishńu. Into what has it been, and will it again he, resolved? Vishńu. He is therefore both the instrumental and material cause of the universe. 'The answer to the "whence" replies to the query as to the instrumental cause: "He is the world" replies to the inquiry as to the material cause.' 'And by this explanation of the agency of the materiality, &c. of Vishńu, as regards the universe, (it follows that) all will be produced from, and all will repose in him.' We have here precisely the τὸ πᾶν of the Orphic doctrines, and we might fancy that Brucker was translating a passage from a Puráńa when he describes them in these words: "Continuisse Jovem (lege Vishnum) sive summum ortum in se omnia, omnibus ortum ex se dedisse, omnia ex se genuisse, et ex sua produxisse essentia. Spiritum esse universi qui omnia regit vivificat estque; ex quibus necessario sequitur omnia in eum reditura." Hist. Philos. I. 388. Jamblichus and Proclus also testify that the Pythagorean doctrines of the origin of the material world from the Deity, and its identity with him, were much the same. Cudworth, l. c. p. 348.

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Hinduism

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