Kedar Nath & Badri Narayan - Swami Vivekananda

A PILGRIM'S DIARY 65the War Lord, of Kalidas, we see the same Aryanisingprocess at work on the congeries of elements thateven then were seething and fuming about the feetof one who would fain cast himself upon the occeanof the thought of God as Siva. A people that hadlearnt under Buddhism to worship the solitary life ofspiritual culture, a people whose every instinct madefor the sanctity of the home, and the purity of thefamily, found themselves on the one hand enrapt bythe conception of God as the Great Monk, and onthe other puzzled by the presence of Parbatty. witha train of alien associations. The riddle was solvedby the genius of Kalidas. In the Kumara Sambhaba hevindicated triumphantly the Indian ideal of womanand marriage. In Uma, we have a vision of life andlove in which the Aryan imagination can rest, withouttremor or misgiving. The last remnant of earlyBacchus-ideals is banished, however, by the stern fiatof Sankaracharya. Even the popular imagination iscalled into leash. The Great God is establishedfinally, as the light of knowledge within the soul,Purusha the stirless, the Destroyer of Ignorance.The great prayer to Rudra,—From the Unreal, lead us to the Real!From Darkness, lead us into Light!From Death, lead us to Immortality!Reach us through and through ourself *.* ^ *And evermore protect us Oh Thou Terrible!from ignorance,By Thy Sweet Compassionate Face!