SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

THE UNION OF INDIAN PHII.OSOPHIIS, 179
There is no one in the three worlds that is dearer to me than
thou." And the praise by Krishna which follows is almost
what Arjuna himself hymned about Krishna. Vyasa meeting
Asvaththama after his final defeat tells him also that Krishna
and Arjuna had worshipped the Lord hundreds and thousands
of times. And does not this explain Krishna s own words in the
Glta that he and Arjuna had innumerable births (iv. 5).
What we wish to point out is that this trasfiguration
scene with its gruesome description which Mr. Jhonstone wants
to trace to Puranic legends preserved from South Indian
aborigines is, by express text and by the authority of Krishna
himself traced to the second V6da ;
and to say that the Yajur
Veda, the Central portion* of this Veda, should copy the holiest
portion of the whole Vdas, as believed by the contemporaries
and predecessors of Krishna, from the demonology of the South
Indians, could only be a parody of truth ;
and if this be true,
this demonology of the South Indians, instead of a thing being
repugnant must have been glorious indeed, to be copied by the
Brahmav&dins of Yajur Vda days. Western Scholars have
only misread and misunderstood the nature of this transfigu
ration and Visvariipa mystery, as they have misread the mystic
Personality of Rudra or Siva Himself, whose ideal these scholars
say, was also copied from the aborigines. To the credit of
Mrs. Besant, be it said, she has understood both these mysteries
better than any other European, Siva s whole personality, with
his eight forms, Ashtamuhurtams (see page 220 of the Siddhanta
* It is believed and it is a fact that the Palchatchara Mantra of the
modern Hinduism is found in the very middle of the three Vedas, Rig,
Yajur and Sarnan, which fact is set forth in the following Tamil verse.
cf.
The whole satarudriya passage quoted in sec. II. chap III. vol.
vi, Muir s Sanskrit texts.