The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)

This condemnation, which satisfied the pride of the vulgar, did not prevent the small number of sages remaining silent, faithful to the truth. It is only necessary to open one's eyes, and detaching them a moment from Judea, to a yvQau, savant.

* Epiph., 1. i.; Plucquet, Dictionn. des HSrisies, t. ii., p. 72.

Examinations of the Golden Verses 223

see that the dogma of inequality among men had served as basis for the civil and religious laws of all the peoples of the earth, from the orient of Asia to the occidental limits of Africa and Europe. Everjrwhere, four great established divisions under the name of Castes, recalled the four principal degrees of initiation and retraced upon humanity en masse, the Universal Quaternary. Egypt had, in this respect, in very ancient times, given example to Greece"; for this Greece, so proiid of her liberty, or rather of her turbulent anarchy, had been at first subjected to the common division, even as it is seen in Aristotle and Strabo.* The Chaldeans were, relative to the peoples of Assyria,' only what the Magi were among the Persians,'' the Druids among the Gauls,' and the Brahmans among the Indians. It is quite well known that this last people, the Brahmans, constitute the foremost and highest of the four castes of which the whole nation is composed. The allegorical origin that religion gives to these castes proves clearly the analogy of which I have spoken. The following is what is found relative to this in one of the Shastras. "At the first creation by Brahma, the Brahmans sprang from his mouth; the Kshatrys issued from his arms; the Vaisyas from his thighs, and the Soudras from his feet." It is said in another of these books containing the cosmogony of the Banians, that the first man, called Pourou, having had four sons named Brahma, Kshetri, Vaisa, and Souderi, God designated them to be chiefs of the four tribes which he himself instituted.^ The sacred books of the Burmans, which appear

1 Diod. Sicul., 1. i.; Herodot., 1. ii.

>> Aristot., Polit., 1. ii.; Strab., 1. viii.

<: Voyez Daniel, et conf^rez avec Court de Gobelin, Monde primitif, t. viii., p. 9. d Zend-Avesta, 14' h&, p. 127.

' Pomp. Mela, iii., c. 2; C^sar, 1. vi., c. 14; Pelloutier, Hist, des Celtes, 1. iv., ch. I, § 27 et 30.

/ The first Shastra. is entitled Djatimala. I am ignorant of the title of the other, that I cite from Henry Lord: Discovery of the Banian Religion, in Church, Collect., vol. vi.

224 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras anterior to those of the other Indian nations, establish the same division. The Rahans, who fill the sacerdotal offices among these peoples, teach a doctrine conformable to that of the mysteries. They say that inequality among men is a necessary consequence of their past virtues or past vices, and that they are born in a nation more or less enlightened, in a caste, in a family, more or less illustrious, according to their previous conduct." This is very close to the thought of P3rthagoras; but no one has expressed it with greater force and clearness than Kong-Tse. I think I have no need to say that these two sages did not copy each other. The assent that they gave to the same idea had its source elsewhere than in sterile imitation.