movement of needles toward magnets, (2) the circulation of water
in plants, (3) AKASH or ether, inert and structureless, as a basis
for transmitting subtle forces, (4) the solar fire as the cause of
all other forms of heat, (5) heat as the cause of molecular change,
(6) the law of gravitation as caused by the quality that inheres in
earth-atoms to give them their attractive power or downward pull,
(7) the kinetic nature of all energy; causation as always rooted
in an expenditure of energy or a redistribution of motion, (8)
universal dissolution through the disintegration of atoms, (9)
the radiation of heat and light rays, infinitely small particles,
darting forth in all directions with inconceivable speed (the modern
'cosmic rays' theory), (10) the relativity of time and space.

"VAISESIKA assigned the origin of the world to atoms, eternal in
their nature, i.e., their ultimate peculiarities. These atoms were
regarded as possessing an incessant vibratory motion. . . . The
recent discovery that an atom is a miniature solar system would be
no news to the old VAISESIKA philosophers, who also reduced time to
its furthest mathematical concept by describing the smallest unit
of time (KALA) as the period taken by an atom to traverse its own
unit of space."

{FN8-6} Translated from the Bengali of Rabindranath Tagore, by
Manmohan Ghosh, in VISWA-BHARATI.



CHAPTER: 9

THE BLISSFUL DEVOTEE AND HIS COSMIC ROMANCE