The writer of this book found, in the year 1048 of the Hejira (1638 A. D.), Aisha Girda, in Kashmir. Ferzanah Khushí says, that he kept his breath during three watches, or nine hours, and he found Maden Kir equal to him. This was a man skilled in all sorts of magic and sleight of hand: whenever well disposed, he scattered bread and salt about, brought milk forth from bones, cut bones in two with a hair, and passed birds’ eggs through the narrow neck of a bottle, and exhibited such like tricks.
Other Sanyásis remain twelve years standing upon one leg, and this class is called _Thávésar_.[230] Those who keep continual silence are called _Máunínas_.[231] Many other, like these, are mentioned in Hindu books, which the author of this work perused, but has no room for describing them all in these pages; some of this class are men of consideration and opulence, and are escorted by files of elephants; they have carriages, fine apparel, courtiers, servants, on foot and horseback.
[178] अभ्यासयोग the practice of frequent and repeated contemplation of any deity, or abstract spirit, repeated recollection, etc.
[179] योगः among a great number of significations has that of “religious exercise.”
[180] अभ्यास means, properly, “constant, eternal repetition.”
[181] यम religious restraint, or obligation.
[182] नियम or नियाम any religious observance voluntarily practised.
[183] आसन sitting in some particular posture, as is the custom of the devotees; eighty-four kinds are enumerated.
[184] प्राणायामः breathing in a peculiar way through the nostrils, during the mental recitation of the names or attributes of some deity.
[185] प्रत्याहारः abstraction; insensibility; restraining the organs so as to be indifferent to disagreeable or agreeable excitement.
[186] धारणं fortitude; keeping the mind collected, the breath suspended, and all natural wants restrained; steady immoveable abstraction.
[187] ध्यानं meditation; reflection; mental representation of the personal attributes of the divinity to whom worship is addressed.
[188] समधारण see _dhárana_; _sama_ is an intensitive.
[189] अहिंसा harmlessness, one of the cardinal virtues of most Hindu sects.
[192] ब्रह्मचारी a religious student, an ascetic of a certain class.