Shidósh was delighted at this interpretation, and said: “They have also recorded that Krishna had sixteen thousand wives; and when one of his friends who thought it impossible for Krishna to visit all of them, said to try him: ‘Bestow on me one of thy wives,’ Krishna answered: ‘In whatever female’s apartment thou findest me not, she is thine.’ His friend went into the different apartments, but in every one of them he beheld the god engaged in conversation with its mistress.” This story implies, that the love of Krishna was so rooted in their hearts, that they cared for none besides, having his image present to their eyes, and dwelling every moment on his beloved idea.
The tradition of Vishnu’s always bearing the Chakra in his hand (a kind of military weapon), alludes to the knowledge and decisive demonstration which are unattainable without the aid of soul.
In Mahadeo, they allude to our elementary nature by the serpent twined round his neck; they mean anger, and the other reprehensible qualities which result from corporeity; by his being mounted on a bull, the animal propensities; by the tradition of his place of repose being the site for burning the dead, is signified, the total dispersion of the particles of bodies and the perishable nature of things. Mahadeo’s drinking poison is also to the same purport. In this sense they also say that Mahadeo is the destroyer of all worldly things; that is, elemental nature imperatively requires the dissolution of combination (connection), and that ultimately death comes in the natural course.
They also hold that every angel has a wife (female energy), of a similar generic constitution, and originally derived from Brahma; and as we have before stated, the philosophers call the first intelligence the True Sire, and the universal soul, Eve; and thus he is the head and the wife the shoulder; the universal soul is the body of the empyreal heaven; and in like manner the other celestial souls and bodies have wives of the elementary nature; as they give the appellation of wife, or energy, to whatever is the manifest source of action.
Moreover the established doctrine held by these sectaries is, that each class should worship a particular angel, and the wife or female energy of that angel; the worshipper regarding the object of his adoration as God, and all others, as created beings; for example, many believe Naráyan to be the supreme God; several others, look up to Mahadéo, and many to the other male and female divinities; and thus, pursuant to the four Védas, which according to their common belief are a celestial revelation, they do not hold any angel who is the object of their praise as distinct from God: by which they mean that God, who is without equal, having manifested himself under innumerable modes of appearance, contemplates the glorious perfection of his essence in the mirrors of his attributes; so that, from the most minute atom to the solar orb, his holy and divine essence is the source of all that exists.