ABSTRACT
A SANS}"A8I'S first and most important duty is to destroy, root and branch, any feeling of attachment that may still linger in his heart for the world and its vain pleasures. Wife, children, parents, friends, caste privileges, cattle, lands, jewels and other temporal possessions, animal passions, sensual pleasures-all these are but so many obstacles standing in the way of his soul's perfection. In Hindu books they are likened variously to thick clouds which, until they are dispersed, obscure the light of the sun, or to violent winds that disturb the surface of the water and prevent the reflection of this luminary in all its splendour i to the coils which caterpillars and other inHects form, and of which they cannot. rid themselves; or again to the kernels of certain fruits in which grubs and maggots are imprisoned.
