The Final Question
Page 35
Chapter 25
1. That is, saffron, the colour of asceticism and renunciation. Kamal deliberately says halde (yellow) rather than gerua (saffron) with its spiritual associations.
2. No doubt referring to the mythological and devotional paintings which, adopting the techniques of Western art, have been popular in India since the late nineteenth century.
3. Kacha, the son of the sage Vrihaspati, served his father’s rival sage Shukracharya for a thousand years to learn the art of reviving the dead. In the process he also won the love of Shukracharya’s daughter Devyani.
4. The four chief stages of a man’s life according to traditional Hindu doctrine: celibacy (brahmacharya), domesticity (garhasthya), life in a hermitage (vanaprastha) and asceticism (sannyasa). A pun on the other meaning of’ashram’ as used throughout the book, that is, a hermitage or spiritual retreat.
Chapter 27
1. Used here in the true and full sense of the term, namely, total well-being and control of the human entity.
Chapter 28
1. Vishnu, the second member of the divine trinity. Under this name he is conceived as the deity through whom one attains heaven.
PENGUIN BOOKS
UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia
New Zealand | India | South Africa
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
This collection published 2001
Copyright © Saratchandra Chattopadhyay 2001, 2010
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-143-06778-8
This digital edition published in 2016.
e-ISBN: 978-8-184-75243-4
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.