The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c17.19

c17.19

If the dances described here are more than a creation of the narrator’s fancy, jugglery must have reached in ancient India a comparatively high stage, as their explanation can only be sought in mirrors which give the spectator the illusion of a person climbing the rope or going into the fire. That the concave mirror, this most important instrument in modern magic, was known in ancient India, is in itself undoubtedly highly improbable. Still a passage in Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Vedānta,² where reference is made to jugglery exactly similar to the first trick in our text, presupposes likewise the use of a mirror; "The highest God"—so runs the passage—"is only as much different from the acting and enjoying individual called Vijñánátman, created by ignorance, as the magician climbing a rope with shield and sword is different from the same magician really standing on the ground."