CHAPTER LXVIII.                           153

Therefore it was forbidden to eat cows' meat; as also
Alhajjaj forbade it, when people complained to him
that Babylonia became more and more desert.

I have been told the following passage is from an Thataii
Indian book : "All things are one, and whether allowed equaifroma
or forbidden, equal. They differ only in weakness and cai point of
power. The wolf has the power to tear the sheep;
therefore the sheep is the wolf's food, for the former
cannot oppose the latter, and is his prey." I have
found in Hindu books passages to the same effect.
However, such views come to the intelligent man only
by knowledge, when in it he has attained to such a
degree that a Brahman and a Candala are equal to him.
If he is in this state, all other things also are equal to
him, in so far as he abstains from them. It is the same
if they are all allowed to him, for he can dispense with
them, or if they are forbidden to him, for he does not
desire them. As to those, however, who require these
things, being in the yoke of ignorance, something is
allowed to them, something forbidden, and thereby a
wall is erected between the two kinds of things.