"'Action rightly renounced brings freedom:
"'Action rightly performed brings freedom:
"'Both are better
"'Than mere shunning of action.'"
-SM Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003), Chapter Ten, p. 166.
He continues:
"'We are men who act, holy one; better to act as our karman in this turn of the Wheel demands, than to try a path beyond our merit, and fail. Bless us!'" (ibid.)
The omniscient narrator comments:
"...King's theology was exceedingly weak, if you knew the next section of that gita..." (ibid.)
I could try to find out which section of the Bhagavad Gita King chants, then read the next section. But is his theology weak? Surely he quotes the essence of the Gita? See here. One way to avoid suffering is to avoid acting but some actions, preformed rightly, might be lesser evils.
Poul Anderson always shows respect for religious philosophies but maybe does not often discuss them with the depth of insight that Stirling displays here? The religious synthesis of the Angrezi Raj is both profound and plausible.
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