परमार्थसोपान GENERAL INTRODUCTION II DO HAS In the first part of our work, we have seen how an aspirant rises step by step from certain incentives to spiritual life to the culmination of spiritual experience. The five chapters in the first part, namely, on the Padas, we may say, constitute the macrocosm of spiritual experience as found in Hindi literature. The five chapters in the present part on the Dohas consti- tute the microcosm with the same head-topics seriatim, which are to be met with in the first part of our book. In this division between Padas and Dohas we have followed the time-honoured tradition in Hindi litera- ture, which separates the Shabdas from the Sakhis. Probably this method is to be commended, because a bigger thing cannot naturally go with a smaller, especially when the bigger thing contains spiritual reflections, and the smaller didactic epigrams. It is for this reason that the present writer has styled the Doha literature in one place as Epigrammatic Mysticism. The great saint Tulsidas has made an original use of the Dohas as containing the "Quintessence" of the narrative in the Ramayana, and connecting Janus-wise
