Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

30. Everything was overpowered by the poignant power of the poison, and the inhabitants of the hills and forests were benumbed by the venomous infection. 31. The smart poison spread a fiery heat all around, and the frozen snows like fire-brands sent forth their burning particles which were wafted by the hot winds in the air. 32. The armigerous Vidúratha who was equally skilled in arms, had then recourse to his Garuda or serpivorous weapons, which fled like mountainous eagles to all sides. 33. Their golden pinions spread in the sky on all sides, and embroidered the air with purple gold; and the flapping of their wings wheezed like a breeze, which blew away the poisonous effluvia afar in the air. 34. It made the snakes breathe out of their nostrils with a hissing, resembling the gurgling (ghurghur) of waters in a whirlpool in the sea. 35. The flying Garuda weapons devoured the creeping terrene serpents with a whistling noise (salsala), like that of the rising waters (water-spouts), in the act of their suction by Agastya—the sun. 36. The face of the ground delivered from its covering of these reptiles, again appeared to view, as the surface of the earth re-appeared to light, after its deliverance from the waters of the deluge.

37. The army of Garudas disappeared afterwards from sight, like a line of lamps put out by the wind, and the assemblage of clouds vanishing in autumn. 38. They fled like flying mountains for fear of the bolts of the thundering Indra; and vanished like the evanescent world seen in a dream, or as an aerial castle built by fancy. 39. Then king Sindhu shot his shots of darkness (smoke), which darkened the scene like the dark cave under the ground. 40. It hid the face of the earth and sky, like the diluvian waters reaching to the welkin’s face; making the army appear as a shoal of fishes, and the stars as gems shining in the deep. 41. The overspreading darkness appeared as a sea of ink or dark quagmire, or as the particles of Anjanagiri (Inky mountain) wafted by the breeze over the face of nature. 42. All beings seemed to be immersed in the sea or darkness, and to lose their energies as in the deep gloom of midnight. 43. Vidúratha the best of the most skilful in ballistics, shot his sun-bright shot which like the sun illumined the vault of the sky.

44. It rose high amidst the overspreading darkness like the sun (Agastya) with his effulgent beams, and dispelled the shades of darkness, as autumn does the rainy clouds. 45. The sky being cleared of its veil of darkness, manifested itself with its reddish clouds, resembling the blowzy bodices of damsels before the king. (Here is a pun upon the word payodhara which means both a cloud and the breast of a woman). 46. Now the landscape appeared in full view, like the understanding (good sense) of men coming in full play after the extinction of their avarice. 47. The enraged Sindhu then laid hold on his dreadful Rákshasa weapon, which he instantly flung on his foe with its bedeviled darts. 48. These horrid and destructive darts flew on all sides in the air, and roared as the roaring sea and elephantine clouds (dighastis) of heaven. 49. They were as the flames of lambent fire, with their long licking tongues and ash-coloured and smoky curls, rising as hoary hairs on the head, and making a chat-chat sound like that of moist fuel set up on fire. 50. They wheeled round in circles through the air, with a horrible tangtang noise, now flaming as fire and now fuming as smoke, and then flying about as sparks of fire.

51. With mouths beset by rows of sprouting teeth like lotus stalks, and faces defaced by dirty and fusty eyes, their hairy bodies were as stagnate pools full of moss and weeds. 52. They flew about and flashed and roared aloud as some dark clouds, while the locks of hairs on their heads glared as lightnings in the midway sky. 53. At this instant Vidúratha the spouse of Lílá, sent forth his Náráyana weapon, having the power of suppressing wicked spirits and demons. 54. The appearance of this magic weapon, made the bodies of the Rákshasas, disappear as darkness at sun rise. 55. The whole army of these fiends was lost in the air, as the sable clouds of the rainy season, vanish into nothing at the approach of autumn. 56. Then Sindhu discharged his fire arms which set fire to the sky, and began to burn down every thing, as by the all destroying conflagration of the last day. 57. They filled all the sides of air with clouds of smoke, which seemed to hide the face of heaven under the darkness of hell. 58. They set fire to the woods in the hills, which burned like mountains of gold; while the trees appeared to bloom with yellow champaka flowers all around.

59. All the sides of the sky above, and the hills, woods and groves below, were enveloped in the flames, as if they were covered under the red powder of huli, with which Yama was sporting over the plain. 60. The heaven-spreading flame burnt down the legions in one heap of ashes, as the submarine fire consumes whole bodies of the fleet and navy in the sea. 61. As Sindhu continued to dart his firearms against his vanquished adversary, Vidúratha let off his watery arms with reverential regard. 62. These filled with water, flew forward as the shades of darkness from their hidden cells; and spread up and down and on all sides, like a melted mountain gushing in a hundred cataracts. 63. They stretched as mountainous clouds or as a sea in the air, and fell in showers of watery arrows and stones on the ground. 64. They flew up like large tamála trees, and being gathered in groups like the shades of night, appeared as the thick gloom beyond the lokáloka or polar mountains. 65. They gave the sky the appearance of subterraneous caves, emitting a gurgling sound (ghurghura) like the loud roaring of elephants.

66. These waters soon drank (cooled) the spreading furious fire, as the shades of the dark night swallow (efface) the surrounding red tints of the evening. 67. Having swallowed the fires above, the waters overflooded the ground and filled it with a humidity which served to enervate all bodies, as the power of sleep numbs every body in death-like torpidity. 68. In this manner both the kings were throwing their enchanted weapons against each other, and found them equally quelling and repelling one another in their course. 69. The heavy armed soldiers of Sindhu and the captains of his regiments were swept away by the flood, together with the warcars which floated upon it. 70. At this moment, Sindhu thought upon his anhydrous weapons (soshanástre—thermal arms), which possessed the miraculous power of preserving his people from the water, and hurled them in the air. 71. These absorbed the waters as the sun sucks up the moisture of the night, and dried up the land and revived the soldiers, except those that were already dead and gone. 72. Their heat chased the coldness as the rage of the illiterate enrages the learned, and made the moist ground as dry, as when the sultry winds strew the forest land with dried leaves.

73. It decorated the face of the ground with a golden hue, as when the royal dames adorn their persons with a yellow paint or ointment. 74. It put the soldiers on the opposite side to a state of feverish (or blood heated) fainting, as when the tender leaves of trees are scorched by the warmth of a wild fire in summer heat. 75. Vidúratha in his rage of warfare laid hold on his bow (kodanda), and having bent it to a curve, let fly his cloudy arms on his antagonist. 76. They sent forth columns of clouds as thick as the sable shades of night, which flying upward as a forest of dark tamála trees, spread an umbrage heavy with water on high. 77. They lowered under the weight of their water, and stood still by their massive thickness; and roared aloud in their circles all over the sky. 78. Then blew the winds dropping the dewdrops of the icy store they bore on their pinions; and showers of rain fell fast from the collections of the clouds on high. 79. Then flashed the fiery lightnings from them like golden serpents in their serpentine course or rather like the aslant glances of the eyes of heavenly nymphs.

80. The roarings of the clouds rebounded in the mountainous caverns of the sky, and the quarters of heaven re-echoed to the same with the hoarse noise of elephants and the roaring of lions and growling of tigers and bears. 81. Showers of rain fell in floods with drops as big as musalas—malls or mallets, and with flashes of lightnings threatening as the stern glancings of the god of death. 82. Huge mists rising at first in the form of vapours of the earth, and then borne aloft by the heated air into the sky, seemed like titans to rise from the infernal regions (and then invade heaven with their gloomy armament). 83. The mirage of the warfare ceased after a while; as the worldly desires subside to rest upon tasting the sweet joys attending on divine knowledge. 84. The ground became full of mud and mire and was impassable in every part of it; and the forces of Sindhu were overflown by the watery deluge, like the river Sinde or the sea. 85. He then hurled his airy weapon which filled the vault of heaven with winds, and raged in all their fury like the Bhairava-Furies on the last day of resurrection.

86. The winds blew on all sides of the sky, with darts falling as thunder bolts, and hailstones now piercing and then crushing all bodies as by the last blast of nature on the dooms-day.

DESCRIPTION OF OTHER KINDS OF WEAPONS. Then blew the icy winds of winter, blasting the beauty of the foliage of forest trees, and shaking and breaking the beautiful arbors, and covering them with gusts of dust. 2. Then rose the gale whirling the trees like birds flying in the air, dashing and smashing the soldiers on the ground, and hurling and breaking the edifices to dust. 3. This fearful squall blew away Vidúratha and his force, as a rapid current carries away the broken and rotten fragments of wood. 4. Then Vidúratha who was skilled in ballistics hurled his huge and heavy arrows, which stretched themselves to the sky, and withstood the force of the winds and rain. 5. Opposed by these rock-like barriers, the airy weapons were at a stand still, as the animal spirits are checked by the firm stoicity of the soul. 6. The trees which had been blown up by the winds and floating in the breezy air, now came down and fell upon the dead bodies, like flocks of crows upon putrid carcasses. 7. The shouting (shitkára) of the city, the distant hum (dátkára) of the village, the howling (bhánkára) of forests, and the rustling (utkára) of the trees, ceased on all sides like the vain verbiology of men.

8. Sindhu saw burning rocks (rockets?) falling from above like leaves of trees, and flying about as the winged Mainákas or moving rocks of the sea or Sinde (sindhu). 9. He then hurled his thundering weapons, falling as flaming thunderbolts from heaven, which burnt the rocks away as the flaming fire destroys the darkness. 10. These falling bolts broke the stones with their pointed ends, and hewed down the heads (tops) of the hills, like a hurricane scattering the fruits of trees on the ground. 11. Vidúratha then darted his Brahmá weapon to quell the thunderbolts, which jostling against one another, disappeared in their mutual conflict. 12. Sindhu then cast his demoniac weapons (Pisáchástras) as black as darkness, which fled as lines of horrid Pisácha demons on all sides. 13. They filled the firmament with the darkness of their bodies, and made the daylight turn to the shade of night, as if it were for fear of them. 14. They were as stalwart in their figures as huge columns of smoke, and as dark in their complexion as the blackest pitch, and tangible by the hand.

15. They were as lean skeletons with erect hairs on their heads and bearded faces, with looks as pale as those of beggars, and bodies as black as those of the aerial and nocturnal fiends. 16. They were terrific and like idiots in their looks, and moved about with bones and skulls in their hands. They were as meagre as churls, but more cruel than either the sword or thunderbolt. 17. The Pisáchas lurk about the woods, bogs and highways, and pry into empty and open door houses. They hunt about as ghosts in their dark forms, and fly away as fast as the fleeting lightning. 18. They ran and attacked with fury the remaining forces of the enemy, that stood weaponless in the field, with their broken and sorrowful hearts. 19. Frightened to death they stood motionless, and dropped down their arms and armours, and stood petrified as if they were demon-struck, with staring eyes, open mouths, and unmoving hands and feet. 20. They let fall both their lower and upper garments, loosened their bowels and slakened their bodies through fear, and kept shaking as fixed trees by the winds.

21. The line of the Pisáchas then advanced to frighten Vidúratha out of his wits, but he had the good sense to understand them as the mere Mumbo-jumbos of magic. 22. He knew the counter charm to fight out the Pisáchas from the field, and employed his charmed weapons against the Pisácha army of his enemy. 23. He darted in his ire the Rúpiká weapon, which gave comfort to his own army, and deluded the Pisácha force of his adversary. 24. These Rúpikás flew in the air with erect hairs on their heads; their terrific eyes were sunk in their sockets, and their waists and breasts moved as trees with bunches of fruit. 25. They had past their youth and become old; and their bodies were bulky and worn out with age; they had deformed backs and hips, and protuberant navels and naves. 26. They had dark dusky bodies, and held human skulls in their hands all besmeared with blood. They had bits of half devoured flesh in their mouths, and pouring out fresh blood from their sides. 27. They had a variety of gestures, motions and contortions of their bodies, which were as hard as stone, with wry faces, crooked backs and twisted legs and limbs.

28. Some had their faces like those of dogs, crows, and owls, with broad mouths and flat cheek-bones and bellies, and held human skulls and entrails in their hands. 29. They laid hold of the Pisáchas as men catch little boys, and joined with them in one body as their consorts. (i.e. The Rúpiká witches bewitching the demoniac Pisáchas, got the better of them). 30. They joined together in dancing and singing with outstretched arms and mouths and eyes, now joining hand in hand and now pursuing one another in their merry sport. 31. They stretched their long tongues from their horrid mouths, and licked away the blood exuding from the wounds of the dead bodies. 32. They plunged in the pool of blood with as much delight, as if they dived in a pond of ghee, and scrabbled in the bloody puddle with outstretched arms and feet, and uplifted ears and nose. 33. They rolled and jostled with one another in the puddle of carrion and blood, and made it swell like the milky ocean when churned by the Mandara mountain. 34. As Vidúratha employed his magic weapon against the magic of Sindhu, so he had recourse to others from a sense of his inferiority.

35. He darted his Vetála weapon, which made the dead bodies, whether with or without their heads, to rise up in a body in their ghastly shapes. 36. The joint forces of the Vetálas, Pisáchas and Rúpikás presented a dreadful appearance as that of the Kavandhas, and seemed as they were ready to destroy the earth. 37. The other monarch was not slow to show his magical skill, by hurling his Rákshasa weapon, which threatened to grasp and devour the three worlds. 38. These with their gigantic bodies rose as high as mountains, and seemed as hellish fiends appearing from the infernal regions in their ghostly forms. 39. The ferocious body of the roaring Rákshasas, terrified both the gods and demigods (surásuras), by their loud martial music and war dance of their headless trunks (Kavandhas). 40. The giddy Vetálas, Yakshas and Kushmándas, devoured the fat and flesh of dead bodies as their toast, and drank the gory blood as their lurid wines in the coarse of their war dance. 41. The hopping and jumping of the Kushmándas, in their war dance in streams of blood, scattered its crimson particles in the air, which assembled in the form of a bridge of red evening clouds over the sparkling sea.

DEATH OF VIDÚRATHA. Vasishtha said:—As the tide of war was rolling violently with a general massacre on both sides, the belligerent monarchs thought on the means of saving their own forces from the impending ruin. 2. The magnanimous Sindhurája, who was armed with patience, called to his mind the Vaishnava weapon, which was the greatest of arms and as powerful as Siva (Jove) himself. 3. No sooner was the Vaishnava weapon hurled by him with his best judgment (mantra), than it emitted a thousand sparks of fire from its flaming blade on all sides. 4. These sparks enlarged into balls, as big and bright as to shine like hundreds of suns in the sky, and others flew as the lengthy shafts of cudgels in the air. 5. Some of them filled the wide field of the firmament with thunderbolts as thick as the blades of grass, and others overspread the lake of heaven, with battle axes as a bed of lotuses. 6. These poured forth showers of pointed arrows spreading as a net-work in the sky, and darted the sable blades of swords, scattered as the leaves of trees in the air. 7. At this time, the rival king Vidúratha, sent forth another Vaishnava weapon for repelling the former, and removing the reliance of his foe in his foible.

8. It sent forth a stream of weapons counteracting those of the other, and overflowing in currents of arrows and pikes, clubs and axes and missiles of various kinds. 9. These weapons struggled with and justled against one another. They split the vault of heaven with their clattering, and cracked like loud thunder claps cleaving the mountain cliffs. 10. The arrows pierced the rods and swords, and the swords hewed down the axes and lances to pieces. The malls and mallets drove the missiles, and the pikes broke the spears (saktis). 11. The mallets like Mandara rocks, broke and drove away the rushing arrows as waves of the sea, and the resistless swords broke to pieces by striking at the maces. 12. The lances revolved like the halo of the moon, repelling the black sword-blades as darkness, and the swift missiles flashed as the destructive fires of Yama. 13. The whirling disks were destroying all other weapons; they stunned the world by their noise, and broke the mountains by their strokes. 14. The clashing weapons were breaking one another in numbers, and Vidúratha defeated the arms of Sindhu, as the steadfast mountain defies the thunders of Indra.

15. The truncheons (Sankus) were blowing away the falchions (asis); and the spontoons (súlas) were warding off the stones of the slings. The crow bars (bhusundis) broke down the pointed heads of the pikes (bhindhipálas). 16. The iron rods of the enemy (parasúlas) were broken by tridents (trisúlas) of Siva, and the hostile arms were falling down by their crushing one another to pieces. 17. The clattering shots stopped the course of the heavenly stream, and the combustion of powder filled the air with smoke. 18. The clashing of dashing weapons lightened the sky like lightnings, their clattering cracked the worlds like thunderclaps, and their shock split and broke the mountains like thunderbolts. 19. Thus were the warring weapons breaking one another by their concussion, and protracting the engagement by their mutual overthrow. 20. As Sindhu was standing still in defiance of the prowess of his adversary, Vidúratha lifted his own fire-arm, and fired it with a thundering sound. 21. It set the war chariot of Sindhu on fire like a heap of hay on the plain, while the Vaishnava weapons filled the etherial sphere with their meteoric blaze.

22. The two Kings were thus engaged in fierce fighting with each other, the one darting his weapons like drops of raging rain, and the other hurling his arms like currents of a deluging river. 23. The two Kings were thus harassing each other like two brave champions in their contest, when the chariot of Sindhu was reduced to ashes by its flame. 24. He then fled to the woods like a lion from its cavern in the mountain, and repelled the fire that pursued him by his aqueous weapons. 25. After losing his car and alighting on the ground, he brandished his sword and cut off the hoofs and heels of the horses of his enemy’s chariot in the twinkling of an eye. 26. He hacked every thing that came before him like the lean stalks of lotuses; when Vidúratha also left his chariot with his asi (ensis) in hand. 27. Both equally brave and compeers to one another in their skill in warfare, turned about in their rounds, and scraped their swords into saws by mutual strokes on one another. 28. With their denticulated weapons, they tore the bodies of their enemies like fishes crushed under the teeth, when Vidúratha dropt down his broken sword, and darted his javelin against his adversary.

29. It fell with a rattling noise on the bosom of Sindhu (the king), as a flaming meteor falls rumbling in the breast of the sea (Sindhu). 30. But the weapon fell back by hitting upon his breast plate, as a damsel flies back from the embrace of a lover deemed an unfit match for her. 31. Its shock made Sindhu throw out a flood of blood from his lungs, resembling the water spout let out from the trunk of an elephant. 32. Seeing this, the native Lílá cried with joy to her sister Lílá: see here the demon Sindhu killed by our lion-like husband. 33. Sindhu is slain by the javelin of our lion-like lord, like the wicked demon by the nails of the lion-god Nrisinha, and he is spouting forth his blood like the stream of water, thrown out by the trunk of an elephant from a pool. 34. But alas! this Sindhu is trying to mount on another car, although bleeding so profusely from his mouth and nostrils, as to raise a wheezing (chulchulu) sound. 35. Lo there! our lord Vidúratha breaking down the golden mountings of his car with the blows of his mallet, as the thundering clouds—Pushkara and Ávarta break down the gold peaks of Sumeru.

36. See this Sindhu now mounting on another carriage, which is now brought before him, and decorated as the splendid seat of a Gandharva. 37. Alack! our lord is now made the mark of Sindhu’s mallet darted as a thunder bolt against him; but lo! how he flies off and avoids the deadly blow of Sindhu. 38. Huzza! how nimbly he has got up upon his own car; but woe is to me! that Sindhu has overtaken him in his flight. 39. He mounts on his car as a hunter climbs on a tree, and pierces my husband, as a bird-catcher does a parrot hidden in its hollow, with his pointed arrow. 40. Behold his car is broken down and its flags flung aside; his horses are hurt and the driver is driven away. His bow is broken and his armour is shattered, and his whole body is full of wounds. 41. His strong breast-plate is broken also by slabs of stone and his big head is pierced by pointed arrows. Behold him thrown down on earth, all mangled in blood. 42. Look with what difficulty he is restored to his senses, and seated in his seat with his arm cut off and bleeding under Sindhu’s sword.

43. See him weltering in blood gushing out profusely from his body, like a rubicund stream issuing from a hill of rubies. Woe is me! and cursed be the sword of Sindhu that hath brought this misery on us. 44. It has severed his thighs as they dissever a tree with a saw, and has lopped off his legs like the stalks of trees. 45. Ah! it is I that am so struck and wounded and killed by the enemy. I am dead and gone and burnt away with my husband’s body. 46. Saying so, she began to shudder with fear at the woeful sight of her husband’s person, and fell insensible on the ground like a creeper cut off by an axe. 47. Vidúratha though thus mutilated and disabled, was rising to smite the enemy in his rage, when he fell down from his car like an uprooted tree, and was replaced there by his charioteer ready to make his retreat. 48. At this instant, the savage Sindhu struck a sabre on his neck, and pursued the car in which the dying monarch was borne back to his tent.

49. The body of Padma (alias Vidúratha), was placed like a lotus in the presence of Sarasvatí, shining with the splendour of the sun; but the elated Sindhu was kept from entering that abode, like a giddy fly from a flame. 50. The charioteer entered in the apartment, and placed the body in its death-bed, all mangled and besmeared with blood, exuding from the pores of the severed neck, in the presence of the goddess, from where the enemy returned to his camp. (Gloss). Here Padma fighting in the person of Vidúratha, and falling bravely in the field, obtained his redemption by his death in the presence of the goddess; but the savage Sindhu, who slew his foiled foe in his retreat, proved a ruffian in his barbarous act, and could have no admittance into the presence of the goddess and to his future salvation. CONCLUSION.

The whole vision of Lílá, like that of Mirza, shows the state of human life, with its various incidents and phases to its last termination by death. It is not so compact and allegorical as that of the western essayist; but as idle effusions of those ideal reveries or loose vagaries which are characteristic of the wild imagination of eastern rhapsodists. The discontented Bráhmana longs for royal dignity, imagines to himself all its enjoyments in the person of Padma, and sees at last all its evils in the character of Vidúratha; which serves as a lesson to aspirants from aiming at high worldly honours which end in their destruction. Lílá by her wisdom sees in her silent meditation, the whole course and vicissitudes of the world, and the rise and fall of human glory in the aspirations of her husband. These parables serve to show the nature of Yoga philosophy to be no other, than an absolute idealism or mental abstraction, consisting in the abstract knowledge of all things appertaining to our temporal as well as Spiritual concerns.

The knowledge is derived either by intuition as that of the Bráhmana and Padma, or by inspiration like that of the genius of wisdom to her votary Lílá. It may also be had by means of communication with others, as in the discourse of Ráma and his preceptor; as also from the attentive perusal of such works as the present one, treating both of temporal and spiritual subjects, and reviewing them with the eye of the mind. The Yogi is said to know all things through the medium of his intellectual eye (jnána chakshu), apart from his connection with every thing in the world called nihsanga, as it is expressed by the Persian sophist;—“amokhteh Oniamekhteh az harche hast”.—“Knowing and not mixing with all that is.”

From this view of Yoga, it will appear that, all kinds of knowledge, whether as it existed among the ancients, or is in the course of its improvement in modern times, forms a subject of the Yoga or meditative philosophy, which embraces and comprehends in itself a knowledge of all practical arts and sciences, as the military art and other things treated of in this work. Hence it is evident, that a large fund of learning forms the greatest Yoga, and the most learned among men, were the greatest thinkers or Yogis amongst mankind in all ages. No rational being therefore can either refrain from thinking, or employing his mind to the acquisition of knowledge, both of which are termed Yoga in Indian philosophy. But the yogi is commonly believed to be an inspired sage or seer, viewing all things appearing before him in his dream and vision. These are sometimes retrospective, and resultants of the vibrations of waking feelings and imagination, as in the case of the Bráhmana’s anticipation of royalty as a coming reality.

In many instances they are believed as prospective and prophetic of future events, as in Padma’s dread of his future life and fate. In Lílá’s case however they were “no dreams but visions strange” of supernatural sights, and prophetical of the future state of her husband, as it was revealed to her by the goddess. But as there are few that rely any faith “in the baseless fabric of a vision”, they require to be told that the books of revelation in all religions are based upon these dreams and visions, which are believed to be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into the souls of saints, in the sacred records of all nations. The holy scriptures furnish us with many texts on the divine origin of dreams and visions as the following. “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God. I shall pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. “And on my servants and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy;

“And I will shew wonders, in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire and vapour of smoke: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood &c.” The Book of Acts, Chap II. v. 16-20. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. GENEALOGY I. Kálí Mitra. II. Srídhara Mitra. III. Sukti Mitra. IV. Sauveri Mitra. V. Hari Mitra. VI. Soma Mitra. VII. Kesava Mitra. VIII. Mrityunjaya Mitra. IX. Dhui Mitra. X. Nísápati Mitra. XI. Lambodara Mitra Alias Kuvera. XII. Parameswara Mitra. XIII. Dánapati Mitra. XIV. Jayadeva Mitra. XV. Shashthivara Mitra. XVI. Sríkánta Mitra. XVII. Sivaráma Mitra. XVIII. Krishnaráma Mitra. XIX. Sítáráma Mitra. XX. Gocula Chandra Mitra. XXI. Jagamohana Mitra. XXII. Rasika Lála Mitra XXIII. Vihári Lála Mitra. FOOTNOTES: Cicero “De senectute.”

Kant says:—‘The pure Ego is the condition of all consciousness, the condition of the sum total of experience, consequently the Ego is the source from which the universe is to be deduced.’ Again: “The thing per se underlying all phenomena, is one and the same substance with Ego. We know not wherein the Ego is different from it. This identity of both is only an affirmation of Monism, not of Idealism.” Lewis: Hist.-Phil. Vol. II. pp. 356-7. Fichte says:—The Non-Ego is a product of the Ego. It is the Ego which thus creates the necessity for a Non-Ego and the Non-Ego wanted. Ibid. p. 358. Because the visible and destructible bodies could not proceed from the invisible and indestructible essence of God, nor the invisible and indestructible souls of persons, which are utpanna or produced from the essence of the eternal and infinite spirit, can have their extinction except in their main source, when they become instinct in and identic with the supreme spirit. The khecarí or aerial mode of meditation is said to confer liberation from sickness and acts and the grasp of death. Thus; Napídyate rogena nacha lipyate karmaná, Bádhyate sa na kalena, yo mudrám-vetti khecarím. The mode of conducting it is described as follows. Kapála kuhare jihvá, pravesitá viparítagá, Bhruvorantargatá drishtir, mudrá-bhavati khecarí.

This passage contradicts the belief of his rising and sleeping by turns at the end of each kalpa of the creation and dissolution of the world, as well as the popular faith of Hari’s, sayana and Utthána at the opposite tropics. The pre-existent substratum is the Noumenon underlying all phenomena. It is the support of qualities, and something in which all accidents inhere. Berkeley. It contradicts the well known axiom of Locke, that, “it is impossible for the same thing to be and not be at the same time.” The unknown substance is the known cause, a spiritual substance—God. Berkeley. The venerable Vasishtha would not raise question “where is the shadow of a shadow?” (prativimbasya prativambam kutak), had he known the discoveries of the modern science of Optics, and the achievements of photography and phonography, the refractions of prismatic lens and the vibrations of musical wires. The gods Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Sun, Indra and all others, are assimilated into the Supreme Spirit in their state of rest. He is beyond all attribute and out of the sphere of the universe, and is of the form of an immutable Intellect. The living soul is the creative spirit of God, represented by the divine hypostasis of Hiranyagarbha or Demiurgus, which is dependent on the Supreme spirit.

Tanmátra or tat-mátra might be rendered from its affinity as “that matter,” but the idealistic theory of vedánta being opposed to that of the materialistic, it expresses only the idea and not the matter. The conceptualism of Europe, is a doctrine between Realism and Nominalism and betwixt Idealism and Relationism. The realist says, universal genera are real and independent existences; but the nominalist (like the Pratyaksávádi) says that, things only exist and universals are Flatus venti-pralápa. Note. It is the mind that lengthens time by the quick succession of its thoughts, and shortens it by its quiescence. This means the demons to have first peopled the borders and skirts of the earth. See Hesiod. Works and Days. Book I. v. 200. That the Meru or Altain chain in Scythia, was the great hive of human race is an undisputed truth in history. So Moses speaks of the giant race in Genesis chapter VI. v. 2 and 4. “And there were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that. And when the sons of God saw the daughters of men fair, they took them to wives, of all which they chose.”

And again: “when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown”. The whole of this chapter abounds in onomatopoeian alliterations, and is more a play upon words than display of sense. It is interesting however, for these jingling words in the language, as also for the names of the warlike weapons in use among the ancients. Notwithstanding the reward of heavenly abodes promised to the slayer and slain in war, in the Sástra and Koran, the Asiatics are far backward now-a-days, both to kill and to be killed than the Europeans, who are forbidden by the Holy writ, to slay and shed human blood. Thus there is a laxity of the injunction and prohibition on both sides. P. mujosi S. Yátudhána, H. Jádugar = juggler. The battle ground is compared firstly with the sky, then with the sea, next with a forest, and lastly with the last dooms-day.

It was easy for the lively Lílá, to learn about these peoples and their native lands in her lonely Yoga meditation, by the help of the goddess of learning; but it is hard for us to identify them without subjecting ourselves to a long labour of love, which is a sort of Yoga also, called vidya Yoga, or intense application and self devotion to learning. Note. It is not easy to say, whether this continuation and lengthy description of the warfare, is Vasishtha’s or Válmíki’s own making; both of them being well acquainted with military tactics: the former having been the general of King Sudása against the Persians, and the latter the epic poet of Ráma’s wars with Rávana in the celebrated Ramáyana. These descriptions are left out in the vernacular translations of this work as entirely useless in Yoga philosophy, without minding, that they formed the preliminary step to Ráma’s military education, which he was soon after called to complete under the guidance of Viswámitra in the hermitage.

I have always thought the Daivástras or superhuman arms, described in the Ramáyana and Mahábhárata epics, as a display of pyrotechnic contrivances much in use in early warfare. Or they may have been some kinds of electric, hydraulic, pneumatic and steam engines emitting gusts of fire, water, wind and smoke in the field of war. Halhead in his Gentoo Laws, tells them to be shot from a kind of cross-bow used by the Crusadiers of old. He was formerly an inhabitatnt of Kánya Kubjya, North Western Provinces, India. He being invited on an occasion of a ceremony (yajna) by Ádisura, Rájá of Gour Bengal, paid a visit at his court on Thursday 12th Kartick (October-November) Sakábda 994 (Tenth-Eleventh Century A.D.), and on his request he settled there and became the founder of Gour Mitra Family, at Maldah in Bengal. Barisá, Twenty four Pargannahs, District Alipur, Bengal. Báli. Boro Pargunah, District Hugli. Bágbázar, Calcutta.