Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

7. It was this mind which spread out the world with all its contents, beside which there exists naught but the Supreme Spirit. (The mind is the container of the archetypes of the ectypal world, or the recording power of knowledge; but the Supreme Soul is the disembodied self-consciousness, having the principle of volition or Will; while the Spirit is the animating faculty of the soul). 8. The soul is beyond every category, it is omnipresent and the substratum of all existence, and it is by the power of this soul, that the mind doth move and manifest itself. (The mind is the soul incorporated with bodies; but the soul is quite apart from these). 9. The Mind is known as the cause of the body, which is work of the mind; it is born and becomes extinct with the body, which the soul does not, nor has it any such quality which belongs to the mind.

10. The mind is found by right reasoning to be a perishable object, and no sooner doth it perish, than the living soul succeeds to obtain its final liberation. For the desires of the mind are the bondage of its transmigration, but the dissolution of the mind with its desires, secures its liberation. (Volition and velleity, are the active and inactive acts of the mind for its eternal bondage). 11. After decadence of the mental desires there is no more any exertion for acts. This state is called the liberation of living souls, from their release from trouble and care; and the mind thus released, never comes to be born and die again. (Free from desire, is freedom from deadly sin). 12. Ráma said:—Sir! You have said before, that human nature is principally of three kinds viz:—the good, the gentle and the base (Satva, rajas and tamas); and it is owing to the good or bad nature of their minds, that men differ from one another. 13. Now please tell me, how could the wondrous mind originate from the pure intellect with its good or bad propensities, which are wanting in the Divine Intellect.

14. Vasishtha replied:—Know Ráma, that there are three spheres of the infinite vacuity, at immense distances from one another: and these are the intellectual, mental, and the physical spheres. 15. These spheres are common to all mankind, and are spread out everywhere; and they have all sprung and come to being from the essence of the Chit or Divine Intellect. (The first is the space of Divine Infinity, the second is the spatium dunamia or potential space and may be filled by bodies; and the third is the place energeia or actually occupied by bodies). 16. That space which is both in the inside and outside of everything, and denotes its occupation or otherwise by some substance or its absence, and pervades through all nature, is called the inane sphere of the Intellect. 17. That is called the sphere of the Intellect, which embraces all space and time which has spread out the other spheres, and which is the highest and best of all. 18. The physical sphere contains all created beings, and extends to the circuit of the ten sides, all about and above and below us. It is a continued space filled with air, which supports the clouds and waters above the firmament.

19. Then the vacuity of the mental sphere, which has also sprung from the intellectual sphere, has likewise the intellect for its cause like the others, as the day is the source of all works and animal activities. (Here the word works has the double sense of the works of creation, which were made in the week days, and the daily works of men and their religious duties, all which are done in the day time. The night being the time to sleep). 20. The vitiated Intellect which views itself as a dull thing, amidst the gross material objects of the physical sphere, the same is termed the mind, which thinks of both spheres, whence it is born and where it is placed. 21. It is for the understanding of the unenlightened, that I have made use of the metaphor of the spheres; because figures are used for the instruction of the unenlightened and not to lighten the enlightened. (These serve for ocular demonstrations in mathematical and not in metaphysical sciences). 22. In the intellectual sphere, you will see one Supreme Brahma, filling its whole space, and being without parts or attributes, and intelligible only to the enlightened.

23. The ignorant require to be instructed in appropriate words and precise language, showing the demarkation between monotheism and ditheism, which is unnecessary for the instruction of the enlightened. 24. I have contrived to explain to you the nature of divine knowledge, by the parable of the three spheres, which will enlighten you as long as you are in dark on the subject. 25. The intellectual sphere being obscured by ignorance, we are led to look into the mental and physical spheres; not knowing that they are as delusive as the sunbeams in a mirage, and as destructive as the flames of a conflagration. 26. The pure intellect being changed to the state of the changeful mind, takes a debased figure; and then being confounded in itself, weaves the magic web of the world to entangle itself in the same. 27. The ignorant that are guided by the dictates of their perverted minds, know nothing concerning the nature of the Intellect, which is identic with the Supreme. So the witless that unwittingly take the white shells for bright silver, are seen to labour under their delusion, until they are freed from it, by the clear light of their understanding.

HISTORY OF THE HUMAN HEART. Argument. The wide extent of the Heart and its ultimate Dissolution. Whatever may be the origin and nature of the human heart (which some take for the mind), it should be always inquired into in seeking out one’s own liberation. (The heart called antahkarana—an inner organ, is often supposed as the same with the mind; its cravings after worldliness, are to be suppressed under its longing for liberation from worldly cares). 2. The heart being fixed in the Supreme, becomes purified of its worldly desires and attachments; and then O Ráma! it perceives that soul in itself, which transcends all imaginations of the mind. (Kalpanás are imaginary attributes of God in the mind; who can only be seen in the heart). 3. It is the province of the heart, to secure the sedateness of the world in itself; and it lies in the power of the heart, either to make its bondage or get its freedom, from the desires and troubles of the world. 4. On this subject there hangs a curious tale relating the legend of the heart, which was revealed to me of yore by Brahmá himself; and which I will now relate to you Ráma, if you will listen to it with attention.

5. There is a long, open and dreary desert, Rámátaví by name; which was quite still and solitary and without an inhabitant, in it; and so vast in its extent, as to make a pace of a league of it. (Or rather to make a league of a pace of it). 6. There stood a man of a terrific and gigantic figure in it, with a sorrowful visage and troubled mind, and having a thousand arms and a thousand eyes. 7. He held many clubs and maces in all his manifold arms, with which he was striking his own back and breast, and then running away in this direction and that (as if for fear of being caught by some one). 8. Then having struck himself fast and hard with his own hands, he fled afar a hundred leagues for fear of being laid hold by some body. 9. Thus striking and crying and flying afar on all sides, he became tired and spent, and lank in his legs and arms. 10. He fell flat with his languid limbs in a large blind pit, amidst the deep gloom of a dark night, and in the depth of a dire dark cave (from which he could not rise).

11. After the lapse of a long time, he scrambled out of the pit with difficulty; and again continued to run away, and strike himself with his own hands as before. 12. He ran again a great way, till at last he fell upon a thorny thicket of Karanja plants, which caught him as fast in its brambles, as a moth or grasshopper is caught in a flame. 13. He with much difficulty extricated himself from the prickles of the Karanja furze; and began again to beat himself as before, and run in his wonted course as usual. 14. Having then gone a great way off from that place, he got to a grove of plantain arbour under the cooling moonbeams, where he sat for a while with a smiling countenance. 15. Having then come out of the plantain grove, he went on running and beating himself in his usual way. 16. Going again a great way in his hurriedness, he fell down again in a great and darksome ditch, by being exhausted in all his limbs and his whole body. 17. Rising from the ditch, he entered a plantain forest, and coming out from that spot, he fell into another ditch and then in another Karanja thicket.

18. Thus he was falling into one ditch after rising from a thorny furze, and repeatedly beating himself and crying in secret. 19. I beheld him going on in this way for a long time, and then I with all my force, rushed forward and stopped him in his way. 20. I asked him saying:—Who are you Sir, and why do you act in this manner? What business have you in this place, and why do you wail and trouble yourself for nothing? 21. Being thus asked by me, O Ráma! he answered me saying:—I am no body, O sage! nor do I do any such thing as you are telling me about. 22. I am here stricken by you, and you are my greatest enemy; I am here beheld and persecuted by you, both to my great sorrow and delight. 23. Saying so, he looked sorrowfully into his bruised body and limbs, and then cried aloud and wept a flood of tears, which fell like a shower of rain on the forest ground. 24. After a short while he ceased from his weeping, and then looking at his limbs, he laughed and cried aloud in his mirth.

25. After his laughter and loud shouts were over, hear, O Ráma! what the man next did before me. He began to tear off and separate the members of his big body, and cast them away on all sides. 26. He first let fall his big head, and then his arms, and afterwards his breast and then his belly also. 27. Thus the man having severed the parts of his body one after another, was now ready to remove himself elsewhere with his legs only, by the decree of his destiny. 28. After he had gone, there appeared another man to my sight, of the same form and figure with the former one, and striking his body himself as the other. 29. He kept running with his big legs and outstretched stout arms, until he fell into the pit, whence he rose again, and betook to his flight as before. 30. He fell into a pond again, and then rose and ran with his body wringing with pain; falling again in hidden caves, and then resorting to the cooling shade of forest trees. 31. Now ailing and now regaling, and now torturing himself with his own hands; and in this way I saw him for sometime with horror and surprise in myself.

32. I stopped him in his course, and asked about what he was doing; to which he returned his crying and laughter for his answers by turns. 33. Finding at last his body and limbs decaying in their strength, he thought upon the power of destiny, and the state of human lot, and was prepared to depart. 34. I came again to see another succeeding him in the same desert path, who had been flying and torturing himself in the same way as the others gone before him. 35. He fell in the same dark pit in his flight, where I stood long to witness his sad and fearful plight. 36. Finding this wretched man not rising above the pit for a long time, I advanced to raise him up, when I saw another man following his footsteps. 37. Seeing him of the same form, and hastening to his impending fall in the doleful pit, I ran to stop his fate, by the same query I made to the others before. 38. But O lotus-eyed Ráma! the man paid no heed to my question and only said, you must be a fool to know nothing of me.

39. You wicked Bráhman! he said to me, and went on in his course; while I kept wandering in that dreadful desert in my own way. 40. I saw many such men coming one after the other to their unavoidable ruin, and though I addressed to all and every one of them, yet they softly glided away by me, like phantoms in a dream. 41. Some of them gave no heed to my saying, as a man pays no attention to a dead body; and some among the pit-fallen had the good fortune of rising again. 42. Some among these had no egress from the plantain grove for a long while, and some were lost forever, amidst the thorns and thistles of Karanja thickets. 43. There were some pious persons among them, that had no place for their abode; though that great desert was so very extensive as I have told you already (and capable of affording habitations for all and many more of them). 44. This vast desert is still in existence, together with these sorts of men therein; and that place is well known to you, Ráma, as the common range of mankind. Don’t you remember it now, with all the culture of your mind from your early youth?

45. O that dreadful desert is this world, filled with thorns and dangers on all sides. It is a dark desert amidst a thick spread darkness, and no body that comes herein, finds the peace and quiet of his heart, except such as have acquired the divine knowledge, which makes it a rose garden to them. (See the pit-falls in the bridge of Addison’s Vision of Mirza).

HISTORY OF THE HEART CONTINUED. Argument. Explanation of the preceding Allegory. Ráma said:—What is that great desert, Sir, and when was it seen by me, and how came it to be known to me? What were those men there, and what were they about? 2. Vasishtha replied:—Attend O great-armed Ráma! and I will tell you all:— That great desert is not distant nor different from this wilderness of the world. 3. That which bears the name of the world, is a deep and dark abyss in itself. Its hollowness is unfathomable and unfordable; and its un-reality appearing as reality to the ignorant, is to be known as the great desert spoken of before. 4. The true reality is obtainable by the light of reason only, and by the knowledge of one object alone. This one is full without its union with any other, it is one and only by itself. 5. The big bodied men, that you beheld wandering therein, know them to be the minds of men, and bound to the miseries of the world. 6. Their observer was Reason personified in myself, and it was I only and no other person, that could discern the folly of their minds by my guiding reason.

7. It is my business to awaken those drowsy minds to the light of reason, as it is the work of the sun to open the lotus-buds to bloom, by his enlivening rays. 8. My counsels have prevailed on some minds and hearts, which have received them with attention; and have turned them away from earthly broils, to the way of true contentment and tranquility. 9. But there were others that paid no attention to my lectures through their great ignorance; but fell down into the pit, upon being chid by me with reproofs and rebukes. 10. Those deep and dark pits were no other than the pits of hell and the plantain groves of which I have told you, were the gardens of Paradise. 11. Know these to be the seats of those minds which long for heavenly joys, and the dark pits to be the abode of hellish hearts, which can never get their release from those darksome dungeons. 12. Those who having once entered the plantain grove, do not come out any more from it; know them to be the minds of the virtuous, and fraught with all their virtues.

13. Those which having fallen into the Karanja thickets, were unable to extricate themselves from the thorns; know them to be the minds of men, that are entangled in the snares of the world. 14. Some minds which were enlightened with the knowledge of truth, got released from the snares; but the unenlightened are bound to repeated transmigrations in different births. 15. The souls which are subjected to metempsychosis, have their rise and fall in repetition, from higher to lower births, and the vice-versa likewise. 16. The thick thicket of Karanja brambles, represents the bonds of conjugal and family relations; they are the source of various human desires, which are springs of all other woe, difficulty and dangers. 17. The minds that have been confined in the Karanja bushes are those, that are repeatedly born in human bodies, and are repeatedly entangled into domestic attachments from which all other animals are quite at large. 18. O support of Raghu’s race! the plantain grove which I told you was cooling with moonbeams; know the same to be the refreshing arbour of heaven, which gives delight to the soul. 19. Those persons are placed here, who have their bodies fraught with virtuous deeds and edified by persevering devotion and austerities, and whose souls are elevated above others.

20. Those ignorant, thoughtless and unmindful men, that slighted my advice, were themselves slighted by their own minds, which were deprived of the knowledge of their own souls and of their reason. 21. Those who told me, “we are undone at your sight, and you are our greatest enemy”; were demented fools, and melting away with their lamentations (for having disregarded my counsels). 22. Those who were loudly wailing, and let fall a flood of tears in their weeping; were men who bitterly deplored in their minds for being snatched from the snare of pleasures, to which they had been so fondly attached. 23. Those having a little sense and reason, but not arriving to the pure knowledge of God; were bitterly complaining in their hearts, for being obliged to forsake their fond enjoyments of life. 24. Those who came to their understanding, now wept over the pains which they had inflicted on their bodies, for the supportance of their families; and were grieved in their minds to leave behind the objects of their care, for whom they had taken such pains. 25. The minds that had some light of reason, and had not yet arrived to divine knowledge, were still sorrowing for having to leave behind their own bodies, wherein they had their late abode.

26. Those who smiled in the cheerfulness of their hearts, were men who had come to the light of reason; and it was their reason which gave consolation to their hearts. 27. The reasonable soul that is removed from its bondage of the world, exults with joy in its mind, to find itself liberated from the cares of life. 28. Those men who laughed to scorn their battered and shattered bodies, were glad to think in their minds, how they got rid of the confines of their bodies and limbs, the accomplices of their actions. 29. Those who laughed with scorn to see the falling members of their bodies, were glad to think in their minds, that they were no better than instruments to their various labours in the world. 30. Those who had come to the light of reason, and had found their rest in the supreme state of felicity, looked down with scorn upon the former abodes of their meanness from a distance. 31. The man who was stopped by me on his way and asked with concern (about what he was going to do); was made to understand how the power of wisdom could outbrave the desperate.

32. The weakened limbs, that gradually disappeared from sight, meant the subjection of the members of the body, under the control of the mind, that is freed from its venality of riches. 33. The man that is represented with a thousand arms and eyes, is a symbol of the covetous mind, which looks to and longs after everything, and wants to grasp all things, as with so many hands. (The ambition of Alexander is described to count the spheres, and grasp the earth and heaven in his arms). 34. The man that was striking himself with his blows, meant the torments which a man inflicts on his own mind, by the strokes of his anxieties and cares. 35. The man who had been running away with striking hard blows upon his body, signified how the mind runs all about, being lashed at every moment by the strokes of his insatiate desires. 36. The man that afflicts himself by his own desires, and then flies to this way and that, signifies his fool-heartedness to hunt after everything, and be a runaway from himself. 37. Thus every man being harassed by his ceaseless desires, pants in his mind to fly to his Maker, and set his heart to yoga meditation.

38. All these ceaseless woes are the making of one’s own mind, which being worried at last by its incessant anxieties, strives to retire from them, to find its final repose in yoga. 39. The mind is entrapped in the net of its own wishes, as the silk worm is entwined in the cocoon by the thread of its own making. 40. The more is the mind of man afflicted by troubles, the more busily is it employed in its foibles; just as a boy indulges himself in his playfulness, unmindful of the evils waiting upon it. 41. The mind of man is in the same plight as that of the foolish ape, which in striving to pull out the peg of a half split timber, lost its life by the smashing of its testes in the crevice. (See the story of the ape and its pulling the peg in the Hitopadesa and its Persian version of the Anvarsoheli). 42. No flight can release the mind, unless it is practised to resignation, restrained from its other pursuits, and constrained to the continued practice of pious meditation, which can only relieve its sorrows.

43. It is the misjudgment of the mind, that is the cause of accumulated woes, which increase in height as the peak of a mount; so it is the government of the mind which melts our woes, like the hoarfrost under sunbeams. 44. Accustom your mind to the righteous ways pointed out by the sástras in all your life time. Restrain your appetites, and govern your passions, and observe the taciturnity of holy saints and sages. You will at last arrive to the holy state of holies, and rest under the cooling umbrage of holiness, and shall no more have to grieve under the calamities which betide all mankind.

HEALING OF THE HEART. Argument. Arguing the Omnipotence of the Deity from the powers of the mind; and showing ignorance and knowledge to be the different causes of Human bondage and liberation in life. Vasishtha continued:—I have told you of the origination of the mind from the essence of the Supreme being; it is of the same kind, and yet not the same with its source, but like the waves and waters of the sea. (The mind being but an attribute of the Divine soul). 2. The minds of the enlightened are not different from the Divine Mind; as those that have the knowledge of the community of waters, do not regard the waves to differ from the waters of the sea. 3. The minds of the unenlightened are the causes of their error, as those not knowing the common property of water, find a difference in the waters of the waves and the sea. 4. It is requisite for the instruction of the unlearned, to acquaint them of the relation between the significant words and their significations (as the relation of water between the waves and the sea). 5. The Supreme Brahma is omnipotent, and is full and perfect and undecaying for ever. The mind has not the properties that belong to the omnipresent soul.

6. The Lord is almighty and omnipresent, and distributes his all diffusive power, in proportion as he pleases to every one he likes. 7. Observe Ráma, how the intellectual powers are distributed in all animated bodies (in their due proportion); and how his moving force is spread in the air, and his immobility rests in the rocks and stones. 8. His power of fluidity is deposited in the water, and his power of inflammation is exhibited in fire; his vacuity is manifested in vacuum, and his substantiality in all solid substances. 9. The omnipotence of Brahma, is seen to stretch itself to all the ten sides of the universe; his power of annihilation is seen in the extinction of beings; and his punishment is evident, in the sorrows of the miserable. 10. His felicity is felt in the hearts of the holy, and his prowess is seen in the persons of giants; his creative power is known in the works of his creation, and his power of destruction in the desolation of the world, at the end of the great Kalpa age. 11. Everything is situated in Brahma, as the tree is contained in the seed of the same kind, and afterwards developes in its roots and sprouts, its leaves and branches, and finally in its flowers and fruits.

12. The power called the living principle, is a reflexion of God, and is of a nature between the thinking mind and dull matter, and is derived from Brahma. 13. The nature of God is unchangeable, although it is usual to attribute many varieties to him; as we call the same vegetable by the different names of a germ, a sprout, a shrub, a plant and a tree at its different stages of growth. 14. Know Ráma, the whole world to be Brahma, who is otherwise termed the Ego. He is the all pervading soul, and the everlasting stupendous fabric of the cosmos. 15. That property in him which has the power of thinking, is termed the mind; which appears to be something other than the Soul, thus we erroneously see peacock’s feathers in the sky, and froths in the eddies of water (and suppose them as different things from the sky and water). 16. The principles of thought and animation—the mind and life, are but partial reflexions of the Divine Soul; and the form of mind is the faculty of thought, as that of life is the power of animation. (The one is called the rational and the other animating soul).

17. Thus the mind being but the thinking power of Brahma, receives the appellation of Brahmá; and this power appearing as a part of the impersonal Brahma, is identified with Ego (the personal Brahma). 18. It is our error which makes a difference between the soul and mind, and Brahma and Brahmá; because the properties which belong to the mind, are the same with those of the self-existent soul. 19. That which is variously named as the principle of mind or thought, is the same power of omnipotence which is settled in the mind (which is the repository of the thinking powers). 20. So are all the properties of the living soul, contained in and derived from the universal soul of Brahma; as all the properties of vegetation, blossoming and fructification of trees, are contained in the season of spring, and are dispensed among the plants, agreeably to their respective soil and climate, and other circumstances (of their culture &c.). 21. As the earth yields its various fruits and flowers in their season, so the hearts and minds of men, entertain their thoughts and passions in their proper times: some appearing at one time and others at another (like the paddies and other grains of particular seasons).

22. And as the earth produces its harvests, according to their particular soil and season; so the heart and mind exhibit their thoughts and feelings of their own accord, and not caused by another. 23. The numbers and forms which convey determinate ideas, as distinguished from others of the same kind (as the figures in arithmetic and geometry), are all expressed in words coined by the mind from the mint of the mind of Brahma, the original source of ideas. 24. The mind adopts the same image as the reflexions which it receives from without, or the thoughts and imaginations it forms of itself, and as the instance of the Aindava brothers, serves to support this truth (of the double power of intuition and perception of the mind, to see into its own inner operations, and receive the impressions from without). 25. The animating principle (jíva-zoa), which is the cause of this creation, resides in the Supreme Spirit, like the fluctuation which is seen in the unagitated waters of the oceans. 26. The intelligent soul sees these hosts of creation to be moving in the essence of Brahma, as he beholds the innumerable waves, billows and surges of the sea, rolling on the surface of the waters.

27. There is no other reality that bears a name or form or figure or any action or motion except the supreme spirit; in which all things move about as the waves of the sea water (and which is the real source of the unreals). 28. As the rising and falling and continuation and disappearance of waves, occur on the surface of the sea by the fluctuation of its waters; so the creation, sustentation and annihilation of the universe, take place in Brahma, by the agency of Brahma himself. 29. It is by the inward heat of his spirit, that Brahma causes this world to appear as a mirage in himself; and whatever varieties it presents in its various scenes, they are all expansions and manifestations of the Divine Spirit. 30. All causality and instrumentality, and their resultants as well as the production, continuance and destruction of all things; take place in Brahma himself; beside which there is no other cause whatever. 31. There is no appetence nor pleasure, nor any desire or error in him, who relies his dependence in the Supreme; for how can one have any desire or error in himself who lives in the Supreme self, who is devoid of them?

32. The whole is a form of the Supreme soul, and all things are but forms of the same; and the mind also is a form of it, as a golden ornament is but a form of the gold. 33. The mind which is ignorant of its Supreme origin, is called the living soul; which from its ignorance of the Supreme soul, resembles a friend who has alienated himself from his true friend. 34. The mind which is misled by its ignorance of the all-intelligent God, to imagine its own personality as a reality; is as one who believes his living soul to be the production of vacuum; (or as something produced from nothing). 35. The living soul although it is a particle of the Supreme soul, shows itself in this world as no soul at all (but a form of mere physical vitality). So the purblind see two moons in the sky, and are unable to distinguish the true moon from the false one. 36. So the soul being the only real entity, it is improper to speak of its bondage and liberation; and the imputation of error to it, is quite absurd in the sight of lexicographers, who define it as infallible.

37. It is a wrong impression to speak of the bondage of the soul, which is ever free from bonds; and so it is untrue to seek the emancipation of the soul, which is always emancipate. 38. Ráma asked:—The mind is known sometimes to arrive at a certainty, which is changed to uncertainty at another; how then do you say that the mind is not under the bondage of error? 39. Vasishtha answered:—It is a false conceit of the ignorant to imagine its bondage; and their imagination of its emancipation, is equally a false conception of theirs. 40. It is ignorance of the smriti sástra, that causes one to believe in his bondage and emancipation; while in reality there are no such things as bondage and liberation. 41. Imagination represents an unreality as reality, even to men of enlightened understandings; as a rope presents the appearance of a snake even to the wise. 42. The wise man knows no bondage or liberation, nor any error of any kind: all these three are only in the conceptions of the ignorant.

43. At first the mind and then its bondage and liberation, and afterwards its creation of the unsubstantial material world, are all but fabulous inventions that have come into vogue among men, as the story of the boy of old (or as the old grand-mother’s tale). Note—The conclusion of this chapter concerning the negation of bondage and liberation of the soul, and its error and enlightenment &c., rests on the text of a Sruti; which negates everything in the sight of one who has come to the light of the universal soul. The passage is:— न निरोधो नचोत्पत्तिः ननवद्धो नच साधकः । ममुक्षर्णबै मुक्त इत्येषा परमार्थताः

STORY OF THE BOY AND THREE PRINCES. (An Allegory of the Hindu Triads). Argument. The old Nurse’s tale of the three Princes or Powers of the Soul, in elucidation of the Fabrications of Imagination. Ráma said:—Relate to me, O chief of sages! the tale of the boy, in illustration of the Mind (and the other principles of our intellectual nature). 2. Vasishtha replied:—Hear me Ráma, tell you the tale of a silly and jolt-headed boy, who once asked his nurse, to recite to him some pretty story for his amusement. 3. The Nurse then began to relate her fine wrought story for the pleasure of the boy, with a gladsome countenance, and in accents sweet as honey. 4. There were once on a time, some three highminded and fortunate young princes; in a desolate country, who were noted for their virtues and valour. (The three princes were the three hypostases of the holy trinity, dwelling in the land of inexistence or vacuity, asat-pure. i.e. These triple powers were in being in empty space, which is co-eternal with them).

5. They shone in that vast desolate land resembling the spacious sky, like stars in the expanse of the waters below. Two of them were unbegotten and increate, and third was not born of the mother’s womb. (These three uncreated princes, were the principles of the soul and the mind, and the living soul—jíva, which is not procreated in the womb with the body). 6. It happened once on a time, that these three, started together from their dreary abode (of vacuum), for the purpose of finding a better habitation somewhere else. They had no other companion with them, and were sorrowful in their minds, and melancholy in their countenances; as if they were transported from their native country. (This means the emigration of these principles, from the eternal and inane sphere of Brahma, to the mundane world of mortality, which was very painful to them). 7. Having come out of that desert land, they set forth with their faces looking forward; and proceeded onward like the three planets Mercury, Venus and Jupiter in their conjunction.

8. Their bodies which were as delicate as Sirísha flowers, were scorched by the powerful sun shining on their backs; and they were dried like leaves of trees by the heat of the summer day on their way. (i.e. Their tender spiritual bodies melted under the heat of the solar world). 9. Their lotus like feet were singed by the burning sands of their desert path, and they cried aloud like some tender fawns, going astray from their herd saying:—“O Father save us”. (The alienated soul and mind, which are doomed to rove about in this world are subjected to endless pains, causing them to cry out like the tormented spirit of our Lord:—Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani;—Lord, Lord, hast thou forsaken me?). 10. The soles of their feet were bruised by the blades of grass, and the joints of their bodies, were weakened by the heat of the sun; while their fair forms were covered with dust flying from the ground on their lonesome journey. (Their pilgrimage in the thorny and sunny paths of the world of woes).

11. They saw the clump of a leash of trees by the way side, which were braided with tufts of spikes upon them, and loaded with fruits and flowers hanging downward; while they formed a resort for flights of the fowls of air, and flocks of the fauna; of the desert, resting both above and around them. (The copse of the three trees, means the triple states of dharma, artha and Káma, or virtue, wealth and their fruition, which are sought after by all). 12. The two first of these trees did not grow of themselves, (but were reared by men); and the third which was easy of ascent, bore no seeds to produce other plants in future. (i.e. Virtue and wealth require to thrive by cultivation, and enjoyment which is delectable to taste, is not productive of any future good or reward). 13. They were refreshed from the fatigue of their journey, under the shade of these trees; and they halted there like the three Deities Indra, Váya and Yama, under the umbrage of the Párijáta arbour of Paradise. (The three gods—Jupiter, Eolus and Pluto, were the regents of the three regions of heaven, sky and the infernal world:—swar, bhuvar and bhur, composing the three spheres of their circuit).

14. They eat the ambrosial fruits of these trees; and drank their nectarious juice to their fill; and after decorating themselves with guluncha chaplets, they retook themselves to their journey. (i.e. The intellectual powers are supported by the fruits of their acts in their journey through life). 15. Having gone a long way, they met at the mid-day a confluence of three rivers, running with its rapid currents and swelling waves. (The three streams are the three qualities of satva, rajas and tamas or of goodness, mediocrity and excess, which are commingled in all the acts of mankind). 16. One of these was a dry channel and the other two were shallow and with little water in them; and they looked like the eyes of blind men with their blinded eye-balls. (i.e. The channel of satva or temperance was almost dried up, and that of rajas or mediocrity had become shallow for want of righteous deeds; but the stream of tamas or excess was in full force, owing to the unrighteous conduct of men).

17. The princes who were wet with perspiration, bathed joyfully in the almost dried up channel; as when the three gods Brahmá, Vishnu and Siva lave their sweating limbs, in the limpid stream of Ganges. (The three powers of the soul, like the three persons of the Puránic trinity, were respectively possessed of the three qualities of action; and yet their pure natures preferred to bathe in the pure stream of goodness—satva, as in the holy waters of heavenly Ganga—the hallowed Mandákiní). 18. They sported a long while in the water, and drank some draughts of the same, which was as sweet as milk, and cheered their spirits with full satisfaction of their hearts (meaning that satwika or good conduct is sweeter far to the soul, than any other done as unjust or showy—rajas or tamas). 19. They resumed their journey, and arrived at the end of the day and about sunset, to their future abode of a new-built city, standing afar as on the height of a hill. (This new-built city was the new-made earth; to which the spirits descended from their Empyrean). 20. There were rows of flags fluttering like lotuses, in the limpid lake of the azure sky; and the loud noise of the songs of the citizens was heard at a distance.

21. Here they saw three beautiful and goodly looking houses, with turrets of gold and gems shining afar, like peaks of mount Meru under the blazing sun. (These were the human bodies, standing and walking upright upon the earth, and decorated with crowns and coronets on their heads). 22. Two of these were not the works of art, and the third was without its foundation; and the three princes entered at last into the last of these. (The two first were the bodies of men in their states of sleep and deep sleep, called swápa sopor or swapnas-somnus and sushupti-hupnos or hypnotes, which are inborn in the soul; but it is the jágrata or waking body which is the unstable work of art). 23. They entered this house, and sat and walked about in it with joyous countenances; and chanced to get three pots as bright as gold therein.

(These pots were the three sheaths of the soul, mind and of the vital principle, called the pránamáyá-kosha). 24. The two first broke into pieces upon their lifting, and the third was reduced to dust at its touch. The far sighted princes however, took up the dust and made a new pot therewith? It means, that though these sheaths are as volatile as air, yet it is possible to employ the vital principle to action. 25. Then these gluttonous princes cooked in it a large quantity of corn for their food; amounting to a hundred dronas minus one, for subsistence of their whole life-time. (It means that the whole life-time of a hundred years, allotted to man in the present age of the world, is employed in consuming so many measures of food, except perhaps one Drona, which is saved by his occasional fasts during his long life). 26. The princes then invited three Bráhmans (childhood, youth and age) to the fare prepared by them, two of whom (childhood and youth) were bodiless; and the third (i.e. old age) had no mouth wherewith to eat.

27. The mouthless Bráhman took a hundred dronas of the rice and eat it up, because he devoured the child and youth, and the princes took the remainder of the Bráhman’s food for their diet (which was nothing). 28. The three princes having refreshed themselves with the relics of the Bráhman’s food; took their rest in the same house of their next abode, and then went out in their journey of hunting after new abodes (or repeated transmigrations). 29. Thus I have related to you, O Ráma! the whole of the story of the boy and princes; now consider well its purport in your mind, and you will become wise thereby. 30. After the nurse had finished her relation of the pretty parable, the boy seemed glad at what he had heard (though it is plain without understanding its import). 31. I have told you this story, O Ráma! in connection with my lecture on the subject of the mind; and it will serve to explain to you, the fabrication of the mind of this imaginary being of the world.

32. This air-built castle of the world, which has come to be taken for a reality, is like the story of the body, but a false fabrication of the old nurse’s imagination. (Or old grand-mother’s tale, and giving a name and form to an airy nothing). 33. It is the representation of the various thoughts and ideas of our minds, which exhibit themselves to view, according to the notions we have of them in our states of bondage and liberation. (i.e. Our bondage to gross bodies, exhibits them in their grosser form, and our liberation from the materialistic, shows them in their subtile and immaterial shapes). 34. Nothing is really existent except the creations of our imagination, and it is our fancy which fashions all the objects in their peculiar fantastic forms. (Everything appears to us as we fancy it to be; whereby the same thing is viewed in a different light, not only by different persons; but by the same person in a different state of mind).

35. The heavens, earth, sky and air, as also the rivers, mountains and the sides and quarters of the sky, are all creations of our fancy, like the visions in our dreams; which join and disjoin and fashion the views in their phantastic forms. (Imagination or phantasy, is a faculty representative of the phenomena of internal or external worlds. Sir William Hamilton). 36. As the princes, the rivers and the future city, were mere creations of the nurse’s imagination, so the existence of the visible world, is but a production of the imaginative power of man. (The nurse’s representations of the princes &c., were rather the prosopopœia or personifications of her abstract thoughts; as the material world is a manifestation of the ideal, and called by the sufis suwari manavi and suwari zahiri). 37. The imaginative power manifests all things all around, as the moving waters, show the rise and fall of the waves in the sea. “It gives a shape of airy nothing”. “It is the power of apprehending ideas and combining them into new forms and assemblages”.

38. It was this imaginative power of God, which raised the ideas of things in his omniscient and all comprehensive soul; and these ideals were afterwards manifested as real by his omnipotence; just as things lying in the dark are brought to view by the light of the day. (Imaginatio est rei corporae figuram contemplari. Descartes and Addison. It is a lively conception of the objects of sight. Reid. It recalls the ideas by its reproductive fancy, and combines them by its productive power). 39. Know hence, O Ráma! the whole universe to be the net-work of imagination, and your fancy to be the most active power of the mind. Therefore repress the thickening phantoms of your fleeting fancy, and obtain your tranquility by your sole reliance on the certainty of the immutable soul of souls. “Retire the world, shut out, imagination’s airy wings repress; call thy thoughts home &c.” Young’s Night thoughts. THE CO-ORDINATE TRIADS.

ON THE INDIVISIBILITY AND IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. Argument:—Fallacy of Egoism, and Rational Investigation into the nature of the Soul. The Means of curbing Egotism, and the flight of Fancy. Vasishtha continued:—The ignorant are subject to errors caused by their false fancies, from which the wise are entirely free; and they by imagining and attributing perishable properties to the imperishable soul, beguile themselves like children, by taking their dolls for men. (It is the attributing of sensible properties to the conscious soul). 2. Ráma rejoined:—What is this perishable property, which is imagined of and imputed to the imperishable soul? Tell me, also O greatest of theologians! what is that misrepresentation, which misleads the mind to the erroneous conception, of the unreal world for a reality.

3. Vasishtha replied:—The soul by its continued association with unreal and perishable things, thinks itself as one of them, and takes upon it the title of an unreal and perishable egoism, as a boy by association of his thoughts imagines a false apparition to be a real ghost. (Egoism and tuism and suism, means the personality or personal reality of the three persons I, thou and this—aham, twam and sah, which in all systems of mystic philosophy, is denied of all finite beings. The absolute Ego is the supreme soul, and all other souls are but reflections of it). 4. All things being situated in one absolute reality, it is hard to account for one’s personal egoism; and to say how and whence this conception came to be in vogue. (The impersonal and universal soul is the true Ego, and has no personal existence what ever). 5. In fact there is no egoism beside that of the supreme soul; and yet is the nature of the injudicious to make a difference of a finite and infinite Ego, and of a mortal and immortal soul; as we see two streams of water in the sun-beams in a sandy desert. (The human soul is no other, than a particle of the supreme).

6. The mind is a spacious mind (of richest gems) in this extensive creation, and depends for its support on the supreme soul; as the waves are dependent on the waters of the sea, for their rise and subsistence. (The mind is the individual soul, but the soul is the universal and undivided spirit and opposed to the European doctrine of the minds being a generic and the soul an individual name). 7. Therefore give up, O Ráma! your erroneous view of the reality of the world and your reliance on the baseless fabric of the universe, and rely with delight on your judicious view of the true substratum and support of all. 8. Inquire now into the nature of Truth, with a rational understanding; and being freed from all error and bias, discard all that is false and untrue.

The idea of Tritheism and faith in the mystic number three, is as deeply rooted in the Hindu mind, as we find it in the Alexandrine triad of old, and the Trinity of modern Christians. We have already given an ample exposition of the various triads in Hindu theology and other sciences in our introduction to this work (Vol. I. Sect XI. p. 61). Besides those we meet herewith some other triads which are conveyed in the allegorical story of the old nurse to her infant care for his early instruction, though it is doubtful that the boy could either understand or derive any benefit thereby. It will be worth while to mention here the Alexandrian Triad of the three hypostases of the one Being in the psyche—eternal soul, nous—the mind, and Zoa—Jíva—life or activity. This last is the same with the logos—Word, the manifestation of Divine power in whom there was life also. Others formed their Triad of matter, soul and force, as the three principia in nature. The Christian Trinity, which some maintain as an imitation of the Alexandrians, presents many differences respecting some portion of this doctrine, which resulted in the heresies of Arianism, Sabellianism, Nestorianism &c. see further particulars on this head in Lewe’s History of Philosophy, Vol. 1, p. 391.

9. Why do you think the unconfined soul to be confined in the body? It is vain to suppose the nature of the infinite soul, to be confined in any place. 10. To suppose the one as many, is to make a division of and create a variety in the nature of the Supreme Spirit. Again the Divine essence being diffused alike in all, it cannot be said to be confined in one thing and absent in another. 11. The body being hurt, the soul is supposed to be hurt likewise; but no pain or hurt or sickness of any kind, can appertain to the unchanging soul. 12. The body being hurt or weakened or destroyed, there is no injury done to the soul, as the bellows (of the blacksmith) being burnt, the wind with which it was filled, escapes unconsumed. 13. Whether the body lasts or falls, it is of no matter to us, (since the soul survives its loss); as the flower being destroyed, deposits its fragrance in the air. 14. Let any pain or pleasure befall on the body, as dew-drops falling on lotus-leaves: it can affect us no more than it is for the fading lotus, to affect or afflict in any manner the flying and aerial bee.

15. Let the body rise or fall, or fly in smoke and mix with the air; these changing forms of it, can have no effect whatever on the soul. 16. The connection of the body with the soul, is like that between the cloud and the wind; and as that of the lotus with the bee. (The former is moved and alighted upon by the latter, and not that the latter is preserved by the former). 17. If the mind which forms a part of all living bodies, is not affected by bodily pain; how is it possible that the primary power of intellect which resides in the soul, shall ever be subject to death? 18. If you know, O wise Ráma, the soul to be indestructible and inseparable (from any place or person), what cause then can you have to sorrow for the supposed separation or disappearance of the all-pervading spirit? 19. After destruction of the body, the soul flies from it, to abide in the infinite space of empty air; like the wind mixing with the air after dispersion of the clouds, and the bee flying to it after the lotus has faded away.

20. The mind also is not relaxed with all its enjoyments of life, unless it is burnt down by the knowledge of truth; why then speak of the annihilation of the soul. 21. The connection of the perishable body and imperishable soul, is analogous to that of a vessel and the fruit it holds, and of a pot and the air in it. (i.e. Of the container and the contained; the frame-work is fragile, but its component is infrangible). 22. As a plum is held in the hand or it falls into a pit, so the vacuous soul is reposed in or deposed from the body. 23. As a pot being broken, its vacuous part mixes, with the air; so the body being dissolved, the soul remains unhurt in the empty space. 24. The mind and body of living beings, are apt to disappear at times from their habitations, and hide themselves under the shroud of death; why then should we sorrow for such renegades? 25. Seeing the death and disappearance of others at all times, no fool learns to think for himself, but fears to die like all ignorant fools.

26. Therefore renounce, O Ráma! Your selfish desires, and know the falsity of egoism. Forsake the bond of the body for flying upward, as a new fledged bird flies above, and leaves its nest behind. 27. It is an act of the mind, to lead us to good or evil; as it is another function of it, to fabricate the false fabric of the world like appearances in a dream. 28. It is our incorrigible ignorance, that stretches out these imageries for our misery only; and it is our imperfect knowledge, which shows these false-hoods as realities unto us. 29. It gives us a dim sight of things, as we view the sky obscured by a mist; and it is the nature of the mind, to have an erroneous view of objects. 30. The dull and unreal world, appears as a reality to us; and the imaginary duration of the universe, is as a protracted dream in our sleep. 31. It is the thought or idea of the world, that is the cause of its formal existence, as it is the blinking of the eye, that shows a thousand disks of the sun and moon in the clear sky.

32. Now Ráma, employ your reason to annihilate the formal world from your mind, as the sun dissolves the snows by the heat of his beams. 33. As one wishing to overcome his cold, gets his object at sunrise; so he who wishes to demolish his mind (its errors), succeeds in it at the rise of his reason. 34. As ignorance increases, so it introduces a train of impervious errors and evils. It spreads a magic spell around it, as Samvara the sorcerer showered a flux of gold dust about him. 35. The mind makes the way to its own destruction by its worldliness, and acts the part of its own catastrophe or self destruction by all its acts. 36. The mind cares only for keeping itself from destruction; but it is a fool not to know beforehand its imminent death. 37. The mind by its restless desires, hastens itself to a painful death; which reasonable are trying to avoid; by their government of the mind. (It is not right to trouble the mind with worldly cares). 38. The mind that is purified by reason, is purged from its volitions and nolitions; and resigns itself to the will of the Divine soul, which is ever present before it.

39. The curbing of the mind, is the magnanimity of soul, and gives rise to liberation from pain, therefore try to restrain your mind, and not to give a loose rein to it. 40. The world is a vast wilderness, full of the forests of our weal and woe, and beset by the dragons of disease and death on all sides: the irrational mind is as the rampant lord of the desert land, and drives us anon to all sorts of dangers and difficulties. 41. As the sage ended his sermon, the day departed to its end; and the sun declined to the west to his evening service. The assembly broke after mutual salutations, and met again and greeted each other with the parting night and rising sun. (This is the Brahma muhúrta or dawning day break at 4 A.M.)

ON THE NATURE OF THE MIND. Argument. The sufferings of men of ungovernable minds, serving as a lesson towards the liberation of the wise. Some minds are seen to break-forth in passions like the torrents of oceans, and to heave and overflow on earth on every side. (By the unrestrained rage of their appetites). 2. They reduce the great to lowness, and exalt the low also to greatness; they make strangers of their friends, as also friends to strangers. (Such is the changeful state of the human mind). 3. The mind makes a mountain of a mote by its thought, and thinks itself a lord with its little of a trifle. (These are those that are puffed up with vanity. Falsus honor juvat, non sed mendosum and mendacem. Horace). 4. The mind being elated by the prosperity, which attends upon it by the will of God, spreads a large establishment for a while, and is then reduced to poverty in a moment at its loss. (Fortuna nunquam perpetuo est bona:—Good luck lasts not for ever. The highest spoke in fortune’s wheel, may soon turn lowest. Fortuna transmutat incertos honores. Fortune is ever shifting her uncertain favours).

5. Whatever things are seen in this world to be stationary or changeful, are all but accidents according to the state of viewing them in that light: Just as a passing vessel is thought stationary by its passenger on board, but as moving by the spectators on the shore. 6. The mind is so changeful by the influence of time, place, power and nature of acts and things, that it continually shuffles from one feeling to another, like an actor personating his many parts on the stage. 7. It takes the truth for untruth and its reverse for certainty: so it takes one thing for another, and its joy and grief are all of its own making. (i.e. The creations of its imagination). 8. The fickle mind gets every thing according to its own doing, and all the actions of our hands, feet and other members of the body, are regulated by the same. (The mind is the mover of bodily organs). 9. Hence it is the mind that reaps the rewards of good or evil according to its past acts; just as the tree bears its fruits, according as it is pruned and watered in time. (Reap as you sow).

10. As the child makes a variety of his toy dolls at home from clay, so the mind is the maker of all its good and bad chances, according to the merit or demerit of its past actions. 11. Therefore the mind which is situated in the earthen dolls of human bodies, can do nothing of its own will, unless it is destined so by virtue of its former acts. (The mind that moves the body, is itself moved by the destiny derived from its prior acts). 12. As the seasons cause the changes in trees, so the mind makes differences in the dispositions of living beings. (As many men so many minds, and hard to have two men of one mind). 13. The mind indulges in its sport of deeming a span as a league, and vice-versa of thinking a long as short, as in the case of the operations of our dreams and fancy. 14. A Kalpa age is shortened to a moment, and so is a moment prolonged to a Kalpa, by the different modes of the mind; which is the regulator both of the duration and distance of time and place.

15. The perceptions of the quickness and slowness of motion, and of much or little in quantity, as also of swiftness or tardiness of time, belong to the mind and not to the dull material body (though these sensations are derived by means of the bodily organs). 16. So the feelings of sickness and error and of dolor and danger, and the passing of time and distance of place, all rise in the mind like the leaves and branches of trees. (From its inborn perceptions of them). 17. The mind is the cause of all its feelings, as water is the cause of the sea, and the heat of fire. Hence the mind is the source of all things, and intimately connected with whatever is existent in the world. 18. The thoughts that we have of the agent, effect and instrument of things, as also of the viewer, view and the instrumentality of sight, all belong to the mind.

19. The mind alone is perceived to be in existence in the world; and its representations of the forests and all other things are but variations of itself! So the thinking man sees the substance of gold only, in all its various formations of bangles and bracelets, which are taken for naught. (All objectivity is dependant on the subjective mind, as there is no perception of an object independent of the mind. See identity of the subjective and objective in the Pantheistic Idealism of Spinoza).

STORY OF A MAGIC SCENE. Argument. Story of king Lavana and his court, and the Advent of a Sorcerer there. Vasishtha said:—Hear me relate to you Ráma a very pretty narrative, representing the world as an enchanted city, stretched out by magic of the magician Mind. 2. There lies on the surface of this earth a large and populous tract of land by name of Northern Pándava, a country full of forests of various kinds. (We know the Northern Kuru the Uttara Kuru or Otterokoros of Ptolemy, to be the Trans-Himalayan Tartary, which is here termed the North-Pándava, from the King Pandu’s rambles and the wanderings of the Pándava princes in it in their exile). 3. The forests were deep and dense, and there dwell in the fastness of these woods a number of holy hermits; while the Vidyádhara damsels had wrought there many a bower of swinging creepers (for their amusement). 4. Heaps of rubicund farina, wafted by the breeze from full blown lotuses, rose as high as crimson hills on the ground; which was decorated with wreaths and garlands by the loads of flowers, which had fallen thereon from the surrounding trees.

5. Groves of Karanja plants were decorated with bundles of blossoms, to the utmost boundaries of the jungle; and the firmament resounded with the rustling noise, emitted by the leafy date trees in the villages around. 6. There was a range of tawny rocks on one side, and fields brown with ripened corn on another; while the warbling of cerulean doves re-echoed in the resonant groves about. 7. The shrill cry of the stork resounded in the forest, and the branches of tamala and pátali flowers, hang down like ear-rings of the hills. 8. Flocks of various birds, were making a chorus with their vocal music; and the blooming crimson blossoms of páribhadra arbors, were hanging over the banks, all along the length of the running streams. 9. Damsels in the cornfields, were exciting the passion of love with their vocal music; and the breezes blowing amidst forests of fruits and flowers, dropped down the blossoms in copious showers. 10. The birds, Siddhas and seers were sitting and singing outside their homes of mountain caverns; and made the valley symphonious with their celestial strains of holy hymns. 11. The Kinnara and Gandharva concerts, were singing under their bowers of plantain trees; and the greyish and gaysome groves of flowers, were filled with the hum of the whistling breeze.

12. The lord of this romantic country, was the virtuous Lavana, a descendant of king Harish Chandra; and as glorious as his sire the sun upon earth. (This prince had descended of the solar race). 13. His fair fame formed a white diadem to crown his head, and adorn his shoulders with its brightness; it whitened the hills in the form of so many Sivas, besmeared with the hoary ashes upon his tufted head and person. 14. His sword had made an end of all his enemies; who trembled as in a fit of fever on the hearing of his august name. 15. His greatest exertion was devoted to the supportance to respectable men; and his name was uttered like that of Hari by all his people. 16. The Apsara fairies sang with glee the songs of his praise, sitting in the celestial seats of the gods on the tops of the Himalayan mountains. 17. The regent of the skies heard with attention, the songs of the heavenly maids, and the aerial swans and cranes of Brahmá, were responsive to their eulogies with their gabbling cries. (Dhani is the enharmonic diapason of Indian music).

18. His uncommonly magnanimous and wonderous acts, which were free from the fault of niggardliness; were unlike to any thing that was ever heard or seen by any body. 19. His nature knew no wiliness, and it was a perfect stranger to pride and arrogance; he kept himself steadfast to his magnanimity, as Brahmá held himself fast to his rudráksha beads. 20. He used to take his seat in the royal throne amidst his courtiers, as the lord of the day occupies his seat in the sky for the eight parts (watches) of the day. (The Ritual day is divided into eight yamárdha parts for particular rites and duties). 21. After he was seated there as gladly as the moon in the firmament, his chieftains and legions appeared before the throne with their salutations (and presenting of arms). 22. Then as the royal party was seated in the court-hall, beautiful songstresses (that were in attendance), began to sing, and ravish the hearts of the hearers, with the music of lutes. 23. Then a set of handsome maids, waved the beautiful chouries which they held in their hands, over the person of the king: and the ministers and counsellors, as wise as the preceptors of the gods and demons (Vrihaspati and Sukra), took their seats beside him.

24. The ministers were then employed in the public affairs pending before them; and the dextrous officers were engaged in relating the reports of the country to the king. 25. There were the learned pandits reciting the holy legends from their books, and the courteous panegyrists chaunting their sacred eulogies on one side. 26. There appeared at this time a magician in his fantastic attire, and with his blustering vauntings before the Court; in the manner of a roaring cloud, threatening to deluge the earth with his showers of rain. 27. He bowed down to the ruler of the earth, and lowly bent his capped head and neck before the court; as a tree hangs down its loads of fruits, at the foot of a mountain. 28. He approached before the king, as a monkey advances to a shady and lofty tree, loaded with fruits and flowers. (The artful sorcerer is compared with the cunning monkey prying into a fruitful arbour). 29. The flippant brat then conveyed the fragrance of his sense, with the breath of his mouth; and addressed the lofty headed king with his sweet voice, as the humble bee hums to the lotus.

30. Reign O lord! that sittest on the earthly throne like the moon enthroned on high, to mark one wonderful feat of my art, known as the trick of Kharolikiká. 31. Saying so, he began to twirl about his magic staff set with peacocks’ feathers, which began to display many wonders like the wonderful works of creation. 32. The king beheld it describing a bright circlet, emitting the particles of its rays around; and viewed in the manner, that the god Indra views his variegated rainbow sparkling afar in the sky. 33. As this time a chieftain of Sinde (who was the master of horse,) entered the court, as a cloud appears in the starry heaven. 34. He was followed by his swift and beautiful courser, as the Uchcha Sravá horse of Indra follows his master in the celestial regions. (This is the Pegasus of the Hindus). 35. The chieftain brought the horse before the king and said this horse my lord! is a match for the Uchcha Sravá, who was produced from the milky ocean, and flies with the swiftness of the mind. 36. This horse of mine, O king of the earth! is the best of his kind, and a compeer of Uchcha Sravás; he is a personification of the wind in the swiftness of his flight.

37. My master has made a present of this horse to you, my lord; because the best of things is a suitable present to the best of men. (Great gifts are for the great; or, a donum worthy of the donor and donee). 38. After he had ended his speech the magician spoke in a voice, as sweet as that of the swallow, after the roaring of the cloud is hushed to silence. 39. Do you my lord ride upon this horse, and wander at your pleasure with full lustre on earth; as the sun shines forth in splendour by his revolving round the heavens. 40. Hearing this the king looked at the horse, and ordered him to be brought before him, in a voice like that of the peacock answering the roaring cloud. 41. The king saw the horse brought before him as a figure drawn in painting, and gazed upon him with his fixed eyes and without closing his eye-lids, as he was himself turned to a painting. (A gift horse is looked in his gait, and not in his mouth). 42. Having looked upon him for a long time, he mounted on his back, and sat still with his closed eye-lids, as the sage Agastya was confounded at the sight of the sea and its rocks.

43. He continued for a couple of hours as if he was drowned in his meditation, and as insensible saints remain in the enjoyment of their internal and spiritual stupor. 44. He remained as spell-bound and overpowered by his own might, and could not be roused from his stupefaction by any body, but was absorbed in some thoughts of his own mind. 45. The flapping chouries ceased to wave about his person, and the holders of the flappers remained as still as the moon beams at night. 46. The Courtiers remained motionless at seeing his quiescence, as when the filaments of the lotus, remain unmoved, by their being besmeared in the mud. 47. The noise of the people in the Courtyard, was all hushed and quiet; as the roaring of the clouds is stopped at the end of the rains. 48. The ministers were drowned in their thoughtfulness and doubts at the state of their king, as the host of the gods were filled with anxiety on seeing the club bearing Vishnu fighting with the demons. 49. The people were struck with terror and dismay, at seeing this apoplexy of their prince who remained with his closed eyes, like closed lotuses shorn of their beauty.

THE BREAKING OF THE MAGIC SPELL. Argument. Inquiry of the courtiers into the cause of the king’s apoplexy, and his answer thereto. Vasishtha continued:—After a couple of hours the king returned to his senses, like the lotus flower resuming its beauty, after the mists of the rainy weather are over. 2. He shook his body decorated with ornaments upon his seat; as a mountain shakes with its peaks and woods at an earthquake. 3. His seat also shook under him as he came to his sense and moved his body, just as the seat of Siva on the Kailása mountain, is shaken by the movement of the infernal elephant. 4. As he was about to fall down from the horseback, he was held up by and supported upon the arms of his attendants; as the mount Meru is kept from falling, by the hills at its feet and sides. 5. The attendants bore the prince, in the deranged state of his mind upon their arms; as the still waters of the sea bear the figure of the moon that is disturbed by the waves.

6. The king asked them softly saying, what place was it and whose court it was; as the bee shut up in the flower cup of the lotus, asked it when it is about to sink in the water saying:—Ah! where am I, and where am I going? 7. The Courtiers then respectfully asked the king, what was the matter with him; with a voice as sweet as the lotus utters to the sun when he is eclipsed by Ráhu. 8. The attendants also with all the ministerial officers, asked him about his case; as the gods terrified at the great deluge, asked the sage Márkandeya concerning the occurrence. 9. Lord! we were greatly dismayed, said they, upon seeing you in that plight; because the stoutest hearts are broken by accidents proceeding from unknown causes. 10. What were those pleasant objects of your desire, that had so much bewitched your mind? Since you know that all the objects which appear pleasant for the present, prove to be bitter at the end. Gaudia principium nostri sunt saepe doloris. Ovid. Pleasure is often the introduction to pain, and amid the roses fierce Repentence rears her snaky crest. Thomson. So: Pleasure is pain, when drunk without a rein.

11. How could your clear understanding, which has been pacified by the grand doctrines and precepts of the wise, fall in to the false fascinations of the foolish? (Falsum gaudium juvat, quem nisi mendosum. False pleasure pleases, none but the base). 12. The minds of fools are fascinated by the trivial and tawdry trifles of common people; but they are of no value to the high minded as one like yourself. (The good and great are above the reach of the allurements of pleasure). 13. Those who are elated by the pride of their bodies, have their minds always excited by ungovernable passions, which take their lead through life. (Pride is innate in beauty). 14. Your mind is elevated above common things, it is calm and quiet and enlightened by truth; and fraught with excellent qualities; yet it is strange to find it out of its wits. 15. The mind unpracticed to reasoning, is led away by the currents of time and place, but the nobleminded are not subject to the influence of incantations and enchanting spells. 16. It is impossible for the reasoning mind to be weakened or deranged, the high mind like the mount towering of Meru, is not to be shaken by the boisterous winds.

17. Thus consoled by his companions, the countenance of the king resumed its colour; as the face of the full moon collects its brightness, in the bright fortnight of the month. 18. The moon-like face of the king was brightened by his full open eyes, as the vernal season is beautified by the blooming blossoms, after the winter frost has passed away. 19. The king’s face shone forth with astonishment, and it was mixed with fear, at the remembrance of the charm of the magician; as the moon shines pale in the sky, after her deliverance from the shadow of an eclipse. 20. He saw the magician and said to him with a smile, as the serpent takshaka addresses his enemy—the weasel. 21. You trickster, said he, what was this snare which thou didst entrap me in, and how was it that thou didst perturb my tranquil soul by thy wily trick, as a gale disturbs the calm of the sea. 22. How wonderful are the captivating powers of spells, which they have derived from the Lord, and whose influence had overpowered on the strongest sense of my mind. 23. What are these bodies of men, that are subject to death and disease and what are our minds that are so susceptible of errors, and lead us to continued dangers.

24. The mind residing in the body, may be fraught with the highest knowledge, and yet the minds of the wisest of men, are liable to errors and illusion. (Hominis est errare. To err is human). 25. Hear ye courtiers! the wonderful tale of the adventures, which I passed through under this sorcery, from the moment that I had met this magician at first. 26. I have seen so many passing scenes in one single moment under this wizard, as had been shown of old by Brahma in his destruction of the theurgy of Indra. (The mighty Sakra spread his Indrajála or the web of his sorcery, in order to frustrate the attempts of the valiant Bali against him, and was at last foiled himself by the Brahma vidyá of Brahmá). 27. Having said so, the king began to relate smilingly to his courtiers, the strange wonders which he had beheld in his state of hallucination. 28. The king said:—I beheld a region full with objects of various kinds, such as rivers and lakes, cities and mountains, with many boundary hills, and the ocean girding the earth around.

THE TALISMAN OF THE KING’S MARRIAGE WITH A CHANDÁLA MAIDEN. (An Allegory of Human Depravity). Argument. The king borne on horse-back to the habitation of a huntsman and was there married to his maiden daughter. (This adventure resembles that of Tajul Maluk in Gule Bákavli.) The king related:—This land of mine abounding in forests and rivulets, and appearing as the miniature of this orb of the earth. Literally:—as the younger twin sister of the earth:— 2. This land appearing as the paradise of Indra, of which I am the king, and where I am now sitting in my court-hall, amidst my courtiers and all these citizens. 3. There appeared here yonder sorcerer from a distant country, like a demon rising from the infernal region on the surface of the ground. 4. He turned round his magic-wand emitting its radiance around, as the tempest rends and scatters the rainbow of Indra in fragments in the air. 5. I was looking intently at the whirling wand, and the horse standing before me, and then mounted on the back of the steed in the dizziness of my mind. 6. I sat on the back of this unmoving horse and seemed to ride on a fleet steed, with the swiftness of the Pushkara and Ávartaka clouds, riding over the tops of immovable rocks.

7. I then went to a chase in full speed, a pass over an ownerless desert, howling as the surges of the boundless ocean. 8. I was borne afterwards with the horse in the air, as if we were wafted by the winds; and dashed onward like common people, who are carried afar by the current of the insatiable desires of their minds. 9. Being then fatigued with my journey, and moving slowly with my wearied horse, I reached to the skirt of the desert which was as vacant as the mind of a pauper, and as empty as the heart of a woman. (Cares hover over roofs of wealth, and secrets from female hearts fly by stealth. Curae laqueata circum Tecta volantes. Hor. Cares that flutter bat-like round fretted roofs. A woman is never so weak as in keeping her secrets). 10. It was as the wilderness of the world burnt down by a conflagration, and without even a bird flying over it. It was as a waste of sandy frost, and without a tree or any water in it. (A vast desert displayed its barren waste).

11. It appeared as another sky in its extent, and as the eighth ocean of the world. It was as a sea on earth with its bed entirely dried up. (There are in all only seven oceans in Indian Geography, the eighth is a myth). 12. It was as expanded as the mind of a wise man, and as furious as the rage of the ignorant. There was no trace of human feet, nor track with any grass or herb in it. (Immeasurable and fathomless as the sapient mind.) 13. My mind was bewildered in this boundless desert, like that of a woman fallen into adversity, and having no friend or food or fruit for her supportance. (Adversity is the canker of the woman’s breast: asaubhagyan jvarástrínám). 14. The face of the sky was washed by the waters, appearing in the mirage of the sandy desert; and I passed panting in that dreary spot until it was sunset. 15. It was with great pain and sorrow, that I passed across that vast desert; like the wise man who goes across this world, which is all hollow and void within.

16. After passing this desert, I met a thick forest beyond it, when the sun was setting in his setting mountain with his horse, and tired with traversing through the hollow sphere of heaven. 17. Here the birds were warbling amidst the jámb and kadamba trees, and were the only friends that the weary travellers could meet with, in their weary and lonesome journey. 18. Here detached plots of long grass, were seen waving their tops; like covetous men nodding their heads, on finding some riches to their heart’s content. (The poor are pleased with a little, and bow down their heads at petty pittances). 19. This shady forest afforded me a little joy, after my pains in the dry and dreary desert; as a lingering disease seems more desirable to men, than the pains attending on death. 20. I then got under the shade of Jambíra tree, and felt myself as pleased, as when the sage Markandeya got upon the top of the mountain at the great deluge. (The Ararat of Noah?). 21. Then I took shelter under the creepers, descending from its branches, as the scorching top of a mount, finds a temporary shadow under the umbrage of a dark cloud.

22. As I was hanging down with holding the pendant roots in my hand, the horse slided away from underneath me, as the sins of a man glide under him, that puts his trust in the sacred Ganges streams. (The purificatory power of Ganges water, resides even in the belief of its holiness, and does not consist only in bathing in it). 23. Fatigued with my travel of the live-long day in the dreary waste, I took my refuge under this tree; as a traveller rests under the shelter of a kalpa tree at the setting of the sun. 24. All this business of the world was stopped, as the sun went down to rest in the western hills. (The Hindu ritual prescribing no duty for the night consisting of three watches—triyama rajaní). 25. As the shade of night overspread the bosom of the universe, the whole forest below betook itself to its nightly rest and silence. (The vegetable creation was known to sleep at night by the Hindu sages).

26. I reposed myself in the grassy hollow of a branch of that tree, and rested my head on the mossy bed like a bird in its nest. (Primeval men slept in the hollow of trees like birds, for fear of rapacious animals in the caves of the earth below, as also in the caverns of upland hills and mountains). 27. I remained there as insensible as one bitten by a snake, and as a dead body that has lost its past remembrance. (Sleep and death are akin to each other—hypnos kai thanatos didumo adelpho). I was as impotent as a sold slave; and as helpless as one fallen in a dark ditch or blind pit. Bought slaves krita-dásas and their loss of liberty, were in vogue from the earliest times in India. (अन्ध कुप-अन्ध-कुया = a blind pit). 28. I passed that one night as a long Kalpa in my senselessness; and I thought I was buffeting in the waves like the seer—Markandeya at the great deluge. (i.e. The body was insensible in the state of sleep; but the mind was active as in a dream, which makes an age of a moment).

29. I passed the night under a train of dangers and difficulties, that invaded me as in the state of dreaming; and I had no thought about my bathing or eating or worshipping my Maker (the mind being wholly occupied by the objects of the dream). 30. I passed the night in restlessness and disquiet, shaking like the branch of a tree; and this single night of trouble was as long as it was tedious to me (like the time of a lingering disease). 31. A melancholy overspread my countenance, as darkness had veiled the face of the night, and my waking eyes kept watching for the day, like blue-lotuses expecting with their watchful eyes the rising moon. 32. The demoniac noise of wild beasts being hushed in the forest at the end of the night, there fell a shivering fit on me with the clattering of my teeth through excessive cold. 33. I then beheld the east, red with the flush of intoxication; as if it was laughing at seeing me drowned in my difficulties.

34. I saw the sun advancing afterwards towards the earth, and to mount on his Airávata the regent elephant of that quarter. He seemed to be so full of glee, as the ignorant man has in his folly, and the poor man in obtaining a treasure. 35. Having got up from my mossy bed, I shook off my bed cloth, like the god Siva tossing about his elephantine hide at his giddy dance in the evening. (See Magh. Book I). 36. I then began to wander in the wide forestland, as the god Rudra roves about the wide world, after its desolation by his demons at the end of kalpas. 37. There was no animal of any kind to be seen in the desolate desert, as the good qualities of good breeding, are never to be found in the persons of the illiterate. 38. I saw only the lively birds, perching and chirping all about the woods without intermission. 39. It was then at mid-day, when the sun had run his eighth hour, and the plants had dried up the dews of their morning baths. 40. That I beheld a damsel carrying some food and a goblet of water, on the way as Hari bore the poisonous liquor to the demons in his disguise in the shape of Mádhaví.

41. She was of a swarthy complexion, and dressed in sable black attire; and looked askance at me; when I advanced towards her as the bright moon appears towards the dark and sable night. 42. I asked her to give me some of her food in my great distress, because, I told her, one is enriched by relieving the distress of the needy. 43. O good maid; said I, increasing hunger is consuming my bowels and I would take any food, even as the female serpent devours her own brood and young, in the excess of her hunger. (Hunger beats down the stony wall, and impure food is pure to the hungry). 44. I begged of thee and yet thou gavest me nothing, but dost remain as inexorable as the goddess of fortune, who declines to favour the wretched, however they implore her aid. (Fortune turns a deaf ear to the supplications of the poor). 45. Then I kept a long time, following her closely from one wood to another, and clinging to her as her shadow, moving behind her in the afternoon.

46. She then turned to me and said:—Know me, to be a Chandála girl and bearing the name of Harakeyuri; we are as cruel as Rákshasas, and feeders on human flesh as on those of horses and elephants. 47. You cannot, O King! get your food by merely your craving it of me; as it is hard to have the favour of men, without first meeting with their desires. 48. Saying so, she went on trippingly at every step, and then entered into an arbour on the wayside and spoke merrily unto me saying:— 49. Well, I will give you of this food, if you will consent to be my husband; for it is not the business of base and common people to do good to others, before securing their own good. 50. My Chandála father is here ploughing in the field, with his sturdy yoke of bulls, and has the figure of a demon, standing in the cemetery with his haggardly hungry and dusky stature. 51. This food is for him, and may be given to you, if you will agree to espouse me; because the husband deserves to be served even at the peril of one’s life.

52. To this I replied, I agree to take thee to my wife, for what fool is there that will abide by the usage of his family, when his life is in danger? 53. She then gave me half of the food she had with her, as Mádhaví parted with half of her ambrosia to the hungry Indra of old. 54. I ate the Chandál’s food, and drank the beverage of Jambu fruits which she gave me; and then rested at that place, and fell to a sleep caused by my fatigue and long walking. 55. Then she approached to me, as a black cloud advances before the sun; she held me in her arms, and led me onward with her guiding hand, and as fondly as her second self. 56. She took me to her father, a fat and ugly fellow of a repulsive appearance; as the tormenting agony of death, leads a person to the hideous cell of the devil. 57. My companion whispered to his ears the tidings of our case, as the black bee hums her tale softly to the ear of an elephant (in order to sip his frontal juice or ichor of mada-bárí).

58. This man, said she, is to be my husband, if you, my father, will give your consent. To this he expressed his approval by saying—“Vádham be it so” by the end of this day (when marriage rites usually take place and is called godhuli, or the dusty dusk of returning herds from their pasture grounds). 59. He loosened the bulls from their yoke, as the regent of death releases his hell hounds. And it was in the dusk of the day, when the sky was obscured by the evening mist, and rising dust of godhuli, that we were dismissed from the demons’ presence, to take our own way. 60. We passed the great jungle in a short time, and reached the Chandála’s abode in the evening; as the demons pass amidst the funeral ground, to rest in their charnel vaults at night. 61. The dwelling had on one side, the slaughtered monkeys, cocks and crows; and swarms of flies flying over them, and sucking the blood sprinkled over the ground.

62. The moist entrails and arteries of the slaughtered beasts, that were hung up to be dried in the sun; were chased by the ravenous birds of the air, that kept hovering over them; while flocks of birds fluttered over the Jambira trees (to pick up the fruits for their food). 63. There were heaps of fat laid up to be dried in the portico, and ravenous birds flying over them; and the skins of the slain animals, which were besmeared with blood, lay in piles before their sight. 64. Little children had bits of flesh in their hands, beset by buzzing flies; and there were the veteran Chandálas, sitting by and rebuking the boys. 65. We then entered the house scattered with disgusting entrails and intestines about, and I thought myself as the ghost of a dead man standing beside the regent of death. 66. I had then a seat of a big plantain leaf, given to me with due respect, in order to be seated as a welcome guest, in the abominable abode of my new-earned father-in-law. 67. My squint eyed mother-in-law then eyed at me, with her blood-red eyeballs; and muttered with gladness in her look, “is this our would-be son-in-law?”

68. Afterwards we sat on some seats of skin, and I partook of the repast which was served before me, as the reward of my sins. (i.e. This fare was as unpalatable, as the requital of one’s crimes). 69. I heard there many of those endearing words, which were the seeds of endless misery; as also many such speeches that were unpleasant to my mind, for their being of no benefit to me. 70. Afterwards, it came to pass on one day, when the sky was cloudless and the stars were shining; that they presented a dowry of cloths and other articles before me (as dánadravya). 71. With these they made over that frightful maiden to me, and we were joined together as black and white, and as sin and its torment together (i.e. she was given to torment me for my past sins). 72. The flesh-eating Chandálas, festivated the marriage ceremony with profusion of wine and loud shouts of joy; they beat their sounding tomtoms with merriment, as wicked men delight in carrying on the acts of their vileness. (The giddy mirth of the rabble, is compared with the revelry of the riotous).

DESCRIPTION OF A TRAIN OF DANGERS. Argument. The King’s residence at the Chandála’s abode and his adventures during sixty years at that place. The king continued:—What more shall I say of that festivity, which had quite subdued my soul? I was thenceforward named as Pushta-Pukkusha or cherished Chandála by my fellows. (Beng-ghar-jámái or home-bred bridegroom). 2. After the festivity had lasted for a week, and I had passed full eight months at that place; my wife had her pubertal efflorescence, and afterwards her conception also (garbhádhána and garbha). 3. She was delivered of a daughter which is the cause of woe, as a danger is the spring of calamities. (The parallel passage is well known dáriká dukhkha dáyika, a daughter is the source of grief). This daughter grew up as soon as the growth of the cares and sorrows of the ignorant. (The wise neither care nor sorrow for any earthly matter). 4. She brought forth again a black boy in course of three years; as the fruit of folly raises the false expectation of fruition. (i.e. We are often frustrated in our hopes in our boys). 5. She again gave birth to a daughter and then to another boy; and thus I became an old Chandála, with a large family in that forest land.

6. In this manner passed many years with these shoots of my woe in that place; as a Brahmicide has to pass long years of torment in hell-fire. (Here is a piece of priestcraft in the augmented torment for killing a Brahman as any other man). 7. I had to undergo all the pains of heat and cold, of chill-winds and frost, without any help to be had in that dreary forest; and as an old tortoise is constrained to move about in the mud of a pool for ever. 8. Being burthen with the cares of my family, and troubled by anxieties of my mind; I saw my increasing afflictions like a conflagration rising all about me. 9. Clad in bark and wrapt in old and ragged cloths, with a covering of grass and a straw hat on my head, I bore loads of logs from the woods; as we bear the burden of sins on our backs and heads. (See Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress).

10. I had to pass full many a live-long year, under the shade of dhavalí trees; with no other cloth or covering on me than an old tattered, dirty and stinking Kaupina, which was beset by fleas and leeches. (Kaupina a piece of rag covering the lower secret parts of the body as that of Fakirs and Yogis). 11. I was exposed to the chill cold winds, in all my toils to support my family; and lay like a frog in some cave in the woods, under the keen blasts of winter. 12. The many quarrels and bickerings, and the sorrows and wailings, to which I was often exposed at home and abroad, made my blood to gush out in tears from my weeping eyes. 13. We passed the nights on marshy grounds in the jungle, and being deluged by the raining clouds, we took our shelter in the caverns of mountains, with no other food than the roasted flesh of bears. 14. Afterwards the rainy season of sowing being over, and the dark drizzling clouds having dispersed in air, I was driven from my abode, by the unkindness of my relations and continued contention with others.

15. Being thus in dread of every body in the neighbourhood, I removed myself to the house of another man, where I dwelt with my wife and prattling children for some years. 16. Then vexed by the scolding of the termagant Chandálí, and the threats of the villainous Chandálas; my face became as pale as the waning moon under the shadow of Ráhu (the ascending node). 17. I was bit and scratched by the teeth and nails of my wife, as if my flesh and muscles were torn and gnawed down under the grinders of a tigress; and I was as one caught by or sold to a hellish fiend, and thought myself as changed to an infernal being also. 18. I suffered under the torrents of snow thrown out of the caverns of the Himálaya, and was exposed to the showers of frost, that fell continually in the dewy season. 19. I felt on my naked body the iron shafts of rain, as darts let fly from the bow of death; and in my sickly and decrepit old age, I had to live upon the roots of withered vegetables. 20. I dug them out plentifully from the woodland grounds and eat them with a zest, as a fortunate man has in tasting his dainty dishes of well cooked meat.

21. I took my food apart and untouched by any body, for fear of being polluted by the touch of a vile and base born family; and because the pungency of my unsavoury diet, made my mouth wry at every morsel. 22. While I was famishing in this manner, I saw others had their venison and sheep’s flesh bought from other places for their food; and who pampered their bodies also with the flesh they cut out from other living animals and devoured raw with great zest. 23. They bought animal flesh sold in iron pots and stuck in spits, for undergoing migrations into as many thousand bodies as they have killed and fed upon. (This is the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis of the soul, as described in Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World). 24. I often repaired to the garden grounds of the Chandálas, with my spade and basket in the cool of the evening, in order to collect the raw flesh, which had been cast about in the dirt, for making any food of them. 25. But the time seemed to turn favourable to me, when I was about to be cast into hell, by leading me to take refuge of the mountain caverns, and seek my supportance there by the roots and plants growing therein.

26. In this state, I was met by my good chance, on some Chandálas appearing in person before me, and driving away the village dogs with their clubs from before them (to the woods). 27. They gave my wife and children some bad rice as the villagers used to take, and we passed the night under the shade of a palm tree, whose withered leaves were rattling with the rain drops, that fell in showers upon them. 28. We passed the night in company with the sylvan apes, with our teeth clattering with cold; and the hairs of our bodies standing on their ends, like a thousand thorns through coldness. 29. The rain drops decorated our bodies with granules of vivid pearls, and our bellies were as lean and lank like an empty cloud through hunger and for want of food. 30. Then there rose a quarrel in this diresome forest, between me and my wife; and we kept answering one another, with our clattering teeth and ruddy eyes by effect of the cold. 31. My foul and dirty person resembled that of a dark black demon, and we roved about the borders of rivers and brooks, to fish with a rod and hook in my hand.

32. I wandered also with a trap in my hand, like Yama with his noose at the desolation of the earth; and caught and killed and drank the heart blood of the deer in my hunger and thirst. 33. I sucked the warm heart blood, as the milk of my mother’s breast, at the time of famishing; and being besmeared in blood, I stood as a blood sucking demon in the cemetery. 34. The Vetálas of the woods fled before me, as they do from the furies of the forests; and I set my snares and nets in the woods, for catching the deer and birds of the air. 35. As people spread the nets of their wives and children, only to be entangled in them in the false hope of happiness; so did I spread my net of thread, to beguile the birds to their destruction. 36. Though worried and worn out in the nets of worldly cares, and surrounded on every side by the miseries of our vicious lives; yet do our minds take their delight, in the perpetration of cruel and foul acts (to the injury of others).

37. Our wishes are stretched as far and wide, as a running river overflows its banks in the rainy season; but the objects of our desires fly afar from us, as snakes hide themselves from the snake eating Karabhas by their own sagacity. (The Karabha is a quadruped of the weasel kind, and is called gohadgel—in Bengali). 38. We have cast off kindness from our hearts, as the snake leaves off his slough; and take a delight to let fly the hissing arrows of our malice, as the thunder storm betides all animals. 39. Men are delighted at the sight of cooling clouds, at the end of the hot season; but they avoid at a distance the rough briny shore spreading wide before them. (So men hail their happiness, and avoid their troubles). 40. But I underwent many a difficulty, which multiplied as thickly upon me, as the weeds growing in dales; and I moved about all the corners of that hellish spot, during my destined time. (What is decreed, cannot be avoided). 41. I have sown the seeds of sin under the rain-water of my ignorance, to grow speedily as thorns on my way. I have laid hidden snares for the unwary innocent, to secure myself in the mountain caves.

42. I have caught and killed the innocent deer in the trap; to feed upon its flesh; and have killed the chouri kine, to lay my head on the hair hanging down their necks. 43. I slept unconscious of myself in my ignorance, as Vishnu lay on his huge hydra; I lay with my out-stretched legs and limbs in the brown cell, resounding to the yell of wild beasts abroad. 44. I lay my body also, on the frost of a cave in the marshy ground of Vindhyá; and wrapped my swarthy form in a tattered quilt, hanging down my neck and full of fleas. 45. I bore it on my back, as a bear bears the long bristles upon him even in the hot season; and suffered the heat of the wild fire, which burnt away many wild animals which perished in groups as in the last conflagration of the world. 46. My wife bore her young ones, both for our pleasure as well as pain: as the food of the glutton, is both for his satiety and sickness; and the influence of planets, is for our good and evil also. 47. Thus I the only son of a king, had to pass sixty painful years of my life, as so many kalpa ages of long duration.

48. I raved sometimes in my rage, and wept at others in my bitter grief; I fared on coarse meals, and dwelt, alas! in the abodes of vulgar Chandálas. Thus I passed so many years of my misery at that place, as one fastened to the fetters of his insatiable desires, is doomed to toil and moil for naught until his death. (Bound to our desires, we are dragged to the grave).

DESCRIPTION OF A DROUGHT AND DEARTH. Argument. The distress of Chandálas caused by famine and want of Rain. The king continued to say:—Time passed away, and old age overtook me, and turned my beard to blades of grass covered with hoar frost. 2. My days glided away in alternate joy and grief, brought on by my fate and acts; just as a river flows on with the green and dried leaves, which the winds scatter over it. 3. Quarrels and broils, misfortunes and mischances, befell on me every moment; and beset me as thickly and as fastly as the arrows of woe flying in a warfare. 4. My foolish mind kept fluttering like a bird, in the maze of my wishes and fancies; and my heart was perturbed by passions, like the sea by its raging waves. 5. My soul was revolving on the vehicle of my wandering thoughts; and I was borne away by them like a floating straw, to the whirlpool of the eventful ocean of time. 6. I that moved about like a worm amidst the woodlands of Vindhyá, for my simple supportance, felt myself in the process of years, to be weakened and pulled down in my frame, like a biped beast of burthen.

7. I forgot my royalty like a dead man, in that state of my wretchedness, and was confirmed in my belief of a Chandála, and bound to that hilly spot like a wingless bird. 8. The world appeared to me, as desolate as at its final desolation; and as a forest consumed by a conflagration; it seemed as the sea-shore lashed by huge surges; and as a withered tree struck by a lightning. 9. The marshy ground at the foot of Vindhyá was all dried up, and left no corn nor vegetable, nor any water for food or drink; and the whole group of Chandálas, was about to die in dearth and dryness. 10. The clouds ceased to rain, and disappeared from sight; and the winds blew with sparks of fire in them. (The hot winds of the monsoon called agni-vrishti). 11. The forest trees were bare and leafless, and the withered leaves were strewn over the ground; wild fires were raging here and there, and the wood-lands became as desolate, as the abodes of austere ascetics (dwelling in the deserts). 12. There ensued a formidable famine, and a furious flame of wildfire spread all around; it burnt down the whole forest, and reduced the grass and gravels all to ashes.

13. The people were daubed with ashes all over their bodies, and were famishing for want of food and drink; because the land was without any article of food or even grass or water in it, and had turned to a dreary desert. 14. The mirage of the desert glistened as water, and deluded the dry buffaloes to roll in it (as in a pool); and there was no current of breeze to cool the desert air. 15. The call and cry for water, came only to the ears of men; who were parching under the burning rays of the torrid sun (in the Deccan). 16. The hungry mob, hurrying to browse the branches and herbs, yielded their lives in those acts; while others sharpened their teeth, in their acts of tearing and devouring one another. 17. Some ran to bite the gum of catechu, thinking it to be a bit of flesh; while others were swallowing the stones, as if they were cakes lying on the ground before them. 18. The ground was sprinkled with blood, by the mutual biting and tearing of men; as when blood is spilt in profusion, by the lion’s killing a big and starving elephant.

19. Every one was as ferocious as a lion, in his attempt to devour another as his prey; and men mutually fought with one another, as wrestlers do in their contest. 20. The trees were leafless, and the hot winds were blowing as fire-brands on all sides; and wild cats were licking the human blood, that was spilt on the rocky ground. 21. The flame of the wild fire rose high in the air, with clouds of smoke whirling with the howling winds of the forest; it growled aloud in every place, and filled the forest-land with heaps of brown cinders and burning fire brands. 22. Huge serpents were burnt in their caves, and the fumes rising from these burning bodies, served to grow the poisonous plants on the spot; while the flame stretching aloft with the winds, gave the sky an appearance of the glory of the setting sun. 23. Heaps of ashes were lifted like dust, by the high howling winds, and stood as domes unsupported by pillars in the open sky; and the little children stood crying for fear of them, beside their weeping parents.

24. There were some men who tore a dead body with their teeth, and in their great haste to devour the flesh, bit their own hands and fingers, which were besmeared in their own blood. 25. The vultures flying in the air, darted upon the smoke, thinking it a turret of trees, and pounced upon the fire brands, taking them for bits of raw flesh. 26. Men biting and tearing one another, were flying in all directions; when the splitting of the burning wood hit upon their breasts and bellies, and made them gory with blood gushing out of them. 27. The winds were howling in the hollow caves, and the flames of the wild fire flashing with fury; the snakes were hissing for fear of these, and the burnt woods were falling down with hideous noise. 28. Thus beset by dangers and horrors, with no other shelter than the rugged hollows of rocks, this place presented a picture of this world, with its circumambient flames, burning as the twelve zodiacal suns on high.

29. The winds were blowing hot amidst the burning woods and rocks, and drying up all things; and the heat of the fire below and the sunbeams above, together with the domestic calamities caused by influence of the planet Saturn, made this place a counterpart of this woeful world.