Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

Resuscitation of Prahláda 896

Installation of Prahláda in his Realm 900

Spirituality of Prahláda 905

Rest and Repose of Prahláda 908

Narrative of Gádhi and his Destruction 913

Gádhi is Reborn as a Chandála, and made King over the Kir Tribe 918

Gádhi’s Loss of his Visionary Kingdom 923

Verification of Gádhi’s Vision 928

On the Wondrous Powers of Illusion 935

Gádhi’s gaining of True Knowledge 943

Intentions of Ráma 949

Desire of Uddálaka 960

Ratiocination of Uddálaka 966

The Rational Rapture of Uddálaka 974 YOGA VASISHTHA

JANYA-JANI-NIRÚPANA. On Genesis and Epigenesis. Argument. The variety of creation is described as the working of the mind, and the existence of one Brahma only, is established in refutation of the Atomic and Materialistic doctrines of Nyáya and Sánkhya philosophy. Vasishtha said:—Attend now Ráma, to the subject of Existence, which follows that of Production: a knowledge of this, is productive of nirvána or utter annihilation of the self or soul. 2. Know then the phenomenal world which is existent before you, and your knowledge of egoism or self-existence, to be but erroneous conceptions of the formless inexistence or inanity. 3. You see the tints of various hues painting the vacuous sky, without any paint (colouring substance), or their cause (the painter). This is but a conception of the mind without its visual perception, and like the vision in a dream of one, who is not in a state of sound sleep. (The world is a dream). 4. It is like an aerial city built and present in your mind; or like the warming of shivering apes beside the red clay, thinking it as red hot fire; and as one’s pursuing an unreality or (grasping a shadow).

5. It is but a different aspect of the self same Brahma, like that of a whirlpool in water, and as the unsubstantial sunlight, appearing as a real substance in the sky. 6. It is like the baseless fabric of gold of the celestials on high; and like the air-built castle of Gandharvas in the midway sky. (The gods and Gandharvas are believed to dwell in their golden abodes in heaven). 7. It is as the false sea in the mirage, appearing true at the time; and like the Elysian and Utopian cities of imagination in empty air, and taken for truth. 8. It is like the romantic realms with their picturesque scenes in the fancies of poets, which are no where in nature but it seems to be solid and thick within, without any pith or solidity in it, as <a> thing in an empty dream. 9. It is as the etherial sphere, full of light all around, but all hollow within; and like the blue autumnal sky, with its light and flimsy clouds without any rain-water in them. 10. It is as the unsubstantial vacuum, with the cerulean blue of solid sapphire; and like the domes and dames appearing in dreams, fleeting as air and untangible to touch.

11. It is as a flower garden in a picture, painted with blooming blossoms; and appearing as fragrant without any fragrance in them. It is lightsome to sight, without the inherent heat of light, and resembles the orb of the sun or a flaming fire represented in a picture. 12. It is as an ideal domain—the coinage of the brain, and an unreal reality or a seeming something; and likens a lotus-bed in painting, without its essence or fragrance. 13. It is as the variegated sky, painted with hues which it does not possess; and is as unsolid as empty air, and as many-hued as the rain-bow without any hue of its own. 14. All its various colourings of materiality, fade away under the right discrimination of reason; and it is found in the end to be as unsolid a substance as the stem of a plantain tree; (all coated without, and nothing solid in the inside). 15. It is like the rotation of black spots, before the eyes of a purblind man; and as the shape of a shadowy inexistence, presented as something existent before the naked eye. 16. Like the bubble of water, it seems as something substantial to sight; but in reality all hollow within; and though appearing as juicy, it is without any moisture at all.

17. The bubbling worlds are as wide spread as the morning dews or frost; but take them up, and you will find them as nothing, it is thought as gross matter by some, and as vacuum by others. It is believed as a fluctuation of thought or false vision by some, and as a mere compound of atoms by many. (It is the dull matter of Sánkhyas; mere vacuity of Vedántists; fluctuation of error—avidyá spanda of the Sánkaras; empty air of Mádhyamikas; fortuitous union of atoms of Acháryas; different atomisms of Sautrántas, and Vaibháshikas; and so likewise of Kanáda, Gotama and Arhatas; and so many more according to the theories of others). (Gloss). 18. I am partly of a material frame, on my body and mind, but spiritually I am an empty immaterial substance; and though felt by the touch of the hand, I am yet as intangible as a nocturnal fiend:—(an empty shadow only). 19. Ráma said:—It is said Sir, that at the end of a great Kalpa age, the visible world remains in its seed; after which it developes again in its present form, which I require to be fully explained to me.

20. Are they ignorant or knowing men, who think in these various ways? Please Sir, tell me the truth for removal of my doubts, and relate to me the process of the development. 21. Vasishtha replied:—Those who say that the mundane world existed in the form of a seed at the final sleep (of Brahmá), are altogether ignorant of the truth, and talk as children and boys: (from what they think themselves, or hear from others). 22. Hear me tell you, how unaccordant it is to right reason and how far removed from truth. It is a false supposition, and leading both the preacher and hearer of such a doctrine to great error and egregious mistake. 23. Those who attempt to show the existence of the world, in the form of a germ in the mundane seed; maintain a very silly position, as I shall now explain unto you. 24. A seed is in itself a visible thing, and is more an object of sense than that of the mind; as the seeds of paddy and barley, are seen to sprout forth in their germs and leaves. 25. The mind which is beyond the six organs of sense, is a very minute particle; and it cannot possibly be born of itself, nor become the seed of the universe.

26. The Supreme Spirit also, being more rarefied than the subtile ether, and undefinable by words, cannot be of the form of a seed. 27. That which is as minute as a nil and a zero, is equivalent to nothing; and could never be the mundane seed, without which there could be no germ nor sprout. 28. That which is more rare and transparent than the vacuous and clear firmament; cannot possibly contain the world with all its mountains and seas; and the heavens with all their hosts, in its transcendent substratum. 29. There is nothing, that is in any way situated as a substance, in the substantiality of that Being; or if there is anything there, why is it not visible to us? 30. There is nothing that comes of itself, and nothing material that comes but of the immaterial spirit; for who can believe a hill to proceed from the hollowness of an earthen pot? 31. How can a thing remain with another, which is opposed to it in its nature? How can there be any shadow where there is light, and how does darkness reside in the disc of the sun, or even coldness in fire?

32. How can an atom contain a hill, or anything subsist in nothing? The union of a similar with its dissimilar, is as impossible as that of shadow with the light of the sun. 33. It is reasonable to suppose that the material seeds of the fig and paddy, should bring forth their shoots in time; but it is unreasonable to believe the big material world to be contained in an immaterial atom. 34. We see the same organs of sense and their sensations, in all men in every country; but there is not the same uniformity in the understandings of men in every place, nor can there be any reason assigned to this difference. 35. Those who assign a certain cause to some effect or event, betray their ignorance of the true cause; for what is it that produces the effect, except the very thing by some of its accessory powers. (Every production is but a transformation of itself, by some of its inherent powers and properties). 36. Throw off at a distance, the doctrine of cause and effect invented by the ignorant; and know that to be true, which is without beginning and end, and the same appearing as the world. (An increate everlasting prototype in the mind of God).

THE RECEPTACLE OF THE MUNDANE EGG. Argument.—Refutation of the doctrine of the separate Existence of the world, and establishment of the tenet of the “One God as All in All.” Vasishtha said:—Now Ráma! that best knowest the knowable, I will tell thee in disparagement of thy belief in the separate existence of the world; that there is one pure and vacuous principle of the Intellect only, above all the false fabrications of men. 2. If it is granted, that there was the germ of the world in the beginning; still it is a question, what were the accompanying causes of its development. 3. Without co-operation of the necessary causes, there can be no vegetation of the seed, as no barren woman is ever known or seen to bring forth an offspring, notwithstanding the seed is contained in the womb. 4. If it was possible for the seed to grow without the aid of its accompanying causes, then it is useless to believe in the primary cause, when it is possessed of such power in its own nature. 5. It is Brahmá himself who abides in his self, in the form of creation at the beginning of the world. This creation is as formless as the creator himself, and there is no relation of cause and effect between them.

6. To say the earth and other elements, to be the accompanying causes of production, is also wrong; since it is impossible for these elements to exist prior to their creation. 7. To say the world remained quiescent in its own nature, together with the accompanying causes, is the talk proceeding from the minds (mouths) of boys and not of the wise. 8. Therefore Ráma! there neither is or was or ever will be a separate world in existence. It is the one intelligence of the Divinity, that displays the creation in itself. 9. So Ráma! there being an absolute privation of this visible world, it is certain that Brahma himself is All, throughout the endless space. 10. The knowledge of the visible world, is destroyed by the destruction of all its causalities; but the causes continuing in the mind, will cause the visibles to appear to the view even after their outward extinction (like objects in the dream). 11. The absolute privation of the phenomenal, is only effected by the privation of its causes, (i.e. the suppression of our acts and desires); but if they are not suppressed in the mind, how can you effect to suppress the sight?

12. There is no other means of destroying our erroneous conception of the world, except by a total extirpation of the visibles from our view. 13. It is certain that the appearance of the visible world, is no more than our inward conception of it, in the vacuity of the intellect; and the knowledge of I, thou and he, are false impressions on our minds like figures in paintings. 14. As these mountains and hills, these lands and seas and these revolutions of days and nights, and months and years and the knowledge that this is a Kalpa age, and this is a minute and moment, and this is life and this is death, are all mere conceptions of the mind. 15. So is the knowledge of the duration and termination of a Kalpa and Mahákalpa (millenniums &c.) and that of the creation and its beginning and end, are mere misconceptions of our minds. 16. It is the mind that conceives millions of Kalpas and billions of worlds, most of which are gone by and many as yet to come. (Or else there is but an everlasting eternity, which is self-same with the infinity of the Deity).

17. So the fourteen regions of the planetary spheres, and all the divisions of time and place, are contained in the infinite space of the Supreme Intellect. 18. The universe continues and displays itself as serenely in the Divine mind, as it did from before and throughout all eternity; and it shines with particles of the light of that Intellect, as the firmament is as full with the radiance of solar light. 19. The ineffable light, which is thrown into the mind by the Divine Intellect, shows itself as the creation, which in reality is a baseless fabric by itself. 20. It does not come to existence nor dissolves into nothing, nor appears or sets at any time; but resembles a crystal glass with certain marks in it, which can never be effaced. 21. The creations display of themselves in the clear Intellect of God, as the variegated skies form portions of the indivisible space of endless vacuum. 22. These are but properties of the Divine Intellect, as fluidity is that of water, motion of the wind, the eddies of the sea, and the qualities of all things. (Creation is cœternal with the Eternal Mind).

23. This creation is but a compact body of Divine wisdom, and is contained in the Divinity as its component part. Its rising and setting and continuance, are exhibited alike in the tranquil soul. 24. The world is inane owing to its want of the accompaniment of secondary (i.e. material and instrumental) causes and is selfborn: and to call it as born or produced, is to breathe the breath (of life) like a madman (i.e., it is foolish to say so). 25. Ráma! purify your mind from the dross of false representations, and rise from the bed of your doubts and desires; drive away your protracted sleep of ignorance (avidyá), and be freed from the fears of death and disease with every one of your friends in this Court.

ETERNITY OF THE WORLD. Ráma said:—But it is related, that Brahmá—the lord of creatures, springs up by his reminiscence at the end of a kalpa, and stretches out the world from his remembrance of it, in the beginning of creation. 2. Vasishtha answered:—So it is said, O support of Raghu’s race! that the lord of creatures rises at first by his predestination, after the universal dissolution, and at the commencement of a new creation. 3. It is by his will, that the world is stretched out from his recollection, and is manifested like an ideal city, in the presence of Brahmá—the creative power. 4. The supreme being can have no remembrance of the past at the beginning of a new creation, owing to his want of a prior birth or death. Therefore this aerial arbour of reminiscence has no relation to Brahma. (Who being an ever living being, his cognizance of all things is also everlasting). 5. Ráma asked:—Does not the reminiscence of the past, continue in Brahmá at his recreation of the world; and so the former remembrance of men upon their being reborn on earth? Or are all past remembrances effaced from the minds of men by the delirium of death in their past life?

6. Vasishtha replied:—All intelligent beings, including Brahmá and all others of the past age, that obtain their nirvána or extinction, are of course absorbed in One Brahma (and have lost their remembrance of every thing concerning their past lives). 7. Now tell me, my good Ráma, where do these past remembrances and remembrancers abide any more, when they are wholly lost, at the final liberation (or extinction) of the rememberers? 8. It is certain that all beings are liberated, and become extinct in Brahma at the great dissolution; hence there cannot be remembrance of anything in the absence of the persons that remember the same. 9. The remembrance that lives impressed of itself in the empty space of individual Intellects, is verily the reservoir of the perceptible and imperceptible worlds. This reminiscence is eternally present before the sight of God, as a reflexion of his own Intellect. 10. It shines with the lustre of his self-consciousness, from time without beginning and end, and is identic with this world, which is therefore called to be self-born (because it is immanent in the mind of God).

11. The spiritual body which is the attribute of God from time without beginning (that God is a spirit); is the same with Viráta or manifestation of himself, and exhibits the form of the world or the microcosm (i.e. God—spirit—Virát or cosmos). 12. But the world is said to be composed of atoms, which compose the land and woods, the clouds and the firmament. But there are no atoms to form time and space, actions and motions and revolutions of days and nights. (All which are shaped by the spirit and not by atoms). 13. Again the atoms (of matter) which fill the world, have other incipient atoms (of spirit), which are inherent in them, and cause them to take and appear in the forms of mountains and the like. 14. But these forms seeming to be conglomerations of atomic particles, and showing themselves to our vision as lightsome objects, are in reality no substantial things. 15. Thus there is no end of the real and unreal sights of things; the one presenting itself to the view of the learned, and the other to that of the unlearned. (i.e. All things are viewed in their spiritual light by the learned, and in their material aspect by the ignorant).

16. The cosmos appears as the immutable Brahma only to the intelligent, and as the mutable visible world to the unintelligent. 17. As these bright worlds appear to roll about as eggs in their spheres, so there are multitudes of other orbs, shining in every atom in the universe. 18. As we see curved pillars, consisting of figures under figures, and those again under others; so is the grand pillar of the universe, composed of systems under systems to no end. 19. As the sands on a rock, are separably attached to it, and are countless in their number; so the orbs in the three worlds, are as particles of dust in <the> mountainous body of Brahmá. 20. It may be possible to count the particles of ray scattered in the sun-beams; but it is impossible to number the atoms of light, which are emanating from the great sun of Brahmá. 21. As the sun scatters the particles of his light, on the sparkling waters and sands of the sea; so does the Intellect of God, disperse the atoms of its light all over the vacuity of the universe.

22. As the notion of vacuity fills the mind, with the idea of the visible firmament; so the thought of creation, as self-same with Brahmá, gives us the notion of his intellectual sphere. 23. To understand the creation as something different from Brahma, leads man apart from Him; but to take it as synonymous with Brahma, leads him to his felicity. 24. The enlightened soul, freed from its knowledge of the mundane seed, and knowing Brahma alone as the plenum filling the vacuum of intellect; knows the knowable (God) in his inward understanding, as the same with what has proceeded from him.

TREATING OF THE GERM OF EXISTENCE. Argument. Sensations and Perceptions, as the Roots of the knowledge of Existence: suppression of these annuls all existence, and removes the visibles from view. Vasishtha said:—It is the overthrow of the battery of the senses, that supplies us with a bridge over the ocean of the world; there is no other act, whereby we may cross over it (to the other shore of truth). 2. Acquaintance with the sástras, association with the good and wise, and practice of the virtues, are the means whereby the rational and self-controlled man, may come to know the absolute negation of the visibles. 3. I have thus told you, O handsome Ráma! of the causes of the appearance and disappearance of the creation, resembling the heaving and resting of the waves of the sea of the world. 4. There is no need of a long discourse to tell you that, the mind is the germ of the arbour of acts, and this germ being nipped in the beginning, prevents the growth of the tree, and frustrates the doing of acts, which are the fruits thereof.

5. The mind is all (i.e. the agent of all actions); therefore it is, that by the healing of your heart and mind, you can cure all the troubles and diseases, you may incur in the world. 6. The minds of men are ever troubled, with their thoughts of the world and bodily actions; but these being deadened and defunct, we see neither the body nor the outer world. 7. The negation of the outer world, and the suppression of the inner thoughts, serve to curb the demon of the mind, by practice of self-abnegation for a long period of time. 8. It is possible to heal the inward disease of the internal mind, by administration of this best and only medicine of negation of the external world. (Ignoring the outer world, is the only way to restore the peace of the mind). 9. It is because of its thoughts, that the mind is subjected to the errors of its birth and death; and to those of its being bound to or liberated from, the bonds of the body and this world. 10. The mind being deluded by its thoughts, sees the worlds shining before it; as a man sees in his delusion, the imaginary city of the Gandharvas, drawn before him in empty air.

11. All these visible worlds consist in the mind, wherein they seem to exist as the fragrance of the air, consists in the cluster of flowers containing the essence. 12. The little particle of the mind contains the world, as a small grain of sesamum contains the oil, and as an attribute is contained in its subject, and a property abiding in the substance. 13. The world abides in the mind in the same manner, as the sun-beams abide in the sun, and as brightness consists in the light, and as the heat is contained in fire. 14. The mind is the reservoir of the worlds, as the snow is the receptacle of coldness. It is the substratum of all existence, as the sky is that of emptiness, and as velocity is inherent in the wind. 15. Therefore the mind is the same with the world, and the world is identic with the mind; owing to their intimate and inseparable connection with one another. The world however is lost by the loss of the mind; but the mind is not lost by destruction of the world. (Because the thoughts thereof are imprinted in the mind).

STORY OF BHÁRGAVA. Argument. Meditation of Bhrigu, Ramblings of Sukra. His sight of and amour for an aerial nymph. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, that knowest all truths, and art best acquainted with all that is past and is to come, how the form of the world is so vividly existed in the mind. 2. Please Sir, explain to me by some illustration, how this world, appears as a visible object to the inner mind. 3. Vasishtha replied:—The world is situated as truly in the minds of men, as it appeared in its firm and compact state to the bodiless son of Indu (I have related long before). 4. It is situated in the same manner in the minds of men, as the thought of king Lavana’s transformation of himself to a chandála, under the influence of sorcery. 5. It is in the same manner, as Bhárgava believed himself to be possessed of all worldly gratifications. Because true bliss has much more relation to the mind, than to earthly possessions. 6. Ráma said:—How is it Sir, that the son of Bhrigu came to the enjoyment of earthly pleasures, when he had been longing for the fruition of heavenly felicity.

7. Vasishtha replied:—Attend now Ráma, to my narration of the history of Bhrigu and Kála, whereby you will know how he came to the possession of earthly enjoyments. 8. There is a table-land of the Mandara mountain, which is beset by rows of tamála trees, with beautiful arbours of flowers under them. 9. Here the sage Bhrigu conducted his arduous devotion in olden times and it was in this place, that his high-minded and valiant son Sukra, also came to perform his devotion. 10. Sukra was as handsome as the moon, and radiant with his brilliant beams (like the sun). He took his seat in that happy grove of Bhrigu, for the purpose of his devotion. 11. Having long sat in that grove under the umbrage of a rock, Sukra removed himself to the flowery beds and fair plains below. 12. He roved freely about the bowers of Mandara in his youthful sport, and became revered among the wise and ignorant men of the place. 13. He roved there at random like Trisanku, between the earth and sky; sometimes playing about as a boy, and at others sitting in fixed meditation as his father.

14. He remained without any anxiety in his solitude, as a king who has subdued his enemy; until he happened to behold an Apsara fairy, traversing in her aerial journey. 15. He beheld her with the eyes of Hari, fixed upon his Lakshmí, as she skims over the watery plain, decked with her wreaths of Mandara flowers, and her tresses waving loosely with the playful air. 16. Her trinkets jingling with her movements, and the fragrance of her person perfuming the winds of the air; her fairy form was as beautiful as a creeping plant, and her eyeballs rolling as in the state of intoxication. 17. The moon-beams of her body, shed their ambrosial dews over the landscape, which bewitched the hard-heart of the young devotee, as he beheld the fairy form before him. 18. She also with her body shining as the fair full-moon, and shaking as the wave of the sea, became enamoured of Sukra as she looked at his face. 19. Sukra then checked the impulse of his mind, which the god of love had raised after her; but losing all his power over himself, he became absorbed in the thought of his beloved object.

ELYSIUM OF BHÁRGAVA. Argument. Sukra’s imaginary journey to heaven, and his reception by Indra. Vasishtha said:—Henceforth Sukra continued to think of the nymph with his closed eye-lids, and indulge himself in his reverie of an imaginary kingdom. 2. He thought that the nymph was passing in the air, to the paradise of Indra—the god with thousand eyes; and that he followed her closely, to the happy regions of the celestial gods. 3. He thought, he saw before him the gods, decorated with their chaplets of beautiful mandara blossoms on their heads, and with garlands of flowers pendant on their persons resplendent as liquid gold. 4. He seemed to see the heavenly damsels with their eyes as blue-lotuses, regaling the eyes of their spectators; and others with their eyes as beautiful as those of antelopes, sporting with their sweet smiles all about (the garden of paradise). 5. He saw also the Marutas or gods of winds, bearing the fragrance of flowers, and breathing their sweet scent on one another; and resembling the omnipresent Viswarúpa by their ubiquitous journey. 6. He heard the sweet hum of bees, giddy with the perfumed ichor, exuding from the proboscis of Indra’s elephant; and listened to the sweet strains, sung by the chorus of the heavenly choir.

7. There were the swans and storks, gabbling in the lakes, with lotuses of golden hue in them; and there were the celestial gods reposing in the arbours, beside the holy stream of the heavenly Gangá (Mandákiní). 8. These were the gods Yama and Indra, and the sun and moon, and the deities of fire and the winds; and there were the regents of the worlds, whose shining bodies shaded the lustre of vivid fire. 9. On one side was the warlike elephant of Indra—(Airávata), with the scratches of the demoniac weapons on his face (proboscis), and tusks gory with the blood of the defeated hosts of demons. 10. Those who were translated from earth to heaven in the form of luminous stars, were roving in their aerial vehicles, blazing with aureate beams of the shining sun. 11. The gods were washed by the showers, falling from the peaks of Meru below, and the waves of the Ganges, rolled on with scattered mandara flowers floating on them. 12. The alleys of Indra’s groves, were tinged with saffron, by heaps of the dust of mandara flowers; and were trodden by groups of Apsara lasses, sporting wantonly upon them.

13. There were the gentle breezes blowing among the párijáta plants, brightening as moon-beams in the sacred bowers; and wafting the fragrant honey, from the cups of Kunda and mandara blossoms. 14. The pleasure garden of Indra, was crowded by heavenly damsels; who were besmeared with the frosty farina of kēsara flowers, mantling them like the creepers of the grove in their yellow robes. 15. Here were the heavenly nymphs dancing in their gaiety, at the tune of the songs of their lovers; and there were heavenly musicians Nárada and Tamburu, joining their vocal music in unison with the melody of the wired instruments of the lute and lyre (Vallakikákali). 16. Holy men and the pious and virtuous, were seen to soar high in their heavenly cars, and sitting there with their decorations of various kinds. 17. The amorous damsels of the gods, were clinging round their god Indra: as the tender creepers of the garden, twine about the trees beside them. 18. There were the fruit trees of gulunchas, studded with clusters of their ripening fruits; and resembling the gemming sapphires and rubies, and set as rows of ivory teeth. 19. After all these sights, Sukra thought of making his obeisance to Indra, who was seated on his seat like another Brahmá—the creator of the three worlds.

20. Having thought so, Sukra bowed down to Indra in his own mind, as he was the second Bhrigu in heaven—(i.e. He bowed to him with a veneration equal to that he paid to his father). 21. Indra received him with respect, and having lifted him up with his hand, made him sit by himself. 22. Indra addressed him saying:—I am honoured, Sukra! by thy call, and this heaven of mine is graced by thy presence, may thou live long to enjoy the pleasure of this place. 23. Indra then sat in his seat with a graceful countenance, which shone with the lustre of the unspotted full-moon. 24. Sukra being thus seated by the side of Indra, was saluted by all the assembled gods of heaven; and he continued to enjoy every felicity there, by being received with paternal affection by the lord of gods and men.

RE-UNION OF THE LOVERS. Argument. Sukra sees his beloved in heaven, and is joined to her at that place. Vasishtha said:—Thus Sukra being got among the gods in the celestial city, forgot his former nature, without his passing through the pangs of death. 2. Having halted awhile by the side of the Sachi’s consort (Indra), he rose up to roam about the paradise, by being charmed with all its various beauties. 3. He looked with rapture on the beauty of his own person, and longed to see the lovely beauties of heavenly beings, as the swan is eager to meet the lotuses of the lake. 4. He saw his beloved one among them in the garden of Indra’s Eden (udyána), with her eyes like those of a young fawn; and with a stature as delicate as that of a tender creeper of the Amra (amarynthus). 5. She also beheld the son of Bhrigu, and lost her government on herself; and was thus observed by him also in all her indications of amorous feelings. 6. His whole frame was dissolved in affection for her, like the moonstone melting under the moonbeams; so was hers likewise in tenderness for him.

7. He like the moonstone was soothed by her cooling beauty, beaming as moonlight in the sky; and she also being beheld by him, was entirely subdued by her love to him. 8. At night they bewailed as chakravákas (ruddy geese), at their separation from one another, and were filled with delight on their mutual sight at the break of the day (which unites the Chakraváka pair together). 9. They were both as beautiful to behold, as the sun and the opening blossom of the lotus at morn; and their presence added a charm to the garden of paradise, which promised to confer their desired bliss. 10. She committed her subdued-self to the mercy of the god of love, who in his turn darted his arrows relentless on her tender heart. 11. She was covered all over her person with the shafts of cupid, as when the lotus blossom is hid under a swarm of fleeting bees; and became as disordered as the leaves of the lotus, are disturbed under a shower of rain drops. 12. She fluttered at the gentle breath of the playful winds, like the tender filaments of flowers; and moved as graceful as the swan, with her eyes as bluish as those of the leaflets of blue-lotuses.

13. She was deranged in her person by the god of love, as the lotus-bed is put into disorder by the mighty elephant; and was beheld in that plight by her lover (Sukra), in the flight of his fancy. 14. At last the shade of night overspread the landscape of the heavenly paradise, as if the god of destruction (Rudra) was advancing to bury the world under universal gloom. 15. A deep darkness overspread the face of the earth, and covered it in thick gloom; like the regions of the polar mountains; where the hot-blazing-sun is obscured by the dark shade of perpetual night, as if hiding his face in shame under the dark veil of Cimmerian gloom. 16. The loving pair met together in the midst of the grove, when the assembled crowds of the place, retired to their respective habitations in different directions. 17. Then the love-smitten-dame approached her lover with her sidelong glances, as a bird of air alights from her aerial flight in the evening, to meet with her mate on the earth below. 18. She advanced towards the son of Bhrigu, as a peahen comes out to meet the rising cloud; and thought she beheld there a white washed edifice, with a couch placed in the midst.

19. Bhárgava entered the white hall, as when Vishnu enters into hoary sea, accompanied by his beloved Lakshmí; who held him by the hand with her down-cast countenance. 20. She graced his person, as the lotus-stalk graces the bosom of the elephant; and then spoke to him sweetly with her words mixed with tender affection. 21. She told him in a sweet and delightsome speech fraught with expressions of endearment: Behold, O my moon-faced lover! I see the curve of thy bow as a bow bent for my destruction. 22. Cupid is thence darting his arrows to destroy this lovelorn maid; therefore protect me from him, that am so helpless and have come under thy protection from his rage. 23. Know my good friend, that it is the duty of good people, to relieve the wretched from their distress; and those that do not look upon them with a compassionate eye, are reckoned as the basest of men. 24. Love is never vilified by those, who are acquainted with erotics; because the true love of faithful lovers, have endured to the last without any fear of separation.

25. Know my dear, that the delightful draught of love, defies the dewy beams distilled by the moon; and the sovereignty of the three worlds, is never so pleasing to the soul, as the love of the beloved. 26. I derive the same bliss from the touch of thy feet, as it attends on mutual lovers on their first attachment to one another. 27. I live by the nectarious draught of thy touch, as the kumuda blooms by night, imbibing the ambrosial beams of the moon. 28. As the fluttering Chakora, is delighted with drinking the moonbeams, so is this suppliant at thy feet, blessed by the touch of the leaf-like palm of thy hand. 29. Embrace me now to thy bosom, which is filled with ambrosial bliss. Saying so, the damsel fell upon his bosom with her body soft as a flower, and her eyes turning as a leaflet at the gentle breeze. 30. The loving pair fell into their trance of love in that happy grove, as a couple of playful bees creeps into the lotus cup, under the fair filaments of the flower, shaking by the gentle breeze.

TRANSMIGRATIONS OF SUKRA. Argument. Sukra fancies his fall from heaven, and passing through many imaginary births. Vasishtha related:—Thus the son of Bhrigu, believed himself to be in the enjoyment of heavenly pleasures, in his ideal reveries. 2. He thought of enjoying the company of his beloved, bedecked with garlands of mandara flowers, and inebriated with the drink of ambrosial draughts, like the full-moon accompanied by the evening star. 3. He roved about the ideal lake of heaven (Mánas Sarovara), filled with golden lotuses, and frequented by the giddy swans and gabbling geese or hansas of heaven; and roamed beside the bank of the celestial river (Mandákiní), in company with the choristers (cháranas, and Kinnaras of paradise). 4. He drank the sweet nectarious juice beaming as moonbeams in company with the gods; and reposed under the arbours of the groves, formed by the shaking branches of párijáta plants. 5. He amused himself with his favourite Vidyádharís, in swinging himself in the hanging cradles, formed by the shady creepers of the arbour, and screening him from the vernal sunbeams. 6. The parterres of Nandana gardens were trodden down under the feet of the fellow followers of Siva, as when the ocean was churned by the Mandara mountain.

7. The tender weeds and willows growing as golden shrubberies, and tangled bushes in the beach of the river, were trampled under the legs of heated elephants, as when they infest the lotus lakes on Meru. (i.e. Lotuses growing in the lakes of mountainous regions). 8. Associated by his sweet-heart, he passed the moonlight nights in the forest groves of Kailása, attending to the songs and music of heavenly choristers. 9. Roaming on the table-lands of Gandhamádana mountain, he decorated his beloved with lotus-garlands from her head to foot. 10. He roved with her to the polar mountain which is full of wonders, as having darkness on one side and lighted on the other. Here they sported together with their tender smiles and fond caresses and embrace. 11. He thought he remained in a celestial abode beside the marshy lands of Mandara, for a period of full sixty years; and passed his time in the company of the fauna of the place. 12. He believed he passed half a yuga with his helpmate, on the border of the milky ocean, and associated with the maritime people and islanders of that ocean.

13. He next thought to live in a garden at the city of the Gandharvas, where he believed to have lived for an immeasurable period like the genius of Time himself, who is the producer of an infinity of worlds. 14. He was again translated to the celestial seat of Indra, where he believed to have resided for many cycles of the quadruple yuga ages with his mistress. 15. It was at the end of the merit of their acts that they were doomed to return on earth, shorn of their heavenly beauty and the fine features of their persons. 16. Being deprived of his heavenly seat and vehicle, and bereft of his godlike form and features; Sukra was overcome by deep sorrow, like a hero falling in the field of warfare. 17. His great grief at his fall from heaven to earth, broke his frame as it were into a hundred fragments; like a waterfall falling on the stony ground, and breaking into a hundred rills below. 18. They with their emaciated bodies and sorrowful minds, wandered about in the air, like birds without their nest. 19. Afterwards their disembodied minds entered into the net-work of lunar beams, and then in the form of molten frost or rain water, they grew the vegetables on earth.

20. Some of these vegetables were concocted, and then eaten by a Bráhman in the land of Dasárna or confluence of the ten streams. The substance of Sukra was changed to the semen of the Bráhman, and then conceived as a son by his wife. 21. The boy was trained up in the society of the munis to the practice of rigorous austerities, and he dwelt in the forests of Meru for a whole manwantara, observant of his holy rites. 22. There he gave birth to a male child of human figure in a doe (to which his mistress was transformed in her next birth), and became exceedingly fond of the boy, to the neglect of his sacred duties. 23. He constantly prayed for the long life, wealth and learning of his darling, and thus forsook the constancy of his faith and reliance in Providence. (Longevity, prosperity and capacity for learning, are the triple blessings of civil life, instead of austerity, purity and self-resignation of painful asceticism).

24. Thus his falling off from the thought of heaven, to those of the earthly aggrandizement of his son, made his shortened life an easy prey to death, as the inhaling of air by the serpent. (It is said that the serpent lives upon air, which it takes in freely in want of any other food). 25. His worldly thoughts having vitiated his understanding, caused him to be reborn as the son of the Madra king, and succeed to him in the kingdom of the Madras (Madura-Madras). 26. Having long reigned in his kingdom of Madras by extirpation of all his enemies, he was overtaken at last by old age, as the lotus-flower is stunted by the frost. 27. The king of Madras, was released of his kingly person by his desire of asceticism; whereby he became the son of an anchorite in next-birth, in order to perform his austerities. 28. He retired to the bank of the meandering river of the Ganges, and there betook himself to his devotion; being devoid of all his worldly anxieties and cares. 29. Thus the son of Bhrigu, having passed in various forms in his successive births, according to the desires of his heart; remained at last as a fixed arbour on the bank of a running stream.

DESCRIPTION OF SUKRA’S BODY. Argument. The departed spirit of Sukra, remembers the state of its former body. Vasishtha related:—As Sukra was indulging his reveries in this manner, he passed insensibly under the flight of a series of years, which glided upon him in the presence of his father. 2. At last his arboraceous body withered away with age, under the inclement sun and winds and rain; and it fell down on the ground as a tree torn from its roots. 3. In all his former births, his mind thirsted after fresh pleasures and enjoyments; as a stag hunts after fresh verdure from forest to forest. 4. He underwent repeated births and deaths, in his wanderings in the world in search of its enjoyments; and seemed as some thing whirled about in a turning mill or wheel; till at last he found his rest in the cooling beach of the rivulet. 5. Now the disembodied spirit of Sukra, remained to reflect on his past transmigrations, in all the real and ideal forms of his imagination. 6. It thought of its former body on the Mandara mountain, and how it was reduced to a skeleton of mere bones and skin by the heat of the sun and his austerities (i.e. of the five fires pancha-tapas of his penance).

7. It remembered how the wind instrument of its lungs, breathed out the joyous music of its exemption from the pain of action (to which all other men were subjected). (It refers to the breathing of so-ham hamsah in yoga, which is the sweet music of salvation). 8. Seeing how the mind is plunged in the pit of worldly cares, the body seems to laugh at it, by showing the white teeth of the mouth in derision. 9. The cavity of the mouth, the sockets of the eyes, the nostrils and ear-holes in the open face, are all expressive of the hollowness of human and heavenly bodies (i.e. they are all hollow within, though they seem to be solid without). 10. The body sheds the tears of its eyes in sorrow for its past pains and austerities, as the sky rains after its excessive heat to cool the earth. 11. The body was refreshed by the breeze and moon-beams, as the woodlands are renovated by cooling showers in the rainy season. 12. It remembered how its body was washed on the banks of mountain rills, by the water-falls from above, and how it was daubed by the flying dust and the dirt of sin.

13. It was as naked as a withered tree, and rustling to the air with the breeze; yet it withstood the keen blasts of winter as unshaken devotion in person. 14. The faded face, the withered lungs and arteries, and the skinny belly, resembled those of the goddess of famine, that cried aloud in the forest, in the howlings of the wild beasts. 15. Yet the holy person of the hermit was unhurt by envious animals, owing to its freedom from passions and feelings, and its fervent devotion; and was not devoured by rapacious beasts and birds. 16. The body of Bhrigu’s son was thus weakened by his abstinence and self-denial, and his mind was employed in holy devotion, as his body lay prostrate on the bed of stones.

BHRIGU’S CONFERENCE WITH KÁLA OR DEATH. Argument. Bhrigu’s grief at seeing the death-like body of his son. Vasishtha continued:—After the lapse of a thousand years, the great Bhrigu rose from his holy trance (anaesthesia); and was disengaged in his mind from its meditation of God, as in a state of suspension or syncope of his holy meditations. 2. He did not find his son lowly bending down his head before him, the son who was the leader of the army of virtues, and who was the personified figure of all merits. 3. He only beheld his body, lying as a skeleton before him, as it was wretchedness or poverty personified in that shape. 4. The skin of his body was dried by the sun, and his nostrils snoring as a hooping bird; and the inner entrails of his belly, were sounding as dry leather-pipes with the croaking of frogs. 5. The sockets of his eyes, were filled with new-born worms grown in them; and the bones of his ribs had become as bars of a cage, with the thin skin over them resembling the spider’s web. 6. The dry and white skeleton of the body, resembled the desire of fruition, which bends it to the earth, to undergo all the favourable and unfavourable accidents of life.

7. The crown of the head had become as white and smooth (by its baldness or grey hairs), as the phallus of Siva anointed with camphor, at the Indu-varcha ceremony in honor of the moon. 8. The withered head erected on the bony neckbone, likened the soul supported by the body:—(either to lead or be led by it). 9. The nose was shriveled to a dry stalk, for want of its flesh; and the nose-bone stood as a post, dividing the two halves of the face. 10. The face standing erect on the protruded shoulders on both sides, was looking forward in the womb of the vacuous sky, whither the vital breath had fled from the body. 11. The two legs, thighs, knees and the two arms (forming the eight angas or members of the body), had been doubled in their length (for their long etherial course); and lay slackened with fatigue of the long journey. 12. The leanness of the belly like a lath, showed by its shriveled flesh and skin, the empty inside of the ignorant: (i.e. they may be puffed up with pride on the outside, but are all hollow in the inside).

13. Bhrigu seeing the withered skeleton of his son, lying as the worn-out post (to which the elephant was tied by its feet), made his reflections as said before, and rose from his seat. 14. He then began to dubitate in his mind, at the sight of the dead body, as to whether it could be the lifeless carcass of his son or any other. 15. Thinking it no other than the dead body of his son, he became sore angry upon the god of death (that had untimely taken him away). 16. He was prepared to pronounce his imprecation against the god of fate, in vengeance of his snatching his son so prematurely from him. 17. At this Yama—the regent of death, and devourer of living beings, assumed his figurative form of a material body, and appeared in an instant before the enraged father.

18. He appeared in armour with six arms and as many faces, accompanied by the army of his adherents, and holding the noose and sword and other weapons in his hands. (The commentary ascribes a dozen of arms to Yama, by the number of the twelve months of the year, and having half of the number on either side, according to the six signs of the zodiac in either hemisphere. The six faces are representative of the six seasons of Hindu astronomy instead of four of other nations). 19. The rays of light radiating from his body, gave it the appearance of a hill, filled with heaps of the crimson kinsuka flowers, growing in mountain forests. 20. The rays of the living fire flashing from his trident gave it the glare of golden ringlets, fastened to the ears of all the sides of the sky. 21. The breath of his host, hurled down the ridges of mountains, which hung about them, like swinging cradles on earth. 22. His sable sword flashing with sombre light, darkened the disk of the sun; as it were by the smoke of the final conflagration of the earth.

23. Having appeared before the great sage, who was enraged as the raging sea, he soothed him to calmness as after a storm, by the gentle breath of his speech. 24. “The sages” said he, “are acquainted with the laws of nature, and know the past and future as present before them. They are never moved even with a motive to anything, and are far from being moved without a cause. 25. “You sages are observers of the multifarious rules of religions austerities, and we are observant of the endless and immutable laws of destiny; we honour you therefore for your holiness, and not from any other desire (of being blessed by you or exempted from your curse).” 26. Do not belie your righteousness by your rage, nor think to do us any harm, who are spared unhurt by the flames of final dissolution, and cannot be consumed by your curses. 27. We have destroyed the spheres of the universe and devoured legions of Rudras, millions of Brahmás and myriads of Vishnus (in the repeated revolutions of creation); what is it therefore that we cannot do? 28. We are appointed as devourers of all beings; and you are destined to be devoured by us. This is ordained by destiny herself, and not by any act of our own will.

29. It is the nature of flame to ascend upwards, and that of fluids to flow downward; it is destined for the food to be fed upon by its eaters, and that creation must come under its destruction by us. 30. Know this form of mine to be that of the Supreme Being, whose universal spirit acts in various forms, all over the universe. 31. To the unstained (clear) sight, there is no other agent or object here, except the supreme; but the stained sight (of the clear eyed), views many agents and objects (beside the one in all). 32. Agency and objectivity are terms, coined only by the short sighted; but they disappear before the enlarged view of the wise. 33. As flowers grow upon trees, so are animals born on earth; their growth and birth, as also their fall and death, are of their own spontaneity, and miscalled as their causality. 34. As the motion of the moon is caused by no casual cause, though they falsely attribute a causality to it; such is the course of death in the world of its own spontaneous nature.

35. The mind is falsely said to be the agent of all its enjoyments in life; though it is no agent of itself. It is a misbelief like the false conception of a serpent in the rope, where there is no serpent at all. 36. Therefore, O sage! allow not yourself to be so angry for your sorrow; but consider in its true light, the course of events that befall on humankind. 37. We were not actuated by desire of fame, nor influenced by pride or passion to any act; but are ourselves subject to the destiny, which predominates over all our actions. 38. Knowing that the course of our conduct, is subject to the destiny appointed by the Divine will, the wise never allow themselves to be subjected under the darkness of pride or passion, at our doings. 39. That our duties only should be done at all times, is the rule laid down by the wise creator; and you cannot attempt to remove it by your subjection to ignorance and idleness.

40. Where is that enlightened sight, that gravity and that patience of yours, that you grovel in this manner in the dark like the blind, and slide from the broad and beaten path laid open for every body? (This path is submission to what is destined by the Divine will, according to the common prayer: “Let not mine, but thy will be done”). 41. Why don’t you consider your case as the sequence of your own acts, and why then do you, who are a wise man, falsely accuse me like the ignorant; (as the cause of what is ordained by the Supreme cause of all!) 42. You know that all living beings have two bodies here, of which one is known as the intellectual or spiritual body or mind. 43. The other is the inert or corporeal frame, which is fragile and perishable. But the minute thing of the mind which lasts until its liberation, is what leads all to their good or evil desires. 44. As the skilful charioteer guides his chariot with care, so is this body conducted by the intelligent mind, with equal attention and fondness. 45. But the ignorant mind which is prone to evil, destroys the goodly body; as little children break their dolls of clay in sport.

46. The mind is hence called the purusha or regent of the body, and the working of the mind is taken for the act of the man. It is bound to the earth by its desires, and freed by its freedom from earthly attractions and expectations. 47. That is called the mind which thinks in itself, “this is my body which is so situated here, and these are the members of my body and this my head.” 48. The mind is called life, for its having the living principle in it; and the same is one and identic with the understanding. It becomes egoism by its consciousness, and so the same mind passes under various designations, according to its different functions. 49. It has the name of the heart from the affections of the body, and so it takes many other names at will (according to its divers operations). But the earthly bodies are all perishable. 50. When the mind receives the light of truth, it is called the enlightened intellect, which being freed from its thoughts relating to the body, is set to its supreme felicity.

51. Thus the mind of your son, wandered from your presence, as you sat absorbed in meditation, to regions far and wide in the ways of its various desires. (i.e. His body was before thee, but his mind was led afar by its inward desires). 52. He having left this body of his behind him, in the mountain cave of Mandara, fled to the celestial region, as a bird flies from his nest to the open air. 53. This mind got into the city of the tutelar gods, and remained in a part of the garden of Eden (Nandana), in the happy groves of Mandara, and under the bower of párijáta flowers. 54. There he thought he passed a revolution of eight cycles of the four yugas, in company with Viswáchí a beauteous Apsara damsel, unto whom he clung as the hexaped bee clings to the blooming lotus. 55. But as his strong desire led him to the happy regions of his imagination, so he had his fall from them at the end of his desert, like the nightly dew falling from heaven. 56. He faded away in his body and all his limbs, like a flower attached to the ear or head ornament; and fell down together with his beloved one, like the ripened fruits of trees.

57. Being bereft of his aerial and celestial body, he passed through the atmospheric air, and was born again on earth in a human figure. 58. He had become a Bráhman in the land of Dasárná, and then a king of the city of Kosala. He became a hunter in a great forest, and then a swan on the bank of Ganges. 59. He became a king of the solar race, and then a rája of the Pundras, and afterwards a missionary among the Sauras and Sálwas. He next became a Vidyádhara, and lastly the son of a sage or muni. 60. He had become a ruler in Madras, and then the son of a devotee, bearing the name of Vásudeva, and living on the bank of Samangá. 61. Your son has also passed many other births, which he was led to by his desire; and he had likewise to undergo some itara-janma heterogeneous births in lower animals. 62. He had repeatedly been a Kiráta—huntsman in the Vindhyá hills and at Kaikatav. He was a chieftain in Sauvíra, and had become an ass at Trigarta.

63. He grew as a bamboo tree in the land of Keralas, and as a deer in the skirts of China. He became a serpent on a palm tree, and a cock on the tamála tree. 64. This son of yours had been skilled in incantations—mantras, and propagated them in the land of Vidyádharas. (So called from their skill in enchantments). 65. Then he became a Vidyádhara (Jadugar) or magician himself; and plied his jugglery of abstracting ornaments from the persons of females. 66. He became a favourite of females, as the sun is dear to lotus-flowers; and being as handsome as Káma (Cupid) in his person, he become a favourite amongst Vidyádhara damsels in the land of Gandharvas. 67. At the end of the kalpa age (of universal destruction), he beheld the twelve suns of the zodiac shining at once before him, and he was reduced to ashes by their warmth, as a grasshopper is burnt up by its falling on fire. 68. Finding no other world nor body where he could enter (upon the extinction of the universe), his spirit roved about in the empty air, as a bird soars on high without its nest.

69. After the lapse of a long time, as Brahmá awoke again from his long night of repose, and commenced anew his creation of the world in all its various forms:— 70. The roving spirit of your son was led by its desire, as if it was propelled by a gust of wind, to become a Bráhman again, and to be reborn as such on this earth. 71. He was born as the boy of a Bráhman, under the name of Vásudeva, and was taught in all the Srutis, among the intelligent and learned men of the place. 72. It is in this kalpa age that he has become a Vidyádhara again, and betaken himself to the performance of his devotion on the bank of Samangá, where he is sitting still in his yoga meditation. 73. Thus his desire for the varieties of worldly appearances, has led him to various births, amidst the woods and forests in the womb of this earth, covered with jungles of the thorny khadira, karanja and other bushes and brambles.

CAUSE OF THE PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD. Argument. Yama’s narration of Sukra’s meditation, and his inclination to worldliness. Yama continued:—Your son is still engaged in his rigorous austerities on the bank of the rivulet, rolling with its loud waves on the beach, and the winds blowing and howling from all sides. 2. He has been sitting still in his firm devotion, with matted braids of hair on his head; and beads of rudráksha seeds in his hand; and controuling the members of his body from their going astray. 3. If you wish, O venerable sage! to know the reveries in his mind, you shall have to open your intellectual eye, in order to pry into the thoughts of others. 4. Vasishtha said:—Saying so, Yama the lord of world, who sees all at one view, made the Muni to dive into the thoughts of his son with his intellectual eye. 5. The sage immediately saw by his percipience, all the excogitations of his son’s mind; as if they were reflected in the mirror of his own mind.

6. Having seen the mind of his son in his own mind, the muni returned from the bank of Samangá to his own body on mount Mandara, where it was left in its sitting posture, in the presence of Yama (during the wandering of his mind). 7. Surprised at what he saw, the sage looked upon Yama with a smile; and dispassionate as he was, he spoke to the god in the following soft and dispassionate words. 8. O god, that art the lord of the past and future! we are but ignorant striplings before thee; whose brilliant insight views at once, the three times presented before it. 9. The knowledge of the existence of the world, whether it is a real entity or not, is the source of all errors of the wisest of men, by its varying forms and fluctuations. 10. It is thou, O potent god! that knowest what is inside this world; while to us it presents its outward figure, in the shape of a magic scene only. 11. I knew very well, that my son is not subject to death; and therefore I was struck with wonder, to behold him lying as a dead body.

12. Thinking the imperishable soul of my son, to be snatched by death; I was led to the vile desire, of cursing thee on his untimely demise. 13. For though we know the course of things in the world; yet we are subjected to the impulses of joy and grief, owing to the casualties of prosperity and adversity. 14. Moreover, to be angry with wrong doers, and to be pleased with those that act rightly, have become the general rule in the course of the world. 15. So long do we labour under the sense of what is our duty, and what we must refrain from, as we are subject to the error of the reality of the world; but deliverance from this error, removes all such responsibilities from us. 16. When we fret at death, without understanding its intention (that it is intended only for our good); we are of course blamable for it. 17. I am now made to be acquainted by thee, regarding the thoughts of my son; and am enabled also to see the whole scene on the bank of Samangá (by thy favour).

18. Of the two bodies of men, the mind alone is ubiquitous, and leader of the outer body of animated beings. The mind therefore is the true body, which reflects and makes us conscious of the existence of ourselves, as also of the exterior world. 19. Yama replied:—You have rightly said, O Bráhman! that the mind is the true body of man. It is the mind that moulds the body according to its will, as the potter makes the pot ad libitum (ex suo moto). 20. It frames a form and gives a feature to the person, that it had not before; and destroys one in existence in a moment. It is the imagination that gives an image to airy nothing, as children see ghosts before them in the dark. (The mind changes the features of the face and body, and views things according to its own fancy). 21. Its power to create apparent realities out of absolute unreality, is well known to every body, in his dream and delirium, in his misconceptions and fallacies and all kinds of error; as the sight of magic cities and talismans. 22. It is from reliance in visual sight, that men consider it as the principal body, and conceive the mind as a secondary or supplementary part.

23. It was the (Divine) mind, that formed the world from its thought; wherefore the phenomenal is neither a substance by itself (as it subsists in the mind); nor is it nothing (being in existence in us). Gloss. It is therefore undefinable—anirvachaníya. 24. The mind is part of the body, and spreads itself in its thoughts and desires into many forms; as the branch of a tree shoots forth in its blossoms and leaves. And as we see two moons by optical deception, so does one mind appear as many in many individuals (and as different in different persons). 25. It is from the variety of its desires, that the mind perceives and produces varieties of things, as pots and pictures and the like—ghatapatádi. (Hence the mind is the maker of all things). 26. The same mind thinks itself as many by the diversity of its thoughts; such as:—“I am weak, I am poor, I am ignorant and the like;” (all which serve to liken the mind to the object constantly thought upon). 27. The thought, that I am none of the fancied forms which I feign to myself, but of that form from whence I am, causes the mind to be one with the everlasting Brahma, by divesting it of the thoughts of all other things.

28. All things springing from Brahma, sink at last in him; as the huge waves of the wide and billowy ocean, rise but to subside in its calm and undisturbed waters below. 29. They sink in the Supreme Spirit, resembling one vast body of pure and transparent, cold and sweet water; and like a vast mine of brilliant gems of unfailing effulgence. 30. One thinking himself as a little billow, diminishes his soul to littleness. (He who bemeans himself, becomes mean). 31. But one believing himself as a large wave, enlarges his spirit to greatness. (Nobleness of mind, ennobles a man). 32. He who thinks himself as a little being, and fallen from above to suffer in the nether world; is born upon earth in the form he took for his pattern. 33. But he who thinks himself to be born to greatness, and rises betimes by his energy; becomes as big as a hill, and shines with the lustre of rich gems growing upon it. 34. He rests in peace, who thinks himself to be situated in the cooling orb of the moon; otherwise the body is consumed with cares; as a tree on the bank is burnt down by a conflagration.

35. Others like forest trees are fixed and silent, and shudder for fear of being burnt down by the wild fire of the world; though they are situated at ease, as beside the running streams of limpid water, and as high as on mountain tops of inaccessible height. 36. Those who think themselves to be surrounded by worldly affairs; are as wide-stretching trees, awaiting their fall by impending blasts of wind. 37. Those who wail aloud for being broken to pieces under the pressure of their misery; are like the noisy waves of the sea, breaking against the shore and shedding their tears in the form of the watery spray. 38. But the waves are not of one kind, nor are they altogether entities or nullities in nature; they are neither small or large nor high or low, nor do these qualities abide in them. 39. The waves do not abide in the sea, nor are they without the sea or the sea without them: they are of the nature of desires in the soul, rising and setting at their own accord.

40. The dead are undying, (because they die to be born again), and the living are not living, (because they live but to die at last). Thus is the law of their mutual succession which nothing can forefend or alter. 41. As water is universally the same and transparent in its nature, so is the all pervading spirit of God, pure and holy in every place. 42. It is this one and self-same spirit which is the body of God, that is called the transparent Brahma. It is omnipotent and everlasting, and constitutes the whole world appearing as distinct from it. 43. The many wonderful powers that it contains, are all active in their various ways. The several powers productive of several ends, are all contained in that same body. All the natural and material forces, have the Divine spirit for their focus. 44. Brahmá was produced in Brahma as the billow is produced in the water, and the male and female are produced from the neuter Brahma, changed to and forming both of them. 45. That which is called the world, is only an attribute of Brahmá; and there is not the slightest difference between Brahmá and the world. (The one being a fac-simile of the original Mind).

46. Verily this plenitude is Brahma, and the world is no other than Brahma himself. Think intently upon this truth and shun all other false beliefs (of the creator and created, and the like). 47. There is one eternal law, that presides over all things, and this one law branches forth into many, bringing forth a hundred varieties of effects. The world is a congeries of laws, which are but manifestations of the Almighty power and omniscience. (Therefore says the psalmist: “Blessed is he, who meditates on his laws day and night”—O bhi Turat Jehovah hefzo yomam olaila). 48. Both the inert and active (matter and life), proceed from the same; and the mind proceeds from the intellect—chit of God. The various desires are evolved by the power of the mind, from their exact prototypes in the Supreme soul. 49. It is Brahmá therefore, O sinless Ráma! that manifests itself in the visible world; and is full with various forms, as the sea with all its billows and surges. 50. It assumes to itself all varieties of forms by its volition of evolution or the will of becoming many; and it is the spirit that displays itself in itself and by itself (of its own causality); as the sea water displays its waves in its own water and by itself.

51. As the various waves are no other than the sea water, so all these phenomena are not different from the essence of the lord of the world. 52. As the same seed developes itself in the various forms of its branches and buds, its twigs and leaves, and its fruits and flowers; so the same almighty seed evolves itself in the multifarious varieties of creation. 53. As the strong sun light, displays itself in variegated colours in different bodies; so does Omnipotence, display itself in various vivid colours, all of which are unreal shades. (Urdu: O leken chamakta hai har rang men.—It is His light, that shines in all colours). 54. As the colourless cloud receives in its bosom, the variety of transient hues displayed in the rainbow; so the inscrutable spirit of the Almighty, reflects and refracts the various colours displayed in creation. (Shines in the stars, glows in the sun &c. Pope).

55. From the active agent, proceed the inert matter and inactivity without a secondary cause; as the active spider produces the passive thread, and the living man brings upon him, his dull torpor in sleep. (So the active spirit of God, brings forth inertia and inactive matter, out of itself into being. The laws of statics as well as dynamics both subsist in the energy of the spirit). 56. Again the Lord makes the mind to produce matter for its own bondage only; as he makes the silkworm weave its own sheathing for its confinements alone. (So the mind maketh its material equipage, for its own imprisonment in the world). 57. The mind forgets its spiritual nature of its own will; and makes for itself a strong prison house (of its earthly possessions), as the silkworm weaves its own coating. 58. But when the mind inclines to think of its spiritual nature by its own free will; it gets its release from the prison-house of the body and bondage in the world; as a bird or beast is released from its cage, and the big elephant let loose from his fetters and the tying post.

59. The mind gradually moulds itself into the form, which it constantly thinks upon in itself; and it derives from within itself, the power to be what it wishes to become. (Constant thought brings about its end. Yádrisí bhávaná yasya &c.). 60. The long sought power when acquired, becomes as familiar to the soul, as the dark clouds are attendant upon the sky in the rainy-season. 61. The newly obtained power is assimilated with its recipient, as the virtue of every season is manifested in its effect upon the trees, (i.e. in the season fruits and flowers). 62. There is no bondage nor liberation of human soul, nor of the Divine Spirit. We cannot account for the use of these words among mankind. (These terms apply to the mind which is bound and freed, and not to the soul which is ever free). 63. There is no liberation nor bondage of the soul, which is the same with the Divine. It is this delusive world which shows the immortal soul under the veil of mortality, or as eclipsed by and under the shadow of temporary affairs. 64. It is the unsteady mind, which has enwrapped the steady soul, under the sheath of error; as the coverlet of the silkworm, covers the dormant worm.

65. All other bondages which bind the embodied soul to earth, are the works of the mind, which is the root of all worldly ties and affections. 66. All human affections and attachments to the visible world, are born in and remain in the mind; although they are as distinct from it, as the waves of the sea or as the beams of the moon; are produced from and contained in their receptacles. 67. It is the Supreme spirit, which is stretched out as one universal ocean, agitated into myriads of its waves and billows. The Intellect itself is spread out as the water of the universal ocean, containing everything that is aqueous and terrene in its infinite bosom. 68. All those that appear as Brahmá, Vishnu and Rudras, as also they that have become as gods, and those that are called men and male creatures:— 68.—(1). Are all as the waves of the sea, raised spontaneously by the underlying spirit; and so are Yama, Indra, the sun, fire, Cuvera and the other deities. 68.—(2). So too are the Gandharvas and Kinnaras, the Vidyádharas and the other gods and demigods, that rise and fall or remain for a while like the breakers of the sea.

68.—(3). They rise and fall as waves on every side, though some continue for a longer duration, as the lotus-born Brahmá and others. 68.—(4). Some are born to die in a moment, as the petty gods and men; and others are dead no sooner they are born as the ephemerids and some worms. 69. Worms and insects, gnats and flies and serpents and huge snakes, rise in the great ocean of the Divine Spirit, like drops of water scattered about by waves of the sea. 70. There are other moving animals as men and deer, vultures and jackals, which are produced on land and mountains, in woods and forests and in marshy grounds. 71. Some are long lived and others living for a short duration; some living with higher aims and ambitions, and others with no other care than that of their contemptible bodies, or self-preservation only. 72. Some think of their stability in this world of dreams, and others are betrayed by their false hope of the stability of worldly affairs, which are quite unstable. (So in Persian Daregá jehán rá baquina didam). 73. Some that are subjected to penury and poverty, have little to effect in their lives; and always torment themselves with the thoughts, that they are poor and miserable, weak and ignorant.

74. Some are born as trees, and others have become as gods and demigods; and while some are furnished with moving bodies, others are dissolved as water in the sea. 75. Some are no less durable than many kalpas (as the land and sea and mountains &c.); and others return to the Supreme Spirit, by the moonlike purity of their souls. All things have risen from the oceanlike Spirit of Brahma, like its moving undulations. It is the intellectual consciousness of every body that is termed his mind.

DETAILED ACCOUNT OF THE GENESIS OF THE WORLD. Argument. Confutation of the instance of the sea and its fluctuation, with regard to the immutable spirit of God; and resolution of the phenomenal world, to our erroneous conception, and visual deception. Yama said:—The consciousness of gods, demigods and men as distinct beings, is quite wrong, since they are no way distinct from the infinite ocean of Divine Spirit, of which they are all as undulations. 2. It is owing to our erroneous conceptions that we make these distinctions in ourselves and the Supreme Soul. The thought of our being separate and apart from the Supreme spirit, is the cause of our degradation from our pristine holiness and the image of God, in which man was made at first and was infused with his holy spirit. 3. Remaining within the depth of the Divine Spirit, and yet thinking ourselves to live without it, is the cause of keeping us in darkness on the surface of the earth. 4. Our consciousness of ourselves as Brahmá, being vitiated by the various thoughts in our minds, becomes the root of our activities; while the pure consciousness of ego sum—I am, is free from all actions and energies.

5. It is the inward desire of the heart and mind, that becomes the seed of earthly actions; which sprouts forth in thorny plants like the karanja, a handful of which fills the ground with rankest weeds. 6. Those living bodies, that lie scattered as pebbles on earth; are seen to roll about or lie down with their temporary joy and grief in continued succession, owing to their ignorance of themselves. 7. From the highest empyrean of Brahmá, down to the lowest deep, there is an incessant undulation of the Divine spirit, like the oscillation of the wind; which keeps all beings in their successive wailing and rejoicing, and in their incessant births and deaths. 8. There are some of pure and enlightened souls, as the gods Hari, Hara and others; and some of somewhat darkened understandings, as men and the inferior demigods. 9. Some are placed in greater darkness, as the worms and insects; and others are situated in utter darkness, as the trees and vegetables. 10. Some grow afar from the great ocean of the Divine Spirit; as the grass and weeds of the earth, which are ever degraded, owing to their being the emblems of sin; and others are barred from elevation as dull stones and heinous snakes.

11. Some have come to being only with their bodies, (without any share of understanding); and they know not that death has been undermining the fabric of their bodies, as a mouse burrows a house. 12. Some have gone through the ocean of Divine knowledge, and have become as divinities, in their living bodies as Brahmá, Hari, and Hara. (The gods like angels are embodied beings in which form, they are worshipped by their votaries. It is wrong therefore for the Kesavite Brahmos, to call the formless Brahma as Hari, who had a visible body according to our text). 13. Some having a little understanding, have gone down the depth of holy knowledge, without ever reaching the bottom, or finding its either shore. 14. Some beings that have undergone many births, and have yet to pass through many more, have ever remained abortive and benighted without the light of truth. 15. Some are tossed up and down, like fruits flung from the hand: those flying upward have gone higher still; and those going down have fallen still lower and lower. (None can know the highest pitch or lowest depth of existence?).

16. It is forgetfulness of Supreme felicity, that causes one to rove in various births of weal or woe; but the knowledge of the Supreme, causes the cessation of transmigration; as the remembrance of Garuda, destroys the power of the most destructive poison.

CONSOLATION OF BHRIGU. Argument. Bhrigu being acquainted with the powers of the mind and Death, rose to repair to the spot where the body of Sukra was lying. Yama said:—Among these various species of living creatures, which resemble the waves of the ocean, and are as numerous as the plants and creepers of spring:— 2. There are some persons among the Yakshas, Gandharvas and Kinnaras, who have overcome the errors of their minds, and have well considered every thing before and after them; that have become perfect in their lives, and passing as the living liberated persons in this world. 3. Others there are among the moving and unmoving, that are as unconscious of themselves as wood and stone; and many that are worn out with error, and are incapable of judging for themselves. (Worn out with error, means hardened in their ignorance). 4. But those that are awakened to sense, have the rich mine of the sástras, framed by the enlightened, for the guidance of their souls. (Hence it is for the sensible only to benefit themselves by learning). 5. Those who are awakened to sense, and whose sins are washed off; have their understandings purified by the light of the sástras. (Lit., by investigation into the sástras).

6. The study of good works, destroys the errors of the mind; as the course of the sun in the sky, destroys the darkness of the night. 7. Those who have not succeeded to dispel the errors of their minds, have darkened their understandings by a mist of ignorance; like the frosty sky of winter, and they find the phantoms of their error, dancing as demons before their eyes. 8. All living bodies are subject to pain and pleasure; but it is the mind which constitutes the body, and not the flesh (which is insensible of either). 9. The body that is seen to be composed of flesh and bones and the five elemental parts, is a creation of the imagination of the mind, and has no substantiality in it. 10. What your son had thought of in his mental body (mánas-saríra), the same he found in the same body; and was not accountable to any body for aught or whatever passed in his mind. (We are responsible for every act of the body; but not so for the thoughts or reveries of the mind).

11. Whatever acts a man wills to do in his own mind, the same comes to take place in a short time; and there is no other (foreign) agency of anybody else required to bring them about. 12. Whatever the mind doth in a moment and of its own accord, and actuated by its own will or desire, there is no body in the world, who has the power to do or undo the same at any time. (The mind is master of the act, and not the body, nor any body besides. Or; whatever the mind sets about to do, it does it sooner than by the help of another). 13. The suffering of hell torments and enjoyment of heavenly bliss, and the thoughts of birth and death; are all fabrications of the mind; which labours under these thoughts. (It is the mind that makes a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven). 14. What need I to tell more in the manner of verbose writers (on this subject), than go together at once, to the place where your son is situated.

15. He (Sukra) having tasted the pleasure and pain of all these states at a moment’s thought of his mind, is now seated as a devotee on the bank of Samangá, under the spreading beams of the moon. (The Gloss speaks here of Sukra’s passing into many births, before his betaking himself to devotion). 16. His vital breath having fled from his heart, became as the moonbeam sparkling in a dew drop, which entered the uterus in the form of semen virilis. 17. Saying so, the lord of death smiled to think of the course of nature, and taking hold of Bhrigu’s hand in his own, they both departed as the sun and moon together. 18. O wonderful is the law of nature! said Bhrigu slowly to himself, and then rose higher and higher, as the sun ascends above his rising mountain. 19. With their luminous bodies, they arrived at the spot of Samangá, and shone on high above the tamála trees below. Their simultaneous rising in the clear firmament, made them appear as the sun rising with the full-moon over the cloudy horizon.

20. Válmíki said:—As the muni (Vasishtha) was telling these things, the sun went down his setting mountain, and the day departed to its evening service. The court broke with mutual salutations, to perform their evening rites and observances, after which they joined the assembly at the dawn of the next day.

SUKRA’S REMINISCENCE OF HIS METEMPSYCHOSIS. Argument. Bhrigu and Yama’s Expostulation with Sukra, and desiring him to return to his former state. Vasishtha said:—Now as Yama and Bhrigu departed from the cavern of the Mandara mountain, and proceeded towards the bank of Samangá river:— 2. They beheld upon their descending from the mountain, a great light below; proceeding from the bodies of the celestials, sleeping in the arbours of aureate creepers. 3. The birds were sporting in their sprays, formed by the cradling creepers under the canopy of heaven; and the lovely antelopes looking face to face, with their eyes resembling the blue-lotuses. 4. They beheld the Siddhas, sitting on their stony seats upon the elevated rocks; with their bodies full of vigour, and their eyes looking on the spheres with defiance. 5. They saw the lords of the elephantine tribe, with their big trunks as large as the palm trees, and plunging in the lakes covered with flowers, falling incessantly from the beachening boughs, and branches of flowering trees. 6. They saw the mountain bulls (Bos guavus) dozing in their giddiness, and sitting as ebriety in person; while their bodies were reddened by the red dust of flowers, and their tails flushed with the crimson farina blown by the breeze.

7. There were the brisk and beautiful chowri deer serving as flappers of the mountain king, and dousing in the pools filled with falling flowers. 8. They saw the Kinnara lads sitting on the tops of straight and stately date trees, and sporting with pelting the date fruits upon one another, which stuck to the reeds below as their fruits. 9. They beheld big monkeys, jumping about with their hideous reddish cheeks, and hiding themselves in the coverts of widespreading creepers. 10. They saw the Siddhas, to be hit by the celestial damsels with blossoms of mandara flowers, and clad with vests of the tawny clouds by which they were shrouded. 11. The uninhabited skirts of the mountain, were as the solitary walks of Buddhist vagrants; and the rivulets at its foot, were gliding with their currents covered under the kunda and mandara flowers, as if they were running to meet the sea, mantled in their yellow vests of the spring season. (It is well known that the vernal vesture of damsels, is of the yellow colour of the farina of flowers, and the rivulets are poetically figured as females hastening towards their lord the sea (saritám-pathih)).

12. The trees decorated with wreaths of flowers, and shaken by the breeze, seemed as bacchanals giddy with the honey of the flowers, and rolling their dizzy eyes formed of the fluttering bees. 13. They walked about here and there, and looked at and admired the grandeur of the mountain, till at last they alighted on the nether earth, decorated with its cities and human habitations. 14. They arrived in a moment at the bank of Samangá, flowing with the loosened flowers of all kinds, as if it were a bed of flowers by itself. 15. Bhrigu beheld his son on one of its banks, with his body changed to another form, and his features quite altered from his former state. 16. His limbs were stiff, and his sense at a stand still, as he sat with his mind fixed on steady meditation. He seemed to be long at rest, in order to get his rest from the turmoils of the world. 17. He thought upon the course of the currents of the world, which are continually gliding with successive joy and sorrow to man, who gets rid of them after his long trial.

18. He became motionless as a wheel, after its long winded motion; and found his rest after his prolonged whirling, in the whirlpool of the ocean of the world. 19. He sat retired as a lover, solely reclined on the thought of his beloved object in his retirement; and his mind was at rest, after its long wanderings. 20. He sat in a state of uniform meditation, without a shadow of biplicity in it; and was smiling with a cold apathy at all the pursuits of mankind. 21. Liberated from all concerns, and released from the enjoyments of life, and disenthralled from the snare of desires and fancies, he rested in the supreme bliss of the soul. 22. His soul was at rest, in the everlasting rest of God; as the pure crystal catches the colour of the gem, which is contiguous to it. 23. Bhrigu beheld his son in the calmly composed and awakened state of his mind, and freed alike both from his thoughts of what was desirable, as also from his hatred against what was disgusting. (God is said to be eternally at rest the six days creation, but an act of his Mind, Will, Word, Fiat, Logos or Brahmá).

24. Yama seeing the son of Bhrigu, said to the father in a voice, hoarse as the sounding sea. ‘Lo there thy son.’ 25. “Awake”, said he to Bhárgava, which startled him from his meditation, as the roaring of a cloud, rouses the slumbering peacock from his summer sleep. 26. Upon opening and lifting up his eyes, he beheld the god standing with his father on one side, who being pleased at his sight, glowed in their countenances like the disks of the sun and moon. 27. He rose from his seat of Kadamba leaves, and made his obeisance to them, who appeared to have come to him like the gods Hari and Hara in the disguise of a couple of Bráhmans. 28. After their mutual salutations, they were seated on a slab of stone, and appeared as the venerable gods Vishnu and Siva, were seated on the pinnacle of Meru. 29. The Bráhman boy, having ended the muttering of his mantras on the bank of Samangá, accosted them with a voice distilling as the sweet nectarine juice of ambrosia amrita or water of life (aqua-vitae or abi haiyát).

30. “I am emancipated, my lords, at your sight this day (from all earthly cares), as you have blessed me by your sights, resembling those of the sun and moon, appearing together to view.” (Lit. as the orbs of the cooling and dazzling beams. (himánsu and ushnánsu)). 31. The darkness, which reigned in my mind, and which no light of the sástras or spiritual or temporal knowledge, nor even my austerities could remove, is dispelled today by the light of your presence. 32. A kind look of the great, gives as much joy to the mind, as draughts of pure ambrosia, serve to satisfy the heart. 33. Tell me who are you, whose feet have sanctified this place; as the glorious orbs of the day and night, enlighten the firmament. 34. Being addressed in this manner, Bhrigu desired him to remember his prior births, which he could well do, by his enlightened understanding. 35. Bhrigu made him acquainted with the state of his former birth, and he remembered it instantly by the clairvoyance of his inward sight. 36. He was struck with wonder at the remembrance of his former state, and smiled with a joyous face and gladsome heart, to ponder on what he had been; and then uttered as follows.

37. Blessed is the law of the Supreme Being, which is without its beginning or end, and is known as destiny here below; and by whose power the world is revolving as a curricle. 38. I see my countless and unknown births, and the innumerable accidents to which they were subject, for the period of a whole kalpa or duration of the world from first to last. (The Soul being immortal, has to pass into infinite births under various shapes and forms of bodies. If it were to lie dormant in the grave for ever what is the good of its being made or created to be immortal?) 39. I have undergone great hardships, and known prosperity also with the toil of earning; have had my wanderings also in different lives, and remember to have roamed for a long time, over the mountainous regions of Meru. 40. I drank the water reddened with the pollen of mandara flowers, and roved along the bank of the heavenly stream of Mandákiní filled with lotuses. 41. I wandered about the Mandara groves, filled with flowering creepers like gold, and under the shade of the kalpa arbors of Meru, and in the flowery plains above and about it.

42. There is naught of good or evil, which I have not tasted or felt or done myself; nor is there anything, which I have not seen and felt and known in my past lives. 43. I have now known the knowable (that is to be known), and seen the imperishable one in whom I have my repose. I have now rested after my toils were over, and have passed beyond the domain of error and darkness. 44. Now rise, O father! and let us go to see that body, lying on the Mandara mount, and which is now dried as a withered plant. 45. I have no desire to remain in this place, nor go anywhere of my own will; it is only to see the works of fate, that we wander all about. 46. I will follow you, with my firm belief in the one adored Deity of the learned. Let that be the desirable object of my mind, and I will act exactly in conformity with my belief.

LAMENTATION AND EXPOSTULATION OF SUKRA. Argument. Sukra laments on seeing his former body, and his consolation at its ultimate anaesthesia. Vasishtha said:—Thus contemplating on the course of nature, these philomaths moved with their spiritual bodies, from the bank of Samangá (towards the Mandara mountain). 2. They ascended to the sky, and passed through the pores of the clouds to the region of the Siddhas; whence they descended to the lower world, and arrived at the valley of Mandara. 3. There Sukra saw on a cliff of that mountain, the dried body of his former birth, lying covered under the dark and dewy leaves of trees. 4. He said, here is that shriveled body, O father! which thou hadst nourished with many a dainty food before. 5. There is that body of mine, which was so fondly anointed with camphor, agallochum and sandal paste, by my wet-nurse before. 6. This is that body of mine, which was used to repose on the cooling beds, made with heaps of mandara flowers, in the airy spots of Meru. 7. This is that body of mine, which was so fondly caressed by heavenly dames of yore, and which is now lying, to be bitten by creeping insects and worms, on the bare ground below.