Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

6. The apána wind passing downward evacuates the bowels, but the samána wind of the abdominal part serves to sustain the body; and the udána rising upward and being let out, inflates and invigorates the frame. 7. If after all your efforts, you are unable to repress the passing off of the downward wind; then the person is sure to meet his death, by the forcible and irrepressible egress of the apána wind (this irrepressible egress is called abishtambhá). (The translator regrets for his inability to give the English terminology of these psychological words in the original). 8. And when one with all his attempts, is unable to suppress his rising breath of life; but it forces of his mouth or nostrils, it is sure to be followed by his expiration. 9. If one by his continual attention, can succeed to repress the outward and inward egress of his vital breath, and preserve calm quiet of his disposition, he is sure to have his longevity accompanied with his freedom from all diseases.

10. Know that the decomposure of the smaller arteries, is attended with distempers of the body, but the disturbance of the greater arteries is followed by serious consequences. (There are a hundred great arteries, attached to the main conduit of Kundaliní, besides hundreds of small veins and nerves diverging from them throughout the body. The yogi has the power of stopping the current of his breath and blood into these by his restraint of respiration - pránáyáma). 11. Ráma said: - Tell me, O holy sage! how our health and sickness connected with the organs and arteries of the body (rather than with the blood and humours circulating through them). 12. Vasishtha replied: - Know Ráma, that uneasiness and sickness, are both of them the causes of pain to the body; their healing by medicine is their remedy, which is attended with our pleasure; but the killing of them at once by our liberation (from the sensations of pain and pleasure), is what conduces to our true felicity. (Because both health and sickness are attended with but short lived pleasure and pain, and cannot give us the lasting felicity to our souls).

13. Some times the body is subject both to uneasiness and sickness also, as the causes of one another; sometimes they are both alleviated to give us pleasure, and at others they come upon us by turns to cause our pain only. 14. It is ailing of the body, that we call our sickness, and it is the trouble of the mind that we term our uneasiness. Both of them take their rise from our inordinate desires, and it is our ignorance only of the nature of things, that is the source of both. (Our intemperance and covetousness, which are dispelled by our right knowledge). 15. Without the knowledge of the natures and virtues of things, and the want of the government of our desires and appetites, that the heart string loses its tenuity and even course; and is swollen and hurried on by the impulse of passions and inordinate desires. 16. The exultation at having obtained something, and ardour for having more; equally boil the blood of the heart, and shroud the mind under a shadow of infatuation, as an impervious cloud in the rainy weather.

17. The ever increasing greediness of the mind, and the subjection of the intellect under the dominion of foolhardiness, drives men to distant countries in search of a livelihood. (One's natal land is enough to supply him with a simple living). 18. Again the working at improper seasons (as at night and in rain and heat), and the doing of improper actions; the company of infamous men, and aptitude to wicked habits and practices. 19. The weakness and fulness of the intestines caused by sparing food on the one hand, and its excess on the other, cause the derangement of the humours and the disorder of the constitution. 20. It is by cause of this disordered state of the body, that a great many diseases grow in it, both by reason of the deficit as well as the excess of its humours; as a river becomes foul both in its fulness and low water in the rain and summer heat. 21. As the good or bad proclivities of men, are the results of their actions of prior and present births, so the anxieties and diseases of the present state, are the effects of the good and bad deeds both of this life as also those of the past.

22. I have told you Ráma, about the growth of the diseases and anxieties in the quintessential bodies of men; now hear me tell you the mode of extirpating them from the human constitution. 23. There are two sorts of diseases here common to human nature, namely - the ordinary ones and the essential; the ordinary ones are the occurrences of daily life, and the essential is what is inborn in our nature. (The ordinary cares for supplying our natural wants are of the first sort, and the inbred errors and affections of the mind are of other kind). 24. The ordinary anxieties are removed by the attainments of the objects in want; and the diseases growing out of them, are also removed by the removal of our anxious cares. 25. But the essential infirmities of one's dispositions, being bred in the blood and bone, cannot be removed from the body, without the knowledge of the soul; as the error of the snake in the rope, is removed only by examination of the rope. (So the affection will be found to rise in the mind and not rooted in the soul).

26. The erroneous affections of the mind, being known as the source of the rise of all our anxious cares and maladies; it is enough to put a stop to this main spring in order to prevent their outlets, so the stream that breaks its banks in the rains, carries away the arbours that grew by it in its rapid course. (The fissures of stopping the source, and breaking out of the course, are quite opposed to one another). 27. The non-essential or extrinsical diseases that are derived from without, are capable of being removed by the application of drugs, the spell of mantras and propitiating as well as obviating charms; as also by medicaments and treatments, according to the prescriptions of medical science and the practice of medical men. 28. You will know Ráma, the efficacy of baths and bathing in holy rivers, and are acquainted with the expiatory mantras and prescriptions of experienced practitioners; and as you have learnt the medical Sástras, I have nothing further to direct you in this matter. 29. Ráma rejoined: - But tell me sir, how the intrinsic causes produce the external diseases; and how are they removed by other remedies than those of medicinal drugs, as the muttering of mantra incantations and observance of pious acts and ceremonies.

30. Vasishtha replied: - The mind being disturbed by anxieties the body is disordered also in its functions, as the man that is overtaken by anger, loses the sight of whatever is present before his eyes. 31. He loses sight of the broad way before him, and takes a devious course of his own; and like a stag pierced with arrows, flies from the beaten path and enters himself amidst the thickest. 32. The spirit being troubled, the vital spirits are disturbed and breathe out by fits and snatches; as the waters of a river being disturbed by a body of elephants, rise above its channel and over flow the banks. (Violent passions raging in the breast burst out of and break down their bounds). 33. The vital airs breathing irregularly, derange the lungs and nerves and all the veins and arteries of the body; as the misrule in the government, puts the laws of the realm into disorder. 34. The breathings being irregular, unsettles the whole body; by making the blood vessels quite empty and dry in some parts, and full and stout in others, resembling the empty and full flowing channels of rivers.

35. The want of free breathing is attended both with indigestion and bad digestion of the food, and also evaporation of the chyle and blood that it produces; and these defects in digestion, bring forth a great many maladies in the system. 36. The vital breaths carry the essence of the food we take to the inferior organs, as the currents of a river carry the floating woods down the stream. 37. The crude matter which remains in the intestines, for want of its assimilation into blood, and circulation in the frame by restraint of breathing; turn at the end to be sources of multifarious maladies in the constitution. 38. Thus it is that the perturbed states of the mind and spirit, produce the diseases of the body, and are avoided and removed by want of mental anxiety. Now hear me tell you, how the mantra-exorcism serve to drive away the diseases of the body.

39. As the karitakí fruit (chebule myrobalan) is purgative of its own nature, and purges out the crudities from the bodies; so the headwork into the mysterious meaning of the mantras, removes the crude diseases from the frame. (Such are the mystic letters ya, ra, la, va, in the liquids y, r, l, v), signifying the four elements of earth, water, air and fire; curative of many diseases by reflection on their hidden meaning. 40. I have told you Ráma, that pious acts, holy service, virtuous deeds and religious observances, serve also to drive the diseases from the body; by their purifying the mind from its impurities, as the gold is depurated by the touch stone. 41. The purity of the mind produces a delight in the body; as the rising of the full moon, spreads the gentle moonbeams on earth. (Every good act is attended with a rapture, recompenses the deed; or as the maxim goes "virtue has its own reward").

42. The vital airs breathe freely from the purity of the mind, and these tending to help the culinary process in the stomach, produce the nutrition of the body, and destroy the germ of its diseases. (The germs of growth and decay and of life and death, are both connate in the nature of all living beings; and the increase of the one, is the cause of the decrease of the other). 43. I have thus far related to you, Ráma! concerning the causes of the rise and fall of the diseases and distempers of the living body, in connection with the subject of the main artery of Kundaliní; now hear me relate to you regarding the main point of one's attainment of consummation or siddhi by mean of his yoga practice. 44. Now know the life of the puryashtaka or octuple human body, to be confined in the Kundaliní artery, as the fragrance of the flower is contained in its inner filament. 45. It is when one fills the channel of this great artery with his inhaling breath, and shuts it at its mouth (called the Kurma opening), and becomes as sedate as a stone; he is then said to have attained his rock like fixity and firmness, and his siddhi or consummation of garima or inflation.

46. Again when the body is thus filled with the inflated air, and the wind confined in the Kundaliní artery, is carried upwards by the vital breath (of respiration), from the base or fundamental tube at the bottom, to the cell of the cranium in the head, it touches the consciousness seated in the brain, and drives away the fatigue of the process. (This is called the ascent of the vital air in its heavenward journey). 47. Thence the wind rises upward as smoke into the air, carrying with it the powers of all the arteries attached to it like creepers clinging to a tree; and then stands as erect as a stick, with its head lifted upwards like the hood of a snake. (The art of mounting in the air, is as the act of jumping and leaping into it). 48. Then this uprising force carries the whole body, filled with wind from its top to toe into the upper sky; as an aerosol floats upon the water, or as air balloon rises in the air. (The early Hindus are thus recorded to have made their aerial journeys by force of the inflated air, instead of the compressed gas smoke of modern discovery).

49. It is thus that the yogis make their aerial excursions, by means of the compression of air in the wind pipes in their bodies; and are as happy (in their descrying the scattered worlds all about), as poor people feel themselves at having the dignity of the king of Gods. (Indra). 50. When the force of the exhaling breath (rechaka prabáha) of the cranial tube, constrains the power of the Kundaliní, to stand at the distance of twelve inches in the out side of the upper valve between eye-brows. 51. And as the same exhaling makes it remain there for a moment by preventing its entering into any other passage, it is at that instant that one comes to see the supernatural beings before his sight. (It is said in phrenology, that fixed attention, farsightedness and supernatural vision, are seated between the eye-brows). 52. Ráma said: - Tell me sir, how we may be able to see the supernatural siddhas, without feeling them by the rays and light of our eye sight, and without having any supernatural organ of perception of our own. 53. Vasishtha replied: - It is true, Ráma, as you say, that the aerial spirit of siddhas, are invisible to earthly mortals with the imperfect organs of their bodies, and without the aid of supernatural organs.

54. It is by means of the clairvoyance obtained by the practice of yoga, that the aerial and beneficent siddhas became visible to us like the appearances in our dreams. 55. The sight of the siddhas is like that of persons in our dream, with this difference only, that the sight of a siddha is fraught with many real benefits and blessings accruing thereby unto the beholder. 56. It is by the practice of posting the exhaled breath, at the distance of twelve inches on the outside of the mouth, that it may be made to enter into the body of another person. (This is the practice of imparting one's spirit into the body of another person, and of enlivening and raising the dead). 57. Ráma said: - But tell me sir, how you maintain the immutability of nature (when everything is seen to be in the course of its incessant change at all times). I know you will not be displeased at this interruption to your discourse, because good preachers are kindly disposed, to solve even the intricate of their hearers. 58. Vasishtha replied: - It is certain that the power known as nature, is manifest in the volition of the spirit, in its acts of the creation and preservation of the world. (Here nature is identified with eternal will of God).

59. Nature being nothing in reality, but the states and powers of things; and these are seen some times to differ from one another, as the autumnal fruits are found to grow in the spring at Assam (these varieties also called their nature). 60. Vasishtha replied: - All this universe is one Brahma or the immensity of God, and all its variety is the unity of the same. (i.e. the various modalities of the unvaried one); these different existences and appearances, are only our verbal distinctions for ordinary purposes, and proceeding from our ignorance of the true nature of Brahmá. We know not why these words concerning divine nature, which are irrelevant to the main subject, are introduced in this place. 61. Ráma rejoined: - Tell me sir, how our bodies are thinned as well as thickened, in order to enter into very narrow passages as also to feel and occupy large spaces (by means of the anima and garima yogas, of minimizing the body to an atomic spright and of magnifying it to a stalwart giant).

62. Vasishtha replied: - As the attrition of the wood and saw, causes a split in the midst; and as the friction of two things (as of a flint and stone) produces a fire between them, in the same manner doth the confrication of the inhaling and exhaling breath, divide the two prána and apána gases, and produce the jatharágni in the abdomen. (The prána air is explained elsewhere as passing from the heart through the mouth and nostrils, and the apána as that which passes from the region of the navel to the great toe. The jatharágni is rendered some where as gastric fire). 63. There is a muscle in the abdominal part of these ugly machine of the internal body, which extends as a pair of bellows both above and below the navel, with their mouths joined together and shaking to and fro like a willow moved by the water and air. 64. It is under this bladder that the kundaliní artery rest in her quiescent state; and ties as a string of pears in a casket of the yellow padmariya james. (This place under the navel is called the múládhára, whence the aorta strength upwards and downwards).

65. Here the kundaliní string turns and twirls round like a string beads counted about the finger; and coils also with its reflected head and a hissing sound like the hood of a snake stricken by a stick (it requires too much anatomy to show these operations of the arteries). 66. It thrills in the string of the lotus like heart, as a bee flutters over the honey cup of the lotus flower; and it kindles our knowledge in the body like the luminous sun amidst the earth and sky. (It gives action to the heart string, which arises its cognitive faculties). 67. It is then that the action of the heart, moves all the blood vessels in the body to their several functions; as the breeze of the outer air, shakes the leaves of trees. 68. As the high winds rage in the sky and break down the weaker leaves of the branches of trees, so do the vital airs coil in the body and crush the soft food, that has been taken in the stomach.

69. As the winds of the air batter the lotus leaves, and at last dissolve them into the native element; so the internal winds break down the food like the leaves of trees, and convert the food ingested in the stomach into chyle, blood, flesh, skin, fat, marrow and bones one after another. 70. The internal airs clash against one another the produce of the gastric fire, as the bamboos in the wood produce the living fire by their friction. 71. The body which is naturally cold and cold-blooded, becomes heated in all its parts by this internal heat, as every part of the world becomes warmed by the warmth of the sun. 72. This internal fire which pervades throughout the frame and flutters like golden bees over the loti-form heart, is meditated upon as twinkling stars in the minds of the ascetic yogis. 73. Reflections of these lights are attended with the full blaze of intellectual light, whereby the meditative yogi sees in his heart objects, which are situated at the distance of millions of miles from him. (This is called the consummation of clairvoyance or divyadrishti).

74. This culinary fire being continually fed by the fuel of food, continues to burn in the lake of the lotus-like muscle of the heart, as the submarine fire burns latent in the waters of the seas. 75. But the clear and cold light which is the soul of the body, bears the name of the serene moon; and because it is the product of the other fire of the body, thence called the sumágni or the residence of the moon and fire (its two presiding divinities). 76. All hotter lights in the world are known by the names of suns (as the planetary and cometary bodies); and all colder lights are designated as moons (as the stars and satellites) and as these two lights cherish the world, it is named as the suryágni and somágni also. 77. Know after all the world to be a manifestation of the combination of intelligence and ignorance (i.e. of the intellect and soul matter), as also of an admixture of reality and unreality among who has made it as such in himself manifest in this form.

78. The learned call the light of intelligence, by the terms knowledge, sun and fire, and designate the unrealities of ignorance, by the names of dullness and darkness, ignorance and the coldness of the moon. (i.e. There are antithetical words expressive of Intelligence and ignorance; the former designated as the light of knowledge and reason, the daylight and the light of lamp &c., and the latter as the darkness of night, and the coldness of frost &c.). 79. Ráma said: - I well understand that the product of the air of breath &c. (by their friction as said before); and that the air proceeds from the moon, but tell me sir, whence comes the moon into existence? 80. Vasishtha replied: - The fire and moon are the mutual causes and effects of one another, as they are mutually productive as well as destructive of each other by turns. 81. Their production is by alternation as that of the seed and its sprout (of which no body knows is the cause or effect of the other). Their reiteration is as the return of day and night, (of which we know not which precedes the other). They last awhile and are lost instantly like the succession of light and shade (the one producing as also destroying the other).

82. When these opposites come to take place at the one and same time, you see them stand side by side as in the case of the light and shade occurring into the daytime, but when they occur at different times, you then see the one only at a time without any trace of the other, as in the occurrence of the daylight and nocturnal gloom by turns. (These two are instances of the simultaneous and separate occurrence of the opposites. Gloss). 83. I have also told you of two kinds of causality; namely, the one in which the cause is co-existent with its effect, and the other wherein the effect comes to appearance after disappearance of its cause or the antecedent. 84. It is called the synchronous causation which is coeval with its effect, as the seed is coexistent with its germ, and the tree is contemporaneous with the produced seed.

85. The other is named the antecedent or preterite cause, which disappears before the appearance of its consequent effect; as the disappearance of the day is the cause of its subsequent night; and the preteriteness of the night, causes the retardation of the following day. (In plain words it is the concurrence and distance of the cause and effect, called the [Sanskrit: samaváyo] and [Sanskrit: amasáváyo kárana] or the united or separate causality in Nyáya-terminology). 86. The former kind of the united cause and effect (called the [Sanskrit: sadrúpa parináma] i.e. the presence of both causality and its effectuality); is exemplified in the instance of the doer and the earthen pot, both of which are in existence; and this being evident to sight, requires no example to elucidate it. 87. The kind of the disunited cause and effect (called the [Sanskrit: binásharúpa parináma]) in which the effect is unassociated with its (cause); the succession of day and night to one another, is a sufficient proof of the absence of its antecedent causality. (This serves as an instance of an unknown cause, and hence we infer the existence of a pristine darkness, prior to the birth of day-light [Sanskrit: tame ásít] teomerant).

88. The rationalists that deny the causality of an unevident cause, are to be disregarded as fools for ignoring their own convictions, and must be spurned with contempt. (They deny the causality of the day and night to bring one another by their rotation which no sensible being (can ignore). They say [Sanskrit: dinasá rátri nirmmasa katritamsti]) 89. Know Ráma, that an unknown and absent cause is as evident as any present and palpable cause, which is perceptible to the senses; for who can deny the fact, that it is the absence of fire that produces the cold, and which is quite evident to every living body. 90. See Ráma, how the fire ascends upward in the air in form of fumes, which take the shape of clouds in the azure sky, which being transformed afterwards into fire (electricity); becomes the immediate cause of the moon (by its presence [Sanskrit: ájnát kárana]). 91. Again the fire being extinguished by cold, sends its watery particles upwards, and this moisture produces the moon, as the absent or remote cause of the same. ([Sanskrit: mauna kárana]).

92. The submarine fire likewise that falls into the feeding on the foulness of the seven oceans, and swallows their briny waters, disgorges their gases and fumes in the open air, and these flying to the upper sky in the form of clouds, drop down their purified waters in the form of sweet milky fluids in the milky ocean (which gives birth to the milk white moon). (It is said that there is an apparatus in the bosom of the clouds, for purifying the impure waters rising in vapours in the atmosphere from the earth and seas below). 93. The hot sun also devours the frigid ball of the moon or (the moon beams), in the conjunction at the dark fortnight (amávasya), and then ejects her out in their opposition in the bright half of every month, as the stork throws off the tender stalk of the lotus which it has taken. (The sun is represented to feed on, and let out the moon beams by turns in every month).

94. Again the winds that suck up the heat and moisture of the earth in the vernal and hot weather, drop them down as rain water in the rainy season, which serves to renovate the body of exhausted nature. (This passage is explained in many ways from the homonymous word some of which it is composed; and which severally means the moon, the handsome, the soma plant and its juice). 95. The earthly water being carried up by the sun beams, which are called his karas or hands, are converted into the solar rays, which are the immediate cause of fire. (Here the water which is by its nature opposed to fire, becomes the cause of that element also). 96. Here the water becomes fire both by privation of its fluidity and frigidity, which is the remote cause of its formation as also by its acquirement of aridity or dryness and calidity or warmth; which is the immediate of its transformation to the igneous element. (This is an instance of the double or mixed causality of water in the production of fire. Gloss). 97. The fire being absent, there remains the presence of the moon; and the absence of the moon, presents the presence of fire.

98. Again the fire being destroyed, the moon takes its place; in the same manner, as the departure of the day introduces the night in lieu of it. 99. Now in the interval of day and night, and in the interim of daylight and darkness, and in the midst of shade and light, there is a midmost point and a certain figure in it, which is unknown to the learned. (This point which is neither this nor that, nor this thing or any other, is the state of the inscrutable Brahma). 100. That point is no nullity nor an empty vacuity (because it is neither the one or the other). Nor it is a positive entity and the real pivot and connecting link of both sides. It never changes its central place between both extremes of this and that, or the two states of being and not being. 101. It is by means of the two opposite principles of the intelligent soul and inert matter, that all things exist in the universe; in the same manner, as the two contraries of light and darkness bring on the day and night in regular succession. (so the self moving and self shining sun is followed by the dull and dark moon, which moves and shines with her borrowed force and light).

102. As the course of the world commenced with the union of mind and matter, or the mover and the moved from the beginning; so the body of the moon, came to be formed by an admixture of aqueous and nectarious particles in the air. (The body of the moon formed of the frozen waters, were early impregnated with the ambrosial beams of the sun). (This bespeaks of the creation of the solar orb prior to the formation of the satellite of the earth). 103. Know Ráma, the beams of the sun to be composed of fire or igneous particles, and the solar light to be the effulgence of the intellect; and the body of the moon to be but a mass of dull darkness (unless it is lighted by its borrowed light from the sun). (The sun is said to shine with intellectual light, because it disperses the outer gloom of the world, as the other removes the darkness of the mind. Gloss). 104. The sight of the outward sun in the sky, destroys the out spreading darkness of night; but the appearance of the intellectual luminary, dispels the overspreading gloom of the world from the mind.

105. But if you behold your intellect in the form of the cooling moon, it becomes as dull and cold as that satellite itself; just as if you look at a lotus at night, you will not find it to be as blooming as at sunshine (but may be at the danger of contracting lunacy or stupefaction of the intellect by looking long at the cold luminary). 106. Fire in the form of sun light enlightens the moon, in the same manner as the light of the intellect illumes the inner body (lingadeha); our consciousness is as the moonlight of the inner soul, and is the product of the sun beams of our intellect. (So says the Bharata: - As the sun illumes the worlds so doth the intellect enlighten the soul). 107. The intellect has no action, it is therefore without attribute or appellation; it is like light on the lamp of the soul, and is known as any common light from the lantern which shows it to the sight.

108. The avidity of this intellectual after the knowledge of the intelligibles, brings it to the intelligence of the sensible world; but its thirst after the unintelligible one, is attended with the precious gain of its Kaivalya or oneness with the self same one. (Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for spiritual knowledge, for they shall verily be satisfied therewith). 109. The two powers of the fire and moon (agni-soma), are to be known as united with one another in the form of the body and its soul, and their union is expressed in the scriptures as the contact of the light and lighted room with one another, as the reflexion of the sunshine on the wall. (The two powers of igneous and lunar lights are represented in the conjoined bodies of the Agni soma deities). 110. They are also known to be separately of themselves, in different bodies and at different times; such as bodies addicted to dullness, are said to be actuated by the lunar influence; and persons advancing in their spirituality, are said to be led on by force of the solar power.

111. The rising breath (prána) which of its nature hot and warm, is said to be Agni's or igneous; and setting breath of apána which is cold and slow is termed the soma or lunar, they abide as the light and shade in every body, the one rising upward and passing by the mouth, and the other going down by the anus. 112. The apána being cooled gives rise to the fiery hot breath of prána, which remains in the body like the reflexion of something in a mirror. 113. The light of the intellect produces the brightness of consciousness, and the sun-beams reflect themselves as lunar orbs; in the dew drops on lotus leaves at early dawn. 114. There was a certain consciousness in the beginning of creation, which with its properties of heat and cold as those of agni and soma; came to be combined together in the formation of human body and mind. 115. Strive Ráma, to settle yourself at that position of the distance of out side the mouth apána, where the sun and moon of the body (i.e. the prána and apána breaths) meet in conjunction - amávasya.

YOGA INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACQUIREMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL POWERS OF ANIMA-MINUTENESS &C. Argument: - Means of acquiring the Quadruple Capacities of Anima minima, Mahima-maxima, Laghima-lightness and Garima-heaviness, together with the power of entering into the bodies of others. Vasishtha continued: - Hear me now tell you, how the bodies of yogis are capable of expansion and contraction at will; as to be multum in parvo; and parvum in multo. 2. There is above the lotus-like diaphragm of the heart, a blazing fire emitting its sparks, like gold coloured butterflies flirting about it, and flaring as flashes of lightning in the evening clouds. (This is the jatharágni or culinary fire). 3. It is fanned and roused by the enkindling animal spirit, which blows over it as with the breath of the wind; it pervades the whole body without burning it, and shines as brightly as the sun in the form of our consciousness. 4. Being then kindled into a blaze in an instant, like the early raise of the rising sun gleaming upon the morning clouds; it melts down the whole body (to its toes and nails), as the burning furnace dissolves the gold in the crucible. (It is impossible to make out anything of this allegory).

5. Being unextinguishable by water, it burns the whole outer body down to the feet; and then it coils inside the body, and remains in the form of the mind in the ativáhika or spiritual body of man. (It is hard to find out the hidden sense of this passage also). 6. Having then reduced the inner body likewise, it becomes lifeless of itself; and becomes extinct as the frost at the blowing of winds (or blast of a tempest). 7. The force of the Kundaliní or intestinal canal, being put out to the fundamental artery of the rectum; remains in the vacuity of the spiritual body, like a shadow of the smoke of fire. 8. This smoky shade parades over the heart like a swarthy maiden, and encloses in her bosom the subtile body composed of its mind and understanding, the living principle and its egoism. 9. It has the power to enter into the porous fibres of lotuses to penetrate the rocks, to stretch over the grass, to pop into houses and stones, to pry in the sky and ply in the ground, and remain and move about everywhere in the manner it likes of its own will. (This power is called sakti or energy which is omnipotent).

10. This power produces consciousness and sensibility, by the sap and serum which it supplies to the whole body; and is itself filled with juice, like a leather bag that is dipped into a well or water. 11. This great artery of Kundaliní being filled with gastric juice, forms the body in any shape it likes; as an artist draws the lines of a picture in any form, as it is pictured in his mind. (Hence it depends on the gastric artery to extend and sketch out the body according to its own plan). 12. It supplies the embryonic seed placed in the foetus of the mother, with the power of its evolution into the fleshy and bony parts of its future body; as the tender sprout of the vegetative seed, waxes in time to a hard woody tree. (The act of evolution is attributed in the text to the triple causality of the physical nutrition in the stomach, the metaphysical cause of the intensity of thought in the growing mind, and the psychological tendency of the soul, produced from the fourth and prime cause of its prior propensity, which is inbred in grain and essential nature of every being, the intense thought is called [Sanskrit: hridaya bhávná]).

13. Know Ráma, this certain truth which is acknowledged by the wise, that the living principles acquire its desired state and stature, be it that of a mountain or bit of straw. (This passage supports the free agency of man to go in either way in opposition to the doctrine of blind fatalism, and the arbitrary power of the Divine will). 14. You have heard, O Ráma! of certain powers as of diminishing and increasing the bulk and stature of the body, attainable by the practice of yoga; you will now hear me give you an interesting lecture, regarding the attainment of these capacities by means of knowledge or jnána. (This is the theory or theoretical part of the practice or practical art of yoga). 15. Know for certain that there is but only one intelligent principle of the Intellect, which is inscrutable, pure and most charming; which is minuter than the minutest, perfectly tranquil and is nothing of the mundane world or any of its actions or properties.

16. The same chit - intellect being collected in itself into an individuality (by its power of chayana integration) from the undivided whole, and assuming the power of will or volition - sankalpa itself, becomes the living soul by transformation of its pure nature to an impure one. (This power of integration is said to be a fallacy adhyása or misconception - adhyáropa of human mind, which attributes a certain quality to a thing by mistake or áropa as [Sanskrit: paratra parábabhásah]: or mistaking a thing for another e. g. [Sanskrit: shuktau ratrátávadábhásah]: i.e. taking the shell for silver from its outward appearance.) 17. The will is a fallacy, and the body is a mistake; (because there is no mutation of volition or personality of the infinite intellect); and the ignorant alone distinguish the living soul from the universal spirit, as the ignorant boy sees the demon in a shadow. (All these are false attributes of the true one). 18. When the lamp of knowledge brings the mind to the full light of truth, then the error of volition is removed from the living soul, as the cloud of the rainy weather are dissipated in Autumn.

19. The body has its rest, after the wishes have subsided in the mind; just as the lamp is extinguished after its oil is exhausted. (Mental anxieties cause the restlessness of the body). 20. The soul that sees the truth, has no more the knowledge of his body; as the man awakened from his sleep, has no longer the apparitions of his dream appearing before him. 21. It is the mistaking of the unreal for the real or what is the same, the ascribing of reality to the unreality that gives the colour of reality to false material bodies; but the knowledge of the truth removes the error of the corporal body, and restore the soul to its wonted splendour and true felicity. 22. But the error of taking the material body for the immaterial soul, is so deep rooted in the mind; that it is as difficult to remove, as it is for the strongest sun beams to perceive the mental gloom of men. 23. This impervious darkness of the mind, is only to be perceived by the sun-shine of knowledge; that our soul is the seat of immaculate and all pervading spirit of God, and that I myself am no other than the pure intellect which is in me. (The anal Huq of Mansur).

24. Those that have known the supreme soul meditate on it in this manner in their own souls, until they find themselves to be assimilated to the same by their extensive thought of it. (Here we have the curious doctrine of strong thought drirha-bhávaná of Vasishtha again which inculcates the possibility of one's being whatever he strongly thinks himself to be. It is allied to the doctrine of the strength of belief - faith and bhakti of others). 25. It is hence, O Ráma! that some men convert the deadly poison to sweet ambrosial food, and change the delicious nectar to bitter gall. (Thus Siva the God and yogi converts the snake poison to his food and the sweets offered to his topmost mouth to the bitterest bane). 26. So whatever is thought upon with intensity in any manner and on any occasion, the same comes to take place as it is seen in many instances. 27. The body when seen in the light of a reality, is found to be a real existence; but being looked upon as an unreality, it vanishes into nothing (or it mixes in the vacuity of Brahma).

28. You have thus heard from me, o righteous Ráma! the theoretical mode (jnána-yukti) of attaining the capacities of magnifying and minimizing one's person at will; I will now tell you of another method of gaining these powers, to which you shall have now to attend. 29. You can practice by exhalation of your rechaka breath, to extract your vital power (life) from the cell of your Kundaliní artery, and infuse it into another body; as the winds of the air, carry the fragrance of flowers into the nostrils. (This is the mode of ones forsaking its own body in order to enliven another). 30. The former body is left lifeless like a log of wood or block of stone, and such is the relation between the body and life; as that of a bucket and its water, which is powered out to enliven the plants. 31. Thus is the life infused in all movable and immovable things, in order to enjoy the pleasures of their particular states at its pleasure. 32. The living soul having relished the bliss of its consummate state, returns to its former body if it is still in existence, or it goes and settles some where else, as it may best suit its taste.

33. The yogis thus pass into all bodies and live with their conscious souls, and fill the world also by magnifying their spirits over all space. 34. The yogi who is lord of himself by his enlightened understanding, and his knowledge of all things beside their accompanying evils; obtains in an instant whatever he wants to have, and which is present before the effulgence of divine light (anávarana Brahma jyoti).

STORY OF THE MISERLY KIRÁTA. Argument: - Perfection of Chúdálá and the imbecility of the Prince; efficacy of instruction and its elucidation in the tale of niggardly Kiráta. Vasishtha continued: - Thus the royal dame was possest of the qualities of contracting and expanding herself to any form, and became so expert in these by their continued practice of them; 2. That she made her aerial journey and navigated at pleasure over the expanse of waters; she moved on the surface of the earth, as the river Ganges glides on in her silent course. 3. She dwelt in the bosom of her lord, as the goddess of prosperity abides in the heart of Hari, and travelled in a moment with her mind over every city and country over the earth. 4. This fairy lady fled in the air, and flashed like the lightning with the flashes of her twinkling eyes; she passed as a shadow over the earth, as a body of clouds passes over a range of mountains. 5. She passed without any hazard through the grass and wood, stones and clods of earth, and through fire and water and air and vacuum, as a thread passes through hole of a heart. (Milton says: - That with no middle flight, to the heaven of heavens I have presented through an earthly quest).

6. She lightly skimmed over the mountain peaks, and pryed through the regions of the regents of all the sides of heaven; she penetrated into the cavities of the empty womb of vacuity, and have a pleasant trip whatever she directed in her flight. (All this is brain action and no reality at all). 7. She conversed freely with all living beings, whether they move or prone on the ground as the beast of earth, or crawl upon it as the snakes and insects. She talked with the savage Pisácha tribes and communicated with men and the immortal Gods and demi-gods also. (The clever princess like the far-seeing seer saw every thing with her mind's eye, and held her converse (vyavahára) with all). 8. She tried much to communicate her knowledge to her ignorant husband, but he was no way capable of receiving her spiritual instruction. (Átmajnána means also her intuitive or self taught knowledge). 9. He understood her as no other than his young princess and the mistress of his house, and skilled only in the arts of coquetry and house wifery (and quite ignorant of higher things because the ladies of India were barred from spiritual knowledge).

10. Until this time the prince had been ignorant of the qualifications of the princess Chúdálá, and knew not that she had made her progress in the spiritual science, as a young student makes his proficiency in the different branches of learning. 11. She also was as reserved to show her consummate learning to her unenlightened husband; as a Brahman declines to show his secret rites to a vile sudra. 12. Ráma said: - If it was impossible, sir, for the seeress of consummate wisdom to communicate her knowledge to her husband Sikhidhwaja, with all her endeavours to enlighten him on the subject; how can it be possible for others, to be conversant in spiritual knowledge in any other means. 13. Vasishtha answered: - Ráma, it is obedience to the rule of attending to the precepts of the preceptor, joined with the intelligence of the pupil, which is the only means of gaining instruction. 14. The hearing of sermon nor the observance of any religious rite, is of any efficacy towards the knowledge of the soul; unless one will employ his own soul, to have the light of the supreme soul shine upon it. It is the spirit alone that can know the spirit, as it is the serpent only that can trace out the path of another serpent.

15. Ráma rejoined: - If such is the course of the world, that we can learn nothing without the instruction of our preceptors; then tell me, O sage! how the precepts of the wise lead to our spiritual knowledge also. 16. Vasishtha replied: - Hear me Ráma, relate to you a tale to this effect. There lived an old Kiráta of yore, who was miserly in his conduct as he was rich in his possessions of wealth and grains. He dwelt with his family by the side of the Vindhyan woods, as a poor Brahman lives apart from his kith and kin. 17. He happened to pass by his native forest at one time, and slip a single couri from his purse, which fell in a grassy furze and was lost under the grass. 18. He ran on every side, and beat at the bush for three days to find out his lost couri, and impelled by his niggardliness to leave no fallen leaf unturned over the ground.

19. As he searched and turned about, he ran and turned it ever in his mind, saying: - Ah! this single couri would make four by its commerce, and that would bring me eight in time, and this would make a hundred and a thousand, and more and more by repetition, so I have lost a treasure in this. 20. Thus he counted over and over, over the gains he would gain, and sighed as often at the loss he did sustain; and took into no account of the rustic peasantry on his foolish penury. 21. At the end of the third day he came across a rich jewel, as brilliant as the bright moon in the same forest; which compensated for the loss of his paltry couri by a thousand fold. 22. He returned gladly with his great gain to his homely dwelling, and was highly delighted with the thought of keeping off poverty for ever from his door. (The word Kerate is commonly used for Kiráta - the miser). 23. Now as the Kiráta was quite satisfied, with his unexpected gain of the great treasure, in the search of his trifling couri; and passed his days without any care or fear of the changeful world.

24. So the student comes to obtain his spiritual knowledge from his preceptor, while he has been in quest of his temporal learning, which is but a trifle in comparison to his eternal concern. 25. But then, O sinless Ráma! it is not possible to attain to divine knowledge, by the mere lectures of the preceptor; because the lord is beyond the perception of senses, and can neither be expressed by nor known from the words of the instructor's mouth. (It requires one's intuition and spiritual inspiration also to see the spirit in one's own spirit). 26. Again it is not possible to arrive to spiritual knowledge, without the guidance of the spiritual guide; for can one gain the rich gem without his search after the couri like the miserly Kiráta? (This means that it is impossible to attain the esoteric or abstract knowledge of the soul, without a prior acquaintance of the exoteric and concrete). 27. As the search of couri became the cause of or was attended with the gain of the gem, so our attendance on secular instructions of the preceptor, becomes an indirect cause to our acquirement of the invaluable treasure of spiritual knowledge.

28. Ráma, look at this wonderful eventualities of nature, which brings forth events otherwise than the necessary results of our pursuits (as the search of couri resulted the gain of the gem). 29. As it often comes to pass, that our attempts are attended with other result than those which are ought; it is better for us to remain indifferent with regard to the result of our act.

PILGRIMAGE OF PRINCE SIKHIDHWAJA. Argument: - Sikhidhwaja's abandonment of the world, and remaining as religious Recluse on the Mandara mountain; followed by the visit of the Princess and her admonition to him. Vasishtha related: - The prince Sikhidhwaja continued in utter darkness, without the sight of his spiritual knowledge; and groped his way amidst the gloom of the world, as a childless man passes his woeful days, in utter despair of any glimpse of hope. (As son is the hope of a man both in this world as well as in the next). 2. His heart burned disconsolate in the flame of his anxieties, without the consolation of his salvation; and the great affluence of his fortune, served as full to feed the fire of his hopelessness, for want of the cooling shower of religion. 3. He found his consolation in lonely retreats, in the caves of mountains and beside their falling waters; where he strayed at large, like the beasts of prey flying from the arrows of huntsmen. 4. Ráma, he became as distracted as you had been before; and discharged his daily rituals, at the humble request and repeated solicitations of his attending servants. 5. He was as inexcitable and cold blooded, as a religious recluse; he desisted from the enjoyments of his princely pleasures, and abstained also from his usual food.

6. He gave his homage with large largesses of lands and gifts of gold and kine to the gods, Brahmans and his relatives also. 7. He went on performing the austerities of the religious rites, and the rigorous ceremonies of the chandáryana and others; he travelled through wilds and deserts and inhabited tracts, to his pilgrimages far and near. 8. Yet he found nowhere the consolation of his mind, which he kept seeking all-abouts; as a miner digs the sterile soil in quest of some mineral, where there is no such thing to be found. 9. He was pining away under the ardour of his anxiety, as it were under the fiery heat of the sun; in search of some remedy for his worldly cares, which hunted him incessantly both by day and night. 10. Being absorbed in his thoughts, he sought not for aught of the poisonous pleasures of his realm; and with the meekness of his spirit and mind, he did not look at the grand estate which lay before him. 11. It happened one day, as he was sitting with his beloved princess reclining on his lap; that he spoke to her as follows, in his mellifluent speech.

12. Sikhidhwaja said: - I have long tasted the pleasures of my realm, and enjoyed the sweet and bitter of my large property and landed possessions. I am now grown as weary of them, as they are both the same and stale to me. 13. Know my delighted lady, that the silent sage is exempt from pleasure and pain; and no prosperity nor adversity, can ever betide the lonely hermit of the forest. 14. Neither the fear of the loss of lives in battle, nor the dread of losing the territory in the reverse of victory, can ever betake the lonely hermit of the forest; wherefore I ween his helpless state, to be happier far than the dignity of royalty. 15. The woodland parterres are as pleasing to me, as thyself with the clusters of their blossoms in spring, and with their ruddy leaves resembling thy rosy palms; their twisted filaments are as the fillets of thy curling hairs, and the hoary and flimsy clouds in the air, are as their white and clean vests and raiments. 16. The blooming flowers resemble their ornaments, and their pollen is the scented powder on their persons; and the seats of reddish stones, bear resemblance to the protruberances on their posteriors.

17. The ambient and pearly rills flowing amidst them, resemble the pendant strings of pearls on their necks; and their foaming waves seen as clusters of pearls, tied as the knots of their vestures. The tender creepers are as their playful daughters, and the frisking fawns are as their playsome darlings. 18. Perfumed with the natural fragrance of flowers, and having the swarming bees for their eye-lids and eyebrows; and wearing the flowery garment of flowers, they are offering an abundance of fruits for the food of the passengers. 19. The pure waters of the falling cascades are sweet to taste, and cool the body as thy company gratifies my senses. I foster therefore an equal fondness for these woodland scenes, as I bear for thy company also. 20. But the calm composures which these solitudes seem to afford to the soul, are in my estimation far superior to the delight, that I derive from the cooling moon light, and the bliss that I might enjoy in the paradise of India and in the heaven of Brahmá himself. 21. Now my dear one, you ought to put no obstacle to these designs of mine; because no faithful wife ever presents any obstructions to the desire of her lord.

22. Chúdálá replied: - The work done in its proper time, is commendable as seasonable and not that which is unseasonable or intempestive; it is as delightful to see the blossoming of flowers in the vernal season, as it is pleasant to find the ripened fruits and grains in autumn. 23. It is for the old and decrepit and those broken down in their bodies by age, to resort in their retirement in the woods; and does not befit a young man as yourself to fly from the world, wherefore I do not approve your choice. (So says the poet, "O that my weary age may find a peaceful hermitage"). 24. Let us remain at home, O young prince, so long as we have not passed our youth, and flourish here as flowers which do not forsake the parent tree, until the flowering time is over. 25. Let us like flowery creepers grow hoary with grey hairs on our heads, and then get out together from our home; as a pair of fond herons fly from the dried lake for ever.

26. Mind also my noble lord, the great sin that awaits on the person of that disgraceful prince of the royal race, who forsakes to seek after the welfare of his people during the time of his rule and reign. (Abdication of the crown was not allowable without an apparent heir). 27. More over mind the opposition you will have to meet with from your subjects, who are authorized to check your unseasonable and unworthy act, as you are empowered to put a check to theirs. (The Hindu law is opposed to the spirit of despotism and lawlessness of the ruling power). 28. Sikhidhwaja rejoined: - Know my royal dame, that thy application is all in vain to my determination of going away from here; and know me as already gone from thee and thy realm to the retreat woods afar from hence. 29. Thou art young and handsome, and aught not accompany me to dreary deserts and forests; which are in many respects dreadful to and impassable by men. 30. Women however hardy they may be, are never able to endure the hardships of forest life; as it is impossible for the tender tendril to withstand the stroke of the felling axe.

31. Do thou remain here, O excellent lady, to rule over this realm in my absence; and take upon thee the burden of supporting thy dependants, which is the highest and best duty of women. 32. Vasishtha related: - Saying so to the moon-faced princess, the self governed prince rose from his seat; to make his daily ablution and discharge his multitudinous duties of the day. 33. Afterwards the prince took leave of his subjects, notwithstanding all their entreaties to detain him; and departed like the setting sun towards his sylvan journey, which was unknown to and impassable by every one. 34. He set out like the setting sun shorn of his glory, and disappeared like the sun from the sight of every body; veil of melancholy covered the face of the princess, as she saw the egress of her lord from the recess of her chamber; as the face of nature is obscured from the shadow of darkness, upon the disappearance of day light below the horizon. (Here is a continued simile between the parting sun and the departing prince, and the face of nature and that of the princess).

35. Now the dark night advanced, veiling the world under her mantle of the ash-coloured dusk; as when the God Hara forsakes the fair Gangá, and takes the nigrescent Yamuná to his embrace. (The day and night representing the two consorts of the sun). 36. The sides of heaven seemed to smile all around, with the denticulated clumps of evening clouds; and with the brightness of the moon beams, glittering on the shoots of Támala trees. (i.e. The skies seemed to smile with their glittering teeth of the evening clouds, and smiling moon beams all around). 37. And as the lord of the day departed towards the setting mountain of Sumeru on the other side of the horizon, in order to rove over the elysian garden or paradise of the gods on the north; so the brightness of the day began to fail, as the shade of evening prevailed over the face of the forsaken world. 38. Now sable night accompanied by her lord the nocturnal luminary, advanced on this side of the southern hemisphere; to sport as a loving couple with this cooling light and shade.

39. Then were the clusters of stars seen spangled in the etherial sphere under the canopy of heaven, and appeared as handfuls of lájas or fried rice scattered by the hands of celestial maiden on the auspicious occasion. 40. The sable night gradually advanced to her puberty, with the buds of lotuses as her budding breasts; she then smiled with her moony face, and littered in the opening of the nightly flowers. 41. The prince returned to his beloved princess after performing his evening services, and was drowned in deep sleep; as the mount Mainaka has drowned in the depth of the sea. (Mainaka is a hidden rock in the sea). 42. It was now the time of midnight, when all was still and quiet all about; and the people were all as fast asleep, as if they were pent up in the bosom of stones. 43. He finding her fast asleep in her soft and downy bed, and lolling in the lap of indolence like the female bee in the cup of the lotus. 44. The prince started from his sleep, and parted the sleeping partner of his bed from his cold embrace; as the ascending node of ráhu slowly lets off from its mouth, the eclipsed moon in the east.

45. He got up from one-half of the bed cloth, while the supine princess lay on the other-half of it; as when the God Hari rises from his bed of the waters of the milky ocean, leaving the lonely Lakshmí roll in the waves after him. 46. He walked out of the palace, and bade the guards to stand at their places; while he was going, he said to arrest a gang of robbers beyond the skirts of the city, with his full confidence in himself. 47. Farewell my royalty, said he, and then passed onward out of his princedom; and passed through inhabited tracts and forest lands, as the course of a river runs to the sea. 48. He passed amidst the gloom of night and through the thickets of the forest beset by thorny bushes; and full of heinous beasts and reptiles, with his firm fortitude. 49. In the morning he arrived at an open tract of land which was free from woods and jungles, and ran the course of the day with his peregrination on foot from sun rise to the setting sun; when he took refuge under the bower of the grove.

50. The sun departing from sight left him to the darkness of night, when he performed his bathing and the daily rite; and having eaten some root or fruit which he could get, he passed the night resting on the barren ground under him. (The custom of evening bath, is now falling into disuse). 51. Again and again the morning appeared and brought to light many new cities and districts, and many hills and rivers; which he passed over bravely for twelve repeated days and nights. 52. He then reached at the foot of the Mandara mountain, which was covered by a dense and immense forest which no human foot could penetrate; and lay (stood) afar from the reach of man and the boundaries of human habitation. 53. There appeared a spot beset by sounding rills amidst it, and set with rows of trees with aqueducts under them; here the relics of a dilapidated dwelling came to sight, and seemed to bear the appearance of the deserted mansion of some holy hermit. 54. It was clear of all heinous reptiles and small insects, and was planted with sacred plants and creepers for the sacerdotal purposes of the holy siddhas; while it was full of fruit trees which supplied its occupant with ample food.

55. There was seen a level and pure spot of ground with a water course, and presenting the green verdure and verdant trees; loaded with luxuriant fruits and stretching a cooling shade all over it. 56. The prince built here a bower of verdant creepers and leafy branches, which with their blooming blossoms glistened; as the blue vault of heaven under the lightnings of the rainy season. 57. He made for himself a staff of bamboo and some vessels for his food and drink, as also some plates to put his offerings of fruits and flowers in them; and a jar for the presentation of holy water. He likewise strung some seeds together for the purpose of his saintly rosary. 58. He procured the hides of dead animals and the deerskin for his seat and cover let in cold, and placed them carefully in his holy hermit's cell. 59. He also collected all other things, which were of use in the discharge of his sacerdotal functions; and preserved in his sacred cell, as the Lord of creatures has stored the earth, with every provisions requisite for living beings.

60. He made his morning devotion, and turned his beads with the muttering of his mantras in the hours of his forenoon; and then performed his sacred ablution, and offered the flowers in the service of the Gods in the afternoon. 61. He afterwards took some wild fruits and ground roots, and the soft lotus stalks for his food in the evening, and then passed the night with his lonely self-possession, and in the meditation of his Maker. 62. Thus did the prince of Malwa pass his days with perfect cheer of his heart in the cottage cell, which he had constructed at the foot of the Mandara mountain; and thought no more of his princely pleasures which were utterly lost under the influence of the resignation, which had now taken full possession of his entire soul and mind.

INVESTIGATION INTO TRUE HAPPINESS. Argument: - The princess goes in quest of the Prince. Their Meeting and the Admonition of the Princess. Vasishtha continued: - In this manner, the prince Sikhidhwaja remained in his monastery in the forest, in his state of perfect felicity; while the princess remained at home, and did as you shall now hear from me. 2. After the prince had gone away from the palace at midnight, Chúdálá started from her sleep; as a timid fawn lying in the village, is startled by fear. 3. She found the bed vacated by her husband and thought it as dreary as the sky, without the sun and moon. (A deserted wife is as forlorn as a deserted village or desolate country). 4. She rose up with a melancholy face, and with her heart full of sorrow and sadness; and her limbs were as lank as the leaves of plants, without being well watered in summer. 5. Sorrow sat heavy in her heart, and drove the charm and cheerfulness off her countenance; and she remained as a winter day, over cast by a cloud or covered by a hoar-frost over its face.

6. She sat awhile on the bedstead, and thought with sorrow in herself; saying, "Ah woe unto me" that my lord is gone away from here, and abandoned a kingdom for a retreat in the woods. 7. What then can I do now, than repair to my husband; where he is, because it is appointed both by the law of nature and God, that the husband is the only resort and support of the wife. 8. Having thought so, Chúdálá rose up to follow her husband and she fled by the door of a window into the open air. (This means that her spirit fled into air, by the power of her yoga). 9. She roamed in her aerial course, and by the force of her breath on the wings of air; and appeared before the face of the aerial spirits (siddhas), as a second moon moving in the skies. 10. As she was passing at the night time, she happened to behold her lord roving about with a sword in his hand; and appearing as a ghost of a vetála or demon wandering in the solitary forest.

11. The princess seeing her husband in this manner from her aerial seat, she began to reflect on the future state which awaited on her husband; and which she foresaw by power of her yoga. 12. It is certain, O Ráma! that whatever is allotted in the book of fate to befall on any body at any time or place or manner, the same is sure to take place at the very moment and spot and in the same way (and all this is well known to the holy seer and seeress by the prophetic power, which they acquire by their knowledge and practice of yoga). 13. The princess seeing plainly in her presence, whatever is to take place on her husband; and knowing it to be averted by no means, she stopped from going to him to communicate the same. 14. Be my visit postponed to him to a future occasion, when it is destined for me to be in his company again. 15. Thinking so in her mind Chúdálá turned her course from him, and returned to her inner apartment and reclined on her milk white pillow; as the crescent of the moon lies recumbent on the hoary forehead of Hara.

16. She proclaimed to her people, that the prince was gone on some important occasion; and having relieved with the consolation of his quick return, she took the reins of the government in her own hands. 17. She managed the state in the manner of her husband, according to the established rules of toleration; and with the same care and vigilance, as the husband-woman guards her ripening cornfields. 18. In this manner they passed their days without seeing one another, and the conjugal pair lived separated from each other; in their respective habitations of the royal palace and the solitary forest. 19. And in this manner passed on their days and nights, their weeks and fortnights, their months and seasons in regular succession over one and another; the one counting his days in the woods and the other in her princely palace. 20. What is the use of a lengthy description of full eighteen years, which glided on slowly over the separated couple, the one dwelling in her palatial dome, and the other in his woodland retreat. 21. Many more years elapsed in this manner, until the hermit prince Sikhidhwaja was overtaken by the hoary old age; in his holy hermitage in a cell of the great Mandara mountain.

22. Knowing the passions of the prince to be on the wane, with his declining age and grey hairs, and finding herself not yet too old to overtake him in the distant forest. 23. And believing that it was the proper time for her to prevail on him, and to bring him back to the palace, she thought of joining her husband where he was. 24. With these thoughts, she made up her mind of going towards the Mandara mountain; and started from her home at night, and mounted on the wings of air to the upper sky. 25. As she was moving onward on the pinions of air, she beheld in the upper sky some Siddhawomen, wearing the thin bark of the kalpa tree and girt with jewels of clustering gems. 26. These were the inhabitants of the garden of paradise, and going out to meet their Siddha husbands; and sprinkled over with perfumeries, shedding their dews as bright moon beams. 27. She breathed the air perfumed by the flowers of the garden of paradise, and worn by the Siddhas of Eden; and wallowed in the moon beams, waving like the billows of the milky ocean.

28. She felt a purer moon light, as she ascended the higher atmosphere; and she passed amidst the clouds, as the flashing lightning moves in their midst. (The fair princess flashed as the lightning). 29. She said, this flashing lightning though situated in the bosom of her cloudy spouse, is yet looking at him repeatedly with the winkling of her eyes; so must I look out for my absent lord, as I pass like the lightning in the midway sky. 30. It is true, she said, that nature is irrepressible during the life time of a person; hence it is impossible for my disquieted mind, to have its quiet without the sight of my loving and lion like lord. 31. My mind roves and runs mad, when I say, I will see my lord, and when I will see these creepers turning round and clasping their supporting tree. (And all my philosophy avails me naught against my nature). 32. My mind loses its patience to see the contraction of these senseless creepers, and the excursion of the superior siddha females in quest of their consorts. (All animated nature from the vegetable to the immortal are bound by conjugal love). 33. How then and when, shall I like them come to meet the man that is situated in my heart.

34. These gentle breezes, and these cooling moon-beams and those plants of the forest, do all continue to disquiet my heart and set it on fire (instead of cooling its fervour). 35. O my simple heart, why dost thou throb in vain and thrill at every vein within me? and oh my faithful mind, that art pure as air, why dost thou lose thy reason and right discretion? 36. It is thou O faithless mind! that dost excite my heart to run after its spouse; better remain with thy yearnings in thyself, than torment my quiet spirit with thy longings. 37. Or why is it, O silly woman! that thou dost long in vain after thy husband, who possibly became too old (to require thee any more); he is now an ascetic and too weak in his bodily frame, and devoid of all his earthly desires. 38. I think these desires of the enjoyment of his princely honors and pleasures, have now been utterly rooted out of his mind; and the plant of his fondness for sensual gratifications, is now as dry as a channel that pours forth its waters into a large river or sea.

39. I think my husband, who was as fond of me as to form one soul with myself; has become as callous to soft passions, as a dried and withered tree. 40. Or I will try the power of my yoga to waken his mind to sense, and infuse the eager longings and throbbings of my heart into his. 41. I will collect the thoughts of the ascetic devotee to one focus, and employ them towards the government of his realm; where we may be settled for ever to our hearts content. 42. O I have after long discovered the way to my object, and it is by infusing my very thoughts into the mind of thy husband. 43. The unanimity of the minds of the wedded pair, and the pleasure of their constant union; contribute to the highest happiness of human beings on earth. 44. Revolving in this manner in her mind, the princess Chúdálá passed onward in her aerial journey; now mounting on mountains and mountainous clouds, and then passing the bounds of lands and visible horizons; she reached the sight of Mandara, and found the glen and cavern in it.

45. She entered the grove as an aerial spirit invisible to sight, and passed as the air amidst it known by the shaking of the leaves of trees. (The spirits like winds have motion and the power of moving other bodies). 46. She beheld a leafy hut in one corner of the wood, and knew her husband by the power of her yoga; though appeared to be transformed to another person. 47. She found his body that was decorated before by a variety of jewels, and glittered as the mount of Meru with its gold; to have grown as lean and thin and as dark and dry, as a withered and dried leaf. 48. He wore a vest of rays, and seemed as if he had dipped in a fountain of ink; he sat alone in one spot, and appeared as the god Siva to be wholly devoid of all desire. 49. He was sitting on the barren ground, and stringing the flowers to his braided hairs; when the beauteous princess approached before him. 50. She was moved to sorrow at the sight of his miserable plight, and thus bespoke to herself inaudibly in her mind. Alas, how painful it is to behold this piteous sight!

51. O! the great stupidity that rises from ignorance of spiritual knowledge, and which has brought on this miserable condition on this self-deluded prince. 52. I must not call him unfortunate, as long as he is my husband; though the deep darkness of his mind (ignorance) hath brought to this miserable plight. (The living husband however miserable, is always to be called true fortunate by the faithful wife.) 53. I must try my best to bring him to the knowledge of truth, which will no doubt restore him to his sense of enjoyment here, and of his liberation hereafter; and change his figure to another form altogether. 54. I must advance nearer to him to instil understanding in his mind, or else my words will make no effect in him; who treats me always as his young and silly wife. 55. I will therefore admonish my husband in the figure of a devotee, and it is possible that my admonition delivered in this manner, will make its effect in him; who is now grown hoary with age (old age must have abated the ardour of youth). 56. It is possible that good senses may dawn in the clear understanding, which is not perverted from its nature; saying so the princess Chúdálá took the shape of a Bráhman boy on herself.

57. She reflected a little on the Agni-soma-mantra, and changed her form as the water turns to a wave; and then alighted on the earth, in the shape of a Brahman's lad. 58. She advanced toward her lord with a smiling countenance, and the prince Sikhidhwaja beheld the Bráhman boy advancing towards him. 59. He appeared to come from some other forest, and stood before him in the form of devotion itself; his body was as bright as the molten gold, and his person was ornamented with a string of pearls. 60. The white sacrificial thread graced his neck, and his body was covered with two pieces of milk white vests; he held the sacred water pot on one hand, and with his pupils staff in the other, he made his approach to the prince. (The order of the students was called dandi from their holding the sacred stick in one hand, like the pilgrim staff in Europe). 61. His wrist was entwined by a string of beads, and a long and double chain of rosary hang from his neck to the ground. (Double and triple threads of sacred seeds worn about the necks of saints).

62. His head was covered over by long and flowing jet black hairs, in the manner of the strings of black bees, fluttering about the tops of white lotuses; and the radiance of his, shed a lustre on the spot. 63. His face ornamented with earrings, glowed as the rising sun with his lustre of rosy rays, and the knotted hair on the top of his head with the mandára flower fastened on it, appeared as pinnacle of a mountain with the rising moon above it. 64. The husband that sat quiet with his tall stature, and his limbs and senses under his subjection; appeared as a mount of ice with the ashes rubbed all over his body. 65. He saw the Bráhman boy appearing before him, as the full moon rising on the aureate mount of Meru; and rose before him with the respect. (Which is paid to that luminary by her worshippers). 66. Thinking his guest as the son of some God, the prince stood with his bare feet before him; and addressed him saying, obeisance to thee O thou son of a God, take this seat and sit thyself there.

67. He pointed out to him with his hand the leafy bed that was spread before him, and offered him a handful of flowers which he poured into his hands. 68. The Bráhman boy responded to him saying: "I greet thee in return, O thou son of a king! that lookest like a dew drop or the beaming moon-light sparkling on a lotus leaf." He then received the flowers from his hand and sat upon the leafy bed. 69. Sikhidhwaja said: - Tell me O thou heaven born boy, whence thou comest and whither thou goest, as for me it is lucky day that has brought thee to my sight. 70. Please accept this pure water, and fragrant flowers and this honorarium also; and receive this string of flowers, that I have strung with my hands; and so be all well with thee. 71. Vasishtha related: - So saying, Sikhidhwaja offered the flowers, the wreathed blossoms, the honorariums and other offerings; as directed by the ceremonial law to his worshipful lady. 72. Chúdálá said: - I have travelled far and wide over many countries on the surface of this earth, and have never met with so hearty a reception and such honors; as I have now received from thee.

73. Thy humility, courtesy and complacence bespeak thee to be highly favoured of the Gods, and betoken thee to be attended with long life on earth. (Because the meek and gentle are said to be long lived on earth). 74. Tell me O devotee, whether you have ever applied your mind towards the acquirement of your final liberation and extinction; after the abandonment of all your earthly desires, by the magnanimity and tranquillization of your soul for a long time. (It is true you have long forsaken the vanities of the world, but have you set your heart to seek the eternal emancipation of your soul?). 75. You have, my dear Sir, chosen a very painful alternative for your final liberation, that you have made the vow of your undergoing the hardship of this forest life, by forsaking the care of your large dominion. (The care of the state is painful, but the pains of hermitage are much more so). 76. Sikhidhwaja replied: - I wonder not that thou must know all things, being a God thyself and thou wearest this form of the Bráhman boy, yet the supernatural beauty of thy person, bespeaks thee to be an all-knowing deity.

77. Methinks these members of the body, are bedewed with the ambrosial beam of moonlight, or how could thy very appearance shed such nectarious peace even at the first sight. 78. O handsome boy! I see in thy person a great resemblance of the features of my beloved one, who is now reigning over my kingdom (and whom perhaps I will see no more in this life). 79. Please now to refresh thy fair and fatigued frame, with wearing these flowery chaplet from the head to foot; as the vest of a hoary cloud, invests a mountain from its top to bottom. 80. I see thy face as beautiful, as the stainless moon; and thy limbs as delicate, as tender petals of flowers; and I find them now waning and fading under the solar gleams. 81. Know pretty youth that it was for the service of the gods, that I had wreathed the flowers together; and now I offer and bequeath them to thee, that art no less a God to me.

82. My life is crowned today with its best luck by its service of a guest like thyself, for it is said by the wise that attendance on guests is meritorious than the merit of attending on the Gods. (Hence the law of Hospitality is not less binding on the Hindu than it is with the Bedouin Arabs). 83. Now deign O moon faced deva (deity) to reveal unto me what God thou art, and the progeny of what deity that dost deign to dignify me with thy visit; please tell me all this and remove the doubts that disturb my breast. 84. The Bráhman boy replied: - Hear me, prince, relate to thee all that thou requirest to know of me; for who is there so uncivil, that will deceive and not comply to the request of his humble suppliant. 85. There lives in this world, the well known, the holy saint Nárada by name; who is the snowy spot of pure camphor, on the face of those that are famed for the purity of their lives. 86. It was at one time that this Godly saint sat in his devotion in a cavern of the golden mountain; where the holy river of Gangá, fast flows with her running current and huge billows dashing against the shore.

87. The saint stepped out once to the beach of the river, to see how it glided on in its course; like a necklace of gems torn down from the mountain on high. 88. He heard there at once the tinkling sound of trinkets and bracelets, and a mixed murmur of vocal voice; and felt the curiosity to know what it was and whence it came. 89. He lightly looked towards the sacred stream and observed there an assemblage of young ladies, who equalled the celestial nymphs Rambhá and Tilottamá in the beauty of their persons; who had come out to sport by and bathe in the clear waters of the holy river. 90. They plunged and played in the waters removed from the sight of men, and were all naked with their uncovered breasts; blooming as the buds of golden lotuses in the lake. 91. These were jogging to and fro and dashing against one another like the ripened fruits of trees, and seemed to be filled with flavoured liquor for the giddiness of their observers. 92. Their swollen bosoms formed the sanctuary of the God of love, and were washed by the pure waters of the sacred river.

93. Their fullness with luscious liquor, put to blush the sweet waters of the sacred river of Gangá; they were as mound in the garden of paradise, and as the wheels of the car for the God Káma to ride upon. 94. Their buttocks were as pillars of the bridge in water, obstructing and dividing the free passage of the waters of the Ganges; and their upper part of the body, gives a lustre of world's beauty. 95. The shadow of one another's body was clearly visible to the naked eye, on the limpid waters of the Gangá; like a Kalpa tree in rainy season, with all its branches. 96. The thick verdure of the verdant season, had put to shade the light of the day; and the flying dust of flowers, had filled the forest air with fragrance. 97. Water-fowls of various kinds were sporting on the banks, as they do by the sea side and about the watering places round the trees; while the budding breasts of these dames, had put to blush the blooming buds of lotuses. 98. They held up their faces, which were as beautiful as a bud of lotuses; while their loosened hairs hung by them, like swarms of bees; and the loose glances of their eye-balls, were playing as the fluttering black-bees.

99. Their swollen breasts resembling the aureate lotuses, which were used by the Gods as golden cups to hide their ambrosial nectar; therein for fear of its being ravished by the demons and demi-Gods. 100. They were now seen to be hiding themselves in the secret bowers and caverns of the mountain, like lotuses hidden under foliage; and now hastening to the cooling beach of the river, to leave their lovely limbs in its limpid stream. 101. The saint saw the bevy of the young ladies, resembling the body of the full moon complete with all its digits; and his mind was ravished with their beauty (as the minds of men are turned to the delirium of lunacy by looking at the moon-light). 102. He lost the balance of his reason, and became elated with giddiness; and his breath of his life throbbed in his heart, by impulse of the delight that raged and boiled in his breast. 103. At last the excess of his rapture, gave effusion of his passion; as the fullness of a cloud in summer, breaks out in water in the rainy weather. 104. The saint turned as wan as a waning moon, and as the pale moon-light in frost; and like a fading plant, torn from its supporting tree.

105. He faded as the stalk of a creeper parted in two, and withered away as a sapling after it has lost its juicy sap. 106. Sikhidhwaja asked: - How is it that the pure and peerless saint, who is liberated in his life time and acquainted with all knowledge; who is void of desires and devoid of passions, and who is as pure as the clear air both in the inside as well as outside of his body? 107. How is it that even he the holy Nárada himself, could lose his patience and countenance who leads his life of celibacy all along? 108. Chúdálá replied: - Know, O princely sage! that all living beings in the three worlds not excepting even the Gods; have their bodies composed of both ingredients (of good and evil) by their very nature. 109. Some remain in ignorance, and others in knowledge to the end of their lives; and some remaining in happiness, and others in misery to the end of their days. 110. Some thrive in happiness with their virtue of contentment and the like, and are enlightened in their minds like a room by the light of the lamps; and as the bosom of the sea by the light of the luminaries of heaven.

111. Some are tormented by their hunger and poverty, and are involved in misery like the face of nature under the darkness of clouds. 112. The true and pure reality of the soul (divine spirit), being once lost to one's sight (the visible or phenomenal world): makes its appearance before him, like a dark and thick cloud of rainy weather. 113. Though one may be employed in his continuous investigation into spirituality, yet a moment's neglect of his spiritualism is sure to darken his spiritual light; as the apparition of the world appears to sight. 114. As the succession of light and darkness makes the course of the day and night, so the return of the pain and pleasure indicates the progress of life. (This variety kills the monotony of life). 115. Thus the two states of pleasure and pain, are known to accompany over lives from birth to death; as the results of our prior acts (of merit and demerit). 116. This impression of past life marks the lives of the ignorant entirely, as the red colouring sticks for ever in a cloth; but it is not so with the intelligent, whose knowledge of truth wipes off the stigma of their pristine acts.

117. As the eternal hue of a gem, whether it be good or bad, is exhibited on the outside of it; and also as a crystal stone, however clear it may be, takes the colour of the outward object in it (so the ignorant exhibit their inherent nature in their outward conduct, and partake also the qualities of their surroundings). 118. But it is not so with the intelligent knower of truth (tatwajna), whose soul is free from all inward and outward impressions in his life time; and whose mind is never tinged like that of the ignorant, by the reflexion of anything about him. (Knowledge of truth is vitiated by nothing). 119. It is not only the contiguity or presence of things or pleasures, that taint the minds of the ignorant; but the absence and loss also are causes of great regret, from the stain they leave in the memory; as it is not only a new paint that paints a thing, but also the vestiges that it leaves behind, give it also a colouring. (The remembrance of past things, gives a colouring to the character of man).

120. Thus as the minds of the ignorant are never cleansed from the taint of their favourite objects, so they are never free from their bondage in this world; like the liberated sage by his want of earthly attachment. Because it is the parvitude of our desires that contributes to our liberation, while the amplitudes of our wishes lead us to our continued bondage in this world. (This passage presents us with the pains of memory, instead of the pleasures which some poets have portrayed on its face). 121. Sikhidhwaja said: - Tell me my lord, why men feel sorry or joyous at their pain or pleasure, to which they are bound by their birth in this world; and for what is far off from them (either as past or gone and what is in their expectation in future, since both the past and future are absent from us)? 122. I find your words my lord to be as clear as they are pretty and full of meaning, and the more I hear them so much the more do I thirst to listen to them; as the peacock is insatiate with the roarings of clouds.

123. Chúdálá answered: - It is pleasant to inquire into the cause of our birth, and how the soul being accompanied with the body, derives its knowledge through the senses, and feels thereby a delight which is apparent in babes. (We see by observation how babies are pleased with the exercise of their limbs and senses). 124. But the living soul (or the vital principle), which is contained in the heart and runs through the Kundaliní artery as the breath of life; is subject to pain and sorrow by its very birth. (Hence we see, new born child coming to cry out no sooner it comes to life after its birth). 125. The living soul or vital spirit (which is as free as air), comes to be confined in the arterial chains of the prison houses of the different bodies; by its entering into the lungs breathing with the breath of life. (The spirit of God was breathed into the nostrils of man). 126. The breath of life circulating through the body, and touching its different parts or the organs of sense, raise their sensations in the soul; and as the moisture of the ground grows the trees and shrubs on earth, so doth our vitality produce the sensations of the pleasure and pain in the soul.

127. The living soul being confined in the arteries of different bodies, gives a degree of happiness and steadiness to some, which the miserable can never enjoy. (The poor are bereft to the comforts of high life). 128. Know that the living soul, is said to be liberated in the same proportion as it manifests its tranquilized state; and know also that it is bounden bondage in the same degree, as it appears to be sorry in the face and choked in its breathing. (The dejected and depressed spirit does not breathe out freely). 129. The alternate feeling of pain and pleasure, is likewise the bondage of the soul and no other, but this and it is the want of these alternations, that constitutes its liberation; and these are the two states of the living soul. 130. As long as the deceptive senses, do not bring the false sensations of pain and pleasure unto the soul; so long does it rest in its state of sweet composure, and the calm tranquillity of the positive rest. 131. The invisible soul coming in sight of some transient pleasure or want of pain, becomes as joyous as the cheerful sea passing the reflexion of the bright moon-beams in its bosom.

132. The soul equally exults at the sight of pleasure, as it grieves at the knowledge of its unsteadiness; as a foolish cat rejoices to see of fish, which it has not the power to catch or hold fast in its clutches. 133. When the soul, has the pure knowledge of the intelligibles and the cognition of itself; it comes to know, that there is no such thing as positive pain or pleasure; and has thereby its calm and quiet composure for ever, and under every circumstance. 134. When it comes to know that it has no concern with any pain or pleasure, and that its living is to no purpose at all; it is then said to be awakened in itself, and to rest in its quietude of nirvána-extinction (unconsciousness of one's self or its consciousness of itself as a cypher, is termed the state of its nirvána-annihilation). 135. When the living soul comes to know by its internal intuition, that pain and pleasure are unreal in their nature; it is no longer concerned about them, but rests quietly within itself.

136. When the soul comes to the belief, that the visible world is no other than the vacuity of Intellect or Brahma himself; it gets its rest in its quietness, and becomes as cool as an oilless and extinguished lamp. (Here is the vacuism of Vasishtha again). 137. The belief that all nature is vacuity, and all existence is the one unity together with the thought of an infinite inanity; is what leads the soul to its unconsciousness of pain and pleasure. (All is but void and vacancy, and mere air-drawn phantasy). 138. The thoughts of pleasure and pain therefore are as false, as the false appearance of the world; and this error is inherited by the living soul from Brahmá the first of living beings in the world. (The error of taking the unreal for real began with Brahmá himself). 139. Whatever was thought and ordained by the first creative power in the beginning, the same has taken root in the living soul; and is going on even to the present time as its nature. 140. Sikhidhwaja asked: - It is only when one feels some pleasure in his mind, that it runs in the blood through his veins and arteries; but the holy Nárada could not be affected by the sight, nor drop his semen from him.

141. Chúdálá replied: - The animal soul being exited (by the existent sight of women), excites the living breath of prána to motion; and the whole body obeys the dictate of the mind, as the body of soldier obeys the command of their commander. 142. The vital airs being put to motion, they move the internal sap and serum from their seats; as the blowing winds bear away the fragrance of flowers and the dust of leaves, and drop down the fruits and flowers and leaves of trees. 143. The semen being put to motion falls downwards, as the clouds being driven together burst into the rain water. 144. The semen then passes out of the body by the canals of the veins and arteries, as the running waters pass through the channels and canals of a river. 145. Sikhidhwaja said: - O thou divine boy! that knowest both the past and present states of things, as it appears from thy instructive discourse; please to instruct me at present, what you mean by the nature of things by the Brahmic power of Brahma. 146. Chúdálá replied: - Nature is that intrinsic character, which is implanted in the constitution of things at the beginning of their creation; and the same which continues to this day the essential part of the ghata, pata, and all other things.

147. It comes on by a kákátálya or accidental course of its own, as it is compared by the learned with the rise and fall of waves and bubbles in the water; and the marks of the lacuna in wood and iron. (The fortuitous combination of the atomic principles, is the cause of the formation of concrete bodies; according to the Atomic philosophy of Leucippus, Democritus and the Epicureans of old). 148. It is under the power of this nature, that all things move about in the world in the various forms; and with all their properties of change and persistence. It is only the indifferent and inappetent soul that is liberated from the subjection of nature, while the apparent is fast bound to its chains and wander with their prurient nature in repeated transmigrations.

THE PRODUCTION OF THE POT (OR THE EMBRYONIC CELL). Argument: - The birth of the Bráhman boy from the seed of Nárada, preserved in a pot whereby he was called the pot-born, and his education. Chúdálá continues: - It is the nature of everything in the extensive world to be born in its own kind (i.e. the similar only springs from the similar and nothing of a dissimilar kind). All persons and things continue to go on in it by their desires and tendencies, whether it be in the directions of virtue or vice or good or evil. (Nature is the invariable quiddity of a thing; but its desire or inclination is a variable property or quality of it). 2. When this desire or want of the mind of a man is either diminished or brought under his control, he is no longer subject to the acts of goodness or vice but becomes exempt both from merit and demerit; and their consequences of reiterated births and deaths by the utter indifference. (Neutrality in action is the way to one's inanity in both worlds. This is not a right rule since the commission of a good action is as commendable, as an omission in the discharge of duty is held culpable in law and morality).

3. Sikhidhwaja rejoined: - O eloquent speaker! your words are as full of sense as they are of great import to me, they bespeak your great penetration into the depths of wisdom. 4. My audience of the sweet exultance of your speech has given me a satisfaction, equal to that of my draught of a large dose of the ambrosial water. 5. Now be pleased to give me a brief narration of the story of your birth and pedigree, and I will hear with all my attention your words of sound sense and wisdom. 6. Please sir to relate unto me, what the son of lotus-Brahmá - the venerable sage Nárada, did with the seminal strength, which unconsciously fell from him on the ground. 7. Chúdálá related: - The muni then curbed back the infuriate elephant of his beastly mind by the strong bridle of prudence; and bound it fast in the iron chain of the great intelligence. 8. His virile strength which was as hot as fire, resembled the molten moon melted down by the flame of the final conflagration; and as liquified as the fluid quick-silver or other metallic solution.

9. The sage who had a water-pot of crystal stone fast by his side, laid hold of the same and put the fluid semen in it, in the manner of his depositing the liquid moon-beams in the disc of the moon. 10. There was on one side of the mount of Meru, a projected rock with a deep cavern in it; the passage of which was not obstructed by the heaps of stones which lay before it. 11. The muni placed the pot inside that cave as the embryo is situated in the belly, and he filled the pot with milk which he produced by his will; as the lord of creation has filled the milky ocean with its watery milk. (The sages are said to have miraculous powers by force of their yoga). 12. The muni neglected his sacred offering and brooded over the pot, as a bird hatches over its egg; and it was in a course of a month that the foetus grew up in the pot of milk, as the reflexion of the crescent moon increases in the bosom of the milky ocean.

13. At the end of the month the pot bore a full formed foetus, as the orb of the moon becomes full in the course of a month; and as the season of spring produces the lotus bud with its blushing petals. 14. The foetus came out in the fullness of its time, and with the full possession of all the members of its body; as the full moon rises from the milky ocean without diminution of any of its digits. 15. The body became fully developed in time, and the limbs were as beautiful as the horns of the moon shine brightly in the lighted fortnight. 16. After performance of the initiatory ceremonies (of tonsure and investiture of the sacred thread); and the sage instructed him in whatever he knew, as one pours out the contents of one vessel into another. 17. In course of a short time the boy became acquainted with all the oral instructions (Vangmaya) of his father, and became an exact ectype of the venerable sage. (The best son likens his father). 18. The old sage became as illustrious with his brilliant boy, as the orb of the moon shines brightly with its train of resplendent stars.

19. Once on a time the sage Nárada went to the empyrean of his father Brahmá accompanied by his young progeny, and there made his obeisance to the prime progenitor of mankind. 20. The boy also bowed down before his grandsire, who knowing him to be versed in the vedas and sciences; took him up and set him on his lap. 21. The lord Brahmá pronounced his blessings on the boy, and knowing him to be born of the pot and acquainted with the vedas; gave him the name of Kumbha or the pot. 22. Know me O hermit! to be the son of the sage Nárada, and grand son of the great lotus-born Brahmá himself; and know by the appellation of Kumbha from my birth into the pot. 23. I have the four vedas for my companions and playmates, and I always delighted with their company; in the heavenly abode of my lotus-born grandsire - the Divine Brahmá. 24. Know the Goddess Sarasvatí to be my mother, and the Gáyatrí hymn as my maternal aunt; my habitation is in the heaven of Brahmá where I dwell as the grand-child of the lord of creatures.

25. I wonder at my pleasure, throughout the wide extended world; I rove about with a soul full of felicity, and not on any errand or business whatever. 26. I walk over the earth without touching it with my feet, and its flying dust do not approach my person; nor is my body ever fatigued in all its rambles. (The spiritual body is intangible and unwearied). 27. It happened this day, that I came to behold thy hermitage in the course of my etherial journey; and so directed my course this way, to see thee in this place. (This is the substance of my life, as I have now related unto thee). 28. Thus O forester! I have given you the whole account of my life as you have heard just now; because it is a pleasure to good people, to hold conversation with the good and wise. 29. Válmíki said: - As they were talking in this manner the day past away to its evening service, and the sun set down below the horizon; the court broke and every one repaired to his evening ablution, and met again with the rising sun on the next morning.

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME AND ENLIGHTENMENT OF SIKHIDHWAJA. Argument: - Sikhidhwaja's praise of Kumbha and expression of his sorrow, he turns to be a disciple of the same and professes his faith in the vedánta doctrines. Sikhidhwaja said: - Sir, it appears to me that the hoarded merits of all my former lives, have brought you today to my presence here; as an unforeseen hurricane drives the waters of the sea on the dry mountain tops. (i.e. thy speech is as cooling draught to my perished soul). 2. I reckon myself as highly blest among the blessed today to be thus favoured by your presence, and cooled by your speech distilling as ambrosial dews from your lips. 3. Never did a more sensible speech, touch and cool my soul to such a degree as yours ere this; wherefore I deem your holy presence as more precious to me, than the gaining of a kingdom. 4. The unrestrained delight which is felt in general (from the words of the wise), which are free from self-interest and selfish motives; is far superior to the self-restricted pleasure of sovereignty, which is delightful once in imagination only (and not in its actual possession). 5. Vasishtha said: - As the prince was uttering these encomiums, the Bráhman boy Kumbha passed over them in silence; and interrupted him by saying: -

6. Chúdálá said: - Please put a stop, sir, to these words of yours, and give me an account of yourself as I have given mine to you; and tell me who you are, and what you do in this lonely mountain. 7. How long is it that you have passed in this forester's life of yours, and what is your main object in view. Tell me the bare truth, because it is beyond the probity of an ascetic, to utter anything but the plain truth. (The ascetics are names of satyavrata or vowed to truth). 8. Sikhidhwaja replied: - Lord as you are the offspring of a God, everything must be well known to you; and as the Gods are full well acquainted with the secrets and circumstances of all people, I have very little to relate to you about me. 9. It is from my fear of the world (and its temptations), that I have abandoned it and taken my abode amidst this forest; and this though you well know, will I now briefly state unto you.

10. I am Sikhidhwaja the ruler of a country, which I have long relinquished for a seat in the forest; and know, O knower of all truths, that it is my fear of the trap-doors of the world and future transmigration in it, that has driven me to this retired wilderness. 11. It is no more than the reiteration of pain and pleasure, and of life and death in this accursed world; and it is to evade all these, that I have betaken myself to my austerities in these solitary woods. 12. I wander about on all sides, and perform my rigorous austerities without any respite; and I give no rest to myself, but keep my vigils like a miser over his little stock. 13. I am without any effort or attempt, and so without any fruit and fruition also; I am lonely, and so helpless likewise; I am poor and therefore friendless also, and know me Divine personage! to be pining in this forest like a withered tree perforated by worms. 14. I observe strictly all my sacred rites without any fail or failure, and yet I fall from one sorrow into a sea of sorrows; and have grown too pensive, that even the ambrosial draught is unpleasant to me.

15. Chúdálá said: - It was once on a time that I had my great progenitor (Brahmá) to tell me which of the two, the observance of duties or their non-observance for the sake of knowledge (i.e. whether practice or theoretical knowledge); is the more useful to and preferable by mankind. 16. Brahmá replied: - Knowledge is no doubt the supreme Good, as it leads to ones acquaintance with the unity of the Deity and the oneness of himself; but action is inculcated to man at the duty of his life, both for the pleasure and passing of his life time. 17. Let them that have not acquired their intellectual light and the sight of the soul, be employed in their duties by their offsprings and fellow creatures; for who that is devoid of a silken robe, will go about naked and not wrap himself with a blanket or coarse cloth. 18. The ignorant that are actuated by their desires and live upon their hopes, meet with their objects as the reward of their action; but the knowing and speculative theorist, having neither any desire in his mind nor action of his body, meets with no reward of either.

19. An action without its object goes to naught and for nothing, as the fruit bearing plants become fruitless and die away without being properly watered in their time. (There it is doubtful whether the comparison of watering refers to the desire or action. The gloss refers it to the action without which no desire is successful). 20. As the effect of a certain season on plants &c., is displaced by that of the succeeding one; so the fruit of an action, is frustrated by its want of its desire (of the object). 21. As it is the nature of kusa-grass never to fructify, though they bear the flowers in time; so my son, no action can produce any fruit without the desire of the main object (as its final cause). (Here Chúdálá addresses her husband as her son). 22. As the boy possest the idea of a ghost in his mind, sees the apparition of a devil before him; and as a sick man having hypochondria of his malady, is soon attacked by it (so everyone meets with what he has in his mind). 23. As the kusa-grass presents the fair flowers to view, without ever bearing their fruits; so does the speculative theorist meditate on the beauty of his theory, without producing its results by its practice.

24. Sikhidhwaja said: - But it is said that all human desire is vain, and its accompanying egoism is a fallacy; and that they are the creatures of our ignorance, like our error of a sea in the burning sands of a desert. 25. So it is to the gnostic theist, whose ignorance is altogether removed by his knowledge of all things as the Divine spirit; such a man of course has no desire rising in his mind, as there is no appearance of the sea in the sands before the eyes of the wise. 26. It is by forsaking his desires, that a person is freed from his bonds of his disease and death; and his internal soul arriving to the perfection of the Deity, is exempted from future birth. 27. But know the human mind to be fraught with desires, from which the learned few are only exempt; it is by their transcendental knowledge of the knowable one, that the Divinely wise alone are exempted from their regeneration in this mortal world.

28. Chúdálá replied - It is true, O princely sage! that knowledge is said to be the chief good (summum bonum), by the Gods Brahmá and others and also by all sapient sages; and notwithstanding thy knowing of this, why is it that thou remainest in this state of thy gross ignorance? 29. What mean these pots and staffs, these wooden stools and those seats of kusa-grass; and why is it, O royal prince! that you delight in these false playings of fools? 30. Why is it that you do not employ your mind to inquire into the questions as to what thou art, and how has this world came to existence, and how and when will cease to exist (in your consciousness of reality). Instead of making inquiries in these solemn truths, you are passing your time like the ignorant in your fooleries only? 31. Why don't you discuss about the natures of bondage and liberation in the company of the learned, and pay your homage at their venerable feet? 32. Do you want, O prince to pass your life in the discharge of your painful austerities, as some insects finish their days in perforating the stones in which they live?