Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

20. At the end of this sphere, there is the great circle of the universe; having one half of it stretching above and one below, and containing the sky in the midst of them. (This is called the Brahmánda kharpara, or the mundane sphere). 21. It extends to millions of yojanas, and is compact with all its contents; it is a mere work of imagination, and formed of vacuity in the immensity of vacuum (which is the mind of God). 22. The sphere of light turns on every side, of the great circle of vacuity, with all the lightsome bodies of the sun, moon and stars in its circumstance: there is no upside nor downward in it, but are all the same herein. 23. There is no actual ascending, descending nor standing, of any planetary body therein; they are mere manifestations of the intellect, which exhibits these variations in the workings of the mind.

THE VACUUM OF BRAHMA AND THE SIGHT OF THE WORLD THEREIN. Argument: - Vipaschita’s wanderings beyond the sphere of the world and the regions of darkness. Ráma! I have told you all these by my personal perception of them, and not by any guess-work of mine, because it is by means of their purely intelligent bodies, that yogis like ourselves have come to the clear sight of these things in nature, which are otherwise unknowable to the material body or mind. 2. Thus the world of which I have spoken, appears to us as in a dream, and not in any other aspect as it is viewed by others (As either an imaginary or solid material body). 3. Now whether the world is viewed in the light of a dream or any other thing, it is of no matter to us; since it is the business of the learned, to speak of its situation and what relates thereto (and not of its nature or essence). 4. There are the two poles (merus) situated at the utmost extremities of the north and south of the world; and it is the business of the learned, to enquire into the endless kinds of beings lying between them.

5. These varieties are well known to the people of those particular parts; and not to us here, where they do not appear in their native beauty. 6. The two poles (as said before), standing at the farthest extremities of the globe, limit the earth with its seven continents and seas, and stretch no farther beyond them. 7. Now hear, O Ráma, that the whole body of water on earth, is ten times as much, as the extent of the two continents (lit., valves), which are surrounded by it. 8. The two continents attract the circumambient waters around them, as the magnet attracts the needles about it; and the water (in its turn), upholds the continents (and islands), as the Kalpa tree supports the fruits upon it. 9. All things on earth are supported by it, as the fruits of a tree are supported by its stem; wherefore every thing on earth falls down on it, as fruits fall upon the ground. 10. Far below the surface of the water, there is a latent heat underneath, which is ever burning without any fuel, which is as still as air, and clear as the flame of fire.

11. At the distance of ten times from it, there is the vast region of air; and as many times afar from that, there is the open space of transparent vacuum. 12. At a great distance from that, there is the infinite space of the vacuity of Divine spirit; which is neither dark nor bright, but is full of Divine Intelligence. 13. This endless void of the supreme spirit, is without its beginning, middle or end; and is named as the universal soul, the great Intellect and perfect bliss (nirvána or insouciance). 14. Again there are myriads of orbs, in the distant parts of these spheres; that appear to and disappear from view by turns. 15. But in reality, there <is> nothing that either appears or disappears, in the uniformly bright soul of Brahma; where every thing continues in the same manner, throughout all eternity. 16. I have thus related to you, Ráma, all about the phenomenal worlds, that are perceptible to us; hear me now to tell you, what became of Vipaschit in the polar region. 17. Being led by his former impressions and accustomed habit, he kept wandering about the top of the mountain (as he was wont to do before); but fell down afterwards in the dark and dismal pit therein.

18. He found himself lying as dead at that spot, when the birds of air, as big as mountain peaks, alighted upon his dead body, which they tore to pieces and devoured at last. 19. But as he died on the holy mount, and had a spiritual body of himself; he did not feel the pains and pangs which are inevitable upon the loss of the material body, but retained his clear consciousness all along. 20. Yet as his self-consciousness, did not attain the transcendent perceptivity of his soul; he remembered the grossness of his past acts and deeds, and was sensible of them, as any living body. 21. Ráma asked: - How is it possible sir, for the unembodied mind, to perform the outward actions of the body; and how can our spiritual consciousness, have any kind of perception of any thing? 22. Vasishtha replied: - As desire drives the home-keeping man from his house, and as imagination leads the mind to many places and objects, so the mind of this prince was led from place to place (as his reminiscence portrayed them before it).

23. As the mind is moved or led by delusion, dream, imagination and by error or misapprehension and recital of stories, (to the belief of things); so the mind of the prince was led to the credence (of whatever appeared before him). 24. It is the spiritual or intellectual body (or the mind), which is subject to these fallacies (and not the corporeal body); but the human mind, forgets in course of time, its spiritual nature; and thinks on its materiality (i.e. takes it for a material substance). 25. But upon disappearance of these fallacies, in the manner of the mistaken notion of the snake in a rope; there appears the spiritual body only, in lieu of the corporeal one. 26. Consider well, O Ráma! that the spiritual body is the only real substantiality; because all that appears to exist here beside the intellect, is no existence at all (without the mind, which makes and unmakes them). 27. As the mind of a man going from one place to another, passes on quietly over the intermediate places, and is quite unconscious of them; such is the case with the intellect, which passes to endless objects, without ever moving from its fulcrum, or changing itself to any other form.

28. Say therefore, where is there a duality, and what object is there deserving your amity or enmity, when all this totality is but one infinite Deity, and known as the transcendent understanding. 29. The transcendental understanding is that calm and quiet state of the Intellect, which is without the workings of the mind; and though the prince Vipaschit was settled in his spiritual body, he had not yet attained to that state of transcendentalism. (This is Platonism or musing of the soul in itself). 30. He being in want of this percipience, found his mind on the stretch; and with his spiritual body, he saw a dark gloom, as it appears to a foetus confined in the embryo. 31. Amidst this gloom, he beheld <the> mundane egg split in twain, and perceived the surface of the earth, situated in the lower valve thereof. It was a solid substance, as bright as gold, and extending to millions of yojanas. 32. At the end of this he saw the waters, eight times in extent to that of the land; and these in the form of crusts of the oceans, formed the two valves (continents) of the earth (i.e. the Eastern and Western hemispheres).

33. After passing over this, he reached to the region of light, blazing with the sun and stars; emitting flames of conflagration issuing from the vault of heaven. 34. Having passed that region of fire, without being burnt or hurt in his spiritual body; he was led by his mind to another region, where he thought and felt himself to be borne aloft by the winds to his former habitation. 35. As he was carried in this manner, he felt himself to be of a spiritual body; for what is it beside the mind, that can lead any body from one place to another. 36. With this conviction of himself, the patient prince passed over the region of the winds; and got at last to the sphere of vacuum, which was ten times in extent to that of the former. 37. Passing over this, he found the infinite space of the vacuum of Brahma; wherein all was situated, and whence all had proceeded, which is nothing and yet something, of which nothing can be known or predicated.

38. Moving along this empty air, he was carried far and farther onward in his aerial journey; until he thought in his mind, he could see from there, all the other spheres of the earth and water, and of fire and air, which he had passed over before. 39. There were again the formations of worlds, and repeated creations and dissolutions of them to be seen in it; and trains of gods and men, and those of hills and all other things; going on in endless succession therein. 40. There was a recurrence of the primary elements, and their assuming of substantial forms; and repetitions of creations, and reappearances of worlds and the sides of the compass. 41. Thus the prince is still going on in his journey through the infinite void of Brahman; and finds the succession of creations and their dissolutions in it to no end. 42. He has no cessation from his wanderings, owing to his conviction and assuetude of thinking the reality of the world; nor does he get rid of his ignorance, which is from God also. (Man is created in ignorance, and barred from tasting the forbidden fruit of knowledge).

43. Whatever you view in your waking, or see in your dream; is the perspicacity of the Divine soul, and ever displays these sights in itself. 44. This world is an apparition of our ignorance, like the spectres that are seen amidst deep darkness; but know that it is the transparent intellect of God which represents it so, and will ever do the same. 45. And as the dark sight of the gross world, as well as the clear light of its transparency, do both of them proceed alike from the selfsame mind of God; it is impossible to conceive, whether it is the one or the other, or both alike. 46. Hence, O Ráma, this prince being uncertain of the transparency of the Divine spirit has been wandering for ever more, in the dark maze of his preconceived worlds; as a stray deer, roves amidst the tangled wilderness.

VIPASCHIT’S BECOMING A STAG. Argument: - The fates of the four Vipaschitas, and the transformation of one to a stag. I have heard of the liberation of two Vipaschitas, by grace of Vishnu; and want now to know what became of the two brothers, that have <been> wandering all about. 2. Vasishtha replied: - One of these two, learnt by long habit to subdue his desires, and by his wandering in many islands, had at last settled in one of them, and obtained his rest in God. 3. Having relinquished the sight, of the outward livery of the world, he saw millions of orbs rolling in the vacuity and is still enrapt with the view. 4. The second one (or other) of them, was released from his personal wanderings, by his continuance in the contiguity of the moon, where his constant association with the stag-like mark on the disc of that luminary, changed his form to that of that animal, which he still retains in his situation upon a hill. 5. Ráma asked: - How is it sir, that the four persons of Vipaschit, having but one mind, and the same desire and aim in view, could differ so much in their acts, that brought upon them such different results of good and evil?

6. Vasishtha replied: - The habitual desire of a person, becomes varied according to the various states of his life, in course of time and in different places; it becomes weaker and stronger in degree, though it is never changed in its nature. 7. It is according to circumstances that the selfsame desire or object of a person, is modified in different forms; and whatever of these is greater in its intensity, the very same takes the precedence of others, and comes to pass in a short time. 8. In this divided state of their desires, the four persons of the prince, arrived to four different states in their modes in life; so that two of them were immerged in their ignorance, the third became a deer, and the last gained his liberation at last. 9. The two former have not yet arrived at the end of their nescience, but have been grovelling in darkness by their blindness to the light of truth; which can hardly dispel the darkness, that is continually spread by ignorance. 10. It is only the light of philosophy, that is able to drive the gloom of ignorance; which however deep rooted it is, then flies at a distance, as the shade of night is dispersed before the light of day.

11. Attend now to what this Vipaschit did in the other world, where he was cast on the coast of gold, across the far distant ocean of sweet waters, and which he mistook for the habitable earth. 12. Beyond this he beheld an orb in the vacuity of Brahmá, which was as he thought the vacuum of the great Brahma himself. 13. Here he was led by his excellent virtues, amidst the society of the learned; and learning from them the visible world in its true light, he was amalgamated into the state of Brahma himself. 14. No sooner had he arrived at that state, than his ignorance and his body disappeared from him, as the sea in the mirage vanishes before the closer view, and as falsehood flies before truth. 15. Thus I have related to you all the acts of Vipaschit, and about the eternity of ignorance as that of Brahma, because it is coeval with him (because the positive idea of knowledge, is always blended with that of its counterpart or the negative idea of ignorance). 16. See the millions of years, that have been passing in eternity, but the mind by its nature, is quite unmindful of their course and number. (So also is the idea of eternity, of which we have no definite idea).

17. As the knowledge of horses is said to be false, when known, so the knowledge of the world (as a separate existence) is a falsity, but being truly known, it is found to be Brahma himself. (?) 18. There is no difference of avidyá or ignorance, from the essence of Brahma; because the one subsists in the other; for Brahma is the perfect Intellect himself that shows the difference in the modes of intellection. (All differences are displayed in the Divine Mind). 19. Another Vipaschit, that was wandering all about in the universal sphere, could not come to the end of his ignorance (avidyá), in his course of a millennium. 20. Ráma said: - How was it, sir, that he could not reach to the utmost pole of the universe, nor could he pierce its vault to get out of it? Please explain this fully to me, which you have not yet done. 21. Vasishtha replied: - When Brahma was born at first in mundane egg, he broke the shell with both his hands, into the upper and lower halves. 22. Hence the upper valve of the shell, rose too far upwards from the lower half; and so the lower valve, descended as far below the upper part.

23. Then there are the circles of earth, water and air, which are supported upon these valves; while these two serve as bases for the support of other spheres. 24. In the midst of these there is the vacuous sky, which is infinite in its extent, and which appears unto us, as the blue vault of heaven. 25. It is not bounded by the circles of earth and water, but is a pure void, and basis of all other spheres that rest upon it. 26. He passed by that way into the infinite void, as the circles of the starry frame revolve amidst the same; in order to examine the extent of ignorance and to obtain his release from it, as he was taught to find. 27. But this avidyá or ignorance being coalescent with Brahma, is as infinite as the Deity himself; and there she is as unknowable as God, as yet nobody has been able to know her nature. (God and Nature are both unknowable). 28. Vipaschit continuing to mount afar and higher in the heavens, found the nature of avidyá or ignorance to be coextensive with the extent of the worlds, through which he traversed on high.

29. Now see how one of these persons was liberated, and another grazing about as a stag; see the other two fast bound to their former impressions, and constrained to rove about the worlds, which they took for realities in their ignorance. 30. Ráma said: - Tell me kindly, O sage, where and how far and in what sorts of worlds, have these Vipaschitas been still roaming, with getting their intermission. 31. At what distance are those worlds, where they are born over and over again; all this is very strange to me, as they have been related by you. 32. Vasishtha said: - The worlds to which the two Vipaschitas are carried, and where they have been roving; are quite invisible to me, notwithstanding all my endeavours to look into them. (It is the terra incognita). 33. So the place where the third Vipaschit is roving as a deer, is also in a land which is known to nobody on earth. 34. Ráma said: you have <said> sir, that the Vipaschit who is transformed to a deer, has been roving on a hill; tell me therefore, o most intelligent seer, where is that hill situated, and how far is it from here.

35. Vasishtha answered: - Hear me tell you, how far off is that world from here, where Vipaschit has entered after passing through the vast vacuity of the supreme spirit; and has been wandering there in his form of a deer. 36. Know it to be somewhere amidst these three worlds, where he has been roving as a stray deer; because this is the vast vacuity of the Divine spirit; in which all these worlds are interspersed at great distances from one another. 37. Ráma rejoined: - How is it consistent, sir, to say with good reason, that Vipaschit was born and dead in this world, and is still roving as a deer in it? (Why did he wander about in infinity, if he were to remain a finite being herein? gloss). 38. Vasishtha replied: - As the whole must well know all the parts of which it is composed, so do I know every thing every where, which is situated in the all comprehensive soul of God, whereto I have assimilated myself. (Vasishtha means to say, that he knew all in his svánubhava or all knowing mind. Gloss).

39. I know the absent (i.e. all things past and future), and all that is destroyed, as well as all forms of things whether small or great, are all interwoven together and exhibited before me, as if they were the production of this earth of ours. 40. Hence all that I have told you, O Ráma, regarding the adventures of the prince, was the work of his fancy, and took place in some part of this world, where he lived and died. 41. The Vipaschitas all wandered about the other worlds in empty air, and all this was the work of their imagination, which is unrestricted in its flight through boundless space. 42. One of these has happened to be born here as a deer, and it is in the dale of a mountain, somewhere upon this earth. (It is believed that all mortal souls transmigrate to this again, after their wanderings are over in other spheres). 43. The place where the prince is reborn in his form of a stag, after all his wanderings in other spheres were over; is in this orb of earth, where he is placed on a certain spot by an act of unaccountable chance (káka táliya).

44. Ráma said: - If it is so, then tell me sir, in what region of this earth, on what hill and in what forest of it, is this stag placed at present. 45. What is he doing now, and how does he nibble the grass in the verdant plain; and how long will it be, before that veteran seer may come to the remembrance of his former state and past actions. 46. Vasishtha replied: - It is the same stag, which has been presented to you by the ruler of the province of Trigarta; and is kept close in your pleasure garden for your sport. 47. Válmíki said: - Ráma was quite surprised with all the people sitting at the court, upon hearing the sage say so; and ordered his attendant lads in the hall to bring it forthwith before his presence there. 48. Then the brute stag was brought and placed before the open court, when the court-people found it plump and fat, and quite tame and gentle. (Lit.: content with its own state). 49. Its body was spotted all over, as with the stars of heaven; and its eyes were as outstretched as the petals of lotus flowers, and by far more handsome than the eyes of beauteous damsels.

50. It looked with its timorous glances, on the blue sapphires which decorated the court; ran to bite them with its open month, thinking them to be blades of grass. 51. Then as it gazed at the assemblage, with its raised neck, uplifted ears and staring eyes through fear; so they raised their heads, pricked up their ears, and looked upon the animal with their open eyes, for fear of its leaping and jumping upon them. 52. At last the king with all his ministers and courtiers, were all amazed at the sight of the animal, and thought it was all a magic, which they saw before them. 53. The wondering eyes of the assembled people, and the shining gems on the persons of the princes, made the court hall appear, as if it were studded with full blown lotuses all around. (The simile of blooming eyes and blossoming lotuses, is common in all Indian poetry).

ENTERING OF THE STAG INTO THE FIRE. Argument: - The stag burnt in the meditation of Vasishtha, and turned in its former figure of the Prince. Válmíki related: - Ráma then asked Vasishtha, to tell him by what means Vipaschit was released from his brutish shape and restored to his human form again. 2. Vasishtha said: - The way by which a person has had his rise, is the only means that conduces to his success, welfare and happiness in life (and a departure from this course, brings on his ruin). 3. Vipaschit had been a worshipper, and it is by his re-entrance into the refuge of that deity only; that his changed form of the stag, may be altered and restored to its former figure, of bright and unalloyed gold. 4. I will now try the means of his restoration in your presence, as you may all witness it with your open eyes; and this stag will of itself enter into the fire before your sight. 5. Válmíki related: - Saying so, the benevolent sage, touched his water pot with his hand, and muttered his mantras upon it in the proper form (i.e. with fixed attention).

6. He thought intently upon the god of fire, with his flashing flames all around him; and immediately there sprang a blaze of fire, upon his reflection on it (in the midst of the royal hall). 7. This was a pure flame, kindled without any coal or fuel, and burning with a rumbling noise, without emitting any smoke or soot or sloe. 8. Brighter and brighter it burnt in its beauty, and shone as a dome of gold, by shedding a golden lustre all about; it was as flushing as the blushing kinsuka blossom, and as glowing as the evening clouds of heaven. 9. The assembled hosts receded backward, upon beholding the spreading flame; but the stag flushed with the fervour of its former faith, on seeing its adored deity manifest before its sight. 10. As it looked on the fire with its ardent desire, he got rid of his sins, as if they were burnt away by its flames; and then advancing slowly towards it, he jumped at once amidst the blaze, as a lion springs aloft on his prey. 11. At this moment, the Muni moved his mind to meditation, and found the sins of the prince were burnt away from his soul; and then addressed the god, saying: -

12. O lord, that bearest the sacrificial butter to the celestials, recall to thy mind the past acts of the prince, in his faith to thee; and kindly restore him, to his former handsome figure again. 13. As the sage was praying in this manner, he saw the stag to be released from the flame, and running towards the assembled princes, with the velocity of an arrow flying towards its butt end or mark. 14. Having entered into the burning fire, he appeared as a flaming body, and was seen by the assembly to be of a form, as bright as the appearance of an evening cloud. 15. Thus the stag was changed to the form of a man, before the sight of the assembled princes; as a spot of cloud is seen to assume another figure in the face of the bright vault of heaven. 16. It was seen amidst the flame, to assume a figure as that of pure gold; which afterwards took the form of a man, of handsome shape and appearance. (So the funeral fire purifies the soul of its impurities, and gives it a brighter form afterwards).

17. He appeared as the orb of the sun, or as the disc of the moon in the sky; or as the god Varuna in the waters of the deep, or as the evening cloud or rising moon. 18. There was the reflexion of the sun in the pupils of his eyes, as it was reflected on the surface of water, or on a mirror or bright gem; and the fire of his faith, blazed serenely in the sockets of his eyeballs. 19. Shortly afterwards this blaze of light disappeared from the court, as the light of a lamp is blown away by the breath of wind; or as the tinges of evening clouds vanish in the sky under the shades of night. 20. The man then stood as plainly in the hall, as the idol of a deity is seen to stand in a dilapidated temple (without its brightness); or as an actor is seen behind the scene (without his dress). 21. He stood silent holding a rosary on his hand, and having his sacred thread, hanging down a chain of gold about his neck; he wore a robe of pure white blanched by the fiery heat; and appeared as the bright moon, rising before the assembly.

22. On seeing the brightness of his person and attire, the courtiers all and every one, cried out saying, “O to the lustre”; and because he was as lustrous as day light, he was named, “Lustre” by all. 23. The courtiers also confirmed it by saying that, because he is as bright as brightness itself, let him be styled the “bright or Bhása”, the name that he bore on him ever afterwards. 24. He sat in the hall in his meditative mood, and remembered all the incidents of his past life and former body. 25. The assembly was struck with wonder, and remained quite motionless and speechless and absorbed in thought; as Bhása was reflecting in his mind the adventures of his past life. 26. Then the prince rose from his reverie after a short while, and advanced towards the assembly, under his newly obtained title of Bhása or the light. 27. He advanced at first towards Vasishtha, and saluted him with delight; and then addressed him saying: - “I bow down, sir, before thee, as the giver of my life and light of knowledge of myself.” 28. Vasishtha raised him by touching his head with his hand; and said: “May thy protracted ignorance, O prince, dissipate this day and for ever after”.

29. Victory to Ráma, said Bhása, and bowed down to Dasaratha; who rising a little from his seat, thus accosted him smilingly and said: - 30. Dasaratha said: - You are welcome, O prince! be seated on this seat; you have wandered through many difficulties of the world, now take your rest here. 31. Válmíki related: - Thus accosted by the king, the prince now bearing the name of Bhása, took his seat on a cushion, after making his salutation, to the venerable sages Visvámitra and others. 32. Dasaratha exclaimed: - O the pains, that Vipaschit has so long undergone, under the thraldom of Ignorance; in the manner of a wild elephant, tied in fetters at his feet by ruthless huntsmen. 33. O to what miseries is man exposed, owing to his want of precise understanding, and by his false knowledge of the reality of these worlds, that are seen to be revolving in empty shape. 34. How wondrous are these worlds, so extensive and so remote, which Vipaschit has traversed out, and how incredible are the pains, through which he has passed so long.

35. O how wonderful is the nature and glory, of the inane Intellect of the vacuous spirit of the Supreme, that exhibits in empty air, the blank thoughts of his all comprehensive mind, as sole and substantial ones (to the apprehension of ignorant mortals).

BHÁSA’S ACCOUNT OF THE WORLDS AND HIS JOURNEYS THROUGHOUT. Argument: - There is no substantive world, separate from the thoughts in the Eternal mind. Dasaratha said: - I understand that Vipaschit has acted unwisely, in taking so much pains in his wanderings for a knowledge of the spheres; because it is all in vain to inquire into unrealities and useless matters, and it was his ignorance or avidyá alone, that led him to the search. 2. Válmíki related: - At this moment the sage Viswámitra, who was sitting beside the king; oped his mouth and said on the subject now under consideration. 3. Viswámitra said: - O king, there are many such men, who without a good understanding, and for want of best knowledge; are apt to think that all things are possible to be known by them. 4. Hence it is that the sons of king Vatadhána, have been wandering in this manner, and for very many years, in search of true knowledge, all over this earth, and without ever being able to arrive at it. 5. It is for exploring the limits of this earth, that they have been employed with ceaseless toil and unwearied labour, as a river runs in its incessant course for ever.

6. This great world (the earth), is situated as an orb in the air, like an imaginary tree of boys growing in the sky, or as a toy ball of fanciful Brahmá, rolling about in empty air. 7. As creeping emmets move about a sugar ball, without falling off from it; so do all living bodies move about their support of this earth, which is sustained in the empty air. 8. Those that are situated on the lower surface of this globe, are moving thereabouts as erectly, as those that are on its upper side (and though this earth is turning up and down yet no one sides away from it). 9. The sun, moon and planets, together with the starry frame and the heavenly stream (the milky way); are attracted to turn round it incessantly, without ever coming in contact with it. 10. The sky girds and surrounds it on all sides, though the firmament appears to be above our heads, and the earth below our feet. 11. The living beings below the earth, are both moving downward or flying upward, as the beasts and birds on the upper side of it; and the region to which they fly is called the upper sky (whether it be in this or that side of it).

12. There is on some part of this earth, a warrior race by name of Vatadhánas; and there were born three princes of this royal family, in days of yore (and are said to be living still). 13. They were firmly intent like Vipaschit, to know the limits of the visible world; and set out in their journey to explore the same, with a firm and unfailing resolution. 14. They passed from the land to water, and the waters to other lands again; and thus they passed many lives and ages, in their repeated inquiries with their resuscitated bodies in reiterated births (because the steady pursuit of one, follows him in his successive births). 15. Thus wandering for ever all about the earth, they like ants moving on a sweet cake, found no end of it, nor reached to any other spot, beyond the same even in their thought of another one. 16. They are still turning around it in the air, like busy emmets about a roll; and they are yet in the same search without being tired of it. (Alexander said, “Earth is this thy end?” but these princes found no end of it).

17. Because whoever stands on any part of the globe, thinks it as the uppermost, and all other places on every side of it, to be lower than it; and so the antipodes below think themselves as upmost. 18. They then said among themselves that, if they could not find the end of the earth all their toil, they must give up the pursuit and remove themselves elsewhere. 19. So it is with this world, O king! which is no more than display of the thoughts of Brahmá; it is a work or creation of the mind only, and a delusion as that of a protracted dream. 20. The mind is the Supreme Brahma, and Brahma is self-same with his very mind; they are both of the form of the intellect, and there is no <more> difference between them, than that of open air and the sky. 21. The intellect operates in itself, like the running waters in whirlpools; and as the eddies and their swelling bubbles, are no other than the very water, so the operations of the mind, are modifications of the mind itself. 22. The sky which is but vacuum, and was a void in the beginning; shows itself in the form of the world; which is neither created nor ever destroyed.

23. Whatever the intellect suggests (from its preconceptions and predilections); the mind (which is the active principle), obeys the same and is inclined in the same way; and continues to view the outer world, as it has ever existed in thought. 24. The visible world is of the same form, and equally imperishable as the intellectual; it is the eternal God that manifests himself in this manner, which is otherwise nothing of itself. 25. There is an atom of the divine Intellect, an infinity of minuter atoms in the shape of ideas, just as there are innumerable stones in the body of a rock; they reside in the spirit of God, and are as translucent as the divine spirit. 26. They abide in their own natures in the unexpanded spirit of God; but they do not live independent of themselves, as there <is> nothing that is separate from the supreme spirit. 27. Therefore this world is said to be the manifestation of the Divine Mind; and this conclusion <is> arrived at by the learned, by means of their logical consideration of the antecedent and subsequent (i.e. by both their a priori as well as a posteriori arguments).

28. It is strange therefore that the human soul, should sorrow for its degradation and think itself as a different thing, though it is inseparable from the one universal soul. 29. Now let the so called prince Bhása, who is otherwise known as the mighty monarch Vipaschit by his former appellation; what other strange things, he remembers to have seen, in all his wanderings through worlds. 30. Bhása replied: - I have seen many sights, and wandered untired through many regions; and remember also to have felt various vicissitudes in my life. 31. Hear O king, how much I have known and felt, in my course through remote regions in the spacious firmament on high; and know the joys and griefs, which I have enjoyed and suffered, in my transmigrations in different bodies and distant worlds, from a long long time out of mind. 32. It was by favour of the god of fire, and by the good and bad turns of fate; that I have seen a great many scenes, in my course in various forms and lives, like the revolving waters in a whirlpool, with a calm and constant and resolute mind.

33. Actuated by past reminiscence and misled by mistaken view of visibles; I was impelled by my firm zeal to inquire into all worldly things, in the different forms and changes of my body. 34. I had been an arbour for a thousand years, having my senses undeveloped in me, and feeling the rigours of all climates and seasons within myself. I had no mind nor mental action, save those of drawing the sap of the earth by my roots, and expanding myself into fruits and flowers. 35. I had been a mountain stag for a hundred years, with my skin of golden hue, and my ears as flat as leaves of trees; I fed on blades of grass, was charmed with all kinds of music, and being the weakest of all animals of the forest, I could do no injury to any one. 36. I lived for half a century as a Sarabha, a wild animal with eight legs; I dwelt in the caves of Krancha mountain, and brought on my death by falling down from a craig, in attempting to fight with the raining clouds on high. (The Sarabha is a fabulous beast that dies by jumping down the hill).

37. I had also been born once as Vidyádhara, and had lived upon the table land of Malaya mountains, and amidst the happy bowers of Mandara, redolent with the sweet scent of sandal woods and kadamba flowers. Here I have breathed the sweet air perfumed by gum agallochum, and enjoyed the company of Vidyádharí-fairies. 38. I was born as a cygnet of the swan of Brahmá, and tasted the honey of aureate lotuses for more than a century, and sported on the banks of the heavenly stream of Mandakiní, on the celestial mount of Meru. 39. For a hundred years, I remained by the side of milky ocean, feeling the cooling breezes wafting the moisture of its waves, and the fragrance of the forests and listening to the songs of the songsters of springs, which join to vanish the infirmities and sorrows of life. 40. I was once born as a jackal, in the woods of Kalenjara mountains, and roved about the blossoming gunja and karanja forests; here I was trodden down by an elephant, and was about to expire, when I beheld that elephant to be killed by a lion in his turn.

41. I was at one time transformed to the form of a celestial nymph, and accursed by a siddha to dwell alone in some other sphere; where I lived for the period of half a yuga upon the sahya mountain, smiling with the blooming blossoms of santanaka arbours. 42. I next lived as a Valmika bird of raven, in my nest amidst the karavíra plants, growing on the marshy grounds at the foot of a mountain; and there I passed my solitary life of a hundred years, with a fearful breast and ceaseless scrambles on the dreary rocks. 43. I saw afterwards a level plain somewhere, with shady bowers of sylvan creepers under the shade of sandal trees; and beheld some females amusing there with swinging, like fruits on the branches of trees, and to be ravished away by the passing siddhas. 44. At another time, I passed my days as an anchorite, under the shade of Kadamba trees at the foot of a mountain; where I dwelt on the meditation of the single object of my devotion, and thus foolishly met my end with the pain of not meeting my object.

45<a>. I saw also this universe to be full of beings, which fill it as fishes people the ocean on every side; the air, sky and light, are all inhabited by beings, as well as this earth of ours. 45<b>. There is another wonder which fills this universe, as the shadow of the sky fills the ocean on all sides; it pervades in the air, water, sky and light, as well in all forms of things on earth. (This is the reflexion of Brahma in all creation, as that of the sky in water. Gloss). 46. I also <saw> another wonder in a woman, who contains the three worlds in her ample womb; and who is pictured with the forms of hills and all things, resembling their reflexions in a mirror. 47. I asked her saying: O thou big bodied and big bellied one! tell me who thou art; to which she replied and said: - know me sir, to be the pure and clear Intellect, that contains all these worlds within herself.

48. She added and said: - O sir, as you see me so wondrous in my form, so must you know all things in the world to be of the same kind; but people who view them in their natural form find them otherwise, unless they look into them in their spiritual light, when the gross forms vanish into nothing. 49. These numberless beings on earth, are continually hearing, even without the directions of the Vedas and sástras, a warning voice arising from some part of their bodies, bidding them what is right or wrong for them to do. (This is called anáhata dhwani or the voice of conscience). 50. Nature reigns over all elements like anáhata dhwani. The elements appear immovable at sight, but in fact, they possess inherent mobile forces; no one can assign any cause over them except delusion or máyá. 51. I once went to a place, where there were no females to be found, nor had the people any desire for them; and yet many among the living there were fastly passing away, and many others newly coming to existence.

52. I have seen the wonder of some portentous clouds in the sky, charging against each other with a jarring noise; and pouring down their rains with fragments of things on all sides, which were picked up and used as weapons by men. 53. I have <seen> another wonder somewhere that, these earthly cities and buildings, were passing in their aerial course, amidst a mist of thick darkness; and then vanishing in the air, returning to be your habitations here below. 54. Another wonder that I saw was, that all these men and gods and reptiles, having left their differences of species, came to be of one kind in common with all other beings. (All distinctions are lost in the end). Because all things proceed at first from vacuum, and to this they return at last. 55. I also beheld a spot which was full of light, and shone forth brightly without the lights of the sun, moon and stars. I remember well that effulgent glory, before which there was <neither> darkness nor day and night, and nothing else in existence.

56. I saw also a place never seen before, which was devoid of gods and demons, men and animals of all kinds, it was without the vegetable creation, and habitation of any kind of being; and a world where the present and future, and all worlds are blended into eternity. 57. In short, there is no place which I have not seen, nor any side (of the compass) where I have not been; there is no act or event which I have not known, and in a word there is nothing unknown to me, that is unknown to the knower of all. (The soul that becomes one with Omniscient soul, becomes all-knowing like the same). 58. I remember to have heard the jingling sound of the armlets of Indra, which resembled the noise of the rattling clouds on high; or likened the jangling jar of the gems, which glistened on the peaks of the Mandara mountain, in its trepidation of churning the milky ocean.

BHÁSA’S RELATION OF THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF HIS SOUL. Argument: - Bhása relates his repeated births, the wonders he has seen, and the vanity of the world. Bhása continued: - It was once at the foot of the Mandara mountain, that I dwelt as a siddha under the shady bower of Mandára trees; and had been sleeping in the sweet embrace of an Apsara, Mandará by name; when it happened, that the current of a river bore us both away, as it carries down a straw in its course. 2. I supported my partner now floating on the water, and asked her to tell me how could it happen to be so; when she with her tremulous eyes answered me thus, saying: - 3. Here it occurs at the full moon, that this mountain which is sacred to the moon, gives rise to its outlets, which then rush out as rapidly, as ladies run to meet their consorts at the rising of the moon. 4. It was owing to my rapture in your company, that I forgot to tell you of this; saying so she lifted me up, and fled with me into the air, as a female bird mounts into the sky with her young.

5. I was to the top of that mountain, where I remained seven years, with my dried and unsoiled body, as a bee remains unsullied on the pericarp of a lotus flower growing in the bed of the Ganges. 6. I thence saw some other worlds beyond the starry circle, which were encircled by one another like the coatings of a plantain tree. They were bright by their own light, and were peopled by luminous bodies. 7. There were no distinctions of directions nor divisions of daytime (for want of the sun); there <were> no sástras or rules of conduct, nor vedas for religious guidance; there was no difference of the gods and demigods, but the whole was bright with its own light. 8. I was next born as a Vidyádhara, and lived for twice seven years as an ascetic under the name of Amarasoma, dwelling in the grove of kadamba trees, at the foot of a cloud-capt mountain, which was frequented by aerial cars of the celestials, for their pleasure, the sport and diversion. 9. Then I was borne with the velocity of winds, afar amidst the etherial regions on high; whence I beheld numberless elephants and horses, lions and deer, and woods and forests filled with beasts and birds, all moving along in the form of clouds beneath.

10<a>. It was thus with the force of the bird of heaven - Garuda, that I mounted up to heaven from earth, and passed through infinite space, by favour of the god of fire, in order to see the extensive range of the delusion of Avidyá or Ignorance, which was displayed all around. 10<b>. It was thus by favour of the god of fire, and the fervour of my desire to see the extensive range of the delusion of Avidyá or Ignorance; that I mounted up to heaven from earth, with the force of the bird of heaven - Garuda; and passed through the infinite space, that was spread all around. 11. I felt in myself to fall off once, away and afar from the solar world; it seemed to be an etherial ocean inhabited by stars, amidst which I was situated as one, with the consciousness of my fall and course of time. 12. With the only consciousness of my fall from the sky on high, I felt in myself the sense of falling fast asleep from fatigue; and then in that state of sound sleep of my body, I thought I saw the sensible world in my mind, as if it were in my waking state.

13. I saw again the same world within the horizon, and the same mandára mountain of the gods amidst it; whilst I had been fluttering in the midst of its abyss, as a bird sitting on a slender twig, is shaken and tossed about by the blowing wind. 14. I saw with my eyes to the utmost extent of the sensible world, and again and again I was led to the sight of the visibles, and enjoyment of the sensibles only (in the repeated transmigrations of my soul). 15. Thus I passed a long series of years, in viewing the visible and invisible objects (both of my waking and dreaming hours); as well as in passing through the passable and impassable paths (of this and other worlds). 16. I could not find anywhere, the limit of this Avidyá or Ignorance, which showed unto me the visibles only (in my waking and dreaming, and in this world and others). It is a fallacy that has taken the possession of our minds, as the apparition of a goblin takes a deep root in the breasts of boys.

17. This and this (i.e. the visible) are not realities, is the firm conviction of all in their right reasoning; and yet the false sight of this and this as a reality, is never to be removed from any body. 18. We find our pleasures and pains, occurring to us every moment, with the changes of time and place; their course is as constant as the currents of rivers, which are ceaselessly succeeding one another. 19. I remember to have seen a world, with all kinds of moving and unmoving beings in it; and a verdant mountain top in the midst, rustling with the blowing breeze, and shining of itself without the light of the luminaries. (This is the pinnacle of the glory of God). 20. This mountain peak is delightsome to solitary recluses, it is quite free, alone and unlimited, and beyond all fear of change or decay. I have never seen in this brightsome world, a glory which is comparable to this divine effulgence.

STORY OF THE WONDERFUL CARCASS. Argument: - Description of a carcass falling from above, and covering the whole surface of the Earth. Vipaschit said: - I saw another great wonder, in some part of some other world, which I will now rehearse unto you; it was a horrible sight that attends on sin, and which I had to see by my blind attachment to ignorance. 2. There is somewhere amidst the vast vacuum, a wonderfully bright sphere, which is quite impassable by you; it is situated in a vacuity like this of ours, and so different from it, as a city in dream differs from one in sight. (Because the romantic view of the vision is not realizable to ocular sight). 3. As I saw rambling in that sphere, in search of the object that I have in my heart, and looking to all sides of the void; I saw a huge and unmoving shadow, like that of a body of locusts spread over the earth. 4. I saw astonished at the sight, and cast my eyes on all sides to see what it was; I came to find the mountainous form of a man, falling fast from the sky; and hurling down like a whirlpool upon the earth.

5. Who can be this person? said I, is it the lord Virát with his mountainous body, or a mountain falling from the clouds? It fills the sky and the whole space of heaven, and hides the light of the day under its all developing shadow? 6. As I saw pondering in me what might this portent mean; (as whether it was the figure of Virát or the form of Brahmá himself); I saw soon after, the bulky body of the sun falling down from heaven, it seemed to be hurled down by the hurricane of desolation and dashing with a hideous crash against the backbone or great belt of the mundane egg of Brahmá. 7. Soon as this hideous and prodigious body, fell down upon the earth, it filled its whole surface, and covered the face of the seven continents and oceans. 8. I dreaded my imminent destruction, together with that of whole earth under its blow; and determined to enter into the ever burning fire by my side. 9. Then the lord fire - the source of vedas, and my adored divinity in a hundred repeated births, appeared manifest before me in his cooling moon-like form, and said, fear not, no evil will betide thee.

10. I then addressed the god, saying: be victorious, O my lord and adored one in repeated births; save me from this untimely desolation, which is now impending on all. 11. Thus invoked by me, the god responded again saying the same words: “Fear thou not, but rise, O sinless one, and follow me to my region of the empyrean”. 12. Saying so, he made me sit on the back of his parrot, and flew with me up to heaven; by burning athwart a part of the falling body. 13. Getting to the upper sky, I found the body as if it were made of wood, and it was this which struck so much terror below, as it is attended with the falling of a portent - a comet or meteor from above. 14. Then as it felt down in full force, the earth shook beneath its weight, with all trembling waters and tottering mountains, and shaking woods and forests. The mountains burst forth in cataracts, which overflowed on the land, and bored it to horrible holes. 15. The earth groaned from her bowels, and the sky roared on all its four sides; the heavens resounded to the roar, and mountains growled with the fearful howling of all beings, as at the approach of their last doom.

16. The earth groaned under the burden, and all the quarters trembled with fear; the vacuum was filled with the echo of cries rising from the earth, and the Garuda-eagles were on their flight through fear. 17. There arose a harsh and hideous uproar on high, from the loud bursting of the mountains below; and like the crashing and clattering of the dark and dense clouds of deluge, when they are shattered and scattered, by the blasts of diluvian winds. 18. The earth trembled and roared at the impetuous fall of the hideous carcass, and the resounding sky re-bellowed to the sound from its hundred mouths; the mountains burst out on all sides, and their falling fragments and pinnacles, were hurried headlong, and buried underneath the ground. 19. Its fall was as the breaking down of a mountain pinnacle or fragment, smashing the tops of the lower hills, rending and splitting the ground, and levelling all things on earth with the dust. 20. It perturbed the waters of the deep, and hurled down the hills to the ground; it crushed all living beings, and gave ample range to the sport of the agents of destruction (the Rudras).

21. The falling of the sun upon the earth, and his hiding the face of the continents under him; the crushing of mountains and the breaking down of towering cities. 22. The celestials saw all these from above this earth, which forms one half of the mundane egg, turning to a vacuum form; (i.e. vanishing into the air). 23. As I was looking on that mountainous body of flesh, (i.e. the huge carcass); I observed that the ample space of all the seven continents of the earth was not enough to contain this single body. 24. Seeing this, I applied to the good grace of the god of fire; and asked him saying, Lord what is this and what does it mean. 25. Why did the sun also fall down from heaven, along with that corpse; and how is it that the space of the whole earth and all its oceans, has not sufficient room to compass it? 26. The God of fire replied: - Hold your patience, my son, for a while, until this portentous event passes away; when I will explain this marvellous matter fully to you.

27. Soon as the God had said these words, there flocked an assemblage of the celestials all around us; and it consisted of all kinds of beings that are born and move about in the aerial regions. 28. There were the siddhas, sadhyas, Apsaras, Daityas, Gandharvas and Kinnaras among them; together with the Munis, Rishis, yakshas and Patres, Matres and the gods also with them. 29. All these celestials then, bowed down their heads in veneration; and all joined with their prostrate bodies to praise the dark goddess of Night, who is the refuge and resort of all. 30. The celestials said: - May that goddess protect us her protégés, who is immaculate and incomparable, and has the grey braids of Brahmá’s hairs, tied at the top of her khattanga ensign, and the heads of the slain Daityas, strung to the neck-chain hanging on her breast; who wears the feathers of Garuda on her head, and who after devouring the world, drinks off the deep also at the end.

THE STORY OF THE CARCASS CONTINUED. Argument: - Description of the body of the Goddess, and her food of the carcass, and drink of the blood. Vipaschit continued: - All this time I was looking at the carcass, that had fallen from above, and covered the whole surface of the earth under it. 2. I distinguished that part of its body which was its belly, and had hid in it the whole earth, with all its seven continents and immeasurable mountain. 3. I was then told by the god of fire, that there was no limitation of its arms and thighs, and of the extent of its head; and that it had fallen from beyond the polar region, which <is> inaccessible to mankind. 4. The Goddess who is so much lauded by the celestials, is the manifestation of vacuum, which of itself becomes dry (i.e. is naturally empty and void). 5. She is represented as accompanied by ghosts and furies, as followed by demons and hobgoblins, which walk in her train, and shine as stars and meteors in the open firmament. 6. Her long and muscular arms, are stretched to the skies as the tall pines of the forest; and her eyeballs flash forth with living fire, and scatter the solar beams all around.

7. The flashing weapons in her hands, were jangling in the sky; and her missiles were darting like flocks of birds flying from their aerial nests. 8. Her flaming body and flashing eyes and limbs, glistened with the glare of a bush of reeds set on fire, or as the sparkling of a flight of arrows in the midway air. 9. Her glittering teeth, shed the lustre of the beaming moon, and brightened the faces of the four quarters of heaven, with a milk white splendour; while her tall slender stature, reached to and touched the sky. 10. She stood supportless, like the stretching clouds of the evening sky; and was mounted on a dead body, as if she rested on the blessed seat of Brahmá. (Brahma pada the throne of God, Elysium, Valhalla or Nirvána). 11. She shone in her brilliant form, like the crimson clouds of evening; and added to the ocean of the etherial expanse, the burning blaze of submarine fire. 12. She was flaunting in her decorations of human skeleton and bones, and flourishing her weapons of the mallet and others; and darting her arrows all around, as a mountain scatters its flowers all about.

13. She mounted aloft in the air, with her neckchain of human skulls, sounding with a harsh clattering noise; resembling the rattling of stones, falling down a mountain with the precipitate rains. 14. The gods then prayed to her saying: O mother goddess! we make an offering of this carcass to thee; do thou join with thy adherents, and soon take this corpse for your food, and make an end of it. 15. Upon this prayer of the gods unto her, the goddess began to draw in with her inhaling breath, the blood and pith of the carcass into her bowels and intestines. 16. As the goddess was absorbing the dead blood, by her inhalation of it, the red fluid rushed into her wide open month, like the entrance of the evening clouds, into the cavity of the western mountain (of the setting sun). 17. The etherial goddess drank the blood, thus drawn in by her breath; as long as her lean skeleton-like frame, grew fat from her satiety, and she stood confest in her form of Chandika. 18. Being thus filled and fattened, by full draughts of the sanguineous beverage; she had the appearance of a blood red cloud, with flashing lightenings shooting from her eyes.

19. The pot bellied goddess, being then giddy with her bloody drink; became loose in her attire, began to flounce her ornaments, and flourish all her weapons in the empty air. 20. She began to dance and toss about in the air, which was almost filled by the bulk of her body; while the gods kept watching on her movements, from their seats on the distant border or boundary mountains. 21. Immediately upon this, the whole host of her female ghosts and goblins, composed of Rupikas and others, flew upon the carcass, as the rainy clouds alight upon mountains. 22. The mountainous carcass, was laid hold by the clutches of Kumbhandas, and torn to a thousand pieces by them; while the Rupikas bored its belly, and the yakshas gored its back with their elephantine tusks. 23. But they could not get or break its arms, shoulders and thighs; because these members of its body, stretched far beyond the limits of the mundane or solar system. 24. They could not therefore be reached unto by the ghosts, who are confined within the limits of this world, and could not go beyond, where those parts were rotten away of themselves.

25. As the goddess was dancing in the air, and her hobgoblins were prancing over the carcass; the celestials remained sitting on the mountain tops, and kept looking on this dreadful scene. 26. The disgusting morsels of putrid flesh, and the stench of the rotten carcass filled the air and blood red clouds shrouding the scene, seemed as burning bushes, forming the fuel of the furnace (for roasting the rancid meat). 27. The chopping of the fetid flesh, raised a sap-sap sound; (meaning the sap of the carcass); and the breaking of its hard bones, sent forth a kat-kat noise (purporting to cut them to pieces). 28. The concourse of the demons, caused a clashing sound; resounding as the clashing occasional by the collision and concussion of rocks and mountains against one another. 29. The goddess devoured her mouthfuls of flesh, roasted in the fire that flashed forth from her mouth, and the offals and fragments that fell down from it, covered the earth below with filth; while the drops of blood that distilled from the draughts she had drank, reddened the ether with tints of vermilion hue.

30. The celestial spectators saw their premises, within the precincts of the visible horizon; and the surface of the continents of the earth, to present the sight of an universal ocean of blood. 31. All the mountains on earth, were covered with blood, which reflected their redness to the cloud on high; which gave the appearance of a red mantling veil, spreading over the faces of the female regent deities of all sides of heaven. 32. The sky below blazed with the flash of the weapons, which brandished in the hands of the goddess all around; and there was no vestige of any city or habitation to be seen on earth. (Lit.: they were lost to sight, but retained in memory: i.e. things absent from sight, are present in the mind). 33. It was an incredible sight to see, that all the moving and unmoving objects of nature should be engrossed and absorbed in the bodies of the ghosts of insatiate death. 34. The dancing demons were waving their arms in air, in a manner as if they <were> weaving nets for catching the aerial birds; and were lifting and dropping them up and down, so as they seemed to measure the height and depth of the firmament.

35. They stretched out the entrails of their victims, from the earth below to the solar circle above; and appeared to measure the distance with lines and cords. 36. The gods seeing the earth thus endangered by the portentous carcase and its surface converted to an extensive sheet or ocean of blood. 37. They felt themselves dismayed and distressed, from their seat above the polar mountain; and beyond the boundary of the seven continents, where the stench of the putrid carcass could not stink into their nostrils. 38. Ráma asked: - How is it sir, that the stench of the carcass could not infect the gods, in their seats on the polar mountain; when the fallen dead body is said to extend even beyond the limits of the mundane system? 39. Vasishtha replied: - It is true, O Ráma, that the dead body stretched beyond the limits of the mundane sphere; but its belly lay within the boundaries of seven continents, and that its head and thighs and its head and feet were without it. 40. But from its breasts and the two sides and its loins and waist, which lay out of this sphere, one could have a clear view of the polar circle, as well as that of its mountainous top.

41. Sitting in those parts and places, the gods could well behold the pinnacles of the mountain; which were surely bright to sight, and as white as the rainless clouds of the skies (i.e. white as fleecy clouds). 42. Then the maters of furies of heaven, kept on dancing on the wide spread dead body; while the hosts of ghosts were devouring its flesh, as the corpse lay its face turned downwards (i.e. upside down or topsy turvy). 43. Seeing now the streams of reddish blood running around and the putrid stink of rotten body spreading on all sides; the gods all felt sorrowful at heart, and grieved among themselves with exclaiming (as follows). 44. Ah alas! whither hath that earth disappeared, with all the bodies of waters upon her; where are those multitudes of men fled from it, and where are the mountains swept away from its surface. 45. Alas for those forest of sandal, mandara and kadamba woods which had so ornamented the earth! and woe for the flower gardens, and the happy groves of Malaya mountains! 46. Where are those uplands of the lofty and gigantic snowy mountains of Himálaya which appear now to be reduced to lurid clay, by ire of the redhot blood, of the bloody ghost of the carcass.

47. Even the gigantic Kalpa trees, that grew below the Krauncha mountains, in the continent of the Krauncha dwípa; and which had spread its branches up to the Brahma-loka, are now reduced to dirt. 48. O thou lordly milky ocean! where art thou now, that hast produced the moon and the goddess Laxmí from thy bosom; and that didst yield the párijata flower and the celestial ambrosia of the gods of yore. 49. O thou ocean of cards! what has become of thee, that was full with thy waving forest of billows; which rose as high as mountains, and bore about sweet butter with their foaming froth. 50. O thou mellifluous sea of honey, which was bordered by mountains studded by cocoa-nut trees; whose fruits afforded sweet liquor for the beverage of goddesses, where hast thou and they fled at present. 51. O Krauncha dwípa! that didst abound in Kalpa arbour which were inseparably clasped by the twining ivy of golden hue; say where art <thou> hid with thy towering Krauncha mountain. 52. O Puskara dwípa! where art thou now with thy limpid fountains, which were ever decked with beds of lotus bushes, sported upon by the silvery swans of Brahmá?

53. O where are thy Kadamba groves gone, with their outstretched branches on all sides; and whose sheltered coverts were frequented by aerial nymphs, for their secluded amusements. 54. O where is the Gomedha dwípa gone with its springs of sweet waters, and the flowery gardens about its holy places? And where <are> those vales and dales, which were beautified by Kalpa trees and their golden creepers? 55. Ah! where is the Saka dwípa with its forests of heavenly and ever verdant arbours, the very remembrance of whose fair spectacles, raises in the minds the sense of holiness and the sensations of heavenly bliss. 56. Ah! where are those tender plants, which waved their leaves at the gentle breeze; and where are those blooming flowers, which had brightened the scene all around. 57. The devastation of all these beauties of the landscape, fills our mind with pity and grief; and we know not how much more piteous and painful must it be to the majority of mankind. 58. Ah! when shall we see again, the sugar-cane field beside the sea of saccharine waters; and the hardened sugar candy on the dry lands about; when shall we see the sweetmeats made of molasses and confectionary dolls of sugar.

59. When shall we see again, sitting on our golden seats on Mount Meru the merry dance of the beauteous Apsaras daubed with sandal paste in their arbours of tála and tamála trees; and wafted by the cooling breeze of Kadamba and Kalpa trees on sylvan mountains? 60. Ah! we remember the memorable Jambuvatí river, which flows with the sweet juice of jambu fruits, and passes through the Jambudwípa to its boundary ocean (i.e. the Indian ocean in the south). 61. I oft remember said one, the giddy song and dance of celestial nymphs, in the thick and shady groves of sailendra-trees, and in the coverts of mountains beside the heavenly stream; and it rends my heart like the lotus flower, as it opens its petals in the morning. 62. Another one said: - Look at this ocean of blood, sparkling like the melted gold on the top of the golden mountain of Meru; and brightening the beams of the rising and setting sun, or as the moon-beams spread over the face of all sides of heaven.

63. Alas! we know not where the earth is gone, with all her circumambient oceans about the continents; nor do we know where that high hill of Himálaya has fled, which was the resort of many rainy clouds, and yielded the lotus flowers on its summit. 64. We know neither where those rivers, forests and groves have gone, which decorated the earth before; and pity for the cities and villages and their people, that are now to be seen no more.

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE CARCASS, AND THE REAPPEARANCE OF THE EARTH. Argument: - The corpse was eaten up by the ghosts, and its blood sucked up by the goddess. Vasishtha resumed and said: - After the corpse had been partly devoured by the demons, the gods who had been sitting on the polar mount, with Vásava or Indra at their head spoke to one another in the following manner. 2. Lo! the voracious goblins have not yet wholly devoured the corpse; but flung its fat and flesh into the air to prove the paths of vehicles of Vidyádharas; and these being wafted away and scattered about by the winds, appear as huge masses of clouds overspreading the skies. 3. See them also throwing away the relics of their food and drink, over the seven continents and oceans of the earth, and making it again to reappear to view (in the forms of its mud and waters). 4. Alas! that the once delightsome earth, is now polluted by the impure carrion and blood; and covered under the garniture of its forests, as the sky is over shadowed by clouds. 5. The big bones of its bulky body, form the mountains of this earth; and what is this high Himálaya, but the huge back bone of <the> gigantic skeleton.

6. Vasishtha said: - As the gods were speaking in this manner, the demons were employed in the meantime to construct the earth anew with the materials of the carcass, after which they flew in the air, and kept on dancing and flouncing there. 7. As the ghosts were disporting in their giddy dance in the air, the god commanded the liquid portion of the dead body, to be collected together in one great basin of the ocean the abodes of whales and sharks. 8. And as this ocean was from the pleasure (gaudium) of the gods, it is thenceforth styled the ocean of wine (or merriment of the deities; in distinctions from the oceans of milk and other beverages). 9. The demons having done their dancing in the pandemonium in air, come down to drink their full draughts of that Stygian pool; after which they repair to their aerial abysm to dance again. 10. The demoniac orgies are still wont, to indulge themselves in drinking of that bloody pool; and to dance in their airy circles, in company with their co-partners. (It refers to strong drink and drunken sots).

11. And because the earth was besmeared, with the fat and flesh (medhas) of the corpse, it is thenceforward termed the mediní or corpus. (The earth is said to have been formed of the flesh of the dead body of the demon Madhu, killed by Hari in the beginning of creation). 12. At <the> last disappearance of the dead body of the demon, there appeared again the succession of day and night; and the lord of creatures having formed all things anew, restored the earth to its former shape. (This is event of the war between the gods and titans of yore).

STORY OF THE GNAT AND HUNTER. Argument: - Explication of the story of the carcass, and the Narrative of Asura and others. Bhása said: - Hear now, O lord of the earth, what I then said to the god of fire, from my seat under the wing of his riding parrot, and the answer which the god made to my query. 2. I said, O lord, of the sacrificial fire and sacrifice, deign to explain unto me the mystery of the carcass, and the accompanying events (of the goddess and her demons). 3. The god <of> fire replied: - Attend, O prince, and I will tell you all of what has happened; and relate to you all about the carcass, as it is well known in all the three worlds (i.e. in the traditions of all people). 4. Know there is an eternal formless and transcendent Intellect, in the form of the boundless and formless vacuity; wherein there are countless worlds, subsisting as minute atoms in endless space. 5. This intellectual void, which contains all and every thing in itself; happened of its own spontaneity, to be conscious of its contents in course of time.

6. I conceived by its innate knowledge, the abstract idea of igneous particles of in itself, just as you find yourself to be in the state of travelling in your dream; by thinking yourself as such in the state of your waking. (One dreams whatever he thinks in himself). 7. It was thus that the Divine Intellect saw the particles of fire, as in the unconscious state of its dream; and as one sees the lotus dust (for any thing,) before him in his imagination. 8. Then as this Intellect reflected on the expansion of these particles, it became itself assimilated with them; and evolved itself in the thought in the shape of powers and organs of sense, in those particles of its body. 9. It then beheld the sensible organs, as receptacles of their particular faculties; and saw the world with all its beings, appearing before it as in its dream; and as we see a city in our dreaming state. 10. There was one among the living by name of Asura, who became haughty and proud of his dignity, he was vain and addicted to vanities, and had no parents nor forefathers of his own.

11. Being elated with giddiness, he entered once into the holy hermitage of a sage, and destroyed and defiled the sacred asylum in his rage. 12. The sage denounced his curse upon him and said “whereas thou hast demolished my abode with thy gigantic figure, be thou now be born as a contemptible gnat, by thy immediate death under my curse.” 13. The burning fire created by the rage of the sage, burnt down the Asura to ashes, even at that moment and on the very spot, as the wild fire consumes the woods, and as the submarine fire dries up a channel. 14. Then the Asura became as air, without his form and its supporting body; and his heart and mind became as insensible as in a swoon. 15. His sensibilities fled from him, and became mixed with the etherial air; and were hurled up and down thereabouts, by the course of the flying winds. 16. They existed in the form of the intelligent and airy soul, which was to be the living soul in connection with the body; composed of particles of the undivided elements, of earth, fire, water and air (or the air in motion as distinguished from the vacuous air).

17. The quintessence of five elements being joined with a particle of the intellect, begets a motion of their own accord as the vacuity of the sky, produces the wind by its breath and of its own nature. 18. At last the particle of intellect, is awakened in the airy soul; as the seed developes its germs in connection with the earth, water and air, and in course of time. 19. The understanding (or intellectual part) of the Asura, being fully occupied with the thought of the sage’s curse and that of its having the nature of a gnat; brooded over the reflection of the parts of its body, and became the very gnat in its shape. 20. This puny insect which is born by daylight in dirt, and is blown away by the breath of wind, is the short-lived ephemeral of a day. 21. Ráma asked: - How can living animals be born from other sources (as dirt &c.), if they are but the creatures of our dream as you said before? So please to tell me, whether they have really their birth; or be anything otherwise.

22. Vasishtha replied: - Know Ráma, all living beings from the great Brahmá to the animalcule and vegetable below, have two kinds of birth; the one is that they are all full of Brahma, and the other that they are the creatures of our errors. 23. The false but rooted knowledge of the previous existence of the world, and of all creatures besides, leads to the belief of the regeneration of beings from the reminiscence of the past; and this called the erroneous conceptions of births in the visible world. 24. The other is the viewing of the representation of Brahma, in all things appearing to exist in this non-existent and unreal world; and this called the pantheistic view of the world, and not as a production either by birth or creation of it. 25. Thus the gnat being produced by its delusive knowledge of the world, and its continuance in the same state of blunder; did not allow it to see the one Brahma in all, but led to different views and attempts, as you shall hear just now. 26. It passed half a day of its lifetime in whistling its faint voice, among the humming gnats in the bushes of reeds and long grass; and drank merrily their juice and dews, and sported and flew all about.

27. The next day it kept fluttering over a pool of mud and mire, in company with its female copartner. 28. Being then tired with its swinging, it rested on a blade of grass in some place, where it was trodden over by the foot of a deer, which killed him on the spot, as it was by the fall of a rock upon him. 29. Now as it died by looking <at> the face of a deer, it was reborn in the shape and with the senses of the same (from its reminiscence of them). 30. The deer grazing in the forest, was killed by arrow of an archer; and as he saw the countenance of the huntsman in his dying moment, he came to be born next in the same form. 31. The huntsman roaming in the forest, happened to enter into the hermitage of a hermit, by whom he was reclaimed from his wickedness, and awakened to the light of truth. 32. The muni said: - O erring man! why did you roam so long, afflicting the innocent deer with your arrows; why do <you> not rather protect them, and observe the law of universal benevolence in this transitory world?

33. Life is but a breath of air, and overhung by the clouds of calamities, and is as frail as a drop of falling water; our enjoyments are a series of clouds interspersed by fickle and flickering lightnings; youth is fleeting and its pleasures are as the gliding waters, and the body is as transient as a moment; therefore O my child! attain thy felicity while in this world, and expect thy nirvána-extinction at the end.

DESCRIPTION OF THE STATES OF WAKING, SLEEPING AND DREAMING. Argument: - The Hunter’s Inquiry into the means of salvation and the sage’s instruction about them. The Huntsman said: - Instruct me now, O sage, the way to my salvation from misery; and teach me the best mode of conduct, which may neither be too difficult nor too facile to practice. 2. The sage replied: - Now be submissive to me, and throw away your bow and arrows; and betaking yourself to taciturnity and conduct of sages, be free from trouble and remain herein. 3. Vasishtha related: - Being thus advised by the sage, the huntsman threw away his bow and arrows; and betaking himself to the conduct of sages, remained still even without asking for food. 4. In course of a few days, his mind turned to the investigations of sástras; as a full blown flower enters into the minds of men, by means of its far smelling fragrance. 5. Once he asked his preceptor, O Ráma, to tell him, how and in what manner, outward objects come to be seen within us in our dream. 6. The sage said: - This very question, O my good fellow, had also arisen at first under my scrutiny; how these shadows of things beyond us, rise like the bodies of clouds in our sleeping hours in the sphere of our minds.

7. I then applied to my meditation, and practiced the closeness of my attention for my introspection into this matter; and steadily sat in my padmásana posture of folded legs, and intensely intent upon investigation of this incident. 8. Sitting in this manner, I stretched my thought all about and afar; and then retracted them, into the recess of my mind; as the rising sun stretches out his beams in the morning, and afterwards draws them back into its disc in the evening. 9. I sent forth my breathings in quest of knowledge, and then called to myself; and thus continued in exhaling and inhaling my breaths, as flowers let out and contract their fragrance by turns. 10. My breath being accompanied with my mind, was reposed in the air before me; and then it was with the air inhaled by the pupil sitting before me, and intromitted into his nostrils. 11. Thus my breath being mixed with his, was admitted into his heart; as a snake is drawn in by the breath of a bear, sitting with his wide open mouth at the entrance of his hole.

12. Thus I entered into his heart, by means of my vehicle of my breath; and was put into difficulty of being confined therein, by my folly of following my breath in its passage into his breast. 13. I passed there amidst the arteries and aorta, and was led through all the conduits and blood-vessels into all the nerves and veins, both large and small and inside and outside the body. 14. I was at last confined in the cage of the ribs on both sides of the body, and had the fleshy masses of the liver and spleen presented before me. This was the painful habitation of my living soul, and these were as potfuls of meat set before it. 15. My intestines kept coiling within me with a hissing sound, and were surrounded by a flood of red hot blood continually flowing and boiling, like the waves of the ocean heated under the hot sunshine. 16. I had fresh supplies of sweet scents, incessantly borne to my nostrils by the blowing breeze; and these tended to infuse both life to my body, and sensibility to my soul.

17. But then I was tormented as in hell-fire, by the boiling blood, bile and phlegm; in my dark and dismal dungeon. (Which was moreover infected by the stink of dirt within). 18. It is the free and slow passage of the vital airs through the lungs, that regulates the circulation of blood in all parts of the body; and this determines the state of the bodily humours, a derangement of which tends to generation of future diseases. 19. The vital airs pushing against each other, burst forth in explosion within their cavities; while the culinary fire is burning as the submarine blaze, through the tubular stomach, resembling the hollow pipe of a lotus stalk. 20. The external air carries the particles of things, through the outer organs of sense into the body; and these then enter into the mind, either in their gross or pure state, as thieves enter into a house at night. 21. The chyle is carried with a chyme by the internal winds, to all parts of the body by the passage of the intestines; as the outer air bears the low and loud sounds of songs in all direction.

22. I then entered into his heart, which is difficult of access, and I passed therein with as much jostling, as a strong man makes his way amidst a thickly crowded throng of men. 23. Soon afterwards I found the sight of some shining substance, at a distance from the heart (i.e. the culinary fire); as a man scorched by sun shine, finds the sight of cooling moon in the gloom of night. 24. It was the spiritual light, which reflected like a mirror all this triple worlds in itself, and threw its rays upon all things therein; it was the essence of whatever there is in existence; and the receptacle of all living souls. 25. The living soul or life, says the sruti pervades the whole body, as the fragrance of a flower runs through all parts of it. Yet it is the heat of the heart in which it chiefly resides, as the perfume of the flower dwells in the pistils, after the blossom is expanded by the solar heat.

26. I then crept unperceived into that heat, which was the cell of the living soul; and was there preserved by the vital airs from extinction, as a burning lamp in a lantern, is preserved by its interior airs from its being blown out or extinguished. (Because the light is put out in a receptacle). 27. I entered into that heat as fragrance passes into the air, or as the hot wind pushes into the cold air, or as water rushes into a pot (i.e. I pass through several sheaths, to the seat of bliss). 28. I passed into the second sheath, which is as bright as moon light and as clear as a spot of white cloud; and thence I ascend to the fair sheaths known by the names of the cells of butter, sweets and milk-white water. 29. Being tired with my arduous passage through these sheaths, I returned and rested in the genial warmth of my breast, where I saw the full view of the world, appearing as a dream before my sight.

30. It showed the images of the sun and moon, and the pictures of the seas and hills, with the shapes of gods and demigods and human forms; it presented also the sights of cities and countries, and the face of the sky on all sides around. 31. It exhibited also the oceans with their islands, and the course of time and seasons and all moving and unmoving objects to my view. 32. This vision of my dream, continued steadfast and quite alike even after I was awake, wherefore I remained in the same state after my sleep as I had been when sleeping, because the view recurred to me in my waking state, as it had occurred to me in my sleep. (i.e. The world is but a waking dream). 33. Now listen to me, O huntsman, what then I did. I said to myself, “what, is this a waking dream I see before me?” and as I was thinking in this manner, I had this knowledge of it awakened in me. 34. Verily it is the representation of the Divine Intellect, and it is the manifestation of the Deity himself; and all these objects under the different names, are but manifestations of the Divine spirit in various shapes in the world.

35. Wherever there is the substance of Intellect, there is the cosmical image of the Deity impressed upon it; in its empty vacuous form, which it never forsakes (for aught of a gross nature). 36. Ah! it is now I perceive, said I to myself, that all these appearances passing under the names of the world; are mere representations of the intellect, in the form of a passing dream. 37. It is a little expansion of the essence of the intellect, which is termed a dream (or an imperfect view of things); and it is also a greater expansion and extension of the same, which is said to <be> waking; both being the display of the self-same intellectual essence. 38. A dream is said to be dream in the waking state, and not while one continues in his dreaming state, when it appears as waking; so our waking is but a dream, whence the two states of our waking and sleeping dream. 39. Even our death is a dream, which continues with our intellect even after our death; because the intellect which resides in the body, does not die even in a hundred deaths of the body; for who has ever heard of the death of the soul (which is same with intellect) of any body.

40. This Intellect is a void and vacuous substance, dwelling in and expanding with the body; it is infinite and undivided, and remains indivisible and indestructible, both with as well as without the destructible body. 41. The vacuous particle of the intellect, which is indestructible by its nature, and shines forth eternally and ad infinitum by itself; has the so called world for its pith and sap and ever attached to itself. 42. The vacuum of the intellect, contains within its bosom, the minute particles of ideas; each of which represents a part of the great variety of objects, that compose its totality (“as parts of an undivided whole”). 43. The soul breaking off from its view of the visibles, rests in its receptacle of heart; and sees the various sights in its dream, which are unfolded by the intellect before it. 44. Again the soul being inclined to the outer mind of sights, exposed before it by its own intellect; it comes to see the visions of the external objects, which pass under the phenomenal world. 45. The soul sees in itself and in the same state, the sights of all things both within and without it; such as, this earth and sky, the winds and waters, the hills and cities, and all things spread on all sides.

46. As the solar disc which is situated in the heaven above, appears also in the waters below in full blaze; so the soul is situated both in the inside and outside, in the form of the world, (or with the form of imprest ideas in it). 47. Therefore knowing that it is the intellectual soul, that sees the internal dream and the external world in itself; whoso abstains from craving anything is surely blest (because he has every thing in himself. Every soul or mind being full of the thoughts and sights of all things in itself, can be no more in want of anything). 48. The soul is both inseverable and uninflammable (i.e. it can neither be cut asunder nor burnt away); and whoso says otherwise, he must be betrayed by the delusion of duality, as a boy is decoyed by the deceitful yaksha (hocus-pocus). 49. He who sees his inward soul, to view the world internally in itself, is said to be dreaming in himself; and whoso finds his soul looking outwardly on the external world, is known to be waking. 50. Thinking so for regarding the dreaming and waking states, I was inquisitive to know the state of sound sleep, and went on making my inquiries therein.

51. But I thought of what good is the sight of the visible to me? Better remain quiet in myself, because it is the thoughtless oblivion, and consciousness of self, <that> is true insouciance or the stupor or susupti - somnum or hypnotism. 52. As the hair and nails of the body, are never thought of, though they are well known to belong to and to be attached to it; so the mind is quite unconscious of all material and immaterial objects in nature, in its state of sound sleep when it rests in its self-consciousness alone. 53. Tired with the rambles and sights of my waking and dreaming states, I sought my quiet rest in the state of my thoughtless self-consciousness; and this being the sole aim and end of sound sleep, there is no other meaning of the susupti hypnotism. 54. It is possible even in the waking state, to have this sound sleep of susupta hypnotism; by our determination of thinking of naught, save that of sitting quiet in one and same state (of abstractedness). 55. The state of abstraction being arrived at, is termed susupti - sound sleep; but when the sleep is light (Vikshepa), it is called swapnam - somnum or dream.

56. Having ascertained my torpor to the hypnotic susupti, I was resolved to seek after the turíya or fourth state of supreme bliss; and with this resolution, I set out in search of it with my best introspection and diligence. 57. I tried my utmost, but could get no indication of its true form and feature: and found out at last, that it was not to be had without our clearsightedness, as the sunlight is imperceptible to the dimsighted eye. 58. That is called clearsightedness, wherein our view of the world, as it appears unto us is utterly lost; and whereby we see in that light in which it exists in the Divine Mind. 59. Therefore the three states of waking, dreaming and sound sleep, are all included under this fourth state; wherein the world is seen as it exists, in the light of a nihility. 60. This then is the turya or ultimate view of the world, that it is produced by no cause and from nothing; but it is Brahma himself that exists in this state of tranquillity, from all eternity.

61. The impossibility of the pre-existent and primordial causes, precludes the possibility of the production of anything and of the creation itself; it is the Intellection of the intellect only, that gives rise to the conception of creation; as it is the nature of water to assume its fluidity and exhibit its dilation.

THE PERVASION OF THE MIND THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE. Argument: - The joining of the two souls of the sage and his pupil together made them twain, and gave a two fold view of objects: but their union in unity made them one, and presented the one and same view of things to both the united pair. The ascetic sage continued: - I then thought of being united with his consciousness, and breathed out the breath of my life to be joined with his, as the ripe mango sends forth its flavour, to mix with the fragrance of lotus flowers. 2. I did not forsake my vital heat (or energy), until I entered into his intellect; and began with infusing my outward sensations, into the organs of his external senses. 3. I then attracted my outward sensations, by the internal sensibility of my heart, and mixed them with those of his, as a drop of oil is mixed with and diluted in water. 4. As my sensuousness was intermingled with his sensations, I became sensible of a duplex feeling of all external objects, which appeared in their reduplicated forms to my senses.

5. All things on all sides seemed to be doubled about me, and there appeared two suns and two moons to be presented to my sight. So the heaven and earth appeared in their two fold forms before me. 6. As one face is seen as two in some glasses, so all things presented their double forms to the mirror of my eyes. And all these biplex shapes seemed to be as closely united together as the world (i.e. the body and mind). 7. And as the same intellect resides in the form of oil in two sesame seeds, so I saw the two worlds mixed up together with my intellect united with his in his body. 8. And though my consciousness was united with his in the same body, yet it was not wholly assimilated with his (owing to the difference of our desires); but they view the world respectively, in the different lights of milk and water (i.e. as appearing pleasant to the one and painful to the other). 9. Yet as I looked awhile into his consciousness, and compared and measured it with mine; they were both found to be the same thing and of the self same essence. (Consciousness is joint knowledge of ourselves in connection with others).

10. My consciousness was joined with his in the same manner, as one season joins with another (at its end); or as the confluence of two rivers runs together, and as the smoke mixes with the clouds, or the wind carries the fragrance of flowers with it. 11. This our consciousness being mixed up together, the double view of the world now became one; just as the erroneous sight of the two moons in the sky, is soon changed to one upon aright its right view. 12. Then my power of discernment which was in his person, became finer and finer without wholly losing itself in his, and resided together in his very body. 13. Afterwards the faculties of the mind which resided in his breast, were found to be directed to the observation of external objects; and to take delight in noticing the occurrences of the day (i.e. the present objects). 14. He being at rest from his weariness, after taking his meal and drink; felt drowsy and inclined to sleep, as the lotus flower shuts its petals at nightfall, after sucking the nectarious liquid of the lake.

15. He withdrew his mind from observing occurrences, that circulated all about the busy scene of the external world; as the setting sun retrenches his rays from the face of the world, as he goes to take his rest in the evening. 16. The functions of his senses receded into heart, and the operations of his mind retired to his brain, and remained hidden therein, like the members of a tortoise drawn inside its shell. 17. His eyelids were closed, as his heart had shut up; and he remained as dead as a lifeless block or as a figure in painting or statuary. 18. I also followed the course of his mental faculties, and settled with them in his mind, and my senses being under the direction of the mind were reposed in the recess of his heart. (The sensations are said to pass from their organs, and run through the veins and arteries to the recess of the heart). 19. Then insensible of all outward perceptions, and their conceptions too in my mind; I remained with that heat (or spirit) in me, as sleeping on a soft bed, and perceiving naught but a void all about me. (This is termed the blissful state of ánanda-maya - felicity).

20. And as the breathing of our vital breath, was neither obstructed in the aorta, nor passed with rapidity through the lungs, as it does in cases of excess in eating and drinking and fatigue, it passed evenly by its passage of the nostrils. 21. Then our souls remained with the supreme soul in the breast, and kept the course of the naturally ungovernable mind under subjection (of the blissful soul). 22. The soul is then employed in its consciousness of supreme bliss in itself, and takes no notice of the actions of others; and the body also then rests in perfect blissfulness, in that state of sound sleep. (Sound sleep of hybernation or hypnotism is the perfect rest of the body and soul, when undisturbed by dreams). 23. Ráma asked: - Say sir, what does the mind do now in its subjection under the vital breath, which was the cause of its operations in the waking state? The mind has no form also beside the breath, how then does it subsist without the same.

24. Vasishtha replied: - Even so, there is neither the body beside its being the notion of one’s self; it is the imagination of the mind alone that makes the body, just as the dream causes the appearance of a mountain and other things. (There is no existence of the mind independent of the vital air of breathing. Gloss). 25. So there is not the mind also in absence of its idea or thought of something; as there is no production of the visible world, for want of its causes at the beginning of creation. (Therefore the phenomenal world is only the effect of our previous reminiscence. Gloss). 26. Therefore all these are forms of Brahma, as he is the soul of all; and the world itself is not otherwise than the image of God. (Hypothesis of theological Pantheism, that all things are manifestations of God). 27. The mind and body are both Brahma, to them that know the truth; though they are otherwise to our knowledge of them, than what they are in theirs. (The common knowledge of them, is that of Soulism). 28. The manner in which the triple world is Brahma, and how he is the soul of all these varieties; is as you, O intelligent prince, shall now hear me to relate unto you.

29. There exists for ever the only pure Intellect (or Intelligence), which is of the form of infinite vacuum; and it is that alone which shows itself always in all forms, without being either the world itself or its visible appearance. (The formless God exhibits all forms). 30. The Lord being omniscient, took upon him the form of hypostasis of the mind, without forsaking his nature of pure intelligence, and exemption from disease and decay (which the material body is subject to). 31. Then as the Lord thought upon the movement of his mind, he assumed the substantivity of the vital breath upon himself; and know, O Ráma, that best knowest the knowable, that these are but modalities of the selfsame being of God. 32. Now as this inflation of the air, appears to be a model form of the Divine essence; so the sensations and bodily perceptions, and the entities of space and time, are but various modifications of the same being. 33. Thus the whole world is entirely the formation of the Divine Mind, and as this mind is the very intellect of the supreme Brahma; so the totality of creation is only the expansion of the mind of Brahma himself.

34. The formless Brahma who is without his beginning and end, who has no reflexion of himself, and is free from disease and decay, is the quiet intellect and the only quiescent Ens of Brahma, that was the whole universe for its body. (Whose body nature is, and God the soul. Pope). 35. The supreme being <is> omnipotent, and so the mind also retains its potency every where, though it remains as empty air. 36. The volitive mind is Brahma, which immediately produces in itself, whatever it wills at any time; and the reproduction of every thing in the mind, is a truth too well known even to boys. 37. Now behold, O Ráma the almighty power of the mind, which at first made itself (or became) a living being by its breathing; and then an intelligent being, by its power of thinking; and next became the living soul, with its body; it made the three worlds, and became the prime male in the form of Brahmá; it became embodied from its aerial form, in the shape of Virát; thus it created every thing in itself of its own will, as men produce all things in their imagination, and see the cities of their fancy in dream.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DISSOLUTION OF THE WORLD. Argument: - Predominance of the mind over the vital breath, and the view of final Dissolution in Dream. Vasishtha related: - Whatever the mind wills, regarding the creation of the world, the same immediately appears before it; whether it be the production of the non-existent to view, or annihilation of existing ones, or the representation of one as the other - pratibháshika. 2. [Now in an answer to Ráma’s question, “how does the mind subsist or have its action or thought without being moved by the vital breath”, he says that] whenever the mind fancies itself as the vital breath, and can neither subsist nor do any thing without its being actuated by the air of respiration; it is then said to be subject to vitality (i.e. to exist with the breath of a living being and no more). 3. It thinks it cannot live long without the association of respiration (as in the state of transient and breathless dream) but must come back to its life and living action (of thinking) with the return of breathing. (The thinking power of the mind is suspended with the breathing, in the states of dreaming and wondrous sight seeing).

4. Again as the mind fancies itself to be accompanied with the vital breath in some living body; it finds itself instantly joined with same, and beholds the world rising as an enchanted city to view. 5. The mind thinks of the convenience of its union with the vital breath and body; and with this persuasion it is pleased to remain for ever as a triplicate being, combined with its intellectuality, vitality and corporeality. 6. Know now that the uncertainty of knowledge, which, keeps the mind in suspense, is the cause of great woe to mankind; and that there is no way of getting rid of it except of the true knowledge of tattwajnána. 7. He who has the knowledge of the distinction of his self and another (i.e. of the ego and nonego - the subjective and objective as different from another); can have no redress from his error, save by means of his spiritual knowledge of the only spirit. 8. There is no way to true knowledge, except by means of the investigations of liberation; therefore be employed with all vigilance to inquire into the means of liberation.

9. Verily the very conceptions of ego and alias I and another are erroneous, and proceed from utter ignorance; and there is no other means to remove them, except by means of liberation. (The knowledge of ego and tu is the bondage of the soul: and the want of egoism and tuism, leads it to its liberation from all). 10. Hence any thought which is habitual to the mind, comes to be firmly impressed upon it in time; and hence the idea that the vital breath is one’s life and all, makes his mind dependent upon the breath. (i.e. As the thought of one’s being this or that, makes him as such; so the firm belief of the mind as breath, makes it subject to the same). 11. So also when the body is in a healthful state with its vitality, the mind is dependent on it and has its free play; but being in ill health, it feels its life embittered and forgets to know itself in its true nature. 12. When the respiration is quick in discharging the duties of the body, and the mind is engaged in its busy thoughts, then neither of them <is> capable of meditation, unless they are repressed in the breast.

13. These two the mind and respiration, stand in relation of the car and driver to one another, and what living being is there, that is not driven along by them in their train? 14. It was in this manner that the supreme spirit, hath ordained the mind and vital breath, in the very beginning of creation; and therefore this law of their co-operation, continues unaltered to this day. 15. Hence the mind and vital airs are acting in concert in all living bodies, and conducting them at all times in all places in their stated course or action all along (except those of yogis who have repressed them under their subjection). 16. The co-equal course of both, serves to the regular conduct of the functions of life (as in the waking state); but their unequal course, produces dissimilar effects (as that of dreaming when the mind alone is active); and the inactivity of both causes the inertness of the body and soul (as in the state of sound sleep). 17. When the intestines are blocked by the chyle of food taken into them, and the breathing becomes dull and slow; the mind also becomes calm and quiet, and then ensues the blissful state of sound sleep.

18. When the stomach is filled with food, and the lungs are languid with weariness, the breathing then remains without its inflation, and brings on <a> state of sweet and sound sleep of susupti or hypnotism. 19. Again when the intestinal parts are cool and phlegmatic, or exhausted by effusion of blood owing to some sore or wound, and the breathing being stopped in the body, there comes the state of numbness of sleep. 20. The ascetic said: - Then I had entered into his heart, it became all dark to me as night; and he fell into a sound sleep, from his satiety with the fulness of his food. 21. I was there assimilated into one with his mind, and lay in deep sleep with himself without any effort of my own. 22. Then as the passage of his lungs was re-opened, after digestion of the food in his stomach; his breathings resumed their natural vibration, and he began to breathe out slowly and softly in his slumbering state. 23. After the sound sleep had become light and airy, I beheld the sunny world arising out of my breast, and appearing manifest before me in my dream.

24. This world seemed to rise out of the troubled ocean, and to be filled with water (seas) upon its surface; it was released from the darkness of diluvian clouds, which had enveloped it, like the mists overhanging on oceans. 25. There was a hurricane blowing over it, bearing aloft the rocks and stones, in its whirling and uproarious course; and carrying away uprooted arbours, with the furze and grassy turfs along with them. 26. It was carrying away and casting all about, the fragments and remains of the last conflagration of desolation; and hurling down the detachments of celestial cities from high. 27. Then as I was looking at a certain place, I found my self situated with my consort in one of the abodes of a splendid city rising at that spot. 28. And there as I was sitting in company with my consort and children, and attended by my friends and servants, and supplies with dishes and cups of food and drink, I was all on a sudden carried away by the waves of the deluging waters. 29. The flood swept me away together with the edifice and the city, wherein we were situated; and we were floating on the tops of mountainous waves, and buffeting in the water.