The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 3 (of 4), Part 2 (of 2)
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Title: The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 3 (of 4), Part 2 (of 2)
Author: Valmiki
Translator: Viharilala Mitra
Release date: August 8, 2014 [eBook #46531]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOGA-VASISHTHA MAHARAMAYANA OF VALMIKI, VOL. 3 (OF 4), PART 2 (OF 2) ***
THE
YOGA-VASISHTHA
MAHARAMAYANA
OF
VALMIKI
in 4 vols. in 7 pts.
(Bound in 4.)
Vol. 3 (In 2 pts.)
Bound in one.
Containing
Upasama Khanda and Nirvána Khanda
_Translated from the original Sanskrit_
_By_
VIHARI-LALA MITRA
CONTENTS
OF
NIRVÁNA-PRAKARANA.
BOOK VI.
(ON ULTIMATE EXTINCTION.)
CHAPTER I. PAGE.
Description of the Evening and Breaking of the assembly 1
CHAPTER II.
On the perfect calm and composure of the mind 7
CHAPTER III.
On the unity and Universality of Brahma 15
CHAPTER IV.
Want of anxiety in the way of Salvation 18
CHAPTER V.
The narration of Ráma's perfect rest 20
CHAPTER VI.
The narration of Delirium (moha) 22
CHAPTER VII
Magnitude or preponderance of ignorance 29
CHAPTER VIII.
Allegory of the spreading arbour of Ignorance 39
CHAPTER IX.
Ascertainment of True knowledge 44
CHAPTER X.
Removal of Ignorance 50
CHAPTER XI.
Ascertainment of Living Liberation 58
CHAPTER XII.
Reasoning on the doubts of the living liberation 69
CHAPTER XIII.
The Two Yogas of Knowledge and Reasoning 73
CHAPTER XIV.
Narration of Bhusunda and description of Mount Meru 75
CHAPTER XV.
Vasishtha's visit to Bhusunda 79
CHAPTER XVI.
Conversation of Vasishtha and Bhusunda 84
CHAPTER XVII.
Description of Bhusunda's Person 87
CHAPTER XVIII.
Manners of the Mátrika Goddesses 88
CHAPTER XIX.
Bhusunda's nativity and habitation 93
CHAPTER XX.
Explication of the mysterious character of Bhusunda 99
CHAPTER XXI.
Explanation of the cause of the crow's longevity 105
CHAPTER XXII.
Account of past ages 112
CHAPTER XXIII.
Desire of Tranquillity and Quiescence of the Mind 119
CHAPTER XXIV.
Investigation of the Living Principle 124
CHAPTER XXV.
On Samádhi 129
CHAPTER XXVI.
Relation of the cause of Longevity 137
CHAPTER XXVII.
Conclusion of the narrative of Bhusunda 143
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Lecture on Theopathy or spiritual meditation 146
CHAPTER XXIX.
Pantheism or Description of the world as full with
the Supreme Soul 158
CHAPTER XXX.
Inquiry into the nature of the Intellect 176
CHAPTER XXXI.
Identity of the mind and living soul 189
CHAPTER XXXII.
On the sustentation and dissolution of the body 197
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Resolution of duality into unity 204
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Sermon of Siva on the same subject 211
CHAPTER XXXV.
Adoration of the great god Mahádeva 216
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Description of the supreme Deity Parameswara 220
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The stage play and dance of destiny 223
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
On the external worship of the Deity 227
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Mode of the Internal worship of the Deity 231
CHAPTER XXXX.
Inquiry into the nature of the Deity 238
CHAPTER XXXXI.
Vanity of world and worldly things 240
CHAPTER XXXXII.
The supreme soul and its phases and names 247
CHAPTER XXXXIII.
On rest and Tranquillity 251
CHAPTER XXXXIV.
Inquiry into the essence of the mind 256
CHAPTER XXXXV.
Story of the vilva or Belfruit 261
CHAPTER XXXXVI.
Parable of the stony sheath of the soul 266
CHAPTER XXXXVII.
Lecture on the density of the Intellect 272
CHAPTER XXXXVIII.
On the Unity and Identity of Brahmá and the world 277
CHAPTER XXXXIX.
Contemplation of the course of the world 280
CHAPTER L.
On sensation and the objects of senses 285
CHAPTER LI.
On the perception of the sensible objects 291
CHAPTER LII.
Story of Arjuna, as the Incarnation of Nara-Naráyana 299
CHAPTER LIII.
Admonition of Arjuna 304
CHAPTER LIV.
Admonition of Arjuna in the spiritual knowledge 313
CHAPTER LV.
Lecture on the Living soul or Jívatatwa 316
CHAPTER LVI.
Description of the mind 324
CHAPTER LVII.
On Abandonment of desire and its result of Tranquillity 329
CHAPTER LVIII.
Arjuna's satisfaction at the sermon 331
CHAPTER LIX.
Knowledge of the latent and inscrutable soul 334
CHAPTER LX.
Knowledge of the majesty and grandeur of God 340
CHAPTER LXI.
Description of the world as a passing dream 343
CHAPTER LXII.
In the narration of Jívata an example of domestic and
mendicant life 344
CHAPTER LXIII.
Dream of Jívata 349
CHAPTER LXIV.
On the attainment of attendantship on the God Rudra 359
CHAPTER LXV.
Ráma's wonder at the error of men 364
CHAPTER LXVI.
The wonderings of the mendicant 367
CHAPTER LXVII.
Unity of God 371
CHAPTER LXVIII.
On the virtue of Taciturnity 376
CHAPTER LXIX.
Union of the mind with the breath of life 380
CHAPTER LXX.
Interrogatories of Vitála 388
CHAPTER LXXI.
The prince's reply to the first question of the Vitála 391
CHAPTER LXXII.
Answers to the remaining questions 394
CHAPTER LXXIII.
End of the story of the Vitála Demon 396
CHAPTER LXXIV.
Account and admonition of Bhagíratha 398
CHAPTER LXXV.
Supineness of Bhagíratha 403
CHAPTER LXXVI.
The Descent of Gangá on earth 406
CHAPTER LXXVII.
Narrative of Chúdálá and Sikhidhwaja 409
CHAPTER LXXVIII.
Beautification of Chúdálá 416
CHAPTER LXXIX.
Princess coming to the sight of the supreme soul 423
CHAPTER LXXX.
Display of the quintuple Elements 427
CHAPTER LXXXI.
Inquiry into Agni, Soma or fire and moon 438
CHAPTER LXXXII.
Yoga instructions for acquirement of the supernatural
powers of Animá-minuteness &c. 454
CHAPTER LXXXIII.
Story of the miserly Kiráta 455
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
Pilgrimage of prince Sikhidhwaja 463
CHAPTER LXXXV.
Investigation into true happiness 471
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
The production of the Pot (or the embryonic cell) 488
CHAPTER LXXXVII.
Continuation of the same and enlightenment of 492
Sikhidhwaja
CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
The tale of the Crystal gem 498
CHAPTER LXXXIX.
The Parable of an Elephant 502
CHAPTER LXXXX.
Way to obtain the Philosopher's stone 506
CHAPTER LXXXXI.
Interpretation of the parable of the Elephant 510
CHAPTER LXXXXII.
The Prince's Abjuration of his Asceticism 513
CHAPTER LXXXXIII.
Admonition of Sikhidhwaja 518
CHAPTER LXXXXIV.
Enlightenment of Sikhidhwaja 526
CHAPTER LXXXXV.
The anaesthetic Platonism of Sikhidhwaja 534
CHAPTER LXXXXVI.
Enlightenment of Sikhidhwaja 537
CHAPTER LXXXXVII.
Enlightenment of the prince in Theosophy 544
CHAPTER LXXXXVIII.
Admonition of Sikhidhwaja continued 547
CHAPTER LXXXXIX.
Remonstration of Sikhidhwaja 551
CHAPTER C.
Continuation of the same subject 555
CHAPTER CI.
Admonition of Chúdálá 559
CHAPTER CII.
Repose of Sikhidhwaja in the divine spirit 566
CHAPTER CIII.
Return of Kumbha to the Hermitage of Sikhidhwaja 568
CHAPTER CIV.
On the conduct of living-liberated men 575
CHAPTER CV.
Metamorphoses of Kumbha to a female form 580
CHAPTER CVI.
Marriage of Chúdálá with Sikhidhwaja 586
CHAPTER CVII.
The advent of false Indra in the cottage of the happy
pair 593
CHAPTER CVIII.
Manifestation of Chúdálá in her own form 597
CHAPTER CIX.
Appearance of Chúdálá in her presence of her Lord 601
CHAPTER CX.
Final extinction of Sikhidhwaja 610
CHAPTER CXI.
Story of Kacha and his enlightment by the Brihaspati 614
CHAPTER CXII.
A fanciful Being and his occupation of air drawn and
air-built abodes 619
CHAPTER CXIII.
The parable of the vain man continued 623
CHAPTER CXIV.
Sermon on Divine and Holy knowledge 626
CHAPTER CXV.
Description of the triple conduct of men 630
CHAPTER CXVI.
Melting down of the mind 636
CHAPTER CXVII.
Dialogue between Manu and Ikshaku 638
CHAPTER CXVIII.
Continuation of the same 640
CHAPTER CXIX.
The same subject continued 643
CHAPTER CXX.
Continuation of the same. On the seven stages of
Edification 645
CHAPTER CXXI.
Continuation of the same 649
CHAPTER CXXII.
The same. Manu's admonition to Ikshaku 652
CHAPTER CXXIII.
On the difference between the knowing and unknowing 655
CHAPTER CXXIV.
The story of the stag and the huntsman 656
CHAPTER CXXV.
The means of attaining the steadiness of the Turya
state 661
CHAPTER CXXVI.
Description of the spiritual state 663
CHAPTER CXXVII.
Admonition to Bharadwája 675
CHAPTER CXXVIII.
Resuscitation of Ráma 683
YOGA VASISHTHA
BOOK VI.
NIRVÁNA-PRAKARANA.
ON ULTIMATE EXTINCTION.
PÚRVÁRDHA.
OR THE FORMER OR FIRST HALF.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
DESCRIPTION OF THE EVENING AND BREAKING
OF THE ASSEMBLY.
Argument.--The close of the day, its announcement, the court
breaks for Evening service, and the effect of the Sage's sermon on
the Audience.
Válmíki says:--You have heard the relation of the subject of Stoicism
or composure of the soul; attend now to that of Nirvána, which will
teach you how to attain the final liberation of yourselves[A].
[A] Note. Nirvána or ultimate annihilation of the living or animal
soul, being the aim and end of Buddhism, it is doubtful whether
Vasishtha had derived his doctrine from the Buddhists or they from him.
2. As the chief of Sages was saying his magniloquent speech in this
manner, and the princes remained mute with their intense attention to
the ravishing oration of the Sage:
3. The assembled chiefs remained there as silent and motionless
portraits, and forgot their devotions and duties, by being impressed in
their minds with the sense and words of the Sage's speech.
4. The assemblage of Saints, was reverently pondering upon the deep
sense of the words of the Sage, with their curled brows and signs of
their index fingers (indicating their wonder).
5. The ladies in the Seraglio were lost in wonder, and turned upward
their wondering eyes, resembling a cluster of black bees, sucking
intently the nectarious honey of the new blown flowers (of the Sage's
speech).
6. The glorious sun sank down in the sky, at the fourth or last watch
of the day; and was shorn of his radiant beams as he was setting in the
west (as a man becomes mild with his knowledge, of truth at the end of
his journey through life).
7. The winds blew softly at the eve of the day, as if to listen to the
sermon of the Sage, and wafted about the sweets of his moving speech,
like the fragrance of the gently shaking mandara flowers.
8. All other sounds were drowned in the deep meditation of the
audience, as when the humming of the bumble bees, is pushed in their
repose, amidst the cell of blooming flowers at night.
9. The bubbling waters of the pearly lakes, sparkled unmoved amidst
their embordered beds; as if they were intently attentive to listen
to the words of the Sage, which dropped as strings of pearls from his
flippant lips. (So the verse of Hafiz affixed to the title page of Sir
William Jones' Persian grammar: "Thou hast spoken thy verse, and strung
a string of pearls").
10. The pencil of the declining ray penetrating the windows of the
palace, bespoke the halting of the departing sun, under the cooling
shade of the royal canopy, after his weary journey all along the
livelong day.
11. The pearly rays (or bright beams) of the parting day, being covered
by the dust and mist of the dusk, it seemed to be besmeared as the body
of a dervish with dust and ashes; and had gained its coolness after its
journey under the burning sun (The cool and dusky eve of the day is
compared with the dust-sprinkled body of the ascetic approaching to his
cell).
12. The chiefs of men with their heads and hands decorated with
flowers, were so regaled with the sweet speech of the Sage, that they
altogether remained enrapt in their senses and minds.
13. The ladies listening to the sage, were now roused by the cries of
their infants and the birds in their cages, to get up from the place
and to give them their suck and food. (It means that the birds and
boys, were alone insensible of the Sage's discourse).
14. Now the dust flung by the pinions of fluttering bees, covered
the petals of the night blooming kumuda flowers; and the flapping
_chouries_ were now at rest, with the tremulous eyelids of the princes.
15. The rays of the sun, fearing to be waylaid by the dark night shade,
which had now got loose from the dark mountain caves, fled through the
windows to the inner apartment of the palace (which was already lighted
with lamps).
16. The time watches of the royal palace, knowing it to be passed
the fourth watch of the day, sounded aloud their drums and trumpets,
mingled with the sound of conch-shells, loudly resounding on all sides.
17. The high-sounding speech of the sage, was drowned under the loud
peal of the jarring instruments; as the sonorous sound of the peacock,
is hushed under the uproar of roaring clouds.
18. The birds in the cages, began to quake and shake their wings with
fear; and the leaves and branches of the lofty palm trees, shook in the
gardens, as by a tremendous earthquake.
19. The babes sleeping on the breasts of their nurses, trembled with
fear at the loud uproar; and they cried as the smoking clouds of the
rainy season, resounding between the two mountain craigs resembling the
breasts. (It is common in Indian poetry to compare the swelling breasts
to rising hills, and say _Kucha giri_).
20. This noise made the helmets of the chieftains, shed the dust of
their decorating flowers all about the hall; as the moving waves of the
lake, sprinkle the drops of water upon the land.[A]
[A] In this verse there is the continuation of the world shaking
understood through the intermediate steps. Thus the noise startled
the chiefs, which shook their bodies, and these shook their heads,
which caused their helmets to shake: these again shook the garlands of
flowers upon them, and at last shed their dust on the ground. This kind
of figure is called Krama mála corresponding with Metalepsis gradation;
as we have in the following instance of Dido's exclamation in Virgil.
"Happy, Oh truly happy had I been; if Trojan ships these coasts had
never seen." Here the first seeing is that of the ships and then of the
Trojans in them, and afterwards of Æneas as one among them, and then of
her seeing him, and his seeing her, and lastly of her passion at his
sight.
21. Thus the palace of Dasharatha being full of trepidation at the
close of the day, regained its quiet at the gradual fall of the fanfare
of sounding conch shells, and the hubbub of drum beatings at the
advance of night.
22. The Sage put a stop to his present discourse, and addressed Ráma
then sitting in the midst of the assembly, in a sweet voice and
graceful language. (Mudhura-Vritti is the middle or graceful style
between the high and low).
23. Vasishtha said:--O Rághava! I have already spread before you the
long net of my verbosity; do you entrap your flying mind in the same
way, and bring it to your bosom and under your subjection.
24. Take the purport of my discourse in such manner, as to leave out
what is unintelligible, and lay hold on its substance; as the swan
separates and sucks the milk which is mixed with water.
25. Ponder upon it repeatedly, and consider it well in thy mind, and
go on in this way to conduct yourself in life (_viz_ by suppression
of your desires, weakening the mind, restraining the breathing, and
acquiring of knowledge).
26. By going on in this manner, you are sure to evade all dangers; or
else you must fall ere long like the heavy elephant, in some pitfall
of the Vindhya mountain. (Pitfalls are the only means of catching
elephants).
27. If you do not receive my words with attention, and act accordingly,
you are sure to fall into the pit like a blind man left to go alone in
the dark; and to be blown away like a lighted lamp, exposed in the open
air.
28. In order to derive the benefit of my lectures, you must continue
in the discharge of your usual duties with indifference, and knowing
_insouciance_ to be the right dictum of the _sástras_, be you
regardless of everything besides.
29. Now I bid you, O mighty monarch, and ye, princes and chiefs, and
all ye present in this place, to get up and attend to the evening
services of your daily ritual. (Abnika).
30. Let all attend to this much at present, as the day is drawing to
its close; and we shall consider the rest, on our meeting in the next
morning.
31. Válmíki related:--After the Sage had said so far, the assembly
broke, off; and the assembled chiefs and princes rose up, with their
faces blooming as the full blown lotuses at the end of the day.
32. The Chiefs having paid their obeisance to the monarch, and made
their salutation to Ráma, they did their reverence to the sage, and
departed to their respective abodes.
33. Vasishtha rose up from his seat with the royal sage Viswámitra, and
they were saluted on their departure by the aerial spirits, who had
attended the audience all along.
34. The Sages were followed closely, by the king and chieftains a long
way, and they parted after accosting them, according to their rank and
dignity on the way;
35. The celestials took their leave of the sage, and betook to their
heavenward journey; and the _munis_ repaired to their hermitages in
the woods, when some of the saints turned about the palace, like bees
flying in about the lotus bush (different directions).
36. The king having offered handfuls of fresh flowers at the feet of
Vasishtha, entered the royal seraglio with his royal consorts.
37. But Ráma and his brother princes, kept company with the sage to his
hermitage; and having prostrated themselves at his feet, they returned
to their princely mansions.
38. The hearers of the sage having arrived at their houses made their
ablutions; then worshipped the gods, and offered their offerings to the
manes of their ancestors. They then treated their guests and gave alms
to beggars.
39. Then they took their meals with their Brahman guests, and members
of the family; and their dependants and servants were fed one after the
other, according to the rules and customs of their order and caste.
40. After the sun had set down, with the diurnal duties of men, there
rose the bright moon on high, with impositions of many nocturnal duties
on mankind.
41. At last the great king and the princes, and chiefs of men and the
_munis_, together with the sages and saints, and all other terrestrial
beings, betook themselves to their several beds, with silken coverlets
and bed cloths of various kinds.
42. They lay thinking intensely in themselves, on the admonitions of
the sage Vasishtha; on the mode of their passing over the boisterous
gulf of this world, by means of this spiritual knowledge.
43. Then they slept and lay with their closed eyelids, for one watch of
the night only; and then opened their eyes, like the opening buds of
lotuses, to see the light of the day.
44. Ráma and his brother princes, passed full three watches of the
night in waking; and pondering over the deep sense of the lectures,
of their spiritual guide--Vasishtha. (The present ritual allots three
watches of the night to sleep, while formerly they gave but one watch
to it).
45. They slept only one and a half watch of the night, with their
closed eye lids; and then they shook off the dullness of their sleep,
after driving the lassitude of their bodies by a short nap.
46. Now the minds of these, being full of good will, raised by the
rising reason in their souls, and knowledge of truth; they felt the
crescent of spiritual light lightening their dark bosoms, as the
sextant of the moon, illumes the gloom of night; which afterwards
disappeared at the approach of daylight, and the gathering broils of
daytime.
CHAPTER II.
ON THE PERFECT CALM AND COMPOSURE OF THE MIND.
Argument.--The sages joining the assembly the next morning, and
preaching of Divine knowledge to it.
Válmíki related: Then the shade of night, with her face as dark as that
of the darkened moon, began to waste and wane away; as the darkness of
ignorance and the mists of human wishes, vanish before the light of
reason.
2. Now the rising sun showed his crown of golden rays, on the top
of the eastern mountain, by leaving his rival darkness to take its
rest, beyond the western or his setting mount of _astáchala_ (the two
mountains mean the eastern and western horizons).
3. Now the morning breeze began to blow, being moistened by the
moon-beams, and bearing the particles of ice, as if to wash the face
and eyes of the rising sun.
4. Now rose Ráma and Lakshmana, with their attendants also, from their
beds and couches; and after discharging their morning services, they
repaired to the holy hermitage of Vasishtha.
5. There they saw the Sage coming out of his closet, after discharge
of his morning devotion; and worshipped his feet with offerings of
_arghya_ (or flowers and presents worthy of him).
6. In a moment afterwards, the hermitage of the Sage was thronged by
_munis_ and Bráhmans, and the other princes and chiefs, whose vehicles
and cars and horses and elephants, blocked the pathways altogether.
7. Then the Sage being accompanied by these, and attended by their
suite and armies; and followed by Ráma and his brothers, was escorted
to the palace of the Sovereign King Dasaratha.
8. The king who had discharged his morning service, hastened to
receive the Sage before hand; and walked a great way to welcome him,
and do him honour and pay his homage.
9. They entered the court hall, which was adorned with flowers and
strings of gems and pearls; and there they seated themselves on the
rich sofas and seats, which were set in rows for their reception.
10. In a short time the whole audience of the last day, composed both
of the terrestrial men and celestial spirits, were all assembled at the
spot, and seated in their respective seats of honor.
11. All these entered that graceful hall, and saluted one another
with respect; and then the royal court shone as brilliant as a bed of
blooming lotuses, gently moved by the fanning breeze.
12. The mixed assemblage of the _munis_ and _rishis_ or the saints and
Sages, and the _Vipras_ and _Rájas_ or the Bráhmans and Kshatriyas, sat
in proper order, on seats appropriated for all of them.
13. The soft sounds of their mutual greetings and welcomes, gradually
faded away; and the sweet voice of the panegyrists and encomiasts,
sitting in a corner of the hall, was all hushed and lulled to silence.
14. The sun-beams appearing through the chinks in the windows, seemed
to be waiting in order to join the audience, and to listen to the
lectures of the Sage. (Another translation has it thus:--The audience
crept in the hall, no sooner the sun-beams peeped through the windows).
15. The jingling sound of bracelets, caused by the shaking of hands of
the visitors in the hall; was likely to lull to sleep the hearers of
the sage. (It was a custom in olden times, to make a tinkling sound to
ear, in order to lull one to sleep, as by a kind of mesmerism).
16. Then as Kumára looked reverently on the countenance of his sire
Siva, and as Kacha looked with veneration upon the face of the
preceptor of the God or Brihaspati; and as Prahlada gazed upon the face
of Shukra--the preceptor of demons, and as Suparna viewed the visage of
Krishna.
17. So did Ráma gloat upon the countenance of Vasishtha, and his
eye-balls rolled upon it, like the black bees fluttering about a full
blown lotus.
18. The sage resumed the link of his last lecture, and delivered his
eloquent speech to Ráma, who was well versed in eloquence also.
19. Vasishtha said:--Do you remember Ráma! the lecture that I gave
yesterday, which was fraught with deep sense and knowledge of
transcendental truth?
20. I will now tell you of some other things for your instruction, and
you shall have to hear it with attention, for consummation of your
spiritual wisdom.
21. Whereas it is the habit of dispassionateness, and the knowledge of
truth; whereby we are enabled to ford over the boisterous ocean of the
world, you must learn therefore, O Ráma! to practice and gain these
betimes.
22. Your full knowledge of all truth, will drive away your bias in
untruth; and your riddance from all desire, will save you from all
sorrow. (Desire is a burning fire, but want of yearning is want of pain
and sorrowing).
23. There exists but one Brahma, unbounded by space and time; He is
never limited by either of them; and is the world himself, though it
appears to be a distinct duality beside Him.
24. Brahma abides in all infinity and eternity, and is not limited
in any thing; He is tranquil and shines with equal effulgence on
all bodies; He cannot be any particular thing, beside his nature of
universality.
25. Knowing the nature of Brahma as such, be you freed from the
knowledge of your egoism (personality); and knowing yourself as the
same with him, think yourself as bodiless and as great as he; and thus
enjoy the tranquillity and felicity of your soul.
26. There is neither the mind nor the _avidyá_ (or ignorance), nor
the living principle, as distinct things in reality; they are all
fictitious terms (for the one and same nameless Brahma himself).
27. It is the self-same Brahma, that exhibits himself in the forms of
our enjoyments, in the faculties of enjoying them, in our desires and
appetites for the same, and in the mind also for their perception. The
great Brahma that is without beginning and end, underlies them all, as
the great ocean surrounds the earth (and supplies its moisture to every
thing upon it).
28. The same Brahma is seen in the form of his intellect (or wisdom) in
heavens, on earth and in the infernal regions, as also in the vegetable
and animal creations; and there is nothing else beside him.
29. The same Brahma, who has no beginning nor end, spreads himself like
the boundless and unfathomable ocean, under all bodies and things;
and in whatever we deem as favourable and unfavourable to us, as our
friends and our enemies.
30. The fiction of the mind, like that of a dragon, continues so long,
as we are subject to the error and ignorance of taking these words for
real things; and are unacquainted with the knowledge of Brahma (as
pervading all existence).
31. The error of the mind and its perceptibles, continues as long as
one believes his personality to consist in his body; and understands
the phenomenal world as a reality; and has the selfishness to think
such and such things to be his (since there is nothing which actually
belongs to any body, besides its temporary use).
32. So long as you do not raise yourself, by the counsel and in the
society of the wise and good; and as long as you do not get rid of your
ignorance; you cannot escape from the meanness of your belief in the
mind.
33. So long as you do not get loose of your worldly thoughts, and have
the light of the universal spirit before your view; you cannot get rid
of the contracted thoughts of your mind, yourself and the world.
34. As long as there is the blindness of ignorance, and one's
subjection to worldly desires; so long there is the delusion of
falsehood also, and the fictions of the fallacious mind.
35. As long as the exhalation of yearnings infest the forest of the
heart, the _chakora_ or parrot of reason will never resort to it; but
fly far away from the infected air.
36. The errors of thought disappear from that mind, which is unattached
to sensual enjoyments; which is cool with its pure inappetency, and
which has broken loose from its net of avarice.
37. He who has got rid of his thirst and delusion of wealth, and who
is conscious of the inward coolness of his soul, and who possesses the
tranquillity of his mind; such a person is said to have fled from the
province of his anxious thought.
38. He who looks upon unsubstantial things, as unworthy of his regard
and _reliance_; and who looks upon his body as extraneous to himself;
is never misled by the thoughts of his mind.
39. He who meditates on the infinite mind, and sees all forms of things
as ectypes of the universal soul; and who views the world absorbed in
himself; is never misled by the erroneous conception of the living
principle.
40. The partial view of a distinct mind and a living principle, serves
but to mislead a man (to the knowledge of erroneous particulars); all
which vanish away, at the sight of the rising sun of the one universal
soul.
41. Want of the partial view of the mind, gives the full view of one
undivided soul; which consumes the particulars, as the vivid fire burns
away the dry leaves of trees, and as the sacrificial fire consumes the
oblations of ghee or clarified butter.
42. Those men of great souls, who have known the supreme one, and
are self-liberated in their lifetime; have their minds without their
essences, and which are therefore called _asatwas_ or nonentities.
(These minds, says the gloss, are as the watermarks on the sand, after
a channel is dried up (or its waters have receded); meaning that the
mind remains in its print but not in its substance).
43. The body of the living liberated man, has a mind employed in its
duties, but freed from its desires; such minds are not _chittas_ or
active agents, but mere _sattwas_ or passive objects. They are no
more self-volitive free agents, but are acted upon by their paramount
duties. (Free will is responsible for its acts, but compulsion has no
responsibility).
44. They that know the truth, are mindless and unmindful of everything
save their duty; they rove about at pleasure and discharge their duties
by rote and practice, in order any object to gain.
45. They are calm and cold with all their actions and in all their
dealings; they have the members of their bodies and their senses under
full control, and know no desire nor duality.
46. The saint having his sight fixed upon his inner soul, sees the
world burnt down as straws by the fire of his intellect; and finds
his erroneous conceptions of the mind, to fly far away from it, like
flitting flies from a conflagration.
47. The mind which is purified by reason, is called the _sattwa_ as
said above, and does not give rise to error; as the fried paddy seed,
is not productive of the plant (The sattwa mind is spiritless and dead
in itself).
48. The word Sattwa means the contrary of Chitta, which latter is
used in lexicons to mean the mind, that has the quality of being
reborn on account of its actions and desires. (The chitta is defined
as the living seed of the mind, and productive of acts and future
regenerations, which the Sattwa or deadened mind cannot do).
49. You have to attain the attainable _Sattwa_ or torpid state of your
mind, and to have the seed of your active mind or _chitta_, singed by
the blaze of your spiritual mind or sattwa.
50. The minds of the learned, which are lighted by reason, are melted
down at once to liquidity; but those of the ignorant which are hardened
by their worldly desires, will not yield to the force of fire and
steel; but continue still to sprout up as the grass, the more they are
mowed and put on fire. (The over-growing grass in the fields, though
set on fire, will grow again from their unburnt roots, and became as
rank as before).
51. Brahma is vast expanse, and such being the vastness of the universe
too there is no difference between them; and the intellect of Brahma is
as full as the fulness of his essence.
52. The Divine Intellect contains the three worlds, as the pepper
has its pungency within itself. Therefore the triple world is not a
distinct thing from Brahma, and its existence and inexistence (_i.e._,
its creation and dissolution), are mere fictions of human mind. (It is
ever existent in the eternal mind).
53. It is the use of popular language, to speak of existence and
non-existence as different things; but they are never so in reality to
the right understanding. Since whatever is or is not in being, is ever
present in the Divine Mind.
53a. This being a vacuity, contains all things in their vacuous
state (which is neither the state of sensible existence, nor that of
intellectual inexistence either). God as the Absolute, Eternal, and
Spiritual substance, is as void as Thought. (The universe is a thought
in the mind of God, and existence is thought and activity in the Divine
Mind. Aristotle).
54. If you disbelieve in the intellectual, you can have no belief
in your spirituality also; then why fear to die for fear of future
retribution, when you leave your body behind to turn to dust. Tell me
Ráma! how can you imagine the existence of the world in absence of the
intellectual principle. (There can be no material world, without the
immaterial mind; nor can you think of it, if you have no mind in you).
55. But if you find by the reasoning of your mind, all things to be
mere intellections of the intellect at all times; then say why do you
rely on the substantiality of your body.
56. Remember Ráma, your pellucid intellectual and spiritual form, which
has no limit nor part of it, but is an unlimited and undivided whole;
and mistake not yourself for a limited being by forgetting your true
nature.
57. Thinking yourself as such, take all the discreet parts of the
universe as forming one concrete whole; and this is the substantial
intellect of Brahma.
58. Thou abidest in the womb of thy intellect, and art neither this nor
that nor any of the many discrete things interspersed in the universe.
Thou art as thou art and last as the _End_ and _Nil_ in thy obvious and
yet thy hidden appearances.
59. Thou art contained under no particular category, nor is there any
predicable which may be predicated of thee. Yet thou art the substance
of every predicament in thy form of the solid, ponderous and calm
intellect; and I salute thee in that form of thine.
60. Thou art without beginning and end, and abidest with thy body of
solid intellect, amidst the crystal sphere of thy creation, and shining
as the pure and transparent sky. Thou art calm and quiet, and yet
displayest the wondrous world, as the seed vessel shows the wooden of
vegetation.
CHAPTER III.
ON THE UNITY AND UNIVERSALITY OF BRAHMA.
Argument.--Showing the identity of Brahma with the Mind, Living Soul,
the body and the world and all things and extirpation of all dualisms,
by the establishment of one universality.
Vasishtha continued:--As the countless waves, which are continually
rising and falling in the Sea, are no other than its water assuming
temporary forms to view; so the intellect exhibits the forms of endless
worlds heaving in itself; and know, O sinless Ráma! this intellect
to be thy very self or soul. (All personal souls are selfsame with
the impersonal Self; because it is in the power of both the finite
and infinite souls to produce and reduce the appearance of the worlds
in them, which proves them beyond any doubt as the Chidátmá or the
Intellectual soul).
2. Say thou that hast the intellectual soul, what relation doth thy
immaterial soul bear to the material world, and being freed from thy
earthly cares, how canst thou entertain any earthly desire or affection
in it. (The spiritual soul has no concern with the material world).
3. It is the Intellect which manifests itself in the forms of living
soul or jíva, mind and its desires, and the world and all things; say
then what else can it be, to which all these properties are to be
attributed (if not to the eternal intellect).
4. The intellect of the Supreme Spirit, is as a profound sea with its
huge surges; and yet, O Ráma! it is as calm and cool as thy soul, and
as bright and clear, as the transparent firmament.
5. As the heat is not separate from fire, and the fragrance not apart
from the flower; and as blackness is inseparable from collyrium, and
whiteness from the ice; and as sweet is inborn in the sugarcane, so is
intellection inherent in, and unseparated from the intellect.
6. As the light is nothing distinct from the sun-beams, so is
intellection no other than the intellect itself; and as the waves are
no way distinct from the water; so the universe is in no ways different
or disjoined from the nature of the intellect, which contains the
universe. (The noumenon contains the phenomenon, and become manifest as
the world).
7. The ideas are not apart from the intellect, nor is the ego distinct
from the idea of it; the mind is not different from the ego, nor is the
living soul any other than the mind.
8. The senses are not separate from the mind, and the body is not
unconnected with the senses; the world is the same as the body, and
there is nothing apart from the world. (The body is the microcosm of
the cosmos [Sanskrit: shuddhabrahmánanda]).
9. Thus the great sphere of universe, is no other than the unbounded
sphere of intellect; and they are nothing now done or made, or ever
created before (for whatever there is or comes to pass, continues
forever in the presence of the intellect).
10. Our knowledge of every thing, is but our reminiscence of the same;
and this is to continue for evermore, in the manner of all partial
spaces, being contained in infinity, without distinction of their
particular localities. (All spaces of place occupied by bodies, are
contained in the infinite and unoccupied vacuity of Mind).
11. As all spaces are contained in the endless vacuity, so the vastness
of Brahma is contained in the immensity of Brahma; and as truth resides
in verity, so in this plenum contained, is the plenitude of Divine
mind. (Here Brahma the great means by figure of metonymy, the Brahmánda
or vastness of his creation).
12. Seeing the forms of outward things, the intelligent man never takes
them to his mind; it is the ignorant only, that set their minds to the
worthless things of this world.
13. They are glad to long after what they approve of, for their trouble
only in this world; but he who takes these things as nothing, remains
free from the pleasure and pain of having or not having them. (So said
the wise Socrates:--How many things are here, which I do not want).
14. The apparent difference of the world and the soul of the world, is
as false in reality, as the meaning of the words sky and skies, which
though taken in their singular and plural senses, still denote the same
uniform vacuity. (So the one soul is viewed as many in appearance only).
15. He who remains with the internal purity of his vacant mind,
although he observes the customary differences of external things,
remains yet as unaffected by the feelings of pain and pleasure, as the
insensible block of wood and stone (with his stoical indifference in
joy and grief).
16. He who sees his blood-thirsty enemy in the light of a true friend,
is the person that sees rightly into the nature of things. (Because the
killers of our lives, are the givers of our immortality).
17. As the river uproots the big trees on both its sides, by its
rapid currents and deluge; so doth the dispassionate man destroys the
feelings of his joy and grief to their very roots.
18. The sage that knows not the nature of the passions and affections,
and does not guard himself from their impulse and emotions, is unworthy
of the veneration, which awaits upon the character of saints and sages.
19. He who has not the sense of his egoism, and whose mind is not
attached to this world; saves his soul from death and confinement,
after his departure from this world. (There is a similar text in the
Bhagavadgítá, and it is hard to say which is the original one and which
is the copy).
20. The belief in one's personality, is as false as one's faith in
an unreality, which does not exist; and this wrong notion of its
existence, is removed only by one's knowledge of the error, and his
riddance from it.
21. He who has extinguished the ardent desire of his mind, like
the flame of an oilless lamp; and who remains unshaken under all
circumstances, stands as the image of a mighty conqueror of his enemies
in painting or statue.
22. O Ráma! that man is said to be truly liberated, who is unmoved
under all circumstances, and has nothing to gain or lose in his
prosperity or adversity, nor any thing to elate or depress him in
either state.
CHAPTER IV.
Argument.--Vasishtha exposes the evils of selfish views
_parág-drishti_, and exalts the merit of elevated views
_pratyag-drishti_.
Vasishtha continued:--Ráma! knowing your mind, understanding, egoism
and all your senses, to be insensible of themselves, and deriving their
sensibility from the intellect; say how can your living soul and the
vital breaths, have any sensation of their own.
2. It is the one great soul, that infuses its power to those different
organs; as the one bright sun dispenses his light, to all the various
objects in their diverse colours.
3. As the pangs of the poisonous thirst after worldly enjoyments, come
to an end; so the insensibility of ignorance, flies away like darkness
at the end of the night.
4. It is the incantation of spiritual knowledge only, that is able to
heal the pain of baneful avarice; as it is in the power of autumn only,
to dispel the clouds of the rainy-season.
5. It is the dissipation of ignorance, which washes the mind of its
attendant desires; as it is the disappearance of the rainy weather,
which scatters the clouds in the sky.
6. The mind being weakened to unmindfulness, loses the chain of its
desires from it; as a necklace of pearls being loosened from its broken
string, tosses the precious gems all about the ground.
7. Ráma! they that are unmindful of the sástras, and mind to undermine
them; resemble the worms and insects, that mine the ground wherein they
remain.
8. The fickle eye-sight of the idle and curious gazer on all things,
becomes motionless after their ignorant curiosity is over and has
ceased to stir; as the shaking lotus of the lake becomes steady, after
the gusts of wind have passed away and stopped.
9. You have got rid, O Ráma! of your thought of all entities and
non-entities, and found your steadiness in the ever-steady unity of
God; as the restless winds mix at last with the calm vacuum (after
their blowing and breathing over the solid earth, and in the hollow
sky).
10. I ween you have been awakened to sense, by these series of my
sermons to you; as kings are awakened from their nightly sleep, by the
sound of their eulogists and the music of timbrels.
11. Seeing that common people of low understandings, are impressed by
the preachings of their parish parsons; I have every reason to believe
that my sermons must make their impression, upon the good understanding
of Ráma.
12. As you are in the habit of considering well, the good counsel of
others in your mind; so I doubt not, that my counsel will penetrate
your mind, as the cool rain-water enters into the parched ground of the
earth.
13. Knowing me as your family priest, and my family as the spiritual
guides of Raghus race for ever; you must receive with regard my good
advices to you, and set my words as a neck-chain to your heart.
CHAPTER V.
Argument.--Ráma's relation to Vasishtha, of his perfect rest in
godliness.
Ráma said:--O my venerable guide! My retrospection of your sermons, has
set my mind to perfect rest, and I see the traps and turmoils of this
world before me, with a quite indifferent and phlegmatic mind.
2. My soul has found its perfect tranquillity in the Supreme Spirit, is
as the parched ground is cooled by a snow or of rainfall after a long
and painful drought.
3. I am as cool as coldness itself, and feel the felicity of an entire
unity in myself; and my mind has become as tranquil and transparent, as
the limpid lake that is undisturbed by elephants.
4. I see the whole plenum of the universe, O sage! in its pristine pure
light; and as clear as the face of the wide extended firmament, without
the dimness of frost or mist.
5. I am now freed from my doubts, and exempted from the mirage of the
world; I am equally aloof from affections, and have become as pure and
serene, as the lake and sky in autumn.
6. I have found that transport in my inmost soul, which knows no bound
nor decay; and have the enjoyment of that _gusto_, which defies the
taste of the ambrosial draught of gods.
7. I am now set in the truth of actual existence, and my repose in the
joyous rest of my soul. I have become the delight of mankind and my own
joy in myself, which makes me thank my felicitous self, and you also
for giving me this blessing. (The Sruti says, Heavenly bliss is the
delight of men, and the heartfelt joy of every body).
8. My heart has become as expanded and pure, as the expanse of limpid
lakes in autumn; and my mind hath become as cold and serene, as the
clear and humid sky in the season of autumn.
9. Those doubts and coinings of imagination, which mislead the blind,
have now fled afar from me; as the fear of ghosts appearing in the
dark, disappear at the light of day-break.
10. How can there be the speck or spot of impurity, in the pure and
enlightened soul; and how can the doubts of the objective nature,
arise in the subjective mind? All these errors vanish to naught, like
darkness before moon light.
11. All these appearances appearing in various forms, are but the
diverse manifestations of the self-same soul; it is therefore a fallacy
to suppose, this is one thing and that another, by our misjudgment of
them.
12. I smile to think in myself, the miserable slave of my desires that
I had been before; that am now so well satisfied without them. (The
privation of desire gives greater satisfaction than its fulfilment).
13. I remember now how my single and solitary self, is one and all with
the universal soul of the world; since I received my baptism with the
ambrosial fluid of thy words.
14. O the highest and holiest station, which I have now attained to;
and from where I behold the sphere of the sun, to be situated as low as
the infernal region.
15. I have arrived at the world of sober reality and existence, from
that of unreality and seeming existence. I therefore thank my soul,
that has became so elevated and adorable with its fulness of the Deity.
16. O venerable Sage:--I am now situated in everlasting joy, and far
removed from the region of sorrow; by the sweet sound of the honeyed
words, which have crept like humming bees, into the pericarp of my
lotus-like heart.
CHAPTER VI.
Argument:--Prevalence and influence of delirium (moha).
Vasishtha Continued--Hear me moreover to tell you, my dear Ráma, some
excellent sayings for your good, and also for the benefit of every one
of my audience here.
2. Though you are unlike others, in the greater enlightenment of your
understanding; yet my lecture will equally edify your knowledge, as
that of the less enlightened men than yourself.
3. He who is so senseless as to take his body for the soul, is soon
found to be upset by his unruly senses; as a charioteer is thrown down
by his head-strong and restive horses. (So says the Sruti also. "The
soul is the charioteer of the vehicle of the body, and the senses are
as its horses").
4. But the Sapient man who knows the bodiless soul and relies therein,
has all his senses under the subjection of his soul; and they do not
overthrow him, as obstinate horses do their riders.
5. He who praises no object of enjoyment, but rather finds fault with
all of them, and discerns well their evils; enjoys the health of his
body without any complaint. (The voluptuary is subject to diseases, but
the abstinent is free from them; for in the midst of pleasure there is
pain).
6. The soul has no relation with the body, nor is the body related with
the soul; they are as unrelated to each other as the light and shade.
(And are opposed to one another as sun-light and darkness).
7. The discrete soul is distinct from concrete matter, and free from
material properties and accidents; the soul is ever shining and does
not rise or set as the material sun and moon (and it never changes as
the everchanging objects of changeful nature and mind).
8. The body is a dull mass of vile matter, it is ignorant of itself
and its own welfare; it is quite ungrateful to the soul, that makes
it sensible; therefore it well deserves its fate of diseases and final
dissolution. (The body is frail, and is at best but a fading flower).
9. How can the body be deemed an intelligent thing, when the
knowledge of the one (_i.e._, the soul) as intelligence, proves the
other (_i.e._, the body) to be but a dull mass. They cannot both be
intelligent, when the nature of the one is opposite to that of the
other; and if there is no difference between them, they would become
one and the same thing (_i.e._ the soul equal with the body, which is
impossible).
10. But how is it then, that they mutually reciprocate their feelings
of pain and pleasure to one another, unless they are the one and
the same thing, and participating of the same properties? (This is
a presumptive objection of the antagonistic doctrine, touching the
co-relation of the mind and body).
11. It is impossible, Ráma, for the reciprocation of their feelings,
that never agree in their natures; the gross body has no connection
with the subtile soul, nor has the rarefied soul any relation with the
solid body. (It is the gross mind that sympathises with the body, and
not the unconnected spirit or soul).
12. The presence of the one, nullifies the existence of the opposite
other; as in the cases of day and night, of darkness and light, and of
knowledge and ignorance (which are destructive of their opposites).
13. The unbodied soul presides over all bodies, without its adherence
to any; as the omnipresent spirit of Brahma, pervades throughout all
nature, without coalescing with any visible object. (The spirit of God
resides in all, and is yet quite detached from everything).
14. The embodied soul is as unattached to the body, as the dew drop on
the lotus leaf is disjoined with the leaf; and as the divine spirit is
quite unconnected with everything, which it fills and supports.
15. The Soul residing in the body, is as unaffected by its affections,
as the sky remains unmoved, by the motion of the winds raging in its
bosom. It is figuratively said, that tempests rend the skies, and the
passions rend their recipient bosom; but nothing can disturb the empty
vacuity of the sky or soul.
16. Knowing your soul to be no part of your body, rest quietly in it to
eternity; but believing yourself as the body, be subject to repeated
transmigrations of it in endless forms.
17. The visibles are viewed as the rising and falling waves, in the
boundless ocean of the Divine soul; but reliance in the supreme soul,
will show the light of the soul only.
18. This bodily frame is the product of the Divine soul, as the wave
is produced of the water of the sea; and though the bodies are seen to
move about as waves, yet their receptacle the soul is ever as steady as
the sea;--the reservoir of the moving waves.
19. The body is the image of the soul, as the sun seen in the waves is
the reflection of that luminary; and though the body like the reflected
sun, is seen to be moving and waving, yet its archetype--the soul, is
ever as steady as the fixed and unfluctuating sun in the sky.
20. The error of the substantiality and stability of the body is put to
flight, no sooner the light of the permanent and spiritual Substratum
of the soul, comes to shine over our inward sight. (Knowledge of the
immaterial and immortal soul, removes the blunder of the material and
mortal body).
21. The body appears to be in the act of constant motion and rotation
like a wheel, to the partial and unspiritual observers of materialism;
and it is believed by them to be perpetually subject to birth and
death, like the succession of light and darkness. (Lit.:--As candle
light and darkness follow each other, so is the body produced and
dissolved by turns).
22. These unspiritual men, that are unconscious of their souls; are as
shallow and empty minded, as _arjuna_ trees; which grow without any
pith and marrow within them.
23. Dull headed men that are devoid of intelligence, are as
contemptible as the grass on the ground; and they move their limbs like
the blades of grass, which are moved by force of the passing wind (and
by direction of the Judging mind). Those that are unacquainted with the
intelligent soul, resemble the senseless and hollow bamboos, which
shake and whistle by breath of the winds alone. (The internal air moves
the body and the limbs, as the external breeze shakes the trees).
24. The unintelligent body and limbs, are actuated to perform and
display their several acts, by action of the vital breath; as the
vacillation of the insensible trees and leaves, is caused by the motion
of the breeze; and both of them cease to move, no sooner the current
airs cease to agitate them.
25. These dull bodies are as the boisterous waves of the sea, heaving
with huge shapes with tremendous noise; and appearing to sight as the
figures of drunken men, staggering with draughts of the luscious juice
of Vine.
26. These witless men resemble the rapid currents of rivers, which
without a jot of sense in them, keep up on their continual motion, to
no good to themselves or others.
27. It is from their want of wit, that they are reduced to utmost
meanness and misery; which make them groan and sigh like the blowing
bellows of the blacksmith.
28. Their continued motion is of no real good to themselves, but brings
on their quietus like the calm after the storm; they clash and clang
like the twang of the bowstring, without the dart to hit at the mark.
29. The life of the unintelligent man, is only for its extinction or
death; and its desire of fruition is as false, as the fruit of an
unfruitful tree in the woody forest.
30. Seeking friendliness in unintelligent men, is as wishing to rest or
sleep on a burning mountain; and the society of the unintellectual, is
as associating with the headless trunks of trees in a forest (The weak
headed man like the headless tree, can neither afford any sheltering
shade, nor nourishing fruit to the passenger. So the verse: It is vain
to expect any good or gain, from men of witless and shallow brain).
31. Doing any service to the ignorant and lack witted men goes for
nothing; and is as vain as beating the bush or empty air with a stick:
and any thing given to the senseless, is as something thrown into the
mud. (Or as casting pearls before the swine, or scattering grains in
the bushes).
32. Talking with the ignorant, is as calling the dogs from a distance
(which is neither heard nor heeded by them). Ignorance is the seat
of evils, which never betide the sensible and the wise. (So the
Hitopadesa--A hundred evils and thousand fears, daily befall to the
fool, and not to the heedful wise).
33. The wise pass over all errors in their course amidst the world;
but the ignorant are exposed to incessant troubles, in their ceaseless
ardour to thrive in the pleasures of life.
34. As the carriage wheel revolves incessantly, about the axle to which
it is fixed; so the body of man turns continually about the wealthy
family, to which the foolish mind is fixed for gain.
35. The ignorant fool can never get rid of his misery, so long as he is
fast bound to the belief of taking his body as his soul, and knowing no
spiritual soul besides.
36. How is it possible for the infatuated, to be freed from their
delusion; when their minds are darkened by illusion, and their eyes are
blind-folded, by the hood-wink of unreal appearance.
37. The seeing man or looker on sights, that regales his eyes with
the sight of unrealities; is at last deluded by them, as a man is
moonstruck by fixing his eyes on the moon, and becomes giddy with the
profuse fragrance of flowers.
38. As the watering of the ground, tends to the growth of grass and
thorns and thistles; so the fostering of the body, breeds the desires
in the heart, as thick as reptiles grow in the hollow of trees; and
they invigorate the mind in the form of a rampant lion or elephant.
39. The ignorant foster their hopes of heaven on the death of their
bodies; as the farmer expects a plenteous harvest, from his well
cultivated fields (_i.e._ expectation of future heaven is vain, by
means of ceremonial acts in life).
40. The greedy hell-hounds are glad to look upon the ignorant, that are
fast-bound in the coils of their serpentine desires; as the thirsty
peacocks are pleased to gaze on the black clouds, that rise before
their eyes in the rainy season.
41. These beauties with their glancing eyes, resembling the fluttering
bees of summer, and with lips blooming as the new blown leaves of
flowers; are flaunting to catch hold of ignorant men; as poisonous
plants are displayed, to lay hold on ignorant flies.
42. The plant of desire, which shoots out of the goodly soil of
ignorant minds, shelters the flying passions under its shady foliage;
as the coral plants foster the coral insects in them. (The corallines
are known to be the formation of coral insects).
43. Enmity is like a wild fire, it consumes the arbour of the body, and
lets out the smoke through the orifice of the mouth in the desert land
of the heart, and exhibits the rose of the heath as the burning cinders.
44. The mind of the ignorant is as a lake of envy, covered with the
leaves of spite and calumny: jealousy is its lotus-bed, and the anxious
thoughts are as the bees continually fluttering thereupon.
45. The ignorant man that is subjected to repeated births, and is
rising and falling as waves in the tumultuous ocean of this world, is
exposed also to repeated deaths: and the burning fire which engulphs
his dead body, is as in the submarine fire of this sea.
46. The ignorant are exposed to repeated births, attended by the
vicissitudes of childhood, youth, manhood and old age, and followed
at last by a painful death and cremation of the beloved body on the
funeral pile.
47. The ignorant body is like a diving bucket, tied by the rope of
transmigration to the Hydraulic machine of acts; to be plunged and
lifted over again, in and over the dirty pool of this world.
48. This world which is a plane pavement and but narrow hole (lit., a
cow foot-cave) to the wise, by their unconsciousness of it; appears as
a boundless and unfathomable sea to the ignorant, owing to their great
concern about it. (The wise think lightly of the world; but the worldly
take it heavily upon themselves).
49. The ignorant are devoid of their eye-sight, to look out beyond
their limited circle; as the birds long confined in their cages, have
no mind to fly out of them.
50. The revolution of repeated births, is like the constant rotation
of the wheel of a chariot; and there is no body that is able to stop
their motion, by restraining his earthly desires; which are ever
turning as the spokes affixed to nave of the heart.
51. The ignorant wander at large, about the wide extended earth; as
huntsmen rove amidst the forest, in search of their prey; until they
become a prey at the hand of death, and make the members of their
bodies as morsels, to the vultures of their sensual appetites.
52. The sights of these mountainous bodies, and of these material forms
made of earthly flesh, are mistaken by the ignorant for realities; as
they mistake the figures in painting for real persons.
53. How flourishing is the arbour of this delusion, which is fraught
with the endless objects of our erroneous imagination; and hath
stretched out these innumerable worlds from our ignorance of them.
54. How flourishing is the _kalpa_ tree or all fruitful arbour of
delusion; which is ever fraught with endless objects of our imaginary
desire, and stretches out the infinite worlds to our erroneous
conception as its leaves.
55. Here our prurient minds like birds of variegated colours, rest and
remain and sit and sport, in and all about this arbour.
56. Our acts are the roots of our repeated births as the stem of the
tree is of its shoots; our prosperity and properties are the flowers
of this arbor, and our virtues and vices are as its fruits of good and
evil.
57. Our wives are as the tender plants, that thrive best under the
moon-light of delusion; and are the most beautiful things to behold in
this desert land of the earth.
58. As the darkness of ignorance prevails over the mind, soon after the
setting of the sun light of reason; there rises the full moon of errors
in the empty mind, with all her changing phases of repeated births.
(This refers to the dark ages of Puránic or mythological fictions, and
also to the Dárshanic or philosophical systems which succeeded the
age of Vedántic light, and were full of changeable doctrines, like
the phases of the moon; whence she is styled _dwija_ or _mistress_ of
digits. There is another figure of equivocation in the word _doshah_,
meaning the night as well as the defect of ignorance).
59. It is under the influence of the cooling moon-light of ignorance;
that our minds foster the fond desire of worldly enjoyments; and like
the _chakora_ birds of night, drink their fill of delight as ambrosial
moon-beams. (The ignorant are fond of pleasures, and where ignorance is
bliss, it is foolish to be wise).
60. It is under this delusion, that men view their beloved ones as
buds of roses and lotuses, and their loose glancing eyes, as the black
bees fluttering at random; they see the sable clouds in the braids and
locks of their hair, and a glistening fire in their glowing bosoms and
breasts.
61. It is delusion, O Ráma! that depicts the fairies with the beams of
fair moon-light nights; though they are viewed by the wise, in their
true light of being as foul as the darkest midnight.
62. Know Ráma, the pleasures of the world, to be as the pernicious
fruits of ignorance; which are pleasant to taste at first, but prove
to be full of bitter gall at last. It is therefore better to destroy
this baneful arbour, than to lose the life and soul by the mortal taste
of its fruits. (It is the fruit of the tree of ignorance rather than
that of knowledge, which brought death into the world and all our woe.
Milton).
CHAPTER VII.
Argument:--The effects of ignorance, shown in the evils brought on by
our vain desires and fallacies or erroneous judgments.
Vasishtha continued. These beauties that are so decorated with precious
gems and jewels, and embellished with the strings of brilliant pearls,
are as the playful billows in the milky ocean of the moon-beams of our
fond desires.
2. The sidelong looks of the beautiful eyes in their faces, look like a
cluster of black bees, sitting on the pericarp of a full blown lotus.
3. These beauties appear as charming, to the enslaved minds of deluded
men; and as the vernal flowers which are strewn upon the ground in
forest lands.
4. Their comely persons which are compared with the moon, the lotus
flower, and sandal paste for their coolness by fascinated minds; are
viewed as indifferently by the wise, as by the insensible beasts
which make a prey of them. (Lit. by the rapacious wolves and dogs and
vultures which devour them).
5. Their swollen breasts which are compared with lotus-buds, ripe
pomegranates and cups of gold, are viewed by the wise as a lump of
flesh and blood and nauseous liquor.
6. Their fleshy lips, distilling the impure saliva and spittle, are
said to exude with ambrosial honey, and to bear resemblance with the
ruby and coral and vimba fruits.
7. Their arms with the crooked joints of the wrists and loins, and
composed of hard bones in the inside, are compared with creeping
plants, by their infatuated admirers and erotic poets.
8. Their thick thighs are likened to the stems of lumpish plantain
trees, and the decorations of their protuberant breasts, are resembled
to the strings of flowers, hung upon the turrets of temples.
9. Women are pleasant at first, but become quarrelsome afterwards;
and then fly away in haste, like the goddess of fortune; and yet they
are desired by the ignorant. (But when the old woman frets, let her go
alone).
10. The minds of the ignorant, are subject to many pains and pleasures
in this life; and the forest of their misdeeds, shoots forth in a
thousand branches, bearing the woeful fruits of misery only. (The tree
of sin brought death into the world and all our woe. Milton).
11. The ignorant are fast bound in the net of their folly, and their
ritual functions are the ropes, that lead them to the prison-house of
the world. The words of their lips, like the _mantras_ and musical
words of their mouths, are the more for their bewilderment. (The
ignorant are enslaved by their ritualistic rites; but the Sages are
enfranchised by their spiritual knowledge).
12. The overspreading mist of ignorance, stretches out a maze of
ceremonial rites, and envelopes the minds of common people in utter
darkness; as the river Yamuná overflows its banks with its dark waters.
13. The lives of the ignorant, which are so pleasant with their
tender affections, turn out as bitter as the juice of hemlock, when
the affections are cut off by the strong hand of death (_i.e._, the
pleasures of life are embittered by the loss of relatives).
14. The senseless rabble are driven and carried away, like the withered
and shattered leaves of trees, by the ever blowing winds of their
pursuits; which scatter them all about as the dregs of earth, and
bespatter them with the dirt and dust of their sins.
15. All the world is as a ripe fruit in the mouth of death, whose
voracious belly is never filled with all its ravages, for millions and
millions of kalpa ages. (The womb of death is never full).
16. Men are as the cold bodies and creeping reptiles of the earth, and
they crawl and creep continually in their crooked course, by breathing
the vital air, as the snakes live upon the current air. (Serpents are
said to live a long time without food, simply by inhaling the open air).
17. The time of youth passes as a dark night, without the moon-light
of reason; and is infested by the ghosts of wicked thoughts and evil
desires.
18. The flippant tongue within the mouth, becomes faint with cringing
flattery; as the pistil rising from the seed vessel, becomes languid
under the freezing frost.
19. Poverty branches out like the thorny Sálmali tree, in a thousand
branches of misery, distress, sorrow, sickness, and all kinds of woe to
human beings. (Poverty is the root of all evils in life).
20. Concealed covetousness like the unseen bird of night, is hidden
within the hollow cavity of the human heart, resembling the stunted
_chaitya_ trees of mendicants; and then it shrieks and hoots out from
there, during the dark night of delusion which has overspread the
sphere of the mind.
21. Old age lays hold on youth by the ears, as the old cat seizes on
the mouse, and devours its prey after sporting with it for a long while.
22. The accumulation of unsubstantial materials, which causes the
formation of the stupendous world, is taken for real substantiality by
the unwise; as the foaming froths and ice-bergs in the sea, are thought
to be solid rocks by the ignorant sailor. (So all potential existences
of the Vedantist, are sober realities of the positive philosophy).
23. The world appears as a beautiful arbour, glowing with the blooming
blossoms of Divine light; which is displayed over it; and the belief of
its reality, is the plant which is fraught with the fruitage of all our
actions and duties. (The world is believed as the garden of the actions
of worldly men, but the wise are averse to actions and their results).
24. The great edifice of the world, is supported by the pillars of its
mountains, under its root of the great vault of heaven; and the sun and
moon are the great gateways to this pavilion. (The sun and moon are
believed by some as the doors leading the pious souls to heaven).
25. The world resembles a large lake, over which the vital breaths are
flying as swarms of bees on the lotus-beds of the living body; and
exhaling the sweets which are stored in the cell of the heart (_i.e._,
the breath of life wafts away the sweets of the immortal soul).
26. The blue vault of heaven appears as a spacious and elevated dome
to the ignorant who think it to contain all the worlds, which are
enlightened by the light of the sun situated in the midst. But it is an
empty sphere, and so the other worlds beyond the solar system, to which
the solar light doth never reach.
27. All worldly minded men, are as old birds tied down on earth by
the strong strings of their desires; and their heart moves about the
confines of their bodies, and their heart strings throb with hopes in
the confines of their bodies, as birds in cages in the hope of getting
their release.
28. The lives of living beings are continually dropping down, like the
withered leaves of trees, from the fading arbours of their decayed
bodies, by the incessant breathing of their breath of life. (The
respiration of breath called _ajapá_, is said to be the measure of
life).
29. The respectable men, that are joyous of their worldly grandeur for
a short time, are entirely forgetful of the severe torments of hell,
awaiting on them afterwards.
30. But the godly people enjoy their heavenly delights as gods, in the
cooling orb of the moon; or range freely under the azure sky, like
heavenly cranes about the limpid lakes.
31. There they taste the sweet fruits of their virtuous deeds on earth;
and inhale the fragrance of their various desires, as the bees sip the
sweetness of the opening lotus.
32. All worldly men are as little fishes (shrimps), swimming on the
surface of this pool of the earth; while the sly and senile death
pounces upon them as a kite, and bears them away as his prey without
any respite or remorse.
33. The changeful events of the world, are passing on every day, like
the gliding waves and the foaming froths of the sea, and the ever
changing digits of the moon.
34. Time like a potter, continually turns his wheel, and makes an
immense number of living beings as his pots; and breaks them every
moment, as the fragile play-things of his own whim.
35. Innumerable _kalpa_ ages have been incessantly rolling on, over the
shady quiescence of eternity; and multitudes of created worlds have
been burnt down, like thick woods and forests, by the all desolating
conflagrations of desolation. (According to the Hindus the universal
destruction, takes place by the Violent concussion of all the elements,
and by the diluvian floods also).
36. All worldly things are undergoing incessant changes, by their
appearance and disappearance by turns; and the vicissitudes of our
states and circumstances, from these of pleasure and prosperity to the
state of pain and misery and _vice versa_, in endless succession. (Pain
and pleasure succeed one another).
37. Notwithstanding the instability of nature, the ignorant are fast
bound by the chain of their desire, which is not to be broken even by
the thunder bolt of heaven. (Man dies, but his desires never die, they
keep their company wherever he may fly).
38. Human desire bears the invulnerable body of the Jove and Indra,
which being wounded on all sides by the Titans of disappointment,
resumed fresh vigour at every stroke. (So our desires grow stronger by
their failure, than when they are allayed by their satisfaction).
39. All created beings are as particles of dust in the air, and are
flying with the currents of wind into the mouth of the dragon-like
death, who draws all things to his bowels by the breath of his mouth.
(Huge snakes are said to live upon air, and whatever is borne with it
into his belly).
40. As all the crudities of the earth, and its raw fruits and
vegetables, together with the froth of the sea and other marine
productions, are carried by the currents to be consumed by the
submarine heat, so all existence is borne to the intestinal fire of
death to be dissolved into nothing.
41. It is by a fortuitous combination of qualities, that all things
present themselves unto us with their various properties; and it is the
nature of these which exhibits them with those forms as they present to
us; as she gives the property of vibration to the elementary bodies,
which show themselves in the forms of water and air unto us.
42. Death like a ferocious lion, devours the mighty and opulent men; as
the lion kills the big elephant with his frontal pearls.
43. Ambitious men are as greedy birds of air upon earth, who like the
voracious vultures on the tops of high hills, are born to live and die
in their aerial exploits, as on the wings of clouds in search of their
prey.
44. Their minds liken painter's paintings on the canvas of their
intellects, showing all the variegated scenes of the world, with the
various pictures of things perceptible by the five senses (_i.e._, the
images of all sensible objects are portrayed in the intellect).
45. But all these moving and changeful scenes, are breaking up and
falling to pieces at every moment; and producing our vain sorrow and
griefs upon their loss, in this passing and aerial city of the world.
46. The animal creations and the vegetable world, are standing as
passive spectators, to witness and meditate in themselves the marvelous
acts of time, in sparing them from among his destruction of others.
47. How these moving creatures are subject every moment, to the
recurrent emotions of passions and affections, and to the alterations
of affluence and want; and how they are incessantly decaying under age
and infirmity, disease and death from which their souls are entirely
free. (Hence the state of torpid immobility is reckoned as a state of
bliss, by the Hindu and Buddhistic Yogis and ascetics).
48. So the reptiles and insects on the surface of the earth, are
continually subjected to their tortuous motions by their fate, owing
to their want of quiet inaction, of which they are capable in their
subterranean cells. (The Yogis are wont to confine themselves in their
under-ground retreats, in order to conduct their abstract meditations
without disturbance. So Demosthenes perfected himself in his art of
eloquence in his subterrene cave).
49. But all these living bodies are devoured every moment, by the
all destructive time in the form of death; which like the deadly
and voracious dragon lies hidden in his dark-some den (Here the word
_kála_ is used in its triple sense of time, death, and snake all which
being equally destructive and hidden in darkness, it is difficult
to distinguish the subject from its comparison. Hence we may say,
time like death and snake or death like time and snake or the snake
like time and death, devours all living creatures, insects and other
reptiles also).
50. The trees however are not affected by any of these accidents,
because they stand firm on their roots, and though suffering under heat
and cold and the blasts of heaven, yet they yield their sweet fruits
and flowers for the supportance and delight of all living creatures.
(So the Yogis stand firm on their legs, and while they suffer the food
and rest privations of life and the inclemencies of weather, they
impart the fruits of divine knowledge to the rest of mankind, who would
otherwise perish like the insects of the earth, without their knowledge
of truth and hope of future bliss).
51. The meek Yogis that dwell in their secluded and humble cells, are
seen also to move about the earth, and imparting the fruits of their
knowledge to others; as the bees residing in the cells of lotuses,
distribute their stores of honey after the rains are over. (The Yogis
and the bees remain in their cells during the four months of the
rainy season (varshá-chátur másya), after which they be-take to their
peregrinations abroad).
52. They preach about the lectures as the bees chaunt their rhyme all
about, saying; that the earth which is as a big port; it supplies
the wants of the needy, for making them a morsel in the mouth of the
goddess of death (_i.e._, the earth supports all beings for their
falling into the bowels of death).
53. The dreaded goddess Káli wearing the veil of darkness over her
face, and eying all with her eyeballs, as bright as the orbs of the sun
and moon, gives to all beings all their wants, in order to grasp and
gorge them in herself. (The black goddess Káli or Hecate, nourishes
all as _mátriká_ or _matres_, and then devours them as death, like the
carnivorous glutton, that fattens the cattle to feed and feast upon
them).
54. Her protuberant and exuberant breasts are as bountiful as the
bounty of God, to suckle the gods and men and all beings on earth and
hills and in the waters below. (But how can death be the sustainer of
all).
55. It is the energy of the Divine intellect, which is the
_mátriká-mater_ or mother (mater or materia of all, and assumes the
forms of density and tenuity and also of motion and mobility; the
clusters of stars are the rows of her teeth, and the morning and
evening twilights, are the redness of her two lips).
(She is called Ushá and sandhyá or the dawning and evening lights,
because of her existence in the form of the twilights, before the
birth of the solar and lunar lights. The Vedas abound with hymns to
_ushá_ and _sandhyá_ and these form the daily ritual of the Brahmans to
this day under the title of their _Tri-sandyá_--the triple litany at
sun-rise, sun-set and vertical sun).
56. Her palms are as red as the petals of lotuses, and her countenance
is as bright as the paradise of Indra; she is decorated with the pearls
of all the seas, and clad with an azure mantle all over her body (Hence
the goddess Kálí is represented as all black from her blue vest).
57. The Jambudwípa or Asia forms her naval or midmost spot, and the
woods and forests form the hairs of her body. She appears in many
shapes and again disappears from view, and plays her part as the most
veteran sorceress in all the three worlds. (The text calls her an old
hag, that often changes her paints and garments to entice and delude
all men to her).
58. She dies repeatedly and is reborn again, and then passes into
endless transformations, she is now immerged in the great ocean or
bosom of Kála or Death her consort, and rises up to assume other shapes
and forms again. (Hence the mother-goddess is said to be the producer
and destroyer of all by their repeated births and deaths in their
everchanging shapes and forms).
59. The great Kalpa ages are as transitory moments in the infinite
duration of Eternity, and the mundane eggs (or planetary bodies in
the universe); are as passing bubbles upon the unfathomable ocean of
infinity; they rise and last and are lost by turns.
60. It is at the will of God, that the creative powers rise and fly
about as birds in the air; and it is by his will also, that the uprisen
creation becomes extinct like the burning flash of the lightning. (The
flaming worlds shoot forth, and are blown out as sparks of fire).
61. It is in the sunshine of the divine Intellect, and under the canopy
of everlasting time, that the creations are continually rising and
falling like the fowls of forestlands, flying up and down under the
mist of an all encompassing cloud of ignorance.
62. As the tall palm tree lets to fall its ripened fruits incessantly
upon the ground; so the over topping arbor of time, drops down the
created worlds and the lords of Gods perpetually into the abyss of
perdition. (There is an alliteration and homonym of the words, tála and
páttála meaning both tall and the tála or palm tree).
63. The gods also are dying away like the twinklings of their eyes, and
old time is wearing away with all its ages, by its perpetual tickings.
(The ever wakeful eyes of gods are said to have no twinkling; but time
is said to be continually twinkling in its ticking moments).
64. There are many Rudras existing in the essence of Brahma, and
they depend on the twinkling of that Deity for their existence. (The
immortal gods are mortal, before the Eternal God).
65. Such is Brahmá the lord of gods, under whom these endless acts of
evolutions and involutions are for ever taking place, in the infinite
space of his eternal Intellect and omnipotent will.
66. What wonderous powers are there that cannot possibly reside in the
Supreme spirit, whose undecaying will gives rise to all positive and
possible existences. It is ignorance therefore to imagine the world as
a reality of itself.
67. All these therefore is the display of the deep darkness of
ignorance, that appears to you as the vicissitudes of prosperity and
adversity, and as the changes of childhood, youth, old-age and death;
as also the occurrences of pain and pleasure and of sorrow and grief.
(All of which are unrealities in their nature).
CHAPTER VIII.
ALLEGORY OF THE SPREADING ARBOUR OF IGNORANCE.
Argument:--Description of ignorance as a wide spreading tree.
Vasishtha continued. Hear me now relate to you Ráma, how this poisonous
tree of ignorance has come to grow in this forest of the world, and to
be situated by the side of the intellect, and how and when it came to
blossom and bloom. (The Divine intellect is the stupendous rock, and
the creation is the forest about it, in which there grew the plant of
error also).
2. This plant encompasses all the three worlds, and has the whole
creation for its rind, and the mountains for its joints (Here is a
play of the word _parva_ and _parvata_ which are paronymous terms,
signifying a joint and mountain; Hence every mountain is reckoned as
the joint or land-mark of a country dividing it from another tract of
land).
3. It is fraught with its leaves and roots, and its flowers and fruits,
by the continuous births and lives and pleasures and pains and the
knowledge and error of mankind. (All these are the productions of human
ignorance).
4. Prosperity gives rise to our ignorance of desiring to be more
prosperous in this or in our next lives (by means of our performance
of ceremonial rites), which are productive of future welfare also. So
doth adversity lead us to greater error of practising many malpractices
to get rid of it; but which on the contrary expose us to greater
misfortunes. (Hence it is folly to make choice of either, which is
equally pernicious).
5. One birth gives rise to another and that leads to others without
end; hence it is foolishness in us to wish to be reborn again. (All
births are subject to misery; it is ignorance therefore to desire a
higher or lower one, by performance of _páratrika_ acts for future
lives).
6. Ignorance produces greater ignorance, and brings on unconsciousness
as its effect: so knowledge leads on to higher knowledge, and produces
self-consciousness as its result. (Good tends to best, and bad to the
worst. Better tends to best, and worse to the worst).
7. The creeping plant of ignorance, has the passion for its leaves, and
the desires for its odours; and it is continually shaking and shuffling
with the leafy garment on its body.
8. This plant falls sometimes in its course, on the way of the elephant
of Reason; it then shakes with fear, and the dust which covers its
body, is all blown away by the breath of the elephant's trunk; but yet
the creeper continues to creep on by the byways according to its wont.
9. The days are its blossoms, and the nights are the swarms of black
bees, that overshadow its flowers; and the continued shaking of its
boughs, darts down the dust of living bodies from it, both by day and
night. (_i.e._, Men that live upon their desires and hopes, are daily
dying away).
10. It is overgrown with its leaves of relatives, and overloaded with
the shooting buds of its offspring; it bears the blossoms of all
seasons, and yields the fruits of all kinds of flowers.
11. All its joints are full of the reptiles of diseases, and its stem
is perforated by the cormorants of destruction; yet it yields the
luscious juice of delight to those that are bereft of their reason and
good sense.
12. Its flowers are the radiant planets, that shine with the sun and
moon every day in the sky; the vacuum is the medium of their light, and
the rapid winds are vehicles, that bear their rays as odours unto us.
(Vacuity is the receptacle of light, but the vibrations of air transmit
it to our sight).
12a. Ignorance blossoms every day in the clusters of the bright
planetary bodies, that shine with the sun and moon by day and night;
and the winds playing in the air, bear their light like perfumes to us.
(_i.e._ It is the spirit that glows in the stars, and breathes in the
air, but ignorance attributes these to the planets and breezes, and
worships them as the _navagrahas_ and _marut ganas_, both in the vedas
and the popular Puranic creeds).
12b. Ignorance blossoms in the clusters of stars and planets, shining
about the sun and moon every day; and breathes in the breezes blowing
at random amidst the vacuous firmament. (Hence the ignorant alone adore
the stars and winds in the vedas, but the sapient know the light of God
to glow in the stars, and his spirit to breathe in the air).
13. These innumerable stars that you see scattered in the vault of
heaven, O son of Raghu's race, are the blooming blossoms of this arbor
of ignorance (_i.e._ ignorance shows them as twinkling stars to us,
while they are numberless shining worlds in reality).
14. The beams of the sun and moon, and the flames of fire, which are
scattered about us like the crimson dust of flowers; resemble the red
paint on the fair body of ignorance, with which this delusive lady
attracts our minds to her.
15. The wild elephant of the mind, ranges at large under the arbour of
Ignorance; and the birds of our desires, are continually hovering and
warbling upon it; while the vipers of sensual appetites, are infesting
its stem, and avarice settles as a huge snake at the root. (The text
has the words "and greediness decorates its bark" which bear no
meaning).
16. It stretches with its head to the blue vault of the sky, forming
as a canopy of black arbour of black Tamála trees over it. The earth
supports its trunk, and sky overtops its top; and it makes a garden of
the universe (with its out stretched arms).
17. It is deeply rooted underneath the ground, and is watered with milk
and curds, in the canals of the milky and other oceans, which are dug
around its trunk.
18. The rituals of the three vedas, are fluttering like the bees over
the tree, blooming with the blossoms of beauteous women, and shaking
with the oscillations of the mind; while it is corroded in the inside
by the cankering worms of cares and actions. (It means to say, that the
vedic rites, the love of women, the thoughts of the mind and the bodily
actions, are all attendants of ignorance; and he is wise who refrains
from them in toto).
19. The tree of ignorance, blossoming like the flowers of the garden
of paradise, exhales the sweet odours of pleasure around; and the
serpent of vice twining round it, leads the living souls perpetually to
evil deeds, for the supportance of their lives.
20. It blooms with various flowers, to attract the hearts of wise; and
it is fraught with various fruits, distilling their sweets all around.
(These fruits and flowers are the sensual pleasures, which allure the
ignorant to them).
21. With the aqueducts about, it invites the birds of the air to drink
of them; and being besmeared with the dust of its flowers, it appears
to stand as a rock of red earth or granite to sight. (The water beds
below it, are mistaken for the _salsabil_ or streams of Paradise, and
its rock-like appearance, shows the grossness of _ignorance crasse_ or
_tabula rasa_).
22. It shoots out with buds of mistakes, and is beset by the briars of
error; it grows luxuriant in hilly districts, with exuberance of its
leafy branches. (Meaning that the hill people are most ignorant).
23. It grows and dies and grows again, and being cut down it springs
out anon; so there is no end of it. (It is hard to extirpate ignorance
at once).
24. Though past and gone, yet it is present before us, and though it
is all hollow within, it appears as thick and sound to sight. It is an
ever fading and ever green tree, and the more it is lopped and cropt,
the more it grows and expands itself.
25. It is a poisonous tree, whose very touch benumbs the senses in a
moment; but being pressed down by reasoning, it dies away in a trice.
26. All distinctions of different objects, are dissolved in the
crucible of the reasoning mind; but they remain undissolved in
their crude forms in the minds of the ignorant, who are employed in
differentiating the various natures of men and brutes, and of terrene
and aquatic animals.
27. They distinguish the one as the nether world, and the other as the
upper sky; and make distinctions between the solar and lunar planets,
and the fixed starry bodies. (But there are no ups and downs, nor any
thing as fixed in infinite vacuity).
28. Here there is light, and there is darkness on the other side, and
this is empty space and that is the solid ground; these are the sástras
and these are the Vedas, are distinctions unknown to the wise.
29. It is the same spirit that flies upward in the bodies of birds, or
remains above in the form of gods; the same spirit remains fixed in the
forms of fixed rocks or moves in continued motion with the flying winds.
30. Sometimes it resides in the infernal regions, and at others it
dwells in the heavens above; sometimes it is exalted to the dignity of
gods, and some where it remains in the state of mean insects and worms.
31. In one place it appears as glorious as the god Vishnu, and in
another it shows itself in the forms of Brahmá and Siva. Now it shines
in the sun, and then it brightens in the moon; here it blows in the
blowing winds, and there it sways in the all-subduing _yama_. (Some
Europeans have conjectured and not without good reason, the relentless
god of death the _yama_ of Hindus, to be same with as the ruthless king
_Jamshed_ of prehistoric Persia. So says Hafiz Ayineye, Sekendar Jame
jamast bingars).
32. Whatever appears as great and glorious, and all that is seen as
mean and ignoble in their form, from the biggest and bright sun down
to the most contemptible grass and straw; are all pervaded by the
universal spirit: it is ignorance that dwells upon the external forms;
but knowledge that looks into the inner soul, obtains its sight up the
present state.
CHAPTER IX.
ASCERTAINMENT OF TRUE KNOWLEDGE.
Argument.--Division of the three _gunas_ or qualities. Pure essence of
the Gods Hara and others, nature of knowledge and ignorance, and other
subjects.
Ráma said, You said sir, that all formal bodies are representations of
illusion or ignorance (Avidyá); but how do you account for the pure
bodies of Hari, Hara and other divinities, and god-heads who are of
pure essence in their embodied forms, and which cannot be the creation
of our error or delusion. Please, sir, explain these clearly to (spun)
me and remove my doubts and difficulties on the subject (The exhibition
of gross bodies is the deception of our sense, but the appearance of
pure spiritual forms, can not be production of ignorance or sensible
deception. We may ignore the forms of material substances, but not
those immaterial essences which are given in the sástras. gloss).
2. Vasishtha replied,--The perceptible world represents the
manifestation of the one quiescent and all inherent soul, and exhibits
the glory (_ábhásha_) of the essential intellect (_sach-chit_), which
is beyond conception or thought divine.
3. This gives rise to the shape of a partial hypostasis, or there
rises of itself hypostatics ([Sanskrit: kalákalarúpiní]), resembling
the rolling fragment of a cloud appearing as a watery substance or
filled with water. (This original fiction of the glory of God giving
rise to the watery mist like a lighted lamp emitting the inky smoke,
is represented in the common belief of dark ignorance ([Sanskrit:
avidyá]) proceeding from the bright light of divine knowledge
([Sanskrit: vidyá]), and exhibited by the allegory of the black goddess
of ignorance and illusion ([Sanskrit: avidyá] and [Sanskrit: máyá])
gushing out of the white and fair god lying inactive and dormant under
her; she is hence designated by the various epithets of ([Sanskrit:
shyámá, kálí, jaladha] and [Sanskrit: níradavaraná]) and so forth, and
this is the whole mystery of the Sákta faith).
4. This hypostatic fragment is also conceived in its three different
lights or phases, of rarity, density and rigidity or grossness,
([Sanskrit: sukhsmá; madhyá, sthúlá]) resembling the twilight, midday
light, and darkness of the solar light. The first of these is called
the mind or creative will, the second styled the Brahmá Hiranyagarbha
or the creative power, and the third is known as Virát, the framer of
the material frame, and as identic with creation itself.
5. These are again denominated the three qualities (trigunas),
according to their different states, and these are the qualities of
reality, brightness and darkness _satva_, _rajas_ and _tamas_, which
are designated also as the triple nature of things or their _swabhávas_
or _prakriti_.
6. Know all nature to be characterised by ignorance of the triple
states of the _positive and comparative and superlative degrees_; these
_are inbred in all living_ beings, except the Being that is beyond
them, and which is the supreme one.
7. Again the three qualities of _satva_, _rajas_, and _tamas_ or the
positive, comparative and superlative, which are mentioned in this
place, have each of them its subdivisions also into three kinds of the
same name.
8. Thus the original Ignorance ([Sanskrit: avidyá]), becomes of nine
kinds by difference of its several qualities; and whatever is seen
or known here below, is included under one or of the various kinds.
(Hence the saktas reckon ten different forms of [Sanskrit: mahávidyá],
comprising the primary ignorance and its nine fold divisions).
9. Now Ráma, know the positive or satwika quality of ignorance, to
comprise the several classes of living beings known as the Rishis,
Munis, the Siddhas and Nágas, the Vidyádharas and Suras. (All of these
are marked by the positive quality of goodness inborn in their nature).
10. Again this quality of positive goodness comprises the Suras or gods
Hara and others of the first class that are purely and truly good. The
sages and Siddhas forming the second or intermediate class, are endued
with a less share of goodness in them, while Nágas or Vidyádharas
making the last class possess it in the least degree.
11. The gods being born with the pure essence of goodness, and
remaining unmixed with the properties of other natures, have attained
the state of purity (Holiness) like the divine Hari Hara and others.
(_i.e._ So long the divine nature of a god is not shrouded under the
veil of ignorance (avidyá _ávarana_), he is to be held in the light
of a divinity as a Christ or Buddha); otherwise rajasha or qualified
states of Hari Hara as they are represented by the vulgar, are neither
to be regarded as such.
12. Ráma! whoever is fraught with the quality of goodness in his
nature, and acquainted with divine knowledge in his mind, such a
one is said to be liberated in this life, and freed from further
transmigration.
13. It is for this reason, O high minded Ráma! that the gods Rudra and
others who possess the properties of goodness in them, are said to
continue in their liberated state to the final end of the world.
(Hence the immortals never die and being released from their earthly
coil, their good spirits rove at large in open air; last and until the
last doomsday rorqucamat or final resurrection of the dead).
14. Great souls remain liberated, as long as they continue to live in
their mortal bodies; and after the shuffling of their frail bodies,
they become free as their disembodied spirits; and then reside in the
supreme spirit. (_i.e._ They return to the source from which they had
proceeded).
15. It is the part of ignorance to lead men to the performance of
acts, which after their death, become the roots of producing other
acts also in all successive states of transmigration. (Ignorance leads
one to interminable action in repeated births, by making the acts of
the prior life to become the source of others in the next, so the acts
of ignorance, become the seeds and fruits of themselves by turns, and
there is no cessation nor liberation from them).
16. Ignorance rises from knowledge, as the hollow bubble bursts out
of the level of liquid water; and it sets and sinks in knowledge
likewise, as the bubble subsides to rest in the same water. (Ignorance
and its action which are causes of creation, have both their rise
from the omniscience and inaction of God until they are dissolved
at the dissolution of the world. Physical force rises from and
rests in the spiritual. Ignorance--_avidyá_ being but a negation of
knowledge--vidyá, is said to proceed from:--the negative being but
privation of the positive).
17. And as there is no such thing as a wave; but a word coined to
denote the heaving of water; so there is nothing as ignorance but a
word fabricated to express the want of knowledge. (Hence the believers
in ignorance are mistaken in relying their faith in a power which has
no existence whatever).
18. As the water and waves are identic in their true sense, and there
is no material difference between them; so both knowledge and ignorance
relating to the same thing, and expressing either its presence or
absence, there can be no essential difference in their significance.
19. Leaving aside the sights of knowledge and ignorance, there remains
that which always exists of itself (that is, the self-existent God
exists, beyond both the knowledge and ignorance of men, or whether
they know him or not). It is only the contradiction of adverse parties
([Sanskrit: pratiyogi byavaccheda]) that has introduced these words.
(_i.e._, calling the opponents as ignorant and themselves as the
knowing, in their mutual altercation with one another).
20. The sights of knowledge and ignorance are nothing; (_i.e._, they
are both blind to the sight of truth): therefore be firm in what is
beyond these, and which can neither be known nor ignored by imagination
of it.
21. There is some thing which is not any thing, except that it exists
in the manner of the intellect and consciousness _chit-samvit_, and
this again has no representation of it, and therefore that ens or sat
is said to be inevident avidyá the unknowable.
22. That One Sat being known as this or such, is said to be the
destroyer of ignorance; whereas it is want of this knowledge, that
gives rise to the false conception of an _Avidyá_ or ignorance.
(Avidyá, mithyá, kalpaná signifies ignorance to be a false imagination
and personification also, as it is seen in the images of the ten
Avidyás here).
23. When knowledge and ignorance are both lost in oblivion within one
in the intellect as when both the sun-shine and its shadow are lost in
shade of night. (_i.e._, both the knowledge of the subjective _ego_ and
objective _non-ego_ which is caused by ignorance being concentrated in
the consciousness of the intellect only within one's self).
24. Then there remains the one only that is to be gained and known,
and thus it is, that the loss of ignorance tends to the dissipation
of self-knowledge likewise (which is caused by it); just as the want
of oil extinguishes the lamp. (Egoism and ignorance being akin to one
another, both of them rise and remain and die together [Sanskrit:
ajnánahámkarayoreko satitayorút pattináshau yúgavadeba]).
25. That what remains afterwards, is either nullity or the whole
plenum, in which all these things appear to subsist, or it is nothing
at all. (The one is the view of atheists who deny all existence, and
the other of máyikas who maintain the visible nature as mere illusion.
([Sanskrit: máyámayamidamakhilam])).
26. As the minute grain of the Indian fig-tree contains within it
the future arbor and its undeveloped state, so the almighty power of
omnipotence is lodged in the minute receptacle of the spirit before its
expansion into immensity. (The developed and undeveloped states of the
supreme power, are called its vyákrita and avyákrita forces).
27. The divine spirit is more rarefied than the subtile air, and yet
is not a vacuity having the chit or intellect in itself. It is as the
sun-stone with its inherent fire and the milk with the latent butter
unborn in it. (Hence the spirit of God is said to be embryonic seed of
the universe. [Sanskrit: brahmándavíjam]).
28. All space and time reside in that spirit for their development, as
the spark proceeds from the fire and light issues from the sun in which
they are contained. (The will or word of God produces all things from
his spiritual essence).
29. So all things are settled in the Supreme intellect, and show
themselves unto us as the waves of the sea and as the radiance of gems:
and so our understandings also are reflexions of the same.
30. The Divine intellect is the store-house of all things, and the
reservoir of all consciousness (_i.e._, the fountain-head of the
understandings of all living beings). It is the Divine essence which
pervades the inside and outside of every thing. (All things are
dependent to the entity of God for their existence, and there is no
independent particle whatever).
31. The Divine soul is as imperishable as the air within a pot which
is not destroyed by breaking of the vessel, but mixes and continues
forever with the common and its surrounding air. Know also the lives
and actions of living beings to be dependent upon the will of the
God, as the mobility of the iron depends upon the attraction of the
loadstone. (This passage negatives the free agency of man, and allows
him an activity in common with that of all living beings, under the
direction of the great magnet of the Divine spirit and will).
32. The action of the inactive or quiescent spirit of God, is to be
understood in the same manner, as the motion of the lead is attributed
to the causality of magnetic attraction, which moves the immovable
iron. So the inert bodies of living beings, are moved by force of the
intellectual soul.
33. The world is situated in that mundane seed of the universe, which
is known under the name of intellect attributed to it by the wise. It
is as void and formless as empty air, it is nothing nor has any thing
in it except itself, and represents all and everything by itself, like
the playful waves of the boundless ocean.
CHAPTER X.
REMOVAL OF IGNORANCE.
Argument.--Ignorance and its bonds of Erroneous conceptions, and
reliance on temporal objects, and the ways of getting release from
them, by means of good understanding and right reasoning.
Vasishtha continued:--Therefore this world with all its moving and
unmoving beings is nothing (or no being at all). There is nothing that
has its real being or entity, except the one true _Ens_ that thou must
know. (all beings are not being except the one self-existing Being. So
says Sadi. All this is not being and thyself art the only being. _Haman
nestand anchi hastitue_, so also the sruti _Toam asi nányadasti_. _Tu
est nullum est_).
2. Seek him O Ráma! who is beyond our thought and imagination, and
comprises all entity and non-entity in himself, and cease to seek any
living being or any thing in existence. (In Him is all life and every
thing, that is or is not in Being and he is the source of life and
light).
3. I would not have my heart to be enticed and deceived by the false
attachments and affections of this world; all which are as delusive, as
our misconception of a snake in a rope. (All our earthly relations with
our relatives and properties, are deception that are soon detected by
our good sense and reason, and they vanish as soon as our mistake of
the snake in rope. Therefore let no worldly tie bind down thy heart to
this earth).
4. Ignorance of the soul is the cause of our error of conceiving the
distinctions of things; but the knowledge of the selfsame soul puts
an end to all distinctions of knowledge of the reality of things,
distinctive knowledge of existences--bheda jnána is erroneous; but
their generalization--abheda jnána leads to right reasoning.
5. They call it ignorance _avidyá_, when the intellect is vitiated
by its intellection of the intelligibles or chetyas, but the
intelligibles being left out, it comes to know the soul which is free
from all attributes.
6. The understanding only is the embodied soul _purusha_, which is lost
upon the loss of the understanding; but the soul is said to last as
long as there is understanding in the body, like the _ghatambare_ or
air in the pot lasts with the lasting of the pot, and vanishes upon the
loss or breaking of the vessel. (The soul lasts with the intellect in
the body, but flies away upon the intellect's desertion of it. This is
maintained by sruti).
7. The wandering intellect sees the soul to be wandering, and the
sedate understanding thinks, it to be stationary, as one perceives his
breath of life to be slow or quick, according as he sits still or runs
about. In this manner the bewildered understanding finds the soul to
be distracted also. (The temperament of the mind is attributed to the
soul, which is devoid of all modality).
8. The mind wraps the inward soul with the coverlet of its various
desires, as the silkworm twines the thin thread of its desires round
about itself; which its wants of reason prevent it from understanding.
(The word in the text is _bálavat_ boyishness, which is explained in
the gloss to mean _nirvivekatwa_ or want of reason, and applied to the
mind, means puerile foolishness).
9. Ráma said:--I see sir, that when our ignorance becomes too gross and
solid, it becomes as dull and solid as stone; but tell me O venerable
sir, how it becomes as a fixed tree or any other immovable substance.
10. Vasishtha replied:--The human intellect not having attained
its perfect state of mindlessness, wherein it may have its supreme
happiness and yet falling from its state of mindfulness, remains in the
midmost position of a living and immovable plant or of an insensible
material substance. (The middle state is called tatastha bháva, which
is neither one of perfect sensibility nor impassivity).
11. It is impossible for them to have their liberation, whose organs of
the eight senses lie as dormant and dumb and blind and inert in them
as in any dull and dirt matter: and if they have any perception, it is
that pain only. (The _puryastaka_ are the eight internal and external
organs of sense instead of the ten organs _casandria_. By dormancy
is meant their want of reason, and muteness and blindness express
respectively the want of their faculties of sensation and action,
inertness means here the want of mental action).
12. Ráma rejoined:--O sir, that best knowest the knowables! that the
intellect which remains as unshaken as a fixed tree, with its reliance
in the unity and without its knowledge of duality, approximates its
perfection and approaches very near to its liberation (contrary to what
thou sayest now, regarding impossibility of the dormant minds arriving
to its freedom).
13. Vasishtha replied: Ráma! we call that to be the perpetual
liberation of the soul, which follows persuasion of one common entity,
after its rational investigation into the natures of all other things
and their false appearances. (or else the blind torpidity of the
irrational yogi, amounts rather to his bondage to ignorance than the
liberation of his soul from it).
14. A man is then only said to have reached to his state of solity
_kaivalya_, when he understands the community of all existence in the
unity, and forsakes his desire for this thing and that. (But is said
in sundry places of this work that the abandonment of the knowledge of
the subjective and as well as of the objective, which constitutes the
true liberation of the soul; which means the taking of the subject and
object of thought and all other duties in nature in one self-existent
unity and not to forget them all at once). (So says Sadi, when I turned
out duality from my door I came to knowledge of one in all).
15. One is then said to recline in Brahma who is inclined to his
spiritual Contemplation, after his investigation of divine knowledge in
the sástras, and his discussion on the subject in the company of the
learned doctors in divinity. (The unlearned religionist is either a
zealot or an _opiniatre--abhakta tatwa jnáni_).
16. One who is dormant in his mind and has the seed of his desire lying
latent in his heart, resembles an unmoving tree, bearing the vegetative
seed of future regenerations (transmigrations) within its bosom.
17. All those men are called blocks who liken the blocks of wood and
stone, and to be like brains who lack their brain work, and whose
desires are gone to the rack. These men possessing the property of
dulness as of dull matter, are subject to the pains of repeated births,
recurring like the repetends of their remaining desires. (The doctrine
of transmigration is, that the wish being father to the thought,
every one meets with his lot in his next birth, as it is thought
of or fostered by him in his present life. [Sanskrit: vásaná eva
pratyávrittikáranam]).
18. All stationary and immovable things, which are endowed with the
property of dull matter, are subject to repeated reproductions. (Owing
to the reproductive seed which is inborn in them, like the inbred
desire of living beings), though they may long continue in their
dormant state (like images of saints in their trance).
19. Know O pure hearted Ráma! the seed of desire is as inbred in the
breasts of plants, as the flowers are inborn in the seeds and the
earthenwares are contained in the clay. (The statue says, Aristotle
lies hid in the wood, and the gem in the stone, and require only the
chisel of the carver and statuary to bring them out).
20. The heart that contains the fruitful seed of desire in it, can
never have its rest or consummation even in its dormant state; but this
seed being burnt and fried to its unproductiveness (by means of divine
knowledge), it becomes productive of sanctity, though it may be in its
full activity.
21. The heart that preserves the slightest remnant of any desire in
it, it again filled with its full growth to luxuriance; as the little
remainder of fire or the enemy, and of a debt and disease, and also
of love and hatred, is enough to involve one in his ruin as a single
drop of poison kills a man. (This stanza occurs in Chánakyá's Excerpta
in another form, meaning to say that, "No wise man should leave their
relic, lest they grow as big as before" [Sanskrit: punasva bhavati
tasmádyasmát sesam na kárayet]).
22. He who has burnt away the seed of his desire from any thing,
and looks upon the world with an even eye of indifference, is said
to be perfectly liberated both in his embodied state in this earth,
as also in his disembodied or spiritual form of the next world, and
is no more subjected to any trouble: (Subjection to desire is deadly
pain and freedom from it is perfect bliss. Or as it is said:--Desire
is a disease and its want is ease. [Sanskrit: áshabhai param dukham
nairáshyam paramamsukham]. Again our hopes and fears in constant
strife, are both the bane of pig man life [Sanskrit: bhayáshá
jívapásháh] &c.)
23. The intellectual power which enveloped by the seed of mental
desire, supplies it with moisture for its germinating both in the forms
of animals and vegetables every where (_i.e._ The divine power which
inheres in the embryos of our desires, causes them to develope in their
various forms).
24. This inherent power resides in the manner of productive power in
the seeds of living beings, and in that of inertness in dull material
bodies. It is of the nature of hardness in all solid substances, and
that of tenuity in soft and liquid things. (_i.e._ The divine power
forms the particular properties of things, and causes them to grow and
remain in their own ways).
25. It exhibits the ash colour in ashes, and shows the particles in the
dust of the earth; it shows the sableness of all swarthy things, and
flashes in the whiteness of the glittering blade.
26. It is the spiritual power which assumes the communal form and
figure, in which it resides in the community of material things, as a
picture, a pot (ghata-pata) and the like. (The vanity of the unity is
expressed in the words of Veda "the one in many." [illegible Sanskrit])
27. It is in this manner that the divine spirit fills the whole
phenomenal world, in its universally common nature, as overspreading
cloud, fills the whole firmament in the rainy season.
28. I have thus expounded to you the true nature swarúpa--of the
unknown Almighty power, according to my best understanding, and as far
as it had been ascertained by the reasoning of the wise: that it fills
all and is not the all itself, and is the true entity appearing as no
entity at all.
29. It is our want of the sight of this invisible spiritual power, that
leads us to erroneous conception of the entity of the external world,
but a slight sight of this almighty Ens, removes all our pains in this
scene of vanity.
30. It is our dimsightedness of Almighty power, which is styled our
blindness or ignorance [Sanskrit: avidyá] by the wise. It is this
ignorance which give rise to the belief of the existence of the world,
and thereby produces all our errors and misery.
31. Who is so freed from this ignorance and beholds the glorious light
of God full in his view; he finds his darkness disappear from his
sight, as the icicles of night melt away at the appearance of solar
light.
32. The ignorance of a man flies off like his dream, after he wakes
from his sleep, and wishes to recall his past vision of the night.
33. Again when a man betakes himself to ponder well the properties of
the object before him, his ignorance flies away from before his face,
as darkness flies at the approach of light.
34. As darkness recedes from a man, that advances to explore into it
with a lamp in his hand, and as butter is melted down by application of
heat, so is one's ignorance dispelled and dissolved by application of
the light and the rise of reason.
35. As one pursuing after darkness sees a lighted torch in his hand,
sees but a blaze of light before, and no shadow of darkness about him;
so the inquirer after truth perceives the light of truth, shining to
his face and no vestige of untruth left behind him.
36. In this manner doth ignorance (Avidyá) fly away and disappear at
the sight of the light of reason; and although an unreal nothing, she
appears as something real, wherever there is the want of reason. (Hence
all unreasoning men are the most ignorant).
37. As the great mass of thick darkness, disappears into nothing at the
advance of light; it is in the same manner that the substantiality of
gross ignorance, is dissolved into unsubstantiality at the advancement
of knowledge. (so the advancement of inductive science, has put flight
the dogmatic doctrines of old).
38. Unless one condescends to examine in a thing, it is impossible for
him to distinguish it from another (as the shell from silver and rope
for the snake); but upon his due examination of it, he comes to detect
the fallacy of his prejudgment (as those of the silver and snake in the
shell and the rope).
39. He who stoops to consider whether the flesh or blood or bones of
his bodily frame, constitutes his personality, will at once perceive
that he is none of these, and all these are distinct from himself. (The
personality of a man consisting in his soul, and not in any part or
whole of his body).
40. And as nothing belonging to the person makes the persons, but
something beyond it that forms one's personality; so nothing in the
world from its first to last is that spirit, but some thing which has
neither its beginning nor end, is the eternal and infinite spirit. (The
same is the universal soul).
41. Thus ignorance being got over there remains nothing whatever,
except the one eternal soul which is the adorable Brahma and
substantial whole.
42. The unreality of ignorance is evident from the negative term of
negation and ignoring of its essentiality, and requires no other proof
to disprove its essence; as the relish of a thing is best proved by the
tongue and no other organ of sense. (The term Avidyá signifying the
want of _vidyá_--knowledge and existence [Sanskrit: vidyámánatá]).
43. There is no ignorance nor inexistence except the intelligence
and existence of God, who pervade over all visible and invisible
natures, which are attributed with the appellations of existence
and inexistence. (The whole being God (to Pan--the All) there is no
existence or inexistence without Him).
44. So far about Avidyá, which is not the knowledge but ignorance of
Brahma; and it is the dispersion of this ignorance which brings us to
the knowledge of God.
45. The belief of this, that and all other things in the world, are
distant and distinct from Brahma, is what is called _Avidyá_ or
ignorance of him; but the belief that all things visible in the world,
is the manifestation of omnipresence, causes the removal of ignorance,
by presenting us to the presence of God.
NOTE TO CHAPTER X.
The following lines of the English poet, will be found fully to
illustrate the divine attribute of omnipresence in the pantheistic
_doctrine_ of Vedánta and Vasishtha, as shown in this chapter _et
passen_.
All are but parts, of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and
God the soul; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same; Great
in the earth, as in the etherial frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes
in the breeze; Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Lives
through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided,
operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part. As
full as perfect, in a pair as heart: As full as perfect, in vile man
that mourns, As in the rapt seraph, that adores and burns; To him no
high, now, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects and equals
all.
Pope's Mortal Essays I. IX.
CHAPTER XI.
ASCERTAINMENT OF LIVING LIBERATION.
Argument.--Instances of Living Liberation in Hari, Hara and others, and
its consisting in the oecumenical knowledge of the one Brahma in all
and every thing.
Vasishtha said:--I tell you again and repeatedly O pious Ráma! for your
understanding, that you can never know the spirit without your constant
habit, of contemplating on it in your self-cogitation. (So the Sruti.
_Atmá vára, mant avyam_, "the soul is to be constantly thought upon"
and so also the Vedánta aphorism "asakrit upadesat" the soul is known
by repeated instructions on spiritual knowledge).
2. It is gross ignorance which is known as nescience, and it becomes
compact by the accumulated erroneous knowledge of previous births and
past life (namely; the errors of the dualities of matter and spirit
and of the living and Supreme soul, and the plurality of material and
sensible objects).
3. The perceptions of the external and internal senses of body, both
in the states of sensibility and insensibility, are also the causes
of great errors or ignorance _crasse_ of embodied beings. (_i.e._ The
sensible perceptions are preventives of spiritual knowledge which
transcends the senses and is called [Sanskrit: atíndriya]).
4. Spiritual knowledge is far beyond the cognizance of the senses, and
is only to be arrived at after subjection of the five external organs
of sense, as also of the mind which is the sixth organ of sensation.
5. How then is it possible to have a sensible knowledge of the spirit,
whose essence is beyond the reach of our faculties of sense, and whose
powers transcend those of all our sensible organs? (_i.e._ Neither is
the spirit perceptible by our senses, nor does it perceive all things
by senses like ours). So the Srutis He is not to be perceived by the
faculties of our sense, who does and perceives all with our organs.
([Sanskrit: na tatra vaggacchati namani ápanipádau yavanagtahítá]).
6. You must cut off this creeper of ignorance, which has grown up in
the hollow of the tree of your heart, with the sharp sword of your
knowledge, if you should have your consummation as an adept in divine
wisdom.
7. Conduct yourself Ráma! in the same manner in the practice of your
spiritual knowledge, as the king Janaka does with his full knowledge of
all that is knowable to man.
8. He is quite confident in his certain knowledge of the main truth,
both when he is employed in his active duties, in his waking state as
well as when he remains quiet at his leisure. (The end of knowledge is
to know God, and to rely on him both in busy and in active life).
9. It was by his reliance on this certain truth, that Hari was led
to the performance of his various acts in his repeated births or
incarnations. (A god in human flesh does his works as a god).
10. May you, Ráma! be certain of the main truth, which conducted the
three-eyed god Siva in the company of his fair consort; and which led
the dispassionate Brahmá to the act of creation. (_i.e._ the passionate
and unimpassioned and those that are active or inactive are equally
assured of this truth).
11. It was the assurance of this eternal verity, which led the
preceptors of the gods and demons, even Brihaspati and Bhargava, in
their duties; and which guide the sun and moon in their courses, and
even directs the elements of fire and air in the wonted ways.
12. This truth was well known to the host of Sages, including Narada
and Pulastya, Angira and Pracheta, and Bhrigu Krutu, Atri and Suka, as
it is known to me also.
13. This is the certainty which has been arrived at by all other
learned Brahmans and Sages, and this is the firm belief of every body,
that has been liberated in his life time.
14. Ráma said:--Tell me truly, O venerable sir, the true nature of the
truth, on which the great gods and wisest sages, have grounded their
belief, and became freed from their sorrow and grief (in this world of
sorrow and tears).
15. Vasishtha replied:--Hear me tell you! O worthy prince that art
great in arms as in thy knowledge of all things, the plain truth in
reply to your question, and the certitude arrived at by all of them
(named above).
16. All these spacious worlds, that you behold to be spread all about
you, they are all that One or _on_, and are situated in the immensity
of Brahma. (In their real or spiritual nature, and after obliteration
of the erroneous forms in which they appear to you. Their phenomenal
appearances, being but the misconceptions of our errors).
17. Brahma is the intellect, and the same is this world and all its
animate and inanimate creatures also; Myself and Brahma and so art thou
thyself, and such are all our friends and foes beside us.
18. Brahma is the tripletime of the past, present and future, all which
are comprehended in his eternity; in the manner of the continuity of
waves, billows and surges, contained in the immensity of the ocean.
19. It is thus the same Brahma that appears to us in all the various
forms of our perception, and in the different shapes of the actor,
action and its act, as those of the feeder, feeding and the food, and
of the receiver, reception and the thing received. (There being but
the only unity of God, the same is changed to all forms of action and
passion and so says the poet "that change through all and yet in all
the same" and also unvaried in all with a varied name. This the vedánta
says to be the _vivarta rúpa_ or the one changed in many form _vividha_
many, and varta let vertuus changed [Sanskrit: paribatta].)
20. Brahma expands in himself by his power of evolution, or unfolding
himself by his vivarta sakti; Hence He would be our enemy if he would
do any thing unfavourable into us. (God is good and never does any evil
to any one: all he does in and to himself)?
21. Thus Brahma being situated and employed with himself, does nothing
aught of good or evil to any other. The attribution of passions to
him, is as the planting of a tree in empty air. (God is not capable of
any human attribute, as it is usual with anthropomorphists to load him
with).
22. How very delighted are they that are dead to their desires, to
reflect on this truth, that they are continually living and moving in
the all pervading Brahma. (In Him we live and move).
23. All things are full of Brahma, and there is naught of pleasure or
pain herein; Brahma resides in his self-same all and is pleased with
all in himself. (The one is full of bliss with all in himself).
24. The Lord is manifest in his Lordship, and I am no other person
beside himself; this pot and that painting and I myself, are full with
the self-same Brahma.
25. Hence it is in vain to speak of our attachment or aversion to
worldliness, since we bear our bodies and dare to die in Brahma only.
(It is that something, for which we bear to live, and dare to die,
Pope).
26. Our bodies being the abodes of Brahma, it is as false to think to
our bodily pains, as also of our pleasure in bodily enjoyments, as to
take a rope for a serpent. (Hence we can have no sense of our pleasure
or pain, as long we know ourselves to be situated in Brahma and He in
us).
27. How say you, that this or that is your doing, when you have the
power of doing nothing. (The fluctuation of the billows on the surface
of the sea, cannot agitate the waters of the deep below.)
28. Myself, thyself and himself, and all others, are but the breaths of
the universal spirit; and they heave and then subside to rest as waves
of the sea; but the spirit of God, like the water of the deep, neither
rises nor falls as ourselves or the fleeting waves at any time.
29. All persons returning to Brahma after their death, have their
bodies also reduced into Him and retain their personal identity in Him
in the same manner, as the moving and unmoving waters rest alike in the
sea.
30. All moving and unmoving souls and bodies, rest alike in the supreme
Brahma; as the _Jíva_ and its form reside in God, and the whirling and
still waters remain in the same sea.
31. The soul and the body, are the two states of the likeness and
unlikeness of Brahma, the one is the living soul of bodies, and the
other is the gross body itself.
32. Irrational souls, that are ignorant of this truth, are verily
subject to delusion; but the rational souls are not so, but enjoy their
full bliss on earth, while the other is ever doomed to misery.
33. The blind behold the world all dark, while the eye-sighted find it
fully bright and shining; so the wise are blessed with the knowledge of
the one soul of the whole, while the ignorant are immerged in misery,
by their want of such knowledge.
34. As the darkness of the night, presents its goblins and spectres, to
the sight of children only, and not those of the grown up and adult; so
the world presents its delusions to ignorant and never to the wise, who
behold one Brahma only in all things before them.
35. There is nothing here that lives of itself, nor dies away to
nothing; all equally exist in God at all time, and nothing is doomed to
be born or perish herein to happiness or misery.
36. All beings are situated in the universal soul, as the waves in the
vast expanse of the ocean, therefore it is erroneous to say the one
reside in the spirit, and another to be beside it.
37. As there is an inborn light in the crystal, which is capable of
reflecting a variety of rays, so the spirit of God dwells in his own
spirit in the form of the universe, showing various shapes to view by
the inner light of the spirit.
38. As the particles of water flying from the waves, fall into the sea
and mix with its body of water; so the bodies of dying people, fall
into the body of Brahma, wherein they subsisted in their life time. (So
there is neither an increase or diminution of the essence of Brahma, by
the birth or death or increase or decrease of beings in the world).
39. There is nobody nor being beside the being of Brahma, as there is
no wave nor foam or froth of the sea beside the water of the deep.
40. As the billows and waves, the surges and eddies, and their froths
and foams, and bubbles and minute particles, are all formations of
water in the great body of waters; so are all beings but productions
of the spirit in the Infinite spirit. (All matter is reduced to the
spirits, and the spirits are consolidated to material substances by
chemical process).
41. All bodies with their various modes, and organs of sense and their
several functions, and all visible objects and their growth and decay,
together with every thing conducing to our happiness and misery, and
all other energies and their gains, are the works of Brahma in himself.
(_i.e._ they are the self reflective acts of gods and not done for the
sake of others).
42. The production of these various beings in _esse_, is from the
essence of Brahma; as the formation of different ornaments, is from the
substance of gold. There is no other formal cause or formation distinct
from Brahma, and the distinction of the cause and its creation, is the
erroneous conception of the ignorant.
43. The mind, understanding, egoism, and the elemental atoms, and the
organs of sense, are all the various forms of Brahma; wherefore there
is cause of our joy or grief.
44. The words I, thou, he, and this and that, as also the terms of
the mind and matter, are all significant of the self-same Brahma
_átmátmani_, in the same manner as the roaring of a cloud in the hills,
resounds in a hundred echoes through their caverns. (All words applied
to every thing, relate to the one self-same Brahma who is all in all
_to pan_).
45. Brahma appears as an unknown stranger to us, through our ignorance
of him, as the visions seen in a dream by our mind itself, appear
foreign to us. (_i.e._ Our belief in the visibles is the cause of our
disbelief in the invisible God; as our familiarity with the objects of
our waking state, makes us reject our visionary dreams as false).
46. Ignorance of Brahmá as Brahma or what he is, makes men to reject
divine knowledge altogether; as our ignorance of the quality of gold
causes us to cast it off dross. (Brahma to the brute is, as the gem in
the dung hill cast away by the silly cock).
47. Brahma is known as the Supreme spirit and sole Lord, by those who
are acquainted with divine knowledge; but he is said to be unknown and
involved in ignorance by them that are ignorant of Him.
48. Brahma being known as Brahma, becomes manifested such in a moment;
just as gold when known as such, is taken in due esteem.
49. Those who are versed in divine knowledge, know Brahma as without a
cause and causing nothing by himself, and that he is free from decay,
and is the Supreme spirit and sole Lord of all.
50. He who can meditate in himself, on the omnipotence of Supreme
spirit of Brahma; comes to behold him as such in a short time, even
without a leader to guide him in his spiritual knowledge (one's own
faith in Divine Omnipotence, is the surest means to the sight of his
Maker).
51. The want of divine knowledge, that is called the ignorance of the
ignorant; whereas it is the knowledge of God, that constitutes the true
knowledge which removes the ignorance.
52. As an unknown friend is no friend at all, until he is recognized as
such, after removal of one's forgetfulness; so God is no God to one, as
long he continues in ignorance of Him.
53. We can then only know God, when the mind comes to perceive the
unconnection of the soul with the body; and whereby it alienates itself
from all worldly connections in disgust.
54. It is then that we come to know the one true God, when the mind is
freed from its knowledge of duality; and by its distaste of dualism, it
abandons its attachment to the world.
55. We then come to the knowledge of God, when we come to know
ourselves to be other than our persons; and when by getting rid of our
personal egoism, we forsake our affection for this unkindred world.
56. It is then that the thought of God rises in our minds, when we
come to the true knowledge of thinking ourselves the same with Brahma;
and when the mind is absorbed in the meditation of the divine truth in
one's self. (This is the sublimation of the Yogi to the divine state;
or when the Yogi loses himself, in his rapturous vision on the one God.
This kind of meditation is indicated in the formula "Soham" in Vedánta
and _an ald Huq_ in sufism).
57. God being known as the _tout ensemble_ or comprising the whole
_plenum_, we come to believe the same as Brahma; and losing our egoism
and tuism in the same, we come to the knowledge of that entity only
comprising the entire universe. (This belief of the entirety of the
Deity, is expressed in the words "_Tat Sat_" corresponding with _to
on_, _idest_, _alast_, that is, He in the creeds of other people).
58. When I come to know this true and omniform Brahma, as all in all,
and forming the entire whole; I become released from all my sorrow
and grief, and am set free from all my delusion and desire, and the
responsibility of my duties (from the belief of God's agency in all
things).
59. I am quite calm and at ease and without any sorrow or grief, by my
knowledge of the truth, that I am no other than Brahma Himself; I am as
cool as the moon, without her spots and phases in me, and I am the all
entire, without any disease, decay or diminution in me. (This is said
with regard to the universal soul, which engrosses all souls and things
in itself).
60. It is true that I am the all pervading Brahma, and therefore I can
neither wish to have or leave any thing from me; being of myself the
blood, bones and flesh of my body. (The soul is the source of the body,
and the spirit its life, without which it decays and dies away).
61. It is true that I am Brahma the universal soul, and therefore the
intellect, mind and sensibility also; I am the heaven and sky with
their luminaries and quarters and the nether worlds also.
62. It is true that I am Brahma, composing this pot and painting, these
bushes and brambles, these forests and their grass, as also the seas
and their waves. (One God is manifest in many forms).
63. The unity of Brahma is a certain truth, and it is the ego which is
manifest in the seas and mountains and all living beings; and in the
qualities of reception and emission, and of extension and contraction
in all material bodies. (It is the Divinity that actuates the physical
powers in nature).
64. All things of extended forms situated in the intellectual spirit of
Brahma, who is the cause of the growth of creepers and plants, and of
the germination of vegetative seeds.
65. The supreme Brahma resides in his sheath of the intellectual soul,
in the manner of flavour in the cup of the flower; and thence diffuses
itself on all sides in the form of everything everywhere.
66. He that is known as only soul of all, and who is ascertained as
the supreme spirit, and who is designated by the appellations of the
intellectual soul, Brahma the great, the only entity and reality, the
Truth and Intelligence and apart from all.
67. He is said to be the all-inhering element, and Intelligence only
without the intelligibles in it; He is the pure light that gives every
being its consciousness of itself.
68. He appears to the spiritualist to be existent everywhere, as the
tranquil and intelligent Brahma; and contains in himself the powers of
all the faculties of the mind and body, such as the understanding and
the organs of sense, so the sruti; "He is the mind of the mind, the
sight of the eye." [Sanskrit: yascat?u sascat?unmanásá manoyadityádi].
69. Give up the thought of thy difference from Brahma by knowing
thyself as the reflexion of the intelligent soul; which is the cause of
the causes of the existence of the world. Such as vacuum and others,
which are causes of sound and are caused by vacuous spirit of God
(and not as the vacuists and materialists belief them, to be increate
essences from eternity).
70. The intellect of Brahma is the transparent receptacle of all
essences, and my ego is of the same essence, which exudes continually
as a shower of rain, from the transparent spirit of God.
71. I am that light which shines in the souls of yogis, and I am that
silent spirit which is supported by the ambrosial drops of Divine
Intellect; which continually distils its nectarious juice into our
souls, as we may feel in ourselves.
72. I am as a wheel or circle without having the beginning or end of
myself, and by having the pure intellect of Brahma in me. I am quiet in
my deep sleep of samádhi meditation, and I perceive holy light shining
within me. (The yogi in his devotion is absorbed in the calmness of his
soul and is wrapt in divine light).
73. The thought that I am Brahma, affords afar greater delight to the
soul, than the taste of any sweet meat, which gives but a momentary
delight, so the sruti:--God is all sweetness [Sanskrit: rasobetat]
(sweet is the memory of a friend, and sweeter far must be the thought
of God, who is best and greatest friend).
74. One knowing his soul and intellect, knows the indestructible Brahma
and himself as identic with the same; as one whose mind is possessed
with the image of his beloved, beholds her bright countenance in the
shining orb of the moon.
75. As the sights of earthly people are fixed in the etherial moon,
so the sight of intellectual beings, is fixed in the supreme and
indestructible soul, which he knows as self-same with himself.
76. The intellectual power which is situated in the vacuity of the
heart, is verily the verity of the immaculate Brahma himself. Its
pleasure and pain, and mutability and divisibility, are attributed to
by ignorance only.
77. The soul that has known the truth, knows himself as the supreme
Intellect, as the pilgrim on the way sees only his saint before him,
and no intermediate object besides.
78. The belief that I am the pure and all pervading intellect, is
attended with the purity and holiness of the soul, and the knowledge
of the Divine power as the cause of the union of earth, air and water
in the production of the germ of creation, is the main creed of all
creeds.
79. I am that intellect of Brahma which is inherent in all things as
their productive power; and I am that soul which causes the sweetness
of the _beal_ and bitterness of _nimba_ fruits.
80. I am that divine intellect which inheres alike in all flavours,
which is devoid of pain and pleasure and which I perceived in my mind
by my consciousness.
81. I am the undecaying intellect of Brahma, and deem my gain and loss
in equal light of indifference; while I view this earth and sky, and
the sun and moon displayed before my eyes in all their glory.
82. I am that pure and serenely bright Brahma, whose glory is displayed
alike in all of these, and which I behold to shine vividly before me,
whether when I am awake or asleep or whenever I am in the state of
dreaming or profound sleep.
83. I am that Brahma who is without beginning and end, who is known by
his four fold hypostases, and is ever indestructible and undecaying. He
resides in the souls of men in the form of sweetness in the sugarcane
through all their transmigrations.
84. I am that intellect of Brahma, which like the sunshine pervades
equally in the form of transparent light in and above all created
beings.
85. I am that all pervasive intellect of Brahma, which like the
charming moon light fills the whole universe; and which we feel and
taste in our hearts, as the delicious draught of ambrosia.
86. I am that intellect of Brahma, which extends undivided over the
whole and all parts of the universe, and which embraces all existence
as the moving clouds of heaven encompasses the firmament.
CHAPTER XII.
Argument.--Investigation in the doubts respecting living liberation.
Vasishtha said:--Great minded men that are certain of these truths,
are purified from their sins, and finding their tranquillity in the
reliance on truth, enjoy the delight of the even equanimity of their
souls, both in their prosperity and adversity. (Truthfulness and
equanimity are god-like attributes).
2. So the wise men of perfect understandings, being evenly
dispassionate in their minds; feel themselves neither glad nor sad,
either in the enjoyment or deprivation of their lives (which are alike
to them, because death is but the beginning or continuance of life in
another state or world).
3. They remain as unseen and marvelously mighty, as the arms of
Náráyana (god); and as straight and firm and yet as low and fragile as
the body and broken rocks of mount Meru on earth.
4. They roam about at pleasure in woodlands and over islands and amidst
cities also, and like the gods of paradise they wander about the
beautiful groves and sceneries of nature.
5. They roved in flowery gardens shaken by the playful breezes, and
also in the romantic forests on the skirts and tops of mountains.
6. They conquer also their enemies, and reign in their realms with the
chouri and umbrella ensigns of their royalty; they enjoy the various
produce and wealth of their kingdom, and observe the various customs
and usages of their country. (The wise man freely enjoy all things
without being bound into them).
7. They follow all the rules and rites, established by the laws of
their countries; and inculcated as duties for the observance of all.
8. They do not disdain to taste the pleasures, that would make the
beauties smile at; nor are they averse to the enjoyment of luxuries,
that they can rightly use and enjoy.
9. They smell the fragrance of mandara-flowers, and taste the sweet
juice of mango-fruits; they regale themselves with the sweet songs of
Apsaras, and revel in the arbours of Nandara or pleasure garden.
10. They never disregard the duties that bind all mankind to them, nor
neglect to perform the sacrifices and observe the ordinances that are
imperious on domestic life.
11. But they are saved from falling into dangers and evils of all
kinds, and escape the danger of falling under the feet of murderous
elephants, and avoid the uproar of trumpets and the imminent death in
battle-fields (_i.e._ Wise men avoid the dangers to which the ignorant
are liable).
12. They abide with those that are afflicted in their hearts, as among
the marauding plunderers of the country; they dwell among the oppressed
cowardly people, as also amongst their oppressors. Thus they are
conversant with the practices of all opposing parties, without mixing
with any one of them.
13. But their minds are clear of doubts and free from errors unaffected
by passions and affections, and unattached to any person or thing. They
are quite discrete and disengaged, free and liberated, tranquil and
serene, inclined to goodness reclining and resting in Supreme spirit.
14. They are never immerged in great dangers, nor are they ever
involved in very great difficulties. But remain as the boundary
mountains, remaining unimmersed amidst the water of a circumjacent lake.
15. They are never elated with joy, at the fluctuating favours of fond
and fascinating fortune; nor are they swollen, like the sea at the
increasing digits of the moon.
16. They do not fade away under sorrow or sickness, like plants under
the scorching sun beams, nor are they refreshed by refreshments, like
medicinal plants under the refreshing dews of night.
17. They are employed calmly and without anxiety in the discharge of
their duties and in the acts of fruition karma, and neither long for
nor relinquish the fruition, which is attendant upon them (_i.e._ They
do what is to be done, not for reward but as a matter of course).
18. They are neither elated with the success of their undertakings,
nor are they depressed by the mishap of their efforts, they are not
joyous at their joy and hey-day, nor do they sink under in danger and
difficulty.
19. They do not droop down under despondence, nor are they dejected in
despair, they are not merry in their prosperity, nor do they wail and
weep in their adversity.
20. They discharge their customary duties as prescribed by law and
usage, but their minds remain as firm and unmoved, as a mountain at all
the efforts of the body.
21. Now Ráma! Remove your sight for thy own egoism, and keep it fixed
on the true ego which is a destroyer of all sins; and then go on with
your ordinary course of conduct as thou mayest like.
22. Look at these creations and their various creatures, as they have
existed in their successive stages and phases; but do you remain as
firm as rock and as deep as the sea, and get rid of your errors.
(_i.e._ Your observation of nature can only remove your errors).
23. Know this grand whole as the reflexion of one sole Intellect,
beside which there is nothing as a reality or unreality, or as some
thing or nothing. (_Jo kuch hai ohi hai, nehinaur kuch'he_. Whatever
there is, is he himself, and there is _nil_ beside his _ens_ or self).
24. Ráma! have thy greatness as the great Brahma, and preserve the
dignity of human nature about thee; reject all whatever as unworthy of
thee, and with an unattached heart to every thing, manage thyself with
gentleness every where, and thus pass the days here. (As an heir of
eternity).
25. Why dost thou weep with thy heart full of sorrow and grief, and
why dost thou lament like the deluded, and why rovest thou with thy
wandering mind, like a swimming straw to the whistling eddy.
26. Ráma replied--Verily sir, the dart of my doubts is now rubbed
out of my mind, and my heart is awakened to its good senses by thy
kindness, as the lotus is enlivened by thy rising sun-light.
27. My errors are dispersed as the morning fog in autumn; and my doubts
are set down by your lectures; which I will always adhere to.
28. I am now set free from the follies of pride, vanity, envy and
insensibility; and I feel lasting spiritual joy rising within me after
the subsidence of all my sorrows. And now if you are not tired, please
deliver your lectures with your clear understanding, and I will follow
and practice them without fear or hesitation.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TWO YOGAS OF KNOWLEDGE AND REASONING.
Argument.--The two yogas or Habits of restraining the Desires and
Respiration herein before described, are followed by two others: viz.
the Acquisition of knowledge and the Training to reasoning which are
yogas also.
Ráma said:--I am verily becalmed and set at ease, O Brahman! by
relinquishing all my desires, from my full knowledge of their
impropriety; and by my being staid in the state of the liberated, even
in this my present life. (The heaven of the holy, commences in their
earthly life).
2. But tell me, sir, how a man can have his liberation, by restraining
his respirations for a time; and how the restraint of one's breathings,
can put a restriction to his desires, which reside and rise from the
mind; while it belongs to the body and comes in and out of the heart
and lungs. (Nostrils).
3. Vasishtha said:--The means of fording over the ocean of this earth
is known, O Ráma! by the word Yoga or union, which is composed of the
quality of pacifying the mind in either of the two ways or processes
(as shown below).
4. The one is the acquisition of religious instruction, leading to the
knowledge of the soul and of the Supreme soul, and the other is the
restraining of respiration, which you will learn from the lecture that
I am about to deliver.
5. Here Ráma interrupted and said:--Tell me, sir, which of the two
is more delectable, owing to its facility and unpainfulness; and the
knowledge or practice whereof, releases us from all fear and trouble
whatsoever.
6. Vasishtha replied:--Ráma! although I have mentioned here of two
kinds of Yoga, yet the common acceptation of the term, restricts it
to the restriction of breathing. (The vulgar have no idea of esoteric
occultism or _jnana Yoga_, but call him a Yogi, who is employed in his
exoteric practices, of asceticism and austerities, suppression of
breath; and all kinds of wilful pains).
7. The true Yoga is the concentration of the mind in God, which is the
only means of our salvation in this world; and this is achieved in
either way of the regulation of breathing, or perfection in learning,
both of which tend to the one and same effect, of fixing the attention
in divine meditation.
8. The practical yoga by the regulation of respiration, appears as too
arduous a task to some persons, while proficiency in knowledge seems to
be too difficult of attainment to others. But to my understanding the
ascertainment of truth by theoretical knowledge seems to be far better
than practice. (The theoretical meditation is known as the _rája yoga_,
and the forced contraction of the breath is called the _hatha yoga_ or
forced devotion, and is the device of Dattátreya who was an ancient
Rishi also).
9. Ignorance is ever ignorant of truth, which does not lend its light
to us in either our walking or sleeping states. So the ignorant
practiser is always in ignorance both when he is in his meditative
trance [Sanskrit: yogavidyá] or otherwise; but knowledge is always
knowing, both when the knower is awake or asleep.
10. The practical yoga which stands in need of fixed attention, painful
postures, and proper times and places, is impossible to be practiced,
owing to the difficulty of getting all these advantages at all times.
11. I have thus described to you, O Ráma! both the two kinds of yoga
propounded in the sástras, and the superiority of the pure knowledge,
which fills the intellect with its unfading light.
12. The regulation of the breathings, the firmness of the body
and dwelling in sequestered cells, are all I ween as pregnant of
consummation--_siddhi_; but say, which of these is capable of giving
knowledge [Sanskrit: vritti] to the understanding, which is the
greatest perfection in human nature.
13. Now Ráma! if you think it possible for you, to sit quiet with utter
suppression of your breaths and thoughts; then can you attempt to sit
in your sedate posture of meditation without uttering a single word.
CHAPTER XIV.
NARRATIVE OF BHUSUNDA AND DESCRIPTION OF MOUNT MERU.
Argument.--Vasishtha's visit to Meru in expectation of seeing Bhusunda
and his description of the Mountain.
Vasishtha related:--The vast universe, O Ráma! is but an evolution of
the will of the Infinite Brahmá, just as the various representations
in the mirage, are but eversions of solar rays. (Or these are the
reflexions of the self-same Deity, as the Fata Morgana are the reflex
of solar light).
2. Here the divine Brahmá that is born of the lotiform navel of Brahmá,
takes the title of the creator and preserver of all, that has been
produced by the supreme spirit; and is called also the great father of
all, for his producing the prime progenitors of mankind. (Here Brahmá
resembles Adam of the scriptures).
3. This divine being brought me forth from his mind, where fore I am
called the _mánasaputra_ or progeny of the mind, of the mind of this
holy personage. He made me settle first in the fixed polar circle of
the starry frame, I viewed the revolutions of the planetary spheres,
and the successive Manvantaras before me. (The Manus were all the
progeny of the divine mind, whence they bear their name of Manu or
mind-born).
4. Residing once in the imperial court of the lord of gods--Indra, I
heard the accounts of many long living persons and people, from the
mouths of Nárada and other messengers of the gods. (Nárada is the
Mercury of Hindu mythology, and answers an angel of the scriptures).
5. There was once on a time the sage Sálatapá among them; who was a
person of great understanding, a man of honor and taciturn in his
speech; and said by way of conversation:--
6. That there was in the north east summit of Mount Meru, a spot full
of sparkling gems, where there was a _kalpa_ tree of the _chuta_ or
_mango_ kind, which yielded its fruits in all seasons of the year.
7. The tree was covered all over with fresh and beautiful creepers, and
a branch of it extending towards the south, had a large hollow in its
top, containing the nest of birds of various kinds.
8. Among them there was a crow's nest, belonging to one old raven by
name of Bhusunda, who lived quite happy with himself; as the god Brahmá
dwells content in his lotus-bed.
9. There is no one in the womb of this world so long lived as he, nor
even the gods in heaven, can boast a greater longevity than he among
the feathered tribe; and it is doubtful whether there may be another as
old as he in times to come. (Old as Adam and as old as Methuselah).
10. This crony crow was beauteous even in old age, and had become
passionless and great-minded by his long experience. He remained quiet
with the tranquillity of his mind, and was as graceful as he was full
of knowledge of all times. (Achromatic as old Nestor of the present,
past and future--_trikálajna_).
11. If any one may have the long life of this crow, his life becomes
meritorious, and his old age is crowned with sapience. (The vigour of
life is productive of meritorious works, and its decay is fraught with
wisdom).
12. In this manner, he related the virtues of the bird in full, at the
request of the gods in heaven; and did not utter any thing more or
less, before the assembly of the deities who knew all things.
13. After the gods had been satisfied with the narration of the veteran
crow, I felt a great curiosity in me, to see and know more of this
superannuated bird (for who is it that has not an eager desire to learn
the art of longevity).
14. With this desire, I hastened to the spot, where the crow was said
to rest in his happy nest; and I reached in a short time, to the summit
of Meru, which was shining with its precious stones. (The descent
from heaven to the lofty top of Meru could not be long, since the
gods are said to be all situated on this high mountain. ([Sanskrit:
tasminnadrau trayasvimsat vasatihiga nadevatah]), and again ([Sanskrit:
yávatmerausyitadeváh]).)
15. The peak of the mountain was flaming as fire, with the glare of its
gems and red earth--_gairika_, and these painted the upper sky, with
the bright hue of florid honey and sparkling wine.
16. The mountain shone as brightly as it were burning with the blaze
of the last conflagration, and the sky was reddened by their reflexion
with shades of clouds; appearing as the smoke of fire or the blue
lustre of sapphire.
17. The mountain appeared to be formed by a collection of all kinds of
colours on earth, which gave it the appearance of the variegated sky in
west at the time of the setting sun.
18. The flame of fire proceeding from its crater, and emitted through
the crevice on its top, seemed as the culinary fire of the Yogi,
carried up from his bowels to the cranium in Yoga. (This is styled the
Utkranti Yoga or lifting the physical powers, and concentrating them
all in the head--the seat of intellect).
19. The ruddy peaks and pinnacles of Sumeru, resembled his arms and
fingers painted with lac-dye; in order to lay hold on his consort the
fair moon by way of sport. (It means the mountain tops reaching to and
touching the orb of the moon. So Kálidása makes his Himalaya transcend
the sphere of the sun).
20. The lurid flame of wild fire on this mountain, seemed as the
burning blaze of sacrificial fires, which are fed with clarified
butter were rising to heaven. (Hence fire is styled the bearer of our
offerings to the gods above--_havya-váhana_, because there is nothing
on the earth except the flames of fire--that has the power of rising
upwards, whence they are termed _Urdha--jwalana--havir--bhujas_.
([Sanskrit: urdha jvalana havirbhujam]).)
21. The mount with its elevated summit seemed to kiss the face of the
sky, and to raise its fingers in the form of its peaks and pinnacles,
with their blazing gems resembling the nails of the fingers, in order
to count the scattered stars.
22. The clouds were roaring on one side of it with the loud noise of
the drums, and the young plants and creepers were dancing in the
happy arbours on another, clusters of flowers were smiling as blooming
beauties on this side, and the swarms of humming bees were hovering on
them on that.
23. Here the lofty palm trees seemed to be smiling with shewing
their teeth in their denticulated leaves, on seeing the giddy groups
of Apsaras, swinging and strolling about loosely in their amorous
dalliances under their shade.
24. There the celestials were resorting in pairs to their grottos
in the mountain, in order to relieve themselves of their trouble of
trudging over the rugged paths of the craggy mountain; and they were
clothed in the white vest of the open sky (nudity), and having the
stream of Ganges falling from high for their sacred thread. (Here Meru
means any mountain and Ganga is put for any stream descending from it).
25. The hoary mountain stood as a grey headed hermit, holding the
reeds (with which it abounded) as canes in his hand; and the celestial
inhabitants of the mount, rested in the coverts of the creepers, being
lulled to sleep by gurgling sound of the waters falling from precipice
to precipice.
26. The mountain king was crowned by the full blown lotuses that
grow on its top, and was regaled by the sweet fragrance; which the
odoriferous breezes bore from them. It was decorated with the gems of
the starry frame on its crown, and charmed with the sweet songs of the
_gandharvas_ playing their strains on it.
27. His hoary head pierced the silvery region of heaven, and was one
with it in being the abode of the gods.
28. The many coloured tops of Meru, emitting the various colours of the
red, white, black, blue, yellow, and gray stones that are embodied in
its body, lent the sky its variegated hues in the morning and evening,
while the versicolor blossoms on its tops, invited the Heavenly nymphs
to their rambles and sports over them.
CHAPTER XV.
VASISHTHA'S VISIT TO BHUSANDA.
Argument.--Description of the scenery on the top of Mount Meru.
Allegory of the arbour of desire, the resort of all living beings.
Description of Birds of the mountainous region, and lastly the
character of _káka bhusanda_.
Vasishtha continued:--I saw the _kalpa_ tree on the top of one of these
peaks, which was girt by its branches on all sides; and covered with
flowers appearing as tufts of hairs on its head.
2. This tree was covered with the dust of its flowers, which shrouded
it as a thick mist or cloud; and its flowers shown as bright as
brilliant gems upon it; its great height reaching to the sky, made it
appear as a steeple or pinnacle standing upon the peak. (Allegorically
the Kalpatree is the tree of Desire, which branches out into the
various objects of our wish. Its flowers are all our sanguine hopes
and expectations, which are hidden under the dark mist of futurity.
The crown dwelling in its dark hollow, is the undwelling obscure soul,
which is hid under the impervious gloom of our ignorant minds and false
egoism. Its nest is in the highest divinity, and it is immortal because
it is a particle of Eternal spirit).
3. Its flowers were twice as much as the number of stars in heaven,
and its leaves redoubled the clouds in their bulk and thickness. Its
filaments were more shining than the flash of lightnings, and the
pollen of the flowers were brighter far than the circumambient beams of
the radiant sun. (The flowers of the tree of Desire being our hopes and
expectations, they are of course more numerous than the countless stars
in the sky, but it is to say, what things are meant under the allegory
of their leaflets farina and pistils).
4. The songs of the sylphs dwelling on the branches of this tree,
resounded to the buzz of the humming bees, and the nimble feet and
waving palms of the Apsaras in their sportive dance on every leaflet,
reduplicated the number of the leaves as much again. (The feet and
palms are always compared with the leaves of trees, so these meeting
on every leaf is the lightsome leaping and skipping of the airy sylphs
over them, increased the number of leaves to more than ever so many).
5. The spirits of the aerial siddhas and gandharvas hovering on this
tree, far out-numbered the number of birds that flocked and fluttered
about it; and the greyish frost which wrapped it as a gemming mantle,
out-shone the glossy rind which served for its raiment of fine linen.
6. The top of this tree touches the lunar sphere, and by deriving its
moisture from that humid planet, yields its fruits of larger size than
the orb of the moon itself. And the clouds gathering about its trunk,
have doubled the size of its joints. (i.e. The fruits of high desire
are fairer and larger and more cooling than even the orb of the moon,
and its sections are as bright as the bodies of clouds).
7. The gods rested on the trunk of this tree, and the Kinnaras reposed
themselves on its leaves, the clouds covered its arbours, and the
Asuras slept on its banks.
8. The Fairies repelled their mates by the sound of their bracelets, as
the bees put the beetles to flight by their busy buzzing, and sucked
the honey from the flowercup to their fill. (It means that females very
often taste the sweets of their desire, while men are driven to labour).
9. The arbour of desire extends on all sides of the sky, and fills the
space of the whole world, by embodying the gods and demigods and men
and all kinds of living beings in it. (It is some desire or other that
tends both the mortals and immortals in the course of their lives.
Desire is the in-being of active life, and its want is either dulness
or death).
10. It was full of its blooming buds and blossoms, and was covered with
its tender leaves and leaflets, it was fraught with its flourishing
flowers, and had graced the forest all around.
11. It flushed with its filaments, and abounded with its gemming
florets; it was replete with its radiant vestures and ornamented
trappings, to afford to the wants of its votaries, and it was ever in a
flurry with sportive dance of the tender plants and creepers all around
it.
12. It was full laden with flowers on all aides, and was abundant with
its fruits on all its branches, and being fraught with the copious
farina of its flowers, which it lavished and scattered on all its
sides, it became charming and attractive of all hearts towards it.
13. I saw flock of the feathered tribe fluttering about the happy
bowers, or resting about the broad boughs and branches of the tree;
some of these were reposing in the coverts of the leafy arbour, and
others pecking the flowers and fruits with their bills.
14. I saw the storks and geese which are the vehicles of Brahmá,
feeding on fragments of lotus-stalks, resembling the digits of the
bright moon in whiteness; and picking the bulbous roots of the _arjuna_
and lotus plants in the lakes.
15. The goslings of the geese of Brahmá, muttered the _omkára_, the
initial syllable of the Veda, as they were addicted in it by their
preceptor the god--Brahmá himself.
16. I saw the parrots with their blue pinions resembling the blue
clouds of heaven, and beheld their red dusk beaks shining as the flash
of lightnings, and uttering their shrill sound in the manner of the
_swáhá_ of the veda. (The parrot is the vehicle of the god of fire,
wherefore it is fit for him to utter the syllable _swáhá_; which is
used in the invocation of fire: as _swáhá agnaye_).
17. I saw also the green parrots of the god of fire, scattered all
about like the green _kusa_ grass lying scattered on the sacrificial
alter of the gods; and I beheld the young peacocks with their crests
glowing as the glistening flames of fire.
18. I saw there the groups of peacocks fostered by the goddess Gaurí
(The peacocks of Juno), as also the big peacocks belonging to the god
Kumára; I beheld likewise the vehicle of skanda, which are versed in
knowledge. (One of these is said to be the expounder of a grammar,
known by the name of Kaumári Kalápa Vyakarana).
19. I saw there many bulky and big bodied birds, that are born to live
and breed and die away in their natal air, and never alight on the
nether ground. These were as white as the clouds of autumn and nestles
with their mates in air, and are commonly known under the name of
Aerial Birds.
20. I saw the goslings of the breed of Brahma's geese, and the
younglings of the brood of Agni's parrots. I beheld the big breed of
the peacocks forming the vehicles of war god; (Skanda, Alexander)?
21. I saw the _Bharadwája_ and I saw there many other kinds of big
birds. (Charui, birds with two mouths and gold finches with their
golden crests). I saw also kalavinca sparrows, the little cranes and
pelicans and cuckoos and vultures likewise and cranes and cocks.
22. I saw likewise a great variety of other birds as the Bhushus,
Chushus and partridges of many kinds, whose numbers are no less than
all the living animals of this earth taken together. (That is to
say, the air and water abound with fowls and fishes of as great a
variety and number as the animals on earth, and all of them dwell in
tree of Desire as mankind and other terrestrial animals. _Nemo sine
desiderium_).
23. I then began to pray from my etherial seat, and through the
thickening leaves of the tree to the nest of the bird; amidst the
hollows of far distant boughs towards the south.
24. After some time I came to descry at a distance a body of ravens,
sitting in rows like leaves of the branches, and resembling the
streaks of sable clouds on either sides of the _Lokáloka_--horizon.
(The _Lokáloka_ mountain is a fictitious name for the horizon, which
has light and darkness ever attendant on its either side. The term
_lokáloka_ or light and shade, is also used to represent vicissitudes
of life).
25. Here I beheld awhile afterwards, a lonely branch with a spacious
hollow in it. It was strewn over with various flowers and redolent with
a variety of perfumes. (The houses of great men are always scented with
odours. ([Sanskrit: subásit harmmatalam manoramam]).)
26. It was as the happy abode of virtuous women in heaven, which are
perfumed with sweet scenting clusters of flowers, and there the crows
were sitting in rows, as they were perfectly freed from all cares and
sorrows.
27. Their great group appeared as the big body of a cloud, separated
from the tumultuous air of the lower atmosphere and resting on the calm
firmament of the upper sky; and the venerable Bhusunda was seen sitting
quietly with his exalted body.
28. He sat there as an entire sapphire shining prominent amongst
fragments of glass, and seemed to be of a stout heart and mind, and of
a dignified mien and graceful appearance.
29. Being heedful of the rule of the restriction of his respiration and
suppression of his voice, he was quite happy with his long longevity,
and was renowned every where as a long lived passe (seer).
30. He witnessed the course of ages and periods, and marked their
advent and exodus in repeated succession; and was thereby known as the
time worn Bhusunda in this world, and a being of stout and unflinching
mind.
31. He was weary with counting the revolutions of the Kalpa cycles, and
with recounting the returns of the preserving divinities of the world;
such as the Sivas, Indras, the gods of the winds and other.
32. He was the chronicler of all antiquity, and the recorder of the
wars of the gods and demons, and the hurling of the high hills in
heaven; and yet he was of a clear countenance and profound mind; he was
complacent to all, and his words are as sweet as honey.
33. This old seer related distinctly all that was unknown and
indistinct to others, he was wanting in his egotism and selfishness,
and was the lord over all his friends and children, and his servants
and their seniors and he was the true narrator of all things at all
times.
34. His speech was clear and graceful, sweet and pleasing, and
his heart was as tender as the cooling lake, and as soft as the
lotus-flower; he was acquainted with all usages and customs and the
depth and profoundness of his knowledge, ever the serenity of his
appearance.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONVERSATION OF VASISHTHA AND BHUSUNDA.
Argument.--Reception of Vasishtha by Bhusunda, and the Inquiries of the
sage regarding the life and acts of the crow.
Vasishtha Continued:--I then alighted before the veteran crow with my
brilliant etherial body, as a bright meteor falling from the sky on the
top of a mountain; and this my sudden appearance startled the assembly,
as if they were disturbed by my intrusion.
2. The assembly of the black birds trembled like the lotuses of the
lake, at the shaking of the gentle breeze; and the agitation of the air
at my slow descent, troubles them as much as an earthquake troubles the
waters of the deep.
3. But Bhusunda who was a seer of the three times, was not at all
disturbed at my arrival; but know me as Vasishtha, now in attendance
upon him. (Like a flimsy cloud from the mount).
4. He then rose from his leafy seat, and advancing slowly before me, he
said with sweet sounds distilling as honey. I welcome thee great sage
to my humble cell.
5. Then he stretched both hands to me, holding clusters of flowers
that he had at his will and then strewed them in hand-fulls upon me,
as a cloud scatters the dewdrops over the ground. (The comparison of
raindrops with the shedding of flowers is common in India and well
known by the compound term _pushpa-vrishti_).
6. Take this seat said he, and stretched with his hand a newly shorn
rind of the Kalpa tree; this he had plucked with his own hand, nor
needed the help of his attendant crows in this gladsome task.
7. On the rising of Bhusunda, the menials also arose from their seats,
and then on seeing the sage seated on his seat, they looked to and
betook themselves to their respective seats and posts.
8. Then having refreshed myself with the sweet scent of the Kalpa
creepers all about me, I was surrounded by all the birds that gathered
round me, and had their chief sitting face to face in front of me.
(This time worn etiquette of old India is still in vogue in the
politest courts of the world).
9. Having offered me the water and honey for my refreshment, together
with the honorarium worthy of me, the high minded Bhusunda felt the
cheer of his mind, and then accosted me with complaisance and in words
sweet as honey. (The serving of honey and water to guests of yore
served the offering of brandy and water of modern fashion).
10. Bhusunda said:--O lord! thou hast after long favoured us with your
kind visit, which has by its ambrosial influence resuscitated our arbor
and ourselves. (Such is the visit of a superior to an inferior).
11. I ween, O great Muni! that art honoured of the honourable, that it
is by virtue of my long earned virtues that you are now brought to this
place, and want to be informed from where your course is bent to my
humble abode.
12. You sir, that have long wandered amidst the great gloom of this
world, and know its errors by your infallible experience, must have at
last in the peace of your mind. (Peace after broils and strife. _Pax
post turba_).
13. What is it that makes you take this trouble on yourself today, is
what we wished to be informed at present; and your answer to those that
are expectant of it, will be deemed as a great favour by them.
14. It is by the sight of your holy feet, O venerable sage! that we
are put to the knowledge of every thing; and yet our obligation at
this uncalled for call of yours here, emboldens us to ask this farther
favour of yours. (Nobody asks nobody, that has nothing to do with him).
15. We know that it is your remembrance of us among the long living,
that has directed your attention towards us, and made your holiness to
sanctify this place by your gratuitous visit to us.
16. Though thus we know this as the cause of your calling into us; yet
it is our desire of satisfying ourselves with the sweetness of your
nectarious words, that has prompted to propose this query to you at
present.
17. In this manner did the longival crow, that was clear sighted
with his knowledge of the three times, deliver his inquiry by way of
formality.
18. Vasishtha answered--Yes, O king of birds! it is true as thou sayst,
that I have come here thus to see thy diuturnal self; (because the
aged are honoured as sages, and their shrines are visited as those of
saints).
19. You are verily very fortunate with your cold heartedness, and your
sagacity has haply saved you from falling into the dangerous snares of
this world.
20. Now sir, deign to remove my doubt regarding to your anility, and
tell me truly of what family you are born, and how you come to know
what is worth knowing (respecting the origin and end of beings, and
their good or bad lot afterwards).
21. Tell me sir, if you remember the length of life that you have
passed, and if you recollect by your long sightedness how you came to
be settled in this lodging. (Lit. who appointed this place for your
habitation).
22. Bhusunda replied, I will relate to you all, O great sage! that
you ask of me, and your great soul shall have to hear it attentively
without any inadvertence of your mind.
23. It is certain, O venerable sir! that the topics, which deserve the
attention of great minded souls like yourselves; will prove effective
of destroying the evils of the world, as the influence of the clouds
and their propitious rains remove the heat of the sun.
CHAPTER XVII.
DESCRIPTION OF BHUSUNDA'S PERSON.
Argument.--Vasishtha relates to Ráma of the perfections of Bhusunda's
Body and Mind, which entitled him to the enjoyment of his liberation in
his living time.
Vasishtha said:--Now Ráma, know this Bhusunda, who was of a complexion
as black as that of a cloud heavy with water in the rainy season; to
have a countenance which neither merry nor sorry, and a mind free from
guile and cunning.
2. His voice was grave and mild, and his words were accompanied by a
gentle smile, and he spoke of the three worlds, as if he balanced three
_beal_ fruits in his hands. (His knowledge of the worlds, was as that
of the globe in his hands).
3. He looked on all things as they were mere straws before him, and
weighted the lives of men in proportion to their enjoyments, and by
the ratio of their rations on earth, he had the knowledge of the
knowables and the unknowable one (called the common and transcendental
knowledge-_paránara_).
4. He was big bodied grave and quiet, and sedate as the mount Mandara;
and his mind was as full and clear as the calm ocean after a storm.
5. His mind was perfectly tranquil and quite at ease; and full of joy
within itself; and acquainted with the appearance and dis-appearance of
all beings born in this world.
6. His countenance was delightsome with his inward delight, and his
voice was as sweet as the melody of a sweet song; he seemed to have
taken a new born form on himself, and his joyfulness dispelled the
fears of men.
7. After he had respectfully received and accosted me, with his pure
and dulciate words; he began to recite to me his own narration, as the
rumbling of a rainy cloud, delights the hearts of the thirsty world.
CHAPTER XVIII.
MANNERS OF THE MÁTRIKA GODDESSES.
Argument.--Bhusunda traces his origin from the Mátres, whose manners
and revelries he describes in length.
Bhusunda related:--There is in this world, the god of gods Hara
(Horus?) by name; who is the chief among the celestials, and honoured
by all the divinities of heaven.
2. He had his consort Gaurí constituting the better half of his body,
and by whom he is embraced in the manner of an ivy clasping the young
Amra tree. Her bosom likened a cluster of blooming blossom, and her
eyes resembled the lines of black bees fluttering in the summer sky.
3. The hoary locks of hair on the braided head of Hara, were entwined
as with a white lace, by the snow white stream of Ganges, whose billows
and waves as clusters of flowers on the hair-band.
4. The crown of his head was decorated with the gemming milk-white
disk of the moon, which sprung from the bosom of the milky ocean; and
spread her bright radiance and ambrosial dews about his person. (The
streams of ganguari are represented as consorts of Hara, and the moon
as forming the discus on the braces of the hairs on his head).
5. The incessant effusion of ambrosial draughts, from the disk of the
moon on his crest, has made him immortal by assuaging the heat of the
deadly poison which he swallowed, and has marked his throat with the
bluish hue of the sapphire or _lapis lazuli_, whence he named the blue
gulletted Níla Kantha. (Hara is said to have swallowed the kála-kuta
poison, as Hercules drank his full bowl of henbane).
6. The god is besmeared with powdered ashes on his body, as
emblematical of the particles of dust, to which the world was reduced
by the flame of his all destructive conflagration; while the stream
of water flowing from the Ganges on his head, is typical of the
current of his clear knowledge of all things. (Others make the burning
fire of his frontal eye _bhála netra_ to represent the flash of his
cognoscence--jnánágni).
7. His body is decorated with strings of blanched bones, which are
brighter far than the silvery beams of fair moon, and these serve as
necklaces of argent and pearly gems about his person. (Hence he is
named as Jala-padda-málika).
8. His vest is the open sky with its plates of folded clouds, which
are washed by the milk white beam of the moon, and studded with the
variegated spots of the stars. (This means the nudity of the god, hence
called Digamvara or sky attired).
9. He is beset by the prowling shakals, devouring the burnt carcasses
on funeral grounds, and holds his abode beyond the habitations of men,
in cemeteries and mortuaries in the outer skirts of cities. (Whence his
name of Smashána sáyí).
10. The god is accompanied by the Mátres, who are decorated with
strings of human skulls about their necks, and girt with the threads of
their entrails on their bodies; while the fat and flesh of dead bodies,
and the blood and moisture of putrid carcasses, form their delectable
food and drink.
11. Their bodies are soft and shining as gold, and moving about with
sparkling gem on their heads and bracelets of snakes curled round their
wrists.
12. The acts of this god are dreadful to relate, and strike terror in
hearts of the gods and demons, and all beings beside. One glance of his
eye (coup d'oeil) is enough to set the mountains in a blaze, and his
hunger grasps the whole world in one morsel.
13. The perpetual rest of his meditative mind in holy trance samádhi,
hath restored the world to rest; and the movement of his arms at
intervals, is attended with the destruction of demons.
14. His forms of the elements are intently lent on their fixed
purposes, without being deterred from them by the impulses of his
anger, enmity or affection; and the wind of his breath makes the
mountains to tremble, and turn the humid earth to arid ground.
15. His playmates are the devils with their heads and faces, resembling
those of bears and camels, goats and serpents; and such as have their
heads for hoofs, and their hoofs as their hands, and whose hands serve
as their teeth, and who have their faces and mouths set upon their
bellies and breasts.
16. His face shone brightly with the rays of his three eyes (whereby he
is denominated the triple eyed god _trinetra_); and the _mátres_ were
dependant on him as his dependant demoniac bands--_gana-devatás_.
17. The Mátres joined with the bands of demons, dance about him lowly
at his bidding, and feed upon the living bodies, that are born and dead
in all the fourteen regions of creation.
18 The Mátres having their faces as those of asses and camels, rove at
great distances from him; and are fond of feeding on the flesh and fat,
and drinking the red hot blood of bodies as their wine. They have the
fragments and members of dead bodies, hanging about their persons as
strings of pearls.
19. They reside in the hollows of hills, in the open sky and in other
regions also; they dwell also in the holes underneath the grounds, and
like to abide in cemeteries and in the holes and pores of human and
brute bodies.
20. There are the goddesses known under the names of Jayá and Vijayá,
jayantí and Aparajitá; and again siddha Raktá and Alambushá, and also
another bearing the name of utpatá.
21. These eight are denominated the Nayikai of leaders, of the whole
body of Mátrikas; the others are subordinate to these, and there are
others again subordinate to them.
22. Among all these venerable Mátres, there one by name of Alambushá,
that is the source of my birth; and this I have revealed to you on
account of your great favour to me, by your kind call to my cell.
23. She had the crow by name of Chanda for her vehicle, which had its
bones and bills as strong as the bolts of Indra's thunder; it was as
dark as a mountain of jetblack or blue agate, and served her goddess as
Garuda served the consort of Vishnu.
24. This octad of Mátri goddess were once assembled together, and bent
their course in the ethereal firmament on some of their malevolent
purposes.
25. They made their merry makings and religious revels in the air, and
then turned their course to the left side where they halted at the
shrine of Tumburu, which was sacred to Siva.
26. They there worshipped the forms of Tumburu and Bhairava, which are
adored in all the worlds; and then regaled themselves with a variety of
discourses, seasoned with drinking and to ping.
27. Then they look up the topic among other subjects of their
conversation, as to whether they were slighted and disliked by their
paramour--the spouse of Umá, who is taken to share one half of his
body. (In the shape of androgyne--Umá--Maheswara or Hara--Gaurí; having
the male and female bodies joined in two halves in one bisex forms).
28. We shall now show him our prowess, that he may never think of
despising our great powers even by a contemptuous look, for though the
god feigns to be single and naked, yet we know he is bipartite with his
consorts Umá forming his better half.
29. Thus determined the goddesses overpowered on Umá by some potent
charm of theirs, and by sprinkling a little water upon her, as they
do to captivate a beast, which they are going to sacrifice before
the altar, and by this spell they succeeded both to change the fine
features of Durga, as also to enervate her frame.
30. They succeeded also by their power of enchantment, to detach Umá
from the body of Hara, and set her before them, with an imprecation of
converting her fair form to their meat food.
31. They made great rejoicings on the day of their execration of
Párvati; when they all joined in dancing and singing, and making their
giddy revelries before her.
32. The shouts of their great joy and loud laughter resounded in the
sky, and the jumping and hopping of their big bodies, laid open their
backs and bellies to sight.
33. Some laughed as loudly with the deafening clappings of their palms,
that they rebounded in the sky as the roarings of lions and clouds.
They showed the gestures of their bodies in their warlike dance, and
the sound of their singing rang through the forests and reached in the
mountains.
34. Others sang as loud as it rang through the mountain caves, and ran
to the depth of the ocean; which rebillowed with its surges as at the
time of the full-moon tide.
35. Others drank their bowls, and daubed their bodies from head to foot
with liquor; and muttered their drunken chatters, that chattered in the
sky.
36. They drank over and sang louder and louder, they turned about as
tops, and uttered and muttered as sots. They laughed and sipped and
chopped and fell down and rolled and prattled aloud. Thus they reeled
in fits, and bit the bits of their flesh meats, till these Bacchanal
goddesses did all their orgies in their giddy revels.
CHAPTER XIX.
BHUSUNDA'S NATIVITY AND HABITATION.
Argument.--Account of the birth of Bhusunda.
Bhusunda continued. Thus while the goddesses were in the acts of their
merriment, their bonny vehicles or carrier birds also caught the
infection, and indulged themselves in their giddy jigs and giggles, and
in tippling the red blood of their victims for their liquor.
2. Then giddy with their drink the gabbling geese, that were fit
vehicles for Brahmá's consorts, danced and frolicked in the air, in
company with the crow Chanda the carrying bird of Alambushá.
3. Then as the geese darted down, and kept dancing and drinking and
tittling on the banks of streams, they felt impassioned and inflamed by
lust: because the borders of waters are excitants of concupiscence.
4. Thus the geese being each and all excited by their carnal desire,
dallied with that crow in their state of giddiness, which is often the
cause of unnatural appetites.
5. Thus that single crow--Chanda by name, became spoused to seven geese
at once on that bank; and cohabited one by one with every one of them,
according to their desire.
6. Thus the geese became pregnant after gratification of their lust,
and the goddesses being satisfied by their merry dance, held their
quiet and took to their rest.
7. Then these goddesses of great delusion (mahá máyá), advanced towards
their consort Siva, and presented unto him his favorite Umá for his
food.
8. The god bearing the crescent moon on his fore-head, and holding the
trident spike in his hand; coming to know that they had offered his
beloved one for his meat, became highly incensed on the Mátres.
9. Then they brought out the parts of the body of Umá, which they had
taken in as their food from their bodies; and presented her entire for
her remarriage with the moon-headed deity.
10. At last the god Hara and his consorts being all reconciled to one
another together with their dependants and vehicles, retired to their
respective quarters with gladness of their minds.
11. The geese of Brahmá perceiving their pregnancy, repaired to the
presence of their goddess, and represented to bear their case, as I
have, O chief of sages! already related unto you.
12. The Devi on hearing their words, spake kindly unto them and
said:--you my menials, cannot now be capable of bearing my car in the
air as before; but must have the indulgence of moving about at your
pleasure, until you have delivered of your burthens.
13. After the kind goddess had said these words to her geese, that
were ailing under the load foetuses, she betook herself to her wonted
meditation, and remained in her irreversible rest with the gladness of
her mind.
14. The geese that were now big with the burden of their embryos,
grazed in the lotus bed of Vishnu's navel, which had been the birth
place of the great Brahmá before. (Brahmá the creative power, owed his
birth to the lotiform navel of Vishnu, and the same place was all owed
for the pasture of the geese and the nativity of the goslings).
15. The geese then being matured in their pregnancy, by feeding upon
the lotus-like navel of Vishnu, brought forth their tender eggs in
time, as the calmly creepers shoot out in sprouts in the spring.
16. They laid thrice seven eggs in their proper time, which afterwards
split in twain, like so many mundane eggs in their upper and lower
valves or canals.
17. It was these eggs, O great sage! that gave birth to thrice seven
brethren of ours, all of whom are known under the appellation of the
fraternity of chanda crows.
18. These being born in the lotus bed of Vishnu navel, were fostered
and bred up in the same place, till they were fledged and enabled to
fly and flutter in the air.
19. We then joined with our mother geese in the service of our
Mátri-goddess, who after our long services unto her, was roused from
her intense meditation at last.
20. Now sir, it was in course of time, that the goddess inclined of her
own complaisance, to receive us into her good grace, and favour us with
the gift (of foresight), whereby we are quite liberated in this life.
(It is over one's blindness of the future, that is the cause of the
error and mischief of life).
21. Thought in ourselves of remaining in peace, and in the tranquillity
of our minds; and being determined to betake ourselves to solitary
contemplation, we went to our sire the old crow Chanda for his advice.
(In the Vindhyan mountain).
22. We were received into the embrace of our father, and favoured with
the presence of his goddess Alumbusha; they looked on us with kindness,
and allowed us to remain near them with our self restricted conduct.
23. Chanda said:--O my darlings! Have ye obtained your release from
weaving the web of your desires? You are then set free from the snare
of this world, which binds fast all beings in it.
24. If not so, then I will pray unto this goddess of mine, who is
always propitious to her devotees, to confer on you the blessing of
consummate knowledge (which alone can save you from all worldly evils).
25. The crows replied--O sir! we have known whatever is knowable, by
the good grace of the Goddess Brahmá, it is only a good solitary place,
which we now seek for the sake of undisturbed meditation.
26. Chanda returned--I will point it out to you, in the high mountain
of Meru in the polar region; which is the seat of all the celestials,
and the great receptacle of all the treasures and gems on earth.
27. This mountain stands as the lofty pillar of gold, in the midst of
the great dome of the universe; it is lightet by the luminous orbs of
the sun and moon as its two lamps, and is the residence of all kinds of
animals.
28. This lofty mountain stands as the lifted arm of this orb of the
earth, with its gemming peaks and pinnacles resembling its fingers and
their jewels, and having the moonbeam, as a golden canopy raised over
its head, and the sounding main girding the islands for its bracelets.
29. The mount Meru is situated in the midst of the Jambudwípa (Asia)
as its sole monarch, and is beset by the boundary mountains as its
chieftains on all sides. With its two eye balls of the rolling sun and
moon, it glances over the surrounding hillocks, as the king seated in
the centre, looks on the courtiers sitting all about him.
30. The clusters of stars in the sky, hangs as wreaths of málati
flowers around his neck, and the bright moon that leads the train of
stars, forms the crowning jewels over his head, the firmament on the
ten sides girds him as his vest, and the nágas of both kinds (_i.e._
the elephants and serpents) are warders at his gates.
31. The nymphs of heaven are employed in fanning him with the breeze
from all quarters, and flapping over him their _chouries_ of the
passing clouds, with their hands decorated with the variegated hues of
heaven as their ornaments.
32. His huge body stretched over many leagues, and his feet are rooted
fast many fathoms underneath the earth; where they are worshipped by
the nágas, Asuras and large serpents. (That dwell at the foot of the
mount, while the races of gods are situated on its top).
33. It has thousands of ridges and steeps, craigs and cliffs, below its
two eyes of sun and moon; and these are lauded as celestial regions by
the Gods, gandharvas and kinnaras that inhabit in them.
34. There are fourteen kinds of superior beings, inhabiting the
supernal sphere of this mountain; and these dwell there with their
households and relatives, in their respective circles, without ever
seeing the city or citadel of another. (This means the great extent
and distance of the several separate ridges from one another. Its
fourteen ridges or regions are known as the chaturdasa--vhuvanas, and
fourteen peoples are included under the title of thirteen classes
of celestials--_troadasa-gana-devatás_. These are the brahmarshis,
Rajarshis, Devarshis, Devas, Pitris, Gandharvas, Kinnaras, Apsaras,
Vidyádharas, Yakshas, Rakshas, Pramathas, Guhyakas and Nágas (the last
of whom are not recognized among celestial beings).)
35. There is a large ridge on the north east corner of this mount, with
its gemming summit rising as high and bright as the shining sun.
36. There stands a large _kalpa_ tree on the out side of that ridge,
which is peopled with living beings of various kinds; and appears to
present a picture of the whole world in miniature.
37. The southern stem of this tree has a protruding branch with its
aureate leaves, and its blossoms blooming as clusters of brilliant
gems; and presenting its fruit as lucid and luscious to view, as the
bright and cooling orb of the moon.
38. I had formerly built my nest on that branch, and decorated it with
all sorts of shining gems; and there it was, oh my offspring! that I
sported and enjoyed myself, as long as my goddess sat in her meditative
mood.
39. My nest was hid under the gemming flowers, and stored with luscious
fruits, and its door was fastened with bolts of precious gems.
40. It was full of young crows, who knew how to behave properly with
one another; Its inside was strewn over with flowers, and was cooling
at all times and seasons.
41. Repair therefore, my children! to that nest, which is inaccessible
even to the gods; because by remaining there, you will obtain both your
livelihood and liberation without any molestation. (Livelihood with
liberty, is the best blessing on earth).
42. Saying so, our father kissed and embraced everyone of us; and
presented to us the meat food, which he had got from his goddess.
43. After taking our repast, we prostrated ourselves at the feet of our
father and his goddess, and then flew in the air, from the Vindhyan
range which is sacred to the divinity of Alumbusha.
44. We passed over the nether sky, entered into the region of the
clouds; then coming out of their hollow caves, we flew aloft on the
wings of the winds to the vacuous void of the etherial gods to whom we
paid our homage.
45. Having then passed the solar world, we arrived at another sphere
of the fixed stars above, where we saw the heaven of the immortals and
thence reached the empyrean of Brahmá.
46. There we bowed down to the goddess Bráhmí, and our mother (the
goose) which was her vehicle; and related in length to them the behest
of our father unto us.
47. They endeared and embraced us with kind affection, and then bade us
to do as we were bid by our sire. At this we bowed down to them, and
took our departure from the seat of Brahmá.
48. We then directed our flight to Meru where we found out this _kalpa
tree_ and our appointed nest in it. Here we line apart and remote from
all, and hold our silence in all matters.
49. We passed the region of the regents of the skies, which shone to a
great distance with the blaze of solar rays; we fled through the empty
air with the velocity of winds.
50. I have thus related to you in length in answer to your query,
regarding the manner of our birth and how we are settled in this place;
I have told you also how we came to the knowledge of truth, whereby we
have come to this state of undisturbed peace and tranquillity, now bid
us, O great Sage! what more can we relate to satisfy your curiosity
about us.
CHAPTER XX.
EXPLICATION OF THE MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER OF BHUSUNDA.
Argument.--The stability of the world even at the change and
dissolution of the worldly objects; and the immortality of Bhusunda
even after the Demise of his Brethren.
Bhusunda continued. This world has existed by the prior and bygone
kalpa, in the very same state as it does at present, and there is no
variation in the formation or location of any thing in any wise. (The
ante-diluvean world alike the post-diluvean).
2. Therefore O great Sage! I am accustomed to look to the past and
present with an equal eye, and will relate the events of my passed life
and by gone ages for your information, as if they are existent with me
even at present. (It is the fashion of the old chroniclers, to describe
the long past as if it is actually present before them).
3. I find to-day, O great Sage! the fr
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