LXXX. DISPLAY OF THE QUINTUPLE ELEMENTS…

LXXX. DISPLAY OF THE QUINTUPLE ELEMENTS

Argument:--Description of the five siddhis or modes of consummation.

Vasishtha related:--Hearing these words of the beauteous lady, her husband had not the wit to dive into the meaning of what she said, or to understand what she meant by her reliance in the soul, but jestingly told to her.

2. Sikhidhwaja said:--How incongruous is thy speech, and how unbecoming it is to thy age, that being but a girl you speak of great things, go on indulging your regal pleasures and sports as you do in your royal state.

3. Leaving all things you live in the meditation of a nothing (i.e. leaving all formal worship, you adore a formless Deity); and if you have all what is real to sense, how is it possible for you to be so graceful with an unreal nothing? (Nothing is nothing, and can effect nothing).

4. Whoso abandons the enjoyments of life, by saying he can do without them; is like an angry man refraining from his food and rest for a while, and then weakens himself in his hunger and restlessness, and can never retain the gracefulness of his person.

5. He who abstains from pleasures and enjoyments, and subsists upon empty air, is as a ghost devoid of a material form and figure, and lives a bodiless shadow in the sky.

6. He that abandons his food and raiment, his bedstead and sleep, and all things besides; and remains devoutly reclined in one soul only, cannot possibly preserve the calmness of his person. (The yogis are emaciated in their bodies, and never look so fresh and plump as the princess).

7. That I am not the body nor bodiless, that I am nothing yet everything; are words so contradictory, that they bespeak no sane understanding.

8. Again the saying, that I do not see what I see, but see something that is quite unseen; is so very inconsistent in itself, that it indicates no sanity of the mind.

9. From these I find thee an ignorant and unsteady lass still, and my frolicsome playmate as before; it is by way of jest that I speak so to you, as you jestingly said these things to me.

10. The prince finished his speech with a loud laughter, and finding it was the noon time of going to bath, he rose up and left the apartment of his lady.

11. At this the princess thought with regret in herself and said, O fie! that the prince has quite misunderstood my meaning, and has not understood what I meant to say by my rest in the spirit, she then turned to her usual duties of the day.

12. Since then the happy princess continued in her silent meditation in her retired seclusion, but passed her time in the company of the prince in the enjoyments of their royal sports and amusements.

13. It came to pass one day, that the self-satisfied princess pondered in her mind, upon the method of flying in the air; and though she was void of every desire in her heart, wished to soar into the sky on an aerial journey.

14. She then retired to a secluded spot, and there continued to contemplate about her aerial journey by abstaining from her food, and shunning the society of her comrades and companions. (During the absence of the prince from home. Gloss).

15. She sat alone in her retirement keeping her body steadily on her seat, and restraining her upheaving breath in the midst of her eye-brows (this is called the Khecharí mudrá or the posture of aerial journey).

16. Ráma asked:--All motions of bodies in this world whether of moving or unmoving things, are seen to take place by means of the action of their bodies and the impulse of their breathing; how is it possible then to rise upwards by restraint of both of them at once?

17. Tell me sir; by what exercise of breathing or the force of oscillation, one attempts the power of volitation; and in consequence of which he is enabled to make his aerial journey (as an aeronaut).

18. Tell me how the adept in spirituality or yoga philosophy, succeeds to attend his consummation in this respect, and what processes he resorts to obtain this end of his arduous practice.

19. Vasishtha replied:--There are three ways, Ráma, of attaining the end of one's object, namely; the upádeya or effort for obtaining the object of pursuit; second, heya or disdain or detestation of the thing sought for; and the third is upeksha or indifference to the object of desire. (These technical terms answer the words positive, negative and neutrality in western terminology, all which answer the same end; such as the having, not having of and unconcernedness about a thing, are attended with the same result of rest and content to everybody).

20. The first or attainment of the desirable upádeya, is secured by employing the means for its success, the second heya or detestation hates and slights the thing altogether; and the third or indifference is the intermediate way between the two (in which one is equally pleased with its gain or loss. It is a curious dogma, that the positive, negative and the intermediate tend all to the same end).

21. Whatever is pleasable is sought after by all good people, and anything that is contrary to this (i.e. painful), is avoided by every one; and the intermediate one is neither sought nor shunned by any body. (Pleasure is either immediate or mediate, as also that which keeps or wards off pain at present or in future).

22. But no sooner doth the intelligent, learned devotee, come to the knowledge of his soul and become spiritualized in himself, than all these three states vanished from his sight, and he feels them all the same to him.

23. As he comes to see these worlds full with the presence of God, and his intellect takes its delight in this thought, he then remains in the midmost state of indifference or loses sight of that also.

24. All wise men remain in the course of neutrality (knowing that an eternal fate overrules all human endeavours), which the ignorant are in eager pursuit of their objects in vain, but the dispassionate and recluse shun every thing (finding the same satisfaction in having of a thing as in its want). Hear me now tell you the ways to consummation.

25. All success is obtained in course of proper time, place, action and its instruments (called the quadruple instrumentalities to success); and this gladdens the hearts of a person, as the vernal season renovates the earth.

26. Among these four, preference is given to actions, because it is of highest importance in the bringing about of consummation. (The place of success siddhi is a holy spot, its time--a happy conjunction of planets and events, action is the intensity of practice, and its instruments are yoga, yantra, tantra, mantra, japa &c.).

27. There are many instruments of aerostation, such as the use of Gutika pills, application of collyrium, the wielding of sword and the like; but all these are attended with many evils, which are prejudicial to holiness.

28. There are some gems and drugs, as also some mantras or mystic syllables, and likewise some charms and formulas prescribed for this purpose; but these being fully explained, will be found prejudicial to holy yoga. (These magical practices and artifices are violations of the rules of righteousness).

29. The mount Meru and Himálaya, and some sacred spots and holy places, are mentioned as the seats of divine inspiration; but a full description of them, will tend to the violation of holy meditation or yoga. (Because all these places are full of false yogis, who practice many fulsome arts for their gain).

30. Therefore hear me now relate unto you, something regarding the practice of restraining the breath, which is attended with its consequence of consummation; and is related with the narrative of Sikhidhwaja, and is the subject of the present discourse. (Here Vasishtha treats of the efficacy of the regulation of breath towards the attaining of consummation for satisfaction of Ráma, in disregard of false and artificial practices).

31. It is by driving away all desires from the heart, beside the only object in view, and by contracting all the orifices of the body; as also by keeping the stature, the head and neck erect, that one should attend the practices enjoined by the yoga sástra (namely: fixing the sight on the top of the nose and concentrating it between the eye-brows and the like).

32. Moreover it is by the habit of taking pure food and sitting on clean seats, that one should ponder into the deep sense and sayings of the sástras, and continue in the course of good manners and right conduct in the society of the virtues, by refraining from worldliness and all earthly connections.

33. It is also by refraining from anger and avarice, and abstaining from improper food and enjoyments, that one must be accustomed to constrain his breathings in the course of a long time.

34. The wise man that knows the truth, and has his command over his triple breathings of inspiration, expiration and retention (púraka, rechaka and kumbhaka), has all his actions under his control, as a master has all his servants under his complete subjection. (because breath is life, and the life has command over all the bodily actions, as well as mental operations of a person).

35. Know Ráma, that all the well being of a man being under the command of his vital breath; it is equally possible for every one, both to gain his sovereignty on earth, as also to secure his liberation for the future by means of his breath. (So says the proverb, "as long as there is breath, there every hope with it" [Sanskrit: yábat shusah tábat áshah] So in Hindi:--jan hai to Jehan hai i.e. the life is all in all &c. So it is said in regard to the kumbhaka or retentive breath, "repress your breath and you repress all," because every action is done by the repression of the breath).

36. The breath circulates through the inner lung of the breast, which encircles the entrails (antra) of the whole inner frame; it supplies all the arteries with life, and is joined to by all the intestines in the body as if they to that common channel.

37. There is the curved artery resembling the disc at the top of lute, and the eddy of waters in the sea; it likens the curved half of the letter Om, and is situated as a cypher or circlet in the base or lower most gland. (It is called the kundaliní or kula kundaliní nárhí in the original).

38. It is deep seated at the base of the bodies of the Gods and demi Gods, of men and beasts, of fishes and fowls, of insects and worms, and of all aquatic molluscs and animals at large.

39. It continues curved and curbed in the form of a folded snake in winter, until it unfolds its twisted form under the summer heat (or the intestinal heat of its hunger Jatharágní), and lifts its hood likening the disk of the moon. (The moon in the yoga sástra, means the loti-form gland under the upper most crown of the head).

40. It extends from the lower base, and passing through the cavity of the heart, touches the holes between the eye brows; and remains in its continued vibration by the wind of the breath.

41. In the midst of that curvilineal artery (kundaliní nárhí), there dwells a mighty power like the pith within the soft cell of the plantain tree, which is continually vibrating, like thrilling wires of the Indian lute (or as the pendulum of a machine).

42. This is called the curvilineal artery (kundaliní) on account of its curviform shape, and the power residing in it is that prime mobile force, which sets to motion all the parts and powers of the animal body.

43. It is incessantly breathing like hissing of an infuriate snake and with its open mouths, it keeps continually blowing upwards, in order to give force to all the organs.

44. When the vital breath enters into the heart, and is drawn in by the curved Kundaliní; it then produces the consciousness of the mind, which is the ground of the seeds of all its faculties.

45. As the Kundaliní thrills in the body, in the manner of a bee fluttering over a flower; so doth our consciousness throb in the mind, and has the perception of the nice and delicate sensations. (Such as the lungs and arteries receive the crude food and drink; so doth our consciousness perceive their various tastes and flavour).

46. The Kundaliní artery stirs as quickly to grasp its gross objects, as our consciousness is roused at the perception of the object of the finer senses of sight &c. These come in contact with one another, as an instrument lays hold of some material.

47. All the veins in the body are connected with this grand artery, and flow together like so many cellular vessels into the cavity of the heart, where they rise and fall like rivers in the sea. (It shows the concentration of blood in the heart by all the veins and arteries, and its distribution to them in perpetual succession, to have been long known to the sages of India, before its discovery by Harvey in Europe).

48. From the continued rise and fall (or heaving and sinking) of this artery, it is said to be the common root or source of all the sensations and perceptions in the consciousness. (It rises and falls with the inhaling and exhaling breaths up to the pericranium and thence down to the fundament).

49. Ráma regained:--How is it sir, that our consciousness coming from the infinite intellect at all times and places, is confined like a minute particle of matter, in the cellular vessel of the curved Kundaliní artery, and there it rises and falls by turns.

50. Vasishtha replied:--It is true, O sinless Ráma, that consciousness is the property of the infinite intellect, and is always present in all places and things with the all pervading intellect; yet it is sometimes compressed in the form of a minute atom of matter in material and finite bodies.

51. The consciousness of the infinite intellect, is of course as infinite as infinity itself; but being confined in corporeal bodies, it is fused as a fluid to diffuse over a small space. So the sunshine that lightens the universe, appears to flush over a wall or any circumscribed place. (Such as human consciousness, which is but a flush of the Divine omniscience).

52. In some bodies it is altogether lost, as in mineral substances which are unconscious of their own existence; and in others it is fully developed, as in the Gods and human species; while in some it is imperfectly developed, as in the vegetable creation, and in others it appears in its perverted form, as in the inferior animals. So everything is found to have its consciousness in some form or other.

53. Hear me moreover to explain you, the manner in which consciousness (or other), appears in its various forms and degrees, in the different bodies of animated beings.

54. As all cavities and empty spaces are comprised under the term air, so are all intelligent as well as unintelligent beings comprehended under the general category of the one ever existent intellect, which pervades all things in the manner of vacuum. (Here is another proof of the vacuistic theory of the theosophy of Vasishtha).

55. The same undecaying and unchanging entity of the intellect, is situated some where in the manner of pure consciousness, and elsewhere in the form of the subtile form of the quintuple elements. (i.e. As the simple soul and the gross body or the mundane soul. So says Pope: Whose body nature is, and God the soul).

56. This quintuple element of consciousness is reduplicate into many other quintuples, as a great many lamps are lighted from one lamp; these are the five vital airs, the mind and its five fold faculties of the understanding; the five internal and the five external senses and their five fold organs, together with the five elementary bodies; and all having the principles of their growth, rise and decay, as also their states of waking, dreaming and sleeping ingrained in them.

57. All these quintuples abide in the different bodies of the Gods and mortals, according to their respective natures and inclinations (which are the causes of their past and present and future lives in different forms).

58. Some taking the forms of places, and others of the things situated in them; while some take the forms of minerals, and others of the animals dwelling on earth.

59. Thus is this world the production of the action of the said quintuples, having the principle of intellectual consciousness, presiding over the whole and every part of it.

60. It is the union of these quintuples in gross bodies, that gives them their intelligence; hence we see the mobility of some dull material bodies, as also the immobility of others (as of mineral and vegetable creations).

61. As the wave of the sea is seen to roll in one place, and to be dull and at a lull in another; so is this intellectual power in full force in some bodies, and quite quiescent in others.

62. As the sea is calm and still in one place, and quite boisterous in another; so is the quintuple body either in motion or at rest in different places. (Hence rest and motion are properties of gross bodies and not of the intellectual soul, which is ever quiescent).

63. The quintuple body is mobile by means of the vital airs, and the vital life (jíva) is intelligent by cause of its intelligence; the rocks are devoid of both, but the trees have their sensibility by reason of their being moved by the breath of winds; and such is the nature of the triple creation of animals, minerals and vegetables.

64. Different words are used to denote the different natures of things (or else the same word is used for things of the same kind); thus fire is the general name for heat, and frost is that of coldness in general.

65. (Or if it is not the difference in the disposition of the quintuple elements in bodies, that causes the difference in their natures and names). It is the difference in the desires of the mind, which by being matured in time, dispose the quintuple elements in the forms of their liking.

66. The various desires of the mind, that run in their divers directions, are capable of being collected together by the sapient, and employed in the way of their best advantage and well being.

67. The desires of men tending either to their good or evil, are capable of being roused or suppressed, and employed to their purposes by turns. (The changeful desires always run in their several courses).

68. Man must direct his desires to that way, which promises him the objects of his desires; or else it will be as fruitless, as his throwing the dust at the face of the sky.

69. The great mountains are but heaps of the pentuples, hanging on the tender and slender blade of consciousness, and these moving and unmoving bodies, appear as worms on the tree of knowledge (i.e. before the intelligent mind).

70. There are some beings with their desires lying dormant in them, as the unmoving vegetable and mineral productions of the earth; while there are others with their ever wakeful desires, as the deities, daityas and men.

71. Some are cloyed with their desires, as the worms and insects in the dirt; and others are devoid of their desires as the emancipate yogis, and the heirs of salvation.

72. Now every man is conscious in himself of his having the mind and understanding, and being joined with his hands, feet and other members of his body, formed by the assemblage of the quintuple materials.

73. The inferior animals have other senses, with other members of their bodies; and so the immoveables also have some kind of sensibility, with other sorts of their organs. (The members of brute bodies are, the four feet, horns and tails of quadrupeds; the birds are biped and have their feathers, bills and their tails also; the snakes have their hoods and tails; the worms have their teeth, and the insects their stings &c. And all these they have agreeably to the peculiar desire of their particular natures. Gloss).

74. Thus my good Ráma! do these quintuple elements, display themselves in these different forms in the beginning, middle and end of all sensible and insensible and moving and unmoving beings.

75. The slightest desire of any of these, be it as minute as an atom, becomes the seed of aerial trees producing the fruits of future births in the forms of the desired objects. (Every one's desire is the root of his future fate).

76. The organs of sense are the flowers of this tree (of the body), and the sensations of their objects are as the fragrance of those flowers, our wishes are as the bees fluttering about the pistils and filaments of our fickle efforts and exertions.

77. The clear heavens are the hairy tufts, resting on the stalks of the lofty mountains; its leaves are the cerulean clouds of the sky, and the ten sides of the firmament, are as the straggling creepers stretching all about it.

78. All beings now in being, and those coming into existence in future, are innumerable in their number, and are as the fruits of this tree, growing and blooming and falling off by turns.

79. The five seeds of these trees, grow and perish of their own nature and spontaneity, also perish of themselves in their proper time.

80. They become many from their sameness, and come to exhaust their powers after long inertness; and then subside to rest of their own accord like the heaving waves of the ocean.

81. On one side, there swelling as huge surges, and on the other sinking low below the deep, excited by the heat of the dullness on the one hand, and hushed by the coolness of reason on the other (like the puffing and bursting of the waves in the sea).

82. These multitudes of bodies, that are the toys or play things of the quintuple essences, are destined to remain and rove for ever in this world, unless they come under the dominion of reason, and are freed from further transmigration.

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LXXXI. INQUIRY INTO AGNI, SOMA OR FIRE AND MOON

Argument:--Investigation into the Kundaliní artery, as the source of consummation.

Vasishtha continued:--The seeds of these pentuples are contained in the inside of the great artery, and are expanding every moment by the vibration of the vital breath in the beings.

2. The vibration of the Kundaliní being stopped, it roused the intellect by its touch, and the rising of the intellect is attended with rising of the intellectual powers as follows.

3. This intellect is the living principle from its vitality, and the mind from its mental powers; it is the volitive principle from its volition, and is called the understanding, from its understanding of all things.

4. It becomes egoism with its octuple properties called the puryashtakas, and remains as the principle of vitality in the body in the form of the Kundaliní artery. (The gloss gives no explanation of the psychological truths).

5. The intellect abides in Kundaliní entrails in the form of triple winds. Being deposited in the bowels and passing downwards, it takes the name of the apána wind; moving about the abdomen it is called the samána wind; and when seated in the chest it rises upwards, it is known by the name of the udána wind.

6. The apána wind passing downward evacuates the bowels, but the samána wind of the abdominal part serves to sustain the body; and the udána rising upward and being let out, inflates and invigorates the frame.

7. If after all your efforts, you are unable to repress the passing off of the downward wind; then the person is sure to meet his death, by the forcible and irrepressible egress of the apána wind (this irrepressible egress is called abishtambhá). (The translator regrets for his inability to give the English terminology of these psychological words in the original).

8. And when one with all his attempts, is unable to suppress his rising breath of life; but it forces of his mouth or nostrils, it is sure to be followed by his expiration.

9. If one by his continual attention, can succeed to repress the outward and inward egress of his vital breath, and preserve calm quiet of his disposition, he is sure to have his longevity accompanied with his freedom from all diseases.

10. Know that the decomposure of the smaller arteries, is attended with distempers of the body, but the disturbance of the greater arteries is followed by serious consequences. (There are a hundred great arteries, attached to the main conduit of Kundaliní, besides hundreds of small veins and nerves diverging from them throughout the body. The yogi has the power of stopping the current of his breath and blood into these by his restraint of respiration--pránáyáma).

11. Ráma said:--Tell me, O holy sage! how our health and sickness connected with the organs and arteries of the body (rather than with the blood and humours circulating through them).

12. Vasishtha replied:--Know Ráma, that uneasiness and sickness, are both of them the causes of pain to the body; their healing by medicine is their remedy, which is attended with our pleasure; but the killing of them at once by our liberation (from the sensations of pain and pleasure), is what conduces to our true felicity. (Because both health and sickness are attended with but short lived pleasure and pain, and cannot give us the lasting felicity to our souls).

13. Some times the body is subject both to uneasiness and sickness also, as the causes of one another; sometimes they are both alleviated to give us pleasure, and at others they come upon us by turns to cause our pain only.

14. It is ailing of the body, that we call our sickness, and it is the trouble of the mind that we term our uneasiness. Both of them take their rise from our inordinate desires, and it is our ignorance only of the nature of things, that is the source of both. (Our intemperance and covetousness, which are dispelled by our right knowledge).

15. Without the knowledge of the natures and virtues of things, and the want of the government of our desires and appetites, that the heart string loses its tenuity and even course; and is swollen and hurried on by the impulse of passions and inordinate desires.

16. The exultation at having obtained something, and ardour for having more; equally boil the blood of the heart, and shroud the mind under a shadow of infatuation, as an impervious cloud in the rainy weather.

17. The ever increasing greediness of the mind, and the subjection of the intellect under the dominion of foolhardiness, drives men to distant countries in search of a livelihood. (One's natal land is enough to supply him with a simple living).

18. Again the working at improper seasons (as at night and in rain and heat), and the doing of improper actions; the company of infamous men, and aptitude to wicked habits and practices.

19. The weakness and fulness of the intestines caused by sparing food on the one hand, and its excess on the other, cause the derangement of the humours and the disorder of the constitution.

20. It is by cause of this disordered state of the body, that a great many diseases grow in it, both by reason of the deficit as well as the excess of its humours; as a river becomes foul both in its fulness and low water in the rain and summer heat.

21. As the good or bad proclivities of men, are the results of their actions of prior and present births, so the anxieties and diseases of the present state, are the effects of the good and bad deeds both of this life as also those of the past.

22. I have told you Ráma, about the growth of the diseases and anxieties in the quintessential bodies of men; now hear me tell you the mode of extirpating them from the human constitution.

23. There are two sorts of diseases here common to human nature, namely--the ordinary ones and the essential; the ordinary ones are the occurrences of daily life, and the essential is what is inborn in our nature. (The ordinary cares for supplying our natural wants are of the first sort, and the inbred errors and affections of the mind are of other kind).

24. The ordinary anxieties are removed by the attainments of the objects in want; and the diseases growing out of them, are also removed by the removal of our anxious cares.

25. But the essential infirmities of one's dispositions, being bred in the blood and bone, cannot be removed from the body, without the knowledge of the soul; as the error of the snake in the rope, is removed only by examination of the rope. (So the affection will be found to rise in the mind and not rooted in the soul).

26. The erroneous affections of the mind, being known as the source of the rise of all our anxious cares and maladies; it is enough to put a stop to this main spring in order to prevent their outlets, so the stream that breaks its banks in the rains, carries away the arbours that grew by it in its rapid course. (The fissures of stopping the source, and breaking out of the course, are quite opposed to one another).

27. The non-essential or extrinsical diseases that are derived from without, are capable of being removed by the application of drugs, the spell of mantras and propitiating as well as obviating charms; as also by medicaments and treatments, according to the prescriptions of medical science and the practice of medical men.

28. You will know Ráma, the efficacy of baths and bathing in holy rivers, and are acquainted with the expiatory mantras and prescriptions of experienced practitioners; and as you have learnt the medical Sástras, I have nothing further to direct you in this matter.

29. Ráma rejoined:--But tell me sir, how the intrinsic causes produce the external diseases; and how are they removed by other remedies than those of medicinal drugs, as the muttering of mantra incantations and observance of pious acts and ceremonies.

30. Vasishtha replied:--The mind being disturbed by anxieties the body is disordered also in its functions, as the man that is overtaken by anger, loses the sight of whatever is present before his eyes.

31. He loses sight of the broad way before him, and takes a devious course of his own; and like a stag pierced with arrows, flies from the beaten path and enters himself amidst the thickest.

32. The spirit being troubled, the vital spirits are disturbed and breathe out by fits and snatches; as the waters of a river being disturbed by a body of elephants, rise above its channel and over flow the banks. (Violent passions raging in the breast burst out of and break down their bounds).

33. The vital airs breathing irregularly, derange the lungs and nerves and all the veins and arteries of the body; as the misrule in the government, puts the laws of the realm into disorder.

34. The breathings being irregular, unsettles the whole body; by making the blood vessels quite empty and dry in some parts, and full and stout in others, resembling the empty and full flowing channels of rivers.

35. The want of free breathing is attended both with indigestion and bad digestion of the food, and also evaporation of the chyle and blood that it produces; and these defects in digestion, bring forth a great many maladies in the system.

36. The vital breaths carry the essence of the food we take to the inferior organs, as the currents of a river carry the floating woods down the stream.

37. The crude matter which remains in the intestines, for want of its assimilation into blood, and circulation in the frame by restraint of breathing; turn at the end to be sources of multifarious maladies in the constitution.

38. Thus it is that the perturbed states of the mind and spirit, produce the diseases of the body, and are avoided and removed by want of mental anxiety. Now hear me tell you, how the mantra-exorcism serve to drive away the diseases of the body.

39. As the karitakí fruit (chebule myrobalan) is purgative of its own nature, and purges out the crudities from the bodies; so the headwork into the mysterious meaning of the mantras, removes the crude diseases from the frame. (Such are the mystic letters ya, ra, la, va, in the liquids y, r, l, v), signifying the four elements of earth, water, air and fire; curative of many diseases by reflection on their hidden meaning.

40. I have told you Ráma, that pious acts, holy service, virtuous deeds and religious observances, serve also to drive the diseases from the body; by their purifying the mind from its impurities, as the gold is depurated by the touch stone.

41. The purity of the mind produces a delight in the body; as the rising of the full moon, spreads the gentle moonbeams on earth. (Every good act is attended with a rapture, recompenses the deed; or as the maxim goes "virtue has its own reward").

42. The vital airs breathe freely from the purity of the mind, and these tending to help the culinary process in the stomach, produce the nutrition of the body, and destroy the germ of its diseases. (The germs of growth and decay and of life and death, are both connate in the nature of all living beings; and the increase of the one, is the cause of the decrease of the other).

43. I have thus far related to you, Ráma! concerning the causes of the rise and fall of the diseases and distempers of the living body, in connection with the subject of the main artery of Kundaliní; now hear me relate to you regarding the main point of one's attainment of consummation or siddhi by mean of his yoga practice.

44. Now know the life of the puryashtaka or octuple human body, to be confined in the Kundaliní artery, as the fragrance of the flower is contained in its inner filament.

45. It is when one fills the channel of this great artery with his inhaling breath, and shuts it at its mouth (called the Kurma opening), and becomes as sedate as a stone; he is then said to have attained his rock like fixity and firmness, and his siddhi or consummation of garima or inflation.

46. Again when the body is thus filled with the inflated air, and the wind confined in the Kundaliní artery, is carried upwards by the vital breath (of respiration), from the base or fundamental tube at the bottom, to the cell of the cranium in the head, it touches the consciousness seated in the brain, and drives away the fatigue of the process. (This is called the ascent of the vital air in its heavenward journey).

47. Thence the wind rises upward as smoke into the air, carrying with it the powers of all the arteries attached to it like creepers clinging to a tree; and then stands as erect as a stick, with its head lifted upwards like the hood of a snake. (The art of mounting in the air, is as the act of jumping and leaping into it).

48. Then this uprising force carries the whole body, filled with wind from its top to toe into the upper sky; as an aerosol floats upon the water, or as air balloon rises in the air. (The early Hindus are thus recorded to have made their aerial journeys by force of the inflated air, instead of the compressed gas smoke of modern discovery).

49. It is thus that the yogis make their aerial excursions, by means of the compression of air in the wind pipes in their bodies; and are as happy (in their descrying the scattered worlds all about), as poor people feel themselves at having the dignity of the king of Gods. (Indra).

50. When the force of the exhaling breath (rechaka prabáha) of the cranial tube, constrains the power of the Kundaliní, to stand at the distance of twelve inches in the out side of the upper valve between eye-brows.

51. And as the same exhaling makes it remain there for a moment by preventing its entering into any other passage, it is at that instant that one comes to see the supernatural beings before his sight. (It is said in phrenology, that fixed attention, farsightedness and supernatural vision, are seated between the eye-brows).

52. Ráma said:--Tell me sir, how we may be able to see the supernatural siddhas, without feeling them by the rays and light of our eye sight, and without having any supernatural organ of perception of our own.

53. Vasishtha replied:--It is true, Ráma, as you say, that the aerial spirit of siddhas, are invisible to earthly mortals with the imperfect organs of their bodies, and without the aid of supernatural organs.

54. It is by means of the clairvoyance obtained by the practice of yoga, that the aerial and beneficent siddhas became visible to us like the appearances in our dreams.

55. The sight of the siddhas is like that of persons in our dream, with this difference only, that the sight of a siddha is fraught with many real benefits and blessings accruing thereby unto the beholder.

56. It is by the practice of posting the exhaled breath, at the distance of twelve inches on the outside of the mouth, that it may be made to enter into the body of another person. (This is the practice of imparting one's spirit into the body of another person, and of enlivening and raising the dead).

57. Ráma said:--But tell me sir, how you maintain the immutability of nature (when everything is seen to be in the course of its incessant change at all times). I know you will not be displeased at this interruption to your discourse, because good preachers are kindly disposed, to solve even the intricate of their hearers.

58. Vasishtha replied:--It is certain that the power known as nature, is manifest in the volition of the spirit, in its acts of the creation and preservation of the world. (Here nature is identified with eternal will of God).

59. Nature being nothing in reality, but the states and powers of things; and these are seen some times to differ from one another, as the autumnal fruits are found to grow in the spring at Assam (these varieties also called their nature).

60. Vasishtha replied:--All this universe is one Brahma or the immensity of God, and all its variety is the unity of the same. (i.e. the various modalities of the unvaried one); these different existences and appearances, are only our verbal distinctions for ordinary purposes, and proceeding from our ignorance of the true nature of Brahmá. We know not why these words concerning divine nature, which are irrelevant to the main subject, are introduced in this place.

61. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, how our bodies are thinned as well as thickened, in order to enter into very narrow passages as also to feel and occupy large spaces (by means of the anima and garima yogas, of minimizing the body to an atomic spright and of magnifying it to a stalwart giant).

62. Vasishtha replied:--As the attrition of the wood and saw, causes a split in the midst; and as the friction of two things (as of a flint and stone) produces a fire between them, in the same manner doth the confrication of the inhaling and exhaling breath, divide the two prána and apána gases, and produce the jatharágni in the abdomen. (The prána air is explained elsewhere as passing from the heart through the mouth and nostrils, and the apána as that which passes from the region of the navel to the great toe. The jatharágni is rendered some where as gastric fire).

63. There is a muscle in the abdominal part of these ugly machine of the internal body, which extends as a pair of bellows both above and below the navel, with their mouths joined together and shaking to and fro like a willow moved by the water and air.

64. It is under this bladder that the kundaliní artery rest in her quiescent state; and ties as a string of pears in a casket of the yellow padmariya james. (This place under the navel is called the múládhára, whence the aorta strength upwards and downwards).

65. Here the kundaliní string turns and twirls round like a string beads counted about the finger; and coils also with its reflected head and a hissing sound like the hood of a snake stricken by a stick (it requires too much anatomy to show these operations of the arteries).

66. It thrills in the string of the lotus like heart, as a bee flutters over the honey cup of the lotus flower; and it kindles our knowledge in the body like the luminous sun amidst the earth and sky. (It gives action to the heart string, which arises its cognitive faculties).

67. It is then that the action of the heart, moves all the blood vessels in the body to their several functions; as the breeze of the outer air, shakes the leaves of trees.

68. As the high winds rage in the sky and break down the weaker leaves of the branches of trees, so do the vital airs coil in the body and crush the soft food, that has been taken in the stomach.

69. As the winds of the air batter the lotus leaves, and at last dissolve them into the native element; so the internal winds break down the food like the leaves of trees, and convert the food ingested in the stomach into chyle, blood, flesh, skin, fat, marrow and bones one after another.

70. The internal airs clash against one another the produce of the gastric fire, as the bamboos in the wood produce the living fire by their friction.

71. The body which is naturally cold and cold-blooded, becomes heated in all its parts by this internal heat, as every part of the world becomes warmed by the warmth of the sun.

72. This internal fire which pervades throughout the frame and flutters like golden bees over the loti-form heart, is meditated upon as twinkling stars in the minds of the ascetic yogis.

73. Reflections of these lights are attended with the full blaze of intellectual light, whereby the meditative yogi sees in his heart objects, which are situated at the distance of millions of miles from him. (This is called the consummation of clairvoyance or divyadrishti).

74. This culinary fire being continually fed by the fuel of food, continues to burn in the lake of the lotus-like muscle of the heart, as the submarine fire burns latent in the waters of the seas.

75. But the clear and cold light which is the soul of the body, bears the name of the serene moon; and because it is the product of the other fire of the body, thence called the sumágni or the residence of the moon and fire (its two presiding divinities).

76. All hotter lights in the world are known by the names of suns (as the planetary and cometary bodies); and all colder lights are designated as moons (as the stars and satellites) and as these two lights cherish the world, it is named as the suryágni and somágni also.

77. Know after all the world to be a manifestation of the combination of intelligence and ignorance (i.e. of the intellect and soul matter), as also of an admixture of reality and unreality among who has made it as such in himself manifest in this form.

78. The learned call the light of intelligence, by the terms knowledge, sun and fire, and designate the unrealities of ignorance, by the names of dullness and darkness, ignorance and the coldness of the moon. (i.e. There are antithetical words expressive of Intelligence and ignorance; the former designated as the light of knowledge and reason, the daylight and the light of lamp &c., and the latter as the darkness of night, and the coldness of frost &c.).

79. Ráma said:--I well understand that the product of the air of breath &c. (by their friction as said before); and that the air proceeds from the moon, but tell me sir, whence comes the moon into existence?

80. Vasishtha replied:--The fire and moon are the mutual causes and effects of one another, as they are mutually productive as well as destructive of each other by turns.

81. Their production is by alternation as that of the seed and its sprout (of which no body knows is the cause or effect of the other). Their reiteration is as the return of day and night, (of which we know not which precedes the other). They last awhile and are lost instantly like the succession of light and shade (the one producing as also destroying the other).

82. When these opposites come to take place at the one and same time, you see them stand side by side as in the case of the light and shade occurring into the daytime, but when they occur at different times, you then see the one only at a time without any trace of the other, as in the occurrence of the daylight and nocturnal gloom by turns. (These two are instances of the simultaneous and separate occurrence of the opposites. Gloss).

83. I have also told you of two kinds of causality; namely, the one in which the cause is co-existent with its effect, and the other wherein the effect comes to appearance after disappearance of its cause or the antecedent.

84. It is called the synchronous causation which is coeval with its effect, as the seed is coexistent with its germ, and the tree is contemporaneous with the produced seed.

85. The other is named the antecedent or preterite cause, which disappears before the appearance of its consequent effect; as the disappearance of the day is the cause of its subsequent night; and the preteriteness of the night, causes the retardation of the following day. (In plain words it is the concurrence and distance of the cause and effect, called the [Sanskrit: samaváyo] and [Sanskrit: amasáváyo kárana] or the united or separate causality in Nyáya-terminology).

86. The former kind of the united cause and effect (called the [Sanskrit: sadrúpa parináma] i.e. the presence of both causality and its effectuality); is exemplified in the instance of the doer and the earthen pot, both of which are in existence; and this being evident to sight, requires no example to elucidate it.

87. The kind of the disunited cause and effect (called the [Sanskrit: binásharúpa parináma]) in which the effect is unassociated with its (cause); the succession of day and night to one another, is a sufficient proof of the absence of its antecedent causality. (This serves as an instance of an unknown cause, and hence we infer the existence of a pristine darkness, prior to the birth of day-light [Sanskrit: tame ásít] teomerant).

88. The rationalists that deny the causality of an unevident cause, are to be disregarded as fools for ignoring their own convictions, and must be spurned with contempt. (They deny the causality of the day and night to bring one another by their rotation which no sensible being (can ignore). They say [Sanskrit: dinasá rátri nirmmasa katritamsti])

89. Know Ráma, that an unknown and absent cause is as evident as any present and palpable cause, which is perceptible to the senses; for who can deny the fact, that it is the absence of fire that produces the cold, and which is quite evident to every living body.

90. See Ráma, how the fire ascends upward in the air in form of fumes, which take the shape of clouds in the azure sky, which being transformed afterwards into fire (electricity); becomes the immediate cause of the moon (by its presence [Sanskrit: ájnát kárana]).

91. Again the fire being extinguished by cold, sends its watery particles upwards, and this moisture produces the moon, as the absent or remote cause of the same. ([Sanskrit: mauna kárana]).

92. The submarine fire likewise that falls into the feeding on the foulness of the seven oceans, and swallows their briny waters, disgorges their gases and fumes in the open air, and these flying to the upper sky in the form of clouds, drop down their purified waters in the form of sweet milky fluids in the milky ocean (which gives birth to the milk white moon). (It is said that there is an apparatus in the bosom of the clouds, for purifying the impure waters rising in vapours in the atmosphere from the earth and seas below).

93. The hot sun also devours the frigid ball of the moon or (the moon beams), in the conjunction at the dark fortnight (amávasya), and then ejects her out in their opposition in the bright half of every month, as the stork throws off the tender stalk of the lotus which it has taken. (The sun is represented to feed on, and let out the moon beams by turns in every month).

94. Again the winds that suck up the heat and moisture of the earth in the vernal and hot weather, drop them down as rain water in the rainy season, which serves to renovate the body of exhausted nature. (This passage is explained in many ways from the homonymous word some of which it is composed; and which severally means the moon, the handsome, the soma plant and its juice).

95. The earthly water being carried up by the sun beams, which are called his karas or hands, are converted into the solar rays, which are the immediate cause of fire. (Here the water which is by its nature opposed to fire, becomes the cause of that element also).

96. Here the water becomes fire both by privation of its fluidity and frigidity, which is the remote cause of its formation as also by its acquirement of aridity or dryness and calidity or warmth; which is the immediate of its transformation to the igneous element. (This is an instance of the double or mixed causality of water in the production of fire. Gloss).

97. The fire being absent, there remains the presence of the moon; and the absence of the moon, presents the presence of fire.

98. Again the fire being destroyed, the moon takes its place; in the same manner, as the departure of the day introduces the night in lieu of it.

99. Now in the interval of day and night, and in the interim of daylight and darkness, and in the midst of shade and light, there is a midmost point and a certain figure in it, which is unknown to the learned. (This point which is neither this nor that, nor this thing or any other, is the state of the inscrutable Brahma).

100. That point is no nullity nor an empty vacuity (because it is neither the one or the other). Nor it is a positive entity and the real pivot and connecting link of both sides. It never changes its central place between both extremes of this and that, or the two states of being and not being.

101. It is by means of the two opposite principles of the intelligent soul and inert matter, that all things exist in the universe; in the same manner, as the two contraries of light and darkness bring on the day and night in regular succession. (so the self moving and self shining sun is followed by the dull and dark moon, which moves and shines with her borrowed force and light).

102. As the course of the world commenced with the union of mind and matter, or the mover and the moved from the beginning; so the body of the moon, came to be formed by an admixture of aqueous and nectarious particles in the air. (The body of the moon formed of the frozen waters, were early impregnated with the ambrosial beams of the sun). (This bespeaks of the creation of the solar orb prior to the formation of the satellite of the earth).

103. Know Ráma, the beams of the sun to be composed of fire or igneous particles, and the solar light to be the effulgence of the intellect; and the body of the moon to be but a mass of dull darkness (unless it is lighted by its borrowed light from the sun). (The sun is said to shine with intellectual light, because it disperses the outer gloom of the world, as the other removes the darkness of the mind. Gloss).

104. The sight of the outward sun in the sky, destroys the out spreading darkness of night; but the appearance of the intellectual luminary, dispels the overspreading gloom of the world from the mind.

105. But if you behold your intellect in the form of the cooling moon, it becomes as dull and cold as that satellite itself; just as if you look at a lotus at night, you will not find it to be as blooming as at sunshine (but may be at the danger of contracting lunacy or stupefaction of the intellect by looking long at the cold luminary).

106. Fire in the form of sun light enlightens the moon, in the same manner as the light of the intellect illumes the inner body (lingadeha); our consciousness is as the moonlight of the inner soul, and is the product of the sun beams of our intellect. (So says the Bharata:--As the sun illumes the worlds so doth the intellect enlighten the soul).

107. The intellect has no action, it is therefore without attribute or appellation; it is like light on the lamp of the soul, and is known as any common light from the lantern which shows it to the sight.

108. The avidity of this intellectual after the knowledge of the intelligibles, brings it to the intelligence of the sensible world; but its thirst after the unintelligible one, is attended with the precious gain of its Kaivalya or oneness with the self same one. (Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for spiritual knowledge, for they shall verily be satisfied therewith).

109. The two powers of the fire and moon (agni-soma), are to be known as united with one another in the form of the body and its soul, and their union is expressed in the scriptures as the contact of the light and lighted room with one another, as the reflexion of the sunshine on the wall. (The two powers of igneous and lunar lights are represented in the conjoined bodies of the Agni soma deities).

110. They are also known to be separately of themselves, in different bodies and at different times; such as bodies addicted to dullness, are said to be actuated by the lunar influence; and persons advancing in their spirituality, are said to be led on by force of the solar power.

111. The rising breath (prána) which of its nature hot and warm, is said to be Agni's or igneous; and setting breath of apána which is cold and slow is termed the soma or lunar, they abide as the light and shade in every body, the one rising upward and passing by the mouth, and the other going down by the anus.

112. The apána being cooled gives rise to the fiery hot breath of prána, which remains in the body like the reflexion of something in a mirror.

113. The light of the intellect produces the brightness of consciousness, and the sun-beams reflect themselves as lunar orbs; in the dew drops on lotus leaves at early dawn.

114. There was a certain consciousness in the beginning of creation, which with its properties of heat and cold as those of agni and soma; came to be combined together in the formation of human body and mind.

115. Strive Ráma, to settle yourself at that position of the distance of out side the mouth apána, where the sun and moon of the body (i.e. the prána and apána breaths) meet in conjunction--amávasya.

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Chapter LXXXII

YOGA INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACQUIREMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL POWERS OF ANIMA-MINUTENESS &C.

Argument:--Means of acquiring the Quadruple Capacities of Anima minima, Mahima-maxima, Laghima-lightness and Garima-heaviness, together with the power of entering into the bodies of others.

Vasishtha continued:--Hear me now tell you, how the bodies of yogis are capable of expansion and contraction at will; as to be multum in parvo; and parvum in multo.

2. There is above the lotus-like diaphragm of the heart, a blazing fire emitting its sparks, like gold coloured butterflies flirting about it, and flaring as flashes of lightning in the evening clouds. (This is the jatharágni or culinary fire).

3. It is fanned and roused by the enkindling animal spirit, which blows over it as with the breath of the wind; it pervades the whole body without burning it, and shines as brightly as the sun in the form of our consciousness.

4. Being then kindled into a blaze in an instant, like the early raise of the rising sun gleaming upon the morning clouds; it melts down the whole body (to its toes and nails), as the burning furnace dissolves the gold in the crucible. (It is impossible to make out anything of this allegory).

5. Being unextinguishable by water, it burns the whole outer body down to the feet; and then it coils inside the body, and remains in the form of the mind in the ativáhika or spiritual body of man. (It is hard to find out the hidden sense of this passage also).

6. Having then reduced the inner body likewise, it becomes lifeless of itself; and becomes extinct as the frost at the blowing of winds (or blast of a tempest).

7. The force of the Kundaliní or intestinal canal, being put out to the fundamental artery of the rectum; remains in the vacuity of the spiritual body, like a shadow of the smoke of fire.

8. This smoky shade parades over the heart like a swarthy maiden, and encloses in her bosom the subtile body composed of its mind and understanding, the living principle and its egoism.

9. It has the power to enter into the porous fibres of lotuses to penetrate the rocks, to stretch over the grass, to pop into houses and stones, to pry in the sky and ply in the ground, and remain and move about everywhere in the manner it likes of its own will. (This power is called sakti or energy which is omnipotent).

10. This power produces consciousness and sensibility, by the sap and serum which it supplies to the whole body; and is itself filled with juice, like a leather bag that is dipped into a well or water.

11. This great artery of Kundaliní being filled with gastric juice, forms the body in any shape it likes; as an artist draws the lines of a picture in any form, as it is pictured in his mind. (Hence it depends on the gastric artery to extend and sketch out the body according to its own plan).

12. It supplies the embryonic seed placed in the foetus of the mother, with the power of its evolution into the fleshy and bony parts of its future body; as the tender sprout of the vegetative seed, waxes in time to a hard woody tree. (The act of evolution is attributed in the text to the triple causality of the physical nutrition in the stomach, the metaphysical cause of the intensity of thought in the growing mind, and the psychological tendency of the soul, produced from the fourth and prime cause of its prior propensity, which is inbred in grain and essential nature of every being, the intense thought is called [Sanskrit: hridaya bhávná]).

13. Know Ráma, this certain truth which is acknowledged by the wise, that the living principles acquire its desired state and stature, be it that of a mountain or bit of straw. (This passage supports the free agency of man to go in either way in opposition to the doctrine of blind fatalism, and the arbitrary power of the Divine will).

14. You have heard, O Ráma! of certain powers as of diminishing and increasing the bulk and stature of the body, attainable by the practice of yoga; you will now hear me give you an interesting lecture, regarding the attainment of these capacities by means of knowledge or jnána. (This is the theory or theoretical part of the practice or practical art of yoga).

15. Know for certain that there is but only one intelligent principle of the Intellect, which is inscrutable, pure and most charming; which is minuter than the minutest, perfectly tranquil and is nothing of the mundane world or any of its actions or properties.

16. The same chit--intellect being collected in itself into an individuality (by its power of chayana integration) from the undivided whole, and assuming the power of will or volition--sankalpa itself, becomes the living soul by transformation of its pure nature to an impure one. (This power of integration is said to be a fallacy adhyása or misconception--adhyáropa of human mind, which attributes a certain quality to a thing by mistake or áropa as [Sanskrit: paratra parábabhásah]: or mistaking a thing for another e. g. [Sanskrit: shuktau ratrátávadábhásah]: i.e. taking the shell for silver from its outward appearance.)

17. The will is a fallacy, and the body is a mistake; (because there is no mutation of volition or personality of the infinite intellect); and the ignorant alone distinguish the living soul from the universal spirit, as the ignorant boy sees the demon in a shadow. (All these are false attributes of the true one).

18. When the lamp of knowledge brings the mind to the full light of truth, then the error of volition is removed from the living soul, as the cloud of the rainy weather are dissipated in Autumn.

19. The body has its rest, after the wishes have subsided in the mind; just as the lamp is extinguished after its oil is exhausted. (Mental anxieties cause the restlessness of the body).

20. The soul that sees the truth, has no more the knowledge of his body; as the man awakened from his sleep, has no longer the apparitions of his dream appearing before him.

21. It is the mistaking of the unreal for the real or what is the same, the ascribing of reality to the unreality that gives the colour of reality to false material bodies; but the knowledge of the truth removes the error of the corporal body, and restore the soul to its wonted splendour and true felicity.

22. But the error of taking the material body for the immaterial soul, is so deep rooted in the mind; that it is as difficult to remove, as it is for the strongest sun beams to perceive the mental gloom of men.

23. This impervious darkness of the mind, is only to be perceived by the sun-shine of knowledge; that our soul is the seat of immaculate and all pervading spirit of God, and that I myself am no other than the pure intellect which is in me. (The anal Huq of Mansur).

24. Those that have known the supreme soul meditate on it in this manner in their own souls, until they find themselves to be assimilated to the same by their extensive thought of it. (Here we have the curious doctrine of strong thought drirha-bhávaná of Vasishtha again which inculcates the possibility of one's being whatever he strongly thinks himself to be. It is allied to the doctrine of the strength of belief--faith and bhakti of others).

25. It is hence, O Ráma! that some men convert the deadly poison to sweet ambrosial food, and change the delicious nectar to bitter gall. (Thus Siva the God and yogi converts the snake poison to his food and the sweets offered to his topmost mouth to the bitterest bane).

26. So whatever is thought upon with intensity in any manner and on any occasion, the same comes to take place as it is seen in many instances.

27. The body when seen in the light of a reality, is found to be a real existence; but being looked upon as an unreality, it vanishes into nothing (or it mixes in the vacuity of Brahma).

28. You have thus heard from me, o righteous Ráma! the theoretical mode (jnána-yukti) of attaining the capacities of magnifying and minimizing one's person at will; I will now tell you of another method of gaining these powers, to which you shall have now to attend.

29. You can practice by exhalation of your rechaka breath, to extract your vital power (life) from the cell of your Kundaliní artery, and infuse it into another body; as the winds of the air, carry the fragrance of flowers into the nostrils. (This is the mode of ones forsaking its own body in order to enliven another).

30. The former body is left lifeless like a log of wood or block of stone, and such is the relation between the body and life; as that of a bucket and its water, which is powered out to enliven the plants.

31. Thus is the life infused in all movable and immovable things, in order to enjoy the pleasures of their particular states at its pleasure.

32. The living soul having relished the bliss of its consummate state, returns to its former body if it is still in existence, or it goes and settles some where else, as it may best suit its taste.

33. The yogis thus pass into all bodies and live with their conscious souls, and fill the world also by magnifying their spirits over all space.

34. The yogi who is lord of himself by his enlightened understanding, and his knowledge of all things beside their accompanying evils; obtains in an instant whatever he wants to have, and which is present before the effulgence of divine light (anávarana Brahma jyoti).

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LXXXIII. STORY OF THE MISERLY KIRÁTA

Argument:--Perfection of Chúdálá and the imbecility of the Prince; efficacy of instruction and its elucidation in the tale of niggardly Kiráta.

Vasishtha continued:--Thus the royal dame was possest of the qualities of contracting and expanding herself to any form, and became so expert in these by their continued practice of them;

2. That she made her aerial journey and navigated at pleasure over the expanse of waters; she moved on the surface of the earth, as the river Ganges glides on in her silent course.

3. She dwelt in the bosom of her lord, as the goddess of prosperity abides in the heart of Hari, and travelled in a moment with her mind over every city and country over the earth.

4. This fairy lady fled in the air, and flashed like the lightning with the flashes of her twinkling eyes; she passed as a shadow over the earth, as a body of clouds passes over a range of mountains.

5. She passed without any hazard through the grass and wood, stones and clods of earth, and through fire and water and air and vacuum, as a thread passes through hole of a heart. (Milton says:--That with no middle flight, to the heaven of heavens I have presented through an earthly quest).

6. She lightly skimmed over the mountain peaks, and pryed through the regions of the regents of all the sides of heaven; she penetrated into the cavities of the empty womb of vacuity, and have a pleasant trip whatever she directed in her flight. (All this is brain action and no reality at all).

7. She conversed freely with all living beings, whether they move or prone on the ground as the beast of earth, or crawl upon it as the snakes and insects. She talked with the savage Pisácha tribes and communicated with men and the immortal Gods and demi-gods also. (The clever princess like the far-seeing seer saw every thing with her mind's eye, and held her converse (vyavahára) with all).

8. She tried much to communicate her knowledge to her ignorant husband, but he was no way capable of receiving her spiritual instruction. (Átmajnána means also her intuitive or self taught knowledge).

9. He understood her as no other than his young princess and the mistress of his house, and skilled only in the arts of coquetry and house wifery (and quite ignorant of higher things because the ladies of India were barred from spiritual knowledge).

10. Until this time the prince had been ignorant of the qualifications of the princess Chúdálá, and knew not that she had made her progress in the spiritual science, as a young student makes his proficiency in the different branches of learning.

11. She also was as reserved to show her consummate learning to her unenlightened husband; as a Brahman declines to show his secret rites to a vile sudra.

12. Ráma said:--If it was impossible, sir, for the seeress of consummate wisdom to communicate her knowledge to her husband Sikhidhwaja, with all her endeavours to enlighten him on the subject; how can it be possible for others, to be conversant in spiritual knowledge in any other means.

13. Vasishtha answered:--Ráma, it is obedience to the rule of attending to the precepts of the preceptor, joined with the intelligence of the pupil, which is the only means of gaining instruction.

14. The hearing of sermon nor the observance of any religious rite, is of any efficacy towards the knowledge of the soul; unless one will employ his own soul, to have the light of the supreme soul shine upon it. It is the spirit alone that can know the spirit, as it is the serpent only that can trace out the path of another serpent.

15. Ráma rejoined:--If such is the course of the world, that we can learn nothing without the instruction of our preceptors; then tell me, O sage! how the precepts of the wise lead to our spiritual knowledge also.

16. Vasishtha replied:--Hear me Ráma, relate to you a tale to this effect. There lived an old Kiráta of yore, who was miserly in his conduct as he was rich in his possessions of wealth and grains. He dwelt with his family by the side of the Vindhyan woods, as a poor Brahman lives apart from his kith and kin.

17. He happened to pass by his native forest at one time, and slip a single couri from his purse, which fell in a grassy furze and was lost under the grass.

18. He ran on every side, and beat at the bush for three days to find out his lost couri, and impelled by his niggardliness to leave no fallen leaf unturned over the ground.

19. As he searched and turned about, he ran and turned it ever in his mind, saying:--Ah! this single couri would make four by its commerce, and that would bring me eight in time, and this would make a hundred and a thousand, and more and more by repetition, so I have lost a treasure in this.

20. Thus he counted over and over, over the gains he would gain, and sighed as often at the loss he did sustain; and took into no account of the rustic peasantry on his foolish penury.

21. At the end of the third day he came across a rich jewel, as brilliant as the bright moon in the same forest; which compensated for the loss of his paltry couri by a thousand fold.

22. He returned gladly with his great gain to his homely dwelling, and was highly delighted with the thought of keeping off poverty for ever from his door. (The word Kerate is commonly used for Kiráta--the miser).

23. Now as the Kiráta was quite satisfied, with his unexpected gain of the great treasure, in the search of his trifling couri; and passed his days without any care or fear of the changeful world.

24. So the student comes to obtain his spiritual knowledge from his preceptor, while he has been in quest of his temporal learning, which is but a trifle in comparison to his eternal concern.

25. But then, O sinless Ráma! it is not possible to attain to divine knowledge, by the mere lectures of the preceptor; because the lord is beyond the perception of senses, and can neither be expressed by nor known from the words of the instructor's mouth. (It requires one's intuition and spiritual inspiration also to see the spirit in one's own spirit).

26. Again it is not possible to arrive to spiritual knowledge, without the guidance of the spiritual guide; for can one gain the rich gem without his search after the couri like the miserly Kiráta? (This means that it is impossible to attain the esoteric or abstract knowledge of the soul, without a prior acquaintance of the exoteric and concrete).

27. As the search of couri became the cause of or was attended with the gain of the gem, so our attendance on secular instructions of the preceptor, becomes an indirect cause to our acquirement of the invaluable treasure of spiritual knowledge.

28. Ráma, look at this wonderful eventualities of nature, which brings forth events otherwise than the necessary results of our pursuits (as the search of couri resulted the gain of the gem).

29. As it often comes to pass, that our attempts are attended with other result than those which are ought; it is better for us to remain indifferent with regard to the result of our act.

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LXXXIV. PILGRIMAGE OF PRINCE SIKHIDHWAJA

Argument:--Sikhidhwaja's abandonment of the world, and remaining as religious Recluse on the Mandara mountain; followed by the visit of the Princess and her admonition to him.

Vasishtha related:--The prince Sikhidhwaja continued in utter darkness, without the sight of his spiritual knowledge; and groped his way amidst the gloom of the world, as a childless man passes his woeful days, in utter despair of any glimpse of hope. (As son is the hope of a man both in this world as well as in the next).

2. His heart burned disconsolate in the flame of his anxieties, without the consolation of his salvation; and the great affluence of his fortune, served as full to feed the fire of his hopelessness, for want of the cooling shower of religion.

3. He found his consolation in lonely retreats, in the caves of mountains and beside their falling waters; where he strayed at large, like the beasts of prey flying from the arrows of huntsmen.

4. Ráma, he became as distracted as you had been before; and discharged his daily rituals, at the humble request and repeated solicitations of his attending servants.

5. He was as inexcitable and cold blooded, as a religious recluse; he desisted from the enjoyments of his princely pleasures, and abstained also from his usual food.

6. He gave his homage with large largesses of lands and gifts of gold and kine to the gods, Brahmans and his relatives also.

7. He went on performing the austerities of the religious rites, and the rigorous ceremonies of the chandáryana and others; he travelled through wilds and deserts and inhabited tracts, to his pilgrimages far and near.

8. Yet he found nowhere the consolation of his mind, which he kept seeking all-abouts; as a miner digs the sterile soil in quest of some mineral, where there is no such thing to be found.

9. He was pining away under the ardour of his anxiety, as it were under the fiery heat of the sun; in search of some remedy for his worldly cares, which hunted him incessantly both by day and night.

10. Being absorbed in his thoughts, he sought not for aught of the poisonous pleasures of his realm; and with the meekness of his spirit and mind, he did not look at the grand estate which lay before him.

11. It happened one day, as he was sitting with his beloved princess reclining on his lap; that he spoke to her as follows, in his mellifluent speech.

12. Sikhidhwaja said:--I have long tasted the pleasures of my realm, and enjoyed the sweet and bitter of my large property and landed possessions. I am now grown as weary of them, as they are both the same and stale to me.

13. Know my delighted lady, that the silent sage is exempt from pleasure and pain; and no prosperity nor adversity, can ever betide the lonely hermit of the forest.

14. Neither the fear of the loss of lives in battle, nor the dread of losing the territory in the reverse of victory, can ever betake the lonely hermit of the forest; wherefore I ween his helpless state, to be happier far than the dignity of royalty.

15. The woodland parterres are as pleasing to me, as thyself with the clusters of their blossoms in spring, and with their ruddy leaves resembling thy rosy palms; their twisted filaments are as the fillets of thy curling hairs, and the hoary and flimsy clouds in the air, are as their white and clean vests and raiments.

16. The blooming flowers resemble their ornaments, and their pollen is the scented powder on their persons; and the seats of reddish stones, bear resemblance to the protruberances on their posteriors.

17. The ambient and pearly rills flowing amidst them, resemble the pendant strings of pearls on their necks; and their foaming waves seen as clusters of pearls, tied as the knots of their vestures. The tender creepers are as their playful daughters, and the frisking fawns are as their playsome darlings.

18. Perfumed with the natural fragrance of flowers, and having the swarming bees for their eye-lids and eyebrows; and wearing the flowery garment of flowers, they are offering an abundance of fruits for the food of the passengers.

19. The pure waters of the falling cascades are sweet to taste, and cool the body as thy company gratifies my senses. I foster therefore an equal fondness for these woodland scenes, as I bear for thy company also.

20. But the calm composures which these solitudes seem to afford to the soul, are in my estimation far superior to the delight, that I derive from the cooling moon light, and the bliss that I might enjoy in the paradise of India and in the heaven of Brahmá himself.

21. Now my dear one, you ought to put no obstacle to these designs of mine; because no faithful wife ever presents any obstructions to the desire of her lord.

22. Chúdálá replied:--The work done in its proper time, is commendable as seasonable and not that which is unseasonable or intempestive; it is as delightful to see the blossoming of flowers in the vernal season, as it is pleasant to find the ripened fruits and grains in autumn.

23. It is for the old and decrepit and those broken down in their bodies by age, to resort in their retirement in the woods; and does not befit a young man as yourself to fly from the world, wherefore I do not approve your choice. (So says the poet, "O that my weary age may find a peaceful hermitage").

24. Let us remain at home, O young prince, so long as we have not passed our youth, and flourish here as flowers which do not forsake the parent tree, until the flowering time is over.

25. Let us like flowery creepers grow hoary with grey hairs on our heads, and then get out together from our home; as a pair of fond herons fly from the dried lake for ever.

26. Mind also my noble lord, the great sin that awaits on the person of that disgraceful prince of the royal race, who forsakes to seek after the welfare of his people during the time of his rule and reign. (Abdication of the crown was not allowable without an apparent heir).

27. More over mind the opposition you will have to meet with from your subjects, who are authorized to check your unseasonable and unworthy act, as you are empowered to put a check to theirs. (The Hindu law is opposed to the spirit of despotism and lawlessness of the ruling power).

28. Sikhidhwaja rejoined:--Know my royal dame, that thy application is all in vain to my determination of going away from here; and know me as already gone from thee and thy realm to the retreat woods afar from hence.

29. Thou art young and handsome, and aught not accompany me to dreary deserts and forests; which are in many respects dreadful to and impassable by men.

30. Women however hardy they may be, are never able to endure the hardships of forest life; as it is impossible for the tender tendril to withstand the stroke of the felling axe.

31. Do thou remain here, O excellent lady, to rule over this realm in my absence; and take upon thee the burden of supporting thy dependants, which is the highest and best duty of women.

32. Vasishtha related:--Saying so to the moon-faced princess, the self governed prince rose from his seat; to make his daily ablution and discharge his multitudinous duties of the day.

33. Afterwards the prince took leave of his subjects, notwithstanding all their entreaties to detain him; and departed like the setting sun towards his sylvan journey, which was unknown to and impassable by every one.

34. He set out like the setting sun shorn of his glory, and disappeared like the sun from the sight of every body; veil of melancholy covered the face of the princess, as she saw the egress of her lord from the recess of her chamber; as the face of nature is obscured from the shadow of darkness, upon the disappearance of day light below the horizon. (Here is a continued simile between the parting sun and the departing prince, and the face of nature and that of the princess).

35. Now the dark night advanced, veiling the world under her mantle of the ash-coloured dusk; as when the God Hara forsakes the fair Gangá, and takes the nigrescent Yamuná to his embrace. (The day and night representing the two consorts of the sun).

36. The sides of heaven seemed to smile all around, with the denticulated clumps of evening clouds; and with the brightness of the moon beams, glittering on the shoots of Támala trees. (i.e. The skies seemed to smile with their glittering teeth of the evening clouds, and smiling moon beams all around).

37. And as the lord of the day departed towards the setting mountain of Sumeru on the other side of the horizon, in order to rove over the elysian garden or paradise of the gods on the north; so the brightness of the day began to fail, as the shade of evening prevailed over the face of the forsaken world.

38. Now sable night accompanied by her lord the nocturnal luminary, advanced on this side of the southern hemisphere; to sport as a loving couple with this cooling light and shade.

39. Then were the clusters of stars seen spangled in the etherial sphere under the canopy of heaven, and appeared as handfuls of lájas or fried rice scattered by the hands of celestial maiden on the auspicious occasion.

40. The sable night gradually advanced to her puberty, with the buds of lotuses as her budding breasts; she then smiled with her moony face, and littered in the opening of the nightly flowers.

41. The prince returned to his beloved princess after performing his evening services, and was drowned in deep sleep; as the mount Mainaka has drowned in the depth of the sea. (Mainaka is a hidden rock in the sea).

42. It was now the time of midnight, when all was still and quiet all about; and the people were all as fast asleep, as if they were pent up in the bosom of stones.

43. He finding her fast asleep in her soft and downy bed, and lolling in the lap of indolence like the female bee in the cup of the lotus.

44. The prince started from his sleep, and parted the sleeping partner of his bed from his cold embrace; as the ascending node of ráhu slowly lets off from its mouth, the eclipsed moon in the east.

45. He got up from one-half of the bed cloth, while the supine princess lay on the other-half of it; as when the God Hari rises from his bed of the waters of the milky ocean, leaving the lonely Lakshmí roll in the waves after him.

46. He walked out of the palace, and bade the guards to stand at their places; while he was going, he said to arrest a gang of robbers beyond the skirts of the city, with his full confidence in himself.

47. Farewell my royalty, said he, and then passed onward out of his princedom; and passed through inhabited tracts and forest lands, as the course of a river runs to the sea.

48. He passed amidst the gloom of night and through the thickets of the forest beset by thorny bushes; and full of heinous beasts and reptiles, with his firm fortitude.

49. In the morning he arrived at an open tract of land which was free from woods and jungles, and ran the course of the day with his peregrination on foot from sun rise to the setting sun; when he took refuge under the bower of the grove.

50. The sun departing from sight left him to the darkness of night, when he performed his bathing and the daily rite; and having eaten some root or fruit which he could get, he passed the night resting on the barren ground under him. (The custom of evening bath, is now falling into disuse).

51. Again and again the morning appeared and brought to light many new cities and districts, and many hills and rivers; which he passed over bravely for twelve repeated days and nights.

52. He then reached at the foot of the Mandara mountain, which was covered by a dense and immense forest which no human foot could penetrate; and lay (stood) afar from the reach of man and the boundaries of human habitation.

53. There appeared a spot beset by sounding rills amidst it, and set with rows of trees with aqueducts under them; here the relics of a dilapidated dwelling came to sight, and seemed to bear the appearance of the deserted mansion of some holy hermit.

54. It was clear of all heinous reptiles and small insects, and was planted with sacred plants and creepers for the sacerdotal purposes of the holy siddhas; while it was full of fruit trees which supplied its occupant with ample food.

55. There was seen a level and pure spot of ground with a water course, and presenting the green verdure and verdant trees; loaded with luxuriant fruits and stretching a cooling shade all over it.

56. The prince built here a bower of verdant creepers and leafy branches, which with their blooming blossoms glistened; as the blue vault of heaven under the lightnings of the rainy season.

57. He made for himself a staff of bamboo and some vessels for his food and drink, as also some plates to put his offerings of fruits and flowers in them; and a jar for the presentation of holy water. He likewise strung some seeds together for the purpose of his saintly rosary.

58. He procured the hides of dead animals and the deerskin for his seat and cover let in cold, and placed them carefully in his holy hermit's cell.

59. He also collected all other things, which were of use in the discharge of his sacerdotal functions; and preserved in his sacred cell, as the Lord of creatures has stored the earth, with every provisions requisite for living beings.

60. He made his morning devotion, and turned his beads with the muttering of his mantras in the hours of his forenoon; and then performed his sacred ablution, and offered the flowers in the service of the Gods in the afternoon.

61. He afterwards took some wild fruits and ground roots, and the soft lotus stalks for his food in the evening, and then passed the night with his lonely self-possession, and in the meditation of his Maker.

62. Thus did the prince of Malwa pass his days with perfect cheer of his heart in the cottage cell, which he had constructed at the foot of the Mandara mountain; and thought no more of his princely pleasures which were utterly lost under the influence of the resignation, which had now taken full possession of his entire soul and mind.

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LXXXV. INVESTIGATION INTO TRUE HAPPINESS

Argument:--The princess goes in quest of the Prince. Their Meeting and the Admonition of the Princess.

Vasishtha continued:--In this manner, the prince Sikhidhwaja remained in his monastery in the forest, in his state of perfect felicity; while the princess remained at home, and did as you shall now hear from me.

2. After the prince had gone away from the palace at midnight, Chúdálá started from her sleep; as a timid fawn lying in the village, is startled by fear.

3. She found the bed vacated by her husband and thought it as dreary as the sky, without the sun and moon. (A deserted wife is as forlorn as a deserted village or desolate country).

4. She rose up with a melancholy face, and with her heart full of sorrow and sadness; and her limbs were as lank as the leaves of plants, without being well watered in summer.

5. Sorrow sat heavy in her heart, and drove the charm and cheerfulness off her countenance; and she remained as a winter day, over cast by a cloud or covered by a hoar-frost over its face.

6. She sat awhile on the bedstead, and thought with sorrow in herself; saying, "Ah woe unto me" that my lord is gone away from here, and abandoned a kingdom for a retreat in the woods.

7. What then can I do now, than repair to my husband; where he is, because it is appointed both by the law of nature and God, that the husband is the only resort and support of the wife.

8. Having thought so, Chúdálá rose up to follow her husband and she fled by the door of a window into the open air. (This means that her spirit fled into air, by the power of her yoga).

9. She roamed in her aerial course, and by the force of her breath on the wings of air; and appeared before the face of the aerial spirits (siddhas), as a second moon moving in the skies.

10. As she was passing at the night time, she happened to behold her lord roving about with a sword in his hand; and appearing as a ghost of a vetála or demon wandering in the solitary forest.

11. The princess seeing her husband in this manner from her aerial seat, she began to reflect on the future state which awaited on her husband; and which she foresaw by power of her yoga.

12. It is certain, O Ráma! that whatever is allotted in the book of fate to befall on any body at any time or place or manner, the same is sure to take place at the very moment and spot and in the same way (and all this is well known to the holy seer and seeress by the prophetic power, which they acquire by their knowledge and practice of yoga).

13. The princess seeing plainly in her presence, whatever is to take place on her husband; and knowing it to be averted by no means, she stopped from going to him to communicate the same.

14. Be my visit postponed to him to a future occasion, when it is destined for me to be in his company again.

15. Thinking so in her mind Chúdálá turned her course from him, and returned to her inner apartment and reclined on her milk white pillow; as the crescent of the moon lies recumbent on the hoary forehead of Hara.

16. She proclaimed to her people, that the prince was gone on some important occasion; and having relieved with the consolation of his quick return, she took the reins of the government in her own hands.

17. She managed the state in the manner of her husband, according to the established rules of toleration; and with the same care and vigilance, as the husband-woman guards her ripening cornfields.

18. In this manner they passed their days without seeing one another, and the conjugal pair lived separated from each other; in their respective habitations of the royal palace and the solitary forest.

19. And in this manner passed on their days and nights, their weeks and fortnights, their months and seasons in regular succession over one and another; the one counting his days in the woods and the other in her princely palace.

20. What is the use of a lengthy description of full eighteen years, which glided on slowly over the separated couple, the one dwelling in her palatial dome, and the other in his woodland retreat.

21. Many more years elapsed in this manner, until the hermit prince Sikhidhwaja was overtaken by the hoary old age; in his holy hermitage in a cell of the great Mandara mountain.

22. Knowing the passions of the prince to be on the wane, with his declining age and grey hairs, and finding herself not yet too old to overtake him in the distant forest.

23. And believing that it was the proper time for her to prevail on him, and to bring him back to the palace, she thought of joining her husband where he was.

24. With these thoughts, she made up her mind of going towards the Mandara mountain; and started from her home at night, and mounted on the wings of air to the upper sky.

25. As she was moving onward on the pinions of air, she beheld in the upper sky some Siddhawomen, wearing the thin bark of the kalpa tree and girt with jewels of clustering gems.

26. These were the inhabitants of the garden of paradise, and going out to meet their Siddha husbands; and sprinkled over with perfumeries, shedding their dews as bright moon beams.

27. She breathed the air perfumed by the flowers of the garden of paradise, and worn by the Siddhas of Eden; and wallowed in the moon beams, waving like the billows of the milky ocean.

28. She felt a purer moon light, as she ascended the higher atmosphere; and she passed amidst the clouds, as the flashing lightning moves in their midst. (The fair princess flashed as the lightning).

29. She said, this flashing lightning though situated in the bosom of her cloudy spouse, is yet looking at him repeatedly with the winkling of her eyes; so must I look out for my absent lord, as I pass like the lightning in the midway sky.

30. It is true, she said, that nature is irrepressible during the life time of a person; hence it is impossible for my disquieted mind, to have its quiet without the sight of my loving and lion like lord.

31. My mind roves and runs mad, when I say, I will see my lord, and when I will see these creepers turning round and clasping their supporting tree. (And all my philosophy avails me naught against my nature).

32. My mind loses its patience to see the contraction of these senseless creepers, and the excursion of the superior siddha females in quest of their consorts. (All animated nature from the vegetable to the immortal are bound by conjugal love).

33. How then and when, shall I like them come to meet the man that is situated in my heart.

34. These gentle breezes, and these cooling moon-beams and those plants of the forest, do all continue to disquiet my heart and set it on fire (instead of cooling its fervour).

35. O my simple heart, why dost thou throb in vain and thrill at every vein within me? and oh my faithful mind, that art pure as air, why dost thou lose thy reason and right discretion?

36. It is thou O faithless mind! that dost excite my heart to run after its spouse; better remain with thy yearnings in thyself, than torment my quiet spirit with thy longings.

37. Or why is it, O silly woman! that thou dost long in vain after thy husband, who possibly became too old (to require thee any more); he is now an ascetic and too weak in his bodily frame, and devoid of all his earthly desires.

38. I think these desires of the enjoyment of his princely honors and pleasures, have now been utterly rooted out of his mind; and the plant of his fondness for sensual gratifications, is now as dry as a channel that pours forth its waters into a large river or sea.

39. I think my husband, who was as fond of me as to form one soul with myself; has become as callous to soft passions, as a dried and withered tree.

40. Or I will try the power of my yoga to waken his mind to sense, and infuse the eager longings and throbbings of my heart into his.

41. I will collect the thoughts of the ascetic devotee to one focus, and employ them towards the government of his realm; where we may be settled for ever to our hearts content.

42. O I have after long discovered the way to my object, and it is by infusing my very thoughts into the mind of thy husband.

43. The unanimity of the minds of the wedded pair, and the pleasure of their constant union; contribute to the highest happiness of human beings on earth.

44. Revolving in this manner in her mind, the princess Chúdálá passed onward in her aerial journey; now mounting on mountains and mountainous clouds, and then passing the bounds of lands and visible horizons; she reached the sight of Mandara, and found the glen and cavern in it.

45. She entered the grove as an aerial spirit invisible to sight, and passed as the air amidst it known by the shaking of the leaves of trees. (The spirits like winds have motion and the power of moving other bodies).

46. She beheld a leafy hut in one corner of the wood, and knew her husband by the power of her yoga; though appeared to be transformed to another person.

47. She found his body that was decorated before by a variety of jewels, and glittered as the mount of Meru with its gold; to have grown as lean and thin and as dark and dry, as a withered and dried leaf.

48. He wore a vest of rays, and seemed as if he had dipped in a fountain of ink; he sat alone in one spot, and appeared as the god Siva to be wholly devoid of all desire.

49. He was sitting on the barren ground, and stringing the flowers to his braided hairs; when the beauteous princess approached before him.

50. She was moved to sorrow at the sight of his miserable plight, and thus bespoke to herself inaudibly in her mind. Alas, how painful it is to behold this piteous sight!

51. O! the great stupidity that rises from ignorance of spiritual knowledge, and which has brought on this miserable condition on this self-deluded prince.

52. I must not call him unfortunate, as long as he is my husband; though the deep darkness of his mind (ignorance) hath brought to this miserable plight. (The living husband however miserable, is always to be called true fortunate by the faithful wife.)

53. I must try my best to bring him to the knowledge of truth, which will no doubt restore him to his sense of enjoyment here, and of his liberation hereafter; and change his figure to another form altogether.

54. I must advance nearer to him to instil understanding in his mind, or else my words will make no effect in him; who treats me always as his young and silly wife.

55. I will therefore admonish my husband in the figure of a devotee, and it is possible that my admonition delivered in this manner, will make its effect in him; who is now grown hoary with age (old age must have abated the ardour of youth).

56. It is possible that good senses may dawn in the clear understanding, which is not perverted from its nature; saying so the princess Chúdálá took the shape of a Bráhman boy on herself.

57. She reflected a little on the Agni-soma-mantra, and changed her form as the water turns to a wave; and then alighted on the earth, in the shape of a Brahman's lad.

58. She advanced toward her lord with a smiling countenance, and the prince Sikhidhwaja beheld the Bráhman boy advancing towards him.

59. He appeared to come from some other forest, and stood before him in the form of devotion itself; his body was as bright as the molten gold, and his person was ornamented with a string of pearls.

60. The white sacrificial thread graced his neck, and his body was covered with two pieces of milk white vests; he held the sacred water pot on one hand, and with his pupils staff in the other, he made his approach to the prince. (The order of the students was called dandi from their holding the sacred stick in one hand, like the pilgrim staff in Europe).

61. His wrist was entwined by a string of beads, and a long and double chain of rosary hang from his neck to the ground. (Double and triple threads of sacred seeds worn about the necks of saints).

62. His head was covered over by long and flowing jet black hairs, in the manner of the strings of black bees, fluttering about the tops of white lotuses; and the radiance of his, shed a lustre on the spot.

63. His face ornamented with earrings, glowed as the rising sun with his lustre of rosy rays, and the knotted hair on the top of his head with the mandára flower fastened on it, appeared as pinnacle of a mountain with the rising moon above it.

64. The husband that sat quiet with his tall stature, and his limbs and senses under his subjection; appeared as a mount of ice with the ashes rubbed all over his body.

65. He saw the Bráhman boy appearing before him, as the full moon rising on the aureate mount of Meru; and rose before him with the respect. (Which is paid to that luminary by her worshippers).

66. Thinking his guest as the son of some God, the prince stood with his bare feet before him; and addressed him saying, obeisance to thee O thou son of a God, take this seat and sit thyself there.

67. He pointed out to him with his hand the leafy bed that was spread before him, and offered him a handful of flowers which he poured into his hands.

68. The Bráhman boy responded to him saying: "I greet thee in return, O thou son of a king! that lookest like a dew drop or the beaming moon-light sparkling on a lotus leaf." He then received the flowers from his hand and sat upon the leafy bed.

69. Sikhidhwaja said:--Tell me O thou heaven born boy, whence thou comest and whither thou goest, as for me it is lucky day that has brought thee to my sight.

70. Please accept this pure water, and fragrant flowers and this honorarium also; and receive this string of flowers, that I have strung with my hands; and so be all well with thee.

71. Vasishtha related:--So saying, Sikhidhwaja offered the flowers, the wreathed blossoms, the honorariums and other offerings; as directed by the ceremonial law to his worshipful lady.

72. Chúdálá said:--I have travelled far and wide over many countries on the surface of this earth, and have never met with so hearty a reception and such honors; as I have now received from thee.

73. Thy humility, courtesy and complacence bespeak thee to be highly favoured of the Gods, and betoken thee to be attended with long life on earth. (Because the meek and gentle are said to be long lived on earth).

74. Tell me O devotee, whether you have ever applied your mind towards the acquirement of your final liberation and extinction; after the abandonment of all your earthly desires, by the magnanimity and tranquillization of your soul for a long time. (It is true you have long forsaken the vanities of the world, but have you set your heart to seek the eternal emancipation of your soul?).

75. You have, my dear Sir, chosen a very painful alternative for your final liberation, that you have made the vow of your undergoing the hardship of this forest life, by forsaking the care of your large dominion. (The care of the state is painful, but the pains of hermitage are much more so).

76. Sikhidhwaja replied:--I wonder not that thou must know all things, being a God thyself and thou wearest this form of the Bráhman boy, yet the supernatural beauty of thy person, bespeaks thee to be an all-knowing deity.

77. Methinks these members of the body, are bedewed with the ambrosial beam of moonlight, or how could thy very appearance shed such nectarious peace even at the first sight.

78. O handsome boy! I see in thy person a great resemblance of the features of my beloved one, who is now reigning over my kingdom (and whom perhaps I will see no more in this life).

79. Please now to refresh thy fair and fatigued frame, with wearing these flowery chaplet from the head to foot; as the vest of a hoary cloud, invests a mountain from its top to bottom.

80. I see thy face as beautiful, as the stainless moon; and thy limbs as delicate, as tender petals of flowers; and I find them now waning and fading under the solar gleams.

81. Know pretty youth that it was for the service of the gods, that I had wreathed the flowers together; and now I offer and bequeath them to thee, that art no less a God to me.

82. My life is crowned today with its best luck by its service of a guest like thyself, for it is said by the wise that attendance on guests is meritorious than the merit of attending on the Gods. (Hence the law of Hospitality is not less binding on the Hindu than it is with the Bedouin Arabs).

83. Now deign O moon faced deva (deity) to reveal unto me what God thou art, and the progeny of what deity that dost deign to dignify me with thy visit; please tell me all this and remove the doubts that disturb my breast.

84. The Bráhman boy replied:--Hear me, prince, relate to thee all that thou requirest to know of me; for who is there so uncivil, that will deceive and not comply to the request of his humble suppliant.

85. There lives in this world, the well known, the holy saint Nárada by name; who is the snowy spot of pure camphor, on the face of those that are famed for the purity of their lives.

86. It was at one time that this Godly saint sat in his devotion in a cavern of the golden mountain; where the holy river of Gangá, fast flows with her running current and huge billows dashing against the shore.

87. The saint stepped out once to the beach of the river, to see how it glided on in its course; like a necklace of gems torn down from the mountain on high.

88. He heard there at once the tinkling sound of trinkets and bracelets, and a mixed murmur of vocal voice; and felt the curiosity to know what it was and whence it came.

89. He lightly looked towards the sacred stream and observed there an assemblage of young ladies, who equalled the celestial nymphs Rambhá and Tilottamá in the beauty of their persons; who had come out to sport by and bathe in the clear waters of the holy river.

90. They plunged and played in the waters removed from the sight of men, and were all naked with their uncovered breasts; blooming as the buds of golden lotuses in the lake.

91. These were jogging to and fro and dashing against one another like the ripened fruits of trees, and seemed to be filled with flavoured liquor for the giddiness of their observers.

92. Their swollen bosoms formed the sanctuary of the God of love, and were washed by the pure waters of the sacred river.

93. Their fullness with luscious liquor, put to blush the sweet waters of the sacred river of Gangá; they were as mound in the garden of paradise, and as the wheels of the car for the God Káma to ride upon.

94. Their buttocks were as pillars of the bridge in water, obstructing and dividing the free passage of the waters of the Ganges; and their upper part of the body, gives a lustre of world's beauty.

95. The shadow of one another's body was clearly visible to the naked eye, on the limpid waters of the Gangá; like a Kalpa tree in rainy season, with all its branches.

96. The thick verdure of the verdant season, had put to shade the light of the day; and the flying dust of flowers, had filled the forest air with fragrance.

97. Water-fowls of various kinds were sporting on the banks, as they do by the sea side and about the watering places round the trees; while the budding breasts of these dames, had put to blush the blooming buds of lotuses.

98. They held up their faces, which were as beautiful as a bud of lotuses; while their loosened hairs hung by them, like swarms of bees; and the loose glances of their eye-balls, were playing as the fluttering black-bees.

99. Their swollen breasts resembling the aureate lotuses, which were used by the Gods as golden cups to hide their ambrosial nectar; therein for fear of its being ravished by the demons and demi-Gods.

100. They were now seen to be hiding themselves in the secret bowers and caverns of the mountain, like lotuses hidden under foliage; and now hastening to the cooling beach of the river, to leave their lovely limbs in its limpid stream.

101. The saint saw the bevy of the young ladies, resembling the body of the full moon complete with all its digits; and his mind was ravished with their beauty (as the minds of men are turned to the delirium of lunacy by looking at the moon-light).

102. He lost the balance of his reason, and became elated with giddiness; and his breath of his life throbbed in his heart, by impulse of the delight that raged and boiled in his breast.

103. At last the excess of his rapture, gave effusion of his passion; as the fullness of a cloud in summer, breaks out in water in the rainy weather.

104. The saint turned as wan as a waning moon, and as the pale moon-light in frost; and like a fading plant, torn from its supporting tree.

105. He faded as the stalk of a creeper parted in two, and withered away as a sapling after it has lost its juicy sap.

106. Sikhidhwaja asked:--How is it that the pure and peerless saint, who is liberated in his life time and acquainted with all knowledge; who is void of desires and devoid of passions, and who is as pure as the clear air both in the inside as well as outside of his body?

107. How is it that even he the holy Nárada himself, could lose his patience and countenance who leads his life of celibacy all along?

108. Chúdálá replied:--Know, O princely sage! that all living beings in the three worlds not excepting even the Gods; have their bodies composed of both ingredients (of good and evil) by their very nature.

109. Some remain in ignorance, and others in knowledge to the end of their lives; and some remaining in happiness, and others in misery to the end of their days.

110. Some thrive in happiness with their virtue of contentment and the like, and are enlightened in their minds like a room by the light of the lamps; and as the bosom of the sea by the light of the luminaries of heaven.

111. Some are tormented by their hunger and poverty, and are involved in misery like the face of nature under the darkness of clouds.

112. The true and pure reality of the soul (divine spirit), being once lost to one's sight (the visible or phenomenal world): makes its appearance before him, like a dark and thick cloud of rainy weather.

113. Though one may be employed in his continuous investigation into spirituality, yet a moment's neglect of his spiritualism is sure to darken his spiritual light; as the apparition of the world appears to sight.

114. As the succession of light and darkness makes the course of the day and night, so the return of the pain and pleasure indicates the progress of life. (This variety kills the monotony of life).

115. Thus the two states of pleasure and pain, are known to accompany over lives from birth to death; as the results of our prior acts (of merit and demerit).

116. This impression of past life marks the lives of the ignorant entirely, as the red colouring sticks for ever in a cloth; but it is not so with the intelligent, whose knowledge of truth wipes off the stigma of their pristine acts.

117. As the eternal hue of a gem, whether it be good or bad, is exhibited on the outside of it; and also as a crystal stone, however clear it may be, takes the colour of the outward object in it (so the ignorant exhibit their inherent nature in their outward conduct, and partake also the qualities of their surroundings).

118. But it is not so with the intelligent knower of truth (tatwajna), whose soul is free from all inward and outward impressions in his life time; and whose mind is never tinged like that of the ignorant, by the reflexion of anything about him. (Knowledge of truth is vitiated by nothing).

119. It is not only the contiguity or presence of things or pleasures, that taint the minds of the ignorant; but the absence and loss also are causes of great regret, from the stain they leave in the memory; as it is not only a new paint that paints a thing, but also the vestiges that it leaves behind, give it also a colouring. (The remembrance of past things, gives a colouring to the character of man).

120. Thus as the minds of the ignorant are never cleansed from the taint of their favourite objects, so they are never free from their bondage in this world; like the liberated sage by his want of earthly attachment. Because it is the parvitude of our desires that contributes to our liberation, while the amplitudes of our wishes lead us to our continued bondage in this world. (This passage presents us with the pains of memory, instead of the pleasures which some poets have portrayed on its face).

121. Sikhidhwaja said:--Tell me my lord, why men feel sorry or joyous at their pain or pleasure, to which they are bound by their birth in this world; and for what is far off from them (either as past or gone and what is in their expectation in future, since both the past and future are absent from us)?

122. I find your words my lord to be as clear as they are pretty and full of meaning, and the more I hear them so much the more do I thirst to listen to them; as the peacock is insatiate with the roarings of clouds.

123. Chúdálá answered:--It is pleasant to inquire into the cause of our birth, and how the soul being accompanied with the body, derives its knowledge through the senses, and feels thereby a delight which is apparent in babes. (We see by observation how babies are pleased with the exercise of their limbs and senses).

124. But the living soul (or the vital principle), which is contained in the heart and runs through the Kundaliní artery as the breath of life; is subject to pain and sorrow by its very birth. (Hence we see, new born child coming to cry out no sooner it comes to life after its birth).

125. The living soul or vital spirit (which is as free as air), comes to be confined in the arterial chains of the prison houses of the different bodies; by its entering into the lungs breathing with the breath of life. (The spirit of God was breathed into the nostrils of man).

126. The breath of life circulating through the body, and touching its different parts or the organs of sense, raise their sensations in the soul; and as the moisture of the ground grows the trees and shrubs on earth, so doth our vitality produce the sensations of the pleasure and pain in the soul.

127. The living soul being confined in the arteries of different bodies, gives a degree of happiness and steadiness to some, which the miserable can never enjoy. (The poor are bereft to the comforts of high life).

128. Know that the living soul, is said to be liberated in the same proportion as it manifests its tranquilized state; and know also that it is bounden bondage in the same degree, as it appears to be sorry in the face and choked in its breathing. (The dejected and depressed spirit does not breathe out freely).

129. The alternate feeling of pain and pleasure, is likewise the bondage of the soul and no other, but this and it is the want of these alternations, that constitutes its liberation; and these are the two states of the living soul.

130. As long as the deceptive senses, do not bring the false sensations of pain and pleasure unto the soul; so long does it rest in its state of sweet composure, and the calm tranquillity of the positive rest.

131. The invisible soul coming in sight of some transient pleasure or want of pain, becomes as joyous as the cheerful sea passing the reflexion of the bright moon-beams in its bosom.

132. The soul equally exults at the sight of pleasure, as it grieves at the knowledge of its unsteadiness; as a foolish cat rejoices to see of fish, which it has not the power to catch or hold fast in its clutches.

133. When the soul, has the pure knowledge of the intelligibles and the cognition of itself; it comes to know, that there is no such thing as positive pain or pleasure; and has thereby its calm and quiet composure for ever, and under every circumstance.

134. When it comes to know that it has no concern with any pain or pleasure, and that its living is to no purpose at all; it is then said to be awakened in itself, and to rest in its quietude of nirvána-extinction (unconsciousness of one's self or its consciousness of itself as a cypher, is termed the state of its nirvána-annihilation).

135. When the living soul comes to know by its internal intuition, that pain and pleasure are unreal in their nature; it is no longer concerned about them, but rests quietly within itself.

136. When the soul comes to the belief, that the visible world is no other than the vacuity of Intellect or Brahma himself; it gets its rest in its quietness, and becomes as cool as an oilless and extinguished lamp. (Here is the vacuism of Vasishtha again).

137. The belief that all nature is vacuity, and all existence is the one unity together with the thought of an infinite inanity; is what leads the soul to its unconsciousness of pain and pleasure. (All is but void and vacancy, and mere air-drawn phantasy).

138. The thoughts of pleasure and pain therefore are as false, as the false appearance of the world; and this error is inherited by the living soul from Brahmá the first of living beings in the world. (The error of taking the unreal for real began with Brahmá himself).

139. Whatever was thought and ordained by the first creative power in the beginning, the same has taken root in the living soul; and is going on even to the present time as its nature.

140. Sikhidhwaja asked:--It is only when one feels some pleasure in his mind, that it runs in the blood through his veins and arteries; but the holy Nárada could not be affected by the sight, nor drop his semen from him.

141. Chúdálá replied:--The animal soul being exited (by the existent sight of women), excites the living breath of prána to motion; and the whole body obeys the dictate of the mind, as the body of soldier obeys the command of their commander.

142. The vital airs being put to motion, they move the internal sap and serum from their seats; as the blowing winds bear away the fragrance of flowers and the dust of leaves, and drop down the fruits and flowers and leaves of trees.

143. The semen being put to motion falls downwards, as the clouds being driven together burst into the rain water.

144. The semen then passes out of the body by the canals of the veins and arteries, as the running waters pass through the channels and canals of a river.

145. Sikhidhwaja said:--O thou divine boy! that knowest both the past and present states of things, as it appears from thy instructive discourse; please to instruct me at present, what you mean by the nature of things by the Brahmic power of Brahma.

146. Chúdálá replied:--Nature is that intrinsic character, which is implanted in the constitution of things at the beginning of their creation; and the same which continues to this day the essential part of the ghata, pata, and all other things.

147. It comes on by a kákátálya or accidental course of its own, as it is compared by the learned with the rise and fall of waves and bubbles in the water; and the marks of the lacuna in wood and iron. (The fortuitous combination of the atomic principles, is the cause of the formation of concrete bodies; according to the Atomic philosophy of Leucippus, Democritus and the Epicureans of old).

148. It is under the power of this nature, that all things move about in the world in the various forms; and with all their properties of change and persistence. It is only the indifferent and inappetent soul that is liberated from the subjection of nature, while the apparent is fast bound to its chains and wander with their prurient nature in repeated transmigrations.

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LXXXVI. THE PRODUCTION OF THE POT (OR THE EMBRYONIC CELL)

Argument:--The birth of the Bráhman boy from the seed of Nárada, preserved in a pot whereby he was called the pot-born, and his education.

Chúdálá continues:--It is the nature of everything in the extensive world to be born in its own kind (i.e. the similar only springs from the similar and nothing of a dissimilar kind). All persons and things continue to go on in it by their desires and tendencies, whether it be in the directions of virtue or vice or good or evil. (Nature is the invariable quiddity of a thing; but its desire or inclination is a variable property or quality of it).

2. When this desire or want of the mind of a man is either diminished or brought under his control, he is no longer subject to the acts of goodness or vice but becomes exempt both from merit and demerit; and their consequences of reiterated births and deaths by the utter indifference. (Neutrality in action is the way to one's inanity in both worlds. This is not a right rule since the commission of a good action is as commendable, as an omission in the discharge of duty is held culpable in law and morality).

3. Sikhidhwaja rejoined:--O eloquent speaker! your words are as full of sense as they are of great import to me, they bespeak your great penetration into the depths of wisdom.

4. My audience of the sweet exultance of your speech has given me a satisfaction, equal to that of my draught of a large dose of the ambrosial water.

5. Now be pleased to give me a brief narration of the story of your birth and pedigree, and I will hear with all my attention your words of sound sense and wisdom.

6. Please sir to relate unto me, what the son of lotus-Brahmá--the venerable sage Nárada, did with the seminal strength, which unconsciously fell from him on the ground.

7. Chúdálá related:--The muni then curbed back the infuriate elephant of his beastly mind by the strong bridle of prudence; and bound it fast in the iron chain of the great intelligence.

8. His virile strength which was as hot as fire, resembled the molten moon melted down by the flame of the final conflagration; and as liquified as the fluid quick-silver or other metallic solution.

9. The sage who had a water-pot of crystal stone fast by his side, laid hold of the same and put the fluid semen in it, in the manner of his depositing the liquid moon-beams in the disc of the moon.

10. There was on one side of the mount of Meru, a projected rock with a deep cavern in it; the passage of which was not obstructed by the heaps of stones which lay before it.

11. The muni placed the pot inside that cave as the embryo is situated in the belly, and he filled the pot with milk which he produced by his will; as the lord of creation has filled the milky ocean with its watery milk. (The sages are said to have miraculous powers by force of their yoga).

12. The muni neglected his sacred offering and brooded over the pot, as a bird hatches over its egg; and it was in a course of a month that the foetus grew up in the pot of milk, as the reflexion of the crescent moon increases in the bosom of the milky ocean.

13. At the end of the month the pot bore a full formed foetus, as the orb of the moon becomes full in the course of a month; and as the season of spring produces the lotus bud with its blushing petals.

14. The foetus came out in the fullness of its time, and with the full possession of all the members of its body; as the full moon rises from the milky ocean without diminution of any of its digits.

15. The body became fully developed in time, and the limbs were as beautiful as the horns of the moon shine brightly in the lighted fortnight.

16. After performance of the initiatory ceremonies (of tonsure and investiture of the sacred thread); and the sage instructed him in whatever he knew, as one pours out the contents of one vessel into another.

17. In course of a short time the boy became acquainted with all the oral instructions (Vangmaya) of his father, and became an exact ectype of the venerable sage. (The best son likens his father).

18. The old sage became as illustrious with his brilliant boy, as the orb of the moon shines brightly with its train of resplendent stars.

19. Once on a time the sage Nárada went to the empyrean of his father Brahmá accompanied by his young progeny, and there made his obeisance to the prime progenitor of mankind.

20. The boy also bowed down before his grandsire, who knowing him to be versed in the vedas and sciences; took him up and set him on his lap.

21. The lord Brahmá pronounced his blessings on the boy, and knowing him to be born of the pot and acquainted with the vedas; gave him the name of Kumbha or the pot.

22. Know me O hermit! to be the son of the sage Nárada, and grand son of the great lotus-born Brahmá himself; and know by the appellation of Kumbha from my birth into the pot.

23. I have the four vedas for my companions and playmates, and I always delighted with their company; in the heavenly abode of my lotus-born grandsire--the Divine Brahmá.

24. Know the Goddess Sarasvatí to be my mother, and the Gáyatrí hymn as my maternal aunt; my habitation is in the heaven of Brahmá where I dwell as the grand-child of the lord of creatures.

25. I wonder at my pleasure, throughout the wide extended world; I rove about with a soul full of felicity, and not on any errand or business whatever.

26. I walk over the earth without touching it with my feet, and its flying dust do not approach my person; nor is my body ever fatigued in all its rambles. (The spiritual body is intangible and unwearied).

27. It happened this day, that I came to behold thy hermitage in the course of my etherial journey; and so directed my course this way, to see thee in this place. (This is the substance of my life, as I have now related unto thee).

28. Thus O forester! I have given you the whole account of my life as you have heard just now; because it is a pleasure to good people, to hold conversation with the good and wise.

29. Válmíki said:--As they were talking in this manner the day past away to its evening service, and the sun set down below the horizon; the court broke and every one repaired to his evening ablution, and met again with the rising sun on the next morning.

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LXXXVII. CONTINUATION OF THE SAME AND ENLIGHTENMENT OF SIKHIDHWAJA

Argument:--Sikhidhwaja's praise of Kumbha and expression of his sorrow, he turns to be a disciple of the same and professes his faith in the vedánta doctrines.

Sikhidhwaja said:--Sir, it appears to me that the hoarded merits of all my former lives, have brought you today to my presence here; as an unforeseen hurricane drives the waters of the sea on the dry mountain tops. (i.e. thy speech is as cooling draught to my perished soul).

2. I reckon myself as highly blest among the blessed today to be thus favoured by your presence, and cooled by your speech distilling as ambrosial dews from your lips.

3. Never did a more sensible speech, touch and cool my soul to such a degree as yours ere this; wherefore I deem your holy presence as more precious to me, than the gaining of a kingdom.

4. The unrestrained delight which is felt in general (from the words of the wise), which are free from self-interest and selfish motives; is far superior to the self-restricted pleasure of sovereignty, which is delightful once in imagination only (and not in its actual possession).

5. Vasishtha said:--As the prince was uttering these encomiums, the Bráhman boy Kumbha passed over them in silence; and interrupted him by saying:--

6. Chúdálá said:--Please put a stop, sir, to these words of yours, and give me an account of yourself as I have given mine to you; and tell me who you are, and what you do in this lonely mountain.

7. How long is it that you have passed in this forester's life of yours, and what is your main object in view. Tell me the bare truth, because it is beyond the probity of an ascetic, to utter anything but the plain truth. (The ascetics are names of satyavrata or vowed to truth).

8. Sikhidhwaja replied:--Lord as you are the offspring of a God, everything must be well known to you; and as the Gods are full well acquainted with the secrets and circumstances of all people, I have very little to relate to you about me.

9. It is from my fear of the world (and its temptations), that I have abandoned it and taken my abode amidst this forest; and this though you well know, will I now briefly state unto you.

10. I am Sikhidhwaja the ruler of a country, which I have long relinquished for a seat in the forest; and know, O knower of all truths, that it is my fear of the trap-doors of the world and future transmigration in it, that has driven me to this retired wilderness.

11. It is no more than the reiteration of pain and pleasure, and of life and death in this accursed world; and it is to evade all these, that I have betaken myself to my austerities in these solitary woods.

12. I wander about on all sides, and perform my rigorous austerities without any respite; and I give no rest to myself, but keep my vigils like a miser over his little stock.

13. I am without any effort or attempt, and so without any fruit and fruition also; I am lonely, and so helpless likewise; I am poor and therefore friendless also, and know me Divine personage! to be pining in this forest like a withered tree perforated by worms.

14. I observe strictly all my sacred rites without any fail or failure, and yet I fall from one sorrow into a sea of sorrows; and have grown too pensive, that even the ambrosial draught is unpleasant to me.

15. Chúdálá said:--It was once on a time that I had my great progenitor (Brahmá) to tell me which of the two, the observance of duties or their non-observance for the sake of knowledge (i.e. whether practice or theoretical knowledge); is the more useful to and preferable by mankind.

16. Brahmá replied:--Knowledge is no doubt the supreme Good, as it leads to ones acquaintance with the unity of the Deity and the oneness of himself; but action is inculcated to man at the duty of his life, both for the pleasure and passing of his life time.

17. Let them that have not acquired their intellectual light and the sight of the soul, be employed in their duties by their offsprings and fellow creatures; for who that is devoid of a silken robe, will go about naked and not wrap himself with a blanket or coarse cloth.

18. The ignorant that are actuated by their desires and live upon their hopes, meet with their objects as the reward of their action; but the knowing and speculative theorist, having neither any desire in his mind nor action of his body, meets with no reward of either.

19. An action without its object goes to naught and for nothing, as the fruit bearing plants become fruitless and die away without being properly watered in their time. (There it is doubtful whether the comparison of watering refers to the desire or action. The gloss refers it to the action without which no desire is successful).

20. As the effect of a certain season on plants &c., is displaced by that of the succeeding one; so the fruit of an action, is frustrated by its want of its desire (of the object).

21. As it is the nature of kusa-grass never to fructify, though they bear the flowers in time; so my son, no action can produce any fruit without the desire of the main object (as its final cause). (Here Chúdálá addresses her husband as her son).

22. As the boy possest the idea of a ghost in his mind, sees the apparition of a devil before him; and as a sick man having hypochondria of his malady, is soon attacked by it (so everyone meets with what he has in his mind).

23. As the kusa-grass presents the fair flowers to view, without ever bearing their fruits; so does the speculative theorist meditate on the beauty of his theory, without producing its results by its practice.

24. Sikhidhwaja said:--But it is said that all human desire is vain, and its accompanying egoism is a fallacy; and that they are the creatures of our ignorance, like our error of a sea in the burning sands of a desert.

25. So it is to the gnostic theist, whose ignorance is altogether removed by his knowledge of all things as the Divine spirit; such a man of course has no desire rising in his mind, as there is no appearance of the sea in the sands before the eyes of the wise.

26. It is by forsaking his desires, that a person is freed from his bonds of his disease and death; and his internal soul arriving to the perfection of the Deity, is exempted from future birth.

27. But know the human mind to be fraught with desires, from which the learned few are only exempt; it is by their transcendental knowledge of the knowable one, that the Divinely wise alone are exempted from their regeneration in this mortal world.

28. Chúdálá replied--It is true, O princely sage! that knowledge is said to be the chief good (summum bonum), by the Gods Brahmá and others and also by all sapient sages; and notwithstanding thy knowing of this, why is it that thou remainest in this state of thy gross ignorance?

29. What mean these pots and staffs, these wooden stools and those seats of kusa-grass; and why is it, O royal prince! that you delight in these false playings of fools?

30. Why is it that you do not employ your mind to inquire into the questions as to what thou art, and how has this world came to existence, and how and when will cease to exist (in your consciousness of reality). Instead of making inquiries in these solemn truths, you are passing your time like the ignorant in your fooleries only?

31. Why don't you discuss about the natures of bondage and liberation in the company of the learned, and pay your homage at their venerable feet?

32. Do you want, O prince to pass your life in the discharge of your painful austerities, as some insects finish their days in perforating the stones in which they live?

33. You can easily obtain the delight you seek, if you will but betake yourself to the service of holy man; and keep company with the tolerant and wise souls, arguing with them on spiritual subjects.

34. Or you may continue to remain in your grotto, in this forest living on the simple food of holy men; and by forsaking the evil propensities of your mind, abide here as an insect in a hole under the ground.

35. Vasishtha related:--Being thus awakened to sense by his wife--the Divine boy--Sikhidhwaja, melted into tears; and with his face bathed in water, spoke to the lad as follows:--

36. Sikhidhwaja said:--O Divine child! it is after a long time, that I am awakened by thee to my senses; and I perceive now that it was my weak-headedness, which drove me from the society of respectable to this lonely forest.

37. Ah! I find now that my mind is purged to-day of its endless sins, which has brought thee to my presence here, and remonstrate with me on my past misconduct.

38. O beauteous boy! I deem thee henceforward as my monitor and father and my best friend forever, and acknowledge myself as thy pupil; wherefore I bow down at thy feet and pray thee to take piety on me.

39. Please admonish me now on the subject of Divine knowledge, as you are best acquainted with it; and whereby I may be freed from all my sorrows, and be settled with perfect peace and bliss of my mind.

40. You said at first, that knowledge is the supreme bliss or summum bonum of mankind; now tell me, which is that knowledge which saves us from misery; whether it is the knowledge of particulars which lead us to the acquaintance of specials, or that of the general which brings us to the transcendental. (The former is the inductive knowledge of ascending from particulars to the universal, and the latter is deductive knowledge of deducing everything from the primitive one).

41. Chúdálá replied:--I will tell thee prince as far as I know about it, and what may be best acceptable to thee; and not throw away my words in vain, like crowing ravens about a headless trunk.

42. Because the words that are uttered to the impertinent questions of a person and not heeded by him, are thrown in vain; and become as useless to him, as her eye sight in the dark.

43. Sikhidhwaja said:--Sir, your words are as acceptable to me as the ordinances of veda (gospel truth); and though you utter them without previous meditation (extempore), yet I have full faith in them.

44. Chúdálá replied:--As a boy obeys the words of his father, knowing it to be pronounced for his certain good; so must you receive my words (knowing them to tend to your best welfare).

45. Think my advices to be all good for you, after you hear them with proper attention; and hear unto my words, as you hear music without inquiring into their reason or rhyme.

46. Hear me now relate to you an interesting story of a certain person, whose conduct and character resembled in every way to thine; and who was brought back to his sense after his long aberration. This is a tale to dispel the worldly cares and fears of the intelligent.

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LXXXVIII. THE TALE OF THE CRYSTAL GEM

Argument:--The slipping of a precious stone in ignorance, and picking of a glossy glass in view of it.

Chúdálá related:--There lived once a rich man, combined with opposite qualities (of charity and penury) in his character; as the sea contains the water and the submarine fire in its depth.

2. He was as skilled in arts, as he was practiced in arms; and was trained up in all dealings, as he was expert in business. But his great ambition in all his pursuits, kept him from the knowledge of the most high. (His excess of worldliness, was a preventive to spiritual knowledge).

3. He employed all his endeavours to obtain the imaginary gem of the philosopher's stone chintámani (by means of his pujas and prayers and other sacred rites); as the submarine fire wants to devour the waters, and dries up the bed of the sea.

4. His great avidity and persevering patience, succeeded after a lapse of a long time to obtain the precious gem at last; because there is nothing which may not be effected by the ardent zeal of man. (Omnia vincit labor).

5. He succeeded in his attempts by his unwearied labour, joined with his firm resolution and well directed plan; as the meanest man is favoured with a fortune, by his employment of these means. (Fortune crowns all strenuous efforts with success).

6. He saw the stone as lying before him, and ready to be grasped in his hand; as a hermit sitting on the peak of a mountain, thinks the rising moon as easy to be grasped by his hand. (Too ardent desire presents the shadow of the object to one's view).

7. He saw the brilliant gem before him, but became mistrustful of his sight and the reality of the object before it; as a poor man hearing of his sudden elevation to royalty, mistrusts the report and doubts its being meant for him.

8. He was then immerged in himself to think with amazement for a long time, he overlooked and neglected to lay hold on his great gain, and kept dubitating in his mind in the following manner.

9. Whether this stone is gem or not, and if so, whether it be the philosopher's stone or any other; shall I touch it or not, for I fear lest it fly away from my touch or be soiled by it.

10. No one hath until this time obtained the long sought philosopher's stone, and if ever it was obtained by any one, it was, says the sastra, in his next life.

11. It is no doubt that my miserliness only, that makes me view aslant this brilliant gem before me with my eyes; as a purblind man sees a flashing fire-brand and deep-laid moon in the sky.

12. How could the tide of my fortune run so high at once, that I should succeed so soon to obtain the precious stone, that is the pink and acme of perfection and productive of all treasure.

13. There must be few and very few indeed of those fortunate men, who can expect their good fortune to court and wait on them; at a little pains in a short time.

14. I am but a poor and honest man, and one possest of very little qualification nor of any worth and account among mankind; and it is impossible that so miserable a wretch, could ever be blessed with this masterpiece of perfection.

15. The incredulous man hung for a long time in a state of suspense, between his certainty and uncertainty; and was infatuated by his mental blindness, that he did not even stretch out his hand to lay hold on the jewel lying open before him.

16. Hence whatever is obtainable by anyone at any time, is often missed and lost sight of by either his ignorance or negligence of it; as the precious gem in the parable, which was proffered and lay palpable in full view.

17. As the undetermined man hung in the balance of his suspicion, the precious gem flew away and vanished from his sight; as the merited man avoids his slighter, and as the shaft flies from its string or the stone from its sling. (Fly from the fool as the arrow flies from the bow-string).

18. When prosperity appears to one, she confers on him her blessings of wisdom and prudence &c.; but as she forsakes her foolish votary, she deprives him of all his discretion. (Such is the case with this once wise and afterwards foolish devotee of prosperity).

19. The man tried again to invoke and recall the precious gem to his presence, because the persevering spirit is never tired to try again and again for his expected success.

20. He came to behold before him a brittle piece of glass, shining with its false glare as the former gem; and this was placed in his presence by the invisible hands of the siddha that had come to tempt him and deride his folly.

21. The fool thought this brittle thing to be the real gem now lying before him, as the ignorant sot believes the sparkling sands to be the dusts of the purest gold.

22. Such is the case with the deluded mind, that it mistakes the eight for six and a foe for a friend; it sees the serpent in the rope and views the desert land as the watery expanse, it drinks the poison for the nectar and spies another moon in the sky in the reflexion of the true one.

23. He took up that sham trumpery for a real gem, and thought it as the philosopher's stone that would confer on him whatever he desired; with this belief he gave up in charity all he had, as they were no more of any use to him.

24. He thought his country to be devoid of all that was delightsome to him and its people as debasing to his society; he thought his lost house was of no use to him, and his relatives and friends to be averse to his happiness.

25. Thus thinking in his mind, he determined to remove himself to a distant country and enjoy his rest there; and then taking his false gem with him, he went out and entered an uninhabited forest.

26. There his deceptive gem proving of no use to him loaded him all imaginable calamities, likening to the gloomy shadow of the black mountain and the horrid gloom of deep ignorance.

27. The affections which are brought to one by his own ignorance, are by far greater than those which are caused by his old age and the torments of death. The calamity of ignorance supercedes all other earthly affections, as the black hairs rise on the top of the body and cover the crown of the head.

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LXXXIX. THE PARABLE OF AN ELEPHANT

Argument:--Freedom of the Incarcerated Elephant; and his falling again into the Pit.

Chúdálá said:--Hear O holy hermit! another very interesting story of mine, which well applies to your case; as the ruler of a land and to serve to awaken your understandings: (from its present theory).

2. There lived a large elephant in the Vindhya mountains, which was the head and leader of a great number of elephants; and had as clear an understanding in its big and elevated head, as the lofty summit of the mountain was humbled down at the bidding of Agastya--the sage. (Agastya is recorded as the first Aryan emigrant, who crossed the Vindhya and settled in southern India, and civilized the wild mountainous and rude people of Deccan by his wise law and instructions).

3. His two tusks were as strong as the thunderbolts of heaven, and as long and stunning as the far reaching flashes of lightning; they were as destructive as the flames of final desolation (kalpánta), and as piercing as to bore and uproot a mountain.

4. He came to be caught by an iron trap laid by elephant catchers in his way, and was fast held in it as the Vindhya by the Muni's charm; and as the giant Bali was bound in the chains of India. (Vindhya and its people were spell bound by the Agastya sage).

5. The captive and patient elephant was tormented by the iron goad in his proboscis, and suffered the excruciating pains of his torture; like the Tripura giant under the burning fire of Hara. (Siva is called Tripura-hara for his quelling that giant by his fire arms).

6. The elephant lay in this sad plight in the net for three days together, and was thus watched over by his hunter for a distance. (See the paper of elephant catching in the Asiatic Researches).

7. The great suffering of the elephant made him open his mouth widely, and utter a loud scream that growled about like the loud noise of roaring clouds.

8. Then he exerted the force of both his tusks, and succeeded thereby to break asunder the iron bar; as the Titan of old, broke open the bolts at the gate of heaven.

9. The hunter saw the breaking of his hard fetters by the infuriate beast from a distance, as Hara beheld the breaking of the demon Bali (Belos) from his subterranean cell beneath the mountain, in order to invade his heaven on high.

10. The elephant catcher then mounted a tall tála (palm) tree, and leaped from its top in order to fall down on its head; but haplessly he fell down on the ground, as the demon was hurled down to hell by victorious Hara.

11. The hunter missed the head of the huge animal, and fell headlong upon his legs on the ground; as a ripe fruit, is dropped down by the hurrying winds.

12. The great elephant took pity in seeing him falling, and lying prostrate before him; as the mind of the noble, is compassionate on others even in their own piteous state.

13. The noble animal thought in his mind, that it was no valour on his part to trample over the self-fallen; and had thus the magnanimity of sparing the life of his own enemy.

14. He broke only the chains in two pieces, and took his way before him; leaving away all obstacles and barriers, as the rushing waters bear down the strongest bridge.

15. His strength broke the strong net, but his piety spared the life of the weak man; he went off as the sun sets, after dispelling the evening clouds.

16. The hunter rose up from the ground after he saw the elephant had gone away; and he found himself to be as same and sound after his fall as he had been before it; and as the elephant was relieved from his pains, after his liberation from the chains.

17. Notwithstanding with great shock which the man had felt by his fall from the tall palm tree, he felt no hurt with any part of his body; whence I ween, the bodies of scoundrels are fortified against every harm.

18. The wicked gain greater strength by execution of their repeated crimes, as the rainy clouds gather the more by their frequent showers. Thus the hunter went after his fresh excursion.

19. The elephant catcher felt very sorry, at the escape of the elephant and unsuccessfulness of his attempt; as one in dejected mind, is to lose a treasure that has fallen into his hand.

20. He sought about and beat the forest, to find out the hiding elephant amidst the thickets; as the ascending node of Rahu rises in the sky, to lay hold on the moon covered under the clouds.

21. After a long search, he came in sight of the elephant halting under a tree; as when a warrior returns from the battlefield, and breathes the air under a shady arbour.

22. The cunning huntsman collected a great many tools, capable to entrap the elephant at his resting place.

23. He dug a circular ditch round about that place in the forest, as the great creator of the world had stretched the ocean encircling this earth.

24. He then covered the great pit, with green branches and soft leaves of trees; as the season of autumn covers the face of the empty sky with fleecy and flimsy clouds.

25. The elephant roaming at large in the forest, happened to fall down into the pit one day; as the fragment of a rock on the coast, falls headlong on the dried bed of the sea.

26. The big elephant was thus caught in the circular pit, which was as deep as the dreadful depth of the sea; and lay confined in it, as some treasure is shut up in the hollow womb of a chest.

27. Being thus confined at the bottom of that far extending pit, still passes his time in endless trouble and anxiety; like the demon Bali in his dark cave under the grounds.

28. This is the effect of the silly elephant, letting unhurt his cruel hunter who had fallen ere long before him; or else he would not be thus pent up in the pit, if he made an end of him in time.

29. Hence all foolish people that had not foresight to prevent their future mishaps, and provide against their coming mischances by their precautions at present, are surely to be exposed like the calamity as the vindhyan elephant. (Hence all unforeseeing men are designated as gaja murkha or elephantine fools).

30. The elephant was glad with the thought of his freedom from the hunter's chains, and thought no more of any future mishap; which was the sole cause of his being by another mischance, which lay at a long distance from him.

31. Know, O great soul! that there is no bondage of man except his own ignorance; and the jail prisoners are not under such thraldom, as the intellectual servitude of freemen under their errors and prejudice. The enlightenment of the soul and the knowledge of the cosmos as one universal soul, is the greatest freedom of man; while the ignorance of this truth, is the root of the slavery of mankind to the errors of this world.

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LXXXX. WAY TO OBTAIN THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

Argument:--Chúdálá's Interpretation of the Parable of the Precious stone and the Glassy Gewgaw.

Sikhidhwaja said:--Please explain unto me, O Divine boy! the purport of the parables of the true and false gems; and the unfettered and pent up elephant, which you have spoken before to me.

2. Chúdálá replied:--Hear me now expound to you the meaning of my stories, and the purport of the words and their senses; which I have stored in your heart and mind, for the enlightenment of your understanding.

3. That searcher after the philosopher's stone, was undoubtedly acquainted with science, but had no knowledge of the truth (tatwajnána); he searched the gem but knew not what it was, and the same man is thyself.

4. You are versed in the sciences as he, and shinest above others as the shining sun on the mountain tops; but you have not that rest and quiet, which is derived from the knowledge of truth; and are immerged in your errors, as a block of stone in the water.

5. Know O holy man! that it is relinquishing of errors, which is said to be the philosopher's stone (because they are the only men that have set themselves above the reach of error). Try to get that O holy man! in your possession, and set yourself thereby above the reach of misery.

6. It is the relinquishment of gross objects, that produces the pure joy of holiness; it is the abandonment of the world, that gives one the sovereignty over his soul, and which is reckoned as the true philosopher's stone.

7. Abandonment of all is the highest perfection, which you must practice betimes; because it is contemning of worldly grandeur, that shows the greatest magnanimity of the soul.

8. You have O prince! forsaken your princedom together with your princess, riches, relatives and friends, and have rested in your resignation; as Brahmá the lord of creatures, rested at the night of cessation of the act of his creation.

9. You have come out too far from your country, to this distant hermitage of mine; as the bird of heaven the great Garuda lighted with his prey of the tortoise, on the farthest mount of the earth. (The legend of Gaja-kachchhapa borne by Garuda, is narrated at length in the Purána).

10. You have relinquished your egotism, with your abandonment of all worldly goods; and you purged your nature from every stain, as autumnal winds disperse the clouds from the sky.

11. Know that it is only by driving away the egoism of the mind as well as all desires from the heart, that one gets his perfection and has the fulness of the world or perfect bliss in himself. But you have been labouring under the ignorance of what is to be abandoned and what is to be retained, as the sky labours under the clouds. (It is not the abandonment of the world, but the greedy desires of the mind, that is attended with true felicity).

12. It is not your abandonment of the world, which can give you that highest felicity the summum bonum that you seek; it is something else that must be yet sought after by you. (True happiness is a thing of heavenly growth, and is to be obtained by the grace of God only).

13. When the mind is overflown by its thoughts, and the heart is corroded by the canker of its desire; all its resignation flies from it, as the stillness of a forest flies before the tempest.

14. Of what avail is the abandonment of the world to one, whose mind is ever infested by his troublesome thoughts; it is impossible for a tree to be at rest, that is exposed to the tempests of the sky. (Inward passions disturb the breast, as tempests rend the sky).

15. The thoughts constitute the mind, which is but another name for will or desire; and so long as these are found to be raging in one, it is in vain to talk of the subjection of the mind.

16. The mind being occupied by its busy thoughts, finds the three worlds to present themselves before it in an instant; of what avail therefore is the abandonment of this world to one, when the infinite worlds of the universe are present before his mind.

17. Resignation flies on its swift pinions, soon as it sees a desire to be entertained in it; as a bird puts on its wings, no sooner it hears a noise below.

18. It is insouciance and want of care, which is the main object of the abandonment of the world; but when you allow a care to rankle in your breast, you bid a fair adieu to your resignation; as one bid farewell to his honoured and invited guest.

19. After you have let slip the precious gem of resignation from your hand, you have chosen the false glossy gewgaw of austerity for some fond wish in your view. (All outward observances of rites and austerities proceed from some favourite object fostered in the mind, while the pure bliss of holiness is obtained from the purity of the heart only, and without any need of outward acts).

20. I see thy mind is fixed in wilful pains of thy austerities, as the sight of a deluded man is settled on the reflexion of the moon in the waters (from his error of its being the true moon).

21. Forsaking the indifference of your mind, you have become a follower of the prurience of your heart; and chosen for yourself the mortification of an anchorite, which is full of from its first to last.

22. He who forsakes the easy task of his devotion to God, which is fraught with infinite bliss; and betakes himself to the difficult duties of painful austerity, is said to make a suicide of his own soul. (The sruti calls them self-suicides (átmaghanojánah); who neglect the felicity of their souls).

23. You betook yourself to the vow of self-resignation, by your relinquishment of all earthly possessions; but instead of observing the forbearance of resignation, you are bound to the painful austerities of your asceticism in this dreary wilderness.

24. You broke the bonds of your princedom, and decamped from the bounds of your realm thinking them as too painful to you; but say are you not constrained here to the faster and far more irksome toils of your asceticism, and the unbearable chains of its rigid incarceration.

25. I think you are involved in much more care to defend yourself from heat and cold in the defenceless forest, and have come to find yourself to be more fast bound to your rigours than you had any idea of this before.

26. You thought in vain to have obtained the philosopher's stone before, but must have come to find at last; that your gain is not worth even a grain of glassy bauble.

27. Now sir, I have given you a full interpretation of the avidity of a man to pocket the invaluable gem; you have no doubt comprehended its right meaning in your mind, and will now store its purport in the casket of your breast.

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LXXXXI. INTERPRETATION OF THE PARABLE OF THE ELEPHANT

Argument:--Ignorance which is the cause of worldly desire, flies with loss of wishes.

Chúdálá continued:--Hear me, O great prince! now explain to you the meaning of the story of the Vindhyan elephant, which will be as useful as it will appear wonderful to you.

2. That elephant of the vindhyan range, is thy very self in this forest; and his two strong tusks are no other than the two virtues of reasoning and resignation, on which you lay your strength. (Viveka and vairágya i.e. reason and resignation are the most potent arms of men).

3. The hunter that was the enemy of the elephant and waylaid him in his free rambles, is the personification of that great ignorance, which hath laid hold of thee for thy misery only.

4. Even the strong is foiled by weak, and lead from one danger to another and from woe to woe; as the strong elephant was led to by the weak huntsman, and as you O mighty prince! are exposed by your imbecile ignorance in this forest.

5. As the mighty elephant was caught in the strong iron chain, so are you held fast in the snare of your desire (of a future reward); which has brought all this calamity on you.

6. The expectation of man is the iron chain, that is stronger and harder and more durable than the other; the iron rusts and wastes away in time, but our expectations rise high and hold us faster.

7. As it was in the hostility of the huntsman, that he marked the elephant by his remaining unseen in his hiding place, so thy ignorance which lurks after thee, marks thee for his prey from a distance.

8. As the elephant broke the bonds of the iron chains of his enemy, so have you broken asunder the ties of your peaceful reign and the bonds of your royalty and enjoyments.

9. It is sometimes possible, O pious prince! to break down the bonds of iron fetters; but is impossible, O holy prince, to put a stop to our growing desires and fond expectations.

10. As the huntsman that had caught the elephant in the trap, fell down himself from on high to the ground; so was thy ignorance also levelled to the ground, seeing thee deprived of thy royalty and all thy former dignity. (The pride and ignorance of a man sinks down with his misfortune).

11. When the man who is disgusted with the world, wants to relinquish his desire of enjoyment, he makes his ignorance tremble in himself, as the demon that dwells on a tree, quakes with fear when the tree is felled.

12. When the self-resigned man, remains devoid of his desire for temporal enjoyments; he bids farewell to his ignorance, which quits him as the demon departs from the fallen tree.

13. A man getting rid of his animal gratifications, demolishes the abode of his ignorance from the mind; as a woodcutter destroys the bird-nests of the tree, which he has sawn or cut down on the ground.

14. You have no doubt put down your ignorance, by your resignation of royalty and resorting to this forest; your mind is of course cast down by it, but it is not yet destroyed by the sword of your resignation. (A cast down or sunken spirit or mind is not really killed, but revives and lives again in time).

15. It rises again and gains renewed strength and minding its former defeat, it has at last over powered on you by confining you in this wilderness; and restraining you in the painful dungeon of your false asceticism.

16. If you can but now kill your fallen ignorance in any way, it will not be able to destroy you at once in your rigorous penance; though it has reduced you to this plight by your abdication of royalty.

17. The ditch that the huntsman had dug to circumvent the elephant, is verily this painful pit of austerity, which thy ignorance has scooped to enthral you in.

18. The many provisions and supplies with which the huntsman had filled the hollow, in order to entice the elephant; are the very many expectations of future reward, which your ignorance presents before you, as the recompense of your penitence.

19. O prince, though you are not the witless elephant (gaja-murkha); yet you are not unlike the same, by your being cast in this forest by your incorrigible ignorance.

20. The ditch of the elephant, was verily filled with the tender plants and leaves for the fodder of the elephant; but your cave is full of rigorous austerities, which no humanity can bear or tolerate.

21. You are still encaged in this prison house of the ascetic's cell, and doomed to undergo all the imaginative torments of your penance and martyrdom. You verily resemble the fallen Bali, that is confined in his subterranean cell.

22. You are no doubt the empty headed elephant, that art fast bound in the chain of false rigours, and incarcerated in this cave of your ignorance; thus I have given the full exposition of the parable of the elephant of Vindhyan mountain, and now glean the best lesson for thyself from this.

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LXXXXII. THE PRINCE'S ABJURATION OF HIS ASCETICISM

Argument.--The prince coming to his sense, took all his relics of asceticism and set them on fire.

Chúdálá continued:--Tell me prince, what made you decline to accept the advice of the princess Chúdálá, who is equally skilled in morality, as well as in Divine knowledge.

2. She is an adept among the knowers of truth, and actually practices all what she preaches to others; her words are the dictates of truth, and deserved to be received with due deference.

3. If you rejected her advice, by your over confidence in your own judgment; yet let me know, why she prevented you not, from parting with your all to others. (There is a proverb that men should rely on their own judgment and that of their elders; but never on those of other people and women).

4. Sikhidhwaja replied:--But I ask you another question, and hope you will reply to it, i.e. how do you say that I have not relinquished my all, when I have resigned my realm, my habitation and my country all together; and when I left my wife and all my wealth behind.

5. Chúdálá replied:--You say truly O prince! that you have forsaken your kingdom and habitation, and your lands and relatives, and even your wife and wealth, but that does not make your relinquishment of all, since none of these truly belong to thee; they come of themselves and go away from man; it is your egoism only which is yours, and which you have not yet got rid of.

6. You have not yet abandoned your egoism, which is the greatest delight of your soul; you cannot get rid of your sorrows, until you are quite freed from your egoistic feelings.

7. Sikhidhwaja said:--If you say that my kingdom and possession, were not my all, and that this forest which I have resorted to forms my all at present; and these rocks and trees and shrubs form my present possessions, then I am willing to quit all these even, if that would constitute resignation of all.

8. Vasishtha said:--Hearing these words of the Bráhman boy--Kumbha, the cold blooded prince Sikhidhwaja held silence for a while, and returned no answer.

9. He wiped off his attachment to the forest from his heart, and made up his mind to slide away from it; as the current of a stream in the rainy weather, glides along and carries down the dust and dirt of the beach.

10. Sikhidhwaja said:--Now sir, I am resolved to leave this forest, and bid adieu to all its caves and arbours; say now does not this relinquishment of all, form my absolute abnegation of all things.

11. Kumbha replied:--The foot of this mountain with all its wood-lands, arbours and caverns are no properties of yours, but the common fells and dales of all; how then can your forsaking of them, form your self-abnegation at all?

12. The best boon of your egoism which has fallen to your lot, is still unforsaken by you; you must get rid of this, in order to be freed from the cares and sorrows of this sublunary world of woes.

13. If none of these things is mine, then my hermit's cell and grove, which I own as mine are what I am willing to resign, if that would make my total abnegation.

14. Vasishtha said:--The self-governed Sikhidhwaja being awaked to his sense, by these admonitions of Kumbha--the Bráhman boy; he remained silent for a moment, with the light that shone within him.

15. His pure conscience returned to his mind, and the blaze of his right knowledge, burnt away the dross of his attachment to the hermitage; as a gust of wind drives the dusts from the ground.

16. Sikhidhwaja said:--Know me sir, to have now taken away my heart from this hermitage, and forsaken my attachment to all its sacred bowers and arbours; now therefore consider me to have resigned my all and every thing in world.

17. Kumbha replied:--How can I consider you as fully resigned, by your resigning these groves and arbours and everything appertaining to them; none of which belong to you, nor are you their master or deserter in anyway. (Know there is but one being, who is the sole master of all).

18. Thou hast another thing to be forsaken by thee, and that is the greatest and best thing that has fallen to thy lot in this world; it must be by your resignation of that thing, that you can set yourself free from all. (The prince was so very infatuated with his knowledge of the gross sensibles, that he would never come to know what egoism meant).

19. Sikhidhwaja said:--If this even be not the all that I have, and which you want me to resign; then take these earthen pots and basins, these hides and skins and this my cell also, and know me to forgo all these forever and betake myself elsewhere.

20. Vasishtha said:--So saying the dispassionate prince rose from his seat, with his composed and quiet mind; as when an autumnal cloud rises on the top of a mountain, and disperses elsewhere.

21. Kumbha saw from his seat, the motions and movements of the prince, with her smiles and amazement, as when the sun laughs from above, to see the foolish attempts of men on the earth below.

22. Kumbha looked steadfastly on Sikhidhwaja, and sat silently with the thought, "Ah! let him do whatever he likes for his sanctification and renunciation of the temporal articles of this world, which do not serve for his spiritual edification at all."

23. Sikhidhwaja then brought out all his sacred vessels and seats from his grotto, and collected them all in one spot; as the great ocean yielded up all her submerged treasures, after the diluvian flood was over.

24. Having collecting them in a pile, he set fire to them with dried fuel; as the sun-stone or sun-glass burns down the combustible by its fire.

25. The sacred vessels and chattels which were set on fire and burnt down by it, were left behind by the prince who sat on a seat beside Kumbha; as the sun sets on the mount Meru, after he had burnt down in the world by the fire of dissolution.

26. He said to his rosary, you have been confident to me your master, as long as I turn you on my fingers as my counting beads.

27. And though I have turned you over and over, with my sacred mantras in this forests; yet you have been of no service to me at all.

28. And though I have travelled with you, Oh my reliquary! and seen many holy places in thy company; but as you proved of no good to me, I now resign you to the flames.

29. The burning fire rose in flames and flashes in the sky, and they appeared as stars glittering in it; he then cast his seat of the deer's skin on the fire, and said: I have borne you about me so long on my back as an ignorant stag.

30. It was by my ignorance, that I held you so long with me; and now you are at liberty to go your own way; where may peace and bliss attend on you forever.

31. Ascend with the rising fire to heaven, and twinkle there as the stars on high; so saying he took off his hide garment from his body with his hands, and committed it to the flames.

32. The funeral pyre of the prince spread as a sea of fire and it was driven about as a conflagration by the winds blowing from the mountains; when the prince thought of throwing his water pot also into the fire.

33. And said to it, you sir, that bore the sacred water for all my sacerdotal functions; O my good water pot, it is true that I have not the power of rendering the proper recompense of your past services.

34. You were the best model of true friendship, good nature, benevolence and constancy to me; and the best exemplar of goodness and all good qualities in thy great bounty.

35. O thou! (my water pot), that wast the receptacle of all goodness to me; now depart your own way, by your purification in the same sacred fire, as thou wast at first found by me (from the potter's fire). Be thy ways all blissful to thee! so saying he cast his water pot into the consecrated fire.

36. Because all good things are to be given to the good or to the fire; but all bad things are cast off, like the dust of the earth; and as foolish men fall to the ground, by their secret craft.

37. It is well for thee, my low mattress, to be put to fire and reduced to worthless ashes; so saying, he took up his wet matted seat, and cast it into the flaming fire.

38. The seat on which he used to sit in his pure meditation on God (i.e. his kusásana or his seat made of kusa-grass), he soon committed to the flames; because it is better to give up a thing betimes, of which one must get rid shortly afterwards.

39. This my alms-pot which contained the best articles of food, which were presented to me by good people; I now commit to this flame with whatever it has in it.

40. The fire burns a thing but once, and the burnt article ceases to burn any more; hence I shun all the implements to my ceremonial rites, in order to set me free from the bondage of all actions for ever more.

41. Be ye not sorry therefore, that I forsake you thus; for who is there, that will bear about him things that are unworthy of himself.

42. So saying, he threw into the fire all his cooking vessels, and the plates and dishes of his kitchen; and all things whatever he had need of in his hermitage. And these began to burn in a blaze, us the world was burnt down by the all destructive fire of the kalpánta.

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LXXXXIII. ADMONITION OF SIKHIDHWAJA

Argument:--As the prince was going to immolate himself after this, he is recalled from his rashness by the wisdom of his young monitor, who admonishes him to the relinquishment of his mind and not of the body.

Vasishtha said:--He then rose up and set fire to his hut of dry leaves and grass, as it is the case with foolish men very often to demolish the structure of their own fancy and caprice. (i.e. To undo the doings of their own hobbies and wild imagination).

2. Whatever else there was left beside aught of the chattels and goods of the hermit Sikhidhwaja took them all one after another, and set fire to them with his composed and unconcerned mind, and observing a strict taciturnity all the while.

3. He burnt and broke down every thing, and then flung away from him his eatables and preserved condiments; his clothings and all, with a quite content state of his mind. (This unconcerned state of the mind is called avahittha or insouciance; which cares for no mortal thing).

4. The hermitage was now turned to a desolation, for its having been a human habitation awhile before; and resembled the relics of the sacrificial pavilion of Daksha, after its devastation by the all-devouring fire of Vírabhadra. (The legend of Daxa-yajna-bhanga, forms the subject of many Puránas, poems and dramas, but the mystery and allegory of the fable remains as dark and inexplicable as the Runic characters).

5. The timorous fawns being affrighted at the lighted fire, left their lairs where they lay chewing the cud at their ease; and fled afar to distant deserts, as the townsmen free from a burning quarter to distant abodes.

6. Seeing the vessels and utensils to be all in a blaze, with the fuel of the dry woods on all sides; the prince seemed to remain quite content and careless amidst the scene, with the possession of his body only.

7. Sikhidhwaja said:--I am now become an all abandoning saint, by my abandonment of all desire and every object; and wonder that I should after so long a period of my life, be awakened to my right knowledge, by the holy lectures of my heavenly child.

8. I have now become a pure and perfect unit, and quite conscious of the ineffable joy in myself; of what use and to what good, are all these appendages of my ever varying desires to me. (No temporal object, leads to our permanent good; save our own bodies, which feel the inward bliss of the soul).

9. As the knots of the chain that bind the soul to this world, are cut asunder and fall off one after another; so the mind comes to feel its quiet composure, until it attains to its ultimate rest and inaction.

10. I am quite composed, and in perfect ease with the extinction of my desires; I am joyous and rejoice in myself, that my ties are all broken and fallen off from me; and that I have at last, fully accomplished the abandonment of all things (sarva tyaga).

11. I am become as nude as the open sky, and as roofless as the vault of vacuity; I view the wide world as an expanse of vacuum, and myself as a nullity within the whole inanity; say, O divine boy! is there anything still wanting to my complete renouncement of all.

12. Kumbha replied:--Yet you must be aware! O prince Sikhidhwaja! that you are never released from all the bonds of this life, by your renunciation of every mortal thing; appertaining to this your mortal and transitory state of your being.

13. I see the gravity and purity of the nature of your soul, which is placed far above the reach and track of the commonality; by its abandonment of the innumerable seeds and sprouts of fond desires, which incessantly rise as thistles and thorns on the human breast. (If virtue we plant not, vice will fill the place; and the rankest weeds, the richest soils deface).

14. Vasishtha said:--On hearing these words of Kumbha, the prince Sikhidhwaja reflected on its purport within himself for a short while; he spoke these words in reply as you shall, oh mighty armed Ráma, now hear from me. (i.e. The prince was not so very easily prevailed upon by his eloquent monitor).

15. Sikhidhwaja said:--Tell me, O heaven born child! what else dost thou see remaining in me; except the serpentine entrails within myself, and supporting the body composed of a heap of flesh, blood and bones.

16. And if this body reckoned an appendage to myself, I will then ascend to the top of this mountain, and let it fall to be dashed to pieces on the ground; and thus get rid of my mortal part for ever.

17. Saying so, as he was proceeding to immolate his body on the craggy hill before him; he was interrupted by his monitor Kumbha, who spoke to him as follows:--

18. Kumbha said:--What is it prince that you are going to do, why do you attempt to destroy this innocent body of yours from this hideous height, as the enraged bull hurls its calf below the hill?

19. What is this body, but a lump of dull and gross matter, a dumb and poor painstaking thing; it never does you any harm, nor can you ever find any fault in it; why then do you wish in vain to destroy so harmless and faultless a thing?

20. It is of itself a dull and dumb thing (as your beast of burden); it ever remains in its torpid meditative mood, and is moved to and fro by other agencies; as a plank is tossed up and down, by the adverse current and waves in the sea.

21. He who hurts or annoys his inoffensive body, deserves to be put to torturous punishment; like the ruffian rogue who robs and annoys the holy saint, sitting in his solitary cell.

22. The body is quite guiltless of all the pain and pleasure, which betide the living soul by turns; as the tree is wholly unconcerned with the fall of its fruits and leaves, which are dropped down by the blowing winds.

23. You see the gusts of winds dropping down the fruits, flowers and leaves of trees; then tell me, O holy men! how you can charge your innocent tree, with the fault of letting fall its best produce.

24. Know it for certain, O lotus eyed prince! that the immolation of your body even, is not enough to make your total renouncement of all things, sarva tyága you must know is not an easy matter.

25. It is in vain that you intend, to destroy this inoffensive body of yours on this rock; your quitting or getting rid of your body, does not cause your renunciation and freedom from all. (Death releases us from the bondage of the body, but not from the stings of conscience).

26. There is an enemy of this body which agitates it, as an elephant shakes a huge tree; if you can but get rid of that mortal enemy of your body and soul, you are then said to be freed from all.

27. Now prince, it is by avoiding this inveterate enemy of yours, that you are freed from the bondage of your body, and everything besides in this world; or else however you may kill your body, you can never put a stop to its regrowth (in some form or other).

28. Sikhidhwaja rejoined:--What is it then that agitates the body and what is the root of our transmigrations and of the doings and sufferings of our future lives? And what is it by the avoidance of which, we avoid and forsake everything in the world?

29. Kumbha replied:--Know, holy prince, that it is neither the forsaking of your realm nor that of your body, nor the burning of your hut and chattels, nor all these things taken together, that can constitute your renouncement of all and everything.

30. That which is all and every where, is the one only cause of all; it is by resigning everything in that sole existent being, that one becomes the renouncer of all.

31. Sikhidhwaja said:--You say that there is an all--to-pan, which is situated in all to whom all things are to be resigned at all times. Now sir, you that know all, what this all or omnium can be.

32. Kumbha replied:--Know, O holy man, this all pervading being is known under the various appellations of the living soul jíva, the life Prána and many more also; it is neither an active or inactive principle, and is called the mind which is ever liable to error.

33. Know the mind to be the seat of illusion, and to make the man by itself; it is the essential constituent of every person, and the speculum of all these worlds in itself.

34. Know the mind, as the source of your body and estates; and know it also, as the root of your hermitage and everything else; just as one tree bears the seed of another. (The ingrained desire of the mind is the seed of all extraneous accidents).

35. It is therefore by your giving up this seed of all events, that you really resign everything in the world, which is contained in and depends on this primary seed and mainspring of the mind. All possible as well as impossible renunciations, depend on the resignation of the mind.

36. The man that is under the subjection of his mind, is ever subject to cares, both when he is attentive to his duties or negligent of them; as also when he rules his realm, or flies from it to a forest; but the man of a well governed mind, is quite content in every condition of life.

37. It is the mind which revolves incessantly in the manner of the rotatory world, and evolves itself in the form of the body and its limbs; as the minute seed displays itself in the shape of a tree and its branches and leaves.

38. As the trees are shaken by the blowing winds, and as the mountains are shook by the bursting earthquakes; and as the bellows are blown by the inflated air, so is the animated body moved about by the mobile force of the mind.

39. These miserable mortals that are born to death and decay, and those happy few that live to enjoy the pleasures of life; and the great sages of staunch hearts and souls, are all of them bound alike to the thraldom of their minds. (The mind governs all, and there are few to govern it).

40. The mind acts its several parts, in all the various forms and figures of the stage of the world; it shows its gestures in the motions of the body, it lives and breathes in the shape of the living spirit, and it thinks and cogitates in the form of the mind. (The mind and the heart, the living soul and the active body, are all the one and same thing).

41. It takes the different epithets of the understanding buddhi, consciousness mahat, egoism ahamkára, the life or prána and the intellect, agreeably to its sundry internal functions in the body, or else it is the silent soul, when it is without any action to be assigned to it.

42. The mind is said to be all in all, and by getting release of this, we are released of all diseases and dangers; and then we are said to have avoided and abandoned all and every thing.

43. O ye, that want to know what resignation is, must know that it is the resignation of the mind, which makes your renunciation of all things. If you succeed in the abnegation of your mind, you come to know the truth, and feel the true felicity of your soul.

44. With the riddance of your mind, you get rid of the unity and duality of creeds, and come to perceive all diversities and pluralities blend in one universal whole; which is transcendental tranquillity, transparent purity and undiminished felicity: (which is anámaya without alloy).

45. The mind is the field for the course of every body, in his career in this world; but if this field be over grown with thorns and brambles, how can you expect to grow rice in it?

46. The mind shows its manifold aspects, and plays its many parts at will; it turns and moves in the forms of things, as the waters roll in the shapes of waves.

47. Know young prince, that your abandonment of all things by the resignation of your mind, will redound to your joy, not unequal to that of your gaining a kingdom to your self.

48. In the matter of self-abnegation, you are on the same footing with other men; in that you resign whatever you dislike, and want to have some thing that you have a liking for.

49. He who connects all the worlds with himself, as the thread that connects the pearls in a necklace, is the man that possesses everything, by renouncing all things from himself. (This is the attribute of sutrátmá--the connecting thread of the supreme soul, which unites all units to it, by living all things as apart from it).

50. The soul that is unattached to all things, doth yet connect and pass alike through them all; as the thread of the divine soul, connects the world as a string of pearls. (It spreads unspent).

51. The soul that bears no attachment to the world, is like an oilless lamp that is soon extinguished to darkness; but the spirit that is warm with its affections, likens an oily lamp, that burns with universal love, and enlightens all objects about it.

52. The lord that lives aloof from all, resembles the oilless lamp in dark obscurity; but the same Lord manifesting himself in all things, resembles the oily lamp that lights every object. (The two hypostases of the supreme spirit--the unknowable and the Manifest, the aprakásátmá and the saprakásátmá).

53. As after the relinquishment of all your possessions (both in your estate as also in this forest), you still remain by yourself; so after your resignation of your body, mind and all, you have still your consciousness by you, which you can never get rid of.

54. As by the burning of your articles, you have burnt no part of your body; so by your resignation of all things, you can not resign yourself or your soul, which would then amount to nirvána or utter extinction (which is tantamount to moksha or ultimate absorption in the supreme spirit).

55. Sarvatyága or total abnegation, means the voidance of the soul of all its worldly attachment, when it becomes the seat of all knowledge; and likens to the etherial paradise of the hosts of celestial beings.

56. Sarvatyága or self-abnegation is like the water immortality, which drives away all fear of disease and death by a single draught of it; and it remains untouched by the cares of the world, as the clear firmament is untinged by the spots of clouds.

57. Sarvatyága again is the entire abandonment of all affections, gives a man his true greatness and glory; and as you get rid of your temporary affections, so you get the stability of your understanding, and the firmness of your determination.

58. Sarvatyága or abandonment of all, is fraught with perfect delight; as its contrary is attended with extreme misery. This is a certain truth, and knowing as such, choose what you think best for you.

59. He who gives away his all in this life, comes to be in possession of them in his future state; as the rivers which pour their waters into the sea, are again filled by its flood tide.

60. After resignation of all things from the mind, its hollowness is filled with full knowledge of them, which is highly gratifying to the soul; as an empty box, is stored with rich gems and jewels in it.

61. It was by virtue of his resignation of all things, that Sákyamuni became dauntless amidst the troubles of the Kali-age, and sat as firm as a rock. (Hence the yogis of prior ages, have remained as pure air).

62. Total resignation of all things, is tantamount to the acquisition of all prosperity; because the lord gives every thing to him, who dedicates and devotes his all unto Him.

63. You have now, O prince, become as quiet as the calm atmosphere, after your abandonment of all things; now try to be as graceful as the lightsome moon, by the complaisance of your manners.

64. Now, O high minded prince, forget at once your past abdication of your crown and kingdom, as also your subsequent of all things in this hermitage; drive away the pride of your total abandonment of all you had, and be of a clear and complacent countenance.

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LXXXXIV. ENLIGHTENMENT OF SIKHIDHWAJA

Argument:--On the abandonment of the affections of the mind.

Vasishtha continued:--As the disguised boy was admonishing in this manner on the relinquishment of mind (i.e. the mental passions and affections); the prince ruminated inwardly on its sense, and then spoke as follows.

2. Sikhidhwaja said:--I find my mind fluttering always, as a bird in the open sky of my bosom; and lurking incessantly as an ape, in the wilderness of my heart.

3. I know how to restrain my mind, as they do the fishes in the net; but know not how to get rid of it, when it is so much engaged with the objects of sense.

4. Please sir acquaint me first with the nature of the mind, and then teach me the method of relinquishing it for ever from me.

5. Kumbha replied:--Know great prince, cupidity to be the intrinsic nature of the mind; and know the word desire to be used as a synonym for the mind. (The mind and will are synonymous terms).

6. The abandonment of the mind is very easy, and more facile than the stirring of it; it is attended with a greater delight, than the possession of a kingdom can afford, and is more pleasant than the scent of fragrant flowers.

7. But it is very difficult for the ignorant, to get rid of or forsake the desires of their minds; it is as hard to them as it is for a boor to wield the reins of a kingdom, and for a heap of grass to be as high as a mountain.

8. Sikhidhwaja said:--I understand the nature of the mind, to be replete with its desires; but I find my riddance from it, to be as impossible as the swallowing of an iron-bolt by anybody.

9. I find the mind as the fragrant flower in the great garden of the world, and the crater of the fire of all our woes; it is the stalk of the lotus of the world, and it is the bag that bears and blows the gusts of delusion all over the world. Now tell me how this thing may be easily removed from us.

10. The mind is the locomotive engine of the body, it is the bee that flutters about the lotus of the heart; now tell me how I may with ease get rid of this mind.

11. Kumbha answered:--The total extirpation of the mind, consists in the entire extinction of the world from it; the learned and the men of long foresight, call this to be the abandonment of the mind (i.e. when it is cast out with all its thoughts and cares).

12. Sikhidhwaja rejoined:--I think the extinction of the mind, is better than our abandonment of it, on account of securing the success of our purposes; but how can we know the gradual expurgation of the mind, from the hundreds of diseases to which it is subject.

13. Kumbha replied:--Egoism is the root (seed) of the arbour of the mind, with all its branches and leaves and fruits and flowers; therefore root out the mind with its very root of egoism, and have thy breast as clear as the empty and lurid sky.

14. Sikhidhwaja rejoined:--Tell me, O sage, what is the root of the mind, what are its sprouts and fruits; tell me also how many stems and branches it has, and how is it possible to root it out at once.

15. Kumbha replied:--Know prince that egoism and all the words expressive of the self as meity &c., and indicative of the mind, are the seeds of the tree of the mind.

16. The field of its growth is the supreme soul, which is the common source of all entities; but that field being filled with illusion, the mind is deluded to believe itself as the first born sprout springing out of this field. (The first born germ of the Divine spirit being the living soul, which originates in the mind).

17. The certain knowledge of the mind in its discrete state, is called its understanding (which in its concrete state is known as sensation); the buddhi or understanding is the state of maturity of the germ or sprout of the mind. (The infant mind is ripens into the understanding).

18. The understanding or buddhi, being subject to various desires, takes the name of chitta or wasteful mind; and this mind makes the living being, which is as hollow within it, as a carved image of stone (or moulded metal), and a mere false conception.

19. The body is the stem of this tree of the mind, and is composed of the skin and bones and juicy matters.

20. The branches of the tree of the mind, extend to a great distance all about it; and so the sensible organs of the body, protruding wide about it, perish at last in seeking for its enjoyment.

21. Now try to lop off the branches of the tree of thy mind, and try also to root out the noxious tree at once.

22. Sikhidhwaja said:--I can some how or other lop off the branches of the tree of mind, but tell me, O my sagely monitor, how I may be able to pull it out by its very root at once.

23. Kumbha replied:--All our desires are the several branches of this tree, which are hanging with loads of fruits; and are lopped off by the axe of our reason.

24. He alone is able to lop off the plant of his mind, who is unattached to the world, who hold his taciturnity and inward tranquillity, who is judicious in all discussions, and does whatever offers of itself to him at any time.

25. He who lops off the branches and brambles of the arbour of his mind, by his manliness of reason and discretion; is able also to root out this tree at once from his heart.

26. The first thing to be done with the mind, is to root it out at once from the heart and the next process is to lop off its branches; therefore employ thyself more to its eradication, than to the severing of its boughs and branches.

27. You may also burn it as the first step, instead of lopping the branches; and thus the great trunk of the tree of mind being reduced to ashes, there remains an entire mindlessness at last.

28. Sikhidhwaja said:--Tell me O my sagely guide, what is that fire which is able to burn away the seed of the tree of mind, which is covered all over with the cuticle of egoism.

29. Kumbha replied:--Prince, the fire which is able to consume the seed of the noxious plant of the mind, is the expostulation of the question, "what am I that bear this corporeal form upon me."

30. Sikhidhwaja said:--O sage! I have repeatedly considered the questions in my own understanding, and found that my egoism does not consist in aught of this world, or this earth, or the woods which form its garniture.

31. That my ego lay no where in the hills and forests where I resided, nor in the shaking of the leaves before me; nor did it lie in any part of my gross body, or in its flesh, bones or blood.

32. It does not lie in any of the organs of action, nor in the organs of sensation; it does not consist in the mind or in the understanding, or in any part of the gross body.

33. As we see the form of the bracelet in gold, so do I conceive my egoism to consist in the intelligent soul; because it is impossible for any material substance, to have anything as intelligence (as I perceive my egoism to be possest of).

34. All real existence depends on the supreme soul for its subsistence, so all real entities subsist in the supreme essence; or else it is impossible for any thing to exist in a nullity, as there is no possibility for a forest to subsist in a vacuity (without a firm ground).

35. Thus sir, knowing it full well, that my egoism is an aspect or shadow of my internal soul and worthy to be wiped off from it; yet I regret at my ignorance of the intrinsic spirit from which it is to be wiped off, and the internal soul be set in full light.

36. Kumbha replied:--If you are none of these material objects as you say, nor doth your egoism consist in materiality; then tell me prince, what you think yourself to be in reality.

37. Sikhidhwaja answered:--I feel myself O most learned sir, to be that intelligent and pure soul, which is of the form of intelligence, which acquaints me of all existence, and which discriminates their different natures.

38. I perceive thus my egoism to be attached to my body, but whether it is a caused or causeless principle, is what I am perfectly ignorant of.

39. I am unable O sage, to rub out this sense of my egoism as an unreality and unessentiality; and it is on that I greatly regret in myself (for my inability to get rid of my egoism as you led).

40. Kumbha said:--Tell me O prince, what is that great foulness, which thou feelest to be attached to thee, which makes thee act as a man of the world, and whether thou thinkest it as something or a mere delusion.

41. Sikhidhwaja replied:--The sense of my egoism, which is the root of the tree of my mind, is the great foulness that attaches to me; I know not how to get rid of it, for however I try to shun it, the more it clings about me.

42. Kumbha said:--Every effect is produced from some cause or other, and this is the general law of nature everywhere; anything otherwise is as false as the sight of a second moon in the sky, which is nothing but a reflexion of the true moon.

43. It is the cause which produces the effect, whether it be a big one or the small rudiment of it; therefore explore into the cause of your egoism, and tell me what it is.

44. Sikhidhwaja replied:--I know my sagely guide, that it is mere illusion--máyá, which is the cause of the fallacy of my egoism; but tell me sir, how this error of mine is to subside and vanish away from one.

45. It is from the proclivity of the mind towards the thinkables, that I am suffering all these pains and pangs within myself; now tell me O muni, about the means of suppressing my thoughts, in regard to external objects.

46. Kumbha said:--Tell me whether your thinking and knowing, are the causes of your thinkables and knowables, or these latter actuate your thinking and knowing powers. If you can tell me this, then shall I be able to explain to you the process of the cause and effect.

47. Now tell me which do you think to be the cause and not the cause, of knowing and knowable, and of thinking and the thinkable, which are the subjects of my question to you.

48. Sikhidhwaja answered:--I think, O sage, that the sensible objects of the body &c., are the causes of the thinking and thinkable (thoughts), and of knowing and the knowables or knowledge. (Because unless there be things in actual existence, we can neither think of or know anything, nor have any idea or knowledge of it at all).

49. Our knowledge of the entity of things, appears only in the sensible forms of bodies; or else the mere abstract thought of a thing, is as empty as an airy nothing.

50. As I can not conceive the non-entity of a positive entity, nor the abstract nature of a concrete body; so I know not how my egoism, which is the seed of my mind, can be at once ignored by me.

51. Kumbha said:--If thou rely on thy material body as a real existence, then tell me, on what does your knowledge depend, when your soul is separated from the body.

52. Sikhidhwaja replied:--The body which is evident to view, and a real entity, cannot be taken for an unreality by any body; as the palpable sun light, cannot be called darkness by any man of common sense.

53. Who can ignore the body, which is replete with its hands and feet and other members; which is full of activity and vivacity, and whose actions are so palpable to sight; and which is so evident to our perception and conception.

54. Kumbha said:--Know prince, that nothing can be said to exist, which is not produced by some cause; and the knowledge or consciousness that we have of it, cannot be but the product of mistake and error.

55. There can be no product without a similar cause, and no material form can come out from a formless and immaterial agent. How can any thing come to existence, without having its seed of the like nature?

56. Whatever product appears to present itself to anyone without its true cause, is as false an appearance as the mirage in the sand, before its deluded observer.

57. Know thyself to be no real existence, but a false shape of your error only; and with whatever earnestness you took to it, you will never get any water from this delusive mirage.

58. Sikhidhwaja said:--It is as useless to inquire the cause of a nonentity, as it is fruitless to look into the origin of the secondary moon which is but false reflex of the true one. Believing in a nullity, is as decorating the person of a barren woman's son.

59. Kumbha replied:--The body with its bones and ribs, are products of no assignable cause; therefore know it as no entity, because it is impossible for the frail body to be the work of an Everlasting Maker.

60. Sikhidhwaja said:--Now tell me sir, why we should not reckon our fathers the causes and producers of our bodies, with all their members and parts, since they are known as the immediate causes of these.

61. Kumbha replied:--The father can be nothing and no cause, without his having another cause for himself; because whatever is without a cause is nothing in itself.

62. The causes of all things and effects are called as their seeds, and when there is no seed in existence, it is impossible for a germ to be produced in the earth from nothing. (Ex nihilo nihil fit).

63. So when you cannot trace out the cause of an event, account the event as no event at all; because there can be no thing without its seed, and the knowledge of a causeless effect or eventuality, is an utter impossibility and fallacy of the understanding.

64. It is an egregious error to suppose the existence of a thing without its cause or seed, such as to suppose the existence of two moons in the sky, of water in the mirage and of the son of a barren woman.

65. Sikhidhwaja said:--Now tell me sir, why should not our parents be taken as the causes of our production, who had our grandfathers and grandmothers for the causes or seeds of their birth likewise; and why should we not reckon our first great grandfather (Brahmá), as the prime progenitor of the human race?

66. Kumbha replied:--The prime great grandfather, O prince, cannot be the original cause, since he also requires a cause for his birth, or else he could not come into existence.

67. The great grandfather of creation even Brahmá himself, is the cause of production by means of the seeds of the supreme spirit which produced him; or else the visible form in which he appeared, was no more than a mere delusion.

68. Know the form of the visible world, to be as great a fallacy as the appearance of water in the mirage; and so the creativeness of the great grandfather Brahmá, is no more than an erroneous misconception.

69. I will now wipe off the dark cloud of your error, that our great grandfather Brahmá was conceived in the womb of the supreme spirit (whereby he is styled the padma-yoni or born of the lotus like navel string of God); and this will be the salvation of your soul. (And Adam's ancestors without end. Young).

70. Now therefore know, O prince, that the lord God shines forever with his intelligent soul and mind in Himself; it is from him that the lotus born Brahmá and the whole universe, are manifest to our view, and that there is nothing which exhibits itself without Him.

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LXXXXV. THE anaesthetic PLATONISM OF SIKHIDHWAJA

Argument:--Dispersion of the gloom of ignorance from the mind of Sikhidhwaja. His coming to the Light of Truth and the Tranquillity of his soul.

Sikhidhwaja said:--If the view of the whole universe is but a phantom, and our knowledge of myself, thyself and of this and that, is but an error of our mind, then why is it that we should be concerned about or sorry for anything.

2. Kumbha replied:--The erroneous impression of the existence of the world, has so firmly laid hold of the minds of men; as the frozen water appearing as crystal, is believed as dry land by people.

3. It is said by the learned, that the knowledge of gross matter is lost with the dispersion of ignorance; and that there is no other way of getting rid of this long contracted prejudice, without our riddance from ignorance.

4. It is the acuteness of the understanding, which is the only means of our coming to the knowledge of truth; that the creation and dissolution of the world, are dependant on the will and causality of the supreme Being.

5. He whose understanding becomes, is sure to lose his rooted prejudice by degrees; and come to the knowledge of the nihility of the material world.

6. In this way of refining your mind from its prepossession of gross ideas, you will come to find the erroneous conception of a prime male (ádipurusha), as that of Brahmá (or Adam) as the first creative power, to be as false as the water in the mirage.

7. The great grandfather of the world being a nullity, the creation of all creatures by him (who is thence called Prajápatih or lord of creatures); is likewise as false and null, as it is absurd for an impossibility to come into being.

8. The perception of a thing in esse, is as false as the conception of water in the mirage; a little reflexion is enough to remove this error, like the mistake of silver in cockles and conch-shells.

9. Any work which appears to exist without its cause, is only a phantom of fallacy, and has no essential form whatever in reality.

10. Whatever is done by one's erroneous knowledge or mistake of a thing, comes to be of no use to him; as the attempt to fill a pot with the water of the mirage, proves to be utterly vain.

11. Sikhidhwaja said:--Why can't we call the supreme Brahma, to be the cause of Brahmá--the first creator of the world who is called the son of God, the one unborn and without end, and the inexpressible and everlasting.

12. Kumbha replied:--The God Brahma, being neither the cause nor the effect of any action, is but an invariable unity and transcendent spirit, and is never the cause or effect of anything.

13. How can the incomprehensible and unknowable Brahma, be designated as the creator, when he is not predicable by any of the predicates of the creator or created or as the instrument or cause of anything.

14. The world having no separate cause, is no separate product of any causality whatever; it is no duality but one with the unity, without its beginning or end, and co-eternal with the eternal one. (To pan--God is all in all).

15. He that is inconceivable and unknowable, is perfect felicity, tranquillity and ever undecaying, and can never be the active or passive agent of anything, on account of the immutability of his nature.

16. Hence there is nothing as a creation, and the visible world is but a nihility, and the Lord God is neither an active nor passive agent, but quite still and full of bliss.

17. There being no causal power, the world is not the production of any body; it is our error only that this world as a production without any assignable cause.

18. The uncaused world is the product of nothing, and therefore nothing in itself; for if it be the production of nobody, it is a nullity like its cause also.

19. The non-existence of anything or the not being of everything (except that of the supreme Being), being proved as a certain truth; we can have no conception of anything, and the absence of such conception, it is in vain to suppose the existence of an egoism or tuism.

20. Sikhidhwaja said:--Sir, I now perceive the truth, and find the reasonableness of all that you have said; I see now that I am the pure and free soul, and quite aloof of any bondage or its liberation from bonds.

21. I understand Brahma as no cause of anything, for his entire want of causality; and the world is a nullity for its want of a cause, and therefore there is no being whatever which we reckon as a category.

22. Thence there is no such category as the mind or its seed, nor its growth nor decay; I therefore bow down to myself of which alone I have a consciousness in me.

23. I am alone conscious of myself, existence in myself and have no real knowledge of any thing else beside me, and which appear as fleeting clouds in the womb of the sky.

24. The distinct knowledge of the different categories of time, place, action in the world, is now entirely blended in the knowledge of the unity of the tranquil spirit of Brahma (which composes all varieties in itself).

25. I am tranquil, calm and quiet and settled in the spirit of God; I do not rise nor fall from nor move about this prop. I remain as you do in immovable spirit of God, which is all quiet, holiness and felicity in itself.

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