FERVOUR OF SÚCHÍ’S DEVOTION.
Argument. Ardour of Súchí’s austerities and Indra’s Inquiry of it.
Vasishtha continued:—Afterwards Súchí became silent and motionless, and
thought of resuming her austerities for the sake of regaining her long
lost body.
2. With this intention she returned to the Himálayas; and there
abstaining from her desire of human gore, she sat reiterating her
castigations.
3. She saw in her mind her form of the needle, entering into her heart
with her breathings.
4. Thus meditating on her mental form of the needle, she was wafted by
her vital breath to the top of the hill, and alighted on it like a
vulture from high.
5. There she remained alone and apart from all living beings, and sat
amidst burning fires, with her form of an ash-coloured stone (_i.e._
besmeared by ashes like a _yogi_).
6. She sat there as a sprout of grass, springing in that dry and
grassless spot; but soon faded away, to a blade of withered hay in the
sandy desert.
7. She remained standing on tip-toe of her only one foot, and continued
in the castigation of her own self. (Standing of the one legged needle,
represented the posture of devotees standing on one leg).
8. She lightly touched the ground with her tiptoe stature, and avoiding
all sidelong looks, gazed on the upper sky with her upraised face and
uplifted eyes.
9. The acute point of the black iron needle, firmly preserved its
standing posture by penetrating the ground; while it fed itself upon the
air, which it inhaled by its uplifted mouth.
10. The scarcity of food in the forest, made it look up as in quest of
some prey coming from a distance; while its lower part shaking with the
wind, enticed the unwary to approach towards it.
11. The ray of light issuing as a pencil from the needle hole, became
like its attendant guard on the hinder part.
12. As men are kindly disposed towards the mean, that are favourites to
them; so was the needle attached to the pencil of ray, that became its
constant attendant.
13. The needle had another constant companion, of its devotion in its
own shadow; but the blackness of its person, made it always to remain
behind the back. (The shadow of a thing ever remains behind it).
14. Thus the shadowy needle and pencil of ray, having firmly adhered
themselves to the iron needle; these three have always become intimate
friends, like all good people mutually assisting one another.
15. The trees and plants of the mountain forest, felt compassion for
Súchí on seeing her in this plight; for who is there, that bears no
sympathy for the pious devotee, or her penances and austerities?
16. The needle that was thus stuck fast to the ground by its foot, and
had sprung up like some faculty of the mind; was fed with the fragrance
of the fruitage, blown and borne by the breeze to its uplifted mouth.
17. The woodland gods and demigods, continued to fill its mouth with the
dust; of blown and unblown flowers in the woods.
18. But it did not swallow the powdered dust of meat; which the god
Indra had caused to be thrown into its mouth, for the purpose of
frustrating the efficacy of its devotion.
19. Its fixity of purpose, did not permit it to swallow the delicious
powder; because a person however mean he may be, is sure of success by
his firmness of mind.
20. The god of winds, with his power of uprooting the mountains; was
astonished to find the needle, averse to swallow the food, ministered to
it in the form of the pollen of <flowers>.
21. The resolute devotee is never to be shaken from his purpose, though
he is plunged in the mud or drowned in water, or scattered by the winds
and thrown into the burning fire.
22. Or when he is shattered by showers of hailstones, or struck by the
lightning or battered by rain drops, and intimidated by thunder claps.
23. The resolute mind is not changed in a thousand years, and the feet
of the firm, like those of the drowsy and dead drunk, never move from
their place.
24. The holy hermit who is devoted to his purpose, loses in time the
motion of his external organs; but obtains by the exercise of his
reason, the light of true knowledge in his soul.
25. Thus did Súchí gain the light of knowledge, and become a seer of the
past and future. She became cleansed of the dross of her sins, and her
Visúchí or impurity was turned to Súchí or purity.
26. She came to know the truly knowable, in her own understanding; and
she felt true bliss in her soul, after the removal of her sins by
devotion.
27. She continued for many thousand years in her austere devotion, to
the great astonishment of seven times seven worlds, that got affrighted
at her austerities. (The cause of their fright was, lest she should take
possession of their happy states, by the merit of her devotion).
28. The great mountain was set in a blaze, by the fervour of her
devotion; and that flame spread to all the worlds, like the blaze of a
portentous meteor.
29. This made Indra the god of heaven, to ask Nárada respecting the
cause of this intense devotion; saying “Who is it that engrosses to her
the fruition of worlds, by her austere devotion”? To whom Nárada thus
replied:
30. “It is Súchí, who by her continued devotion of thousands of years,
has attained her highest state of enlightenment; and it is that light
that now enflames all the worlds.”
31. It is Súchí’s devotion, O lord of gods, that makes the Nágás to sigh
and the hills to tremble. It causes the celestials to fall down, and the
sea to overflow on earth. It dries up all things, and casts to shade the
bright orb of the sun itself.