DELIBERATION OF KARKATÍ.
Argument. Description of the dark night. The Rákshasi’s meeting a rája
and his minister. Her trial of and argumentation with them.
Vasishtha resumed:—It was a deep dark night, black as ink and as thick
as tangible pitch; hiding the habitation of the Kirátas under its
nigrescent umbrage. (Kirátas are the present Kirántis of the Himalayas,
and the ancient Kerrhoides of Ptolemy).
2. The sky was moonless, and overcast by a veil of sable clouds; the
woodlands were obscured by tamála trees, and thick masses of black
clouds were flying about in the air.
3. The thick furze and bushes besetting the hilly villages, obstructed
the passages by their impervious darkness, and the flitting light of
fireflies gave the homesteads an appearance of the bridal night.
4. The thick darkness spreading over the compounds of houses, shut out
the passage of the light of lamps, which made their way of or from the
chinks of the dwelling in which they were burning.
5. Karkatí beheld a band of Pisáchis, dancing about her as her
companions; but she became motionless as a block of wood, on seeing the
giddy Vetálas, moving about with human skeletons in their hands.
6. She saw the sleeping antelopes by her, and the ground matted over by
the thick snow falls; while the drizzling drops of dew and frost, were
gently shaken by the breeze on the leaves of trees.
7. She heard the frogs croaking in the bogs, and the night ravens cawing
from the hollows of trees; while the mingled noise of jocund men and
women, were issuing from the inside of the houses.
8. She saw the _ignis fatuus_ burning in the swamps, with the lustre of
portentous meteors; and found the banks and bournes, thick with thorns
and thistles, growing by their sides, and washed by the waters gliding
below them.
9. She looked above and saw the groups of stars shining in the
firmament, and beheld the forest about her shaking their fruit and
flowers by the breeze.
10. She heard the alternate and incessant cries of owls and crows in the
hollows of trees; and listened also the shouts of robbers in the skirts,
and the wailings of the villagers at a distance.
11. The foresters were silent in their native woods, and the citizens
were fast asleep in the cities; the winds were howling in the forests,
and the birds were at rest in their sylvan nests.
12. Furious lions lay in their dens; and the deer were lying in their
caves also. The sky was full of hoarfrost, and the woodlands were all
still and quiet.
13. The lightnings flashing from amidst the dark inky clouds, resembled
the reflexions of ray from the bosom of a crystal mountain. The clouds
were as thick as solid clay, and the darkness was as stiff as it
required to be severed by a sword.
14. Blown by the storm, the dark cloud fled like the sable Anjaná
mountain in the air, and it deluged a flood of pitchy rain, like a
water-fall from the bosom of a mountain.
15. The night was as dark as the pit of a coal-mine, and as jet black as
the wing of the black bee—_bhramara_; and the whole landscape lulled to
sleep, appeared as the world lying submerged under ignorance. (Sleep and
ignorance are twin brothers, and a reversion of the comparison of
ignorance with sleep. Such reversed similes are not uncommon in oriental
poetry, as that of the moon with the beauteous face &c.).
16. In this dreadful dead of night, she saw in the district inhabited by
Kirátas, a prince and his minister, wandering together in the forest.
17. The prince was named Vikrama, and was as brave and valorous as his
name and conduct implied him to be. He came out undaunted from within
the city, after the citizens had fallen fast-asleep.
18. Karkatí beheld them roving in the forest with the weapons of their
valour and fortitude, and searching the Vetálas infesting the
neighbourhood.
19. Seeing them, she was glad to think that she had at last got her
proper food; but wanted to know beforehand, whether they were ignorant
folks or had any knowledge of their souls, or whether their weariness
under the burthen of their bodies, had exposed them to the dangers of
the darksome night.
20. The lives of the unlearned (said she), are verily for their
perdition in this world and the next; it is therefore meet to put an end
to these, rather than leave them to live to their peril in both worlds.
(The earlier the ignorant die, the sooner do they rid themselves of
their miseries and responsibilities).
21. The life of the untutored is death, without spiritual knowledge, and
physical death is preferable; in as much as it saves the dying soul from
its accumulation of sin. (Living in the sinful world is sin, unless it
is averted by spiritual knowledge).
22. It is the primeval law ordained by our prime father—the lotus-born
Brahmá, that ignorant souls and those without knowledge of their selves,
should become the food of the heinous. (_i.e._ Of voracious and envious
animals, which devour the body and not the soul).
23. Therefore there is no harm in my feeding upon these two persons, who
have offered themselves for my food; because it is silliness to let
slip, a ready prize or proffered gift from the hand. (A bird in the hand
is worth two in the bush. Or a self-given gift is not to be lost).
24. But lest they should prove to be men of parts and good and great
souls, I cannot in that case feel disposed of my own nature, to put an
end to their valuable lives.
25. I must therefore make a trial of them, and see if they are possessed
of such parts; that I may decline from making my mess of them, because I
feel averse to molest the intelligent.
26. For those that expect to have true glory and real happiness, with
the length of their lives on earth; must always honour the learned with
honorariums, adequate to their parts and desires.
27. I should rather suffer my body to perish with hunger, than destroy
the intelligent for its supportance; because the soul derives more
satisfaction from the counsels of the wise, than bare life without
knowledge, can possibly afford.
28. The learned are to be supported even at the expense of one’s own
life; because the society of the wise affords a physic to the soul
(_psyches iatrion_), though death should deprive us of our bodies (for
it ameliorates even the pangs of death).
29. Seeing me a man-eater Rákshasí, so favorably disposed to the
preservation of the wise; what reasonable man is there, that must not
make a breast-plate of the wise for himself. (_i.e._ The wise are
ornaments to human beings however inhumane they may be to others of
their fellow creatures. Hence the most cruel tyrants were the greatest
supporters of learning).
30. Of all embodied beings, that move about on the surface of the earth,
it is the man of profound understanding only, who sheds his benign
influence like cooling moon-beams all around him. (The light of knowledge
is compared with the gentle moonbeams).
31. To be despised by the wise is death, and to be honoured by the
learned is true life; because it is the society of the sapient only,
that makes the life bring forth its fruits of heavenly bliss and final
beatitude.
32. I will now put a few questions for their examination, and know
whether they are men of parts, or gilded on the surface with sapient
looks, like copper by a chemical process.
33. Upon examination and ascertainment of the qualifications if they
prove to be wiser than the examiner; in that case one should avail of
their instruction, or otherwise there is no harm to make an end of them
as they best deserve.