recluses of sages and hermits; but to our great disappointment, we saw
nothing but the appearance of a total desolation.
18. There was not a tree nor plant, and neither a shrub nor creeper to
be seen on the spot; nor was there any man or _muni_ or a boy or child
was met thereabouts; nor any altar or priest was there anywhere.
19. It was only a vast desert, all void and devoid of bounds; an
unlimited space of burning heat, and appeared as the blank expanse of
the sky, had fallen down on the ground below.
20. Ah wœ to us! what is all this come to be! said we to one another;
and saying so, we continued to rove about for a long while, until we
chanced to espy an arbour at some distance.
21. It presented a thickly shady and cooling aspect, resembling that of
a dark and drizzling cloud in the sky; and there was observed an aged
hermit, sitting in his meditation beneath it.
22. We two sat upon the grassy spot, spread out in front of the
eremite; and though we kept sitting there for a long time, yet we could
find no respite in the abstracted meditation of the _muni_.
23. Then feeling uneasy at my staying there for a long while, I broke
my silence in impatience, and cried out in a loud voice, saying,
suspend, O sage, the life-long musings of your mind.
24. My loud cry awakened the _muni_ from the trance of his reverie,
as the roaring of a raining cloud wakens the sleeping lion, rising
straight with his yawning mouth (and stretched out limbs).
25. He then said unto us, who are ye pious persons, that are in this
desert; say where is that sanctuary of Gaurí gone, and who is it that
has brought me hither. Tell me what means this change and what time is
this.
26. Upon his saying so, I replied to him saying, you sir, know all this
and not we; say how is <it> that you being a sage and seer do not know
yourself?
27. Hearing this the holy man betook himself to his meditation again,
and there saw all the events that had occurred to himself and us also.
28. He remained a moment in deep thought, and then coming to himself
from his abstraction, he said unto us, learn now about this marvelous
event, and know it to be a delusion only by your good common sense.
29. This young kadamba tree, that you are seeing in this desert, and
that gives me a shelter underneath it, and is now flowering in kindness
to me.
30. It was for some reason or other, that the chaste goddess Gaurí,
dwelt for full ten years upon it, in the form of the goddess of speech,
and underwent all the inclemencies of the seasons sitting there upon.
31. It was by her that a goodly grove, and an extensive forest was
stretched out at this place, which became therefore known by her name,
and was decorated by the flora of all the seasons.
32. It was a romantic spot to all grades of gods and men, who kept
singing and sporting here in concert with the melody of tuneful and
sportive birds; the air was filled with clouds of flowers, which
brightened as myriads of moon in the sky; while the flying dust of full
blown lotuses, perfumed the air on all sides of the forest.
33. The pollen of mandara and other flowers, perfumed the air around;
and the opening bud and blooming blossoms brightened as moons; the
flowering creepers sent forth their fragrance all about, and the whole
courtyard of the forest, seemed to <be> strewn over with perfumery.
34. Its bowers were the seats of the god of the vernal season and
flora; and the orchestra of black-bees, sitting and singing in concert
with their mates on the top of flowers; the flower beds were spread as
the outstretched sheet of moon light, and as cradles for the swinging
sports of siddha and celestial damsels.
35. Here were brooks frequented by cranes and herons, and aquatic birds
of various kinds; and there spacious lawns on the ground, graced by
cocks and peacocks, and land birds of various hues.
36. The gandharvas and yakshas, siddhas and the hosts of celestials,
bowed down to this kadamba tree, and their coronets rubbed against the
branch, which was sanctified by the touch of the feet of the goddess
Sarasvatí _alias_ Gaurí. And the flowers of the tree, resembling the
stars of heaven, exhaled their fragrance all around.
37. Gentle zephyrs were playing amidst the tender creeper, and
diffusing a coldness throughout the secret bowers, even in the light
and heat of the blazing sunshine; while the flying dust of the kadamba
and other flowers, spread a yellow carpet all over the ground.
38. The lotus and other aquatic flowers, were blooming in the brooks,
frequented by storks and cranes and herons and other watery birds, that
sported upon them; while the goddess regaled herself amidst the flowery
groves, which displayed her wondrous powers in the variety of their
flowers.
39. It was in such a forest as this, that the goddess Gaurí the consort
of the god Hara, resided at this spot for a long time, for some cause
known to her godly mind; and then by changing her name and form to that
of kadamba--Sarasvatí, she waved as gracefully as a kadamba flower, on
the crown of the head of her spoused partner Hara or Siva.
CHAPTER CLXXXII.
BRAHMA GÍTÁ CONTINUED. SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEVEN CONTINENTS.
Argument:--Meeting of the Kadamba Hermit with his brothers, their
bane and blessing and final success.
The old anchorite resumed and said:--The goddess Gaurí dwelt for a full
decade of years, on this very Kadamba tree of her own accord; and then
she left this arbour of her own will, in order to join her lord Hara on
his left side.
2. This young Kadamba tree, being verified by the ambrosial touch of
the goddess, never becomes old, nor fades or withers; but ever remains
as fresh as a child in the lap of her mother.
3. After the goddess had left this place, that great garden was
converted to a common bush, and was frequented only by woodmen, who
earned their livelihood by woodcutting.
4. As for myself, know me to be the king of the country of Malwa, and
to have now become a refugee in this hermitage of holy ascetics, by
abdication of my kingdom.
5. On my resorting to this place, I was honoured here by the
inhabitants of this holy asylum; and have taken any abode beneath this
kadamba tree, where I have been in my meditative mood ever since that
time.
6. It was some time ago, that you sir, had come here in company
with seven brethren, and betaken yourselves to the practice of your
religious austerities.
7. So did you eight persons reside here as holy devotees since that
time, and were respected by all the resident devotees of this place.
8. It came to pass in process of time, that one of them removed from
here to the Srí mountain; and then the second among them, went out to
worship the lord Kártikeya in another place.
9. The third has gone to Benares and the fourth to the Himálayas; and
the remaining four remained at this place, and employed themselves to
their rigorous austerities.
10. It was the earnest desire of each and every one of them, to become
the sovran lord of all the seven continents of the earth.
11. At last they all succeeded to accomplish their objects of their
self same desire, by the grace and boon which obtained from the
respective deity of their adoration, that was pleased with the
austerity of his particular devotee.
12. The brethren returned to their habitation, when you had been
employed in your devotion; and after their enjoyment of the fruition of
this earth in golden age, they have ascended to the empyrean of Brahmá.
13. O sir, those brothers of yours, finding their respective gods
propitious to them, and willing to confer blessings upon them, had made
the following request of them saying:--
14. Ye gods! make our seven brothers, the lords of the seven continents
of the earth; and let all our subjects be truthful and sincere, and
attached to the occupations of their respective orders.
15. The gods that were adored by them, gladly occupied their prayer;
and having assented to their request, disappeared from them, and
vanished in the open sky.
16. They all went afterwards to their respective habitation, and met
death except this one who is now here.
17. I only have been sitting alone, devoutly intent upon meditation;
and have remained as motionless as a stone, beneath this kadamba tree,
which is sacred to the goddess of speech.
18. Now as the seasons and years, have been rolling on upon my devoted
head, I have lived to see this forest, to be broken and cut down by
woodmen, living in the skirts of these woods.
19. They have spared only this unfading kadamba tree, which they had
made an object of their veneration, as the abode of the goddess of
speech; and me also whom they believe to be absorbed in inflexible
meditation.
20. Now sirs, as you seem to have newly come to this place, and bear
the appearance of aged ascetics; I have therefore related to you all
that I have come to know by my cogitation only.
21. Rise then ye righteous men, and proceed to your native homes; where
you will meet your brothers in the circle of their family and friends.
22. You will find eight of your brothers, remaining in their abode; and
resembling the eight high minded Vasus, sitting in the high heaven of
Brahmá.
23. After that great devotee had said so far, I interrupted him
saying:--I have a great doubt in this wondrous relation of yours, which
you will be pleased to expound it to me.
24. We know this earth to be composed of seven continents only, how
then is it possible for eight brothers, to be the lord of them all, at
the one and same time.
25. The kadamba ascetic said:--It is not inconsistent what I have
related to you, there are many such are seemingly incongruous, but
become evident when they are explained.
26. These eight brothers, having passed their periods of asceticism,
will all of them become lords of the seven continents of the earth, in
their domestic circles. (_i.e._ Each thinks himself as such).
27. All these eight brothers, will remain in their respective houses
on the surface of the earth; and will there become the lords of the
septuple continents, in the manner as you shall now hear from me.
28. Every one of these eight persons had each a wife at home, who were
of unblemished character and persons withal; and resembled the eight
stars or planets of heavens, in the brightness of their bodies. (They
were equally chaste and fair and loving wives also).
29. After these eight brothers have departed, to conduct their
protracted devotion abroad; their love lorn wives became disconsolate
at their separation, which is altogether intolerable to faithful wives.
30. They in their great sorrow of spirit, made painful austerities to
the memory of the absent lords; and conducted a hundred _Chándráyana_
vows and rites, to the satisfaction of the goddess Párvatí. (The
Olympian Juno, and the patroness of chastity).
31. Invisibly the goddess appeared to them, and spake her words to them
separately in their inner apartments; after each and every one of them
had performed her daily devotion to <the> goddess.
32. The goddess said:--O Child, that hast been long fading away by thy
austerities, like the tender shoot under the scorching sun; now accept
this boon to thy heart’s desire, both for thyself as also for thy
husband.
33. Hearing this voice of the goddess of heaven, the lady Chirantiká,
offered her handfuls of flowers to her, and began to address her prayer
to the goddess, to her heart’s satisfaction.
34. The reserved and close tongued damsel, uttered her words in a slow
flattering voice flushed with joy; and addressed the heavenly goddess,
as the peahen accosts the rising cloud.
35. Chirantiká said:--O goddess, as thou bearest eternal love to
Siva--the god of gods, such is the love I bear also to my husband, O
make him immortal.
36. The goddess replied:--Know, O goodly minded lady, that it is
impossible to gain immortality, from the inflexible decree of destiny,
ever since the creation of the world. No devotion, austerity nor
charity can buy life, ask therefore some other blessing.
37. Chirantiká said:--O goddess! if it be impossible to attain
immortality, then ordain it thus far; that he being dead, his soul may
not depart beyond the confines of this house of his.
38. When the body of my husband, falls dead in this house; then confer
me this boon, that his parted soul may never depart from this place.
39. Be it so, O daughter, that your husband being gone to <the> other
world, you may still continue to be his beloved wife, even after his
demise.
40. Saying so, the goddess Gaurí held her silence in the midst of the
air; as the sound of the clouds is stopped, after its betokening the
welfare of the world.
41. After disappearance of the goddess in air, the husbands of these
ladies returned to them from all sides, and at the lapse of some time
after they had received their desired blessings.
42. Now was there a mutual interview of the wives with their husbands,
and general meeting of the brothers with each other, and with their
friends and relatives.
43. Hear now a wonderful event, which happened to them at this time;
and which presented itself as an obstacle, towards the achievement of
their noble purpose.
44. It was at the time when the brothers were employed in their
devotion, that their parents had gone out with their wives in search
of them, and were wandering about the hermitages of saints, with their
sorrowful hearts.
45. Unmindful of their personal pains and pleasures, for the sake of
the welfare of their sons, they intended to see the village of Kalapa,
which lay on their way.
46. Passing by the village of _munis_ or saints, they espied on their
way a white man of short stature, with grey and erect hairs on his
head, and his body bedaubed with ashes.
47. Thinking him to be an ordinary old passenger, the parents forgot to
do him due honour, and let the dust of the ground they trod upon, fly
unwarily to his sacred person. This irritated the old passenger, who
thus bespake to him in his ire.
48. You great fool that are going on pilgrimage in company with thy
wife and daughters-in-law; don’t you heed me the sage Durvásas, that
you slight to do me due reverence.
49. For this act of thy negligence, the boons so dearly earned by thy
sons and daughters in law will go for nothing, and will be attained
with their contrary effect.
50. On hearing this malediction the old parents and their daughters
in law, were proceeding to do him reverence, when the ancient sage
disappeared from their sight and vanished in air.
51. At this the parents and their daughters, were greatly dismayed
and disheartened; and returned disappointed to their home, with their
melancholy countenances.
52. Therefore I say, there was not the only inconsistency, in each of
the brothers reigning over the seven continents all at once; but there
were many other odds awaiting upon them as on all human wishes; and
these occurring as thickly one after the other as the sores and ulcers
growing on goitres. (Or pouches on the throat).
53. There are as many oddities and vanities, always occurring in the
wishes, and aerial castles of the vacuous mind; as the numberless
portents and comets and meteors and unnatural sights, are seen to
appear in the empty sky.
CHAPTER CLXXXIII.
DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVEN CONTINENTS.
Argument:--Brahmá’s relation of the contending sides of blessing
and imprecation.
Kunda-Danta rejoined:--I then asked the hermit of Gaurí’s asylum, whose
head was hoary with age, and whose hair resembled the dried blades of
withered grass.
2. There are but seven continents only, that composed this earth; how
then could every one of the eight brothers, become the sole lord of
earth at one and the same time.
3. Again how could a person, that had no egress from his house, conquer
the seven continents abroad, or govern them himself (by sitting quietly
at home).
4. How could they that had the boon on one hand, and its contrary curse
on the other, go in either way which are opposed to one another, as the
cool shade of trees and the heat of sunshine?
5. How can opposite qualities reside together at the same time, which
is as impossible as the container and contained to become the same
thing? (Here the blessing of the gods and the curse of the sage, must
counteract one another, and neither of them could effect anything).
6. The Hermit of the asylum returned:--Attend, O holy man, to my
relation of the sequel of their tale; and you will come to see the
sequence of their contrary fates.
7. As for you two, you will reach to your home, after eight days from
this place; and there meet with your relatives, with whom you will live
happily for some time.
8. These eight brothers also, having joined with their families at
home: will breathe their last in course of time; and have their bodies
burnt by their friends and relations.
9. Then their conscious souls, will remain separately in air for a
little while; and there continue in a state of torpidity, as in the
insensibility of sleep.
10. All this interval their acts will appear, in the vacuous space of
their minds, for the sake of receiving their retributive justice; and
also the blessing of gods and the curse of the sage, will wait on them
at this time.
11. The acts will appear in the shapes of the persons to whom they
were done and the blessings and imprecation likewise will assume their
particular forms, in order to make their appearance before them.
12. The blessings will assume the forms of fair moon-bright bodies,
having four arms on each, and holding a lotus bud, a club and other
weapons in each of them.
13. The curse will take the forms of Siva with his three eyes, and
holding the lance and mace in his either hand; and having a dark
terrific body, with a surly grim and frowning countenance.
14. The Blessings will vauntingly say:--Avaunt thou accursed curse! it
is now our time to work; as it is with the seasons to act their parts
at their proper times.
15. The curse will say in his turn:--Be afar from here; ye blessed
blessings, and do not intrude upon my time; it will take effect as any
one of the seasons, nor is there any body capable of counteracting its
wonted course.
16. The blessings will rejoin and say; Thou cured curse, art but a
creature of an human sage; but we are messengers of the God of day; now
as preference is given to the first born God of light, over a human
being (who is the last work of God); it is proper that we should have
our precedence here (in the present case).
17. Upon the blessings saying so, the personified curse of the sage got
enraged, and returned in reply saying, I am no less the creation of
a God than you are since we are born of the God Rudra by his consort
Rudrání--the Fury.
18. Rudra is the greatest of gods, and the sage was born with a portion
of Rudra’s prowess; saying so the accursed curse lifted up its head, as
high as the exalted summit of a mountain.
19. On seeing the haughty high-headedness of the personation of curse;
the personified image of the boon smiled scornfully at him, and then
made his reply in his speech of well weighed words.
20. O thou miscreant curse, leave thy wickedness and think on the end
of this affair; as also about what is to be done, after termination of
all this altercation of ours.
21. We must have recourse to the father of the gods, for his favourable
decision of the case, is it not therefore better for us to do even now
what must come to be finally determined by him.
22. The curse on hearing these words of the personified boon replied,
well, I agree to what you say; because a fool even cannot decline to
accept the reasonable proposal of a person.
23. Then the curse agreed to resort to the abode of Brahmá; in company
with the divine Blessing; because the great-minded gods are always
resorted to by the wise, for the dissipation of their doubts.
24. They bended down before Brahmá, and related all that had occurred
between them; and the god on hearing the whole on both sides, replied
to them in the following manner.
25. Brahmá said:--Hearken unto me, ye master of blessing and curse,
and let him have the precedence of the other, that is possessed of
intrinsic merit and essence.
26. Upon hearing this from the mouth of the great god, they both
entered in their turn into the heart of one another, in order to sound
their understandings, and descry their respective parts.
27. They then having searched into the eternal essentialities of one
another, and having known their respective characters; came out in
presence of the God, and besought him by turns.
28. The curse said:--I am overcome, O Lord of creatures, by this my
adversary, in my having no internal merit in myself, and finding the
curses of my foe, to be as sound and solid as the hard stony rock and
the strong thunderbolt.
29. But both ourselves and the blessings, being always but
intellectual beings, we have no material body whatever to boast of at
any time.
30. The Blessing replied:--The intellectual blessing, which its giver
(the god in the sun), has given to its askers the Bráhmans, is here
present before you; and this is entrusted to my charge (to be delivered
unto them).
31. The body of every one is the evolution of one’s intelligence, and
it is this body which enjoys the consequence of the curse or blessing
that is passed on one according to his knowledge of it; whether it is
in his eating or drinking or in his feeling of the same, in all his
wandering at all times and places. (_i.e._ The consciousness of one’s
merits and demerits, accompanies him every where, and makes him enjoy
or suffer their results accordingly).
32. The blessing received from its donor, is strengthened in the mind
of the donee in time; and this acting forcibly within one’s self,
overcomes at last the power or effect of the curse. (_i.e._ Firm good
will, turns away the evil ones).
33. The donor’s bestowal of a blessing, to his supplicants for it;
becomes strong and effectual only, when it is deeply rooted and duly
fostered in one’s self. (_i.e._ A good given us by others, is of no
good, unless we cultivate it well ourselves).
34. It is by means of the continued culture of our conscious goodness,
and by the constant habit of thinking of our desert, that these become
perfected in one’s self, and convert their possessor to their form. (It
is the habitual mode of the mind’s thought, that makes the future man,
be it a holy or accursed one).
35. The pure and contrite conscience alone, consummates one’s
consciousness in time; but the impure conscience of the evil minded,
never finds its peace and tranquility. Hence the Bráhmans’ thoughts of
the blessing, had taken the possession of their minds, and not that of
the curse: because the earlier one, has the priority over the latter,
though it be that of a minute only (as the law of primogeniture,
supersedes the claim of youngsters to state); and there is no rule;--
36. Nor force of pride to counteract this law. (Hence the blessing of
the god, being prior to the curse of the sage, must have its precedence
over the latter).
37. But where both sides are of equal force, there both of them have
their joint effect upon the same thing; so the curse and blessing being
conjoined together, must remain as the commingling of milk with water.
38. The equal force of the blessing and curse, must produce a double or
divided effect on the mind of man; as a person dreaming of the fairy
city in his sleep, thinks himself as turned to one of its citizens
(without losing the idea of his own personality: so a man has a
different idea of himself, in different states of his life).
39. Now pardon me, O Lord for my repetition of the same truths before
thee that I have learnt from thee, and permit me now to take leave of
thee, and depart to my place.
40. Upon his saying so, the curse felt ashamed in itself, and fled away
from the presence of the god; as the ghosts and goblins fly away from
the air, at the dispersion of darkness from the sky.
41. Then the other blessing (which was given by the goddess Gaurí to
the ladies of these brothers), concerning the restriction of their
departed ghosts, to the confines of their house, came forward and
presented itself before Brahmá in lieu of the curse, and began to plead
his case, as a substitute does for his constituent.
42. He said:--I know not, O Lord of gods, how human souls can fly over
the seven continents of the earth, after their separation from their
dead bodies (Deign to explain this therefore unto me.)
43. I am the same blessing of the goddess, that promised unto them
their dominion over the seven continents in their own house; and also
their conquest of the whole earth within its confines.
44. Now tell me, O Lord of gods, how am I to restrain their spirits to
the narrow limits of their own abodes; and at the same time confer the
domain of the septuple earth, to each and every one of them (as it is
destined to them by the blessing of the God of day.)
45. Brahmá responded:--Hear me, O thou blessing of conferring the
realms of the seven continents on each of them; and thou the boon of
detaining their departed spirits within the confines of these mansions;
that both of you are successful in executing your respective purposes
on them.
46. Now do you retire from this place with full assurance in
yourselves, that the delivered ghosts of these brothers; will never
quit nor ever depart from their present abodes after their demise; but
continue to reside there forever more; with the belief of their being
the Lords of the seven regions of this earth. (It is the firm belief
of the mind of the possession of anything, that makes it the true
possessor thereof, much more than its actual enjoyment of the same).
47. Their souls will remain at proper distances from each other, after
the loss and extinction of their frail bodies; and will deem themselves
as lords of the seven regions of earth, though dwelling in the empty
air of their own abodes.
48. How could there be the eight regions and seven continents of the
earth, when to all appearance the surface of the earth, presents but a
flat level everywhere.
49. Tell us Lord! where are these different divisions of the earth
situated, and in what part of their petty abode; and is it not as
impossible for the small place of their house to contain this wide
earth in it, as it is for the little cell of a lotus bud to hide an
elephant in its pericarp.
50. Brahmá replied:--It being quite evident to you as to ourselves
also, that the universe is composed of an infinite vacuity only; it is
not impossible for its being contained within the hollow of the human
heart, as in the minute particle of the vacuous mind, which contains
all things in it in the manner of its dreams.
51. If it were possible for the minute granule of their vacuous minds,
to contain the figures of their houses and their domestic circles
within itself, why should it be thought impossible for them, to
compress the greater and lesser circle of this earth also, within their
ample space.
52. After the demise of a person, the world exhibits itself in the
same form as it is, in the minute atom of his mind; and this is but a
vacuous mass of the visible and material world, in its invisible and
imaginary figure.
53. It is in this invisible particle of the mind, that the world is
seen in its abstract form, within the precincts of the body and abode
of every body; and this earth appears to be drawn in it as in a map,
with all its sevenfold continents and the contents thereof.
54. Whatever is manifest in the mind, is a mere mental conception and
inborn in the mind, and there is no such thing as an extraneous or
material world in reality. It is the vacant mind that presents these
vagaries of the world and all other visibles before its vision, as the
vacuous firmament shows the variety of atmospherical appearances to our
sight.
55. The personified benediction, having learnt this abstract truth,
from the mouth of the divine Brahmá, who had conferred this boon to
the Bráhmanical brothers, abandoned his erroneous conception of the
material world, and repaired to the abode of the deceased brethren,
that had been released from the mistake of their mortal bodies.
56. The personated blessing bowed down to the bounteous Brahmá, and
departing from his presence with speed, entered into the parlour of the
eight brother kings, in his eight-fold spiritual personality (called
the ashta siddhi).
57. They beheld the brothers there in their respective residences, each
sitting as the Lord of the earth with its septuple continents, and all
of them employed in the performance of their sacrifices and enjoyment
of their blessings, like the eight Lordly Manus for the whole period of
a day of Brahmá.
58. They were all friendly to each other, though unacquainted with the
respective provinces of one another; each of them was employed in his
concern with the world, without clashing with the authority of another
over it.
59. One of them who was handsome in the bloom of his youth; held his
happy reign over the great city of Ujjain, which was situated in the
precincts of his own house, or rather in the environs of his own mind.
60. Another one of them had his domain over the country of Scythia
(sáka), where he settled himself for his conquest of the Nágas
(saccae); he cruises as a corsair in the wide outlandish seas, for his
victory on every side.
61. Another reigns secure in his capital of Kusadwípa, and confers
perfect security to his subjects from all alarm; and like a hero who
has quelled his enemies, he rests in peace on the bosom of his beloved,
after all his conquest.
62. Some one of them indulges himself to sport, in company with the
celestial Nymphs of Vidyádhara; in skimming over the waters of the
lakes on mountain tops, and in the gushing water falls on their side.
63. Another one is engaged these eight days in conducting his horse
sacrifice in his royal abode at Krauncha dwípa, which he has greatly
aggrandised with his accumulated gold, from the other continents.
64. Another one is employed in waging a battle in the Sálmali
continents, where his war elephants have assembled, and have been
uprooting the boundary mountain from their bases with robust tusks.
65. The Monarch of the Gomedha continent, who had been the eighth and
last of the Bráhman brothers, was smitten with love for the princess
of the Pushkara dwípa; upon which he mustered a large armament for
ravishing her in warfare.
66. The monarch of the Pushkara continent, who was also the master of
the Mountainous regions of Lokáloka; set out with his deputy to inspect
the land of the gold mines.
67. Thus every one of these brothers, thought himself to be the Lord of
his respective province, as his imagination portrayed unto him in the
region of his mind.
68. The Blessings then, having relinquished their several forms and
personalities, became united and one with the consciousness of the
Bráhmans, and felt and saw whatever passed in them, as if they were
passing in themselves likewise. (The divine blessing on them being no
other than the approbation of their conscience).
69. So these brothers became and found in themselves, what they had
long been longing after, in their respective lordship over the seven
regions of the earth, which they continued to enjoy ever since to their
heart’s content.
70. It was in this manner that these men of enlarged understandings,
obtained what they sought in their minds, by means of their austere
devotion and firm devotedness to their purpose. So it is with the
learned that they find everything beside them, whatever they are intent
upon in their minds, by means of their acting upon the same principle,
and using the proper means conducing to that end.
CHAPTER CLXXXIV.
A LECTURE ON THE ALL COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE SOUL.
Argument:--Nature of the unenlightened soul, to represent
unnumbered worlds within itself.
Kunda-danta said:--I then asked <the> devotee sitting beneath the
_kadamba_ tree, to tell me how the seven large continents of the globe,
could be contained within the narrow limits of the abodes of each of
these brothers (which is next to an impossibility).
2. The kadamba devotee replied:--The essence of the intellect though
so very vacuous in itself, is notwithstanding the most capacious and
ubiquious of any thing in existence; and is present in its own nature
with every thing, wherever it is known to exist.
3. The soul sees itself in the form of the triple world, and every
thing besides in its different nature and figure, without changing
itself to any one of them. (_i.e._ The soul remains unchanged in all
the changeful scenes of nature).
4. Kunda-danta rejoined:--But how do you attribute the quality of
variety or multiplicity, to the purely simple and immutable nature
of the Supreme soul, as you see them appertaining to the intrinsic
character of everything else in nature. (Or as Pope says:--That changed
through all, yet in all the same; great in the earth, as in the
etherial frame).
5. The kadamba devotee replied:--The sphere of the intellectual
vacuum, is all quiet and serene, and there is nothing as any variety
or multiformity in it; the changes that are apparent in its face, are
no more, than the waves and eddies, whirling on the surface of the
changeless main.
6. It is in the immensity of intellectual vacuity, that infinite
creations seem to be continually purling about, as the rising waves are
seen to be whirling in the sea; and it is in its fathomless depth that
they appear to sink, like the waters subsiding in the hollow of the
deep.
7. The substantial forms of things, that rise in the unsubstantial
essence of the intellect, are as the various forms of substances, seen
in the dreaming state of the soul, and all which are utterly forgotten
in its state of sound sleep--susupti.
8. As a Hill seen in dream is no hill at all, and as things appearing
to be in motion in dreaming, are found afterwards to be perfectly
motionless; so are all things in nature but mere unrealities, and
though as real from the real nature of soul itself. (_i.e._ It is
the intellect that fashions everything in its own manner, and its
imagination gives a form to an airy nothing).
9. The intellect is an immaterial substance, and neither creates nor
perceives any thing material by itself; but conceives everything as it
is manifested to it in its idea in the beginning. (_i.e._ The ideas of
things are inborn in the mind).
10. As the intellect sees a great variety of objects in <its> dream,
which it takes for realities for the time; so its belief in the reality
of its ideas, causes it to conceive them as real entities.
11. The vacuous intellect, which glitters of itself in its own state of
transparence; comes to find the world shinning in the same light within
itself. (_i.e._ The world is subjective with the intellect, and not a
part from our intellectual light of the same).
12. As we have the consciousness of heat in the fire, even when it is
seen in a dream; so we are conscious of the presence of everything in
our minds, even in the absence of the thing itself from us. (It was
thus that the Bráhman brothers were conscious of their lordship, even
in their want of the realms themselves).
13. And as we have the idea of the solidity of a pillar, from our dream
of it in sleep; so have we the idea of the great variety of things in
existence; although there is no diversity or difference in the nature
of the One unvaried unity that pervades the whole. (And that shows its
unchangeable self, as many and changed through all--_Aham_-bahusyam).
14. In the beginning all substances were as pure and simple, as the
essence of their maker by and after which they were made; and they
still continue to be in the same state of their ideal purity, as they
were originally made out of that airy entity and unity.
15. As the tree is diversified in the various forms of its roots and
fruits, and its leaves, flowers and the trunk; so is the Supreme unity
varied in all and everywhere in his self-same and undivided essence.
16. It is in the fathomless ocean of the Supreme essence, that the
immensity of creation is subsisting like the waters of the deep; and
it is in the boundless space of that transcendent vacuum, that the
infinity of the worlds have been rolling on, in their original vacuous
and apparently visible forms.
17. The transcendental and comprehensible _i.e._ the immaterial soul
and the material world, are but commutual terms as the tree and arbour,
and their difference lies in the intelligibleness of the one and
unintelligibility of the other; but true intelligence leads us to the
unconceivable One, while our ignorance of the same, deludes us to the
knowledge of many, and tends to our distress only. (True happiness in
our reliance on the unknown One only).
18. The mundane and supermundane is surely the One and same thing,
according to the deduction of spiritual philosophy; and the knowledge
of this sublime truth, is sure to lead one to his ultimate liberation.
19. The world is the product of the will of God, and the will is a
power or faculty appertaining to the personality of the Deity; and the
same being transmuted to the form of the world, it is proved that the
world is the formal part of the Supreme soul. (Whose body nature is,
and God the soul).
20. He whom no words can define, and yet who defines the senses of
words; who is subject to no law or prohibition, or to any state or
condition of being, but appoints them for all sorts of beings, is
indeed the only Lord of all.
21. He that is ever silent but speaks through all, who is inactive
as a rock but acts in all; who is always existent and appears as
inexistent, is the Supreme Lord of all.
22. That subtile essence that constitutes the solidity of all gross
bodies, and remains undecayed in all frail bodies, is the pure Brahma
himself; He has no volition or nolition of creation or destruction, and
there is no possession or want of the property of anything.
23. It is the one and invariable soul, that rests always in its state
of rest and sleep, and perceives the succession of creation and
destruction of the world, in its alternate states of dream and sound
sleep, which present themselves as two pictures before its sight.
24. It is also in the substratum of the intellect, that unnumbered
worlds seem to rise and set in succession; they appear as passing
pictures before the mind, without being rooted or painted therein.
25. As the mixing of one thing with another, produces a different
effect in the mixture; so doth the union of the mind with the organs of
sense, cause a variety of impressions to be imprinted in the intellect.
(So the commixture of curd and sugar creates a different flavour in the
condiment, gloss).
26. All things have their existence in the essence of the intellect
only, without which nothing is knowable to any body; hence there is
nothing anew in nature, except its being but a representation of the
original idea in the mind (and this is evident from the identity and
similarity of the ectypes with its antitypes, gloss).
27. Hence our consciousness of the identity of things with the essence
of our intellect, proves them to be as immaterial and immovable as
their fixed ideas in the mind.
28. Thus the world which is so visible and perceptible to us, is
nothing but a mere nullity in reality; and whatever appears as existing
herein, together with the great gods and angels, are no more than the
false visions in our dream and fancy.
29. We see the various fluctuations and phenomena, rising in the waters
of the vast ocean of the intellect; and appearing in the forms of our
joy and grief, and those of moving and unmoving bodies in creation.
30. O that the nature and course of the world, should so obscure the
bright mirror of the intellect; as to hide it under the dirt of our
passions, and cover it under the clouds and snows of our ignorance.
31. As spectres and dissolving views appear in the air, before the
sight of the dimsighted; so doth this shadow of the world appear as
substance, to the view of the unspiritual myopist.
32. Whatever we imagine, the same we find, and seem to enjoy for the
time; and as we are delighted with the view of our imaginary city, so
do we indulge ourselves in the sight of this air-drawn utopia of the
world.
33. As we seem to enjoy our ecstasy, in the fairy land of our fancy; so
we are betaken by the delusion of this unreal world, under the belief
of its reality.
34. There is one eternal destiny, which ever runs apace in its wonted
course; and destines all beings to continue in their allotted careers
as ever before.
35. It is destiny that produces the moving bodies from living beings,
and the motionless ones from the unmoving; it is that predestination
which has destined the downward course of water and fluids, and the
upward motion of the flames of fire.
36. It is that blind impulse, that impels the members of the body to
their respective actions; and makes the luminous bodies to emit their
light; it causes the winds to wind about in their continuous course,
and makes the mountains to stand unmoved in their proper places.
37. It makes the luminaries of heaven, to roll on in their regular
revolutions, and causes the rains and dews of the sky, to pour down in
their stated seasons; and it is this eternal destiny that directs the
courses of years, ages and cycles, and the whole curricle of time to
run its wonted course.
38. It is the divine ordinance, that has ordained the limits of the
earth and the distant ocean and seas, and has fixed the position of the
hills and rocks in them; it has allotted the natures and powers of all
things, and prescribed the laws of rights and duties for all and every
one.
39. Kunda-danta rejoined:--The reminiscence of the scenes of past
life, occurs in the present state of existence, in the forms of our
imagination and of desire for the same; and these inward thoughts
become the gist and marrow to frame our lives in their fashion; but
tell me sir, how could the first created beings in the beginning of
creation have any reminiscence, whereupon their lives and natures were
moulded?
40. The devotee replied:--All these that offer themselves to our view,
are quite unprecedented and without their original patterns in the
mind, and resemble the sight of our own death that we happen to see
in a dream. It is the omniscience of Brahmá, that caused the first
creation, and not his memory of the past as it is with us and other
created beings.
41. It is the nature of our intellect, to represent the imaginary city
of the world in its empty vacuity; it is neither a positive reality,
nor a negative unreality either; being now apparent and now lost to
sight by itself.
42. It is the clearness of the intellect, which represents the
imaginary world in the manner of a dream; but the pure vacuous
intellect, neither sees nor bears the remembrance of the world in
itself. (It is the sight of a thing, that leaves its traces in the mind
afterwards; but when there is no sight of a thing, there can be no
remembrance of it).
43. The wise that are devoid of joy and grief, and remain unchanged in
prosperity and adversity; are men of right integrity and equanimity in
their nature, and move on as equably as the wheel of fortune leads them
onward.
44. As the intellect retains in it, the remembrance of what it has seen
in its dream; so does it bear in itself the false impression of this
triple world to its end.
45. It is only the reflexion of our consciousness, which passes under
the name of the world; now knowing the nature of your consciousness as
mere vacuousness, you will blot out the impression of the world also.
46. That which is all and everything, and from which all have issued
and in which they exist; know that All as all which fills all space,
wherein all things are situated.
47. I have thus fully explained to you, how you may come to know this
creation as its creator--the Great Brahmá Himself; and have also
expounded to you the means, whereby you may get rid of your impression
of the phenomenal world.
48. Now rise ye Bráhmans and repair to your abodes, as the bees resort
to their cells and calyxes of lotuses at the dusk of the day; go and
perform your evening services, while I remain here in my pensive
meditation, and absorbed in my spiritual ecstasy forever.
CHAPTER CLXXXV.
ADMONITION TO AND CLAIRVOYANCE OF KUNDA-DANTA.
Argument:--The return of the interlocutors to the abodes; Demise
of the brothers and enlightenment of Kunda-danta.
Kunda-danta rejoined:--The old sage having said so far, closed his eyes
in meditation; and he became as motionless as a statue or picture,
without any action of his breath and mind.
2. And we prayed him with great fondness and endearment, yet he uttered
not a word unto us; because he seemed to be so rapt in his abstraction,
as to have become utterly insensible of the outer world.
3. We then departed, from that place, with our broken hearts and
dejected countenances; and were received after a few days journey, by
our gladsome friends at home.
4. We live there in joyous festivity, as long as the seven brothers
were living; and passed our time in narrations of our past adventures,
and relations of the old accounts of by gone times.
5. In course of time the eight brothers disappeared (perished) one by
one, like the seven oceans at the end of the world, in the vast ocean
of eternity; and were released like many of my friends also, from their
worldly cares.
6. After sometime, the only friend that I had, sunk also like the
setting sun in darkness; and I was left alone to bewail their loss in
sorrow and misery at their separation.
7. I then repaired in the sorrow of my heart, to the devotee under
the Kadamba tree; in order to derive the benefit of his advice, to
dissipate my dolor.
8. There I waited on him for three months, until he was released from
his meditation, when upon my humble request of him, he deigned to
answer me as follows.
9. The devotee replied:--I can not pass a moment, without my
employment in meditation; and must without any loss of time, resort to
my wonted devotion again.
10. As for you, you can not derive the benefit of my transcendent
advice to you; unless you engage yourself to practice my precepts with
all diligence.
11. Now I tell you to repair to the city of Ayodhyá (Oudh), where
the king Dasaratha reigns, and remains with his son Ráma (and other
children and members of his royal family).
12. Do you now go to this Ráma, who has been attending on the lectures
of the sage Vasishtha, the preceptor and priest of the royal family,
and delivered before the princes assembled in the imperial court.
13. You will there hear the holy sermon, on the means of attaining our
final emancipation; and will thereby obtain your best bliss in the
divine state like that of mine.
14. Saying so, he was absorbed in the cooling ocean of his meditation;
<after> which I directed my course to this way, and arrived at last
before Ráma and this princely assembly.
15. Here am I, and all these are the incidents of my life, as I have
related herein, regarding all what I have heard and seen, as also all
that has passed on me.
16. Ráma said:--The eloquent Kunda-danta that made this speech to me,
has been ever since sitting by my side in this assembly.
17. This very Brahmin bearing the name of Kunda-danta, that has sat
here all along by me; has heard the whole of the sermon, which has been
delivered by the sage, on the means of obtaining our liberation.
18. Now ask this Kunda-danta, that is sitting here by me at present,
whether he has well understood the context of this lecture, and whether
his doubts are wholly dissipated or not.
19. Vasishtha said:--Upon Ráma saying so to me, I looked upon
Kunda-danta, and made him the following interrogatory, saying:--
20. Tell me, Oh you goodly Bráhman Kunda-danta, what you have learnt
and understood, by your long attendance upon and hearing of my
lecture, calculated to confer liberation on men.
21. Kunda-danta replied:--Sir, your lecture has wholly removed the
doubts of my mind, and I find myself now as perfect master of myself,
by my victory over all selfish passions, and by my knowledge of the
knowable One.
22. I have known the immaculate One that is to be known, and seen the
undecaying One that is worth our seeing; I have obtained all that
is worth our obtaining, and I have found my repose in the state of
transcendent felicity.
23. I have known this plenum, to be the condensation of that
transcendental essence; and that this world is no other than a
manifestation of this sel-fsame soul.
24. The universal soul being also the soul of every individual, is
likewise the soul inherent in all forms of things; it is only the
self-existent soul, that becomes apparent in all existences and all
places.
25. It is possible for the human mind, which is minuter than the
molecule of a mustard seed, to contain the whole world in itself;
though it is naught but a mere zero, before the clear sight of the
intelligent.
26. It is possible also for a little room, to contain the seven
continents of the earth (in its map or picture); though the room itself
is no more than a mere empty space.
27. Whatever object is perceptible to us at any time or place, is only
the concrete form of the divine spirit; which is quite apart from every
thing in the discrete.
CHAPTER CLXXXVI.
DEMONSTRATION OF ALL NATURE (AND THING) AS BRAHMA HIMSELF.
Argument:--Elucidation of the sacred text that “all is Brahma”;
and the equality of curse.
Válmíki said:--After Kunda-danta had finished his saying in the said
manner, the venerable Vasishtha delivered his edifying speech on
spiritual knowledge and said:
2. Whereas the elevated soul of this person, has found his rest in the
paradise of spiritual philosophy; he will see the world like a globe in
his hand, and glowing with the glory of the great God.
3. The phenomenal world is a false conception, it is verily the
increate Brahma himself shining in this manner; this erroneous
conception is the very Brahma, that is one and ever calm and undecaying.
4. Whatever thing appears any where, in any state, form or dimension;
it is the very Deity, showing himself in that condition of his being,
form and mode of extension.
5. This unborn or self-existent Deity, is ever auspicious, calm and
quiet; he is undecaying, unperishing and immutable, and extends through
all extent, as the extensive and endless space.
6. Whatever state of things he proposes in his all-knowing intellect,
the same is disposed by him in a thousand ways, like the branching out
of a plant in the rains.
7. The great mundane egg, is situated as a particle in the bosom of
the great intellect of God; and this world of ours is a particle also,
being comprised in a grain of our brains.
8. Know therefore, my good friend, thy intellectual sphere to be
boundless, and without its beginning or end; and being absorbed in the
meditation of thy personal extinction, do thou remain as quiet as thou
art sitting, relying in thy unperturbed and imperishable soul.
9. Wherever there is anything in any state or condition in any part of
the world, there you will find the presence of the divine spirit in its
form of vacuity; and this without changing its nature of calm serenity,
assumes to itself whatever form or figure it likes (or rather evolves
them from within itself at its free will).
10. The spirit is itself both the view and its viewer; it is equally
the mind and the body, and the subjective and objective alike; It is
something and yet nothing at all, being the great Brahma or universal
soul, that includes and extends throughout the whole.
11. The phenomenal is not to be supposed as a duality of, or any other
than the self-same Brahma; but it is to be known as one and the same
with the divine self, as the visible sky and its vacuity.
12. The visible is the invisible Brahma, and the transcendent One
is manifest in this apparent whole (because the noumenon shows the
phenomenon, as this exhibits the other): therefore it is neither
quiescent nor in motion, and the formal is altogether formless.
13. Like dreams appearing to the understanding, do these visions
present themselves to the view; the forms are all formless conceptions
of the mind, and more intangible ideas of the brain.
14. As conscious beings come to be unconscious of themselves, in their
dormant state of sleep; so have all these living and intelligent
beings, become unconscious and ignorant of themselves and their souls,
and turned to torpid trees that are lost to their sensibility.
15. But the intellect is capable to return to its sensibility, from its
state of vegetable torpidity in time; as the dormant soul turns to see
its dreams in sleep, and then to behold the vivid outer world after its
wakening.
16. Until the living soul is liberated from its charm of self delusion,
it is subjected to view its guileful reveries of elemental bodies,
appearing as a chain of airy dreams, before the mind’s eye in sleep.
17. The mind gathers the dross of dullness about it, as the soul
draws the sheath of sleep upon itself; this dullness or dimness of
apprehension is not intrinsic in the mind, but an extraneous schesis
contracted by it from without.
18. The intellect moulds the form of one, who is conversant with
material and insensible things, into a motionless and torpid body; and
it is the same intellect, which shapes the forms of others, that are
conscious of their intellectual natures, into the bodies of rational
and moving being. (The dull soul is degraded to the state of immovable
things and rooted trees, but intelligent souls, are elevated to the
rank of moving men and other locomotive animals).
19. But all these moving and unmoving beings, are but different
modifications and aspects of the same intellect; as the nails and other
parts of the human body, are but the multifarious modalities of the
same person.
20. The order and nature of things has invariably continued the same,
as they have been ordained by the Divine will ever since its first
formation of the world; and because the creation is a transcript of its
original mould in the Divine mind; it is as ideal as any working of
imagination or a vision in dreaming, both in its states of being and
not being.
21. But the intangible and quiescent Brahma, is ever calm and quiet in
his nature; he is never permeated with the nature of things, nor is he
assimilated with the order of nature.
22. He appears as the beginning and end of creation, or as the cause of
its production and dissolution; but these are the mere dreams of the
Divine intellect, which is always in its state of profound sleep and
rest.
23. The world is ever existent in his spiritual nature, and without any
beginning or end of himself; the beginning and end of creation, bear no
relation with his self-existent and eternal nature.
24. There is no reality in the nature of the visible creation,
or in its existence or dissolution; all these are no other than
representations shown in the spirit of God, like figures described in a
picture.
25. As a legion drawn in painting, does not differ from its model in
the mind of the painter; so these tangible objects of creation, with
all other endless varieties, are not different from their prototype in
the mind of God.
26. Notwithstanding the want of any difference, between the noumenal
and phenomenal worlds; yet the mind is prone to view the variance of
its subjectivity and objectivity, as it is apt to differentiate its own
doings and dreams, in the states of its sleep and ignorance. It is the
profound sleep and insouciance of the soul, that cause its liberation
from the view, as its sensibility serves to bind it the more to the
bondage of the visibles.
27. It is the reflexion of the invisible soul, that exhibits the
visible to view, just as the subtile sunbeam, displays a thousand solid
bodies glaring in sight; and shows the different phases of creation and
dissolution as in its visions in dreaming.
28. The dreaming state of the sleeping intellect is called its
ideality, and the waking state of the self-conscious soul is termed its
vitality, as in the instances of men and gods and other intellectual
beings.
29. After passing from these, and knowing the unreality of both these
imaginative and speculative states, the soul falls into its state of
profound sleep or trance, which is believed as the state of liberation
by those that are desirous of their emancipation.
30. Ráma said:--Tell me, O venerable sir, in what proportion doth the
intellect abide in men, gods and demons respectively; how the soul
reflects itself during the dormancy of the intellect in sleep, and in
what manner does it contain the world within its bosom.
31. Vasishtha replied:--Know the intellect to abide alike in gods and
demons, as well as in all men and women; it dwells also in imps and
goblins, and in all beasts and birds, reptiles and insects, including
the vegetables and all immovable things (within its ample sphere).
32. Its dimension is boundless and also as minute as an atom; and it
stretches to the highest heaven, including thousands of worlds within
itself.
33. The capacity that we have of knowing the regions beyond the solar
sphere, and even of penetrating into the darkness of polar circles; is
all the quality of our intellect, which extends all over the boundless
space, and is perfectly pellucid in its form and nature.
34. So very great is the extent of the intellect, that it comprehends
the whole universe in itself; and it is this act of his comprehension
of the whole, that is called the mundane creation, which originates
from it.
35. The intellect spreads all around like the current of a river,
which glides all along over the ground both high and low, leaving some
parts of it quite dry, and filling others with its waters. So doth
the intellect supply some bodies with intelligence, while it forsakes
others and leaves them in ignorance.
36. It is intelligence which constitutes the living soul of the body,
which is otherwise said to be lifeless and insensible; it resides in
all bodies like the air in empty pots, and becomes vivid in some and
imperceptible in others as it likes.
37. It is its knowledge of the soul (_i.e._ the intellectual belief in
its spiritual), that removes the error of its corporeity; while the
ignorance of its spiritual nature, tends the more to foster the sense
of its corporeality, like one’s erroneous conception of water in the
mirage.
38. The mind is as minute as the minutest ray of sunbeams; and this is
verily the living soul, which contains the whole world within it.
39. All this phenomenal world is the phenomenon of the mind, as it is
displayed in its visionary dreams; and the same being the display of
the living soul, there is no difference at all between the noumenal and
the phenomenal.
40. The intellect alone is assimilated into all these substances, which
have substantiality of their own; whatever is seen without it, is
like its visionary dream, or as the forms of jewelleries made of the
substance of gold. (_i.e._ The intellect is the intrinsic essence of
all external substances).
41. As the same water of the one universal ocean, appears different in
different places; and in its multifarious forms of waves and billows;
so doth the divine intellect exhibit the various forms of visibles
in itself. (_i.e._ Nothing is without or different from the divine
essence).
42. As the fluid body of waters, rolls on incessantly in sundry shapes
within the basin of the great deep; so do these multitudes of visible
things, which are inherent in and identic with the divine intellect,
glide on forever in its fathomless bosom.
43. All these worlds are situated as statues, or they are engraved as
sculptures in the aerial column of the divine intellect; and are alike
immovable and without any motion of theirs through all eternity.
44. We see the situation of the world, in the vacuous space of our
consciousness; as we see the appearances of things in our airy dreams.
We find moreover everything transfixed in its own sphere and place, and
continuing in its own state, without any change of its position or any
alteration in its nature. (The invariable course of nature, is not the
fortuitous production of blind chance).
45. The exact conformity of everything in this world, with its
conception in the mind of man, with respect to their invariable
equality in form and property, proves their identity with one another,
or the relation of one being the container of the other. (_i.e._ The
mind is either same with or container of the world).
46. There is no difference between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds,
as there <is> none between those in our dream and imagination. They
are in fact, the one and same thing, as the identity of the waters,
contained in tanks, rivers and seas, and between the curse and blessing
of gods.
47. Ráma said:--Tell me sir, whether a curse or blessing, is the
effect of any prior cause or the causation of subsequent consequences;
and whether it <is> possible for any effect to take place without
its adequate causality. (Here is a long legend of the transformation
of Nundi and Nahusha given in illustration of this passage in the
commentary).
48. Vasishtha replied:--It is the manifestation of the clear firmament
of the divine intellect in itself, that is styled as the world; just as
the appearance and motion of waters in the great deep, is termed the
ocean and its current.
49. The revolution of the eternal thoughts of the divine mind,
resembles the rolling waves of the deep; and these are termed by sages,
as the will or volitions of the ever wilful mind of God.
50. The clear minded soul comes in course of time, to regard this
manifestation of the divine will, in its true spiritual light; by means
of its habitual meditation and reasoning, as well as by cause of its
natural good disposition and evenness of mind.
51. The wise man possest of consummate wisdom and learning, becomes
acquainted with the true knowledge of things; his understanding
becomes wholly intellectual, and sees all things in their abstract
and spiritual light; and is freed from the false view of duality (or
materiality).
52. The philosophic intellect, which is unclouded by prejudice, is the
true form of the Great Brahma himself; who shines perspicuous in our
consciousness, and has no other body besides.
53. The enlightened soul sees this whole plenitude of creation, as the
display of the Divine Will alone; and as the exhibition of the tranquil
and transparent soul of the Divinity, and naught otherwise.
54. This manifestation of the Divine Will, in the boundless space of
the universe; likens to the aerial castle of our imagination, or the
city of palaces seen in our dream.
55. This all productive will, is selfsame with the Divine Soul; and
produces whatever it likes to do any place or time. (Lit. Whatever it
wills, the same takes place even then and there).
56. As a boy thinks of his flinging stones, at the aerial castle of his
imagination; so the Divine will is at liberty to scatter, myriads of
globular balls, in the open and empty space of boundless vacuity.
57. Thus everything being the manifestation of the Divine will, in all
these three worlds; there is nothing as a blessing or curse (_i.e._
good or evil) herein, which is distinct from the Divine Soul.
58. As we can see in our fancy, the gushing out of oil from a sandy
desert; so can we imagine the coming out of the creation, from the
simple will of the Divine Soul.
59. The unenlightened understanding, being never freed from its
knowledge of particulars and their mutual differences: It is impossible
for it to generalize good and evil, under the head of universal good.
(“All partial evil is but universal good”. Pope).
60. Whatever is willed in the beginning, by the omniscience of God; the
same remains unaltered at all times, unless it is altered by the same
omniscient will.
61. The contraries of unity and duality, dwell together in the same
manner in the formless person of Brahma; as the different members of an
embodied being, remain side by side in the same person. (The knowledge
of all contrarieties, blends together in omniscience. Gloss).
62. Ráma said:--Why some ascetics of limited knowledge, are so very
apt to confer their blessings, as also to pour their imprecations on
others; and whether they are attended with their good or bad results or
not.
63. Vasishtha replied:--Whatever is disposed in the beginning, by the
Divine will which subsists in Brahma; the very same comes to pass
afterwards, and nothing otherwise. (Lit. there is no other principle
besides).
64. Brahmá the Lord of creation, knew the Supreme Soul in himself, and
thereby he became the agent of the Divine will; therefore there is no
difference between them (_i.e._ betwixt Brahmá and Brahma); as there is
none between the water and its fluidity.
65. Whatsoever the Lord of creatures--Brahmá, proposes to do at
first as inspired in him by the Divine will; the same takes place
immediately, and the very same is styled this world.
66. It has no support nor receptacle for itself, but appears as vacuous
bubble in the great vacuity itself; and resembles the chain of pearls,
fleeting before the eyes of purblind men in the open sky.
67. He willed the productions of creatures, and institution of the
qualities of justice, charity and religious austerities; He stablished
the Vedas and sástras, and the five system of philosophical doctrines.
(Namely; the four Vedas and the Smritis, forming the five branches of
sacred knowledge, and the five branches of profane learning--consisting
of the Sánkhya yoga, Pátanjala, Pásupata, and Vaishnava systems. Gloss).
68. It is also ordained by the same Brahmá, that whatever the
devotees-learned in the Vedas, pronounce in their calmness or dispute,
the same takes place immediately (from their knowledge of the Divine
will).
69. It is he that has formed the chasm of vacuum in the inactive
intellect of Brahma, and filled it with the fleeting winds and heating
fire; together with the liquid water and solid earth.
70. It is the nature of this intellectual principle, to think of
everything in itself; and to conceive the presence of the same within
it, whether it be a thought of thee or me or of anything beside (either
in general or particular).
71. Whatever the vacuous intellect thinks in itself, the same it sees
present before it; as our actual selves come to see, the unreal sights
of things in our dreams.
72. As we see the unreal flight of stones, as realities in our
imagination; so we see the false appearance of the world, as true by
the will of God, and the contrivance of Brahma.
73. Whatever is thought of by the pure intellect, must be likewise of
a purely intellectual nature also; and there is nothing that can do it
otherwise (or convert it to grossness), as they defile the pure metal
with some base alloy.
74. We are apt to have the same conceptions of things in our
consciousness, as we are accustomed to consider them, and not of what
we are little practiced to think upon; hence we conceive all that we
see in our dreams to be true, from our like conceptions of them in our
waking state. (It is thus that we conceive this purely ideal world as a
gross body, from our habit of thinking so at all times).
75. It is by uniting one’s intellectuality, with the universal and
divine intellect, and by the union of the subjective and objective and
their perceptibility in one’s self, by means of the _tripúti yoga_,
that we can see the world in its true light.
76. One universal and vacuous intellect, being all pervading and
omnipresent, is the all seeing subject and all seen objects by itself;
hence whatever is seen or known to be anywhere, is the very verity of
the intellect and no other.
77. As oscillation is inherent in air, and fluidity is immanent in
water; so is amplitude intrinsical in Brahma, and the plentitude is
innate in the Divine mind.
78. Even I am Brahma also in his self manifest form of Virát, which
embodies the whole world as its body; hence there is no difference of
the world from Brahma, as there is none between air and vacuity.
79. As the drops of water as a cataract, assume many forms and run
their several ways; so the endless works of nature take their various
forms and courses, at different places and times.
80. All beings devoid of their senses and understanding, issue as
waters of the waterfall, from the cascade of the divine mind; and
remain forever in their uniform courses, with the consciousness of
their existence in Brahma.
81. But such as come forth from it, with the possession of their senses
and intellects in their bodies, deviate in different ways like the
liquid waters, in pursuit of their many worldly enjoyments.
82. They are then insensibly led, by their want of good sense, to
regard this world as theirs (_i.e._ the sphere of their actions,
कर्म्मक्षेत्र); being ignorant of its identity with the uncreated
spirit of God.
83. As we see the existence and distribution of other bodies in us,
and the inertness of stones in our bodies; so the Lord perceives the
creation and annihilation of the world, and its inertia in himself.
84. As in our state of sleep we have both our sound sleep and our
dreams also; so doth the divine soul perceive the creation as well as
its annihilation, in its state of perfect rest and tranquility.
85. The divine soul perceives in its state of tranquility, the two
phases of creation and destruction, succeeding one another as its day
and night; just as we see our sleep and dreams recurring unto us like
darkness and light.
86. As a man sees in his mind, both the dream of moving bodies as
well as immovable rocks in his sleep; so does the Lord perceive the
ideas, both of the stable and unstable in his intellectual tranquility.
(_i.e._ It is possible for the intellect to conceive the ideas of gross
bodies also).
87. As a man of absent mind, has no heed of the dust flying on any part
of his body; so the divine spirit is not polluted, by his entertaining
the ideas of gross bodies within itself.
88. As the air and water and stones, are possessed of the consciousness
of their airy, watery and solid bodies, so are we conscious of our
material, intellectual and spiritual bodies likewise.
89. As the mind that is freed from seeing the objects of sight, and
liberated from entertaining all their thoughts and desires also, flows
along like a stream of limpid waters; so doth the current of the divine
spirit glide on eternally, with the waves and eddies of creation and
dissolution, perpetually rolling on and whirling therein.
CHAPTER CLXXXVII.
OF THE LIVING CREATION.
Argument:--Description of nature and destiny, and of creation and
its teeming with vitality.
Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, how can one paramount destiny, guide the
fates of these endless chains and varieties of beings; and how can one
uniform nature, be the predominant feature of all these various kinds
of beings.
2. Say why is the sun so very shining among the myriads of gods, and
cause is it that lengthens and shortens, the durations of days and
nights (in summer and winter).
3. Vasishtha replied:--Whatever the Lord has ordained at first of
himself (_i.e._ of his own will and wisdom); the same appearing as
the fortuitous formation of chance, is called the very system of the
universe.
4. All that is manifested in any manner by omnipotence, is and
continues as real in the same manner; because what is made of the
pith of divine will and intelligence, can never be unreal; nor is it
possible for the manifest and obvious to be evanescent.
5. All that is situated or appears to us in any manner, being composed
of the divine intellect, must continue to remain for ever in the same
manner; this appearance of creation and its disappearance in its
dissolution, are both attributed to the unseen power of its destiny.
6. To say this one is such and that is otherwise, is to attribute them
to the manifestation of Brahma as so and so; and these formations of
theirs, together with their ultimate dissolution, are called the acts
of their destiny.
7. The three states of waking, sleeping and dreaming, appearing to the
nature of the soul, are no way separated from it; as the fluidity and
motion of water, are not otherwise than properties of the same limpid
liquid.
8. As vacuity is the property of air, and warmth of the sunshine, and
as odour is the quality of camphor; so the states of waking, sleeping
and dreaming, appertain to the very nature of the soul, and are
inseparable from it.
9. Creation and dissolution follow one another, in the one and same
current of the Divine Intellect; which in its vacuous form, subsists in
the vacuous spirit of Brahma.
10. What is believed as creation, is but a momentary flash of the
Divine Intellect; and that which is thought to be a kalpa period, is
but a transient glare of the same. (A kalpa age is but a fleeting
moment in the eternal duration of Brahma).
11. The sky and space and the things and actions, that come to our
knowledge at any time; are as mere dreams occurring unto us, by a flash
of the glaring nature of the Divine Intellect.
12. The sights of things and the eternal thoughts, and whatever occurs
at any time or place; are all presented unto us by our minds, from
their formless shapes or ideas in the vacuous intellect of God. (The
mind derives the formal images, from their ideals subsisting in the
Divine Intellect).
13. Whatever is thus manifested by the mind or designed by it at any
time, the same is termed its destiny, which is devoid of any form like
the formless air.
14. The uniform state of things for a whole kalpa age, measuring but a
moment of Brahma; is what is expressed by the word nature, by natural
philosophers that know all nature.
15. The one soul--consciousness or universal intelligence (of God),
is diversified into a hundred varieties of living beings; and every
portion of this general intelligence, retains the same intellection
like its original, without forsaking its nature (Note: As the one
element of fire, diversifies itself into many forms of sparks, without
losing its properties of heat and burning).
16. The intelligences that appertain to and manifest themselves, in
the supreme intelligence of God, do some of them imagine to assume
to themselves some embodied forms, in utter ignorance of their
intellectual natures.
17. The earth, air, water and fire and vacuum, are severally the
receptacles of many properties; but it is the vacuous intellect which
is the great repository of these, that appear as dreams hovering all
about it.
18. This place contains the vast receptacle, for the reception of
all tangible and solid bodies; and this spacious earth with all the
population on its surface, is seated in the midst of it.
19. It has a place for the vast body of waters, or the great ocean in
it; and affords a seat to the sun--the source of light; it has a space
for the course of the winds, and a vacuum containing all the worlds in
it.
20. It is the reservoir of the five elements, which are the quintuple
principles of our knowledge; and it being thus the container of the
quintessence of Brahma, what is seen or anything else before it.
21. The learned call this intelligence as the intellect and
omniscience; it is omniform, uniformed and all-pervading, and is
perceived by all owing to its greatness and its great magnitude.
22. Brahmá the son or offspring of Brahma; is the selfsame Brahma
himself; who by expanding his intelligence, has expanded the vacuum
under the name of firmament; and as an awning of silk in cloth. (In
fact nothing was made by the father but by the son).
23. When delusion rules over the intellect of Brahmá and over the
subtile and gross matters; then how is it possible for other things,
that are but parts of them, to stand good in law?
24. It is simply by his will (and without any external appliance), that
this god Brahma stretched the network of the universe, as a spider
weaves its web out of itself; it revolves like a disc or wheel in the
air, and whirls like a whirlpool in the hollow depth of the intellect,
appearing as it were a sensible sphere in the heavens.
25. These spheres present some bodies of great brightness, and others
of a lesser light; which there are some scarcely visible to us, and all
appearing as figures in a painting.
26. All created objects appear in this manner and those that are not
created never appear to view; but they all appear as visions in a
dream, to the sight of the learned.
27. The intellect is the selfsame soul, and the Lord of All, and the
seeming visibles are all really invisible; they are all evanescent
for their want of lasting bodies; and neither are they visible by
themselves, nor are they ever perceptible to or seen by us.
28. The vacuous intellect, sees these as its dreams in the great
vacuity of the intellect, and this world being no other than a
phenomenon of the vacuous intellect, can have no other form than that
of mere vacuum.
29. Whatever is manifested by the intellect in any manner, the same is
called its form and body; and the countenance of that manifested form
for a certain period, is termed its nature or destiny.
30. The first manifestation of the divine intellect, in the form of
vacuum and as the vehicle of sound; became afterwards the source of
the world, which sprouted forth like a seed, in the great granary of
vacuity. (The conveying of sound and the containing of worlds are the
nature of vacuum).
31. But the account given of the genesis of the world, and of the
creation of things one after the other, are mere fabrication of sages
for instruction of the ignorant, and has no basis on truth. (Because no
reason can be assigned for the Lord’s production of the material world).
32. There is nothing that is ever produced of nothing, nor reduced to
nothingness at any time; all this is as quiet and calm as the bosom of
a rock, and ever as real as it is unreal. (The world is real in the
ideal, but an utter unreality in its materiality).
33. As there existed no separate body before, so there can be no end of
it also; all things exist as inseparable infinitesimal with the spirit
of God, and can therefore neither rise nor set in it where they are
always present.
34. The vacuous world existing in vacuum of the divine spirit, is a
pure vacuity or blank only; how is it possible then to rise or set in
it, or go beyond it to rise or set elsewhere.
35. What is the world, but a ray of the ever shining gem of divine
intellect; before whose omniscience, every thing shines for ever in its
own light and nature.
36. The Divine spirit though unknown to all, makes itself some what
conceivable to us in our consciousness of it, and in our thinkableness
of it, and by means of our reasoning and reflection.
37. We can get some knowledge of it by our reason, as we can draw
inferences of future events by means of our reasoning; this knowledge
is rarer than that of the subtile element of air, and fainter than our
prescience into the future of all things.
38. Then this transcendental essence of the divine spirit, being
about to reflect in itself, becomes the thinking principle called the
intellect, which is somewhat intelligible to us.
39. Having then the firm conviction of its consciousness in itself,
it takes the name of the living soul, which is known by the title of
Anima, meaning the supreme spirit or soul.
40. This living soul embodied in itself the nameless _avidyá_ or
ignorance, which shrouded the atmosphere of its intellect, and
superceded the title of the pure intelligence. (The living soul
_jívátmá_ is involved in ignorance _máyá_, of its original state of
_Chiddáta_ or the intelligent soul).
41. It is then employed in the thoughts, of its bodily conduct and
worldly carrier only; and being forgetful of its spiritual nature, is
engaged in the discharge of his temporal functions.
42. Being thus forgetful of its nature of vacuum, which possesses the
property of conveying the sound, it becomes prepossessed with the error
of taking the future material bodies for real, in lieu of the reality
of the intellect.
43. It gets next the motion of its egoism, with the idea of time, in
its spiritual body; and then these two run together, in quest of the
material elements, which are the seeds for the growth of the forth
coming world.
44. Then the thinking power of the living soul, begets the sense of
consciousness within itself; and produces therein the conviction of the
unreal world, as a positive reality.
45. After this the thinking principle or the mind, bursts out like a
seed into a hundred sprouts of its wishes; and then by reflecting on
its egoism, thinks as a living being at the very moment.
46. Thus the pure spirit passing under the name of living soul, is
entangled in the maze of its erroneous and unreal reality, has been
rolling like a heaving wave in the depth of the universal spirit. (All
living souls of animate beings, are as bursting bubbles in the ocean of
the eternal spirit).
47. The mind by constantly reflecting at first on the vacuous nature of
the living soul; is stultified at last to think it as solidified into
the nature of animal life or the vital air or breath of life.
48. This being became the source of articulate sounds or words, which
were expressive of certain meanings, and significant of things, that
were to be created afterwards; and were to be embodied in the wording
of the Vedas. (The Lord spake and all things came out at his bidding,
which were afterwards stated in the Book of Genesis).
49. From him was to issue forth the would be world, by virtue of the
words which he spake to denote the things he meant; the words that he
invented were fraught with their meanings, and productive of the things
which they expressed.
50. The intellect being employed in this manner (in the thoughts of
creation), takes upon it the title of a living being; which being
garbed in significant words, was productive of all existent entities.
(The volitive principle of the divine intellect, takes the name of the
living soul or Brahmá the creative agent).
51. It was this self-existent entity that produced the fourteen
spheres, which fill the whole space of vacuity; and which give rise to
so many worlds that subsist therein.
52. But before this being had the power of his speech, and of the
use of his limbs and body, it remained to reflect only on the
significations of words, having had his mind alone the only active
part of himself. (So the mind alone of a living body, is the only
active part of it in its embryonic state, before its attainment of the
functions of all its other parts and members).
53. As the air devolopes a seed to a plant, by exhaling on its outer
coat, so doth the intellect develope the bodily functions of living
beings, by working in its internal parts. (_i.e._ The mind actuates the
action of the body).
54. And as the oscillating intellect or mind, happens to come across
the idea of light; it beholds the same appearing to view; as it is
conveyed before it by its significant sound (_i.e._ as meant by the
word).
55. Light is only our intellection or notion of it, and nothing without
it; as feeling is our consciousness of it, and not the perception
derived by means of the touch of anything. (This is theory of Berkeley).
56. So is sound but our consciousness of it, and a subjective
conception of our mind; as vacuum is a conception of the vacuous mind,
and as the receptacle of sound caused by itself.
57. As in this state of sound it is known to be the product of
air in its own vacuity, so everything else is the product of our
consciousness, and there nothing as a duality beside it.
58. So the properties of odour and flavour, are as well as the
substances of sound and air; and these unrealities seem as real ones,
like the dreams that are seen and thought of in our minds.
59. Heat which is the seed or seat of the arbor of light, and evolves
itself in the radiance and other luminous bodies; are the forms of the
same intellect, that shows itself in all things.
60. So is flavour a mere quality of empty air, is thought of as a
reality in every article of our food and drink; and is a mere name
without its substance.
61. All other things, which were hereafter to be designated by
different names as fragrance &c., are but so many forms of the thoughts
and desires existing in the mind of this living being or Brahmá.
62. This being had in his mind the seed of all forms and dimensions,
from which was to proceed this terrestrial globe, that was to become
afterwards the support of all creatures.
63. All things yet unborn, appeared as already born in this divine
mind, which was filled with the models of all future existences of
every kind; and all these formless beings had their forms afterwards,
as it thought and willed them to be (_i.e._ The ideal became the real
at last).
64. These forms appeared to view as by an act of chance, and the organs
whereby they came to be seen, were afterwards called by name of eyes,
or the visual organs of sight.
65. The organs which gave the perception of sounds, were named the
ears; and those which bore the feeling of touch to the mind, were
called the organs of feeling or त्वक्.
66. The organ of perceiving the flavours, was styled the tongue or
organ of taste; and that which received the perception of smell, were
termed the nose or organ of scent.
67. The living soul being subjected to its corporeal body, has no
perception of the distinctions of time and place by means of its bodily
organs, which are so imperfect and soulless on the whole. (_i.e._ He
is not thoroughly diffused all over the body, but has its seat in the
mind also, which perceives the abstract ideas of time and space and all
other abstract natures of things).
68. In this manner are all things but imageries of the soul, and ideals
of the intellect, and wholly confined in the soul; they neither appear
nor set on the out side of it, but are set as silent engravings in the
stony and stiff bosom of the same.
CHAPTER CLXXXVIII.
DESCRIPTION OF THE LIVING SOUL.
Argument:--The Living soul is identified with Brahma or the
universal soul; its birth is but a fiction of speech; and the
erroneous conception of its animal soul and body, is fully
exposed herein.
Vasishtha continued:--The fiction of the first rise of the living
soul; from the calm and quiet spirit of God as said before, is merely
fictitious and not a true one; but was meant to elucidate the nature of
the animate soul, as the same with and not distinct from the Supreme
soul.
2. In this manner the fiction (of the living soul) means that, this
being a part of the supreme soul is verily the same with it. (As the
air in the pot or _cot_, is the same as universal air or vacuum).
It is when the subjective soul is employed with the thoughts of the
objective, that it is termed the living God or spirit. (Hence the
quiescent and creative souls, are but the states or hypostases of the
same soul).
3. The inclination of the self-intelligent or subjective soul, towards
thinkable objects of thought, garbs it under a great many fictitious
names or epithets, which you shall now hear me, O Ráma, relate to you
in all their varieties.
4. It is called the living soul or jíva, from its power of living and
thinking; and from its addictedness towards the thinkables, it is
termed the thinking principle and the intellect.
5. It is termed intelligence for its intellection of this thing as
that, as well as for its knowledge of what is what; and it is called
the mind from its mending, willing and imagining of many things. (The
three powers of the mind are here reckoned, as retention, volition and
imagination).
6. The reliance in self that, “I am” is what is called egoism; and the
principle of percipience called the mind by the vulgar, is when freed
from everything, styled the intellect by the wise and those acquainted
with the sástras.
7. It is called the aggregate of the octuple principles or totality of
existence, when it is combined with all its wishes of creation; and
then named as subtile nature, before its production of the substantial
world.
8. Being absent from or imperceptible to our perception, it is called
the hidden nature; and in this manner many other fictitious names are
given to it by way of fiction or fabrication of our imagination. (The
word _avidyá_ here meant as absent, is elsewhere explained as unknown
and as ignorance and illusion also).
9. All these fictitious appellations that I have told thee here, are
mere inventions of our fancy, for the one formless and changeless
eternal being.
10. In this manner are all these three worlds, but the fairy lands of
our dream and the castles of our imagination; they appear as objects
made for our enjoyment and bliss, but are in reality an intactible
vacuity.
11. So must you know, O best of embodied beings, that this body of
yours is of a spiritual or intangible nature; it is the intellectual
body formed of the vacuous intellect, which is rarer than the rarified
air.
12. It never rises nor sets (_i.e._ it is neither born nor dies) in
this world, but continue with our consciousness of ourselves, until
our final liberation from the sense of our personalities. This mental
body or mind of ours, is the recipient of the fourteen worlds and all
created objects.
13. It is in the extensive regions of our minds, that millions of
worlds continue to be _created_ and dissolved in the course of time;
and an unnumbered train of created beings, are growing and falling as
fruits in it in the long run of time. (The mind and time, contain all
things).
14. This intellectual body beholds the world, both inside and outside
of it; as the looking glass reflects and refracts, the outward and
its inward images both in as well as out of it; and as the open air
reflects and shows us the upper skies.
15. The mind must bear these images in its mirror, until its final
dissolution with all things at the end of the world; when all minds
and bodies and all the world and their contents, are to be incorporated
in the great vacuum of the Divine Mind.
16. The compactness of the Divine Mind, which comprehends all images
or ideas in itself, imparts them partly in all individual minds, which
are but parts of itself, and which are made to think likewise. (This
passage maintains the innate ideas derived immediately from God).
17. This spiritual body that was employed in viewing the inborn world
in itself; is turned as the form of the Great Brahmá by some, and as
that of the God Virát by others.
18. Some call him the _sanátana_ or sempiternal, and others give him
the name of Náráyana or floating on the surface of the waters. Some
style him as Ísha and by his name as Prajápati--the Lord of creatures
(Patriarch).
19. This being chanced to have, his five organs of sense on a sudden,
and these were seated in the several parts of his body, where they
still retain there seats as before.
20. Then his delusion of the phenomenal, seemed to extend too far and
wide, without any appearance of reality therein, all being a vast waste
and void. (The noumenal only is the true reality).
21. It was all the appearance of that eternal and transcendental
Brahma, and not of the unreal phenomenal which is never real; it is the
very Brahma, which is without its beginning and end, and appearing in a
light quite unintelligible to us. (Being imperceptible in his person,
his reality is hid under the garb of unreality).
22. Our inquiry into the spiritual form of the deity, leads us to take
the delusive world as such; just as the longing of the ardent lover
after his loved one, leads him to the view of its bloated phantom in
his dream (_i.e._ in our search after the spiritual, we are misled to
take the corporeal as such).
23. As we have the blank and formless notion of a pot, presented in
the real shape of the pot in our minds; so have we the notions of our
bodies and the world also, represented as realities in dreams and
imagination.
24. As the dreamed objects of our vacuous minds, seem to be real ones
for the time in our sleep; so all these aerial objects in nature,
appear as solid substances in the delusion of our dreams by daylight.
25. This spiritual and formless body (of the deity), comes to be
gradually perceived in us and by itself also; as we come to see the
aerial forms presenting themselves unto us in our dream.
26. It is then embodied in a gross body, composed of flesh and bones,
and all its members, and its covering of the skin and hairs; and in
this state it thinks (of its carnal appetites and enjoyments).
27. It then reflects on its birth and acts in that body, and upon the
duration and end of that body also; and entertains the erroneous ideas
of the enjoyments and incidents of its life.
28. It comes to know its subjection to decay, decrepitude and death,
and of its wanderings on all sides of the wide sphere of this globe; it
gets the knowledge of the knower and known, and also of the beginning,
middle and of all acts and things.
29. And thus the primordial spirit, being transformed to the living
soul, comes to know the elementary bodies of earth, air, and water
&c, and the varieties of created beings and conduct of men and finds
itself as contained and confined within the limits of its body and
of this earth, after its having been the container of all bodies and
space before. (The difference here spoken of, is that of the personal
soul of the jíva or living being, and that of the impersonal soul of
Brahma--the universal spirit).
CHAPTER CLXXXIX.
ON THE UNITY OF THE DIVINE SPIRIT.
Argument:--Unity of the impersonal and personal _spirit treated_;
and the materiality of the living soul refuted.
Vasishtha continued:--This spiritual body (or the personal spirit),
as that of Brahma--the primeval creator of all; being possessed of
its volition, comes as by an act of chance and of its own motion, to
think and brood on its thoughts; (which it had derived from the eternal
spirit of Brahma).
2. It continues to remain in the same state, as it is ever conscious of
in itself; and sees of its own nature, this universe exposed before it
as it had in his mind, nor is there and wonder in this.
3. Now this viewer--Brahma, and his viewing and the view of the world,
must either all be false (as there is no duality in nature); or they
must all be true, having the spirit of Brahma at the bottom.
4. Ráma rejoined:--Now sir, please to tell me, how this spiritual and
shadowy sight of the primeval Lord of creation, could be realized in
its solidified state, and reality can there be in the vision of a dream.
5. Vasishtha replied:--The spiritual view is ever apparent by itself
within ourselves; and our continuous and ceaseless sight of it, gives
it the appearance of a solid reality.
6. As the visionary sights of our dreams, come to be realized in times,
by our continuous poring upon them; so doth the spiritual appear
as real, by our constant habit of thinking them as such. (So it is
recorded in the case of King Harischandra of old).
7. The constant thought of the reality of our spiritual body, makes
appear as a real object to our sight; as the constant craving of deer
after water, makes it appear in the mirage of the parched desert before
them.
8. So the vision of this world, has like every other fallacy, misled us
like the poor and parching deer, to the misconception of water in the
mirage; and does this and all other unrealities appear as real ones in
our ignorance.
9. Many spiritual and intellectual objects, like a great many unreal
things, are taken for the material and real, by the avidity of their
desires and ignorant admirers.
10. The impression that I am this, and that one is another, and that
this is mine and that is his; and that these are the hills and skies
about us; are all as erroneous as the conception of reality in our
dreams and false phantoms of the brain.
11. The spiritual body which was at first conceived, by the prime
creator of all--Brahmá, assumed a material form as that of a globe
under his sight. (Meaning the Mundane egg).
12. The living soul of Brahma, being born of the mundane egg in a
corporeal body; forgot or rather forsook to think of its incorporeal
intellectuality, and thought himself as composed of his present
material body only. He looked into it and thought, that this was his
body and the recipient of his soul: (instead of the souls being the
fountain of the body).
13. Then it becomes confined in that body, by its belief of the
unreality as a sober reality; and then it thinks of many things within
itself, and goes on seeking and running after them all. (But the
steady soul is sedate, and has all within itself, without seeking them
elsewhere without).
14. This God then makes many symbolical sounds and forms (invents)
words for names and actions; and at last upon his utterance of the
mystic syllable Om or (on) the Vedas rang out and sang in currents of
verbiage.
15. Then through the medium of those sacred words, the god ordained the
ordinances for the conduct of all mankind; and everything turned to be,
as he wished and thought it to be in his own mind. (Hence Brahmá is
said the creative mind of God).[4]
16. Whatever exists in any manner, the same is the self same Brahmá
itself; and yet no body perceives it as such, owing to the predominant
error of all, of believing the unreal world as a real existence.
17. All the things from the great Brahmá down to all, are but false
appearances as those of dreams and magical show; and yet the spiritual
reality is utterly lost to sight, under the garb of material unreality
(_i.e._ The unreal matter is taken for real spirit).
18. There is nothing as materiality anywhere and at any time; it is the
spiritual only which by our habitual mode of thinking and naming, is
said to be substantial, elemental and material.
19. This our fallacy of materiality, has come to us from our very
source in Brahmá--the creator; who entertained the false idea of the
material world, and transmitted this error even into the minds of the
wise and very great souls.
20. How is it possible, O Ráma, for the intelligent soul, to be thus
confined in a clod of earth, all this must either be an illusory scene,
or a representation of Brahma himself.
21. There can be no other cause of this world, except the eternal
causality of Brahma; who is self-existent, only without any action or
causation of himself; thus the Supreme soul being wholly devoid of
the attributes of cause and effect, what can this world be, but an
extension of the Divine essence?
CHAPTER CLXXXX.
ECSTASIS OR INERTNESS OF RÁMA.
Argument:--Description of liberation, as heedlessness of the past
and future, ignorance of the knowables, and thoughtlessness about
the thinkables.
Vasishtha continued:--Gaining the knowledge of knowables, is called our
bondage in this world; but it is our release from the bonds of knowable
objects, that is termed our liberation from it.
2. Ráma rejoined:--But how can it be possible, sir, to get our escape
from the knowledge of the knowables, and how can our rooted knowledge
of things, and our habitual sense of bounden to them, be removed from
us.
3. Vasishtha replied:--It is the perfection of our knowledge, and
feeling of it as such, that removes our misjudgment; and then we get
our liberation from error, after disappearance of our inborn bias.
4. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, what is that simply uniform feeling,
and what is called that complete and perfect knowledge said to be,
which releases the living soul entirely, from its fetters of error.
5. Vasishtha replied:--The soul is full with its subjective knowledge
of intuition, and has no need of the objective knowledge of the
knowables from without; and perfect knowledge is our inward sense of
the same, and not expressible in words.
6. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, whether the knowableness of knowledge,
that is whether the internal knowledge of the knowing soul, is the same
or separate from itself; and whether the word _jnána_ or knowledge, is
taken in its instrumental or abstract sense (_i.e._ whether it is used
to mean the power by means of which we derive our knowledge, or the so
derived knowledge itself).
7. Vasishtha replied:--All perception is knowledge, and this term
is denotative of its causality also (as we say, my knowledge is my
guide, _i.e._ the instrumentality of my guidance). Hence there is no
difference between knowledge and the known or the knowable, as there is
none between the air and its ventilation.
8. Ráma rejoined:--If it be so (that there is no difference between
them); then tell me, whence arises the error of difference in
our conception of them; the conception of the materiality of the
perceptible or objective world, must be as erroneous as that of the
horns of a hare, which had never been _in esse_, nor are likely to be
at any time in future.
9. Vasishtha replied:--The error of the reality of external objects,
gives rise to the error of the reality to our knowledge of them also;
but there is no inward object of thought, nor of the outward senses,
has ever any reality in it.
10. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me, O sage, how can you deny the existence of
those objects, which are evident to the senses of mine, thine and all
others alike; and which are ever present in their thoughts in the minds
of sensible beings.
11. Vasishtha replied:--It was at the time of the first creation of the
world, that the self manifested God Virát, exhibited the outline of the
cosmos in a corner of his all-comprehensive mind; but as nothing was
produced in reality, there is no possibility of our knowing any as a
knowable or real entity.
12. Ráma rejoined:--How can our common sight, of the present, past and
future prospects of this world; and our daily perception of things,
which are felt by all in general, be regarded as nothing by your
teaching. (Common sense can not be controverted by abstruse philosophy).
13. Vasishtha replied:--Just as the dreamer’s vision in sleep, the
deer’s mistake of water in the mirage in sand, the illusory sight of
a moon in the sky, and the prospects of our delusive fancies, do all
disappear on right observation; so the false perceptions of worldly
things, and the mistaken conceptions of our own entities, are as
erroneous as the sights of the false lights in the empty air. (These
dissolve as dreams upon waking, and the testimony of one waking man, is
enough to disperse the deceptive sights of all dreamers and sleepers).
14. Ráma rejoined:--If our knowledge of I and thou and of this and
that, is as false as that of all other things in the womb of the world;
why then were these brought into existence, not left to remain in their
ideas in the mind of their creator, as they had existed before his
creation of them?
15. Vasishtha replied:--It is certain that everything springs from
its cause, and not otherwise; what then could there be the (material)
cause, for the creation of the world therefrom, after the dissolution
of everything at the universal destruction?
16. Ráma replied:--Why sir, cannot that being be the cause of
recreation, which remains undestroyed and indestructible, after
destruction of the prior creation?
17. Vasishtha replied:--Whatever substance there abides in the cause,
the same is evolved in effect also; hence the essence of Brahma being
composed of his intellect only, it could not give rise to the material
world from itself; as the substance of a pot, cannot produce that of a
picture or cloth.
18. Ráma replied:--Why sir, the world existed in its subtile (or ideal)
state, in the person (mind) of Brahma (God); from which it issued forth
anew and again, after dissolution of the former creation.
19. Vasishtha said:--Tell me, O intelligence Ráma, how could the Lord
God (whose nature is composed of pure intelligence), conceive the
entity or quintessence of the world in himself, and which like the
productive seed, sprang out in the form of the future creation. Say
what sort of entity was it.
20. Ráma replied:--It is an entity of Divine intelligence, and is
situated in the subjective soul of God in that form. It is neither a
vacuous nullity, nor an unreal entity.
21. Vasishtha said:--If it be so, O mighty armed Ráma, that the three
worlds are Divine intelligence only; then tell me why bodies formed of
pure intelligence (as those of the gods and angels), and those having
the intelligent soul in them (as those of human beings), are subject to
their birth and death.[5]
22. Ráma said:--If then there has been no creation at all at any time
from the beginning; then tell me sir, whence has this fallacy of the
existence of the world come to be in vogue.
23. Vasishtha replied:--The inexistence of cause and effect, proves
the nullity of being and not being (_i.e._ its annihilation also); all
this that is thought of to exist, is the thought and thinking of the
divine soul, which is the triputi or triple entity of thinker, thinking
and the thought together. (_i.e._ The soul is both the subjective and
objective, as also their connecting predicate by itself).
24. Ráma rejoined:--The thinking soul thinks about the implements and
the acts, as the looker looks on the objects of his sight; but how can
the divine looker be the dull spectacle (and the object the same with
the subject); unless you maintain that the objective fuel burns the
subjective fire (which is impossible).
25. Vasishtha replied:--The viewer is not transformed to the view,
owing to impossibility of the existence of an objective view; it is the
all seeing soul, that shows itself as one solid plenum in itself.
26. Ráma rejoined:--The soul is the pure intellect only, and is without
its beginning and end; it thinks only on its eternal and formless
thoughts; how then can it present the form and appearance of the
visible world.[6]
27. Vasishtha replied:--The thinkables being all causeless of
themselves, have none of them any cause whatsoever; and it is the
privation of the thinkables, that bespeaks the liberation of the
intellect. (The production of the thinkables, is as impossible as the
birth of the offspring of a Barren woman. Gloss).
28. Ráma rejoined:--If it is so, then say how and whence have we the
thought of our conception of ourselves; and our knowledge of the world,
and our sense of motion and the like; (as they are suggested to us by
our common sense, and the universal testimony of all people).
29. Vasishtha replied--The impossibility of cause, precludes the
possibility of any production; how and whence could the thinkables
proceed, when all is quite calm and quiet everywhere, and the knowledge
of creation is but an error and a delusion.
30. Ráma rejoined:--Here tell us sir, how this error comes to
overshadow the unknowable, unthinkable and the immovable being, that
is selfmanifest and ever untainted and clear by itself (Swaprakása or
Swayamprakása).
31. Vasishtha replied:--there is no error or mistake herein, owing to
its want of any causation also; our knowledge of egoism and tuism, is
drowned altogether in that of one unevanescent Unity.
32. Ráma replied:--O venerable sir, I am so bewildered in the error
of my consciousness, that I know not what other question I am here to
make; I am not so enlightened as the learned, to argue any more on this
point.
33. Vasishtha replied:--Do not desist, O Ráma, from making your
inquiries concerning the causality of Brahma; until you are satisfied
with the proof of his causelessness, as they test the purity of gold
on the stone; and then by knowing this, you will be able to repose
yourself, in the blissful state of the supremely Blest.
34. Ráma rejoined:--I grant sir, as you say, that there is no creation
for want of its cause, but tell me now whence is this my error of the
thinkable and its thought (so rooted in me that I can not get rid of
it).
35. Vasishtha replied:--There is no error in the belief of the uncaused
creation, and in its perfect calmness; but it is for want of your habit
of thinking it so (and your bias of the reality of the world), that
really makes you so restless.
36. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, whence rise this habit as well as the
desuetude of this mode of our thinking; and how does our rest proceed
from the one, and our disquiet from the other mode of thought.
37. Vasishtha replied:--Belief in the eternal God, breed no error in
that of the eternity of the world; it is the habit of thinking it
otherwise, that creates the error of creation. Be you therefore as
sound in your mind, as the solid minded sages have been.
38. Ráma rejoined:--Please to tell me sir, in your preaching of these
lectures to your audience, what other mode of practice there may be, in
our attainment of a quietude like that of the living liberated sages.
39. Vasishtha replied:--The lesson that we preach, is to know one’s
self as Brahma and resting in the spirit of Brahma; and this knowledge
is sure to release the soul, both from its longing for liberation, as
also from its dread of bondage in this world.
40. Ráma rejoined:--This doctrine of yours, by its all negative
distinctions of our knowledge of time and space, and of our actions
and thing, serves to drive away our consciousness of all existence
whatsoever from the mind.
41. Vasishtha replied:--Yes, because all our objective knowledge, of
the distinctions of time and place and of actions and things in our
minds; is the effect of our ignorance of the subjectivity of the soul,
beside which there is no other substance--before the liberated spirit.
42. Ráma rejoined:--The absence of our knowledge of an intelligent
agent, and also of an intelligible object; deprives us altogether of
any intelligence at all; the impossibility of the union of the unity
and duality together, must preserve our distinct knowledge of the
knowing principle and the known or knowable object. (The transitive
verb to know must have an object, and cannot like a neuter or
intransitive verb, be confined to or reflect upon its agent. Gloss).
43. Vasishtha replied:--It is by your act of knowing of God, that you
have or get your knowledge of Him; therefore the word is taken in its
active sense by you and others (Who have to know a thing before it is
known to them). But with us (or sages like ourselves), who are possest
of our intuitive knowledge of ourselves as the deity, it is but a
self-reflexive verb. (Gloss. _Buddhi_ with the ignorant, means knowing;
but with the sapient, it means feeling).
44. Ráma rejoined:--But how do you feel your finite selves or egoism,
and your limited knowledge, as same with the infinite soul and
omniscience of the deity; unless it were to ascribe your imperfections
to the transcendental divinity, who is purer than the purest water, and
rarer than the rarefied ether.
45. Vasishtha replied:--It is the feeling of the perfections of
the divine soul in ourselves, that we call our egoism; and not the
ascription of our imperfect personalities unto him. And here the
duality of the living and divine souls, bears resemblance to the unity
of the ventilating breeze with the universal and unfluctuating air.
जीबब्रक्षनोरैक्यं ।
46. As the waves of the ocean, have been continually rising and
subsiding in it; so the objective thoughts of one’s egoism and the
world besides, must be always rising and falling in the subjective soul
of the supreme being, as well as self-liberated persons (Hence the
subjective and objective cannot be the one and same thing).
47. Vasishtha replied:--If so it be, then say what is the fault, that
is so much reprehended in the popular belief of a duality; and in
disregarding the creed of the Unity, which is eternal and infinite,
full and perfect in itself, quite calm and quiet in its nature, and is
termed the transcendent One.
48. Ráma rejoined:--If it be so (that the living soul, is as the breeze
or breath of the calm air of Brahma and same with it), then tell me
sir, who and what power is it, which conceives the ego, tu and others,
which feels and enjoys all as their agent, if the fundamental fallacy
of the world be the root of all. (The whole being false, there is
nothing as one or an another or as bondage or liberation).
49. Vasishtha replied:--The knowledge of the reality of the objective
or knowable things, is the cause of our bondage (in this world); true
knowledge does not recognise their reality, and full intelligence
which assumes the forms of (and shows) all things in itself, sees no
difference of bondage or liberation before it. (All things are alike in
the full light of intelligence).
50. Ráma rejoined:--Intelligence like light, does not show us all
things in the same light; it shows us the difference between a pot and
a picture, as light shows the white and black to view. Again as the
light of our eye sight shows us the different forms of outward objects,
so does our intelligence confirm and attest the reality of our visual
perceptions.
51. Vasishtha replied:--All outward objects having no cause of their
creation, nor any source of their production, are as incredible as
the offspring of a barren woman; and the appearance of their reality
which is presented to our sight, is as false as that of silver in
a conchshell or in the glittering sands, and not otherwise. (The
phenomenal is a mirage, and deception of sight).
52. Ráma rejoined:--The sight of the miserable world, whether it
be true or false, is like the startling apparition in a dream, and
attended with pain only for the time; tell me therefore the best means,
how to avoid and get rid of this error.
53. Vasishtha replied:--The world being never the better than a dream,
it is the reflection of the idea of its reality, that is the best
method of getting rid of the snare of its tempting joys and sorrows.
54. Ráma rejoined:--But how to effect this object, which may redound to
our bliss and rest; say how to put an end to the sight of the world,
which shows the sights of falsities as realities, in the continuous
train of its deluding dreams.
55. Vasishtha replied:--It is the due consideration of the
antecedent and subsequent states of things, which must remove the
erroneous impression of their reality; just as the conception of
the substantiality of sights seen in our dreams, is eliminated upon
reflection of their subsequent disappearance (and bearing no trace of
former forms behind).
56. Ráma rejoined:--But how do the rising apparitions of the world,
disappear in the depth of our minds, and what do we then come to
perceive, after the vestiges of our gross remembrances have faded away?
(The mind is never vacant of its thoughts of visible objects).
57. Vasishtha responded:--After the false appearance of the world, has
vanished like the faded sight of a city from view; the unconcerned mind
of the unconcerned soul, looks upon it as a painting, wholly washed out
by the rain (_i.e._ as a clear blank or vacuity).
58. Ráma asked:--What then becomes of the man, after subsidence of
the worldly sights and desires from his mind; like the gross looking
objects of a dream; and after the mind rests in its state of listless
indifference.
59. Vasishtha replied:--Then the world recedes from his sight, and then
this predilection of it, and his desire for its enjoyment depart and
die away along with it.
60. Ráma rejoined:--How can this blind and deep rooted predilection,
which has accompanied the soul from many previous births, and branched
out into multifarious desires, resign its hold of the human heart all
at once?
61. Vasishtha replied:--As the knowledge of truth, serves to disperse
the rooted error of the material world from the mind, so the sense of
the vanity of human desires, and of the bitterness of their enjoyment,
dissipate their seeds at once from the heart (where they can take root
no more).
62. Ráma rejoined:--After dissipation of the error of materiality, of
the visible spheres of worlds; say, O sage, what is that state of the
mind which follows it, and how its peace and tranquility at last?
63. Vasishtha replied:--After dissipation of the error of the material
world, the mind reverts to its seat in the immaterial soul; where it is
released from all its earthly bonds, and finds its rests in the state
of an indifferent _insouciance_--vairágya.
64. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, if the error of the world is as
little, as that of a child’s idea of sorrow, then what trouble there is
for a man to remedy it?
65. Vasishtha replied:--All our desires, like the fond wishes of boys,
being wholly extinct in the mind, there remains no more any cause of
any sorrow in it; and this you may well know from the association of
desires in all minds.
66. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, what is the mind, and how are we to
know its nature and workings; and what good do we derive, by our best
investigation of the mental powers and properties.
67. Vasishtha replied:--The inclination of the intellect towards the
intelligibles, is called the mind, for its mending the thinkables only;
and the right knowledge of its workings, leads to the extinction of all
our worldly desires. (_i.e._ The thoughts of things, are productive of
our desires for them; banish your thoughts, and you get rid of your
desires at once).
68. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, how long continues this tendency of
the intellect towards the thinkables, and when does the mind come
to have its unmindfulness, which causes our coma or _anæsthesis_ of
Nirvána.
69. Vasishtha replied:--There being a total absence of thinkable
things, what is then left for the intellect to be intent upon; the
mind dwells upon its thoughts only, but the want of thinkable objects,
leaves nothing for it to think upon.
70. Ráma rejoined:--How can there be the absence of thinkables, when we
have the ideas in store to think and reflect upon; nor is there any one
who can deny the existence of ideas, which are ever imprinted in the
mind (_i.e._ the eternal ideas).
71. Vasishtha replied:--Whatever is the ideal world of the ignorant,
has no truth in it and is denied by the learned; and the conception
which the sapient have of it, is that of a nameless and formless unity
only.
72. Ráma rejoined:--What is that knowledge of this triple world of the
ignorant, which has no truth or reality therein; and what is the true
knowledge of the wise about it, which is inexpressible in words?