ALLEGORY OF THE SPREADING ARBOUR OF IGNORANCE.
Argument:--Description of ignorance as a wide spreading tree.
Vasishtha continued. Hear me now relate to you Ráma, how this poisonous
tree of ignorance has come to grow in this forest of the world, and to
be situated by the side of the intellect, and how and when it came to
blossom and bloom. (The Divine intellect is the stupendous rock, and
the creation is the forest about it, in which there grew the plant of
error also).
2. This plant encompasses all the three worlds, and has the whole
creation for its rind, and the mountains for its joints (Here is a
play of the word _parva_ and _parvata_ which are paronymous terms,
signifying a joint and mountain; Hence every mountain is reckoned as
the joint or land-mark of a country dividing it from another tract of
land).
3. It is fraught with its leaves and roots, and its flowers and fruits,
by the continuous births and lives and pleasures and pains and the
knowledge and error of mankind. (All these are the productions of human
ignorance).
4. Prosperity gives rise to our ignorance of desiring to be more
prosperous in this or in our next lives (by means of our performance
of ceremonial rites), which are productive of future welfare also. So
doth adversity lead us to greater error of practising many malpractices
to get rid of it; but which on the contrary expose us to greater
misfortunes. (Hence it is folly to make choice of either, which is
equally pernicious).
5. One birth gives rise to another and that leads to others without
end; hence it is foolishness in us to wish to be reborn again. (All
births are subject to misery; it is ignorance therefore to desire a
higher or lower one, by performance of _páratrika_ acts for future
lives).
6. Ignorance produces greater ignorance, and brings on unconsciousness
as its effect: so knowledge leads on to higher knowledge, and produces
self-consciousness as its result. (Good tends to best, and bad to the
worst. Better tends to best, and worse to the worst).
7. The creeping plant of ignorance, has the passion for its leaves, and
the desires for its odours; and it is continually shaking and shuffling
with the leafy garment on its body.
8. This plant falls sometimes in its course, on the way of the elephant
of Reason; it then shakes with fear, and the dust which covers its
body, is all blown away by the breath of the elephant's trunk; but yet
the creeper continues to creep on by the byways according to its wont.
9. The days are its blossoms, and the nights are the swarms of black
bees, that overshadow its flowers; and the continued shaking of its
boughs, darts down the dust of living bodies from it, both by day and
night. (_i.e._, Men that live upon their desires and hopes, are daily
dying away).
10. It is overgrown with its leaves of relatives, and overloaded with
the shooting buds of its offspring; it bears the blossoms of all
seasons, and yields the fruits of all kinds of flowers.
11. All its joints are full of the reptiles of diseases, and its stem
is perforated by the cormorants of destruction; yet it yields the
luscious juice of delight to those that are bereft of their reason and
good sense.
12. Its flowers are the radiant planets, that shine with the sun and
moon every day in the sky; the vacuum is the medium of their light, and
the rapid winds are vehicles, that bear their rays as odours unto us.
(Vacuity is the receptacle of light, but the vibrations of air transmit
it to our sight).
12a. Ignorance blossoms every day in the clusters of the bright
planetary bodies, that shine with the sun and moon by day and night;
and the winds playing in the air, bear their light like perfumes to us.
(_i.e._ It is the spirit that glows in the stars, and breathes in the
air, but ignorance attributes these to the planets and breezes, and
worships them as the _navagrahas_ and _marut ganas_, both in the vedas
and the popular Puranic creeds).
12b. Ignorance blossoms in the clusters of stars and planets, shining
about the sun and moon every day; and breathes in the breezes blowing
at random amidst the vacuous firmament. (Hence the ignorant alone adore
the stars and winds in the vedas, but the sapient know the light of God
to glow in the stars, and his spirit to breathe in the air).
13. These innumerable stars that you see scattered in the vault of
heaven, O son of Raghu's race, are the blooming blossoms of this arbor
of ignorance (_i.e._ ignorance shows them as twinkling stars to us,
while they are numberless shining worlds in reality).
14. The beams of the sun and moon, and the flames of fire, which are
scattered about us like the crimson dust of flowers; resemble the red
paint on the fair body of ignorance, with which this delusive lady
attracts our minds to her.
15. The wild elephant of the mind, ranges at large under the arbour of
Ignorance; and the birds of our desires, are continually hovering and
warbling upon it; while the vipers of sensual appetites, are infesting
its stem, and avarice settles as a huge snake at the root. (The text
has the words "and greediness decorates its bark" which bear no
meaning).
16. It stretches with its head to the blue vault of the sky, forming
as a canopy of black arbour of black Tamála trees over it. The earth
supports its trunk, and sky overtops its top; and it makes a garden of
the universe (with its out stretched arms).
17. It is deeply rooted underneath the ground, and is watered with milk
and curds, in the canals of the milky and other oceans, which are dug
around its trunk.
18. The rituals of the three vedas, are fluttering like the bees over
the tree, blooming with the blossoms of beauteous women, and shaking
with the oscillations of the mind; while it is corroded in the inside
by the cankering worms of cares and actions. (It means to say, that the
vedic rites, the love of women, the thoughts of the mind and the bodily
actions, are all attendants of ignorance; and he is wise who refrains
from them in toto).
19. The tree of ignorance, blossoming like the flowers of the garden
of paradise, exhales the sweet odours of pleasure around; and the
serpent of vice twining round it, leads the living souls perpetually to
evil deeds, for the supportance of their lives.
20. It blooms with various flowers, to attract the hearts of wise; and
it is fraught with various fruits, distilling their sweets all around.
(These fruits and flowers are the sensual pleasures, which allure the
ignorant to them).
21. With the aqueducts about, it invites the birds of the air to drink
of them; and being besmeared with the dust of its flowers, it appears
to stand as a rock of red earth or granite to sight. (The water beds
below it, are mistaken for the _salsabil_ or streams of Paradise, and
its rock-like appearance, shows the grossness of _ignorance crasse_ or
_tabula rasa_).
22. It shoots out with buds of mistakes, and is beset by the briars of
error; it grows luxuriant in hilly districts, with exuberance of its
leafy branches. (Meaning that the hill people are most ignorant).
23. It grows and dies and grows again, and being cut down it springs
out anon; so there is no end of it. (It is hard to extirpate ignorance
at once).
24. Though past and gone, yet it is present before us, and though it
is all hollow within, it appears as thick and sound to sight. It is an
ever fading and ever green tree, and the more it is lopped and cropt,
the more it grows and expands itself.
25. It is a poisonous tree, whose very touch benumbs the senses in a
moment; but being pressed down by reasoning, it dies away in a trice.
26. All distinctions of different objects, are dissolved in the
crucible of the reasoning mind; but they remain undissolved in
their crude forms in the minds of the ignorant, who are employed in
differentiating the various natures of men and brutes, and of terrene
and aquatic animals.
27. They distinguish the one as the nether world, and the other as the
upper sky; and make distinctions between the solar and lunar planets,
and the fixed starry bodies. (But there are no ups and downs, nor any
thing as fixed in infinite vacuity).
28. Here there is light, and there is darkness on the other side, and
this is empty space and that is the solid ground; these are the sástras
and these are the Vedas, are distinctions unknown to the wise.
29. It is the same spirit that flies upward in the bodies of birds, or
remains above in the form of gods; the same spirit remains fixed in the
forms of fixed rocks or moves in continued motion with the flying winds.
30. Sometimes it resides in the infernal regions, and at others it
dwells in the heavens above; sometimes it is exalted to the dignity of
gods, and some where it remains in the state of mean insects and worms.
31. In one place it appears as glorious as the god Vishnu, and in
another it shows itself in the forms of Brahmá and Siva. Now it shines
in the sun, and then it brightens in the moon; here it blows in the
blowing winds, and there it sways in the all-subduing _yama_. (Some
Europeans have conjectured and not without good reason, the relentless
god of death the _yama_ of Hindus, to be same with as the ruthless king
_Jamshed_ of prehistoric Persia. So says Hafiz Ayineye, Sekendar Jame
jamast bingars).
32. Whatever appears as great and glorious, and all that is seen as
mean and ignoble in their form, from the biggest and bright sun down
to the most contemptible grass and straw; are all pervaded by the
universal spirit: it is ignorance that dwells upon the external forms;
but knowledge that looks into the inner soul, obtains its sight up the
present state.