STORY OF THE DOUBTFUL REALM OR REVERIE OF LÍLÁ.
Sarasvatí said:—Remove my child, the dead body of thy husband to
yonder shrine! and strew those flowers over it, and thou shalt have thy
husband again.
2. Never will this body rot or fade as long as the flowers are fresh
over it, and know thy husband will shortly return to life again. (The
strewing of flowers over the dead body and the grave, is a practice
common in many religions).
3. His living soul which is as pure as air, will never depart from this
cemetery of thy inner apartment. (The departed soul is believed to
hover about the crypt or cairn until the day of resurrection).
4. The black-eyed princess, with her eyebrows resembling a cluster
of black-bees, heard this consolatory speech of the goddess, and was
cheered in her spirit, as the lotus-bed on return of the rains.
5. She placed the corpse of her husband there, and hid it under the
flowers, and remained in expectation of its rising, as a poor man
fosters the hope of finding a treasure.
6. It was at midnight of the very day, when all the members of the
family had fallen fast asleep, that Lílá repaired to the shrine in the
inward apartment.
7. There she meditated on the goddess of knowledge, in the recess of
her understanding, and called her in earnest in the sorrow of her
heart, when she heard the divine voice thus addressing to her.
8. “Why dost thou call me, child, and why art thou so sorrowful in thy
countenance? The world is full of errors, glaring as false water in a
mirage.”
9. Lílá answered:—“Tell me goddess, where my husband resides at
present, and what he has been doing now. Take me to his presence, as I
am unable to bear the load of my life without him.”
10. The goddess replied:—“His spirit is now roving in the sky, of
which there are three kinds:—one the firmament or region of the
sensible worlds; the other is the region of the mind, the seat of
volition and creation; and third is the region of Intellect, which
contains the two others.
11. “Your husband’s soul is now in the sheath of the region of
Intellect (being withdrawn both from the regions of the visible
world and sensuous mind). It is now by seeking in the region of the
Intellect, that things which are inexistent here, are to be found there.
12. “As in passing from one place to another, you are conscious of
standing in the mid spot (which is neither the one nor the other);
so you will arrive in an instant at the intermediate region of the
intellectual world (lying between this sensible and spiritual worlds).
13. “If you will abide in that intellectual world, after forsaking all
your mental desires, you will certainly come to the knowledge of that
spiritual Being who comprehends all in himself.
14. “It is only by your knowledge of the negative existence of the
world, that you can come to know the positive existence of that Being,
as you will now be able to do by my grace, and by no other means
whatever.” (Forget the sensible to get to the Spiritual. Hafiz).
15. Vasishtha said:—so saying, the goddess repaired to her heavenly
seat; and Lílá sat gladly in her mood of steadfast meditation.
(Platonism).
16. She quitted in a moment the prison house of her body, and her soul
broke out of its inner bound of the mind, to fly freely in the air,
like a bird freed from its cage: (so Plato compares the flight of the
parting soul with that of a bird from its cage).
17. She ascended to the airy region of the Intellect, and saw (by her
intellectual light) her husband seated there in his seat, amidst a
group of princes and rulers of the earth (who had received various
forms and states according to their acts and desires).
18. He was seated on a throne, and lauded with the loud acclamations of
“Long live the king,” and “Be he victorious.” His officers were prompt
in the discharge of their several duties.
19. The royal palace and hall were decorated with rows of flags, and
there was an assemblage of unnumbered sages and saints, Bráhmans and
Rishis at the eastern entrance of the hall.
20. There stood a levy of innumerable princes and chiefs of men at the
southern porch, and a bevy of young ladies standing at the western
door-way.
21. The northern gateway was blocked by lines of horse, carriages and
elephants; when a guard advanced and informed the king of a warfare in
Deccan.
22. He said that the chief of Karnatic, has made an attack on the
eastern frontier; and that the chieftain of Surat, has brought to
subjection the barbarous tribes on the north; and that the ruler of
Malwa, has besieged the city of Tonkan on the west.
23. Then there was the reception of the ambassador from Lanká, coming
from the coast of the southern sea.
24. There appeared next the Siddhas, coming from the Mahendra mountains
bordering the eastern main, and traversing the numerous rivers of their
fluvial districts; as also the ambassador of the Guhyaka or Yaksha
tribes, inhabiting the shores of the northern sea.
25. There were likewise the envoys, visiting the shores of the western
main, and relating the state of affairs of that territory to the
king. The whole courtyard was filled with lustre by the assemblage of
unnumbered chieftains from all quarters.
26. The recitals of Bráhmans on sacrificial altars, died away under
the sound of the timbrels; and the loud shouts of panegyrists, were
re-echoed by the uproar of elephants.
27. The vault of heaven, resounding to the sound of the vocal and
instrumental music; and the dust raised by the procession of elephants
and chariots, and the trotting of horses’ hoofs, obscured the face of
the sky as by a cloud.
28. The air was perfumed by the fragrance of flowers, camphor and heaps
of frankincense; and the royal hall was filled with presents sent from
different provinces.
29. His fair fame shone forth as a burning hill of white camphor, and
raised a column of splendour reaching to the sky, and casting into
shade the solar light.
30. There were the rulers of districts, who were busily employed
in their grave and momentous duties, and the great architects who
conducted the building of many cities.
31. Then the ardent Lílá entered the court-hall of the ruler of men,
and unseen by any, just as one void mixes with another void, and as air
is lost in the air.
32. She wandered about without being seen by any body there; just as a
fair figure, formed by false imagination of our fond desire, is not to
be perceived by any one without ourselves.
33. In this manner she continued to walk about the palace unperceived
by all, as the aerial castle built in one’s mind, is not perceived by
another.
34. She beheld them all assembled in the royal court in their former
forms, and saw all the cities of the princes, as concentrated in that
single city of her lord’s.
35. She viewed the same places, the same dealings, the same concourse
of boys, and the same sorts of men and women, and the same ministers as
before.
36. She saw the same rulers of earth, and the very same Pandits as
before; the identic courtiers and the self-same servants as ever.
37. There was the same assemblage of the learned men and friends as
before, and the like throng of citizens pursuing their former course of
business.
38. She saw on a sudden, the flames of wild fire spreading on all sides
even in broad midday light; and the sun and moon appearing both at
once in the sky, and the clouds roaring with a tremendous noise, with
the whistling of the winds.
39. She saw the trees, the hills, the rivers and the cities flourishing
with population; and the many towns, and villages and forests all about.
40. She beheld her royal consort as a boy of ten years of age after
shaking off his former frame of old age, sitting amidst the hall with
all his former retinue, and all the inhabitants of his village.
SECTION I.
DESCRIPTION OF THE COURT HOUSE AND THE CORTES.
41. Lílá having seen all these began to reflect within herself, whether
the inhabitants of this place were living beings or the ghosts of their
former living souls.
42. Then having recovered her sense at the removal of her trance, she
entered into her inner apartment at midnight, and found the inmates
fast bound in sleep.
43. She raised one by one her sleeping companions, and said she was
anxious to visit the royal hall.
44. She wanted to be seated beside the throne of her lord, and to clear
her doubt by seeing the courtiers all alive.
45. The royal menials rose up at her call, and obedient to her command
they said “Be it so,” and attended to their respective duties.
46. A train of club-bearers ran to all sides to call the courtiers from
the city, and sweepers came and swept the ground as clean as the sun
had shed his rays upon it.
47. A better set of servants cleansed the court-yard as clean, as
autumn days clear the firmament of its rainy clouds.
48. Rows of lights were placed about the court-yard, which looked as
beautiful as clusters of stars in the clear sky.
49. The ground of the court-yard was filled by throngs of people, as
the earth was covered of yore by floods of the great deluge.
50. The dignified ministers and chiefs attended first and took their
respective seats, and appeared as a set of the newly created rulers of
people of the world on all sides, or the regents of the quarters of the
sky.
51. The cooling and fragrant odour of thickly pasted camphor filled the
palace, and the sweet-scented zephyrs breathed profusely the fragrance
of the lotus flowers, which they bore from all sides.
52. The chamberlains stood all around in their white garbs, and
appeared as an assemblage of silvery clouds, hanging over the burning
hills under the equator.
53. The ground was strewn over by the morning breeze with heaps of
flowers, bright as the beaming dawn dispelling the gloom of night, and
etiolated as clusters of stars fallen upon the ground.
54. The palace was crowded by the retinue of the chiefs of the land,
and seemed as it was a lake full of full-blown lotuses, with the fair
swimming swans rambling about them.
55. There Lílá took her seat on a golden seat by the side of the
throne, and appeared as the beauteous Rati seated in the joyous heart
of Káma (_i.e._ as Venus sitting in the lap of aureate lighted Phoebus).
56. She saw all the princes seated in their order as before, and the
elders of the people and the nobles of men and all her friends and
relatives, seated in their proper places.
57. She was highly delighted to behold them all in their former states,
and shone forth as the moon with the brightness of her countenance, to
find them all alive again.
CHAPTER XVIII.
EXPOSURE OF THE ERRORS OF THIS WORLD.
She said, “I have much consolation in you, and now will I console my
sorrowing heart.” So saying, she made a sign for the assembly to break,
and rose from her royal seat.
2. She entered the inner apartment and sat by the side of the dead
body of her lord, hidden under the heap of flowers, and thus began to
reflect within herself.
3. She exclaimed:—“O the wondrous magic! that presents these people of
my place situated in the same manner without myself, as they were seen
to be seated within me.
4. “O how great is the extent of this delusion, as to contain the same
high hills, and the same spacious forests of palm and Hintála trees,
both in the outside as well as they are situated in the inside of
myself.
5. “As the mirror shows the reflexion of the hills within itself as
they are without it, so the reflector of the intellect presents the
whole creation inwardly as it has outwards of itself.
6. “I must now invoke the goddess of wisdom to ascertain which of these
is illusion, and which the sober and certain reality.”
7. So saying, she worshipped and invoked the goddess, and beheld her
immediately present before herself, in the form of a virgin.
8. She made the goddess sit on the elevated seat, and having seated
herself low upon the ground before her, asked that divine power to tell
her the truth.
9. Lílá said:—“Vouchsafe, O goddess, and clear this doubt of thy
suppliant; for it is thy wisdom which has framed this beautiful system
of the universe at first and knows the truth. (Divine wisdom is the
prime cause of all).
10. “Tell me, O great goddess, about what I am going to lay before
thee at present, for it is by thy favour alone that I may be successful
to know it.
11. “I saw the pattern of this world in the intellect, which is more
transparent than the etherial sphere, and as extensive as to contain
millions and millions of miles in a small space of it.
12. “It is what no definite words can express, and what is known as
the calm, cool and ineffable light. This is called the unintelligible
intelligence, and is without any cover or support (_nirávarana
nirbhitti_).
13. “It exhibits the reflexions of space and the course of time, and
those of the sky and its light, and the course of events concentrating
in itself.
14. “Thus the images of the worlds, are to be seen both within and
without the intellect, and it is hard to distinguish the real and
unreal ones between them.”
15. The goddess asked:—Tell me fair lady, what is the nature of the
real world, and what you mean, by its unreality.
16. Lílá replied:—I know the nature of the real to be such as I find
myself to be sitting here, and looking upon you as seated in this place.
17. And I mean that to be unreal, as the state in which I beheld my
husband in the etherial region erewhile; because vacuity has no limit
of time or place in it.
18. The goddess rejoined:—The real creation cannot produce an unreal
figure, nor a similar cause produce a dissimilar effect.
19. Lílá replied:—But we often see, O goddess! dissimilar effects to be
produced from similar causes: thus, the earth and earthen pot though
similar in their substance, yet the one is seen to melt in water, and
the other to carry water in it.
20. The goddess said:—Yes, when an act is done by the aid of auxiliary
means, there the effect is found to be somewhat different from the
primary cause. (Thus the earthen pot being produced by the auxiliary
appliances of fire, the potter’s wheel and the like, differs in its
quality from the original clay).
21. Say O beauteous lady! what were the causes of thy husband’s being
born in this earth? The same led to his birth in the other world also
(_i.e._ the merit of the acts and desires of men, are the causes of
their transmigrations in both worlds).
22. When the soul has fled from here, how can the earth follow him
there any more, and what auxiliary causes can there be in connection
with this cause?
23. Wherever there arises a coaction with its apparent causality, it
is usually attributed by every one to some unknown antecedent cause or
motive.
24. Lílá said:—Methinks goddess, that it was the expansion of my
husband’s memory that was the cause of his regenerations; because it is
certain that reminiscence is the cause of the reproduction of objects
before us.
25. The goddess replied that, memory is an aerial substance, and its
productions are as unsubstantial as itself.
26. Lílá said:—Yes I find reminiscence to be an airy thing, and its
reproduction of my husband and all other things within me to be but
empty shadows in the mind.
27. The goddess replied:—So verily was this reproduction of thy
husband and all those things which appeared to thy sight in thy
reverie; and so, my daughter, is the appearance of all things I see in
this world.
28. Lílá said:—Tell me goddess for the removal of my conception of the
reality of the world, how the false appearance of my formless lord, was
produced before me by the unreal world, (since nothing unsubstantial
can cast a shadow).
29. The goddess replied:—As this illusive world appeared a reality to
thee before thy reminiscence of it, so must thou know all this to be
unreal from what I am going to relate to thee.
30. There is in some part of the sphere of the Intellect the great
fabric of the world, with the glassy vault of the firmament for its
roof on all sides.
31. The Meru (the polar axle or mountain) is its pillar, beset
around by the regents of the ten sides, as statues carved upon it.
The fourteen regions are as so many apartments of it, and the hollow
concavity containing the three worlds, is lighted by the lamp of the
luminous sun.
32. Its corners are inhabited by living creatures resembling ants and
emmets, which are surrounded by mountains appearing as ant-hills in the
sight of Brahmá, the prime lord of creatures and the primeval patriarch
of many races of men.
33. All animal beings are as worms confined in the cocoons (prison
houses) of their own making. The azure skies above and below are as the
soot of this house, beset by bodies of Siddhas (or departed spirits),
resembling groups of gnats buzzing in the air.
34. The fleeting clouds are the smoke of this house or as webs of
spiders in its corners, and the hollow air is full of aerial spirits,
like holes of bamboos filled with flies.
35. There are also the playful spirits of gods and demigods, hovering
over human habitations, as swarms of busy and buzzing bees about
vessels of honey.
36. Here there lay amidst the cavity of heaven, earth and the infernal
regions, tracts of land well watered by rivers, lakes and the sea on
all sides.
37. In a corner of this land, there was situated a secluded piece of
ground (a vale or village), sheltered by hills and craigs about it.
38. In this secluded spot thus sheltered by hills, rivers and forests,
there lived a Bráhman with his wife and children, free from disease
and care of gain and fear of a ruler, and passed his days in his
fire-worship and hospitality, with the produce of his kine and lands.
CHAPTER XIX.
STORY OF A FORMER VASISHTHA AND HIS WIFE.
This Bráhman was equal to his namesake—the sage Vasishtha, in his age
and attire, in his learning and wealth, and in all his actions and
pursuits, except in his profession. (The one being a secular man, and
the other the priest of the royal family).
2. His name was Vasishtha, and that of his wife Arundhatí; who was as
fair as the moon, and as the star of the same name on earth.
3. She resembled her namesake the priestess of the solar race, in her
virtues and parts and in all things, except in her soul and body.
4. She passed her time in true love and affection in his company, and
was his all in the world, with her sweet smiling face resembling the
Kumuda flower.
5. This Bráhman had been sitting once under the shady _sarala_ trees,
on the table land of his native hill, when he saw the ruler of the
land, passing with his gaudy train below.
6. He was accompanied by all the members of the royal family and his
troops and soldiers, and was going to a chase, with a clamour that
resounded in the hills and forests.
7. The white flappers shed a stream of moon light, and the lifted
banners appeared as a moving forest, and the white umbrellas made the
sky a canopy to them.
8. The air was filled with dust raised by the hoofs of horses from the
ground, and lines of elephants with their high _haúdás_, seemed as
moving towers, to protect them from the solar heat and sultry winds.
9. The wild animals were running on all sides at the loud uproar of the
party, resembling the roaring of a whirlpool, and shining gems and
jewels were flashing all about on the persons of the party.
10. The Bráhman saw the procession and said to himself, “O how charming
is royalty, which is fraught with such splendour and prosperity.”
11. Ah! how shall I become the monarch of all the ten sides, and have
such a retinue of horse and elephants and foot soldiers, with a similar
train of flags and flappers and blazing umbrellas.
12. When will the breeze waft the fragrance of _kunda_ flowers, and
the farina of lotuses to my bed-chamber, to lull me and my consorts to
sleep.
13. When shall I adorn the countenances of my chamber maids with
camphor and sandal paste, and enlighten the faces of the four quarters
with my fair fame, as the moon-beams decorate the night.
14. With these thoughts, the Bráhman was thenceforth determined to
apply himself with vigilance, to the rigid austerities of his religion
for life.
15. He was at last overtaken by infirmities which shattered his frame,
as the sleets of snowfall, batter the blooming lotuses in the lake.
16. Seeing his approaching death, his faithful wife was fading away
with fear, as a creeper withers at the departure of spring, for fear of
the summer heat.
17. This lady then began to worship me (the personification of Wisdom)
like thyself, for obtaining the boon of immortality which is hard to be
had.
18. She prayed saying:—Ordain, O goddess! that the spirit of my lord
may not depart from this sepulchre after his demise: and I granted her
request.
19. After sometime the Bráhman died, and his vacuous spirit remained in
the vacuity of that abode.
20. This aeriform spirit of the Bráhman, assumed the shape of a mighty
man on earth, by virtue of the excessive desire and merit of acts in
his former state of existence.
21. He became the victorious monarch of the three realms, by
subjugating the surface of the earth by his might, by laying hold on
the high steeps (of the gods) by his valour, and his kind protection of
the nether lands (watery regions) under his sway.
22. He was as a conflagration to the forest of his enemies, and as the
steadfast Meru amidst the rushing winds of business on all sides. He
was as the sun expanding the lotus-like hearts of the virtuous, and as
the god of the _makara_ ensign (Kama or Cupid) to the eyes of women.
23. He was the model of all learning, and the all giving _Kalpa_ tree
to his suitors; he was the footstool of great Pandits, and as the
full-moon shedding the ambrosial beams of polity all around.
24. But after the Bráhman was dead, and his dead body had disappeared
in the forms of elementary particles in air, and his airy spirit had
reposed in the aerial intellectual soul within the empty space of his
house.
25. His Bráhmanic widow (born of the priestly class), was pining away
in her sorrow, and her heart was rent in twain as the dried pod of
_Simbi_.
26. She became a dead body like her husband, and her spirit by
shuffling off its mortal coil, resumed its subtile and immortal form,
in which it met the departed ghost of her husband.
27. She advanced to her lord, as rapidly as a river runs to meet the
sea below its level; and became as cheerful to join him, as a cluster
of flowers to inhale the vernal air.
28. The houses, lands and all the immovable properties and movable
riches of this Bráhman, are still existent in that rocky village, and
it is only eight days past, that the souls of this loving pair, are
reunited in the hollow vault of their house.
CHAPTER XX.
THE MORAL OF THE TALE OF LÍLÁ.
The goddess said:—That Bráhman whom I said before, had become a
monarch on earth, is the same with thy husband, and his wife Arundhati,
is no other than thyself—the best of women.
2. You two are the same pair now reigning over this realm, and
resembling a pair of doves in your nuptial love, and the deities Siva
and Párvati in your might.
3. I have thus related to you the state of your past lives, that you
may know the living soul to be but air, and the knowledge of its
reality is but an error.
4. The erroneous knowledge (derived from sense), casts its reflection
in the intellect, and causes its error also (errors in the senses breed
errors in the mind); and this makes you doubtful of the truth and
untruth of the two states (of the sensible and intellectual worlds).
5. Therefore the question, ‘which is true and which is untrue,’ has no
better solution than that all creations (whether visible or invisible,
mental or ideal), are equally false and unsubstantial.
6. Vasishtha said:—Hearing these words of the goddess, Lílá was
confused in her mind, and with her eyes staring with wonder, she
addressed her softly.
7. Lílá said:—How is it, O goddess! that your words are so incoherent
with truth, you make us the same, with the Brahmanic pair, who are in
their own house, and we are sitting here in our palace.
8. And how is it possible that the small space of the room in which
my husband’s body is lying, could contain those spacious lands
and hills and the ten sides of the sky: (as I already saw in my
trance—_Samádhi_).
9. It is as impossible as to confine an elephant in a mustard seed, and
as the fighting of a gnat with a body of lions in a nut-shell.
10. It is as incredible as to believe a lotus seed containing a hill
in it, and to be devoured by a little bee; or that the peacocks are
dancing on hearing the roaring of clouds in a dream.
11. It is equally inconsistent to say, O great goddess of gods! that
this earth with all its mountains and other things, are contained
within the small space of a sleeping room.
12. Deign therefore, O goddess to explain this mystery clearly unto me;
because it is by thy favour only that the learned are cleared of their
doubts.
13. The goddess said:—Hear me fair lady! I do not tell thee a lie;
because transgression of the law is a thing unknown to us. (The law is
_nánritam vadeta_—never tell an untruth).
14. It is I that establish the law when others are about to break it;
if then I should slight the same, who else is there who would observe
it.
15. The living soul of the village Bráhman, saw within itself and in
the very house, the image of this great kingdom, as his departed spirit
now views the same in its empty vacuity. (Therefore both these states
are equally ideal).
16. But you have lost the remembrance of the states of your former
lives after death, as they lose the recollection of waking events in
the dreaming state.
17. As the appearance of the three worlds in dream, and their formation
in the imagination; or as the description of a warfare in an epic poem
and water in the mirage of a _maru_ or sandy desert (are all false):
18. So were the hills and habitations which were seen in the empty
space of the Bráhman’s house, which was no other than the capacity of
his own mind to form the images of its fancy, and receive the external
impressions like a reflecting mirror (all mere ideal).
19. All these though unreal, yet they appear as real substances on
account of the reality of the intellect, which is seated in the cavity
of the inmost sheath of the body and reflects the images.
20. But these images, which are derived from the remembrance of unreal
objects of the world, are as unreal as those objects which cast their
reflexions in the intellect; just as the waves rising in the river of a
mirage, are as unreal as the mirage itself.
21. Know this seat (sadana) of yours, which is set in this closet
(_kosha_) of the house, as well as myself and thyself and all things
about us, to be but the reflections of our intellect only, without
which nothing would be perceptible, as to one who is devoid of his
intellect.
22. Our dreams and fallacies, our desires and fancies, as also our
notions and ideas, serve as the best evidences, that afford us their
light for the understanding of this truth: (that nothing is true beside
the subjective mind, which creates and forms, produces and presents all
objects to our view).
23. The spirit of the Bráhman resided in the vacuity of his house
(the body), with the seas and forests and the earth (_i.e._ their
impressions) within itself, as the bee abides in the lotus.
24. Thus the habitable globe with every thing it contains, is situated
in a small cell in one corner of the intellect, as a spot of flimsy
cloud in the firmament.
25. The House of the Bráhman was situated in the same locality of the
intellect, which contains all the worlds in one of its atomic particles.
26. The intelligent soul contains in every atom of it, unnumbered
worlds within worlds, enough to remove your doubt; of the Bráhman’s
viewing a whole realm within the space of his intellect.
27. Lílá asked:—How can the Bráhmanic pair be ourselves, when they are
dead only eight days before, and we have been reigning here for so many
years?
28. The goddess replied:—There is neither any limit of space or
duration, nor any distance of place or length of time in reality: hear
me now tell you the reason of it.
29. As the universe is the reflexion of the divine mind, so are
infinity and eternity but representations of himself.
30. Attend to what I tell you about the manner in which we form the
idea of time, and its distinct parts of a moment and an age, in the
same way as we make the distinction of individualities in me, thee and
this or that person (which are essentially the same undivided spirit
and duration).[14]
SECTION II.
_State of the Human soul after death._
31. Hear now, that no sooner does any one come to feel the
insensibility consequent to his death, than he forgets his former
nature and thinks himself as another being.
32. He then assumes an empty form in the womb of vacuity in the
twinkling of an eye, and being contained in that container, he thinks
within himself in the same receptacle.
33. “This is my body with its hands and feet.” Thus the body he thinks
upon, he finds the same presented before him.
34. He then thinks in himself: “I am the son of this father and am
so many years old; these are my dear friends and this is my pleasant
abode.”
35. “I was born and became a boy, and then grew up to this age. There
are all my friends and in the same course of their lives.”
36. Thus the compact density of the sphere of his soul, presents him
many other figures, which appear to rise in it as in some part of the
world.
37. But they neither rise nor remain in the soul itself, which is as
transparent as the empty air; they appear to the intellect as a vision
seen in a dream.
38. As the view beheld in a dream, presents the sights of all things in
one place, so does every thing appear to the eye of the beholder of the
other world as in his dream.
39. Again whatever is seen in the other world, the same occurs to
men in their present states also; wherefore the reality of this and
unreality of the other world, are both alike to a state of dreaming.
40. And as there is no difference in the waves of the same sea-water,
so the produced visible creation is no other than the unproduced
intellectual world, both of which are equally indestructible: (the one
being but a copy of the other).
41. But in reality the appearance is nothing but a reflection of the
intellect; and which apart from the intelligible spirit, is merely an
empty vacuity.
42. The creation though presided by the intelligible spirit, is itself
a mere void, its intelligible soul being the only substance of it as
the water of the waves.
43. The waves though formed of water, are themselves as false as the
horns of hares; and their appearance as natural objects: is altogether
false (because they are the effects of the auxiliary cause of the winds
which have raised them).
44. Hence there being no visible object in reality (except a false
appearance of such), how can the observer have any idea of the visible,
which loses its delusion at the moment of his death.
45. After disappearance of the visible outer world from sight, the soul
reflects on its reminiscence of the creation in its inner world of the
mind, according to the proper time and place of every thing.
46. It remembers its birth, its parents, its age and its residence,
with its learning and all other pursuits in their exact manner and
order.
47. It thinks of its friends and servants, and of the success and
failure of its attempts. And thus the increate and incorporeal soul,
ruminates on the events of its created and corporeal state in its
intellectual form.
48. It does not however remain long in this state, but enters a new
body soon after its death, to which the properties of the mind and
senses, are added afterwards in their proper times.
49. It then becomes a baby, and finds a new father and mother, and
begins to grow. Thus whether one may perceive it or not, it is all the
product of his former reminiscence.
50. Then upon waking from this state of trance, like a fruit from the
cell of a flower, it comes to find that a single moment appeared to it
as the period of an age.
51. So King Harish Chandra of yore thought one night as a period of
twelve years; and so one day seems as long as a year to them that are
separated from their beloved objects.
52. Again as the birth or death of one in his dream, or his getting a
begotten father in infancy, or a hungry man’s faring on dainty food in
thought, is all false:
53. So when a sated man says he is starving, or one declares he is an
eye witness of a thing he has not seen, or an empty space is full of
people, or that he has got a lost treasure in his dream, who is there
to believe him?
54. But this visible world rests in the invisible spirit of God, as the
property of pungency, resides in the particles, of the pepper seed, and
as the painted pictures on a column. But where are the open and clear
sighted eyes to perceive the same?
INTERPRETATION OF LÍLÁ’S VISION.
55. The vision of Lílá, called samádhi in Yoga and _clairvoyance_ of
spiritualism, was the abstract meditation of her lord in her memory.
Which presented her with a full view of every thing imprinted in it.
The memory is taken for the whole intellect _chit_, which is identified
with God, in whose essence the images of all things, are said to be
eternally present.
CHAPTER XXI.
GUIDE TO PEACE.
Soon after the insensibility occasioned by one’s death is over, there
appears to him (soul) the sight of the world, as he viewed it with his
open eyes when he was living.
2. It presents before him the circle of the sky and its sides with the
cycle of its seasons and times, and shows him the deeds of his pious
and secular acts, as they were to continue to eternity.
3. Objects never seen nor thought of before, also offer themselves to
his view, as the sight of his own death in a dream, and as they were
the prints in his memory.
4. But the infinity of objects, appearing in the empty sphere of the
immaterial intellect, is mere illusion, and the baseless city of the
world, like an aerial castle, is but the creation of imagination.
5. It is the remembrance of the past world, that makes it known to us
(because it is impossible to recognise any thing without a previous
impression of its kind in the mind). Hence the length of a _kalpa_ age
and the shortness of a moment, are but erroneous impressions proceeding
from the rapidity and slowness of our thoughts.
6. Therefore knowledge, based upon previous notions or otherwise, is
of two kinds, and things known without their cause, are attributed to
Divine Intelligence (as the hidden cause of all).
7. We are conscious also of thoughts, unthought of before in our minds,
as we often have in our dreams; and think of our parents after their
demise by mistake of other persons as such.
8. Sometimes genius supercedes the province of memory, as in the first
creation or discovery of a thing, which is afterwards continued by its
remembrance.
9. According to some, those visible worlds are said to have remained
in their ideal state in the Divine mind; and according to others, that
there were no pre-existent notions of these in the mind of God.
10. According to some others, the world manifested itself not from the
memory, but by the power and will of God; while others maintain it to
be the production of a fortuitous combination, of intelligence and
atomic principles on a sudden (_Kákatálíya sanyoga_).
11. It is the entire forgetfulness of the world, which is styled
liberation, and which can not be had from attachment to what is
desirable or aversion of the undesirable.
12. It is difficult to effect an entire negation, both of one’s
subjective as well as objective knowledge of his self, and the
existence of the outer world; and yet no body can be freed without
obliteration of both.
13. As the fallacy of taking a rope for a snake, is not removed until
the meaning of the world snake, is known to be inapplicable to the
rope; so no one can have rest and peace of his mind, unless he is
convinced of the illusive nature of the world.
14. One party, who is at peace with himself (by his abandonment of the
world), can not be wholly at rest without divine knowledge; as the
ghost of his inward ignorance, may overtake him after his getting rid
of the devil of worldliness.
15. The world is certainly a monster in itself without the knowledge of
its Author; but the difficulty of knowing the first cause, has rendered
it an impassable wilderness.
16. Lílá said:—If reminiscence be the cause of one’s reproduction,
then say, O goddess! what were the causes of the birth of the Bráhmanic
pair, without the vestiges of their past remembrance.
17. The goddess replied:—Know that Brahmá the first progenitor of
mankind, who was absolute in himself, did not retain any vestige of his
past remembrance in him.
18. The first born, who had nothing to remember of a prior birth, was
born in the lotus with his own intelligence—_chaitanya_; (and not
because of his remembrance).
19. The lord of creatures being thus born by chance of his own genius
or creative power, and without any assignable cause or design on his
part, reflected within himself “now I am become another and the source
of creation.”
20. Whatever is thus born of itself, is as it were nothing and never
produced at all, but remained as the absolute intellect itself in
_nubibus_ (chinnabhas).
21. It is the Supreme being that is the sole cause of both states of
reminiscence (_i.e._ the one caused by vestiges of prior impressions,
and the other produced by prior desires); and both the conditions of
cause and effect combine in Him in the sphere of his intellect.
22. Thus it is the knowledge of the union of the cause and effect, and
the auxiliary cause in Him, that gives us our tranquillity and naught
otherwise.
23. Causality and consequence are mere empty words of no significance,
since it is the recognition of the universal intellect, which
constitutes true wisdom.
24. Hence nothing is produced that is seen in the phenomenal, or known
in the noumenal or intellectual world (_Chid-jagat_); but every thing
is situated within the space of the sphere of the intellect in one’s
own soul.
25. Lílá said:—O! wonderful was the sight thou hast shown me, O
goddess; it was a fair prospect of the world as in its morning light,
and as brilliant as in the glare of a lightning.
26. Now goddess! deign to satisfy my curiosity, until I become
conversant with it by my intense application and study.
27. Kindly take me to that dwelling where the Bráhman pair dwelt
together, and show me that mountainous spot of their former residence.
28. The goddess replied:—If you want to see that sight, you shall have
to be immaculate, by forsaking the sense of your personality (_mana_ or
_meum_), and betaking yourself to the clairvoyance or clear sightedness
of seeing the unintelligible Intellect (_achetya-chit_) within the
soul.
29. You shall then find yourself in a vacuous atmosphere (_vyomátman_),
and situated in the sky (_nabhas-nubibus_), resembling the prospects of
earthly men, and the apartments of the firmament (_i.e._ all _nil_ and
void).
30. In this state we shall be able to see them with all their
possessions without any obstruction; otherwise this body is a great
barrier in the way of spiritual vision.
31. Lílá said:—Tell me kindly, O goddess! the reason, why do we not
see the other world with these eyes, nor go there with these bodies of
ours.
32. The goddess replied:—The reason is that you take the true futurity
for false, and believe the untrue present as true. For these worlds
which are formless, appear as having forms to your eyes, as you take
the substance gold in its form of a ring.
33. Gold though fashioned as a circlet, has no circularity in it; so
the spirit of God appearing in the form of the world, is not the world
itself.
34. The world is a vacuity full with the spirit of God; and whatever
else is visible in it, is as the dust appearing to fly over the sea.
(Hence called _máyá_ or illusion of vision, as specks peopling the
summer skies).
35. This illusory quintessence of the world is all false, the true
reality being the subjective Brahma alone; and in support of this truth
we have the evidence of our guides in Vedánta philosophy, and the
conviction of our consciousness.
36. The Brahma believer sees Brahma alone and no other anywhere, and he
looks to Brahma through Brahma himself, as the creator and preserver of
all, and whose nature includes all other attributes in itself.
37. Brahma is not known only as the author of his work of the creation
of worlds, but as existent of himself without any causation or
auxiliary causality (_i.e._ as neither the creator or created, nor
supporter of nor supported by another).
38. Until you are trained by your practice of Yoga, to rely in one
unity, by discarding all duality and variety in your belief, so long
you are barred from viewing Brahma in his true light.
39. Being settled in this belief of unity, we find ourselves by our
constant practice of Yoga communion, to rest in the Supreme spirit.
40. We then find our bodies mixing with the air as an aerial substance,
and at last come to the sight of Brahma with these our mortal frames.
41. Being then endued with pure, enlightened and spiritual frames, like
those of Brahmá and the gods, the holy saints are placed in some part
of the divine essence.
42. Without practice of yoga, you can not approach God with your mortal
frame. The soul that is sullied by sense, can never see the image of
God.
43. It is impossible for one to arrive at the aerial castle (objects of
the wish) of another, when it is not possible for him to come to the
castle (wished for object), which he has himself built in air.
44. Forsake therefore this gross body, and assume your light
intellectual frame; then betake yourself to the practice of yoga, that
you may see God face to face.
45. As it may be possible to realize an aerial castle by the labour of
building it, so it is possible to behold God, either with this body or
without it, by practice of yoga only and not otherwise.
46. And as the erroneous conception of the existence of the world, has
continued since its first creation (by the will of Brahma); so it has
been ever since attributed to an eternal fate—niyati (by fatalists),
and to an illusory power (_máyá sakti of Máyá vadis_).
47. Lílá asked:—Thou saidst O goddess? that we shall go together to
the abode of the Brahman pair, but I ask thee to tell me, how are we to
effect our journey there?
48. As for me, I shall be able to go there with the purer part of my
essence the sentient soul (after leaving this my gross body here). But
tell me how wilt thou that art pure intellect (_chetas_), go to that
place?
49. The goddess replied:—I tell thee lady, that the divine will is
an aerial tree, and its fruits are as unsubstantial as air, having no
figure nor form nor substance in them.
50. And whatever is formed by the will of God from the pure essence of
his intelligent nature, is only a likeness of himself, and bears little
difference from its original.
51. This body of mine is of the like kind, and I will not lay it aside,
but find out that place by means of this as the breeze finds the odours.
52. And as water mixes with water, fire with fire and air with air, so
does this spiritual body easily join with any material form that it
likes.
53. But a corporeal body cannot mix with an incorporeal substance, nor
a solid rock become the same with an ideal hill.
54. And as your body, which is composed both of its spiritual and
mental parts, has become corporeal by its habitual tendency to
corporeality.
55. So your material body becomes spiritual (_átiváhika_), by means
of your leaning to spirituality, as in your sleep, in your protracted
meditation, insensibility, fancies and reveries.
56. Your spiritual nature will then return to your body, when your
earthly desires are lessened and curbed within the mind.
57. Lílá said:—Say goddess, what becomes of the spiritual body after
it has attained its compactness by constant practice of yoga; whether
it becomes indestructible, or perishes like all other finite bodies.
58. The goddess replied:—Any thing that exists is perishable, and of
course liable to death; but how can that thing die which is nothing,
and is imperishable in its nature? (Such is the spirit).
59. Again the fallacy of the snake in a rope being removed, the snake
disappears of itself, and no one doubts of it any more.
60. Thus, as the true knowledge of the rope, removes the erroneous
conception of the snake in it, so the recognition of the spiritual
body, dispels the misconception of its materiality.
61. All imagery is at an end when there is no image at all, as the
art of statuary must cease for want of stones on earth. (Thus they
attribute materiality to the immaterial spirit from their familiarity
with matter).
62. We see clearly our bodies full of the spirit of God, which you can
not perceive owing to your gross understanding.
63. In the beginning when the intellect—_chit_, is engrossed with the
imagination of the mind—_chitta_, it loses thenceforth its sight of
the only one object (the unity of God).
64. Lílá asked:—But how can imagination have any room or trace out
anything in that unity, wherein the divisions of time and space and all
things, are lost in an undistinguishable mass?
65. The goddess replied:—Like the bracelet in gold and waves in water,
the show of truth in dreams, and the resemblance of aerial castles:—
66. As all these vanish on the right apprehension of them, so the
imaginary attributes of the unpredicable God, are all nothing whatever.
67. As there is no dust in the sky, so there can be no ascribing of any
attribute or partial property to God; whose nature is indivisible and
unimaginable, who is an unborn unity, tranquil and all-pervading.
68. Whatever shines about us, is the pure light of that being, who
scatters his lustre like a transcendental gem all around.
69. Lílá said:—If it is so at all times, then tell me, O goddess! how
we happened to fall into the error of attributing duality and diversity
to His nature.
70. The goddess replied:—It was your want of reason that has led
you to error so long; and it is the absence of reasoning that is the
natural bane of mankind, and requires to be remedied by your attending
to reason.
71. When reason takes the place of the want of reason, it introduces
in a moment the light of knowledge in the soul, in lieu of its former
darkness.
72. As reason advances, your want of reason and knowledge and your
bondage to prejudice, are put to flight; and then you have an
unobstructed liberation and pure understanding in this world.
73. As long as you had remained without reasoning on this subject, so
long were you either dormant or wandering in error.
74. You are awakened from this day both to your reason and liberation,
and the seeds for the suppression of your desires, are sown in your
heart.
75. At first neither was this visible world presented to you nor you to
it, how long will you therefore reside in it, and what other desires
have you herein?
76. Withdraw your mind from its thoughts of the visitor, visibles and
vision of this world, and settle it in the idea of the entire negation
of all existence, then fix your meditation solely in the supreme Being,
and sit in a state of unalterable insensibility (by forgetting yourself
to a stone).
77. When the seed of inappetency has taken root in your heart, and
begun to germinate in it, the sprouts of your affections and hatred
(literally—pathos and apathy), will be destroyed of themselves.
78. Then the impression of the world will be utterly effaced from the
mind, and an unshaken _anesthesia_ will overtake you all at once.
79. Remaining thus entranced in your abstract meditation, you will
have in process of time a soul, as luminous as a luminary in the clear
firmament of heaven, freed from the concatenation of all causes and
their consequences for evermore.
CHAPTER XXII.
PRACTICE OF WISDOM OR WISDOM IN PRACTICE.
(VIJNÁNA-BHYÁSA).
SECTION I.
ABANDONMENT OF DESIRES.
_Básaná Tyága._
The goddess continued:—
As objects seen in a dream, prove to be false as the dream, on being
roused from sleep and upon knowing them as fumes of fancy; so the
belief in the reality of the body, becomes unfounded upon dissolution
of our desires.
2. As the thing dreamt of disappears upon waking, so does the waking
body disappear in sleep, when the desires lie dormant in the soul.
3. As our corporeal bodies are awakened after the states of our
dreaming and desiring, so is our spiritual body awakened after we cease
to think of our corporeal states.
4. As a sound sleep succeeds the dormancy which is devoid of desires
(_i.e._ when we are unconscious of the actions and volition of our
minds); so does the tranquillity of liberation follow the state of our
inappetency even in our waking bodies.
5. The desire of living-liberated men (_jívan-muktas_), is not properly
any desire at all, since it is the pure desire relating to universal
weal and happiness.
6. The sleep in which the will and wish are dormant, is called the
sound sleep _susupta_, but the dormancy of desires in the waking state,
is known as insensibility _moha_ or _múrchhá_.
7. Again the sleep which is wholly devoid of desire, is designated the
_turíya_ or the fourth stage of yoga, and which in the waking state is
called _samádhi_ or union with Supreme.
8. The living man, whose life is freed from all desires in this world,
is called the living liberated—_jívan-mukta_, a state which is unknown
to them that are not liberated (_amukta_).
9. When the mind becomes a pure essence (as in its _samádhi_), and its
desires are weakened, it becomes spiritualised (_ativáhika_), and then
it glows and flows, as the snow melts to water by application of heat.
10. The spiritualised mind, being awakened (as if it were from its
drowsiness or lethargy), mixes with the holy spirits of departed souls
in the other world.
11. When your egoism is moderated by your practice of yoga, then the
perception of the invisible, will of itself rise clearly before your
mind.
12. And when spiritual knowledge gains a firm footing in your mind, you
will then behold the hallowed scenes of the other world more than your
expectation.
13. Therefore O blameless lady! try your utmost to deaden your desires,
and when you have gained sufficient strength in that practice, know
yourself to be liberated in this life.
14. Until the moon of your intellectual knowledge, comes to shine forth
fully with her cooling beams, so long you shall have to leave this body
of yours here, in order to have a view of the other world.
15. This fleshy body of yours, can have no tangible connection with one
which is without flesh; nor can the intellectual body (_lingadeha_),
perform any action of the corporeal system.
16. I have told you all this according to my best knowledge, and the
state of things as they are: and my sayings are known even to boys, to
be as efficacious as the curse or blessing of a deity.
17. It is the habitual reliance of men in their gross bodies, and their
fond attachment to them, that bind their souls down, and bring them
back to the earth; while the weakening of earthly desires serve to
clothe them with spiritual bodies.
18. No body believes in his having a spiritual body here even at his
death bed; but every one thinks the dying man to be dead with his body
for ever.
19. This body however, neither dies, nor is it alive at any time; for
both life and death are mere resemblances of aerial dreams and desires
in all respects.
20. The life and death of beings here below, are as false as the
appearances and disappearance of persons in imagination, (or a man in
the moon), or of dolls in play or puppet shows.
21. Lílá said:—The pure knowledge, O goddess! that thou hast imparted
to me, serves on its being instilled into my ears, as a healing balm to
the pain caused by the phenomenals.
SECTION II.
ON THE PRACTICE OF YOGA.
22. Now tell me the name and nature of the practice, that may be of use
to Spiritualism, how it is to be perfected and what is the end of such
perfection.
23. The goddess replied:—Whatever a man attempts to do here at any
time, he can hardly ever effect its completion, without his painful
practice of it to the utmost of his power.
24. Practice is said by the wise, to consist in the conference of the
same thing with one another, in understanding it thoroughly, and in
devoting one’s self solely to his object.
25. And those great souls become successful in this world, who are
disgusted with the world, and are moderate in their enjoyments and
desires, and do not think on the attainment of what they are in want of.
26. And those great minds are said to be best trained, which are
graced with liberal views, and are delighted with the relish of
unconcernedness with the world, and enraptured with the streams of
heavenly felicity.
27. Again they are called the best practised in divine knowledge, who
are employed in preaching the absolute negation of the knower and
knowables in this world, by the light of reasoning and Sástras.
28. Also the knowledge, that there was nothing produced in the
beginning, and that nothing which is visible, as this world or one’s
self, is true at any time, is called to be practical knowledge by some.
29. The strong tendency of the soul towards the spirit of God, which
results from a knowledge of the nihility of visibles, and subsidence of
the passions, is said to be the effect of the practice of Yoga.
30. But mere knowledge of the inexistence of the world, without
subduing the passions, is known as knowledge without practice, and is
of no good to its possessor.
31. Consciousness of the inexistence of the visible world, constitutes
the true knowledge of the knowable. This habitude of the mind is called
the practice of Yoga, and leads one to his final extinction—_nirvána_.
32. The mind thus prepared by practice of Yoga, awakens the
intelligence which lay dormant in the dark night of this world, and
which now sheds its cooling showers of reason, like dew drops in the
frosty night of autumn.
33. As the sage was sermonizing in this manner, the day departed as
to its evening service, and led the assembled train to their evening
ablutions. They met again with their mutual greetings at the rising
beams of the sun after the darkness of night was dispelled.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE AERIAL JOURNEY OF SPIRITUAL BODIES.
Vasishtha said:—
After this conference between the goddess and that excellent lady on
that night, they found the inmates of the family fast asleep in the
inner apartment.
2. They entered the charnel-house which was closely shut on all sides
by latches fastened to the doors and windows, and which was perfumed
with the fragrance of heaps of flowers.
3. They sat beside the corpse decorated with fresh flowers and
garments, with their faces shining like the fair full-moon; and
brightening the place.
4. They then went to the cemetery and stood motionless on the spot,
as if they were sculptures engraven on marble columns, or as pictures
drawn upon the wall.
5. They shook off all their thoughts and cares, and became as
contracted as the faded blossoms of the lotus at the decline of the
day, when their fragrance has fled from them.
6. They remained still, calm and quiet and without any motion of their
limbs, like a sheet of clouds hanging on the mountain top in the calm
of autumn.
7. They continued in fixed attention without any external sensation,
like some lonely creepers shrivelled for want of the moisture of the
season.
8. They were fully impressed with the disbelief of their own existence,
and that of all other things in the world, and were altogether absorbed
in the thought of an absolute privation of every thing at large.
9. They lost the remembrance of the phantom of the phenomenal world,
which is as unreal as the horn of a hare.
10. What was a _non ens_ at first, is even so a not-being at present,
and what appears as existent, is as inexistent as the water in a
mirage.
11. The two ladies then became as quiet as inert nature herself, and as
still as firmament before the luminous bodies rolled about in its ample
sphere.
12. They then began to move with their own bodies, the goddess of
wisdom in her form of intelligence, and the queen in her intellectual
and meditative mood.
13. With their new bodies they rose as high as one span above the
ground, then taking the forms of the empty intellect, they began to
mount in the sky.
14. The two ladies then with their playful open eyes, ascended to the
higher region of the sky, by their nature of intellectual knowledge.
15. Then they flew higher and higher by force of their intellect, and
arrived at a region stretching millions of leagues in length.
16. Here the pair in their etherial forms, looked about according to
their nature in search of some visible objects; but finding no other
figure except their own, they became much more attached to each other
by their mutual affection.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE AERIAL JOURNEY.
Vasishtha continued:—
Thus ascending higher and higher and reaching by degrees the highest
station, they went on viewing the heavens, with their hands clasped in
each other’s.
2. They saw a vast expanse as that of the wide extended universal
ocean, deep and translucent within; but soft with etherial mildness,
and a cooling breeze infusing heavenly delight.
3. All delightsome and pleasant was the vast Ocean of vacuity, into
which they dived, and which afforded them a delight far greater in its
purity, than what is derived from the company of the virtuous.
4. They wandered about all sides of heaven, under the beams of the full
moon shining above them; and now halted under the clear vault of the
clouds, covering the mountain tops of _Meru_, as if under the dome of a
huge white washed edifice.
5. And now they roved by the regions of Siddhas and Gandharvas,
breathing the charming fragrance of _Mandára_ chaplets; and now passing
the lunar sphere, they inhaled the sweet scent exhaled by the breeze
from that nectarious orb (_Sudhákara_).
6. Now tired and perspiring profusely, they bathed in the lakes of
showering clouds, fraught with the blushing lotuses of lurid lightnings
flashing within them.
7. They promenaded at random of their free will on all sides, and now
alighted like fluttering bees on the tops of high mountains, appearing
as filaments of the lotus-like earth below.
8. They roved also under the vaults of some fragments of clouds, which
were scattered by the winds, and raining like the cascade of Ganges,
thinking them as shower-bath-houses in the air.
9. Then failing in their strength, they halted in many places, with
their slow and slackened steps, and beheld the vacuum full of great and
wondrous works.
SECTION II.
DESCRIPTION OF THE HEAVEN.
10. They saw what they had never seen before, the tremendous depth of
vacuity, which was not filled up by the myriads of worlds which kept
revolving in it.
11. Over and over and higher and higher, they saw the celestial spheres
filled with luminous orbs adorned with their ornamental stars, roving
one above and around the other.
12. Huge mountainous bodies as the _Meru_ moved about in the vacuous
space, and emitted a rubicund glare, like a flame of fire from within
their bowels on all sides.
13. There were beautiful table-lands, like those of the Himálayas, with
their pearly peaks of snow; and also mountains of gold, spreading an
aureate hue over the land.
14. They saw in some place mountains of emerald, tinging the landscape
with verdant green, as it were a bed of grass; and in others some dark
cloud, dimming the sight of the spectator, and hiding the spectacle in
dark blackness.
15. They beheld also tracts of blue sapphire, with creepers of párijáta
flowers, blooming with their blossoms as banners in the azure skies.
16. They saw the flights of Siddhas (or departed holy spirits), the
flight of whose minds outstripped the swiftness of the winds; and heard
the vocal music of the songs of heavenly nymphs in their aerial abodes.
17. All the great bodies in the universe (the planetary system), were
in continual motion; and the spirits of the gods and demigods, were
moving about unseen by one another.
18. Groups of spiritual beings, as the Kushmándas, Rákshasas and
Pisáchas, were seated in aerial circles at the borders; and the winds
and gales blowing with full force in their etherial course.
19. Loud roarings of clouds, as those of the crackling wheels of
heavenly cars, were heard in some places; and the noise of rapid stars,
resembled the blowing of pneumatic engines.
20. There the half burnt Siddhas, were flying from their burning cars
under the solar rays, by reason of their nearness to the Sun; and the
solar embers were flung afar by the breath of the nostrils of his
horses. (It means the falling of the burning meteors and meteorolites
from the sky).
21. In some places they beheld the rulers of men, and trains of
Apsaras, hurrying up and down the air; and in others, the goddesses
roving amidst the smoky and fiery clouds in the firmament.
22. Here they saw some sparks of light, falling like the jewels of
celestial nymphs, in their hurried flight to their respective spheres;
and there they beheld the lightsome spirits of lesser Siddhas dwindling
into darkness.
23. Flakes of mists were falling off from the clouds, as if by friction
of the bodies of turbulent spirits, rushing up and down the skies; and
shrouding the sides of mountains as with sheets of cloth.
24. Fragments of clouds, beset by groups in the shapes of crows, owls
and vultures, were flying about in the air; and there were seen some
monsters also, as Dákinis heaving their heads in the forms of huge
surges, in the cloudy ocean of the sky.
25. There were bodies of Yoginís too, with their faces resembling those
of dogs, ravens, asses and camels, who were traversing the wide expanse
of the heavens to no purpose.
26. There were Siddhas and Gandharvas, sporting in pairs in the coverts
of dark, smoky and ash coloured clouds, spread before the regents of
the four quarters of the skies.
27. They beheld the path of the planets (the zodiac), which resounded
loudly with the heavenly music of the spheres; and that path also (of
the lunar mansions), which incessantly marked the course of the two
fortnights.
28. They saw the sons of gods moving about in the air, and viewing with
wonder the heavenly stream of Ganges (the milky way), which was studded
with stars, and rolling with the rapidity of winds.
29. They saw the gods wielding their thunderbolts, discuses, tridents,
swords and missiles; and heard Nárada and Tumburu singing in their
aerial abodes on high.
30. They beheld the region of the clouds, where there were huge bodies
of them mute as paintings, and pouring forth floods of rain as in the
great deluge.
31. In some place they saw a dark cloud, as high as the mountain-king
Himálaya, slowly moving in the air; and at others some of a golden hue
as at the setting sun.
32. In some place there were flimsy sheets of clouds, as are said to
hover on the peaks of the Rishya range; and at another a cloud like the
calm blue bed of the Sea, without any water in them.
33. There were tufts of grass seen in some places, as if blown up by
the winds and floating in the stream of air; and swarms of butterflies
at others with their glossy coats and wings.
34. In some place, there was a cloud of dust raised by the wind, and
appearing as a lake on the top of a mountain.
35. The Mátris were seen, to be dancing naked in their giddy circles in
some place, and the great Yoginís sat at others, as if ever and anon
giddy with intoxication.
36. There were circles of holy men, sitting in their calm meditation in
one place; and pious saints at others, who had cast away their worldly
cares at a distance.
37. There was a conclave of celestial choristers, composed of heavenly
nymphs, Kinnaras and Gandharvas in one place; and some quiet towns and
cities situated at others.
38. There were the cities of Brahmá and Rudra full with their people,
and the city of illusion (Máyá) with its increasing population.
39. There were crystal lakes in some places and stagnant pools at
others; and lakes with the Siddhas seated by them, and those embosomed
by the rising moon.
40. They saw the sun rising in one part, and the darkness of night
veiling the others; the evening casting its shadow on one, and the
dusky mists of dusk obscuring the other.
41. There were the hoary clouds of winter in some places, and those of
the rains in others; somewhere they appeared as tracts of land and at
another as a sheet of water.
42. Bodies of gods and demigods, were roving from one side to the
other; some from east to west, and others from north to the south.
43. There were mountains heaving their heads to thousands of miles
in their height; and there were valleys and caves covered in eternal
darkness.
44. There was a vast inextinguishable fire, like that of the blazing
sun in one place; and a thickly frost covering the moon-light in
another. (The burning heat of the tropics and the cold of the frigid
zone).
45. Somewhere there was a great city, flourishing with groves and
arbours; and at another big temples of gods, levelled to the ground by
the might of demons.
46. In some place there was a streak of light, described by a falling
meteor in the sky; in another the blaze of a comet with its thousand
fiery tails in the air.
47. In one place there was a lucky planet, rising with its full orb to
the view; in another there spread the gloom of night, and full sunshine
in another.
48. Here the clouds were roaring, and there they were dumb and mute;
here were the high blasts driving the clouds in air, and there the
gentle breeze dropping the clusters of flowers on the ground.
49. Sometimes the firmament was clear and fair, and without an
intercepting cloud in it, and as transparent as the soul of a wise man,
delighted with the knowledge of truth.
50. The vacuous region of the celestial gods, was so full with the dewy
beams (_himánsu_) of the silvery orb of the moon (_sweta-váha_), that
it appeared as a shower of rain, and raised the loud croaking of the
frogs below.
51. There appeared flocks of peacocks and goldfinches, to be fluttering
about in some place, and vehicles of the goddesses and Vidyádharis
thronging at another.
52. Numbers of Kártikeya’s peacocks were seen dancing amidst the
clouds, and a flight of greenish parrots was seen in the sky appearing
as a verdant plain.
53. Dwarfish clouds were moving like the stout buffaloes of Yama; and
others in the form of horses, were grazing on the grassy meadows of
clouds.
54. Cities of the gods and demons, appeared with their towers on high;
and distinct towns and hills, were seen at distances, as if detached
from one another by the driving winds.
55. In some place, gigantic Bhairavas were dancing with their
mountainous bodies; and great _garudas_ were flying at another, as
winged mountains in the air.
56. Huge mountains also, were tossed about by the blowing of winds;
and the castles of the Gandharvas, were rising and falling with the
celestial nymphs in them.
57. There were some clouds rising on high, and appearing as rolling
mountains in the sky, crushing down the forests below; and the sky
appeared in some place, as a clear lake abounding in lotuses.
58. The moon-beams shone brightly in one spot, and sweet cooling
breezes blew softly in another. Hot sultry winds were blowing in some
place, and singeing the forest on the mountainous clouds.
59. There was a dead silence in one spot, caused by perfect calmness of
the breeze; while another spot presented a scene of a hundred peaks,
rising on a mountainlike cloud.
60. In one place the raining clouds, were roaring loudly in their fury;
and in another a furious battle was waging between the gods and demons
in the clouds.
61. In some place the geese were seen gabbling in the lotus lake of the
sky, and inviting the ganders by their loud cackling cries.
62. Forms of fishes, crocodiles and alligators, were seen flying in the
air, as if they were transformed to aerial beings, by the holy waters
of their natal Ganges.
63. They saw somewhere the eclipse of the moon, by the dark shadow
of the earth, as the sun went down the horizon; and so they saw the
eclipse of the sun by the shadow of the moon falling on his disk.
64. They saw a magical flower garden, exhaling its fragrance in the
air; and strewing the floor of heaven, with profusion of flowers,
scattered by showers of morning dews.
65. They beheld all the beings contained in the three worlds, to be
flying in the air, like a swarm of gnats in the hollow of a fig tree;
and then the two excellent ladies stopped in their aerial journey,
intent upon revisiting the earth.
NOTE. Most part of the above description of the heavens, consists
of the various appearances of the clouds, and bears resemblance
to Shelly’s poetical description of them. All this is expressed
by one word in the Cloud-Messenger of Kálidása, where the cloud
is said to be “_Káma rúpa_” or assuming any form at pleasure.
CHAPTER XXV.
DESCRIPTION OF THE EARTH.
These ladies then alighted from the sky in their forms of intelligence,
and passing over the mountainous regions, saw the habitations of men on
the surface of the earth.
2. They saw the world situated as a lotus, in the heart of the first
male Nara (Brahmá); the eight sides forming the petals of the flower,
the hills being its pistils, and the pericarp containing its sweet
flavour.
3. The rivers are the tubes of its filaments, which are covered with
drops of snow resembling their dust. The days and nights rolling over
it, like swarms of black-bees and butterflies, and all its living
beings appearing as gnats fluttering about it.
4. Its long stalks which are as white as the bright day light, are
composed of fibres serving for food, and of tubes conducting the drink
to living beings.
5. It is wet with moisture, which is sucked by the sun, resembling
the swan swimming about in the air. It folds itself in sleep in the
darkness of night in absence of the sun.
6. The earth like a lotus is situated on the surface of the waters of
the ocean, which make it shake at times, and cause the earthquake by
their motion. It is supported upon the serpent Vásuki serving for its
understalk, and is girt about by demons as its thorns and prickles.[15]
7. The mount Meru (and others) are its large seeds, and the great
hives of human population; where the fair daughters of the giant race,
propagated (the race of men), by their sweet embrace (with the sons of
God).[16]
8. It has the extensive continent of Jambudwípa situated in one petal,
the petioles forming its divisions, and the tubular filaments its
rivers.
9. The seven elevated mountains, forming the boundary lines of this
continent, are its seeds; and the great mount of Sumeru reaching to the
sky, is situated in the midst. (_i.e._ The topmost north pole).
10. Its lakes are as dewdrops on the lotus-leaf, and its forests are
as the farina of the flower; and the people inhabiting the land all
around, are as a swarm of bees about it.
11. Its extent is a thousand yojanas square, and is surrounded on all
sides by the dark sea like a belt of black bees.
12. It contains nine _varshas_ or divisions, which are ruled by nine
brother kings, resembling the regents of its eight petalled sides, with
the Bhárata-varsha in the midst.
13. It stretches a million of miles with more of land than water in it.
Its habitable parts are as thickly situated as the frozen ice in winter.
14. The briny ocean which is twice as large as the continent, girds it
on the outside, as a bracelet encircles the wrist.
15. Beyond it lies the Sáka continent of a circular form, and twice as
large as the former one, which is also encircled by the sea.
16. This is called the milky ocean for the sweetness of its water, and
is double the size of the former sea of salt.
17. Beyond that and double its size is the Kusadwípa continent,
which is full of population. It is also of the size of a circle, and
surrounded by another sea.
18. Around it lies the belt of the sea of curds, delectable to the
gods, and double the size of the continent which is encircled by it.
19. After that lies the circle of the Krauncha dwípa, which is also
twice the size of the former one, and surrounded by a sea in the manner
of a city by a canal.
20. This sea is called the sea of butter, and is twice as large as the
continent which is girt by it. Beyond it lies the Sálmali dwípa, girt
by the foul sea of wine.
21. The fair belt of this sea resembles a wreath of white flowers, like
the girdle of the _Sesha_ serpent, forming the necklace hanging on the
breast of Hari.
22. Thereafter is stretched the Plaxa dwípa, double the size of the
former, and encircled by the belt of the sea of sugar, appearing as the
snowy plains of Himálaya.
23. After that lies the belt of the Pushkara dwípa, twice as large as
the preceding one, and encircled by a sea of sweet water double its
circumference.
24. Hence they saw at the distance of ten degrees, the descent to the
infernal regions; where there lay the belt of the south polar circle,
with its hideous cave below.
25. The way to the infernal cave is full of danger and fear, and ten
times in length from the circle of the _dwípas_ (continents).
26. This cave is encompassed on all sides by the dreadful vacuum, and
is half covered below by a thick gloom, appearing as a blue lotus
attached to it.
27. There stood the Lokáloka Kumeru or South Polar mountain, which
is bright with sun-shine on one side, and covered by darkness on the
other, and is studded with various gems on its tops, and decked with
flowers growing upon it.
28. It reflected the glory of the three worlds (in the everlasting
snows), which are clapped as a cap of hairs on its top.
29. At a great distance from it, is a great forest, untrodden by the
feet of any living being; and then proceeding upward, they saw the
great northern ocean encompassing the pole on all sides.
30. Further on they beheld the flaming light of the aurora borealis,
which threatened to melt the snowy mountain to water.
31. Proceeding onward, they met with the fierce Boreas or north winds,
blowing with all their fury and force.
32. They threatened to blow away and uproot the mountains, as if they
were dust or grass; and traversed the empty vacuum with their noiseless
motion.
33. Afar from these they saw the empty space of vacuum, stretching wide
all about them.
34. It spreads around to an unlimited extent, and encompasses the
worlds as a golden circlet encircles the wrist (_i.e._ the belt of the
zodiac).
35. Thus Lílá, having seen the seas and mountains, the regents of the
worlds, the city of the gods, the sky above and the earth below in the
unlimited concavity of the universe, returned on a sudden to her own
land, and found herself in her closet again.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MEETING THE SIDDHAS
Vasishtha said:—After the excellent ladies had returned from their
visit of the mundane sphere, they entered the abode where the Bráhman
had lived before.
2. There the holy ladies saw in that dwelling, and unseen by any body,
the tomb or tope of the Bráhman.
3. Here the maid servants were dejected with sorrow, and the faces of
the women were soiled with tears. Their countenances had faded away,
like lotuses with their withered leaves.
4. All joy had fled from the house, and left it as the dry bed of the
dead sea, after its waters were sucked by the scorching sun (Agastya).
It was as a garden parched in summer, or a tree struck by lightening.
5. It was as joyless as the dried lotus, torn by a blast or withering
under the frost; and as faint as the light of a lamp, without its wick
or oil; and as dim as the eyeball without its light.
6. The house without its master, was as doleful as the countenance of a
dying person, or as a forest with its falling and withered leaves, and
as the dry and dusty ground for want of rain.
7. Vasishtha continued:—Then the lady with her gracefulness of divine
knowledge, and the elegance of her perfections, and her devotedness
to and desire of truth, thought within herself, that the inmates of
the house might behold her and the goddess, in their ordinary forms of
human beings.
9. The dwellers of the house then beheld the two ladies as Laxmí and
Gaurí together, and brightening the house with the effulgence of their
persons.
10. They were adorned from head to foot, with wreaths of unfading
flowers of various kinds; and they seemed like Flora—the genius of
spring, perfuming the house with the fragrance of a flower garden.
11. They appeared to rise as a pair of moons, with their cooling and
pleasant beams; infusing a freshness to the family, as the moonlight
does to the medicinal plants in forests and villages.
12. The soft glances of their eyes, under the long, loose and pendant
curls of hair on their foreheads, shed as it were a shower of white
_málati_ flowers, from the dark cloudy spots of their nigrescent eyes.
13. Their bodies were as bright as melted gold, and as tremulous as the
flowing stream. The current of their effulgence, cast a golden hue on
the spot where they stood, as also over the forest all around.
14. The natural beauty of Laxmí’s body, and the tremulous glare of
Lílá’s person, spread as it were, a sea of radiance about them, in
which their persons seemed to move as undulating waves.
15. Their relaxed arms resembling loose creepers, with the ruddy
leaflets of their palms, shook as fresh Kalpa creepers in the forest.
16. They touched the ground again with their feet, resembling the fresh
and tender petals of a flower, or like lotuses growing upon the ground.
17. Their appearance seemed to sprinkle ambrosial dews all around, and
made the dry withered and brown boughs of _tamála_ trees, to vegetate
anew in tender sprouts and leaflets.
18. On seeing them, the whole family with Jyeshtha Sarmá (the eldest
boy of the deceased Bráhman), cried aloud and said, “Obeisance to the
sylvan goddesses,” and threw handfuls of flowers on their feet.
19. The offerings of flowers which fell on their feet, resembled the
showers of dew-drops, falling on lotus leaves in a lake of lotuses.
20. Jyeshtha Sarmá said:—Be victorious, ye goddesses! that have come
here to dispel our sorrow; as it is inborn in the nature of good
people, to deliver others from their distress.
21. After he had ended, the goddesses addressed him gently and said,
tell us the cause of your sorrow, which has made you all so sad.
22. Then Jyeshtha Sarmá and others related to them one by one their
griefs, owing to the demise of the Bráhman pair.
23. They said:—Know O goddess pair! there lived here a Bráhman and
his wife, who had been the resort of guests and a support of the
Bráhminical order.
24. They were our parents, and have lately quitted this abode; and
having abandoned us with all their friends and domestic animals here,
have departed to heaven, and left us quite helpless in this world.
25. The birds there sitting on the top of the house, have been
continually pouring in the air, their pious and mournful ditties over
the dead bodies of the deceased.
26. There the mountains on all sides, have been lamenting their loss,
in the hoarse noise (of the winds) howling in their caverns, and
shedding showers of their tears in the course of the streams issuing
from their sides.
27. The clouds have poured their tears in floods of rainwater, and fled
from the skies; while the quarters of the heavens have been sending
their sighs in sultry winds all around.
28. The poor village people are wailing in piteous notes, with their
bodies mangled by rolling upon the ground, and trying to yield up their
lives with continued fasting.
29. The trees are shedding their tears every day in drops of melting
snow, exuding from the cells of their leaves and flowers, resembling
the sockets of their eyes.
30. The streets are deserted for want of passers-bye, and have become
dusty without being watered. They have become as empty as the hearts of
men forsaken by their joys of life.
31. The fading plants are wailing in the plaintive notes of Cuckoos
and the humming of bees; and are withering in their leafy limbs by the
sultry sighs of their inward grief.
32. The snows are melt down by the heat of their grief and falling in
the form of cataracts, which break themselves to a hundred channels by
their fall upon stony basins.
33. Our prosperity has fled from us, and we sit here in dumb despair of
hope. Our houses have become dark and gloomy as a desert.
34. Here the humble bees, are humming in grief upon the scattered
flowers in our garden, which now sends forth a putrid smell instead of
their former fragrance.
35. And there the creepers that twined so gayly round the vernal
arbors, are dwindling and dying away with their closing and fading
flowers.
36. The rivulets with their loose and low purling murmur, and light
undulation of their liquid bodies in the ground, are running hurriedly
in their sorrow, to cast themselves into the sea.
37. The ponds are as still in their sorrow, as men sitting in their
meditative posture (_Samádhi_), notwithstanding the disturbance of the
gnats flying incessantly upon them.
38. Verily is that part of the heaven adorned this day by the presence
of our parents, where the bodies of heavenly choristers, the Kinnaras,
Gandharvas and Vidyádharas, welcome them with their music.
39. Therefore, O Devis! assuage this our excessive grief; as the visit
of the great never goes for nothing.
40. Hearing these words, Lílá gently touched the head of her son with
her hand, as the lotus-bed leans to touch its offshoot by the stalk.
41. At her touch the boy was relieved of all his sorrow and misfortune,
just as the summer heat of the mountain, is allayed by the showers of
the rainy season.
42. All others in the house, were as highly gratified at the sight of
the goddesses, as when a pauper is relieved of his poverty, and the
sick are healed by a draught of nectar.
43. Ráma said:—Remove my doubt, sir, why Lílá did not appear in her
own figure before her eldest son—Jyeshta Sarmá.
44. Vasishtha answered:—You forget, O Ráma! to think that Lílá had a
material body, or could assume any at pleasure. She was in her form of
pure intellect (lingadeha), and it was with her spiritual hand that she
touched the inner spirit of the boy and not his body. (Gloss). Because
whoso believes himself to be composed of his earthly body only, is
verily confined in that; but he who knows his spirituality, is as free
as air: (and it was in this aerial form that Lílá was ranging about and
touched her son).
45. Belief in materialism leads one to think his unreal earthly frame
as real, as a boy’s belief in ghosts makes him take a shadow for a
spirit.
46. But this belief in one’s materiality, is soon over upon conviction
of his spirituality; as the traces of our visions in a dream, are
effaced on the knowledge of their unreality upon waking.
47. The belief of matter as (vacuous) nothing, leads to the knowledge
of the spirit. And as a glass door appears as an open space to one of a
bilious temperament, so does matter appear as nothing to the wise.
48. A dream presents us the sights of cities and lands, of air and
water, where there are no such things in actuality; and it causes the
movements of our limbs and bodies (as in somnambulation) for nothing.
49. As the air appears as earth in dreaming, so does the non-existent
world appear to be existent in waking. It is thus that men see and talk
of things unseen and unknown in their fits of delirium.
50. So boys see ghosts in the air, and the dying man views a forest in
it; others see elephants in clouds, and some see pearls in sun-beams.
51. And thus those that are panic-struck and deranged in their minds,
the halfwaking and passengers in vessels, see many appearances like the
aforesaid ghosts and forests, as seen by boys and men in the air, and
betray these signs in the motions and movements of their bodies.
52. In this manner every one is of the form of whatever he thinks
himself to be; and it is habit only that makes him to believe himself
as such, though he is not so in reality.
53. But Lílá who had known the truth and inexistence of the world, was
conscious of its nothingness, and viewed all things to be but erroneous
conceptions of the mind.
54. Thus he who sees Brahma only to fill the sphere of his intellect,
has no room for a son or friend or consort to abide in it.
55. He who views the whole as full with the spirit of Brahma, and
nothing produced in it, has no room for his affection or hatred to any
body in it.
56. The hand that Lílá laid on the head of Jyeshtha Sarmá—her eldest
son, was not lain from her maternal affection for him, but for his
edification in intellectual knowledge.
57. Because the intellect being awakened, there is all felicity
attendant upon it. It is more subtile than ether and far purer than
vacuum, and leads the intellectual being above the region of air. All
things beside are as images in a dream.
CHAPTER XXVII.
PAST LIVES OF LÍLÁ.
The two ladies then disappeared from that place, leaving the Bráhman
family at their house in the mountainous village.
2. The family exclaimed “We are highly favoured by the sylvan
goddesses;” and then forgetting their grief, they betook themselves to
their domestic employments.
3. Then the etherial goddess spake to the aerial-Lílá, who stood
fixed in air, over the mansion of the Bráhman, in a state of mute
astonishment.
4. They then conversed as familiarly with each other, as persons having
the same thoughts and desires, agree with one another in their views
and acts; and as the dreamers of the same dream hold their mutual
correspondence, like _Usha and Aniruddha_ (the Cupid and Psyche of
India).
5. Their conversation in their immaterial forms, was of the same
intellectual (psychical) kind, as we are conscious of in our dreams and
imaginations.
6. Sarasvatí said:—Now you have fully known the knowable, and become
acquainted with whatever is visible and invisible: such is the essence
of Brahma; say now what more you want to know.
7. Lílá said:—Tell me the reason why I was seen by my son, and not
where the spirit of my departed lord is reigning over his realm.
8. Sarasvatí replied:—Because you were not then perfect by your
practice of Yoga to have your wish fulfilled, nor had you then lost
your sense of duality, which is a preventive of perfection.
9. He who has not known the unity, is not entitled to the acts and
benefits of his faith in the true God; as no one sitting in the sun,
can enjoy the coolness of shade.
10. You were not practiced to forget your identity as Lílá, nor learnt
that it is not your will, but the will of God that is always fulfilled.
11. You have afterwards become of pure desire, and wished that your son
might see you, whereby he was enabled to have your sight.
12. Now if you should return to your husband, and do the like, you will
undoubtedly be successful in your desire.
13. Lílá said:—I see within the sphere of this dome (of my mind), the
Bráhman to have been my husband before; and I see also in it, that he
died and became a ruler of the earth afterwards.
14. I see in it that spot of the earth, that city and that palace of
his where I sat as his queen.
15. I see within myself my lord to be reigning in that place, and I see
even there how he died afterwards.
16. I see herein the glory of the sovereign of so many countries on
earth, and I see also the perfect frankness of his conduct through life.
17. I see the worlds in the inner sky of my mind, as they are placed in
a casket, or as the oil is contained in a mustard seed.
18. I see the bright orb of my husband ever roving before me, and now I
pray you to contrive any how to place me by his side.
19. The Goddess replied:—Tell me Lílá, to what husband you shall go,
as there are hundreds of them that you had, and shall have in your past
and future lives, and now there are three of them confined in this
earth.
20. The nearest of the three, is the Bráhman who is here reduced to
ashes; the next is the prince lying in state and covered with flowers
in the inner apartment.
21. The third is now a reigning prince in this earth, and has been
buffeting in the waves of error in the vast ocean of the world.
22. His intellect is darkened and disordered by the splashing waves
of worldliness, his intelligence is perverted to stupidity, and he is
converted to a tortoise in the ocean of the world.
23. The management of his very many disordered state affairs, has
stultified him to a lubbard, and he is now fast asleep amidst the
turmoils of business.
24. He is fast bound to subjection by the strong chain of his thoughts,
that he is a lord, is mighty, accomplished, and that he is happy and is
to enjoy his estates for ever.
25. Now say, O excellent lady! to what husband you wish to be led,
in the manner of the fragrance of one forest borne by the breeze to
another.
26. Here you are in one place, and there they in others amidst this
vast world; and the state of their lives and manners differs widely
from one another.
27. These orbs of light in the heaven, though they appear to be placed
so near us (both to our eyesight and in the mind), are yet situated
millions of leagues apart from one another; and the departed souls are
carried in them (in their endless transmigrations).
28. And again all these bodies are as vacuous as air, though they
contain the great mounts Meru and Mandara in themselves.
29. All bodies are formed by the combination of atoms, incessantly
proceeding from the Great Intellect, like particles of sun-beams over
the universe.
30. The great and stupendous fabric of the world, is no more (in the
eye of intelligence), than a quantity of paddy weighed in the balance.
31. As the spangled heavens appear like a forest full of brilliant
gems in it, so the world appears as full of the glory of God to the
contemplative mind, and not as composed of earth or other material
bodies in it.
32. It is intelligence alone, that shines in the form of world in the
intelligent soul, and not any material body, which was never brought
into being before.
33. As billows in the lake, rise and set and rise again, so the rising
and falling days and nights present these various scenes to our
knowledge.
34. Lílá said:—So it is, O mother of mankind! and so I come to
remember now, that my present birth (state) is of a royal (_rájasika_)
kind, and neither of too pure nor gross a nature. (_Sattvika or
Támasika_).
35. I having descended from Brahmá, had undergone a hundred and eight
births (in different shapes); and after passing various states, I find
myself still in existence.
36. I recollect, O goddess! to have been born in another world before,
and to have been the bride of a Vidyádhara, when I used to rove about
as freely as a bee over flowers.
37. Being debased by my libertinism, I was born in this mortal world,
and became the mate of the king of the feathered tribe (an eagle).
38. And then having been a resident in the woods, I was turned to a
woodman’s mate, wearing a vest of leaves on my loins.
39. Growing fond of my life, I sported wantonly about the forest, and
was changed to the _guluncha_ plant, delighting the woods with my leafy
palms and flowering eyes.
40. This arboret of the holy hermitage, was held sacred by the society
of saintly sages; and then I was regenerated in the form of an
anchorite’s child, after the woods were burnt down by a wild-fire.
41. Here I was initiated in the formularies for removing the curse of
womanhood, and became as a male being in the person of the handsome
prince of Suráshtra (Surat), where I reigned for a hundred years (or
for a whole century).
42. I was then denounced to become a weasel, and covered with leprosy,
in the lowlands of Táli, on account of my misconduct in the government.
43. I remember, O goddess! how I became a bullock at Surat, and was
goaded by thoughtless cowherd boys, in their merry sport for full eight
years.
44. I bear in mind when I was transformed to a bird, and with what
difficulty I broke the net, that was laid by birdcatchers for my
destruction. It was in the same manner as we release ourselves from the
snares of sinful desires.
45. I remember with pleasure when as a bee, I lighted lightly on the
leaflets of blossoms, sipped the honey of the blooming buds, dined on
the pistils, and slept in the cups of lotus flowers.
46. I wandered about in pleasant wood-lands and lawns, with my exalted
and branching horns and beautiful eyes, in the form of an antelope,
till I was killed by the dart of a huntsman in my mortal part.
47. I have been in the form of a fish, and was lifted up by the waves
of the sea above the surface of the water. I saw how a tortoise was
killed by the blow of a club on the neck, when it failed to break its
back-bone.
48. I was a Chandála huntsman once, roving by the side of Charmanvatí
(the river Chenab), when I used to quench my thirst with cocoa water,
as I was tired with roaming.
49. I became a stork also, delighting in lakes with my mate, and
filling the air with our sweet cries.
50. In another birth, I rambled about in groves of palm and tamála
trees, and fixed my eyes with amorous looks and glances upon my lover.
51. I had next been a fairy Apsará, with a form as bright as melted
gold, and features as beautiful as those of the lotus and lily, in
which the celestials like bees and butterflies, used to take delight.
52. I remember to have decked myself in gold and pearls, and in gems
and rubies upon earth, and to have sported with my youthful consorts in
pleasure gardens and groves, and on hills and mountains.
53. And I remember also to have lived long as a tortoise on the borders
of a river, and to have been carried away by the waves, sometimes under
an arbour of creepers, over-hung with clusters of beautiful flowers;
and at others to some wild cave washed by the waves.
54. I see how I acted the part of a goose with my covering of feathers,
swimming on the high heaving waves on the surface of a lake.
55. Then seeing a poor gnat hanging on the moving leaf of a Sálmali
branch, I became its associate and as contemptible a thing like itself.
56. I became an aquatic crane also, skimming playfully over the waters
gushing from the hills, and slightly kissing the crests of the waves
rising over the rapid torrent.
57. I remember also how I slighted the loves of amorous youths, and
spurned off from me the Vidyádhara boys on the Gandha Mádana and
Mandara hills.
58. I remember likewise the pangs of a lovelorn lass, when I lay pining
in my bed, strewn over with the fragrance of camphor, and how I was
decaying like the disk of the waning moon.
59. Thus I passed through many births, in the wombs of higher and
lower animals, and found them all to be full of pain. And my soul
has run over the billows of the irresistible current of life, like
the fleet antelope, pacing its speed with the swiftness of the wind
(_Vátapramí_).
CHAPTER XXVIII.
SECTION I.
EXPOSITION OF LÍLÁ’S VISION.
Ráma said:—Tell me sir, in what manner the goddesses broke out of the
strongholds of their bodies, and the prison-house of this world (where
their souls were pent up), and passed through infinite space, to survey
the scenes beyond its confines. (_i.e._ How does the mind and the
flight of imagination, reach to regions unknown and unseen before).
2. Vasishtha replied:—Where is the world and where is its support or
solidity? They were all situated in the region within the minds of the
goddesses.
3. They saw in it the hilly tract, where the Bráhmana Vasishtha had his
abode and his desire of royalty (pictured it in their minds).
4. They saw in a corner of it the deserted mansion of the Bráhman, and
they saw in it the surface of the earth stretching to the seas (_i.e._
in their mental view).
5. They beheld in that imaginary spot of earth the city of the prince,
and the royal palace which he had enjoyed with Arundhati his consort
(in his imagination).
6. How she was born under the name of Lílá, and worshipped the goddess
of wisdom—Sarasvatí; by whom she was miraculously conveyed to the
delightful region of the sky.
7. It was in the mansion situated in that hilly village, that she
beheld the world placed within the space of a span of her mind.
8. Having come out of her vision of the world, she found herself seated
in her house, as one finds himself lying in his own bed, after his
rambling from one dream to another.
9. All that she saw was mere vision and void; there was no world nor
earth, nor a house nor the distance thereof.
10. It was the mind which showed them these images, as it presents the
objects of our desire to our view; or else there was neither any world
nor earth in actuality.
11. The sphere of intelligence is infinite, and without any covering;
and being agitated by the powers of one’s intellect, it presents all
the objects of nature to his view, as the sky when agitated by heat
produces the winds.
12. The sphere of the intellect is uncreated (being a mode of the
Divinity itself); it is ever calm everywhere; and is supposed as the
world itself by deluded minds.
13. He who understands rightly, views the world to be as unsubstantial
as air; but whoso is misled by his wrong judgment takes it to be as a
solid mountain.
14. As a house and a city are manifested to us in our dream, so is this
unreal world presented as a reality to our understandings.
15. As is the misconception of water in the mirage, and the mistake
of gold in a bracelet; so does all this unreality appear as a
substantiality to the mistaken mind.
16. Discoursing in this manner between themselves, the two charming
ladies, walked out of the house with their graceful steps.
SECTION II.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MOUNTAINOUS HABITATION.
17. Being unseen by the village people, they viewed the mountain which
stood before them, kissing the vault of heaven, and touching the orb of
the sun with its lofty peaks.
18. It was decorated with flowers of various colours, and covered with
a variety of woods of various hues. There were waterfalls gushing with
their tremendous roarings on one side, and groves resounding with the
warbling of birds in another.
19. The clouds were variegated by the many coloured clusters of flowers
sweeping over them, and cranes and storks sat screeching on the
cloud-capt top of _gulancha_ trees.
20. There were the robust reeds, hedging the banks of rivers with their
wide stretching stems and roots, and the strong winds tossing about the
tender creepers, growing out of the rocky caves, for want of support.
21. The tops of trees covered with flowers, were over-topped by the
sheds of clouds hanging from the vault of heaven; which shed profusely
their pearly drops of rain water upon them, and formed the current
streams below.
22. The banks of the streamlets were continually laved by the waves,
raised by the winds playing upon the shaking arbours on them; and a
continued cooling shade was spread by the branching trees all around.
23. Standing on that spot, the ladies beheld the hilly hamlet in the
lawn, likening a fragment of heaven fallen upon the ground.
24. There the purling rills were softly gliding by, and here the
brimming brooks wabbled in the ground. The birds of the air were
chirping on the sprays and aquatic fowls were flying about the holes of
the sea shore.
25. There they saw the herds of kine slowly moving and grazing in
the plains, and filling the echoing woods with their loud lowing;
and beheld the space, interspersed with shady groves and arbours and
verdant meadows all about.
26. The cliffs were whitened with snow, impenetrable by sun-beams; and
the tops of hills were covered with bushy brambles, forming as braids
of hair upon their craggy heads.
27. Cascades falling in torrents in the cavities of rocks, and
scattering their pearly particles afar, memorialized the churning of
the milky ocean by the Mandara mountain.
28. The trees in the glens, loaded as they were with their fruits
and flowers, appeared as waiters upon the goddesses, and standing to
welcome their approach with their rich presents.