THE INCARNATION OF HUMAN SOULS IN THE WORLD.
Argument. Discussion about incarnation of the spirit, and its
extinction by death and liberation.
Ráma asked:—I understand now how the particles of the Divine Spirit,
take the forms of the living souls; but I cannot conceive how it
assumes the corporeal body composed of bones and ribs.
2. Vasishtha replied:—Why don’t you know it Ráma, when I have explained
it to you before? Where have you lost your deductive reasoning of
arriving to the conclusion from those premises.
3. All these corporeal bodies in the world, and all these moving and
unmoving persons and things, are but false representations, rising
before us as the visions in our dreams.
4. The phenomenal world differs only in its being but a longer and more
delusive dream; it is as the sight of the double moon by optical
deception, and of a mountain in the delusion of darkness.
5. The enlightened mind which is cleared of its drowsiness of
ignorance, and is freed from the fetters of its desire, views the world
to be no more than a dream.
6. The world is a creation of the imagination, by the nature of all
living souls, and it remains therefore impressed in the soul, until it
attains its final liberation.
7. The fleeting essence of the soul, is like the eddy of waters; or
like the germ of the seed, or more like the leaflet of a sprout.
8. And as the flower is contained in the branch, and the fruit within
its flowers; so this creation of the imagination, is contained in the
receptacle of the mind.
9. As the ever-changing form of the chameleon, exhibits but a
particular hue at a time; so the ever-varying mind shows only the
figure, which is prominent in its thought for the time being (and this
inward figure is reflected by the visual organs).
10. The same thought assumes a visible form, as the clay takes the form
of a pot; and the good thoughts and actions of the prior state of life,
serve to give the soul a goodly form in its next birth on earth.
11. We see the mighty lotus-born Brahmá situated in the cell of that
flower, and find it to be the effect of the good thoughts he had in his
mind.
12. This unlimited creation is the false fabrication of imagination;
whereupon the living soul in conjunction with the mind, obtained the
state of Virinchí the Brahmá (vir inchoatious or _incipiens_ the
primary man, otherwise called _ádima-purusha_—Adam or the first male).
13. Ráma said:—I require, Sir, to be fully informed, whether all other
beings sprang from the same cause as Brahmá—the lotus-born.
14. Vasishtha answered:—Hear me tell you, O long-armed Ráma, the manner
of Brahmá’s having the body; and from his instance, you will learn
about the existence of the world.
15. The Supreme soul, which is unlimited by time or space, takes of his
own will, and by the power of his Omnipotence, the limited forms of
time and space upon himself.
16. The same becomes the living soul, and is fraught with various
desires in itself, of becoming many:—_aham bahu syáma_.
17. When this limited power which is Brahmá, thinks on the state of his
having been the Hiranyagarbha, in his former state of existence in the
prior Kalpa; he is immediately transformed to that state which is in
his mind, and which is ever busy with its thoughts and imaginations.
18. It thinks first of the clear sky, the receptacle of sound, and
which is perceptible by the auditory organs; and this thought being
condensed in the mind, makes it vibrate as by the wind of the air.
19. It thinks then on the vibrations of air, which are the objects of
feeling, through the porous skin and the mind; and is moved by the
thoughts of air and wind to assume that form, which are invisible to the
naked eye.
20. The condensation of the elements of air and wind together, produced
the idea of light which is the cause of sight, and which has the
colours and figures for its objects; and thus the mind being actuated
by its triple thoughts of air, wind and light, produced the property of
fire.
21. These joined immediately to produce the idea of coldness the
property of water; and the mind then came to form the quadruple ideas
of the four elements of air, wind, fire and water.
22. These united together produced the gross form of earth—the
receptacle of scent; and then the mind being filled with these minute
elementary particles in its thoughts of them, forsook its fine form of
the spirit for its gross body of the quintuple elements (called the
quintessence of material bodies (_panchabhautika_)).
23. It saw this body shining as a spark of fire in the sky, which
joined with its egoism and understanding, formed its personality.
24. This is called the spiritual body (lingasaríra),—the embodying
octuple, which is situated as the bee in the pericarp of the lotus like
heart, and which gives growth to the outer body by its inner working
(as the inner seed grows the outer tree).
25. It is thickened by the action of the heart of its internal process
of calefaction, like the bel fruit or woodapple. And the outer body
receives the qualities of the inner mind, as the jewel shines with the
lustre of the little particle of gold, which is infused in the melted
state of the metal in the crucible.
26. The quality of the inner soul or mind, manifests itself in the
outer body, as the quality of the seed appears in the form and taste of
its fruit. The mind then dwells upon the thoughts of its actions, which
have their display in the several organs, and members of the bodily
actions, which are produced by the motions of the inner thoughts and
acts, as the leaves and branches of trees are projected by the inner
process and operations of the seed.
27. Its thoughts of upside and below, lifts and lowers its head and
feet upward and down-ward; and its thought of both sides, extends its
two arms to the right and left.
28. Its thoughts of the backward and forward, places its back behind,
and its breast and belly before it; and the hairs on the head and
fingers of the hands, are as the filaments and twigs of trees.
29. In this manner did Brahmá, who is called a _muni_ or mental being,
from his having sprung <from> the mind of Brahma, produced the several
parts of his body, according to his thoughts of their usefulness to it.
30. He brought the body and its limbs to compactness, as the seasons
bring their fruits and grains to perfection. Thus is every thing
perfected in time, and all beings have their beautiful bodies and
figures.
31. He, the lord Brahmá was the progenitor of all beings, and fraught
with the qualities of strength and understanding, activity, dignity and
knowledge. (The Smriti attributes the _Siddhi chatushtaya_ or quadruple
perfections to him).
32. Being begotten by the vacuous Brahma, he resides in the lap of
vacuity; and is of the form of melted gold, like every other luminous
body in the heavens.
33. Though situated in the Supreme, yet the mind of Brahmá is liable to
the mistakes of its own making; and at times it quite forgets its
having no beginning, middle nor end, like its source.
34. Sometimes the lord thinks himself, as identic with the waters which
existed before creation in his mind; and at another as the mundane egg,
which was as bright as the fire of universal destruction (see Manu I).
35. Sometimes the lord thought himself as the dark wood, which covered
the earth before creation of living animals, and them as the lotus bed
(wherein he was born). Afterwards he became of many forms at each phase
and epoch of creation. (These epochs are called _kalpas_ or periods, in
which the divine mind manifested itself according to its wish within
the different stages of creation).
36. Thus Brahmá became the preserver of many kinds of beings, which he
created of his own will from his mind at each stage or _kalpa_-period;
of which he was the first that issued from Brahma himself. (He was the
first begotten, and nothing was created but by him).
37. When Brahmá was first begotten, he remained in his happy state of
insensibility and forgetfulness (of his former existence); but being
delivered from his torpor in the womb, he came to see the light.
(_i.e._ He saw the light of heaven, after his delivery from the
darkness of the womb).
38. He took a corporeal body, with its breathings and respirations
(pránápána); it was covered with pores of hair, and furnished with gums
of two and thirty teeth. It had the three pots of the thighs, backbone,
and bones, standing on the feet below; with the five air, five
partitions, nine cavities, and a smooth skin covering all the limbs.
(The five airs are pránápána &c. The five partitions are, the head, the
legs, the breast, belly and the hands).
40. It is accompanied by twice ten fingers and their nails on them; and
with a couple of arms and palms and two or more hands and eyes (in the
cases of gods and giants).
41. The body is the nest of the bird of the mind, and it is hole of the
snake of lust; it is the cave of the goblin of greediness, and the den
of the lion of life.
42. It is a chain at the feet of the elephant of pride, and a lake of
the lotuses of our desire; The lord Brahmá looked upon his handsome
body, and saw it was good.
43. Then the lord thought in himself, from his view of the three times
of the past, present and future, and from his sight of the vault of
heaven, with a dark mist as a group of flying locusts.
44. “What is this boundless space, and what had it been before. How
came I to being?” Thus pondering in himself, he was enlightened in his
soul. (Thus did Adam inquire about his birth, and the production of the
world in Milton’s Paradise Lost).
45. He saw in his mind the different past creations, and recollected
the various religions and their various sects, which had grown upon
earth one after the other.
46. He produced the holy Vedas as the spring does its flowers; and
formed with ease all varieties of creatures from their archetypes in
his mind.
47. He set them in their various laws and customs, as he saw them in
the city of his mind, for the purpose of their temporal and spiritual
welfare.
48. He thought upon the innumerable varieties of sástras which had
existed before, and all of which came to exist on earth in their
visible forms, from their prototypes in his eternal mind; like the
flowers springing from the womb of the vernal season.
49. Thus O Ráma! did Brahmá take upon him the form of the lotus-born,
and create by his activity, all the different creatures upon their
models existent in his mind, which took their various forms in the
visible world at his will. (So the Sufi and Platonic doctrine of the
phenomenal, as a copy of the noumena, or the _suari zahiri_ as but a
shadow of the _suvari manavi_ or _catini_. See Allami).