DESCRIPTION OF THE COSMICAL BODY OF VIRÁT (CONTINUED).
Argument:—Description of the several parts and Members of the
body of Virát.
Vasishtha continued:—Hear now more about the body of Virát, which he
assumed to himself of his own will in that _Kalpa_ epoch, together with
the variety of its order and division, and its various customs and
usages.
2. It is the transcendent vacuous sphere of the intellect, which makes
the very body of Virát; it has no beginning, middle or end, and is as
light as an aerial or imaginary form.
3. Brahmá who is without desire, beheld the imaginary mundane-egg
appearing about him, in its aerial form (of a chimera).
4. Then Brahmá divided this imaginary world of his in twain. It was of a
luminous form, from which he came out as a luminary, like a bird matured
in its egg. (This is hence called Brahmánda or egg of Brahmá).
5. He beheld one half (or the upper hemisphere) of this egg, rising high
in the upper sky; and saw the other half to constitute the lower world,
and both of which he considered as parts of himself.
6. The upper part of Brahmá’s egg, is termed as the head of Virát; the
lower part is styled his footstool, and the midway region is called his
waist.
7. The midmost part of the two far separated portions, is of immense
extent, and appearing as a blue and hollow vault all around us.
8. The heaven is the upper roof of this hollow, likening to the palate
of the open mouth, and the stars which are studded in it, resemble the
spots of blood in it. The breath of the mouth is as vital air, which
supports all mortals and the immortal Gods.
9. The ghosts, demons and ogres, are as worms in his body; and the
cavities of spheres of the different worlds, are as the veins and
arteries in his body.
10. The nether worlds below us, are the footstools of Virát; and the
cavities under his knees, are as the pits of infernal regions.
11. The great basin of water in the midst of the earth, and surrounding
the islands in the midst of them; is as the navel and its pit in the
centre of the body of Virát.
12. The rivers with the purling waters in them, resemble the arteries of
Virát with the purple blood running in them; and the _Jam-bu-dvípa_ is
as his lotiform heart, with the mount Meru as its pericarp.
13. The sides of his body, are as the sides of the sky; and the hills
and rocks on earth, resemble the spleen and liver in the body of Virát;
and the collection of cooling clouds in the sky, is like the thickening
mass of fat in his body.
14. The sun and the moon are the two eyes of Virát, and the high heaven
is his head and mouth; the moon is his marrow, and the mountains are the
filth of his person.
15. The fire is the burning heat, and bile in his bowels; and the air is
the breath of his nostrils (and so the other elements are humours of his
body).
16. The forests of Kalpa trees and other woods, and the serpentine races
of the infernal regions, are the hairs and tufts of hairs on his head
and body. (All these are parts of the one undivided whole of Virát’s
body).
17. The upper region of the solar world, forms the capt head of Virát’s
body; and the zodiacal light in the concavity beyond the mundane system,
is the crest on top of Virát’s head.
18. He is the universal Mind itself, has no individual mind of his own;
and he being the sole enjoyer of all things, there is nothing in
particular that forms the object of his enjoyment.
19. He is the sum of all the senses, therefore there is no sense beside
himself; and the soul of Virát being fully sensible of every thing, it
is a mere fiction to attribute to him the property of any organ of
sense. (It is a mere figure of speech to say God hears and sees, when
the omniscient soul knows all without the aid of the organs of seeing
and hearing).
20. There is no difference of the property of an organ (as the hearing
of the ear); and its possessor—the mind, in the person of Virát, who
perceives by his mind all organic sensations, without the medium of
their organs.
21. There is no difference in doings of Virát and those of the world; it
is his will or thought alone which acts with many (or active) force (on
the passive world), both in their transitive as well as in their causal
forms.
22. All actions and events of the world, being said to be same with his,
our lives and deaths in this world, are all conformable to his will.
(This passage is explained in four different ways in the gloss).
23. It is by his living that the world lives, and so it dies away with
his death; and just as it is the case, with the air and its motion, so
it is with the world and Virát to act or subside together. (But Virát
being the god of nature in general, he acts by general and not by
partial laws, and is therefore neither affected by particular events nor
ever directs any particular accident at any place or time). (Both of
which are the one and the samething).
24. The world and Virát are both of the same essence, as that of air and
its motion in the wind; that which is the world, the same is Virát; and
what Virát is, the very same is the world also. (The same thing
personified as another).
25. The world is both Brahmá as well as Virát, and both of which are its
synonyms according to its successive stages; and are but forms of the
will of the pure and vacuous intellect of God. (The will was at the
beginning, _Aham bahu syam_; _i.e._ I will become many).
26. Ráma asked:—Be it so that Virát is the personified will of God, and
of the form of vacuum; but how is it that he is considered as Brahma
himself in his inner person?
27. Vasishtha replied:—As you consider yourself as Ráma and so situated
in your person also; so Brahmá—the great father of all, is the wilful
soul only in his person.
28. The souls of holy men also, are full with Brahma in themselves; and
their material bodies, are as mere images of them.
29. And as your living soul is capable, of fixing its residence in your
body; so the self-willed soul of Brahma, is by far more able to reside
in his body of the Brahmánda-Universe.
30. If it is possible for the plant, to reside in its seed, and for
animal life to dwell in the body; it must likewise be much more possible
for the spirit of Brahma, to dwell in a body of its own imagination.
31. Whether the Lord be in his consolidated form of the world, or in his
subtile form of the mind, He is the same in his essence, though the one
lies inside and the other outside of us, in his inward and outward
appearance.
32. The holy hermit who is delighted in himself, and continues as mute
as a log of wood and as quiet as a block of stone; remains with his
knowledge of I and thou (_i.e._ of the subjective and objective as well
as of the general and particular) fixed in the universal soul of Virát.
33. The holy and God knowing man, is passionless under all persecution,
as an idol which they make with ligatures of straw and string; he
remains as calm as the sea, after its howling waves are hushed; and
though he may be engaged in a great many affairs in the world, yet he
remains as calm and quiet in his mind, as a stone is unperturbed in its
heart.