DESCRIPTION OF THE LAST NIGHT OF DEATH OR
GENERAL DOOM.
Argument:—Rudra dancing as Bhairava on the last day, in company
with his shadow the last night.
Vasishtha related:—I beheld afterwards, O Ráma! the same Rudra standing
in the same firmament, and dancing with a hideous form in the same part
of the sky.
2. This body then became as big as to fill the whole atmosphere, and as
deep and dark black as to cover the ten sides of the sky, under the
shadow of its sable appearance.
3. Its three eye-balls flashed with the flaming lights of the sun, moon
and fire; and the body which was as black as the fumes of a dark flame,
was as mute as the ten sides of the naked sky.
4. The eyes were blazing with the flame of the submarine fire, and the
arms were as ponderous as the huge surges of the sea; and the blue body,
seemed as the consolidated form of waters rising from the blue universal
ocean.
5. As I was looking upon this enormous body, I saw a form like that of
its shadow rising from it; and jumping about in the manner of dancing.
6. I was thinking in my mind, as to how could this appear in this dark
and dreary night; when the heavens were hid under darkness, and there
was no luminary shining in the sky (to cause the shadow).
7. As I was reflecting in this manner, I beheld on the foreground of
that etherial stage, the stalwart phantom of a dark dingy female with
three eyes, prancing and dancing and glancing all about.
8. She was of a large and lean stature, and of a dark black complexion;
with her flaming eye-balls burning as fire, and girt with wild flowers
all over her body.
9. She was as inky black as pasted pitch, and as dark as the darkest
night or Erebus; and with her body of darkness visible, she appeared as
the image of primeval night.
10. With her horrid and wide open jaws, she seemed to view the spacious
vacuum of air; and with her long legs and outstretched arms, she
appeared to measure the depth and breadth of open space on all sides.
11. Her frame was as faint as it was reduced by long enduring fast,
and it stooped lower and lower as if pressed down by hunger; it was
wavering to and fro, as a body of sable clouds is driven backward and
forward by the driving winds.
12. Her stature was so lean and long, that it could not stand by itself;
and was supported like a skeleton, by the ligaments of the ribs, and
ligatures of arteries, which uphold it fast from falling.
13. In a word her stature was so tall and towering, that it was by my
diurnal journey in the upper and lower skies, that I came to see the top
of her head, and the base of her feet.
14. After this I beheld her body, as a bush of tangling thickets and
thistles, by the complicate ligatures of the tendons and arteries, which
fastened all its members together.
15. She was wrapped in vests of various hues, and her head was decked by
the luminaries belike her head-dress of lotus flowers. She was beset by
the pure light of heaven, and her robe flashed as fire, enflamed by the
breath of winds.
16. The lobes of her long ears, were adorned with rings of snakes, and
pendents of human skulls; her kneebones were as prominent as two dried
gourd shells, and her two dark dugs hung down loosely upon her breast.
17. The braid of hair on the top of her head, was adorned with feathers
of male and young peacocks; and defied the crowned head of the lord of
Gods (_i.e._ Indra), and the circlet of his discus (Khattánga).
18. Her moon like teeth, cast their lustre like moon beams; and it
glistened amidst the dark ocean of chaotic night, as the moon beams play
upon the surface, and rising waves of the dark blue deep.
19. Her long stature rose as a large tree in the sky, and her two
kneepans resembled two dry gourds growing upon it; and these clattered
like the rustling of a tree by the breeze, as she turned about in the
air.
20. And as she danced about in the air, with her sombre arms lifted on
high; they resembled the rising of the waves of dark ocean of eternity.
(The words Kála and Kálí—implying both the black goddess and dark
eternity).
21. Now she lifts one arm and then many more, and at last she displays
her countless hands; to play her part in the playhouse of the universe.
22. Now she shows but one face and then another, and afterwards many
more _ad infinitum_; in order to represent her various and infinite
parts, in the vast theatre of the world.
23. Now she dances on one foot, and instantly on both her feet; she
stands on a hundred legs in one moment, and on her numberless feet at
another.
24. I understood this person to be the figure of chaotic, and the same
which the wise have ascertained as the goddess known under the
designation of Kálior eternal night. Or I presently recognized her as
the figure of _kála-rátri_ or dark night; which the wise have
ascertained to be the image of dark eternity, as designated as the
goddess Kálí—Hecate or chaotic night. (But Kálias in Greek, means
_Sundarí_ or fair and beautiful also).
25. The sockets of her triple eyes flashed with a flame, like that of
the furnace of a fire engine; and her forest was as glaring and flaring,
as the burning Indra-níla mountain.
26. Her cheek-bones were as frightful as two high hills, projecting over
her hideous open mouth; appearing as a mountain cavern, and capable of
ingulfing the whole world in it. (Hence Káli the type of time, is said
to be the devourer of all things, and restorer of them in unconscious
womb).
27. Her shoulder-blades were as high as two mountain peaks, piercing the
starry frame; where they were decorated by the clusters of stars, as
with strings of pearls.
28. She danced with her outstretched arms, resembling the waving
branches of trees; and displayed the brightness of her nails, like that
of blooming blossoms upon them; or as so many full moons shining under
the azure sky.
29. As she turned and tossed her sable hands on every side, she seemed
as a dark cloud moving about in the sky; and the lustre of her nails,
appeared to shed the splendour of stars all around.
30. The face of the sky resembled a forest ground, occupied by the black
arbours of her two sable arms; and her outstretched fingers resembling
the twigs of the trees, were covered over by the blossoms of their
pearly nails, which waved as flowers in azure sky.
31. With her legs taller than the tallest _tála_ and _tamála_ trees, she
stalked over the burning earth, and put to shame the largest trees that
grew upon it (and kept burning without being able to move).
32. The long and flowing hairs on her head, reached to and spread over
the skies; and seemed about to form black vestures for the dark
elephantine clouds, moving about in the empty air.
33. She breathed from her nostrils a rapid gale of wind, which bore the
mountains aloft in the air; and blew great gales in the sky; resounding
with loud repeals from all sides of its boundless spheres.
34. The breath of her nostrils and mouth, blew in unison all about the
circle of the universe; and kept the great sphere in its constant
rotation, as it were in its enharmonic progression.
35. I then came to perceive, as I looked on her with attention, that her
stature was enlarging with her dancing, till at last I found it to fill
the whole space of the air and sky.
36. And as long I continued to behold her in her dancing state, I saw
the great mountains pendant all about her body, as if they were a string
of jewels around her person.
37. The dark diluvian clouds formed a sablegarb about her body, and the
phenomena of the three worlds appeared as the various decorations, that
adorned her person.
38. The Himálaya and Sumeru mountains, were as her two silver and golden
ear-rings, and the rolling worlds, resembled the ringing trinkets and
belts about her waist.
39. The ranges of boundary mountains, were as chains and wreaths of
flower upon her person; and the cities and towns and villages and
islands, were as the leaves of trees scattered about her.
40. All the cities and towns of the earth, appeared as adornments on her
person; and all the three worlds and their seasons and divisions of
time, were as ornaments and garments upon her body.
41. She had the streams of holy rivers of Gangá and Yamuná, hanging down
as strings of pearls from the ears of her other heads. So the virtues
and vices (recorded in the srutis), formed decorations of her ears also.
42. The four vedas were her four breasts, which exuded with the sweet
milk (of religion) in the manner of her sweat; and the doctrines of
other sástras, flowed as milk from their nipples.
43. The armour and arms, and the various weapons as the sword and the
shield, the spear and the mallet, which she bore on her body; decorated
her person as with wreaths of flowers.
44. The Gods and all the fourteen kinds of animal beings, were all
situated as lines of hair on her person, in her form of animated nature
itself.
45. The cities and villages and hills, which were situated in her
person; all joined in their merry dance with herself, in the expectation
of their resurrection, in the same forms again.
46. The unstable moving creation also, which rested in her, appeared to
me as if they were situated in the next world, and dancing with joy in
the hope of their revivification. (The living that are dead and buried
in the chaotic Kálí, are to be revivified to life again).
47. The chaotic Kálí, having devoured and assimilated the world in
herself; dances with joy like the peacock, after gorging a snake in its
belly, and at the appearance of a dark cloud.
48. The world continues to remain and exhibit its real form, in her wide
extended figure; as the shadow of a thing is seen in a mirror, and the
situations of countries are shown in a map.
49. I saw her sometimes to stand still, with the whole world and all its
forests and mountains; to be moving and dancing in her person; and all
forms to be repeatedly reduced in and produced from her.
50. I beheld the harmonious oscillation of the whole, in the mirror of
that person; and I saw the repeated rising and setting of the world in
that circle, without its utter extinction.
51. I marked the revolution of the stars, and the rising of mountains
within its circumference, and I observed the throngs of gods and
demigods, to assemble and disperse on her in time, as flights of gnats
and flies, are driven to and fro by the winds in open air.
52. All these heavenly bodies and these islands in the ocean, are moving
around her, like the flying wheels of a broken warcar; and they whirl
up and down about her, like the rocks and woods in a whirlpool.
53. She is clad in the robes of the blue clouds, which are furled and
folded by the breezes of air; and the cracking of wood and bones under
feet, answer the sound of her foot-steps and anklets below.
54. The world is filled with the noise of the concussion and separation
of its objects, and the tumult of worldly people; appearing as passing
shadows in a mirror, or as the entrance and exits of actors in a play on
the stage.
55. The high-headed Meru and the long armed (ranged) boundary mountains,
seem to be dancing about her in their representations in the moving
clouds; and the forest trees seen in the clouds, seem to perform their
circuitous dance all around.
56. The high-swelling seas were heaving their waves to heaven, bearing
with them the uprooted woods of the coasts on high, and again hurling
them down, and sinking them in the waters below.
57. The cities were seen to be rolling with a tremendous noise in the
waters below, and no relics of houses and towers and the habitations of
human kind, were found to be left beneath.
58. As the chaotic night (kála-rátri) was thus roving at random, the sun
and moon with their light and shade, found shelter in the tops of her
nails, where they sparkled as threads of gold. (_i.e._ The flash of her
nails, afforded the only light amidst the universe of gloom).
59. She was clad in the blue mantle of the clouds, and adorned with
necklaces of frost and icicles; and the worlds hung about her, like the
trickling dewdrops of her perspiration.
60. The blue sky formed her covering veil about her head, the infernal
region her footstool, the earth her bowels, and the several sides (or
points of the compass) were so many arms on her.
61. The seas and their islands, formed the cavities and pimples in her
person; the hills and rocks made her rib bones, and the winds of heaven
were her vital airs.
62. As she continues in her dancing, the huge mountains and rocks swing
and reel about her gigantic body, as her attendant satellites.
63. The mountain trees turning around her, appear to weave chaplets and
dance about, in congratulation of her commencing a new cycle or _kalpa_.
64. The gods and demigods, the hairless serpents and worms, and all
hairy bodies; are all but component parts of her body; and being unable
to remain quiescent while she is in motion, are all turning round with
her.
65. She weaves the three fold cord of the sacred thread—_trivrit_,
consisting of acts, sacrifices and knowledge, which she proclaims aloud
in the thundering voice of the triple vedas.
66. Before her (_i.e._ in the infinite space), there is no heaven or
earth (_i.e._ up or down); but the one becomes the other, by its
constant rotation like the wheel of a vehicle.
67. Her wide open nostrils constantly breathe out hoarse currents of her
breath, which give rise to the winds of air, and their loud sufflations
and whistlings.
68. Her hundred fold arms revolving in all the four directions, give the
sky the appearance of a forest; _filled_ with the tall heads of trees
and their branches, shaken by a furious tornado in the air.
69. At last my steady eye-sight grew tired, with viewing the varieties
of productions from her body; and their motions and movements,
resembling the manners of an army in warfare.
70. Mountains were seen to be rolling as by an engine, and the cities of
the celestials falling downward; and all these appearances were observed
to take place in the mirror of her person.
71. The Meru mountains were torn and borne away as branches of trees,
and the Malayas were tossed about as flying leaves; the Himálayas fell
down as dewdrops, and all earthly things are scattered as straws.
72. The hills and rocks fled away, and the Vindhyas flew as aerials in
the air; the woods rolled in the whirlpools, and the stars floated in
the sea of heaven, as swans and geese in the lakes below.
73. Islands floated as straws in the ocean of her body, and the seas
were worn as circlet on it; the abodes of the gods were like
lotus-flowers, blooming in the large lake of her person.
74. As we see the images of cities in our dream, and in the darkness of
night, as clearly we behold them in the fair sky light; so I beheld all
things in her dark body, as vividly as they shone in broad sunlight.
75. All things though immovable, as the mountains and seas and arbours;
appear to be moving in and dancing about in her person.
76. So the wandering worlds are dancing about in the great circle of her
spacious body, as if they were mere straws in the vast ocean of
creation. Thus the sea rolls on the mountain, and the high hills pierces
the hollow of the heaven above. This heaven also with its sun and moon,
are turning below the earth; and the earth with all its islands and
mountains, cities, forests and flowery gardens; is dancing in heaven
round about the sun. (Describing the harmonious dance of the planetary
spheres in empty air).
77. The mountains are wandering (with the earth), amidst the surrounding
sky; and the sea passes beyond the horizon (with the rotation of the
earth); and so the cities and all human habitations, traverse through
other skies; and so also the rivers and lakes pass through other
regions, as objects reflecting themselves in different mirrors, and as
swiftly as the leaf of a tree torn by a tempest, is hurled on and borne
afar to distant parts.
78. Fishes skim in the desert air (or etherial desert), as they swim in
the watery plain; and cities are situated in empty air, as firmly as
they are fixed on solid earth. The waters are raised to heaven by the
clouds, which are again driven back by the winds, to pour their waters
on mountain tops.
79. The groups of stars are wandering about, like lustres of a thousand
lamps lighted in the sky; they seem to shed gems with their rays as they
roll, or scatter flowers from all sides on the heads of gods and aerial
beings.
80. Creations and destructions accompany her, as fleeting days and
nights, or as jewels of brilliant and black gems on her person. They are
as the two fortnights resembling her white and black wings on either
side.
81. The sun and moon are the two bright gems on her person, and the
clusters of stars form her necklaces of lesser gems; the clear firmament
is her white apparel, and the flashes of lightnings form the brocaded
fringes of her garment.
82. As she dances in her giddy dance of destruction, she huddles the
worlds under her feet as her anklets, raising thereby a jingling sound
as that of her trinkets.
83. In her warfare with the jarring elements, rolling on like waves of
the ocean, and darkening the daylight as by the waving swords of
warriors, she listens to the tumult of all the worlds and their peoples.
84. The gods Brahmá, Vishnu and Siva, together with the regents of sun
and moon and fire, and all other gods and demigods, that shine in their
respective offices; are all made to fly before like a flight of gnats,
and with the velocity of lightning.
85. Her body is a congeries of conflicting elements and contrary
principles, and creation and destruction, existence and non-existence,
happiness and misery, life and death, and all injunctions and
prohibitions (_i.e._ the mandatory and prohibitory laws, do all abide
conjointly and yet separately in her person).
86. The various states of production and existence, and continuance of
action and motion, and their cessation which appear to take place in her
body, as in those of all corporeal beings, together with the revolution
of the earth and all other worlds in empty air; are all but false
delusions of our minds, as there is nothing in reality except a
boundless vacuity.
87. Life and death, peace and trouble, joy and sorrow, war and truce,
anger and fear, envy and enmity, faith and distrust and all other
opposite feelings; are concomitants with this worldly life, and they
dwell together in the same person, as the various gems stored in a
chest.
88. The intellectual sphere of her body, teems with notions of
multifarious worlds; which appear as phantoms in the open air, or as
fallacies of vision to the dim sighted man.
89. Whether the world is quiescent in the intellect, or a passing
phenomenon of outward vision; it appears both as stable as well as
moving, like the reflexion of objects in a standing or shaking mirror.
90. All worldly objects are as fluctuating, as the changing shows in a
magic play; they forsake their forms and assume others as quickly, as
the fickle desires of whimsical boys are ever shifting from one object
to another.
91. It is the combination of causal powers, which cause the production
of bodies; and it is their separation which effects their dissolution;
as it is the accumulation of grains, which makes a granary, and their
abstraction which tends to its disappearance.
92. The Goddess now appears in one form, and then in another; she
becomes now as small as the thumb finger, and in a moment fills the sky
(with the bigness of her body).
93. That goddess is all in all, she is changed through every thing in
world, and is the cosmos itself and the power of the intellect also;
she fills the whole concavity of the sky with her form of pure vacuity.
94. She is the intellect, which embraces all, whatever is contained in
the three worlds and in all the three times (of the past, present, and
future). It is she that expands the worlds which are contained in her,
as a painter draws out the figures which are pictured in the receptacle
of his mind.
95. She is the all comprehensive and plastic nature or form of all
things; and being one with the intellectual spirit, she is equally as
calm and quiet as the other. Being thus uniform in her nature, she is
varied to endless forms in the twinkling of her eye.
96. All these visibles appear in her, as marks of lotuses and carved
figures are seen in a hollow stone (or in the perforated sáligram stones
of gunduk). Her body is the hollow sphere of heaven, and her mind is
full of all forms, appearing as waves in the depth of sea, or as the
sights of things in the bosom of a crystal stone (as reflected in it by
the Divine Intellect).
97. The very furious goddess Bhairaví—the consort of the dread god
Bhairava—the lord of destruction, was thus dancing about with her fierce
forms filling the whole firmament.
98. On one side the earth was burning with the fire, issuing from the
eye on the fore-head of all destroying Rudra; and on the other was his
consort Rudraní, dancing like a forest blown away by a hurricane.
99. She was armed more over with many other weapons, (beside those that
are mentioned before); such as a spade, a mortar and pestle, a mallet, a
mace &c.; which adorned her body as a garland of flowers.
100. In this manner, she danced and scattered the flowers of her
garlands on all sides; in her acts of destructions and recreation (as
preliminaries on one another).
101. She hailed the god Bhairava—the regent of the skies, who joined her
in dancing with his form as big and high as hers.
102. May the god Bhairava, with his associate Goddess of _Kálarátri_ or
chaotic night, preserve you all in their act of heroic dance, with the
beating of high sounding drums, and the blowing of their buffalo horn,
as they drink their bowls of blood and are adorned with wreaths of
flowers, hanging down from their heads to the breasts.