FURTHER DESCRIPTION OF THE EARTH.
Argument:—Relation of other wonders, which Vasishtha in his
earthly body.
Vasishtha related:—Hear ye men, what I conceived afterwards in my
consciousness, as I had been looking in my form of the earth, and
considered the rivers running in my body.
2. I beheld in one place a number of women, lamenting loudly on the
death of some body; and saw also the great rejoicing of certain females,
on the occasion of their festive mirth.
3. I saw a direful dearth and famine in one place, with the rapine and
plunder of the people; and I beheld the profusion of plenty in another,
and the joy and friendliness of its people.
4. In one place I saw a great fire, burning down every thing before me;
and in another a great flood deluging over the land, and drowning its
cities and towns, in one common ruin.
5. I beheld a busy body of soldiers somewhere, plundering a city and
carrying away their booty; and I observed the fierce raxas and goblins,
bent on afflicting and oppressing the people.
6. I saw the beds of waters brimful with water, and running out to water
and fertilize the land all around; I saw also masses of clouds issuing
from mountain caverns, and tossed and borne by the winds afar and aloft
in the sky (to pour their rains in other quarters).
7. I saw the out pourings of rain-water, the uprising of verdure, and the
land smiling with plenty; and I felt within myself a delight, which made
the hairs on my body stand upright; (as if they were the rising shoots
of plants growing out of my body).
8. I saw also many places, having hills, forests and habitations of men;
and also deep and dreadful dens, with wild beasts, bees in them. Here
there were no foot prints of human beings, who avoid those places, for
fear of falling in those diresome caves.
9. Some places I saw, where warfares were waged between hostile hosts,
and some others also, where the armies were sitting at ease, and
gladsome conversation with one another.
10. I saw some places full of forests, and others of barren deserts with
tornadoes howling in them; and I saw marshy grounds, with repeated
cultivations and crops in them.
11. I saw clear and purling lakes, frequented by cranes and herons, and
smiling with blooming lotuses in them; and I saw likewise barren
deserts, with heaps and piles of grey dust, collected together by the
blowing breezes.
12. I saw some places where the rivers were running, and rolling and
gurgling in their sport; and at others, the grounds were moistened and
sown, and shooting forth in germs and sprouts.
13. I saw also in many places, little insects and worms moving slowly in
the ground; and appeared to me to be crying out, O sage, save us from
this miserable state.
14. I saw the big banian tree, rooting its surrounding branches in the
ground; and I saw many parasite plants growing on and about these rooted
branches.
15. Huge trees were growing in some places, upon rocks and mountain
tops; and these embracing one another with their branching arms, were
shaking like the billows of the sea.
16. I saw the raging sun darting his drying rays, and drawing the
moisture of the shady trees; and leaving them to stand with their dried
trunks, and their withered and leafless branches.
17. I saw the big elephants dwelling on the summits of mountains,
piercing the sturdy oaks with the strokes of their tusks, which like the
bolts of Indra, broke down and felled and hurted them with hideous noise
below.
18. There grew in some places, many a tender sprout, of plants, shooting
forth with joy as the green blades of grass; or as the erect hairs of
horripilation rising on the bodies of saints, enrapt in their reveries
and sitting with their closed eyelids.
19. I saw the resorts of flies and leeches and gnats in the dirt, and of
bees and black bees on the petals of lotus flowers; and I saw big
elephants destroying the lotus bushes, as the plough-share overturns the
furrows of earth.
20. I saw the excess of cold, when all living beings were shrivelled and
withered in their bodies; when the waters were congealed to stone, and
the keen and cold blasts chilled the blood of men.
21. I have seen swarms of weak insects, to be crushed to death under the
feet of men; and many diving and swimming and skimming in the waters
below, and others to be born and growing therein.
22. I have seen how the water enters in the seeds, and moistens them in
the rainy season; and these put forth their hairy shoots on the out
side, which grow to plants in the open air.
23. I smile with the smiling lotuses, when they are slightly shaken in
their beds by the gentle winds of heaven; and I parade with the gliding
of rivers, to the ocean of eternity for final extinction. (_i.e._ As the
river bearing all things is lost in the ocean; so doth the human body
become extinct in the Deity, with the world that it contains within
itself).