Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

27. I should rather suffer my body to perish with hunger, than destroy the intelligent for its supportance; because the soul derives more satisfaction from the counsels of the wise, than bare life without knowledge, can possibly afford. 28. The learned are to be supported even at the expense of one’s own life; because the society of the wise affords a physic to the soul (psyches iatrion), though death should deprive us of our bodies (for it ameliorates even the pangs of death). 29. Seeing me a man-eater Rákshasí, so favorably disposed to the preservation of the wise; what reasonable man is there, that must not make a breast-plate of the wise for himself. (i.e. The wise are ornaments to human beings however inhumane they may be to others of their fellow creatures. Hence the most cruel tyrants were the greatest supporters of learning). 30. Of all embodied beings, that move about on the surface of the earth, it is the man of profound understanding only, who sheds his benign influence like cooling moon-beams all around him. (The light of knowledge is compared with the gentle moonbeams).

31. To be despised by the wise is death, and to be honoured by the learned is true life; because it is the society of the sapient only, that makes the life bring forth its fruits of heavenly bliss and final beatitude. 32. I will now put a few questions for their examination, and know whether they are men of parts, or gilded on the surface with sapient looks, like copper by a chemical process. 33. Upon examination and ascertainment of the qualifications if they prove to be wiser than the examiner; in that case one should avail of their instruction, or otherwise there is no harm to make an end of them as they best deserve.

Argument. The undaunted valour of the Prince, the Rákshasi’s Questions and the Minister’s solution of them. Vasishtha continued:—Afterwards the Rákshasi, who was an offshoot of the great garden of Rákshasa race, made a loud and tremendous yell like the deep roarings of a cloud. 2. After her deep roar she muttered in a clattering voice, like the rattling of a thunder clap following the rumbling of clouds. 3. She said:—Ho, ho? what are ye, that venture abroad in this dread and dreary desert, dark as the great delusion of Máyá, and which without the light of the sun and moon, is as gloomy as the gloom of ignorance. What are ye crawling here for like insects bred in stones? 4. What men of great minds are ye, to have come here as the weak minded aberrants that have lost their way? You have become an easy prey to me, and must meet your fate in my hands in a moment. 5. The Prince replied:—O thou demon, what art thou and where is thy stand: If thou beest an embodied being, show thyself unto us, or who is to be terrified by thy bodiless form buzzing like a bee?

6. It is the business of the brave to pounce at once like a lion upon his prey (and not to bark as a dog at a distance). Therefore leave off thy bragging and show us thy prowess at once. 7. Tell me what thou dost want of us, and whether thou dost terrify us by thy vain vauntings, or utterest these words from thy own fear of us. 8. Now measure thy body according to thy speech, (i.e. let them conform with one another), and confront thyself to us without delay; because the dilatory gain no good, save the loss of their time. 9. On hearing the prince’s speech she thought it was well said, and immediately showed herself to them, uttering her loud shout with a grinning laughter. 10. The prince heard her voice to fill the air, and resound in the woods, and saw her huge and hideous person, by the light of her open mouth and ivory teeth, in the act of her loud laughter. 11. Her body was as a huge cliff, hurled down by the thunder bolt of the last doomsday (when high mountains were rent and thrown into the sea to form their hidden rocks). The flashes of her eyeballs blazed in the sky like a pair of bangles or conch shells.

12. The darkness of her appearance, cast into shade, the deep dark waters of the deep at the universal deluge; which hid the flame of the submarine fire under them; and her voice was as hoarse as the growling of clouds on the high heads of hills. 13. Her statue was like that of a monumental pillar standing between the heaven and earth; while the gnashing of her teeth struck the night-rovers with the terror of being grinded under them to death. 14. Her figure inspired like those of the nocturnal goblins, yakshas, Rákshas and Pisáchas, with the dread of dire disaster, by its erect hairs, muscular limbs, dingy eyes and coal black colour of the body. 15. The air she breathed in the lungs, snored as the horrible snorting of the nostrils of horses; while the tip of her nose was as big as a mallet, and its sides as flat as a pair of bellows or winnowing fans. 16. She stood with her jet black body like a rock of dark agate, and that joined with her loud laugh, gave her the appearance of the all subduing night of dissolution. (Kálarátri—the night of universal doom, is an attribute of Kálí—the goddess of destruction).

17. Her bulky body resembling a thick cloudy night, approached to them like an autumnal cloud, moving in the forest of the sky. 18. The huge body appeared as a demon rising from underneath the ground, and approaching to devour them as the eclipse ingulfs the orbs of the sun and moon. 19. Her ebon breasts were hanging down, like two pendant clouds of sombre sapphires, or more like the two mortars or water pots, with her necklaces hanging on them. 20. Her two arms were suspended to her bulky body, like a couple of stout branches to the sturdy oak, or like two logs of burnt wood to her coal like body. 21. Seeing her thus, the two valiant men remained as steadfast, as those standing on the firm ground of certainty, are never led away by doubts. 22. The Minister said:—O great friend! what causes this rage and fury in thy great soul? It is the mean and base only, that are ever violent even in trifling matters. 23. Lay aside this great ado for nothing, which does not become thee; because the wise pursue their business with coolness to crown it with success.

24. Know the soft and slow breath of our moderation, has driven away in the air, swarms of such flies like thyself; as the slight breath of the wind scatters about the dry leaves and straws. 25. Setting aside all hauteur and ardour of spirit, the wiseman conducts his business with the calm coolness of the mind, assisted by reason and practical wisdom. 26. One must manage his affairs with slowness, whether it prove effectual or not; because the overruling destiny has the disposal of all events, which human ardour has no power to prevent. 27. Now let us know thy desire and what is thy object with us; because no suitor of ours, has been refused of his prayer, nor let to return in disappointment. 28. Hearing these words, the Rákshasí pondered in her mind and said:—O the serene composure of these lion-like men and the affability of their conduct with others? 29. I do not think them to be men of the ordinary kind, and the more wonderful it is, that their inward soul is exprest in the outward gestures of their faces and eyes, and in the tone and tenor of their speech. (This is a truth of the Samudrika science of physiognomy).

30. The words, the face and eyes, are expressive of the inward thoughts of the wise, and these go together like the salt and water of the sea (which are inseparable from one another. So Chanakya).—मनस्येकं वचस्येकं कर्म्मस्येकं महात्मनां । मनस्यन्यत् वचस्यन्यत् कर्म्मस्यन्यत् दुरात्मनां ॥ The mind, the word and act of the wise all agree. But those of fools disagree in all the three. 31. My intention is already known to them, as is theirs also to me: they cannot be destroyed by me when they are indestructible themselves by their moral excellence. (So the Sástra:—The virtuous may endure or live for ever—chiranjívati dharmátmá.) 32. I understand them to be acquainted with spiritual knowledge also, without which there cannot be a good understanding. Because it is the knowledge of the indestructibility of the spirit, that takes away the fear of death which is wanting in these men. 33. I shall therefore ask them, about something wherein I am doubtful; because they that fail to ask the wise what they know not, must remain dunces throughout their lives. 34. Having thought so, she opened her mouth to make her queries, by suppressing her roaring voice and her loud laughter for a while.

35. Tell me, O ye sinless men, that are so brave and valiant, who you are and whence ye come: because your very sight has raised my regard for you, as the good hearted become friends with one another, even at their first sight. 36. The minister said:—This is the king of the Kirátas, and I his counsellor; we have come out tonight in our nightly round, for apprehending malicious beings like thyself. 37. It is the duty of princes to punish the wicked, both by day and night; for such as trespass the bounds of their duty, must be made as fuel to the fire of destruction. 38. The Rákshasí said:—Prince! thou hast a good minister, but a bad one unbecomes a prince; all good princes have wise counsellors, and they make the good prince. 39. The wise minister is the prince’s guide to justice, and it is he who elevates both the prince and his people. Justice is the first of the four cardinal virtues (justice, temperance, prudence and frugality), and it is the only virtue of a ruler; who is thence called the Dharma avatára or personification of justice.

40. But kings must have spiritual knowledge also, because it is the highest of human knowledge. The king having this knowledge, becomes the best of kings; and the minister who knows the soul, can give the best counsel for the guidance of other souls. (For it is said:—Nándhenaiva níyamána yathándhah; the blind cannot lead the blind. So the Gospel: one blind man cannot lead another). 41. It is the fellow feeling for others that makes a ruler, whoever is unacquainted with this rule, is not fit to be either a ruler or his minister. (The rule is: Rule others as ye rule yourselves. Sadhi swátmá vadanyán). 42. If ye know this polity, it is good and ye shall prosper, or else ye wrong yourselves and your subjects; in which case ye must be made a prey to me. (Because if you have no regard for your own souls and those of others, why should I have any regard for yours?)

43. There is but one expedient for you two lads, to escape from my clutches; and it is by your solution of my intricate questions; according to your best wits and judgment. (The queries are said to be prasna pinjara or the cage or prison-house of dilemmas; in which sense the text should read vidárayasi for vichárayasi, to mean that, if you cannot break the knots, I will not stop to break your necks). 44. Now do you, O prince and you his counsellor, give me the solution of the questions that I require of you. If you fail to give the proper answers as you have agreed to do, you must then fall under my hands, as any body that fails to keep his words. (The breach of a promise was punishable with death by the old Hindu law. Hence the first question; “Why am I obliged in keeping my word” in Paley’s Moral philosophy).

INTERROGATORIES OF THE ‘RÁKSHASÍ’. Argument. Seventy questions of Karkatí, which are hard for the unlearned but too plain to the wise. They are intricate for their riddling nature to boys, but plain by their double sense to the learned. Vasishtha continued:—After saying so, the fiend began to put forth her queries; and you should be attentive to them Ráma, like the prince who told her to go on. 2. The Rákshasí resumed:—What is that atomic minim which is one yet many, and as vast as the ocean, and which contains innumerable worlds like the bubbles of the sea? (It is a minim for its minuteness, an atom—owing to its imperceptibility, one—as regards its unity, many—on account of its attributes (upádhis), and vast in respect to its infinity, containing the passing worlds as the evanescent bubbles of water). 3. What is that thing which is a void yet no-void, which is something yet nothing? What is it that makes myself, and thyself, and wherein do I or thou dost abide and subside? (It is nothing in appearance, but something in our consciousness, and is both the subjective and objective).

4. What is it that moveth unmoved and unmoving, and standeth without stopping; what is it that is intelligent yet as dull as a stone; and what is it that presents its variety in the vacuity of the understanding? (Another text reads vyomni chitra krit, which means: who paints the sky with variegated hues). 5. What is it that has the nature of fire without its burning quality; and what is that unigneous substance which produces the fire and its flame. (This passage refers to the glory and light of God which shines without burning). 6. Who is he that is not of the nature of the ever-changing solar, lunar and stellar lights, but is the neverchanging enlightener of the sun, moon and stars; and who is that being who having no eyes, gives the eye its sight? 7. Who is he that gives eyesight to the eyeless vegetables, and the blind mineral creation? (Whereby they perceive the light of the luminaries of heaven as the sunflower moonflower—helioselini and others).

8. Who is the maker of heavens, and who is the author of the natures of things; who is the source of this gemming world, and whose treasure are all the gems contained in it? (Man foolishly owns them for a time, but leaves at last to their true possessor and maker). 9. What is that monad which shines in darkness, and is that point which is and is not; what is that iota which is imperceptible to all, and what is that jot which becomes an enormous mountain? (A geometrical monad is a point without dimension. In the Monadology of Leibnitz, it is the elementary particle of vital force acting not mechanically, but from internal principle. It is the entelechy of Aristotle, whose essence consists in force). 10. To whom is a twinkling of the eye, as long as a Kalpa millennium; and a whole age but a moment? Who is he whose omnipresence is equal to his absence, and whose omniscience is alike his total ignorance? (i.e. To whom eternity is a moment, and whose omnipresence and omniscience are unknown to us).

11. Who is called the spirit, but is no air in itself; and who is said to be the sound or word, but is none of them himself? He is called the All, but is none at all of all that exists; and he is known as Ego, but no ego is he himself. (Spiritus or the breathing of ventus-wind-prána and the sabda-sonus or Sruti are not God; nor is he one and all in his person, nor the ego and non-ego, I not I, and le moi et non le moi, das Ich und nicht Ich, the subjective and objective, and having no personality of his own). 12. What is it that is gained by the greatest application, of a great many births (lives), and when gained at last, is hard to be retained (owing to the spiritual carelessness of mankind)? (Liberation by final extinction—nirvána, is hard to be had owing to the interminable metempsychosis of the soul, according to the doctrine of the pre-existence and immortality of souls).

13. Who being in easy circumstances in life, has not lost his soul in it; and who being but an atom in creation, does not reckon the great mountain of Meru as a particle? i.e. the egotist. (It is harder for the easy rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, than for a camel to enter the eye of a needle. Gospel. The pride of egotism levels mountains to dust, and its ambition soars above them). 14. What is that which being no more than an atom, fills a space of many leagues; and who is an atomic particle; that is not contained (measured) in many miles? (It is the atomic theism of Kanáda’s Vaiseshika system and of Ecphantus and Archelaus. The mind is included in the atomism of Empedocles and Anaxagoras. Epicurus added morality to it, and Lucretius added to it the beauty of poetry also. See also the Ateistic Atomic systems of Leucippus and Democritus). 15. At whose glance and nod is it, that all beings act their parts as players; and what is that ace which contains in its bosom many a mountain chain? (The mountain was produced from and is contained in the atom of the divine mind; and so every grain of the human brain, contains in it the form of a prodigious mountain).

16. Who is it, that is bigger than the mount Meru in his minuteness; and who is it that being, lesser than the point of a hair, is yet higher than the highest rock? (So the sruti: Anor-aniyán mahato mahiyán: i.e. Minuter than the minutest and bigger than the biggest). 17. Whose light was it, that brought out the lamp of light from the bosom of darkness; and what minute particle is it, that contains the minutiae of ideas ad infinitum in it? (God said “Lux fiat et lux fit.” Genesis. Hail holy light Heaven’s first born. Milton. Eternal ideas of immaterial forms of possible existences in the Divine Mind, the archetype of the ectypal world. These are the Types of things, Plato; Forms of ditto. Cicero. Eternal exemplars of things. Seneca &c.). 18. Which having no flavour in it, gives savour to all things; and whose presence being withdrawn from all substances, reduces them to infinitesimal atoms, (i.e. by destruction of cohesion. So the Sruti.—Raso vai tat.—He is flavour etc. Attraction of all kinds, is a manifestation of Divine power—ákrishti, personified in the form of Krishna—the regent of the sun, whose gravity supports the solar world).

19. Who is it that by his self-pervasion, connects the particles composing the world (as by their power of attraction); and what imperceptible power is it, that rejoins the detached particles, after their separation and dissolution for recreation of the new world? (The atomic powers of attraction and repulsion of particles and bodies). 20. Who being formless, has a thousand hands and eyes; and a twinkling of whose eye, comprehends the period of many cycles together? (The divine hypostases of Viráj, is endowed with a thousand hands and eyes, as in the Purusha Súkta: Sahasra sirsha, sahasra váhu sahasráxa &c.). 21. In what microscopic mite does the world subsist as an arbor in its seed, and by what power do the unproductive seeds of atoms, become productive of worlds? 22. Whose glance is it, that causes the production of the world, as from its seed; and who is it that creates the world without any motive or material? (The motives are the subjective or internal cause and the objective or external objects of creation. And material means the matter of unisubstantism of materialists).

23. What is that being, who without his visual organs, enjoys the pleasure of seeing—Drishti; and is the viewer—drashtá of Himself, which he makes the object of his view (drishya). i. e. God sees all things in himself as the receptacle of all in the eternal ideas of them in his mind. Or. The Ego meditates on itself both subjectively as the viewer, and objectively as the view. (So Milton, “And God saw his works were good” answering his fair idea). 24. Who is he that having no object of vision before him, sees nothing without him, but looks upon himself as an infinity void of all visibles within it. (This is the subjective reflection of the Yogi, like that of God on his ownself, as abstracted from the thought of all other things. The Mind is the subjective reality and matter has no objective reality). 25. Who is it, that shows the subjective sight of the soul by itself, as an objective view; and represents the world as the figure of a bracelet, in his own metal? (i.e. The subjective soul and the metal are the true realities, and the objective view of the jewel and the world, is but error and delusion. The Vedantist like Berkeley, held all objective reality to be subjective).

26. Who is it that has nothing existent beside himself, and in whom all things exist, like the waves existing in the waters; and who is it whose will makes them appear as different things? (The one being no more than fluctuations of the other, and substantially the same). 27. Both time and space are equally infinite and indivisible, as the essence of God wherein they subsist, why then do we try to differentiate and separate them like the water from its fluidity? 28. What is the inward cause in us, which makes the believer in the soul, to view the unreal world as real, and why does this fallacy continue at all times? 29. The knowledge of the worlds whether as present, past or in futuro, is all a great error; and yet what is that immutable being, which contains in it the seed of this phenomenal wilderness? 30. What being is that, which shows these phenomena without changing itself, such as in the shape of the seed of the world, before it developes itself in creation; and sometimes in the form of a developed forest of created beings?

31. Tell me, O prince! on what solid basis does the great Meru, stand like a tender filament of the lotus; and what gigantic form is that, which contains thousands of Merus and Mandaras within its capacious womb? 32. Tell me, what is that immeasurable Intellect, which has spread these myriads of intelligences in all these worlds; what is that which supplies thee with thy strength for ruling and protecting thy people, and in conducting thyself through life; and what is it in whose sight, thou dost either lose thyself or thinkest to exist? Tell me all these, O clear sighted and fair faced prince, for the satisfaction of my heart. 33. Let thy answer melt down the doubt, that has covered the face of my heart as with snows. If it fail to efface this dirt of doubt altogether from the surface of my heart, I will never account it as the saying of the wise. 34. But if thou fail to lighten my heart of its doubts, and set it at ease; then know for certain, that thou shalt immediately be made a fuel to the fire of my bowels at this very moment.

35. I shall then fill this big belly of mine with all the people of thy realm; but shouldst thou answer rightly, thou shalt reign in peace; or else thou shalt meet thy end like the ignorant, who are surfeited with the enjoyments of life. 36. Saying so, the nocturnal fiend made the loud shout of a roaring cloud, expressive of her joy; and then sat silent with her fearful features, like a light hearted cloud in autumn (which is of gigantic shape, but empty of rain waters within).

SOLUTION OF THE QUESTIONS. Argument. First the Counsellor’s reply to the Questions. Vasishtha continued:—After the giant-like progeny of the Rákshasa had proposed her occult questions, in the deep gloom of night in that thick forest, the good and great counsellor began to give his replies. (The repetition of the word great in the original, expresses the solemnity of the occasion; as the disquisitions concerning the Great God in the Áranyakas or forest lectures of the vedic Rishis, were conducted with great solemnity in their holy hermitage in forests. So was the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus). 2. The Counsellor said:—Hear, me! thou dark and cloud like form! to unravel thy riddling questions, with as great ease as the lion foils the fury of gigantic elephants. 3. All thy questions relate to the Supreme Spirit, and are framed in thy enigmatical language, to try the force of our penetration into their hidden meanings. 4. The soul which is Selfsame with the intellect which is minuter than a particle of air, is that atomic principle that thou dost inquire into, because it is a nameless minim imperceptible by the six organs of sense, and unintelligible to the mind. (Answer to the first question about the atom. अणु).

5. Underlying the atomic intellect, is the minute seed which contains this universe; but whether it is a substantial or unsubstantial reality, nobody can say. (This is the answer to the second question with regard to the mundane seed). 6. It is called a reality from our notion of its being the soul of all by itself, and it is from that soul that all other existences have come in to being. (Answer about the nature of God). 7. It is a void from its outward inanity, but it is no void as regards its intellect (which is a reality); it is said to be nothing from its imperceptibility, but it is a subtile something from its imperishableness. (All finite bodies are unreal, the immortal soul is real, and identic with the Supreme soul). 8. It is not a nothing from its being permeated in all things, (i.e. though all pervading yet it is an absolute entity); for all things are but reflexions of the minute Intellect, and its unity shines forth in the plurality, all which is as unreal, as the formal bracelet formed of the substantial gold.

9. This minutial is the transcendental vacuum, and is imperceptible owing to its minuteness; and though it is situated in all things, yet it is unperceived by the mind and external senses. 10. Its universal pervasion cannot make it void and null, because all that is (existent) is not that (Intellect), which alone is known as the thinking principle, that makes us speak, see and act. 11. No kind of reasoning can establish the non-entity of the real Ens (sat), because of it is not being seen by anybody. Yet the universal soul is known in its hidden form, like the unseen camphor by its smell. 12. The unlimited soul resides in all limited bodies, and the atomic intellect pervades the vast universe; and it is in the same manner as the mind fills all bodies, in its purely subtile state unknown to the senses. 13. It is one and all, the unity as well as plurality, by its being the soul of each and all, both singly as well as collectively, and its supporting and containing each and all by and within itself.

14. All these worlds are as little billows in the vast ocean of the divine Intellect; whose intelligence, like a liquid body, shows itself in the form of eddies in the water. (Hence nothing is different from the Supreme). 15. This minutiae of the intellect being imperceptible to the senses and the mind, is said to be of the form of vacuity; but being perceived by our consciousness, it is not a nothing, although of the nature of a void in itself. 16. I am That and so art thou, by our conviction of the unity (of the spirit); but neither am I That nor thou art He, by believing ourselves as composed of our bodies only. (It is in answer of what art thou &c. Spiritually considered all souls are the same with the supreme; but being viewed in the body, all bodies are different from one another, and quite apart from their unity with the Divine spirit). 17. Our egoism and tuism being got rid of by our knowledge of truth, we cease to be the ego and tu; and so all other persons lose all their properties (svayam or suum) in the sole Unity. (This is an enlargement of the preceding answer to the question—What art thou &c.).

18. This particle of the intellect is immovable, though it moves thousand of miles over; and we find in our consciousness many a mile to be composed in this particle. (The mind notwithstanding its wide range, never stirs from its seat in the soul). 19. The mind is firmly seated in the vacuous intellect, from which it never stirs, though it goes to all places where it is never located. (This is the answer of what moveth not). 20. That which hath its seat in the body can never go out of it; as a baby hanging on the breast of its mother, cannot look to another place for its rest. 21. One though free to range over large tracts at will, will never start from his own abode, where he has the liberty and power to do all he likes. 22. Wherever the mind may rove, it is never affected by the climate of that place; as a jar taken to a distant country with its mouth shut, does not yield any passage to the light and air of that region into it. (In answer to what remains in a place so as it does not remain there).

23. The cogitation and incogitancy of the intellect, being both perceived in our minds, it is said to be both intellection as well as dullness of the intellect. (This is the answer “of what is ever active, yet as dull as a block of stone”). 24. When our intellection is assimilated into the solid substance of Divine Intellect, then is our intellect said to become solidified as a stone. (By forgetting one’s self to a stone. Pope). 25. The worlds which the intellect of the Supreme Being has spread in the infinite space, are the most wonderful as they are his increate creations. (These being but manifestations of his inborn essence). 26. The Divine Soul is of the essence of fire, and never forsakes its igneous form. It inheres in all bodies without burning them, and is the enlightener and purifier of all substances. (This answers the question, “what is fiery without its inflammability”). 27. The blazing intelligence of the divine soul, which is purer than the etherial sphere, produces the elemental fire by its presence. (As the burning of mount Sinai in the Bible and Taurus in the Koran, and the fiery form of Brahmá the creator and regent of vulgar fire). (This is in answer of “what unigneous entity produces the substance of fire?”).

28. The intellect which is the light of the soul, and enlightener of the lights of the luminous sun, moon and stars, is indestructible and never fades; although the light of the luminaries, is lost on the last day of universal doom. (In answer to “what unextinguishable fire is the kindler of planetary lights”). 29. There is an inextinguishable light (glory), known as ineffably transcendental, which the eye cannot behold, but is perceptible to the mind as its inward illumination, and presenting all things to its view. (Answer to “what light imperceptible to the eye, brings all things to view?” This is spiritual light). 30. Thence proceeds the intellectual light, which transcends the sensible and mental lights; and presents before it wonderful pictures of things invisible to visual light. (It is luminous by itself and shows things lying hid in darkness, as one walking in the dark, makes himself known to another by telling him “it is I”). 31. The eyeless vegetable creation, is sensible of an inward light within them, causing their growth and giving them the capability of bearing their fruits and flowers. (In answer to the question regarding the light and life of vegetable creation, which are also classed under animated nature).

32. With regard to time, space and action and existence of the world, all which are but the percepta or perceptions of sense, and have no master or maker, father or supporter except the Supreme Soul in whom they subsist, as mere modifications of himself and are nothing of themselves. (It is in answer to the question, “who is the maker of the skies &c.”). 33. The atomic spirit is the casket of the bright gem of the world, without changing its minuteness. The divine spirit is its measure and measurer, beside which there is no separate world of itself. (Answer to the question “who is the holder and measurer of the world”). 34. It is that Spirit which manifests itself in every thing in all these worlds; but it shines as the brightest gem, when all the worlds are compressed in it (at the universal dissolution). 35. From the unintelligibleness of his nature, he is said to be a speck of obscurity, as he is called to be a ray of light, from the brightness of his intellect. He is known as existent by our consciousness of him, as he is said to be non-existent from his being removed from our visual sight.

36. He is said to be afar from his invisibleness to our eyes, and to be near us from his being of the nature of our intellect. He is represented as a mountain for his being the totality of our consciousness, although he is minuter than any perceptible particle. (In answer to “what is minute yet vast”). 37. It is his consciousness that manifests itself in the form of the universe; the mountains are not real existences, but subsist like the Meru in his atomic substratum. (In answer to the question “how an atom contains and expands itself as a hill &c.”). 38. A twinkling is what appears as a short instant, and a Kalpa is the long duration of an age. (It is definitive proposition of identity, that a nimesha is a nimesha and a Kalpa is a Kalpa). 39. Sometimes a twinkling—instant represents a Kalpa, when it is fraught with the acts and thoughts of an age; as an extensive country of many leagues, is pictured in miniature or in a grain of the brain.

40. The course of a long Kalpa, is sometimes represented in the womb of a nimesha instant; as the period of the building of a great city, is present in the small space of the mind’s remembrance, as it is in the bosom of a mirror. 41. As little moments and Kalpa ages, high mountains and extensive yojanas, may abide in a single grain of the intellect; so do all dualities and pluralities unite and meet in the unity of God. 42. That ‘I have done this and that before’, is an impression derived from the thought of our actual actions and activity at all times; but the truth thereof becomes as untrue as our doings in the dream. (This to prove that all vyávahárika or customary events, are real untruths; being but prátibhásika or phenomenal appearances only). 43. It is calamity that prolongs the course of time, as our prosperity on the otherhand diminishes its duration; as the short space of a single night, appeared as a period of twelve long years to king Haris Chandra in his misery. (The fallacy of human conception of the length or shortness of time).

44. Anything appearing as a certain truth to the mind, stamps the same impression in the soul, as the sense of some golden jewellery, becomes more impressive in the soul than the idea of its gold. (The fallacy of our perceptions, creating errors in the judgement of the understanding). 45. There is nothing as a moment or an age or as near or afar to the soul; it is the conception in the minute intellect (or the working of the mind), that creates their length or brevity and their nearness and remoteness. (As a year of men is a day of Gods, and such a year of these makes a day of Brahmá; while there is no measure of time or space in the infinity of the Divine mind). 46. The contraries as light and darkness, nearness and distance, and a moment and an age, being but varied impressions on the unvaried percipient mind, have no real difference in them. (They are as unreal as the various evanescent hues of the recipient and reflexive clouds. So no colour is real chromatics or Science of colours).

47. All things or objects which are perceptible to the senses, are called to be evident or apparent; and those which lie beyond them, are said to be imperceptible or unapparent. But visual sensation is not selfevident, except the vision of the intellect, which is the real essence. (In answer to the question “What is perceptible and unreal?” Answer—All what is apparent, is untrue). 48. As long as there is the knowledge of the jewel, there is the knowledge of the gem also; that of the real gem, being lost under the apparent form. (So reliance on ocular evidence, presents an obstruction to the vision of the intellect). 49. It is by reversion of the attention from the visible form of the jewel to the real essence of the gem, that one is led to the sight of the pure light of the only One Brahma. (So says a poet:—Forsake the visible to see the invisible).

50. Brahma is viewed as Sat or reality, when He is considered as pervading all things; and He is said to be Asat or unreal, because He is not the object of vision. So is the Intellect said to be a reality from its faculty of intellection, otherwise it is a stolid or dull matter. (Answers to “what reality appears as unreal, and what intellect as the absence of intellect”). 51. The intellect is the wonderful property of the Divine Spirit, in which it is present as its object (chetya); but how can a man have a view of it, whose mind fixed to the sight of the world, which is a shadow of the Intellect, and moves as a tree which is shaken by the wind? 52. As a mirage is the reflexion of the dense light of the sun, so is the world a shadow of the solid light of the Divine intellect. 53. That which is rarer than the rays of the sun and never decays, is ever as uniform as it was before creation and disjoined from it. Hence its existence is tantamount to its nonexistence.

54. As the accumulation of sunbeams, exhibits the formation of a gold mine in the sky; so the golden appearance of the world, prevents the deluded to look to the knowable object of the intellect. 55. Like the appearance of a visionary city in dream, the sight of this world is neither a reality nor altogether unreal; because it is a reflexion of the intellect, as the dream is that of images in the memory. It is but a continued medley of error. 56. Knowing it as such, men should consider everything by the light of reason; and proceed to the knowledge of truth by their intellectual culture. 57. There is no difference between a house and a void, than that the one is the object of vision, and the other of consciousness. Again all nature teeming with life, is said to live in God, who is light and life of all for evermore. 58. But all these living beings have no room in the empty sphere of Divine Intellect. They live and shine like the solar rays, proceeding imperceptibly from that luminous orb.

59. There appears a difference in these rays both from the original light, and also from one another (in different beings), by a curious design of Providence; but it is yet the same in all, like the forms of the trees growing out of the same kind of seed. 60. As the tree contained in the seed, is of the same kind with the parent seed; so the innumerable worlds contained in the vacuous seed of Brahma, are also void and vacuum as Brahma himself. 61. As the tree which is yet undeveloped in the seed, is not in esse without development of its parts; (so the world in the womb of Brahma, was discernible only to the Divine Intellect; in the form of the ideal or spiritual world to be in futuro). 62. There is but one God, who is one and increate, calm and quiet, without beginning, middle or end, and without a body and its parts. He has no duality and is one in many. He is of the form of pure light, and shines for ever with everlasting and undiminished lustre.

CONGERIES OF SPIRITUAL DOCTRINES. Argument. The Prince’s Answers to the Remaining Questions of the Rákshasí. The Rákshasí said:—Well said, O counsellor! Thy sayings are sanctifying and fraught with spiritual doctrines; now let the prince with his eyes like lotus-leaves answer to the other queries. 2. The Prince answered:—He whose belief consists in the relinquishment of all reliance in this world, and whose attainment depends upon forsaking all the desires of the heart:— 3. He whose expansion and contraction causes the creation and extinction of the world, who is the object of the doctrines of Vedánta, and who is inexpressible by words or speech of humankind:— 4. Who is betwixt the two extremities of doubt (whether he is or is not), and is the midst of both extremities (that both he is and is not); and the pleasure (Will) of whose mind, displays the world with all its movables and immovables to view:— 5. He whose Universal pervasion does not destroy his unity; who being the soul of all is still but one; it is he alone, O lady! who is truly said to be the eternal Brahma (so far the Exordium).

6. This minute particle is erroneously conceived as spirit (air), from its invisibleness to the naked eye; but it is in truth neither air nor any other thing except the only pure Intellect. (Answer to the question, “what is it of the form of air and not air?”). 7. This minim is said to be sound (or the words), but it is error to say it so: because it is far beyond the reach of sound or the sense of words. (So the Sruti ‘natatravákgacchati’, no word (vox or voice) can reach unto him—express his nature. (In answer to the query “what is sound and no sound?”)). 8. That particle is all yet nothing, it is neither I, thou or he. It is the Almighty soul and its power is the cause of all. (The gloss explains pratibha as sakti or power, in preference to the other meanings of the word, as—knowledge, design, light, reflexion and influence. (This is in answer to “who is all yet no one omnium et nullum, and what are I, thou and he, which are viewed as the ego, tu and ille, the subjective and objective realities”)).

9. It is the soul that is attainable with great pains (i.e. the knowledge of which is gained with pains of Yoga), and which being gained adds nothing to our stock (as we are already in possession of our souls); but its attainment is attended with the gain of the supreme soul, than which there is no better gain. (So the Sruti yalalábhat naparamlabha. In answer to ‘what gain is no gain’). 10. But ignorance of the soul, stretches the bonds of our worldliness and repeated transmigrations, with their evils growing like the rankest weeds in spring; until they are rooted out by spiritual knowledge. 11. And those who are in easy circumstances in life, lose their souls by viewing themselves only as solid bodies, which rise fastly to view like the dense mirage by light of the sun. (It is easier for a camel to enter the hole of a needle, than for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Gospel).

12. It is the particle of self-consciousness, which contains the Meru and the three worlds, like bits of straw in itself. They are as disgorged from it in order to present their delusive appearances unto us. (This answers the question: “what particle hides in it the world as a straw,” and means the mind to be the container of the universe). 13. Whatever is imprinted in the intellect, the same appears exprest without it. The fond embrace of passionate lovers in dream and imagination, serves to exemplify this truth. 14. As the intellect rose of itself with its omnipotent Will at the first creation of the world, so it exercises the same volition in its subsequent formations also, like the sprigs rising from the joints of reeds and grass. (i.e. The eternal Will (Fiat) is productive of all things for ever). 15. The hobby that has entered in the heart, shows itself on the outside also, as in the instance of the whims of children. (The phrases, “the wish being father to the thought,” and “every one delights in his hobby horse,” correspond with the purport of the passage).

16. The iota of the intellect, which is as minute as an atom, and as subtile as air; fills the whole universe on all sides. (The three words paramánu, anu and súkshma, respectively signify the minuteness of the intellect with regard to its unity, dimension and rarity. Gloss). 17. Though but a particle, yet it is not contained in hundreds of leagues; and being all-pervasive it is infinite. Having no beginning it is measureless, and having no form of itself it is formless. (In answer to ‘what minutiae is immeasurable &c.’). 18. As a cunning coxcomb deludes young girls by their becks and calls and winks and glances. (Quips and cranks and wanton wiles; Nods and becks and wreathed smiles. Pope):— 19. So the holy look of the divine intellect, serves as a prelude to the rotatory dance of worlds, with all their hills and contents for ever (i.e. a nod and look of the Almighty, moves the worlds).

20. It is that atom of the intellect, which envelops all things within its consciousness, and represents also their forms without it; as a picture canvas shows the figures of the hills and trees drawn in it, to stand out as in bas-relief. (The external world being but a prominent representation of the internal, the phenomenal of the noumenal. So Persian: Suvaribatini and Zahiri). 21. The divine spirit though as minute as the hundredth part of the point of a hair, is yet larger than the hills it hides in itself, and as vast as infinity, being unlimited by any measure of space or time. (In answer to “what is it that retains its minuteness and yet comprehends the great Meru”). 22. The comparison of the vast vacuity of divine understanding with a particle of air (as it is made by the minister), is not an exact simile. It is as a comparison of a mountain with a mustard seed, which is absurd. 23. The minuteness which is attributed to it (in the veda), is as false as the attribution of different colours to the plumage of the peacock, and of jewellery to gold, which can not be applicable to the spirit. (The Veda says, anoraníyan. He is minuter than the minute &c.; because the spirit admits no attribute).

24. It is that bright lamp which has brought forth light from its thought, and without any loss of its own essential effulgence. (Answer to “What lamp gave light in darkness?” “He was the light of the world, and the light shine forth in darkness,” Gospel). 25. If the sun and other luminous bodies in the world, were dull and dark in the beginning; then what was the nature of the primeval light and where did it abide? (This question is raised and answered by the prince himself in the next). 26. The pure essence of the mind which was situated in the soul, saw the light displayed on the outside of it, by its internal particle of the intellect. Gloss:—That light existed inside the intellectual atom before creation, and its preceding darkness; it was afterwards set forth by itself without it, when it shone amidst the darkness. (So the passage, lux fiat et lux fit, and then the mind beheld it, and said it was good). 27. There is no difference in the lights of the sun, moon and fire from the darkness, out of which these lights were produced: the difference is only that of the two colours black and white. (Gloss:—Both of them are equally insensible things).

28. As the difference of the cloud and snows, consists in the blackness of the one and whiteness of the other; such is the difference of light and darkness in their colours only, and not in their substance (as they have no real substantiality in them). 29. Both of these being insensible in their natures, there is no difference between them: and they both disappear or join with one another before the light of intellect. They disappear before the intellectual light of the Yogi, who perceives no physical light or darkness in his abstract meditation under the blaze of his intellect. They join together as light and shade,—the shadow inseparably following the light. The adage goes, Zer cheragh tariki:—there is darkness beneath the lighted lamp. 30. The sun of the intellect, shines by day and night without setting or sleeping; It shines in the bosom even of hard stones, without being clouded or having its rise or fall. 31. The light of this blazing soul, has lighted the sun, which diffuses its light all over the three worlds; it has filled the capacious womb of earth with a variety of provisions, as they lay up large panniers of food in a store-house. (i.e. It is the sun-light that grows and ripens all things for our food).

32. It enlightens darkness without destroying itself, and the darkness that receives the light, and becomes as enlightened as light itself. (This passage is explained both in a physical as well as spiritual sense. The light dispelling ignorance and the gloom of nature). 33. As the shining sun brings the lotus-buds to light, so the light of the Divine Spirit, enlightens our intellects, amidst the gloom of ignorance which envelopes them. 34. And as the sun displays himself by making the day and night by his rise and fall, so does the intellect show itself by its development and reticence by turns. 35. All our notions and ideas are contained in the particle of the intellect, as a healthy seed contains the leaves and fruits and flowers of the future tree in its breast. 36. These and all the powers of the mind, develope themselves in their proper times, as the fruits and flowers make their appearance in spring and proper seasons—khandas. (The Hindu festivals of Khanda pálás, are celebrated in honour of the returning seasons, and continue as a relic of the primitive agricultural state of society).

37. The particle of divine spirit is altogether tasteless, being so very vapid and void of qualities; yet it is always delectable as the giver of flavour to all things. (The gloss explains the spirit as spiritual knowledge, which is unpalatable to all, owing to its abstruse and subtile nature; but which becomes tasty when blended with all other knowledge, which mainly depends on spiritual science. This is in answer to “What particle is that which is entirely tasteless, yet always tasted with zest?”). 38. All savours abide in the waters (water being the receptacle of taste), as a mirror is the recipient of a shadow; but the savour like the shadow is not the substance; it is the essence of the spirit that gives it the flavour. (The Nyáya says “jaleparamánurasah” the atom of the spirit is the savour of the water). 39. All bodies existing in the world, are forsaken by the atomic spirit of the supreme, by their unconsciousness of Him; but they are dependant upon him, by the consciousness of the divine particle, shining in their souls. (i.e. Consciousness is the connecting link between the human and Divine souls). In answer to “who are forsaken by and supported by the Divine Spirit.”

40. It is He who being unable to wrap up himself, enwraps the world in him, by spreading out the vesture of his atomic intellect over all existence. (In answer to “who being uncovered himself covers the whole?”). 41. The supreme Spirit which is of the form of infinite space, cannot hide itself in any thing within its sphere, which would be like the hiding of an elephant in the grass. 42. Yet this all knowing spirit encompasses the world, knowing it to be a trifle, just as a child holds a particle of rice in his hand. This is an act of máyá or delusion. (Here delusion like destiny is represented to exercise its influence on omniscience itself). 43. The spirit of God exists even after the dissolution of the world, by relying in his chit or intellect; just as plants survive the spring by the sap they have derived from it. 44. It is the essence of the Intellect which gives rise to the world, just as the garden continues to flourish by the nourishment of the vernal season. 45. Know the world is verily a transformation of the intellect, and all its productions to be as plants in the great garden of the world, nourished by the vernal juice of the intellect.

46. It is the sap supplied by the intellectual particle, that makes all things grow up with myriads of arms and eyes; in the same manner as the atom of a seed, produces plants with thousand branches and fruits. (In answer to “What formless things take a thousand forms”). 47. Myriads of kalpas amount to an infinitesimal part of a twinkling of the atomic intellect, as a momentary dream presents a man all the periods of his life from youth to age. In answer to “What twinkling of the eye appears as many thousand Kalpas &c.” 48. This infinitesimal of a twinkling even, is too long for thousands of kalpas, the whole duration of existence is as short as a flash of his eye. 49. It is the idea only that makes a twinkling, appear a kalpa or many, just as the idea of satiety in starvation, is a mere delusion to the deluded soul. 50. It is concupiscence only, that makes the famishing to feed upon his thoughts of food; as it is the despair of one’s life, that presents his death before him in his dream.

51. All the worlds reside in the intellectual soul within the atom of its intellect; and the outward worlds are only reflexions (réchauffé) of the inner prototype. (The phenomenal is an ectype of the original noumenal). 52. Whatever object appears to be situated anywhere, it is but a representation of its like model in some place or other, and resembles the appearance of figures in bas-relief on any part of a pillar; but the changes occurring in the external phenomena, are no results of the internal, which as the serene vacuum is subject to no change. 53. All existences, which are present in the intellect at this moment, are the same as they have existed, and will ever exist inwardly like trees in their seeds. 54. The atom of the intellect, contains the moments and ages of time, like grains within the husk; it contains these (as its contents) in the seed within the infinite soul of god. (The soul is the unconscious container of the intellect, which is conscious of the ideas contained in it).

55. The soul remains quite aloof as if retired from the world (udásína), notwithstanding the subsistence and dependence of the latter upon the former. The Divine soul is unconcerned with its creation and its sustentation at all times. (In answer to “who is the cause of the world without any motive or causality in him?” This is the doctrine of perfect bliss of the soul without being ruffled or disturbed by any motivity or activity. So the man imitating divine perfection, is required to be apathetic and callous to all worldly affairs). 56. The essence of the world springs from the atom of the pure Intellect, which however remains apart from both the states of action and passion itself (the intellect being the thinking principle, has only its perceptivity, without sensitivity of passion, or the Will or volition for action). 57. There is nothing created or dissolved in the world by any body at any time; all apparent changes are caused by the delusion of our vision (and it is the province of Vedánta to remove the error of conceiving the unreal worlds as a reality).

58. (Viewed in its spiritual light), this world with all its contents, is as void as the vault of the vacuous atmosphere; the word world applied to the phenomena, is but an insignificant term signifying a nothing. 59. It is the particle of intellect that is led by the delusion of máyá, to view the scenes situated in the Divine soul, in the outward appearance of the phenomenal world. (Answer to what thing that has eyes; views on its outside what is contained in the soul?). 60. The words external and internal as applied to the world, are meaningless and not positive terms; there is no inside or outside of the divine soul, they are contrived to explain its different views by the intellect for the instruction of pupils. (Brahma has no inside nor outside. Sruti). 61. The viewer looking into the invisible being within himself, comes to see the soul; but he who looks on the outside with his open eyes, comes to view the unreal as real. 62. Therefore whoever looks into the soul (as the true reality), can never view the false phenomena as realities as others do.

63. It is the internal sight of the intellect that looks into the inward soul, which is without all desires; while the external eyes are mere organs to look upon the false appearance of outward objects. (i.e. The eye of the mind, is the true eye to see the real nature of the soul; but the outer eyes are no eyes, that feed only upon the falsities of nature). 64. There can be no object of sight, unless there is a looker also, as there can be no child without its parent. This duality (of their mutual dependence upon one another), proceeds from the want of knowledge of their unity. (i.e. The viewer, the view and the vision (drashtá, drishya and darsana), being one and the same thing, as the parent and the offspring, and the seed and its sprout, are the same substance. The doctrine of the Vedantic unity, thus attempts to reduce and unite all varieties to their primitive simplicity). 65. The viewer himself becomes the view as there can be no view without its viewer. No body prepares any food, unless there be some body to feed upon it. (It is the agent that makes the act, as there can be no act without its agent).

66. It is in the power of the intellect (imagination), to create the views of its vision; as it lies in the capacity of gold, to produce all the various forms of jewellery. (i.e. Fancy paints and moulds itself in many colours and shapes. The creations of phantasy are mere phantoms—phantasia et phantasmos). 67. The inanimate view never has nor can have the ability of producing its viewer; as the golden bracelet has no power of bringing the gold into being. 68. The intellect having the faculty of intellection (chetana), forms the thoughts of intelligibles (chetyas) within itself, which however unreal are erroneously viewed as real entities by its intellectual vision to its own deception, as it is caused by the appearance of jewellery in gold. 69. That the viewer (the divine intellect), being transformed to the view (of the visible world), is no more perceptible in it, than as the jewelery of gold and not gold itself. (i.e. The formal part of the world and jewel, hides the material part of the intellect and gold which formed them). 70. Thus the viewer becoming the view (i.e. the subject being turned to the object), still views himself as the viewer; as gold transformed to a jewel, is always looked upon as gold.

71. One unity alone being apparent in all nature, it is useless to talk of the duality of the viewer and view. A word with a masculine affix cannot give the sense of a neuter noun (so the masculine noun Intellectus, cannot apply to the neuter phenomenon). 72. The viewer who feasts his eyes with a view of the outer visible world, cannot have the sight of the inner soul with the internal eyes of his intellect; but when the viewer shuts out the outer view, all its realities appear as unreal. 73. When the viewer perceives the unreality of the visibles by the light of his understanding, he then comes to see the true reality. So by retracting the mind from viewing the figure of the jewel, one comes to see the nature of its gold only. 74. The visibles being present, there must be their viewers also to whose view they are apparent. It is the absence of both (the viewer and the view), and the knowledge of their unreality, that produce the belief of unity. (The disappearance of the visible, causes the withdrawal of the viewer; like the removal of the umbrella, drives away its shade).

75. The man who considers all things in the contriteness of his conscious soul, comes at last to perceive something in him, which is serenely clear, and which no words can express. 76. The minute particle of the intellect, shows us the sight of the soul as clearly as a lamp enlightens everything in the dark. (Answer to “who shows the soul as clearly as a visible thing”?) 77. The intelligent soul is absolved of its perceptions of the measure, measurer and measurables, (i.e. of the forms and properties of things), as liquid gold when dissolved of its form of an ornament. (Answer to “what thing is absolved of its properties like gold of its jewellery”). 78. As there is nothing which is not composed of the elementary bodies of earth, water &c.; so there is nothing in nature which is apart from the nature of the atomic intellect. (Answer to “what is that from which nothing is apart?”). 79. The thinking soul penetrates into all things in the form of their notions; and because all thoughts concentrate in the intellect, there is nothing apart from it.

80. Our desires being the parents of our wished for objects, they are the same with our prospects in our view: therefore there is no difference between our desires and desired objects; as there is none between the sea and its waves. (In refutation of the question, “what is that which is distinct from the wish?”). 81. The Supreme Soul exists alone unbounded by time and space. Being the universal soul, it is the soul of all; and being omniscient, it is no dull matter at all. (Answer to “what is the undivided duality and plurality?”). 82. The Ens being but intelligence, is not perceptible to sight; there is unity and no duality in it; but all forms unite into one in the great self of the Supreme. 83. If there be a duality, it is the one and its unity. The unity and duality of the universal soul, are both as true as the light and its shade joined together. 84. Where there is no duality or any number above it, there unity also can have no application to any; and where there is no unit, there cannot be any two or more over it, which are but repetitions of the unit (except an indeterminate all or whole).

85. Anything which is so situated, is in itself such as it is; it cannot be more or less than itself; but is identic with itself like water and its fluidity. (Its plurality is but a repeated unity). 86. The multiplicity of forms which it exhibits, blends into a harmonic whole without conflicting with one another. The multifarious creation is contained in Brahma, like a tree with all its several parts in the embryonic seed. 87. Its dualism is as inseparable from it as the bracelet from its gold; and although multiformity of nature, is evident to the comprehensive understanding; yet it is not true of the true entity (of God). 88. Like fluidity of water, fluctuation of air, vacuity of the sky, is this multiformity an inseparable property of the Godhead. 89. Disquisition of unity and duality is the cause of misery to the restless spirit, it is the want of this distinction that consummates the highest knowledge. 90. The measure, measurement and measurer of all things, and the viewer, view and vision of the visible world, are all dependent on the atom of the intellect which contains them all. (i.e. The divine mind is the maker and pattern of the great fabric of the universe, which it contains and views in itself).

91. The atom of the divine intellect, spreads out and contracts in itself, like its limbs, these mountainous orbs of the world, by an inflation of its spirit as it were by a breath of air. 92. O the wonder, and the great wonder of wonders! that this atom of the intellect, should contain in its embryo, all the three regions of the worlds, above and below one another. 93. O! it is an incredible delusion that must ever remain an inexplicable riddle, how the monstrous universe is contained in the minute atom of the Intellect. 94. As a pot contains in it, the seed, with a huge tree within its cell, so does the divine soul contain the atom of the intellect, containing the chains of worlds (outstretched within itself). 95. The all-seeing eye sees at once all the worlds, situated within the bosom of the intellect, as the microscopic sight discovers the parts of the future tree concealed in the seed. 96. The expansion of the world in the atom of the Intellect, is analogous to the enlargement of the hidden parts of the seed, into leaves and branches, fruits and flowers.

97. As the multiformity of the future tree, is contained in the uniform substance within the seed; it is in like manner that the multiplicity of worlds, is situated in the unity of the atomic Intellect, and as such it is seen by any one who will but look into it. 98. It is neither an unity nor a duality, not the seed or its sprout, neither is it thin or thick, nor is born nor unborn (but ever the same as it is). 99. He is neither an entity nor nonentity, nor graceful nor ungraceful (but a vacuity); and though it contains the three worlds with the ether and air, yet is nothing and no substance at all. 100. There is no world nor a not-world beside the intellect, which is all of itself, and is said to be such and such in any place or time, as it appears so and so to us there and then. 101. It rises as if unrisen, and expands in its own knowledge; it is selfsame with the supreme soul, and as the totality of all selves, it spreads through the whole vacuum as air.

102. As a tree springs from the ground according to its seed, so the world appears to sight in the form, as it is contained in the seed of the intellect. 103. The plant does not quickly quit its seed, lest it would be dried up and die away for want of its sap; so the man that sticks to the soul and seed of his being, is free from disease and death. 104. The mount Meru is like the filament of a flower, in respect to the vastness of that atom; all visibles have their place in that invisible atom. (In answer to the question, in respect to whom is the great Meru but a filament?) 105. The Meru is verily a filament of the atomic flower of the divine soul; and myriads of Merus resemble the cloudy spots, rising in the sphere of the intellect. 106. It is that one great atom that fills the world, after having made it out of itself; and given it a visible, extended and material form in its own hollow sphere. (Answer to “By whom is the world created, extended &c.”).

107. As long as the knowledge of duality is not driven out of the mind, so long does it find the charming form of the world, as in its dream upon waking. But the knowledge of unity, liberates the soul from its stay in and return to the world, which it beholds as a mass of the divine essence.

FRIENDSHIP OF THE RÁKSHASÍ. Argument. The Rákshasí’s account of herself, and her reconciliation with the Prince. Vasishtha continued:—The apish Karkatí of the forest, having heard the speech of the prince, pondered well in herself the sense of the words, and forsook her levity and malice. 2. She found the coolness and tranquility of her heart after its fervour was over; in the manner of the peacock at the setting in of the rains, and the lotus bed at the rising of moonbeams. 3. The words of the prince delighted her heart in the same manner, as the cries of cranes flying in the sky, gladden the passing clouds in the air. 4. The Rákshasí said:—O how brightly shines the pure light of your understanding, it glows as serenely by its inward effulgence, as it is illuminated by the sun of intelligence. 5. Hearing the grains (words) of your reasoning, my heart is as gladdened, as when the earth is cooled by the serene beams of the humid moon-light. 6. Reasonable men like yourself are honoured and venerated in the world, and I am as delighted in your company, as a lake of lotuses with her full blown buds under the moon-beams.

7. The society of the virtuous, scatters its blessings, as a flower garden spreads its fragrance all around; and as the brightness of sun-beams, brings the lotus buds to bloom. 8. Society with the good and great, dispels all our woes; as a lamp in the hand, disperses the surrounding darkness. 9. I have fortunately obtained you as two great lights in this forest; you both are entitled to my reverence here, and deign now to acquaint me, with the good intent which has brought you hither. 10. The prince answered:—O thou sprout of the savage race of Rákshas! the people of this province are always afflicted in their hearts by a certain evil. 11. It is the obdurate disease of Vishuchi or cholic pain, which troubles the people of this part, I have therefore come out with my guards to find her out in my nightly rounds. 12. This cholic pain is not removed from the hearts of men by any medicine, so I have come out in search of the mantra revealed to her for its cure. 13. It is my business and professed duty, to persecute such wicked beings as thyself, that infest our ignorant subjects in this manner, and this is all that I have to tell thee and do in this place.

14. Therefore, O good lady! do thou promise to me in thy own words, that thou shalt never injure any living being in future. 15. The Rákshasí replied:—Well! I tell thee in truth, my lord! that I shall hence forward never kill any body. 16. The prince replied:—If it be so O thou liver on animal flesh! tell me how shalt thou support thy body by thy abstaining from animal food? 17. The Rákshasí replied:—It is now passed six months, O prince! that I have risen from my entranced meditation, and fostered my desire for food, which I wholly renounce today. 18. I will again repair to the mountain top, and betake myself to my steadfast meditation, and sit there contented as long as I like, in the posture of an unmoving statue. 19. I will restrain myself by unshaken meditation until my death, and then I shall quit this body in its time with gladness. This is my resolution. 20. I tell you now, O prince! that until the end of this life and body of mine, I shall no more take away the life of any living being, and you may rely assured upon my word.

21. There is the mount Himalaya by name, standing in the heart of the northern region, and stretching in one sweep, from the eastern to western main. 22. There had I dwelt at first in a cave of its golden peak, in the shape of an iron statue, and also as the fragment of a cloud, and borne the appellation of Karkatí the Rákshasí:—(the crablike crooked Sycorax). 23. There I obtained the sight of Brahmá by the austerity of my devotion; and expressed my desire of killing mankind, in the shape of a destructive needle. 24. I obtained the boon accordingly, and passed a great many years in the act of afflicting living brings, and feeding upon their entrails in the form of the cholic pain. 25. I was then prohibited by Brahmá to kill the learned, and was instructed in the great mantra for my observance. 26. He then gave me the power of piercing the hearts of men, with some other diseases which infest all mankind. 27. I spread myself far and wide in my malice, and sucked the heart blood of men, which dried up their veins and arteries; and emaciated their bodies.

28. Those whom I left alive after devouring their flesh and blood, they begat a race as lean and veinless as they had become themselves. 29. You will be successful O happy prince in getting the mantra or charm for driving the Visúchiká pain; because there is nothing impossible of attainment by the wise and strong. 30. Receive of me immediately, O raja! the mantra which has been uttered by Brahmá for removal of the cholic pain, from the cells of arteries vitiated by Visúchiká. 31. Now advance towards me, and let us go to the neighbouring river; and there initiate you with the mantra, after you both are prepared to receive it by your ablution and purification. 32. Vasishtha said:—Then the Rákshasí proceeded to the river side that very night, accompanied by the prince and his minister, and all joining together as friends. 33. These being sure of the amity of the Rákshasí both by affirmative and negative proofs, made their ablutions and stood on the bank on the river. 34. The Rákshasí then communicated to them with tenderness, the effective mantra which was revealed to her by Brahmá, for the removal of Visúchiká pain, and which was always successful.

35. Afterwards as the nocturnal fiend was about to depart by leaving her friendly companions behind, the prince stopped her course with his speech. 36. The prince said:—O thou of gigantic stature! thou hast become our preceptor by thy teaching us the mantra, we invite thee with affection, to take thy repast with us at ours tonight. 37. It does not become thee to break off our friendship, which has grown like the acquaintance of good people, at our very first meeting. 38. Give thy illfavoured feature a little more graceful figure, and walk along with us to our abode, and there reside at thy own pleasure. 39. The Rákshasí replied:—You can well provide a female of your own kind with her proper food; but what entertainment can you give to my satisfaction, who am a cannibal by my nature! 40. It is the food of a giant (Rákshasa) alone, that can yield me satisfaction, and not the little morsel of petty mortals; this is the innate nature of our being, and can not be done away with as long as we carry with us our present bodies. 41. The prince answered:—Ornamented with necklaces of gold, you shall be at liberty to remain with the ladies in my house, for as many days as you may like to abide.

42. I will then manage to produce for your food, the robbers and felons that I will seize in my territories; and you will have them supplied to you by hundreds and thousands at all times. 43. You can then forsake your comely form, and assume thy hideous figure of the Rákshasí, and kill and take to your food hundreds of those lawless men. 44. Take them to the top of the snowy mountain and devour them at thy pleasure; as great men always like to take their meals in privacy. 45. After your recreation by that food and a short nap, you can join your meditation; and when you are tired with your devotion, you can come back to this place. 46. You can then take the other offenders for your slaughter; because the killing of culprits is not only justifiable by law, but it amounts to an act of mercy, to rid them (of their punishment in the next world). 47. You must return to me when you are tired of your devotion; because the friendship which is formed even with the wicked, is not easily done away.

48. The Rákshasí replied:—You have well said prince! and we will do as you say; for who is there that will slight the words of the wise that are spoken to him in the way of friendship? 49. Vasishtha said:—Saying so, the Rákshasí assumed a graceful form, and wore on her person necklaces and bracelets, and silken robes and laces. 50. She said, “Well raja, let us go together” and then followed the footsteps of the prince and his counsellor, who walked before her and led the way. 51. Then having arrived at the royal abode, they passed that night in their agreeable repast and discourse together. 52. As it became morning, the Rákshasí went inside the house, and there remained with the women; while the prince and the minister attended to their business. 53. Then in the course of six days, the prince collected together all the offenders whom he had seized in his territory, and brought from other parts. 54. These amounted to three thousand heads which he gave up to her; when she resumed her fiercely dark form of the black fiend of night. 55. She laid hold of thousands of men in her extended grasp, in the manner of a fragment of cloud retaining the drops of rain water in its wide spread bosom.

56. She took leave of the prince and went to the top of the mountain with her prey, as a poor man takes the gold, that he happens to get in some hidden place. 57. There she refreshed herself with her food and rest for three days and nights; and then regaining the firmness of her under-standing, she was employed in her devotion. 58. She used to rise from her devotion once after the lapse of four or five and sometimes seven years, when she repaired to the habitation of men and to the court of the prince. 59. There passing sometime in their confidential conversation, she returned to her retired seat in the mountain, with her prey of the offenders. 60. Thus freed from cares even in her lifetime, she continued to remain as a liberated being in that mountain &c. &c.

WORSHIP OF KANDARÁ ALIAS MANGALA. Argument. Deification and Adoration of the Rákshasí for her good Services to Mankind. Vasishtha continued:—The Rákshasí thus continued in her devotion, and remained on friendly terms with the successive rulers of the Kiráta country, who kept supplying her with her rations. (The Rákshasí maneater was turned to Rákshiní or preserver of men). 2. She continued by the power of her perfection in the practice of yoga meditation, to prevent all portents, to ward off all dread and danger of demons, and remove the diseases of the people. (All these were done by the Rákshasí vidyá now lost, and by supernatural powers gained by yoga). 3. In the course of many years of her meditation, she used to come out of her cell at certain intervals, and call at the head quarters, for her capture of the collection of living creatures kept for her victims. (Man slaughter was not blamable on the part of the cannibal Rákshasí, though practising the yoga; nor was the eating of animal flesh reprehensible in Vasishtha himself, who had been a flesh eating yogi. (See Uttara Ráma Charita)).

4. The practice continues still to be observed by the princes of the place, who conduct the animals to be sacrificed to her departed ghost on the hill; as none can be negligent to repay the good services of his benefactor. (Hence the prevalence of the practice of offering sacrifices to the names of ancestors and deified heroes and heroines, and even of demons for their past good services). 5. At last she became defunct in her meditation, and ceased since long to appear to the habitations of men, and lend her aid in removing their diseases, dangers and difficulties. (The good genius of the place left it at last). 6. The people then dedicated a high temple to her memory, and placed in it a statue of hers, under the title of Kandará—caverner alias Mangalá deví—the auspicious goddess. (The whole legend of the Kandará of Kirátas, alludes to the account of Mangalá Chandí alias Kalika deví—the black and voracious goddess of the Hindus).

7. Since then it is the custom of the chiefs of the tribe, to consecrate a newly made statue in honor of the Kandará deví—the goddess of the valley, after the former one is disfigured and dilapidated. (The Kirántis are said to continue in their idolatry to this day, notwithstanding the conversion of their fellow hill tribes to Mahomedanism, except the Kafers—another hill tribe of the Himalayas who are idolators still). 8. Any prince of the place, who out of his vileness, fails to consecrate the statue of the Kandará goddess, brings out of his own perverseness, great calamities to visit his people. (This sort of retributive justice is expressed in the adage “rájadoshat rájya nashta”:—“And for the king’s offence the people died.” Pope’s Homer’s Iliad I). 9. By worshipping her, man obtains the fruits of all his desires; and by neglecting it, he exposes himself to all sorts of evils and calamities; as effects of the pleasure and displeasure of the goddess to her votaries or otherwise. (The two clauses are instances of affirmative and negative enthymemes coupled together as anvaya vyatirekí. The first enthymeme of the antecedent and consequent is affirmative anvayí, and the other a vyatirekí or negative one). Gloss.

10. The goddess is still worshipped by dying and ailing people with offerings, for remedy of their illness and securing her blessings; and she in her turn distributes her rewards among them, that worship her either in her statue or picture. (Raxá Kálí is worshipped in statue, but Mongla Chandí is worshipped in a ghata or potful of water). 11. She is the bestower of all blessings to young babes, and weak calves and cows; while she kills the hardy and proud that deserve their death. She is the goddess of intelligence and favours the intelligent, and presides for ever in the realm of the Kiráta people. (Vasishtha being a theist, reviles like a Vaishnava, the black goddess as a Rákshasí, which a Kaula cannot countenance).

DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERM OF THE MIND. Argument. Reason of the application of the name Karkatí, and its simile to a crooked crab. Vasishtha said:—I have thus related to you Ráma, the unblamable legend of Karkatí, the Rákshasí of Imaus, from its beginning to end in ipso facto. (Imaus and Imodus are ranges of the Himálayas. The Gloss interprets Imaus as a synonym of Himálayas, by apocope of the latter member of the compound word, and by a grammatical rule, that the curtailing of a part of a proper name, does not affect the full meaning of the name. So for the omissions of agnomens and cognomens). 2. Ráma rejoined:—But how could one born in a cave of Himavatas (Imodus), become a black Rákshasí, and why was she called Karkatí? These I want to be clearly explained to me. (Ráma’s demand was reasonable, as the people of the Himálayas, are always of fair complexions, and the Rákshasas were the Negroes of Southern India). 3. Vasishtha replied:—The Rakshas (cannibals), are originally of many races, some of whom are of dark and others of fair complexions, while many have a yellowish appearance and some of a greenish shade. (We know the red Rákshasas of America, but it is impossible for us to account for the green or blue Rákshasas in the text).

4. As for Karkatí, you must know that there was a Rákshasa by name of Karkata, from his exact resemblance to a cancer. (Here is a reversion of Sycorax the Negro parent, and her crooked son caliban Kálibán—the black Negro, having long arms and legs, with feet and hands furnished with claws and long nails like those of beasts). 5. The reason of my relating to you the narrative of Karkatí, was only for her queries which I recollected and thought, would serve well to explain the omniform God, in our disquisition into spiritual knowledge. (Gloss. Vasishtha adduces a contradiction in the spiritual knowledge of God, by calling him a spirit and yet as all forms of things. But this seeming contrariety will disappear upon reflecting that, the phenomenal is contained in the noumenal, and the forms are viewed only in the spirit as visions in dreams). 6. It is evident that the pure and perfect unity, is the source of the impure and imperfect duality of the phenomena, and this finite world has sprung from its Supreme cause, who is without beginning and end. (The One is the cause of many, and the Infinite is the source of the finite. Ahamsarvasyám. Anádirádi sarvasya).

7. These float (before our eyes) like the waves upon waters, which are apparently of different forms, and yet essentially the same with the element, on which they seem to move. So the creations whether present, past or future, are all situated in the Supreme Spirit. (The immaterial spirit is the basis and substratum of material bodies). 8. As wet wood when ignited, serves for the purpose of infusing heat, and inviting the apes of the forest to warm themselves in cold weather; so the externally shining appearance of the world, invites the ignorant to resort to it. 9. Such is the temporary glow of the ever cool spirit of God, in the works of creation; which shows itself in many forms without changing its essence. 10. The absent world appeared in presence, and its unreality appears as a reality to consciousness, like the potential figures carved in wood. (The would-be world existed in the eternal ideas in the mind of God, like the possible figures in the wood, which were carved out afterwards. And so too Aristotle).

11. As the products, of the seed from its sprout to the fruit, are all of the same species; so the thoughts (chetyas) of the mind—Chitta, are of the same nature as those originally implanted in it. (The homogeneity of the cause with all its effects). 12. By the law of the continuity of the same essence, there is no difference in the nature of the seed and its fruit; so the intellect (chit) and the thoughts (chetyas), differ in nothing except in their forms; like the waves and water differing in external appearance, and not in the intrinsicality of their substance (Vastu). 13. No demonstration can show the difference between thoughts and the mind; and whatever distinction our judgment may make betwixt them, it is easily refuted by right reasoning. (Such as the incapability of an effect being produced without its cause, or disagreement between the effects of the same or similar causes).

14. Let this error therefore vanish, as it has come from nothing to nothing; and as all causeless falsities fail of themselves. You will know more of this, Ráma! when you are awakened to divine knowledge. In the meantime, do away with error of viewing a duality, which is different from the only existent Unity. (Duality being driven out, all will appear one and the same. So Sádi the sophist: duirácho badar kardam ekebinam ekedámam). 15. After the knot of your error is cut asunder, by your attending to my lectures, you will come to know by yourself, the signification and substance (object) of what is called the true knowledge, which is taken in different senses by the various schools; but that which comes of itself in the mind, is the intuitive knowledge of divine truth. 16. You have a mind like that of the common people (itara), which is full of mistakes and blunders (anarthas); all which will doubtlessly subside in your mind, by your attending to my lectures (because the words of the wise remove all errors).

17. You will be awakened by my sermons to know this certain truth, that all things proceed from Brahma into whom they ultimately return. (Brahma is the producer, sustainer, and recipient or the first and last of all. He is alpha and omega). 18. Ráma rejoined:—Sir, your affirmation of the first cause in the ablative case, “that all things proceed from Brahma,” is opposed to the negative passage in the Sruti in the same case, that “nothing is distinct from Him”; and is inconsistent in itself (in as much as, there cannot be all things, and again nothing but Brahma; and to say “the same thing comes from the same,” would be a palpable absurdity). 19. Vasishtha answered:—Words or significant terms are used in the Sástras for instruction of others; and where there appears any ambiguity in them, they are explained in their definitions. (Hence the ablative form “from Brahma” is not faulty, for what is in the receptacle, the same comes out of it; or as they say, “what is in the bottom, the same comes upon the surface”; and the one is not distinct from the other, as the wave differs not from the water whence it rises. This is downright pantheism).

20. Hence it is the use though not in honest truth, to make a difference of the visibles from the invisible Brahma (for the purpose of instruction); as it is usual to speak of ghosts appearing to children, though there be no such things in reality. (It is imagination that gives a name to airy nothing, and it is the devise of language to use words for negative ideas, as the word world to denote a duality and darkness for want of light, and not anything in itself). 21. In reality there is no duality connected with the unity of Brahma, as there is no dualism of a city and the dream that shows its apparition in sleep. Again God being immutable in his nature and eternal decree, it is wrong to apply the mutations of nature and the mutability of Will to Him. (Volition is accompanied by nolition (Volo and nolo) in mutable minds, but there is no option Vikalpa in the sankalpa—suo arbitrio of the unchangeable Mind).

22. The Lord is free from the states of causality and the caused, of instrumentality and instruments, of a whole and its part, and those of proprietorship and property. (The attribution of cause and effect or any other predicate or predicable, is wholly inapplicable to him, who is devoid of all attributes). 23. He is beyond all affirmative and negative propositions, and their legitimate conclusions or false deductions and elenches. (i.e. Nothing can be truly affirmed or denied or ascertained or negated of Him, by any mode of reasoning. Naisatarkenánaneyah). 24. So the attribution, of the primary volition to the Deity, is a false imputation also. Yet it is usual to say so for the instruction of the ignorant; though there is no change in his nature from its nolliety to velleity. (So it is usual to attribute sensible properties of speech and sight, to the immaterial spirit of God, by a figure of speech; and for the instruction of the vulgar, who cannot comprehend the incomprehensible).

25. These sensible terms and figurative expressions, are used for the guidance of the ignorant; but the knowing few, are far from falling into the fallacy of dualism. All sensible conceptions ceasing upon the spiritual perception of God, there ensues an utter and dumb silence. (We become tongue-tied, and our lips are closed and sealed in silence, to speak anything with certainty of the unspeakable). 26. When in time you come to know these things better, you shall arrive at the conclusion, that all this is but one thing, and an undivided whole without its parts, and having no beginning nor end. (The world is therefore self-same and co-eternal and co-existent, with the eternal and self-existent God). 27. The unlearned dispute among themselves from their uncertainty of truth; but their differences and dualisms are all at an end, upon their arriving to the knowledge of the true unity by instructions of the wise. (The reality is precisely in the indifference of the subject and object. Schelling).

28. Without knowledge of the agreement of significant words with their significates, it is impossible to know the Unity, for so long as a word is taken in different senses, there will be no end of disputes and difference of opinions. Dualisms being done away, all disputes are hushed up in the belief of unity. (i.e. All words expressive of the Deity, refer to his unity and signify the one and the same Lord of all, which ends all controversy on the point). 29. O support of Raghu’s race! place your reliance on the sense of the great sayings of the vedas; and without paying any regard to discordant passages, attend to what I will tell you at present. (Such as: Brahma is used in one place in the ablative and in another in the locative case, and also in the nominative and as the same with the world). 30. From whatever cause it may have sprung, the world resembles a city rising to view in a vision; just as the thoughts and ideas appearing before the mirror of the mind, from some source of which we know nothing. (They are as puppet shows of the player, behind the screen).

31. Hear Ráma! and I will relate to you an instance for your ocular evidence, how the mind (chitta), spins out the magical world (máyika) from itself. (This ocular instance called the drishtánta-drishtávedana, is that of the spider’s thread (urnanábha-tantu) woven of itself, and given in the Sruti). 32. Having known this, O Ráma! you will be able to cast away all your erroneous conceptions; and being certain of the certitude, you will resign your attachment to, and your desires in this enchanted and bewitching world. (Hence the certainty, of God’s being aloof from the false world, as it is said Deus ex machina). 33. All these prospective worlds are machinations or the working of the mind. Having forsaken these false fabrications of fancy, you will have the tranquility of your soul, and abide in peace with yourself for ever. (Exemption from all worldly cares and anxieties of the past, present and future lives, leads to the peace of mind). 34. By paying your attention to the drift of my preachings, you will be able to find out of your own reasoning, a mite of the medicine, for curing all the maladies of your deluded mind. (Right reason by the art of reasoning, furnishes the true medicine (psyches iatrion) to remove the errors of the understanding).

35. If you sit in this manner (in your silent meditation), you will see the whole world in your mind; and all outward bodies will disappear (in your abstract contemplation), like drops of oil in the sand. (All things are presented to the mind by intuition, and are present in the memory—the great keeper or master of Rolls of the soul). 36. The mind is the seat of the universe as long as it is not vitiated by passions and affections and afflictions of life; and it is set beyond the world (in heavenly bliss), no sooner it gets rid of the turmoils of its present state. (The mind, says Milton, can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven). 37. The mind is the means to accomplish anything; it is the store-keeper to preserve all things in the store-house of its memory; it is the faculty of reasoning; and the power to act like a respectable person. It is therefore to be treated with respect, in recalling, restraining and guiding us to our pursuits and duties. (Facultates sunt quibus facilius fit, sine quibus omnino confici non potest. Cicero).

NOTE.—The mind is what moves and acts by its active and cognitive faculties, and is more to be regarded than the body, which move entirely as it is moved by the mind. Hence God is called the Mind of the world—Anima mundi? 38. The mind contains the three worlds with all their contents, and the surrounding air in itself; and exhibits itself as the plenum of egoism, and plenitude of all in its microcosm. (The mind is the synthesis of all its attributes, and man is living synthesis of the world with regard to his mind. Paracelsus. Its memory is both a capacity and a power by its retention and ready reproduction of every thing). 39. The intellectual part of the mind, contains the subjective self-consciousness of ego, which is the seed of all its powers; while its other or objective part, bears the erroneous forms of the dull material world in itself. (The former is called the drashtá or viewer ego, and the latter the drishta or the view non ego. The subjective is the thinking subject ego, and the objective is the object of thought the non ego).

40. The self-born Brahmá saw the yet increate and formless world, as already present before his mind in its ideal state, like a dream at its first creation. He saw it (mentally) without seeing it (actually). (i.e. The eternal ideas of immaterial forms of possible things in the Divine Mind. The eternal exemplars of things and Archetypes of the Ectypal world. Thus the passage in the Bible “And God saw his works were good.” i.e. answer those in his fair idea. Milton). 41. He beheld the whole creation in the self-consciousness (samvitti) of his vast mind, and he saw the material objects, the hills &c., in the samvid of his gross personal consciousness. At last he perceived by his súkshma vid subtile sightedness (clairvoyance), that all gross bodies were as empty as air and not solid substantialities. (Consciousness being the joint knowledge of the subjective and objective, i.e. of ourselves in connection with others; the one is called superior or subjective self-consciousness, and the other or objective personal-consciousness).

42. The mind with its embodying thoughts, is pervaded by the omnipresent soul, which is spread out as transpicuously as sun-beams upon the limpid water. (The soul is the chit or intellectual part of the mind (chitbhága of chitta), and the root of all mental activities. The chidbhága has the power of giving knowledge which moves the other faculties of the mind. Gloss). 43. The mind is otherwise like an infant, which views the apparition of the world in its insensible sleep of ignorance; but being awakened by the intellect chit, it sees the transcendent form of the self or soul without the mist of delusion, which is caused by the sensitive part of the mind, and removed by the reasoning faculties of the intellect—Chidbhága. 44. Hear now Ráma! what I am going to tell of the manner, in which the soul is to be seen in this phenomenal world, which is the cause of misleading the mind from its knowledge of the unity to the erroneous notion of the duality. (The sensitivity of the mind of objective phenomenals, misleads it from its intellection of the subjective noumenal part which is a positive unity. Gloss).

45. What I will say, can not fail to come to your heart, by the opposite similes, right reasoning, and graceful style, and good sense of the words, in which they shall be conveyed to you; and by hearing of these, your heart will be filled with delight, which will pervade your senses, like the pervasive oil upon the water. 46. The speech which is without suitable comparisons and graceful phraseology, which is inaudible or clamorous, and has inappropriate words and harsh sounding letters, cannot take possession of the heart, but is thrown away for nothing, like butter poured upon the burnt ashes of an oblation, and has no power to kindle the flame. The blemishes of speech are all comprised in the following couplet in the Mahábháshya of Patánjala:—ग्रस्तं निरस्तं प्रबिलम्वितं द्रुतमीम्वु कूतं ध्मानमथबिकम्पितं । बिस्रस्तमेणी कृतमङ्गकं हतं बिकीर्ण मेताष्ठस्वरदोषभाबनाः ॥ 47. Whatever narrative and tales there are in any language on earth, and whatever compositions are adorned with measured sentences and graceful diction; all these are rendered perspicacious by conspicuous comparisons, as the world is enlightened by the cooling beams of the moon. Hence every sloka almost in this work, is embellished with a suitable comparison.

INTERVIEW OF BRAHMÁ AND THE SUN. Argument.—Brahmá intending to create the world, sees the orbs of light, and invokes the luminous Sun. Vasishtha continued:—I will relate to you Ráma, agreeably to your request, the story that was narrated to me of old by Brahmá himself (the personified mind of God and the lord of creatures). The manas or mind produced Manu—the progeny of the mind; who begat the Manujas otherwise called mánavas or manushyas, or men—the offspring of the mind. 2. I had asked the lotus-born god once before, to tell me how these hosts of creation had come to being. (Vasishtha the offspring of Brahmá, had his communion with his father—the first great patriarch of mankind). 3. Then Brahmá the great progenitor of men, granted my request, and related to me the apologue of Aindava in his sonorous voice. (The oracles of God were delivered in the loud noise of thunders—brihad-vachas). 4. Brahmá said:—All this visible world is the manifestation of the divine mind, like the circling whirl-pools and rippling curls of water on the surface of the sea. (Referring to the revolutions of heavenly bodies in the air).

5. Hear me tell you, said he, how I (the personified mind), awoke at first on the day of creation in a former kalpa, with my volition to create (expand) myself. (The volitive mind rose out of the sleeping intelligence on the dawning day of creation). 6. Erewhile I remained alone, and quietly intent upon the One at the end of the prior day (or Kalpa), by having compressed the whole creation in the focus of my mind, and hid it under the gloom of the primeval night. (Old chaos or darkness that reigned over the surface of the deep before the dawn of light. Tama ásit, tamaságúdhamagra. There was darkness enveloping all things. Sruti). 7. At the end of the chaotic night I awoke as from a deep sleep; and performed my matins as it is the general law (of all living beings). I oped my eyes with a view to create, and fixed my look on the vacuum all about me. (When that spirit sleeps it is night, and when it awakes, it is a day of recreation (resurrection). Manu).

8. As far as I viewed, it was empty space and covered by darkness, and there was no light of heaven. It was unlimitedly extensive, all void and without any boundary. (Infinite space existed ere creation came into existence. Sruti. All was teom and beom or tama and vyoma). 9. Being then determined to bring forth the creation, I began to discern the world in its simple (ideal) form within me, with the acuteness of my understanding. (i.e. I looked into the prototypes or models of things contained in the Mind). 10. I then beheld in my mind the great cosmos of creation, set unobstructed and apart from me in the wide extended field of vacuity. (The archetypes of our ideas, are the things existing out of us. Locke. Our ideas though seen within us, form no part of ourselves or our being). 11. Then the rays of my reflexion stretched out over them, from amidst the lotus-cell of my abode, and sat in the form of ten lotus-born Brahmás over the ten orbs (planets) of this world; like so many swans brooding upon their eggs. (The spirit of God that dove-like sat, brooding over the deep. Milton).

12. Then these separate orbs (mundane eggs), brought forth, to light multitudes of beings, amidst their transparent aqueous atmospheres. (All worlds girt by their covereles of watery ether or nebulous clouds, teemed with productions of every kind). 13. Thence sprang the great rivers and the roaring seas and oceans; and thence again rose the burning lights and blowing winds of the firmament. (The atmospheric water is the source of all things). 14. The gods began to sport in the etherial air, and men moved about on the earth, and demons and serpents were confined in their abodes underneath the ground. (The gods are called devas from their sporting in the regions of light—divideváh divyanti. Men are párthivas from prithví the earth, and demons are called infernal from their abode in the infrapátála or antipodes). 15. The wheel of time turns with the revolution of seasons and their produce, and it adorns the earth with her various productions by change of the seasons.

16. Laws were fixed for all things on all sides, and human actions were regulated in the smritis as right or wrong, and producing as their fruits, the reward of heaven or the torments of hell. (And Brahmá appointed to all beings their several laws. Manu. And there is no single atom that goes beyond its appointed law—nature or dharma, which is an attribute of the Great God). 17. All beings are in pursuit of their enjoyments and liberty, and the more they strive for their desired objects, the better they thrive in them. (The gloss makes the pursuit of earthly enjoyments to be the cause of pain and hell, and that of liberation from them to be productive of heavenly bliss). 18. In this way were the sevenfold worlds and continents, the septuple oceans and the seven boundary mountains, brought to existence, and they continue to exist until their final dissolution at the end of a Kalpa period (which is determined by the Kalpa or will of God). 19. The primeval darkness fled before light from the face of open lands, and took its refuge in mountain caverns and hollow caves; it abides in some places allied with light, as in the shady and sunny forest lands and lawns.

20. The azure sky like a lake of blue lotuses, is haunted by fragments of dark clouds, resembling swarms of black-bees on high; and the stars twinkling in it, liken the yellow filaments of flowers shaken by the winds. 21. The huge heaps of snow setting in the valleys of high hills, resemble the lofty simula trees beset by their pods of cotton. 22. The earth is encircled by the polar mountains serving as her girdles, and the circles of the polar seas serving as her sounding anklets and trinkets. She is girt by the polar darkness as by a blue garment, and studded all about with gems, growing and glowing in the bosoms of her rich and ample mines and seas. (The lokáloka or polar mountain, is so called from its having eternal light and night on either side, turned towards or beyond the solar light). 23. The earth covered over by the garniture of her verdure, resembles a lady sitting begirt by her robes; and having the produce of paddy for her victuals; and the busy buzz of the world for her music.

24. The sky appears as a bride veiled under the sable mantle of night, with the glittering chains of stars for her jewels. The season fruits and flowers hanging in the air, resemble wreaths of lotuses about her person. 25. The orbs of worlds appear as the beautiful fruits of pomegranates, containing all their peoples in them, like the shining grains of granites in the cells of those fruits. 26. The bright moon-beams stretching both above and below and all around the three sides, appear as the white sacred thread, girding the world above and below and all about; or as the stream of Gangá running in three directions in the upper, lower and nether worlds. 27. The clouds dispersing on all sides with their glittering lightnings, appear as the leaves and flowers of aerial forests, blown away by the breezes on all sides. 28. But all these worlds with their lands and seas, their skies and all their contents, are in reality as unreal as the visionary dreams; and as delusive as the enchanted city of the Fairy land.

29. The gods and demons, men and serpents, that are seen in multitudes in all worlds, are as bodies of buzzing gnats, fluttering about the dumbura—fig trees. (Udumbara is the ficus religiosus—yajnadumbura or sacred fig tree. It is by the orthographical figure aphaeresis or elision of the initial, that udumbara is made dumbura, vulgo). 30. Here time is moving on with his train of moments and minutes, his ages, yugas and kalpas, in expectation of the unforeseen destruction of all things. (Time devours and destroys all things). 31. Having seen all these things in my pure and enlightened understanding, I was quite confounded to think, whence could all these have come into being. (The first inquiry into the cause and origin of beings). 32. Why is it that I do not see with my visual organs, all that I perceive, as a magic scene spread out in the sphere of my Mind? 33. Having looked into these for a long time with my steadfast attention, I called to me the brightest sun of these luminous spheres and addressed him saying:—(The first address of Brahmá to the sun, corresponds with Adam’s address to that luminary. “Thou glorious sun nature’s first born and the light and life &c.” Milton).

34. Approach to me, O god of gods, luminous sun! I welcome thee to me! Having accosted him thus, I said:— 35. Tell me what thou art and how this world with all its bright orbs came to being; if thou knowest aught of these, then please reveal it to me. 36. Being thus addressed, he looked upon me, and then having recognized me, he made his salutation, and uttered in graceful words and speech. 37. The sun replied:—Thou lord! art the eternal cause of these false phenomena, how is it then that thou knowest it not, but askest me about the cause thereof? 38. But shouldst thou, all knowing as thou art, take a delight in hearing my speech, I will tell thee of my unasked and unthought of production, which I beg thee to attend to.