THE

YOGA-VA'SISHTHA MAHARAMA'YANA.

of

VALMIKI

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL SANSKRIT

BY

VIHARI LALA MITEA,

CONTAINING

UTPATTI KHANDA, STHITI PRAKARANA AND

UPASAMA KHANDA TO CHAPTER LIII.

VOL. li.

KAHINOOR PRESS. CALCUTTA.

1893.

I AM ]

PRINTED BY H. BAGCHL

XAHINOOR FKBSS. CAU;urTA,

CONTENTS.

THfiSBCOND VOLUME.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER LI.

fAIO.

DescHption of Sindhu�s Dominions.t

CHAPTER Lit.

State of Man after Death.<4

CHAPTER LIII.

EeprawnfntioliB of Keminisoence . . , � 10

CHAPTER LIV.

Reflections on Death.. . 15

CHAPTER LV.

The States of Life and Death ....... 23

CHAPTER LVI.

State of the Soul after Death ....... SI

CHAPTER LVn.

Phenomena of Dreaming...37

CHAPTER LVIII.

Reviral of Podma ......... 43

CHAPTER LIX.

Sztinetion of Padma�s Life.48

CHAPTER LX.

On Darati9n and Time and Thoughts of the Mind . . . . SO

n C0TENT80F

CHAFFER LXt.

; On the Natare of the World. 59

CHAFFER LXII.

Interpretation of Destiny 04

CHAFFER LXIII.

Immntability of ttie Divine Mind 69

CHAFFER LXIV.

The OennSnaiing Seed . ...

CHAFFER LXV.

Matare of the Living Soul. . 78

: CHAFFER LXVI.

Meditation of the Subjective and Objective . . . . � 78

CHAFFER LXVII.

Lecture on Trutli ����.����81

CHAFFER LXVIII.

Description of a Rdkshasi (or female fiend) . . # � � Q4

CHAFFER LXIX.

Story of Yisnchika.97

CHAFFER LXX.

CondnctofVisnchi, or the Adventures of the Needle . . . 100

. CHAFFER LXXI.

Bemorse of Sdchf.110

CHAFFER LXXIl.

Fervour of Sdchi�s Devotion..

CHAFFER LXXIIL

N&rada�s Relation of Sdchfs Devotion . 119

CHAFFER LXXIV.

Consummation of Sdohi'e Devotion. 1 S 7

CHAFFER LXXV.

Sdehi�s regaining her former frame ISl

THE SECOND VOLUME,

CHAPTER LXXVI.
ttefraining irom Unlawful Food
� �

� �

CHAPTER LXXVII.

Deliberation of Karkatf . . � � �

CHAPTER LXXVIll.

bonfiBience of Uie ..

CHAPTER EXXIX.

Interrogstoriee of the Rdkehaeltf . . � �

CHAPTER LXXX.

Solution of the Queationa.

CHAPTER LXXXI.

Congeriee of Spiritual Doctrines . . . �

CHAPTER LXXXII.

Friendship of the Bdksbasf . . . � >

CHAPTER LXXXIII.
'Worship of Kandari Alias Mangala

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

Development of the germ of the mind . .

CHAPTER LXXXV.
Interview of BrohmA and the Sun . f

CHAPTER LXXXVI^
Story of Indtt and his sons ....

CHAPTER LXXXVII.
Analecta of the Celestial Spheres ....

CHAPTER LXXXVIll.
Indifference of Brahma .....

CHAPTER LXXXIX.
Story of Indra and Ahalyi .....

CHAPTER LXXXX.

Love of the Fictitious India and Ahalyd

tit.
. 134

. isr

. 141 .

. 147

. 153

. 162

. 176

. 182

. 185

. 194

. 200

. . 207

. 209

. 212

. 218

W CONTENTS OF

CHAPTER LXXXXI.

lacuiution d tiie laving Soul or Jira . � . �

CHAPTER LXXXXII.

. . 220

Oa the PowetB of Mind . . . . � �

. . 228

CHAPTER LXXXXIIl.

A view of the Oonesis of the mind and Body � . .

CHAPTER LXXXXIV.

. 233

Brahma the Origin of All.

CHAPTER LXXXXV.

. . 237

Identity of the Actor and hii Action. . . . �

CHAPTER LXXXXVI.

. 241

Inqmiy into the Nature of Mind .....

CHAPTER LXXXXVII.

. . 246

The Magnitude of the Sphere of the Intellect. . .

CHAPTER LXXXXVni.

. . 268

History of the Human Heart .....

CHAPTER LXXXXIX.

. .263

History of the Heart.. .

CHAPTER C.

. . 268

Healing of tlie Heart . *. . . ...

� CHAPTER Cl.

. . 272

Story of the Boy and Three Princes ....

CHAPTER CII.

. . 279

On the Indivisibility and Immortality of the Sonl. .

CHAPTER cm.

. . 286
On ttie Nature of the Mind.

CHAPTER CIV.

. . 292

Story of a Magic Scene.

CHAPTER CV.

. . 2^

The Breaking of the Magic spell . . . , :

� � 30l

THE I^COND VOLUME.

CHAFTEB CVI.

Tht Taliaman of ^ Eingli Marriage with a ChandMa Maid

. 304

CHAPTER evil.

PeaciiptionofaThki&ofPaiigen. . .

. 318

CHAPTER evin.

Description of a draught and Dearth . . ,

-a

. 318

CHAPTER CIX.

Migration of the Chanddlas.

�

. 882

CHAPTER CX.

Description of Mind ......

. 826

CHAPTER CXI.

Healing of the Heart and Mind ....

. 33S

CHAPTER CXII.

The BesUeasness of the Mind and ita Cure . .

. 341

CHAPTER CXIII.

Desorilption of I^orande and Delosion, (Avidyd) .

. 344

CHAPTER CXIV.

Description of Erron ..

. 351

CHAPTER CXV.

Causes of Happiness and Misery . � ^ �

a

. 360

CHAPTER CXVI.

Birth and laoamation of Adepts in Togs

. 364

CHAPTER CXVII.
Difihrwit States of Knowledge and Ignorance.

'. 368

CHAPTER CXVllI.
Directions to the Stages of Knowledge . .

. 373

CHAPTER CXIX.

Ulastrarion of the Gold-ring. . . . - .

. 377

CHAPTER CXX.

LaoMBtatioB of the CbandfUa Woman .

. 383
VI

CONTENTS OF

CHAPTER CXXI.

Proof of the futility of Mind ...<��< 387

CHAPTER CXXII.

Aaoertainment of tlie Self or Soul .,��>� S9G

CONTENTS.

09

STHITI PRAKARANA.

(Ok Oktoloot OB Existencs).

BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.

J anya-Jani�Nirdpana.

� � � �

CHAPTER 11.

. 4oa

The Beceptacle of tho Mundane Egg . .

CHAPTER III.

. 408
Eternity of the World .

� � � �

CHAPTER IV.

. 411

Treating of tho Germ of Existence

CHAPTER V.

ft

. 414

Story of Bh&igava . *

� � � �

CHAPTER VI.

ft

. 416.

Elysium of Bhirgava .

� � � �

CHAPTER VII.

. 418

Be-uuion of the Lovers

� � � �

CHAPTER VIII.
�

. 421

Transmigration of Siikra

CHAPTER IX.

. 425

Pescription of Sdkra�s Body ....

. 429

THB SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER X.

Bhriga�s CosfercDce with Eila or Death . .

. 431

CHAPTER XI.

Cause of the Production of tho World . . .

. 439

CHAPTER XII.
Detailed Accoont of tho Genesis of the World .

. 448

CHAPTER XIII.

Consolation of Bhrigu .��...

. 451

CHAPTER XIV.

Shkra�s Beminiscence of his Motempaychosis.

�-

. 454

CHAPTER XV.
Lamentation and Expostulation of Sdkra .

. 450

CHAPTER XVI.

Resuscitation of Sdkra . . . . �

. 464

CHAPTER XVII.

Attainment of the Ideal Realm ....

. 467

CHAPTER XVIII.

Tho Incarnation of tho Living Spirit . . .

�

. 471

CHAPTER XTX.

Investigation into the Nature of the Living Soul .

. 480

CHAPTER XX. �

Description of the Mind .....

. 481

CHAPTER XXI.

On the Philosophy of the Mind ....

: 486

CHAPTER XXII.

Resting in Supreme Felicity ....

. 493

CHAPTER XXTII.

Meditation of the Wonders in the Realm of the Body

. 498

CHAPTER XXIV.

The Non-entity of the Mind.

. 550
COKTBNTSOF
CHAPTER XXV.

Natralive of DAma, Vyila and KAltt � �

CHAPTER XXVI.

. SOS

Battle of the DeiUee and Demons. . . �

CHAPTER XXVII.

. 613

Admonition of Brahmd .....

CHAPTER XXVm.

. 518

The Renewed Battle of the Gods and Demons .

CHAPTER XXIX.

. 623

Defeat of the Demons . .....

CHAPTER XXX.

. 527

Account of the Subsequent lives of the Demons

CHAPTER XXXI.
�

531

InvestigaUon of Reality and Unreality

CHAPTER XXXII.

. 533

On Good Conduet .

CHAPTER XXXIII.

. 639

Consideration of Egoism .

CHAPTER XXXrV.

. 643

End of the Story of D&tna and ByAla .

� CHAPTER XXXV.

. 553

Description of Insonciance .

CHAPTER XXXVI.

. 568

Description of the Inteliectual Sphere .

CHAPTER XXXVIl.
�

. 666

Upasama. The Sameness or Quietism of the Soul .

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

. 570

The Same Quietness or Quietude of the Spirit.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

. 672

On the Unity of all Things ....

. 677

677

THE SECOND VOLDME. �

CHAPTER XXXX.

Brahma Identic with the World 584

CHAPTER XLI.

Description of ignorance ..�.���� �o ^89

CHAPTER XLII.

Production of Jiva or Living Souls.593

CHAPTER XLIII.

The Bepositorios of Living Souls.598

CHAPTER XLIV.

Tlie Incarnation of Human Souls in the World .... C05

CHAPTER XLV.

Dependence of all on God.. . .611

CHAPTER XLYI.

Description of Living-Liberation . . . . > . . 617

CHAPTER XLVII.

Description of the Worlds and their Demiurges .... 621

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Story of D&sura.630

CHAPTER XLI .

Description of Ddsnra�s Eadamba Forest ".635

CHAPTER L. -

Ddsura�s Survey of the Heavens.639

CHAPTER LI.

Ddsura�s Begetting a Sou.641

CAPTER LH.

Grandeur of tho Air-born King.618

CHPTRR LIII.

Description of the Mundane City.649

CHAPTER LIV.

Corrective of Desires .

. 655
z

CONTEN'm OF

CHAPTER LV.

Meeting of Vaeiatha and D&aura ....

CHAPTER LVI.

On the Soul and ita Inertneas ....

CHAPTER LVII.

Nature of Volliety and Nolliety ....

CHAPTER LVm.

The song of Kacha.

CHAPTER LIX.

Worka of Bmhmd�a Oreatiun.

CHAPTER LX.

Froduction of Living Beings ....

CHAPTER LXI.

On Birth, Death and Existence ....

CHAPTER LXII.

Spoeoli of the Divine Messenger ....

CONTENTS

OF

UPASAMA KHANDA.

(On Quietism.)
BOOK V.
CHAPTER I.

The Aliuika or Daily Bitual

CHAPTER II.

lldma's Bccapitulatiou of Vaaishtha�s Lectures

CHAPTER III.

Description of the Eoyal Assembly

.. 600

. 664

. 670
. 676

. 678

. 664

. 687

. 660

. 663

7 608

. 703

THE SECOND VOLUME. xi

CHAPTER IV.

Inquirios of Rdma.706

CHAPTER V.

Lecture on Tranquility of the Sonl and Mind ..... 710

CHAPTER VI.

Lecture on the Discharge of Duty.716

CHAPTER VII.

On Attainment of Divine Knowledge.719

CHAPTER VIII.

Song of the Siddhaa or Holy Adopts.720

CHAPTER IX.

Reflections of Jauak.723

CHAPTER X.

Silent and Solitary Reflections of Jannka.730

CHAPTER XI.

Subjection of the Mind ........ 734

CHAPTER XII.

On the Orentness of the Intelligence.787

CHAPTER XIIJ.

Government of the Mind.741

CHAPTER XIV.

Ascertainment of the Tliinking Principle.754

CHAPTER XV.

On Avarice. ..761

CHAPTER XVI.

Healing of Avarice.764

CHAPTER XVII.

On tho Extirpation of Avarice. 767

CHAPTER XVIII.

Living Liberation or True Felicity of Man in this Life . . 771

XII

CONTENS OF

CHAPTER XIX.

On Holy Knowledge..

. 779

CHAPTER XX.
Bemonstration of F&vana . . . . �

. 784

CHAPTER XXL

Bepression of Desires by Means of ITogorMeditation

. 789

CHAPTER XXII.

Narrative of Virochana .....

. 79S

CHAPTER XXIII.

Speech of Yirochana on Subjection of the Mind .

. 799

CHAPTER XXIV.

On the Healing and Improvement of the Mind .

. 803

CHAPTER XXV.

Bcflcctions of Bali ��...�

; 811

CHAPTER XXVI.
Admonition of Snkra to Bali ....

. 814

CHAPTER XXVII.

Hebetude of Bali ..

. 817

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Description of Bali�s anassthisia ....

. 821

CHAPTER XXIX.

Bali�s rcsquscitatiou to sensibility ....

� 824

CHAPTER XXX.

Fall of Hiranya Easipu and Bise of Prahldda ,

. 831

CHBPTER XXXI.

Prahldda�s Faith in Vishnu.

. 835
THE SECONE VOLUME.

CHAPTER XXXtl.

The Spiritual and formal Womhip of Vishnu..

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Prahlada's Sapplioation to Hari . ..848

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Prahlada�s Self-knowledge of Spiritualism . . ' . . .852

CHAPTER XXXV.

Meditation on Brahma in One�s Self. 865.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Hymn to the Soul ..� . . . 870

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Disorder and Disquiet of the Asura Boalm. 885.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Scrutiny into tho Nature of Qod ....... 887

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Admonitions of Hari to FrahUda 890

CHAPTER XL.

Besuscitation of Frahlida.896

CHAPTER XLI.

Installation of Prahl&da in his Bealm ...... 900

CHAPTER XLIl.

Spirituality of Prahldda . . . . �. , . , 905

CHAPTER XLIII.

Brat and Bepose of Prahldda.908

CHAPTER XLIV.

Narrative of Gddhi and bis Destmction.913

CHAPTER XLV.

Q&dhi is Bebom as a Chandila, and made King over thO Kir Tribe . 918.

CHAPTER XLVI..

Gddhi�s Loss of his Visionary Kingdom.923

CONTENTS OP

CHAPTER XLVII.

Verification nf Vision 928

CHAPTER XLVIII.

On the Wondrous Power of Tilnsion ...... gs.'i

CHAPTER XLIX.

Chilli�s gaining of True Kuowieilge ...... 943

CHAPTER L.

Intentions of R&ma ......... 949

CHAPTER LI.

Desire of UddAlaka ..960

CHAPTER LII.

Ratiocination of Udd&taka.966

CHAPTER LIIl.

The Rational Rapture of Udddlaka ...... 974

YOGA VASISHTHA.

BOOK III.

UTPATTl KHANDA.

CHAPTER LI.

Descuiption of Sindho�s Dominions.

y ASISHTHA said:�^Tho loud cry that the king was killed
in battle by the rival monarchy struck the people tvith
awe, and filled the realm with dismay.

2. Carts loaded with utensils and household articles, were

driving through the streets; and women with their loud wailings,
wore running away amidst the impassable paths of the city.

3. The weeping damsels that were flying for fear, were

ravished on the way by their captors; and the inhabitants were
in danger of being plundered of their properties by one another.

4. The Joyous shouts of the soldiers in the enemy's camp,

resounded with the roarings of loose elephants and neighings
of horses, trampling down the men to death on their way.

6. The doors af the royal treasury were broken open by

the bravo brigands, the valves flew off and the vaults re-echoed
to the strokes. The warders wore overpowered by numbers,
and countless treasures were plundered and carried away.

6. bandits ripped off the bellies of the royal dames in the

palace, and the chanddla free-booters hunted about the royal
apartments.

7. The hungry rabble robbed the provisions from the royal

stores; and the soldiers were snatching the jewels of the weeping
children trodden down under their feet.

8. Young and beautiful maidens were dragged by their

hair from the seraglio, and the rich gems that fell from the
hands of the robbers, glistened all along the way.

f YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

9. The chiefs assembled with ardour with their troojm of

horses^ elephants and war-ohariots, and announced the installation
of Sindbu by his- minister.

10. Chief engineers were employed in mahing the decora>

tiona of the city and its halls, and the balconies were filled by
the royal party attending at the inauguration.

11. It was then that the coronation of Sindhu^s son, took

place amidst the loud acclamations of victory; and titles and
dignities, were conferred upon the noblemen on the victor's side.

12. The royal party were ffying for Mfe into the villages,
where they were pursued by the victorions soldiers; and a gener�
al pillage spread in every town and village throughout the
realm.

13. Gangs of robbers thronged about, and bloeked the

passages for pillagpe and plunder; and a thick mist darkened the
Mght of the day for want of the magnanimous Viduratha.

14. The loud lamentations of the friends of the dead, and

the bitter cries of the dying, mixed with the clamour raised by
the driving ears, elephants and horses, thickened in the air as
a solid body of sound (pindagrdhya).

15. Loud trumpets proclaimed the victory of Sindhu in

every city, and announced his sole sovereignty all over the earth.

16. The high-shouldered Sindhu entered the capital as a

second Manu (Noah), for re-peopling it after the all�devastating
flood of war was oyer.

17. Then the tribute of the country poured into the city
of Sindhu from all sides; and these loaded on horses afid ele�
phants, resembled the rich cargoes borne by ships to the sea.

18. The new king issued forthwith his circulars and royal
edicts to all sides, struck coins in his own name, and placed
his rainistere as commissioners in all provinces.

19. His iron-rod was felt in all districts and cities like
the inexorable rod of Yama, and it overawed the living with
fear of instant death.

20. All insurrections and tumults in the realm, soon suIk

UTPATTI KHANDA.

sided to rest under his reig^; as the flying dust of the earth
and the faUiag leaves of .trees, fall to the ground upon sub-
eidence of a tempest.

21. The whole country on all sides was pacified to rest,

like the perturbed sea of milk after it had been churned by the
Mandara mountain.

22. Then there blew the gentle breeze of Malaya, un�

furling the locks of the lotus-faced damsels of Sindhu�s realm,
and wafting the liquid fragrance of their bodies around, and
driving away the unwholesome air (of the carnage).

CHAPTEE Lll,

Stats of mas aftfu death.

Y ASISHTHA said :�the meanwhile, O Edma ! Llld see�

ing her hnsband lying insensible before her and about
to breathe his last, thus spoke to Sarasvati.

2. Behold, O mother! my hnsband is about to shuffle his

mortal coil iu this perilous war, which has laid waste his whole
kingdom.

3, Sarasvaibt replied:�^This combat that you saw to be

fought with such fury, and lasting so long in the field, was
neither fought in thy kingdom nor in any part of this earth.

4. It occurred nowhere except in the vacant space of the

shrine, containing the dead body of the Brahman; and where it
appeared as the phantom of a dream only (in your imagination).

5. This land which appeared as the realm of thy living

lord Viduratha, was situated with all its ten-itories in the inner
apartment of Fadma. (The incidents of Viduralha�s life, being
but a vision ap^Hsaring to the departed spirit of Fadma).

6. Again it was the sepulchral tomb of the Brdhman Vasish-

tha, situated in the hilly village of Vindysl, that exhibited these
varying scenes of the�mortal world within itself, {i. e. Asa
panorama shows m^any sights to the eye, and one man playing
many parts in the stage).

7. As the departed soul views the vision of the past world

within its narrow tomb; so is the appearance of all worldly acci�
dents unreal in their nature. Gloss:�The apparitions appear�
ing before the souls of the dead lying in their tombs, are as
false as the appearances presenting themselves before the living
souls iu their tomb of this world. The souls of the living and
the dead are both alike in their nature, and both susceptible of
the like dreams and visions.

8. These objects that we see here as realities, including

UTPATTI KHANDA.

these bodies of mine and thine and this LiU�s, together with
this earth and these waters, arc just the same as the phantoms
rising in the tomb of the deceased BrAhman of the hilly region.

9. It is the soul which presents the images of things, and

nothing external which is wholly unreal can cast its reflexion
on the soul. Therefore know thy soul as the true essence which
is increate and immortal, and the source of all its creations
within itself. Note:�^The subjective is the cause of the objec�
tive and not this of that.

10. The soul reflects on its inborn images without changing

itself in any state, and thus it was the nature of the Brdhman�s
soul, that displayed these images in itself within the sphere of
his tomb.

11. But the illusion of the world with all its commotion,
was viewed in the vacant space of the souls of the BrAhman and
Fadma, and not displayed in the empty space of their tombs,
where there was no such en�oneous reflexion of the world.

12. There is no error or illusion anywhere, except in the

misconception of the observer; therefore the removal of the fallacy
from the mind of the viewer, leads him to the perception of the
light of truth.

13. Error consists in taking the unreal for the real, and in
thinking the viewer and the view or the subjective and objeo-
tive as different from each other. It is the removal of the dis�
tinction of the subjective and objective, that leads us to the
knowledge of unity (the on or one or out). .

14. Know the Supreme soul to bo free from the acts of

production and destruction, and it is his light that displays
all things of which He is the source; and learn the whole outer
nature cs having no existence nor change in itself.

15. But the souls of other beings, exhibit their own natures
in themselves; as thoseJn the sepulchral vault of the BrAhman,
displayed the various dispositions to which they were accus�
tomed. (Thus the one unvaried soul appears as many, according
to its particular wont and tendency in different persons).

16. The soul has no notion of the outer world or any

YOGA VASISHTHA.

created thing in it; its consciousness of itself as an increate

vacuity, comprehends its knowledge of the world in itself. (*. s.
the subjective consciousness of the Ego, includes the knowledga
of the objective world).

17. The knowledge of the mountsun ohaias of Mem and

others, is included under the knowledge in the vacuity of the
soul; there is no substance or solidity in them as in a great
city seen in a dream.

18. The soul views hundreds of mountainous ranges and

thousands of solid worlds, drawn in the small compass of the
mind, as in its state of dreaming.

19. Multitudes of worlds, are contained in a grain of the

brain of the mind; as the long leaves of the plaints tree, are
contained in one of its minute seeds.

80. All the three worlds are contained in an atom aa the

intellect, in the same manner as great cities are seen in a dream;
and all the particles of intellect within the mind, have each the
representation of a world in it.

. 21. Now this Lild thy step^ame, has already gone to the
world which contains the sepulchre of Fadma, before the spirit
of Viduratha could join the same.
22. The moment when Llld fell in a swoon in thy presence,
know her spirit to bo immediately conveyed to him and placed
by his side.

23. 1M& asked f�Tell me, O goddess! how was tiiis lady
endowed here with my form before, and how is she translated
to and placed as my atep*dame beside my deceased husband ?

24. Tell me in short, in what form she is now viewed by the

people in Fadma's house, and the manner in which they are
talking to her at present.

26. The goddess replied Jlear Lild, what I will relate to

thee in brief in answer to thy question, regarding the life and
death of this Lild as an image of thyself.

26. It is thy husband Fadma, that beholds these illusions

UTPATTI KHANDA,

the world spread before him in the same sepulchre in the person
of Vidiiratha.

27. He fought this battle as thou didst see in his reverie,'

and this LilA resembling thyself was likewise a delusion. These
his men and enemies were but illusions, and his ultimate death,
*was as illusory as a phantom of the imagination, like all other
things in this world.

28. It was his self delusion, that showed him this Lild
as his wife, and it is the same deceit of a dream, which deludes
thee to believe thyself as his consort.

20. As it is a mere dream that makes yon both to thinlr

yourselves as his wives, so he deems himself as your Ifusband,
and so do 1 rely on my existence (also in a like state of dream).

30. The world with all its beauty, is said to be the spectre
of a vision j wherefore knowing it a mere visionary scene, we
must refrain from relying any faith in this visible phaatas*
magoria.

31. Thus this Lfld, yourself and this king Vidiiratha, are
but phantoms of your fancy; and so am 1 also, unless I believe
to exist in the self-existent spirit.

32. The belief of tbo existence of this king and his people,
and of ourselves as united in this place, proceeds from the ful�
ness of that intellect, which fills the whole plenitude.

33. So this queen I>ilu also situated* in this place with her
youthful beauty, and smiling so charmingly with her blooming
face, is but an image of divine beauty.

34. See how gentle and graceful are her manners, and how
very sweet is her speech; her voice is as dulceate as the notes of
the Kokila, and her motions as slow as those of a lovelorn maiden,

86. Behold her eyelids like the leaves of the blue lotus, and her
swollonbreesteroundedasapair of snow-balls; her form isasbright
as liquid gold, and her lips as red as a brace of ripe Fimda fruits.

86. This is but a form of thee as thou didst desire to be to

please thy husband, and it is the very figure of thy ownsclf, that
thou now beholdest with wonder.

yOQA VASISHTHA.

37. After the death of thy husband, his soul caught the same
reflexion of thy image, as thou didst desire to bo hereafter; and
which thou now seest in the person of the young Lild before thee.

88. Whenever the mind has a notion or sensation or fancy

of some material object, the abstract idea of its image is surely
imprinted in the intellect.

39. As the mind comes to perceive the unreality of mate�

rial objects, it thenceforth begins to entertain the ideas of their
abstract entities within itself. (Hence the abstract ideas of
things are said to accompany the intellectual spirit after its
separation from the body).

40. *It was the thought of his sure death, and the erroneous

conception of the transmigration of his soul in the body of Vidii-

ratha, that represented to Fadma thy desired form of the youth�
ful LfU, which was the idol of his soul. (This passage confutes
the doctrine of metempsychosis, and maintains the verity of
eternal ideas).

41. It was thus that thou wast seen by him and he was
beheld by thee according to your desires ; and thus both of you
though posscst of the same unvaried soul which pervades all
space, are made to behold one another in your own ways (agree�
ably to your desires).

42. As the spirit of Brahma is all pervasive, and manifests

itself in various ways in all places; it is beheld in different
lights, according to�tbc varying fancies (vikshepa sakti); or ten�
dencies (v<isanA sakti) of men, like the ever-changeful scenes
appearing to us in our visions and dreams..

43. The omnipotent spirit displays its various- powers in all

places, and these powers exert themselves everywhere, according
to tne strong force and capability it has infused in them (in
their material or immaterial forms).
44. When this pair remained in their state of death-like �
insensibility, they beheld all these phantoms in their inner
souls, by virtue of their reminiscence and desires (which are in�
herent in the soul).

UTPATTI KSAK0A.

45. That such and such person were their fathers and such
their mothers before^ that they lived in snch places, had such
properties of theirs, and died such acts erewhile > (are reminis*
cences of the soul).

46. That they wore joined together in marriage, and the

multitude which.they saw in their minds, appeared to them as
realities for the time in their imagination ; (as it was in a magic
show).

47. This is an instance that shows our sensible perceptions,

to be no better than our dreams; and it was in this deluded state
of LilA�s mind, that I was worshipped and prayed by her

46. Inordor to confer upon her the boon that she might
not become a widaw ; and it was by virtue of this blessing of
mine, that this girl had died before her husband's death (to
escape the curse of widowhood).

49. I am the progeny of Brahmd, and the totality of that

intelligence of which all beings participate : it is for this reason
that 1 was adored by her as the �itia Devi or tutelar divinity
of all living beings.

f 0. It was at last that her soul left her body, and fled with
her mind in the form of her vital breath, through the orifice
of her month.

51. Then after the insensibility attendant upon her death

was over, she understood in her intellec(^ her living soul to be
placed in the same empty space with the departed spirit of
Padma.

62. Her reminiseence pictured her in her youthful form,

and she beheld herself as in a dream, to be situated in the same
tomb. She was as a blooming lotus with her beautiful counten�
ance, and her' faCe was as bright as the orb of the moon; her
eye^ were as large as those of an antelope, and she was attended
by her graceful blandishments for the gratification of her
husband.

CHAFFEE LIII.
Bifbxssntations ov Ebuikiscenoe.

li^ttment. Description of LiU�s passage in the air, wd her onion with

her husband�s ^irit. Eolation of the depravity of those that are on*
acquainted With and nnpractiBed in Yogi.

Y ASISHTHA said-LiH having obtained the blessing of

the goddess, proceeded with her fiincied body to meet her
royal spouse in heaven beyond the skies.

2. Having assumed her spiritusd form which was as light

as air, she fled merrily as a bird �, and was wafted aloft by the
fond desire of joining with her beloved lord.

8. She met before her a damsel sent by the goddess of

wisdom, and as issuing out of the best model of her heart's
desire.

4. The damsel said I am the daughter of thy friend

Sarasvaif, and welcome thee, O beautious lady in this place. I
have been waiting here on thy way through the sky in expecta�
tion of thee.

6. Lild sudLead me, O lotxcs-eyed maid to the side

of my husband, as the visit of the good and great never goes for
nothing. ,

6. Vasishtha said:�^The damsel replied, come let us go

there; and so saying, she stood before her looking forward on
her way.

7. Then proceeding onward both together, they came to

the door-way of heaven, which was as broad as the open palm
of the hand, and marked with lines as those in palmis^. (?).

8. They passed the region of the clouds, and overstepped

the tracks of the winds; then passing beyond the orbit of the
son, th^ reached the stations the c(mstellations.

9. Thence they passed i^revgh* the regions of air and

water (.Indraloka), to the abodes of the gods and Mints (Siddhas);

UTPATTI KHANDA.. 11

wheBoe they went across the seats of BrahmAj Vishnu and Siva
to the great belt�of the universe.

10. Their spiritual bodies pierc^ through its orifice, as

the humidity of ice water passes out of the pores of a tight
water*jar.

11. The body of Idld was of the form of her mind, which
was of the nature of its own bent and tenor, and conceived
these wanderings within itself, (e. a, the perigrinations of
Lild were purely the workings of her own mind and inclination).

12. Having traversed the spheres of Brahm^ Vishnu and

Siva, and crossed the limit of the mundane sphere, and the
environs of atmospheric water and air

13. They found an empty space as spacious as the scope

of the great intellect, and impassable by the swift Garuda
(the eagle of Jupiter) even in millions of Kalpa ages. (t. e,, the
tuUimited space of the mind and vacuity).

14. There they beheld an infinity of shapeless and name�

less worlds, scattered about as the countless fruits in a great
forest. Cl^he Nebulae of unformed worlds).

15. They pierced through the ambit of one of these orbs

before them, and passed inside the same as a worm creeps in a
fruit which it has perforated.

16. This brought them back by the same spheres of

Brahmd, Indra and others, to the orb of the globe below the
starry frame.

17. Here they saw the same country, the same city and
the same tomb as before; and after entering the same, they sat
themselves beside the corpse of Fadma covered under the heap
nf flowers.

18. At this time Lild lost the si^ht of the heavenly damsel,
-who had been her companion erewhile, and who had now dis�
appeared from her sight like a phantom of her ilitunon.

19. She then looked at the face of her husband, lying there
as a dead body in his bedand recognized him as such by her
right discretion.

12

FOGA- ViSISIITHA:

20. This must be my husband, said she, aymy very husband^

who fell lighting with Sindhu; and has now attained this
seat of the departed heroes, where he rests in peace.

21. I have by the grace of the goddess arrived here in

person, and reckon myself truly blest to find my husband
also as such: (t. e., resting here in his own figure).

22. She then took up a beautiful chauri flapper in her

hand, and began to wave it over his body as the moon moves
in the sky over the earth.

23. The waking Lild asked :�^Tell me, O goddess I in

what manner the did king and his servants and hand-maids
accost this lady, and what they thought her to be.

24. The goddess replied:�It was by our gift of wisdom

to them, that this lady, that king and those servants, found
themselves to partake of the one and same intellectual soul,
in which they all subsisted.

25. Every soul is a reflection of the divine intellect, and

is destined by his fixed .decree to represent the individual souls
to one another as refractions of the same, or as shadows in a
magic show (bhojakddrislita).

26. Thus the king received his wife as his companion and
queen, and his servants as cognate with himself. (�. e. partaking
of the same soul with his own).

27. He beheld the amity of his soul with her�s and their�s,
and no distinction subsisting between any one of them. lie was
astonished to find that there was nothing distinct in them
from what he had in himself.

28. The svaking LflA said:�^Why did not that 1aI& meet
her hnsl'nnd in her own person, according to her request and
the boon that was granted to her ?

29. The goddess replied:�^It is not possible for unenlight�

ened souls (as that of the young Lfld), to approach in person
to holy spirits (or their persons or places), which are visible and
accessible only to the meritorious, and unapproachable by gross
bodies as the sun light is inaccessible by a shadow.

UTPATTIKHAMDA.

13

30. So it is the established law from the beginning of crea�

tion, that intelligent souls can never join with dull beings and
gross matter, as truth can never be mixed up with falsehood.

31. And so is that as long as a boy is prepossessed with

his notion of a ghost, it is in vain to convince him of the false�
hood of goblins as mere ehimeras of his imagination.

32. And as long as the feverish heat of ignorance rages

within the soul, it is impossible for the coolness of the moon
of intelligence to spread over it.

33. So long also as one believes himself to be composed

of a corporeal body, and incapable to mount in the higher at�
mosphere, it is no way possible to make him believe otherwise;
(that he has an incorporeal nature in his soul and mind).

34. But it is by virtue of one's knowledge and discrimina�

tion, and by his own merit and divine blessing, that he ac([uires
a saintly form (nature); wherewith he ascends to the higher
region, as you have done with this body of yours.

35. As dry leaves of trees are burnt in no time by the

burning tire, so this corporeal body is quickly lost by one�s
assumption of his spiritual frame.

36. The effect of a blessing or curse, on any one is no

other than his obtaining the state he desired or feared to have.
(Hence the boon of LilA has secured to her what she wished
to get).

37. As the false appearance of a snake in a rope, is attended

with no motion or action of the serpent in it ; so the unreal
views of LllA�s husband and others, were but the motionless
imageries of her own imagination.

38. Whoever views the false apparitions of the dead as

present before the vision of his mind, he must know them
as retiections of bis past and constant remembrance of them.

39. So our notions of all these worlds are mere products

of our reminiscence, and no creation of Brahm4 or any other
cause; but simple productions of our desire, (which presents these
tigures to the imagination).

14

YOGA VA^ISHTHA.

40. So tbey who are ignorant of the knowable spirit of

God, have only the notions of the outer world in themj as
they view the distant orb of the moon within themselves (in
their minds).

CHAPTER LIV.

BBFLXonosrs ok Death.

Argument The lot of living beinge and the cause of their death
The dotation of human life as determined by their acts and ergoyments,
and the merit of their conduct in life time.

T he goddess continued Those therefore who know the

knowable God, and rely in virtue, can go to the spiritual
worlds and not others. (Kowable means what ought to be and
not what is or can be known).

2. All material bodies which are but false and erroneous

conceptions of the mind, can have no place in Truth (the true
spirit) } as no shadow can have any room in simshine. (So
gross matter has no room in the subtile spirit).

8. Lild being ignorant of the knowable (God), and unac�

quainted with the highest virtue (the practice of Yoga), could go
no further than the city of her lord which she had at heart.

4. The waking Lild said Let her be where she is (I

inquire no more about her); but will ask you of other things.
You see here my husband is about to die, so tell me what
must 1 do at present.

6. Tell me the law of the being and not being of beings, and
what is that destiny which destines the living beings to death.

6. What is it that determined the natures of things and

gave existence to the categories of objects. What is it that
has caused the warmth. of the fire and sun, and gave stability -
to the earth?

7. Why is coldness confined to the frost and the like, and

what forms the essence of time and space; what are the causes
of the different states of things and their various changes, and
the causes of the solidity of some and tenuity of others ?

8. What is that which causes the tallness of trees and men

above the grass and brambles; and why is it that many things
dwindle and decay in the course and capability of growth ?

IC YOGA VA'SISnTIIA,-

9. The goddess said:�^At the universal dissolution of the

worldj when all things are dissolved in the formless void; there
remains the only essence of Brahma, in the form of the infinite
sky stretching beyond the limits of creation on all sides.

10. It then reflects in its intellect in the form of a spark

of fire, as you are conscious pf your aerial journey in a dream.

11. This atomic spark then increased in its size in the divine
spirit, and having no substance of itself, appeared what is com*
monly styled the ideal world.

12. The spirit of God residing in it, thought itself as Brahniil

�the soul of the world, who reigned over it in his form of the
mind, as if it was indentic with the real world itself. (The world
is a display of the Divine Mind).

13. The primary laws that he has appointed to all things

at their first creation, the same continue invariably in force with
them to the present time. (�. e. The primordeal law or nature).

14. The minds of all turn in the same way as it was willed
by the divine mind, and there is nothing which of itself can go
beyond the law which the divine will has assigned to it.

15. It is improper to say that all formal existences, are

nothing, because they remain in their substance (of the divine
spirit), after disappearance of their forms; as the substance
of gold remains the same after alteration of its shape and
form.

16. The elementary bodies of fire and frost still continue

in the same state, as their elements were first formed in the
Divine mind in the beginning of creation.
17. Nothing therefore has the power to forsake its own
nature, as long as the divine intellect continues to direct his
eternal laws and decrees which are appointed to all.

18. It is impossible for any thing to alter its nature now

from the eternal stamp, which Divine will has set upon all the
substantial and ideal forms of creation.

19. As the Divine Intellect knows no opposition in its

way, it never turns from the tenor of its own wonted intelli-

DTPATTl KHANDA.

It

gotice which directs the destinies of all. (This is the real or

subjective, intellectual or nominal view of evolution of all
things from the divine mind).

20. But know in the first place the world to be no created

thing. All this that appears to exist, is but a display of
the notions in our consciousness, like the appearances in our
dreams.

21. The unreal appears as real, as the shadow seems to be

the substance. Our notions of things arc the properties of our
nature, {i, e. they are natural to us, as they are engrafted in it
by the eternal mind).

22. The manner in which the intellect exhibited itself, in

its different manifestations, at the beginning, the same continues
in its course to this time, and is known as the mmvid-kachana
or manifestations of consciousness, which constitute the niyati-
course or system of the universe.

23. The sky is the manifestation of the intellectual idea

of vacuity in the divine mind; and the idea of duration in the
intellect, appeared in the form of the parts of time.

24. The idea of liquidity evolved itself in the form of water

in the divine mind; in the same manner as one dreams of water
and seas in his own mind. (So the air and earth are manifesta�
tions of the ideas of fluidity and solidity).

25. We are conscious of our dreams jn some particular state

of our intellect, and it is the wonderfully cunning nature of the
intellect, that makes us think the unreal as retfl.

26. The ideas of the reality of earth, air, fire and water are .
all false; and the intellect perceives them within itself, as its
false dreams and desires and reveries.

27. Now hear me tell you about death, for removing your
doubts with regard to the future state; that death is destined
for our good, in as much as it leads us to the enjoyment of the
fruits of acts in this life.

28. Our lives are destined in the beginning to extend to

one, tvA, three and four centuries in the different Kali, Dwdpara,

YOGA VA'SISHTHA

IS

Tretd aud Satya ages of the world. (Corresponding with the

golden, silver, brazen and iron ages of the ancients).

29. It is however by virtue of place and time, of climate

and food, and oar good or bad actions and habits, that human
life extends above or descends below these limits.

80. Falling short of one�s duties lessens his life, as his excell�
ing in them lengthens its duration; but the mediocrity of his
conduct keeps it within its proper bound.

81. Boys die by acts causing infant diseases and untimely

deaths; so do the young and old die of acts that bring on
juvenile and senile weakness, sickness and ultimate death.

82. lie who goes on doing his duties as prescribed by law

of the Sdstras, becomes both prosperous and partaker of the long
life allotted by the rule of the Sdstra.

88. So likewise do men meet their last state and future

reward, according to the nature of their acts in life-time; or else
their old age is subjected to regret and remorse, and all kinds of
bodily and mental maladies and anxieties.

34. LiU said:�^Tell me in short, O moon-faced goddess!

something more with regard to death; as to whether it is a
pleasure or pain to die, and what becomes of us after wo are
dead and gone from here. (Death is said to be release from
misery by some, and the most grievous of all torments by
others. So Pope.�O, the pain, the bliss of dying).

35. The goddess replied:�^Dying men arc of three kinds,

and have differet^t ends upon their death. These arc those who
are ignorant, and such as are practiced in yoga, and those that
arc reasonable and religious.

36. Those practicing the dhdrand yoga, may go wherever

they like after leaving their bodies, and so the reasonable yogi
is at liberty to range everywhere. (It consists in mental reten�
tion and bodily patience and endurance).

87. He who has not practiced the dhdrand yoga, nor applied
himself to reasoning, nor has certain hopes of the future, is
called the ignorant sot, and meets with the pain and pangs of
death.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

19

38. He whose mind is unsubdued, and full of desires and

temporal cares and anxieties, becomes as distressed as a lotus
tom from its stalk. (�. e. It is the subjection of inordinary
passions, and suppression of inordinate desires and cares; which
ensure our true felicity).

89. The mind that is not guided by the precepts of the

Sdstras, nor purified by holiness; but is addicted to the society
of the wicked, is subjected to the burning sensation of fire
within itself at the moment of death.

40. At the moment when the last gurgling of the throat chokes
the breath, the eye-s^ht is dimmed and the countenance fades
away; then the rational soul also becomes hazy in its intellect.

41. A deep darkness spreads over the dimming sight, and

the stars twinkle before it in day-light; the firmament appears
to be obscured by clouds, and the sky presents its gloomy aspect
on every side.

42. An acute pain seizes the whole frame, and a fata Morgana
dances before the vision; the earth is turned to air and tho
mid-air seems to be the moving place of the dying person.

43. The sphere of heaven revolves before him, and the tide
of the sea seems to bear him away. He is now lifted up
in the air, and now hurled down as in his state of dizziness
or dream.

44. Now he thinks as falling in a dark pit, and then

as lying iu the cavern of a hill; he wants to tell aloud his
torments, but his speech fails him to give utterance to his
thoughts.

45. He now finds himself as falling down from the sky, and
now as whirled Jh the air like a bundle of straws blown aloft in
the air by a gust of wind. He is now riding swiftly as in a car,
and now finds himself melting as snow.

46. He desires to acquaint his friends of the evils of life

and this world; but he is carried away from them as rapidly as
by an air-engine, (like a stone shot by a ballista or an aeronaut
in a bUloon).

ao YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

47. He whirls about as by a rotatory maebine or taming

wheel, and is dragged along like a beast by its halter. He
wallows about as in an eddy, or turns around as the maebine of
some engine.

4S. Ho is borne in the air as a straw, and is earribd about

as a cloud by the winds. He rises high like a vapour, and then
falls down like a heavy watery cloud pouring out in the sea.

49. He passes through the endless space and revolves in all

its vertiginous vacuities, to find as it were, a place free from
the vicissitudes to which the earth and ocean are subject, (t. e.,
a place of peace and rest).

50. Thus the rising and falling spirit roves without cessation,
and the soul breathing hard and sighing without intermission,
set the whole body in sore pain and agony.

51. By degrees the objects of his senses become as faint to

his failing organs, as the landscape fades to view at the setting of
the sun. (The world recodes; it disappears: Pope).

62. He loses the remembrance of the past and present, upon

the failing of his memory at this moment; as one is at a loss to
know the sides of the compass after the evening twilight has
passed away.

53. In his fit of fainting, his mind loses its power of think�
ing; and he is lost in a state of ignorance, at the loss of all his,
thoughts and sensibility. (So the lines:�^It absorbs me quite,
steals my senses, shuts my sight. Pope).

54. In the state of faintishness, the vital breath ceases to

circulate through the body; and at the utter stoppage of its
pireulation, there ensues a collapse mnrc�ha or swooning.

55. AViicn i!:is state of apoplexy joined xvith delerium, has

reached its dimax, the body becomes as stiff as stone by the law
of inertia, ordained for living beings from the beginning.

66. Lild said:�Bnt tell me, O goddess, why do these pains

and agonies, this fainting and dclerium, and disease and insensi�
bility, overtake the body, when it is possessed of all its eight
organs entire.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

21

57. The goddess replied;�It is the law appointed by the

author of life from the first, that such and snch pains are to fall
to the lot of living beings at snch and such times. (Man�s pri�
meval sin brought pain and disease and death into the world).

68. The primeval sin springs of itself as a plant in the consci�

ous heart of man, and subjects him to his doomed miseries, which
have no other intelligible cause. (There is no other assignable
cause of death and disease except the original guilt).

69. When the disease and its pain overpower the body, and
prevent the lungs and arteries to expand and contract, inorder
to inhale and exhale the air, it loses its equipoise (sam&na) and
becomes restless.

60. When the inhaled air does not come out, nor the exhaled
breath re-enter the lungs, all pulsation is at a stop; and the
organic sensations are lost in their remembrance only. (As in the
memory of sleeping and dreaming men).

61. When there is no ingress nor egress of the vital air, the
pulse sinks and becomes motionless, and the body is said to
become senseless, and the life to be extinct.

62. I shall also die away in my destined time, but my conscious�

ness of former knowledge will all be awake at the hour of death :
(which proves the immortality of the soul).

63. Though I arn dead and gone from here in this manner,
yet I must mind, that the seed of my innate consciousness (the
soul>, is never destroyed with my life�and bo^y.

64. Consciousness is inward knowledge and imperishable in

its nature; therefore the nature of consciousness is free from

birth and death. (The body is subject to birth and death, but
not the soul).

65. This consciousness is as clear as a fresh fountain in some

persons, and as foul as tide water in others; it is bright in its
form of the pure intellect �chit in some, and polluted with the
passions of animal life, in its nature of the sentient or living
80ul-c^c(ana in many.

66. As a blade of grass is composed of joints in the midst.

22

YOGA VASISHTHA.

so is the even nature of the sentient or living soul; which is com*

bined with the two states of birth and death amidst it.

67. The sentient soul is neither bom nor dead at any time;
but witnesses these two states as the passing shadows and appari*
tions in a dream and vision.

68. The soul is no other than the intellect, which is never

destroyed anywhere by any. Say, what other thing is this soul,
which is called the Purmha beside the intellect itself. Gloss. It is
not the body, nor the vital breath, nor perceptions nor mind;
it is not the understanding nor egoism, nor the heart nor illusion,
all of which are inactive of themselves.

69. Say then whom and what you call to be dead today,
and whether the intellect is liable to disease or demise at any
time and in any wise. Millions of living bodies are verily
dying every day, but the intellect ever remains imperishable.

70. The intellect never dies at the death of any living being j
because all the living soul continues the same upon the demise
of every body here.

71. The living soul therefore, is no more than the principle

which is conscious of its various desires, affections and passions.
It is not that principle to which the phases of life and death
are attributed by men.

72. So there is none that dies, nor any one that is bora at any
time; it is this living principle only that continually revolves
in Uic deep eddy of its desires.

73. Considering the unreality of the visible phenomena, there

can be no desire for them in any body; but the inwaid soul that
is led by its egoism to believe them as true, is subject to d^th
at the dis-appearauce of the phenomena.

74. The recluse ascetic flying from the fears of the world
as foreign to his soul; and having none of its false desires rising
in his breast, becomes liberated in his life and assimilated with
the true ONE.

CHAPTER LV.

The states oe Life anb Death.

L ILA. said :�^Tell me, goddess! for cdincation of my know�

ledge, the manner in which a li/ing being comes to.die and
to be re-born in another form.

2. The goddess replied :�^As the action of the heart ceases to

act, and the lungs blow and breathe no more, the current of the
vital airs is utterly stopped, and the living being loses its
sensibility.

3. But the intellectual soxil which has no rise nor fall,

remains ever the same as it abides in all moving and unmoving
bodies, and in air, water, fire and vaccuum. Gloss. So saith
the Sruti:�^The soul is unlimited, permanent and imperishable.

4. "When the hindrance of breathing, stops the pulsation, and

motion of the body, it is said to be dead; and is then called
an inert corpse (but not so the soul).

5. The body being a dead carcase, and the breathing mix�

ing with the air, the soul is freed from the bonds of its dcsii-es,
and dies to and remains in the mode of the discrete and self-
existent soul. Gloss. The Sruti says:�� His elemental parts
mix with the elements, and his soul with the Supreme." I'lie
unconditioned� nirmadhika spirit, joins �with the Holy spirit;
but not BO the conditioned (upddhiha) soul of the unholy.

6. The soul having its desires and styled the animal spirit�
Jiva, is otherwise than the dfman-mvX. It remains in its sepulchral
vault under the same atmosphere as the soul of Padma, which
thou sawst hovering about his tomb. Gloss. The desire binds
down the spirit to its own sphere; (The Ghost hovering about
the charnel vault. Milton).

7. Hence such departed spirits arc called pretas or ghosts of

the dead, which have their desires and earthly propensities
attached to them; as the fragrance of the dower is concentrated
in its pollen, and thence diffused through the air.

24

YOGA VASiSHTHA.

8. As the animal souls are removed to other spheres, aitef

their departure from this visible world, they view the very
many scenes and sights; that their desires present before them
like visions in a dream.

9. The soul continues to remember all its past adventures,

even in its next state, and finds itself in a new body, soon after
the insensibility of death is over. Gloss. This is the Itni/a or
a^khua delta �the spiritual or subtile body of spiritualism.

10. What appoara an empty vacuum to others, seems as a

dusky cloud to the departed soul, enveloping the earth, sky,
moon and all other orbs within its bosom(the circumambient
atmosphere).

11. The departed spirits are classed in six orders, as you

shall now hear from me; namely, the great, greater and greatest
sinners, and so likewise the three degrees of the virtuous.

12. These are again subdivided into three kinds, as some

belonging to one state, and others composed of two or three states;
(i. e, of virtue and vice intermixed) in the same individual souL

1.3. Some of the moat aiuful souls, lose the remembrance

of their past states for the period of a whole year; and remain
quite insensible within themselves, like blocks of wood or stone.
(This is called the pretdrastliA continuing for a whole year after
death). (It is allied to Abraham's bosom or Track of Mahomedans).

14. Bising after this time, they are doomed to suffer the
endless torments of hell; which the hardness of their earthly
mindedness has brought upon them. (This is the Purgatory of
Christians).

15. They then pass into hundreds of births, leading from

misery to misery, or have a moment's respite j from the pains in
their short lived prosperity, amidst their dreaming journey
through life. (These transmigrations of the soul, are the con�
sequences of its evil propensities).

16. There are others, that after their torpor of death is over,
come to suffer the unutterable torments of torpidity, in the
state of unmoving trees; (which are fixed to undergo all the
inclemencies of weather).

UTPATTI KHANDA.

23

17. Anil others agaiu that having undergone the torments

of hell> aceording to their inordinate desires in life, are brought
to be re-born on earth, in a variety of births in different forms.

18. Those of lesser- crimes, are made to feel the inertness

of stones for sometime, after the insensibility attending upon
their death. (This means cither the insensibility of dead bodies,
or that of mineral substances.)

19. These being awakened to sensibility after some period,

either of deciation long or short, (according to their desert); are
made to return on earth, to feel the evils of brutish and beastly
lives.

20. But the souls of the least sinful, come to assume soon
after their death, some perfect human form, inorder to enjoy the
fruits of their desire and desert on earth.

21. These desires appear before the soul as dreams, and

awaken its reminiscence of the past, as present at that moment.

22. Again the best and most virtuous souls, come soon after
their death, to find themselves in heavenly abodes, by reason of
their continued thoughts and speculations of them.

23. Some amongst them, arc brought to enjoy the rewards

of their actions in other spheres, from which they are sent back
to the mortal world, at the residences of the auspicious and
best part of mankind.

24. Those of moderate virtues are blcfwn away by the atmos�

pheric air, upon the tops of trees and medjpinal plants, where
they rove about as the protozoa, after the insensibility of death
is over.

26. Being nourished here by the juice of fruits, they descend

in the form of serum and enter into the hearts of men, whence
they fall into the uterus in the form of semen virilis, which is the
cause of the body and life of other living beings.

The gloss saysHaving enjoyed in the next world the good

fruits of their virtuous deeds, they are blown down on earth by
the winds and rain. Here they enter in the form of sap and
marrow in the vegetable productions of corn, grain and fruits; and
Voi.. II. 4

YOGA VASISHTHA.

��6

tlieso entering the body of animals in the form of food, pfodaee

the semen, which becomes the canse of the lives and bodies of all
living beings.

20. Thus the dead, figure to themselves some one of these

states of living bodies, according to their respestive proclivity,
after they recover from the collapse attending upon their death.

27. Having thought themselves to be extinct at first, they

come to feel their resuscitation afterwards, upon receiving the
offering of the mess, made to their departed spirits; (by their
surviving heirs).

28. Then they fancy they see the messengers of death, with
nooses in their bands, come to fetch them to the realm of Fama;
where they depart with them, (with their provision for one year
offered in their Srddb ceremony).

29. There the righteous are carried in heavenly cars to the

gardens of Paradise, which they gain by their meritorious acts
in life.

30. But the sinful soul, meets with iceburgs and pitfals, tan>
glcd with thorns and iron pikes, and boshes and brambles in its
passage, as the punishment of its sins.

81. Those of the middling class, have a clear and paved pas�
sage, with soft grassy path-ways shaded by cooling ai'bours, and
supplied with spring waters on both sides of them.

32. On its arrival there, the soul reflects within itself that;
� here am I, and yonder is Fatna �the lord of the dead. The ether
is the judge of our actions�Chitragupta, and this is his
judgment given on my behalf.�

33. In this manner the great w�orld also, appears to every one
as in a dream ; and so the nature and manner of all things,
present themselves before every soul.

31. But all these appearances are as void as air; the soul
alone is the sentient principle, and the spacious space and time,
and the modes and motions of things, though they appear as
real, are nothing in reality.

35. Here (in Yama�t court), the soul is j>ronounced to reap

UTPATTI KHNDA. 2f

tJic reward of its acts, whereby it ascends either to the blissful

heaven above, or descends to the painfnl hell below.

86, After having enjoyed the bliss of heaven, or suffered the

torment of hell, it is doomed to wander in this earth again, to
reap the reward of its acts in repeated transmigrations.

37. The soul springs up as a paddy plant, and brings forth

the grains of intelligence j and then being assembled by the
senses, it becomes an animal, and lastly an intelligent being.

I. E. The insensible vegetable, entering into the animal body

in the foi-m of food, is converted to a sensible but irrational
soul; but entering as food in the body of man, it turns to a
rational and human soul. The one Universal soul is thus diver�
sified in different beings. (It is the plant and food that sus�
tains and nourishes all souls. Gloss).

38. .The soul contains in itself the germs of all its senses,
which lie dormant in it for want of its bodily organs. It is
contained in the semen virilis of man, which passing into the
uterus, produces the foetus in the womb of the female.

39. The foetus then becomes either well-formed or deformed,

according to the good or evil deeds of the person in its past
state; and brings forth the infant of a goodly or ill shapen
appearance.

40. It then perceives the mooiilike beauty of youthful bloom,

and its amorous disposition coming upon itself; and feels after�
wards the effects of hoary old ago, defacing its lotut.-like face, as
the sleets of snow, shatter and shrivel the lotiisJeaflets.

41. At last it undergoes the pains of disease and ddhth, and

feels the same insensibility of Eutlianasia as before, and finds
again as in a dream its taking of a new form.

42. It again believes itself to bo carried to the region of

Pluto, and enbjoctcd to the former kinds of revolution; and thus
it continues to conceive its transmigration, in endless births and
various forms.

43. Thus the aerial spirit goes on thinking, for ever in its
own etherial sphere, all its ceaseless metempsychosis, until its fina l
liberation from this changeful state.

28

YOGA VA^ISHTHA.

44. LIU said;�Tell mo kindly, O good goddess! for the

enlightenment of my understanding', how this misconception of
its changeableness, first came upon the soul in the beginning.
45. The goddess replied;�It is the gross view of.the abs�
tract, that causes us to assume the discrete spirit, in the concrete
forms of the earth and sky and rocks and trees: (All of which
subsist in the spirit, and are unsubstantial in themselves).

46. As the divine intellect manifests itself, as the soul and

model of all forms; so wc sec these manifestations, in the
transcendental sphere of its pure intelligence.

47. In the beginning, God conceived himself as the lord of

creation (Brahmd); and then as it were in a dream, he saw in
himself, all the forms as they continue to this time.

48. These forms were manifested in the divine spirit, at first

as his will; and then exhibited in the phenomenal world, as
reflexions of the same, in all their present forms.

49. Among these some arc called living beings, which have
the motions of their bodies and limbs; and live by means of the
air which they breathe, and which circulate in their bodies
through the lungs and arteries.

50. Such also is the state of the vegetable creation from the
first, that they having their inward sensitiveness, are notwith�
standing devoid of outward motion, and receive tlieir sustenance
by the roots; wherefore they are called PAiapas or pedobibers.

51. The hollow sphere of the divine intellect, beaming with

intelligence, sends forth its particles of percipicnce, which form
the consibusness of some beings, and sensitiveness in others.

63. But man uses his eyes to view the outer and the
reflected world, (in disregard of his consciousness of the real);
although the eyes do not form his living soul, nor did they
exist at his creation and before his birth. (When his view was
concentrated within himself as in his sleeping visions).

5S. It is according to one�s estimation of himself, that he

has bis proper and peculiar desires, and the particular form of his
body also. Such is the case of the elementary bodies likewise;
from their inward conception of their peculiar natures.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

89

GI 088 :�So the ideas of vacuity, fluidity and solidity forming

the bodies of air, water and earth; and the form of every thing
agreeing with its inherent natui-e.

64. Thus all moving and unmoving things, have their mov�
able and immnvable bodies, according to their intrinnsic dis�
position or idiosyncrasy as such and such.
55. Hence all self-moving beings have their movable bodies,
conforming with the conception of their natures as so and so; and
in this state of their belief, they continue to this time, with their
same inborn or congenital bodies.

56. The vegetable world still continues in the same state of

fixedness, from its sense of immobility; and so the rocks and
minerals continue in their inert state, from the inborn sense of
their inertness.

67 There is no distinction whatever between inertness and

intelligence, nor any difference betwixt production, continuance
and extinction of things; all which occur in one common essence
of the supreme,

68. The varying idiocrasy subsisting in vegetables and mine�

rals, makes them feel themselves as such, and causes their various
natures and forms, as they have to this time.

69. The inward constitution of all immovable objects, makes

them remain in their stationary states; and so of all other sub�
stances, according to their different names and natures.

60. Thus the inward crasis or quality of worms and insects,

makes them conceive themselves according to their different kinds,
^d gives them their particular natures for ever.

61. So the people under the north pole know nothing, about
those in the south, except that they have the knowledge of
themselves only j (as ever subject to the intense cold of the frigid
zone).

62. So also all kinds of moving and unmoving beingfs, are

prepossessed with their own notions of things, and regard all
others according to the peculiar nature of themselves. (Atma
vat &c}.

63. Apin as the inhabitants of caves, know nothing of their

30

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

outsiders; and as the frogs of dirty pools are unacqiUdnted with

pure water of streams; so is one sort of being ignorant of the
nature of another.

64. But the inane intellect, residing in the form of the all
pervasive mind, and all sustaining air; knows the natures of all
things in all-places.

65. The vital air, that enters all bodies through the pores of
their bodies, is the moving principle, that gives life and motion
to all living beings.
66. Verily the mind is situated in all things, whether they
are moving or immovable; aqd so is the air, which causes the
motion in some, and quiescence in others.

67. Thus are all things but rays of the conscious soul, in this
world of illusion, and continue in the same state, as they have
been from the beginning.

68. I have told yon all, about the nature of things in the
world, and how un-realities come to appear as real unto us.

69. Lo here this king Viduratha is about to breathe his last,

and the garlands of flowers heaped on the corpse of thy husband
Padma, are now being hung upon the breast of Viduratha.

70. LilAsaid:�Tell me goddess! by what way he entered

the tomb of Padma, and how we may also go there to see what
he has been doing in that place.

71. The goddess said;�Man goes to all places by the way

of his desires, and, thinks also he goes to the distant future, iq
the spiritual form of pure intellect.

72. Wo shall go by the same way (aerial or spiritual), as you

will like to take; because the bond of our friendship will make
no difference in our choice and desires.

73. Vasishtha said:�^The princess LllA being relieved of her

pain, by the recital of this agreeable narration; and her intellec�
tual sight being brightened, by the blazing sun of spiritual lights
beheld the insensible and unmoving Viduratha, breathe out his
last expiring breath.

CHAPTER LVI.

Stats of the soul afteb death.

Argument. The desire of the king, and his departure to the realm of
death, followed by LIW and tho goddess ; and their arrival to his former
city.

Y ASISHTHA continued:�In tho meantime the eye-balls of

the king became convoluted, and his lips and cheeks grew
pale wd dry, with his whole countenance; and there remained
only the slender breath of life in him.

S. His body became as lean as a dry leaf, and his face ttimed
as ghastly as tho figure of death j his throat gurgled as the hoar�
sest beetles, and his lungs breathed with a bated -breath.

3. His sight was darkened upon the insensibility of death,

and his hopes were buried in the pit of despair; and the sensations
of his external organs, were hid within the cavity of his heart.
4. His figure was as senseless as a picture in painting, and
all his limbs were as motionless, as those of a statue carved
upon a block of marble.

6. What need is there of a lengthy description, when it may

bo said in short; that his life quitted his body, as a bird flies off
afar from a falling tree.

6. The two ladies with their divine eyp-sight, beheld his

animal spirit, flying upwards in tho sky in its aerial form; and
his consciousness dis-appearing, like the odour of a flower wafted
by the wind.

7. His living soul being joined with its spiritual body, began
to fly higher and higher in the air; as it was led by its inward
desire or expectation of ascending to heaven.

8. The two ladies, kept going after that conscious soul, like
a couple of female bees, pursuing a particle of perfume; borne
afar in the air on the wings of the wind.

9. Then in a moment after the fainting fit of death was

YOdA V 'aisfltaA.

n-2

over} the conscious soul was roused from its insensibility, like
some fragrance expanding itself with the breeze.

10. It saw the porters of death, carrying away the souls of

the dead, that have resumed their grosser forms, by means of the
mess offerings of their kinsmen to their manes.

11. After a long year's journey on the way, it reached at

the distant abode of Yama, with the hope of reaping the reward
of its acts} but found the gate fast beset by beasts of prey. (Like
the Cerebrus at the hellgate of Pluto).

12. Yama, on beholding the departed spirit of eVerji* body

brought before him, ordered to find out its foul acts all along
its life time.

13. On finding the prince�s spirit spotless, and ever inclined

to virtuous acts; and to have been nourished by the grace of
the goddess of wisdom

14. He ordered it to be released, and re-entered into its former

dead body, which lay buried under the flowers in the tomb.

16. It was then let to fly in the etherial path, with the swift�
ness of a stone flung from a sling; and was followed by the living
Lild and the goddess in the air.
16. The living soul of the king thus sailing through the sky,
did not observe the forms of the two ladies that followed it,
though they saw it all along its course. (Because heavenly
forms are invisible to mortal eyes and souls).

17. They traversed through many worlds, and soon passed

the bounds of the extra-mundane systems; till they arrived at the
solar world, whence they descended on this orb of the earth.

18. The two self-willed forms (of LiU and the goddess), in
company with the living soul of the king} arrived at the royal
city of Padma, and entered the apartment of Lild.

19. They entered in a trice and of their own free will, into
the inside of the palace; as the air passes in flowers, and the sun�
beams penetrate in the water, and the odors mix with the air.

20. BAma asked:�How was it Sir, that they entered into

the abode adjoining to the tomb, and how could they find out

UTPATTI KHANDA.

33^

the way to it, the one having been dead a long time, and all
three l^ng bat bodiless vacuity?.

21. Vasishtha replied:�The tomb of the dead body of the

prince, being impressed in his soul, and the object of its desire;
led his spirit insensibly to it, as if it were by its inborn
instinct.

22. Who does not know, that the endless desires which are
sown in the human breast, like the countless seeds of a fig fruit;
come of their own nature, to grow up to big trees in their time ?

23. Just as the living body bears its seed�the subtile or li*g 0 k
deha in the heart, which germinates and grows to a-tree at last;
so every particle of the intellect, bears the mundane seed in itself,
(The cosmos is contained in every individual soul).

24. As a man placed in one country, sees within himself

his house, which is situated in a far distant land; so the soul
sees the objects of his distant desires, ever present before it.

25. The living soul, ever longs after the best object of its
desire; though it may undergo a hundred births, and become
subject to the errors and delusions of his sensesj and of this
illusive world. (For whatever is born in the root, must come
out in the seed j and that which is bred in the bones, must appear
in the flesh).

26. E4ma rejoined >*-There are many persons, that are free
from their desire of receiving the funeral cake; now tell me, sir,
what becomes of those souls, who get no cake offering at theii;
Srddh.

27. Vasishtha replied:�^The man having the desire of receivi

ing the mess settled in his heart, and thinking it to be offered ta
him; is surely benefitted by its offering. fThe funeral eake like
every other food> is said to nourish the spirit, and cause its
resuscitation in a new life and body),

28. Whatever is in the heart and mind, the same notions

form the nature of living beings; and whether these are in their
corporeal or incorporeal states, th^ think themselves as such
beings and no other. (The sense of personal' indentity accomt
panics the jsoul everywhere).

VoL. II.

yOQA VA'SISHTHA.

29. The thought of having received the piada cake, makes �

man aapinda, though it is not actually offered to him; so on
the other hand, the thought of not being served with the cake,
makes a aapinda become a niapindai (or one served with it
becomes as one without it).

30. It is verily the desire of all living beings to be such and

such as they have in their hearts, and that is the cause of their
becoming so in reality. (Gloss. The ordinance of the necessity
of cake offering, fosters its desire in the hearts of men. Or, which
is the same thing, the desire of receiving the funeral cake, is
fostered in the hearts of men, by the ordinance of SrAdh).

31. It is the thouEfht of a man, that makes the poison savour

as nectar to his taste j and it is his very thought that makes an
untruth seem as truth to him. (Gloss. The thought of a
snake-catcher that he is the snake eating Gamda, makes him
swallow the bitter poison as sweet honey) and the thought of

snake-bite from the pricking of a thorn, mortifies a man by his

false fear or imagination only).

82. Know this for certain, that no thought ever rises in any
one without some cause or other > hence the desire or thought
which is inherent in the spirit, is the sole cause of its regenera�
tion on earth.

33. Nobody has ever seen or heard of any event, occurring

without its proper cause; except the being of the Supreme Being,
which is the causeless cause of all beings, from their state of
not�being into being.
84. The desire is inherent in the intellect, like a dream in
the soul; and the same appears in the form of acts, as the Will
of God is manifested in his works of creation.

35. RAma said:�How can the spirit that is conscious of

its demerit, foster any desire of its future goodf; and how can
it profit by the pious works of others for its salvation ? (as the
SrAdh made by the relatives of the deceased).

36. Tell me too whether the pious acts of others, which are
offered to the manes go for nothing; and whether the absence
of fatoro prospects of the unmeritorious ghost, or thebenevoleDt
wishes of others (for its future good) are to take effect.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

35

S7. Vasishtha said :�A desiro is naturally rtused in one at

its proper time and place, and by application of appropriate acts
and rnpawB ; and the rising of the desire necessarily overcomes
its absence. Gloss. So a Srddh done in proper season and
manner, serves to the benefit of the desertless spirit.

38. The pious gifts made on behalf of the departed souls,

accrue to them as thdr own acts and the sense which they thus
acquire of their worthiness, fills them with better hopes and
desires of their future state. (Hence rises the hope of redemp�
tion by means of the redeeming son of man).

39. And as the stronger man gains the better of bis adver�
sary, so the later acts of fnety drive away the former impiety
from the spirit. Therefore the constant practice of pious acts
is strictly enjoined in the Sdstras.

40. Bdma said:�If the desire is raised at its proper time

and place, how then could it rise in the beginning when there
was no time nor place: (e. e., when all was void and yet Brahmd
had his desire and will).

41. You say that there are accessory causes, which give rise
to the desires, but how could the will rise at first without any
accessory cause whatever ?

42. Vasishtha replied;�It is true, O long-armed B4ma,

that there was neither time nor place in the beginning, when
the Spirit of God wp...i without its will.

43. And there being no accessory cause, there was not even
the idea of the visible world, nor was it created* or brought into
existence; and it is so even now.

44. The phenominal world has no existence, and all that is

visible, is the manifestation of the Divine Intellect, which is
ever lasting and imperishable.

45. This will I explain to you afterwards in a hundred

different ways, and it is my main purpose to do so j but hear me
now tell you what appertains to the matter under consideration.

46. They having got in that house, saw its inside beautifully
decorated with chaplets of flowers as fresh as those of the spring
season.

36

YOGA VA'SISIITHA.

47. TheinmateB of the palace were quietly employed in their

duties, aud the corps of the king was placed upon a W of
dara and kunda flowers.

. 48. The sheet over the dead body> was dso strewn over with
wreaths of the same flowers y and there were the auspicious pots
of water placed by the bed side.

49, The doors of the room were closed, and the windows!
were shut fast with their latchets; the lamps cast a dim light oit
the white washed walls around, and the corpse was lying as a
man in sleep, with the suppressed breathing of his mouth and
postrils.

50, There was the full bright moon, shining with her delight*
some lustre, and the beauty of the palace, put to blush the paradise
of India; it was as charming as the pericarp of the lotus of
Brabmd's birthplace, and it vraa as silent as dumbness or a dummy
itself, and as beautiful as the fair moon in her fulness.

CHAPTER LVn.
Phenomena oe Dbeamino.

Argument, tlnsubstantiality aerial body of Lfld and the Spiritual

bodies of Yogis.

y ASISTHA CONTINUED They beheld there the younger

Lfl4 of Yiduratha, who had arrived there after her demise,
and before the death of that king.

8. She was in her former habit and mode with the same
body, and the same tone and tenor of her mind; she was also an
beautiful in all her features, as in her former gpraceful form and
figure when living.

3. She was the same in every part of her body, and wore th^
same apparel as before. Sho had the vei^ ornaments on her
person, with the difference that it was sitting quietly in the same
place, and not moving about as before.

4. She kept flapping her pretty fan (chouri), over the corpse
of the king j and was gracing the groimd below, like the rising
moon brightening the skies above.

6. She sat quiet, reclining her moonlike face on the palm

of her left hand; and decorated with shining gems, she appeared
as a bed of flowers, with new-blown blossoms on it.

6. With the glances of her beautiful eyes, she shed showers

of flowers on all sides; and the brightness of her person, beamed
with the beams of the etherial moon.

7. She seemed to have approached to the lord of men, like

the goddess Lakshmi, appearing before the god Vishnuj and
with the heaps of flowers before her, she seemed as Flora or the
vernal season in person.

8. Her eyes were fixed on the countenance of her husband,

SB If she wu pondering his future well-being; and there was a
melancholy like that of the waning moon, spread over her face^
to think of his present woeful

38

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

9. They beheld the damsel^ who however had no sight of

them; because their trust was in truth, and saw everything
clearly; while her views being otherwise, she coold not discern
their spiritual forms.

10. BAma said:�^You have said Sir, that the former LilA
had repaired there in her reverie and spiritual form, by the
favour of the goddess of wisdom.

11. How do yon now describe her as having a body, which

I want to know how and whence it came to her.

12. Vasishtha replied:�^What is this body of LilA, Edmat

It is no more true than a false imagination of her gross spirit,
like that of water in the mirage. (It is the conception of one's
self as so and so, that impresses him with that belief also).

13. It is the spirit alone that fills the world, and all bodies
are creations of the fancy. This spirit is the Intellect of God,
and full of felicity in itself.

14. The same understanding which Lild had of herself to

her end, accompanied her to her future, state; and the same
notion of her body followed her there, though it was reduced to
dust, as the ice is dissolved into water.

15. The spiritual bodies alsa, are sometimes liable to fall into
error, and think themselves as corporeal bodies, as we mistake
a rope for the serpent.

16. The belief in the materiality of any body, as composed

of the earth and other elements, is as false as it is to believe the
hares to have horns on their heads.

17. Whoso thinks himself to have become a stag in his

dream, has no need of seeking another stag for comparing
himself with it. {i. e. Men are actuated by their own openion
of themsdves).

16. An untruth appears as truth at one time, and disappears

at another; as the error of a snake in a rope, vanishes upon the
knowledge of its falsehood.

19. So the knowl^ge of the reality of all things, in the

minds of the un-enlightened; is dispersed upon conviction of their
un-reality in the minds of the enlightened.

UTPATTI KHAN0A.

89

SO. Bat the ignorant, that have a belief in the reality of this
world of dreams, believe also in the transmigration of the animal
soul, like the revolution of the globe on its own axis.

21. �RAnift asked!-- If the bodies of Yogis be of a spiritual

nature, how is it that th^ are sfen to walk about in the sights
of men?

. 22. Vasishtha replied;�^The Yogi may take upon himself

various forms, without the destruction of his former body; as the.
human soul may deem itself transformed to a stag or any other
being in a dream, without undergoing any change in its spiri�
tual essence. (The idendity of the self is not lost under any
form of the body. Locke).

23. His spiritual body is invisible to all, though it may

appear as visible to their sight. It is like the particles of frost
seen in sun-beams, and as the appearance of a white spot in
autumnal sky; (when there is no frost nor cloud in it).

24. No body can easily discern the features of a Yogi�s body,

nor are they discernible by other Yogis. They are as impercep�
tible as the features of a bird flying in the air.

26. It is from the error of judgment, that men think some

Yogis to be dead and others to be living! but their spiritual
bodies are never subject to death or common sig^t.
26. The embodied soul is subject to errors, from which the
souls of Yogis are free> because their knowledge of truth; Las
purged the mistake of a snake in the ropd^ from their souls.

27. What is this body and whence it is/ and what of its
existence or destruction? What is lasting remains forever and
is freed from the ignorance it had before: (and it is the soul whkh
is ever lasting and free from erroi^,

28. Bdma said:�^Whether the embodied soul takes the spiri�

tual form, or is it something other than this. Tell me this and
remove my doubt.

29. Vasishtha said:-�I have told this repeatedly to you, my

good Rdmal and how is it that you do not understand it yet,
that there exists only the spiritual body, and the material form is
nothing 7

40

yOQA VASISHTHA.

30. It� by habit of constant meditation, that you must know

your sfiiritnal state, and subdue your sense of corporeality} and
as youabstmn from the latter, so yon attain to the former state.

31. Thon there mil be an end of your sense of the gravity �

and solidity of objects, like thlb disappearance of the visions of a
dreaming man, when he comes to wake.

33. The body of a Yogi becomes as light and subtile, as the

evanescent appearance in a dream: (the fleeting objects of
vision).

' 33. And as a dreaming man feels the lightness of his body, in
bis dreaming rambles; so the Yogi finds his solid body, as
volatant as air in all places.

34. The expectation of the longlife of a master-head in his

material body, is realized in the spiritual one, after the corpse
has been burnt away. (Longivity consists in the longlife of the
spirit and not of the body).

35. Every body must have to assume his spiritual frame

afterwards ; but the Yogi finds it in his life>time, by the enlight�
enment of his intellect.

36. As a man upon his waking from sleep, remembers his

having an intellectual form in his dreaming state; so the Yogi
is conscious of his spiritual body in his own intellect.

37. The notion of the corporeal body is a mere fallacy, like

that of the snake in a. rope; hence nothing is lost by the loss of
this body, nor is anything gained by its production and regener�
ation.
38. BAma said:�^Now tell me Sir, what the inmates of the
house thought this LilA to be; whether they viewed her as an
embodied being or a bodiless apparition appearing before them.

39. Vasishtha answered:�^They took the sorrowful queen to

be some friend of the king, and to have come from some place
they knew not what and where.

. 40. They did not like to examine the matter, because it is

tiic nature of the ignorant like that of brutes, to believe what
they see, without investigation or consideration of its nature.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

41

41. As a stone ilang at random flies off from its mark, so tiio
brutish and ignorant folks go astray, from hitting at the true
mark of a thing placed before them.

42. As we know not what becomes of the objects of our

dream, and whither they are fled upon our waking > such is tlio
case with our material bodies, which are as false and fleeting as
our delusive dreams.

43. Bdma said:�Tell me Sir, where the hill wo dream of,

is hid upon our waking; kindly remove my doubt, as the wnnd
disperses the autumnal clouds.

44. Yasishtha said:�^All things appearing in our dream or

residing in our desire as the hill, &c., are absorbed in our conscious�
ness whence they sprang; just as the motion of bodies subsides
in the air which gives the vibration,

45. As the motion of the air mixes with the fixed ether,
so the dreams and desires which we are conscious of, set in the
imchanging soul whence they have their rise.

46. Our dreams like our knowledge of all other things, arc
made known to us by our consciousness, the nature of which is
unknown to us as that of the inward soul. (Consciousness and
the soul are represented as two different predicaments, and the
one is not predicated of the other, as we say�the conscious
soul).

47. We do not find our dreams afid desires, as distinct from

our consciousness of them; they appertain to it in the same
manner, as fluidity to water and motion to the air.

48. Whatever difference may appear to exist between them,

is the effect of sheer ignorance > and this gross ignorance is the
feature of this world, known as the phantom of fancy.

49. As it is impossible to conceive two co-etemal and co-exis�

tent causes together, (as an efficient and a material cause); so it
is wrong to suppose the dream as a distanct existence or otherwise,
than an act of our consciousness.

60. There is no difference whatever between the dreaming

and waking states; in dream we see.a false city appearing to
Voi,. II. C

� YOGA VASISHTHA.

view, BO in waking you behold the unreal world, standing as �

reality before you.

51. Nothing can be truly existent that appears as true in a

dream; this being always true of the visions in a dream, it is
likewise so. of the external phenomena, appearing to the eight in
our day dreams.

62. As the hill in a dream, immediately disappears into airy

nothing, so the material world sooner or later disappears into
naught by thinking on its nihility.

53. A Yogi is seen by some to mount in the air^ and by

others as a dead body lying on the ground; and this is accord�
ing to one�s beUef in his spiritual or material body, that every
one sees him in his own way.

64. The view of the phenomenal world as distinct from the

Unity, is as false as a sight in delusion or magical show; or a
drcan) or delirium of the great Illusion�

65. Others who are blinded by similcr errors, entertain as

in a dream, the notion of their reproduction after being awaken�
ed from the insensibility of their death like sleep; but the spiri�
tual body of the Yogi shines and soars upward, after passing
over the mirage of the false appearances of the world.

CHAPTER LVIll.
Revival of Padma.

Argument. Extinction of tho Spiritual life of Lfl&, and Restoration of

Padma�s Life.

Y ASISHTHA continuedIt was in the meantime that the

goddess of wisdom, stopped the course of Viduratha's life,
as wo stop the flight of our minds at will.

2. Lild said Tell me, goddess, what length of time has

expired, since the corpse of the king was laid in this tomb, and
1 was absorbed in my deep meditation.

8. The goddess replied :�A month has passed since these

maid servants of thine have been waiting here for watching
thy body, which they thought lay asleep in tho room.
4. Hear excellent lady ! what has become of thy body, after
it was rotten in a fortnight and evaporated in the air.

5. Seeing thy lifeless corpse lying as cold as frost on the

ground, and turning as dry as a log of wood, or rather as a
withered leaf on the floor

6. The royal ministers thought thee to be dead of thyself

(a suicide), and removed thy putrid carcase out of the room.

7. And what more shall I say, than- they laid thy corpse
on a heap of sandal wood, and having set fire to the pile with
the sprinkling of ghee, they reduced it to ashes in a short while.

8. Then the family raised a loud cry that their queen was
dead, and wept bitterly for sometime, after which they per�
formed thy funeral ceremonies,

9. Now when they will behold thee coming here in thy same
body, they must be astonished to think thee as returned from
the next world of the dead.

10. Now my daughter, when thou shalt appear before them

in this thy purer and Spiritual form, they must look upon
thee with astonishment.

44

YOGA VA'SISIlTIiA,

11. For tliou hash not thy former fori# at present, but it
is changed to a purer one, agreeably to the tenor and tempera�
ment of thy mind. (Lit. according to the desire in thy heart).

13. For every body beholds every thing without him, aceoi-d-
ing to his inward feelings; as for example the sight of shadowy
ghosts is frequent to children, that have a fear of devils at
heart.

13. Now, O beauteous lady ! Thou art an adept in spirit�

ualism, and hast a spiritual body on thee, and hast forgotten and
�forsaken thy former body, with all the desires connate with it.

11. The view of material bodies, is lost to the sight of spiri�

tualists ; and the intelligent view them in the light of autumnal
clouds, which are void of substance, (*. c',, The llimsy clouds
wliich are without rain-water in them).

Ih. On attainment of the spiritual state, the material body

becomes as an empty cloud, and as a dower without its odor.

16. When a man of pure desire, is conscious of his attaining

the spiritual state; he loses the remembrance of his material
body, as a youth forgets his embryonic state.

17. It is now the thirty first day that we have arrived at

this place; and 1 have caused the maid servants here, to
fail into a fast sleep this morning.

18. Now Lila! let us advance before the wilful Lllil, and
then discover to her pt our will, the form of the ti'uthful L114,
and her manner and conduct to thee.

19. Vasishtha said:�So saying, they wished themselves

to be perceived by the wilful Lild, and stood manifest to her
sight in their ethcrial forms of the goddess and her inspired dame.

30. At this instant the Lild of Yiduratha, looked upon them

with her staring eyes ; and found the room lighted up'by the
full lustre of their bodies.

21. The apartment seemed to be lighted by the bright orb

of the moon, and its wall washed over with liquid gold; the
grt)und floor shone as paved with ice, and all was full of spleu-
d'>ur.

UTPATTI KHAXCA.

4ii

Z2. After seeing tlie brightness of the bed chamber, LiU

looked up at the goddess and the other Llld, and rising respect�
fully before them, she fell at their feet.

23. Be victorious, O ye goddesses ! she said, that have bless�

ed me with your visit, and know that know all, that 1 have come
Jiere first as a prepai�er of your way. (Lit. as the sweeper of
your 2 )ath).

21. As she was speaking in this manner, they received her

with good grace, and then all the three sat together on a bed�
ding in their youthful bloom, like luxuriant creepers on the
snow capt top of Mem.

25. The goddess saidTell us daughter, l>ow you came

here before ourselves, how you have been, and what you have
seen on your way hither.

26. The younger Lihi answered;�As I lay insensible on

that spot (upon the shuck of my death , I was enveloped in
darkness like the new moon, and felt myself burnt away by
the fiame of a confiagration: (�. e., funeral fire).

27. I had no sense nor thought of anything good or bad,

but remained with my eyes closed under my eye-lids.

28. Then I found myself, O great goddess! after I had

recovered from m} anaesthesia of death, to assume (by mistake
a new body agreeably to my former impression), and to be trans�
lated at once into the midst of the sky.

29. I mounted on the vehicle of winds, and was borne like

fragrance to this mansion through the etherial space.

80. I found this house guarded by its warders, and lighted

with lamps, and having a costly bedstead placed in the midst
of it.

31. I am looking here upon this corpse, as my husband

Yiduratha, who has been sleeping here with his body covered
under the flowers, like the vernal god in a flower garden.

32. I thought he was taking his rest, after the fatigue of

the warfare, and did not like to disturb his repose in this place.

38. I have now related to you, my gracious goddesses! all

48 YOGA Va'sISHTHA.

that I have seen and thought of, since I have' been restored to
my new life.

34. The goddess spake :�^Now I tell thee Lild, that hast
such beautiful eyes, and movest like a swan, that I will raise the
corpse of the king to life from his bed in this bier.

85. Saying so, she breathed the breath of life as the lotus
lets off its fragrance ; and it lied into the nostrils of the carcase,
like a creeping plant crawls into a hole.

36. It entered into the heart through the vital sheath, as the
wind penetrates into the hole of a bamboo ; and the breath of
life was fraught with desires, as the waves of the sea spai-kle
with pearls.

37. The infusion of life, added to the colour of the face and
body o� king Padma ; as the rain*water refreshes the fading lotus
in a draught.

38. By degrees the members of the body bacame renovated,

like a garden with its returning flowering season; and as the
sides of a hill become virescent, with fresh grown bushes and
creepers.

39. The person of the king shone as the queen of the stars,
with all her digits of the full moon, when she enlightens the
whole world, with the beams of her radiant face.

40. All his limbs became as tender and roscid, as the branches
of trees in spring; and i)hey regained their bright and golden hue,
like the flowers of the vernal season.

41. He oped his eyes which were as clear as the sky, with
their two pupils rolling as the two orbs of light; and enlighten�
ing the world, with their charming and auspicious beams.
42. He raised his body, as the Vindbyd mountain uplifts its
head, and ciied, � who waits there with a grave and hoarse voice.

43. The two Lil4s responded to him saying;�� your com�

mands ; when he beheld the two Lilds in attendance upon him,
and lowly bending themselves at his feet.

44. Both of them were of the same forqi and features, and
of the like demeanour and deportment towards him. They were

tJTPATTl KHANDA.

47

alike to one another in their voice and action, as in their joy and
gladness at his rising.

46. Then looking npon them he asked, " what art thon and
who is she '*? At this the elder LiU responded to him saying�

deign to hear what I have to say

46. I am Lild thy former consort, and was joined as twain

in one with thee, as sounds and their senses are combined
together.

47. The other Lfld is but a reflexion of myself, and cast by

my free will for your service.

48. The lady sitting here beside the bed, is the goddess of
wisdom�the blessed Sarasvati, and mother of the three worlds }
set her on the golden seat before yon.

49. It is by virtue of our great merit, that she has presented

herself to our sight, and brought irs back from other worlds to
your presence in this place.

80. Hearing this, the lotns-eyed king, rose from his seat^
and with pendant wreaths of flowers and a strap of cloth hung
about his neck, prostrated himself at her feet.

81. He exclaimed :�I hail thee, O divine Sarasvati 1 that

dost confer all blessings on mankind. Deign to confer on me the
blessings of understanding and riches with a long life.

82. As he was saying so, the goddess touched him with her
hand and said, '' be thou my son, possessed of thy desired bless*
ings, and gain thy blessed abode in future."

83. Let all evils and evil thoughts be far from thee, and aU
thy discomforts be dispersed from this place; let an everlasting
joy alight in thine hearts, and a thick population fill thy happy
realm. May all prosperity attend on thee for ever.
CHAPTER LIX:

Extinctioji of Padma�s Life.

Afgumcnt. Great joy on the Eing�a return to Life.' His Government

of the kingdom and his final Liberation.

Y ASISHTHA said:�� Be it so, said Sarasvati and dis*

. appeared in the air; and the people rose in tho morning with
their revivified king.

2. He embraced the renascent Lil&, who embraced him in her

turn, and they were exceeding glad in their coming to life again.

3. The palace was filled with loud acclamations of joy as those

of giddy revelry : and the citizens were full of mirth and merry,
song and music.

4. The shouts of victory, and sounds of huzzas and heydays,

resounded in the air, and the people elated with joy, thronged at
the royal courtyard to see their king.

6. The genii of the Siddhas and Vidyddharas, dropped down

handful of flowers from-above; and the sound of drums and
kettles, and trumpets and conches, resounded on all sid^.

6. The elephants roared aloud on the outside, with their up�

lifted trunks; and crowds of females filled the inner court-yard,
with their loud rejoicihgs.

7. Men bearing presents to the king, fell upon one another

at their mutual clashing; and others wearing the flowery chaplets
on their heads and hairs, moved gracefully all about.

8. The red turbans of joy on the heads of the chiefs and

host of citizens, and the waving of the reddish palms of dancing
girls, filled the sky with a bed of red lotuses.

9. The ground also was strewn over with rosy flowers, by

foot-falls of dancers with their reddish soles; and the pendant
earrings of ballet girls, which flouerished with the oscillation of
their heads and shoulders, waved in the air like flowers of
gold.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

49

10. The silken veils which like autumnal clouds, covcretl the
^aces of fairy damsels in their dancing, glittered as so many
moons shining in the court>yardi.

11. The people then retired to their respective aho<lcs, with

loud ajiplause of the queen�s return with her husband from the
other world.

12. The king Fadma heard of his adventures from the hear�
say of his subjects, and made his purificatory ablution, with the
waters o� the four seas of the earth.

18. Then the royal ministers and ministerial Brahmans,

joined together in the act of his installation, like the synod of
immortals, meeting at the inauguration of ludra.

14. The two Lil& continued in compan}) with the king,

to relate with delight their respective adventures, and the
wisdom they had gathered thereby.

16. it was thus by grace of the genius of wisdom and their

own experience, that this king Fadma and his two queens,
obtained their prosperity equal to that of the three worlds.

16. The king, who was fraught with the wisdom imparted to
him by the goddess; continued to rule over his kingdom for
thousands of years, in company with his consorts.

17. They reigned on earth, in their state of living liberation

for m}rriad8 of years; and then receiving the perfect knowledge of
the holy Siddhas, they became wholly liberated after their
deaths.

18. The happy pair having reigned jointly, over their delight�
ful realm of ever increasing population, and which was graced
by learned men and righteous people, knowing their own rights
and duties of doing good to all mankind, became freed from
the burden of their state affairs for ever.

Vot. II.

CHAFPlilR LX*

Out Dxtbation and Time and THOVonra of the Mim

Argument. The reason of introdacing the two LilAs in the tale. Ther
one as the counterpart of the other.

V ASISUTHA said have related to yon this tale, prince!

for remoring your error of the phenomenal world. Mind

this tale of laid, and renounce year misconception of the grosn
material world.

2. The substantiality of phenomena is a nil by itself, and

requires no pains to invalidate it. It is hard to disprove a reality ;
but there is no difficulty in effacing a falsehood from the mind.
3. True knowledge consists in viewing the visibles as void,
and knowing the one vacuum as the sole unity and real entity,
one loses himself at last in this infinite 'vacuity. (Vasishiha
was a sunjfa vddi or vacuiot, which Sankdi'achArya was at the
pains to refute in his Dig-vijaya).

4. When the self-born Brahm^ created the world from nothing,

and without the aid of any material or elementary body; it is
plain that there was an eternal void, and all these are but
manifestations of the vacuous soul. (The Team and Beam of
Genesis, corresponding with Tama and Vyom of the Veda, were the
origin of creation).

5. The same creative soul, has spread the seeds of its cons�
ciousness in the stream of creation, and these produce the images
as they incessantly appear to us, unless we take the pains to
repri^ them.

6. The appearance of the world, is but a perspective of the

sphere of divine intellect; and contained in the small space of
human intellect within the soul; as in a transparent particle
of sand.

7. Such being the case, say what is the essence of this

erroneous conception, and what may be our desires or relifmee

UTPATTI KHANDA.

�1

in U, and what can be the meaiung either of destiny or necessity ?

(The predestination and chance, to which the Fatalists, ascribe
the origination of the universe).

8. This entire whole which is visible to the eye, is but a

fttltiA appearance as that of magic; and there is no truth nor
�nbstance in a ma^c show.

9. Bdma said:�Oh I the wandrous exposition of the world,

that you have now explained to me. It refreshes my soul, as
the moon-beams revive the blades of grass, that have been burnt
dohm by a conflagration.

It is after so long, that I have come to know the truly

knotraUe ; such as what and how it is, and the manner whereby,
whedce and when it is to be known.

11. I have my peace and rest in pondering on this wonderful

theory, and your elucidation of the doctrines of the Sniti
Sdstras.

12. Bat tell me this one thing to remove my doubt, as my

ears are never satiate, with drinking the nectarious juice of
your sweet speech.

' 13. Tell me the time, which transpired during the three
births of Lild�s husband. Was it the duration of a day and night
in one case, and of a month in another, and the i>criod of a
whole yev in the case of Vidiiratha ?

14. Or did any one of them live for many years, and whether
th^ were of short or longer durations, according to the measure
of men, gods or Brahmd. (Because a human^car is a day and
night of the polar gods, and a moment of the cycle of Brahmd.
And revolution of the whole planatory system to the same point
makes a day of Brahmd).

16. Please sir, kindly tell me this, beccause a little hearing

is not sufficient to me, as a drop of water is not enough to
moisten the dry soil or the parched ground of summer heat.

16. Vasishtha said:�Know sinless BAma! that whosoever

thinks of anything in any manner at any place or time, he
comes to feel the same in the same manner, and in the same
place and time.

53

YOGA VASISHTHA,

17. Take for instance the dcstractivo poison, which becomes as

ambrosia to venomous insects, that take it for their dainty
nourishment; and so is an enemy turning to a friend by your
friendly behaviour unto him. (In both cases the evil toms
to good by our taking it as such).

18. And, the manner in which all beings consider themselves,

and all others for a length of time j the same they seem to be
by their mode and habit of thinking, as if it were by an act of
destiny. (*. e., They consider their thoughts of things as their
destined nature, which is not so in reality; for fair is foul and
foul is fair j according as our judgments declare).

19. The manner in which the active intellect represents a

thing in the soul, the same is imprinted in the consciousness
of its own nature. (Hero the Chit is said to be the intellectm
agens, and conciousness� Samvid �^the intellectua patient. The
motion of the mind gives us the impressions of the swiftness
and slowness of time),

20. When our consciousness represents' a twinkling of the

eye as a Kalpa, we are led to believe a single moment an age
of long duration. (As a short nap appears an age in dreaming),
and (a long age as a moment as in the case of the seven sleepers
of Kehcf).

21. And when we arc conscious of or think a Kalpa age as

a twinkling, the Kalpa age is thought to pass as a moment;
and so a long night*in our unconscious sleep, appears as a
moment upon waking.
22. The night appears a longsome age, to the long suffering
sick, while it seems as a moment, in the nightly revels of the
merry; so a moment appears as an age in the dream, and an
age passes off as a moment in the state of insensibility�. (The
length and shortness of duration, depending on our consciousness
and insensibility of the succession of our ideas. (See Locke and
Kant on our idea of time).

23. The notions of the resurrection of the dead, and of one's

metempsychosis, and being re-born in a new body; of bis being
a boy, youth or old man; and of his migrations to different places

UTPATTI KHANDA.

53

&t the distance of huudreds of leagues, are all but the pheno�
mena of sleep, and retrospective views in a dream.

24. King Haris Chandra is said, to have thought a single

night as a dozen of years; and the prince Lavana to have passed
his long life of a hundred years as the space of a singlb night.
(So the seven sleepers of Kehef passed a long period as one
night, and so of others).*

25. What was a moment to BrahmA, was the whole age of

the life-time of Manu (Noah); and what is a day to Vishnil,
constitutes the long period of the life-time of Braiimu. (This
alluded to the comparative differences in the cycles of planetary
bodies presided by the different dieties; such as Jupiter�s cycle
of 60 years round the sun, is but one year to the presiding god
of that planet).

26. The whole life-time of Vishnu, is but one day of the

sedate Siva; for one whose mind is motionless in his fixed medi�
tation, is. unconscious of the change of days and nights and of
seasons and years. (Since the meditative mind is insensible of
the fluctuation of its ideas, or that there is an utter quietus of
them in the quietism of the Yogis mind).

27. There is no sifhstance nor the substantive world, in the

mind of the ^meditative Yogi, (who views them in their abstract
light)} and to whom the sweet pleasures of the world, appear as
bitter, as they are thought to be the bane �f his true felicity.

28. The bitter seems to be sweet, by being thought to be

so j and what is unfavorable, becomes favorable as that whieh is
friendly comes to be unfriendly by being taken in their contrary
senses. (The mind can make a heaven of hell and a hell of a
heaven). Milton.

29. Thus R4ma! it is by habitual meditation, that we gain

the absti'act knowledge of things; as on the other hand we for-

rondor is roforred to tho following passage in the story of Rip Van

Wrinkle in Irving�s Sketch-Book. � To him tho whole twenty years, had
been bat as one night Tho strange events that had taken place during
��^^^rpor were, that there had boon a revolutionary war, when his country
^^****' England, and that instead of being a subjeot

of Qooigo the third, ho was now a free citizen of the United Slates, pp. 32-33.

54

YO(JA VASISHTHA.

get what wc learnt, by want o� their recapitalatioui (Habit is

second nature, and practice is the parent of productions).

30. .These by their habitude of thinking, find every thing

in' a state of positive rest; while the unthinking fall into the
errors of the revolutionary world, as a boat-passenger thinks the
land and objects on the shore, to be receding from and revolving
around him.

81. Thus the unthinking part of mankind, and those wander�

ing in their error, think the world to be moving about them ;
but the thinking mind, sees the whole as an empty void, and full
of phantoms, as one sees in his dr^un.

.32. It is the thought (erroneous conceptian), that shows the

white as black and blue; and it is the mistake of judgment^ that
makes one rejoice or sorrow at the events of life.

33. The unthinking are led to imagine a house where there

is none; and the ignorant are infatuated to the belief of ghosts,
as they are the killers of their lives.

34. It is reminiscence or memory, which raises the dream as

her consort; and which represents things as they ore presented
to it, by the thoughts of the waking state.

85. The dream is os unreal as the empty vacuity, abiding

in the hollow receptacle of the intellectual soul} it overspreads
the mind like the shadow of a cloud, and fills it with images like
those of a puppet-show under the magic lantern.

86. Know the phenomena of the revolving worlds, to be no

more in reality,* than mere resultants of the vibrations of the
mind, in the empty space of the soul j and as the motions and
g^tures of the fancied hobgoblins, to the sight of children.

37. All this is but a magical illusion, without any substance

or basis of itself j and all these imposing scenes of vision, are bat
the empty and aerial sights of dreams.

88. Just as the waking man, beholds the wondrous world

before him, so also does sleeping man see the same; and both of
them resemble the insensible pillar, which finds the images of
statues engraved upon it: (because the soul is ever awhke in
cTery state of all living bodies).

tJTPATTI KHANDA, 65

89. great moimment of the Divine Spirit^ has the

figure of the created world, carved in itself in the same manner,
as 1 see a troop of soldiers passing before me in my dream. (All
these appear to be in action, in their true state of nullity and
inaction).

40. So is this wahing world asleep in the soul of Brahma,

and rises in his mind as the vegitable world springs from the
sap lying hid in the earth, which gives it its growth and vernal
bloom.

41. So likewise does the creation lie hid in, and spring from the

Supreme Spirit; as the brightness of gold ornaments is contain�

ed in, and comes out of the material metal. (The Divine Spirit
is both the material and efficient cause of creation� {exqno 8f a
quo.)

42. Every atom of creation, is settled in the plenum of

Divine spirit; as all the members of the body, are set in the
person of their possessor.

43. The visible world has the same relation, to the bodiless
and undivided spirit of God; as one fighting in a dream bears
to his antagonist; (both believing in their reality, while both
of them are unreal in their bodies).

44. Thus the real and unreal, the spirit and the world, all
dwindled into vacuum, at the great Ka^&nta annihilation of
creation, except the intellect of God which comprises the world
in itself.

46. The causality of the one (e. e. the spirit of God), and the
unreality of the world cannot be true; (since nothing unreal can
comesout of the real). Except Brahm�the all {topan), there is
no other cause, as a BrahmA or any other ; the Divine Intelli�
gence is the only cause and constituent of its productions.

46. BAraa ashed But what cause was it that represented

the oitazens, counsellors and ministers of Viddratha's royal hpuse
also to Lila�s vision, in the same manner as her lord the king,
(who was alone the object of her thought) ?

47. Vasishtha saidAll other thoughts are associated

56

VOGA VA'srsniHA.
\dth the principal one in the intellect, in the same manner as the
high winds are accompaniments of the storm.

48. The association of thoughts, follows one another in a long

and perpetual train; and caused the succession of the sights
of the ministers, citizens and subjects of the king, in Lila�s
vision one after the other.

49. In this way the thought that the king was bom of
such and such a family, naturally introduced the thoughts of his
palace and city, and of these that dwelt in them.

60. It is in vain to enquire into the cause and manner, of

the intellect�s being combined with its thoughts at all times;
since it is called the gem of thoughts (Chintdmani), and must
be always accompanied with its radiating thoirglits, like a brilli*
ant gem with its rays. (I. E. Thinking is the inseparable attri*-
bute of the mind).

51. Padma thought to become a king like Viduratha, in the

proper discharge of the duties of his royal family} and this constant
thought of himself as such, cast the mould of the mind and
manner of Viduratha upon him : {i. e. ho looked himself in the
light of that king).

63. All animate beings of every kind, are but models of

their own thoughts, like looking-glasses showing their inward
reflexions to the sight. (The innate man appearing in his out�
ward figure, is a verity in physiognomy).

63. The mind which is fixed in the meditation of God, and

remains unshaken amidst the turmoils of the worfd ; is fraught
with perfect rest, and preserves the composure of the soul, until
its final liberation from the bondage of the body.

64. But the thoughts of the fluctuating enjoyments of this

world, alternately represented in the mirror of the mind, like the
shadows of passing scenes upon a looking glass.

64 . It requires therefore a great force of the mind, to over�

come its worldly thoughts, and turn them to the channel of
truth; as the greater force of the main current of a river, leads its
tributaries to the ocean.

UtPATTI KHANDA.

8T

Bat tke mind is greatly disturbed, when the worldly

tad spiritual thoughts, press it with equal force to both ways;
and it is then, that the greater force leads it onward in either
way. (There is no midway like that of the Mddkj/amikat be�
tween this world and tho next).

Gloss. Tke worldly And spiritual thoughts being equally

fooible, they naturally strugirle in the mind, and that which is of
greater force overcomes the other.

67.. Such is the case with all the myriads of beings, whether
are living, dead or to come to life ; and the same accidents take
place in the particles of all human minds ; (like the concussions
of atomic forces).

68. All this is the empty sphere of the Intellect, all quiet
and without any basis or substmtum. It is neither peopled
nor filled by any thing except its own native thoughts.

69. All these appear as dreams, even in onr unsleeping states,

and have no form or figure in the sight of the wise. The per�
ception of their positive existence, is but a misconception of their
negative inexistence.

60. There really exists but one omnipotent and all pervasive
Spirit, which shows itself in diverse forms like the flowers, fruits
and leaves of trees, all appearing from the self-same woody
trunk, (which like the- great Brahma is the origin of all its
off-shoots.)

61. He who knows the increate Brahma tcT be the measurer,

measure and the thing measured, (e. e. the creator, created and
the creation), to be all one and himself, can never forget this
certain truth of unity, nor ever fall into the error of dualism of the
cause and effect.

62. There is but one Being (SAT), who is Holy and without
beginning; and who, though he appears to be of the forms of
light and darkness, and of space and time, doth never rise not
set anywhere. He is without beginning, middle or end; and
remains as a vast expanse of water, exhibiting itself in its waves
tad currents.

VOL. II.

YOGA V^ISHTHA.

68

68. The notion of myself, thyself and the objective nrotld,

are bat effusions of our perverted understandings; and it is
ignorance only that shows the One as many within the Sheath
' of the mind, according as it imagines it to be.

CHAPTER LXI.

On the Natheb of the Woeld.

Alignment. Proofs of the onieality of the vorld, leading to tho
Quietesm of the Spirit

R iMA said:�Please sir, explain to me wHencearises this error

o� our knowledge of the objective world, without a cause
of this error. (The True God cannot lead us to the knowledge
of untruth).

2. Vasishtha said �.�Because we have the knowledge of all

things (e. e, the objective), to be contained alike in our conscious�
ness (as of the subjective self); it is plain that this eternal and
increate self (or soul), is the cause and container cf them all at
all times.

3. That which has an insight or intuitive knowledge of all

things, which arc expressed by words and their meanings, is
Brahma�the soul and no other; and nothing that is meant by
any significant term, has a different form of its own. (It is the
doctrine of nominalism that the notions conveyed by words
have no realities corresponding with them in the mind, and have
no existence but as mere names).

4. As the quality of a bracelet is not different from its

substance of gold, nor that of a wave* from the water; so
the expansion of the world, is not distinct fpm the spirit of
God. (The spirit inflated and produced the world out of itself;
Bruti).

5. It is Brahma that is manifest in the form of the world,

and not the world that appears as God; and so doth gold dis�
play itself in the form of a bracelet, and not the bracelet that
the nature of gold.

6. As the whole is displayed in all its various parts, so the

entire intellect shows itself in all the various operations of the
mind composing the world. H^he intellect displaying the mind ^
and this the world).

60

YOGA VASISHTHA.

7. It is igqorance of the infinite and eternal Spirit of God,

that exhibits itself as myself, thyself and the world itself in the
mind. (*. e. The knowledge both of the subjective and objective
results from ignorance of the only One-tanm&tram).

8. As the shades of different colours in gems, are not apart

from the gems; so the notions of one�s self and the world, jure the'
Bhades inh erent in the self -same intellect.

9. Like waves appearing on the surface of the undulated

waters of the deep; this so-called and meaningless creation, is
but a phams in the Divine Intellect.
10. Neither docs the Spirit of God reside in the creation^
nor does the creation subsist in the Divine Spirit (like waves in
tlie vraters); nor is there such relation as of a part with the
whole between them. (These are not parts of one undivided
Vhole).

11. One should meditate on his intellect as the form of thq

Divine Intellect, in his own consciousness of it; and he will feel
the Divinity stirring within himself, as it were stirred by the
breath of a breeze. (There is a divinity stirring within us.
Addition).

12. The minute particle of the vacuous intellect, will then

appear in its wondrous form of a void, within the empty space
of his conscious mind. (The primary hypostasis of the vacuous
soul being but a void, its attributes of the intellect and mind, are
of the same form). <

13. Ho then^finds this vacuous form stirring in himself

ns the mry spirit, with its property of feeling, as it is felt in
ihQflatns venti or bi-eath of air. (This is the Spirit of God).

14. The God then assuumes a luminous form as the state of

his own substantiality; and this is posited in the sheath of the
intellect as a spark of fire. (This is the holy light of the God of
glory or glorious God).

15. The light then melts into water as the self-same subs�
tance of itself; and this fluid substance contains in it the properw
ty of taste. (This is the liquid state of the floating spirit before
creation).

UTPATTI KHANDA.

* 61

16. The same is condensed in the form of a solid substance,

which is the same with the Divine Mind. This becomes the
earth bearing in its bosom the property of spell. (The earth
being produced from the scum of water, is dissolved again into
its watery form).

17. Again God represents himself to our intellect, as one

infinite and uniform duration; and its measures in twinklings
and other divisions, are but manifestations of the succession
of our thoughts. (Prakacbanamvidab parampard�^is the very doc�
trine of Locke and others).

18.. The other states in which Gtod presents himself to our

intellects are that. He is Holy, infinitely glorious, seen within
us,* and without beginning, middle and end; that. He has no
rising nor setting, and subsists of Himself without a substratum
and as the substratum of all.

19. This knowledge of Ood is bliss itself, and his creation

is identic with himself. Ignorance of God leads to the know�
ledge of the objective world, and its extinction is the way to
know the eternity of His existence.

. 20. Brahma is conceived in the same manner in our souls,

as He is represented to us by our intellects; just as we know
all other things according to our ideas of them, in our all compre�
hensive minds.

21. Of these, those things only are true, the notions of which
we derive from the dictates of our well-directed understandings;
as all those are untrue, which the mind paints to us from the
impressions of the senses and the meanings of words; which are
incapable of expressing the nature of the undefinable and in�
describable God, (whom no words can express �Yalo vdcho
nivastanle. (Sruti)

22. Know the unreal world which appears as real, and the
reality of God which appears as unreality, to be of the manner
of the air in motion and at rest. The visible world like the
current air, appears true to them, that have no. knowledge of

* The intnition of his ezistenoe, is the best proof of the same. Srtiiti.

��ys the m^tio snfl:�I sanght him everywhere but found him nowhere;
I thea look^ ntthin myself, and saw him there�as his seat was there.

62

yOGA ViiSISHTHA.

the invisible God, who is as calm as the still dur underlying ihe
etherial air and its fluctuations.

23. A thing saay appear diflerent from another, and yet be

the same with itj as the light in the fire is the seKsame fire.
So the visible world arising from the invisible Brahma) appears
as another reality; though it is same with the reality of
God.

24. All things whether in being or not being, subsist in God

bs their invisible and unknown source and cause; as the un-
scooped earth is the cause of the would bc-doll, the unhewn
tree of a future statue, and the soot of the ink not inease. (So
all future statues are contained in the unhewn marble, according
to Aristotle .

25. One thing is exhibited as another in the great desert of

the Divine Mind, which shows the phenomena of the world as
figures in the mirage.

26. The wise soul thinks this world as one with its source�*
the Divine Intellect, as he considers the tree no way different
from its parent seed.
27. As the sweetness of milk, the pungency of pepper, the
fluidity of water, and the motion of winds, are the inseparable
properties of their substances;�

28. So this creation is inseparable from the spirit of Biahm^

and is a mere form of the one Supreme soul, beside which there
is nothing in reality. (Whose body nature is, and God the
soul).

29. This world is the manifestation of the lustre of the gem

of Divine mind, and has no other cause except the essence of
Brahma, which is no other than its material cause�the Supreme
soul itself.

80. The will, the mind, the living soul, and its coneiousness,
are all the offspring of Divine intellection; because there is
nothing that can be produced by exertion of any power without
direction of the Intellect.

81. There is nothing that rises or sets anywhere, nor appears

or disappears at any time; but everything is.unborn at all times^

TJTPATTI KHANDA.

'63

and lies quiet in the Divine Intellect, which is as solid as a mas�

sive rook.

52. To attribute the formation of these multitudes of the

combination of atoms, and to suppose every particle to be com�
posed of minutest infinitesimals; arc but vagaries of imagination,
as none of them could combine of themselves except by direction
of the eternal mind. (Matter having no force nor design in
itself).

53. All force resides in some living principle, as the waking,

sleeping and dreaming states appertain to the living soul; and
as the undulation of waves subsists in the water; (or) as the
curent of the stream lies hidden in it.

84. When the living soul feels its inappetency towards

woredly enjoyments, it is then said to have reached to his highest
perfection by the Sruti: (such as;� nisM&ma or abandonment
of the desire of fruition, is the highest state of human felicity).

Sf. As the mind is freed from its choice and dislike of

things, so is the soul liberated by avoiding its egoism and
personality, and then it has no more to be conscious of the pain,
attending upon a future birth and transmigration.

36. Whoso comes to know in his understanding, this slate of

supreme and inexpressible felicity; he is sure to overcome all his
worldly appetites, that bind him fast to this earth.
37. But whoso labours in his mind under his affections to
this world, he has to rove continually in it as in the whirlpool of
a stream, and destroys the supreme felicity *of his soul in his
continuous turmoil.

88. It was the lotus-bom Brahmd, that was conscious of

of his egoism at first, and who has by the will of his mind, spread
out this universe. (He is eternally acting, and has not retired
after his act of creation).

CHAPTER LXll.

Intbepestation op DestiUt.

- Atgtnnent. The erroneous conception of creation and of Deshny both

as active and inactive.

Y ASISHTHA continued:�These myriads of worlds and the

millenniums of halj^a ages, are no mqre real in themselves
than our false computation of the millionth part of an atom ot
the twinkling df'an eye.

2. It is our error that represents them as true to us, though

they are as false as our calculation of those infinitesimalB.

3. These creations whether past or future, follow one another

in endless succession, like the everflowing currents of water, with
all the waves, eddies and whirlpools in them.

4. The prospect of these created worlds is as false, as the

delusive mirage, which presents a stream of water, flowing with
strings of flowers, fallen from the plants on the shore.

6. The conceptional creation is as baseless, as a city in a dream

or magic show; or as mountain in fiction, or an imaginary castle
in air.

(It is a flatuiventi, and not based on any thing real; but has
a mere psychological ^stence, depending on fancy and imagina*
tion).

6. Bdma sai^:�Sir, the drift of your reasoning, leads to

the establishment of the identity of the conceptional creation
with the creator; and that this unity of both is the belief of the
learned and wise. (So says Hegel: ''creation is the reality
of God; it is God passing into activity" Lewe's Hist. Fh. II

p. 626).

7. New tell me, what you have to say with regard to the
material bodies, which these existence bear on earth; and what is
the cause that the body is subject to the casualties unknown
to the inward spirits, (t. e. The body is subject to material laws,
but not so the immaterial spirit which has no change).
titPATTl KflANDA.

65

8,. Vasishtha replied r�There is a sapematural and active

energy of the Divine Intellect, called the predominant Decree,
Fate or Destiny, which must come to pasEf, and bear its command
over all our actions and desires. (Destiny is irresistible, being
the decree of Providence, governing all events and our free wills
also. Fate is the personification of the female agency of god�
Here Yasishtha is a fatalist alsoj but his &te is the Divine

decree).

9. She is invested from the beginning with irr^stible and

multifarious powers; and destines the manner in which every
thing is to take place and continue for ever. (The philosophical
destiny is the sum of the laws of universe, matter and
mind).

10. She is the essential cause of all essence, and the chief
mover of the intellect; she is styled as the great power of powers,
and remains as the great viewer of all things.

11. She is called the great agency and the great producer of
all events; She is known as the chief mover of occurences, and
she is the soul and source of all accidents. (The mythological
Destiny is BUXi�rior to gods and men, and rules over the great
Jove himself).

12. She whirls the worlds as straws, and bears her sway
over the deities and demons; she commands the Ndga dragons
and the mountain monsters to the end of time.

13. She is sometimes thought to be &n attribute of Divine

essence, and to remain pictured in her ever uarying colours in
the hollow vacuity of the Divine Mind. (The theological destiny
is the Almighty Will of God and liis f^eknowledge also;' before
which the fates float about, as if they arc drawn up in variegated
pictures).

. 14. Tbe learned have explained Brahmd the Demiurge, ta

be identic with the Spirit of Brahma, for the understanding
of those that are i^orant in spiritual knowledge j and by des*
tiixy they mean his creation, (i. e. Oration is destination of
the preordaining and irrevocable will of God).

.15. The immovable spirit of Brahn^, appears to be full of

Vot. n. 9

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

moving creatures j and the infinity of Divine existence, seems to

teem with the finite creation in the midst of it^ like a grove of
trees growing nnder the concavity of the hollow sky.

10. The unwaking spirit of God reflected various images

in itself (as in a dream), likening to the reflection of a dense forest
in the lens of a crystal stone: and these were understood by the
demiurgus BrahmA, as the prototype of the destined creation,,
in tb6 hollow sphere of the Divine mind.

17. The Intellect naturally exhibits a variety of forms in

itself, as the body of an embodied person, shows its various mem�
bers to view; and these were taken by the lotus-born BtahmA,
as the several parts in the great body of the cosmos. (The
Intellect is the phantasmagoria of the world, and the Demiurg
is the formal framer of it).

18. This foreknowledge of events imprinted in the Intellect

of God, is called Destiny, which extends over all things at all
times. (This is Fatum chritUauum, that every thing is regu�
lated by foreknowledge and Providence).

19. The meaning of Destiny, comprises the knowledge of the

causes, which move, support and sustain all things in their pro�
per order; and that such aqd such causes, must produce such and
such effects for ever. (This is the Stoic Fate of Jewish Essen�
ces; or a concatenation of causes whence all things necessarily
result),

20 This destiny is the force or mobile power, that moves all

men and animals; and vegitable and inanimate creations; it is
the beginning (or primary source) of the time and motion of
all beings. (It vsfatum^tovafari �the word or decree of Provi�
dence, that was the beginning of all existence.)

21. It is combined with Divine power, as the power divine

is eombined with it; and this combination of them into one, is the
cause of the production and existence of the world.

22. It is the union or conformity of human exertion, with

the course of destiny or decree of God, that is productive of
certain ends, which are respectively called their destiny and
destined effects. (Here Destiny is defined as the combination

UTPATTl KHANDA.

67

�� human and superhuman powers; and that the eo-operation

o� natural and supernatural agencies, are necessary to the produc�
tion o� effects).

23. What more have you to ask me, Rdma! with regard to
destiny and self-exertion; when 1 tell you that it is destined to
all beings to betake themselves to their proper actions, in the
destined or prescribed maoner, inorder to bring about the desired
result? (There destiny is equal to Vidhi or fixed laws, which
were combined in Brahmd).

24. When a predestinarian sits idle and quiet, under the belief
of being fed by his fixed lot; he is then said to depend on his
destiny alone: (as a fatalist).

25. By sitting idle in the manner of a waiter on Providence,

for the whole of his lifetime, he gains nothing; but comes to lose
his good sense and energy in a short time, and finally dies away in
famine by his sole reliance on destiny. (Hence fate ��fat and faut
(in Arabic), is synonymous with death).

26. It is quite certain that whatever is destined, must surely

come to pass of its own accord; and that it is inipossible to
prevent it by the foresight of gods and men.

27. Yet the intelligent ought not cease to exert their activity,
by relying in their fates only; for they must know that it is our
exertion that brings destiny into action. (Because it is, destined,
that dratiny requires to be enforced by human exertion, in order
to bring on its effect. It is operation which enforces the law,
which is otherwise dormant and a dead letter).*

28. Destiny is inactive and abortive,, without and active power

to enforce it to action; it is human iactivity, that is productive
of any effect or production in nature by the help of destiny.

29. Depend on destiny, and remain both deaf and dumb as a

doll; be inactive, and become dull and torpid as a block. Say,
what is the good of this vital breath, unless it has its vitality and
activity? (Destiny has destined man to exertion in order to
IHoduce the destined end; and has so ordained all anima ted
nature, in order to be productive).

YOGA VlSISHTHA.

80 It is good to sit quiet, by restraining even the vital

breath in Yoga meditation; whereby one can obtain his liberation:
otherwise the inactive man is not to be called a Yogi, but an
idler and a lazzarone.

31. Both activity and inactivity are good for our liberation
from pain; but the high minded esteem that as better, which
savra them from the greater pain of regeneration: (*. e. the hyber*
nation of Yoga meditation).*

32. This inactive destiny is a type of the latent Brahmd; and

who so leans to it by laying aside bis busy (.* 00186 , is verily
installed in the supremely holy state of highest felicity: (as in
eettasia and hypnotism).

33. The inert destiny resides every where in the manner of

Brahhia�the latent soul in all bodies, and evolves itself in various
shapes, by means of activity in all its productions.
*AotiTity ia attended with the pleasure of enjoyment with the pain of
bondage; and inactivity with the pleasnie of freedom, and the pain of poverty.
The insenBible are fond of fruition at the expense of their freedom; bat the
vise prefer their liberty with poverty, as it ia said in the Upanishad

ijwT^ V tn�rr<wr ^tk i yirn t '

CHAFFER LXm.

ImCtTABIUTY OF THE DlVINB MlKO.

Aliment. Expansion o� the Divine Sidrit, and its apparent varia�

tions in Nature.

V ASISHTHA continuedThe essence of Brahma is all in'

all, and ever remains in every mannner in every thing in
all places. It is omnipotence, omniform and the lord God of all.

(This is the to pan of Pantheism, that, God is All and All is

God; that God and nature are one substance, and all its various
modifications. (This is the doctrine, of YedAnta, Plato and
Plotinus, and lately of Sufism and German philosophy).

2 . This Essence is the Spirit or Soul, whose omnipotence

developes itself sometimes in the form of intellectual activity,
and sometimes in the tranquility of soul. Sometimes it shows
itself in the momev^m of bodies, and at others in the force of
the passions and emotions of the soul. Sometimes as something
in the form of creation, and at another as nothing in the anni�
hilation of the world. (This is the to on ontoa�the All�>f all; the
eternal source of all existence; the Subjective as well as Objective
both together).

3. Whenever it realises itself any where in any form or

state, it is then viewed in the same manner at the same place
and time. (The spirit realises itself in one form or other of its
own free Will).

4. The absolute Omnipotence manifests itself as it lihes and

appears to ns; and all its powers are exhibited in one form or
other to our view and understandings.

5. Thrae powers are of many kinds, and are primarily con�

centrated in the Divine Soul or Spirit. The potentialities (or
potea eaae) are the Active and Passive powers, also the Rational
and Irrational and all others.

6 . These varieties of powers are the inventions of the learned

for thw own purpose and understanding; but there is no distinc-

70

yOQA va'sishtha
tion of them in the Divine Spirit. (All divemtics are one and the
same to the unity of God: (omne ent-io en-ett mum. And again^
Qua maett indiviaum iuae, diriaum ah omnialio).

7. There is no duality in reality, the difference consists in

shape and not in substantiality. Thus the waves in the waters
of the sea, the bracelets and wristlets formed of gold, are no
more than modifications of the same substances.

(All formal differences terminate in the material, and this

again in the immaterial Spirit of God).

8 . The form of a thing is said to be so and so, from its

appearance only and not in its reality. The snidee is affirmed of a
rope, but we have neither the outward perception nor inward
thought of a snake in it. Hence all appearances are delusions
of sense.

9. It is the universal soul that shows itself in some form or

other, to our deluded senses and understandings, and this also
Bccordmg to our different apprehensions of the samething: (as
what appears as gold to one, seems as brass to another).

10. It is the ignorant only that understand the Omniform

God, to be all forms of things: while the learned know the
forms to be medifications of the various powers of the Almighty,
and not the figures themselves.

11. Now whether the forms (of material things) be real

or unreal, it is to he known that they appear to men according
to their different apprehensions of those beings, which Brahma
is pleased to exhibit in any particular form to their minds and
senses. (�. e. Some taking an abstract and other a concrete view
of them, agreeably to their internal conceptions or external
perceptions, of their various properties and qualities).

CHAPTlEE LXIV.

The OEKHiNATixa Seed.

Y ASISHTHA resumedThe supreme Deity is the all-perva�

ding spirit and the great God and Lord of all. He is
without beginning and end, and is self-same with the infinite
bliss of his translucent self-cogitation.

2 . It is this supreme felicity and purely intellectual subs�

tance, whence the living soul and mind have their rise, prior
to their production of the Universe, {i. e. The eternal and
inert bliss called Brahma, became the living sonl-auiiua, of and
ihe active mind-mens, which created the world).

3. R&ma asked:�How could the self-cogitation of Brahma,

as the infinite spirit and one without a second, conceive in it a
finite living soul other than itself, and which was not in
Bemg.
. (The inactive and active souls, are not the one and the samething,
nor can the immutable and infinite be changed to one of a finite
and changeful nature; nor was there a secondary being co�
existent with the unity of the self-existent God).

4. Vasishtha replied:�The immense and transparent Spirit

of Brahma, renudnod in a state of nono existen(�, a state
of ineffable bliss as seen by the adept Yogi; but of formidable
vastness as ooncrived by the uninitiated novice. (�. e. The
meditation of the Infinite is a delight to the spiritualist, but it
is a horror to the gross idolater, whose mind knows nothing
beyond matter and material forms).

6 . 1%is state of supreme bliss, which is ever tranquil, and

full with the pure essence of God, is altogether undefinable,
and incomprdiensible, even by the most proficient in divine
knowledge. (God is unknowable, is the motto of the wise
Athenians and modern i^noists).

6 . Thence sprang a power (an hypostasis) like the germ of a

seed, knd. possessed of consciousness and energy, that is called

72

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

the living and conscious soul, and which must ladt until its fina!
liberation. (This is the Demiurg, an emanation from God, and
the source and sold of the world).

7. The clear mirror of the mind of this being, reflected in its

vast vacuous sphere, the images of innumerable worlds set above
one another, like statues engraved upon it.

8 . Know Edma! the living soul to be an inflation of

Divine Spirit, like the swelling of the sea and the burning of a
candle, when its flame is unshaken by the wind.

(The pityche or anima is the energy of the universal soul, or

the finite rising from the Infinite).

9 The living soul is possessed of a finite cognoscence as distiU'*

guished from the clear and calm consciousness of the Divine
Spirit. Its vitality is a flash of the vacuous intellect of Brahma
and appertaining to the nature of the living God. Divina parti*
cula aurae. The Lord says; �Aham am that I am'; bat

the living soul knows itself to be �Soham am He or of

Him.

10. Vitality is the essential properly of the soul, resembling

the inseparable properties of motion in the wind, warmth in the*
fire and coldness in the ice. (Animation is the natural faculty
and necessary property of the soul).

11. Our ignorance of the nature of the Divine Intellect and

Spirit, throws us t� the knowledge of ourselves by our sel��
consciousness, and this it is, which is called the living soul.

(Beyond our conscious or subjective knowledge of ourselves,

we know nothing of the subjectivity of God, nor are we certain
of any objective reality).

12. It is by means of this positive consciousness, that, |ve

know our egoism or self-existence; it strikes us m^re gl^ngly

than a spark of fire, and enlightens us to the knowledge of
ourselves more than any other light. . .

(Our self-consciousness is the clearest of all knowledge, and

the basis of all truth according to Descartes).

13. As in looking up to heaven, its blue vault is presented

UTPATTI KUANDA.

73

to the eight, beyond which our eyes have not the power to
pierce; so in our inquiry into the nature of soul, we see no
more than the consciousness of ourselves, and nothing besides.
(�. e. The subjective soul only is knowable, and naught beyond
it).

14. Our knowledge of the soul presents to us in the form of

Ego known by its thoughts, like the vacuous sky appearing as
a blue sphere by cause of the clouds. (The Ego is the subject
of thoughts and self'Cogitation).

16. Egoism differentiates the soul from our ideas of space and
time, and stirs within it like the breath of winds, by reason of
its subjectivity of thoughts. (Differentiation of the subjective
Ego from the Objective space and time, is as the difference of Ego
and Non-Ego, I and Not I, Le moi et non moi Das Ich und nicht
ioh, Aham and twam &c).

16. That which is the subject of thoughts, is known as the

Eg^, and is various by styled as the intellect, the soul, the mind,
the mdya or delusion and Prakriti or nature. (The Ego iiersoni-
fied is Budra, the personification of c/�i7/a-cogitation is Vishnu,
of Jlva or the soul is Brahm6, and of the mams or mind is the
mdya or Elusion).

17. The mind (chetas) which is the subject of thoughts,

contemplates on the nature of elementary matter, and thus
become of itself the quintessence of the fiva elements.

(The mind is opposed to matter, but being the principle of

volition produces matter at its wUl).

18. The quintessential mind next becomes as a spark of fire

(of itself), and remmns as a dim star�a nebula, in the midst
of the vacuity of the yet unborn universe.

CThe nebulae are the primary formations of heavenly bodies,

called Biahmanandas or mundane eggs).

19. The mind takes the form of a spark of fire by thinking

pn its essence, which gradually developes itself like the germ
pf a seed, in the form of the mundane egg by its internal
force.

Voi. II. 10

74

YOGA ViJSISIITHA.

(The doctrine o� evolution from fire, the anlie of all things

according to Heraclitus. Lowe�s Hist. Ph. 1 1%),

20. The same fiery spark figuratively called the Brahmdnda

or mundane egg, became as a snowball amidst the Water, and
conceived the great Bi-ahmd within its hollow womb.

(The Spirit of God, dove-like sat brooding over the hollow

deep. Milton).

21. Then as sensuous spirits assume some bodily forms at

pleasure, although they dissolve as a magic city in empty air;
BO this Brahmd appeared in an embodied form to view. (Spirits
are at liberty to take upon them any form they like).

22. Some of them appear in the form of immovable, and

others in those of moving beings; while others assumes the
shapes of aerials, as they are fond of choosing for themselves.
(Hence the transmigration of souls in different bodies, depends on
their own choice; and not on necessity or result of prior acts).

23. Thus the first born living being had a form, for himself
as he liked in the beginning of creation, and afterwards created
the world in his form of Brahma or Virinchi (Vir-incipiens),
(The Demiurge, maker, creator or architect of the visible world,
had necessarily a personality of his own),

24. Whatever the self-bom and self-willed soul, wishes to

produce, the same appears immidiatcly to view as produced of its
own accord. (Everything appeared of itself at the Fiat of God).

25. Brahmd, originating in the Divine Intellect, was by his

nature the 2 )rimary cause of all, without any cause of his own;
though he appointed the acts of men; to be the cause of their
transition from one state to another, in the course of the
world.

(All the future states of beings depend on their acts of past

and present lives, except that of the Great creator who is un>
created and unchangeable).

26. The thoughts naturally rise in the mind, like the foaming
water, to subside in itself ; but the acts done thereby, bind
us, u the passmg froth and flying birds are caught by ropes
and snares.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

75

(The thoughts arc spontaneous in their growth as grass, and

they entail no guilt on us. Shakespeare).

27. Thoughts arc the seeds of action, and action is the soul
of life. Past acts are productive of future consequence, but
inaction is attended with no result. (Our lives are reckoned by
our acts, and there is no vitality without activity).

28. The living soul bears its vitality as the seed bears the
gcrin in its bosom; and this sprouts forth in future acts, in the
manner of the various forms of leaves, fruits and flowers
of trees.

(Thus the living soul of Prahmd was the seed of all animate
and inanimate Ijcings).

29. All other living souls that appeared in the various forms of
their bodies, had such forms given to them by Bralimd, according
to their acts and desires in premuudane creations in former
Kalpas. (Hence the belief in the endless succession of creations).

30. So the personal acts of people are the causes of their

repeated births and deaths in this or other worlds; and they
ascend higher or sink lower by virtue of their good or bad deeds,
which proceed from their hearts and the nature of their souls.

81. Our actions are the efforts of our minds, and shape our good
or bad destinies according to the merit or demerit of the acts.
The fates and chances of all in the existing world, are the fruits
and flowers of their past acts, and even of those done in prior
Kalpas; and this is called their destiny. (Sdstra; No act goes
for naught even in a thousand Kallas. Md Chuktan kshiyate
Karma, kalpa koti satai rapi).

CHAPTER LXV.

Natcbb OB XHE Living Soul.

Aignment. The mind and its operations, the subjective and objective,
and lastly the Divine Intellect.

V ASISHTHA Continued:�The Mind sprang at first from

the supreme cause of all; this mind is the active soul which
resides in the supreme soul (the Ens entium).

2. The mind hangs in doubt between what is and what is

not, and what is right and what is wrong. It forgets the past
like the scent of a fleeting odor by its wilful negligence. tUn-
xnindfulness is the cause of forgetfulness).

3. Yet there is no difference between these seeming contraries;

because the dualities of Brahma and the soul, the mind and mAyA,
the agent and act, and the phenomenal and nouminal worlds, all
blend together in the unity of God. (All seeming differences
converge in unvarying Mind).

4. There is but one Universal soul displaying its Intellect

as a vast ocean, and extending its consciousness as a sea of un�
limited extent. (These extend to all beings in the universe).

5. What is true and real shines forth amidst all that is

untrue and unreal; so docs the subjective essence of the mind
subsist amidst all its airy and fleeting dreams in sleep. And
thus the world is both true and untrue as regards its subsistence
in God and its external phenomena. (The substance is real but
the appearance is false).

6 . The erroneous conception either of the reality or unreality

of the outer world, does not spring in the mind, which is conscious
of its operations only, and of no outward phenomena. This
conception is like the deception of a magic show, and is con-
commitant with all sensuous minds.

7. It is the long habit of thinking the unreal world as real,

that makes it appear as such, to the unthinking, as a protract^

UTPATTI KHANDA.

77

sleep its visionary scenes appear as tme to the dreaming

soul. It is the want o� reflection, that causes us to mistake a

itin.n in a block o� wood.

8. Want o� spiritual light misleads the mind from its

rationality, and makes it take its �al8e imaginations for tme;
as children are impressed with a belief of ghosts in shadows,
through their fear and want of tme knowledge.

9. The mind is inclined of its own tendency, to assign a

living soul (and also a body) to the Divine Spirit; which is
devoid of appellation, form or figure, and our is beyond compre*
hension; (and is styled the Incomprehensible).

10. Knowledge of the living state (personality), leads to tiliat

of Egoism which is the cause of intellection. This again intro*
duces the sensations and finally the sensible body. (Ego is the
subject of thoughts).

11. This bondage of the soul in body, necessitates a heaven

and hell for want of its liberation and then the acts of the body,
become the seeds of our endless transmigrations in this world.

12. As there is no difference between the sonl, intellect and

life, so there is no duality in the living soul and intellect, nor
in the body and its acts, which are inseparable from each other.

13. Acts are the causes of bodies, and the body is not the
mind; the mind is one with egoism, and the ego is the living
soul. The living soul is one with the Divine Intellect and
this soul is all and the lord God of all.

CHAPTER LXVI.

Mkditatioit of the Subjective and Objective.

Ai^umcnt, Origin and Nataro of Duality and tko Manner of its

Extinction.

T hus Rdma! there is one true essence, which appears many

by our mistake; and this variety is caused by the produc*
tion of one from the other, as one lamp is lighted from another.

2. By knowing one's self as nothing as it was before its

coming to being, and by considering the falsity of his notions (of
his reality), no one can have any cause of grief (at its loss).
(The Sruti:�^The knower of the true-self, is above all grief and
sorrow).

3. Man is but a being of his own conception, and by getting

rid of this concept, he is freed from his idea of the duality of the
world (as a distinct existence); just as one with his shoes on,
perceives the whole earth he treads upon, to be covered over with
skin.

4. As the plantain tree has no pith except its manifold

coats, so there is no substantiality of the world beside our false
conceptions of it.

6. Our births are followed by childhood, youth, old age and

death one after the otW, and then opens the prospect of a heaven
or hell to our view, like passing phantoms before the flighty
mind.

6. As the clear eye sees bubbles of light in the empty sky, so

the thoughtless mind views the firmament full of luminous
bodies ; (which arc but phantoms of the brain).
7. As the one moon appears as two to the dimsighted eye,
so the intellect, vitiated by influence of the BcnBCB> sees a duality
in the unity of the supremo spirit.

8. As the giddiness of wine presents the pictures of trees

before the drunken eye, so does the inebriation of sensation,
present'the phantoms of the world before the excited intellect.

UTPATTI KHANDA,

79

9. Know the revolution of the visible world, to resemble the

revolving wheel of a potter�s mill; which they turn about in
play as the rotatory ball of a terrestrial globe.

10. When the intellect thinks of another thing (as matter)

beside itself, it then falls into the error of dualism ; but when
it concentrates its thoughts in itself, it then loses the sense of
the objective duality.

11. There is nothing beside the Intellect except the thoughts

on which it dwells; and its sensations are all at rest, as it comes
to know the nihility of objects.

12. When the weak intellect is quiet by its union with

the Supreme, and by supjn�ession of its functions, it is then
called sansdula�or quiescent or insouciant.

13. It is the weak intellect that thinks of the thinkabics,

but the sound understanding ceases from all thoughts; as it is a
slight intoxication that makes one rave and revel about, while
deep drinking is dead to all excitements.

14. When the sound and consummate understanding, runs in

one course towards its main reservoir of the supreme; it becomes
divested of its knowledge of the knowables, and of its self-cons�
ciousness also in the presence of the one and no other.

15. The perfected understanding finds the errors, to which

it is exposed by its sensation of the scnsiblcs; and comes to know,
that birth and life and all the acts and sights of the living
state, are as false as dreams.

16. The mind being repressed from its natural flight, can
have no thought of any thing; and is lost in itself; as the
natural heat of fire and motion of the wind being extinct, they
are annihilated of themselves.

17. Without the suppression of mental operations, the mind

must continue in its misconceptions, as that of mistaking a
rope for a snake through ignorance.
18. It is not difiicult to repress the action of the mind and
rouse our consciousness; in order to heal our souls of the malady
df their mistaken notion of the world.

80

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

19. If you can sncceed to suppress the desires of your resit

less mind at any time, you are smre to obtain your liberation
even at the very, moment and without fail.

20. If you will hut turn to the side of your subjective cons�
ciousness only, you will get rid of the objective world, iu the
same manner as one is freed from his fear of snake in a rope,
by his examination of the thing.

21. If it is possible to get rid of the restless mind, which is

the source of all our desires; it is no way impossible to attain to
the chief end of liberation to any.

22. When highminded men are seen to give up their lives

as straws (in an honorable cause), there is no reason why they
should be reluctant to abandon their desires for the sake of
their chief good of liberation.

28. Remain unfettered by forsaking the desires of your gree�

dy mind; for what is the good of getting sensible objects,
which we are sure to lose (some time or other).

24. The liberated are already in the sight of the immor�

tality of their souls and of God, as one who has got a fruit in
his hand, or sees a mountain palpable before him.

25. It is the Spirit of God alone, that abides in everything

in these phenomenal worlds, which rise to view like the waves
of the waters of the great deluge. It is his knowledge that is
Q^tended with the aurtmum homm of liberation, and it is ignorance
l^that supreme Being, that binds the mind to the interminable

.jidage of the world.

CHAPTER LXVn.

Lbctwkb on Troth.

Argoment Nature of the Active and Living Soul (Jiva) and iti
Sensations.

said:�Leaving the mind please tell me more about

the nature of the living soul; what relation it bears to the
Supreme soul, how it sprang from the same and what is its
essence.

2. Vasishtha replied:�Know Brahma is omnipresent, and

the Lord of all at all times; He manifests himself in whatever
attribute he assumes to himself at his free will. Exarbitrio suo.

3. The attribute which the universal soul assumes to itself

in the form of perception (chetana), is known by the term living
soul, which possesses the power of volition in itself.

4. There are two causal principles combined with the living

soul, namely; its predestination resulting from its prior acts and
volitions; and its later free will which branch forth severally
into the various causes of birth, death and subsistence of
beings.

5. R&ma said Such being the case, tell me, O thou greatest
of sages, what this predestination means and what arc these acts,
and how they become the causal agents of subsequent events.

6. Vasishtha replied:�^The intellect (chit) is possest of its

own nature of the properties of oscillation and rest, like the vaciL
lation and stillness of the winds in the air. Its agitation is the
cause of its action, otherwise it is calm and quiet as a dead lock*
quietus itself.

7. Its oscillation appears in the fluctuation of the mind, and

its calmness in the want of mental activity and exertions; as in
the nonehalanee of Yoga quietism.

I 8. The vibrations of the intellect lead to its continual trans*

' migpntions; and its quietness settles it in the state of the immova*
VoL. 11. 11

82

YOaA VASISHTHA.

bio Brahma. The oscillation of the intellect is known to bo the

cause of the living state and all its actions.

(The moving force of the mind is the animeism of Stahl, and

its rest is the quietus of Plato).

9. This vibrative intellect is the thinking Soul, and is known

as the living agent of actions ; and the primary seed of the uni�
verse. (This is the anima mundi or moving force of the world,
�the doctrine of Stahl).

10. This secondary soul then assumes a luminous form accor�

ding to the light of its intellect, and afterwards becomes multi�
farious at it� will, and by means of the pulsations of the
primary intellect all over the creation. (This luminous form is re�
presented by the red body of Brahma and the red clay of which
Adam was formed. (It was the All �to pan of Pantheism, and the
Principium hplarchicum or first principle of Henry Moore).

11. The pulsative intellect or soul, having passed through many

transformations (or transmigiations), is at last freed from its
motion and migration. And there arc some souls which pass into a
thousand births and forms, while there arc others which obtain
their liberation in a single birth: (by means of their Yoga medita�
tion or unification with God, which is the final aim of Platom-
ism and of the Chinese Laosin).

12. So also the human soul being of its own nature prone
to assume its dualism of the motive intellect, becomes by itself
the cause of its transmigration and sufferings, as also of its tran�
sient bliss or misery in hCUven or hell. (There is no rest for
the restless soul, until it rests in the bosom of the all�tranquil
and Unnivctsal soul).

13. As the same gold is changed to the forms of bracelets

and other things, and as the same gross matter appears in the
different forms of wood and stone; so the uniform soul of God
appears as multiform according to bis various modes and attri�
butes. (The soul modifies itself into many forms of activity
and passivity).

14. It is the fallacy of the human mind, that views the forms
as realities, and causes one to think his soul which is freed from

UTPATTl KHANDA.

83

birtli and form, to bo bom, living and dead, as a man secs a

city to rise and &.11 in his delirinm. (The appearances and forms of
things are objective and false fabrications of the intellect).

15. The varying intellect erroneously conceives its unreal

egoism and meitatem as realities, from its ignorance of its unity
with the unchangeable reality of God, and also from its fellidty of
enjoyments peculiar to its varied state. (The litWlTItl or desire
of fruition is the cause of the revolution of the soul in endless
states of beings).

16. As Lavana the King of Mathura, falsely deemed him*

self as a Chanddla, so the intellect thinks on its own different
states of existence and that of the world; (from its desire of enjoy*
ing its pleasures whieh are deeply rooted in itself).

17. All this world is the phantom of an erroneous imagina*

tion, OBama! it is no more than the swelling of the waters
of the deep. (The world is the expansion of the self-same soul
and its evolution is the volition of Brahma).

18. The intellect is ever busied with the intellection of its

own intelligences, and the innate principles of its action; in the
same manner as the sea is seen to swell with its wateis moving
in waves of themselves. (The continuation of the intellect in
the association of its preconceived ideas, is carried on by law of
continuity).

19. The intellect is as the water in the wide expanse of

Brahma ; its inflation raises the waving thdughts in the ndind,
resembling the bubbles of water, and produces the revolutions
of living souls like eddies in the sea of this world.

20. Know thy soul, O gentle Bdma 1 as a phenomenon of the

all pervading Brahma, who is both the subject and object of hia
consciousness, and who has posited in thee a particle of himself,
like the breath of a mighty lion.

21. The intellect with its consciousness, constitutes the living

soul, and that with the will forms the mind; its knowing power
is the understanding, and its retentiveness is called its memory;
its subjectivity of selfishness is styled egoism, and its error is
called �idyd or delusion. (Cousciousucss is perception ^ua men*

84

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

de fretenti mo ttata admonitur. The living eonl is psyche

or animus. The intellect is the mover of tbs will. The i^elt�
eeiut est prior voluntate, non enim&t voluntas &c. The under*
standing has the power to acquire knowledge, and memory has
the power of retention &c),

Zi, The mind by its imagination stretches out this world,

which is as false as the phantom of Utopia-Gandharvarnagaram
or an air drawn city.

23. The objective knowledge of the world in the mind, is as

f^e as the appearance of chains of pearls in the sky, and as
the visionaiy scenes in a dream. (The objective is the feigned
fabrication of the mind, and therefore unreal).

24. The soul which is ever pure and self sufficient in its na*
turc, and remains in its own state of tranquility; is not perceived
by the perverted mind dwelling on its delusive dreams.

25. The objective world is referred to waking�Jdgara, be�

cause it is perceived in the waking state of the soul; and the
subjective mind is allied to ehep�mx^a, because the mind is
active during the sleeping and dreaming states. The ego is re�
lated to deep sleep� swmpfa, when we are unconscious of our�
selves, and the fourth or pure Intellect� turiya or tnrya, is the
trance or hybernation of the soul.

26. That which is above these four conditions, is the state

of ultimate bliss ecsiasts ; and it is by reliance on that supremely
pure essence of God, that one is exempted from all his causes
of grief and sorrow (in his ecstatic delight).

27. Everything is displayed in Him and all things are

absorbed in Him also ; this world is neither a reality here or
there; it presents only the false appearance of strings of pearls
in the sky. (Sensible forms are empty appearances, and are
only believed as real by materialists).

28. And yet God is said to be the cause and substratum,

of all these unobstructed phantoms rising to the view, as the
empty air is said to be the receptacle of the rising trees. Thus
the uncausal God is said to be the cause of this uncaused world.

UTPATTI KHANDA,

85

which only exists in our illusive conceptions^ and presents

itself to oar delusive sensations of it.

29. As a polished piece of iron gets the reflexion of a grosser

piece, so do our finer or inner sensations take the representations
of the gross forms of their particular objects; (though the
senses and sensible objects are both untrue, as mere delusive and
delusions).

30. ThGse sensations are conveyed to the mind, and thence

again to the living soul and intellect, in the same manner as the
roots supply the sap to the stem, and thence to the branches,
and lastly to the fruits of trees, (i. e. The Divine Intellect
is the last receptacle of the impressions of the senses).

SI. As the seed produces the fruit, and the same contains
the seed in itself; so the intellect producing the mind and its
thoughts can not get rid of them �, but is contained in, and r&.
produced by them in suceessive transmigrations.

82. There is some difference however in the simile of the

insensible seed and tree j with the sensible intellect and
(which are freed from reproduction by their attainment of libera*
tion); but the Lhoughts of the creator and creation like the
seed and tree, are reproductive of one another without end.
(Because the thought of the creator accompanies that of the
creation, and so the vieeversa ; owing to the unbroken chain and
interminable concatenation of the ideas of causality and its
effect).

83. But there is this difference between the insensible seed

and sensible intellect, that the former is continually productive
of one another, while the latter ceases in its process upon its
attainment of, liberation J yet the ideas of the creator and
creation are reproductive of each other adinfinitum.

34. Yet our understanding shows it as clearly�as the sun

light sets forth the forms and colours of objects to view; that
there is one eternal God of truth, who is of the form of intellec-
tual light, which shows the forms of all things, that proceed
from Him (as the colours of objects originate from the solar
light, and are shown again by the same to our optical vision).

YOGA ViSiSHTHA.

35. As the ground which is dug presents a hollow, so the

reasoning of every system of sound philosophy establishes the
existence Of the transcendental void as the cause of all. (An un�
known first cause without any attribute, is the unanimous con�
clusion, arrived at every rational system of Philosophy. See
Kusum^njali. Here Vasishtha establishes his vacuous rather
than a personal cause).

86. As a prismatic crystal represents various colours in its

prisms, without being tinged by the same; so the transparent
essence of Brahma shows the groups of worlds in its hollow
bosom without its connection with them. (This variety of
vision is caused by our optical deception).

37. The u n iversal soul is the source, and not the substance
of all these vast masses of worlds} just as the seed is the
embryo, and not the matter of the trees and plants and their
fruits and flowers that grow from the same. (The io on is the only
principle called God, all other objects are but phenomenal
modifications of his essence).

38. B&ma said:�Oh how wonderful is this world, which

presents its unreality as a reality in all its endless forms unto
us; and though situated in the Divine self, appears to be quite
apart from it. O how it makes its minuteness seem so very
immense to us. (What are these worlds but as particles sub�
sisting in the divine essence, when they are compared with the
immensity of the Djvine spirit and mind�^the finite with the
Infinite).

89. I see how this shadowy scene of the world appearing in

the Divine soul, and becoming as an orb, by virtue of the ideal
(anmatraa Oran particles of the divine essence in it. 1 find it as
a snow ball oricicle made of frozen frost.

40. l^ow tell me Sir, how the spiritual particles increases in

bulk, and in what manner the body of the self born Brahmd was
produced from Brahma. Say also in what manner do these
objects in nature come to existence in their material forms.

(Brahmd the Demiurgus was an emanation of God according

to Gnostics; and Vaiswanara was the same as the soul of the
world according to Plotinus).
UTPATTI KHANDA.

87

41. Vasishtba replied:�^Too incredible is this form and

without a pairailelj which sprang of itself from its own essence.
It is altogether inconceivable how some tiling is produced of its
own conception.

42. Just fancy, O Ramd I how the unexpanded phantom

of a Yetala or ghost, swells in bigness to the sight of fearful
children; and conceive in the same manner the appearance of the
living spirit from the entity of Jirahma. (Evolution of the
Living God from the inert Brahma, is as the springing of the
moving spirit from the dormant soul).

43. This living spirit was a development of Brahma�the

universal soul; it was holy and a commensurable and finite be�
ing, and having a personality of its own; it remained as an im�
personal unreality in the essence of the selfexistcnt God. Be�
ing separated afterwards from its source, it had a different
appellation given to it. (This is the Holy spirit or ghost in one
sense, as also the Divine Logos in another, and in whom there
was life).

44. As Brahma the all extended and infinite soul, became

the definite living soul at will; so the living spirit, became the
mind by its volition afterwards. (There is a trinity or triple
division of the soul into sonia or the universal soul, the pneuma
or auima or the living spirit, and the mm or mens or mind).

46. The mind which was the principle of intellection, took a

form of its own; and so likewise the life assumed an airy form
in the midst of vacuity. (The mind is the state of the im�
pel sonal soul with a sense of its personality, and life is anima�
tion or the vital principle in the form of the vital breath).

46. The wakeful living god (who had no tmnkling of his

eyes), whereby we measure time was yet conscious of its course
by means of his thoughts; and had the notion of a brilliant
icicle of the form of the future mundane egg in his mind. See
Manu's Genesis of the World. I.

47. Then the living soul felt in itself the sense of its cons-
dousnew, and by thinking 'what am I,' was conscious of its
egoism. (Why is the non-ego of the objective world put before

88 YOGA VAmSHTHA.

the ego? The objective orb o� the world should follow the

48. This god next found in his understanding the knowledge

of the word taste, and got the notion of its becoming the object
of a particular organ of sense, to be hereafter called "the tongue.^'
[Rasand or the instrument of the perception of rata or flavour.
Ram abiding in water is reckoned first of the elements on account
the Spirit of God resting on it before creation, wherefore God is
himself called rata in the Sruti�ra�a vaitat.

49. The living soul then found out in his mind the meaning
of the word �ligb V which was afterwards to sparkle in the eye�
the particular organ of sight.

(The Bible says, Itix -fiat et lux fit �Light to be the first work
of creation; though the Vedas give Priority to water as in the
passages �apa eva maarjddau Manu. Yasrishtih S/ratiurddyd,
Sacuntala).

60. Next the god came to know in his mind the property
of smell, and the organ of smelling; as also the substance of
earth to which it appertains as its inseparable property. (The
Nyaya says; prithvi gandhavtC �the earth is smelling. It
followed the creation of light).

61. In this manner the living soul, came to be acquainted

at once with the other sensations, and the organs to which they
appertain as their inseparable properties and objects. (The word
hhavitd, means the spontaneous growth of these faculties in the
soul or mind, and kdkat&liya signifies the simultaneous occurence
of the senses, and sensible objects, and their sensations in the
mind).

6S. The unsubstantial living spirit which derives its being

from the essence of the substantial Brahma, comes next to
acquire the knowledge of sound, the object of the organ of
bearing, and the property of air. (So Nydya:� *'&kdth tabdd-
dkarah ; and �yd Sruti visaya gunah �Sakuntala).

63 It then comes to understand the meaning of the word

touch (twak) as the medium of feeling, as also to know the tongpie

UTPATTI KUANDA.

M tlie only organ o� taste. (According to schoolmcnj taste is

the object of the palate and not of the tongue).

63. It finds the property of colour to be the peculiar object

of the eye�^thc organ of siglit; and that of smell to bo an object
peculiar to the nose�the organ of the sense of smelling (ghra-
nendriya).

64. The living soul is thus the common receptacle of the

sensations, and source of the senses, which it dcvclopes after
wards in the organs of sense in the body. It perceives the
sensation of sensible objects through the perceptive holes, that
convey their perceptions into the sensorium of the mind.
(The common sensory is variously placed in Western philosophy,
such as the heart, brain, pineal gland, the vcntrialis &c).

66. Such, O BAma I as it was with the first animated being,

is still so with all living animals; and all these sensations arc re�
presented in the Soul of the world�anma mundi, in its spiritual
form� dtivdhika, known as the sukshma or lingadelM �the subtle
body. (The spiritual body has 17 organs of sense vizj 5 Internal,
5 External, the mind and Intellect and others: (called the sapla-
dasa lingdtmaka Unga saHra).

66. The nature of this abstruse essence, is as undefinablc as

that of the spirit; it appears to be in motion, when it is really
at rest, as in our idea of the soul. (Spiritual bodies are said to
move and fly about, because the spirit is the motive, and life
the animating principle as the soul is that of'consciousncss).

67. As measure and dimensions arc foreign, to onr notion of

Brahma�the all conscious soul, so are they quite apart from tliat
of the spirit also, which is no more than the motive power of the
soul. (Magnitude, figure, motion, rest, number, place, distance,
position, &c. are all objects of the senses).

68. As the notion of the spiritual, is distinct from that of

all others which are material and corporeal j so the notion of
Brahma is quite apart from every thing, except that of bis
self-consciousness.'

(God says in the Scripture, "I am that I am,�' which proves his
consoiousnera of himself to constitute his essence).

Vot. II.

12

90

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

69, Rdma said:�If consciousness is self-same with Biahmai

and our consciousness of ourselves as Brahma, make ns identic
with Brahma Himself; then what is the use of devising a
duality of the soul, (as the divine and human souls), or of talking
of the liberation and final absorption of the one in the other?
(If what the Sruti says, Brahmasmi�am Brahma > as the scrip�
ture declares�'' In Him wo live and move/' then wbat means
our redemption or return to Him?}.

flO. Yasishtha replied;�Bdma, your question is irrelevant at

this time, when I was going to prove another thing. Nothing
can be appropriate out of its proper time and place, as the un�
timely offering of flowers to gods is not acceptable to them.
(A. question beside the mark is apropos de boUes, and brought in
by the head and shoulders).
61. A word full of meaning, becomes meaningless out of its
proper place; like the offering of flowers to gods and guests, out
of their proper season. (So all intempestivous acts, go malapro�
pos, unless they are done in proper time).

63. There is a time for the introducing of a subject, and

another to hold silence over it; so every thing becomes fruitful
in its proper season. (Tempos coronat opus).

63. But to resume our subject; the living soul afterwards

appeared from Him, as the human soul appears in dreaming; and
thought in himself ^at he was the great father of created beings
in time to come. (*'. e. he would become the Maker of the world).

64. He uttered the syllabic Om (on or ens), and was cons-

eious of the verification of its meaning in his mind, which soon
displayed all forms of beings to his mental vision. (*. e. The
All One became many, which displayed themselves in the mind
of the living God as visions in a dream).

65. All these were unrealities, -that were displayed in the

empty sphere of the divine mind; and the shadowy world seemed
5>s a huge mountain, floating before him in the air.

66. It was neither bom of itself, nor was made by Bmhmd;

nor is it destroyed at any time by any other power. It was
Brahma himself, appearing as the phantom of an aerial city *

UTPATTI KHAXDA.

91

67. Afl the living BralimA and other spiritual beings, are
iiiirflii.1 in their nature; so also arc the essences of other beings,
from the big giant to the little emmet, but mere unrealities
in their substance.

68. It is oar erroneous understanding, that represents these

onr^ities as real ones unto us; but the clear understanding will
find all things, from the great Brahmd down to the mmutest in�
sect, to vanish entirely from its sight. (Errors of the mind breed,
errors in the brain; and these lead to errors of vision again).

69. The same cause that produces Brahmd, produces the in-
seots also; and it is the greater depravity of the mind, tha^ cau�
ses its transmigration, into the contemptible forms of worms.

70. The living being that is possest of a rational soul, and

is devoted to the cultivation of the mind, attains to the.state
of man i and then acts righteously for attaining a better state in
after life. (These arc the states of gods and angels in heaven).

71. It is wrong to suppose one�s elevation, to be owing to

the merit of his acts, and his degradation to thecondition of worms,
to result from his former acts of demerit; because there is the
same particle of intellect in both of them, and this being known,
will destroy the mistaken difierenco between the great and
small.

72. The notions of the measurer, measure and measurable,

are not separate ^lom the intellect (or mind); therefore the con�
troversy of unity and duality, is as futile sts the horns of a hare
or a lake of lotuses in the air. (This means the ideas of the
producer, production and product, are always one in the Abso�
lute subjective. Schelling).

78. It is our misconception of the blissful Brahma, that produ�

ces the wrong notion of solid substances in ns; and this imagina�
tion of our own making, binds us as fast as the silk-worms are
fast bound in the cuckoons; formed by their own serum; (or ichor
or serosity).

74. It is the case of the knower, to perceive every thing in

his mind, as it is revealed in it by Bndima; and also to meet
with every thing as it is allotted by God to his share. (God is tho

9*2

YOGA VA''SISI1THA.

revoalcr and giver of all things. Or�-Man meets his fate, as it

is meted to him by his Maker).

75. If is the immatahle law of nature, that nothing can be

otherwise than what it is ordained to be; and there is nothing
in nature, which can change its nature for a minute in a whole
kalpa-age. (Nature derives her power from the will of her
Maker, and her course is, according to the immutable order, fixed
by the ordainer of all).

76. And yet this creation is a false phantom, and so is the

growth and dissolution of all created beings, as also our enjoy�
ment of them. (All visible Natm-e is the working of the in�
visible Spirit).

77. Brahma is pure, all pervading, infinite and absolute.

It is for our misery only, that we take him for the impure
matter and unreal substance; and as the definite and limited
pluralities.

78. It is the vitiated imagination of boys, that fancies the

water and its waves as different things; and makes a false distinc�
tion between them which are really the same things. (Hence
whatever differences there appear in objects, they arc all as the
fallacy of a snake in the rope with the unknowing. There is no
difference of antagonistic powers felt in the spirit of Brahma, who
is e(pial in all, and to whom all things arc equal; though thcro
seems a constant opposition in the natures of tilings.

79. It is His undivided self which expanded itself in visible

nature, and which appears as a duality, like that of the waves and
the sea, and the bracelets and gold. Thus He of himself appears
as other than himself. (*'. <?. The difference appearing in the visi�
bles, disappears in the indifference of the Divine Mind).

80. \Vc are led to imagine the visible and mutable world,
to have sprung from the invisible and immutable spirit, which
manifested itself in the form of the mind that produced the Ego.
Thus we have the visible from the invisible, and the mind and
the ego from the same source. (The absolute Brahma manifest�
ing itself in two forms, the mind or ego and nature or non-ego.
The Ego of the mind is infinite, which produced the finite ego

UTPArn KHANDA.

93

or human soul^ personified as the first male (Adimapurusha or

Adam).

81. The mind joined with the ego, produced the notions of
elementary principles or elemental particles; which the living
soul combined with its intellect, derived from the main source
of Brahma, and of which it formed the phenomenal world.
(These notions were the intentive concepts of the formal and
reflexive world, existing primordially in the essence of Brahma,
as its material cause or (iipdknm), So says the Veddnta;�
Ydo vimmvd indnii Iktmi

U. Thus the mind being realised from Brahma, sees before

it whatever it imagines; and whatever the intellect thinks upon,
whether it is a reality or unreality, the same comes to take
place. The reflexion verily passes into reality. (The imagina�
tion is the faculty representative of the phenomena of internal
and external worlds. It is both productive and reproductive.
Sir Wm. ErniUon, Here intellect means the Supreme In�
tellect, the wisdom of God and his design in the works of
creation. All beings and things arc manifestations of one
Eternal and original mind God.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

DeSCUIPTION op a RaKSHASI (OB FEMALE FEIND).*

Argnmcnt. Story of KorkaU tlio female fiend, and her austerities for
extirpation of Human Kind.

Y ASISHTHA said:�Hear me relate to you, RAma I an old

anecdote bearing upon this subject, and relating to a
ditBcult proposition adduced by the Rdkshashi for solution.

2. There lived on the north of Himalaya a henious Rdkshashi,

by name of Karkati�a crooked crab; who was as dark as ink
and stalwart as a rock, with limbs as strong as could split the
sturdy oak.

3. She was also known by the title of Visdehi or cholic

pain, by which she was ever afflicted, and which had redneed her
frame like that of the Yindhyd hill, which was cowered down
(by the curse of Agastya).

4. Her eye-balls were as blazing as fires; and her stature

reaching half way to the sky, was girt by a blue garment, like
the shade of night wrapping the atmosphere.

5. A white mantle formed the covering of her head, like the

fragment of a cloud; and the long erect hairs of her head, stood
like a sable cloud on Ler crest.

6. Her eyes flashed as lightnings, and her sharp hooked nails

*Tho black B^khaana were believed to have been a colony of African

Efogrus in Bonthem India and Ceylon. The Bakhg is Bax, aa Byconuc of
Bbakogporc.

Note !�The wbolo story of tho flondisb Sdohi is an allcRory of the

human mind, and its rapacity. The transformation of the huge to the thin
pinnate body, and again its assumption of the big form, are allegorical of
the change of the corporeal and spiritual bodies�tho Sthula and Subehma
sariraa, in the oonrso of tho repeated transmigrations of the soul from its gross
to subtle forms by tho desire of the mind. Tired of tho world the mind
forsakes tho gross My upon doatli, and assumes tho finer spiritual form, but
l)eing soon dissatisfied with it reverts to its former gross form again. It is also

explained to 1)0 the two states of onfmd and janwrf, tho minutencs's and bal�
kiness, which tho T 6 gi attains by his yoga.

UTPATTI KHANDA,

05

glistened as saphircs; her legs were as long as lamdla trees, and

her load laughter was as a burst of frost.

7. A string of dried bones decorated her body, like a wreath

of flowers; and the relics of dead bodies, adorned every part of her
body.

8. She frolicked in the company of Yetilas, with human

skulls hanging down her ears as ear-rings; and stretched out her
arms aloft, as if she was going to pluck the sun from his sphere.

9. Her huge body being in want of its necessary aliment,

caused her culinary fire to blaze like the submarine flame, which
the waters of the deep are unable to quench. (The latent heat
in water).

10. Nothing could ever satiate the insatiable hanger, of this

big bellied monster j nor satisfy her lickerish tongue, which was
always stretched out like a flame of fire.

11. She thought in herself saying:�Oh! if I could but once

go tO' the Jambu-dwipa�the land of Asia, 1 would devour all
its men in one swoop, and feast on them continually, like the
pubmarino fire upon the waters.

12. As the clouds cool the burning sands by their rain, so will
I allay the burning fire of my hunger there. It is settled as
the best plan to support my life, at this critical moment.

13. All men arc well guarded by means of their mantras,

medicines, austerities, devotions and charities, from all evils of
the world; whence it is impossible for any body to destroy the
indestructible devotee. (My all destructive devotion will deski>y
all; but render me indestructible).

14. 1 will perform the most rigorous austerities, with an un�

flinching heart and mind; because it is by intensity of painstaking,
that we may gain what is otherwise bard to be had. {ludustria-
vineit o<s�ta.�Labour conquers all).

16. Having thought so, she repaired to an inaccessible moun�

tain, for the purpose of destroying all animal beings. (The
BAkshasa cannibals are devourers of all flesh; and are of the
omnivorus kind).

96

YOGA VASISHTOA.

16. She climbed to the top of the mountain, by scrambling

over it \vith her hands and feet ; and stood on it with her body
resembling a" cloud, and her eye-balls flashing as lightnings.
(��. e. Her body and eyesight, were similar to the cloud and
lightning on the mountain top).

17. Having got to the summit, she made her ablution and
then sat at her devotion; with her steadfast eyeballs resembling
the two orbs of the sun and moon, and fixed on one object.

18. She passed there many a day and month, and saw the
course of many a season and year. She exposed her huge body
to the rigor of heat and cold, like the hill itself (on which she sat).

19. She with her huge black body, remained unmoved as a

thick sable cloud, on the mountain top; and her jet black hairs
stood up as if to touch the sky.

20. Seeing her body beaten by the blasts, and covered with
nothing but her ragged skin; and her hairs standing up to their end,
to be tossed to and fro by the raging winds; while the twinklings
of her eyelids, shed a whitish glare on her sable frame, the god
Brahmd made his appearance before her.

CHAPTER LXIX.

Stoet op Visuchika� {Continued),*

Arguments BrahmS�s boon to Visiiohi, and the tmntva agunst her

Power.

Y ASISHTHA resumed :r.-After the lapse of a thousand yeaiB,

Brahmd appeared to her, inorder to put an end to the ardour
of her austerities, and crown her with success or the reward of
her devotion. (Ardent devotion has the power of displacing even
the gods from their heavenly seats).

i. She sainted him internally in her mind, and remained fixed

in her position; thinking about the boon she should beg of him,
for allaying hdP keen appetite.

3. She soon recollected a certain request, which she should

prefer to her complying god; and it was to transform her soft
and flexible form to the shape of an inflexible iron-nail, where�
with she could trrment all living beings, (t. e. To make her
fleshy form as stiff as a poker, so as to be able to pierce all others
without being pierced herself).

4. At Brahmd�s bidding, she bethought in herself; �� 1 will

become as thin as a minute pin, in order to enter imperceptibly into
the hearts of animals, as the odor of flowers enters the nostrils.*'

6. � By this means will I suck the heart-blood of beings, to

my heart�s satisfaction; in this way will my hunger be satiated,
and the gratification of my appetite, will give the greatest
delight to my soul."

6. As she ' was Stinking in this manner, the God discovered

her sinister motives, contrary to the character of a yogi; and ac�
costed her in a voice resembling the roaring of clouds.

* It is a oorioos Caot in the theological works of VodAntai that princes onU

ladies, employed themselves much more to the onltiration of their minds, and
to the investi^tion of mental and spiritual PhUosophy, than other persons
and tribes. So we see Snruohi, Lild, Visdohi and pamavdtf were aU female
interloontors in this work and some Upanishads also, though female education
was subseqaently abrogated Iqr law.

voL, n.

13

YOGA VA^ISHTHA.
�8

7. BrahmA said:�^Daughter K^kati, of the Biaksliasa race,

that sittest here like a cloud on the inaccessible top of this
mountain; know that I am pleased with thy devotion, and bid
thee now to raise thyself, and receive the boon that thon desiresi
of me.

8. Karkati answered:�"O Lord of the past and future I If

thou art inclined to grant my request, then please to confer on
me the boon, of transforming my unironlike body to the form

of an iron needle."

9. Vasishtha said:�^The God pronounced ''Be it so," and

joined, "thou wilt be as a pin, and shalt be called the cholic
pain, for thy giving pain to all bodi^."

10. Thou shalt be the cruel cause of acute pain and pang
to sdl living being; and particularly to the intemperate and
hard-working fools, and loose libertines, who are destined to be
thy devoted victims."

11. "Moreover shalt thou molest the dwellers of unhealthy

districts, and the practicers of malpractices j by entering their
hearts with thy infectious breath, and by disturbing their sleep,
and deranging the lever and other intestinal parts of the
body."

12. "Thou shalt be of the form of vnnd (in the bowels),

and cause bile and ilatutence under the different names of colic
diseases, and attack the intemperate both among the wise and
unwise."

18. "The wise when attacked by thee, will be healed by

repeating this nmic mantra, which 1 will here propound for
their benefit."

14. The mantra runs thus:�There lives Karkatf, the

BAkshasi, in the north of the snowy mountain; her name ig
VisuchikA, and it is for repelling her. power that I repeat this
mantra; " Om, I bow to hri^ig, hrang and ring, rang �the powers
of Vishnu, and invoke the Vaishnavi powers to remove, destroy
root out, drive away this colic pain, far beyond the HimAlayai^
and afar to the orb of themoon. Om, (amen) and gwdhd (soho), be
it so.� Let these lines be held on the left arm as an amulet.

UTPATTl KHANDA.

99

15. ^Then rab the painful part with the palm of that hand,
and think the colic Karkati to be crushed under the mallet of this
amulet) and drircn back beyond the hills with loud wailing.''
16. Let the patient think the medicinal moon to be seated
in his heart, and believe himself to be freed from death and
disease; and his faith will save his life and heal his pain."

1.7. '�The attentive adept, who having purified himself with

sprinkling the water in his mouth, repeats this formula, he suc�
ceeds in a short time to remove the colic pain altogether."

18. The lord of the three worlds thou disappeared in the air,
after delivering this efficacious amulet to the Siddhas attending
upon him. He went to his splendid seat in heaven, where ho
was received by the god Indra, who advanced to hail him
with his hosannas.

CHAPTER LXX.

Conduct op Visuchi, oe the Advbntuebs op the Needle.

Argument The gradnal leanness of Stuhi, and her ontranoe in Human

bodies.

Y ASISHTHA continued .�Now this SdcW who had been

as tall as a mountain-peak, and a Bdkshasf o� the blackest
kind, resembling a thick and dark cloud of the rainy season;
began gradually to fade away, and grow leaner and leaner day
by day.

2. Her gigantic cloud-like form, was soon reduced to the

shape of the branch of a tree, whioh afterwards became of the
figure of a man, and then of the measure of a cubit only,

3. It next became of the length of a span in its hightth, and

then of a finger�s length in all. Growing by degrees thinner
and thinner like a corn or grain, it became at last as lean as a
needle or pin.

4. She was thus reduced to the thinness of a needle, fit only to

sew a silken robe; and became as lean as the filament of the
lotus flower by her own desire; which can change a hill to a
grain of sand. (This passage bears reference to the microcosm of
human soul;.

5. The unmetalic SueAt, was thus transformed to the form of

a black and slender iron needle; which containing all her limbs
and organs of her body in it, conducted her in the air and every�
where as she liked. (Thus the gross human body being reduc^
to its subtle aliv&hika or spiritual form, it is possible for the Yogi
to traverse through the air, as we perceive in the course of our
minds).

6. She viewed her person as an iron pin, and having neither

any substance nor length or breadth of her body. (The false
idea of length and breadth of the soul is a fallacy of our under�
standing ; because the soul like a geometrical line, has no
uott nor substance whatever in it).

DTPATTI KHANDA.

101

7. Her mind with ita power of thoughty appeared as bright

as a golden needle (pointing to the point); and as a streak of the
saphire impregnated by solar ray.

8. Her rolling eye-balls, were as dark as the spots of black

clouds, moved to and fro by the winds ; and her sparkling pupils
were gazing at the bright glory (of God); piercing throitgh their
tenuous pores. (It is explained also as fixing the eye-sight to
some chink (as that of a wall or other), through which the light of
God enters the sensory of sight, and then penetrates into the
soul as in Yog^ imcditation).

9. She had observed the vow of her taciturnity (mauna-vrata),

for reducing the plumpness of her person, and was gladdened in
W face, to become as lean as the filament of a feather. (The vow
of keeping silence is said to be of great good, by increasing the
power of thought j for he who speaks little thinks much, and who
�so talks much, must talk in vain. It is the practice of munis
or saints to remain silent, whence the vow has its name).

10. She beheld a light alighting on her, from the air at a dis�
tance ; and she was glad in her face to find her inward spirit, to
be sublimated as air. (The internal light and lightness of the
body are results of yoga practice).

11. With her contracted eye brows, she beheld the rays of
light extending to her from afar; which caused the hairs on her
body, to stand up like those of babies at bathing.

12. Her grand artery called Brahmadddi or snsumna, was

raised about its cavity in the head called the Brohma-randhra ;
inorder to greet the holy light, as the filaments of the lotus, rise
to receive the solar light and heat.

IS. Having subdued the organs of her senses and their powers,
she remained as one without her organic frame, and identified
with her living soul; and resembled the intelligent principle of
the Bauddhas and Tdrkikas, which Is unseen by others, (t. e.
.in her spiritual form only).

14. Her minuteness seemed to have produced the minutiae

of minute philosophers^ called the siddhdrthas; and her silence
was like that of the wind confined in a cave. Her slender form

108 YOGA VASISHTHA.

of the puny pin, resembled the breath of animal life, which is

imperceptible to the eye.

15. The little that remained of her person, was as thin as

the last hope of man (which sustains his life). It was as the
pencil of the extinguished flame of a lamp; that has its heat
without the light.

16. But alas! how pitiable was her folly, that she could not
understand at first, that she was wrong to choose for herself
the form of a slender pin, in order to gratify her insatiable

appetite.

(This is a ridicule to Yogis and students, that emaciate them*

selves with intense study and Yoga, only with a desire to pam�
per their bodies afterwards, with luxuries and carnal enjoyments).

17. Her object was to have her food, and not the contemp�
tible form of the pin; her heart desired one thing, and she found
herself in another form, that was of no use to her purpose.

18. It was her silliness, that led her make the injudicious
choice of needleship for herself > and so it is with the short
witted, that they l�k the sense of judging beforehand, about
their future good.

19. An arduous attempt to accomplish the desired object. Is

often attended by a different result; and even success on one
hand, becomes a failure on another ; just as the mirror is soiled
by the breath, while it shows the face to the looker. (Disappoint�
ment lurks in many a shape, and often stings us with success).

20. How be it, the Bakshasi soon learnt to be content with

her needleship, after she had relinquished her gigantic form j
although she viewed her transformation as worse, than her disso�
lution itself. (Utter annihilation is more desireable to the Yogi
f>ig.Ti his metamorphosis to meaner forms).

21. Lo! the contrariety in the desires of the infatuated, who

distaste in a trice, what they fondly wished at one time; as th�
fi<;nd was disgusted atherpinship in lien of her monstrous Ggare.
And so they wilfully shun the object of their former fondness,
as the suicides and dying people quit their fond bodies without
remorse). .

UTPATTI KHANDA.

103

As one dish of food is easily replaced by another^ suiting

the taste of the voluptuary; so this fiend did not hesitate
to shun her gigantic body, which she took to taste the heart
blood of animals in her pinnate form.

23. Even death is delectable to the giddy headed, when

they are overfond of some thing else; as the minim of a meagre
ne^le was desirable to the monstrous fiend for the gratification of

her fiendish desire.

24. Now this needle took the rarified form of air, and
moved about as the colic wind (colica flatnlcnta), after all living
beings, in quest of her suction of animal gore.

26. Its body was that of ficryheat, and its life the vital
breath of animals; its seat was in the sensitive heart, and it was
as swift as the particles of solar and lunar beams.

26. It was as destructive as the blade of the deadly sword,

and as fleet as the effluvia flying in air. It penetrated into the
body in the form of the minutiae of odor.

27. It was ever bent to do evil, like an evil spirit, as she

was now known by that name; and her sole object was to kill
the lives of others at her pleasure.

28. Her body was afterwards divided into two halves ; one
of which was as fine as a silken thread, and the other as soft as
a thread of cotton.

29. Suchi ranged all about the ten sides of the world, in
these two forms of hers; and pierced and penetrated into the
hearts of living beings, with all her excruciating pains.

80. It was for the accomplishment of all these purposes

of her�s, whether they be great or little; that Karkati forsook
her former big body, and took the form of the acute and small
needle, (Because humbleness and acuteness are the means of
success in every project).

Si. To men of little understanding, a slight business becomes

an arduous task; as the foolish fiend had recourse to her austeri�
ties, in order to do the mean work of the needle.

32. Again men however* good and great, can hardly get
rid of their natural deposition; and it was for this reason that

104

VoaA VA&lsaTIIA

the great Bakshasi, performed her austere devotion, inorder to

become a vile pin for molesting mankind.

S3. Now as Suchi was roving about in the sky, her aerial
form which was big with her heinous ambition, disappeared in
air like vapour, or as a thick cloud in autumn.

34. Then entering in the body of some sensualist or weak

or too fat a person, this inward colic flatutence of Suchi, assumed
the shape of Visnehika or cholera.

36. Sometimes she enters in the body of some lean person,

as also in those of healthy and wise people ; and appearing at
first as a colic pain, becomes a real cholera at last.

36. She is often delighted, to take her seat in the hearts of

the ignorant; but is driven back afterwords by the good acts and
prayers, and mantras and m^icines of the wise.

. 37. In this manner she continued many years in her rambles 1

her bipartite body kept sometimes dying up in the air, and
oftentimes creeping low on the ground.

38. She lies concealed in the dust of the ground, and under
the fisted fingers of hands; she hides herself in the sun-beams,
in air and in the threads of cloths. (AU this refers to the pesti�
lential air;.

39. She is hid in the intestines, entrails and genitals, and

resides in the bodies of pale and ash coloured persons; she
abides in the pores, lines and lineaments of the body; as also in
dry grass and in the dried beds of rivers (All these are abodes dE
malaria).

40. She has her seat among the indigent, and in the naked
and uncovered bodies of men ; as also in those which are subject
to hard breathings. She dwells in places infested by flies and
of obstructed ventilation, as also in green verdures excepting only
of the mango and woodapple (bel) trees.

41. She lurks in places scattered with bones and joints of

animal bodies, and such as are dkturbed by violent winds, and
gusts of air, she lies in dirty places, and in cold and icy grounds
and likewise in polluted cloths and places polluted by them.

UTPATTl KHANDA.

105

42. She sits in holes and hollow places, withered trees, and
spots infested by crows, flies and peacocks. Also in places of dry,
hnmid and high winds, and in benumbed Angers and toes.

43. As also in cloudy regions, in cavernous districts of the

form of rotten bodies; in regions of melting and driving snows,
and in marshy grounds abounding in ant hills and hills of m^lura
trees. (Malura is Kapitha or kath-bcl, which is deemed un�
wholesome).*

44. She exhibits herself in the mirage of desert sand, and

in wildernesses abounding with ravenous beasts and snakes.
Sometimes she is seen in lands infested by venomous reptiles, and
disgusting leeehes and worms.
45. She frequents the stagnate pools, soiled by dry leaves and
those chewed by the PisAchas; and haunts the hovels beside the
cross ways, where passengers halt and take shelter from cold.

46. She rambles in all places, even where the leeches suck the
blood of men, and vile people tear them with their nails and hold
them in their fists for feeding upon them. (Here is a relation
between the blood sucking Suclii or Needle and the leeches).

47. In this manner she passes in all places, that we view in

the landscape of cities in drawings ; until she is tired with her
long journey through them.

48. She then stops in her coui-se like a tired bullock, whose
body is heated by travelling through towns,�with loads of cotton
and utensils on their backs.

49. She afterwards lays her down to rest in some hidden place,
like a needle tired with continued sewing ; and there drops down
like it, from its bridling thread in the hand of the sower.

60. The hard needle held in the hand of the sewer, never
hurts his finger; because a servant however sharp he may be,
is never faithless or is injurious to his master.

51. The iron needle growing old in its business of stitching,

was at last lost by itself; like the rotten plank of a boat, bearing
the burthensome ballast of stones in it.

or Kapitha or Kath-bel, which � deemed uuwholesome.

VOL. II. 14

106

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

62. It wandered about on all sides of its own accord, and n^as
driven to and fro like chaff by the driving winds, according to
the course of nature (with all things).

63. Being taken up by some one, it is fed with the fag end
of a thread put into its mouth, as the malady of cholera is caught
by those human parasites, who glut themselves with food supplied
by the sap of another.

54. The malady of colic, like the needle, is ever fond of feed�
ing on the pitli of others with its open month; and continually
finds the thread-like heartstring of some body put into its hole.

55. Thus the strong bodies of greedy and henious beings, are
nourished by the sap of the weak and innocent, as the colic disease
preys on the lean bodies of the poor ; and the sharp needle is sup�
ported by the thin thread of the needy (who cannot afford to
buy new suits).

56. Though the heart of Such! like the hole of the needle,
was to receive the thread-like sap of the patient�s heart; yet her
power to pierce it, was like that of the sewing needle, which is
as potent as the piercing sun-beams, to penetrate into the toughest
substances.

67. At last Such! came to find on a sudden, the fault of her

wrong choice of the puny body (of the needle); which was to be
filled with her scanty fare of a bit of thread, and then she began
to repent for her folly.

58. She continued however with all her might, to trudge on in

her wonted course, of pricking and piercing the bodies of others j
and notwithstanding her great regret, she could not avoid the
cruelty of her nature.

69. The sewing man cuts and sews the cloth; agreeably to his
own liking j but the weaver of destiny weaves the long loom of
lengthened desires in all bodies, and hides their reason under the
garb of her own making.

60. The colic Sdchi went on like the sewing needle, in her
business of piercing the hearts of people by hiding her head ; as
it is the�practice of robbers, to carry on their rogueries, by covering

UTPATTI KHANDA.

107

their faces. (All the three are sly boots, and carry on their
trades under the seal of secrecy),

61. She like the needle with the sewing thread behind it,
raises her head to make and look at the loop-hole, that she should
penetrate in the manner of burglars, making and marking the
holes in the wall for their entry.

02. She entered alike in the bodies of the weak and strong,
like the needle stitching cloths of all textures, (whether silken,
linen or fibrous); as it is the custom of the wicked to spare neither
the just nor unjust (from their calumny and villainy).

63. The colic pain like the piercing needle, being pressed
under Ifie fingers, lets oS its griping, like the tread of the
needle in its act of sewing. (So the wicked when caught in the
act, let out and give up their wickedness).

64. The acute and unfeeling colic, being as ignorant as the

stiff and heartless needle, of the softness or dryness of the
object; pierces the hardiest breast, without deriving any sweet�
ness from it. (So the unfeeling ruffians molest the moneyless, to
no benefit to themselves).
65. The needle is compared with a rich widow, being both
equally stem and full of remorse j both equally veiled and speech�
less, and with their eye of the needle, are empty in their joyless
hearts.

66. The needle hurts no body (but rathei'doos good in cloth�

ing mankind, by mending their tattered habits); and yet she is
dragged by the thread, which is no other than the thread of her
fate (woven by the fatal sisters for her drudgery).

67. Slipt from the finger of her master, the needle sleeps in
peace after her trudging, in company with her fellows of dirt and
dregs; for who is there that does not deem himself blest, in the
company of his equals, when he is out of employ ?

68. The herd of common people, is ever fond of mixing

with the ignorant rabble iA their modes of life; because there is
no body that can avoid the company of his equals. (Kind flies
with its own kind; or. Birds of one feather fly together).

108

YOGA vasishtiia;

69. Tho lost needle when found by a blacksmith and heated

in the hearth, flies to heaven by tho breath of tho bellows, after
which it disappears in the air. (So the society of the .good
elevates one to heaven, which leads at last to his final liberation).

70. In this manner the current of vital airs, conducts the

breath of life in to the heart; which becomes the living spirit, by
force of the acts of its prior states of existence.

71. The vital airs being vitiated, in the body, cause the colio
pains known by different names; such as flatulence, bile and
the like.

72. The colic caused by vitiation of the VyAna air, produces

many diseases, and affects all the members of the body with a
watery fluid. When it comes by breathing of the lungs, it
causes the V&^a Ma or pulmonary colic of lungs, and is attend�
ed by disfigurement of the body, and insanity or hysteria known
as the hysteric colic.

73. Sometimes it comes from the bands of sheepkeepers,

and by the smell of the sheep�s wool in blankets; and at others
it seizes the lingers of children, and causes them to tear their
bed cloths therewith.

74. When it enters tho body by the foot, it continues in

sucking the blood; and with all its voracity, becomes satisfied
with very little food.

75. It lies in thd glandular veasel of the faeces, with its mouth
placed downward; and takes at pleasure any form, it likes to as�
sume as its prerogative.

76. It is the nature of tho malicious, to show the pervertedness

of their hearts by doing injury to others; as it is characteristic
of the base people to raise a row for their pleasure, and not for
any gain or good to themselves.

77. The miserly think much of their gain of even a single

�Towry: so deeprootod is the avaricious selfishness of human nature.
(All little gain is no gain, compared with the wants of men).

78. It was but for a particle of blood, or as much as could bo

picked out by the point of a pin, that the colic Suclu was bent

UTPATTI KHANDA.

100

on the destruction o� men: so the wise are fools in their own

interests: (and so do cut-throats kill others for a single grote).

79. How great is my master-stroke, says the needle, that

from stitching the shreds of cloth, have come to the pitch of
piercing the hearts of men j so bo it and 1 am happy at my
success.

80. As the rust of the lazy needle passes off in sewing, with�
out being rubbed with dust; so must it take the rust, unless it is
put in the action of piercing the patient and passive shreds. The
rolling stone gathers no moss).

81. The unseen and airy darts of fate, arc as fatal as the acts
of the cruel Visuchi; though both of them have their respite at
short intervals of their massacres.

82. The needle is at rest after its act of sewing is done;

but the wicked arc not satisfied, even after their acts of slaughter
are over.

83. It dives in the dirt and rises in the air, it flies with
the wind and lies down wherever it falls; it sleeps in the dust
and hides itself at home and in the inside, and under the cloths
and leaves. It dwells in the hand and ear-holes, in lotuses and
heaps of woolen stuffs. It is lost in the holes of houses, in clefts
of wood and underneath the ground. (Compare the adventures of
a pin in Gay's Fables).

84. Vdlmiki added:�As the sage n*Qs speaking m this

manner, the sun went down in the west, and the day departed
to its evening service. The assembly broke after mutual saluta�
tions, to perform their sacred ablution ; and joined again on the
next moruiug, with the rising beams of the son to the royal
CHAPTER LXXI.

Remorsb of SUCHi.

irgument. Hemorso of Karkatf at her transfoimation to a Needle

from lier former gigantic form.

Y ASISHTHA CONTINUEDj�A fter the carnivorous fiend-

Karkati, had feasted for a long period on the desh and
blood of human kind j she found her insatiable voracity to know
no bounds, and never to be satisfied mth anything.

2. She used to be satisfied erearhile, with a drop of blood in

her form of the needle; and she now became sorry, at the loss of
the insatiable thirst and appetite of her former state.

3. She thought in herself, O pity it is 1 that I came to be a

vile needle; with so weak and slender a body, that I can take
nothing for my food.

4. How foolish I have been to forego my former gigantic

form, and change my dark cloudy figure for something as the
dry leaf of a forest tree.

5. O wretch that I am, to have foregone my dainty food of

flesh flavoured with fat. (The R4skshasa cannibals are raw flesh-
eaters and feeders on the fat of animals).

6. I am doomed to,dive in dirt> and drop down on the ground;

to be trodden and trampled over under the feet of people, and
soiled and sullied in the filth.

7. 0 me miserable, helpless and hopeles thing, and without

any support or status of mine ; from one woe 1 fall to another,
and one danger is succeeded by another unto me!

8. I have no mistress nor maidservant, nor my feither nor

mother; 1 have got no son nor brother, nor any one to serve or
befriend me.

9. I have no body nor abode, nor any refuge nor asylum

anywhere; nor have I a fixed dwelling in any spot, but am driven
about, like the fallen leaves of forest trees by iJie driving winds.

UTPATTI KHANDA,

111

10. I am subject to all accidents, and exposed to every kind

of calamity; 1 wish for my extinction, but it wishes not to
approach unto me. (Death flies from the destitute).

11. What else have I done to have given away my own

big body, in the foolishness of my heart; than parted like a mad�
man, with a precious jewel for a paltry piece of glus.
12. One calamity is enough to turn the brain out of order;
but what will be my case when it is followed by other calamities

in endless succession.

18. I am hung up (with the cloth) to be suffocated by the

smoke, and dropped down in the streets to be trodden under foot^

I am oast away with the dirt, and hid under the grass to my
great distress.

14. 1 serve at another�s will, and am guided by my guide }

I am stark naked while I sew for others, and am ever a depend�

ant on another�s guidance.

15. Long do I drudge and trudge for a paltry gfain. and

stitching alone is all the work that 1 have to perform for
life. O unlucky that.I am, that my ill luck even is so very
luckless.

16. I see the demon of despair rising before me, upon my

penitenee of this day; and threatning to make an end of this
body, of which I have made an offering to him.

17. What better fate can await on me, after my loss of so

big and bulky a body by my foolishness; than to be annihilated
into nothing, rather than be a thing which is good for
nothing.

18. What man will pick me op, who am as lean as a mollnsk

(or thread worm); from the heap of ashes, under which 1 lie
buried by the wayside.

19. No keensighted man will take into his consideration,

a wretched and a forlorn being; as nobody living on a high hill,
ever stoops to take notice of the grass growing on the ground
below.

20. I cannot expect to raise myself higher, while lam lying

112

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

in the sea of ignorance; what blind man can perceive the glori�
ous sun-light, who is guided by the flash of fireflies ?

21. I know not therefore how long I shall have to labour

under my difficulties, when I find myself already drowned in a
sea of misery.

22. When shall I be restored again to the form of the daughter

of AnjanAgiri mountain; and will stand as a pillar over the
mins of the nether and upper worlds ?

23. When shall I have my ar-ms reaching to the clouds,

and my eyes flashing as lightning ; my garb becoming as white
as snow, and my hail's touching the sky.

24. My big belly resembling a huge cloud, and my long

breasts hanging below as pillows; shaking with the motion
of my body, in its dancing like the pinions of a peacock.

25. The ash-white light emitted by my laughter, cast the

light of the sun into the shade; and my former high stature,
threatened to devour the terrible god of death.

26. My hollow sockets deep as Ihc holes of mortars, flashed

erewhile with living fire; like the rays of the sun ; and my largo
legs moved as two monumental pillars in my rambling.

27. When shall I have my big belly, with its large cavity
like a pot-belly; and when shall I have again my soft black nails,
resembling the dark and humid clouds of autumn.

28. When will fliose tender smiles return to me, whereby I

moved the gi-cat RAkshasas to my favour; and when shall I
dance in my giddy circles, at the music of the tabor amidst the
forests.

29. When will that big belly of mine, be filled with potfuls
of fattened liquor; and be fed with heaps of the flesh and bones
of dead bodies.

30. When shall 1 get me drunk, with drinking the blood of

human gores; and become merry and giddy, until I fall fast
asleep.

81. It was 1 who destroyed my former brilliant body, by my

bad choice bf austerities; and accepted this petty needlish form.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

113

like one taking tlie sulphate of gold, instead of that precious

metal.

52. Ah! where is that huge body which filled all sides, and
shone as the sable hill of Aiijanagiri ; and what is this puny
aud pinny form of the shape of a spider�s leg, and as thin and
lean as a tender blade of grass.

33. The ignorant are found to throw away a golden jewel,

as useless on the ground as a piece of glass; and so have I
cast aside my shining body, for a bit of this blackest needle.

34. O great Vindhyd with thy hollow aud snow covered

caves! why dost thou not destroy thy dull elephants by thy
native lions? It is I that am as silly as an elephant�
murkfia.

35. O my arms! which used to break down mountain ])caks,

why do ye fail to pluck the butter-like moon with thy moony
nails ?

3C. O my breast! which was as fair as the side of the

snowy mountain, even without my glassy oruameuts; why dost
thou not show thy hairs, which were as large as leeches that feed
on lion�s flesh ?

37. O my eyes! that used to dispel the darkness of the

darkest night, aud kindle the dry fuel with your glaring fire j
why do ye cease to lighten the air with your effulgence ?

38. O my shoulder blades ! are ye brokciudowu and levcll^

with the eartn ? or arc ye crushed and smashed or mouldered
and worn out by age ?

39. O my moonbrightface ! why dost thou not shine over me

with thy bright beams; resembling the everlasting light of the
orb of the moon, now at an end for ever ?

40. O my hands! where is your strength tied today? See

ye not, how I am transformed to an ignoble needle, that is moved
about by the touch of the foot of a fly?

41. Alas ! the cavity of my navel, which was as deep as a

well, and beset by hairs resembling rows of beautiful plants
about it; and my protuberant posteriors, which likened to the
bottom of the Vindyd hills.

VOL. U.

15

114

YOGA VA'SISHTnA.

42. Where is that towering stature reaching to the sky, and

what is this new earned contemptible form of the needle; where
is that month, hollow as the vault of the sky, and what is this
hole of the needle ? Where is that heap of my flesh meat, and
what is this drop of watery food ? Ah I how lean have I grown,
but who is to be blamed for an act of my own doing ?

CHAPTER LXXII.

Fervour op Su'chi'^�s Dbvotiojt.

Argument. Ardour of Si'ichi�s austerities and Indra�s Inquiry of it.

Y ASISHTHA Continued:�Afterwards Suchi became silent

and motionless, and thought of resuming her austerities
for the sake of regaining her long lost body.

2. With this intention she returned to the Himdiayas; and

there abstaining from her desire of human gore, she sat reitera�
ting her castigations.

3. She saw in her mind her form of the needle, entering

into her heart with her breathings.

4. Thus meditating on her mental form of the needle, she

was wafted by her vital breath to the top of the hill, and alighted
on it like a vulture from high.

6. There she remained alone and apart from all living beings,
and sat amidst burr.ing fires, with her form of an ash-coloured
stone (i. e. besmeared by ashes like a yogi).

6. She sat there as a sprout of grass, springing in that dry

and grassless spot; but soon faded away, to a blade of withered
hay in the sandy desert.

7. She remained standing on tip-toe of her only one foot, and

continued in the castigation of her own self. (Standing of the one
legged needle, represented the posture of devotees standing on
one leg).

8. She lightly touched the ground with her tiptoe stature,

and avoiding all sidelong looks, gazed on the upper sky with her
upraised face and uplifted eyes.

9. The acute point of the black iron needle, firmly preserved

its standing posture by penetrating the ground ; while it fed
itself upon the air, which it inhaled by its uplifted mouth.

10. The scarcity of food in the forest, mad� it look up as

inquest of some prey coming from a distance ; while its lower

116

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

part shaking with the wind, enticed the unwary to approach

towards it.

11. The ray of light issuing as a pencil from the needle hole,
became like its attendant guard on the hinder part.

12. As men are kindly disposed towards the mean, that are
favourites to them ; so was the needle attached to the pencil
of ray, that became its constant attendant.
13. The needle had another constant companion, of its devo�
tion in its own shadow; buf the blackness of its person, made it
always to remain behind the back. (The shadow of a thing
ever remains behind it).

11. Thus the shadowy needle and pencil of ray, having firm?
ly adhered themselves to the iron needle j those three have always
become intimate friends, like all good people mutually assisting
one another.

15. The trees and plants of the mountain forest, felt com-?
passion for Suchl on seeing her in this plight; for who is there,
that bears no sympathy for the pious devotee, or her penances
and austerities ?

10. The needle that was thus stuck fast to the ground by its
foot, and had sprang up like some faculty of the mind; was
fed with the fnigrance of the fruitage, blown and borne by the
breexe to its uplifted mouth.

17. TIio woodland pods and demigods, continued to fill its

mouth with the dust; of blown and unblown fiowers in the woods,

18. Hut it did not swallow the powdered dust of meat j

which the god Indra had caused to bo thrown into its mouth,
for the purpose of frustrating the efficacy of its devotion.

ly. Its fixity of purpose, did not permit it to swallow the

delicious i)owder; because a person however mean he may be, ia
sure of success by his firmness of mind.

20. The god of winds, with his power of uprooting the

mountains; was astonished to find the needle, averse to
swallow the food, ministered to it in the form of the pollen oi^
fiowers. '

UTPATTl KHANDA.

117

21. The resolute devotee is never to be shaken from his

purpose, though ho is plunged in the mud or drowned in water,
or scatter�! by the winds and thrown into the burning fire.

22. Or when he is shattered by showers of hailstones, or

struck by the lightning or battered by rain drops, and intimida�
ted by thunder claps.

23. The resolute mind is not changed in a thousand yearn,

and the feet of the firm, like those of the drowsy and dead
druQk, never move from their pla*.

24. The holy hermit who is devoted to his purpose, loses

in time the motion of his external organs -, but obtains by
the exercise of his reason, the light of true knowledge in
his soul.

25. Thus did Sucht gain the light of knowledge, and become
a seer of the past and future. She became cleansed of the
dross of her sins, and her yisuchi or impurity was turned to
Suchi or purity.

2(5. She came to know the truly knowable, in her own

understanding} and she felt true bliss in her soul, after the
i-emoval of her sins by devotion.

27. She continued for many thousand years in her austere

devotion, to the great astonishment of seven times seven worlds,
that go(. affrighted at her austerities. (The cause of their fright
was, lest she should take possession of their happy states, by
the merit of her devotion).

28. The great mountain was set in a blaze, by the fervour of

her devotion j and that flame spread to all the worlds, like the
blaze of a portentous meteor.

29. This made Tndra the god of heaven, to ask Nilrada res�
pecting the cause of this intense devotion; saying � Who is it
that engrosses to her the fruition of worlds, by her austere
devotion� ? To whom NArada thus reidied:

80. � It is Sdchi, who by her continued devotion of thou�

sands, of years, has attained her highest state of enlighten-
tnent] and it is that light that now cnflaracs all the worlds.

118

YOGA VASISHTHA.

81. It is Suchi�s devotioD, O lord of gods! that makes the

Ndgiis to sigh and the hills to tremble. It causes the celestials
to fall down^ and the sea to overflow on earth. It dries np all
things, and casts to shade the bright orb of the sun itself.

CHAPTEE LXXIII.

Naeada�s Eklation of SuchI�s Devotion,

Arfiament. Description of Siiclifs austeritiet, and Indra�s Inquiry

about them.

Y ASISHTHA related:�Indra lij^ving learnt abont the austere

devotion of Karkati^ bad the curiosity to know more of her
through Ndrada, whom he asked about the matter.

2. Indra saidI know Such! to have acquired her fiendish

practice (of blood sucking), by means of her devotion; but who is
this apish Karkati that is so greedy of her gain (of flesh and
bones).

8. Ndrada replied:�It is Karkati the malevolent fiend, that

became Jha 8dcM or colic pain of the living, and assumed the
shape of an iron needle as its support or fulcrum.

4. Having afterwards forsaken that prop, it entered into

the human body aa its landing place; and then it flew up to the
heart on the vehicle of vital breath, and is seated in the car
of the current air in atmosphere. (The resting place locus standi,
point d� appni or powsto of the diseases of life).

5. This colic of Wo�Jha SdcM, having entered into the

bodies of vicious lives, passes through the canals of their en>
tnuls and the pores of their fl^h, fat and blood, and then nest�
les as a bird in the interior part.

6. It enters the intestines with the breath of the air, and

there settles in the form of flatulent colic; afterwards being seat�
ed at the end of the nyagrodha artery, it forms the plethoric
colic with fulness of blood and inflammation.

7. It also enters the body through other parts and organs,

and receives different names according to its situation; and then
feeds itself upon their flesh and marrow; (as the best food for
living beings).

8. Fastened to the knots of wreathed flowers and stuck to the

120 YOGA VAfelSHTnA.

leafy garlands, decorating the breasts and checks of fond damsels,-

she steeps enraptured with them, on the bosoms of their loving
spouses, {i. e. the menial needle is blessed in the company of
her mistress).

9. She flies to the bodies of birds in wood-land retreats, which

are free from worldly sorrow and strife; and flatters on the
tops of floweni of the Kalpa arbours of Paradise, or rolls on beds
of lotuses in the lakes.

10. She flies over the hi^ hills of the gods, in the formis
of fluttering bees ; and sips tlie honey drops, perfumed with the
fragrance of the pollen of mandara flowers.

11. She devours in the form of vultures, the entrails of the

dead bodies of warriors, through the notches made in them, by
blades of swords in warfare.

12. She flics up and down in the pellucid and glassy paths
of the firmament, and pierces through all the pores and arteries
or inlets into the human body j as the inflated winds pass in every
creek and corner on all sides.

13. As the universal vital air (prdna-vdyu), runs in the

heart of every living being, in the form of the pulsation of air ;
BO does Suebi oscillate in every body, as it were her own
habitation.

14. As the intellectual powers are lodged in every person, in

the manner of blazing lamps in them; so does she reside and blaze
as the mistress of every body; answering her dwelling house.

15. She sparkles as the vital spark in the particles of blood,

and flows as fluidity in liquid bodies ; she rolls and trolls ini
the bowels of living beings, as whirl pools whirl about in the
bosom of the sea.

16. She rests in the milk white mass of flesh, as Vishml

reclines on his bed of the serpent Vdsuki j she tastes the
flavour of the blood of all hearts, as the goddess (K41i) drinks the
bqaor of her goblet of wine.

17. She sucks the cii-culating red hot blood of hearts,' as

the winds absorb the internal and vivifying juice, from the heart�
of plants and trees.

UtPATTi KIIANDA.

til

is. Now tins living Sdclii, intending to become a devoted,

remains as motionless as an immovable substance, and as fixed
and steady in her mind.

19. The iron-hearted needle, being now rarified as the invi�

sible air, is traversing to all sides, on the swift wings of winds
resembling its riding horses.

20. It goes on feeding on the flesh and drinking the blood

of all living beings; and carrying oil its various acts of giving
wd receiving, and dancing and singing all along.

21. Though the incorporeal SdcAt has become acriforni

and invisible as vacuum, yet there is nothing whieh she is
unable to accomplish by the powers of her mind, outstripping
the swiftness of the winds.

22. But thoirgh she runs mad with her meat, and turns
about giddy with her drink ; yet she is curbed by fate, like aii
elephant in chains from running at random.

23. The living body like a running stream, moves apace

with billows in its course ; and the painful and destructive
diseases under which it labours, are as greedy shai-ks lying
hid underneath.

24. This frail body like the formless Siichi, being disabled
by infirmity to gorge its fleshy food, begins to lament its fate,
like old and sickly rich folks, for their \jant of hunger and
appetite.
25. The body with its members, moves about like the beasts
of the forest (for their prey)j and it plays its parts like an actress
in the stage, with goodly apparel and ornaments on her person.

29. The body is moved to and fro by its internal and external
winds, and its natural weakness (immobility), is always in need
of being moved by the vital airs, as the immovable fragraneO
requires to be waft^ by the breeze.

27. Men in vain rely in mantras and medieines, in austerities

and charities, and in the adoration of idols for relief; while their
bodies are subject to diseases like the sea to its surges.

28. The unseen force of mobility, is soon lost in the solid

Voi. n. 16

122

YOGA. VA'SISnXIIA.

body, as Iho lis'lit of the lamp is lost in darkness. So the living

Sdchi came to be lost in the iron needle, in which she had her
rest. It. e. The livin" body is lost and transformed to a spirit,
wherein it finds its rest after death).

29. Every one aspires to a state according to his natural

propensity; as the inclination of the Itdkshasi led her to choose
the nccdlcship upon herself.

30. A man being tired by travelling far and wide, returns

atlast to take his rest at home; so the big and living such! turned
to the form of the Udu iron Such! to execute her repose; but
like ignorant people, who prefer the grosser pleasure of the body
to the nicer delights of the soul; she still panted for her grosser
enjoyments, that were now lost to her.

31. With the intention of satisfying her thirst, she travelled

to all parts and quarters (in her form of the poor needle); but
derived more of the mental pleasure of experience, than the
satisfaction of her corporeal apjwtitcs.

32. When the container is in existence, it is possible to fill

it with its contents and not otherwise; so one having his body,
can seek and get every pleasurable object to give it delight.

33. Remembering now the past enjoyments of her former

body, she became sorrowful in her mind, that was so highly
pleased and satisfied with filling its belly before.

34. She was then resolved to bolake herself to austere devo�

tion, for the purpose of recovering her former body; and with
this object in view, she chose for herself the proper situation
for her castigations.
35. The living soul of Sdclu, thought of entering into the
heart of a young vulture flying in the air; and th>is soared to it
and rested hcu'self in the air like that bird, by the help of her
vital breath, (i. e. The greedy spirit was turned to the form
of a hungry vulture to shriek and seek for carrion).

33. The vultiu�e being thus filled with the malevolent spirit
of the colic Such! in itself, began to think of executing the
purposes that Such! had in her mind.

DTPATTI KlIANDA.

123

87. Thus the vulfjure bearing the insatiate Siicbi within its
body, flew to its intended spot on the mountain. It was driven
there like a cloud by the wind, and it was in this place that
Suchi was to be released from her nccdleship.

88. It sat there on a spot of the solitary forest in its state

of asceticism, seeming to be freed from all desires of the world.

39. It stood there on one of its legs, supported on the tip

of its toe and appeared as the statue of some deity, oonseerated
on the top of the mountain by some one in the form of Garuda.

40. There standing on one leg, supported on an atom of.

dust; she remained as the mountain peacock, tliat stands on
one leg with the head raised to the sky.

41. The bird seeing the living Such! coming out of his
botly, and standing on the mountain as a statue, ikd away
and disappeared from that place.

42. Such! issued from the body of the bird, in the manner
of the spirit coming out of it, and the intellect as])ring b) higher
regions; and as the particles of fragrance lly upon the wings
of winds, inordc� to meet the breath of the nostrils to be borne
into the nose.

43. The vulture fled to his own place after leaving Such!
at that place, like a porter disbiirthening himscll' of his load ;
and found himself relieved of his lickerish diseases on his
return.

44. Now the iron Siichi, being seated in her devotion, iii
the form of the living Sdchi; appeared as gracefirl as a right
man engaged in the performance of his pro�per duly.

45. And as the formless spirit is luiable to do anything,

without a formal support or instrument; so the living Suchi
supported herself on the tip of her toe, for performance of her
devotion.

46. The living Suchi has sheathed the iron nj>cdlo (in her
heart.), as an evil spirit (Pisdehi) enwrajjs a Sinsapd tree ; and
as the winds enfold the particles of odor, which they bear away
in their bosom.

124

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

47. Tfaenceforwards, O Indra! has she betaken herself

to her protracted devotion^ and passed many years in the
solitary wilderness in her steady position and posture of body.

48. It now behoves you, O Indra ! that art skilled in strsh

tegems, to devise some plan, inorder to delude her from her
object, or else her devotion will destroy the. people, you have
so long preserved.

49. Vasishtha said Indra having heard these words of

NArada, sent Maruta (Eolus) the gotl of wmds to her search,
in all quarters of the globe.

50. The god Maruta then proceeded inquest of her, in his

spiritual form of intelligence; and having traversed the etherial
regions, alighted upon the nether world. The winds and all
other elemental and physical powers, arc believed to be endued
with intelligence also; and not as mere brute forces, on account
of the regular discharge of their proper functions, which they
could never do without intelligence.

(Hence the imagination and adoration of the Mamtgana iq

the clemantal worship of the Veda).

Bl. He beheld everything instantly at a glance of his intellir

gcnce ; which perceived all things at one view ; as the sight
of the Supreme Spirit; sees through all bodies without exception
or hindrance. ( ?. e. The sight of the spirit like its breath,
sees tliroiiglj and supports all things).

52. Ilis sight si retched to the LokAloka mountain in the

polar circle, far beyond the seven seas of the earth, wher^
there is a large tract of land abounding with gems. (It is doubtr
ful whetlier the polar mountain or sea abounds with gems).

5.8. He viewed the circle of the Pnshkara continent, sur-

ronnded by a sea of sweet water; and containing mountains
with their dales and valleys,

54. He. next saw the Gomeda islands, surrounded by the.

sea of liquor with its marine animals; and the lanil abounding
with cities and towns.

55. He beheld also the fertile and peaceful continent nf

UTPATTl KHANDA.

126

KrauncHadwipa, bounded by tbe sweet Saccharine sea, and beset

by a range o� mountains.

66. Further on was the Swetadvipa (Albion island), with

its Bubsidary isles surrounded by the Milky (Atlantic) ocean,
and having the temple of Vishnu in the midst of it j (Meaning
perhaps the ancient Kelts to be colony of the Hindus).

57. After that appeared the sea of butter, surrounding the

Kushadwipa island; and having chains of mountains and cities
with buildings in them. (Butter milk &c, are fictitious name
and not this really).

68. Then came the SAkadwlpa in view amidst the ocean of

curds, containing many countries and many large and populous
cities in them. (The s&kadwipa is said to be scythia or the land
of the saccae or sakas;.

69. Last appeared the Jambudwipa girt by the sea of salt,

having the Meru and other boundary mountains, and many
countries in it. (This is Asia stretching to the polar mountains
on the north and south).

60. Thus the intelligence of air (Marut), having alighted on

earth upon the wings of winds, spread himself afterwards to its
utmost ends with rapidity; (or spread himself rapidly to its
ptinost limits afterwards).

61. The god of air then directed his curse to Jambudwipa

(Asia), and having arrived there, ho made his way to tlic summit
of the snowy mountain. (Himalaya, where Such! was performing
her devotion).

62. Ho saw a great desert on the highest top of the summit,

which was as extensive as the expanse of the sky, and devoid
both of living creatures and the vestiges of animal bodies. (�. e.
There were neither any living being nor fossil remains to bo
found on the mountain peak).

63. It was unproductive of greens or grass owing to its nigh-

ness to the sun j and was covered over with dust, like that
composing this earth.

64. There spread a wide ocean of the mirage to excite tiie

126

YOGA VASISHTUA.
thirst:, like the lucid waters of a river; and allure the longings
of men by its various hues, resembling the variegated colours
of rain-bow.

65. Its wide expanse reaching almost to infinity, was nn-

tneasurablc even by the regents of the quarters of heaven, and
the gusts of wind, blowing upon it, served only to cover it with
a canopy of dust.

66. It resembled a wanton woman, besmeared with red

powder as the sunbeams, and sandal paste like the moonbe<ams;
and attentive to the whistlings of the breeze. (Thinkicg them
to be hissings of men).

67. The god of the winds having travelled all over the seven
continents and their seas, and being tired with his long journey
on the surface of the earth; rested his gigantic body which fills
the infinite space in all directions, on the top of that mountain;
like a buttcrily resting on the twig of a tree, after its wearied
flight in the air.

CHArTER LXXTV.

Consummation OP Su'tuii�s Devotion,

Argnraent. Return of the god of winds to the Iiidra, and liis narration of
the Devotion of Sdchl and her desired Boon.

T he god of the wriiids beheld Siiehi standing erect, like a crest

on the summit of the mountain, amidst that vast tract of
the desert all around,

2. She stood upon one leg fixed in her meditation and

roasted by the burning sun over her head j she was dried up to
a skeleton by her continued fasting, and her belly was con�
tracted to the shrunken skin. (i.e. she was threadbear as skin
in all her body and belly).

3. Now and then, she inhaled the hot air with her open
mouth, and then breathed it out, as her heart could not contain
the repeated influx of air. (Respiration of air is practised by
Yogis, to sustain their lives therewith for want of solid food).

4. She was withered under the scorching sunbeams, and

battered in her frame by the hotter winds of the desert; yet
she moved not from her stand-point, as she was relieved every
night by the cold bath of moonbeams.

6. She was content with covering her head under the particles
of dust, and did not like to change her state for a better fortune,
(i. e. She preferred her poverty to high dignity).

6. She gave up the possession of her forest to other living

beings, and lived apart from all in the form of a crest of hair.
Her breathings being withdrawn to the cranium, appeared out of
it as a tuft of hairs or bushes clapped on her head. (Air con�
fined in the cranium, is said to keep the body alive for ages).
7. The god of air was astonishetl to see Sdehi in this state;
he bowed down to her and was struck with terror as he beheld
her more earnestly. (The countenance of the holy is awful to
the sight of the unholy).

128

YOGA VASISHTHA.

8. lie was so overaw^ by the blaze of her pereon, that h<5

durst not ask her anything, such as;�"O saintly Suchll why
dost thou undertake thyself to these austerities�??

9. Ho only exclaimed, O holy Such!, how wondrous is

this sight of thy devotion! Impressed with veneration for her
holiness, the god made his departure to heaven whence he came.

10. He passed the region of the clouds, and reached the sphere
of the still air (sthira vAyu); and then leavipg the realm of the
Siddhas behind him, he arrived to the path of the siin�the
ecliptic.

11. Then rising higher in his airy car, he got into the city
of Tndra, where he was cordially embraced by the lord' of gods,
for the merit of his sight of Suchi. (Visit to sacred persons and
holy shrines, is believed to impart a share of holiness to the
visitant).

12. Being asked what he saw, he related all that he had seen,
before the assembled gods in the synod of Sakra or Indra.

13. Favana said ;�^Thcrc is the King of mountains the high

Himalaya, situate in the midst of Jambudwipa (in Asia); who
has the lord Siva, that bears the crescent of the moon on his
forehead, for his son-in-law.

14. On the north of it, is a great peak with a plain land

above it, where the holy Suchi holds her hermitage, and performs
her rigorous devotion.

16. What more shall I relate of her, than that she has absta�
ined herself even of her sustenance of air, and has made a mess
of her entrails coiled up together.

16. She has contracted the opening of her mouth to a needle

hole, and stopped even that with a particle of dust, inorder to
restrain it even from the reception of a cold dewdrop for its food.

17. The fervour of her devotion, has made the snowy moun�
tain to forsake its coldness; and assume an igneous form which
it is difficult to approach. (The blaze of holiness is said to set
monntains on fire, as the presence of the Holy spirit set the
sacred mount of Siuae on flame).
UTPATTIKHANDA. 120

is., 'tlierotore let all of us rise and repsur soon to the great
father. of creatures for redress; or know this fervent devotion
of hers must proye to our disadvantage in its result.

19. Hearing these words pronounced i)y Eavana, the lord

Indra in company with the other gods, proceeded to the abode
of Brahmd, and prayed unto him for their safety.

aO. Brahm& answered:�"I am going even now to the sum*

mit of the snowy Hymalaya, to confer to Such! her desired boon.'*
Upon this assurance of Brahmd, the gods all returned to their
celestial abodes.

21. During this time Suchi became perfect in her holiness,

and began to glow with the fervour of her devotion on the
mountain of the immortals.

22. Suohi perceived very clearly the revolution of the time

(of her castigation), by fixing her open eyes on the sun, and by
counting the days by the rays of solar light penetrating the open�
ing of her mouth ;�^thc needle hole.

23. Suohi though flexible as a bit of thread, had yet attain�

ed the firmness of the mountain Meru, by her erect posture.

24. She beheld by the ray of sun light, which penetrated

the eye of the needle, that the shadowy attendant upon her erect
posture, was the only witness of her upright devotion.

. 25. The shadow of Such! which was tl|e only attendant on

her devotion, hid herself under her feet for fear of the midday
heat, BO do people in difficulty find their best friends forsake
their company in times of adversity.

26. The union of the three persons of the iron, the ascetic and
shadowy Shchi, like the meeting of the three rivers (Asi, Vara-
n4 and Gangd from three sides), described a triangle in the form
of the sacred city of Benares (or a delta of Gangd or the triune
divinity).

27. This union of the three, like the confluence of three ri�
vers of a Triveni (as Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati), purifies
the sins of men by the three different hues of their waters, viz,
the blue, black and white.

VoL. 11.

.17

130
YOGA VA^SISHTHA.

28. A person becomes acquainted witb tbc unknotra eause

of aUj only by siwhana or reasoning in his own mind ; and by
means of his selfconscionsness (of the troth or untruth of a
thing). It is the cogitation of one�s own mind that is best
guide in all things or else, O Rdma ! there is no other better
preceptor for men.

CHAPTER LXXV.

Slicni�s MGAININO HER FORMER FRAME.

Argument. Brahrnft's appearance, admonition and blessing to Siichl

�nd her resuscitation to life.

Y ASISHTIIA continued:�After the lapse of a thousand

years of long and painful devotion, the great father of
creation (Brahmd), appeared to her under his pavilion of the
sky, and hade her accept the preferred boon.

�. Suchi who was absorbed in her devotion, and her vital prin�
ciple of life, remaining dormant in her, wanted the external or�
gans of sense (to give utterance to her prayer), and remained
only to cogitate upon the choice she should make.

3. She said to herself : "I am now a perfect being, and am

delivered from my doubts; what blessing therefore is it, that I
have need of asking (cither for myself or others), beyond this
state of beatitude; which I already possess in my peaec and tran�
quility, and the bliss of contentment and self-resignation.''

4. �1 have got the knowledge of all that is to be known, and

am set free from the web of errors ; my rationality is developed,'
and what more is requisite to a perfect and i%,tional being ?

6. Let me remain seated as I am in my pr^ent state, I am

in the light of truth �, and quite removed from the darkness
of untruth ; what else is there for me to ask or accept ?

6. I have passed a long period in my unreasonableness, and

was carried away like a child, by the demon of the evil genius of
earthly desi^s. (As a child wants to have everything he sees,
not knowing whether it is good or bad for him to have it).

7. This desire is now brought under subjection by my power

of ratiocination, and of what avail are all the objects of my
desire to my soul ? (There is nothing of any good to the soul,
for nothing temporal is of any spiritual good).

13? YOGA VA^rSHTHA.

8. Tlic lord of croatnrcs kei)t looking on Suclil sitting with

her mind fixed in her silent meditation, and resigned to her dest�
iny ; and quite abstracted from all external sensations, and the
nsc of her bodily organs.

9. Brahmd with the kindness of his heart, again accosted the

apathetic dame, and said unto her j �Receive thy desired blessing,
and live to enjoy for sometime longer on earth".

10. Then having enjoyed the joys of life, thou shalt attain'
the blissful state from wliitdi then shalt have no more to return
here, and this is the fixed decree destined for all living being on
earth.

11. Be thy desire crowned with snecess, by merit of this

devotion of thine, O best of the womankind 1 Resume thy
former corpulence, and remain as a Rakshasi in this monntain
forest.

12. Regain thy elond-like shape whereof thou art deprived

at present, and revive as a sprout from thy pinnate root, to become
like a big tree growing ont of its small root and little seed.

13. Thou shalt get an inward supply of serum from thy

pinnate tendon, as a plant gets its sap from the seeded grain} and
the circulation of that juice will cause thy growth like that of a
germ from the ingrained seed.

14. Thy knowlcflgo of ti-uth has no fear of following into the

difficulties of the world j while on the contrary, the righteousness
of tl�y soul will lead thee like a huge clond, that is heavy,with its
pure water high in the heaven, notwithstanding the blasting gusts
of wind. {i. e. The pure and contrite spirit goes on its wonted
coarse, in spite of the tribu lations of the world).

16. If by thy constant practice of Yoga meditation, thonhasi �

accustomed thyself to a state of habitation (death like Samadhi),
for thy intellectual delight, and hast there by become assimilated
to the auaestkeiia of thy meditation (to the state of a stock
and stone).

16. But thy meditativencss must bo compatible witfa 'tby

worldly affairs, and the body like the breeze, is nourished best

UTPATTI KHANDA.

133

by its coristant agitation, {i. e. Meditation must be joined with

utility, and the body with its activity).

17. Therefore my daughter! thou dost act contraiy to nature,

by withstanding the action which thy nature requires; nor ean
there he any objection to thy slaughter of animal life under proper
bounds. (Because the carnivorous arc made to lire upon ilesh, as
the omnivorous man upon all kinds of food).
18. Act therefore within the bounds of justice, and refrain
from all acts of injustice in the world ; and stick steadfastly to
reason, if thou shouldst like to live liberated in this life. (Justicc
is the source of liberty, but injustice leads to bondage).

19. Saying so far, the god disappKired from below to bis

heavenly sphere, when Buchi said to him � bo it so and I have
nothing to oppose to this''. Then thinking in her mind, that she
had no cause to be dissatisfied with the decree of the lotus-bom
BrahmA, found herself immediately in possession of her former
body.

20. She came to be of the measure of a s;fan at first, aiid

then of a cubit; and next a full fathom in lengthj and
increasing fastly in her height, she grew up as a ti�ee; till at last
she was of the form of a cloud. She had all the members of the
body added to her instantly, in the manner of the growth of the
arbour of human desire. (Our growing desires and their increase,
are compared with the growth and ramifications and fructification
of trees).

21. From the fibrous form of Suchi (the needle), which was
without form or feature, body, blood, bones, flesh or strength,
there grew up ail the parts and limbs at once. Just so the fancied
garden of our desire, springs up on a sudden with all its verdant
foliage and fruits and flowers from their hidden state.

CHAPTER LXXVI.

Rbpeainjng prom Unlawful Food.

Argument. Advice of the god of winds to Karkatf ; and her resort to

the Abode of Eirata-flesh eaters.

Y ASISHTIIA continued :�Such! the needle now became the

iiend Karkati again; and her leanness turned to bulkinesS)
in the manner of a flimsy cloud; assuming a gigantic form in
the rainy season.

2. Now returning to her natal air and element, she felt some
joy in herself > but renounced her fiendish nature by the know�
ledge she had gained; as a snake throws off its old slough.
(She was regenerated to a now life in the very same body).

8. There seated in her loH/orm posture, she continued to re�

flect on her future course; and relying on the purity of her new
life and faith, she remained fixed as a moimtain peak. (Unmoved
by the stormy temptations of the world).

4. After six months of her continued meditation, she got the

knowledge of what she sought; as the roaring of clouds rouses
the peacock, to the sense of an approaching rain.

5. Being roused lo her sense, she felt the pains of her thirst
and hunger,* because the nature of the borly never forsakes its
appetites as long as it lasts in the same state.( There cannot be a
tljorough change of innate nature in the same person).
6, She was sorrowful at last, not to find out what food she
should take to herself ; because she thought the killing of animal
life for food, was unlawful and repugnant to her nature.

7. The food forbidden by the respectable and got by unjust

means, must be rejected even at the expense of one�s valuable
life. (Respectable men abhor the flesh of unclean animals
�and forbidden meat).

8. If my body, said she, should perish for want of lawful

UTPATTI KHANDA.

135

food, I do not transgress the law in that; bat the guilt lies
in my taking o� unlawful food j for the sustenance of my life.
(Hence no man is guilty of his legal gain and lawful food;.

9. Whatever is not obtained according to the customary

rules of society, is not worth taking ; and if I should die with�
out my proper food, or live upon inproper fare, it amounts to the
same thing whether I live or die : (because unrighteous living is
moral death).

10. I was only the mind before, to which the body is added
as a base appendage. It vanishes upon the knowledge of self ;
hence its care and ifeglect are both alike. (The soul forming
our true essence, must be preserved pure in expense of the im�
pure body).

11. Vasishtha resumedAs she was uttering these words

in silence to herself, she heard a voice in the air, coming from
the god of winds, who was pleased at the renunciation of her
fiendish disposition.

12. Arise Karkati, it said, and go to the ignorant and enlight�

en them with the knc^vlcdgc thou hast gained; for it is the
nature of the good and great, to deliver the ignorant from their
error.

18. Whosoever will not receive this knowledge (of lawful food,
when it is imparted to him by thee, make hiip verily the object
of thy derision, and take him as being a nght meat and proper
food for thee.�

14. On hearing these words she responded, H am much

favoured by thee, kind god !� ; and so saying, she got up and
descended slowly from the height of the craggy mountain.

15. Having passed the heights, she came to the valley at

the foot of the mountain; and thence proajeded to the habitation
of the KirAta people, who inhabit the skirts at the bottom
of the hills.
16. She saw those places abounding in provisions of all sorts;
such as human kind and their cattle with their fodder and
gTMSi Th�e were vegetable as weU as animal food, with vari-

13G

YOGA VA'SISnTHA.

ous kinds of roots and plants. There were eatables and drinks
ables also, with the flesh' of deer and fowls, and even of reptiles
and insects.

17. The nocturnal flend then walked her way, under the
shade of the deep darkness of night, towards the habitation at
the foot of Himalaya, in her form of the sable mount of Anja-
ndgiri (unperoeived by the inhabitants).

CHAPTER LXXVII.

Deubbratiojj ok Karkati.

Argument. Description of the dark night. The Eakshasi's meeting

a Tija and his minister. Her trial of and argumentation with them.

Y ASISHTHA resumed:�^It was a deep dark night, black as

ink and as thick as tangible pitch j hiding the habitation o�
the Eiratas under its nigrescent umbrage. (Kirdtas are the pre�
sent Kirdntis of the Himalayas, and the ancient Kerrhoides
of Ptolemy).

2. The sky was moonless, and overcast by a veil of sable

clouds ; the woodlands were obscured by tamdla trees, and thick
masses of black clouds were flying about in the air.

3. The thick furze and bushes besetting the hilly villages,

obstructed the passages by their impervious darkness, and the
flitting light of fireflies gave the homesteads an appearance of
the bridal night.

4. The thick darkness spreading over the compounds of

houses, shut out the passage of the light of lamps, which made
their way of or from the chinks of the dwelling in which they
were burning.

5. Karkati beheld a band of Pisdehis, dancing about her as her

companions; but she became radtionlcss as a block of wood,
on seeing the giddy Vctdlas, moving about with human skeletons
in their hands.

6. She saw the sleeping antilopcs by her, and the ground

matted over by the thick snow falls ; while the drizzling drops
of dew and frost, were gently shaken by the breeze on the leaves
of trees.

7 . She heard the frogs croaking in the hogs, and the night
ravens cawing from the hollows of trees ; while the mingled
noise of jocund men and women, were issuing from the inside
q� the housesi

VOL. II.

� 18 .

136

yOQA VAUISHTHA.

8. She saw the ignis fatnns burning in the swamps, with the
lustre o� portentous meteors ; and found the banks and bournes,
thick with thorns and thistles, growing by their sides, and washed
by the waters gliding below them.

9. She looked above and saw the groups of stars shining in

the firmament, and beheld the forest about her shaking their
fruit and flowers by the breeze.

10. She heard the alternate and incessant cries of owls and
crows in the hollows of trees; and listened also the shouts of
robbers in the skirts, and the wailings of the villagers at a
distance.

11. The foresters were silent in their native woods, and the
citizens were fast asleep in the cities; the winds were howling in
the forests, and the birds were at rest in their sylvan nests.

12. Furious lions lay in their dens ; and the deer were lying
in their caves also. The sky was full of hoarfrost, and the wood�
lands were all still and quiet.

13. The lightnings flashing from amidst the dark inky

clouds, resembled the reflexions of ray from the bosom of a crys�
tal mountain. Tho clouds were as thick as solid clay, and the
darkness was as stiff as it required to be severed by a sword.

14. Blown by tho storm, the dark cloud fled like the sable
Anjand mountain in the air, and it deluged a flood of pitchy
rain, like a water-fall from the bosom of a mountain.

15. The night was as dark as the pit of a coal-mine, and as

jet black as the wing of tho black bee� Siiramara; and the
whole landscape lulled to sleep, appeared as tho world lying
submerged under ignorance. (Sleep and ignorance are twin bro�
thers, and a reversion of the comparison of ignorance with sleep.
Such reversed similes arc not uncommon in oriental poetry, as
that of the moon with the beauteous face &c).
16. In this dreadful dead of night, she saw in the district
inhabited by Kirdtas, a prince and his minister, wandering to�
gether in the forest.

17. The prince was named Vikram^ and was as brave and

Talorous as his name and conduct implied him to be. He came

UTPATTIKHANOA. 139

out undaunted from within the city, after the citizens had fallen
fast-asleep.

18. Karkati beheld them roving in the forest with the wea�
pons of their valour and fortitude, and searching the VctAlas in�
festing the neighbourhood.

19. Seeing them, she was glad to think that she had atlast
got her proper food; but wanted to know beforehand, whether
they were ignorant folks or had any knowledgfe of their souls,
or whether their weariness under the burthen of their bodies, had
exposed them to the dangers of the darksome night.

20. The lives of the unlearned (said she), arc verily for their
perdition in this world and the next; it is therefore meet to put
an end to these, rather than leave them to live to their peril in
both worlds. (The earlier the ignorant die, the sooner do they
rid themselves of their miseries and responsibilities).

21. The life of the untutored is death, without spiritual

knowledge, and physical death is preferable ; in as much as it
saves the dying soul from its accumulation of sin. (Living in
the sinful world is sin, unless it is averted by spiritual know�
ledge).

22. It is the primival law ordained by our prime father�-the

lotirs-born Brahmd, that ignorant souls and those without
knowledge of their selves, should become the food of the hineons.
(t. e. of voracious and envious animals, which devour the body and '
not the soul).

23. Thci-cfore there is no harm in my feeding upon these

two persons, who have offered themselves for my food ; because
it is silliness to let slip, a ready prize or preferred gift from the
hand, (A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Or a
self-given gift is not to bo lost).

24. But lest they should prove to bo men of parts and good
and great souls, I cannot in that case feel disposed of my own
nature, to put an end to their valuable lives.

25. I must therefore make a trial of them, and see if they

are possesseil of such parts; that I may decline from making my
moss of them, because 1 feel averse to mol<%t the intelligent.
140

YOGA VASISHTHA.

20. For those that expect to have trae glory and real happl-
hesB, with the length o� their lives on earth; must always honour
the learned with honorariums, adequate to their parts and desires.

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 Sdkshasi, so favorably disposed

to the preservation of the wise j 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 inhumano
they may bo 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
shals his benign inTiuence 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 Jjrue life ; because it is tho society of the
sapient only, that makes the life king forth its fruits of heaven�
ly bliss and iinal beatitude.

32. I will now put a few questions for their examination,

and know whether they are men of parts, or gilded on the sur�
face with sapient looks, like copper by a chemical process.

33. Upon examination and ascertainment of the qualifica�

tions if they prove to be wiser than tho examiner ; in that ease
one should avail of their instruction, or otherwise there is no
barm to make an end of them as they best deserve.

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

Argnment. Tlio undaunted valour of tho Frinco, the EdkalmaFs

Questions and tho Minister's solution of them.

Y ASISHTHA coontinued:�Afterwai-ds the Rdkshasi, who

was an oifshoot of the great garden of Rdkshasa 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.

8. She said;�Ho, ho? what arc ye, that venture abroad in

this dread and dreary desert, dark as the great delusion of Mdya,
and which without the light of tho 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 tho
weak minded aben�ants that have lost their way ? you have be�
come an easy prey to :ne, and must meet your fate in my hands in
a moment.

5. Tho 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). There�
fore 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 accoi'ding 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 tho loss
of their time.

9, On hearing the prince�s speech she thought it was well

142

YOGA VkSISHTHA.

said, and immediately showed herself to them, littering 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 thun�
der 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
bills.

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, llakshas and Pisachas, 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. (KAlaratri
�the night of universal doom, is an attribute of Kdli�the
goddess of destruction).

^7. Her bulky body resembling a thick cloudy night,

tached to them like an autumnal cloud, moving in the
of the sky.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

143

18# iThe huge body appeared as a demon rising from under*

neath the ground, and approaching to devour them as the
eclipse ingulfs the orbs of the sun and moon.

19. Her ebon breasts wore hanging down, like two pendant
clouds of sombre saphires, or more liko the two mortars or water
pots, with her necklaces hanging on them.

ao. Her two arms were suspended to her bulky body, like a

couple of stout bmnehes to the sturdy oak, or like two logs of

burnt wood to her coal liko body.

ai. Seeing her thus, the two valiant men remained as stead*
fast^ as those standing on the firm ground of certainty, aro
never led away by doubts.

??. 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.
as. Lay aside this great ado for nothing, which does not
become thee; because the wise pursue their business with cool�
ness to crown it with success.

a4. 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.

as. 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.

??. 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.

87. 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.

as. Hearing these words, the Bakshasl pondered in her

mind fnd said;�O the serene composure of these lion*iike men
and the afEability of their conduct with others ?

144

VOGA V/SISHTIIA.

29. I do not think them to be men o� the ordinary kind^

and the more wonderful it is, that their inward soul is oxprest
in the outward eestures of their faces and eyes, and in the tone
and tenor of their speech. (This is a truth of the Samudrika
science of physiognomy).

80. The words, the face and eyes, arc expressive of the in�

ward thoughts of the wise, and these go together like the salt
and water of the sea (which ai'e inseparable from one another.
So Chanakya).�jmtPR I

I The mind, the word and act of

the wise all agree. Sut those of fools disagree in all the
three.

81. My intention is already known to them, as is theirs also

to me : they cannot be destroyed by me when they are indes�
tructible themselves by their moral excellence. So the Sdstra
The virtuous may endure or live for evst�ehiraHjivati dhar-
matma.)

32. I understand them to he acquainted with spiritual know�

ledge 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 j 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 vali�
ant, who you arc 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 Eiratas,

and I his councellor ; we have come out tonight in our nightly
round, for apprehending malicious beings like thyself.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

145

37. It is the duty of princes to pnnish 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 Rdkshashi said Prince ! thou hast a good mini�

ster, but a bad one unbecomes a prince; all good princes have

wise counsellors, and they make the good prince.

89. The wise minister is the princess 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 flrgality), and it is the only virtue of a ruler; who is thence
called the Bharma avatdra or personification of justice.

4-0. 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:�^Ndndhenaiva niyamdna yathdu-
dhah; 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 nilc
yourselves. Sadhi twatmd vadauydn).

42. If ye know this irolity, it is good and ye shall prosper,

or else ye wrong yourselves and your subjects j 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 j and it is by your solution of my intricate
questions; according to your best wits and judgment. (The
queries are said to be prastia pinjara or the cage or prison-house
of dilemmas; in which sense the text should read viddrajfasi for
vieharayati, to mean that, if you cannot break the knots, I mil
not stop to break your necks).

44. Now do you, O prince and you his counsellor, give me

VoL, II. 19

14C

YOGA VA'SISnTHA.

the solution o� the questions that I require of you. If you fail

to g^ve 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 1
obliged in keeping my word� in Paley's Moral philosophy).

CHAFTER LXXIX.

InTEUEOGATOEIES op the RAKSHASHi.

Argument Seventy questions of Karkatt, which are heard for the un�
learned but too plain to the wise. They are intricate for their riddling na�
ture to boys, but plain by their double sense to the learned.

Y ASISHTHA continued:�^Aftcr saying so, the fiend began

to put forth her queries; and you should be attentive to
them Rdma, like the prince who told Iicr to go on.

2. The R^kshasi resumedWhat 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 impcrceptibi-
lity, one-as regards its unity, many�on account of its attri�
butes (upddhis), and vast in respect to its infinity, containing
the passing worlds as the evanescent bubbles of water).

8. What is that thii�g 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 appearanee, but something in our eonsciousness, and
is both the subjective and objective).
4. What is it that moveth unmoved and unmoving, and
standeth without stopping > what is it tint 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 r^omui
ehilret irif, which means j who paints the sky with variegated
hues).

8. What is it that has the nature of fire without its burning

quality; and what is that unigneous substance which proJnecs
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 stcller lights, but is the ucvcrchaugiug

148

yOOA VA'SISHTHA.

enliglitcncr o� 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 Inminaries of heaven as the sunflower, moonflower*
Jtelioteliui 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 im�
perceptible to all, and what is that jot which becomes an enor�
mous mountain ? (A geometrical monad is a point without
dimension. In the Monadology of Leibnitz, it is the elemen�
tary particle of vital force acting not mechanically, but from
internal principle. It is the Entcicched 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 ? (�. <?. 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- 7
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. i^Spiritas or the
breathing of reiUus-vrind-pmna and the sabda-soms or Smti
are not God; nor is he one and all in his person, nor the ego and
non ego, I not I, and lemoiel nonle moi, dasieh und mchlich, 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 bo retained (owing to the spiritual carelessness of mankind)?
(Liberation by final extiuction-M�>(;d�o, is hard to be had o wing

UTPATTl KHANDA.

149

to the interminahle metompsycliosis 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 Mern 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. Wliat 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 V (It is the atomic
theism of Kanada�s Vaiseshika system and of Eephantus Arche-
laus. 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 Atpistic Ato�
mic 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 contaimd in the atom of the divine mind; ami 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 giount Mern 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-
atiij/an mahalo mahiyau: 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 j and what minute particle is it, that
contains the minutiae of ideas ad iufinitam in it? (God said
� Lux fiat et itix fit. Genesis. Hail holy light Heaven�s first
born. Milton. Eternal ideas of immaterial forms of possible
existence in the Divine Mind, the archytype of the Ectypical
world. These are the Types of things j Plato; Forms of ditto.
Cicero. Eternal exemplars of things. Seneca &c).
150

YOGA ViSTSISHTHA.

18. Which having no flavonc in it, gives savour to all things;

and whose presence being withdrawn from all substances, redu�
ces them to iniinitessimal atoms, (i. e. by destruction of cohesion.
So the Srdti.�iJaso vai teA�-He is flavour &c. Attraction o�
all kinds, is a manifestation of Divine power�personi�
fied in the form of Krishna�the regent of the sun, whose gra�
vity supports the solar world).

19. Who is it that by his self-pervasion, connects the parti�

cles composing the world (as by their power of attraction);
and what imperceptible power is it, that rejoins the detached
p.'irticles, 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 Virdj, is endowed with a
thousand hands and eyes, as in the Purusha Sukta: Sahasra sir-
sha, sahasra vdhn sahasril.Ka &c).

21. In what microscopic mite docs the world subsist as an

arbor in its seed, and by what power do the unproductive seeds
of atoms, become produefive of worlds ?

22. Whoso 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 arc the subjec�
tive 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 jdcasure of seeing-j9rts///i; and is the victVfsv-dratMd 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.
i I self both sjibjectively as the viewer, and objeclively as the
view. So Milton, � And God saw his works were good�^
answering his fair idea;.

24-. Who is 1 m) that having no object of vision before him.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

151

sees nothing without him, but looks upon himself as an infinity

void of all visibles within it. (This is the subjective i-efiection
of the Yogi, like tbat of God on his ownself, as abstracted from
the thought of all other things. The Mind is the sabjective
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 ? (t. e. The subjective soul and
the metal are the true realities, and the objective view of tbo
jewel and the world, is but error and delusion. The Yedantist 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 arc 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

i^futuro, is all a great error; and yet what is that immutable
being, which contains in it the seed of this phenomenal wilder�
ness?

SO. What being is that, which shows these phenomena with�

out chang^g 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
Mem, 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

162

YOGA VA^lSnTHA.

spread those m 3 rriads of intellif'ences 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 j
and what is it in whose sight, thou dost either lose thyself or
thinkest to exist? Tell me all these, O clear sighted and Mr 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 sajdng of the wise.

34. But if thou fail to lighten my heart of its doubts, and

sot it at ease; then know for certain, that thou shalt immediately
be made a fuel to the lii% 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 aswer 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 ^rted cloud in autumn (which is of
gigantic shape, but empty of rain waters within).

CAAPTER LXXX.

Solution of the Questions.

Argnment. First tho Counsollor�s reply to the Questions.

y ASISHTHA continued:�^After the giant-like progeny o�

the R^kshasa had proposed her occult questions, in tho
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 disquisitons concerning the Great God in the Aranyakas 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).

Z, The Counsellor said;�Hear, me 1 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

fruned in thy enigmatical langu^, to try the force of oux
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 jirinciple 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.

6 . Underlying the atomic intellect, is tho minute seed which

contains this univerac; but whether it is a substantial or un�
substantial reality, nobody can say. (This lb the answer to tho
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
VoL, II, 20

154 YOGA �V�i:felSnTHA.

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,

(�. 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 transcendal vacuum, and is impercep�

tible owing to its minuteness; and though it is situated in all
things, yet it is unpcrccived 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 makra 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
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 colletively,
and its supporting and containing each and all by and within
itself.

14. All these worlds are ns 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 imperceptibele 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 nothings
although of the nature of a void in itself.

UTPATTl KHANDA.
155

16. I am That and so art thou, by our conviction o� 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 snpromo} but being viewed in the body, all
bodies are different from one another, and <juitc apart from
their unity with the Divine spirit).

17. Our egoism and tuism being got rid of by our know�
ledge of truth, we cease to be the ego and tn\ and so all other
persons lose all their properties {evagam or suut�) in the solo
Unity. (This is an enlargement of the preceding answer to the
question �^What art thou &c).

18. This parcticle of the intellect is immovable, though it

moves thousand of miles over; and we find in our cousciousness
many a mile to be composed in this particle. (The mind not-
uitbstauding its wide range never, stirs from its scat in the soul).

19. The mind is firmly seated in the vacuous intellect, from

which it never stirs, though if goes to all places where it is
never located. (This is the answer of what moveth not).

20. That which U ith ils 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 c, .:r 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 lutive, yet as dull as a block of stone). ,

24. When our intellection is assimilated into the solid subs!*

156

rOGA VA'SiSnTHA.

tance of Divine Intellect, then is our intellcet said to beeomo

solidified ^ 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 inbom essence).

26. The Divine Soul is of the essence of fire, and never

forsakes its igneous from. It inheres in all bodies without
burning them, and is the enlightener and purifier of all subs^
tances. (This answers the question, '' what is fiery without ita
inflammability ").

27. The blazing intelligence of the divine soul, which is pu�

rer 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 Brahmd 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 en�
lightener 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 unextipguishable fire is the kindler of planetary
lights).

29. There is on inextinguishable light (glory), known as

ineffably transcendental, which the eye cannot behold, but is
perceptible to the mind as its inward illumination, and present�
ing all things to its view. (Answer to �what light imperceptible
to the eye, brings all things to view ?� This is spiritual light).

SO. Thence pronce<1s 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").

tJTPATTI KBANDA.

167

31. The qreless vegitable 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 vegitable creation,
which are also classed under animated nature).

3�. With regard to time, space and action and existence

of the world, all which are but the precepta or perceptions of
sense, and have no master or maker, father or supporter except
the Supremo Soul in whom they subsist, as mere mfldifications
of himself and are nothing of themselves. (It is in answer to
the question, �who is the maker of the skies &c").
83. 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 soperate
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 disso�
lution).

85. 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.

86. 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�).

87. It is hie consciousness that manifests itself in the form

of the universe; the mountains are not real existences, but sub�
sist like the Meru in his atomic stibstratum. (In answer to
the question �how an atom contains and expands itself as a
hill &c�).

168

YOGA VASISHTHA.

S8. A twin]kling ia what appeara as a short instaat, and

a Kalpa is ike long duration of an age. (It is difihitive proposU
^ tion of identity, that a nimeiha is a nimeaha and a Kalpa is
a Kalpa),

89. 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 lei^ucs, is pictured in niinia>
tnro or in a grain of the brain.

40. The course of a long Kalpa, is sometimes represented

in the womb of a nimeaha instant; as the period of the building
ef a great city, is present in the small space of the mind�s remem�
brance, as it is in the bosom of a mirror.

41. As little moments and Kalpa ages, high mountains

and extensive yojanaa, may abide in a sigle grain of the
intellect; so do all dualities and pluralities unite and meet
in the unify 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 vyavahdrika or custo�
mary events, are real untruths; bemg but pr&tihhaaika or phe-
nominal 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 preceptions, creating errors
in the judgement of the understanding).

46. There is nothing as a moment or an age or as near e�

afar to the soul; it is the conception in the minute intdleot
(or the forking of the mind), that creates their length or bre-

utpattikhanda;

159

fity and their nearness and remoteness. (As a year o� men

is a day o{ Gods, and such a year of these makes a day of Brah-
m&; while there is no measure of time or space in the. infinity
of the Divine mind).

. 46. The contraries as light and darkness, nearness wd dis>

tanco, and a moment and an age, being but varied impressions
on the unbaried percipient mind, have no real difference in them.
(They are as unreal as the various evanescent hues of the reci�
pient and reflexive clouds. So no colour is real chromatichs ^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. Bat 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
xmtrue).

48. As long as there is the knowledge ol 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 evi>
denoe, 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 saj'a'
a poet j�Forsake the visible to see the invisible).
60. Brahma is viewed as Sat or reality, when He is con-
adored as pervading all things j and He is said to be Asat or
unreal, because He is not the object of vision. So is the In�
tellect said to be a reality from its faculty of intellection, oth^p-
wise it is a stolid or dull matter. (Answers to " what reality
appears as unreal, and what btellect as the absence of intellect�).

*J^he intellect is the wonderful property of the Divine

; S|^t� b which it is present as its object (chetya); but how
eaia a man have a view of it, whose mind fixed to the sight o�
the world, which is a shadow of the Intellect, and moves m
a ttee which is shaken by the wind ? *

IGO

YOGA VA'SISHTHA,

52. As a mirafvfi is the reflexion of the flense light of the

Bunj 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 dis�
joined from it. Hence its existence is tantamount to its
nonexistence.

51. 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.

67. There is no difference between a house and a void, than

that the one is the object of vision, and the other of conscious-
Wss. Again all nature teeming with life, is said to live in
G&d, who is light and life of all for evermore.

^8. 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.

69;,. There appears a difference in these rays both from the

origjjnal light, and also from one another (in different beings),
hjJ a curious design of Providence j but it is yet the same in
alls, like the forms of the trees growing out of the same kind
/ol seed.
60. As the tree contained in the seed, is of the namn kind
with the parent seed; so the inumerable worlds contained in the
vacuous seed of Brahma, arc also void and vacuum as Brahma
himself.

61. A? the tree which is yet undeveloped in the seed, is

UTPATTI KHANDA, lOl

not in eue without development of its parts j so the world m

the womb of Brahma, was discernible only'to the Divine In�

tellect; in the form of tho ideal or spiritual world to he in
future),

62. There is but one God, who is one and incrcate, calm
and quiet, without beginning, middle or end, and without a
body and its parts. He has no duality and is one in many.
Ho is of tho form of pure light, and shines for ever with ever�
lasting and undimished lustre.

Voi. n.

21

CHAPTER LXXXI.

CONOEllIES ov SpiMTtTAIj DOCTRINES.

Argument. The Prince�s Answers to the Remaining Quoationa of the

Rakshasf.

T PIE Raksliasisaia:�Well said, Ocounecllor! Thy sayings aie

sanctifying and fraught with spiritual doctrines j now let the
prince with his eyes like lotus-leaves answer to the other queries.

2. The Prince answeredHe whose belief consists in the

relinquishment of all reliance in this world, and whoso attainment
depends upon forsaking all the desires of the heart

3. He whoso expansion and contraction causes the creation

and extinction of the world, who is the object of the doctrines of
Vedanta, and who is incxpressablc by words or speech o�
humankind; �

4, Who is betwext 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

6. lie whose Universal pervasion does not destroy his unity;

w'ho 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).

C. This minute particle is erroniously conceived as spirit (air),

from its invisiblcncss 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 \mtatravaktfachchhati*, 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 all. (The

UTPATTI KIIANDA.

103

gloss explains pratibha as saHi ov power, iu jireferencc to the

other meanings of the word, as�knowledge, design, light, reflexion
and inAnence. (This is in answsr to � who is all yet no one
omnium et imllum, and what are I, Ihon and he, which are viewed
as the ego tit and tile, the subjective and objective realities).

9. It is the soul that is attainable with great pains (/. 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.
(8o the Sruti yalaWjhaJ, mparamlabha Iu 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 grow�
ing 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 bodie.�, 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-conciousness, which contains the

Merit and the three worlds, like bits of straw in itself. Tiicv are
as disgorged from it, in Older to present their delusive appearan�
ces unto us. (This answers the question ; � what particle hiiles
in it the world as a straw,�� and means the mind to bo the eoii-
taiiicr of the universe).

13. Whatever is imprinted in the intellect, the same .appears

exprest tvithout 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 Arst creation of the world, so it exercises the same volition in
its subsequent formations also, like the sprigs rising from the
joints of reeds arid grass. (1. E. The eternal Will (Fiat) is pro�
ductive of all things for ever).

1G4

TOGA VA'SISIITHA.

15. The hobby that has entered in the heart, shows itself on
the outside also, os in the instance of the whims of children.
(The phrases, �the wish being father to the thought,� and �every
one delights in his hobby horsc,^� correspond with the purpurt of
the passage).

16. The iota of the intellect, which is as minute as an atom,

and as subtile as air; iills the whole universe on all sides. (The
three words paramamt, anu and s/thhm, respectively signify the
minuteness of the intellect with regard to its imity, dimension
and rarity. Gloss^.

17. Though but a particle, yet it is not contained in hundreds

of leagues; and being all pervasive it is iuhnitc. Having no.
beginning it is measureless, and having no form of itself it is
formless. (In answer to �what minutiae is immcasurcable &c�).

IS. 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 rotatary dance of worlds, with all their hills and contents for
ever. (/. e. A nod and look of the Almighty, moves the worlds).

20. It is that atom of the intelic it, which envelops all things
within its consciousness, and represents also their forms with�
out it; ns a p'< tnrc canvas shows the figures of the hills and
trees drawi.. in it, to stand out as in bas-relief. (The external
world being but a prominent representation of the internal, the
phenomenal of the nonmcnal. So Persian; Sitvarihatini and
Ziilctfi).

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 understand�

ing with a particle of air, (as it is made by the minister), is not
an exact simile. It is as a compaiison of a mountain with a
mustard seed, which is absurd.
UTPATTI KIIANDA.

ir>5

23. The minuteness which is attributed to it (in the veda),

is as false as the attribution of different eolours to the plumage
of the peaeock, and of jewellery to gold, which can not be
applicable to the spirit. iTho Veda says, amranfifan. lie is
minuter than the minute &c j because the spirit admits no attri�
bute) .

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 ?�
lie was tiro light of the world, and the lignt shine forth in
darkness� Gospel).

25. If the sun aud other luminoirs 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 aiiswered 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 shono
amidst the darkness. (So the passage, lux Jiat 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 eolours black aud white.
(Gloss ;�Both of them arc equally insensible things).

2S. As the difference of the cloud and snows, consists in the

blackness of the one and whiteness of the other; such is the
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 m 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 phy�
sical light or darkness in his abstract meditation under the blaze

166

YOGA VlSISaXIIA.
o� his intellect. They join together as light and shade,�the
shadow inseparably following the light. The adage goes, Zer
cheragh there is darkness beneath the lighted lamp.

30. The sun of the intellect, shines by day and night without
Betting or sleeping j 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 footl in a store-honso. (�. 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 shinning 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.

31'. And as the sun disiilays 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.

85. All our notions and ideas are contained in the particle
of the intellect, .as 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 them�
selves in their proper times, as the fruits and flowers make
their appearance in spring and proper sc.asons� kliaudas. (The
Hindu festivals of Khanda pilhls, are celcbratwl 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 j yet it is always delectable
as the giver of flavour to all things. (The gloss cxxdains the
spirit as spiritual knowledge, which is unpalatable to all, owing

DTPATTI KHANDA.

107

to its abstruse and subtile nature; but wbicb 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 watei-s (water being the recep�
tacle 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 Ny^ij�a says � jale-
paramdnnrasah " 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. (�. 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."

4i0. 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 CAistcnce. (In answer to � who being un�
covered himself covers the whole ?).

41. The supremo Spirit which is of the form of infinite

space, ainnot hide itself in any thing within its sphere, which
would be like the biding of an elephant in the* grass.

42. Yet this all knowing spirit encompasses the world, know�
ing it to be a trifle, just as a child holds a particle of rice in his
hand. This is an act of mdyd, 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 reljring 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 nourish�
ment of the vernal season.

168

YOGA VA^SISHinA.

45. Know tlie world is verily a transformation of tlie in�

tellect, 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 j)article, 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 amorrnt 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 abort
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 j as it is the despair of one�s life,
that presents his death before him in his dream.

51. All the wodds reside in the intellectual soul within the
atom of its intellect ; and the outward worlds are only reflexions
(rechauffe) of the inner prototype. (The phenomenal is an cctype
of the original nonmenal).

52. Whatever object appears to bo 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 occuring in the external phenomena,
arc 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.

UTPATTI KIIANDA.

lCi>

51. The atom o� the intcllef;t, contains the moments and ages
oE time, like grains within the husk; it contains these (as its
contents) in the seed within the infinite sonl of god. (The soul
is the unconscious container of the intellect, which is conscious
of the ideas contained in it).

65. The soul remains quite aloof as if retired from the world
(iidasina), notwithstanding the subsislcnoe and dependence of
the latter upon the former. The Divine soul is nnconccrnod
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 milled or disturbed by any motivity or activity. So the
man imitating divine perfection, is required to be apathetic aud
callous to all worldly aJIaii�s).

56. The essence of the world springs from the atom of the
pure Intellect, which however remains apart from both the slates
of action and jjassiou itself; (the intellect being the thinking
principle, has only its perceptivity, without sensitivity of passion,
or the Will or volition for action).
S?. There is n ithing created or dissolved in the woi'ld by
any body at any time; all apparent changes arc caused by the
delusion of our vision ; (and it is the province of Vedduta to re�
move the error of conceiving the unreal worlds as a ro:;Uty,'.

68 . (Viewed in its spiritual lights. Ibis 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 may&, to view the scones situated in the Divine soul, in tho
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 cxjilain its differ-

Von. 11, 03

170

YOOA VA'SISHTHA.

eat views by the latellect for the instruction o� pupils. (Brahma

has no inside nor outside. Srdti).

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 (^cs, 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 out�
ward objects, (u 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. The viewer, the view
and the vision {drasMa, drishya and darsana), being one and the
same thing, as the parent and the offspring, and the seed and
its sprout, arc the same substance. The doctrine of the Vedan-
tabtic 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 prepare� any food, unless there
be some body to feed upon it. (It is tbe 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 j as it lies in the capacity of gold, to
produce all the various forms of jewellery, {e, i. Fancy paints
and moulds itself in many colours and shapes. The creations
of phantasy are mere phantoms� etphantamoi).

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.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

171

68 . The intellect having the faculty of intellection (chetana),

forms the thoughts of intolligiblcs (ehetyas) 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 int licet), 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. (�. 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 (/. 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 afRx cannot give the sense of a neuter noun, (so the
masculine noun latellccttiSf cannot apply to the neuter iiheno-
menon).

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 arc a^iparcnt. 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 contritenesa

of his conscious soul, comes at last to perceive something in him,
which is serenely clear, and which no words can express.

172

YOGA VAtlSTlTHA.

76. The minute pavtiele of the intelleet, shows us the si^ht

of the soul, as elearly as a lamp enlightens everything in the
dark. (Answer 'to �who sl^ows the soul as clearly as a visible
thing'� ?).

77. The intelligent soul is absolved of its poreoptlons of the

measure, measurer and measurablcs, (i. <*. of the forms and pro�
perties of things), .IS liquid gold when dissolved of its form of
an oraament. (Answer to �what thing is absolved of its pro�
perties like gold of its jewellery).

7S. As there is notliing wliieh is not eomposed of the ele�

mentary bodies of earth, water &e; so there is nothing in nature
which is .ajiart from the nature of the atomic intellect. (An�
swer to �what is that from which nothing is apart ?).

70. The thinking soul pciiotrate& into all things in the form
of their notions; and hceauso all thoughts concentrate in the
intelleet, there is nothing apart from it.

.SO. Oiiv desires being the ])aronts of our wished for objects,
they .arc the same w'itli our prospects in our view: therefore
iliere is no difference between our desires and desired objects;
as there is none between the sea and its waves. (In refutation
of the (picstioii, �wlial is that which is distinct from the wish?).

SI. The Supreme Sonl exists alone unbounded by time

and spare. Heing tin! nnivci-sal soul, it is the soul of all; and
being oinniscieut, it is no dull matter at all. (Answer to �whai
is the undivided duality and plurality ?).

S3. The /jM 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.

S3. If there be a dii.rlily, it is the one and its unity. The

unity and duality of the uiiivemal soul, arc both as true as the
light and its shade joined together.

8 t. "Whoro there is no duality or any number above it, there

unity als(j can Lave no application to any; and where there is
no '.mit, there cannot he any tnm or more over it, which are but
3;cpetitions of the unit, (except au iudelerminalc all or whole).
UTPATTI KHANDA.

173

85. Anylliinf? 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).

80 . The multiplicity of forms which it exhibits, blends into

a harmoniac whole without conflicting with one another. The
multifarious creation is eontained in lli-ahma, like a tree with
all its several parts in the embryonic seal.

87. Its dualism is as inseperable from it as the braeelet 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 nir, vacuity of

the sky, is this multiformity and 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 con�
summates the highest knowledge.

90. The measure, measurement and measurer of all things,

and the viewer, vif w 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 conbaius 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.

93. O the wonder, and the great wonder of wonders! that this
atom of the intellect, should contain in its embiyo, all the three
regions of tltc worlds, above and below one another.

93. O ! it is an inci�edible delusion that must ever remain an

inexplicable riddle, how the monostrous universe is contained in
the minute atom of the Intellect.

91. As a pot contains in it, the seed, with a huge tree within
its cell, so docs the divine soul contain the atom of the intellect,
containing the chains of worlds (outstretched within itself).

174
YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

95. The all-sceing eye sees atonce all the worlds, sitnated
within the bosom of the intellect, as the microscopic sight dis*
covers, the parts of the fninre 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 In�
tellect, and as such it is seen by any one who will but look in�
to 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. Tliere 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 ns 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.

1 02. As a tree springs from the ground according to its seed,

BO the World appears to sight in the form, as it is contained in
the seed of the intellect.

103. The plant docs 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 Mcrn but a filament ?).

UTPATTI KHANDA.

1T5

106. The Meru is verily a filament of the atomic flower of

the divine sonl; and myriads of Mcrus 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 daulily is not driven out

of the mind, so long docs 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.

CHAPTER LXXXII.

FniENUSUIl' OE TIIK RAKSirASl,

Ar^iinionl:. The ilukshasrs account of liereolf, and her reconciliation

with (ho Prince.

Y ASISHTIIA continuedThe apish Karkati of the forest,

having heard the speech of the prince, pondered well in
herself the sense of the words, and forsook her levity and maliee.

?. 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 Rukshasi 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 hcai't is

as gladdenal, as when the earth is cooled by the serene beams of
the humid moon-liglit.

G. Reasonable men like yourself are honoured and venerated

in the world, and I am as delighted in your company, as a Jake
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 bright�
ness 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 band, disperses the surrounding darkness.

9. I have fortunately obtained you as two great lights in

this forest; you both are entitled to my reverence herOj and
deign now to acquaint me, with the good intent which has
brought you hither.
UTPATTI KHANDA.

10. The prince answered O thou sprout of the savage race

bf Ralrahaa ! the people o� this province arc always afilicted 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
mth 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.

] 4. Therefore, O good lady! do thou promise to me in thy

own words, that thou shalt never injure any living being in future.

16. The Rakshasf replied Well! I tell thee in truth, my

lord I that I shall hence forward never kill any body.

16. The prince replied :�If it be so O thou liver on animal

fleshy! tell me how shalt thou support thy body by thy abstaining
from animal food ?

17. The Bakshasi replied:�It is now passed six mouths,

O prince I that I have risen from my entranced meditation, and
fostered my desire for food, which I wholly ^enounce 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

tny death, and then I shall quit this body in its time with glad�
ness. 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
toy 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 xnaint

VOLi II.

23
YOGA VlSTSnTnA.

22. There hud I dwelt at first in a cave o� Its golden peat,

in the shape of an iron statne, and also as the fragment of a
cloud, and borne the appellation of Karkati the Rakshasi(the
crablike crooked Sycorax).

23. There I obtained the sight of Brahmd 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 afilieting living beings, and feeding upon
their entrails in the form of the cholic pain.

25. I was then prohibited by Brahmd 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 whiidi 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 i-acc as lean and veinless as they had become
themselves.

29. You will be successful O happy prince in getting the

manfra or charm for driving the Visuebika pain ; because there
is nothing impossibit? of attainment by the wise and strong.

30. Receive of mo immodiatcl}', O raja! the mantra which

has been uttered by Brahmu for removal of the colic pain, from
the cells of arteries vitiated by vimehica.

31. Now advance towards me, and let us go to the neighbour�

ing river; and there initiate you with the mantra, after you both
are prepared to receive it by your abintion and purifleation.

82. Vasislitlia said; �Thou the R<akshasi 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 Rakshasi both by

aflirmalivc and negative proofs, made their ablutions and stood
on the bank on the river.

UTPATTI KITANDA.

170
31. Tbo Rakshasi tlion communicated to tliem with tender�
ness, the effective mantra winch was revealed to her hy Brahmi,
for the removal of Visuchika pain, and which w'as always sue-
oosafnl.

35. Afterwanls as the noctnraal fiend was about to depart hy

leaving her friendly companions behind, the prince stopped her
course with his speech.

3G. The prince said :�O thou of gigantic stature ! thou hast
become our preceptor by thy teaeliing us the uiaidfa-, we invite
thee with affection, to take thj' repast with us at ours tonight.

37. It docs not become thee to break off our friendship,

which has grown like the aeipiaintaneo 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 lldkshiisf replied :�You can well provide a female

of your own kind with her projH'r food ; hut what enter�
tainment can you give to rny satisfaction, who am a cannibal
by my nature !

40. It is the food of a giant (liakshasa) .alone, that can

yield me satisfaetion, and not the Mule luor-el of petty mortals ;
this is the innate nature of our being, and can not be done
away with as long as we carry witli us our jnv^eui bodies,

41. The prince answered:�Ornainonted with neeklaces of

gold, you shall bo at liberty to remain with the ladii s in my
honse, for as many days as you may like to abide,

42. I will then manage to produce for your food, the rohbera
and felons that 1 will seize in iny territories; and you will have
them supplied to you hy hundreds and thousands at all limes.

43. You can then forsake your comely form, and assuum
thy hedious figure of the llakshasi, and kill and take to your
food hundreds of those lawless men.

44. Take them to the top of the snowy mountain and de�
vour them a,t thy pleasure; as great men always like to tako
thcii'-mcals in privacy,

yOQA VAfelSHTHA.

180

45. After your recreation by that food and a short nap,

yon can join your meditation ; and when yon are tired with
your devotion, you can come back to this place.
46. You can then take the other offenders for your slaughter j
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 yon are tired of your

devotion; because the friendship which is formed even with the
wicked, is not easily done away.

48. The Rakshasi 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 as, the Rakshasi assumed a

graceful form, and wore on her pci*son 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 Rakshasi went inside the

house, and there r'emained with the women; while the prince
and the minister attended to their business.

53. Then in the course of six days, the prince collected to�
gether all the offenders whom he had seized in his territory, and
brought from other part.

54. These amounted to three thousand h^ids 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

UTPATTI KHANDA.

181

mountain with her prey, as a poor man take the gold, that lie
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 firmaeSB o� hcr
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 conver�

sation, 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 conti*
uued to remain as a liberated being in that mountain &c. &c.

CHAPTER LXXXIII.

W ORSHip OP Kandara' Alias Mangala.

Argument. Deification and Adoration of tbc Baksilfisi fof hCF gOOd

Serrices to Mankind.

y ASISHTHA continued:�The RAkshasi thus continued in her

devotion, and remained on friendly terms with the successive
rulers o� the Kirdbi country, who kept supplying her with her
rations. (The Rdkshasi mancatcr was turued to Rakshiiii or
preserver of men).

2. She continued by the power of her perfection in the prac�

tice 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 Rakshast vidyA now lost,
and by supernatural powersgainwl by yoga).

8. In the course of many years of her meditation, she used

to come out of her coll 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 blamablc on the
part of the cannibal llAkshasf, though practising the yoga; nor
was the eating of animal flesh reprehensible in Vasishtha himself,
who had been a flesh eating yogi. (See Uttara Rama (Ibarita)
4. The practice continues stilt to be observed by the prinect
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 lh(.� place left it at last).

UTPATTI KIIAXDA.

183
6. The people then dedicated a high temple to her memory,
and placed in it a statue of hers, under the title of Kandard�
caverner alia� Mangald devt-the anspicious goddess. (The whole
legend of the Kandard of Kirdtas, alludes to the account of
Mangald Chandi alias Kalika dovi-thc hlack and voracious god-
dc86 of the Hindirs).

7. Since then it is the custom of the chiefs of the tribe, to

consecrate a newly made statue in honor of the Kandar^ devi�the
goddess of the valley, after the former one is disfigured and
delapidated*. (The Kirdntis are said to continue in their ido-
latory to this day, notwithstanding the conversion of their fellow
hill tribes to Mahomedanism, except the Kafers�another hill
tribe of the Himalayas who are idolaters still).

S. Any prince of the place, who out of his vileness, fails to

consecrate the statue of the Kandara goddess, brings out of his
own ])crverseness, great calamities to visit his people. (This
sort of retributive justice is expressed in the adage �rdjadoshat
rdjya nashta:��And for the king�s offence the people died.�
Pope�s Homer�s Iliad I).

9. By worshipping hci*, man obtains the fruits of all his

desires j and by neglecting it, he exposes himself to all sorts of
evils and calamities; as effects of the pleasure and disple.asarc
of the goddess to her votaries or otherwise. (The two clauses
arc instances of affirmative and negative Enthymems couplotl
together as aiivaija vgnlirckL The first enthymem of the
auticedent and consequent is affirmative ativayl, and the other
a vyaiinhi or negative one). Gloss.

10. The goddess is still worshipped by dying and ailing

people wth offerings, for remedy of their illness and secirring
her blessings; and she in her turn distributes her rewards among
them, that worship her either in her statue or picture. (Raxd
K4U is worshipped in statue, but Mongla Chaudi is worshipped
in a gliata 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

184

YOGA VA'SISUXnA.

favoare tlic intelligent, and presides for ever in the realm of tlid*
Kirdta people. (Yasishtha being a thcist, reviles like a Vaish-
nava, the black goddess as a Rdkshasi, which a Kaula caonoti
countenance..

CHAPTER LXXXIV.
Development ov the geum of the mutd.

Argument. Reason of the application of the name Karkati, and its

siinito to a orookod crab.

Y ASISHTHA said:�I have thus related to you EAma, the un�

blamable legend o� Karkati, the lldkshasi of Imans, from its
beginning to end inipiofMlo, (Imaus and Imodus arc ranges of
the Himdlayas. The Gloss interprets Imaus as a synonym of
Himalayas, 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. Bdma rejoined:�But how could one born in a c^vc

of Himavataa (Imodus), become a black Ildkshasi, and why was
she called Karkati ? These I want to bo clearly explained to
me. (Hama�s demand was reasonable, as the people of tho
Himdlayas, arc always of fair complexions, and the Rdkshasas
were the Negros of Southern India).

3. Vasishtha repliedThe lidkshas (cannibals), are origi�

nally of many races, some of whom arc of dark and others of
fair complexions, while many have a yellowish appearance and
some of a greenish shade. (We know the red Rdkshasas of
America, but it is impossible for us to accoimt for the green
or blue Rdkshasas in the text).

4. As for Karkati, you must know that there was a Rdkshasa

by name of Karkata, from his exact resemblance to a cancer.
(Here is a reveraion of Sycorax the Negro parent, and her crooked
son Caliban Kdlibdn �the black Negro, having long arms and
legs, with feet and hands furnished with claws and long nails
like those of beasts).

6. Tho reason of my relating to you the narrative of Karkati,

was only for her queries which I recollected and thought, would
serve well to explain the omniform God, in our disquisition
VoL, n. 24

rOGA VASlSHTfiA.

into Bpiritnal knowledge. (GIosb. Vaaislitlia adduces a coutta*

diction in the spiritual knowledge of God, by calling him a spirit
and yet as all forms of things. But this seeming contrariety
w411 disappear upon reflecting that, the phenomenal is contained
in the-noumenal, and the forms are viewed only in the spirit aa
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 banning and end. (The One is the cause of many,
and the Infinite is the source of the finite. Ahamsarvasydm.
Anddirddi 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 elememt, 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 substra*
turn 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 them�
selves 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 cjreation; which shows itself in many forma
without changing its essence.

10. The absent world appeared in presence, and its uni^lity

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

TJTPATTI KHANDA.

187

intellect (chit) and the thouglits (chetyaa', 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 bet'green

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, ot^ disagreement between the effects of the same or
similar causes).

14. Lot 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, BAma 1 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 Sddi the sophist. duirAcho ladar kardam ekelinam ekedd-
viani),

16. 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 know*
ledge, 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 comlnon people (itara),
which is full of mistakes and blunders (anarthas); all which
will doubtlessly sudsidc 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 tb�a

certain truth, that all things proceed from Brahma into whom
they ultimately return. (Brahma is the producer, sustainer, and
recepient or the first and last of all. He is alpha and omega).

18. BAma 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

183

YOGA VASISHTHA.

nothing but Brahma; and to say � the same thing comes from
the some," would be a palpable absurdity).

19. Vasishtha answered-Words or significant terms are

used in the Sdstras 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 tho
surface�; and the one is not distinct from the other, as the wave
differs not from the water whence it rises. This is downright
panthesim).

20. Hence it is tho use though not in honest truth, to make

a difference of the visibles from the invisible Brahma (for tho
purpose of instruction); as it is usual to speak of ghosts appear�
ing 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 conneeted 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 anti nolo) in mutable minds, but
there is no option Vikalpa in the sankalpa-^mo arbitrio of the
rmchangeablc Mind).

22. The Lord is free from the states of causality and tho
caused, of instrumentality and instruments, of a whole and its
part, and those of proprictorshij) and property. (The attribu�
tion of cause and effect or any other predicate or prcdicable, is
wholly inapplicable to him, who is devoid of all attributes).

23. He is beyond all affirmative and negative propositions,

aud their legitimate conclusions or false deductions and elenches.

e. Nothing can be truly aflirmed or denied or ascertained or ne�

gated of Him, by any mode of reasoning. Naitaiarken&mneyah)..

UTPArn KHANDA.

189

24. So the attribution, o� the primary volition to the Deity,

is a false imputation also. Yet it is asual to say so for the in-
Btruction of the ignorant j though there is no change in his nature
from its nollicty to veleity. (So it is usual to attribute sen�
sible properties of speech and sight, to the immaterial spirit of
God,, by a ^ure of speech} and for the instruction of the vulgar,
who cannot comprehend the incomprchen8iblc)<

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 con�
ceptions 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 begin-
ing 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 significales, it is impossible to know the Unity,
for so long as a word is taken in different senses, there will bo
no end of disputes and difference of opinions. Dualisms being
done away, all disputes are hushed up in the belief of unity,
(t. 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 i-ace! place your reliance on the
sense of the great sayings of the vedas; and wnthout paying any
regard to discordant passages, attend to what I will tdl you at
present. (Such as; Brahma is used in one place in the ablativo

YOGA VXSISHTSA.

lOO

and in another in the locative case, and also in the noimil8tiT6

and as the same with the world).

30. From whatever cause it may have sprung, the world ret*
sembles 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).

81. Hear B^lma! and I will relate to yon an instance for

your ocular evidence, how the mind (chitta), spins out the magi*
cal world (m^yika) from itself. (This ocular instance called the
drishtdnta � druAtdvedana, is that of the spider�s thread (uma*
n&bha�tantu) woven of itself, and given in the Sruti).

32. Having known this, O Rdmal yon will be able to cast

away all your erroneous conceptions; and being certain of the certi�
tude, 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 Deut ex macAina),

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 anvieties 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 mfdadies of your deluded mind.
(Bight reason by the art of reasoning, furnishes the true medicine
(psyches iatrion) to remove the errors of the understanding).

35. If yon 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 present^ to the mind by
intuition, and are present in the memory�^the great keeper or
master of Bolls 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

UTPATTI KHANDA.
1�1

IS sei bej^ond ibe world (in heaTonly bliss), nosooner it gets rid of
the tnrmoils o� its present state. (The mind, says Milton, can
make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven).

87. The mind is the means to accomplish anything; it is

the store-keeper to preserve all things in the store-house of its
memory j it is the facuKy^ of reasoning ; and the power to act
like a respectable person. It is therefore to be treated with res�
pect, in recalling, restraining and guiding us to our pursuits and
duties. (Facultate$ sunt quibus facilius M, sine qtiihus omnino
confiei non potest. Ceciro).

Note.� -The mind is what moves and acts by its active and
cognitive faculti^, 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�-Amtnta 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).

89. The intellectual part of the mind, contains Idie 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, (l^he former is called the drashtd 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-bom Brahmd saw the yet increate and formless
world, as already present before his mind in its ideal state, like a
dream at its first oreation. He saw it (mentally) without seeing
it (aotually). (�.e. The eternal ideas of immaterial forms of
possible things in the Divine Mind. The eternal exemplars of
things and Archetypes of the Ectypi<�l world. Thus the
passage in the Bible �^And God saw his works were good.�^t.e.
answer those in his fair idea. Mil ton),

182

YOGA V^ISHTHA.

41.* He beheld the whole creation in the self-conseiotieneffll

(samvitti) of his vast mind, and he saw the material objects, the
hills &c., in the aamvtd of his gross personal consciousness. At
last he perceived by his guksAma vid suhtOe sightedness (clair�
voyance) ; 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-cons�
ciousness, and the other or objective personal-consciousness).

4K. The mind with its embodying thoughts, is pervaded by

the omnipresent soul, which is spread out as transpicnously as
sun-beams upon the limpid water. (The soul is the chit or intel�
lectual part of the mind (chitbhdga of chitta), and the root of
all mental activities. The chidbhdga has the power of giving
knowledge which moves the other faculties of the mind.
Oloss).

43. The mind is otherwise like an infant, which views the

apparition of the world in its insensible sleep of ignorance j 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 renwved by the
reasoning faculties of the intellect�Chidbhdga.

44.. Hear nOw jElAma 1 what I jam going to tell of the

manner, in which the soul is to be seen jn this phenomenal world,
wbicb is the cause of misleading the mind from its knowledge
of the unity to the erroneous, notion of the duality. (The sen�
sitivity 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 tfay, can hot kil ti) cefipe to,your Hwrt, by
the opposite similes, right reasoning, and gracefid style, and good
sense df the words, in which they shall be conveyed to you; and

IlM-l

and namvid or Inferior oonaoionsnoBsof the objootivo as received in the personi�

fication of Viswa. ^ Hear Sohelling says:�The absolute inAnito cannot be known
inpnrsonal or objective couseioosnesB; but xcqnirei a suporior focaltv called
the intuition.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

19$

by bearing* of these, your heart will be blled with delight, which

will pervade yoor senses, like the pervasive oil upon the water.

46, The speech which is without snitahle comparisons and

g^racefol 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 blemuhes of epeeoh ere all comprised in the following couplet in the
ICahibhiehyaof Pitanjala;�

wfW I ftirwrWt sriiwfss ii

47. Whatever naiTatlve and tales there arc iu any language

on earth, and whatever compositions arc adorned with measured
sentences and graceful diction ; all these are rendered perspica*
cions 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.

The joint knowledge of the subjectiTe and objectiro is had by Ecstacr,

whmh disoems the identity of the snbjeot and object in a eeriee of aoole
which are as the innumerable individnal eyes, which the infinite World-Bpirit
behold, in it-ielf. Lewie Hist Phil. II. C80.

CHAPTER LXXXV

InTESVIEW of BBAnMA' AHD THE SoN.

At^ment. �BrahmA intending to create the world, sees the orbs of

light, and invokes the luminous Sun.

Y ASISHTHA Continaed :�I will relate to you Rami, agree�

ably to your request, the story that was narrated to
me of old by Brabm& himself (the personified mind of God and
the lord of creatures). The manas or mind produced Manu
�the progeny of the mind j who begat the Manujas otherwise
called mdnavat or maiiKshyas, 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 Brahm^, had his communion with his father�the
first g^eat patriarch of mankind).

S. Then Brahmd the great progenitor of men, granted my

request, and related to mo the apologue of Aindava in his sonor�
ous voice. (The oracles of God were delivered in the loud noise
of i^xojxdieia�brihad-vachai).

4. Brahmi said All this visible world is the manifesta�

tion 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, smd he, how 1 (the personified mind),

awoke at first on the day of creation in a former kalpsi, 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 E;aipa), by having compress�
ed the whole creation in the focus of my mind, and hid it ""dfr
the gloom of the primeval night. (Old chaos or darkness that

UTPATTI KHANDA.

reigned over the surface of the deep before the dawn of light.
Tavta dsit, iamas&gudhamagra. There was darkness enveloping
all things. Srdti).

7. At the end of the chaotic night I awoke as from a deep

sleep; and perform^ 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). Mann.

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. Sruli. All was teom
and heom or tarm ann vgomn).

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, (f. e. 1 looked
into the prototypes or models of things contained in the
Mind).

10. 1 then beheld in my mind the great cosmos of crea�

tion, 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 tho lotus-cell of my abode, and sat in the form
of ten lotus-born Brahmds over the ten orbs (planets) of this
world; like so many swans brooding upon their eggs. CThe
spirit of God that dove-like sat, brooding over the deep,
Milton).

12. Then these separate orbs (mundano eggs), brought forth

to light multitudes of beings, amidst their transparent aqueous
atmospheres . (All worlds girt by their covercles 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'
rOOA VABISHTHA.

InnSs of tbe finnament. (The atmospheric water is the sonrc*

of all things).

14. ^e 'gfods began to sport in the etberial air, and men

liioved abont on the earth, and demons and serpents were con�
fined in th^ abodes underneath the ground. (The gods are
called deva$ fimn their sporting in the regions of fight�dm-
devdh divyanti. Men are pdrlhivat from priiKvi the earth,
and demons are called infenial from their abode in the infra-
fdt&la or antipodes),

15. The wheel of time turns with the revolution of seasona

amd their produce, and it adorns the earth with hervarioua
productions by change of the seasons.

16. Laws were fixed for all things on all sides, and human
actions were regelated in the smritis as right or wrong, and
producing as their fruits, the reward of heaven or the ton.
xnents of bell. (And Brahmd appointed to all beings their
several laws, Mann. And there is no single atom that goes
beyond its appointed law-nature or dharma, which is an attii>
bute 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 mijoy-
ments to be the cause of pain and hell, and that of liberation
form them to be productive of heavenly blim).

18. In this way were the sevenfold worlds and continents^

the suptnple oceans and the seven boundary mountains, brought
to existence, and they continue to exist until their final dissolu�
tion at the end of a Kalpa period; (which is determined by the
Kalpa or will of God).

19. The primeval darkness iled 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 swams of bkck-beM on

UTPATTI KHANDA.

19f

; and the stars twinkling in it, liken the yellow filaments

o! flowers shaken by the winds.
21. The huge heaps of snow setting in'the valle 3 r 8 of high
hills, resemble the lofty $imula 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.

fThe lokAloka 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 musio.

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 gnuns 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 abont; or as the
stream of Ghingd running in three directions in the upper, lower
and nether worlds.

27. The clouds dispersing. tm all sides with their glittering �

lightnings, appear as the leaves and flowers of aereal forests,
blown away by the breezes on all sides.

28. But ^ these worlds with their lands and sea^ thw
tides and all their contents^'are in reality as unreal as the vision-

199 yoga VA&ISHTHA.

ary dreams; and as delusive as the enchanted city o� the Faiij

land.

S9. The gods and demons, men and serpents, that are seem
in multitudes in all worlds, are as bodies of buzzing gnats,
fluttering about the dumbnra-^g trees. (Udumbara is the flcua
religiosus-yajnadumbura or sacred fig tree. It is by the ortho�
graphical figure aphaercsis or clesion of the initial, that niumhara
is made dtmhura, vulgo).

30. Here time is moving on with his train of moments and

minutes, bis ages, yugas and ialpas, in expectation of the unfore�
seen destruction of all things. (Time devours and destroys all
things).

SI. 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 stead�
fast attention, 1 called to me the brightest sun of these lumin-.
ous spheres and addressed him saying:�(The first address of
Brahmd to the sun, corresponds with Adam�s address to that
luminary. "Thou glorious sun nature's first bom and the light
and life See." Milton).

34. Approach to me, O god of gods, luminous sun I 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 tlms 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 I art the eternal cause of

these false phenomena, how is it then that thou knowest it not,
but askest me about the cause thereof ?

ITTPATTI KHANDA.

199

58. But elioiildfit thou, all knowing as thou art, take a

delight in heanng my speech, I will tell thee of my unasked
and unthought of production, which 1 beg thee to attend to.

59. O great Spirit! this world being composed of reality

and unreality in its twofold view, beguiles the unders tanding
to take it sometimes for a real and at others for an unreal thing.
It is the great mind of the Divine Soul, that is thus employed
in these incessant and unceasingly endless creations for its diver-�
sion. (The soul is the animating power, and the mind is the
principle of action. Metaphysically, the soul is an individual
name} the mind is a generic term or genus. The soul is opposed
to body, the mind to matter. The soul is the principle of
animation, the mind of volition. The soul is the mind of a
certain being, the mind is the soul without its personality).
CHAFPEE LXXXVI.
Stobt of llfot AKO His Soxs.

AtigHment. The San's NaAmtive of Indu and his Devotion.

T he Son eontinned:�It was, my lord I only the other day

of one of thy by gone kalpas, and at the foot of a monn^
beside the table-land of mount Xailasa standing in a comer of
the continent of Jambadvipa:-*(A kalpa is one day of Brahmi,
and occupies the whole duration of a creation from its beginn*
ing to the end, which is called the Kalpdnta or night of the god.
This agrees with the seven days of creation in the book of
Genesis, which are supposed to embrace so many long ages of
creation).

2 . That there lived a man by name of Suvamajatd together

with all his sons and their progeny, who had rendered that spot
a beautiful and pleasant habitation. (The gloss says thqr were
the patriarchs of mankind, settled first on the table-land and at
the foot of the Himalayas).

S. There lived among them a Brdhman by name of Indu, a

descendant of the patriarch Kasyapa, who was of a saintly soul,
virtuous and acquainted with divine knowledge.

4. He resided in his residence with all his relatives, and passed

his time agreeably in company with his wife, who was dear to
bis heart as his second self. (That, woman is ardhdnga or half
of the body of man, is established in Hindu law; and represented
in mythology in the androgyne-figures of Hara Gauti and Um4-
Maheswara).

6 . But there was no issue bom of this virtuous pair, as there

grows no grass in a sterile soil; and the wife remained dii^
contented at the unfraitfulness of her efflorescence or seed.

6 . With all the purity and simplicity of their hearts, and the
beauty and gracefulness of their persons and manners; they were
as useless to the earth, as the fair and stnught stem of the pure

UtPATTI KHASDA.

101

paddy plani, without its stalk of corn. The discontented pair

then repaired to the mountain, in order to make their devotion
for the blessing of progeny.

7. They ascended the KailAsa mountain, which was unshaded

by shady trees, and unpeopled by living beings; and there they
Stood fixed on one side, like a couple of trees in the barren desert.
8 . They remained in their austere devotion, subsisting upon
liquid food which supported the trees also. They drank but a
draught of water, which they held in the hollow of their palms,
from a neighbouring caskade at the close of the day. (There
is no single word for a gandtisha or ehuluka of water in English;
the word handful being equivalent to mushthi and pra�tha).

9. They remained standing and unmoved as immovable trees,'

and continued long in that posture, in the manner of an erect
Wood in heat and cold. {Vdrkahivntti means intense meditation
conducted by forgetting one�s self to wood or stone).

10. They passed in this manner the period of two ages,

before there devotion met with the approbation of the god, who
bears the crescent of the moon on his forehead. (This crescent
was no doubt the missile disk, which tiie war-like god Siva held
on his head in the manner of the Seiks.

11. The god advanced towards the parching pair, with the
cooling moon-beams on his forehead > as when that luminary
casts her dewy light on the dried trees and scorched lotuses,
under the burning sun beams of a summer day.

12. The god, mounted on his milk-white bull, and clasping

the &ir Umd on his left, and holding the beaming moon on his
head, appeared to them, as the vernal season was approaching
to a green wood (or furze), with strewing flowers upon them.
(There is an alliteration of aoma and aoma in the double sense
of Uma and the moon. This kind of play upon words is very
characteristic of metaphysical writers in all ages, as Alethet
melethon. Lewis Hist. Phil. I. 69).

13. They with brightening eyes and facra beheld the god,
as the lotuses hul the appearance of the comely moon; and
then bowed down to the god of the silvery bow and snow white

Yol. II. 26

SOS rOQA VikSISBTBA.

countenance. (Kididdsa in his Mahdpadya, has heaped dl these

and many more ensigns o� whiteness on the hoary Hara of
Himalaya).

14. Then the god rising to their view like the fall moon,
and appearing in the midst of the heaven and earth, spoke
smilingly anto them in a gentle and audible voice; the bereath

of which refreshed them, like the breath of spring reviving the

faded plants of the forest.

15. The god smd r�I am pleased with thy devotion,

O Brdbman I prefer thy prayer to me, and have thy desired
boon granted to thee immediately.
16. The Brdbman replied : - O Lord of gods, deign to favour
me with ten intelligent male children. Let these he bom of
me to dispel all my sorrows (for want of a male issue).

17. The sun rejoined The god said, be it so, and then
disappeared in the air; and his great body passed through the
etherud path, like the surge of the sea with the tremendous
roar of thunders.

18. The Brdhmanic couple then returned to their home

with gladness of their hearty and appeared as the reflexions of
the two divinities Siva and Umd in their persons. (The god
Siva otherwise called Hara, bears every resemblance to Hercules
(Harakula) the son of Jove (Siva); and his consort Umd to
Omphale the wife of Hercules. Todd's Bajasthan).

19. Betuming there, the Brdhmani became big with child,

by the blessing she had got of her god Siva.

20. She appeared as a thick cloud heavy with rain water,

in the state of her full pregnancy ; and brought forth in proper
time (of child-lnrth), a boy as beautiful as the digit the
mw moon.

21. Thus there were bom of her ten sons in succession, all
as handsome as the tender sprouts of plants; and these grew
up in strength and stature, after they had received thrir sacm*
mental investitures.

22. In coarse of a short rime, th^ attained their boyhood,

and beo^ conversant in the language (d the goda (Sanskrit);

UTPATTIKHANDA.

u the mute clouds become sonorous in the rainy season. (The

Sanskrita, says Sir W. Jones, is more sonorous than Latin.
It is the voice of gods, which is as high sounding as the roaring
of clouds).

23. They shone in their circle with the lustre of their

persons, as the resplendent orbs of the sky bum and turn about
in their sphere.

24. In process of time these youths lost both their parents,

who shuffled off their mortal coil to go to their last abode, {i. e,
to be amalgamated with the person of Brahmd, with which
they were acquainted by their proficiency in yoga divinity).

26. Being thus bereft of both their parents, the ten BnShman
lads left their home in grief, and repaired to the top of the Kaihisa
mountain, to pass there their helpless lives in mourning.

26. Here they conversed together about their best wel&re,

and the right course that they should take to avoid the troubles
and miseries of life.
27. They parleyed with one another on the topics, of what
was the best good {Siimmumbonunil of humanity in this world
of mortality, and many other subjects (which form the common
places in ethi(�), such as: ^

28. What is true gp-eatness, best riches and affluence, and

the highest good of humankind ? What is the good of great
power, possessions, chiefship and even the gain of a kingdom ?
What forms the true dignity of kings, and the high majesty
of emperors ?

29. What avails the autocracy of the great Indra>, which is

lost in one moment (a moment�s time of Brahmd). What
is that thing which endures a whole kalpa, and must be the best
good as the most lasting ?

SO. As they were talking in this manner, they were inter*

mpted by the eldest brother, with a voice as grave, as that of
the leader of a herd of deer to the attentive flock.

81. Of all kinds of riches and dignities, there is one thing

that endureth for a whole kalpa, and is never destroyed} and
this IS the state of BrahmA, which I prize above all others.

104

YOCfA VABISHTHA;

82 . Hearing ibis, the good Mne of Inda exclaimed all in

one voice saying j~Ah ! well said; and then they hononred him
with their mild speeches.

33. They said; how�0 brother, can it be possible for ns to

attain to the state of Brahmd, who is seated on his seat of

lotoses, and is adored by all in this world ?

S4. The eldest brother then replied to his younger brothers

saying j���0 you my worthy brothers, do you do as I tell you,
mid you will be successful in that.

86 . Do you but sit in your posture of padmdsana, and

think yourselves as the bright BrahmA and full of his effulgence ;
and possessing the powers of creation and annihilation in your�
selves. (PadmAsana is a certain posture with crossed legs for
conducting the yoga).

36. Being thus bid by the eldest brother, the younger bro�
thers responded to him by saying Amen and sat in their medi�
tation together with the eldest brother, with gladness of their
hearts.

87. They remained in their meditative mood, like the still

pictures in a. painting] and their minds were concentrated in
the inmost BrahmA, whom they adored and thought upon,
saying

38. Here I sit on the pericarp of a full blown lotus, and find
myself as BrahmA�the great god, the creator and sustainer
of the universe.

'39. 1 find in me the whole ritual of sacrificial rites, the

Vedas with their branches and supplements and the Bishis;
1 view in me the Sarasvati and GAyatri mantras of tiie Veda,
and all the gods and men situated in me.

40. I see in me the spheres of the regents of the world, and

the circles of the Siddhas revolving about me; with the spa�
cious heaven bespangled with the stars.

41. I see this terraqueous orb ornamented with all its oceana
and continents, its mountains and islands, hanging.aa an earing
in the mundane system.

42. I have the hollow of the infernal worhl, with its demons,^

ITTPATTI KHAND4

206

and TitanSj and serpents and dragons within myself ; and I have
the cavity pf the sky in myself, containing the habitations and
damsels of the immortals.

43. There is the strong armed Indra, the tormentor of

the lords of peoples; the sole lord of the three worlds, and the
receiver of the sacrifices of men.

44. I see all the sides of heaven spread over by the bright
net of the firmament; and the twelve suns of the twelve months
dispensing their ceaseless beams amidst it.

45. I see the righteous regents of the sky and the rulers
of men, protecting their respective regions and peoples with the
same care, as the cowherds take for protection of their cattle.

46. I find every day among all sorts of beings, some rising
and falling, and others diving and floating, like the incessant
waves of the sea. (Everything is changing in the changeful
world).

47. It is I (the Ego) that create, preserve and destroy the

worlds, I remain in myself and pervade over all existence, as
the lord of all.

48. I observe in myself the revolution of years and ages,

and of all seasons and times, and I find the very iime^ to be
both the creator and destroyer of things.
49. I see a Kalpa passing away before me, and the night
of Brahm4 (dissolution) stretched out in my presence; while
I reside for ever in the Supreme soul, and as full and perfect
as the Divine Spirit itself. (Immortality of the human soul
and its unity with the Divine).

50. Thus these Brdhmans�the sons of Indu, remained in

this sort of meditation,' in their motionless postures like fixed
rocks, and as images hewn out of stones in a hill.

61. In this manner these Brdhmans continued for a long

period in their devotion, being fully acquainted with the natura
of Brahmd, and possest of the spirit of that deity in themselves.
They sat in their posture of the jiaJmdtam on seats of kusa
grass, being freed from the snare of the fickle and frivolous
desires of this false and �reil world.

2M

ToaA vaSishtha.

It is evident from this instance of the Brdhmans� devotion,

that it consisted of the contemplation of every thing in the world
in the mind of man; like that of the whole universe in the
mind of God. It is the subjective view of the objective that
forms what is truely meant by yoga meditation and nothing
beside.

CHAPTER LXXXVII

Analecta op the Cslestul Sphebes.

Argument'The Spiritual body or soul, is not destroyed by destruo'

tion of tiie material Body.

T he Sol said :->0 ^eat father of creation! tlias did

these Tonerable BriUimans, remain at that spot, occupied
with these various thoughts (of existence^, and their several ac�
tions in their minds for a long time. (This sort of yoga medi-
lion is called Sdmpya, or approximation of one to the divine
attribute, of thinking on the States and functions of all things
in the world in one�s self).

2. They remained in this state (of abstraction), until their

bodies were dried up by exposure to the sun and air, and dropped
down in time like the withered leavra of trees. (This is called
the Samddhi yoga or absorption in meditation, until one�s final
extinction or Euthanasia in the Spirit).

3. Their dead bodies were devoured by the voracious beasts

of the forest, or tossed about as some ripe fruits by the monkeys
on the hills, (to be food for greedy vultures and hungry dogs).
4. These Brdhmans, having their thoughts distracted from
outward objects, and concentrated in BiahmAhood, continued
in the enjoyment of divine felicity in their Spirits, until the
(doro of the kalpa age at the end of the four yogas.

(The duration of a day of BtdhmA extends over a kalpa age

composed of four yogas, followed by his night of halp&nta, when
he becomes extinct in his death-like sleep, the twin brother of
death. Bo hupnot esti didumos adelphot thanatow).

6. At the end of the kalpa, there is an utter extinction of

the solar light, by the incessant rains poured down by the heavy
Fudakaraand Avartaka clondE at the gr&kt deluge: (when the
doors of heaven were laid open to tain in floods on earth. Gmiesis).
6. When the hurricaae of desdation blew on all sides, and

208 yoga VASISHTHA

baried all beings under the Umversal ocean, (which coyered

face of the earth);

7. It was then thy dark night, and the previous creation

slept as in iheir yoga - nidrd or hypnotic trance in thy sleeping self.
Thus thou continuing in thy spirit, didst contain all things in thee
in their spiritual forms. (Darkness reigned on the deep, and
the spirit of God viewed everything in itself).

8. Upon thy waking this day with thy desire of creation,

all these things are exhibited to thy view, as a copy of dl that
was in thy inmost mind or Spirit already. (So it is upon our
waking from sleep, we come to see a facsimile of all that lay
dormant in the sleeping mind).

9. I have thus related to you O Brahmil! how these ten

Br&hmans were personified as so many Brahmds j these have
become the ten bright orbs situated in the vacuous sphere of
thy mind. (An English poet has expressed the holy soul to
appear as a luminary in heaven).

10. T am tlie one eldest among them, consecrated in this

temple of the sky, and appointed by thee, 0 lord of all I to
regpilate the portions of time on earthly beings.

11. Now I have given you a full account of the ten orbs of
heaven, which are no other than the ten persons united in the
mind of Brahm4, and now appearing as detached &om him.
(Mentally viewed, everything is found situated in tke'^ mind,
but when seen with open ej-es, it seems to be set apart from us.
Have therefore your thoughts or your sights as you may choose).

. 12. This beautiful world that you behold, appearing to your

view, with all its wonderful structures, spread out in the skies,
serves at best as a snare to entrap your senses, and delude your
understanding, by taking the unrealities as realities in your
mind. (Brahm4 the Demiurgus, being but architect of the world,
and a person next to or an emanation of the mind of God,
had not the intelligence of the soul, to discern the innate ideas,
which re'^resented themselves in the outer creation).

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

IXDIFFEBEKOB OF BbAHXA.

Argument�^That God expects nothing from hb creation.

B RAHMAT said :~0 Brdhman I that art the best of BrAhmisht

(BrAhmos), the God Sol having thus spoken of the ten
BrAhmanas to Brdhma (me), held his silence. (Here is a tauto*
logy of tiie word BrAhman in the fashion of metaphysicuns
in i(a several homonymous significations. This is an address of
BrahmA to Vasishtha�the Brahman and Brahmist, relating the
BrAhmanas).

2. I then thought upon this for sometime in my mind, and

said afterwards, O Sol, Sol I do thou tell me at present what
I am next to create. (BrahmA's asking the sun about what
he was next to create, bears allnsion to his works of creation
during the six days of genesis, which was directed by the course
of the sun�his inorning mid evening).

3. Tell me thou sun, what need is there of my maVitig any

mote worlds, after these ten orbs have come into existence.
(These ten orbs are the ten planetary bodies belonging to the
solar system).

4. lltow O great sagel the sun having long considered in his.

mind about what I wanted him to tell, replied to me in the
following manner in appropriate words.

6. The sun said!�What need hast thou of the act of creating,

my lord I that art devoid of effort or desire? This work of
creation is only for thy pleasure i (and not for any use to thee).

6. Thou lord that art free from desires, givest rise to worlds,
as the sunbeams raise the waters, and the sunshine is accom*
pamed by the shadow (as its inseparable companion).

7. Thou that art indifferent to the fostering or forsaking of

thy body (�. e. either to live or die), needst have nothing to desire
nor tmionnoe for thy pleasure or pain. (No gain or loss can add
to the joy or gprief of the apathetic philesophic mind).

VoL, H, av

210

YOGA VA8ISHTHA.

8. Thou, O Lord of creatures I dost create all these for fhff

mke of thy pleasure only, and so dost thou retract them all ia
thyself, as the sun gives and withdraws his light by tnms.
(Creation and annihilation are the acts of expansion and Bub>
traction of all things, from and in the supreme spirit).

9. Thou that art unattached to the world, makest thy crea�

iion out of the work of love to thee, and not of any effort or
endeavour on thy part.

10. If thou desist from stretching the creation out of the

Supreme Spirit, what g^od canst thou derive from thy inacti�
vity ? (Wherefore it is better to do and produce something than
nothing).

11. Do thy duty as it may present itself to thee, rather than

remain inactive with doing nothing. The dull person who like
the dirty mirror, does not reflect the image, comes to no use at

an.

12. As the wise have no desire of doing anything which is

b^ond their reach, so they never like to leave out anything
which is useful, and presents itself before them. (Nor long for
more, nor leave out your own. Or, Act well thy part &e).

13. Therefore do thy work as it comes to thee, with a cheer�

ful heart, and calmness of mind* with a tranquil soul, as if it
were in thy sleep, and devoid of desires which thou canst
never reap.

14. As thou dost derive pleasure, O Lord of worlds I in for�

ming the orbs of the sons of Indu, so the lord of gods wUl give
thee thy reward for thy works of creation.

15. The manner in which, O lord, thou seest the worlds

with the eyes of thy mind, nobody can see them so conspicuously
with their external organs of vision; for who can say by seeing
them with his eyes, whether thy are created or increate.

16. He who has created these worlds from his mind, it n

he alone that can behold me face to &oe, and no other person
with his open eyes.

17. The ten worlds are not the work of so many Brahmtto
as it appeared to thee before; and no body has the power to des-

UTPATTI KHANDA,

211

boy them, when they are seated so firmly in the mind. (It
may he easy to desboy all visible objects, but not to efface the
impr^ons ol the mind (memory),

18. It is easy to destroy what is made by the hand, and to

shat out the sensible objects from our perception; but who can
annul or disregard what is ascertained by the mind.

19. Whatever belief is deep<rooted in the minds of living

beings, it is impossible to remove it by any body, except by its
owner: (by change of his mind or its forgetfulness).

20. Whatever is habituated to confirmed belief in the mind,

no curse can remove it from the mind, though it can kill the
body.

21. The principle that is deeply rooted in the mind, the

same forms the man according to its stamp; it is impossible to
make him otherwise by any means, as it is no way possible to
fructify a rock by watering at its root like a tree.

CHAPTEE LXXXIX.

StOBY OB llTDBA AND AhAI.YA\

Arffoment. A Booted Belief is not to be shaken by others as in the

case or Lovers.

T he Sol said-The mind is the maker and master o� the

world; the mind is the first supreme Male: Whatever
is done by the Mind (intontionally), is said to be done; the
actions of the body are held as no acts.

2. Look at the capacity of the mind in the instance of the

sonsoflndu; who being but ordinary Br&hmans, became as�
similated to Brahm&j by their meditation of him in their minds.'

8. One thinking himself as composed of the body (i.e.

a corporeal being), becomes subject to all the accidents of corpo-
reality : Bat he who knows himself as bodiless (an incorporeal
being), is freed from all evils which are accidental to the
body.

4. By looking on the outside, we are subjected to the feel�

ings of pain and pleasure; but the inward-sighted yogi, is nn-
oonscious of the pain or pleasure of his body. (Lit of what
is pleasant or unpleasant to the body).

5. It is thus the mind that causes all our errors in this world,
as it is evidenced in the instance of Indra and his consort AhalyA
(related in the ancient legends).

6. Brahmd said Tell me, my Lord Sol, who was this Indn^
and who that AhalyA, by the hearing of which my understanding
may have its clear-sightedness.

7. The sun said It is related my lord I that there reigned

in former times a king at Magadha (Behar), Indra-dyumna
by name, and alike his fiamesake (in prowess and &me).

8. He had a wife fair as the orb of moon, with her ^es as

beautiful as lotuses. Her name was AhalyA and idle resembled
SoHini�the favourite of moon.
UTPAWI KHANDA.

913

9. In tliat city there lived a palliaid at the head oC all the

rakes; he was the intriguant son of a BrAhman, and was known
by the same name of Indra.

10. Now this queen AhalyA came to hear the tale of the
former AhalyA wife of Ootanm, and her concupiscence related
to her at a certain time.

11. Hearing of that, this AhalyA felt a passion for the other
Indra, and became impatient in the absence of his company;
tliinlring only how he should come to her.

12. She was fading as a tender creeper thrown adrift in the

burning desert, and was burning with her inward flame, on beds
of cooling leaves of the watery lotus and plantain trees.

18, She was pining amidst all the enjoyments of her royal
state, as the poor fish lying exposed on the diy bed of a pool in
summer heat.

14. She lost her modesty with her self possession, and
repeated in her phrensy, �here is Indra, and there he comes to
me.�

16. Finding her in this pitiable plight, a lady of her palace

took compassion on her, and said, I will safely conduct Indra
before your ladyship in a short time.

16. No sooner she heard her companion say � I will bring

your desired object to you,� than she oped her eyes with joy, and
fell prostrate at her feet, as one lotus flower falls before another.

17. Then as the day passed on, and the shade of night cover*
ed the face of nature, the lady made her haste to the house of
Indrar�the BrAhman's boy.

18. The clever lady used her persuasions as ihr as she could,
and then succeeded to bring with her this Indra, and present
him before her royal mistress forthwith.

19. She then adorned herself with pastes and paints, and
wreaths of fragrant flowers, and conducted her lover to a private
apartment, where they enjoyed their fill.

20. The youth decorated dio in his jewels and necklaces,

delighted her witii his dulcei^ caresses, as the vernal "jumon
mnovates the arbour with his lusdous juice.
214

rOOA VAfelSHTHA.

21. Henceforward this ravished queen, saw the world full

with the figure of her beloved Indra, and did not think much of
all the excellences of her royal lord�^her husband.

22. It was after sometime, that the great king came to be

acquainted of the queen�s amour for the Brdhman Indra, by
certain indications of her countenance.

23. For as long as she thought of her lover Indra, her &oe
glowed as the full blown lotus, blooming with the beams of
her moonlike lover.

. 24. Indra also was enamoured of her with all his enraptured
senses, and could not rem^ for a moment in any place without
her company.

26. The king heard the painful tiding of their mutual affec*
tion, and of their unconcealed meetings and conferences with
each other at all times.

26. He observed also many instances of their mutual attach�

ment, and gave them his reprimands and punishments, as they
deserved at different times.

27. They were both cast in the cold water of a tank in the cold
weather, where instead of betraying any sign of pain, they kept
smiling together as in thdr merriment.

28. The king then orderded them to be taken out of the

tank, and told them to repent for their crimes; but the infatuated
pair, was &r from doing so, and replied to the king in the follow�
ing manner.

29. Great King! As long we continue to reflect on the un�

blemished beauty of each other�s face, so long are we lost in the
meditation of one another, and forget our own persons.

80. We are delighted in our persecutions, as no torment

can separate us from each other, nor are we afrud of sepa^tion,
though O King, you can separate our souls from our bodies. .

31. Then they were thrown in a frying pan upon fire, where
they remained unhurt and exclaihned, we rejoice, O-King I at the
delight of our souls in thinking of one another.

3%, They were tied to tho feet of elephants, to be trampled

tJTPATTl SEtANCA.

m
down by tbem > but they remained uninjured aud eaid, King! we
feel our hearty joy at the remembrance of each other.

33. They were lashed with rods and strapSi and many other

sorts of scoai^es, which the king dedeed from time to time.

34. But being brought back from the scourging ground^

and asked about their sufEeriiig, they returned the same answer
as before; and moreover, said Indra to the King, this world ie
full with the form of my beloved one.

35. All your punishments inflict no pain on her also, who

views the whole world as full of myself. (We see our beloved
in every shape. Hafiz. A thousands forms of my love, I see
around me. Urfi. �berundaruna man sad turate 0 paidast ** td}<

36. Therefore all your punishments to torment the body, can

give no piun to the mind (soul)j which is my true self, and
constitutes my personality {purmha)t which resides in my person
(purau sete).

37. This body is but an ideal form, and presents a shadowy

appearance to view; you can pour out your punishments upon it
for a while; but it amounts to no more than striking a shadow
with a stick. (The body is a thing that my senses inform me,
and not an occult something beyond the senses. Barkeley.
Man can inflict the (Unsubstantial) body, and not the
(substantial) spirit within. Gospel).

88. No body can break down the brave (firm) mind; then-
tell me great king 1 what the powers of the mighty amount to ?
(The mind is invulnerable, and no human power can break its
tenor).

39. The causes that cone^ire to ruflfe the tenor of the reso�
lute mind, are the erroneous conceptions of external appearances.
It is better therefore to chastise such bodies which miglftad the
mind to error. (The certainty of the uncertainty of our bodies,
is the only certain means for the certitude of our minds and
safety of our souls; and better is it for ns that onr bodies be
destroyed, inorder to pr^rve our minds and souls intact).

40. The mind is firm for ever.that is steadfast to its fixed pmw
pose. Nay it is identified with the object which it has cons-

VOGtA tASlSHfdA.

ai6

tantlyin its thooglits. (I^his is called mental metamoipKosi*

or assimilation to the object of thought^ as there is a physical
transformation of one thing to another form by its constant
contact with the same; such as by the law of chemical affinities^
which is termed yoga also in Indian medical works).

41. Being and not being are words applicable to bodies

(and are convertible to one another); bat they do not apply
to the mind j since what is positive in thought^ cannot be nega�
tived of it in any wise.

42. The mind is immovable and cannot be moved by any

effort like mobile bodies. It is impregnable to all external
actions, and neither your anger or favour (barasdpa), cui make
any effect on it.

43. It is possible for men of strong resolutions to change

the coarse of their actions; but where is such a strong minded
man to be found, who is able to withstand or change the
current of his thought ?

44. It is impossible to move the mind from its fixed fulcmm^.

as it is impracticable for tender stags to remove a mountain
from its base. This black-eyed beauty is the fixed prop of
my mind. (The black eyed beauty of India and Asia, is very
naturally opposed to the blue eyed mdd of Homer and Europe).

45. She is seated in the lofty temple of my mind, as the

goddess bhavdui (Juno) on the mount SAildsa (Olympus); and
I fear nothing as long I view this beloved preserver of my life
and soul before me. (The Persian poet Urfi uses the �ama aimilft
of the temple and mind in the hemistich or distich. ** 1 see
her image in my inward.shrine, as an idol in the temple of an
idolatrous land)."

46. I sit amidst the conflagration of a burning mountun in

summer^s beat, but am cooled under the umbrage of hw shower-
ing cloud, wherever I stand or fall.

47. I think of nothing except of that sole ol^t of my

thought and wish, and I cannot persuade myself, to believe me
as any other than fndra the lover of Ahalyd.

43; It�isby constant association, that X have come.to.tliif

UTPATTl KHANDA.

217

belief of myself} nor can I think of me otherwise tban wbat is

in my nature; for know, O King I The wise have but one and
the name object in their thaught and view. (So says Hafiz
If thou wilt have her, think not of another).

49. The mind like the Meru, is not moved by threat or

pi(y; it is the body that yon can tame by the one or other
expedient. The wise, O King I are masters of their minds, and
there ia none and notiiing to deter them from their purpose.
60. Know it for ccrtun, O King, that neither these bodies
about us, nor these bodies and sensations of ours are realities.
They are but shows of truth, and not the movers of the mind;
but on the contrary, it is the mind which supplies the bodies,
and senses with their powers of action ; as the water supplies
the trees and branches with their vegetative juice.

61. The mind is generally believed as a sensuous and passive

principle, wholly actuated by the outward impressions of senses;
but in truth it is the mind, which is the active and moving
principle of the organs of action. Because all the senses become
dormant in absence of the action of the mmd; and so the funo-
tions of the whole cr^tion are at a stop, without the activity
of the Universal Mind-astma mundi. (See Psychology arri
Mentd Philosophy).

Vot. II.

28

:CHAPrER LXXXX.

Lots ot tse FicTmoxis Iksba akd Ahalta.

Argument, Curses have power on the body, and not'upon the mind.

T he Sol said>The lotns<eyed king thus defied by this per�

verse Indra, addressed ^e sage Bharata, who was sitting
by him (in the court-hall).

2. The king spoke:�Lord, you are acquunted with all

morality, and seest this ravisher of my wife, and hearest the
arrogant speech, that he utters before our face.

3. Deign, O great sage I pronounce thy fulmination upon

him without delay; because it is a breach of justice to spare the
wicked, as it is to hurt the innocent.

4. Being thus besought by the great king, Bharata the best

of the wise munis ; considered well in his mind, the crime of this
wicked soul India.

5. And then pronounced his imprecation by saying" Do

yon, O reprobate sinner, soon meet with thy perdition, together
with this sinful woman, that is so faithless to her husband.�

6. Then they both replied to the king and his venerable sage,
saying,�what fools must ye be, to have thus wasted your
imprecation, the great gain of your devotion, on our devoted
heads; (knowing that our souls are invincible).

7. The curse you have pronounced, can do us very little

'harm; for though our bodies should &11, yet it cannot affect our
inward minds and spirits (which are unchangeable).
8. The inner principle of the soul, can never be destroyed
by any body and anywhere; owing to its inscrutable, subtile and
intellectual nature.

9. The Sol addedThis fescinated pair, that were over

head and ears in love, then fell down by �effect of the dflu nnffia-
tion, as when the lopped branches fall upon the ground from the
parent tree.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

Sld4

10. Being subjected to the torment of transmigration, they,

were both bom as a pair of deer in mutual attachment, and then,
as a couple of turtle doves in their inseparable alliance.

11. Afterwards, 0 lord of our creation, this loving pair came-

to be bom as man and woman, who by their practice of austeri*
ties, came to be reborn as a Brahman and Bmhmani atlast.

12. Thus the curse of Bharata, was capable only of trans�

forming their bodies; and never to touch their minds or souls^
which continued in their unshaken attachment in every state of
their transfiguration ; (or metamorphosis of the body only, and no
metempsychosis of the sold).

13. Therefore wherever they come to be reborn in any shapei

they always assume by virtue of their delusion and reminis�
cence, the form of a male and female pair.

14. Seeing the true love which subsisted between this loving
pur in the forest, the trees alsO' become enamoured of the other
sex of their own kinds. (This refras to the attachment of the
lAide and female flowers, long before its discovery by Linneus).

CHAPTER LXXXXI.

Incakkatiom of the Living Soul ob Jita.

Argument. The Mind is the cause of all its creations.

T he Sol coBtinued Therefore I say, my lord! that the mind

like time, is indestmctible of its nature, and the inavertible
imprecation of the sage, could not alter its tenor.

2. Therefore it is not right for thee, O great Brahmd I to

destroy the ideal fabric of the air�drawn world of the eons of
Indn, because it is improper for great souls, to put a check to
the fancies of others; (but rather to let every one to delight
in his own hobby horse and romantic visions).

�3. What thing is there, O lord of lords! that is wanting

to thee in this universe of so many worlds, that should make
thy great soul, to pine for the air built worlds of Indu�s sons ?
(It is not for noble minds to pine for the greatness of others, nor
repine at the loss which they may sustain).

4. The mind is verily the maker of worlds, and is known

as the prime Male-Furusha, (the Demiurgus or Protogones).
Hence the mind that is fixed to its purpose, is not to be shaken
from it by the power of any imprecation or by virtue of any
drug or medicine, or even by any kind of chasl^ment.

5. The mind which is the image of every body, is not des�

tructible as the body, but remains forever fixed to its purpose.
Let therefore the Aindavas continue in their ideal act of creation,
(as so many Brahmds themselves).

6. Thou lord that hast made these creatures, remain firm in

thy place, and behold the infinite space which is spread out
before thee, and commensurate with the ample scope of thy
understanding, in the triple spheres of thy intellect and mind,
and the vast vacuity of the firmament. ((.�, The infinitude of
the etherial vacuum, is co-extensive with the amplitude of
Biahmd's mind, and the plenitude of creations),

UTPATTI KHANDA.

231

7. These three fold iafinities of etherial, menial and intellec'

tual spaces, are but reflexions of the infinite vacuity of divine
intellect, and supply thee, O BrahmA, with ample space for thy
creation of as many worlds at thy will.

8. Therefore thou art at liberty to create adlihitum, whatever

thou likest and think not that the sons of Indu, have robbed tbeS
of anything; when thou hast the power to create everything. ' �

9. Brahmisaid:�After the sun had spoken to me in this

manner, concerning the Aindava and other worlds, I reflected
awhile on what he said, and then answered him saying

10. Well hast thou said, O sun, for I see the ample space of
tur lying open before me; I see also my spacious mind and the
vast comprehension of my intellect, I will therefore go on vnth
my work of creation forever.

11. I will immediately think about multitudes of material

productions, whereof O sun I I ordafln thee as my first Mann or
progeny, to produce all these for me. (The sun light was the
first work of creation, and the measure of all created beings, by
his days and nights or mornings and evenings).

13. Now produce all things as thou wilt, and according to my

beh^t, a<t which the refulgent sun readily complied to my request.
13. Then this great luminary stood confest with his bipartite
body of light and heat; with the first of which he shone as the
sun in the midst of heaven.

14. With the other property of the heat of his body, he be�
came my Manu or agent in the nether worlds. (The solar heat
or calor, is the cause of growth upon earth).

15. And here he produced all things as I bade him do, in the
course of the revolutions of his seasons.

16. Thus have I related to you, O sagely Vasishtha I aB

about the nature and acts of the mind, and omnipotence of the
great soul j which infuses _ its might in the mind in its acts of
creation and production.

17. Whatever reflexion is represented in the mind, the same

is manifested in a visible form, and becomes compact and stands

S2S TOGA Vi!^ISHTBA'.r

confest before it. (The ideal becomes visible or the nenmintU

is exprest in the phenomenal).

18. Look at the extraordinary power of the mind, which

raised the ordinary Aindava Brahmans to the rank of Brahmd,
by means of their conception of tlie same in themselves.

19. As the living souls of the Aindavas, were incorporated

with Brahmd, by their intense thought of him in them, (or by

their mental absorption of themselves in him ); so also have we
attained to Brahmdhood, by means of our mental conception
of that spiritaal light and supreme intellect in ourselves. (Sa
in our daily ritual, ^ WW I

20. The mind is full of its innate id^, and the figure that
lays a firm hold of it, the same appears exprest without it in
a visible shape; or else there is no material substance beside
one�s own mind. (This is the doctrine of conceptionalists^
that all outward objects are but representations of our inborn
ideas, in opposition to the belief of sensationalists, that the
internal notions are reflections of our external sensations).

21. The mind is the wonderful attribute of the soul, and

bears in itse) f many other properties like the inborn pungency
of the pepper.' (These inborn properties are the memory, ima�
gination and other faculties of the mind).

22. These properties appear also as the mind, and are called
its hyperphysical or mental faculties; while it is downright
mistake on the part of some to understand them as belonging
to the body. (The sankhya materialists understand the inter�
nal &culties as products of the body and matter).

23. The self same mind is termed also the living principle�
Jiva (Zoa), when it is combined with its purer desires; and is
to be known after all to be bodiless and unknown in its nature.
(The life being combined with gross desires, assumes the body
for its enjoyment of them, but loosened from its fetters, it re�
sumes its purer nature. Hence the future spiritual life, is free
from grosser wishes).

24. Th^re is. no body as myself or any other person in tbiy

tJTPATTI KHA�DA. 233

^rid, except this wenderoas and self-existent mind; which

like the sons of Indn, assumes the false conception of being
real Brahmds themselves.

25. As the Aindavas were Brahmds in their minds, so my

mind makes me a Brahmd also ; it is the mind that makes one
such and such, accoiding to the conception that he entertains
of himself. (We are in reality nothing, but what our minds
inform us to be).

26. It is only by a conceit of my mind, that I think myself

rituated as a Brahmd in this place; otherwise all these material
bodies, are known to be as unreal, as the vacuity of the soul
wherein they abide.

27. The unsullied mind approximates the Divine, by its

constant meditation of the same; but being vitiated by the
variety of its desires, it becomes the living being, which at last
turns to animal life. and the living body, ^his is called the
incarnation of the living soul or the materialization of the
spirit).

28. The intelligent body shines as any of the luminous

orbs in the world of the Aindavas, it is brilliant with the
intelligent soul, like the appearance of a visionary creation of
the mind. (The body is a creature of the mind like a figure
in its dream).

29. All things are the productions of the mind and reflexions
of itself, like the two moons in the sky, the one being but a
reflexion of the other* and as the concepts of the Aindava
worlds.

SO. There is nothing as real or unreal, nor a personality

as 1 or thou or any other j the real and unreal are both alike,
unless it be the conception which makes something appear as a
reality which has otherwise no reality of itself.

81. Know the mind to both active and inert (i. e. both as
spirit and matter). It is vast owing to the vastness of its
desires, and is lively on account of its spiritual nature of the
great God; but becomes inert by its incorporation with material
objects.

YOQA VA^SISHTHA.
224

^ The conception of phenomenals as real, cannot make

them real, any more than the appearance of a golden bracelet,
^ miike it gold, or the phenomenals appearing in Brahmd, can
identify themselves with Brahmd himself.

33. Brahma being all in all, the inert also are said to be
intelligent, or else all beings from ourselves down to blocks, are
neither inert nor intelligent. (Because nothing exists besides
Brahma, wherefore what exists not, can be neither one nor the
other).

84. It is said that the lifeless bloclm, are without intelligence

imd perception; but every thing that bears a like relation to
anotbrnr, has its perception also like the other. (Hence all things
being equally related to Brahma, are equally sentient also in
thmr natures).*

36. Know everything to be sentient that has its perception

or sensitivity > wherefore all things are possest of their percep�
tivity, by the like rdation (sadrisa-sambandha) of themselves
with the supreme soul.

86. The terms inert and sensitive are therefore meaningless,

in their application to things subsisting in the same divine
spirit; and it is like attributing fruits and flowers to the arbors
of a barren land. The barren waste refers to the vacunm of the
divine mind, and its arbours to its unsubstantial ideas, which
ate neither inert nor sentient like the fruits or flowers of those
trees.

37. The notion or thought, which is formed by and is an act

�of the intellect, is called the mind; of these the portion of the

sSoaayasspiritni^istia pbiloBOplier. Think yon this earth of onrs is a

lifeless ud nnaentient bnlk, while the worm on her snrfaoe is in the enjoy*
ment of life t Ifo. the nniverse is not dead. This life-jfve, what is it bnt the
pervading afflnx of defio love mid life, vivifying all natnre, and snsttdning the
animal and vegetable world as will as the world of mind P ^eae snns, systems,
planets and satellites, are not mere mechanisms. The pnlsations of a divine
fife throb in them all, and make them rich in the sense that they too are parts
of the divine oosmoa. Should it be objected that it proves too mnoh t thiat it
involves the identity of the vital prinmple of animals and veg s tyb les, let ns
not
shrink from the ooiudnsion. The essential nnity of all spirit and all life with
this exnbeiaat life from Ood, is atmth from whioh we need not reooil. oven
though it bring all animal and vegeUMe forms within the sweep of immortality
Bpea SargQnt.

UTPATTI KHANDA.
2S5

intellect ot intellectual part, is the active principle, but the

thought or mental part is quite inert.

88. The intellectual part consists of the operation of intellect

tion> but the thoughts or thinhahles (chetyas), which are the
acts of the chit or intellect are known to be inert; and these are
viewed by the living soul in the erroneous light of the world,
(rising and sitting before it like the sceneries of a phantas-
magoriab

89. The nature of the intellect-chit is a pure unity, but the

mind�which is situated in the same, and thence called
ekit��tha or posited in the intellect, is a reehanffe or dualism
of itself, and this appears in the form of a duality of the world.

40. Thus it is by intellection of itself as the other form, that

the noumenal assumes the shape of the phenomenal world; and
being indivisible in itself, it wanders through the labyrinth of
errors with its other part of the mind.

41. There is no error in the unity of the intellect, nor is the

soul liable to error, unless it is deluded by its belief of pluralities.
The intellect is as full as the occcan, with all its thoughts rising
and sitting in it as its endless waves. *

42. That which you call the mental part of the intellect, is
full of error and ignorance ; and it is the ignorance of the intel�
lectual part, that produces the errors of egoism and personality.

43. There is no error of egoism or personality in the trans�

cendental category of the divine soul j because it is the integrity

* The unity of all plienoniesa was the dream of ancient philosophy. To

reduce all this mnltiplioity to a single principle, has boon and continues to be
tho overreonrring problem. To tho question of a unity of substance tho
Greek soionoe, repeatedly applied itself; and so did tho sophists of Persia and
India. It was tho craving for unity, which lod the white men of Asia, the
Mcient Aryan raoe, to tho oonooplion of God as tho one snbstanco immanent
in the universe. At first they wore polytheists, but with the progress ot
thought their number of gods diminished, and becamo the authors of Veda. At
last arrived to tho oonraption of a unity of forces, of a divine power as tho ulti�

mate substratum of things. They roganlod the boings of tho world, as in effect,
composed of two elementa i the one real and of a nature permanent and abso�
lute, and the other relative, Sowing and variablo and phenomenal; the one
spirit and the other ^tter, and both proceeding from an inseparable unity,
ajdngle nrbstanoe. ^ Ibid. Aooording to Vfisiahtha this single substance is the
cWt or divine intelligonoo, which pr^uoos tho Mind, which is conversant with
matter.

VOL. II.

29
226 YOGA VA'SISSTHA.

o{ all conscionsuessj as the sea is the aggregate of all its waves

and waters.

44. The belief of egoism rises as any other thought of the

mind, and is as inborn in it as the water in the mirage, which
does not exist really in it.

45. The term ego is inapplicable to the pure and simple in�
ternal soul; which being vitiated by the gross idea of its con�
cupiscence, takes the name of ego, as the thickened coldness is
called by the name of frost.

46. It is the pure substance of the intellect which forms the

ideas of gross bodies, as one dreams of his death in his sleep.
The all-pervading intelligence which is the all inherent and
omnipotent soul, produces all forms in itself, and of which there
is no end until they are reduced to unity.

47. The mind manifest various appearances in the forms of

thing, and being of a pure etberial form, it assumes various
shapes by its intellectual or spiritual body.

48. Let the learned abstain from the thoughts of the three
fold forms of the pure intellectual, spiritual and corpora bodies,
and reflect on them as the reflexions of the divine intellect in his
own mind.

49. The mind being cleansed of its darkness like the mirror
of its dirt, shows the golden hue of spiritual light, which is
replete with real felicity, and by far more blissful than what this
earthly clod of body can ever yield.

50. We should cleanse the mind which exists for ever, rather
than the body which is transient and non-existent} and as unreal
as the trees in the air, of which no one takes any notice.

61. Those who are employed in the purification of thmr

bodies, under the impression that the body also is called the
or soul (in some sdstra); are the atheistic ehartaha, who are as
silly goats among men.

52. Whatever one thinks inwardly in himself, he is verily

transformed to its likenere, as in the instance of the Aindava
Brdhmans, and of Zndra and Ahalya cited before.

UtPATTl KHANDA. 227

63. Whatever is represented in the mirror of the mind, the

same appears in the figure of the body also. But as neither this
body nor the egoism of any one, is lasting for ever, it is right to
forsake our desires.
64. It is natural for every body to think himself as an
embodied being, and to be subject to death; (while in reality it
is the soul that makes the manj who is immortal owing to the
immortality of the soul). It is as a boy thinks himself to be
possessed of a demon of his own imagination, until he gets rid of
his false apprehension by the aid of reasoning.

CHAPTER LXXXXII.
On thb Powkks op Mind.

Argnmont. Force of the Faculties of the Mind and Energy of Men.

Y ASISHTHA added :�Now hear, O support of Raghu�s

race ! what 1 next proposed to the lotus-born lord Brahmd,
after we had finished the preceding conversation.

ft. I asked him saying :�Lord ! you have spoken before of

the irrevokable power of curses and imprecations, how is it then
that their power is said to be frustrated again by men.

3. We have witnessed the efficacy of imprecations, pronounc�

ed with potent Mantra �anathemas, to overpower the understand�
ing and senses of living animals, and paralyze every member of
the body. (This speaks of the incantations and charms of the
Atharva Veda).

4. Hence we sec the mind and body are as intimately con�

nected with each other, as motion with the air and fluidity with
the sesamum seed : (because the derangement of the one is
attended by the disorganization of the other: i. e, of the body
and mind).

5. Or that there is no body except it but be a creation of

the mind, like the fancied chimeras of visions and dreams, and
as the false sight of water in the mirag^e, or the appearance of
two moons in the sky.

6. Or else why is it that the dissolution of the one, brings

on the extinction of the other, such as the quietus of the mind,
is followed by the loss of bodily sensations ?

7. Tell me, my lord! how the mind is unaffected by the

power of imprecations and menace, which subdue the senses,
and say whether they are both overpowered by these, being the
one and same thing.

8. Bramhd replied :�Know then, there is nothing in the

treasure-house of this world, which is unattainable by man by
means p� his exertions in the right way.

UTPATTI KHANDA.
S2d

9. And that all Bpecies of animal being, from the state of

the highest Brahmd, down to minute insects, are bieorpoH or
endowed with two bodies the mental and corporeal, (t. e, the
mind and the body).

10. The one, that is the mental body, is ever active and
always fickle; and the other is the worthless body of flesh,
which is dull and inactive.

11. Now the fleshy part of the body which accompanies all
animal beings, is overpowered by the influence of curses and
charms, practised by the art of incantation� abhicit&ra Vidifd,
(Exorcism, the Mnmbo Jumbo of the Tantras).

12. The influence of certain supernatural powers stupifies a

man, and makes him dull and dumb. Sometimes one is about to
droop down insensible, as spell bound persons are deprived of their
external senses, and fall down like a drop of water from a lotus-
leaf.

13. The mind which is the other part of the body of

embodied beinss, is ever free and unsubdued; though it is always
under the subjection of all living beings in the three worlds.

14. He who can control his mind by continued patience on

one hand, and by incessant vigilence on the other, is the man
of an unimpeachable character, and unapproachable by calamity.

16. The more a man employs the mental part of his body
to its proper employment, the more successful he is in obtain�
ing the object ho has in view. (Omnium vincit vigilentia vel
diligentia).

16. Mere bodily energy is never successful in any under�

taking (any more than brute force); it is intellectual activity
only, that is sure of success in all attempts. (The head must guide
the body).

17. The attention of the mind being directed to objects un�

connected with matter, it is as vain an effort to hurt it, (an
immaterial object); as it is to pierce a stone with an arrow (or to
beat fbe air).

18. Drown the body under the water or dip it in the mud,
burn it in the fire or fling it aloft in air, yet the mind turneth

330

yOGA va�sishtha. �

not from its pole ; and he who is true to his purpose, is sure
of success. (The word i-atkthmdt phalitah or gaining imme>
diate success, is an incredible expression in the text).
19. Intensity of bodily efforts overcomes all impediments,
but it is mental exertion alone which leads to ultimate success
in every undertaking; (for without the right application of
bodily efforts under guidance of reason, there can be no expec�
tation of prospering in any attempt).

20. Mark here in the instance of the fictitious Indra, who

employed all his thoughts to the assimilation of himself into
ilie very image of his beloved, by drowning all his bodily pains
in the pleasure of her remembrance.

21. Think of the manly fortitude of Mdndavya, who made

his mind as callous as marble, %vhen he was put to the punish�
ment of the guillotine, and was insensible of his sufferng. (So
it is recorded of the Sophist Mansur, who was guillotined for
his faith in the anal Uaq 'T am the True One,� and of the
martyrs who fell victims to their faith in truth).

22. Think of the sage who fell in the dark pit, while his
mind was employed in some sacrificial rite, and was taken up
to heaven in reward of the merit of his mental sacrifice. (Re�
demption is to be had by sacrifice of the soul, and not of the
body).

23. Remember also how the sons of Indu obtained their

Brahmdhood, by virtue of their persevering devotion, and which
even 1 have not the power to withhold, (i. e. Even Brahmd is
unable to prevent one�s rising by his inflexible dovotedness).

24. There have been also many such sages and master-minds
among men and gods, who never laid aside their mental energies,
whereby they were crowned with success in their proper
pursuits.

25. No pain or sickness, no fulmination nor threat, no

malicious beast or evil spirit, can break down the resolute mind,
any more than the striking of a lean lotus-leaf, can split the
breast of a hard stone.

26. Th<^ that you say to have been discomfited by tribu-

UTPATTI KHANDA.

231

lations and persecutions, I understand them as too infirm in their

&iths, and very weak both in their minds and manliness.

27. Men with heedful minds, have never been entrapped in the
snare of errors in this perilous world; and they have never been
visited by the demon of despair, in their sleeping or waking states.

28. Therefore let a man employ himself to the exercise of

his own manly powers, and engage his mind and his mental
energy to noble pursuits, in the paths of truth and holiness.

29. The enlightened mind forgets its former darkness, and

sees its objects in their true light; and the thought that grows
big in the mind, swallows it up at last, as the fancy of a ghost
lays hold of the mind of a child.

SO. The new reflexion effaces the prior impression from the
tablet of the mind, as an earthen pot turning on the potter�s
wheel, no more thinks of its nature of dirty clay.

(One risen to a high rank or converted to a new creed, entire*

ly forsakes and forgets his former state).

81. The mind, 0 muni! is transmuted in a moment to its

new model; as the inflated or aerated water rises high into
waves and ebulitions, glaring with reflexions of sun-light.
(Common minds are wholly occupied with thoughts of the
present, forgetful of the past and careless of the future).

82. The mind that is averse to right investigation, sees like

the purblind, every thing in darkness even in broad day light; and
observe by deception two moons for one in the moonshine.
(The uninqnisitive are blind to the light of truth).

83. Whatever the mind has in view, it succeeds soon in the

accomplishment of the same. And as it docs aught of good or
evil, it reaps the reward of the same, in the gladness or bitter�
ness of his soul.

84. A wrong reflector reflects a thing in a wrong light, as

a^ distracted lover sees a flame in the moonbeams, which makes
him bum and consume in his state of distraction. (This is said
of distracted lovers, who imagine cooling moon-beams and sand�
al-paste as hot as fire, and inflaming their flame of love).

YOGA VASISHTHA.

2SS

36. It is the conception of the mind, that makes the salt seem
sweet to taste, by its giving a flavour to the salted food for
our zest and delight.

36 It is OUT conception, that makes os see a forest in the fog,

or ft tower ia the clouds; appearing to the sight o� the observer
to be rising and falling by turns.

37. In this manner whatever shape the imagination gives to

a thing, it appears in the same visionary form before the sight of
the mind; therefore knowing this world of your imagination, as
neither a reality nor unreality, forbear to view it and its various
shapes and colours, as they appear to view.
CHAPTER LXXXXIII.

A Visw OF THE Genesis of TttE mind and BoDt.

Argnment. First Birth of the Mind, and then that of Light. NexI
grew the Ego, and thonse came out the World.

V ASISHTHA said ;�will now tell you Bdma ! What I

was instructed of yore by lord Brahmd himself. (The prime
progenitor of mankind and propounder of the Vedas).

2. From the unspeakable Brahma, there sprang all things

in their nndefinable ideal state, and then the Spirit of God being
condensed by His Will, it came to be produced of itself in
tiie form of the Mind. (Fhe volitive and creative agency of
God).

3. ' The Mind formed the notions of the subtile elementary

principles in itself, and became a personal agent (with its power
of volition or creative will). The same became a luminous body
and was known as Brahmd the first Male. (Purusha or Proto*
gonns-PrAtha-janya or Prathamajanita).

4. Therefore know B4ma, this same Brahmd to be the Para-

mukthi or situated in the Supreme, and being a personification
of the Will of God, is called the Mind.

6. The Mind therefore known as the Lord Brahm&, is a

form of the Divine essence, and being full of desires in itself,
sees all its wills (in their ideal forms), present before it.

6. The mind then framed or fell of itself, into the delusion

(avidyd), of viewing its ideal images as substantial (as one
does in his delirium); and thence the phenomenal world (with
whatever it contains), is said to be the work of Brahm&.

7. Thus the world proceeding in this order from the Su�

preme essence, is supposed by some to have eome into being
from another source, of dull material particles. (Doctrine of
Hylotheism or the Materialistic system of SdnkhyaPhilosophy).

8. It is from that Brahm4, O Rdma I that all things

VoL. II. 30

Yoga VA'stsnTttA.

utuated ia this concave world, have come to being, in the mail^

ner o� waves rising on the surface of the deep.

9. The self existent Brahma that existed in the form of

intellect (chit) before ercation, the same assumed the attribute
of egoism (ahankAra) afterwards, and became manifest in the
person of Brahm^. (Thence called Swayambhu or self-born).

*10. All the other powers of the Intellect, whicli were conr
eentrated in the personality of the Ego, were tantamount to those
of Omnipotence. (The impersonal Intellect and the personal
Ego or Brahmd, are both of them equally powerful).

11. The world being evolved from the eternal ideas in the
Divine Intellect, manifested itself in the mind of the great father
of all�Brahmd. (JtUelleelm nosier nihil intelligit sine j>han~
t�Osmatd) ; it is the mind which moves and modifies them, and is
the Intelligence ^logos-Word) of the One, and the manifestation
of its power.

12. The Mind thus moving and modeling all things is called
the Jioa living soul or Nous. (The Scholiast says :�^The Mind
is the genus� Samashti, the soul is an individual name (Vyashti)
of every individual living being. The Mind is soul without
personality i the soul is the mind of a certain being. The Mind
is the principle of volition, and the soul is that of animation).

� 13. These living souls rise and move about in the vacuous
sphere of the infinite Intellect (chiddkdsa). These are unfolded
by the elementary particles of matter, and pass in the open
space surrounded by air. They then reside in the fourteen
kinds of animated nature, according to the merit and demerit
of their prior acts. They enter the bodies through the passage
of their vital breath, and become the seeds of moving and im<
moving beings.

14. They are then bom of the generative organ (foetus),

and are met on a sadden by the desires of their previous births

* Note. The powers of the Intellect are, perception, memory, ima^nation

and judgment. Ngo ia the subject of thoughts, or the subjective and really
exiatent being. The personal Ood BrahmA ia an emanation ot God according
to the Gnostics, and ia like the Demiuigas of Plato next to God and soul m
the world, Plotinus.

XJTPATTl KHANDA.

235

(which lay waiting on them\ Thus led on by the current

their wishes, they live to reap the reward or retribution of their
good or bad acts in the world.

15. Thus bound fast to action and fettered in the meshes

of desire, the living souls enchained in their bodies, continue
to rove about or rise and fall in this changeful world by tarns.

16. Their wish is the cause of their weal or woe, says the
Sruti ; and which is inseparable from the soul as volition from
the mind. (The wish is the inactive desire of the soul, and
volition the active will of the mind).

17. Thousands of living souls, are falling off as fast as tlic

leaves of forest trees; and being borne away by the force of their
pursuits, they are rolling about as the fallen leaves wafted by
the breeze in the valleys. (The aberration of living souls from
the Supreme),

18. Many are brought down and bound to innumerable-

births in this earth, by their ignorance of the Chit or Divine In�
tellect, and are subjected to interminable transmigrations in
various births,

19. There are some who having passed many mean births
in this earth, have now risen high in the scale of beings, by
their devotedness to better acts; (and are likely to have their-
fiberation in the course of their progression to the best).

20. Same persons acquainted with spirituality, have reached'

their state of perfection; and have gone to heaven, like parti�
cles of sea-water, carried inte the air above by the blowing,
winds.

21. The production of all beings is from-the Supreme Brah-

md; but their appearance and disappearance in this frail world,
are caused by their own actions. Hence the actionlcss yogi,,
is free from- both these states. (God made everything perfect;.
Man�s sin brought his death and woe).

22. Our desires are poisonous plants, bearing the fruits

of pain and disappointment j and lead us to actions which are-
fraught with dangers and. difficulties. (Cursed was the grounds

S36 YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

for man's unrestrictod desires, which sowed it with thorns and

thistles). -

23. These desires drive us to different countries, to 'distant

hills and dales in search of gain. (Else man could live content
with little and on his native- plain).

24. This world 0 B4ma j is a jungle of withered trees

and brambles; and requires the axe of reason to clear away these
drugs and bushes. So are our minds and bodies but plants
and trees of our woe, which being rooted out by the axe of
reason, will no more come to grow by their transmigration in
this earth. (The mind and body are rooted out by Suppression
of their desires and passions).

CHAPTER LXXXXIV.
Bbahua the Oaiom op AtL.

Argumeut. Description of the twelve species of Human beings and

the ways of their liberation.

Y ASISHTHA said Hear me now- relate to yon, R^ma t

the several classes o� higher, lower and middling species
of beings, and the various grades of their existence here and
elsewhere in the scale of creation, (t. e. The spontaneous
production of beings auo motu, when they were not bonnd by
karma � vip&ka or acts of a prior life, to be bom in any parti�
cular form or state on earth\

2. They were the first in their production, and are known as

the idam-prathama�OT the first class in their birth, whose long
practice in a course of virtuous actions in prior states, has
secured to them the property of goodness� iatya~gnna only.
(These are the holy sainte and sages, who are entitled to their
liberation in life time, and upon separation from their bodies).

8. The second grade is called the guna pivari or state of

sound qualities, which is attained by the prosperous, and leads
them to meriterinus deeds, to the acquisition of their desired
objects, and their right dealing in the affairs of the world.

(This meritorious state becomes entitled to liberation after

some births in this earth).

4. The third grade is termed the tatatwd, or the state eff

snbstantialily of men of substance. It is attended with like
results, proportioned to the righteous and unrighteous acts of
men, who may obtain their liberation after a hundred transmi�
grations of their souls on earth.

6&6. The fourth grade comprises infatuated people called

aiyanta tdmati, who are addicted to their varying desires in tbi #
changeful world, and come to the knowledge of truth, after
passing a thousand lives in ignorance and sin, and suffering the
effects proportionate to their good or evil deeds.

838

yOQi* VA'SISHTHA.

7. The fifth grade is composed of men of a baser natnre^

called adkama � miwi. by the wise, and who may possibly have
their liberation, after a coarse of numberless births in different
shapes and forms.

8. The sixth grade is composed of those extremely benighted

men (atyanta tAmiisi), who arc doubtful of their liberation
{8aniligdha�moksha\ and continue in the vicious course of their
past lives.

9. Those who after passing two or three previous births

in other states, are born afterwards with the quality of gentle�
ness, these are reckoned as the seventh grade, and arc denominated
the RAjashi�gentry or gentility.

10. Those who remain mindful of their duties, and are em�
ployed. in discharge of them in this state of life; are said by
the wise to be entitled to their liberation, soon after their
demise.

11. Those among the RAjashi�gentility, whose acts are

commensurate with those of gentlemen and the nobility, are
included in the eighth class, and are called BAia Sdtwiki�ot
noble gentlemen,* and are entitled to their liberation after a
few births on earth.

13. The ninth class comprises the r&ja�rdjanhi or right

gentlemen, whose actions conform with their title, and who
obtain their long longed-for liberation, after a course of hundred
births in the same state.

13. The next or tenth class is composed of the rd}af4ma�(

or blinded gentry^ who act foolishly under their infatuation;
and who arc uncertain of their liberation, oven after a thousand:
births.

14. The most giddy of this class is called atyanta-rdja-

tdmashi, or the excessively infatuated gentry, whose conduct in
life correspond with their name, and whoso transmigration does

{ not cease at any time.

15. Then the lower classes comprise the children of dark�

ness or ignorance�/amas; of whom the form the ele�

venth grade, and are said to be deprived of their liberation for*

tJTPATTl KHANDi.

6Ver more. (These are the Bdkshasas and demons of various

orders).

16. There have been a few however amon^ them, who have
obtained their salvation by means of their divine knowledfje,
and their good acts during their life time; (such as Frahidda,
the son of a demon, and Karkotaka-thc son of a Naga).

17. Next follows the twelfth oi^der of tdmam�rdjma,

who combine in them the qualities of darkness and enlighten�
ment^ and who are liberated after a thousand births in their
former demoniac state, and ono hundred births in their progres�
sive improvements.

18. Then comes the thirteenth order of t&mas�tdniagi

or those in darkest darkness, who have to transmigrate for
millions of years both in their prior and later births, before
they can have their liberation from the bondage of body.

19. Last comes the fourteenth order of beings, who continue

in their state of gross ignorance [cityanta^idmasi) forever,
and it is doubted whether they can have their liberation at all.

(All these classes of human beings have proceeded from Brahmd,

whose life and spirit, circulate in all of them ; else they could
neither live nor breathe).
20. All other masses of living beings also, have proceeded
from the body of the great Brahmd, as the moving waves rise
from the great body of waters.

21. And as the lamp flickering by its own heat, scatters its
light on all sides ; so does Brahmd glowing in himself, irradiate
his beams in the shape of scintilla, to spread all over the uni�
verse : (which is the vacuity of Brahmds mind, and comprises
the cosmos within it).

22. And as the sparks of fire are flung about by force of

the burning flame ; so do these multitudes of produced beings,
rise from the substance of Brahmd himself.

28. As the dost and filaments of mandara flowers, fly to and

fill the air on all sides; and as the beams of the moon shoot
out of its orb, to fill the four quarters of heaven and earth j so the

240

tOGA VASffiaTllA.

ininiitisB of Divine essence emanate from the Deity, and sjtread

throughout the universe.

24. As the variegated arbor, produces its leaves and flowers

of various hues from itself; so the varieties of created beings,
spring from one Brahmd�^the'source of all.

25. As the gold ornaments are in relation.to the metal gold

of which they are made, and wherein they subsist, so BAma I
are all things and persons in relation to BrahmA, out of whom
4hey have sprung and in whom they abide.

26. As the drops of water, are related to the pure water of

the cascade, so EAma, are all things related to the increate
BrahmA, whence they issue as drizzling drops.

27. As the air in a pot and about a basin, is the same with
the surrounding air of heaven; so are all individual objects the
same, with the undivided spirit of the all-pervading BrahmA.

28. As the drops of rain-water, and those of water spouts,

whirlpools and waves, are identic with their parent waters ; so
are all these phenomenal sights, the same with the great BrahmA,
whence they spring, and wherein they exist and subside.

29. As the mirage presents the appearance of a billowy

sea, by the fluctuation of sunbeams on sand } so do all visible
objects show themselves to the sight of the spectator, beside
which they have no figure or form of themselves.

SO. Like the cooling beams of the moon, and the burning
light of the sun, do all things shine with their different lustres
derived from Brahma.

81. It is ite, from whom all things have risen, unto him
t^ey return, in their time; some after their transmigrations in a
thousand births, and others after longer periods of their revolu�
tions in various bodies.

82.. All these various forms of beings in the multiform

world are moving in their respective sphere by the will of
the Lord. They come and go, rise and fall, and shine in their
transitory forms, like the sijarks of fire, fluttering and sparkling
for a moment, and then falling and becoming extinct for evor.

CBAFTER LX XXXV.

Identity of tue Actor and his Action.

Ar^mcnt. It is ,for purauation of men addicted to Acts, that the

Actor is identified with his Acts.

�^ASISHTHA said-:�There is no difference of acts, from the

* agent, they have sprung together from the same source
-of tlieir creator: they arc the simultaneous growth of nature
like flowers and their odour. (The Gitd says;�^The actor, act
and its effect, are naturally united together).

2. When human souls arc freed from their desires, they are
united with the supreme soul of Brahma, as the blueness of the
sky which appears distinct to the eyes of the ignorant, is found
to bo joined with the clear firmament. (The human soul is a
shadow of the supreme, as blueness is a shade of vacuity).

3. Know, O Rdma! that it is for the understanding of the

ignorani^ that th'e living souls are said to have sprang from
Brahma : when they are in reality but shadows of the same.

4. Wherefore it is not right on the part of the enlightened

to say, that such and such things are produced from Brahma,
when there is nothing that exists apart or separate from him t
(on account of the unity of all existences and identity of the
actor and the act).

6. It is a mere fiction of speech to speak of the world as

creation or production, because it is difilcult tq explain the
subject and object of the lecture, without the use of such ficti�
tious language j (as the actor and act, the creator and
the created &c).

6. Hence the language of dualists and plnralists is adopted

in monotheistic doctrines, as the expressions, this one is Brahma,
or divine soul, and these others are the living souls, as they are
in use in the popular language.

7. It has been seen (explained), that the concrete world hu

sprang from the discrete Brahma; because the production of some-

VOL. II. �i
m YOGA vaSishtda.

tiling is ilie same with its material canse^ though itseeMS

different'from it to common understandings.

8. Multitudes of living beings rising like the rocks of Meru

and Mandara mountains, are joined with the main range from
which they jut out. (All are but parts of one undivided whole.
Pope.)

9. Thousands and thousands of living beings, arc incessantly

produced from their common source, like the innumerable sprigs
of forest trees, filling the woodland sky with their variegated
foliage. (So are all creatures but off shoots of the parent tree�
the Supreme Soul).

10 An infinity of living beings will continue to spring

from the same, like blades of grass sprouting from the earth
below; and they will likewise be reduced to the same, like the
season plants of spring, dying away in the hot wither of
Summer.

11. There is no counting of the living creatures that exist at

any time, and what numbera of them, are being bom and dying
away at any moment: (and like waves of water are rising and
falling at each instant).

13. Men with their duties proceed from the same divine
source, like flowers growing with their fragrance from the same
stem; and all these subside in the same receptacle whence they
had their rise.

13. 'We see the different tribes of demons and brutes, and
of men' and gods in this world, coming into existence from
non-existence, and this is repeated without end.

14. We see no other cause of their continuous revolution in

this manner, except the forgetfulness of their reminiscence, which
makes them oblivions of their original state, and conform with
every mode of their metempsychosis into new forms. (Other�
wise the retention of the knowledge of its original state and
former impressions, would keep it alive in the same state of pre-
meval purity, and exempt it from all transmigrations).

15. B4ma siud :�For want of such reminisconce, I thihh

UTPATTI KHANDA.

843

that) obedience to the dictates of the infallible SdstraS) which

have been promulgated by the sages, and based on the authority
of the Vedas, is the surest way for the salvation of mankind.

16. And I reckon those men as holy and perfect, who are
possest of the virtues of the great, and have magnanimity and
equanimity of their souls, and have received the light of the
unknowable Brahma in them. (Such men are exempt from the
pain of transmigration).

17. I reckon two things as the two eyes of the ignorant,

for their discernment of the path of salvation. The one is their
good conduct, and the other their knowledge of the Sdstras,
which follows the former.

18. Because one who is righteous in his conduct only, with-

out joining his righteousness with his knowledge also, is never
taken into account ; and is slighted by all to be plunged into
insignificance and misery. (The unlearned virtuous, is as des�
picable as the learned vicious).

19. Again Sir;�it is tho joint assent of men and the Veda,
that acts and their actors come one after the other; and not
as yon said of their rising simultaneously from their divine
origin. (Tliat is to say; that the morals established by the
wise, and the virtues inculcated by the holy scriptures, are tho
guides of good acts and their observers, which are not the spon�
taneous growth of our nature or intention).

90. It is the act which makes the actor, and the actor who
does the work. Thus they follow one another on the analogy
of tho seed and the tree which produce one another. This mu�
tuality of both is seen in the practice of men and ordinanancea
of the Veda.

21. Acts are the causes of animal births, as tho seed gives
birth to the sprouts of plants; and again works pi-oceed from
living beings as the sprouts produce the seeds. (Thus both are
(Auses and effects of one another by turns, and never grown
together).

22. The desire that prompts a person to his parlieulav pur�

suit in his prison house of this world, the same yields him the

244

VOGA VASISIITHA.

like fruits aad no other. (Men get what they have in tiefr
hearts and nothing besides).

33. Such being the ease, how was it sir, that you said of
the production of animals from the seal of Brahma, without
the causality of their prior acts, which yon say to be simulta�
neous with the birth of animal beings.

24. On one hand you have set at naught the law of anti
cedcncc and sequence of birth and action to one another, by
your position of their simultaneity.

25. And again to say, that Brahma is not the origin of ac�
tions, and that Brahnid and other living beings are subjected
to their several actions, are self contradictory propositions and
opposed to common sense. (For the acts do not originate
from Brahma, they cannot be binding on others; sind if the
actions do not proceed from that source, whence do they come
to take place). This question upsets the doctrine of Free Will.

� 20. And also to say that living beings are born together
with their actions (by predestination), and are bound to tbcm to
no purpose, would be to apply to them the analogy of fishes which
are caught by the baits they cannot devour, but cause their death.
(So men must be bound in vain to the baits of their actions,
if they arc to go without reaping their fruition).

27. Therefore please to tell me sir, about the nature of acts,

for you are best acquainted with the secrets of things, and
can well remove my doubts on the subject.

28. Vasisbtha replied:�You have well asked, my good

Rdma ! about this intricate subject, which I will now explain
to you in a manner that will enlighten your understanding.

29. It is the activity of the mind which forms its thoughts

and intentions, which arc the roots or seed of actions; and it
is its passivity, wliich is the rcccpicnt of their results, (So says
the Sruti:�whatever is thought in the mind, the same is ex�
pressed in words and done in actionl-

30. . 'I�hcrcforc no sooner did the principle of the mind spring

from the essence of Brdhma, than it was accompanied by ii�

UTPATTI KHANDA.

24&

thoughts and actions in the bodies, which the living beings

assumed, according to their prior deserts and in-born desires.

31. As there is no difEerence between the self-same flower)

and its fragrance; in the same manner there is no distinction
of the mind, from its actions which are one and the same thing.

32. It is the evertion of bodily activity, which we call an

action here; but it is well known to the wise to be preceded
by a mental action, which is called its thought in the mind:
{chiUa of the chit or the thought of the thinking principle).

33. It is possible to deny the existence of material objects,

of the air and water, the hill and others; but it is impossible
to deny the operations of our mental faculties, of which we
have subjective evidence in ourselves.
84. No deliberate action of the present or past life goes for
nothing 5 all human actions and efforts are attended with their
just results, to which they are properly directed. (Sdvadha-
nam anneshtbitan).

31;. As the ink ceases to be ink, without its inkyblackness,

so the mind ceases to exist, without the action of its mental
operations.

36. Cessation of mental operation, is attended with de�

sinence of thought, and quiescence of the mind, is accompanied
with discontinuance of actions. The liberated are free from
both of these ; but the nnemancipate from neither. (*. e. Tho
liberated arc devoid of the thoughts and actions, which ate
coDcommittants with one another.

37. The mind is ever united with its activity as tho fire
with its heat, and the want of either of these, is attended to
worldings with the extinction or both.

38. The mind being ever restless in itself, becomes identi�

fied with the actions proceeding from its activity. The actions
also whether good or bad, become identified with the mind,
which feels their just rewards and punishments. Hence you see
Bdmal Tho inseparable connection of the mind and acts, in
rcccprocating their actions and reactions upon each other.

CHAPTEU. LXXXXVI.

Inqtjiuv into the Natuiie ov Mind.

Ag the Ego, the subjective and really emisteuteutitj/.

Argument. The Faculties of the Mind, ond their Various Functions

and appellations.

Y ASISHTHA said :�The mind is mere thought^ and thought

is the mind in motion (literally, having the' property o�
fluctuation). Its actions are directed by the nature of the
thoughts (iit-according to the nature of the objects of thought);
and the result of the acts is felt by every body in bis mind.

2. B&ma said ;�^Sir, I pray you will explain in length, re�

garding the immaterial mind as opposed to the material body,
and its inseparable property of will or volition (contrary to the
inertness of dull matter).

3. 'Vasislitha readied :�The nature of the mind is known to

be composed of the property of Volition, which is an attribute
of the infinite and almighty power of the Supreme soul. {j.e�
The mind is the volitivc principle of the soul).

4. The mind is known to be of the form of that self mov�

ing principle, which determines the dnbitation of men between
the aflirmative and negative sides ; (as whether it is so or not
dwikotika), i. e. The principle of rationality or the Reason�
ing faculty, consisting of the two great alternatives; viz, 1 The
principle of contradiction : or of two contradictory propositions
of which one is true, and the other untrue, i. e. Is, or, is rot.
3. Raison determinautie or determining by a priori reasoning, as,
why so and not otherwise.

5. The mind is known to be of the form of Ego, which

is ignorant of the self manifesting soul of God /and believes
itself as the subject of its thoughts and actions.

6. The mind is of the nature of imagination (Kalpand),.

which is ever busy in its operations: hence the inactivity of the

UTPATTI KHANDA.

847

tnind is as impossible in tbU world> as tbc insapiance of the

sapiant man. (Imagination is an active faculty, representing
the phenomena of iho internal and external worlds, Sir W
Hamilton. It is an operation of the mind consisting of manifold
functions, such as ;�1. of receiving by the faculty of concep�
tion. 2. of retaining by the faculty of memory. 3. of recalling
by the power of reproductive fancy j 4. of combining byj pro�
ductive fancy. In modern philosophy, it is the power of appre^
kending ideas, and combining them into new forms).

7. As there is no difference in the essence of fire and heat i

so there is no difference whatever between mind and its activity,
and so betwixt the mind and soul (t. e. the living soul).

8. The mind is known by many names in the same person and

body, according to its various faculties and functions, its various
thoughts and desires, and their manifold operations and conse�
quences. (The mind, soul and intellect taken together as the
same thing, comprise all the powers of intellect and intelli�
gence).

9. The Divine Mind is said to be distributed into all-souls

by mistake and without any reason; since the AlWo pan is
without any substance or substratum, and indivisible in its nature.
It is a mere fabrication of our desires and fancies to diversify it
in different persons. (The Divine mind being the Anima mtindif
contains all wiUiin itself, and having no container of it.

10. Whoever has set his desire in any thing as if it were a

reality, findsthh the same to be attended with the like fruit as he
had expected of it. (It means cither that Association of ideas in
the mind, introducing as by a chord; a train of kindred consecu�
tive ideas, which are realised by their constant repetition, or that
the primary desires of our nature, which are not factiteous, but
rising from out constitutions, are soon satisfied).

11. It is the movement of the mind, whicli is said and per�

ceived by us to be the source of our actions j and the actions
of the mind are as various as the branches, leaves and fruits of
trees. (So it is said, the tree of desire has the mind for its seed,
which gives force to the action of bodily organs, resembling

846

YOGA VA^ISHTHA.

its branches; and the activities of the body, are the causes
which fractify the tree of desire).

l�. Whatever is determined by the mind, is readily brought

into performance by the external organs of action (Karamen>-
driya) j thus because the mind is the cause of action, it is iden�
tified with the effect. (By the law of the similarity of the
cause and effect, in the growth of one seed from another. Or
that the effccient cause a qno, is the same with the final-/>rojD<er-
quod by inversion of the causa-cognosendi-in the effect being
.taken for the cause).

18. The mind, understanding, egoism, intellect, action and

imagination, together with memory, or retentiveness, desire,
ignorance, exertion and memory, arc all synonyms of the mind.
(The powers of the mind, constitute the mind itself).

14. So also sensation, nature, delnsion and actions, arc words

applied to the mind for bewilderment of the understanding.
(Many words for the same thing, are misleading from its true
meaning).

15. The simultaneous collision of many sensations, (like the

Kdk^tAli sanyoga), diverts the mind from its clear sight of the
object of its thought, and causes it to turn about in many
ways.

16. Bdma asked How is it Sir, that so many words with

their different significations, were invented to express the trans-
cendant cause of our consciousness (the mind), and heap them
on the same thing for our confusion only ?

17. Vasishtha replied :�As man began to lose sight of his

^nscionsness, and laboured under suppositions about his-self,
it was then that he found the mind to be the waking principle
within him. (*, e. It is after one has lost the knowledge of his
conscious soul, that he thinks himself to bo composed of the
mind. Or it was after man's degradation from his spiritual
iiature, that ho came to consider himself as an intellectual
being with no higher power than his mental faculties the manat;
(whence he derives his name as man, mdnava or manutha),

18. When man after considering himself and other things

UTPAtTI KHANDA.

249

eomra to understand them in their true light; be is then said

to have his under8tanding-4�i?<^^�. tWe understand with or by
T T^oftTiH of reason, as we py a�proposition is right by its reasons
heluvdda j but not reason on any thing without understanding
it; as we cannot judge of a thing without knowing what it is).

19. When man by false conception of himself, assumes a

personality to him By his pride, he is called an egoist, with the
principle of ego or egoism in him, causing bis bondage on earth.
Absolute egoism is the doubting of every thing beside self-exis>
tence. Personaesl raiionaliea mlwriae miividua snbstantia,
fiocthins.

20. It is called thought which passes from one object to

another in quick succession, and like the whims of boys, shifts
from one thing t6 another without forming a right judgement
of any. (Thoughts are fickle and ficcting, and fiying from one
subject to another, without dwelling long upon any).

21. The mind is identified with acts, done by the exercise of

a power immanent in itself as the agent} and the result of the
actions, whether physical or moral, good or bad, recurs to the mind
in their effects. (The mind is the agent and recepient of the
effects of all its various internal and external actions, such as
right or wrong, virtuous or vicious, praiseworthy or blamable,
perfect or imperfect and the like).

22. Th& mind is termed fancy for its holding fast on fleeting
phantasies by lotting loose its solid and certain truths. It is
also the imagination, for givinsr various images or to the objects
of its desire-t^tto Kalpand, It is called-^ii^iz/ai^tya Sanyoga or
accidental assemblage of fancied objects. It is defined as the
agfglutinative and associative power to collect materials for ima�
gination which builds up on them. {Imagmanesl qnan reieorporae)
figuram eoniemplari. Descartes).

23. The Memory or retention is that power of the mind,

which retains an image whether known or unknown before, as
if it were a certainty known already ; and when it is attended
with the effort of recalling it to the mind, it is termed as remem�
brance or recollection. (Memoiy is the storehouse of ideas

VoL. II. 32

YOGA VAfelSHTHA.

preconceived or tliought to be known before in the mioik

Retention is the keeping of the ideas got from sensation and
reflection. Remembrance is the spontaneous act of the mind;
�nd recollection and reminiscence, are intentional acts of the
will. All these powers and acts of the mind, are singly and
collectively called the mind itself } as when I say, I have got it
in mind, 1 may mean, I have it in memory, remembrance &c. &o.

24. The appetence which readcs in the region of the

mind, for possession of the objects of past enjoyment; as also
the efforts of the mind for attainment of other things, aro
called its desires. (Appetites or desires aro�common to all, and
are sensitive and rational, irascible &c. Vide Reed and Stewart.
The mind is the same as desire; as when I say, 1 have a mind
to do a thing, 1 mean, 1 have a desire to do it).

2&. When the mind�s dear sight of the light of the soni or
self, is obscured by the shadow of other gross things, which
appear to be real instead of the true spiritual, it is called
ignorance ; and is another name of the deluded understanding.
;(It is called avid^A or absence of Vid^d or knowledge of spiri*
tual truth. It becomes Mahdvidyd or incorrigible or invincible
�ignorance, when the manners and the mind arc both vitiated by
falsehood and error).

26. The next is doubt, which entraps the dubious mind in

the snare of scepticism, and tends to be the dcstruction^f the soul,
by causing it to disbelieve and forget the supreme spirit. (To
the sceptic doubts for knowledge rise; bnt they give way before
the advance of spiritual light).

27. The mind is called sensation, because all its actions of

hearing and feeling, of seeing and smelling, thinking and enjoy�
ing, serve to delight the senses, which convey the impressions
back to the mind. (The doctrine that all knowledge is derived
originally from senses, holds the single fact of seusatioB as suffi�
cient for all mental phenomena. It is the phUosophy of Cou-
dUac, called Dirt philosophy by Fichte).

28. The mind that views all the phenomena of nature in

the Supreme Spirit, and takes outward nature as a copy of the

UTPATTI KHANDA.

eternal' mind of God, is designatad by the name of miure-

itself. (Because God is the Natura naturans or the Author of
Nature > and the works of nature�matter and mind, arc the
Natura natHratd, Hence the mind knowing its own nature and
that of its cattsc, is said to be an- union of both natures, and is
the personality of BndimA the Dimiurg, who is combined of
nature and mind).

The mind is called mdyA or magic, because it converts

the real into unreal, and the unreal into real. Thus showing
the realities as unrealities, and the vice-versa by turns. It is
termed error or mistake of our judgement, giving ascent to*
what is untrue and the contrary. The causes of error arc said
to be ignorance (avidyd) and passions (tamas).

SO. The sensible- actions arc seeing and hearing, feelingj

tasting and smelling, of the outward organs of sense ; but the
mind is the cause both of these actions and their acts. (The
blind moves the organs to their aQtions, as also feels and per�
ceives their acts in itself).

31. The intellect (chit) being bewildered in its view of the-

intoHcctual world' (chetyas), manifests itself in the form of the
mind, and becomes the subject of the various functions which
arc attributed to it. (The intellect liaving lost its universality,
and the faculty of intellection or discernment of uuivei'sal
propositions, falls, into, the faults of sensitivity and volition,
by employing itself to particular objects of sense and sensible-
desires).

32. Being changed into the category, of the mind, the intel�
lect loses its original state of purity, and becomes subject to a-
hundred desires of its own making (by its volitivc faculty).

S3. Its abstract knowledge of general truths being shadowed

by its percipience of concrete and particular gross bodies, it comes
to the knowledge of numbers and parts^ and is overwhelmed by-
the multiplicity of its thoughts and the objects of its besires.
(*. e. Having lost the knowledge of the universal whole and
discrete numbers, the mind comes to know the concrete particu�
lars only).

252

YOGA VASISIITHA,

� 34. It is variously styled. as tbe living principle and tlie

mind by most people on earth; but it is known as intellection
and understanding {cbitta and buddhi) by the wise.

36. The intellect being depraved by its falling off from the
sole sitpreme soul^ is variously named by tbe learned according to
its successive phases and {unctions, owing to its being vitiated
by its various desires, and the variety of their objects.

36. Bdma said ;�O Sir! that art acquainted'with all truths,
please tell me, whether the mind is a material or immaterial
thing, which I have not been able to ascertain as yet. (It is
said to be matter by materialists and as spirit by spiritualists).

37. Vasishtha replied:�The mind, O RAma! is neither a

gross substance nor an intelligent principle altogether: it is
originally as intelligent as the intellect; but being sullied by
the evils of the world, and the passions and desires of the body,
it takes the name of the mind. (From its minding of many
things).

38. Tho intellect (chit) which is the cause of the world, is

called the chilla or heart, when it is situated in the bosom of
sentient bodies, with all its affections and feelings (AvilAm).
It then has a nature between goodness and badness (by reason of
its moral feelings and bad passions^

39. When the heart remains without a certain and uniform

fixity to its purpose, and steadiness in its own nature, it feels all
the inner changes with the vicissitudes of the outer world, and is
as a reflector of the same. (The text says, the fluctuations of
the heart, cause the vici&situdcs of the world. But how can the
heart be subjective, and the world the objective? Is the heart
author of its feelings without receiving them from without? Yes).

40. The intellect hanging between its intelligence and gross

objects, takes the name of the mind, when it is vitiated by its
contact with outward objects.

41. When the action of tho Intellect or the faculty of intellec>

tion, is vitiated by sensitivity, and becomes dull by reason of
its inward dross ; it is then styled the mind, which is neither
a gross mhtcrinl thing, nor an intelligent spiritual principle.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

2^3

4'2. The iotellcctual principle is variously designated by

many such names, as the mind, the understanding, the ego,
and the living soul or principle of animation.

43. The mind bears its different appellations according to

the variety of its functions j just as an actor in the theatre,
appears under different names and garbs of the dramatic per�
sonages on the stage. (The world is a stage, where one man
acts many paits. Shakespeare).

44. As a man passes nnder many titles, according to his

various occupations and professions j so the mind takes different
appellations according to the various operations of its nature. (Thus
one man is a scholar, a householder, an oHicer, a subject and many
others at once).

45. Besides the names that I have mentioned regarding the

mind, the disputants in mental philosophy, have invented many
others agreeably to their diverse theories.

46. They have attributed to the mind many designations,

according to the views in whicli they designed to exhibit its
nature; such as some calling it the intellect, another the under�
standing, the sensation and so forth.

47. One takes it as dull matter, and another as the living

principle ; some one calls it the ego, while others apply the term
understanding to it. (As Manas or Manu is the father of and
of the same nature with all mankind j so is the mind 7aattas or
instu, similar in its nature and names with every one and all its
operations).
48. I have told yon, Buma that egoism, mind and the light
of understanding, together with the volition of creation, are
but different properties of the one and same internal principle.
(Ego-the subjective, mind-the motive, nnderstanding-the think�
ing, and the volitive powers, all relate to the same soul. All these
are different faculties having the one and same common root�
the one universal soul).

49. The Ny4y4 philosophy has taken the mind &c., in differ-
ept lights according to its own view of them; and so the Sdnkhya
system explains the perception and senses in a way peculiar to

264

YOGA va'sishtha;

itself. (Namely : tbe Nydya says, the Ego to be a dravga or

substance; th^ living soul as God; tho mind a sensitive par�
ticle and internal organ; and understanding as a transitory
property of the mind. The Sdnkhya has the understanding as
a product of matter, and egoism a resultant of the same, and
the mind as tbe eleventh organ of sense).

60. In this manner are all these terms taken in very differ�
ent acceptations, by tho different systems of Mimansa, Vaiseshi-
ka, Arhata and Buddhist philosophy. The Pancharaiti'a and!
some other systems, have given them particular senses disagree�
ing with one another. Sec Bdkbdldasa Nyayaratna�s tract on
the identity of the mind and the soul almd ; and Hirdlal's reply
to and refutation of the same).

61. All these various doctrines, arising at different times

and in distant countries,, lead at last to tho same supreme Beingj
like the very many different ways, leading their passengets to tho-
same imperial city. (All systems of philosophy, like every scheme
of religion and its different sects and schisms, lead their followers
to the same truth of one Superintending power or Deity).

52. It is ignorance of this supreme truth or misundoi'standing

of the discordant doctrines, that causes the votaries of differ�
ent systems and sects, to carry on an endless dispute among
themselves with bitter acromony. (All party contentions, are
but effects of ignorance of tho various terminology bearing the
same sense).

63. The disputants maintain their particular positions by

their respective dogmatism; just as passengers persist in their
accustomed paths as the best suited to them. (Bias has a strong�
er basis in the mind and has a faster�iiold of tho human heart,,
than the best reason and tho surest truth).

64. They have spoken falsely, whose words point out every
thing as the fruit of our acts, and direct mankind only to the
performance of their actions. It is according to the various
prospects that men have in view, that they have given their
reasons in their own ways. (Ask of the learned, tho learned
are blind this, bids you shun, and that to love mankbd Pope).

UTPATTI.KEANDA.

�5S

56. mind receives its varioos names from its different

iiinctions as a man is called a Snatuka or early bather, and a
ddtd �donor, from his acts of sacred oblutions and religious gifts.

56. As the actor gets Ms many titlesj according to the seve-

ral parts which he performs; so the sund takes the name of a
Jfva or living being, from its animation of the body and its
desires. (The mind is repeatedly said to be the animating and
Tolitive principle).

67. The mind is said to be the heart also, which is perceived

by every body to reside within himself. A man without the
heart, has no feeling nor sensation.

58. It is the heart which feels the inward pleasure or pain,

derived from the sight or touch, hearing or smdling, and eating
and drinking of pleasurable and painful things.

59. As the light shows the colours of things to the sight,

so the mind is the organ, that reflects and shows the sensations
of all sensible objects in the cranium and sensory.

60. Know him as the dullest of beings, who thinks the mind
to be a dull material substance; and whose gross understanding
cannot understand the nature of the Intellect.

61. The mind is neither intelligence (chetana) nor inert

matter (jada); it is the ego that has sprang amidst the various
joys and griefs in this world. (The pure intelligence knows no
pleasure nor pain; but the mind which is the same with the
conscious ego, is subjected to both in this world).

62. The mind which is one with the divine Intellect (�'. e.
sedately fixed in the one Brahmd), perceives the world to be
absorb^ into itself; but being polluted with matter (like fresh
water with soil), it falls into the error of taking the world for
real. O^he clear mind like clear water is unsullied with the soil
of the material world; but the vitiated mind, like foul water,
is full of the filth of worldlincss).

63. Enow Bdma, that neither the pure immaterial intellect,

nor gross matter as the inert stone, can be the cause of the ma�
terial world. (The spirit cannot produce matter, nor can dull
matter be productive of itself).

yOOA VASiStITIlA.
2fi6

64. Know then, O BAghava, that neither intelligence nor

inertia, is the cause of the world; it is the mind that is the
cause of visihle objects, as it is the light which unfolds them to
the view. (Intelligence is the knowledge of the self*evident,
and not their cause).

65. For where there is no mind, there is no perception of the

outer world, nor docs dull matter know of the existence of
anything; but everything is extinct with the extinction of the
mind. (A dead body like a dull block, is insensible of every thing).

66. The mind has a multiplicity of synonyms, varied by its

multifarious avocations; as the one continuous duration under�
goes a hundred homonyms, by the variations of its times and
seasons.

67. If egoism is not granted to be a mental action, and the

sensations be reckoned as actions of the body; yet its name of
the living principle, answers for all the acts of the body and
mind. (Egoism or knowledge of the self, is attributed to the
soul by some schools of philosophy, and sensations are said to be�
corporeal and nervous actions; yet the moving and animating
power of the mind, must account for all bodily and mental

; actions.)

68. Whatever varieties are mentioned of the mind, by the

reasonings of different systems of philosophy, and sometimes
by tlie advocates of an opinion, and at othem by their adver*
sarics:�

89. They arc neither intelligible nor distinguishable from

one another, except that they arc all powers of the self-same
mind; which like the profiuent sea, pours its waters into innu�
merable outlets.

70. As soon as men began to attribute�materialistic powers

and force to the nature of the pore (immaterial) consciousness,
they fell into the error of these varieties of their own making.

71. As the spider lets out its thread from itself, it is in the
same manner that the inert has sprung from the intellect, and
matter has come into existence from the ever active spirit of
of Brahma.

UtPATTI KBCANDA. Sst

iptlie Sniti says t�-Every thing comes out 6f the spirit as the
thread from the spider, the hairs and nails from the animid
body,�and as rocks and vegitablos springing from the earth).

72. It is ignonmce (of the said Srati)) that has iatrodaced

the vaiiooB opinions concerning the essence of the mind � and
hence arose the various synonymous expressions, significant of
the Intellect among the opponents.

73. , The same pure Intellect, is brought to bear the different

de^gnations of the mind, as Understanding, living principle and
^oism} and the same is expressed in the world by the terms
intellig^ce, heart, animation and many other synonyms, which
being taken as e:tpressive of the same thing, must pat an end
to all dispute. (So all metaphysical disputes owe their origin
to the difference of terminology. Such as, Kant regarded the
mind under its true &culties of cognition, desire and moral
feeling, called as Erkenut nifvermogen or Denkvermogen;
Begebrun-gsvermogen, and Gefuhlsvermogen. Instead of multi-.
plying the synonyms of Mind here, I refer the reader to Boget�s,
Thesaurus for them).

Vot. 11.

33

CHAPTER LXXXXVII.

The Maostitude of the Sfhsbe of the Ikteli.ect.

Argmnent. The IntellectuBl, Mental and Material Spheres, and their

tepresentationa in the Mind.

K ama sudI come to imderstand, O venerable sage I from

all you have propounded, that this grandeur of the uni�
verse being the work of the Divine Mind, is all derived from the
same. (Here the cr^tion of the world by the Divinci mind, is
viewed in the pantheistic light of Emanation).

8. Vasuhtha answered .��The Mind as already said, having

assumed a substantial form, manifested itself in the form of
water in the mirage, raised by the shining blaze of its own light.
(This passage embodies both theories, that light was the first
work of God, and the Spirit of God moved on the surface of the
waters. 0 ruAEloim marhapeih-fi pene al maim. Genesis. Apa
eva Satarjddau. Manu).

S. The mind became amalgamated (identic), with the con

tents of the world, in the Spirit of Brahmd, now showing itself
in the form of man, and now appearing as a God. (�. e,
the mind reflected bn these images which were evolution of itself
in itself; because the thought or product of the mind, was
of the same substance with itself. (This accords with the pan-
thtistic doctrine, that God and Nature are one substance, and
the one is a modification of the other).

4. Somewhere he showed himself as a demon and at another

place like a yaktha (yakka) j here he was as a Oandiarvd, and
there in the form of a Kinnard. (All these were the ideal* ma�
nifestations of the Divine Mind).
5. The vast expense of the Mind, was found to comprise in it
the various tracts of land; and the pictures of many cities and
habitable places. (Beinrase the mind is the reservoir of all their
images).

UTPATTI KHANDA.

26�

6. Such being tiie capacity of the mmdj there is no reckon*

ing of the millions of bodies, wluch are contained in it, like the
woods and plants in a forest. All those are not worth our con�
sideration in our inquiry about the mind. (They are as useless
to the pqrchologist as botany is to the g^olog^t).

7. It was this mind which spread out the world with all its
contents, beside which there exists naught bnt the Supreme
Spirit. (The mind is the container of the architypes of the
ectypical world, or the recording power of knowledge; but the
Supreme Soul is the disembodied self�consciousness, having the
principle of volition or Will ; while the Spirit is the animating
faculty of the soul).

8. The soul is beyond every category, it is omnipresent and

the substratum of all existence, and it is by the power of this
soul, that the mind doth move and manifest itself. (The mind,
is the soul incorporated with bodies; but the soul is quite apart
from these).

9. The Mind is known as the cause of the body, which is

work of the mind; it is born and becomes extinct with the
body, which the soul does not, nor has it any such quality which
belongs to the mind.

10. The mind is found by right reasoning to be a perishable

object, and no sooner doth it perish, than the living soul suo-
ceeds to obtain its final liberation. For the desires of the mind
are the bondage of its transmigration, but the dissolution of the
mind with its desires, secures its libo{ation. (Volition and
velleity, are the active and inactive acts of the mind for its eternal
bondage).

11. After decadence of the mental desires there is no more

any exertion for acts. This state is called the liberation of liv�
ing Bonl^ from thmr release from trouble and care; and the
mind thus released, never comes to be bom and die again. (Fre^
from desire, is freedom from deadly sin).

12. Rdma saidSir ! Yon have said before, that human

nature is principally of three kinds viz:�the good,'the.gentle

800
YOGA VA'SKHUfA.

�ltd the base (Satjfd, rajai and tanMs ); and it is owing to the good
or bad nature o� their minds, that men differ from one an
other.

IS. Now please tell me, how could the wondrous mind on*
ginate from the pure intellect with its good or bad propensities,
whkili are wanting in the Divine Intellect.

14. Vasishtba replied:�Know BAma, that there are three

spheres of the infinite vacuity, at immense distances from one
another: and these arc the intellectual, mental, and the physical
spheres.

15. These spheres are common to all mankind, and are q>read
out everywhere; and they have all sprung and come to being from
the essence of the C/dt or Divine Intellect. (The first is the
space of Divine Infinity, the second is the tpatium dunamia or
potential space and may be filled by bodies; and the third is
the place energei or actually occuiued by bodies).

16. That space which is both in the inside and outside of

everything, and denotes its occupation or otherwise by some
substance or its absence, and pervades through all nature, is eall>
ed the inane sphere of the Intellect.

17. That is called the sphere of the Intellect, which embraces

all space and time which has spread out the other spheres, and
which is the highest and best of all.

18. The physical sphere contains all created beings, and ex�
tends to the circuit of the ten sides, all about and above and
below us. It is a continued space filled with air, which supports
the clouds and waters above the firmament.

19. Then the vacuity of the mental sphere, which has also
sprung from the intellectual sphere, has likewise the intellect for
its cause like the others, as the day is the source of all works and
animal activities. (Here the word works has the double sense
of the works of creation, which were made in the week dajrs, and
the daily works of men and their religious duties, all which
arc done in the day time. The night being the lime to

UTPATTI KHANDA.

S6l

20.. The vitiated Intellect which views itself as a dull thing,

amidst the gross material objects of the physical sphere, the
same is termed the mind, which thinks of both spheres, whence
it is bom and where it is placed.

21. It is for the understanding of the unenlightened, that I

have made use of the metaphor of the spheres; because figures are
used for the instruction of the unenlightened and not to lighten
the enlightened. (These serve for ocular demonstrations in ma<
thematical and not in metaphysical sciences).

22. In the intellectual sphere, you will see one Supreme

Brahma, filling its whole space, and being uritbout parts or attri�
butes, and intelligible only to the enlightened.

23. The ignorant require to be instracted in appropriate

words and precise language, showing the demarkation between
monotheism and detheism, which is unnecessary for the instrac-
iion of the enlightened.

24. I have contrived to explain to you the nature of divine

knowledge, by the parable of the three spheres, which will en�
lighten yon as long as you are in dark on the subject.

25. The intellectual sphere being obscured by ignorance,

we are led to look into the mental and physical spheres; not
knowing that they are as delusive as the sunbeams in a mirage,
and es destractive as the flames of a conflagration.

26. The pure intellect being changed to the state of the

changeful mind, takes a debased figure; and then being con�
founded in itself, weaves the magic web of the world to entangle
itself in the same.

*27. The ignorant that are glided by the dictates of their

perverted minds, know nothing concerning the nature of the In�
tellect, which is identic with the Supreme. So the witless that

*Tlie allegory of the three epherei, means no more than the triple state
of man, as a spiritual, an intellectnal and a physioal or oorporml being. The
Jntelleotnal ati^ in the text, is properly the spiritual and highest state of
a human being. Tim mental is nert to tho intelleotual or midmost atate
of man, and the physical or corporeal state, is tho lonrest condition, in which
the ekrated nature of humanity is subjected like an inferior animal, to gtorel
upon the earth.

262 �

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

uawittongljr ti&e the white sheik for bright silrer, are seen to
labour under their delusion, until they are freed from it, by the
clear light of their understanding.

CHAPTER LXXXXVm.
Histoey oe the HmtAK Heabt.

Armament. The wide extent of the Heart and ite ultimate Dimolutiom

W HATEVER may be tbe origin and: nature of the human

hea^ (vhicb eome take for the mind), it should be always
inquired inte in seeking out one's own liberation. fFbe heart
called ant^karanet�^ inner organ, is often supposed as the
same with mind; its cravings after worldliness, are to be
suppressed under its longing for liberation from worldly cares).

2. The heart being fixed in the Supreme, becomes purified

of its worldly desires and attachments; and then O Rdmal
it perceives that soul in itself, which transcends all imaginations
of the mind. (Kalpands are imaginary attributes of God in
the mind; who can only be seen in.the Wrt).

8. It is the province of the heart, to secure tbe sedateness

of tbe world in itself: and it lies in the power of the heart,
either to make its bondage or get its freedom, from the desires
and troubles of the world.

4. On this subject there hangs a curious tale relating the

legend of the heart, which was revealed to me of yore by Brah^'
md himself; and which I will now relate � to you Rdma. if yon
will listen, to it with attention.

6. There is a long, open and dreary desert Bdmdtavl by

name; which was quite still and solitary and without an inha-
bitant, ,in it; and so vast in its extent, as to make a pace of
a league of .it. (Or rather to make a league of a pace of it).

6. There stood a man of a terrific and gigantic figure in it,

with ft sorrowful visage, and troubled mind, and having a thous-
a^ arms and a thousand ^es.

7, He held many clubs and maces in all his manifold arms,

with which he was striking his own back and breast, and then

4�i YOGA VASISHTHA

ronning away in this directioa andtliat; (as if for fear of being

caught by some one).

8. Then having sthloh himself fast and bhrd with his own
hands, he fled a&r a hundred leagues for fear of.bmg laid hold
by some body.

9. Thus striking and crying and flying afar on all sidSS, he

became tired and spent, and lank in his legs and arms.

10. fie fell flat with his languid limbs in a large blind pit,
amidst the deep gloom of a dark night, and in the depth of a'
dire dark cave (from which he could not rise).

11. After the lapse of a long time, he scrambled out of the

pit with difficulty; and again continued to run away, and strike
himself with his own hands as before.

12. He ran again a great way, till at last he fell upon a

thorny thicket of Karanja plants, which caught him as fast in
in its brambles, as a moth or grosshopper is caught in a flame.

18. He with much difficulty extricated himsdf from the

prickles of the Karanja furze; and began again to beat bimiMlf
as before, and run in his wonted course as usual.

li. Having then'gone a great way off from that place, he

got to a grove of plantain arbour under the cooling moonbeams,
where he sat for a while with a smiling countenance.

15. Having then come out of the plantain grove, he went

on running and beating himself in his usual way.

16. Going again a great way in his hurriness, he fell down

again in a great and darksome ditch, by being exhausted in all
his limbs and his whole body.

17. Rising from the ditch, he entered a plantain forest, and

coming out from that spot, he fell into another ditch and then
in another Karanja thicket.

18. Thus be was falling into one ditch after rising from a

thorny furze, and repeatedly beating himself and crying in

secret.

19. 1 beheld him going on in this, way'for a long time/

ITTPATTI KHANDA.

26S

thAQ I all my force, rasked forward and stopped kim

la his. way.

20. I asked him saying :�Who are you Sir, and why do
you act in this manner ? What business hare yon in this place,
and why do yon wail and trouble yonrseI� for nothing ?

21. Being thus asked by me, O RAma! he answered me

saying;�am no body, O sage t nor do I do any such thing
as yon are telling me about.

22. I am here stricken by you, and you are my greatest

enemy; I am here beheld and persecuted by you, both to my
great sorrow and delight.

23. Saying so, he looked sorrowfully into his bruised body

and limbs, and then cried aloud and wept a flood of tears, which
fell like a shower of rain on the forest ground.
24. After a short while he ceased from his weeping, and
then looking at his limbs; he laughed and cried aloud in his
mirth.

25. After his laughter and loud shouts were over, hear, O
E&ma! what the .man next did before me. He began to tear
off and separate the members of his big body, and cast them
Rway on alt sid^.

26. He first let &I1 his big head, and then his arms, and
afterwards his breast and then his belly also.

27. Thos the man having severed the parts of his body one
after another, was now ready to remove himself elsewhere with
his 1^ only, by the decree of his destby.

28. After he had gone, there appeared another man to my

aighty of the same form and figure with the former one, and
striking his body himself as the other.

22. He kept running with his big legs and outstretched

stout arms, until he fell into the pit, whence he rose again, and
betook tp his fl^ht as before.

80. He fell mto a pond again, and then rose and ran with
his body wringing with pain i falling again in hidden caves,
�ad then resortmg to the codmg shade of forest trees.

. Voii. n. 34

rOGA Ti^ISHTHA.

SM

51. Nov idling and now regaling, and now torturing himself
with his own .hands: and in this way 1 saw him for sometime
with horror and surprise in myself.

52. I stopped him in his course, and asked about what

he was doing; to which he returned hk crying and laughter
for his answers by turns.

88. Finding at last his body and limbs decaying in their

strength, he thought upon the power of destiny, and the state
of human lot, and was prepared to depart.

34. I came again to see another succeeding him in the same

desert path, who had been fl}Hing and torturing himself in the
same way as the others gone before him.

35. He fell in the same dark pit in his flight, where I stood �
long to witness his sad and fearful plight.

36. Finding this wretched man not rising above the pit
for a long time, I advanced to raise him up, when 1 saw another
man following his footsteps.

37. Seeing him of the same form, and hastening to his impcn�
ding fall in the dolefullpit, I ran to stop his fate, by the same
query I made to the others before.

38. But O lotus-eyed R4ma I the man paid no heed to my

question and only said, you must be a fool to know nothing ci
me.

89. You wicked Brdhman! he said to mo, and went on in

his course ] while 1 kept wandering in that dreadful desert in
my own way.

40. I saw many such men coming one after the other to
their unavoidable ruin, and though I addressed to all and every
(me of them, yet they softly glided away by me, like phantoms
in a dream.

41. Some of them gave no heed to my saying, ae a man

pays no attention to a dead body; and some among the pit-&llen
had the gfood fortune of rising again.

42. Some among these had no egress from the plantain

UTPATTI KHANDA,

267

grove for a long wLile, and some were lost forever, amidst the
thorns and thistles of Karanja thickets.

4S. There were some pious persona among them, that had
no place for their abode; though that great desert was so very
extensive as I have told you already; (and capable of affording
habitations for all and many more of them).

44. This vast desert is still in existence, together with these

sorts of men therein; and that place is well known to you,
Brdma, as the common range of mankind. Don^t yon remember it
now, with all the culture of your mind from your early youth ?

45. O that dreadful desert is this world, filled with thorns and
dangers on all sides. It is a dark desert amidst a thick spread
darkness, and no body that comes herein, finds the peace and
quiet of his heart, except such as have acquired the divine know�
ledge, which makes it a rose garden to them. (See the pit-falls
in the bridge of Addison's Vision of mirza).

CHAPTER LXXXXIX.
Histoby of the Heabt Continued.
Argument. Explanation of the preceding Aliog(� 7 .

R A'MA said :--What is that gfieat desert, Sir, and when was it
seen by me, and how came it to be known to me? What
were those men there, and what were they about ?

2. Vasishtha repliedAttend O great>armed Rdmal and

I will tell you all

That great desert is not distant nor different from this wilder-
jiess of the world.

S. That which bears the name of the world, is a deep and

dark abyss in itself. Its hollowness is nnfathomable and un-
fordable; and its un-reality appearing as reality to the ignorant,
is to be known as the great desert spoken of before.

4. The true reality is obtainable by the light of reason only,

and by the knowledge of one object alone. This one is full
without its union with any other, it is one and only by itself.

6. The big bodied men, that you beheld wandering therein,

know them to be the minds of men, and bound to the miseries
of the world.

6. Their observer was Reason personified in myself, and it

was I only and no other person, that could discern the folly of
their minds by my guiding reason.

7. It is my business to awaken those drowsy minds to the

light of reason, as it is the work of the sun to open the lotos-
buds to bloom, by his enlivening rays.

8. My counsels have prevailed on some minds and hearts,

which have received them with attention; and have tumedthem
away from earthly broils, to the way of true contentment and
tranquility.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

9. But tUere were others that paid no attention to my Iec>

tores through their great ignorance; but fell down into the pit,
npon being chid by me with reproofs and rebukes.

10. Those deep and dark pits were no other than the pits
of hell and the plantain groves of which I have told you, were
the gardens of Paradise.

11. Know these to be the scats of those minds which long

for heavenly joys, and the dark pits to be the abode of hellish
hearts, which can never get their release from those darksome
dungeons.
19. Those who having once entered the plantain grove, do
not come out any more from it; know them to be the minds of
the virtuous, and frought with all their virtues.

13. Those which having fallen into the Karanja thiefets, were
unable to extricate themselves from the thorns; know them to
be the minds of men, that are entangled in the snares of the
world.

14. Some minds which were enlightened with the knowledge

of truth, got released from the snares} but the unenlightened
are bound to repeated transmigrations in different births.

16. The souls which are subjected to metempsychosis, have

their rise and fall in repetition, from higher to lower births, and
the viee-verta likewise.

16. The thick thicket of Karanja brambles, represents the

-.bonds of conjugal and family relations} they are the source

of various human desires, which are springs of all other woe,

difficulty and dangers.

17. The minds that have been confined in the Karanja

bashes are those, that are repeatedly born in human bodies,
and are repeatedly entangled into domestic attachments from
which all other animals are quite at large.

18. 0 support of Bohn's race! the plantain grove which

I told you was cooling with moonbeams ; know the same to be
the refreshing arbour of heaven, which gives delight to the
soul.

270

rOQi VA^ISBTHA.

19. Those persons are placed here, who have their bodies
fraught with yirtuous deeds, and edified by persevering devotioB-
and aTisterities, and whose souls are elevated above others.

20. Those ignorant, thoughtless and unmindful men, that

slighted my advice, were themselves slighted by their own minds^
which were deprived of the knowledge of their own souls and
of their reason.

21. Those who told me, *'we are undone at your sight, and
you are our gp^atest enemy"; were demented fools, and melting
away with their lamentations (for having disregarded my coun�
sels).

22. Those who were loudly wailing, and let fall a flood of
tears in their weeping; were men who bitterly deplored in their
minds f&r being snatched from the snare of pleasures, to which
they had been so fondly attached.
23. Those having a little sense and reason, but not arriving
to the pure knowledge of God; were bitterly complaining in
their hearts, for being obliged to fonsake their fond enjoyments
of life.

24. Those who came to their understanding, now wept over

the pains which they had inflicted on their bodies, for the sup-
portance of their families; and were grieved in their minds to
leave behind the objects of their care, for whom they had taken
such pains.

25. The minds that had some light of reason, and had not
yet arrived to divine knowledge, were still sorrowing for having
to leave behind their own bodies, wherein they had their late
abode.

26. Those who smiled in the cheerfulness of their hearts,

were men who had come to the light of reason; and it was their
reason which gave consolation to their hearts.

27. The reasonable soul that is removed from its bondage

of the world, exults with joy in its mind, to find itself liberated
from the cares of life.

Those men who laughed to scorn their battered and shaiK

DTPATTI KHANDA.

271

tered bodies, were glad to think in their minds, how they got
rid of the confines of their bodies and limbs, the accomplices of
their actions.

29. Those who lai^hed with scorn to see the falling mem*
bers of their bodies, were glad to think in their minds, that they
were no better than instruments to their various labours in the
world.

80. Those who had come to the light of reason, and had
found their rest in the supremo state of felicity, looked down
with scorn upon the former abodes of their meanness from a
distance.

81. The man who was stopped by me on his way and asked
with concern (about what he was going to do); was made to under�
stand how the power of wisdom, could outbrave the desperate.

r 82. The weakened limbs, that gradually disappeared from

sights meant the subjection of the members of the body, under
the control of the mind, that is freed from its venality of
riches.

S3. The man that is represented with a thousand arms and

eyes, is a symbol of the covetous mind, which looks to and longs
after everything, and wants to grasp all things, as with so many
hands. Cl^he ambition of Alexander is described to count the
spheres, and grasp the earth and heaven in his arms).

84. The man that was striking himself with his blows,
meant the torments which a man inflicts on his own mind, by
the strokes of his anxieties and cares.

85. The man who had been running away with striking
bud blows upon his body, signified how the mind runs all about,
being lashed at every moment by the strokes of bis insatiate
desires.

86. The man that afflicts himself by his own desires, and
then flies to this way and that, signifies his fool-heartedness to
hunt after everything, and be a runaway from himself.

87. Thus every man being harassed by bis ceaseless desires.

tit TOGA VifSISHi^HA.

patits ift his mind to fly to his Maker, and-set his heart to
meditation. '

38. All these ceaseless woes are the making o� one^s own
mind, which being worried at last by its incessant anxietieSi
strives to retire from them, to find its final repose in yoga.

89. The mind is entrapped in the net of its own wisheSi

as the silk worm is entwined in the caokoon by the thread of its
own making.

- 40. The more is the mind of man afilicted by troubles, the

more busily is it employed in its foibles; just as a boy indulges
himself in his palyfulness, unmindful of the evils waiting upon it.

41. The mind of man is in the same plight as that of the

foolish ape; which in striving to pull out the peg of a half split

4;unber, lost its life by the smashing of its testo in the crevice.
(See the story of the ape and its pulling the peg in the Hitopadesa
and its persian version of the Anvarsoheli).

42. No flight can release the mind, unless it is practised to

resignation, restrained from its other pursuits, and constrained to
the continued practice of pious meditation, which can only re�
leave its sorrows.

43. It is the misjudgmcnt of the mind, that is the cause of

accumulated woes, which increase in height as the peak of a
mount; so it is the govemment^of the mind which melts our
woes, like the hoarfrost under sunbeams,

- 44. Accustom your mind to the righteous ways pointed out

by the sdstras in all your life time. Restrain your appetites, and
govern your passions, and observe the taciturnity of holy saints,
and ss^. You will at last arrive to the holy state of holies,
and rest under the cooling umbrage of holinem, and shall no
more have to grieve under the calamities which betide all man�
kind.

CHAPTER C.

IIe.vlinu of the Heaht.

Xrf^amont. Arguing the Omnipotence of the Deity from tfie powers

of the mind ; and showing ignoranoo and knowledge to bo the different
causes of Human bondage and liberation in life.

Y ASISIITIIA continuedI have told you of the origination �

of the mind from the essence of the Supreme being; it is
of the same kind, and yet not the same with its source, but like
the waves and waters of the sea. (The mind being but an
attribute of the Divine soul).

2. The 'minds of the enlightened are not different from the

Divine Mind; as those that have the knowledge of the community
of waters, do hot rcghlrd the Waves to differ from the waters of
the seh.

3. The minds of the unenligtencd arc the causes of their

error, as those not knowing the common property of water, find
a difference in the waters of the waves and the sea.

4. It is requisite for the instruction of the unlearned, to

acquaint them of the relation between the signifleant words and
their significations; (as the relation of water between the waves
and the sea).

5. The Supreme Brahma is omnipotent, and is full and

perfeet and undecaying for ever. The mind has not the proper�
ties that belong to the omnipresent soul.

8. The Lord is Almigty and omnipresent, ind distributes his

all diffusive power, in proportion as he pleases to every one he
likes.

7. Observe RAma, how the intellectual powers are distribu�

ted in all animal bodies (in their duo proportion); and how
hip moving force is spread in the air, and his immobility rests
in the rocks and stones.

Voi. IL 35

YOOA Va'SISBTHA.

8. His power of fluidity is deposited in tbe water^ atid hi*

power of inflamation is exhibited in fire $ his vacuity is manifest
ted in vaenum, and bis substantiality in all solid substances.

9. The omnipotence of Brahma, is seen to stretch itself to

all the ten sides of the universe; his power of annihilation is
seen in the extinction of beings; and his punishment is evident,
in the sorrows of the miserable.

10. His felicity is felt in the hearts of the holy, and his
prowe^ is seen in the persons of giants; his creative power is
known in the works of his creation, and his power of destruction
in the desolation of the world, at the end of the great Kalpa age.

11. Everything is situated in Brahma, as the tree is con�

tained in the seed of the same kind, and afterwards dcvelopes
in its roots and sprouts, its leaves and branches, and finally in
its fiowers and fruits.

12. The power called the living principle, is a reflexion of

God, and is of a nature between the thinking mind and dull
matter, and is derived from Brahma.

13. The nature of God is unchangeable, although it is usual

to attribute many varieties to him; as we call the same vege�
table by the different names of a germ, a sprout, a shrub, a plant
and a tree at its different stages of growth.

14. Know Bdma, the whole world to be Brahma, who is

otherwise termed the Ego. He is the all j>ervading soul, and the
everlasting stupendous fabric of the cosmos.

15. That property in him which has the power of thinking, is

termed the mind; which appears to be something other than
the Soul, thus we erroneously sec peacock�s feathers in the sky,
and froths in the eddies of water; (and suppose them as different
things from the sky and water).

16. The principles of thought and animation�the mind and

life, are but partial reflexions of the Divine Soul; and the form
of mind is the &culty of thought, as that of life is the power of
animation. (The one is called tire rational and the other ani�
mating soul).

tTTPATTI KUANDA.

275-

17. Thus tUe mitul being bat the tbinking power of Brahma,
receives the appellation of Brahmd; and this power appearing
as a part of the impersonal Brahma, is identified with Ego (the
personal Btahmd).

18. It is oar error which makes a difference between the

BOttl and mind, and Brahma and Brahma; because the propertiea
which belong to tiie mind, are the same with those of the self>
existent soul.

19. That which u Tarioosly named as the princi];de mind

or thought, is the same power of omnipotence which is settled

in the mind (which is the repository of the thinking powers).

20. So are all the properties of the living soul, contained in

and derived from the universal soul of Brahma ; as all the pro*
perties of vegetation, blossoming and fructification of trees, are
contained in the season of spring, and are dispensed among the
plants, agreeably to their respective soil and climate, and other
circumstances (of their culture &c).

21. As the earth yields its various fruits and flowers in their
season, so the hearts and minds of men, entertain their thoughts
and passions in their proper times : some appearing at one time
and others at another: (like the paddies and other grains of
particular seasons).

22. And as the earth produces its harvests, according to

their particular soil and season ; so the heart and mind exhibit
their thoughts and feelings of their own accord, and not caused
by another.

23. The numbers and forms which convey determinate ideas,

as distinguished from others of the same kind, (as the figures in
arithmetic and geometry), are all expressed in words coined
by the mind from the mint of the mind of Brahma, the original
source of ideas.

24. The mind adopts the same image as the refioxions which it
receive from without, or the thoughts and imaginations it forms
of itself, and as the instance of tho Aindava brothers, serves, to
support this truth; (of the double power of iutmUon and perception

m YOGA VA^ISHTnA.

qC the mind, to see into its own inner operations, and- receive the,
impressions from without).

26. The animating principle (jiva-zoa', which is the cause,

of this creation, resides in the Supreme Spirit, like the d uctua"
tion which is seen in the nnagitated waters of the. oceans.

26. The intelligent soul sees these hosts of creation to he.

moving in the essence of Brahma, as be beholds the innumerable,
waves, billows and surges of the sea, rolling on the surface of the.
waters.

27. There is no other reality that hears a name or form or.

figure or any action or motion except the supreme spirit; in
Tvbich all things move about as the waves of the sea water, (and;
which is the real source of the unrcals).
28. As the rising and falling and continuation and disap^
pearance of waves, occur on the surface of the sea by the fluctu�
ation of its waters; so the creation, sustentation and annihilation
of the universe, take place in Brahma, by the. agency of Brahm%
himself.

29. It is by the inward heat of his spirit, that Brahmin

causes this world to appear as a mir^c in himself; and what�
ever varieties it presents in its various scenes, they are all expan�
sions and manfestations of the Divine Spirit.

30. .AH causality and instrumantality, and their resultants as

well as the production, continuance and destruction of all things;,
take place in Brahma himself; beside which t^icrc is no other
cause whatever.

31. There is no appetence nor pleasure, nor any desire, or.

error in him, who relies his dcpcndancc in the Supreme; for how,
can one have any desire or error in himself who lives in the.
Supreme self, who is devoid of them ?,

32. The whole is a form of the Supreme soul, .nnd all things
are but forms of the same; and the mind also is a form of it, as
a golden ornament is but a form of the gold.

33. The mind which is ignorant of its Supreme origin, is,

called the livjng soul ^ which from its ignorance of the Snprepao..

UTPATTI KHANDA.

m-

qoul, rcEcmbIcs a friend who has alienated- himself from, his true
friend.

84-. The mind, which is misled- by its ignorance of the all-inr.

tclligcnt God, to imagine its own personality as a reality} is as
one who believes his living soul to be the production of vacuum;
(or as something produced- from nothing).

85. The living soul althonth it is a particle of the Supreme

soul, shows itself in this world as no soul at all, (but a form of
mere physical vitality). So the purblind see two moons in the,
sky, and are unable to distinguish the true moon from the false
one.

36. So the soul being the only real entity, it is improper to,
speak of its bondage and liberation; and the imputation of error,
to it, is quite absurd in the sight of lexicographers, who define
it as infallible.

37. It is a wrong impression to. sppak of tjie bondage of tho.

Eonl, which is ever free from bonds; and so it is untrue to seek the.
emancipation of tho soul, which is always emancipate.

38. Ildma asked :�The mind is known sometimes to arrive,

i^t a certainty, which is changed to uncertainty at another; how
then do you say that the mind is not under the bondage of
error?

39. Vasishthd answered :�It is a fal^ conceit of the ignorant,

to imagine its bondage; and their imagination of its emancipa-.
tion, is equally a false conception of theirs,

40. It is ignorance of the smrt/c that causes one to,

Iwlicvc in his bondage and emancipation; while in reality there,

arc no such things as bondage and liberation.

41. Imagination represents an unreality as reality, even to.,

men of enlightened understandings; as a rope presents theap-.
pearance of a snake even to the wise.

42. The wise man knows no bondage or liberation, nor any.

error of any kind: all these three arc only in the conceptions oi^-
the ignorant.

72S

YOGA VATSISBTHA.

43. At first tbo mind and then its bondage and liberation^
and afterwards its creation of the nnsttbstantial material world,
are all bnt fabnloos inventions that have come into vogue among^
men, as the story of the boy of old j (or as theold grand-mother�a
tale).

Note�^The conclusion of this chapter conceming^ the negation

of bondage and liberation of the soul, and its error and enlighten�
ment &c., rests on the text of a Srati; which negates everything
in the sight of one who has come to the %ht of the universal
soul. The passage is

ai fSucWt ww 1 TO i:^ni irwHInTt

CtlAPTEtt Cl.

StO&y or TUB Boy and three FRiNCsSt

^A� Alle^oty 0 /ike Hindu Triads),

Argattent The old Hurae�s tale of the three Princee or Powers of the

Soul, in elucidation of the Fabrications of Imagination^

R ama said:�Belate to me, O chief of sages j the tale of

the boy, in illnstration of the Mind, (and the other prin*
ciples of our intellectual nature).
2. Vasistha replied t-^Hear me Rdma, tell you the tale of a
silly and jolt*headed boy, who once asked his nurse, to recite to
him some pretty story for his amusement.

8. The Nurse then began to relate her fine wrought story

for the pleasure of the boy, with a gladsome countenance, and
in accents sweet as honey.

4 There were unce on a time, some three highminded and

fortunate young princes; in a desolate country, who were noted
for their virtues and valour. (The three princes were the three
hypostases of the holy trinity, dwelling in the land of inexist^
once or vacuity, asali^ure. i. e. These triple powers were in
being in empty spice, which is co'eternal with theml.

6. They shone in that vast desolate land resembling the spa*

otous sky, like stars in the expanse of the waters below. Two of
them were unbegotten and increate, and third was not bom of
the mother's womb. (Those three uncreated princes, were the
principles of the soul and the mind, and the living soul-jiva,
which is not procreated in the womb with the body).

6. It happened once on a time, that these three, started to*

gether from their drrary abode (of vacuum), for the purpose
of finding a better habitation somewhere else. They had no other
companion with them, and were sorrowful in their minds, and
melancholy in their countenances; as if they were transported

280

YOGA VA'SISHTUA.

from Iheir native country. (This means the emigration oE

these principled, from the eternal and inane sphere of Brahma, to
tite mundane world of mortality, which was very painful to
them).

7. Having come oht of that desert land, they set forth

with their faces looking forward j and proceeded onward like
the three planets Mercury, Venus and Jupiter in their conjunc*
tioh.

8. Their bodies which were as delicate as SirMia flowers,

were scorched by the powerful sun shining on their bwks;
and they were dried like leaves of trees by the heat of the
summer day on their way. (t. e. Their tender spiritual bodies
melted under the heat of the solar world).

9. Their Idtns like feet were singed by the burning sands

of their desert path, and they cried aloud like some tender
fawns, going ^tray from their herd saying:��O Father save us^�.
(The alienated soul and mind, which are doomed to rove about in
this woi-d, are subjected to endless paind, causing them to cry out
like the tormented spirit of our Lord :�^Eli Elild sabaktni: �
Lord, Lord, hast thoti forsaken me ?).
10. The soles of their feet were bruised by the blades of
grass, and the joints of their bodies, were weakened by the heat
of the sun; while their fair forms were covered with dust flyiiig
from the ground on their lonesome journey. (Their pilgrim�
age in the thorny and sunny paths of the world of woes).

11. They saw the clump of a leash of trees by the way sidei
which were braided with tufts of spikes upon them, and loaded
with fruits and flowers hanging downward; while they formed
a resort for flights of the fowls of air, and flocks of the fawna
of the desert> resting both above and around them. (The copse
of the three trees, means the triple states of Mama, artha and
Kama, or virtue, wealth attd their fruition, which are sought
after by all).

IS. The two first of these trees did not grow of thcmSelvosj
(but were reared by men); and the third which was easy of as^

CTPaTO KHANDA. S8l

cent, We no seeds to produce other plants in future. (*. �. Vir�

tue and wealth require to thrive by cultivation, and enjoyment
which is delectable to taste, is not productive of any future good
or reward).

13. They were refreshed from the fatigue of their journey,

under the shade of these trees; and they halted there like the
three Deities Indra, Vdya and Yams^ under the umbrage of the
Fdrijdta arbour of Paradise. (The three gods-Jupiter Eolua and
Pluto, were the regents of the three regions of heaven, sky and
the infernal world :�swarMssurand bhnr, composing the three
spheres of their circuit).

14. They eat the ambrosial fruits of these trees; and drank
their nectarious juice to their fill; and after decorating them�
selves with gnlnncha chaplets, they retook themselves to their
journey, {i. e. Tlie intellectual powers arc supported by the
fruits of their acts in their journey through life).

15. Having gone a long way, they met at the mid-day a

confluence of three rivers, running with its rapid currents and
swelling waves. (The three streams are the three qualitira of
%atga, raj at and tamat or of goodness, mediocrity and excess,
which are commingled in all the acts of mankind).

16. One of these was a dry channel and the other two were
shallow and with little water in them;and they looked like the
eyes of blind men with their blinded eye-Wls. (�. �. The'
channel of tatga or temperance was almost dried up, and that of
rs/os or mediocrity had become shallow for want of righteous
deeds; but the stream of tamat or excess was in full force, owing
to the nnrighteoas conduct of men).

17. The princes who were wet with perspiration, bathed

joyfully in the almost dried up channel; as when the three gods
Brahmd Vishnu and Siva lave their sweating limbs, in the lim�
pid i(r8am of Ganges. fThe thrra powers of the soul, like the
three persons of the Puranic trinity, were respectively possessed
of the three qntilities of action; and yet their pure natures pre�
ferred to bathe in the pure stream of goodness-sa/ya, as in the
holy waters of heavenly Ganga�tbe'hallowed Mandflrinf).

Vot. n. se

TOGA VASISHTHA,

;iS2

18. They sported a long while in the water, and drank some
draughts of the same, which was as sweet as milk, and cheered
their spirits with full satisfaction of their hearts; (meaning that
tatwika or good conduct is sweeter far to the soul, than any other
done as unjust or showy �rafai or tamos).

19. They resumed their journey, and arrived at the end of the
^ay and about sunset, to their�, future abode of a new-built
�ity, standing afar as on the height of a hill. (This ncw�built
city was the new-made earth; to which the sjarits descended
from their Empyrean),

20. There were rows of flags fluttering like lotuses, in the

Mmpid lake of the azure sky; and the loud noise of the songs of
the citizens was heard at a distance.

21. Here they saw three beautiful and goodly looking

houses, with turrets of gold and gems shining afar, like peaks of
mount Meru under the blazing sun. (These were the human
bodies, standing and walking upright upon the earth, and
decorated with crowns and coronets on their heads).

22. Two of these were not the works of art, and the third
was without its foundation; and the three princes entered at last
into the last of these. (The two first were the bodies of men in
their states of sleep and deep sleep, colled swdpa sopor or swapnatr
sommts and smupli-hnpnos or hppnotes, which are inborn in
the soul; but it is the j&gara or waking body which is the un�
stable work of art).

23. They entered this house, and sat and walked about in
it with joyous countenances; and chanced to get three pots as
bright as gold therein.

(These pots were the three sheaths of the soul, mind and of �
the vital principle, called the prdnamj/a-kosha),

24. The two first broke into pieces upon their lifting, and
the third was reduced to dust at its touch. The far sighted
princes however, took up the dust and made a new pot therewith ?'
It means, that though these sheaths arc as volatile as air, yet �
it is possible to employ the vital principle to action.
UTPATTI KHANDA.

383

S5. ilion these gluttonous princes cooked in it a large

quantity of corn for their food; amounting to a hundred dronaa
minus one, for subsistence of their whole life-time. (It means
that the whole life-time of a hundred years, allotted to man in
the present age of the world, is employed in consuming so many
measures of food, except perhaps one Drona, which is saved by
his occasional fasts during his long-life).

26. The princes then invited three Brdhmans, (childhood,

youth and age) to the fare prepared by them, two of whom
(childhood and youth) were bodiless; and the third (t.e. old age)
had no mouth wherewith to eat.

27. The mouthless Brdhman took a hundred dronas of the

rice and cat it up, because he devoured the child and youth,
and the princes took the remainder of the Brdhman�s food for
their diet (which was nothing).

28. The three princes having refreshed themselves with the

relics of the Brdhman�s food; took their rest in the same house
of their next abode, and then went out in their journey of hunting
after new abodes (or repeated transmigrations).

29. Thus I have related to you, O Rdma 1 the whole of the

story of the boy and princes; now consider well its purport in
your mind, and you will become wise thereby.

80. After the nurse had finished her relation of the pretty
parable, the boy seemed glad at what ho had hcaid; (though
it is plain without understanding its import).

31. I have told you this story, Q Rdma! in connection with

my lecture on the subject of the mind ; and it will serve to.
explain to yon, the fabrication of the mind of this imaginary
being of the world.

32. This air-built castle of the world, which has come to be'
taken for a reality, is like the story of the body, but a false
fabrication of the old nurse�s imagination. (Or old grand-mother�s
talc, and giving a name and form to an airy nothing).

33. It is the representation of the various thoughts and

ideas of our minds, which exhibit themselves to view, according�

yOQA VA'SISHTHA.

984 ,
to the notions we have of them in our states of bonda|;e and
liberation. (t\ e. Our bondage to gross bodies, exhibits them in
their grosser fonn, and our liberation from the materialistie,
shows them in their subtile and immatenal shapes).

84. Nothing is really existent except tbe creations of our

imagination, and it is our fancy which fashions all the objects
in their peculiar fantastic forms. (Everything appears to us as
we fancy it to be; whereby the same thing is viewed in a differ*
ent light, not only by different persons; but by the same
person in a different state of mind;.

35. The heavens, earth, ^y and air, as also the rivers, moun�
tains and the sides and quartera of the sky, are all creations of
our fancy, like the visions in onr dreams; which join and disjoin
and fashion tbe views in their phantastio forms. (Imi^nation
or phantasy, is a faculty representative of the phenomena of
internal or external worlds. Sir William Hamilton).

36. As the jwinces, the rivers and the future city, were mere
creations of the nurse's imaginatiem, so the existence of the
visible world, is but a production of the imaginative power
man. (The nurse�s representations of the princes &c, were
rather the prosopopseia or personifications of her abstract thoughts;
as the materia] world is a manifestation of the ideal, imd called
by the Sofia suwari manavi and tuwari zakiri).

37. Tbe imaginative power manifests all things all around,

as the moving waters, show the rise and fall of tbe waves in the
sea. � It gives a shape of airy nothing�. � It is the power of
apprehending ideas and ciMnbining them into new forms and
assemblages^�.

38. It was this imaginative power of Qod, which raised the

ideas of things in bis omniscient and all comprehensive soul; and
these ideals were afterwards manifested as real by bis omnipo�
tence ; just as things lying in the dark are brought to view by
the light of the day. (Imaginatio est rci corporae figuram con-
tcmplari. Descartes and Addison. It is a lively conception of
the objects oi sight. Beid. It recalls tbe ideas by its
ductive fancy, and combines them by its productive pow^r).

UTPATTI KHANDl,

28S

89. Know hence, O BAma! the whole nnivorae to he the

net-work of imagination, and your &ncy to be the most active
power of the mind. Therefore repress the thickening phantom s
of your fleeting fancy, and obtain your tranquility by your sole
reliance on the certainty of the immutable soul of souls.

" Retire the world shut out, imagination�s airy wings repress ;
call thy thoughts home &c.'� Young�s Night thoughts.
TUm CO-OBDIN�A.TE TBIiiUDS.

IL

y/

The Threo Frlnoea or

lutellectoal Foirera

The Hiree ^tegoa or

Vyohritis.

1. The Sun).

3. The Mind.

8. The Living Spirit.

1, 6wAr-HMTm.

3 Bhuvar^Mky.

S. Bhur-^Euxth

IV.

V.

VL

Vhe Thr�a Deities.

The Threo Trees of Act

The Three Rivera.

1. India of heaven.

1. V<yu-*lr ether,
a tama-Deatli ur
luortal atate.

1. Dhsrmii�Acte.

2. Ai'tha-OAlii*.

8. KMUfto Fruition

1 Satys- Onodneae

3, RaJas-ltlgfatiouaoW'
1 . Tamaa-Vioe.

vm.

IX.

21m Three Bouece of

Beat

The Three Fete or

hhttithe.

1 8i�uptl--Sleep

ti Diefiiiie

S, Je'gRnt�WAkiug.

1. Of Hie Soul Neutral

3. Of the Mind Action
3. Of Ufe to operation

I. Jupiter.

3 Morcuip.
3. Venue.

The Three Ooiie

'. Hrehms of ereeUon.

3. Vbhiiu auetviitathA
3. ^ iva doeeolutjon.

The Three Bra! nuiii

Gueata.

CHAPTER CII.

Ok the Ikmvisibility akd Immoetality of the Soul,

ArgumentFallacy o� Egoisni, and Rational InTostigation into the

nature of tlio Soul. The Means of curbing Egotism, and the flight of
Fancy.
Y ASISHTHA contlaned Tlie ignorant are subject to errors

caused by their false fancies, from which the wise are en�
tirely free} and they by imagining and attributing perishable
properties to the imp'erishablc soul, beguile themselves like
children, by taking their dolls for men. (It is the attributing
of sensible properties to the conscious soul).

2. Rdma rejoined :�^What is this perishable property, which

is imagined of and imputed to the imperishable soul ? Tell me,

. also O greatest of theologians { what is that misrepresentation,

which misleads the mind to the erroneous conception, of the
mnreal world for a reality.

3. Vasishtha replied:�^Thc soul by its continued associa�

tion with unreal and perishable things, thinks itself as one of
'them, and takes upon it the title of an unreal and perishable
egoism, as a boy by association of his thoughts imagines a false
apparition to be a real ghost. (Egoism and tuism and suism,
means the personality or personal reality of the three persons
I thou and this�aham, twam aud.sah, which in all systems
of mystic philosophy, is denied of all finite beings. The abso�
lute Ego is the supreme soul, and all other souls arc but reflec�
tions of it).

4. All things being situated is one absolute reality, it is bard

to account for one's personal egoism; and to say how and whence
this conception came to be in vogue. (The impersonal and
universal soul is the true Ego, and has no personal existence
what ever).

5. In fact" there is no egoism beside that of the supremo

UTPATTI KHANPA. 887

boqI; and yet is the nature o� the injudicious' to make a

difference of a finite and infinite Ego, and of a mortal and im^
mortal soul; as we see two streams of water in the sun-beams
in a sandy desert. (The human soul is no Other, than a particle
of the supreme).

. 6. The mind is a spacious mind (of richest gems) in this

extensive creation, and depends for its support on the supreme
soul; as the waves are dependent on the waters of the sea,
for their rise and subsistence. (The mind is the individual soul,
but the soul is the universal and undivided ^irit and opposed
to the European doctrine of the minds being a generic and the
soul an individual name).

7. Therefore give up, O Rdma 1 your erroneous view of the

reality of the world and your reliance on the baseless fabric of
the universe, and rely with delight on your judicious 7iew of
the true substratum and support of all.

8. Inquire now into the nature of Truth, with a rational

understanding; and being freed from all error and bias, discard
all that is false and untrue.

The idea of Tritheism and faith in the mystic number three,

is as deeply rooted in the Hindu mind, as we find it in the
Alexandrine triad of old,. and the Trinity of modern Chris�
tians. 'We have already given an ample exposition of the various
triads in Hindu theology and other seicnces in our introduction
to this work (Vol. I. Sect XI p. 61). Besides those we meet
herewith some other triads which are conveyed in the allegorical
story of the old nurse to her infant care for his early instruction,
though it is doubtful that the boy could either understand or
derive any benefit thereby. It will be worth while to mention
here' the Alexandrian Triad of the three hypostases of the one
Being in the jssycAe�eternal soul, nous �the mind, and Zoo�
Jiva�^life or activity. This last is the same with the loffot-�
Word, the manifestation of Divine power in whom there was
life also. Others formed tjieir Triad of matter, soul and force,
the three jprt/tqpta in nature. Tim Christian Trinity, which

TOGA V '8ISHTHA.

some ma'ntua as an imitation of the Alexandrians, {kresetits

many differences respecting some portion of this doctrine, which
resulted in the heresies of Arianism^ Sabelliahism, Nestorianism
&c. see further particulars on this head in .Lewes� History of
Philosophy. Vol. 1. p. 891.

9; Why do yon think the uncondned soul to be confined in the

body ? It is vain to suppose the nature of the infinite soul, to be
confined in any place.

10. To suppose the one as many^ is to make a division of

and create a variety in the nature of the Supreme Spirit. Again
the Divine essence being diffused alike in allj it cannot' be said
to be confined in one thing and absent in another.

11. The body being hurt, the soul is supposed to be hurt

likewise; but no pain or hurt or sickness of any kind, can ap�
pertain to the unchanging soul.

V 12. The body being hurt or weakened or destroyed, there is

no injury done to the soul, as the bellows (of the blacksmith)
being burnt, the wind with which it was' filled, escapes unoon*
Burned.

13. Whether the body lasts or falls, it is of no matter to us,

(since the soul survives its loss ); as the flower being dostroyed,
deposits its fragrance in the air.

14. Let any pain or pleasure befall on the body, as dew-drops

falling on lotus-leaves: it can affect ns no more than it is for the
fading lotus, to affect or afflict in any manner the flying and
aerial bee.

15. Let the body rise or fall, or fly in smoke and mix with
the air; these changing forms of it, can have no effect whatever'
on the soul.

16. The connection of the body with the soul, is like th^t
between the cloud and the wind; and as that of the lotus with
the bee. (The former is moved and alighted upon by the latter) �
and not that the latter is preserved by the former).

17. If the. mind which forms a part of all living bodies; is*
not affected by bodily pain; how is it possible that thw pthnurf

tjTPATTl KIIANDA.

2sa

power of iutcllect wliicU resides iu the soul, shall ever he subject

to death ?

18. If you know, O wisp Rdma, the soul to be indestructible

and inseparable (from any place or person), what cause then can.
you have to sorrow for the supposed separation or disappearance
of the all pervading spirit ?

19. After destruction of the body, the soul flies from it, to
abide in the infinite space of empty air ,� like the wind mixing
with the air after dispersion of the clouds, and the bee flying to
it after the lotus has faded away.

20. The mind also is not relaxed with all its enjoyments of
life, unless it is burnt down by the knowledge of truth ; why
then speak of the annihilation of the soul.

21. The connection of the perishable body and imperishable

soul, is analogous to that of a vessel and the fruit it holds, and
of a pot and the air iu it. (?. e. of the container and the con�
tained; the frame-work is fragile, but its component is in�
frangible).

22. As a plum is held in the hand or it falls into a pit, so the

vacuous soul is reposed in or deiioscd from the body.

23. As a pot being broken, its vacuous part mixes, with the
air; so the body being dissolved, the soul remains unhurt in the
empty space.

24. The mind and body of living beings, are apt to dis�
appear at times from their habitations, and hide themselves
under the shroud of death; why then should we sorrow for such
renegades ?

26. Seeing the death and disappearance of others at all

times, no fool learns to think for himself, but fears to die like
all ignorant fools.

26. Therefore renounce, O Rdma 1 Your selfish desires, and

know the falsity of egoism. Forsake the bond of the body for
flying upward, as a new fledged bird flics aliove, and leaves its
nest behind.

VoL. II.

37

m TOaA Vi^ISHTfiA.

27. It is an acto� the xnind, to lead us to good or evil;

as it is another function of it, to fabricate the false fabric ci
the vrorld like appearances in a dream.

28. It is our incorrigible ignorance, that stretches out these

imageries for our misery only; and it is our imperfect knour-
ledge, which shows these false<hoods as realities unto us.

89. It gives us a dim sight of things, as we view the sky

obscured by a mist; and it is the nature of the mind, to have an
erroneous view of objects.

30. The dull and unreal world, appears as a reality to us; and
the imaginary duration of the universe, is as a protracted dream
in our sleep.

31. It is the thought or idea of the world, that is the cause

of its formal existence, as it is the blinking of the ^e, that
shows a thousand disks of the sun and moon in the clear sky.

32. � Now EAma, employ your reason to annihilate the formal

world from your mind, as the sun dissolves the snows by the
heat of his beams.

33. As one wishing to overcome his cold, gets his object at

sunrise; so he who wishes to demolish his mind (its errors),
succeeds in it at the rise of his reason.

34. As ignorance increases, so it introduces a train of imper*

vious mom and evils. It spreads a - magic spell around it, as
Samvara the sorcerer showered a flux of gold dust about him.

35. The mind makes the way to its own destruction by its
worldliness, and acts the part of its own catastrophe or self des*
traction by all its acts.

36 The mind cares only for keeping itself from destruction;

but it is a fool not to know beforehand its imminent death.

37. The mind by its restless desires, hastens itself to a

painful death; which reasonable are trying to avoid; by their
government of the mind. ^It is not right to trouble the mind
with worldly cares).

38. The mind that is purified by reason, is purged firom its

DTPATTI KHANDA.

291

volitions and nolitions; and resigns itself to the will of the

Divine soul, which is ever present before it.

39. The curbing of the mind, is the magnanimity of soul,

and gives rise to liberation from pain, therefore try to restrain

your mind, and not to give a loose rein to it.

40. The world is a vast wilderness, full of the forests of our

weal and woe, and beset by the dragons of disease and death
on all rades: the irrational mind is as the rampant lord of the
desert land, and drives us anon to all sorts of dangers and diffi*
culties.

41. As the sage ended his sermon, the day departed to its
end; and the sun declined to the west to his evening service.
The assembly broke after mutual salutations, and met t^aiu and
greeted each other with tho parting night and rising sun.
CThis is the Brahma muhirta or dawning day break at 4

CHAPTEU cm.

On the NATirRE OF TJIE 3tIN�.

Argument. Tlic sufferingn of men of ungovernable niinels, Borviug as

a lossou towardfc the liberation of the wiso.

S OME minds are seen to break-forth in jtassions like the tor�

rents of oceans, and to heave and overflow on earth on
every side. (By the unrestrained rage of their appetites).

2. They reduce the great to lowness, and exalt the low also
to greatness; they make strangers of their friends, as also friends
to strangers. (Such is the changeful state of the human mind).

3. The mind makes a mountain of a mote by its thought, and

thinks itself a lord with its little of a trifle. (These are those
that are puffed up with vanity. Falsus honor javat, non sed
mendosum and mcndacem. Horace).

4. The mind being elated by the prosperity, which attends

upon it by the will of God, spreads a large establishment for a
while, and is then reduced to poverty in a moment at its loss.
(Fortuna nnnquam pciqwtuo cst bona :�Good luck lasts not for
ever. The highest spoke in fortune's wheel, may soon turn low�
est. (Fortuna transmutat incertos honores. Fortune is ever
shifting her uncertain favours).

5. Whatever things arc seen in this world to bo stationary or

changeful, are all but accidents according to the state of
viewing them in that light; Just as a passing vessel is thought
stationary by its passenger on board, but as moving by the
spectators on the shore.

6. The mind is so changeful by the influence of time, place,

fiower and nature of acts and things, that it continually shufllcs
from one feeling to another, like an actor personating his many
jairts on the stage.

7. It takes the truth for untruth and its reverse for cer�
tainty : so it takes one thing for another, and its joy and grief

UTPATTI KUANDA.

203

arc all of its own making, (i. <?. tho creations of its iiiu^i.
nation).

8. The fickle mind gets every thing according to its own

doing, and all tho actions o� our hands, feet and other members
of the body, are regulated by the same. (The mind is tho
mover of bodily organs).

9. Hence it is the mind that reaps tho rewards of good

or evil according to its past acts; just as the tree bears its
fruits, according as it is pruned and watered in time. (Reap
as you sow).

10. As the child makes a variety of his toy dolls at home

from clay, so the mind is the maker of all its good and bad
chances, according to the merit or demerit of its past actions.

11. Therefore the mind which is situated in the earthen

dolls of human bodies, can do nothing of its own will, unless
it is destined so by virtue of its former acts. (The mind that
moves the body, is itself moved by the destiny derived from its
prior acts).

12. As the seasons cause the changes in trees, so the mind

makes differences in the dispositions of living beings. (As many
men so many minds, and hard to have two men of one mind).

13. The mind indulges in its s^iort of deeming a span as a

league, and vice-versa of thinking a long as short, as in the
case of the operations of our dreams and fancy.

14. A Kalpa age is shortened to a moment, and so is a mo�

ment prolonged to a Kalpa, by the different modes of the mind;
which is the regulator both of the duration and distance of time
and place.

15. The perceptions of the quickness and slowness of motion,

and of much or little in quantity, as also of swiftness or tardi�
ness of time, belong to the mind and not to the dull material
body: (though these sensations are derived by means of the
bodily organs).

16* So tho feelings of sickness and error and of dolor and

danger, and the passing of tome and distance of place, all rise

294

rOGA VASISHTHA.

in ihe mind like the leaves and branches of trees. (From its
inborn perceptions of them).

17. The mind is the canse of all its feelings, as water is the
cause of the sea, and the heat of fire. Hence the mind is the
source of all things, and intimately connected with whatever
is existent in the world.

18. The thoughts that wo have of the agent) effect SDd

instrument of things, as also of the viewer, view and the instru�
mentality of sight, all belong to the mind.

19. The mind alone is perceived to be in existence *in the

world; and its representations of the forests and all other things
are but variations of itself I So the thinking man sees the sub�
stance of gold only, in all its various formations of bangles and
bracelets, which are taken for naught. (All objectivity is de�
pendant on the subjective mind, as there is no perception of
an object independent of the mind. See identity of the sub�
jective and objective in the Pantheistic Idesdism of Spinoza).

CHAPTER CIV.

Stoby or A Magic Scene.

Argument. Story of king Lavana and hia court, and the Advent of
a Sorcerer there.

yASISHTHA said Hear me relate to you RAma a very

< pretty narrative, representing^ the world as an enchanted
city, stretched out by magic of the magician Mind.

2. There lies on the surface of this earth a large and popu�

lous tract of land by name of Northern PAndava, a country
full of forests of various kinds. (We know the Northern Kuru
the Uttara Kuru or Otterokoros of Ptolomy, to be the Trans�
Himalayan Tartary, which is hero termed the North�^PAndava,
from the King Fandu's rambles and the wanderings of the
Fandava princes in it in their exile.

8. The forests were deep and dense, and there dwell in the
fastness of these woods a number of holy hermits; while the
VidyAdhara damsels had wrought there many a bower of swing�
ing creepers (for their amusement).

4. Heaps of rubicund farina, wafted by the breeze from

full blown lotuses, rose as high as crimson hUls on the ground;
which was decorated with wreaths and garlands by the loads
of flowers, which had &llen thereon from the surrounding trees.

5. Groves of Karanja plants were decorated with bundles

of blossoms, to the utmost boundarira of the jungle; and the
firmament resounded with the rustling noise, emitted by the
leafy date trees in the villages around.

6. There was a range of tawny rocks on one side, and fields

brown with ripened com on another; while the warbling of ceru-
lian doves�reechoed in the resonant groves about.

7. The shrill cry of the stork resounded in the forest, and

the branches of tamala and pAtali flowers, hang down like eat�
ings of the hills.

296

YOGA Vi&ISnTHA

8. Flocks of various birds, were making a chorus with tbol^

vocal music; and the blooming crimson blossoms of p&ribhadra
arbors, were hanging, over the banks, a 11 j^ong the length of the
running streams.

9, Damsels in the cornfields, were excifing the passion of

love with their vocal music; and the breezes Mowing amidst
forests of' fruits and flowers, dropped down the blossoms in co*
pious showers.

10< The birds, Siddhas and seers were sitting and singing
outside their homes of mountain caverns; and made the valley
symphoneous with their celestial strains of holy hymns.

11. The Kinnara and Gondharva concerts, were singing

under their bowers of plaintain trees; and the greyish and gay-
some groves of flowers, were filled with the hum of the whis�
tling breeze.

12. The lord of this romantic country, was the virtuous

Lavana, a descendant of king Harish Chandra; and as glorious
as his sire the sun upon earth. (This prince had descended of
the solar race).

13. His fair fame formed a white diadem to crown his head,
and adorn his shoulders with its brightness; it whitened the
hills in the form of so many Sivas, besmeared with the hoary
ashes upon ius tufted head and person. .

14. His sword had made an end of all his enemies; who
trembled as in a fit of fever on the hearing of his august name.
1.5. His greatest exertion was devoted to the supportance to
respectable men; and his name was uttered like that of Hari by
all his people.

16. The Apsara fairies sang with glee the songs of his praise,
sitting in the celestial scats of the gods on the tops of the Hima�
layan mountains.

17. The regent of the skies heard with attention, the songs
of the heavenly maids, and the aerial swans and cranes of Brah-
m&, were responsive to their eulogies with their gabbling

UTPATTI KHANDA. 29?

cries. is the uuharmouic diapason of Indian

music}.

18. His unc.6mm'6nly '.pia^animons and wonderous acts,

which were free from the fault of niggai-tllincss; were unlike to
any thing that was ever heard or seen by any body.'

19. Ilis nature knew no wilincss, and it was a perfect stran�

ger to pride and arrogance; he kept himself steadfast to his
magnanimity, as Brahmd held himself fast to his rudrdksha
beads.

20. lie used to take his scat in the roj�al throne amidst
his courtiers, as the lord of the day occupies his seat in the sky
for the eight parts (watches) of the day. (The llitual day is
divided into eight yam&nlha parts for � particular rites and
duties).

21. After he was seated there as gladly as the moon in the

firmament^ his chieftains and legions api>eared before the throne
with their salutations, (and presenting of arms).

22. Then as the royal party was seated in the court hall,
beautiful songstres.�';S (that were in attendance), began to sing,
and ravish the hearts of the hearers, with the music of lutes.

23. Then a set of handsome maids, waved the beautiful

chourics which they held in their hands, over the person of the
king: and the ministers and counsellors, as wise as the preceptors
of the gods and dethons (Vrihaspati and Sukra), took their scats
beside him;

24. The ministers.were then employed in the public affairs

pending before them; and the dextrous officers were engaged
in relating tho reports of the country to the king.

25. There were the learned pandits reciting the holy legends
from their books, and the courteous panegyrists chauuting their
Sacred eulogies on one side.

26. There appeared at this time a magician in his fantastic

attire, and with his blustering vauutings before the Court j in
the manner of a roaring cloud, threatening to deluge the earth
with his showers of rain.

VoL. 11* 33

208

yOGiJ VA'�5ISHTIIA,

&7. ITo bowotl down to the rnlor of the earth, and lowly
bent his cappml head and neck l)efore the eoiirt ; as a tree hangs
down its loads of fruits, at the foot of a mountain.

28. He approached before the king, as a monkey advances

to a shady and lofty tree, loaded with fruits and flowers. (The
artful sorcerer is compared with the cunning monkey prying-into
a fruitful arhour).

29. Tlie flippant brat then conveyed the fragrance of his

sense, with the breath of his mouth ; and addressed the lofty
beaded king with his sweet voice, as the humble bee hums to the
lotus.

80. Deign O lord ! that sittest on tlio earthly throne like the
moon enthroneil on high, to mark one wonderful feat of my art,
known as the trick of Khnrolikikd.

31. Saying so, he began to twirl about his magic staff set
with peacocks� feathers, which began to display many wonders
like the wonderful works of creation. ,,

82. The king beheld it describing a bright circlet, emitting

the particles of its rays around; and viewed in the manner, that
the god Indra views his variegated rainbow sparkling afar in the
sky.

33. As this time a chieftain of Sinde, (who was the master

of horse,) entered the court, as a cloud appears in the starry
lieavcn.

3t. lie was foliowetl by his swift and hcnntiftil courser, as

the Uc/icliii Srard horse of'lndra follows his master in the celestial
regions, friiis is tlic Pegasus of the Hindus).

35. The chieftain brought the horse before the king and said
this horse my lord 1 is a match for the IJcAc/ia Srava, who was
produced from the milky oceau, and flies with the swiftnoss of
the mind.

80. Tliis horse of mine, O king of the earth J is the best of

liis kind, and a compeer of Uclicha Sravas; he is a personification
of the wind in the swiftness of his flight.

37. My tnaster has made a present of this horse to you, my

inTAlTI KlIANDA,

2�0

lord; bccattse the best of things is a suiUbie present to tlie best

of men. (Great gifts arc for the great; or, a donum worthy o�
the donor and donee).

38. After he had ended his speech, the magician spoke in a

voice, as sweet as tliat of the swallow, after tire roaring of the
cloud is hushed to silence.

39. Do yon my lord ride upon this horse, and wander at

your pleasure with full lustre on earth ; as the sun shines forth
in splendour by his revolving round the heavens.

40. Il�caring this the king lookeil at the horse, and ordered
him to be brought before him, in a voice like that of the peacock
answering the roaring cloud.

41. The king saw the horse brought before him as a figure
drawn in painting, and gazed upon him with his fi�.�d eyes
and without closing his eye-lids, as 1 k' was himself turned to .a
painting. (A gift horse is looked in his gait, and uot in his
mouth).

4fi. Having looked upon him for a long time, he mounted

on his back, and sat still with his closed eye-lids, as the sage
Agastya was confonaded at the sight of the sea ami its roeks.

43. lie continued for a couple of lioiirs as if lie was drowned

in his meditation, aud as insensible saints rein.iiu in the enjoy�
ment of their internal aud spiritual stupor.

4-11. He remamed as spell-bound aud ovorpowereil by his own

might, and could not be roused from his stupifaetion by any
body, but was absorbed in some thoughts of his own iniud.

45. Tlie flapping chourics ceased to wave about his person,

and the holders of the fhipiiei-s. remained, as still as the luoou,
beams at night-.

46. The Courtiers re naiued motionless at seeing his quiescence,,

as when the filaments of the lotus remain unmoved, by their
being besmeared in the mud.

47-. The noise of the people in the Courtyard, was all hushed,
and quiet; as the roaring of the clouds is stopped at the end. oi'
the rains,.

YOGA VXSISHTHA.
300-

48. The minsters were drowned in tlieir thoiiglilfulness and

doubts at the state of tbeir king, as the host of the gods were
filled with an&iety on seeing the club bearing Yisbna fighting
with the demons.

49. The people wore struck with terror and dismay, at see�
ing this apoplexy of their prince who remained with his closed,
eyes, like closetl lotuses shorn of their beauty.

CHAPTER CV.

The bueakino of the magic sfeix.

Argument. Inquiry of (lie courtiers into the c.'iuso of the king's .iiio-
plcxy, and Ids answer tlicrcto.

Y ASISHTHA continued ;�After a couple of hours the king

returned to his senses, like the lotus flower resuming its
beauty, after the mists of the rainyweather are over.

2. He shook his body decorated with ornaments upon his

scat; as a mountaiu shakes with its |>caks and woods at an
earthquake.

3. His sent also shook under him .as he came to his sense
and moved his body,just as the seat of Siva on the Kaildsa moun�
tain, is shaken by the movement of the infernal elephant.

4. As he was about to fall down from the horseback, he was

held up by and supported upon the arms of his attendants ; as
the mount Morn is kept from falling, by the hills at its feet
and sides.

6. The attendants bore the prince, in the deranged state of

his mind upon their arms; as the still waters of the sea bear-
the figure of the moon that is disturbed by the waves.

C. The king asked them softly saying, what place was it

and whose court it was; as the bee shut up in the flower cup of
the lotus, asked it when it is about to sink in the water say�
ing :�Ah! where am I, and where am I going ?

7. The Courtiers then respectfully asked the king, what was

the matter with him ; with a voice as sweet as the lotus utters
to the sun when he is eclipsed by Rdhu.

8. The attendants also with all the minsterial officers, asked,

kirn about his case j as the gods terrified at the great deluge,
^ked the sage Mdrkandcya coucoruing the occurrence.

9, Lord ! wo were greatly dismayed, said they, upon seeing.

3)2

YOGA VA'SISIITUA.

yon in that plight; because the stoutest hearts are broken by

accidents proceeding from uukno.rn causes.

10. What were those pleasant objects of your desire, that

had so much bewitched your mind ? Since yon know that all the
objects which appear pleasant fur the present, prove to be bitter
at the end. Gaudia principium iioafri, smit saepe doloru, Ovid.
Pleasure is often the introduction to pain, anil amid the roses
fierce Bcpentcnce rears her snaky crest. Thomson. So : Pleasure
is pain^ when drunk without a rein-.

11. How could your clear understanding, which has been,

pacified by the grand doctrines and precepts of the wise, fall in
to the false fascinations of the foolish ? (Fulaum gandiiim javat,
quemuisi vi-vidosiiia. False pleasure pleases, none but the base).

12. The minds of fools are fascinated by the trivial and taw�
dry trifles of common people; but they arc of no value to the
high minded as one like yourself. (The good and great are
above the reach of the allurements of pleasure).

13. Those who are elated by the pride of their bodies, have
their minds always excited by ungovernable passions, which take
their lead through life. (Pride is innate in beauty).

14. Your mind is elevated above common things, it is calm,

and quiet and enlightened by truth; and fraught with excellent
qualities; yet it is strange to find it out of its wits.

15. The mind unpracticed to reasoning, is led away by the-

ourrents of time and place, but the noblcmiuded are not subject
to the influence of incantations and enchanting spells.

16. It is impossible for the reasoning mind to be wcakcnctl

or deranged, the high mind like the mount towering of Mcru, is
not to be shaken by the boisterous winds.

17. Thus consoled by his companions, the countenance of

of the king resumed its colour; as th.^ face of the full moon
collects its brightness, in the bright fortnight of the m^th.

18. The moon�like face of the king was bright^^ by hia

Sail open eyra, as the vernal season is beautified by thf�l^ominj}
blossoms, after the winter frost has passed away.

UTPAITI KIIAN�DA.

303
19. The Icing'u face shone forth with astonishment, and it was
mixed with fear, at the romemherance of the charm of the
magician; as the moon shines pale in the sky, after her deli�
verance from tlie shadow of an eclipse.

20. He saw the magician and said to him with a smile,

as the serpent takshaka addresses his enemy�the weasle.

21. You trickster, said ho, what was this snare which thon
didst entrap me in, and how Wtos it that thou didst perturb my
tranquil soul by tliy wily trick, as a gale disturbs the calm of
the sea.

23. How wonderful are the captivating powers of spells,

which they have tlerived from the Lord, and whose influence had
overpowered on tlve strongest sense of my mind.

23. What arc these bodies of men, that arc subject to death
and descaso and what arc our minds that are so susceptible of
errors, and lead us to continued dangers.

24. The mind residing in the body, may bo fraught with

the highest knowletlge, and yet the minds of the wisest of men,
are liable to errors and illusion. {llominU e�l ware. To err is
human).

25. Hear ye courtiers! the wonderful tale of the adventures,

which I passed through under this sorcery, from the moment
tliat I had met this magician at first.

26. I have seen so many passing sconces in one single moment

under this wizard, as had been shown of old b}' Brahma in his
dcstrnction of tho theurgy of Indra. (The mighty Sakra spread
his Indrajlila or the wet of his sorcery, in order to frustrate the
attempts of the valiant Bali against him, and was at last foiled
himself by the Brahma vidyfl of Brahind).

27. Having said so, the king began to relate smilingly to

his conrtiers, the strange wonders which he had beheld in his
state of hallucination. �

28. The king said :�I beheld a region full wiUi objects of
various kinds, such as rivers and lakes, cities and mountains,
with many boundary hills, and th> ocean girding the earth
around.

CHAPTER CVI.

TmK TaLISMAX Of THE KING�S MaIUUAGE WITH A

Chaxdala Maiden.

(Alt Allegory of Human Depraeity).

Argunlont. Tlie king borno on horse-back to the habitation of a hunts-

Ulan, and was there married to his maiden daughter. (This adventure
resembles that of Tajnl Alaluk in Grulo B.ikavli.)

T he king related :�Tliis land of mine abounding in forests

and rivuletSj and appearing as the miniature of this orb of the
earth. Literally j�as the younger twin sister of the earth

2. This land appearing as the paradise of Indra, of which

I am the king, and where I am now sitting in my eourt-hall,
amidst my courtiers and all these citizens.

3. There appeared here yonder sorcerer from a distant coun�

try, like a demon rising from the infernal region on the surface
of the ground.

4. He turned round his magic-wand emitting its radiance

around, as the tempest rends and scatters the rainbow of ludra
in fragments in the air.

5. I was looking intently at the whirling wand, and the

horac standing before me, and then mounted on the back of the
steed in the dizziness of my mind.

6. 1 sat on the back of this unmoving horse and seemed to

ride on a fleet steed, with the swiftness of the Fushkara and

Avartaka clouds, riding over the tops of immovable rocks.

7. I then went to a chase in full speed, a pass over an

ownerless desert, howling as the surges of the boundless ocean.

8. I was borne afterwards with the horse in the air, as if we

were ivafted by the winds; and dashed onward like common
people, who- are carried afar by the current of the insatiable
desii-es of their minds. . .

UTPATTI KHAXDA.

309

9. Being tlien fatigued with my journey, and moving slowly

with my wedried horse, I reached to the skirt of the desert which
was as vacant as the mind of a j^nuper, and as empty as the

heart of a woman. (Cares hover over roofs of wealth, and

secrets from female hearts fly by stealth. Curae laqiteta eireum

Tecta volantee, Hor. Cares that flutter bat-like round fretted
roofs. A woman is never so weak as in keeping her seerets.

10. It was as the wilderness of the world burnt down by a

conflagration, and without even a bird flying over it. It was
as a waste of sandy frost, and without a tree or a any water in
it. (A vast desert displayed its barren waste).

11. It appeared as another sky in its extent, and as the eighth

ocean of the world. It was as a sea on earth with its bed entirely
dried up. (There arc in all only seven oceans in Indian Geo�
graphy the cigtth is a myth).

12. It was as expanded as the mind of a wise man,, and as

furious as the rage of the ignorant. There was no trace of
human feet, nor track with any grass or herb in it. (Immeasurable
and fathomless as the sapient mind.)

13. My mind was bewildered in this boundless desert, like

that of a woman fallen into adversity, and having no friend or
food or fruit for her supportancc. (Adversity is the canker of
the woman's breast: asaubhagyan jvardsirtndm).

14. The face of the sky was washed by the waters, appearing,
in the mirage of the sandy, desert; and I passed panting in
that dreary spot until it was sunset.

15. It was with great pain and sorrow, that I passed across
that vast desert j like the wise man who goes across this world,
which is all hollow and void within.

16. After passing this desert, I met a thick forest beyond

it, when the sun was sotting in his setting mountain with his
horse, and tired with traversing through the hollow sphere of
heaven.

17. Here the birds were warbling amidst the jdmh waA. ka~
damha trees, and were the only friends that the weary travellersf
could meet with, in their weary and lonesome journey.

Vot. II. 39

YOGA VA^ISHTHA.

80(i

18. Here detached plots of long grass, were seen waving

their tops; like covetous men nodding their heads, on finding
some riches to their heart�s content. (The poor are pleased with
�little, and bow down their heads at petty pittances).

19. This shady for^t afforded me a little joy, after my pains

in the dry and dreary desert; as a lingering disease seems more
desirable to men, than the pains attending on death.

20. I then got under the shade of JamMra tree, *and felt
myself as pleased, as when the sage Markandcya got upon the
top of the mountain at the great deluge. (The Ararat of Noah?).

21. Tlicn 1 took shelter under the creepers, descending from its
branches, as the scorching top of a mount, finds a temporary
shadow under the umbrage of a dark olond.

22. As I was hanging down with holding the pendant roots

in my hand, the horse slided away from underneath me, as the
sins of a man glide under him, that puts bis trust in the sacred
Chmges streams. (The purificatory power of Ganges water, resides
even in the belief of its holiness, and does not consist only in
bathing in it).

23. Fatigued with my travel of the livedong day in the

dreary waste, I took my refuge under this tree; as a traveller
rests under the shelter of a kalpa tree at the setting of the sun.

24. All this business of the world was stopped, as the sun
went down to rest in the western hills : (The Hindu ritual pres*
cribing no duty for the night consisting of three watches�
ifiyama rajani,

25. As the shade of night overspread the bosom of the

universe, the whole forest below betook itself to its nightly
rest and silence. (The vegetable creation was known to sleep
at night by the Hindu sages).

26. I reposed myself in the grassy hollow of a branch

of that tree, and rested my head on the mossy bed like a
bird in its nest. (Primeval men slept in the hollow of trees like
birds, for fear of rapacious animals in the caves of the earth
below, as alra in the caverns of upland hills and mountuns).

UTPATTI KHANDA.

307

S7. 1 remained there as insensible as one bitten by a Bnake>

and as a dead body that has lost its past remembrance. (Sleep and
death are akin to each o^et^hypnoa kai thanatoa didumo
adelpho). 1 was as impotent as a sold slare; and as helpless
as one fallen in a dark ditch or blind pit. Bought slaves krila~
ddaaa and their loss of liberty, were in vogue from tho earliest
times in India. (SR^ blind pit).

28. I passed that one night as a long Kalpa in my sense�

lessness I and I thought I was buffetting in tho waves like the
seer�Markandeya at the great deluge, (e. e. The body was
insensible in the state of sleep; but the mind was active as
in a dream, which makes an age of a moment).

29. I passed the night under a train of dangers and difficulties,

that invaded me as in tho state of dreaming; and 1 had
no thought about my bathing or eating or worshipping my
Maker; (the mind being wholly occupied by the objects of
the dream).

30. I passed the night in restlessness and disquiet, shaking

like the branch of a tree; and this single night of trouble was
as long as it was tedious to me, (like the time of a lingering
disease).
31. A melancholy overspread my eountcnance, as darkness
had veiled the face of the night, and my waking eyes kept
watching for the day, like blue-lotuses expecting with their
watchful eyes the rising moon.

32. The demoniac noise of wild beasts being hushed in tho

forest at the end of the night, there fell a shivering lit on mo
with the clattering of ray teeth through excessive cold.

83. I then beheld the east, red with the flush of intoxica�
tion ; as if it was laughing at seeing me drowned in my
difficulties.

84.. I saw the sun advancing afterwards towards the earth,

and to mount on his Airavata the regent elephant of that quarter.
He seemed to be so full of glee, as the ignorant man baa in
^ folly, and tho poor man in obtaining a treasure.

308

VOGA VA'slSnTHA.

35. Having got up from my mossy bed, I shook off my

bed cloth, like the god siva tossing about his elephantine hide
at his giddy dance in the evening. (See Magh. Book I).

36. I then began to wander in the wide forestland, as the

god Budra roves about tlie wide world, after its desolation by
his demons at the end of kalpas.

37. There was no animal of any kind to* be seen in the deso�
late desert, as the good qualities of good breeding, arc never to
be found in the persons of the illiterate.

38. I saw only the lively birds, perching and chirping all
about the woods without intermission.

39. It was then at mid-day, when the sun had run his eighth
hour, and the plants had dried up the dews of their morning baths.

40. That 1 beheld a damsel carrying some food and a goblet of

water, on the way as Hari bore the poisonous liquor to the
demons in his disguise in the shape of M4dhavi.

41. She was of a swarthy complexion, and dressed in sable

black attire; and looked askance at me; when I advanced to�
wards her as the bright moon appears towards the dark and sable
night.

42. I asked her to give me some of her food in my great

distress, because, I told her, one is enriched by relieving the
distress of the needy.

43� O good maid j said I, increasing hunger is consuming

my bowels and I would take any food, even as the female serpent
devours her own brood and young, in the excess of her hunger.
(Hunger boats down the stony wall, and impure food is pure
to the hungry).

44. I begged of thee and yet thow gayest me nothing, but

dost remain as inexorable as the goddess of fortune, who de�
clines to favour the wretched, however they implore her aid.
(Fortune turns a deaf ear to the supplications of the poor).

45. Then I kept a long time, following her closely from

one wood to another, and clinging to her as her shadow, moving
behind her in the afternoon.

UTPAITI KHANDA.

309

46. Sbo then turned to me and said :�Know me, to be a

Chanddla girl and bearing the name of Harakeyuri; we are as
cruel as lUkshasas, and feeders on human flesh as on those of
horses and elephants.

47. You cannot, O King \ get your food by merely your

craving it of me ; as it is hard to have the favour of men, with�
out first meeting with their desires.

48. Saying so, she went on trippingly at every step, and

then entered into an arbour on the wayside and spoke merrily
unto me saying : �

49. Well, I will give you of this food, if you will consent
to be my husband ; fur it is not the business of base and com�
mon people to do good to others, before securing their own
good.

50. My Chanddla father is hero ploughing in the field, with

his sturdy yoke of bulls, and has the figure of a demon, stand�
ing in the cemetry with his haggardly hungry and dusky
stature.

61. This food is for him, and may bo given to you, if you
will agree to espouse me; because the husband deserves to be
served even at the peril of one�s life.

53. To this I replied, I agree to take thee to my wife, for

what fool is there that will abide by the usage of his family,
when his life is in danger ?

53. She then gave me half of the food she had with her,
as Mddhavi parted with half of her ambrosia to the hungry
Indra of old.

54. I ate the Chandal�s food, and drank the beverage of

Jambu fruits which she gave me ; and then rested at that place,
and fell to a sleep caused by my fatigue and long walking.
55. Then she approached to me, as a black cloud advances
before the sun ; she held me in her arms, and led me onward
with her guiding hand, and as fondly as her second self.

56. She took mo to her father, a fat and ugly fellow of a

310

YOQA ViSlSHTHA.

repalsive appearance; as the tormenting agony of death, leads a

person to the Ibideous cell of the devil.

57. My companion whispered to his ears the tidings of onr

case, as the black bee hams her tale softly to the ear of an
elephant; (in order to sip his frontal jnicc or ichor of mada-bdrt).

58. This man, said she, is to be my husband, if you, my

father, will give your consent. To this he expressed his approvd
by saying�VAdham bo itso� by the end of this day, (when
marriage rites usually take place and is called godhuli, or the
dusty dusk of returning herds from their pasture grounds).

59. He loosened the bulls from their yoke, as the regent of

death releases his hell hounds. And it was in the dusk of the
day, when the sky was obscured by the evening mist, and
rising dust of godhuli, that we were dismissed from the demons*
presence, to take our own way.

60. We passed the great jungle in a short time, and reached

the ChandAla�s abode in the evening; as the demons pass amidst
the funeral ground, to rest in their charnal vaults at night.

61. The dwelling had on one side, the slaughtered monkeys,

cocks and crows j and swarms of flics flying over them, and
sucking the blood sprinkled over the ground.

62. The moist entrails and arteries of the slaughtered

beasts, that were hung up to be dried in the sun; were chased
by the ravenous birds of the air, that kci)t hovering over them;
while flocks of birds fluttered over the Jambira trees (to pick
up the fruits for their food).

63. There were heaps of fat laid up to be dried in the portico, '
and ravenous birds flying over them; and the skins of the slain
animals, which were besmeared with blood, lay in piles before
their sight.

6t. Little children had bits of flesh in their hands, beset by

buzzing flies �, and there were the veteran ChAndalas, sitting
by and rebuking the boys.

65. We then entered the house scattered with disgusting

UTPATTl KHANDA.

311

entrails and entestines about, and I thought myself as the ghost

of a dead man standing beside the regent of death.

66. I had then a seat of a big plantain leaf, given to me

with due respect, in order to be seated as a welcome guest, in

the abominable abode of my new-earned father-in-law.

67. My squint eyed mother-in-law then eyed at me, with her

blood-red eyeballs; and muttered with gladness in her look,
" is this our would be son-in-law ? �

68. Afterwards we sat on some seats of skin, and I partook

of the repast which was served before me, as the reward of my
sins. {i.e. This fare was as unpalatable, as the requital of one's
crimes).

69. I heai-d there many of those endearing words, which'were

the seeds of endless misery; as also many such speeches that
were unpleasant to my mind, for their being of no benefit to
me.

70. Afterwards, it came to pass on one day, when the sky was
cloudless and the stars were shining; that they presented a
dowry of cloths and other articles before me : (as ddnadravya).

71. With these they made over that frightful maiden to

me, and we were joind together as black and white, and as sin
and its torment together {i. e. she was given to torment me for
my past sins).

72. The fiesh-cating ChandAlas, festivated the marriage cere-�

money with profusion of wine and loud shouts of joy; they
beat their sounding tomtoms with merriment, as wicked men
delight in carrying on the acts of their vileness. (The giddy
mirth of tho rabble, is compared with the revelry of the riotous).

CHAPTER evil.

Description op a train of Dangers.

Argument. The King�s residence at the Chanddla�s abode and his ad*

veutnros during sixty years at that place.

T he king continued:�What more shall I say of that festi�

vity, which had quite subdued my soul ? I was thence�
forward named as Pushta�^Pukbnsha or cherished Chdnd&la by
my fellows. (Beng�^ghar-jdmdi or home-bred bridegroom).

2. After the festivity had lasted for a week, and I had passed
full eight months at that place; my wife had her pubertal
efQorescence, and afterwards her conception also (garbhddhdua
and garbha).

3. She was delivered of a daughter which is the cause of

woe, as a danger is the spring of calamities. (The parallel
passage is well known ddrikd dukJikha ddyika, a daughter is the
source of grie^. This daughter grew up as soon as the growth of
the cares and sorrows of the ignorant. (The wise neither care
nor sorrow for any earthly matter).

4. She brought forth again a black boy in course of three

years; as the fruit of folly raises the false expectation of frui�
tion. (�'. e. We are often frustrated in our hopes in our boys).

5. She again gave birth to a daughter and then to another

boy; and thus I became an old Chandala, with a large family
in that forest land.

6. In this manner passed many years with these shoots of my

woe in that place; as a Brahmicide has to pass' long years of
torment in hell-fire. (Here is a piece of priestcraft in the augmen�
ted torment for killing a Brahman as any other man).

7. I had to undergo all the pains of heat and cold, of chill-

winds and frost, without any help to be had in that dreary
forest; and as an old tortoise is constrained to move about in the
mud of a pool for ever.

tjTPATTI kHANDA.

313

8. Being burthen with the cares of my family, and troub-

W by anxieties of my mind; I saw my increasing afflictions
like a conflagration rising all about me.

9. Clad in bark and wrapt in old and ragged cloths, with a

dovering d� grass and a straw hat on my head, I bore loads of
logs from the woods; as we bear the burden of sins on our backs
and headsi (See Bunyan�s Pilgrim�s Progress}.

10. I had to pass full many a live-long year, under the

shade of dhamU trees; with no other cloth or covering on me
than an old tattered, dirty and stinking Kaupina, which was
beset by flees and leeches. (Kaupina a piece of rag covering the
lower secret parts of the body as that of Fakirs and Yogis).

11. 1 was exposed to the chill cold winds; in all my toils to

support my family j and lay like a frog in some cave in the
wo^s, under the keen blasts of winter.
12. The many quarrels and bickerings, and the sorrows and
wailings, to which I was often exposed at home and abroad,
made my blood to gush out in tears from my weeping eyes.

13. We passed the nights on marshy grounds in the jungle,

and being deluged by the raining clouds, we took our shelter in
the caverns of mountains, with no other food than the roasted flesh
of bears.

14. Afterwards the rainy season of sowing beiUg over, and

the dark drizzling clouds having dispersed in air, 1 was driven
from my abode, by the uukindness of my relations and continued
contention with others.

15. Being thus in dread of every body in the neighbourhoodi

1 removed myself to the house of another man, where 1 dwelt
with my wife and prattling children for some years.

16. Then vexed by the scolding of the termagant Chanddli,

and the threats of the Villanous ChandAlas; my face became es
pale as the waning moon under the shadow of Rdhu (the ascenx
ding node)i

17. I was bit and scratched by the teeth and nails of my wife,
ai if my flesh and nlusclds were torn and gnawed down under the

Vou II. 40

814

YOGA VA^ISHTHl.

grinders of a tigress; and I was as one caugbt by or sold to tf

bellish fiend, and tbooght myself as changed to an infernal
being also.

18. I suffered under the torrents of snow thrown out of the

caverns of the Himdlaya, and was exposed to the shower^ of
frost, that fell continually in the dewy season.

19. I felt on my naked body the iron shafts of rain, as darts

let fly from the bow of death; and in my sickly and decrepit
old age, I had to live upon the roots of withered vegitables.

20. I dug them oat plentifully from the woodland grounds,

and eat them with a zest, as a fortunate man has in tasting hi�
dainty dishes of well cooked meat.

21. I took my food apart and untouched by any body, for fear
of being polluted by the touch of a vile and base born family; and
because the pugnency of my unsavoury diet, made my mouth wry
at every morsel.

22. While 1 was famishing in this manner, I saw others had

their venison and sheep�s il(�Ii bought from other places for
their food; and who pampered their bodies also with the flesh they
eut out from other living animals and devoured raw with great
zest.

23. They bought animal flesh sold in iron pots and stuck
in spits, for undergoing migrations into as many thousand bodies
as they have killed and fed upon. (This is the Pythagorean
doctrine of metempsychosis of the soul, as described in Gold
smiths citizen of the world).

24. I often repaired to the garden grounds of the Chanddlas,

with my spade and basket in the cool of the evening, in order tn
collect the raw flesh, which had been cast about in the dirt, for
making my food of them.

26r But the time seemed to turn favourable to me, when I wan
about to be cast into hell, by leading me to take refuge of the
mountain caverns, and seek my supportance there by the roots
and plants growing therein.

26. In, this state, 1 was met by my good chmice, on soma

UTPATTI KHANDA.

315

CLand&Ias appcariag in person before me^ and driving away tbc

village dogs with their clubs from before them (to the woods).

27. They gave my wife and children some bad rice as the
villagers used to take, and we passed the night under the shade
of a palm tree, whoso withered leaves were rattling with the
rain drops, that fell in showers upon them.

28. We passed the night in company with the sylvan apes,

with our teeth clattering with cold; and the hairs of our bodies
standing on their ends, like a thousand thorns through eoldnoss.

29. The rain drops decorated our bodies with granules of

vivid pearls, and our bellies were as lean and lank like an empty
cloud through hunger and for want of food.

30. Then there rose a quarrel in this diresorae forest, be�

tween me and my wife; and we kept answering one another, with
our clattering teeth and ruddy eyes by cfEect of the cold,

31. My foul and dirty person resembled that of a dark black

demon, and we roved about the borders of rivers and brooks, to
fish with a rod and hook in my hand.

32. I wandered also with a trap in my hand, like Yamawith

his noose at the desolation of the earth; and caught and killed
and drank the heart blood of the deer in my hunger and thirst.

33. I sucked the warm heart blood, as the milk of my

mother�s breast, at the time of famisliing; and being besmeared
in blood, I stood as a blood sucking demon in the cemetry.

31. The Vetdlas of the woods lied before me, as they do

from the furies of the forests; and 1 set my snares and nets in
the woods, for catching the deer and birds of the air.

85. As people spread the nets of their wives and children,

only to be entangled in them in the false hope of happiness; so
did I spread my net of thread, to beguile the birds to their
destruction.

38. Though worried and worn out in the nets of worldly

cares, and surrounded on every side by the miseries of our vicious
lives; yet do our minds take their delight, in the perpetration of
cruel and foul acts (to the injury of others).

tl6 YOGA VA'SISHTHA

87. Our wishes arc stretched as Ear and wide, as a running

river overflows- its banks in the rainy season; but the objects
of our desires fly afar from us, as snakes hide themselves from
the snake eating Karabhat by their own sagacity. (The Kara�
bha is a qqadruped of the weasel kind, and is called gohadgel�'
in Bengali).

38. We have cast off kindness from our hearts, as the snake
leaves off his slough j and take a delight to let fly the hissing
arrows of our malice, as the thunder storm betides all animals.

89. Men are delighted at the sight of cooling clouds, at the

end of the hot season; but they avoid at a distance the rough
briny shore spreading wide before them. (So men hail their
happiness, and avoid their troubles).

40. But I underwent many a diiflculty, which multiplied

as thickly upon me, as the weeds growing in dales; and I moved
about all the corners of that hellish spot, during my destined
time. (What is decreed, cannot be avoided).

41. I have sown the seeds of sin under the rain-water of my

ignorance, to grow speedily as thorns on my way. I have laid
hidden snares for the unwary innocent, to secure myself in the
mountain caves.

43. I have caught and killed the innocent deer in the trap;
to feed upon its flesh; and have killed the ckouri kine, to lay
my head on the hair hanging down their necks.

43. 1 slept unconscious of myself in ray ignorance, as Vishnu

lay on his huge hydra; I lay with my out-stretched legs and
limbs iu the brown cell, resounding to the yell of wild beasts
ubroad.

44. 1 lay my body also, on the frost of a cave in the marshy

ground of Vindhyd; and wrapped my swarthy form in a tatteri
ed quilt, hanging down my neck and full of fl^.
45. 1 bore it on my back, as a bear boars the long bristles upoq
him even in the hot season; and suffered the heat of the wild fire,
rrhich burnt away many wild animals which perished in groups
SS in the last confli^ration of the world.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

�17

46. My wife bore her young ones, both for our pleasure aa
well as pain : as the food of the glutton, is both for his satiety
and sicknem; and the influence of planets, is for our good and
evil also.

47. Thus I the only son of a king, had to pass sixty painful
years of my life, as so many kalpa ages of long duration.

48. I raved sometimes in my rage, arid wept at others in

my bitter grief; I fared on coarse meals, and dwells alas! in the
abodes of vulgar Chanddlas. Thus I passed so many years of
my misery at that place, as one fastened to the fetters of his
insatiable desires, is doomed to toil and moil for naught until
bis death. (Bound to our desires, we are dragged to the grave),

CHAPTER CVIII.

DeSCKIPTION of a DBACanT AND Deaetd.

Aigumeut Tho distress of chanddlas caused by famine and want

of Bain.

T he King continued to say :�Time passed away, and old age

overtook me, and turned my beard to blades of grass co�
vered with hoar frost.

2. My days glided away in alternate joy and grief, brought

on by my fate and acts; just as a river flows on with the
gfeen and dried leaves, which the winds scatter over it.

3. Quarrels and broils, misfortunes and mischances, befell

on me every moment; and beset me as thickly and as fastly
as the arrows of woe flying in a warfare.

4 . My foolish mind kept fluttering like a bird, in the maze

of my wishes and fancies; and my heart was perturbed by
passions, like the sea by its raging waves.

5. My soul was revolving on tho vehicle of my wandering

thoughts ; and 1 was borne away by them like a floating straw,
to the whirlpool of the eventful ocean of time.

6. I that moved about like a worm amidst the woodlands

of Vindhyd, for my simple supportanco, felt myself in the process
of years, to be weakened and pulled down in my frame, like
a biped beast of burthen.

7. I forgot my royalty like a dead man, in that state of my

wretchedness, and was confirmed in my belief of a Chanddla,
and bound to that hilly spot like a wingless bird.

8. The world appeared to me, as desolate as at its final deso�

lation ; and as a forest consumed by a conflagration; it seemed
as the sea-shore lashed by huge surges; and as a withered tree
struck by a lightning.

0. Tho maraby ground at the foot of Yindbyd was all dried

tJTPATTI KBAKDA.

tip, and left no corn nor vegitable, nor any water for food or
drink; and the whole group of ChandAlas, was about to die in
dearth and dryness.

10. The clouds ceased to rain, and disappeared from sight j

and the winds blew with sparks of hre in them. (The hot winds
of the monsoon called agni-vrishti).

11. Theforesttrees were bare and leafless, and the withered

leaves were strewn over the ground; wild fires were raging hetfe
and there, and the wood-lands became as desolate, as the abodes
of austere ascetics; (dwelling in the deserte).

12. There ensued a formidable famine, and a furious flame '

of wildfire spread all around; it burnt down the whole forest,
and reduced the grass and gravels all to ashes.

13. The people were daubed with ashes all over their bodies,
and were famishing for want of food and drink; because the
land was without any article of food or even grass or water io
it, and had turned to a dreary desert.

14. The mirage of the desert glistened as water, and deluded

the dry buffaloes to roll in it (as in a pool); and there was no cut-'
rent of breeze to cool tlio desert air.

15. The call and cry for water, came only to the ears of men >
who were parching under the burning rays of the torrid sun
(in the Deccan).

16. The hungry mob, hurrying to browse the branches and

herbs, yielded their lives in those acts; while others sharpened
their teeth, in their acts of tearing and devourii^ one another.

17. Some ran to bite the gnm of catechu, thinking it to

be a bit of flesh; while others were swallowing the stones, as if
they were cakes lying on the ground before them.
18. The ground was sprinkled with blood, by the mutual
biting and tearing of men; as when blood is spilt in profusion,
by the lion's killing a big and starving elephant.

19. Every one was as ferocious as a lion, in bis attempt to

devour another as his prey; and men mutually fought with one
another, as wrestlers do in their contest.

820

YOdA Vi^lSHTlfl.

SiO. The trdcis were leafless, and the hot winds were blow*
log as fire-brands on all sides; and wild cats were licking the
human blood, tlsit was spilt on the rocky groand.

^1. The flame of the wild Are rdse high id the air, with
clouds of smoke whirling with the howling winds of the forest;
it growled aloud in every place, and filled the forest-land with
heaps of brown cinders and burning fire brands.

22. Huge serpents were burnt in their caves, and the fumeef
rising from these burning bodies, served to grow the poisonous
plants on the spot; while the flame stretching aloft with the
winds, gave the sky an appearance of the glory of the setting
sun.

23. Heaps of ashes were lifted like dust, by the high how-,
ling winds, and stood as domes unsupported by pillars in the
open sky and the little children stood crying for fear of them,
beside their weeping parents.

24. There were some men who tore a dead body with their
teeth, and in their great haste to devour the flesh, bit their own
hands and fingers, which were besmeared in their own blood.

25. The vultures flying in the mr, darted upon the smoke,
thinking it a turret of trees, and pounced upon the fire brands,
taking them for bits of raw flesh.

26. Men biting and tearing one another, were flying in all
directions; when the splitting of the burning wood, hit upon
their breasts and bellies^ and made them gory With blood gushing
out of tbem<

27. The winds were howling in the' hollow caves, and the
flames of the wild fire flashing with fury; the snakes were hissing
for fear of these, and the burnt woods were falling down with
hideous noise.

28. Thus beset by dangers and horroie, with no other shelter

than the ragged hollows of rocks, this place presented a picture
of this world, with its circumambient flames, burning ss the
twelve zodiacal suns on high.
UTPATTI KHANDA.

321

29, The winds were blowing hot amidst the burning woods
And rooks, and drying up all things ; and tlie heat of the fire
below and the sunbeams above, together with the domestic cala*
mities caused by influence of the planet Saturn, made this place
a counterpart of this woeful world.

Voi. II.

41

CtfAFPElli Ct5f.

MlOBATiON OF THE ChANDa'^LAS.

Argument. The perilous journey through the Delusive Wor]!(l.

T he kingf continued : -As these calamities continued to rage'

in this place, by the displeasure of distiny; and thedesastera
of the last dissolution, prematurely overtook the forest and;
mountaineers here:�

2'. Some of these men went out from that place, with their�
wives and children, in search of some new abodes in foreign
lands; as the clouds disperse and disappear from the sky, after
the rainy seiMon is over.

8. They were accompanied by their wives and children and

close relatives, who clung to them as the mcmbei's of their bodies;
but the lean and infirm were left behind them', like the separated
branches of trees.

4. Some of these emigrants were devoured by tigers, as they

went out of their houses; as unfledged birds are caught by falcons^'
as they come out of their, nests.

5. Some entered into the fire like moths, to put an end to'
their miserable lives; others fell into the pits, like fi'agments of
rocks falling from the hilLs.

G. I separated myself from the connections of my father>in>

law and others; and depending upon myself, I escaped narrowly
from tliat distressed-country, with my wife and children about me.

7. We passed the pit-falls and storms, and the wild beasts-

and snakes, without any hai-m; and came out of that forest safe'
from all. the deadly perils of the way.
*8. Having then arrived at the boi-der of that forest, we got
to the shade of some palm trees, where I lay down my childrens
from my shoulders- as burdens of my sin- and woes.

�Compare the adrentura of the prince Tfijul Ualor in Gull Balc&waM,

A^l^r of his- children by tbe Negro wife on his-

UTPATTI KHANDA.

323

9. I Iiiiltcd here after my tiresome journey and lengthened

troubles, as one who had fled from the confines of hell; and
took my rest like the withering lotus, from the scorching sun-
beains and heat of summer.

10. My Chanddla wife also slept under the same tree, and
my two boys lay fast asleep in each other�s embrace, under the
cooling shade.

11. Afterwards my younger son Prach'chhaka, who was as

dear to us as he was the less intelligent, rose up and stood
before me.

12. lie said with a depressed spirit, and tears gushing out
of his eyes, � Papa give me soon some meat-food and drink or
else I die�.

13. The little boy repeatedly made the same request, and said
with tears in his eyes, that he was dying of hunger.

14. I told him I had no meat, and the more I said so, the
more ho repeated his foolish craving, which could neither be sup�
plied with nor put down to silence.

13. I�was then mo^ed by paternal affection, and affiction

of ray heart, to tell him, � ohild, cut off a slice of my flesh, and
roast and eat it.�

16. He agreed to it, and said �give it then*; because liishnn-

gei was so pressing and liis vitality was so much exhausted, that
he could not decline to crave my flesh for his food.

17. Being then overpowered by affection and compassion I

thought of putting an end to .all my grief with my life, which
became so intolerable to me at his excessive distress.

18. Being unable to endnre the pain of my affection, I

despaired of my own life; and resolved to resort to death, as my
only friend at this last extremity.

19. I collected some wood, and heaped them together for my

funeral pile, and having put it on fire, 1 saw it blaze as I wished.
20. As I was hastening to throw myself on this pile, I whs
immediately roused from my reverie by the sound of music pro-

384 YOGA VASISHTHA.

peeding from this palace, hailing me as king, and shouting mj

victory

21. I understood this conjurer had wrought this enchant�

ment on me, and put me to all those imaglnahlc irouhlcs for so
long a period.

22. Like the ignorant, I was subject to a hundred changes

of fortune (which can never approach the wise). As the great
and mighty Kiug-Lavana, liad been recapitulating and expostu�
lating on the vicissitudes of fortune :�

23. The sorcerer suddenly disa])peared from his sight, at

which the courtiers looked arouftd them with their staring eyes >
and then addressed the king, saying :�

24. This man was no sorcerer, our llcgclord! who had no mer�
cenary views of his own in this; but it was a divine magic (the
urgy), that was displayed to our lord, to represent the lot of
humanity and the state of the world.

25. This world is evidently a creation of the mind, and the

imaginary world is only a display of the i nflnitc power of the
Almighty. (It was a coinage of the brain, a stretch of the ima�
gination which gives images to ideals).

26. Those hundreds of worldly systems, display the multifa�

rious powers of Omnipotence; which delude even the minds of
the most wise, to believe in the reality of unrealities, as it were
by the spell of magic.

27. This delusion being so potent on the minds of wise, it

is no wonder, that our king would be overpow�cred by it, when
all common minds are labouring under the same error.

28. This delusive magic was not spread over the mind, by
any trick or art of the conjurer; who aimed at nothing more
than his own gain, by the act of bis soreery ; (It is the divine
will, which spreads the illusion alike on all minds).

29. They that love money, never go away of themselves

without getting something: therefore we are tossed on the.
waves of doubt, (*. e. doubtful) to take him for a sorcerer.

30. yasishtba saidEdma! though I am sitting here at

UTPATTI KHANDA.

325
jtbis moment, before you and others of this assembly; yet I am
quite sensible of the truth of this story, which is no fiction like
the talc of the boy I have told you before, nor is it any coining'
or hearsay of mine.

31. Thus the mind is enlarged by the various inventions of

its imagination, as a tree its extended by the expansion of
its boughs and branches. The extended mind encompasses all
things, as an outstretched ai�bor overspreads on the ground. It
is the mind�s comprehension of every thing, and its conversaney
with the natures of all things, that serve to lead it to its state
of perfection. (The amplitude of the mind, consists in the
extent of its knowledge).

CHAPTER CX.

Description of Mind,

Argutneiit. The groat Magnitude of mental powere, and government of

the Mind.

y ASISHTHA said :�Since the subjective Intellect chit, has

derived the power of knowing the objective Intelligeblcs
ehetyas, from the supreme cause in the beginning; it went on
to multiply and diversify the objects of its intelligence, and
thus fell from the knowledge of the one intelligent Universal
Ego, to the delusion of the particular non egon ad infinitum.
(The knowledge oE the subjective universal soul being lost, the
mind is left to be bewildered iu tlie objective particulars to no
end .

3. Thus Rdina, the faculties of the mind, being deluded

�by the unrealities of particulars, they continue to attribute
specialities and differciiees to the general ones to their utter
. error. (INIultiplication and differentiation of objects, mislead
� the mind from the univereal unity of the only one).

3, The mental powers arc ever busy to multiply the unreali�

ties to infinity, as ignorant children arc prone to create the false
goblins of their fancy, only for their terror and trouble.

4. But the reality soon disperses the troublesome unrealities,

and the unsullied understanding drives off the errors of imagi-
iiation, as the sun-shine dispels the darkness.

5. The mind brings distant objects near it, and throws the
nearer ones at a distance; it trots and flutters in living beings,
as boys leap and jump in bushes after little birds,

6. The wistful mind is fearful, where there is nothing to

fear; as the affrighted traveller takes the stump of a tree for
demon, standing on his way.
7. The suspicious mind suspects a friend for a foe, as a
drunken sot thinks himself lying on the ground, while he it
Walking along,

tJTPATTI KIIANDA.

327

8. Tile distracted mind, sees the fiery Saturn in the cooling

Inoon; and the nectar being swallowed as poison, acts as poison
itself)

9. The building of an aerial castle however untrue, is taken'

for truth for the time being; and the iriind dwelling on hopes,-
is a dreamer in its waking state.

10. The desease of desire is the delusion of the miind ; there�

fore it is to be rooted ortt at once with all deligence from the'
mind.

11. The minds of men being entangled irt the-net of avarice�

like poor sta^, are rendered as helpless as these beasts of prey,
in the forest of the world.

13. Ho who has removed by his reasoning, the vain anxie-*

tics of his mind, has displayed the light of hissoul, like that of
the unclouded sun to sight,

13. Know therefore that it is mind that make, the mans and .
not his body that is called as such: the body is dull matter, but -
the mind is neither a material nor immaterial sabstance (as the
spirit).

14. 'Whatever is done with the mind or voluntal�ily by any

man, know Rdma, that act to be actually done by him ; (since'
an involuntary action is indifferent by itself); and whatsoever itf
shunned by it, know that to be kept ont in actn.

15. The mind alone makes the whole world, to the utmost
end of the spheres; the mind is the vacuum, and it is the air an J
earth in its greatness. (Since it comprehends them all in itself ;
and none of these� is perceptible Avitbout the mind).

16. If the mind do not Join a thing with its known proper-�
ties and qnalilies; then the sun and the luminaries would appear
to be without their light: (as it is with the day-blind bats aiuf
owls, that take the day light for darkness-, and the dark nigh-t
for their bright day light).

17. The mind assumes the properties of knowledge and!

ignorance, whence it is called a knowing or unknowing thing ;
l�ut these properties are not tc be attributed to the body, for a
m FOQi VilSlSHTHA.

living body is never known to be wise, nor a dead carcase an ig�

norant person.

18. The mind becomes the sight in its act o� seeing, and it
is hearing also when it hears any thing j it is the feeling of touch
in connection with the skin, and it is sinelUng when connected
with the nose.

19. So it becomes taste being connected with the tongue and

palate, and takes many other names besides, according to its other
faculties. Thus the mind is the chief actor on the stage of the
living animal body.

20. It magnifies the minute and makes the true appear as

untruej it sweetens the bitter and sours the sweet, and turns a
foe to a friend and vice-vena.

21. In whatever manner the mind represents itself in its

various aspects, the same becomes evident to ns both in our per�
ceptions and conceptions of them. (t. e. Every body takes things
in the same light, as his mind represents them unto him).

22. It was by virtue of such a representation, that the dream

ing mind of king Haris chandra, took the course of one night
for the long period of a dozen of years.

23. It was owing to a similar idea of the mind, that the whole
city of Brahmd appeared to be situated within himself.

24. The presentation of a fair prospect before the imagina�

tion, turns the present pain to pleasure} as a man bound in
chains forgets his painful state, in the hopes of his release or
installation on the next morning.

2.5. The mind being well fortified and broujght under the
subjection of reason, brings all the members of the body and
internal passions of the heart under our control j but the loose
and ungoverned mind, gives a loose rein to them for their going
astray; as the loosened thread of a string of pearls, scatters'
the precious grains at random over the ground.

26. The mind that preserves its clear sightodness, and its
equanimity and unalterableness in all places, and under all
conditions; retains its even temper and nice discernment at all

Utpatti khanda.

329

tihies, utoder the testimony of its eonciousness, and approbation

of its good conscience.

�7. With your mind acquainted with the states of all things,
but undisturbed by the fluctuations of the objects that come
Under your cognizance, you must retain, 0 llama! your self-
possession at all times, and remain like a dumb and dull body,
(without being moved by anything).

28. The mind is restless of its own nature, with all its
Vain thoughts and desires within itself; but the man is carried
abroad as by its current; over hills and deserts and across rivers
and seas, to far and remote cities and countries (in search of
gain).

29. The waking mind deems the objects of its desire, to be

as sweet as honey, and whatever it docs not like, to be as bitter
as gall; although they may be sweet to taste ; (i. e. the blind�
ness of sensuous minds in their choice of evil for good, and
slighting of good as evil).

30. Some minds with too much self roliaiicc in themselves,

and without considering the true nature of things ; give them
different forms and colours, according to their own conceptions
and opinions, though they are far from truth. (Every man
delights in his own hobby hoi-se).

31. The mind is a pulsation of the power of the Divine

Intellect, that ventilates in the breeze and glares in luminous
bodies, melts in the liquids and hardens in solid substances.
(Compare the lines of Pope: �Glows in the sun &c.'� The mind
is dependent on the intellect, and the mental operations, arc
subordinate to the intellectual).

32. It vanishes in vacuity and extends in the space; it

dwells in everything at its pleasure, and flies from everywhere
at its will.

83. It whitens the black and blackens the white, and is

confined to no place or time but extends through all. (The mind
can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven).

34. The mind being absent or settled elsewhere, we do not

Voi., 11, 4 a

33D

YOGA VASlSHtHA.

laste tbe Bwcet, which we suck or swallow or grind under tliB

teeth or lick with the tongue.

35. What is seen by the mind, is seen with the eyes, and
Avhat is unseen by it, is never seen by the visual organs ; as
tilings lying in the dark arc not perceptible to the sight.

80. The mind is embodied in the organic body, accompanied

by the sensible organs j but it is the mind that actuates the senses
and receives the sensations ; the senses arc the products o� the
mind, but the mind is not a production of sensations.

87. Those great souls (philosophers), who have investigated

into the manner of the connection between the two quite differ*
ent substances of the body and mind, and those learned men
who show us their mutual relations (the psychologists), are truly
worthy of our veneration.

88. A handsome woman decked with flowers in the braids

of her hair, and looking loosely with her amorous glances, is like
a log of wood in contact with the body of one, whose mind is
absent from himself. (The dalliance of a woman is dead and lost^
to the unfeeling heart and unmindful man).

89. The dispassionate Yop that sits reclined in his abstract

meditation in the forest, has no sense of his hands being bitten
off by a voracious beast from his body; owing to the absence of
his mind.

40. The mind of the sage, which is practised in mental

abstraction, may with ease be inclined to convert his pleasures to
pain, and his pains to pleasure.

41. The mind employed in some other thought and inatf/nn .

live to the present discourse, finds it as a detached piece of
wood dissevered by an axe. (The presence of the mind joins
the parts of a lecture, as its inadvertence disjoins them from
their consecutive order).

42. A man sitting at home, and thinking of his standing on

the precipice of a mountain, or falling into the hollow cave
below, shudders at ,the idea of his imminent danger: so ^1�^ one
is startled at the prospect of a dreary desert even in his dream,

FTPATTl EHANIM.

33�

and is 'bewildered to imagine the vast deep under thc'clonds.

(See Hume on the Association, of Idi^).

43. The mind feels a delight at the sight of a lovely spot

�n its dTeam> and at seeing* the hills, cities and houses stretch�
ing on the dusters of stars shining in the extended plain of the
Bkj. (Objects which are pleasurable or painful to the sight,.

give pleasnre and pain to- the mind, when it is connected witli.
that sense).

44.. The restless mind' is busy to stretch many a hill and'

dale and cities and houses in our dreams,, as these are thc bil�
lows in the vast ocean of the sonl.

45., As. thc waters of the sea display themselves in huge-

surges, billows and' waves, so the mind which is in thc body, dis�
plays itself in tho various sights exhibited in our dreams.
(Meaning, tho dreams to be transformations {Vikdrai) of tlie
mind, like the waves of the water).

46. As the leaves and branches, flbwcrs and fruits are the-
products of the shooting seed'; so every thing that is seen in
our waking dreams, is the creations of our minds.

47. As a golden image is no other than thc very gold, so-

the creatures of onr living dreams,, arc not otherwise than the*
creations of our fanciftd- mind..

48. As a drop or shower of rain, and a foam, or froth of the-

wave, are but different forms of water j so thc varieties
{mamtd), of sensible objects are but formations of the samo-
mind. (Lit, formations or transformations of tho mind)..

49. These are but the thoagkts of onr minds, that are seons
in our waking dreams; like the various garbs which an actoc
puts oh him, to represent different characters in a play.

50. As the king Lavana believed himself to be a ebanddia

for some time> so do wo believe ourselves to be so and so, by the
thoughts of our minds.

51. 'Whatever we think ourselves to be in our consciousness>

the same soon comes to pass rrpon os; therefore mould the

332

rOQA VASISHTIIA.

thouglits of year mind in any way you like, (e. e. As one thinks
himself to he, so will be find luinself to become in his own
eonciet).

52. The embodied being beholds many cities and towns, hill*
and rivers before him; all which are but visions of waking
dreams, and stretched out by the inward mind.

63. One sees a demon in a deity, and a snake where there

is no snake j it is the idea that fosters the thought, as the king
Lavana fostered the thoughts of his ideal forms.

54. As the idea of man includes that of a woman also, and

the idea of father comprises that of the son likewise; so the mind
includes the wish, and the wish is accompained by its action with
every person. (As when I say 1 have a mind to do so, I mean
1 have a wish to do it; and the same wish leads me to its exc>
cution. Or that the action is concommitant with the will so
the phrase; �take will for the deed�).

55. It is by its wish that the mind is subject to death, and

to be bom again in other bodies \ and though it is a formlesa
thing of its nature, yet it is by its constant habit of thinking,
that it contracts the notion of its being a living substance
(jlva).

56. The mind is busy with its thoughts of long drawn wish*
es, which cause its repeated births and deaths, and their con>
commitants of hopes and fears, and pleasure and pain. (The
wish is father of thoughts, and these mould our acts and
lives).

57. Pleasure and pain are situatc<l in the mind like the oil
in the sesamum seed, and these are thickened or thinned like
the oil under particular circumstances of life. Prosperity thick�
ens our pleasure, and adversity our painand these are thinned
by their reverses again.

58. As it is the greater or lighter pressure of the oil-mill,

that thickens or thins the oil, so it is the deeper or lighter atten�
tion of the mind, that aggravates or lightens its sense of plea�
sure or pain. (Loss or gain nnfelt, is nothing lost or gained.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

The ploasaro or pain of which wo are ignorant, is no pleasure

or pain).

69. As our wishes are directed by the particular circums*

tancos of time and place, so the measurements of time and.
place, are made according to the intensity or laxity of our
thoughts, (i. e. The intense application or inattention of
the mind, prolongs and shortens the measure of time and place
to us).

60. It is the miiul that is satisfied and delighted at the ful�

filment of our wishes, and not the body whioh is insensible of its
enjoyments. (The commentary explains the participation of
the enjoyment both by the body and mind, and not by one in�
dependently of the other).

61. The mind is delighted with its imaginary desires within

the body, as a secluded woman takes her delight in the seraglio.
(The pleasure of imagination pleases the inmost soul, when we
have no external and bodily pleasure to enjoy).

62. He who does not give indulgence to levities and fickleness

in his heart, is sure to subdue his mind; as one binds an ele�
phant by its chain to the post.

66. He whose mind does not wave to and fro like a brandished
sword, but remains fixed as a post or pillar to its best intent and
object, is the best of men on earth; all others (with fickle
minds), are as insects continually moving in the mind.

64. He whose mind is freed from ficklene^, and is sedate-

in itself, is united with his best object in his meditation of the
same. (The unflinching mind, is sure of success).
65. Steadiness of the mind is attended with the stUIncss of
worldly commotions, as the suspension of the churning Man-
dara, was attended with the calmness of the ocean of milk.

66. The thoughts of the mind being embroiled in worldly

earcs (of gaining the objects of desire and enjoyments), become
the sources of those turbulent passions in the breast, which
tike poisonous plants fill this baneful world (with their deadly
breath).

331

TOGA VA'SISHTHA.

!&. Foolisli men that are infatuated by their giddiness and

4 gporancc, revolve round the centre of their hearts, as the
giddy bees flutter about the lotus-flower of the lake; till at last
� grown weary in their giddy circles, they fall down in the enconor
^assing whirlpools,, which hurl them in irreparable ruin.

CHAOTER CXI.

Healino of the Heabt and Mind.

ArguraenU. Prompt relinqaishiilent of desires, and abandonmeal of

Sgoism, as tbe means of the subjection of the mind and intense application
of the Intellect.

Y ASISHTHA continued:�^Now attend to the beet remedy,

that 1 will tell you to heal the disease of the heart ^ which
is within one�s own pov^er and harmless, and a sweet potion to
taste.

2. It is by the exertion of yoUr own consciousness by yourself,

and by diligent relinquishment of the best objects of your desire,
that you can bring back your refractory mind under your
subjection.

3. Ho who remains at rest by giving up the objects of his

desire, is verily the conqueror of his mind; which is reduced
under his subjection as an elephant wanting its tusks.

4. The mind is to be carefully treated as a patient by the

prescriptions of reason, and by descriminating the truth from
untruth, as wo do good diet from what is injurious. *

5. Mould your heated imagination by cool reasoning, by

precepts of the Sastrds, and by association with the dispassionate,
as they do the heated iron by a cold hammer.

6. As a boy has no pain to turn himself this Way and that

in his play; so it is not difficult to turn the mind, from one
thing to another at pleasure.

7. Employ your mind to the acts of goodness by the light of

your understanding; as you join your Soul to the meditation of
God by light of your spirit.

8. The renunciation of a highly desirable object, is in the

power of one, who resigns himself to the divine will; it is a shame
therefore to that worm of human being, who finds this precept
difficult for luB practice.

336

VOGA VA'SlSHTHA.

9. He who can take the unpleasant for the pleasurable in hiS

Understanding; may with ease subdue his mind, as a giant over*
<comes a boy by. his mights

10. It is possible to govern the mind like a horse, by one's

attention and exertion; and the mind being brought to its quiet*
ness, it is easy to enter into divine knowledge.

11. Shame to that jackass (lit: jackalish man), Who has not
the power to subdue his restless mind, which is entirely under his
own subjection, and which he can easily govern,

12. No one can reach the best course of his life, without
the tranquility of his mind; which is to be acquired by means of
his own exertion, in getting rid of the fond objects of his desire,
(The best course of life, is to live free from care, which is un�
attainable without subjection of our desires).

13. It is by means of destroying the appetites of the mind,

by means of reason and knswlodge. of truth} that one can have
his absolute dominion over it, without any change or rival in it.
(The rival powers in the kingdom of the mind {mdnordjya), are
tbe passions and the train of iguoranoe-�io^ 0 ).

14!. The precepts of a preceptor, the instructions of the

Blstras, the eSdcacy of mantras, and the force of arguments, are
all as trifles as straws, without that calmness of the mind, which
can be gained by renunciation of our desires and by the knowledge
of truth.

' 15. Tbe One All and all-pervading quiescent Brahma can be
known then only, when the desires of the mind are all cat ofi
by the weapon of indifference to all worldly things.

16. All bodily pains of men are quite at an end, no sooner

the mind is at rest, after the removal of mental anxieties by
means of true knowledge.

17. Many persons turn their minds to unmindfulness, by

two much trust in their exertions and imaginary expectations }
and disregarding the power of destiny, which overrules all human
efforts.

18. The mind being long practised in it* highest duty, of the

t'TPATTi khandA. ait

tiuUiv&tiott o{ divine knowledge, bocomos exlinct in tbe intellect^

tind is elevated to its bigber state oE intellectual form.

19. Join yourself to your intellectual or abstract thoughts at

first, and then to your spiritual speculations. Being then master
t)f your mind, coftteaiplate 6n the liatiire of the Supreme soul.

20-. Thus relying on your own exertion, and converting the

sensible mind to its state of stoic insensibility, yon can attain to
that highest state of fixedness, which knows no decay nor
destruction. (Spiritual bliss).

31. It is byyoUr exertion and fixed attention, O RdmC! that

you can correct the errors of your mind; as one gets over his
wrong apprehension of taking one thing for another; (such as his
mistaking of the east for the west).

23. Calmness of mind, produces the want of anxiety; and

the man that has been able to subdue his mind, cares a fig for
his subjection of the world under him, (For, what is this world,
without its perception in the mind ?)

23. Wordly possessions are attended with strife and warfare,

and the enjoyments of heaven also, have their rise and fall; but
in the improvement of one�s own mind and natnre, there is no
contention with anybody, nor any obstruction of any kind.

24. It is hard for them to mana ;(0 their affairs well,wha

cannot manage to keep their minds under proper control. (Govern
yourself ere you can govern others. Or;-Govern your mind;,
lest it govern yoii).

25. The thought of one's being dead, and being born again
as a man, continually employ the minds of the ignorant with the
idea of their egoism; (which is a false one, since the soul has no
birth or death, nor any pei-sonality of its own).

26. So no body is bom here nor dies at any time; it is the

mind that conceives its birth and death and migration in other
bodies and worlds. (* e. Its transmigration and apprehension of
its rise or fall to heaven or hell;.

27. It goes hence to another world, and there appears irt

another form (of the body and mind); or it is relieved from the

Von. II, 43

�38
YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

encumbrance of flesli^ wbicb is called its liberation. Where then

is this death and why fear to die, (which is no more than pro^
.^gresa to a new life ?}.

28. Whether the mind roves here; or goes to another world

with its earthly thoughts, it continues in the same state as
before unless it is changed to another form (of purity), by its at-
tainmeat of liberation (from humanity).

29. It is in vain that we are overwhelmed in sorrow, upon the

demise of our brethren and dependants; since we know it is the
nature of the mind, to be thus deluded from its state of pure
intelligence to that of error. (It is the deluded mind, and not

the intelligent soul that is subject to soi-row).

30. It has been repeatedly mentioned both before and after*

wards, and in many other places (of this work); that there is no
other means of obtaining the pure diet of true knowledge, with*
out subduing the mind, (and bringing it under the control o�
reason).

81. I repeat the same lesson, that there is no other way,

save by the government of the unruly mind, to come to the light
of the truly real, (dear and catholic knowledge of the Supreme.
(By catholic knowledge is meant the universally received doctri*
nes of divinity).

82. The mind being destroyed (t>. all its function, being sos*
pended); the soul attains its tranquility, and the light of the
intellect shines forth in the cavity of the heart.

33. Hold fast the discus of reason, and cut off the bias of
your mind; be sure that no disease will have the power to molest
you, if you can have the good sense to despise the objects of
pleasure, which are attended by pain. (All pleasure is followed
by pain. Or : Pleasure leads to pain, and pain snccecds pleasure).

31. By lopping. the members of the mind, you cut it off

altogether ; and these being egoism and selfishness which com�
pose the essence of the mind. Shun your sense that �it is I� and
�these arc mine.'

35. Want of these feelings, casts down the mind like a tree

UTPATTI KHANDA.

36>

fellcJ by tbe axe; aad disperses it like a scattered cloud from

the aatamnal sky.

Sd�. The mind is blown away by its destitution of egoism

(JLhantd) and meitatism (mamatd), like a clouds by the winds.
(Unconsciousness of one's egoism and personality, is the tanta�
mount to his utter extinction^ and unification witb the one
universal Soul).

97. It is dangerous to wage a war, against winds and

weapons, and fire and water, inorder to obtain the objects of
our worldly desire; but there is no danger whatever in destroy�
ing the growing soft and tender desires of the mind. (It is
easier to govern one�s self than to suppress his enemies).

88. What is good, and what is not so, is well known for cer�
tain even to boys ; {*. e. the immutability of good and evil ia
plain to common and simple understandings^; therefore employ
your mind to what is good, as they train up children in the paths,
of goodness. (Sow good betimes, to reap its reward in time. If
g^od we plant not, vice will fill the place and rankest weeds,,
tbe richest soils deface).

39. Our minds are as inveterate and indomitable, as ferocioua

lions of the forest ; and they are true victors, who have con�
quered these, and are thereby entitled to salvation. (Govern
your restless mind, and you govern the rest of your kind)..

40. Our desires are as fierce lions, with their insatiable thirst
after lucre : and they are as delosive as the mirage of the de�
sert, by leading us to dangers.

' 41. The man that is devoid of desires, cares for notbingj
whether the winds may howl with the fury of storms ; or the
seas brealc their bonnds, or the twelve sons (of the i&diac) rise
at once to bum the universe.

42. The mind ia the root, that grows the plants of oar
good and evil and all our weal and woe. The mind is the tree
of the world, and all peoples arc as its branches and leaves,
(which live by its sap aird jnice).

48. One prospers every where, who has freed his mimt

340

YOGA V^iSISHTnA.

from its dcsii-cs; and lie tliat lives in, the dominion of indiflbiv.
CQce> rests in his heavenly felicity.

44. The more wc curb the desires of our minds, the greater
we feel our inward happiness j as the fire being extinguished*
we find ourselves cooled from its heat.

46. Should the mind long for millions of worldly mansions

in its highest ambition ; it is sure to have them spread out to
view within the minute particle of its own essence. (The ambi�
tious mind grasps the whole world within its small compass).

46. Opulence in expectancy, is full of anxiety to the mind*

and the expected wealth when gained is no less troublesorao
to it; but the treasure of contentment is fraught with lasting
peace of mind, therefore be victorious over your greedy mind
by abandonment of all your desiresw.

47. With the highly holy virtue of your nnnundfulness, and

with the even-mindedness of those that have known the Divine-
spirit; as also with the subdued, moderated and defeated year�
nings of your heart, make the slate of the incrcatc One as your-
own., (Sedateness of the mind, resembles the state of God),

CHAPTEl^ CXII.

The Restlessness of the Mind and its curb.

Argument. Means of weakening the mind and mental Desires.

V ASISHTHA continncd ;�Whatever be the nature of the

object of any man�s desire^ bis mind does not fail to rna
after it with great avidity in every place.

2. This cagruesB of the mind rises and sets by turns, with

the view of the desired object, like the clear bubbles of water
foaming and bursting of themselves with the breath of winds.

3. As coldness is the nature of frost, and blackness is that

of ink ^ so is swiftness or momentum the nature of the mind,
as stillness is that of the soul.

4. Riima said:�Tell mo sir, why the mind is identified with

momentum, and what is the cause of its velocity; tell mo
also ; if there is any other force to impede the motion of the
mind.

6. Vasishtha replied We have never seen the motionlcsa

quiet of the mind i flectuess is the nature of the mind, as heat is.
that of fire.

6. This vacillating power of motion, which is implanted in

the mind, is known to be of the same nature as that of the self^
motive force of the Divine miud ; which is the cause of the-
momentum and motion of these worlds.

- 7. As the essence of air is imperceptible without its vibration,,

so we can have no notion of the momentum of our minds, apart
from the idea of their oscillation.

8. The mind which has ho motion is said to be dead and.

defunct; and the suspension of mental agitation, is the condU
tion of Yoga quietism and leading to our ultimate liberation.

9. The mortification of the mind, is attended with the subsU

dence of our woes; but the agitated thoughts in the mind, aro>
causes of all our woes..

342

TOGA VA'SISHTHA.

10. The monster of the mind, being roused from its rest^
raises all our dangers and disasters; hut its falling into restand
inaction, causes our happiness and perfect felicity.

11. The restlessness of the mind is the effect of its ignorance;

therefore Kdma 1 exert your reason to destroy all its desires (for
temporal possessions).

12. Destroy the internal desires of your mind, which are

raised by ignorance alone; and attain your supreme felicity by
}�>ur resignation to the divine will.

13. The mind is a thing that stands between the real and
unreal, and between intelligence and dull matter, and is moved
to and fro by the contending powers on either side.

14. Impelled by dull material force, the mind is lost in the

investigation of material objects till at last by its habitual
thought of materiality, it is converted to a material object,,
resembling dull matter itself. (Such is the materialistic mind).

15. But the mind being guided by its intellectual powers,,

to the investigation of abstract truths, becomes an intelligent and
intellectual principle, by its continued practice of thinking
itself as such. (This is immaterial mind).

16. It is by virtue of the exertion of your manly powers

�and activities, and by force of constant habit and continued
practice ; that you can succeed to attain any thing, to which
yon employ you-r mind with diligence. (Diligence overcomes all
difficulties)..

17. You can also be free from- fears, and find your restiik
your reliance in the sorrowless Being; provided you exorcise^
your manly activities therein, and curb the proclivities of youe
mind by your intelligence.

18. It must be by the force of your inielligent mind, that

you must lift up your deluded mind, which is drowned in the
cares of this world. There is no other means that will help you
to do so.

19. The mind only is capable of subduing the mind; for who>
eaa subdue a king unless he is a king himself ?

UTPATTI KHANDA.
ai3

50. Oar minds are the boats, to lift as from the ocean of this
nrorld; where we are carried too far by its beating waves, and.
thrown into the eddies of dispair, and where we are caught by
the sharks of onr greediness.

51. Let your own mind cat the net of the mind, which is
ensnared in this world ; and extricate your soul, by this wise
policy, which is the only means of your liberation. (/^ e. Set
your mind to correct your mind).

%%. Let the wise destroy the desires of their minds, and this
will set them free from the bonds of ignorance.

23. Shun your desire for earthly enjoyments and forsake

your knowledge of dualism; then get rid of your impressions
of entity and non-entity, and be happy with the knowledge of
one unity.

24. The thought of the unknowable, will remove the thoughts

of knowables; this is equivalent to the destruction of desires, of
idle mind and ignorance also.

25. The unknown one of which we are unconscious by our

knowledge, transcends all whatever is known to us by our
consciousness. Our 'loconscioasncss is our niroana or final cxtiac>
tion, while our consciousness is the cause of our wOe.

26. It is by their own attention that men soon come to the

knowledge of the knowables; bat it is the unknowing or un�
consciousness of these that is our niro&aa, while our conscious�
ness is the cause of our woe. (Waut of self consciousness, is
want of pain. And perfect apathy is the perfection of soliaisin).

27. Destroy O R&ma, whatever is desirable to your mind,

and is the object of your affection ; then knowing them as re�
duced to nothing, forsake your desires as seedless sprouts (which
can never grow); and live content without the feelings of joy
and grief.

CIIAPTEII CXtll.

toESCaiPTION OP lONOBANCE AND DELUSION, (AtiDyi).

Argument. EKtirpnlion of Evil Doairoa imd dnalitjr by the true knOw-
tedgo of unity Called the \^idyA

y ASISUTHA continued :�^The false desires whioli continualy

rise in the breast; are as the 'appearances of false moons
in the sky, and should be shunned by the wise.

2. They rise in the minds of the unwise amidst their igno�

rance } but every thing which is known only by its name and
not in actuality, can not have its residence in tlie minds of wise
people. (Nominalism as opposed to Bcalistic Platonism).

3. Bo wise, O Rdma; and do not think like the ignorant j

but consider well all that 1 tell you;�there is no second moon
in the sky, but it appears so only by deception of our optical
visions.

4. There exists nothing real or unreal any where, except the

only true essence of God; as there is no substantiality in the
continuity of the waves, besides the body of waters.

6. There is no reality in any thing, whether existent or

bon-existent, all which are mere creations of your shadowy
ideality ; do not therefore impute any shape or figure to the
eternal, boundless and pure spirit of God.

6. You are no maker nor master of anything, then why

deem any act or thing as your own {tuamaid-meitif ?) You know
not what these existences are, and by whom and wherefore th^
are made,

7. Neither think yourself as actor, because no actor can

attempt to do anything. Discharge whatever is your duty, and
remain at your ease with having done your part.

8. Though you are the actor of an action, yet think not'

yourself as such, minding your inability to do or undo any

UTPATTl KHANbA.

345

tilings: for tow can you boast yourself as the actor, when you
know your inability for action.

9. If truth is delectable and untruth is odious, then remain

firm to what is good; and be employed in your duties (in the
path of truth and goodness).

10 . But H the whole world is a gallery, a magic and an un�

reality ; then say what reliance is there in it, and what signifies
pleasurableness or unpleasurablcness to any body.

11. Know Kama, this ovum of the world to be a delusion,

and being inexistent in itself, appears as a real existence to
others.

12. Know this busy sphere of the world, which is so full

with its incssence; to be an ideal phantasm pi-escnted for the
delusion of our minds.

13. It is like the beautiful bamboo plant, all hollow within,

and without pith and marrow in the inside ; and like the curling
waves of the sea, both of which are born to perish without being
uprooted from the bottom. (It is impossible to root out the
bamboo as well as the rising wave of the water).

14. This world is as volatile os the air and water flying iu

the air, and hardly to be tangible or held fast in the hand ; and
as precipitous as the water-fall in its course; (hurling down and
sweeping away everything before it).

15. It appears as a flowery garden, but never comes to any

good use at all; so the billowy sea in the mirage, presents the
form of water, without allaying our thirst.

16. Sometimes it seems to be straight, and at others a

curve; now it is long and now short, and now it is moving and
quiet again; and everything in it, though originally created
for our good, conspir^i to our evil only.

17. Though hollow in the inside, the world appears to be

full with its apparent contents; and though all the worlds are
continually in motion, yet they seem to be standing still.

18. Whether they be dull matter or intellig^noes, their

emstence depends upon their motion; and these without stopping

VoL. II. 44

346

YOGA VAmSHTHA.

any where for a moment, present the sight of their being quite
at rest.

19. Though they ai-c as bright as light to sight, they are

as opaque as the dark coal in their bowels; and though they
are moved by a superior power, they appear to be moving of
themselves.

aO. They fade away before the brighter light o� the sun,
but brighten in the darkness of tbe night; their light is like
that of the mirage, by reflection of sunbeams.

21. Human avarice is as a sable serpent, crooked .and venu*

mous, thin and soft in its form } but rough and dangerous in its
nature, and ever unsteady as a woman.

22. Our love of the world, ceases soon without the objects
of our affection ; as the lamp is extinguished without its oil,
and as the vermillion mark, which is soon effaced. (Here is a
pun upon the world sne/ia meaning a fluid substance as well as
affection; and that the world is a dreary waste, without the
objects dear to us).

23. Our false hopes are as transient, as the evanescent

flash of lightning-s; they glare and flai'e for a moment, but
they disappear in the air as these transitory flashes of light.
24. The objects of our desire are often had without our seeking,
but they are as frail as the fire of heaven; they appear to
vanish like the twinkling lightnings, and being held carefully in
the hand, they bum it like the electric fire. (This passage
shows the science of electricity and the catching of electric fire,
to hare been known to the aucients).

25. Many things come to us unasked, and though appearing

delightsome at first, they prove troublesome to us at last. Hopes
delayed, are as flowers growing out of season, which neither
bear their fruits, nor answer our purposes. (Unseasou flowers
are held as ominous and useless).

26. Every accident tends to our misery, as unpleasant dreams

infest our sleep and disturb our rest.

27. It is our delusion (avidyA), that presents these many

UTPATTI KHANDA.

347

and big worlds before ns; as our dreams prodncc, sustain and
destroy all the appearances of vision in one minute.

28. It was delusion which made one minute, appear as many

years to king Lavana ; and the space of one night, seem as tho
long period of a dozen of years to Haris chandra.

29. Such 9 lso is the case with separated lovers among rich
people, that a single night seems as a live long year to them,
in tho absence of their beloved.

so. It is this delusive midy&f that shortens the flight of

time to the rich and happy j and prolongs its course, with tho
poor and miserable: all of whom are subject to the power of
delusion vipary'&m,

81. The power of this delusion is essentially spread over all the
works of creation, as the light of a lamp, is spread over things
in its effulgence and not in substauce.

32. As a female form reprc.;ented in a picture is no woman,

and has not the power of doing any thing; so this avidpd which
presents us the sliajics of our desired objects in the picture of the
mind, can produce nothing in reality.

38. The delusion consists in tho building of aerial castlea

in the mind, without their substance �, and though these appear
in hundreds and thousands of shapes, they have no substan�
tiality in them.

3-l<. It deludes the ignorant, as a mirage misleads the deer

in a desert ; but il can not deceive the knowing man by its false
appearances.

35. These appearances like tho foaming waters, are as con-,

tinuous as they are evanescent, they arc as fleeting as the driv�
ing frost, which can not bo held in the hand.

36. This delusion holds the world in its grasp, and flies
aloft with it in the air; it blinds us by the flying dust, which,
is raised by its furious blasts. (This is delusion of ambitions).

37. Covered with dust and with heat and sweat of its body,,
it grasps tho earth and flies all about the world. The deluded
man ever toils and moils, and nins every where after his greed.

348

YOGA VASISIITHA.

38. As tliQ drops o� rain water, falling from the doads,

form the great rivers and seas; and as the scattered straws being
tied together, make the strong rope for the bondage of beasts;
so the combination of all the delusive objects in the world, makes
the great delusion of Maya and Moha. {�Outta cumguUa faeit
laca\ Drop by drop, makes a lake. Or by drops the lake is
drained, . And many a little, makes a mickle),

39. The poets describe the Suctuations of the world as a

series of waves and the world itself, as a bed of lotuses : plea�
sant to sight, but floating on the unstable clement. But I com�
pare it with the porous stalk of the lotus, which is full of per
forations and foramens inside i and as a pool of mud and mire,
with the filth of our sins : (The world is full of hidden traps
and trapdoors and is a pit of sinfulness).

40. Men think much of their improvement, and of many

other things on earth; but there is no improving in this decaying
world; which is as a tempting cake with a coatiug of sweets, but
full of deadly gall within.

41. It is as an extingushing lamp, whose flame is lost and

(led we know not where. It is visible as a mist, but try to lay
hold on it, and it proves to be nothing,

42. This earth is a handful of ashes, which being flung

aloft flies in particles of dust; and the upper sky which appears
to be blue, has no blueness in it.

43. There is the same delusion here on earth, as in the

appearance of couple of moons in the sky; and in the vision of
things in a dream, as also in the motion of immovable things on
the land, to the passenger in a boat, (Things taken to be true,
prove to be false).

44. Mon being long deluded by this error, which has fastly
laid hold of their minds, ims^ino a long duration of the world,
as they do of the scenes in their dreams.

4.5. The mind being thus deluded by this error, sees the won<�
derful productions of world, to rise and fall within itself Uko
the waves of the sea.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

840

40. Things whioh are real and good, appear as otherwise in

our error; while those that are unreal and noxious, appear as
real and good to our deluded understandings.

47. Oar strong avarice riding on the vihicle of the desired

object, chases the fleeting mind as bird-catchers do the flying
birds in nets.

48. Delusion like a mother and wife often offers us fresh

delights, with her tender looks and breasts distilling sweet milk.

49. But these delights serve only to poison us, while they
seem to cool the worlds with their distillation; just as the crest
cent orb of the moon, injures us with too much of her moisti
ening influence, white it appears to refresh us with her full
bright beams.

50. Blind delusion turns the meek, mild and mute men, to
giddy and vociferous fools j as the silent Yetalds become in their
revelrous dancings, amidst the silent woods at night,

51. It is under the influence of delusion, that we see the

shapes of snakes and serpents, in our brick-built and stone made
houses at night falls: ( i, e. apprehensions of these in darkness),

59. It makes a single thing appear as double, as in the

sight of two moons in the sky; and brings near to us whatever
is at a distance, as incur dreams; and even causes us to dream
ourselves as dead in sleep.

53. It causes the long to appear as short, as our nightly'

sleep shortens the duration of time; and makes a moment ap�
pear as a year, as in the case of separated lovers,

54. Look at the power of this unsubstantial ignorance, a

negative thing, and still there is nothing which it can not
alter to some thing else.

55. Therefore be diligent to stop the coarse of this delusion^

by your right knowledge; as they dry up a, channel by stopping
the current of the stream.
63. B4ma said .��It is wonderful that a false conception,
which has no real existence, and is so delicate as almost a no*
thing (hut a name) cdiould thus blindcn the understanding.

860 YOQi^ V/SISHTHA. �

57. It is strange that something without form or figure,

without sense or understanding, and which is unreal and va�
nishing, should so blindfold the world.

58. It is strange that a thing sparkling in darkness, and

vanishing in flay light, and mopeyed as the moping owl, should
thus keep the world in darkness.

59. It is strange that something prone to the doing of evil

(deception), and unable to come to light and Hying from sight, and
bavin" no bodily form whatever, should thus darken the world.

60. It is a wonder that one acting so miserly, and consort�

ing with the mean and vile, and ever hiding herself in darkness,
should thus domineer over the world.

61. It is wonderful that fallacy which is attended with

incessant woe and peril, and which is devoid of sense and
knowledge, should keep the world in daikncss. ,

62. It is to be wondered that error arising from anger and

avarice, creeping crookedly in darkness, and liable to instant
death (by its detection), should yet keep the world in blindness.

63. It is surprising that error which is a blind, dull and

stupid thing itself, and which is falsely talkative at all times,
should yet mislea 1 id�ucrs in the woidd.

04<. It is astonishing, that falsehood should betray a man,

after attaching so close to him as his consort, and showing all her
endearments to him ; but flying at the approimh of his reason.

65. It is strange that man should be blinded by the wo�

manish attire of error, which beguiles the man but dares not to
look at him face to face.

66. It is strange that man is blinded by his faithless con�

sort of error, which has no sense nor intelligence, and which
dies away without being killed.

67. Tell mo Sir, how this error is to bo dispelled, which has

its seat in the desires, and is deeply rooted in the recesses of the
heart and mind, and lead us to the channels of endless misery,
by subjecting us to repeated births and deaths, and to the pains
and pleasures of life.

CHAPTER. CXIV.

Deschiption oe Eeroe.
Argument. Spiritual knowledge, the only means of diapelling world-'
]y errors, temporal desii'cs and cares.

R AM A repeated :�Tell rao sir, how this stony blindness of man,

is to be removed, which is caused by the train of ignor�
ance or delusion called avidyd.

3. Vasishthd replied;�As the particles of snow, melt away

at the sight of the sun, so is tliis ignorance dispelled in a
moment, by a glance of the holy spirit.

?. Till then doth ignorance continue to hurl down the soul

and spirit, as from a precipice to the depths of the world, and
expose them to woes, as thick as thorny brambles.

4. As long as the dcsii�c of seeing the spirit, does not rise

of itself in the human soul, so long there is no end of this ig�
norance {avidyd) and insensibility (Mo/ta).

5. The sight of the supreme Spirit, destroys the knowledge

of our self-existence, which is caused by our ignorance; as the
light of the sun, destroys the shadows of things.

6. The sight of the all-pervading (rod, dispels our ignomnee

in the same manner, as the light of the tw�elvc zodiacal suns
(all shining �.t once), puts the shadows of night to flight from
all sides of the horizon.

7. Our desires are the offspring of our ignorance, and the

annihilation of these constitutes what we call onr liberation J
because the man that is devoid of desires, is reckoned the }>erfect
and consummate Siddha.

8. As the night-shade of desires, is dissipated from the

region of the mind; the darkness of ignorance is put to flight,
by the rise of the intellectual sun {Vivekoda^a).

9. As the dark night flies away before the advance of solar

352 YOGA VASiSitTriAi

liglit, so does ignorance disappearj before tbe adrancement ot

true knowledge�

10. The stiffness of our desires, tends to bind the mind

fast in its wordly chains; as the advance of night serves to
increase the fear of goblins in children.

11. Bdma asked :�The knowledge of the phenominals as

true, makes what we call midyA or ignorance, and it is said to
be dispersed by spiritual knowledge. Now tell me sir, what
is the nature of the Spirit.

12. Yasishtha replied:�^That which is not the subject of

thought, which is all�pervasive, and the thought of which
is beyond expression and comprehension is the universal spirit
(which we call our Lord and God).

13. That which reaches, to the highest empyrean of God, and

stretches over the lowest plots of grass on earth, is the all�per�
vading spirit at all times, and unknown to the ignorant soul.

14. All this is verily Brahma, eternal and imperishable in�

telligence. To him no imagination of the mind can reach at
any time.

16. That which is never bora or dead, and which is ever

existent in all worlds, and in which the conditions of being and
change are altogether wanting.

16. Which is one and one alone, all and all pervading, and
imperishable Unity; which is incomprehensible in thought, and
is only of the form of Intellect, is the universal Spirit.

17. It is accompanied with the ever-existent, aH-extending,

pure and undisturbed Intellect, and is that calm, quiet, even
. a^d unchanging state of the soul, which is called the Divine Spirit.

18. There resides also the impure mind, which is in its

nature beyond all physical objects, and runs after its own de-
.pirc; it is conceivable by the Intellect as sullied by its own
activity.

19. This nbiqncous, all-potent, great^ and godlike mind,

separates itself in its imagination from the Supreme spirit, and
rises from it as a wave on the surface of the sea. (So the

UTPATTI KHANDA.

35^

ISruti:� Eiasmai Jayate pranahmanah &c. Tlie life and mind

have their rise from Him).

aO. There is no fluctuation {Sansriti) nor projection (Fe/t-

akepa) in the all-extending tranquil soul of God ; but these take
place in the mind owing to its desires, which cause its production
of all things in the world. (Hence the world and all things in
it, are creations of the divine and active mind, and not of the
inactive Supreme Soul).

ai. Therefore the world being the production of desire or

will, has its extinction with the privation of desires; for that
which comes the growth of a thing, causes its extinction also;
as the wind which kindles the fire, extinguishes it likewise.
(Here is a coincidence with the Homoepathic maxim Similes per
aimilibus).

??. The exertion Of human efforts, gives rise to the expecta" >
tion of fruition, but want of desire, causes the cessation of exer�
tions : and consequently puts a stop to the desire of employ�
ment, together with our ignorance causing the desire.

as. The thought that 'I am distinct from Brahma, binds

the mind to the world; but the belief that 'Brahma is all� re�
leases the mind from its bondage.

a4. Every thought about one�s self, fastens liis bondage

in this world; but release from selfish thoughts, leads him to.
his liberation. Cease from thy selfish cares, and thou shalt
cease to toil and moil for naught.

as. There is no lake of lotuses in the sky, nor is there a.,

lotus growing in the gold mine, whose fragrance fills the ^ir,
and attracts the blue bees to suck its honey.

??. The goddess of ignorance�^Avidyd, with her uplifted

arms resembling the long stalks of lotus plants, laughs in exulta�
tion over her conquests, with the glaring light of shining moon�
beams.

27. Such is the net of our wishel spread before us by our

minds, which represent unrealities as real, and take a delight
to dwell upon them, like children in their toys.

voL. n.

43

3S4

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

28. So also is the snare spread out by our own ignorance^

all over this world, that it ensnares the busy people to their
misery in all places, as it binds fast the ignorant men and boys
in its chains.

29. Men aro busied in worldly affairs with such thoughts,

as these that j 'I am poor and bound in this earth for my life;
but I have my hands and feet wherewith 1 must work for my�
self�.

80. But they are freed from all affairs of this life, who know
themselves as spiritual beings, and their spiritual part is neither
subject to bondage nor labour. (They know themselves to be
bodiless, in their embodied forms).

31. The thought that � I am neither flesh nor bones, but

some thing else than my body,� releases one from his bondage;
and one having such assurance in him, is said to have weakened
his avidya or ignorance.

32. Ignorance {.Avidya) is painted in the imagination of

earthly men, to be as dark as the darkness which surrounds the
highest pinnacle of Meru, blazing with the blue light of saphire,
or as the primeval darkness impenetrable by the solar light.
(Hence ignorance and darkness are used as synonymous terms).

33. It is also represented by earth-born mortals, as the black�

ness which naturally covers the face of heaven by its own nature
like the blue vault of the sky. (Thus Avidya is represented as
the black and the blue goddess Kali).

34. Thus ignorance is pictured with a visible form, in the

imagination of the unenlightened; but the enlightened never
attribute sensible qualities to inanimate and imaginary objects,

35. RAma said : �Tell me sir, what is the cause of the blue�
ness of the sky, if it is not the reflexion of the blue gems on the
Meru� speak, nor is it a collection of darkness by itself.

36. Vasishtha replied:�Rdma I the sky being but empty

vacuum, cannot have the quality of blueness which is commonly
attributed to it; nor is it the bluish lustre of the blue gems
which are supposed to abound on the top of Meru.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

355

S7. There is neither the possibility of a body of darkness

to abide in the sky, when the mundane egg is fall of light
(which has displaced the primeval darkness'; and when the na�
ture of light is the brightness which stretches over the extramun-
(lanc regions. (This is the zodiacal light reaching' to extra-
mundane worlds).

38. O fortunate RAma! the firmament (snnya' which is a vast

vacuum, is open to a sister of ignorance (avidySj with regard
to its inward hollowness. (The sky and ignorance are twin
sisters, both equally blank and hollow within, and of unlimited
extent, enveloping the worlds within their unconscious wombs).

39. As one after losing his eyesight, beholds but darkness

only all about him ; so the want of the objects of sight in the
womb of vacuity, gives the sky the appearance of a darksome
scene.

40. By understanding this, as you come to the knowledge,

that the apparent blackness of the sky, is no black colour of
its own j so you come to learn the seeming darkness of ignorance
to be no darkness in reality : (but a figurative expression deriv�
ed from its similitude to the other).

41. Want of desire or its indifference, is the destroyer of ig�

norance ; and it is as easy to effect it, as to annihilate the lotus-
lake in the sky ; (an Utopia or a castle built in the air, being but
an airy nothing.)
42. It is better, O good Rdma ! to distrust the delusions
of this world, and disbelieve the blueness of the sky, than to
labour under the error of their reality.

43. The thought that �I am dead,� makes one a.s sorrowful,

as when he dreams of his death in sleep ; so also the thought
that �1 am living� makes one ns cheerful, as when he wakes
from the deadly dream of his death like-sleep.

44. Foolish imaginations make the mind as stolid as that of

a fool; but reasonable reflexions lead it to wisdom and clear-^
sightednesa.

45. A moment�s reflexion of the reality of the world and of hia

356 yOGA VA'SISHTHA.

own esseDce^ casts a man in to tlie gloom of evorlaeting ignoianco,

while his forgetfulness of these, removes all mortal thonghta
from his rainS.

46. Ignorance is the producer of passions and tempter to all

transient objects; it is busy in destroying the knowledge of the
soul, and is destroyed by knowledge of the soul only. (Ignorance
leads to materialism, but it is lost under spiritual knowledge).

47. Whatever is sought by the mind, is instantly supplied

by the organs of action ,* which serve as ministers subserviei^t
to the orders of their king. (The body servos the mind).

48. Hence who so does not attend to the dictates of his

mind, in the pursuit of sensible objects, entertains the tranquili-.
ty of his inmost soul, by his diligent application to spirituality.

49. What did not exist at first, has no existence even now,
(*. e. material objects); and these that appear as existent, are no
other than the quiescent and immaculate esscnce-Brahma him-,
self. (The eternal is ever existent, and the instantaneous are
but the phases and fluctuations of the everlasting).

50. Let no other thought of any person or thing, or of any

jjlace or object emjdoy your mind at any time, except that of
the immutable, everlasting and unlinaited spirit of Brahma.
(For what faith or reliance is there in things that are false and
fleeting).

51. Rely in the superior powers of your understanding, and

exert your sovran intellect, (to know the truth) j and root out
at once all worldly desire by enjoyment of the pleasures of your,
mind.

62. The great ignorance that rises in the mind, and raises,
the desires of thy heart, has spread the net of thy false hopes,
for thy ruin, causing thy death and decrepitude under them.

53. Thy wishes burst out in expressions as these that, "thesei

are my sons and these my treasures; 1 am such a one, and these,
things are mine.� AH this is the effect of a magic spell of igno�
rance, that binds thee fast in it.

54 . Thy Jaody is a void, wherein thy desires have j^ro^uced

UTPATTI KHANDA.

86T

ftll thy selfish thoi^ghta , as the empty winds raise the gliding
waves on the surfaoe of the sea (resembling the fleeting moments
in the infinity of the Deity).

65. Learn ye that are seekers of trath, that the words.

I, mine and this and that^ are all meaningless in their trne
sense; and that there is nothing that maybe called real at
any time, except the knowledge of the true self and essence of
Brahma.

56. The heavens above and the earth below, with all the
ranges of hills and mountains on earth, and all the lines of its
rivers and lakes, are but the dissolving views of our sight, and
are seen in the same or different lights as they are represented
by our ignorance. (This is a tenet of the drishtigrkhti system of
philosophy, which maintains Visual creations or existence of
phenomenals, to be dependant upon sight or visual organs and
are deeepUo visits or fallacies of vision only).

57. The phenomenals rise to view from our ignorance, and

disappear before the light of knowledge (as the dreams and spec-,
ties of the dark, are put to flight before the rising sun-light).
They appear in various forms in the substratum of the soul, as
the fallacy of a snake appearing in the substance of a rope.

58. Know Bdma, that the ignorant only arc liable to tha
error, of taking the earth and sun and the stars, for rea-.
lities; but not so the learned, to whom the Great Brahma is.
present in all his majesty and full glory, in all places and things.

69. While the ignorant labour under the donbt of the two
ideas, of a rope and a snake in the rope ; the learned are firm
in their belief, and sight of one trne God in all things.

60. Do not therefore think as the ignorant do, but consider

all things well like the wise and the learned. Forsake your
earthly wishes, and do not grove like the vulgar by believing
the unself as the self. (The second clause has the double
sense of mistaking an alien as your own, and of taking an un-.
^ality for the true God).

fil, Qf wi)at good is this dull and dumb body to you, Bdma?

8fi8
yOG^ VA'SISHTHA.

(in your future state), tliafc you are so overcome by your alter�
nate joy and grief atits pleasure and pain ?

62. As the wood of a tree and its gum resin, and its fruit
and seed, are not one and the same thing, though they are
so closely akin to one another ; so is this body and the embodied
being, quite separate from one another, though they are so
closely united with each otlicr.

63. As tlie burning of a pair of bellows, does not blow

out the fire, nor stop the air blown by another pair, so the vital
air is not destroyed by destruction of the body, but finds its
way into another form and frame elsewhere. (This is the doc�
trine of the transmigration of the soul and life in other bodies).

64. The tbougbt that � I am happy or miserable,� is as

false as the conception of water in the mirage:�and knowing it
as such, give up your misconceptions of pleasure and pain, and
place your reliance in the sole truth.

65. O how wonderful is it, that men have so utterly for�

gotten the true Brahmd, and have placed tlicir reliance in false
ignorance {avid^d), the solo cause of errors.

66. Do not, O Bdma! give way to ignorance in your mind,

which being overspread by its darkness, will render it difiicnlt
for you to pass over the errors of the world.

67. Know ignorance to be a False fiend and deluder of the

strongest minds; it is the bainfnl cause of endless woes, and
producer of the poisonous fruits of illusion.

68. It imagines bell fire, in the cooling beams of the watery

orb of the moon; and conceives tlio torments of the infernal
fires, proceeding from the refreshing beams of that celestial
light. (This passage alludes to the poetical description of moon
light as a flame of fire, in respect to a lover, who is impatient
at the seperation of his beloved, and is burning under the
inextinguishable flame of ardent desire).

69. It views a dry desert in the wide waters, beating with

billows and undulating with the fragrance of the aqueous halpct
flowers; aud^ imagines a dry mirage in the empty clouds of

UTPATTI KHANDA.

autumn. (This alludes also to the wild imageries of poets, pro�

ceeding from their false imagination and ignorance).

70. Ignorance builds the imftginery castles in empty air, and

causes the error of rising and falling towers in the clouds}
it is the delusion of our fancy, that makes us feel the emotions
of pleasure and pain in our dreams.

71. If the mind is not filled and led away by worldly

desires, there is no fear then of our falling into the dangers,
which the day-dreams of our earthly affairs incessantly present
before us.

72. The more does our false knowledge (error) lay hold of
our minds, the more we feel the torments of hell and its punish�
ments in us, as one dreams of night-mares in his sleep.

73. The mind being pierced by error as by the thornystalk of a

lotus, sees the whole world revolving before it like the sea
rolling with its waves.

7'1. Ignorance taking possession of the mind, converts the

enthroned princes to peasants; and reduces them to a condition
worse than that of beastly huntsmen. (All tyrants are the
creatures of ignorance).

75. Therefore, KAmal give up the earthly desires, that servo

at best to bind down the (celestial) soul to this mortal earth and
its mortifying cares ; and remain as the pure and white crystal,
with reficcting the hues of all things around in your stainless
mind.

76. Employ thy mind to thy duties, without being tarnished

by thy attachment to any ; but remain as the unsullied crystal,
receiving the reflections of outward objects, without being
stained by any.

77. Knowing everything with avidity in thy watchful mi^d,

and performing all thy duties with due submission, and keeping
from the common track with thy exalted mind, thou wilt raise
thyself above comparison with any other person.

CHAFER CXV.

CitTSES Hafpieess lEd Misbet.

A^nment. The Nature and Powers of the Mind elucidated in the'

inoral of Prince Lavana's story.

V ''A'LM1KI relates:�Being thus admonished by the higlt

. minded Vasishtha, the lotus eyes of R&ma became unfold-
ted as new blown flowers.

2. He with his expanded heart and blodmiiig face, shdnel

forth with a pure grace, like the fresh lotus reviving at the end
of night, under the vivifying beanls of the rising sun.

3. His smiling conntenanco shone forth as the shining mooii,

tvith his inward enlightennient and wonder ; and then with the
hoctarious beams of his bright and white pearly teeth^ he spoke
out these words.
4. Bdma said :�0 wonder! that the want of ignorance should
Subdue all things, as if it were to bind the huge hills with the
thin threads of lotus stalks. Wonderous achievments of science).

5. OI that this straw of the earth, which shows itself to be

so compact a body in the world; is no more than the production
of our ignorance, which shows the dnreal as a reality.

6. Tell mo further for my enlightenment regarding the trad

nature of this magical earth, which rolls as a ceaseless stream,
running amidst the etherial worlds.

7. There is another great doubt that infests my breast, and

it is with regards the state which attended on the fortunate
Lavanflat last;

8. Tell me moreover regarding the embodied soul and the

animated body, whether they are in concord or discord with one
another, and which of them is the active agent and recipient of
the rewards of acts in this earth.

9. Tell me also who was that sorcerer and where he fled^

after putting the good prince Lavana to all his tribulation, and
then restoring him to his former exalted position.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

36l

10. Yasishtha said:�^Tbe body is as a frame of wood. work,

and contains nothing (spiritual) in it; it receives the reflexion
of an intelligence in it as in a dream, and this is called the mind.

11. This mind becomes the living principal (life), and is

endued with the power of thinking also. It is as unstable as
a boat on the current of world of affairs, and plays the part of
a fickle monkey, amidst the busy castle of the world.

12. The active principle in the body, is known under the

several appellations of the mind, life and egoism (or conscious*
ness); and having a body for its abode, is employed in a variety
of actions.

13. This principle is subject to endless pains and pleasures

in its unenlightened or unawakened state, and the body bears
no relation with them. (The mind is the perceptive and sensi*
tive principle and not the body).

14. The unenlightened understanding again has received

many fictitious names, according to the various faculties which
it exhibits in its acts.

15. As long as the unawakened mind is in its sleeping state,

it perceives the busy bustle of the world as it were in his dream,
and which is unknown to the waking or enlightened mind.

16. As long as the living being is not awakened from its

dormancy, so long it has to labour under the inseparable mipt
of worldly errors.

17. But the darkness over-hanging on the minds of the en*

lightened, is as soon put to flight as the shade of night over�
spreading the bed of lotuses, is dispersed at sidi rise.

18. That which is called the heart, the mind, the living soul,
ignorance and desire by the learned, and what is also styled the
principle of action, is the same embodied being that is subject
both to the feelings of pleasure and pain.

19. The body is dull matter and is insensible of pain and

pleasure; it is the embodied being, which is said to be subject
to these by men of right reason : and thip by reason of its im-

VOL. II. 46

9tf YOGA VA^SHTHA.

pervious ignorance and irrationality, is the cause of its own

misery.

20. The li^ng soul is the subject of its good and bad ac�
tions ; hut it becomes confined in its body by reason of its irra�
tionality, and remains pent up there like the silkworm in its
cuokoon.

21. The mind being fast bound to its ignorance, exerts its
faculties in various ways, and turns round like a wheel in its
various pursuits and employments.

22. It is the mind dwelling in the body, that makes it to

rise and set, to eat and drink, to walk and go, and to hurt and
kill, all which are acts of the mind, and not of the body.

28. As the master of the house does his many acts in it, and
not the house itself; so the mind acts its several parts in th^
body, and not the body by itself.

24. The mind is the active and passive agent of dl the

actions and passions, and of the pains and pleasures of the body;
and it is the mind only that makes the man.

25. Hear me now tell you the useful moral of the story of
Lavana > and how he was transformed to a Chanddla, by de�
rangement of his mind.

26. The mind has to feel the effects of its actions whether
good or evil; and in order that you may understand it well,
hear attentively what I will now relate unto you.

27. Lavana who was born of the line of king Harischandra^

thought within himself one day, as he was sitting apart from
tdl others of his court.

28. My grand-father was a great king and performed the

B&jasdya sacrifice in act; and I, being bom of his line, must
perform the same in my mind (i. e. mentally).

29. Having determind so, and getting the things ready for
the sacrifice, he entered the sacrificial hall for his initiation in
the sacred rites.

30. He called the sacrificial priests, and honoured the holy

saints; he invited the gods to it, and kindled the sacrificial fire-

UTPATTI KHANDA.

363

31. Having performed the sacrifice to his hearts content,

tad honoured the gods, sages and Brahmdns; he went to a forest
to reside there for a year.

32. Having then made presents of all his wealth to Brah-

mdns and other men, he awoke from his slumber iu the same
forest by the evening of that day.

33. Tiios the king l^avana attained the merit of. the sacri�
fice, in his internal satisfaction of having attained the merito�
riousness of the sacrifice.

34. Hence learn to know the mind to be the recipient of

pleasure and pain; therefore employ your attention, B^ma ! to
the purification of your mind.

35. Every man becomes perfect in his mind in its full time
and proper place; but he is utterly lost who believes himself
to be composed of his body only.

36. The mind being roused to transcendental reason, all

miseries are removed from the rational understanding i just as
the beams of the rising sun falling upon the lotus-bud, dispel
the darkness that had closely contracted its folded petals,

CHAPTBa. CXVI.

Birth and Incarnation or Adepts in Yooa,

Argument, Production of the Body from the Mind.

R AMA asked:�What evidence is there sir, in proof of Lavana�s

obtaining the reward of his mental sacrifice of Bdjaasdya,
in his transformation to the state of the chanddla, as it was
wrought upon him by the enchantment of the magician ?
2. Vasishthi answered I was myself present in the court�
house of king Lavana, at the time when the magician made
his appearance there, and I saw all that took place there with
my own eyes.

3. After the magician had gone and done his work, I with
the other courtiers, was respectfully requested by the king
Lavana, to explain to him the cause (of the dream and its cir�
cumstances).

4. After 1 had pondered the matter and clearly seen its

cause, I expounded the meaning of the magician�s spell, in the
way as 1 shall now relate to you, my Bdma !

5. T. remembered that all the performers of Bdjasuya sacrifice,

were subjected to various painful difiicnlties and dangers, under
which they had to suffer for a full dozen of years,

6. It was then that Indra, the lord of heaven had compas�

sion for Lavana, and sent his heavenly messenger in the form
of the magician to avert his calamity.

7. He taxed the Bijasuya sacrificcr with the indictment of

the very many hardships in his dream, and departed in his
aerial journey to the abode of the gods and Siddhas.

8. (Prose) Thns B4ma I it is quite evident and there is no

doubt in it. The mind is the active and passive agent of all
kinds of actions and their sequences.

(ff). Therefore rub out the dirt of your heart, and polish

UTPATTI KHANDA.

365

the gem of your mind; and having melted it down like the
particle of an icicle, by the fire of your reason, attain to your
chief good tummum ionum at lasti

(5). Know the mind as self-same with ignorance (avidyd),

which presents these multitudes of beings before yon, and pro�
duces the endless varieties of things by its magical power.

(e). There is no difference in the meanings of the words

ignorance, mind, understanding and living soul, as in the word
tree and all its synonyms.

(d) . Knowing this truth, keep a steady mind freed from all
its draires ; and as the orb of the clear sun of your intellect has
its rise, so the darkness of your n,ole}is and volena flies away
from you.

(e) . Know also this truth, that there is nothing in the world
which is not to be seen by you, and which can not be made your
own, or alienated from you. Nothing is there that does not
die or what is not your's or others. All things become all at
all times. (This dogma is based on a dictum of the YedAnta
given in the Madhn Brdhaim. That nothing is confined in
any place or person at all times, but passes from one to another
in its turn and time).

9. The multitudes of existent bodies and their known pro�

perties, meet together in the substantiality (of the self-same
Brahma); as the various kinds of unbumt clay vessels, are melted
down in the same watery substance.

10. BAma said : � You said sir, that it is by weakening the

desires of our mind, that we can put an end to our pleasures and
pains: but tell me now, bow is it possible to stop the course
of our naturally fickle minds.

11. Vasishtha replied-Hear, O thou bright moon of Ra-

ghu's race! the proper course that I will tell thee for quieting
the restless mind; by knowing this thou shalt obtain the peace
of thy mind, and be freed from the actions of thy organs of
sense.

19. I have told you before of the triple nature of the pro-

S66 TOGA VA^ISHTHA.

dootion of beings bere below> wbiob I believe, jon wdl re�

member.

Id Of these the first is that power (Brahm&), who assumed

to himself the shape of the Divine Will (Sanhalpa), and saw in
his presence whatever he wished to produce, and which brought
the mundane system into existence.

14. He thought of many changes in his mind, as those of

birth and death, of pleasure and pain, of the course of nature
and effect of ignorance and the like; and then having ordained
them as he willed, he disappeared of himself as snow before
the solar light.

15. Thus this god, the personification of Will, rises and sets
repeatedly, as he is prompted from time to time by his inward
wish. (So does every living being come out of the mould of its
internal desire. Or that>it is the wish, that frames and &-
shions every body, or the will that moulds the mind).

14. So there are millions of firahmds bom- in this mundane

egg, and many that have gone by and are yet to come, whose
number is innumerable (and who are incarnations of their
desires only).

17. So are all living beings in the same predicament with

BrahmS, proceeding continually from the entity of God. Now
1 will tell you the manner in which they live, and are liberated
from the bond of life.
18. The mental power of Brahrod issuing from him, rests
on the wide expanse of vacuum which is spread before it; 4ihen
being joined with the essence of ether, becomes solidified in
the shape of desire.

19. Then finding the miniature of matter spread out before

it, it becomes the quintessence of the quintuple elements. Hav�
ing assumed afterwards the inward senses, it becomes a suitable
elementary body composed of the finest particles of the five
elements. It enters into grains and vegetables, which re-enter
into the bowels of animals in the form of food.

20. The essence of this food in the form of semen, gives

birth to living^ beings to infinity.

trrPATTI KHANDA. 367

21. The male child betakes himself in his hoy-hood, to hia

tutor for the acquisition of knowledge.

82. The boy next assumes his wonderous form of youth,

which next arriTCS to the state of manhood.

28. The man afterwards learns to choose something for him�

self, and reject others by the clearsightedness of his internal
faonltiffl.

24. The man that is possessed of such right discrimination

of good and evil, and of right and wrong, and who is confident
of the purity of his own nature, and of his belonging to the
best caste (of a Brahmdn); attains by degrees the supernatural
powers for his own good, as also for the enlightenment of his
mind, by means of his knowledge of the seven essential groimds
of Yoga meditation.

CHAPTER CXVII.

* DiTOEauNT States of Knowledge and Ignoeanci!.

Aif^ument. The septuple grounds of true and false Knowledge and

their mixed modes. And firstly, of self-abstraction or abstract knowledge
of one or swaripa ; and then of the different grounds of Ignorance.

R AMA said:�Please sir, tell me in brief, what are the grounds

' of yoga meditation, which produce the seven kinds of con*
summation, which are turned at by the yogi adepts. Ton sir,
who are best acquainted with all recondite truths, must know it
better than all others.

2. Yasishtha replied :�They consists of the seven states of

ignorance (ajnana-bhumi), and as many of knowledge also; and
these again diverge into many others, by their mutiml inter�
mixture. (Participating the natures of one another, and forming
the mixed modes or states of truth and error).
3. All these states (both of right and wrong cognitions),
being deep rooted in the nature of man (mahfi-satta ), either by
. his habit or of training, made produce their respective fruits or
results, (tending to his elevation or degradation in this world
� and the next).

Note. Habit or natural disposition (pravritti^ is the cause

of leading to ignorance and its resulting error; but good training-
addhana and better endeavours-prayafea, are the causes of right
knowledge and elevation.

4. Attend now to the nature of the sevenfold states or

grounds of ignorance; and you will come to know thereby, the
nature of the septuple grrounds of knowledge also.

* The Text nraB the terms in&na and ajnina, whidi literally sigBify
knowledge and ignorance, and mean to say that, we know the sabjective our*
selyes only (as-ego-snm ) and are ignorant of the tme nature at the objective,
as whether they are or not and what they are. Though it would be more appro*
priate to use the words nisehaya and cmiaehaya or certainty and uncertainty,
Moause we are certain of our own existenoe, andare quite uncertain of every
thing besides, which we perceive in our triple states of waking, dreaming and
sound sleep, which inoessaatly produce and present beforp aa a vast vimety
of ol^eots, idl of Which lead us tc error by their taise appeannces.

t;'tP4TTi KHANDA. aos

5. Know this as the shortest lesson, that I wil give thee

the definitions of truejcnowledge and ignorance; that, it is the

temaining in one's own true nature {swaripa or snifrom state),

that constitutes his highest knowledge and liberation; and bis
divergence from it to the knowledge of his ego (egoism-ahanta),
is the cavLse of his ignorance, and leads him to the error and
bondage of this wdrld.

6. Of these, they that do not deviate from their conscious-

hess-samvitti of themsolves-swariipa, as composed of the pure
ett� or essence only (sudha-san-mdtra), are not liable to ig>
horanoe; because of their want of passions and affections, and
rtf the feelings of envy and enmity in them. (The highest idtell-
igenee of oiDs�s self, is the conciousness of his self-existcnoe, or
that � (I am that 1 am " as a spiritual being; because the spirit
or soul is the true self).

7. But falling off from the consciousness of self-entity*

swarupa, and diving into the intellect-Chit, in search of
the thoughts of cognizable objects (chetyArthas), is the greatest
ignorance and error of mankind. (No error is greater than to
fall off from the subjective and run after the objective).

8. The truce that takes place in the mind, in the interim of

a past and future thought of one object to another (arthadar
thdntara); know that respite of the mind in thinking, to be the
resting of the soul, in the consciousness of its self-entity
Bwardpa.

9. That state of the soul which is at calm after the setting of

the thoughts and desires of the mind} and which is as cold and
quite as the bosom of asi one, and yet without the turpitude of
slumber or dull drowsiness j is called the supineness of the soul in
its recognition of itself.

10. That state of the soul, which is devoid of its sense ol

egoism and destitute of its knowledge of dualism, and its distino*
tion from the state of the one universal soul, and shines forth
With its unsleeping, intelligence, is said to be at rest in itself or
t�>af4pa.

VOL. II.

47

?T0 YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

11. But this state of the pure and self-intelligent soul, if

obscured by the various states of ignorance, whose grounds you
will now hear me relate unto you. These are the three states of
wakefulness otjdgrat, known as the embryonic waking (or vija
j&graf. \ the ordinary waking, and the intense waking called the
mahajdgrat, (i, e. The hypnotism or hybernation of the soul,
being reckoned its intelligent state, its waking is deemed as the
ground of its ignorance, and the more is it awake to the concerns
of life, the more it is said to be liable to error).

12. Again the different state of its dreaming ( swapnam or

Somnnm), arc also said to be the grounds of its ignorance and these
are the waking dream, the sleeping dream, the sleepy waking
and sound sleep or xmvpti. These are the seven, grounds of
ignorance. ^Meaning hereby, all the three states of waking,
dreaming and sound sleep (jagrdf, mapna and simcpfa), to be
the grounds fertile with our ignorance and error).

13. These are the seven-fold grounds, productive of sheer igno�

rance, and which when joined with one another, become many
more and mixed ones, known under different denominations as
you will hear by and by.

14. At there was the intelligent Intellect (Chaitanya

Chit), which gave rise to the nameless and pure intelligence
Suddha-Ciiit; which became the source of the wouM-be mind
and living soul,

15. This intellect remained as the ever waking embiyonic

seed of all, wherefore it is called the waking seed (Vijajdgrat^ ;
and as it is the first condition of cognition, it is said to be
the primal waking state.

16. Now know the waking state to he next to the primal

waking intelligence of God, and consists of the belief of the
individual personality of the ego and meifg, -aham and mama ;
i, e. this am 1 and these are mine by chance-pragobhava. (The
lirst is the knowledge of the impersonal soul, and the second
the knowledge of personal or individual souls).

17. The glaring or great waking-mah4-j4grat, consists in

the firm belief that I am such a one, and this thing is mine^

UTPATTI KHANDA.

371

by virtue of my merits in this or by-gone times or Kartaatt,

(This positive knowledge of one�s sell' and his properties^ is the
greatest error of the waking man).

18. The cognition of the reality of any thing either by

bias-rndhMhylisa or mistake-arudha^ is called the waking dream;
as the sight of two moons in the halo^ of silver in shells, and
water in the mirage; as also the imaginary castle building of
day dreamers.

19. Dreaming in sleep is of many kinds, as known to one

on his waking, who doubts their truth owing to their short�
lived duration (as it was in the dreaming of Lavaua).

20. The reliance which is placed in things seen in a dream,

after one wakes from his sleep, is called his waking dream, and
lasting in its remembrance only in his mind. (Such is the
reliance in divine inspirations and prophetic dreams which come
to be fultilled).

21. A thing long unseen and appearing dimly with a stal�

wart figure in the dream, if taken for a real thing of the wak�
ing state, is called also a waking dream. (As that of Brutus
on his seeing the stalwart figure of Caesar).

22. A dream dreamt either in the whole body or dead body

of the dreamer, appears as a phantom of the waking state:
(as a living old man remembers his past youthful person,-and
a de^rted soul viewing the body it has loft behind).

23. Besides these six states, there is a torpid-jada state

of the living soul, which is called his samupia �hypnotism or
sound sleep, and is capable of feeling its future pleasures and
pains. (The soul retains even in this torpid state, the self-cons�
ciousness of its merit and demerit (as impressious-jajM^raa in
itself, and the sense of the consequent bliss or misery, which is
to attend upon it).

24. In this last state of the soul or mind, all outward ob�
jects from a straw upto a mountain, appear as mere atoms of
dust in its presence; as the mind views the miniature of the
world in profound meditation.
1^72 YOQA VA'SISUTHA.

25. i have thus told you Rdma, the features of true know*
ledge and error in brief, but each of these states branches out into

hundred forms, with various traits of their own.

26. A long continued waking dream is accounted as the

waking state'^'ay/'a^, and it becomes diversified according to the
diversity of its objects, (t. e. waking is but a continued
dreaming).

27. The waking state contains under it the conditions of

the wakeful soul of God; also there are many things under
these conditions which mislead men from one error to another;
as a storm casts the boats into whirlpools and eddies.

28. gome of the lengthened dreams in sleep, appear as the

waking sight of day light; while others though seen in the
broad day-light of the waking state, are no better than night-
dteams seen in the day time, and are thence called our day
dreams.

29. I have thus far related to you the seven grades of the
grounds of ignorance, which with all their varieties;, are to be
earefully avoided by the right use of our reason, add by the
f^ht of t^he Supreme soul in our-selves,

CHAPTER CXVIII.

Directions to tub Staoes of Knowledge.

Argument. Definitioi^ of the seven Groumls of Knowledge, together

with that of Adepts�in IToga, and also if Liberation,

Y ASISHTHA contiaued:�O siuloss RAma, attend now to

the sevenfold stages of cognocence, by the knowledge of
which yon will no more plunge into the mire of ignorance.

2. Disputants are apt to hold out many more stages of Yoga

meditation; but in my opinion these (septuple stages) are
Buffioient for the attainment of the chief good on ultimate liber* �,
ation. (The disputants are the PAtanjala Yoga philosophers, .
who mountain various modes of discipline, for attaining topar-
tieular perfections of consummation�Siddhi; but the main
object of this Sdstra is the stmintm bomm (parama�purn-
Bbdrtha,)i which is obtainable by means of the seven stages*
Rhumjidig which are expounded herein below.

3. Knowledge is understanding, which consists in knowing

these seven stages only; but liberation-mukti, which is the
object of knowledge-(jnana), transcends the acquaintance of
these septuple stages.
4. Knowledge of truth is liberation (moksha), and all these
three are used as synomynous terms; because the living being
�that has known the truth, is freed from transmigration as by
his liberation also. (The three words mukti, moksha and jnana
imply the same thing).

6. The grounds of knowledge comprise the desire of becom�

ing good-subhechhA, and this good will ia the first step. Then
comes discretion or reasoning (vichAranA) the second, followed
by purity of mind (tanu-manasa), which is the third grade to
the gaining of knowledge.

6. The fourth is self reliance as the true refuge-SattA-patti,

�pd theq (uamakti or wordly apathy as the fifth. The sixth is

374

YOGA VASiSHTHA.

paddrlhabMjoa or the power of abstraction, and the seventh of

-the last stage of knowledge is turya-gati or generalization of
all in. one.

7. Liberation is placed at the end of these, and is attained

.without difficulty after them. Attend now to the definitions
of these steps as I shall explain them unto you.

8. First of all is the desire of goodness, springing from

dispassionateness to wordly matters, and consisting in the
thought, "why do I sit idle, I must know the Sdstras in the
company of good men."

9. The second is discretion, which arises from association

with wise and good men, study of the Sdstras, habitual aversion
to worldliness, and consists in an inclination to good conduct,
and the doing of all sorts of good acts.

10. The third is the subduing of the mind, and restraining

it from sensual enjoyments; and these are produced by the two
former qualities of good will and discretion.

11. The fourth is self-reliance, and dependence upon the

Divine spirit as the true refuge of this soul. This is attainable
by means of the three qualities described above.

12. The fifth is worldly apathy, as it is shown by one�s de�

tachment from all earthly concerns and society of men, by
means of the former quadruple internal delight (which comes
f rotn above).

13. By practice of the said fivefold virtues, as also by the

feeling of self-satisfaction and inward delight (spiritual joy);
man is freed from his thoughts and cares, about all internal and
external objects.
14. Then comes the powers of cogitation into the abstract
meanings of things, as the sixth step to the attainment of true
knowledge. It is fostered cither by one�s own exertion, or
guidance of others in search of truth.

15. Continued habitude of these six qualifications and in-

cognition of differences in religion, and the reducing of them
all to the knowledge of one true God of nature, is called geueir-

UTPATTl KfiANl/A. 375

ftlization. (Because all things in general, ptocecd from the one

and are finally reduced in to the same).

16. This universal generalization appertain? to the nature

of the living liberation of the man, who beholds all things in

one and in the same light. Above this is the state of that glo�
rions light, which is arrived by the disembodied soul.

17. Those fortunate men, O BAma, who have arrived to the

seventh stage of their knowledge, are those great minds that
delight in the light of their souls, and have reached to their
highest state of humanity.

18. The living liberated are not plunged in the waters of

pleasure and sorrow, hut remain sedate and unmoved in both
states; they are at liberty either to do or slight to discharge
the duties of their conditions and positions in society.

19. These men being roused from their deep meditation by

intruders, betake themselves to their secular duties, like men
awakened from their slumber (at their own option).

20. Being ravished by the inward delight of their souls,

they feel no pleasure in the delights of the world; just as men
immerged in sound sleep, can feel no delight at the dalliance
of beauties about them.

21. These seven stages of knowledge are known only to

the wise and thinking men, and not to besists and brutes and
immoveable things all around us. They are unknown to the
barbarians and those that are barbarous in their minds and
dispositions.

22. But any one that has attained to these states of know�
ledge, whether it be a beast or barbarian, an embodied being or
disembodied spirit, has undoubtedly obtained its liberation.

23. Knowledge severs the bonds of ignorance, and by loose�

ning them, produces the liberation of our souls : it is the sole
cause of removing the fallacy of the appcai-ance of water in
the mirage, and the like errors.

24. Those who being freed from ignorance, have not arrived
at their ultimate perfection of disembodied liberation; have
37G

rOCjA VA'SlSHTfiA.

yet secured the salvation of their souls, by �being placed lit

these stagea of knowledge in thar embodied state during their
life time.

25. Some have passed all these stages, and otheiis over twn
or three of them; some have passed the six grades, while a few
have attained to their seventh state all at once (as the sage Sanahay
NArada and other holy saints have done from their very birth).

26. Some have gone over three stages, and others have attai�
ned the last; some have passed four stages, and some no more
than one or two of them.

27. There are some that have advanced only a quarter or

half or three fourths of a stage. Some have passed over four
quarters and a half, and some six and a half.

28. Common people walking upon this earth, know nothing

regarding these passengers in the paths of knowledge; but
remain as blind as their eyes were dazzled by some planetary
light or eclipsed by its shadow.

29. Those wise men are compared to victorious kings, who

stand victorious on these seven grounds of knowledge. The
celestial elephants are nothing before them ; and mighty waiv
riors must bend their heads before them.

30. Those great minds that are victors on these grounds of

knowledge, are worthy of veneration, as they are conquerors of
their enemies of their hearts and senses; and they are entitled to a
station above that of an emperor and an autocrat samratand virat,
both in this world and in the next in their embodied and disease
bodied liberations�and videha muhtis.

Notsb :�These terms called the grades of knowledge may be bettn Biider<-
stood in their appropriste English enressions, as; 1. .Oeslieof impnmr*
mont. 2. Habit of reasoning. 8. Fixity of attention. 4. Self-(^^tt-
donoe�Intuition (?) 5- Freedom from bias or onesidedness. ' Abs�
traction or abstract knowledge. 7. Generalisation of tdl in the nniver^
sal unity. 8. Liberation is anaesthesia or cessation of action, sSiiMtion
and thoughts.

CHAPTER CXIX.
Illcsteation of the Golo-rino.

Argnment. AMertaiuing tho True Unity by rejecting Uie UlUSOty

forms and on the said Grounds of Knowledge.
y ASISHTHA naid :�The human soul reflecting oii its ego*
im, forgets its essence of the Supreme soul; as the gold*
ring thinking on its formal rotundity, loses its thought of the
substantial gold whereof it is made.

Z. Bdifia said Please tell me sir, how the gold can have
its consciousness of its form of the ring, as the soul is conscious
of its transformation to egoism.

3. The questions of sensible men, relate only to the substan*

ces of things, and not to the production and dissolution of the
existent formal parts of things, and neither to those of the
non-existent; so yon should ask of the substances of the soul
and gold, and not of the ego and the ring, which are unsubstan�
tial nullities in nature. (So men appraise the value of the gold
of which the ring is made, and not by the form of the ring).

4. When the jeweller sells his gold-ring for the price of

gold, ho undoubtedly delivers the gold which is the substance
of the ring and not the ring without its substance. (So the-
shapes of things are nothing at all, but the essential substance�
Brahma underlying all things, is all in all).

6. Bdma asked If such is the case that you take the

gpld for the ring, then what becomes of the ring as we common�
ly take it to bo ? Explain this to me, that I may thereby know
the substance of Brahma (underlying all appearances).

6. JlTasishtha said All form, O Rama, is formless and ac-

cidential quality, and no essential property of things. So if
you U^itld ascertain the nature of a nullity, then tell me the
shape and qualities of a barren woman's son (which are null
' and nothing).

Vot. II.

48

37�

YOGA VA^SISHTHA.

I. Do not fall into the error of taking the circnlarity of the

ring, as an essential property of it ; the form of a thing is only
apparent and not prominent to the sight. (In 'European philo>
�ophy, form is defined as the essence of a thing, for without
it nothing is* conceivahle. But matter being the recipient of
form, it does form any part of its essence. Vasishtha speaking
of matter as void of form, means the materia prima of Aristotle,
or the elementary sorts of it).

8. The water in the mirage, the two moons in the sky,

the egoism of men and the forms of things, though appearing as
real ones to sight and thought, cannot be proved as separate
existences apart from their subjects. (All these therefore are
fallacies vanishing bcEoro vichArana oi* reasoning, the second
gppB&d of true knowledge).

9. Again the likeness of silver that appears in pearl-shells,

can not be realized in tlie substance of the pearl-mother, or
even a particle of it at any time or any place. (The Sanskrit
alliterations of kanam, kahamm, koanw, cannot be preserved
in translation).

10. It is the incircumspect view of a thing that makes a

nullity appear as a reality, as the appearance of silver in the
shell and the water in the mirage; (all which are bnt|.deceptions
of sight and other senses, and are therefore never trustworthy).

II. The nullity of a nil appears as an ena to sight, as also

the fallacy of a thing as something where there is nothing
of the kind; (as of silver in the pearl-mother and water in the
mirage).

12. Sometimes an unreal shadow acts the part of a real sab-

stance, as the false apprehension of a ghost kills a lad with the
fear of being killed by it. (Fright of goblins and bogies of
mormos and ogres, have killed many men in the dark).

18. There remains nothing in the gold-jewel except gold,

after its form of jewellery is destroyed} therefore the forms of the
rh^ and bracelet are no more, than drops of oil or water on a
heap of sand. The forms are absorbed in the substance, as the
fluids in d.u8t or sand.

CTPATTI KHANDA.

379

14. There is nothingf real or unreal on ^rth, except the false

creations of our brain (as appearances in our dreams ); and these
whether known as real or unreal, are equally productive of their
consequences, as the sights and fears of spectres in children.
(We are equally encouraged by actual rewards and flattering
hopes, as wo are dci)resscd at real degradation and its threatning
fear).

15. A thing whether it is so or not, proves yet as sucdi as it

is believed to be, by different kinds and minds of men ; as poison
becomes as effective as elexir to the sick, and ambrosia proves
as heinous as hemlock with the intemperate. (So is false faith
thought to be as efficacious by the vulgar as the true belief of
the wise).

16. Belief in the only essence of the soul, constitutei> i^e

knowledge, and not in its likeness of the ego and mind, as it
is generally believed in this world. Therefere abandon the
thought of your false and unfounded egoism or individual ex�
istence. (This is said to be self-reliance or depcndancc on the
universal soul of God).

17. As there is no rotundity of the ring inherent in gold ;

so there is no individuality of egoism in the all-pervading uni�
versal soul.

18. There is nothing everlasting beside Bralima, and no

personality of Him as a Brahmd, Vishnu or any other. There
is no substantive existence as the world, but off spring of Brahmd
called the patriarchs. (All these are said to be negative terms
in many passages of the srutis as the following

There is no substantiality except that of Brahma. There is

no personality (ddesa) of him. He is Brahma the supreme sonl
and no other. He is neither the outward nor inward nor he is
nothing.

19. There are no other worlds beside Brahma, nor is the

heaven without Him. The hills, the demons, the mind and

. body all rest in that spirit which is no one of these.

20. He is no elementary prineiple, nor is he any cauae as

880 YOG/ V/TSISHTHA.

tbe material or efficient. He is none of the three times of

past, present and future but all; nor is he anything in being
or not ��being {itiexue or poise or in nubibut).

21. He is beyond your egoism or tuism, ipseism and mim,

and all your entities and non-entities. There is no attribution
nor particularity in Him, who is above all your ideas, and
is none of the ideal personifications o� your notions, (t. e.' He
is none of the mythic persons of abstract ideas as Love and
the like).

22. He is the plenum of tlie world, supporting and moving

all, being unmoved and unsupported by any. He is everlasting
and undecaying bliss; having no name or symbol or cause
of his own. (He is the being that pervades through and pre�
sides over all� sanmdtrum,

28. He is no sat or est or a being that is bom and existen;

nor rn asat�nouest (t. e. extinct); he is neither the beginning,
middle or end of anything, but is all in all. He is unthinkable
in the mind, and unutterable by speech. He is vacuum about
the vacuity, and a bliss above all felicity.

24. Rama said:�I understand now Brahma to be self-same

in all things, yet I want to know what is this creation, that
we see all about us. {i.e. Are they the same with Brahma or
distinct from him ?
25. Vasishtha replied: The supreme spirit being perfectly
tranquil, and all things being situated in Him, it is wrong to
speak of this creation or that, when there is no such thing as
a creation at any time.

26. All things exist in the all containing spirit of God, as

the whole body of water is contained in the universal ocean;
but there is fluctuation in the waters owing to their fluidity,
whereas there is no motion in the quiet and motionless spirit
of God.

27. The light of tire luminaries shines of ii^f; but not

sd the Divine light; it is the nature of all lights to shine of them*
selves, but the light of Brahma is not visible to sight.

UTPATTI KHAN&A.

381

29, 4s the waves of the ocean rise and fall in the body of
its waters, so do these phenomena appear as the nouroena in the
mind of God (as his ever-varying thoughts).

29. To men of little understandings, these thoughts of the

Divine mind appear as realities ; and they think this sort of
ideal creation, will be lasting for ages.

30. Oration is ascertained to be a cognition (a thought)

of the Divine Mind; it is not a thing different from the mind
of God, as the visible sky is no other than a part of Infinity.

31. The production and extinction of the world, are mere

thoughts of the Divine mind; as the formation and dissolution
of ornaments take place in the self-same substance of gold.

32. The mind that has obtained its calm composure, views
the creation as full with the presence of God|; but those that
are led by their own convictions, take the inexistent for reality,
as children believe the ghosts as real existences.

S3. The consciousness of ego (or the subjective self-exis�

tence), is the cause of the error of the objective knowledge of
creation; but the tranquil unconsciousness of ourselves, brings
ns to the knowledge of the supreme, who is above the objective
and inert creation.

34. These different created things appear in a different

light to the sapient, who views them all in the unity of God,
as the toy puppets of a militia, are well known to the intelligent
to be made and composed of mud and clay.

85. This plenitude of the world is without its beginning

and end, and appears as a faultless or perfect peace of work�
manship. It is full with the fullness of the supreme Being,
and remains full in the fullness of God.
86. This plenum which appears as the created world, is
essentially the Great Brahma, and situated in his greatness;
just as the sky is situated in the sky, tranquility in tranquility,
and felicity in felicity. (These are absolute and identic terms,
as the whole is the whole &c).

87. Look at the reflextion of a longsome landscape ; in a

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

SSS

mirror, and tlie picture of a far stretching city in the miniature;

and you will find the distances of the objects lost in their close*
ness. So the distances of worlds are lost in their propinquity
to one another in the spirit of God.

88. The world is thought as a nonentity by some, and

as an entity by others; by their taking it in the different lights
of its being a thing beside God, and its being but a refiection
of Brahma. (In the former case it is a nonentity as there can
be nothing without God; in the latter sense it is real entity
being identic with God).

89. After all, it can have no real entity, being like the pic�
ture of a city and not as the city itself. It is as false as the
appearance of limpid water in the desert mirage, and that of the
double moon in the sky.

40, As it is the practice of magicians, to show magic cities

in the air, by sprinkling handfuls of dust before our eyes;
so doth our erroneous consciousness represents the unreal world,
as a reality unto us.

41. Unless onr inborn ignorance (error) like an arbour of

noxious plants, is burnt down to the very root by the fiame of
right reasoning, it will not cease to spread out its branches,
and grow the rankest weeds of our imaginary pleasures and

sorrows.

CHAPTER CXX.

L&uextation of The Chanda'ea Woman.

Argnmeiit. Lavatia goes to the Vindhyan region, and sees his con�
sort and relatives of the dreaming state.

Y ASISHTHA continued:�^Now Rdma^ attend to the wonder.

�ul powdf of the said Avidyd or error, in displaying the

changeful phenomenals, like the changing forms of ornaments
in the substance of the self-same gold.

2. The king Lavana, having at the end of his dream, per�

ceived the falsehood of his vision, resolved on the following
day to visit that great forest himself.

3. He said to himself / ah I when shall I revisit the

Vindhyan region, which is inscribed in my mind; and where I
remember to have undergone a great many hardships in my
forester�s life.

4. So saying, he took to his southward journey, accom�

panied by his ministers and attendants, as if he was going to
make a conquest of that quarter, where he arrived at the foot
of the mount in a few days.

5 . There he wandered about the southern, and'eastern and

western shores of the sea (�. e. all round the Eastern and Western
Ghats). He was as delighted with his curviliniar course, as
the luminary of the day, in his diurnal journey from east to
west.

6. He saw there in a certain region, a deep and doleful forest

stretching wide along his path, and likening the dark aud dismal
realms of death (yama or Pluto).

7. Roving in this region he beheld everything, he had seen

before in his dream; he then inquired into the former circum�
stances, and wondered to learn their conformity with the occur-
eaces of his vudon.

384

YOaA VASISHTfil.

8. He recognised there the Chand&la hunters of his dreatlf/

and being curious to know the rest of the events^ he continued
in his perigrination about the forest.

9. He then beheld a hamlet fit the skirt of the wilderness,

fog(!y with smoke, and appearing as the spot whore he bore the
name of Pushta Fukkasa or fostered Chandra.

10. He beheld there the same huts and hovels, and the
various kinds of human habitations, fields and plains, with the
same men and women that dwelt their before.

11. lie beheld the same landscapes and leafless branches

of trees, shorn of their foliage by the all devouring famine;
he saw the same hunters pursuing their chase, and the same
helpless orphans lying thereabouts.

15. He saw the old lady (his mother-in-law), wailing at the

misfortunes ef other matrons; who were lamenting like herself
with their eyes suffused in tears, at the untimely deaths and
innumerable miseries of their fellow brethem.

13. The old matrons with their eyes flowing with bril�
liant drops of tears, and with their bodies and bosoms emaciated
under the pressure of their afflictions; were mourning with
loud acclamations of woe in that dreary district, stricken 1^
draught and dearth.

14. They cried, O ye sons and daughters, that lie dead with
your emaciated bodies for want of food for these three days ;
say where fled your dear lives, stricken as they were by the
steel of famine from the armour of your bodies.

16. We remember your sweet smiles, showing your coral

teeth resembling the red gunjaphalas to our lords, as they
descended from the towering tdla (palma trees), with their red-
riiHj fruits held by their teeth, and growing on-the cloud�capt
mountains.

16. When shall we see again the fierce leap of our boys,
springing on the wolves crouching amidst the groves of .Xadaml�
and Jamb and Lavanga and Gunja trees.

17. We do not see those graces even in the face of Klhna

UTPATTt KflAKDA.

385.

ttiB god of love, that we were wont to observe in the blue aud
black countenances of our children, resembling the dark hue of
Tamila leaves, when feasting on their dainty food of fish and
flesh.

Lamentation of the mother-in4awt

18. My nigrescent daughter, says one, has been snatehed

away from me with my dear husband like the dark Yamnni by
the fierce Yama. O they have been carried away from me
like the Tamila branch with its clustering flowers, by atremend-*
ons gale from this sylvan scene.

. 19. O my daughter, with thy necklace of the strings of red

y��;� seeds, gracing the protuberent breast of thy youthful
person \ and with thy swarthy complexion, seeming as the sea
of ink was gently shaken by the breeze. Ah 1 whither hast thou
fled with thy raiment of woven withered leaves, and thy teeth
as black as the jet-jambu fruits (when fully ripe).

20. O young prince I that wast as fair as the full moon, and
that didst forsake the fairies of thy harem, and didst taho so
much delight in my daughter, where hast thou fled from us
Ah my daughter | she too is dead in thy absence, and fled from
my presence.
21. Being cast on the waves of this earthly ocean, and joined
to the daughter of a Chanddla, thou wast, O prince t subjected to
mean and vile employments, that disgraced thy princely charac*
ter. (This is a taunt to all human beings that disgrace their
heavenly nature, and grovel as beasts while living on earth).

22. Ah i that daughter of mine with her tremulous eyes,

like those of the timorous fawn, and Oh 1 that husband v alian t
as thei royal tiger; you are both gone together, as the high hopes'
and great efforts of men are fled with the loss of their wealth.

28. Now grown husband less, and having of late lost my

daughter also, and being thrown in a distant and barren lam^^
1 am become the most miserable and wretched of beings. Bom
of a low Mte, I am cast out of all prospect in life, and have be*
come a personification of terror to myself, and a sight of horror
toothers.

VoL. II.

49

m rOQA Vi&ISHTHA.

24. OI that the Lord has made me a widowed woman, and

subjected me to the insult o� the vulgar, and the hauteur of
the affluent. Prostrated by hunger and mourning at the loss of a
husband and child, 1 rove incessantly from door to door to beg
alms for my supportance; (as it is the case of most female beggfars).

26. It is better that one who is unfortunate and friendless,

or subject to passion and diseases, should rather die sooner than
live in misery. The dead and inanimate beings are far better
than the living miserable.

26. Those that are friendless, and hare to toil and moil in
unfriendly places are like the grass of the earth, trampled under
the feet, and overwhelmed under a flood of calamities.

27. The king seeing his aged mother-in-law mourning in

this manner, offered her some consolation through the uiPti inTw
of her female companions, and then asked that lady to tell him,
� who she was, what she did there, who was her daughter and
who is his son.'�

28. She answered him with tears in her eyes This villag^e
is called Fukkasa-Ghosha, here I bad a Fukkasa for my husband,
who had a daughter as gentle as the moon.

29. She happened to have here a husband as beautiful as the

moon, who was a king and chanced to pass by this way. By
this accident they were matched together, in the manner that an
^ finds by chance a pot of honey lying on her way in the forest.

SO. She lived long with him in connubial bliss, and produced
to him both sons and daughters, who grew up in the covert of
this forest, as the gourd plant grows on a tree serving as its -
support.

CHAPTER CXXI.

Proof of thb Fotilitt of Mind.

Argument. Lavana�a return to bis Palace and the interpretation of his

dream by Vasishtha.

T he Chanddlas Continued :�O lord of men! After lapse of

sometime, their oocured a dearth in this place owing to the
draught of rain, which broke down all men under its diresome
pressure.

2. Pressed by extreme scarcity, all our village people were

scattered far abroad, and they perished in famine and never
returned.

3. Thence forward O lordl we are exposed to utmost misery,

and sit lamenting here in our helpless poverty. Behold us lord,
all bathed in tears falling profusely from our undrying eyelids.

4. The King was lost in wonder, at hearing these words from

the mouth of the elderly lady �, and looking at the face of his
follower the faithful minister, remained in dumb amazement
as the figure in a picture.

6. He reflected repeatedly on this strange occurence, and

its curious concurrence with his adventures in the dream. He
made repeated queries relating to other circumstances, and the
more he heard and learned of them, the more he found their
coineidence with the occurrences of his vision,

6. He sympathised with their woes, and saw them in the

same state, as he had seen them before in his dream. And then
he ga.'fe suitable gifts and presents to relieve their wants and
woes.

7. He tarried there a long while, and pondered on the

decrees of destiny; when the wheel of fortune brought him
back to his house, wherein he entered amidst the loud cheers
and low salutations of the citizens.

8. In the morning the King appeared in his court hall, %nd

^88 TOGA VA'StSHTHA.

fitting tliere amidst his courtiers, asked me saying "How is it,

O sage, that my dream has come to be verified in my presence
to each item and to my great surprise " ?

9. " They answered me exactly and to the very point all what
I asked of them, and have removed my doubt of their truth
from the mind, as the winds disperse the clouds of heaven."
10. Know thus, O BarnA! it is the illusion of Avidya, that
is the cause of a great many errors, by making the untruth
appear as truth, and representing the sober reality as un�
reality.

11. BAmasaidl Tell me sir, how the dream came to be

verified; it is a mysterious account that cannot find a pla(�
, in my heart.

12. Vasishtha replied:�All this is possible, O BAmat to

the illusion of ignorance (Avidya); which shows the fallacy of a
picture (pata) in a pot (ghata); and represents the actual oc�
currences of life as dreams, and dreams as realities.

18. Distance appears to be nigh, as a distant mountain seen

in the mirror; and a long time seems a short interval, as a
night of undisturbed repose.

14. What is untrue seems to be a truth as in dreaming one's

own death in sleep; and that which is impossible appears
possible, as in one�s aerial journey in a dream.

15. The stable seems nnsteady, as in the erroneous notion

of the motion of fixed objects to one passing in a vihide; and
the unmoving seem to be moving to one, as under the influence
of his inebriation.

16. The mind infatuated by one's hobby, sees exposed to its

view, all what it thinks upon within itself. It sees things in
the same light, as they are painted in his fancy, whethd they
be in existence or not, or real or unreal.

17. No sooner does the mind contract its ignorance, by its

false notions of egoism and tnism, than it is subjected to endless
errors, which have no begining, middle or end and are of incessant
(^nrrence in their course.

UTPATTIKHANDA. 8^

. 18. It is the notion that gives a shape to all things; it

makes a kalpa age appear as a moment, and also prolongs ^
moment of time to a whole Kalpa.

19. A man deprived of understanding, believes himself as he

is said, to have become a sheep; so a fighting ram thinks him�
self to be a lion in his ideal bravery. (The word sheep is a term
of derl8ion,as the lion is that of applnse.

20. Ignorance causes the blunder of taking things for what

they are not, and falling into the errors of egoism and tnism:
so all errors in the mind produce errors in actions also.

21. It is by mere accident, that men come in possession of

the objects of their desire; and it is custom that determines the
mode of mutual dealings. (The gain is accidental and the
dealing is conventional).
22. Lavana�s remembrance of the dream of his having lived
in the habitation of the Pukkasa, was the internal cause, that
represented to him the evternal picture of that abode, as it was
a reality. (The mind shows what we think upon, whether they
are real or unreal ones).

28. As the human mind is liable to forget many things which

are actually done by some, so it is susceptible to remember those
acts as true which were never done, but had been merely thought
upon in the mind. (The forgetfulness of actualities as well as
the thoughts of inactualities,, belong both to the province of the
mind. Here Lavana did not remember what he had not done,
but recollected the thoughts that passed in his mind).

24. In this manner is the thought of my having eaten some�

thing while I am r�illy fasting; and that of my having so�
journed in. a distant country in a dream, appears true to me
while I think of them.

25. It was thence that the king came to find the same conduct
in the habitation of the ChandAlas at the side of Vindhyd, as he
had been impressed with its notion in his dream as said before.'

; 26. Agtun the false dream that Lavana had dreamt of the
Yindhyan people, the same took possession of theif minds, i^o.

<90 YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

(The same thought striking in the minds of different persons

at the same time: (as we see in men of the same mind).

27. The notion of Lavana as settled in the minds of the

vindhyans, as the thoughts of these people rose in the mind
of the king. (If it is possible for us to transfer our thoughts
to one another, how much easier must it be for the superior
instrumentality of dreams and revelations to do the same also.
This is the yoga, whereby one man reads the mind of another) .
Again the same error taking possession of many minds all at
once, proves the futility of common sense and universal belief
'being taken for certainty, hence the commom belief of the reality
of things, is the effect of universal delusion and error.

28. As the same sentiments and figures of speech, occur in

different poets of distant ages and countries, so it is not strik�
ing that the same thoughts aUd ideas should rise simultaneously
in the minds of different men also. (We have a striking instance
of the coincidence of the same thought in the titles of Veni-
eanbAra and Rape of the Lock, in the minds of Vhattanarayn
and Pope).

29. In common experience, we find the notions and ideas

to stand for the things themselves, otherwise nothing is known
to exist at all without our notion or idea of it in the mind. (All
that we know of^ are our ideas and nothing besides. Locke and
Berkely).
30. One idea embraces many others also under it, as those of
the waves and current, are contained under that of water. And
so one thought is associated by others relating its past, present
and future conditions of being; as^the thought of a seed accom�
panies the thoughts of its past and future states and its fruits
and flowers of the tree. (So the word man, comprilses almost
every idea relating to humanity).

31. Nothing has its entity or non-entity, nor can anything

be said to exist or not to be, unless we have a positive idea of
the existent, and a negative notion of the in-existent.

32. All that we see in our error, is as inexistent as oilineSs

tJTPATTl KHANDA.

in sands} and so the bracelet is nothing in reality, bat a formal

appearance of the sabstance of gold.

S3. A fallacy can have no connection with the reality, as

the fallacy of the world with the reality of God, and so the
&llacy of the ring with the substance of gold and of tlie serpent
with the rope. The connection or mutual relation of things of
the same kind, is quite evident in our minds.

34. The relation of gum resin and the tree, is one of dissi�
milar union, and affords no distinct ideas of them except that
of the tree which contains the other. (So the idea of the false
world, is lost in that of its main mhttrattm of the Divine
Spirit).

36. As all things are full of the Spirit, so we have distinct

ideas of them in our minds, which are also spiritual substances;
and are not as dull material stones which have no feelings ^

86. Because all things in the world are intellectually true

and real, we have therefore their ideas impressed in our minds
also.

37. There can not be a relation or connection of two dis�

similar things, which may be lasting, but are never united to�
gether. For without such mutual relation of things, no idea
of both can be formed together.

88. Similar things being joined with similar form together

their wholes of the same kind, presenting one form and differ�
ing in nothing.

39, The intellect being joined with an abstract idea, pro�

duces an invisible, inward and uniform thought: so dull matter
joined to another dull object, forms a denser material object to
view. But the intellectual and material can never unite to�
gether owing to their different natures.

40. The intellectual and material parts of a person, can

never be drawn together in any picture; because the intellec-
(AU things wi^nt in the Divine mind in their eternally ideal Btate.
present the same ideas to our minds also, whioh are o� tho similar nature
and snbstance with the Divino).

YOGA VASISSTSA.

8M

Aaal part having the intellect, haa the power of knowledge,

which is wanting in the material picture.

41. Intellectual beings do not take into account the differ*

ence of material things as wood and stone; which combine to*
gether for some useful purpose (as the building of a house and
the like).

42. The relation between the tongue and taste is also homo*
genoons; becouse raaa taste and ratand the instrument of tast*
ing, are both watery substances, and there is no heterogenious
relation between them. (And so of the other organs of sense
and their respective objects).

43. But there is no relation between intellect and matter, as

there is between the stone and the wood; the intdleot cannot com*
bine with wood and stone to form anything. (The mind and
matter have no relation with one another, nor can they unite
together-in any way),

44. Spiritually considered, all things are alike, because they

are full with the same spirit; otherwise the error of distinction
between the viewer and the view, creates endless differences as
betwixt wood and stones and other things.

45. The relation of combination though unseen in spirits^

yet it is easily conceived that spirits can assume any form ad
libitum and ad infinitum ; (but they must be spiritual and never
material. So also a material thing can be converted to another
material object, but never to a spiritual form).

46. Know ye seekers of truth, all things to be indentic with '

the entity of God; Renounce your knowledge of nonentitifili
and the various kinds of errors and fallacies and know the One.
as All to pan. (The omnipotent spirit of God, is joined with all
material things, in its spiritual form-only; and it is knowable
to the mind and spirit of man, and never by their material or*
gans of sense).

47. The Intellect being full with its knowledge there is'
nothing wanting to ns; it presents us everything in its ciroum*
feten<^, as the imagination having its -wide range, shews us the
UTPATTI KHANDA.

303

U}:hts oi its air-bailt castles and every thing beside. (The differ*
once consists in the intellect�s shewing us the natures of things
in their true light, and the imagination�s portraying them in
false shapes and colours to our minds.

48. To Him there is no limit of time or place, but his pre*

sence extends over all his creatiooi It is ignorance that separ�
ates the creator from creation^ and raises the errors of egoism
and tuism (t. e, of the subjective and objective. The union of
these into One is the ground-work of pantheism).

49. Leaving the knowledge of the substantive gold, man

contracts the error of taking it for the formal onament. The
mistake of the jewel for gold, is as taking one thing for another,
and the production for the producen

60. The error of the phenomenon vanishes upon loss of the

eyesight, and the difference of the jewel (or visible shape), is
lost in the substance of gold.

61. The knowledge of unity removes that of a distinct crea�

tion, as the knowledge of the clay takes off the sense of puppet
soldiers made of it. (So the detection of .^sop�s ass in the
lion's skin, and that of the daw with the peacock�s feathers,
removed the false appearance of their exteriors).

62. The same Brahma causes the error of the reality of the
exterior worlds, as the underlying sea causes the error of the
waves on its surface. The same wood is mistaken for the carved
figure, and the common clay is taken for the pot which is made
of it. (The truth is that, which underlies the appearance).

53. Between the sight and its object, there lieth the eye
of the beholder, which is beyond the sight of its viewer, and is
neither the view nor the viewer. (Such is the supreme Being,
hidden alike from the view and the viewer).

54. The mind traversing from one place to another, leaves

the body in the interim, which is neither moving nor quite un�
moved ; since its mental part only is in its moving state. (So
shonld you remain sedate with your body, but be ever active in
yoor mind).

Vot. II.

� 50

iroaA vASisfiTfli.
3�

65. Retnain always in that quiet state, i^hich is neithef one

of wakiiig, dreaming nor of sleeping; and which is neither the
state cf sensibility or insensibility; but one of ererlastuigtraih�
quility and rest.

56. Drive your dullness, and remain always in the bompany

of your iBOund intellect as a solid rock; and Whether in joy or
grief, commit your soul to yoUr Maker.

57. There is nothing which one has to k�e or earn in this

world i therefore remain in uniform joy and bliss, whether you
think yourself to be blest or unblest in life. ("Naked came I,
and naked must I return; blessed be the name of the Lord").

58. The soul residing in thy body, neither loves nor hates
aught at any time; therefore rest in quiet, and fear naught
lor what betides thy body, and engage not thy mind to the ac>
tions of thy body.

59. Remain free from anxiety about the juesent,. as yon are
nnconcemed about the futnre. Never be impelled by the im�
pulses of your miud; but remain steadfast in your trust in the
true Godr

60. Be unconcerned with all, and remain as mi absent matt.

Let thy heart remain callous to everything Kke a block of stone
or toy of wood; and look upon your miad as an inanimate things
by the spiritual light of y<mr soul.

61. As there is no water in the stone nor fire in water, so

the spiritual man has no mentid action, nor the Divine- ^irit
hath any. (There is no- mntabiUty of mental actittis m the im*-
mutable mind of God).

62. If that which is unseen, should ever come to do atay-^

thing or any action; that action is not attributed to the unseen
agent, but to semethiug else is the mind. (But the mind
being ignored, its actions are ignored also).

63. The nnself possessed (unspiritual) man, that follows fh�

dictates of his fickle and wilful mind, resembles a man of tike
^rder land, following the customs of the out-oast Mlecbchfis or
barbarians.

tJTPATTI KHANDA.

395

64. Having disregarded the dictates o� year vile mind, you

nay remain at ease and as fearless, as an insensible statue made
of clay.

66. He who understands that there is no such thing as the

mind, or that he had one before but it is dead in him to-day ;
becomes as immovable as a marble statue with this assurance
in himsdf.

66. There being no appearance of the mind in any wise, and

yon having no such thing in you in reality except your soul;
say, why do you in vain infer its existence for your own error
and harm?

67. Those who vainly subject themselves to the false appari�

tion of the mind, are mostly men of unsound understandings,
and bring fulminations on themselves from the full-moon of
the pure soul.

88. Eemain firm as thou art with thyself (soul), by cast�

ing i^ar thy fancied and fanciful mind from thee; and be freed
from the thoughts of the woidd, by being settled in the thought
of the Supreme Soul.

69. They who follow a nullity as the unreal mind, are like
those fools who shoot at the inane air, and are cast into the
shade.

70. He that has purged off his mind, is indeed a man of

great understanding ; he has gone across the error of the exis�
tence of the world, and become purified in his soul.. We have
oonsidered long, and never found anything as the impure inind
itt the pure soul.

CHAPTER CXXII.

Ascertainment op the selp or soui.,

Argnment. Description of the grounds of knowledge, vanity of fears

and sorrows, and the natures of the intellect and soul.

Y ASISHTHA said (Prose). After the birth of a man and

a slight development of his understanding, he should as�
sociate the company of good and wise men.

%, There is no other way except by the light of Sutras and

association with the good and wise, to ford over the river of
ignorance, which runs in its incessant course flowing in a thou�
sand streams.

3. It is by means of reasoning that man is enabled to dis�

cern what is good for him, and what he must avoid to do.

4. He then arrives to that ground of reason which is known

as good will, or a desire to do what is good and keep from what
is bad and evil.

5. Then he is led by his reason to the power of reasoning, and

discerning the truth from untruth, and the right from wrong.

6, As he improves in knowledge, he gets rid of his improper

desires, and purifles his mind from ail worldly cares.
7. Then he is said to have gained that stage of knowledge,
which is called the purity of his soul and mind and of his heart
and conduct.

8. When the ^ogi or adept attains to his full knowledge,

he is said to have arrived at his state of goodness-satya.

0. By this means and the curtailing of his desires, he arri�

ves to the state called unattachment or indifference to all world�
ly matters (anAsakta), and is no more subjected to the conse�
quence of his actions.

10. From the curtailment of desires, theyoyt learns to abs�

tract hie mind from the unrealities of the world.

UTPATH KOANDA.

307

11. And whether sitting inactive in his posture of Sam&dhi

meditation, or doing anything for himself or others, he must
fix his mind to whatever is productive of real good to the world.

His soul being cool by the tenuity of his desires, is habituated

to do its duties, without the knowledge of what it is doing.

(He neither fondly pursues anything nor thinks with ardour of
any. His want of desire makes him indifferent to all, and like
a man waking from his sleep, he takes himself to the discharge
of his duties).

12. Verily, he who has subdued his mind, has reached to

the contemplative stage of yoga meditation.

13. Thus one having his mind dead in himself, learns by

practice of years, to perform his dnti^, by refraining from his
thoughts of external objects. Such a one is said to have attain�
ed the turya or fourth stage of his spiritual elevation, and to
have become liberated in his life-time.

14>. He is not glad to get anything, nor sorry to miss it.

He lives without fear of accidents, and is content with whatever
he gets.

15. Thou hast O BAma! known whatever is to bo known by

man; and thou hast certainly exterpated thy desire in all thy
actions through life.

16. Thy thoughts are all spiritual, and transcend the actions
of th^ corporeal body, though thou art in thy embodied state.
Do not give up they self to joy or grief, but know thyself to be
free from decay and defect.

17. Spiritually thou art a pure and bright substance, which

is ubiqnious and ever in its ascendancy. It is devoid of pleasure
and pain, and of death and disease.

18. Why dost thou lament at the grief or loss of a friend,

when thou art so friendless in thyself. Being thrown alone in
this world, whom dost thou claim as a friend of thy soul ?

19. We see only the particles of matter of which this body

is composed ,* it exists and passes away in its time from its
place'; but there is no rising or falling of the soul.

YOGA VA'SBHTHA.

80. Being impemhable in thyself, why dost thou fear to tall

into nanght ? And why think of the destruction of thy soul,
which is never subject to death ?

21. When a jar is broken in twain from its upper part, its
vaonity is not lost, but mixes with the air; so the body being
destroyed, the indestructible soul is not lost with it, (but unites
with its original source).

88. As the sunlight causing the appearance of a river in the

mirage, is not lost at the disappearance of the phenomenal river;
so the immortal soul does not perish upon dissolution of the
frail body.

83. There is a certain illusion, which raises the false appe�

tites within us; otherwise the unity of the soul requires the help
of no duality or secondary substance, in order to be united with
the sole unity.

84. There is no sensible object, whether visible, tangible,

audible or of taste or smelling, (which relate to the particular
senses and brains, that can aSect the unconnected soul.

85. All things and their powers, are contained in the all-
powerful and all-comprehensive soul; these powers are displayed
throughout the world, but the soul is as void as the empty air.

86: It is the mental deception, O Bdghavai that presents

before it the phenomena of the triple world, representing di�
verse forms according to the triplicate nature of man: (the
rajas and tamas).

87. There are threefold methods of dispelling this delusion

of the mind, namely j by the tranquility of the mind, by des�
troying its desires, and by abandonment of acts, (which lead only
to .errors in our repeated regenerations).

88. The world is a crushing mill, with its lower and upper
stQnes of the earth and heaven; our desires are the cords tha t
incessantly drag -us under it: therefore Bdma, break thrae
ropes, (and you will escape the danger of being crushed by it).

29. Our unaoquaintance with spiritual Imowledge, is th^

tJTPATTl kHASDl.

39�

eailae ol all ovUr erh>n; kit our ocquuntance of it, leads us to

endless joy and ultimately to Brahma himself.

80. The Imng being having proceeded from Brahma, and

travelled over the earth at pleasure, turns at last to Brahma by
means of his knowledge of Him.

31. BiAma i all things have sprung from one Being, who
is perfect felicity itself, inconceivable and nndeeaying in its na-'
tare; and all these are as the rays of that light, or as the light
of that everlasting fire.

32. These are as lines on the leaves of trees, and as the earls
and waves on the sarface of waters. They are as ornaments
made of that gold, and as the heat and cold of that fire and
water.

38. Thus the triple world subsists in the thought of the

Divine mind. It has thus sprung from the mind of God, and
rests in its self->8ame state with the all>oomprehending mind.

34. This Mind is called Brahma, who is the soul of all ex-*
istence. He being known the world is known also the world
is known through him); and as he is the knower of all, he gives
us the knowledge of all things. (Thus the Srdti:�^There is no-
knowing of anything but by the knowledge that He imparts
to iu).

36. This all pervasive Being is explained to as by the learned^

by the coined epithets of the soul, intellect and Brahma, used
both in the sdstras as in the popular language.

86. The pore notion that we' have of an everlasting Being,

apart from all sensible ideas and impressions, is called the Intel*
lent and soul.

87. This Intellect or Intelligent soul, is much more trans* -

parent thkn the etherial sky) and it is the plenum, that contuns
the plenitude of the world, as a disjoined and distinct reflexion
ci itself.

88. The knowledge of the separate existence of the unreal

- reflexion of the world, apart from that real reflector, is the cause

el liU onr ignorance and error; bat the view of their subsistence

400
YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

in the mirror oE the supreme soul, blends them all to myself

Also, (who am the same soul).

39. Now BAma, that hast a bodiless soul of the form of pure
intellect, thou canst have no cause to fall into the error, of being
sorry for or afraid of the vanities of the world.

40. How can the unembodied soul be affected by the pas�

sions and feelings of the body ? It is the ignorant and unintelli�
gent only, that are subject to vain suspicions about unrealities.

41. The indestructible intellect of the unintelligent even, is

not destroyed by the destruction of their bodies, how then
should the intelligent be afraid of their dissolution ?

42. The intellect is irresistible in its coarse, and roves about

the solar path (ecliptic); it is the intellectual part that makes
the man, and not the outward body. (Puri sete purushah; it is
the inner soul that is called man).

43. The soul called ^bpurmha or inner person, whether it

' abideth in the body or not, and whether it is intelligent or
otherwise (rational or irrational), never dies upon the death of
the body.

44. Whatever miseries you meet with, BAma! in this tran�

sient world, all appertain to the body, and not to the intangible
soul or intellect.

45. The intellectual soul being removed from the region of

the mind, (which is but an inward sense, and of the nature
of vacuity, and not the grains of the brain composing the mind),
is not to be approached by the pleasures and pains affecting
the body and mind.

46. The soul that has curbed its earthly desires, flies to its
seat in the spirit of Brahma, after the dissolution of its prison
house of the body ; in the same manner as the bee lying hid
under the coverlet of the lotus petals in the darkness of the
night, takes to its heavenward flight by the dawning light of
the day.

47. If life is known to be frail, and the living slate to be a

transcient scene, then say, O BAma 1 what it is that is lost by loss

XJTfATTl KHANDA. �)f

ol this prison-house o� the body, and what is it that you mourn

for?

48. Think therefore, O Rdma I on the nature o� truth) and

mind not about the ei^ors of ignorance. Be freed from your
earthly desires, and know the sinless soul to be void of all
desires.

49. The intellectual soul being tranquil and transparent,-

and a mere witness of our doings, without any doing or desire
of its own, receives the reflexion of the undesiruus God, as a
mirror reflects the images of things.

50. The soul being, as said before, a translucent particle,

reflects the images of all worlds in itself; as a polished gem
reflects the rays of light in its bosom.

61. The relation of the indifferent soul with the world, is

like that of the mirror and its reflexions; the difference and
identity of the soul and the world, arc of the same kind.

62. As the activities of living beings, have a free play with

the rising sun ; so the duties of the world, arc fully discharged
by the rising of the intellect.

63. No sooner you get rid of your error of the substantiality

of the world, than you shall come to the consciousness of ifjs
being a vacuum, resting in the spirit of God; (which is the*
receptacle of infinite space, and whatever there appears in it).

64. As it is the nature of a lighted lamp to spread its lustre

all around, so it is the nature of mental philosophy, to enlightqp
us with the real state of tho soul.

56. The essence of the supreme soul gave rise to' the mind
(will) at first, which spread out the universe with its net work
of endless varieties. It was as the sky issuing out of the
infinite vacuity, and assuming the shape of the blue atmosphere
which is also a nullity.

66. Privation of desires melts down tlie mind, and dissolves

the mist of ignorance from the face of the intellect. Then
appears the. bright light of the one infinite and increate God,
Kke the clear finnament of autumb after the dispersion of
- donds.

You n.

61

40i YOGA VA'SIS&T&A.

67. The mind sprouts out at first from the supreme soul,
with all its. activities, and takes upon it the nature of the lotus*
bom BrahmA by its desire of creation. It stretches out a variety
of worlds by its creative will, which are also as the fancied
apparitions, appearing before the imaginations of deluded boys.

68. Non-entity appears as an entity before us, it dies away

at death, and reappears with our new birth. The mind itself
takes its rise from the divine intellect, and displays itself in the
substance of the Divine Soul, as the waves play about on the
surface of the waters of the deep.

YOGA VASISHTHA.

BOOK IV.

STHITIPRAKARANA

ON ONTOLOGY OE EXISTENCE.

CHAPTER I.

Jakya-Jahi-Nirb'pana,

On Geneiis and Epigenem.

Argument. The variety of creation is described as the rrorking of the

mind, and the existence of one Brahma only, is established in refutation of
the Atomic and Materialistic doctrines of Ry&ya and Stnkhya philosophy.

Y ASTSHTHA said:�Attend now Rdtna, to the subject of

Existence, which follows that of Production: a knowledge of
^is, is productive of tiirodna or utter annihilation of the self or
soul.

2. Enow then the phenomenal world which is existent be�

fore you, and your knowledge of egoism or self-existence, to be
but erroneous conceptions of the formless inexistence or inanity.

S. You sec the tints of various hues painting the vacuous

sky, without any paint (colouring substance), or their cause (the
painter). This is but a conception of the mind without its
visual perception, and like the vision in a dream of one, who
is not in a state of sound sleep. (The world is a dream).

4. It is like an aerial city built and present in your mind;

or like the warming of shivering apes beside the red clay, think�
ing it as red hot lire; and as one^s pursuing an unreality (nr
(grasping a shadow).

S. It is but a different aspect of the self same Brahma,

404

YOGA VA^SISHTHa.

like that of a whirlpool in water, and as the nnsuhstaniial ran*

light, appearing as a real substance in the sky.
6. It is like the baseless fabric of gold of the celestials on
high i and like the air-built castle of Gandharyas in the mid�
way sky. (The gods and Gandharvas are believed to dwell in
their golden abodes in heaven).

7. It is as the false sea in the mirage, appearing true at the

time; and like the Elysian and Utopian cities of imagination
in empty air, and taken for truth.

8. It is like the romantic realms with their pictnmsqne

scenes in the fancies of poets, which are no where in nature
but it seems to be solid and thick within, without any pith or
solidity in it, as thing in an empty dream,

9. It is as the etherial sphere, full of light all aronnd, but

all hollow within; and like the blue autumnal sky, with its
light and Qimsy clouds without any rain-water in them.

10. It is as the unsubstantial vacuum, with the cerulean

blue of solid saphirc ; and like the domes and dames appearing
in dreams, fleeting as air and untangiblo to touch-

11. It is as a flower garden in a picture, painted with bloom�

ing blossoms; and appearing as fragrant without any fragrance
in them. It is lightsome to sight, without the inherent beat
of light, and resembles the orb of the sun or a flaming fire
represented in a picture.

12. It is as an ideal domain�the coinage of the brain, and

an unreal reality or a seeming something ; and likens a lotus-bed
in painting, without its essence or fragrance.

13. It is as the variegated sky, painted with hues which it

docs not possess; and is as nnsolid as empty air, and as manyr
hued as the rain-bow, without any hue of its oym.

14. All its various colourings of materiality, fade away un�

der the right discrimination of reason; and it is found in the end
to be as nnsolid a substance as i he stem of a plantain tree; (all
coated without, and nothing solid in the inside).

15. It-is like the rotation of black spots, before the eyes of

UTPATTI KHANDA.

406

^ purblind man; and as the shape of a shadowy inexistence,

presented as something existent before the naked eye.

16. Like the bubble of water, it seems as something substan�

tial to sight; but in reality all hollow within; and though
appearing as juicy, it is without any moisture at all.

� 17. The bubling worlds are as wide spread as the morning

dews or frost; but take them up, and yon will find them as
nothing, it is thought as gross matter by some, and as vacuum by
others. It is believed as a ilnctuation of thought or false vision
by some, and as a mere compound of atoms by many. It
is the dull matter of Sankhyas j mere vacuity of Vodantists;
flnetuation of etrot�avidyd spmida of the SAiikaras; empty air
of Mddhyamikas} fortuitous union of atoms of AchAryas; differ�
ent atomisms of Sautrantas, and VaibhAshikas ; and so likewise
of Kan Ada, Gotama and A'rhatas ; and so many more according
to the theories of others). (Gloss).

18. I am partly of a material frame, on my body and mind, but

spiritually I am an empty immaterial substance; and though
felt by the touch of the hand, 1 am yet as intangible as a noctup*
nal fiend :� (an empty shadow only).

19. BAma saidIt is said Sir, that at the end of a great

Kalpa ago, the visible world remains in its seed; after which it
developes again in its present form, which I require to be fully
explained to me.

20. Are they ignorant or knowing men, who think in these

various ways ? Please Sir, tell mo the truth for removal of my
doubts, and relate to me the pr'x-ass of the development.

21. Vasishtha replied :-~Those who say that the mundane

world existed in the form of a seed at the final sleep (of BrahmA,
are altogether ignorant of the truth, and talk as children and
boys: (from what they think themselves, or hear from others).

22. Hear me toll you, how unaceordant it is to right reason

and how far removed from truth. It is a false supposition, and
leading both the preacher and hearer of such a doctrine to great
error and egregious mistake.

406 fOQA VA'SISHTHA.

25. Those who attempt to 8ho^|^ existence of the world,

in the form of a fi^rm in the mnn^l^ seed; maintain a very
silly position, as I shall now expUun unto yon.

24. A seed is in itself a visible thing, and is more an object

of sense than that of the mind; as the seeds of paddy and barley,
are seen to sprout forth in their germs and leaves.

26. The mind which is beyond the six organs of sense, is a

very minute particle; and it cannot possibly be bom of itself,
nor become the seed of the universe.

20. The Supreme Spirit also, being more rariiled than the
subtile ether, and undefinable by words, cannot be of the form
of a seed.

27. That which is as minute as a nil and a zero, is equivalent

to nothing} and could never be the mundane seed, without
which there could be no germ nor sprout.
28. That which is more rare and transparent than the
vacuous and clear firmament; cannot possibly contain the
world with all its mountains and seas; and the heavens with ait
their hosts, in its transcendent substratum.

29. There is nothing, that is in any way situated as a subs�

tance, in the substantiality of tliat Being; or if there is anything
there, why is it not visible to ds ?

30. There is nothing that comes of itself, and nothing

material that comes out of the immaterial spirit; for who can
believe a hill to proceed from the hollowness of an earthen
pot?

31. How can a thing remain with another, which is opposed

to it in its nature ? How can there be any shadow where there
is light, and how does darkness reside in the dix of the sun, or
even coldness in fire f

32. How can an atom contain a hill, or anytiiing subsist in

notUng ? The union of a similar with its dissimilar, is as impos�
sible as that of shadow with the light of the sun.

83. It is reasonable to suppose that the material seeds of. the

fig and paddy, should bring forth thtir shoots m time; but it is

UTPATTIKHANDA.

407

Unreasonable to believe thitllilff material world to be contidned

in an immaterial atom.

84. We see the same organs of sense and their saisationsj

in all men in every country; but there is not the same unifor�
mity in the understandings of men in every place, nor can there
be any reason assigned to this difference.

86. Those who assign a certain cause to some effect or event,

betray their ignorance of the true cause; for what is it that
produces the effect, except the very thing by some of its
accessory powers. (Every production is but a transformation
of itself, by some of its inherent powers and properties).

36. Throw off at a distance, the doctrine of cause and effect

invented by the ignorant j' and know that to be true, which is
without beginning and end, and the same appearing as the world.
(An increate everlasting prototype in the mind of God).

CHAPTER 11.

Titfe Recxptactlk of the Mukoahe Eoo-.

Ar^ment�Rofutation of the doctrine of the separate Existence of
the world, and establishment of the tenet of the �One Qod as AU in AIL�

Y ASISHTHA said :�^Now R&ma I that best knowest the

knowable, I will tell thee in disparagement of tby belief
in the separate existence of the world; that there is one pure
and vacuous principle of tho Intellect only, above all the false
fabrications of men.

2. If it is granted, that there was the germ of the world in

the beginning; still it is a question, what were tho accompanying
causes o� its development.

3. Without co-operation of the necessary causes, there can

bo no vegitation of the seed, as no barren woman is ever known
or seen to bring forth on offspring, notwithstanding the seed is
. Contained in the womb.

4. If it Was possible for the seed to grow without the aid

of its accompanying causes, then it is useless to believe in the pri�
mary cause, when it is possessed of such power in its own^
nature.

6. It is Brahm^ himself who abides in his self, in the form

of creation at the. beginning of the world. This creation is as
foroUess as the creator himself, and there is no relation of cause
and effect between them.

6. To say the earth and other elements, to be the accompany�

ing causes of production, is also wrong; since it is impossible'
for these elements to exist prior to their creation,

7. To say the world remained quiescent in its own nature,

together with the accompanying causes, is the talk proceeding
from the minds (mouths) of boys and not of the wise.

8. Therefore Bima I their neither is or was or ever will be w

UTPATTI KHANDA,

404

Separate world in existence. It is the one intelligence o� the

Divinity, that displays the creation in itself;

9. So Bdma! there being an al�olnte privation of this visU

ble world, it is certain that BrahmA himself is All, throughout
the endless space.

10. The knowledge of the visible world, is destroyed by the

destruction of all its causalities; but the causes continuing in
the mind, will cause the visibles to appear to the view even after
their outward extinction (like objects in the dream).

11. The absolute privation of the phenomenal, is only

effected by the privation of its causes, {i.e. the suppression of
our acts and desires); but if they are not suppressed in the mind,
how can you effect to suppress the sight ?

12. There is no other means of destroying our erroneous

conception of the world, except by a total e^terpation of the
vissibles from our view.

13. It is certain that the appearance of the visible world, is

no more than our inward conception of it, in the vacuity of
the intellect; and the knowledge of I, thou and he, are false
impressions on our minds like figures in painting^.

14. As these mountains and hills, these lands and seas and
th^e revolutions of days and nights, and months and years
and the knowledge that this is a kalpa age, and this is a minute
and moment, and this is life and this is death, arc aU mere
conceptions of the mind.'

15. So is the knowledge of the duration and termination of

a Ka^a and mahdkalpa, (millenniums &c.) and that of the
creation and its beginning and end, are mere misconceptions
of our minds.

16. It is the mind that conceives millions of Kalpas and

billions of worlds, most of which are gfone by and many as yet
to come. (Or else there is but an everlasting eternity, which is
self-same with the infinity of the Deity.

17. So the fourteen regions of the planetary spheres, and

all the divisions of time and place, are contained in the infinite
space of the Supreme Intellect.

voi. n.

52

<10

YOGA VA'SiSIlTitA.

18. The umvcrBe continues and displays itsel� as serenely in'

the Divine mind, as it did from before and throughout all eter�
nity ; and it shines with particles of the light of that Intellect,
as the firmament in as full with the radiance of solar light.

19. The ineffable light, which is thrown into the mind by

the Divine Intellect, shows itself as the creation, which in reality
is a baseless fabric by itself.

20. It does not come to existence nor dissolves into nothing,

nor appears or sets at any time; but resembles a crystal glass
with certain marks in it, which can never bo effaced.
21. The creations display of themselves in the clear Intellect
of God, as the variegated skies form portions of the indivisible
space of endless vacuum.

22. These are but properties of tbe Divine Intellect, as

fluidity is that of water, motion of the wind, the eddies of the sea,
add the qualities of all things. (Creation is caeternal with the
Eternal Mind).

23. This creation is but a compact body of Divine wisdom,

and is contained in the Divinity as its component part. Its rising
and setting and continuance, are exhibited alike in the tranquil
soul.

21'. The world is inane owing to its want of tlie accompani-.

ment of secondary (i. e. material and instrumental) causes and
is selfborn: and td call it as born or produced, is to breathe the
breath (of live) like a madman: it is foolish to say so).

26. llAma I purify your mind from the dross of false re-
presentaiions, and rise from the bed of your dou(};^ and desires;
drive away your protracted sleep of ignorance (avidyA), and be
freed from the fears of death and disease with every one of your
friends in this Court.

CHAPTER III.

Etkrnity of the Would.

R ama said �,�But it is related, that Brahmd�the lord of

creatures, springs up by his reminiscence at the end of a
kalpa, and stretches ont the world from his remembrance of it,
in the beginning of creation.

2. Vosishtha answered :�So it is said, O support of Raghu�s

race I that the lord of creatures rises at first by his predestination,
after the unircrsal dissolution, and at the commencement of a
new creation.

8. It is by his will, that the world is stretched out from his

recollection, and is manifested like an ideal city, in the presence
of Brahm^�the creative power.

4. The supreme being can have no remembrance of the past

at the beginning of a new creation, owing to his want of a
prior birth or death. Therefore this aerial arbour of reminis*
oence has no relation to Brahma. (Who being an ever living
being, his cognizance of all things is also everlasting).

5. Rdma asked;�Does not the reminiscence of the past,

continue in Bmhmd at his recreation of the word ; and so the
former remembrance of men upon their being reborn on earth ?
Or are all past remembrances effaced from the minds of men
by the delirium of death in their past life f

6. Yasishtha replied:�All intelligent beings, including

Brahmd and a# others of the past age, that obtain their nirv&tia
or extinction, are of course absorbed in One Brahms, (and have
lost their remembrance of every thing concerning their past lives).

7. Now tell me, my good Rdma, where do these past remem*

brances and remembrancers abide any more, when they are wholly
lost, at the final liberation (or extinction) of the rememberers ?

8. It is certain that all beings are liberated, and become

extinct in Brahma at the great dissolution; hence there cannot

�2 YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

be remembrance of anything in the absence of the persons that

remember the same.

9. The remembrance that hves impressed of itself in the

empty space of individual Intellects, is verily the reservoir of
the perceptible and imperceptible worlds. This reminiscence
is eternally present before the sight of God, as a reflexion of
bis own Intellect.

10. It shines with the lustre of bis self-consciousness, from

time without beginning and end, and is identic with this world,
which is therefore called to be self-bom; (because it is immanent
in the mind of God).

11. The spiritual body which is the attribute of God from

time without beginning (that God is a spirit); is the same with
Yir&ja or manifestation of himself, and exhibits the form of the
world or the microcosm {i.e. God-spirit-Virdj or cosmos).

12. But the world is said to be composed of atoms, which

compose the land and woods, the clouds and the firmament.
But there are no atoms to form time and space, actions and
motions and revolutions of days and nights. (All which are
shaped by the spirit and not by atoms),

13. Again the atoms (of matter) which fill the world, have
other incipient atoms (of spirit), which are inherent in them,
and cause them to take and appear in the forms of mountains
and the like.

14 But these forms seeming to be conglomerations of atomic

particles, and showing themselves to our vision as lightsome
objects, are in reality no substantial things.

15. Thus there is no end of the real and unreal sights of

things; the one presenting itself to the view of the learned,
and the other to that of the learned, {{.e. All things are viewed
. in their spiritual light by the learned, and in their material
aspect by the ignorant).

18. The cosmos appears as the immutable Brahmd only to

the intelligent, and as the mutable visible world to the unintelli�
gent.
UTPATTl KHANDA.

413

17. As these bright worlds appear to roll about as eggs in

thek spheres, so there are multitudes of other orbs, shining in
every atom in the universe.

18. As we see curved pillars, consisting of figures under

figures, and those again under others; so is the grand pillar of
the universe, composed of systems under systems to no end.

19. As the sands on a rock, are separably attached to it,

and are countless in their number; so the orbs in the three
worlds, are as particles of dust in mountainous body of Brahmd.

20. It may be possible to count the particles of ray scattered

in the sun-beams; but it is impossible to number the atoms of
light, which are emanating from the great sun of Brahmd.

21. As the sun scatters the particles of his light, on the

sparkling waters and sands of the sea; so doai the Intellect of
God, disperse the atoms of its light all over the vacuity of the
universe.

22. As the notion of vacuity fills the mind, with the idea
of the visible firmament j so the thought of creation, as self�
same with Brahmd, gives us the notion of his intellectual sphere.

23. To understand the creation as something different from

Brahma, leads man apart from Him ; but to take it as sjmony-
mous with Brahma, leads him to his felicity.

24. The enlightened soul, freed from its knowledge of the

mundane seed, and knowing Brahma alone as the plenum filling
the vacuum of intellect; knows the knowable (God) in his
inward understanding, as the same with what has proceeded
from him.

CHAPTER IV.

Tkeatino of the Gebu of Existence.

Argument. Sensations and Perceptions, as the Boots of the knowledge

of Existence ; suppression of these annuls all existence, and remoVes the
visibles from view.

V ASISHTHA said :�It is the overthrow of the battery of

the senses, that supplies ns with a bridge over the ocean
of the world j there is no other act, whereby we may cross over
it (to the other shore of truth).

2. Acquaintance with the Sutras, association with the good

and wise, and practice of the virtues, are the means whereby the
rational and self-controlled man, may come to know the abso-<
lute negation of the visibles.

3. 1 have thus told you, O handsome Bdma! of the causes of

the appearance and disappearance of the creation, resembling
the heaving and resting of the waves of the sea of the world.

4. There is no need of a long discourse to tell you that, the

mind is the germ of the arbour of acts, and this germ being
nipped in the beginning, prevents the growth of the tree, and
frustrates the doing of acts, which are the fruits thereof.

5. The mind is all (i. e. the agent of all actions ); therefore

it is, that by the healing of your heart and mind, you can cure
all the troubles and diseases, you may incur in the world.

6. The minds of men are ever troubled, with their thoughts

of the world and bodily actions ; but these being deadened and
defunct, we see neither the body nor the outer world.

7. The negation of the outer world, and the suppression of

the inner thoughts, servo to curb the demon of the mind, by
practice of self-abnegation for a long period of time.

8. It is possible to heal the inward disease of the internal

mind, by administration of this best and only medicine of nega�
tion of the external world. (Ignoring the outer world, is the
only way \io restore the peace of the mind).

tJTPATTl KHANDA.

416

9. It is because of its thoughts, that the mind is subjected

to the errors of its birth and death; and to those of its being
bound to or liberated from, the bonds of the body and this
world.

10. The mind being deluded by its thoughts, sees the worlds
shining before it; as a man sees in his delusion, the imaginary
city of the Gandharvas, drawn before him in empty air.

11. All these visible worlds consist in the mind, wherein

they seem to exist as the fi-agrance of the air, consists in the
cluster of flowers containing the essence.

12. The little particle of the mind contains the world, as a

am all grain of sesamum contains the oil, and as an attribute
is contained in its subject, and a property abiding in the subs�
tance.

13. The world abides in the mind in the same manner, as

the sun-beams abide in the sun, and as brightness consists in
the light, and as the heat is contained in fire.
14. The mind is the reservoir of the worlds, as the snow is
the receptacle of coldness. It is the substratum of all existence,
as the sky is that of emptiness, and as velocity is inherent in the
wind.

16. Therefore the mind is the same with the world, and the
world is identic vrith�the mind; owing to their intimate and
inseparable connection with one another. The woi'ld however
is lost by the loss of the mind; but the mind is not lost by des�
truction of the world. (Because the thoughts thereof are im�
printed in the mind).

CHAPTER V.

Story of Bharoata.

Argument. Meditation of Bhrigti, Baniblings of Sdkra. His eight of

and amour for an aerial nymph.

R ama said :�^Tell me sir, that knowest all truths, and art
best acquainted with all that is past and is tti COmS, hoW
the form of the world is so vividly existed in the mind.

2. Please Sir, explain to me by some illustration, how this

world, appears as a visible object to the inner mind.

8. Vasishtha repliedThe world is situated as truly in the

minds of men, as it appeared in its firm and compact state to
the bodiless son of Indu (I have related long before).

4. It is situated in the same manner in the minds of men,

as the thought of king Lavana�s transformation of himself to a
chandAla, under the influence of sorcery.

5. It is in the same manner, as Bhdrgava believed himself

to be possessed of all worldly gratifications. Because true bliss
has much more relation to the mind, than to earthly posses�
sions.

6. Rdma said:�How is it Sir, that the son of Bhrigpi came

to the enjoyment of earthly pleasures, when he had been long�
ing for the fruition of heavenly felicity.

7. Vasishtha replied :�Attend now RAma, to my narration

of the history of Bhrigu and Kdia, whereby you will know how
he came to the possession of earthly enjoyments.

8. There is a table-land of the Mandara mountain, which is

beset by rows of tamAla trees, with beautiful arbours of flowers
under them.

9. Here the sage Bhrigu conducted his arduous devotion

in olden times and it was in this place, that his high-minded and
vaKant son Sdkra; also came to perform his devotion.

10. Sukra was as handsome as the moon, and radiant with

tj1?t�A'I?Ti KHANDl 41f

tis brilliant beams (like the sun). He took his seat in that
happy grove of Bhrigu, for the purpose of his devotion.

11. Having long sat in that grove under the umbrage of A

rock, Sdkra removed himself to the flowery beds and &ir plainit
below.

12. He rOved freely about the bowers of Mandara in his

youthful sport, and became revered among the wise and igno�
rant men of the place.

IS. He roved th^re at random like Trisankii, between thd

earth and sky ; sometimes playing about as a boy, and at others
sitting in fixed meditation as his &ther.

14. He remained without any anxiety in bis solitude, as a

king who has subdued his enemy j until he happened to behold
an Apsara fairy, traversing in her aerial journey.

15. He beheld her with the eyes of Hari, flxed upon hiS
Lakshmi, as she skims over the watery plain, decked with her
wreaths of Mandara flowers, and her tresses waving loosely
with the playful air.

16. Her trinkets jingling with her movements, and the

fragrance of her person perfuming the winds of the air; her
f^iy form was as beautiful as a creeping plant, and her eyeballs
rolling as in the state of intoxication.

17. The moon-beams of her body, shed their ambrosial dews

over the landscape, which bewitched the hard-heart of the
young devotee, as he beheld the fairy form before him.

18. She also with her body shining as the fair full-moon,
and abalr in g as the wave of the sea, became enamoured of Sukra
as she looked at his &oe.

19. Sdkra then checked the impulse of his mind, which the
god of love had raised after her; but losing all his power
over himself, he became absorbed in the thought of his beloved
object.

Vol^ II.

58

CHAPTER VI.
Elysium op Bhaeoava.
Ar|^iia�ni Siikra�s Imaginary journey to heaven, and his reception
by Indro.

y ASISHTHA said;�Henceforth Sukra continued to think

of the nymph with his closed eye-lids, and indulge himself
in his reverie of an imaginary kingdom.

2. He thought that the nypmph was passing in the air, to

the paradise of ludra�the god with thousand eyes; and that
he followed her closely, to the happy regions of the celes�
tial gods.

3. He thought, he saw before him the gods, decorated with

their chaplets of beautiful mandara blossoms on their head%
and with garlands of flowers pendant on their persons resplen-
dant as liquid gold.

4. He seemed to see the heavenly damsels with their eyes as

blue-lotuses, regaling the eyes of their spectators; and others
with their eyes as beautiful as those of antilopes, sporting with
their sweet smiles all about (the garden of paradise).

5. He saw also the Mdrntas or gods of winds, bearing the

fragrance of flowers, and breathing their sweet scent on one
another; and resembling the omnipresent Visswarupa by their
ubiquitous journey.

6. He hoard the sweet hum of bees, giddy with the perfumed

iulior, exuding from the proboscis of India's elephant; and lis�
tened to the sweet strains, sung by the chorus of the heavenly
choir.

7. There were the swans and storks, gabbling in the lakai,

with lotuses of golden hue in them ; and there were the celes�
tial gods reposing in the arbours, beside the holy stream of the
heavenly Gangd (Manddkini).

8. These were the gods Yama and Indm^ and the son and

UTPATTI KHANDA.

419

moon, and the deities of fire and the winds; and there were the
regents of the worlds, whose shining bodies shaded the lustre
of vivid fire.

9. On one side was the warlike elephant of Indra�(Airdvata),

with the scratches of the demoniac weapons on his face (pro>
boscis), and tusks gory with the blood of the defeated hosts of
demons.

10. Those who were translated from earth to heaven in the

form of luminous stars, were roving in their aerial vehicles,
blazing with aureate beams of the shiuing sun.

11. The gods wore washed by the showers, falling from the
peaks of Meru below, and the waves of the Qanges, rolled on
with scattered mandara flowers floating on them.

12. The alleys of Indra's groves, were tinged with saffron,

by heaps of the dust of mandam flowers ; and were trodden by
groups of Apsara lasses, sporting wantonly upon them.

15. There wore the gentle breezes blowing among the pari-
jdla plants, brightnlng as moon-beams in the sacred bowers > and
wafting the fragrant honey, from the cups of Kmda and!
mandara blossoms.

14. The pleasure garden of Indra, was crowded by heavenly

damsels; who were besmeared with the frosty farina of khara
flowers, mantling them like the creepers of the grove in their
yellow robes.

1.9. Here were the heavenly nymphs dancing in their gaiety,

at the time of the songs of their lovers; and there were heaven�
ly musicians Ndrada and Tamburu, joining their vocal musiu
in unison with the melody of the wired instruments of the lute
and lyre (VallakikAkali).

16. Holy men and the pious and virtuous, were seen to soar
high in their heaveuly cars, and sitting there with their deco'
rations of various kinds.

17. The amorous damsels of the gods, were clinging round

their god Indra; �s the tender creepers of the garden, twine
about the trees beside them.

480

YOGA VASKHTHA.

18. There were the fruit trees of gnlmehaa, studde^ wii&

clusters of'their ripening fruits; and resembling the gemming
saphires and rubies, and set as rows of ivory teeth.

19. After all these sights, Sukra thought of making his

obeisance to Indra, 'who was seated on his seat like another
Brahmd�the creator of the three worlds.

20. Having thought so, Sukra bowed down to Indra in his

own mind, as he was the second Bhrigu in heaven �(�.�. He
bowed to him with a veneration equal to that he paid to his
father).

21. Indra received him with respect, and having lifted him
up with his band, made him sit by himself.

22. Indra addressed him saying :�I am honoured, Sukra I

by thy call, and this heaven of mine is graced by thy presence^
may thou live long to enjoy the pleasure of this place. .

23. Indra then sat in his seat with a graceful countenance,

which shone with the lustre of the unspotted full-moon.

2^ Sukra being thus seated by the side of Indra, was salu�

ted by all the assembled gods of heaven ; and he continued to
enjoy every felicity there, by being received with paternal
affection by the lord of gods and men.

CHAPTER Vn.

Re-vkiok of the Lovees.

Argument. Slikra sees hie beloved in heaven, and is joined to hor at

that place.

Y ASISHTHA said:�Thus Sukra being got among the gods

in the celestial city, forgot his former nature, without his
passing through the pangs of death.

2. Having halted awhile by the side of the Saehi's consort

(Indra), he rose up to roam about the paradise, by being charmed
with all its various beauties.

8. He looked with rapture on the beauty of his own person,

and long^ to see the lovely beauties of heavenly beings, as the
swan is eager to meet the lotuses of the lake.

4. He saw his beloved one among them in the garden of

Indra�s Eden (udydua), with her eyes like those of a young fawn;
and with a stature as delicate as that of a tender creeper of the
Jmra (amarynthus).

5. She also beheld the son of Bhrigu, and lost her govern*
ment on herself; and was thus observed by him also in all her
indications of amorous feelings.

6. His whole frame was dissolved in affection for her, like

the moonstone melting under the moonbeams; so was hers like�
wise in tenderness for him.

7. He like the moonstone wtu soothed by her cooling

beauty; beaming as moonlight in the sky; and she also being
beheld by him, was entirely subdued by her lore to him.

8. At night they bewailed as ebakravdkas (ruddy geese),

at their separation from one another, and were filled with
delight on their mutual sight at the break of the day: (which
unites the ChakravAka pair together).

9. They were both as beaulaful to behold, as the sun and

422
YOGA. VA'SISHTHA.

the opening blossom of the lotus at mom; and their presence

added a charm to the garden of paradise, which promised te
confer their desired bliss.

10. She committed her suhdued-self to the mercy of the

g^d of love, who in his turn darted his arrows relentless on
her tender heart.

11. She was covered, all over her person with the shafts of
cupid, as when the lotus blossom is hid under a swarm of fleeting
bees ; and became as disordered as the leaves of the lotus, are
disturbed under a shower of rain drops.

12. She fluttered at the gentle breath of the playful winds,

like the tender filaments of flowers; and moved as graceful
as the swan, with her eyes as bluish as those of the leaflets
of hlue>lotuscs.

18. She was deranged in her person by the god of love, as

the lotus-bed is put into disorder by the mighty elephant; and
was beheld in that plight by her lover (Stikra), in the flight
of his fancy.

14- At last the shade of night overspread the landscape

of the heavenly paradise, as if the god of destruction (Rudra);
was advancing to bury the world under universal gloom.

15. A deep darkness overspread the face of the earth, and

covered it in thick gloom; like the regions of the polar moun>
tains; where the hot-blazing-snn is obscured by the dark
shade of perpetual night, as if hiding his face in shame under
the dark veil of Cimmerian gloom.

16. The loving pair met together in the midst of the grove,
when the assembled crowds of the place, retired to their respec�
tive habitations in different directions.

17. Then the love-smitten-dame approached her lover with

her sidelong glances, as a bird of air alights from her aerial
flight in the evening, to meet with her mate on the earth below.

18. She advanced towards the son of Bhrigu, as a peahen

comes out to meet the rising cloud; and thought she beheld
there a white washed edifice, with a couch placed in the midst.

UTPATTI KHANDA

42S

19. Bh^rgava entered the white ball, as when Vishnu enters

into hoary sea, accompanied by his beloved Lahshmi; who held
him by the hand with her down>cast countenance.

20. She graced his person, as the lotus-stalk graces the

bosom of the elephant; and then spoke to him sweetly with
her words mixed with tender affection.

21. Shie told him in a sweet and delightsome speech fraught

with expressions of endearment; Behold, O my moon-faced
lover! I see the curve of thy bow as a bow bent for my
destruction.

22. Cupid is thence darting his arrows to destroy this love�

lorn maid; therefore protect me from him, that am so helpless
and have come under thy protection from his rage.

23. Know my good friend, that it is the duty of good

people, to relieve the wretched from their distress; and those
that do not look upon them with a compassionate eye, are
reckoned as the basest of men.

24. Lore is never vilified by those, who are acquainted

with erotics; because the true love of faithful lovem, have
endured to the last without any fear of separation.

25. Know my dear, that the delightful draught of love,

defies the dewy beams distilled by the moon; and the sovereignty
of the three worlds, is never so pleasing to the soul, as the
love of the beloved.

96. I derive the same bliss from the touch of thy feet, as
it attends on mutual lovers on their first attachment to one
another.

27. 1 live by the nectarious draught of thy touch, as the

iumuda blooms by night, embibing the ambrosial beams of the
moon.

28. As the fluttering Chakora, is delighted with drinking

the moonbeams, so is this suppliant at thy feet, blessed by the
touch of the leaf-like palm of thy hand.

29. Embrace me now to thy bosom, which is filled with

ambrosial bliss. Saymg so, the damsel fell upon his bosom

424 YOQA VA^glSHTfiA.

with her body soft as a flower^ and her eyes tannbg as a leadet
at the gentle breeze.

30. The loving pair fell into their trance of love in that
happy grove, as a 'Couple of playful bees creeps into the lotus
cup, under the fair filaments of the flower, shaking by the
gentle breeze.
CHAPTlR Vllr.

TsANSHiaBATIOirS OF StIKKA.

Argament S&kra fancies his fall front heaveui and passing thraugik
butny imaginaty births.

Y ASISHTHA related:�^Thos the son of Bhrigu, believed

himself to be in the enjoyment of heavenly pleasures, in
his ideal reveries.

2. lie thought of enjoying the company- of his beloved,

bedecked with garlands of mandara flowers, and inebriated with
the drink of ambrosial draughts, like the full-moon accompanied
by the evening star.

3. He roved about the ideal lake of heaven (Mdnas Saravara),

filled with golden lotuses, and frequented by the giddy swans
and gabbling geese or hansas of heaven; and roamed beside the
bank of the celestial river (Manddkani), in company with the
ehoristers (ehdranas, and Sinnaras of paradise).

i. He drank the sweet nectarious juice beaming as moon*

beams in company with the gods; and reposed under the arbours
of the groves, formed by the shaking branches of pirij&Ut
plants.

S. He amnsed himself with his favourite Vidyddharfs, in

swinging lumself in the hanging cradles, formed by the shady
creepers of the arbour, and screening him from ihe veriul sun�
beams.

6. The parterres of Nandana gardens were trodden down

under the feet of the fellow followers of Siva, as when the
ocean was ohumed by the mandAra mountain.

7. The tender weeds and willows Rowing as golden shrub�

beries, and tuigled bushes in the beaeh of the river, were
trampled under the legs of heated dephants, as when they infest
the- lotus takes on Mew. lotuses growing in the lakes of
okountainous regioni^.

Voi. II.

�4

420

YOGA. VA'siSfiTBA.

8. Associated by his sweet-heart, he passed the moontighi

nighta in the forest groves of Kaildsa, attending to the songs
and mnsic of heavenly choristers.

9. Roaming on the table-lands of Gahdha*mddana motmtuni

he decorated his beloved with lotns-garlands from her head
to foot.

10. He roved with her to the polar mountain which is full

of wonders, as having darkness on one side and lighted on the
other. Here they sported together with their tender smiles
and fond caresses and embrace.

11. He thought he remained in a celestial abode beside the

marshy lands of Manddra, for a period of tall sixty years; and
passed his time in the company of the fawna of the place.

12. He believed he passed half a ytiga with his helpmate,

on the border of the milky ocean, and associated with the mari�
time people and islanders of that ocean.

IS. He next thought to live in a garden at the city of the

Oandharvas, where he believed to have lived for an immeasur�
able period like the genius of Time himself, who is the producer
of an infinity of worlds.

14. He was again translated to the celestial seat of Indrs,

where he believed to have resided for many cycles of the qu^
dmple yiiga ages with his mistress.

15. It was at the end of the merit of their acts, that th^
were doomed to return on earth, shorn of their heavenly beaufy
and the fine features of their persons.

16. Being deprived of his heavenly seat and vihide, and

bereft of his godlike form and features; Sukra was overeqme
by deep sorrow, like a hero falling in the field of warfare.

17. His great grief at bis fall from heaven to earth, broke
his frame as it were into a hundred figments; like a water^l
falling on the stony ground, and breaking into a hundred nils
below-

18. They with their emaciated bodies and sorrowful

wandered about in the air, like birds withont their nest.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

427

19. Afterwards their dirambodied minds entered into the

net-work of lunar beams, and then in the form of molten
frost or min water, they grew the vegetables on earth.

20. Some of these vegietables were concocted, and then eaten

by a Brahmin in the land of Dasima or confinenoe of the ten
streams. The substance of Sukra was changed to the semen of
the Brihman, and then conceived as a son by his wife.

21. The boy was trained up in the society of the muni*

to the practice of rigorous austerities, and he dwelt in the
forests of Meru for a whole manwantara, observant of his holy
rites.

22. There he gave birth to a male child of human figure

in a doe vto which his mistress was transformed in her next birth),
and became exceedingly fond of the boy, to the neglect of his
sacred duties.

23. He constantly prayed for the long life, wealth and

learning of his darling, and thus forsook the constancy of his
faith and reliance in Providence. (Longivity, prosperity and
capacity for learning, are the triple blessings of civil life, instead
of austerity, purity and self-resignation of painful asceticism).

24. Thus his falling off from the thought of heaven, to

those of the earthly aggrandizement of his son, made bis shorten�
ed life an easy prey to death, as the inhaling of air by the serpent.
(It is said that the serpent lives upon air, which it takes in
freely in want of any other food).

25. His worldly thoughts having vitiated his understanding,

caused him to be reborn as the son of the Madra king, and suc�
ceed to him in the kingdom of the Madras (Madura-Madras).

26. Having long reigned in his kingdom of Madras by ex-

terpation of all his enemies, he was overtaken at last by old
age, as the lotus-flower is stunted by the frost.

27. The king of Madras, was released of his kingly person

by his desire of asceticism; whereby he became the son of an
anchorite in next-birth, in order to perform his austerities.

28. He retired to the bank of the meandering river of the

4S8

fOGA Va'sISHTHA

Ganges, and there hetook himself to his devotion; being devoid

of all his worldly anxieties and cares.

29. Thfos the son of Bhrigu, having passed in various formv

in his successive births, according to the desire of his heart }
remained at last as a fixed arbour on the bank of a running
stream.

CHAWER IX.

DEscuiJTiosr OP StKEA's Body.

Aif^ment. The departed spirit of Sdkra, retnerobeis the state of fb

fonner body.
Y ASISHTHA related .'�As Sukra was indalgpng' his reveries
in this manner, he passed insensibly under the flight of a
series of years, which glided upon him in the presence of his
father.

2. At last his arboracious body withered away with age, un�

der the inclement sun and winds and rain; and it fell down
on the ground as a tree torn from its roots.

3. In all his former births, his mind thirsted after fresh

pleasures and enjoyments ; as a st^ hunts after fresh verdure
from forest to forest.

4. He underwent repeated births and deaths, in his wan�

derings in the world in search of its enjoyments; and seemed
as some thing whirled about in a turning mill or wheel; till at
last he fpund his rest in the cooling beach of the rivulet.

6. Now the disembodied spirit of Sdkra, remained to reflect

on his past transmigrations, in all the real and ideal forms of
his imagination.

6. It thought of its fonner body on the Manddra mountain,

and how it was reduced to a skeleton of mere bones and skin by
the heat of the sun and his austerities, (i. e. of the five fires
pancha-tap&$ of his penance.

7. It remembered how the wind instrument of its lungs,

breathed out the joyous music of its exemption from the pain
of action (to which all other men were subjected). (It refers
to the breathing of to�ham hamtah in yoga, which is the sweet
music of salvation).

8. Seeing how the mind is plunged in the pit 61 worldly

430

TOGA VA'SISHTHA.

cares, the body seems to laugh at it, by showing the white

teeth of the month in derision.

9. The cavity of the mouth, the sockets of the eyes, the

nostrils and ear>hole8 in the open face, are all expressive of the
hollowness of human and heavenly bodies (t. e. they are all
hollow within, though they seem to be solid without).

10. The body sheds the tears of its eyes in sorrow for its
past pains and austerities, as the sky rains after its excessive heat
to cool the earth.

11. The body was refreshed by the breeze and moon-beams,

as the woodlands are renovated by cooling showers in the rainy
season.
IS. It remembered how its body was washed on the banks
of mountain rills, by the water-fells from above, and how it was
daubed by the flying dust and the dirt of sin.

13. It was as naked as a withered tree, and rustling to the-

air with the breeze; yet it withstood the keen blasts of wintor
as unshaken devotion in person.

14. The feded face, the withered lung^ and arterios, and ths
skinny belly, resembled those of the goddess of famine, that
cried aloud in the forest, in the bowlings of the wild beasts.

15. Yet the holy person of the hermit was unhurt by envi�
ous animals, owing to its freedom from passions and feelings,
and its fervent devotion; and was not devoured by rapaoioua
beasts and birds.

16. The body of Bhrigu's son was thus weakened by his ab�
stinence and self-denial, and* his mind was employed in holy
devotion, as his body lay prostrate on the bed of stonW

CttAmtl 3t.

i&ARtau�s CONFEESSrCE VITH KaLA or OEATtt.

Argotnent Bhrigu�s grief at seeing the death-like body of hia son.

Y ASISHTHA coQtinaed: ��After the lapse of a thoosand

years, the gp%at Bhriga rose from his holy trance (anaes^
thesia); and was disengage in his mind from its meditation
of God, as in a state of snspension or syncope of his holy medita'
tions.

2. He did not find his son lowly bending down his head
before him, the son who was the l^er of the army of virtues,
and who was the personified figure of all merits.

8. He only beheld his body, lying as a skeleton before him,

as it was wretchedness or poverty personified in that shape.

4. The skin of his body was dried by the sun, and his nos>
trils snoring as a hooping bird; and the inner entrails of his bel�
ly, were sounding as dry leather-pipes with the croaking of
frogs.

5. The sockets of his eyes, were filled with new-born worms

grown in them; and the bones of his ribs had become as bars
of a (�ge, with the thin skin over them resembling the spider's
web.

6. The dry and white skeleton of the body, resembled the

desire of fruition, which bends it to the earth, to undergo all the
favourable and nnfovourable accidents of life.

7. The crown of the head had becoipe as white and smooth

(by its baldness or grey hairs), as the phallus of siva anointed
with cfunphor, at the /�(fH � varcha ceremony in honor of the
moon.

8. The withered head erected on the bony neckbone, likened

the soul supported by the body:�(either to lead or be led by it).

9. The noim was shriveled to a dry stidk, for wtmt of its

L32 tOQA VA'SlSHl^aA

hesh ^ �nd the nose-bone stood as a postj deviding tlie tWO

halves of the &ce.

10. The face standing et^ebt on tbe protraded shoulders on

both sides, tras looking forward in the womb of the vabnons sky,
whither the vital breath had fled from the body.

11. The two legs, thighs, knees and the two arms (forming
the eight angaa or members of the body), had been doubled in
their length (for their long etherial course ); and lay slackened
with fatigue of the long journey.

12. The leanness of the belly like a latk, showed by its shrive�
led flesh and skin, the empty inside of the ignorant: (�. e. they
may be puSed up with pride on the outside, bat ate aU hollow
in the inside).

13. Bhrigu seeing the withered skeleton of his son, lying as

the worn-out post (to which the elephant was tied by its feet),
made his reflections as said before, and rose from his seat.

14. He then began to dubitate in his mind, at the sight of

the dead body, as to whether it could be the lifeless carcass of
his son or any other.

15. Thinking it no other than the dead body of his son, he

became sore angry upon the god of death; (that had untimely
taken him away).

16. He was prepared to pronounce his imprecation against

the god of fate, in vengeance of his snatching his son so pre�
maturely from him.

17. At this yswo-the regent of death, and devourcr of living

beings, assumed his figurative form of a material body, and
appeared in an instant before the enraged father.

18. He appeared in armour with rix arms and as many faces,

accompanied by the army of his adherents, and holding the
noose and sword and other weapons in his bands. (The com�
mentary ascribes a dozen of arms to yam, by the number of the
twelve months of the year, and having half of the number on
dthor mde, according to the six signs of the zodiac in eiihmr

UTPATTI KHANDA.
43�

hemispliere. The six faces axe representative of the six sc<.isona

of Hindu astronomy instead of four of other nation�s).

19. The rays of light radiating from his body, gave it the
appearance of a hill, filled with heaps of the crimson iinsuia
flowers, growing in mountain forests.

20. The rays of the living fire flashing from his trldenfc>
gave it the glare of golden ringlets, fastened to the cars of all
the sides of the sky.

21. The breath of his host, hurled down the ridges of mounts
tains, which hang about them, like swinging cradles on earth.

22. His sable sword flashing with sombre light, darkened the
disk of the sun; as it were by the smoke of the final conflagra�
tion of the earth.

28. Having appeared beforo the great sage, who was enraged
as the raging sea, he soothed him to calmness as after a storm,
by the gentle breath of his speech.

24. " The sages�* said he, � are acquainted mth the laws of
nature, and know the past and future as present before them.
They are never nroved even with a motive to anything, and are
far from being moved without a cause.

28. � You sages are observers of the multifarious rules of

religious austerities, and we are observant of the endless and
immutable laws of destiny; we honour you therefore for your
holiness, and not from any other desire (of being blessed
by you or exempted from your curse).

26. Do not belie your righteousness by your rage, nor think

to do us any harm, who are spared unhurt by the flames of final
dissolution, and cannot be consumed by your curses.

27. We have destroyed the spheres of tho universe and

devoured legions of Rudras, millions of Brahmds and myriads of
Vishnus (in the repeated revolutions of creation); what is it
therefore that we cannot do ?

28. We are appointed as devourers of all beings; and you are

destined to be devoured by us. This is ordained by destiny
herself, and not by any act of our own will.

VOL. II.

56

484
TOGA Va'SKHTHA.

29. It is tiien&tnre of flame to ascend upwards, and that of

fluids to flow downward j it is destined for the food to be fed upon
by its eaten, and that creation must come under its deetraotion
by us.

80. Know this form of mine to be that of the Supreme Being,

whose universal spirit acts in various form^ all over the universe.

81. To the unstained (clear) sight, there is no other agent

or object here, except the supreme) but the stained sight (of the
clear eyed), views many agents and objects ^beside the one in all).

33. Agency and objectivity are terms, coined only by the

short sighted; but they disappear before the enlarged view of
the wise.

83. As flowers grow upon trees, so are animals bom on earth;

their growth and birth, as also their fall and death, are of their
own spontaniety, and miscalled as their causality.

84. As the motion of the moon is caused by no casual cause,

though they falsely attribute a causality to it ; such is the course
of death in the world of its own spontaneous nature.

35. The mind is falsely said to be the agent of all its enjoys
ments in life; though it is no agent of itself. It is a misbelief
like the false conception of a serpent in the rope, where there ie
no serpent at alt.

36. Therefore, O sage I allow not yourself to be so angry for

your sorrow; but consider in its trae light, the course of events
that befall on humankind.

87. We were not actuated by desire of &me, nor influenced

by pride or passion to any act; but are ourselves subject to the
destiny, which predominates over all our actions.

88. Knowing that the course of (mr conduct, is subject to

the destiny appointed by the Divine will, the wise never allow
themsdves to be subjected under the darkness of pride or passion,
at our doings.

89. That our duties only should be done at all times, is the
rule laid down by the wise creator; and yon cannot attempt ie
remove it by your subjection to ignorance and idleness.

UTPATTI KHANDiu

43&

40. Where is that enlightened sight, that gravity and that

patience of yours, that you grovel in this manner in the dark like
the blind, and slide from the broad and beaten path laid open for
everybody? CFhispathis submission to what is destined by
the Divine will, according to the common prayer ; ** Let not mine,
but thy will be done�^.

41. Why don't you consider your case as the sequence of

your own acts, and why then do you, who are a wise man, falsely
accuse me like the ignorant; (as the cause of what is ordained by
the Supreme cause of all!)

42. You know that all living beings have two bodies here, of
which one is known as the intellectual or spiritual body or mind.

43. The other is the inert or eorporcal frame, which is fragile

and perishable. But the miuute thing of the mind which lasts
until its liberation, is what leads all to their good or evil
desires.

44. As the skilful charioteer guides his chariot with care, so-
is this body conducted by the intelligent mind, with equal atten�
tion and fondness.

46. But the ignomut mind which is prone to evil, destroys

the goodly body^ as little children break their dolls of clay in
sport.

46. The mind is hence called the purtisVa or regent of tho

body, and the working of the mind is taken for the act of the-
man. It is bound to the earth by its desires, and freed by its
freedom front earthly attractions and expectations.

47. That is called the mind which thinks in itself, �this is

my body which is so situated here, and these are the members
of my b^y and this my head."

48. The mind is called life, for its having the living prin�
ciple in it; and the same is one and identic with the understand�
ing. It becomes egoism by its consciousness, and so the same
TnWii! ^passes under vMtous designations, according to-its diffeiv-
eat functions.

48. Ithas the name of the heart from- the afiEections of thier

436

TOGA VASISHTHA

body, and so it takes many other names at will (according to

its divers operations). Bat the earthly bodies are all perishable.

50. When the mind receives the light of truth, it is called

the enliglitened intellect, which being freed from its thoughts-
relating to the body, is set to its supreme felecity.
61. Thus the mind of your son, wandered from your pre�
sence, as you sat absorbed in meditation, to regions far and
wide in the ways of its various desires, {i. e. His body was
before thee, but his mind was led afar by its inward desires).

52. He having left this body of his behind him, in the moun�
tain cave of Mand^ra, ded to the celestial region, as a bird dies
from his nest to the open air.

53. This mind got into the city of the tutelar gods, and
remained in a part of the garden of Eden (nandana), in the happy
groves of Manddra, and under the bower of pdrijdta flowers.

54. There he thought he passed a revolution of eight cycles

of the four yugtm, in company with YirndeM a beauteous Ap-
sara damsel, unto whom he clung as the hexaped bee clings to
the blooming lotus.

55. But as his strong desire led him to the happy regions of
his imagination, so he had his fall from them at the end of his
desert, like the nightly dew falling from heaven.

66. He faded away in his body and all his limbs, like a
flower attached to the ear or head ornament; and fell down to�
gether with his beloved one, like the ripened fruits of trees.

57. Being bereft of his aerial and celestial body, he passed

through the atmospheric air, and was born again on earth in a
human figure.

58. He had become a Br&hman in the land of Dasdmd, and

then a king of the city of Eosala. He became a hunter in a
great forest, and then a swan on the bank of Ganges.

59. He became a king of the solar race, and then a rdjd of

the Pundras, and afterwards a missionary among the Sanras
and Sdlwas. He next became a Yidyddhara, and lastly the
Son o{ a sage or nmni.

UTPATTI KHAKDA.

437

' 60. He had become a ruler in Madras, and then the son
o� a devotee, bearing the name of Visudeva, and living on the
bank of Samangd.

61. Your son has al�> passed many other births, which he
was led to by his desire; and he had likewise to undergo some
itara-janmna heterogeneous births in lower animals.

63. He had repeatedly been a Kirdta�huntsman in the

Yiudhyd hills and at Kaikatav. He was a chieftain in Sauvlra,
and had become an ass at Trigarta.
66. lie grew as a bamboo tree in the land of Keralas, and
as a deer in the skirts of China. He became a serpent on a
palm tree, and a cock on the tamdia tree.

64. This son of yours had been skilled in incantations-man-

tras, and propagated them in the land of Vidyidharas. (So
called from their skill in enchantments).

65. Then he became a Vidyddhara (Jadngar) or magician

himself; and plied his jugglery of abstracting ornaments from
the persons of females.

66. He became a favourite females, as the sun is dear to

lotus-flowers; and being as handsome as Kdma (cupid) in his
person, he become a favourite amongst Yidyddbara damsels in
the land of Oandharvas.

67. At the end of the kalpa age (of universal destruction),

he beheld the twelve suns of the zodiac shining at once before
him, and he was reduced to ashes by their warmth, as a grass�
hopper is burnt up by its falling on fire.

68. Finding no other world nor body where he could enter

(upon the extinction of the universe), his spirit roved about in
the empty air, as a bird soars on high without its nest.

69. After the lapse of a long time, as Brahmd awoke again

from his long night of repose, and commenced anew his crea�
tion of tiie world in all its various forms

70. The roving spirit of your son was led by its desire, as
if it was propelled by a gust of wind, to become a Brdhmau
again, and to be reborn as such on this earth.

TOGA VA^SISHTHA.

71. He was born as the boy of a Brihman, under the name-

of VAsadeva, and was taught in all the Srdtis, among the in�
telligent and learned men of the place.

72- It is in this Jcalpa age that ho has become a Vidyadhara

again, and be taken himself to the performance of his devotion
on the bank of Simang^, where he is sitting still in his yoga
meditation.

73. Thus his desire for the varieties of wordly appearances,

has led him to various births, amidst the woods and forests in
the womb of this earth, covered with jungles of the thorny
khadira, karanja and other bushes and brambles.

tJHAPTER XI.

Cause of the PEOBUcnon of the Woelo.

AiEoment. Tama�s narration of Sara�s medition, and his indioation
to vorldliness.

Y ama Continued :�Your son is still engaged in his rigorous

austerities on the hank of the rivulet, rolling with its loud
4^Tes on the beach, and the winds blowing and howling from
all sides.

S. He has been sitting still in his firm devotion, with matb<

ed bruds of hair on his head; and beads of rudrdktha seeds in
his hand; and controuling the members of his body from their
going astray.

' 8. If you wish, O venerable sagej to know the reveries in

his mind, you shall have to open your intellectual eye, in order
to pry into the thoughts of others.

4. Yasishtha said:�Saying so, Yama the lord of world,

who sees all at one view, made the Muni to dive into the
thoughts of his son with his intellectual eye.

5.. The sage immediately saw by his percipicnce, all the

excogitations of his son's mind; as if they were reflected in the
mirror of his own mind.

6. Having seen the mind of his son in bis own mind, the
muni returned from the bank of SamangA to his own body on mount
Mandkra, where it was left in its sitting posture in the presence
of Yama (during the wandering of his mind).

7. Surprised at what he saw, the sage looked upon Yama

with a smile; and di^assionate as he was, he spoke to the god
in the following soft and dispassionate words.

S. O god, that art the lord of the past and future I we are
but igpiorant striplings before thee; whose brilliant insight views
at once, the three times presented before it.

440

YOGA VAfelSHTlIA.

9. The knowledge of the existence of the world, whether

it is a Teal entity or not, is the source of all errors of the wisest
of men, by its varying forms and fluctuations.

10. It is thou, 0 potent god I that knowest what is inside Ihis

world; while to ns it presents its outward figure, in the shape
of a magic scene only.

11. I knew veiy well, that my son is not subject to death �

and therefore I was struck with wonder, to behold him lying as
a dead body.

12.. Thinking the imperishable soul of my son^to be snatch*

ed by death; I was led to the vile desire, of cursing thee on
his untimely demise.

13. For though we know the course of things in the world ;

yet we are subjected to the impulses of joy and grief, owing to
the casualties of prosperity and adversity.

14. Moreover, to be angry with wrong doers, and to be

pleased with those that act rightly, have become the general
rule in the course of the world.

15. So long do we labour under the sense of what is our

duty, and what we must refrain from, as wo arc subject to the
error of the reality of the world; but deliverance from this
.error, removes all such responsibilities from us.

IG. When we fret at death, without undemtanding its in>

tention (that it is intended only for our good); we are of course
blamable for it.

17. I am now made to be aeqainted by thee, regarding the

thoughts of my son; and am enabled also to see the whole
scene on the bank of Samaugd (by thy favour).

18. Of the two bodies of men, the mind alone is ubiquitous,

and leader of the outer body of animated beings. The mind
therefore is the true body, which reflects and makes us consci*
ous of tiie existence of onrselves, as also of the exterior world.

19. Yama replied You have rightly said, 0 Brdhman I

that the mind is the true body of man. It is the mind that

UTPATTI KHANDA.

441

moulds the body according to its will, as the potter makes the
pot aA libitum {ex tuo motee).

20. It frames a form and gives a feature to the person, that

ii had not before; and destroys one in existence in a moment.-
It is the imagination that gives an imago to airy nothing, as
children see ghosts before them in the dark. (The mind changes
the features of the face and body, and views things according
to its own fancy).

21. Its power to create apparent realities out of absolute

unreality, is well known to every dody, in his dream and deli�
rium, in his misconceptions and fallacies and all kinds of error ;
SB the sight of magic cities and talismans.

22. It is from reliance in visual sight, that men consider it

ais the principal body, and conceive the mind as a secondary or
supplimentary part.
23. It was the (Divine) mind, that formed the world from
its thought; wherefore the phenomenal is neither a substance
by itself (as it subsists in the mind); nor is it nothing (being
in existence in us). Gloss. It is therefore undelinable�antrea-
ehdni^a.

. 24. The mind is part of the body, and spreads itself in its
thoughts and desires into many forms; as the branch of a tree
shoots forth in its blossoms and leaves. And as we see two
moons by optical deception, so does one mind appear as many'
in many individuals; (and as different in different persons).

25. It is from the variety of its desires, that the mind per�
ceives and produces varieties of things, as pots and pictures and
the like� ghata^atddi, ^Hence the mind is tho maker of all
things).

26. The same mind thinks itself as many by the diversity of

i^i thoughts; such as:�I ain weak, I am poor, I am ignorant
and the like;" (all which serve to liken the mind to the object
constantly thought upon).

27. The thought, that I am none of the fancied forms which

1 feign to myself, but of that form from whence I am. causes

Voi. II. 56

441

IfOGA VASISBTHA.

the mind to be one with the everlasting Brahma, hy divesting

it of 'the thonghts of aU other things.

28. All things springing from Bndima, sink at last in him;

as the huge waves of the wide and billowy ocean, rise hat to
subside in its calm and undisturbed waters below.

29. They sink in the Supreme Spirit, resembling one vast

body of pure and transparent, cold and sweet water; and like
a vast mine of brilliant gems of unfailing effulgence.

30. One thinking himself as a little billow, deminishes his

soul to littleness. (He who bemeans himself, becomes mean).

81. But one believing himself as a large wave, enlarges

his spirit to greatness. (Nobleness of mind, ennobles a man).

32. He who thinks himself as a little being, and fallen

from above to suffer in the nether world; is bom upon earth in
the form he took for his pattern.

33. But ho who thinks himself to be bom to greatness, and

rises betimes by his energy; becomes as big as a hill, and shines
with the lustre of rich gems growing upon it.
34. He rests in peace, who thinks himself to be situated
in the cooling orb of the moon; otherwise the body is consumed
with cares j as a tree on the bank is burnt down by a conflagration.

85. Others like forest trees are fixed and silent, and shudder for
fear of being burnt down by the wild fire of the world; though
they are situated at ease, as beside the running streams of lim�
pid water, and as high as on mountain tops of inaoc^ible
height.

36. Those who think themselves to be surrounded by worldly

affairs, are as wide�stretching trees, awaiting their ffdl by
impending blasts of wind.

87. Those who wail alond for being broken to pieces under
the pressure of their misery; are like the noi^ waves of the
sea, breaking against the shore and shedding their tears in the
form of the watery spray.

8 h. But the waves are not of one kind, nor ue they alto>'

UTPATTI KHANDl

443

gether entities or nullities in natoie; th^ are neither small or

large nor high or W, nor do these qualifies abide in them.

89. The waves do not abide in the sea, nor are th^ without
the sea or the sea without them: they are of the nature of
desires in the soul, rising and sotting at their own accord.

40. The dead are undying, (because they die to be bora

again, and the living are not living, (because they live but to
die at last). Thus is the law of their mutual succession which
nothing can forefend or alter.

41. As water is universally the same and transparent in its

nature, so is the all pervading spirit of God, pure and holy
in every place.

42. It is this one and self-same spirit which is the body of

Qod, that is called the transparent Brahma. It is omnipotent
and everlasting, and constitutes the whole world appearing as
distinct from it.

43. The many wonderful powers that it contains, are all'

active in their various ways. The several powers productive of
several ends, are all contained in that same body. All the natural
and material forces, have the Divine spirit for their focus.

44. Brahmd was produced in Brahma as the billow is pro�

duced in the water, and the male and female are produced from
the neuter Brahma, changed to and forming both of them.
46. That which is called the world, is only an attribute of
Brahmd; and there is not the slightest difference between
Brahm& and the world. ((Hie one being a &c-8imile of the
original Mind).

46. Verily this plenitude is Brahmd, and the world is no

other than Brahma himself. Think intently upon this truth
and shun all other false beliefs: (of the creator and created, a nd
the like).

47. There is one eternal law, that presides over all things,
and this one law branches forth into many, bringing forth a
hundred varieties of effects. The world is a congeries of laws,
which are but manifestations of the Alnughty power and

4M YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

omniscience. (Therefore says the psalmist; � Blessed is he,

who mediates on his laws day and night�0 bU Tmat Jehova
hefzo yomam olaila),

48. Both the inert and active (matter and life), proceed from the
same} and the mind proceeds from the intellect-chit of God.
The various desires are evolved by the power of the mind, from
their exact prototjrpes in the Supreme sonl.

49. It is BrahmA therefore, O sinless BAma t that manifests

itself in the visible world; and is full with various forms, as
the sea with all its billows and surges.

50. It assumes to itself all varieties of forms by its volition

of evolution or the will of becoming many; and it is the spirit
that displays itself in itself and by itself (of its own causality);
as the sea water displays its waves in its own water and by
itself.

51. As the various waves are no other than the sea water, so
all these phenomena are not different from the essence of the
lord of the world.

52. As the same seed developes itself in the various forms

of its branches and buds, its twigs and leaves, and its fruits
and flowers; so the same almighty seed evolves itself in the
multiafrious varieties of creation.

53. As the strong sun light, displays itself in variegated

colours in different bodies; so does Omnipotence, display itself in
various vivid colours, all of which are unreal shades. {Urdu.
0 leien ehamakla hat har rang men. �It is His light, that shines
in all colours).

54. As the colonrless cloud receives in its bosom, the variety

of transient hues displayed in the rainbow; so the inscrutable

spirit of the Almighty, reflects and refracts the various colours
displayed in creation. (Shines in the stars, glows in the sun
fto. Pope). . .

56. From the. active agent, proceed the inert matter'and

inactivity without a secondary canse; as the active spider
produces ^the passive thread, and the living man brings upon

UTPATTI KHANDA

445

him, his dull torpor in sleep. (So the active spirit of' God,
brings forth inertia and inactive matter, out of itself into being.
The laws of statics as well as dynamics both subsist in the
energy of the spirit).

66. Again the Lord makes the mind to produce matter

for its own bondage only; as he makes the silkworm weave
its own sheathing for its confinements alone. (So the mind
maketh its material equipage, for its own imprisonment in
the world).

57. The mind forgets its spiritual nature of its own will;
and makes for itself a strong prison house (of its earthly posses�
sions), as the silkworm weaves its own coating.

68 . But when the mind inclines to think of its spiritual

nature by its own free will; it gets its release from the prison-
house of the body and bondage in the world; as a bird or beast
is released from its cage, and the big elephant let loose from
his fetters and the tying post.

69. The mind gradually moulds itself into the form, which
it constantly thinks upon in itself; and it derives from within
itself, the power to be what it wishes to become. (Constant
thought brings about its end. Yadriai bhavand yaxya ^c).

60. The long sought power when acquired, becomes as

familiar to the soul, as the dark clouds are attendant upon the
sky in the rainy-season.

61. The newly obtained power is assimilated with its re�

cipient, as the virtue of every season is manifested in its effect
upon the trees, (�'. e. in the season fruits and flowers).

62. There is no bondage nor liberation of human soul, nor

of the Divine Spirit. We cannot account for the use of these
words among mankind. (These terms apply to the mind which
is bound and freed, and not to the soul which is ever free).

63. There is no liberation nor bondage of the soul, which

is the same with the Divine. It is this delusive world which
shows the immortal soul under the veil of mortality, or as
eclipsed by and under the shadow of temporary afhurs."
446

roai VA'SISHTHA.

64. It is tlie unsteady mmd, which has enwrapped the

steady soul^ under the sheath of error} as the coverletfof the
silkworm, covers the dormant worm.

65: All other bondages which bind the embodied soul to

earth, are the works of the mind, which is the root of all word-
ly ties and affections.

66 . All human affections and attachments to the visible

world, are born in and remain in the mind; although they are
as distinct from it, as the waves of the sea or as the beams
of the moon; are produced from and contained in their recep�
tacles.

67. It is the Supreme spirit, which is stretched out as one

universal ocean, agitated into myriads of its waves and billows.
The Intellect itself is spread out as the water of the universal
ocean, containing everything that is aqueous and terrene in its
infinite bosom.

68 . All those that appear as Brahmd, Vishnu add Bndras,

as also they that have become as gods, and those that are called
men and male creatures

68 �(1). Are all as the waves of the sea, raised spontaneonsly

by the underlying spirit; and so are Yama, Indra, the sun,
fire, Cuvera and the other deities.

68 �(2). So too are the G-andharvas and Einnaras, the Vidyd-

dharas and the other gods and demigods, that rise and fall
or remain for a while like the breakers of the sea.

68 �(3). They rise and fall as waves on every side, though

some continue for a longer duration, as the lotus-bom Brahmd
and others.

68 �(4). Some are born to die in a moment, as the petty

gods and men; and others are dead no sooner they are bom as
the ephemerides and some worms.

69. Worms end insects, gnats and flies and serpents and
huge snakes, rise in the great ocean of the Divine Spirit,
like drops of water scattered about by waves of the sea.

70. There are other moving animals as men and deer, vnl-

trrPATTl KHANDA. 447

tores and jackals, which are produced on land and mountains,

in woods and forests and in marshy grounds.
71. Some are long lived and others living for a short duta>
tion; some living with higher aims and ambitions, and others
with no other care than that of their contemptible bodies, or
Belf'pieservation only.

72. Some think of their stability in this world of dreams,

and others are betrayed by their false hope of the stability of
worldly affairs, which are quite unstable. (So in Persian Daregdh
jehdn rdt baqmna didam),

73. Some that are subjected to penury and poverty, have

little to effect in their lives; and always torment themselves
with the thoughts, that they are poor and miserable, weak and
ignorant.

74. Some are bom as trees, and others have become as g^ods
and demigods; and while some are furnished with moving
bodies, others are dissolved as water in the eea.

76. Some are no less durable than many halpat (as the land
and sea and mountains &c.); and others return to the Supreme
Spirit, by the moonlike purity of their souls. All things have
risen from the oceanlike Spirit of Brahma, like its moving un�
dulations. It is the intellectual consciousness of every body
that is termed his mind.

CHAPTER XII.

Detailed Accorin! of tub Genesis of the Would.

Argument. Oonfutation of the instance of the sea and its fluctuation,

with regard to the immutable spirit of God / and resolution of the pheuo*
menal world, to our erroneous conception, and visual deception.

Y amasaid:�^The consciousness of gods, demigods and men.

as distinct beings, is quite wrong, since they are no way

distinct from the infinite ocean of Divine Spirit, of which they
are all as undulations.

2 . It is owing to our erroneous conceptions that we make

these distinctions in ourselves and the Supremo Soul. The
thought of our being separate and apart from the Supreme
spirit, is the cause of our degradation from our pristine holiness
and the image of God, in which man was made at first and
was infused with his holy spirit.

8. Re main in g within the depth of the Divine Spirit, abd

yet thinking ourselves to live without it, is the cause of keeping
us in darkness on the surface of the earth.

4. Our consciousness of ourselves as Brahmd, being vitiated

by the various thoughts in our minds, becomes the reot of our
activities; while the pure consciousness of ego sum�1 am, is
free from all actions and energies.
5. It is the inward desire of the heart and mind, that be>
comes the seed of earthly actions; which sprouts forth in thorny
plants like the karanja, a handful of which fills the ground
with rankest weeds.

6 . Those living bodies, that lie scattered as pebbles on earth;

are seen to roll about or lie down with their temporary joy and
grief in continued succession, owing to their ignorance of them�
selves.

7. From the highest empyrean of Brahmi, down to the

lowest deep; there is an incessant undulation of the Divine

SttiiTt KfiAl^DA.

Spirit, like tke oseillation o� the^ind; which keeps all heinge

in their Bacceesire wailing and rejoicing, and in their incessant
births and deaths.

8. There are some of pare and enlightened BoaIs> as the gods

fiari, Hara and others; and some sf somewhat darkened anden*
standings; as men and the inferior demigods.

9. Some are placed in greater darkness, as the worms and

insects; and others are situated in utter darkness, as the trees
and vegetables.

10. Some grow afar from the great ocean of the Divine
Spirit; as the grass and weeds of the earth, which are ever
degraded, owing to their being the emblems of sin; and others are
barred from elevation as dull stones and heinous snakes.

11. Some have come to being only with their bodies, (with*
out any share of understanding); and they know not that
death has been undermining the fabric of their bodies, as a
mouse burrows a house.

12. Some have gone through the ocean of Divine know*

ledge, and have become as divinities, in their living bodi^
as Brahmd, Hari, and Hara. (The gods like angels are embodi*
ed beings in which form, they are worshipped by their votaries.
It is wrong therefore for the Kesavite Brahmos, to call the form*
less Brahma as Hari, who had a visible body according to our
text).

13. Some having a little understanding, have gone down

the depth of holy knowledge, without ever reaching the bottom,
or finding its either shore.

14. Some beings that have undergone many births, and

have yet to pass through many more, have ever remained abor>
tive smd benighted without the light of truth,

16. Some are tossed op and down, like fruits flung from
tiie hand.* those flying upward have gone higher still; and
those going down have fallen still lower and lower. (None can
know the highest pitch or lowest depth of existence ?).

16. It is forgetfulness of Supreme felicity, that causes one

VoL. 67

460

TOGA VA'SISHTHA.

to rove in varions births of weal or woe} bat the knowledge of

the Supreme, causes the cessation of transmigration; as the reo
membrance of Gardda, destroys the power of the most destruc*
tive poison.

CHAPTER XIII.

COKSOLA.TION OF Biieiqu.

Argument. Bhrigu being acquainted with the powers of the mind and
Death, rose to repair to the spot where the body of Sukra was lying.

Y AMA said :�Among these various species of living creatures,

which resemble the waves of the ocean, and are as numer�
ous as the plants and creepers of spring

2 . There arc some persons among the Yahshas, Gandharvas

and Kinnaras, who have overcome the errors of their minds,
and have well considered every thing before and after them; that
have become perfect in their lives, and passing as the living libera�
ted persons in this world.

3. Others there are among the moving and unmoving, that

are as unconscious of themselves as w(A)d and stone; and many
that are worn out with error, and are incapable of judging for
themselves. (Worn out with error, means hardened in their
ignorance).

4. But those that arc awakened to sense, have the rich mine
of the pdstras, framed by the enlightened, for tlie guidance of
their souls. (Hence it is for the sensible only to benefit them�
selves by learning).

5. Those who are awakened to sense, and whoso sins are

washed off j have their understandings purified by the light of
the sdstras. (Lit, by investigation into tlic sdstras).

6 . The study of good works, destroys the errors of the mind ;

as the course of the sun in the sky, destroys the darkness of the
night.

7. Those who have not succeeded to dispel the errors of their

minds, have darkened their understandings by a mist of ignor�
ance ; like the frosty sky of winter, and they find the phantoms
of their error, dancing as demons before their eyes,

452

YOGA VASISHTHA.

8 . All living bodies are subject to pain and pleasure; but it

is the mind which constitutes the body, and not the flesh (which
is inBensible of either),

9. The body that is seen to be composed of flesh and bones

and the flve elemental parts, is a creation of the imagination of
the mind, and has no substantiality in it.

10. What your son had thought of in his mental body (mdn-
as�sarira), the same he found in the same body; and was not
accountable to any body for aught or whatever passed in his
mind. (We are responsible for every act of the body; but not
so for the thoughts or reveries of the mind).

11. Whatever acts a man wills to do in his own mind, the

same comes to take place in a short tame; and there is no other
(foreign) agency of any bodyelse required to bring them about.

12. Whatever the mind doth in a moment and of its own

accord, and actuated by its own will or desire, there is no body
in the world, who has the power to do or undo the same at any
time. (The mind is master of the act, and not the body, nor
any body besides. Or ; whatever the mind sets about to do, it
does it sooner than by the help of another).

IS. The suffering of hell torments and enjoyment of heaven*

ly bliss[, and the thoughts of birth and death; are all fabricnitiona
of the mind; which labours under these thoughts. (It is the
mind that makes a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven).

14. What need I to tell more in the manner of verbose

writers (on this subject), them go together at ence, t6 the place
where your son is situated,

15. He (dskra) having tasted the pleasure and pain of all

these states at a moments thought of his mind, is now seated aa
a devotee on the bank of samangii, under the spreading beams
of the moon. (The Qloss speaks here of Sdkia*s passing into
many births, before his betaking himself to devotion).

16. His vital breath having fled from his heart, became as
the moonbeam sparkling in a dew drop, which entered the uterus
in the form of �emenviriH$,

8THITI KHANDA.
453

17. Saying so, the lord of death smiled, to think of the

coarse of nature, and taking hold of Bhriga's hand in his own,
they both departed as the sun and moon together.

18. O wonderful is the law of nature I said Bhrign slowly

to himself, and then rose higher and higher, as the sun ascend
above his rising mountain.

19. With their luminous bodies, they arrived at the spot of

Samangd, and shone on high above the tamdia trees below.
Their simultaneous rising in the clear firmament, made them
appear as the sun rising with the full-moon over the cloudy
horizon.

20. Vdlmiki said As the mmi (Vasishtha) was telling

these things, the sun went down his setting mountain, and the
day departed to its evening service. The court broke with mu*
tual salutations, to perform their evening rites and observances,
after which they joined the assembly at the dawn of the next
day. �

* This oolophon ooonrinf; at the end of many ohaptersi shows the inter�
mediate chapters as parts of the lootures of a single day ; and by ennmeiation of
which, the whole space of time ooonpied in the delirery of these lectnres may
be fairly aseert^ed. This will serve to show that the delivery of the leotnres
ooonpied bnt a few months > and Vilmiki�s writing of them, if he was a short
hand writer, embraced also the same lenght of time, contrary to the common
belief of this composition�s being a work of many years.

CHAPTER XIV

Sukba�s RsunriscEsrcH oi his Metsmbstchosis.

Argument. Blirigu and Yama's Expostulation vith Sdkra, and desiring

him to return to his former state.

"^ASISHTHA said ;�^Now as Yama and Bhriga departed

� from the cavern of the Maiidara maintain, and proceeded
towards the bank of Samangd river

Z, They beheld upon their descending from the mountain, a

great light below ; proceeding from the bodies of the celestials,
sleeping in the arbours of aureate creepers.

8 . The birds were sporting in their sprays, formed by the

cradling creepers under the canopy of heaven; and the lovely
antelopes looking face to face, with their eyes resembling the
blue-lotuses.

4. They behold the Siddhas,'sitting on their stony scats

upon the elevated rocks; with their bodies full of vigour, and
their eyes looking on the spheres with defiance.

6 . They saw the lords d� the elephantine tribe, with their

big trunks as large as the palm trees, and plunging in the lakes
covered with flowers, falling incessantly from the beachening
boughs, and branches of flowering trees.

6 . They saw the mountain bulls (Bos guavus) dozing in their

giddiness, and sitting as ebriety in person; while their bodies
were reddened by the red dust of flowers, and their tails flashed
with the crimson farina blown by the breeze.

7. There were the brisk and beautiful chowri deer serving as

flappers of the mountain king, and dousing in the pools filled with
falling flowers.

8 . Th^ saw the Kinnara lads sitting on the tops of straight

and stately date trees, and sporting with pelting the date fruits
upon one another, which ptuck to the reeds below ae their
fruits.

STHITX EHANDA.

46S

9. They, beheld big monkeys, jumpibg about with their

hideous reddish cheeks, and hiding themselves in the coverts of
widcsprcading creepers.

10. They saw the siddhas, to be hit by the celestial damsels

with blossoms of mandara flowers, and clad with vests of the
tawny clouds by which they were shrouded.

11. The uninhabited skirts of the mountain, were as the

solitary walks of Buddliist vagrants; and the rivulets at its foot,
were gliding with their currents covered under the kunda and

mandara flowers, as if they were ranning to meet the sea,

mantled in their yellow vests of the spring season.

(It is well known that the vernal vesture of damsels, is of the

yellow colour of the farina of flowers, and the rivulets are
poetioslly figured as females hastening towards their lord the
sea (saritdm-pathi).

12 The trees decorated with wreaths of flowers, and shaken

by the breeze, seemed as bacchanials giddy with the honey of
the flowers, and rolling their dizzy eyes formed of the flatter�
ing bees.

13. They walked about here and there, and looked at and
admired the grandeur of the mountain, till at last they alighted
on the nether earth, decorated with its cities and human habita�
tions.
14. They arrived in a moment at the bank of Sdmangd, flow�
ing with the loosened flowers of all kinds, as if it were a bed
of flowers by itself.

15. Bhrigu beheld his son on one of its banks, with his body
changed to another form, and his features quite altered from his
former state.

16. His limbs were stiff, and his sense at a stand still, as he
sat with his mind fixed on steady meditation. He seemed to be
long at rest, inorder to get his rest from the turmoils of the worM.

17. He thought upon the coarse of the currents of the

world, which are continually gliding with successive joy and
sorrow to man, who gets rid of them after his long trial.

rOOA Vi^ISHTHA.

4M

18. He became motionless as a wheel, after its long winded

motion; and found his rest after his prolonged whirling, in the
whirlpool of the ocean of the world.

19. He sat retired as a lover, solely reclined on the thought

of his beloved object in his retirement j and his mind was at
rest, after its long wanderings.

20. He sat in a state of uniform meditation, without a

shadow of biplicity in it; and was smiling with a cold apathy
at all the pursufts of mankind.

21. Liberated from all concerns, and released from the

enjoyments of life, and disenthralled from the snare of desires
and fancira, he rested in the supreme bliss of the soul.

22. His soul was at rest, in the everlasting r^t of God;

as the pure crystal catches the colour of the gem, which is
contiguous to it.

23. Bhrigu beheld his son in the calmly composed and

awakened state of his mind, and freed alike both from his
thoughts of what was desirable, as also from his hatred i^nst
what was disgustipg. (God is said to be eternally at rest the
six days creation, but an act of his Mind, Will, Word, Fiat;,
Logos or BrahmA).

24. Yama seeing the son of Bhrigu, said to the father in

a voice, hoarse as the sounding sea. ' Lo there thy son.^

25. Awake, said he to Bhdrgava, which startled him from

his meditation, as the roaring of a cloud, rouses the slumbering
peacock from his summer sleep.

26. Upon opening and lifting up his eyes, he beheld the

god standing with his father on one side, who bring pleased
at his sight, glowed in their countenances like the disks of the
sun and moon.

27. He rose from his seat of Eadamba leaves, and mide his
obeisance to them, who appeared to have come to him Bke'tbe
gods Hari'and Hara in the disguise of a couple of Bz&hmai|j(^

28. After their mutual salutations, they were seait6d^.i^�

THITI KHAlfDA. 457

slab o{ stone, and appeai-od as the venerable gods Yisbnn and

Siva, were seated on the pinnacle of Merui

29. The BrAhman boy, having ended the muttering of bin

mantras on the bank of Samangit, accosted them with a voice
distilling as the sweet nectarine juice of ambrosia amita or
water of life > (aqmvUae or abi haiyAf).

30. �I am emancipated, my lords, at your sight this day

(from all earthly cares), as you have blessed me by your sights^
resembling those of the sun and moon, appearing together to
view. (Lit. as the orbs of the cooling and dazzling beams,
(Jiimanm and usfindusu).

31. The dai-kness, which reigned in my mind, and which no

light of the sdstras or spiritual or temporal knowledge, nor even
my austerities could remove, is dispelled today by the light of
your presence.

32. A kind look of the great, gives as much joy to the mind,
as draughts of pure ambrosia, serve to satisfy the heart.

33. Tell mo who are you, whose feet have sanctified this place;
as the glorious orbs of the day and night, enlighten the firma�
ment.

31. Being addressed in this manner, Bhrign desired him to

remember his prior births, which ho could well do, by his enlight�
ened understanding.

35. Bhrigu made him acquainted with the state of his former
birth, and he remembered it instantlv by the clairvoyance of hia
inward sight.

36. He was struck with wonder at the remembrance of his

former state, and smiled with a joyous face and gladsome heart,
to ponder on what he had been; and then uttered as follows.

87. Blessed is the law of the Supreme Being, which is with�

out its beginning or end, and is known as destiny here below j
and by whose power the world is revolving as a cnrricle.

88. I see my countless and unknown births, and the innumer�

able accidents to which they were subject, for the period of a
whole kalpa or duration of the world from first to last. (The
Voi.. II. 58

46B yoga VA'sISHTHA.

Sonl beipg immortal, has to pass into infinite birtha tmder

TBrions sbapes and forms of bodies. If it were to lie dormant
in the grave for ever what is the good of its being made or
created to l)e immortal ?)

59. 1 have undergone great hardships, and known pros>

perity also with the toil of earning; have had my wanderings
also in difiEeront lives, and remember to have roamed for a long
timA, over the mountainous regions of Mern.

40. I drank the water reddened with the pollen of manddra

flowers, and roved along the bank of the heavenly sti earn of
Manddkini filled with lotuses.

41. I wandered about the Manddra groves, filled with flower�

ing creepers like gold, and under the shade of the kalpa arbors
of hlem, and in the flowery plains above and abont it.

42. ' There is naught of good or evil, which I have not tasted
or felt or done myself ; nor is there anything, which I hayO not
seen and felt and known in my past lives.

43. I have now known the knowable (that is. to be known),

and �seen the imperishable one in whom 1 have my repose. I
have now rested after my toils were over, and have passed
b^ond the domain of error and darkness.

44. Now rise, O father I and let us go to see that body,

lying on the Manddra mount, and which is now dried as a
withered plant.

45. I have no desire to remain in this place, nor go any�

where of my own will; it is only to sec the works of fate, that
we wander all about.

46. 1 will follow you, with my firm belief in the one adored
Deity of the learned. Let that be the desirable object of my
min d, and I will act exactly iu conformity with my belief..

CHAPTER XV.

Lamentation and Expostulation op Su'kea.

Argument Sdkra laments on seeing his former body, and his oonaok*
tion at its ultimate anaesthesia.

"yASISHTHA said :�^Thus contemplating on the coarse o�

' nature, these philomaths moved with their spiritnftl bodies^

from the bank of Samang^ (towards the Mandara mountain).
2. They ascended to the sky, and passed through tho pores
of the clouds to the region of the Siddhas; whence they descend�
ed to the lower world, and arrived at tho valley of Mandira.

3. There Sdkra saw on a cliff of that mountain, the dried

body of his former birth, lying covered under the dark and dewy
leaves of trees.

�>

4. He smd, here is that shriveled body, O father I which

thou hadst nourished with many a dainty food before.

5. There is that body of mine, which was so fondly anointed

witii camphor, agalochum and sandal paste, by my wet-nurse
before.

6. This is that body of mine, which was used to repose on

the cooling beds, made with heaps of manddra flowers, in the
airy spots of Meru.

' 7. This is that body of mine, which was so fondly carded

by heavenly dames of yore, and which iis now lying, to be bitten
by creeping insects and worms, on the bare ground below.

8. This is that body of mine, which was wont of yore to

ramble in the parterres of sandalwood; now lying a dried-skele�
ton on the naked spot.

9. This is that body of mine, now lying impassive of the

feelings of delight in the company of heavenly nymphs, and
withering away undonscious of the actions and passions of its
mind.

460

YOGA VA^ISHTHA.

10. Ah my pitiable body ! bow dost thou rest here in peace,

forgetful of thy former delights in the different stages of life;
and insensible of the thoughts of thy past enjoyments and
amusements of yore.

11. O my body I that hast become a dead corpse and dried

by Bun*beam8; thou art now become so hideous in thy frame of
the skeleton, as to frighten me at this change of thy form.

12. I take fright to look upon this body, in which I had

taken so much pleasure before, and which is now reduced to a
skeleton.

13. 1 see the ants now creeping over that breast of mine,
which was formerly adorned with necklaces studded with starry
gems.
14. Look at the remains of my body, whose appearance of
molten gold, attracted the hearts of beautious dames, bearing
now a load of dry bones only.

16. Behold the stags of the forest flying with fear, at the
sight of the wide open jaws, and withered skin of my carcass;
which with it�s horrid mouth, frightens the timid fawns in the
woods.

16. I see the cavity of the belly of the withered corpse, is

filled with t>uu shine, as the mind of man is enlightened by
knowledge,

17. This dried body of mine, lying flat on the mountain

stone, resembles tho mind of the wise, abased at the sense of
its oun unworthiness.

18. It seems to be emaciating itself like an ascetic, in his

supine hypnotism on the mountain, dead to the perceptions of
colour and sound, and of touch and taste, and freed from all its
.desires and passions.

19. Zt is freed from the demon of the mind (mental activity),

and is lasting in its felicity without any apprehension of the
vicissitudes of fate and fortune, or fear of fall.

20. The felicity which attends on the body, upon the calm*
ness of the demon of the mind ; is not to be had, from posses�
sion of the vast dominion of the world.

STHtTI KHANDA.

401

See how happily this body is sleeping in this foi-cst,

by being freed from all its doubts and desires in the world; and
by its being liberated from the net work of its fancies.

22. The body is disturbed and troubled like a tall tree, by

the restlessness of the apish mind; and it is hurled down by
its excitation like a tree uprooted from its bottom.

23. This body being set free from the impulses of the mis�
chievous mind, is sleeping in its highest and perfect felicity,
and is quite released from the jarring broils of the world, clash�
ing like the mingled roarings of lions and elephants in their
mutual conflict.

24. Every desire is a fever in the bosom, and the group of

our errors is as the mist of autumn; and there is no release of
mankind from these, save by the impassionateness of their minds.

25. They have gone over the bounds of worldly enjoyments,

who have had the high-mindedness, to lay hold on the tranquility
of their minds.

26. It is by my good fortune, that 1 came to find this body

of mine, resting in these woods Without its troublesome mind ;
and freed from all its tribulations and feverish anxieties.

27. B^lma saidVenerable Sir, that art versed in all know*

ledge, yon have already related of sukra�s ])asBing through many
births in different shapes; and feeling all their casualties of good
and evil.

28. How was it then that he regretted so much for his body
begotten by Bhrigu; in disregard of all his other bodies; and
the pains and pleasures which attended upon them ?

29. Vasishtha answered:�Bdma 1 the other bodies of Sukra

were merely the creations of his imagination; but that of Bh^c-
gava or as the son of Bhrigu, was the actual one, as produced by
the merit of his pristine acts. (Here the gloss is too verbose on
the theory of metempsychosis; but the literal meaning of the
couplet is what is given above).

30. This was the first body with which he was bom by the
vrill of his Maker, being first formed in the form of subtile air,
and then changed into the shape of wind.

46a YOGA VAmBTHA.

31. This wind entered into heart of Bhrign in a dux fo 'tfae

vital ftnd circulatinsr breaths, and being joined in time with the
semen, formed the germ of Sukra'e bodj', (oo called from the
sced'sukra).

32. The person of Sukra, received the Brdhmanical sacra�

ments, and became an associate of the father; till at last it was
reduced to the form of a skeleton in course of a long time.

83. Because this was the ifrst body which Sukra had ob�
tained from Brahmd the creator, it was on this account tbat he
lamented so much for it. (Sukra the son of Bhrign, was the
grandson of Mann-the first human being, after creation of the
world called kalpdrambha).

34< Though impassionate and devoid of desire as Sukra tvas,

yet he sorrowed for his body, according to the nature of all
being bom of flesh (dehaja). (All flesh is subject to sorrow).

35. This is the way of all flesh, whether it be the body of a

wise or unwise man, (to mourn for its loss). - This is usual
custom of the world, whether the person was mightjr or not.

36. They who are aequainted with the course of nature, as

also those that are ignorant of it as brutes and beasts; are all
subject to the course of the world, as if they are bound in the net
of fate and liable to grief and sorrow. (It is not tho greatness
of a gr&it mindr, to be insensible of tho tender feelings of his
nature, but to keep his joys and sorrows under proper bounds).
37. The wise as well astiie unwise, arc on an equal footin|'
with respect to their nature and custom. It is only tho differ�
ence in desire that distinguish^ tho one from the other, as it is
tho privation of or bandage to desires, that is the cause of - their
libemtion or enthralment in this world. It is also the great aim
that distinguishes the great, from the mean-mindedness of
the base.

88. As long as there is the body, so long is there the feeling'

of pleasure in pleasure and that of pain in pain. But the mind
which is unattached to and unaffected by them, feigns to itself the
show of wisdom. (Unfeelingnessis a mere show and not reality).

89. Even great souls are seen to feel happy in pleasure and'

STHm EEAKDA. 4^

become Borrowfal inmattera of�paio} aadshow ibemselvcs as tbe

tnse in tbeir oubward oironniBbances.

40. Tbe shadow of the son, is seen to shake in the water, bnt

not 80 the fixed snn himself; so the wise are moved in worldly
matters, though they are firm in their faith in God.

41. As the unmoved and fixed sun, seems to move in hia

shadow on the wave, so the wiseman who has got rid of his
worldly concerns, still behaves himself like the unwise in it.

42. He is free who has the freedom of his mind, although

his body is enthraled in bondage; but ho labours in bondage
whose mind is bethraled by error, though he is free in his body.
(True liberty consists in moral and not in bodily freedom).

43. The causes of happiness and misery as also those of liberty

and bondage, are the feelings of the mind; os the sun-beams
and flame of fire, are the causes of light.

44. Therefore conform thyself with the custom of the society

in thy outward conduct; bnt remain indifferent to all worldly
coneerns in thy inward mind.

. 46. Remain true to thyself, by giving up thy concerns in

the world; but continue to discharge all thy duties in this
world by the acts of thy body. (Keep your soul to yourself;
but devote your body to the service of the world).

46. Take care of the inward sorrows and bodily diseases, and
the dangerous whirlpools and pitfals in the coui'se of thy life;
and do not fall into the blackhole of selfishness (meitatem), which
gives the soul its greatest anguish.

� 47. Mind, O lotus-eyed Rdma, that you mix with nothing,

nor let anything to mix with you; but of a purely enlight�
ened nature, and rest content in thy inward soul.
48. Think in thyself the pure and holy spirit of Brahmd, the
universal soul and maker of all, the tranquil and increate All,
-and be happy for ever.

4d. If you can rescue yourself from the great gloom of

egotism, and arrive at the state of pure indifferenci to all objects;
you will cmiainly become great in your mind and soul, and be
the object of universal veneration.

CHAPTEE XVI.

RmUSCITATION Si/kka.

Argument. Sdkra�s Revival at the word of Yama, and his becoming the
preceptor of Daityas.

Y ASlSfiTl'I A continued:�^Then the god YamUj interrupted the

long lamentation of Sukra, and addressed him in words^
sounding as deep as the roaring of a cloud.

3. Yama said :�^Now, O Sukra! cast off thy body of the

Samangd devotee, and enter this dead body in the manner of a
prince entering his palace.

3. Thou shalt perform austere devotion with this thy first bom
body, aud obtain by virtue of that, the preceptorship of the Daitya
tribe.

4. Then at the end of the great halpa, thou shalt have to

slinfllc off thy mortal coil for ever, as one casts off a faded flower.

6 . Having attained the state of living liberation, by merit of

thy prior acts; thou shalt continue in the preceptorship of the
leader of the great Asuras for ever.

6 . Fare you well, wo shall now depart to our desired habita*

tion ; know for certain that there is nothing desirable to the
mind, which it cannot accomplish (by perseverance),
a 7. Saying so, the god vanished from before the weeping
father and son, and moved admist the burning sky, like the dis*
penser of light (sun).

8 . After tlic god had gone to the place of his destination, and
gained his destined state among the gods, the Bhrigus remained
to ruminate on the inexplicable and unalterable course of destiny
(or divine ordinance).

9. jSdkra entered into his withered corpse, as the season of

spring'enters into .a faded plant, in order to adom it aguB
with its vernal bloom, and its re-springing blossoms. . ,

StHiTI KHANDA

40S
10.' l^is - Brdlimanical body fell down immediately on the
ground, staggering as when a trto is felled or Mis down with itn
uprooted trunh; and it became disfigated in a moment ih its
face and limbs.

11. The old sage Bhrigu finding the revivification of the dead'
body of his son, sanctified it with propitiatory mantras and sjirink*
Kng of water, from his sacerdotal wat^r pot (kamandalu). .

12. The veins and arteries and all the cells and cavities of the
dead body, were again supplied with their circulating blood } as
the dry beds of rivers, are filled again with floods of water in the
mny weather.

15. The body being filled with blood, gave the limbs to
bloom } like the growth of lotuses in rainy lakes, and the bursting
oif new shoots and buds in vernal plants.

14. Sdkra then rose up from the ground, breathing the

breath Of life, like the cloud ascending to the sky by force of the
winds.

� 15. He bowed down to his father, standing in his holy figure

before him; as the rising cloud clings to, and kisses the foot of
fcfty mountain.

16. The father then embraced the revived body Of hit sott^
and shed a flood of his affectionate tears upon him; as the high
risen cloud washes the mountain top with showers.

17. Bhrigu looked with i^ection en the new risen old body
of his son ; and smiled to see the resuscitation of the body

was begotten by him,

18. He was pleased to know him as the son bom of himself i

and to find his features engrafted in him.

19. Thus the son and sire graced each other by their company,
as the sun and lotus-lake rejoice to see one another, after the
shade of night.

20 . They rejoiced at their reunion, like the loving pair of

swans at the end of the night of their separation; and as the
joyons couple of peacocks, at the approach of the rainy clouds.

'' 21. The worthy site and son, sat awhile on the spot, to halt
Vot. II. 59

��� rOGA TA'SISHTHA.

after all their toils and tronbles trere at an end, and then they
i^se np to discharge the duties that were then at hand.

22. They then set fire to the body of the sdmangd Brah�
man, and reduced it to ashes j for who is there among the earth-
born mortals, that ought to set at naught aught of the customary
usages of his country ?

23. Afterwards the two devotees Bhrigu and Bhdrgava, con�

tinue to dwell in that forest, like the two luminaries�^tbe sun
and moon, in the region of the shy.

24. They both continued as the living liberated guides of

men, by their knowMge of all that was to be known; and pre-
Mrving the equanimity of their minds, and the steadiness of their
dispositions, amidst all the vicissitudes of time and place: (and
the changes of their fortune and circumstances).

26. In course of time Sukra obtained the preceptorship of the

demons, and Bhrigu remained in his patriarchal rank and authority
among the sons of men (mdnavas).

26. Thus the son of Bhrigu, who was bom as Sukra at first,
was gradually led away from his holy state by his thought of
the heavenly nymph, and subjected to various states of life to
which he was prone ; (by the bent of his mind and inward prooU-
yities).

CHAPTER XVII.
Attainhsnt of thb Ideal Realm.

Argumeni Mutual sympathy of pure hearted souls, the rcciprocitiea

of their affections, and their union with one another.

"P AMA saidTell me sir, why the ideal reflexion of others, is'
Aw not attended with equal result, with that of the son of
Bhrigu; (though one is given to the like reveries as the other).

S. Vasisiitha replied:�^Tho reason is, that the body of

Sukra issued at first from the will of BrahmA, and was born of
the pure family of Bhrigu, without being vitiated by any other
birth; (either prior to it or of a lower kind).

8 . Tim 'purity of mind which follows upon subsidence of

desires, is called its coolness, and the same is known as the an*
sullied state of the soul. (NirmalAtma).

4. Whatever the man of a pure and contrite spirit, thinks

in his mind, the same comes to take place immediately; as.the�
turning of the sea water turns into the eddy. (Turning over
in the mind, turns out into being).

5. As the errors of various wanderings, occured to the mind

of Stikra; so it is with every body (from his observation of the
trorld), as it is instanced in the case of Bhrigu�s son.

6 . As the serum contained in the seed, developcs itself in the

shoots and leaves; so the mind evolves in all the forms which
lMe<contained therein:

7. Whatever forms of things are seen to exist in this world,-

are all false appearances; and so are their disap^rances also,
<mere Oreations of the mind}.

8 . Nothing appears or disappears to any one in this world, but

error and aerial phantasms; that show themselves to those that
are bewitched by this mim;io scene of the world.

9 . As it is oar notion of this part of the world, which present*

468

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

its form to oar view; so tbe appearance of thoosands of sooh

'worlds in the mindj is mere.ideal; and as false as the show of a
magic-lantem.

10. As the sights in oar dream, and the images of onrim^-

nation, are never apart from oar minds ; and as they cannot show
themselves to the view of others ; such is oar erroneoos conception
6 f the world (confined within onrselv^).

11. So are all places and things hat imaginary ideas, and
show themselves as real objects, to the parblind sight of the
ignorant only.

12. So also are the ghosts and goblins, demons and devils,
bat imaginary figures of the mind; bom in the shallow brain of
men, to terrify them with their hideous shapes.

18. Thus have we all become, like the dreaming son of Bhriguj
to understand the false creations of oar imagination, as sober
realities.

14. So the-creation of the world, and all created things, are

situated (pictured) in the mind of Brabm^; and make their
repeated appearance, .as the phantoms of a phantasmagoria before
him.

15. All things appearing onto ns, me as false as these

phantoms; and they proceed from the mind oi Brahmd, as the
varieties of trees and shrubs, are produced from the same sap of
the vernal season. (The one is the soaree of many).

16. Considering in a philosophy light (tatwadarsana), it

will be found, that it is the will or oraire of every body, which is
prodaotive of the objects of his desire. . (Lii^ which evolves itself
in its productions. And as it is with the will of the creator,. SQ
i/$ it with that of every one).

, 17. Every body beholds everything in the world, aecmdzng to

the nature of the thoughts in his mind^ and then perish^ with
his wrong view of it.
^ 18. It is in its ideality, that anything appears as existent
which in reality is inexistent, though it is apparent to sight.
Ths.sj^tence of the world, is as that of a lengthened dream} and

. STHI7I KHANDA.

469

ihe visible world is ai wide ^read aoare of the miod, like fetters at
the feet of an elephant.

CHie world is existent in the ideal, hat inexistent in its apparent

real and visual form. It is a network of the mind, like a longspun
dream, and hinds it as fast as fetters at the feet of an elephant).

19. The reality of the world depends upon the reality of

mind, which causes the world to appear as real. The loss of the
one, destroys them both; because neither of them can subsist
without the other.

20. The pure mind has the true notions of things, as the
gem polished from its dross, receives the right reflection of every
thing,, (or) reflects the true image of every thing.

21. The mind is purified hy its habit of fixed attention to

one particular object; and it is the mind undisturbed by desires,

that receives the true light and reflexion of things. .

22 . As the gilding of gold or any brilliant colour, cannot

stand on base metal or on a piece of dirty cloth, so it is impossible
for the ntiated mind, to apply itself intensely to any one particular
object.

23. Rdma asked: �Will you tell me sir, in what manner the
mind of Sdkra, received the reflexion of the shadowy world,
and its temporaneous movement in itself, and how these fluctua�
tions rose and remained in his mind ?

24 Vasishtha said:�^In the same maimer as Siikra was im�

pressed with the thoughts of the world, from the lectures of bis
father; so did they rem^n in his mind, as the future peacock
resides in the egg.

26. It is also naturally situated in the embryo of the mind,

of every specie of living being, and is gradually evolved from iti,
in the manner of the shoots and sprouts, and leaves and flowers
of trees, growing out of the seed.

26. Every body sees in his mind, what its heart desires to
possess, as it is in the case of our prolonged dreams.

27. Know it thus, O Rdma! that a partial view of the world,

rises in the mind of every body; in the same manner, as it ap*
pears in the mind in a dream at night.

476

rOQA VASISJBtTHi.

28. Bdma said:�Bat tell me air, whether the thought and

the things thought ofj simaltaneously meet themselves in the
mind of the thinker; or it is the mind only that thinks of the
object which is never met with by it.

29. Yasishtha replied'But the sullied mind cannot easily

unite with the object of its thought, as a dirty and cold piece
of iron, cannot join with a pure red>hot one, imless it is heated
and purified from its dross.

80. The pure mind and its pure thoughts, are readily united'
with one another, as the pure waters mix together into one body
of the same kind, which the muddied water cannot do.

SI. Want of desire constitutes the parity of the mind, which

is readily united with immaterial thingps of the same nature like
itself. The parity of the mind conduces to its enlightenment,
and these being united in one, leads it to the Supreme.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Ths Incaenatioji of The Living Spirit

Argament. The Impure state of the soul; and its Purity leading to
the knowledge of the only One.

Y ASISHTHA continued :�The living eouls (JivAtman), resi�

ding in the seeds oE material bodies (bhdta-vija) in all parts
of the world, diiSer from one another; and their according to the
difference in their knowledge o� themselves, (tanmdtrcij, or sell
identity with the Unity.

2. As long as there is no volition nor nolition, connected

with the identity of the living soul; so long it reposes in a state
oE rest, not unlike that of hound sleep (susupti).

3.' But living souls addicted to their wishes, view their

identity with the same; and find themselves bom in their desired
shapes here below.

4. The tanmdtrai oE the living soul and its proclivities, mn

in one channel to the reservoir of life, and are thickened into one
living being by their mutual coolition.

6 . Some of them are situated apart from one another, and

are dissolved also separately; and some are joined together, and
are born as two gurya Emits growing together.
6 , The world consisting of thousands of orbs like gunja
Emits, contains the assemblage oE atoms on atoms; and these
unconnected with one another, form the great garden of God.

7. These being joined also with one another, became dense

and thick; and remain in the same place, where it has grown. .

8 . The different states of the mind, ensuing upon the ab�

sence of its present objects under its province, brings on a change
in its constitution, which is called its regeneration (in a new
life).

CThus the change of the mind under the change of circumi^

tances, is reckoned, its transformation to a different being).

47S

irOG4 VASISHTHA.

9. Thus every regeneration of the mind in a new life, is bo>

companied with its concommittant desires, and their resnlta.
The new life is attended with its proper body, unless the mind
has lost its reminiscence.

10. As the pure Spirit taking the form of the vital breath,
performs the functions of the body; so the mind being reborn in
a new body, is employed in all the functidnEf of the samh
body.

11 . The souls of all living beings are subject to the tliree

states of waking, dreaming, and sound sleep, which are caused
by the mind and not by the body.

12. Thus the soul passing under the triple condition in its
living state, does not give rise to the body, as the sea�water gives
rise to the waves. (The body is caused by the mind, and not
by the soul which has no connection with it).

13. The living soul having attained its intellectual state, and
the rest of the conditions of sound sleep (susupti), is awaken^ to
the knowledge of itself, and is released from its rebirth; while
the ignorant soul is subjected to be bom again.

14. And though the knowing and unknowing souls attain

the state of tmupti, and resemble each other in kind; yet the
unknowing auiupla soul, which is not awakened to the know*
ledge of its spirituality, is doomed to be reborn in the mbrtid
world.

� I

15. The ubiquity of the intellect, makes it pass into the

mind in its next birth ; and exhibit itself in different forms' in
all its succeeding and subordinate regenerations: (stages of
life).

16. Among these repeated births, the subordinate regeneiv

ations resemble the many folded coatings of a plantain, tree; and

the spirit of Brahma is contiguous to, and pervades'the whole,
like the lofty leaves of the same tree. '

17. The infinence of ihe Divine spirit, is as cool as the dool'

ing shade of a plantain arbour. It is of its own nature; md
asunchangeaUe as the pith of the plantain tree, noferithsiSBKBng
the chuiges in all its outer'coats and covering.

STHITI KHANOA.

471

18. iTherais no difference or divosity in tbe nature of

BnluuA ilie creator, in his repeated and manifold creations of
worlds; for he being the seed of the world, shoots forth by his
moisture into the form of the expanded tree of the world, and
becomes the same seed again.

19. So Brahma taking the form of the mind, becomes the

same Brahmd by reminiscence of his mind ; as the sap of the

soil makes the seed to bring forth the fruit, which reproduces the
like seed.

�0. So the productive seed proceeding from Brahmd, displays

itself in the form of the world. But as no body can say what
is the cause of the sap in the seed, so no one can tell why the
spirit of God, teems with productive seed (of Brahmd) in it.

21. So no one should inquire into the cause of Brahma;

because his nature being inscrutable and undifinable, it is improper
to say him this or the other.

22. He must not attribute causality to what is not the causa,

nor impute the causation of material bodies to the immaterial spirit
pf God, that is the prime and supreme cause of all: (as the Proto�
type). We must reason rightly regarding what is certain truth,
and not argue falsely about what transcends our knowledge.

28. The seed casts off its seedy form, and assumes the shape
of the fruit; but Brahma (the seed of all) contains the fnut
(<ff the universe) in his bosom, without laying aside the seed.

'24. The seed of the fruit bears a material form, but Brah�
ma�^the universal seed, has no form at all; therefore it is im�
proper to compare the visible seed, with the invisible Brahma j
who is beyond all comparison.

25. Brahma evolves himself in his creation and do�i not pro-
dnee.the world like the fruit from the seed; therefore know the
world as the vacuous heart of Brahma, and is neither bom nor
snboro ef itself.

25. ^e viewa viewing the view, is unable to see himself

(hit inward soul); because his consciousness being engrossed
(fKtsraal objects, ia disabled from looking into itself.

VoL. 89

4T4

YOGA VASISHTHA.

27. Of whai avail is sagacity to one, whose mind labours

under the error of water in a mirage; and what power has the
mirag'e over' a mind, which is possessed of its sagacity ?

28. As the looker on the clear sky docs not see every part of
it, and as the eye that looks on all others does not see itself; so
Ure see everything about us besides ourselves.

29. As the looker on the clear sky, does not see what is
above the skies; so we see ourselves and others as material
beings; but cannot see the inward part of the immaterial soul,
as the wise men do.

30. Brahma who is as clear as the firmament, cannot be per�

ceived by all our endeavours; because the sight of the sky as a
visible thing, cannot give us an insight into the invisible Brahma;
(which fills all space with his presence).

81. Such a sight cannot present itself to us, unless we can

see the true form of God; but it is far from being visible to thd
beholder, as the sight of subtilest things,

32. We see the outward sight because we cannot see the be-'
holder of the sight; (i, e. God himself who beholds his worb)<
The beholder (God) is only the existent being, and the visible^
are all nothing.

33. But the all seeing God, being permeated in the visibles;
there can be no beholding of him as a personal God, nor of them
as destinot things. Because whatever the Almighty King
proposes to do, he instantly forms their notions, and becomes the
same himself.

St. As the sweet saccharine juice of the sugarcane, thickend

itself into the form of the sugarcandy; so the will of God, be�
comes compact in the solid body of the universe.

35. As the moisture of the ground and of the vernal season;

becomes incorporated in vegetable life, bringing forth the
fruits and flowers; so the energy of the Divine InteUect; turns
itself into the living spirit; which shortly appears in a corporeal
form (of the body and its limbs).
38. As every thing is beheld in our sight,, without bemg

STHITI KIHANDA.

separated from its idea in the mind; so the inward notion,

shows itself in the shape of the visible object, like the vision in
a dream, which is but a I'cpresentation of the thoughts entertain�
ed in our minds, (t. e. The thought is the architype of the

app^rance).

S7. The ideas of self and others, are as grannies in the mind,
and are like the grains of salt, which are produced in the briny
grounds from moisture of the earth: (i. e. saline' particles, pro�
duced of terrene and marine serocity). So the multitudes of
thoughts in the mind, are exactly as the globules of salt or
sand on the sea shore; (almost infinite in their number).

' S8. As the serum of the earth appears in various shapes -(of
minerals and vegitables'; so the sap of the intellect, produces
the infinity of ideas and thoughts, growing as trees in the wil�
derness of the mind.

89. These trees again shoot forth in branches and leaves, of

which there is no end ; and so is every other world like a forest,
supplying its sap to innumerable plants, like the thoughts in
the mind.

40. The intellect perceives in itself the existence of every�

thing, as distinctly as the inherent power of the living soul
exhibits itself in creation. (The power of the soul is its reminis�
cence (sanskAra) of the past, which reproduces and presents the
former impressions in its subsequent states of birth).

41. Every one�s intellect, perceives the existence of the world,

in the same manner m his living soul, happens to meet with
every thing, as present before it, by virtue of its former acts,
and their reminiscence stampt in it. *

42. There are some living souls, which meet and join with
others and propagate their species; and then cease to exist after
having lived a long time together.

, 43. You must observe with your keensightedness and well

discerning mind, inorder to look into the different states and

* (It was Plato�s clootrine of the sools� reminiscence of a former appt�.

hension of truth awakened by the traces of ideas which sensation discovered
in things).

47* YOQA TJStlBHTHA.

thonghtt of others. (Bead the minds in their oatward look

and indications).

44. Thete are thousands of worlds like atoms of earth, con�

tained in the mind; as in the ample spaoe of the and in the
particles of water; and these reside in those atoms like oil in the
mnstard seeds.

45. When the inind becomes perfect, it comes to he the

living bang} and the intellect being purified, becomes all perva�
sive. Hence is the union of the intellect with the living spirit.

46. The self-entify of the lotus-bom Brahmd and aU other

living beings, is only their self-deception; and the sense of thO
existence of the world, is as a protracted dream rising and setting
in the mind.

47. Some beings pass into succeessive states of existence,

as a man passes from one dream to another; and they think
themselves to be firmly established in them, as one supposes to
he settled in some house, appomng to him in his dream.

48. Whatever the intellect dwells upon at any time or place,

it immediately sees the same appearing therein before it; as
anything which is seen in dream, appears to be trae to the
dreamer all that time.

49. The atom of the intellect, contains the particles of all

our notions; as the seed-vessel contains the farinacious atoms
of the future fruits and flowers, and branches and leaves (of very
Itfge trees).

fiiO. I consider the atoms of the intdlect and the mind, con�
tained within the particle^ of the material body, to be both
vacuous, and joined in one without causing a duality in their
nature.

61. So the intellect conmves within itself and of its own

particles, many other atonuo germs, under the influence of pan>
ticnlar times uid places and actions and circumstances; wUeh
cannot be extraneous from itself. (*. e. ddl notions axe t^
making of the mind, and not impreasions from without). .

52. It is this particle of the inteSeot which diq>]i|ys ^

BTHITI EHANDA.

47? .

eiwtioii, like the Tiaion o� a dream before it; and it is this concep�
tion, that led the goda firahm^ and others to the idm of thmr
visible bodies, as it makes the little insects to think of their
own bodies, (i. e. The minds of all display the outer world
tubjeotively to all beings).

68 . All that is displayed in this (outer) world, is in redity

nothing at all; and yet do these living beings, though possessing
the particles of intellect in them, erroneously conceive the duality
of an extraneous existence.

�4. Some intellects (of particular persons), display themselves

in their bodies, and derive the pleasure of their conciousness,
through the medium of their eyes and external organs, (f. e.
Some men believe their bodily senses as the intellect, and no mind
besides).

55. Others look on outvmrd objects as receptacles of the

intellect, from the belief that the all penmsive, inseparable and
imperishable intellect (soul), must abide in all and every, one of
them. (It is the intellect which contains the material world,
and not this the other, as many think omnipresence to mean).

66 . Some men view the whole gross world within the body,
instead of the all pervading intellect of Brahma; as Yiswarupa,
and these being hardened by long habit of thinking so, are
plunged in the gulph of error. (These are the materialists and
the Tdntrika microcosmists).

67. These rove from one error to another, as a man sees' one
dream after another j and roll about in the pit of their ddusion,
as a stone when hurled from a hill downward.

66 . Some persons rely on the union of the body and soul,

and others relying in the soul alone, are placed beyond the reach
of error; while there are many, who rely on their consciousness
alone,, and shine thereby as-rational beings. {Tie Cartetiant end
e<mteiMUoHalitt�h

59. They that perceive in themselves the errors of othw

people, are to be considered as under the influence of false dreams
in their ideep; (but mind not themselves, that labour under the
�aame .error as the dreamer).

478

YOGA V6&ISHTHA.

60. God being the all-pervading apirit of nature, is veriljr

Kcn in the spirit of every body; and as he is nbiquitions, his
omnipresence is present in every thing in all places. (This doct�
rine is the source of pantheism, and gives rise to universal ido�
latry, which adores the presiding spirit of the idol, and not the
idol itself).

61. God that shines is the living soul of every bodj!', residet
also in the soul of thal. soul, as also in all the living sonls and
mind which are contained within the body of another. (Such as
in living beings born inside the body of another).

62. One living being in born in another, and that again within
another, like the coatings of plantain trees, which grow one
under the other over the inmost pith. (So God is the inmost
marrow of all external lives and souls, which arc as crusts of the
same).

63. By reverting the cognition of viciblcs, to the reeo^ition

of their essence (tanmatra) in the invisible plenum, we get rid
bf our error^of the reality of the formal \\'')rld, as we do of the orna�
ment in the material gold. {i. e. The subs l ances of gold is the mate�
rial cause of the formal and changeable j ewels). Gloss. The know�
ledge of the consequent (par&k) and ante-'odent (pratyak), must
blend in that of the sameness (samani) of both (yugupat), the
internal (antari and external (vahya) (existences).

64. He who does not inquire into the question �who he is "
and " what is the world � beside himself j is not liberated in his
inward soul, and suffera under the continuous fever of an erro�
neous life.

65. He is suo* i� ;^ful in his inquiry, who by his good unders�

tanding, comes to know how to curb his worldly avarice day
by day.

66 . As proper vr.u i .lou is the best medicine to secure the

health of the body ; so is the habit of keeping the organs of sense
under control, the only means of edifying the understanding-

67. Ho who is diseonrsive in his words, and not discerning

in his mind, is like a blazing fire in a picture (which lightens no
body). Np one can be wise until he geU rid of his false wit.

STHm KHANDi;.

479

68 . As tBe perception of air, comes by the feeling and not

by words of tlie mouth; so wisdom proceeds from the curtailing
of desires; (and not by lengthy or loud vociferation),

69. As the ambrosia in the painting is no ambrosial food, nor

the fire in a picture is burning fiamc; so a beauty in a
drawing is no beauteous maid, and wisdom in words is want of
wisdom only.

70. Wisdom serves at first to w�caken our passions and enmity,

and then uproot them at once, and at last it lessens oar desires
and endeavours, and gives an appearance of holiness to its
possessor.

CHAPTER XIX.

iMYKSnaATIOH INTO THE NATTTBB 0� THE LiTING SOITt.

Argument The quadruple conditions of the soul in its waking, dreifh*

ng, sound sleep and its anaerthesia.
T7ASISHTHA continued:�Brahma is the seed of life,ind
. Y remainjs as emptf air everywhere. Hence there are illiny
kinds of living beings, situated in the world within the wontlb of
universal Life. (God is the light and life of all we seej.

2. All living beings composed of the dense intellect and Uml,

contain other living animals under one another, like the ibhani-
fold crusts of the plantain tree, and the insects contained In the
womb of earth. (So also the parasite pldnts and worms g^wing
upon the bodies of trees and animals).

3. The worms and insects, that grow out of the dirt and
scum of earth and water in the hot season, and appear filthy to
onr sight; are nevertheless fall of the particles of intellect, becom�
ing to them as living beings. (Even the dirty worms,*are full
with the holy spirit of god).

4. According as living beings strive for their progr^, so

they prosper in thir lives, agreeably to the various scope of their
thoughts and actions.

3. The worshippers of gods, get to the region of gods> and

those of Yakshas meet at the place of Yakshas, and the adorers
of Brahma ascend to Brahmaloka. Resort therefore to what is
beet and the greatest refuge.

6 . So the son of Bhrign, obtained his. liberation at last

by the pnrity of his conscience; though he was enslaved of his
own nature to the visibles, at his first sight of them (as of the
Apsara and others).

7. The child that is horn on earth with the purity of its sonl
at first, becomes afterwards of the same nature, as the eduoation
he gets herein, and not otherwise.

STHITI KHANDA

481

8 . B&ma said Please sir, tell me the difEerence o� the

states of waking and dreaming, and what are the states of wak�
ing watchfolnesi!, waking dream and waking delusion.

9. Vasishtha answered :�The waking state is that wherein

we have a sure reliance; and that is called dreaming, in which we
place no certain reliance and are belived to be untrue.

10. That which is seen for a moment (as true), and as it

were in the waking state, is called a dream; bat if the object is
seen at a distance of time and place, it is said to be waking
dream or dreaming wakefulness.

11. The state of waking dream is again of longer or shorter

duration, in both of which the visions appear the same at all
places and times.

1^. Dreaming also appears as waking, as long as it lasts; but

waking seems as dreaming, when the objects of its vision are not
lasting.

13. A dream which is understood as an occurrence of the

waking state, is believed as waking, (as the prolonged dream of
Harish Chandra); but the inward consciousness of dreaming
makes it a dreara.

14. As long as one knows anything to be lasting before him,

BO long he believes himself to be waking, but no sooner is it lost
to him, than he thinks himself to have been dreaming of it.

15. Hear now how it is. There is the principle of life in the
body, which causes it to live; this vital element is an electric
force, which is termed the life.

16. When the body has its activity with the powers of the
mind, speech and the other members of action, it is to be under�
stood, that its vital element is put to motion by the vital breath
which it breathes.

17 This breath circulating through out the whole body,

gives it the powers of sensibility and consciousness, which have
their seats in the heart and mind, wherein the erroneous concep�
tion of the world is hidden.

18. The mind circulates about the outer world, through the
VoL. II. 61

48S

tOGA YA^ISHTHA.

passages oE sight and other organs; and sees witlun itsdf the
forms of many mutable shapes and figures.

19. As long as these forms, remain permament in the mind,

it is called the waking state. So far have I told yon about the
cause of waking; now hear me expound to you the laws of sleep
and dreaming.

20. When the body is weary with action of its limbs, mind
or speech, the living element then becomes still, and remains in
its composure, with the calm and quiet soul residing within the
body.

21. The internal actions of the body and mind being quieted,
and the motion of the heart being at rest, the living principle
becomes as still, as the flame of a lamp unshaken by the wind.

22. The vital power ceases to exert itself in the members of

the body, and to keep the consciousness awake. The senses of
sight and others do not act upon their organs, nor receive the
sensations from without.

23. Life lies latent in the inner heart, as the liquid oil re>
sides in the scsamnm seed; it lies as dormant in the interior part,
as frigpidity within the frost, and fluidity in the clarified butter.

24. The particle of intellect taking the form of life, after

being purified from its earthly impurity; mixes with the internd
soul, and attains the state of sound sleep, as if lulled to insensi�
bility by the cooling breeze.

26. One feeling the impassibility of h� mind, and dealing

unconcernedly with every one, and reaching to the fourth stage
of conciousness, beyond the three states of waking, dreaming and
sleeping, is said to be turiya or deadened in life.

26. When the vital principle comes again to action, after the
enjoyment of its sound sleep, either in this or the other world,
((.e. when it is restored to or reborn in life); it takes the name of
the living element or the mind or self-consciousness (in the living
body;.

27. This principle of life and thought^ sees the multftudinous

worlds situated with all their vicissitudes within itseff, as the

STHITI KHANDA.

483

largw tree and all its parts and productions, are observed to be
contained within the seed. (This is the picture of life in its
dreaming state).

28. When the element of life is put to slight motion, by the

breeze of the vital breath, it becomes conscious of its self-
existence as �Iam�'} but the motion being accelerated, it finds
itself to be flying in the air.

29. When it is immerged in the water (phlegm) of the

body; it gets the feeling of humidity in itself, as a flower percei�
ves its own fragrance.

30. When it is assailed by the internal bile, it has then the

feeling of its inward heat, and sees all outward objects with its
splenetic humour.

31. When it is full of blood, it perceives a fiery redness in

itself, like that of a rubicund rock, or as the crimson red of the
setting sun in the sky.

32. Whatever one desires to have, he sees the same in himself

in his sleep ; and this is by the force of his inward wind acting
upon his mind, as upon his outward organs.
83. When the organs are not beseiged by external objects,
which disturb the inward senses of the mind; it indulges itself in
the reflexion of many things, which is called its dreaming state.

34. But when the organs are beseiged by outward objects,

and the mind is moved by flatulence (^Tt^ vayu), to their sight
and perception, it is called the state of waking.

85. Now O great-minded B4ma! you have learnt the inward

process of your mind; but there is no reality in them nor in this
existent world, which is subject to the evils of death, desire and
destruction.

CHAPTER XX.

Description of the Mind.

Argument. The delueion of the world and reliance in the true Spirit,
which is the same with the heart, soul and mind.

Y ASISHTHA said :--Now Rdmaj I have told you all this,

in order to explain the nature of the mind to you, and for
no other reason.

a. Whatever the mind often thinks upon with a strong

conviction of its reality, it immediately assumes that form, as
the iron-ball becomes ignited by its contact with fire.

3. Therefore the convictions of being or not being, and of

receiving or rejecting of a thing, depend upon the imagination
of the mind; they are neither true nor untrue, but are mere
fluctuations of the mind.

4. The mind is the cause of error, and it is the mind which

is the framer of the world. The mind also stretches itself iu
the form of the universe (Yiswarupa) in its gross state. (The
first is the human mind, second the mind of Brahmd, and the
third is the mind of Virdj).

5. The mind is styled the pnriisha or regent of the body,

which being brought under subjection, and directed in the right
course, is productive of all prosperity (or supernatural powers).

6. If the body were the purusha, how could the highminded

Sukra, pass into various forms in his very many transmigrations
(as mentioned before) ?

7. Therefore the mind {cMtta) is the purutha or regent of

the body, which is rendered sensible (chetya) by it: Whatever
form the mind assumes to itself, it undoubtedly becomes the

8. So inquire into what is great, devoid of attributes and

error, and which is easily attainable by every body. Bedeligsnt
in your inquiry, and you Avill surely succeed to obtain the same.
BTHITI KHANDA.

485

*9. Hence wHaterer is seated in the mind^ the same comes

to pass on the body; but what is done by the body never affects
the mind. Therefore, O fortunate Bdma! apply your mind to
truth, and shun whatever is untrue.

CHAPTER XXL

On THB PhXMSOPHT OP TEH MlED.

Argumont. Inquiry into the cauee of the fulnoss of the mind.

E AMA saidVenerable Bir| that art acqtxainted with the

* mysteries of all things, 1 hare a great doubt swelling in
my brest like a huge surge of the sea.

2. How is it sir, that any foulness could attach to the mind,

when it is situated in the eternal purity of the infinite Spirit^
which is unbounded by time and space.

3. Again as there is nothing, nor was there ever, nor anything

ever to be at any time, or place, beside the entity of the Holy
one, how and whence could this foulnera come in Him ?

4. Vanshtha answered: Well sud Bdma I I see your un*

derstanding approaching to the way of your liberation, and
exhaling the sweetness of the blossoms of the garden of paradise
(Nandana).

5. I see your understanding is capable of judging both a

priori and &po�teriori, and is likely to attain that acme which was
gained by the gods Sankara and others.

6. It is not now the proper time and place for you to propose
this question, it should be adduced when I would come to the
conclusion of the subject.

7. This question should be asked by you when I coipfi to the

conclusion, and it will be demonstrated to yon as clearly as the
situation of a place in a map or globe, placed in the palm of
your hand, (hastamalaka}.

8. This question of yours will be most suitable at the end,

as the sounds of the peacock and swan, are best suited to the
rainy season and autumn.

9, The blueness of the sky, is pleasant to look upon at the

end of the^rainy weather; but it is odd to speak of it daring

BTHITI EHANDA. 487

the nuns. (So the question most have its proper place and
occasion).

10. It is best to inrestigate into the mind by the nature of

its acts and operations, which tend to be the causes of the repeat�
ed births of mankind.

11. It is by its nature, that the mind has its power of think�
ing, and leading all the organs and members to their several
action^ as it is ascertained by the seekers of salvation.

12. Men learned in the Sdstras and eloquent in speech, have

given various appellations to the mind, in different systems of
philosophy, according to its various perceptive faculties and differ�
ent functions and operations in the body. (Gloss. It is called
the mind {mana) from its power of minding {manana) ; it is
termed internal sight (pasyanti) from its seeing inwardly; it is
the ear {trotra, from its hearing�-#ra�a*a from within, and so on.

13. Whatever nature the mind assumes by the fickleness of

its thoughts, it receives the same name and nature for itself, as
the same fleeting air receives from its exhaling of different odours.

14. So the mind delights itself with the thoughts of its

dffiired objects, and assimilating itself into their natures.

15. It receives the same form in which it delights, and which

it assumes to itself in its imagination.

16. The body being subject to the mind, is moulded in the

same form of the mind; just as the wind is perfumed by the
odour of the flowerbed, through which it passes, (and the fragrance
it carries).

17. The inward senses being excited, actuate the outward

organs of' sense in their own ways, as the exciting motion of
the winds, drives the dust of the earth before their course.

18. The mind exerts its powers in the action of the external
organs in the performance of their several functions; just as the
flying winds drive the dust in different directions.

. 19. Such are the acts of the mind which is said to be the root
of action, and these combine together as inseparably as the flower
and its fragrance.

488

YOGA VilSiSHTHA.

20. Whatever nature the mind adopts to itself by its wonted

habitj the same shoots forth in the form of its two kinds of
motion (the will and action).
81. And accoi'ding as the mind does it's action, and brings
about the result by its assiduity, in like manner does it enjoy
the fruition thereof, and enslaves itself to the enjoyment.

22. It understands that as its right course, which agrees

well with its temperament; and knows for certain that there
is no other way to its real good (beside its wonted course).

23. Minds of different casts follow different pursuits, accor-

ding to their particular proclivities; and employ themselves in
the acquisition of wealth and virtues, desired objects and libem*
tion according to their best choice.

24. The mind is ascertained by the Kdpila (Sdnkhya) philo�

sophers, as a pure substance, like the immaterial intellect (under
the title of pradkdua ); and this view of it is adopted in their
system or sdstra, (in opposition to the doctrine of Veddnta).

25. These men relying on the error of their own hypothe�

sis, inculcate their supposed view of the mind to others, as the
only light to guide them in the way of their salvation.

26. But the professors of Veddnta doctrines, acknowledge

the mind as Brahmd himself; and preach peace and self-con�
trol, as the only means of the attainment of liberation.

27. But that there is no other way to the salvation of the

supposed mind (than by these means), is an ipie distit of the Ve�
danta. and an assumed dogma (kalpitdniyama) as those of other
schools.

28. The Yijndnavddi philosophers also, have ascertained and

upheld peace and self-government as the leaders to liberation,
but this too is an effusion of their erroneous understandings.

29. Thus all sects give out their own views, in the false rules
they have adopted for the salvation of their supposed minds;
and amert that there is no other way to it, beside what is laid
down by them.

STHITI KHANDA.

489

30. So the Arhatas (Bhuddhists) and the other sectarians,

have proposed a variety of fictitious methods for the liberation
of the mind, of their arbitrary will in their respective sdstras.*

31. The arbitrary rules of the learned, and those unsupport�

ed by the snitis, are as numerous and varying from one another,
as the bubbles of clear water: (but are never lasting like the
dicta of the holy writ).

32. Know mighty Bdma, the mind to be the source of all

these rules and methods, as the sea is the source of every kind
of gem, (lying hid in its bosom).

33. There is no innate sweetness in the sugarcane nor bitter�

ness in the nimba, both of which are sucked by insects j nor is
there any heat or cold inherent in the sun or moon, (as both of
them are peopled by gods and spirits). It is the intrinsic habit
of the mind that makes the difference.

34i. Thus that want to enjoy the unadulterated happiness

of their souls, should habituate their minds to assimilate them�
selves to that happy state, and they are sure to have the same.

35. The mind having fled from the sphere of the phenome�
nal world, becomes exempt from all its pleasure and pain, like
the fledged bird flying in the air by casting its shell and leaving
its cage below.

36. O sinless Bdma! Cherish no fondness for the pheno�

menal world, which is an unreal illusion, full of fear and un-
holiness, and is stretched out to ensnare the mind.

* The Arhatas have soron oatogoriea.

1. The animated and intelligent body. 1. Sadv&diB or boIiererB in liberation.

2. The inanimate and insensible body 2. AsadvAdis�unbelievers,

ae rooks &o.

8. The organa of aenso. 3. SyadvAdis�Scoptioa.

4. In^oranoe or ansteritioa, called 4. Sada�Sadaoddia�miabelievera.

Avarana.

6, IVtnanre of the head called nird- 6. Anirvachaneyavadia�Inddels.

varana.

6. Bondage to repeated birtha and 6. Ndatikaa�Atheiata.

deaths.

7. Liberation or final 7. Snnyarddia��Vaouista.

emancipation. They are divided

into seven sohisma, according to their

belief or disbelief in this last via.

VoL. 62

490

TOQA VA)3ISHTHA.

87 < The wise bare styled our consciousness of the world as s

magie scene (mdyd), an appearance of ignorance-avidyd, a mere
thought (bhdvand), and the cause and effect of our acts.

88. Know that it is the delusive mind, which stretches the

visible world before thee, rub it off therefore as dirty mud from
the mind.

39. This visible appearance which naturally appears before

thee in the form of the world, is called the production of igno�
rance by the wise.

40. Men being deluded by it, are at a loss to know their real
good, as the blinded eye is incapable to perceive the brightness of
the day.

41. It is the contemplation of objects (sankalpa), that pre�

sents the phenomena to our view, like arbors in the empty sky;
and it is their incogitancy (asankalpana), which effaces their
images from the inward and outward sights.

42. It is the abstract meditation of the thoughtful yogi,-

that weakens the out^vard impressions, and by dissociating the
soul from all external things, keeps it steady and sedate in
itself.

48. The mind being inclined to the right view of things

by its abstraction from the unreal sights, produces the clearness
of the understanding, and an insouciant tranquility of the soul.

44. The mind that is regardless of realities as well as of

unrealities, (that is of its inward and outward reflections)and
is insensible of pleasure and plain, feels in itself the delight of
its singleness or unity.

45. Application of the mind to unworthy thoughts, and to

the internal or external sights of things, debars the soul from*
tasting the sweets of its soleity, (apart from other considetl^
tions).

46. The mind that is subject to its endless desires, is like-

the clear firmament obscured by the clouds j and ranges in the.
maze of doubt between truth and untruth, as of supposii^if.the
rope for the serpent.

STHITI KHANDA.

491

47. Man obstracts to himself the sight of Um clear firmament

of his intellect, by the mist of his doubts; but he thinks it; as
unobstructed by his error, and indulges the fancies of his ima�
gination which tends the more to his error.

48. He takes the true, incorruptible and supreme Brahma

in a different light (of base and corruptible things), as one
mistakes one thing for anofher in the dark or in his error.

49. Having got rid of his false imagination, man comes

to the knowledge of true God and his happiness, as one freed
from his false apprehension of a tiger in a copse, is sot at rest
with himself.

60. The bugb^r of one�s (soul�s) imprisonment in the vacui�

ty (cavity) of the body, is dispersed by his insight into it, as
the fear of a lion lurking in the jungle, is removed upon
finding no such thing therein.

51. So on looking deeply, yon will find no bondage in the

world; the notions tliat this is the world and this is myself, are
only errors of the mind.

52. It is flight of fancy, that fills the mind with chimeras

of good and evil; just as the shade of evening, presents spectres
of vetala ghosts to little children.

J5S. Our fancies alight on us at one time, and depart at

another, and assume different forms at will �, just as onr consorts
act the part of wives in our youth, and of nurses in our old age.

54. She acts the part of a house wife in her management

of household affairs, and taken as a mistress, she embraces us in
her bosom (or She hangs on us by the neck).

65. And like* an actress, the mind forgets to display its parts,
when it plays another, so every body is betaken by the tho�
ughts he has in his head, in neglect of others which are absent.

66. The ignorant do not perceive the selfsame unity, in all

things he beholds, in the world; but they view every thing in
the light, as they have its idea imprinted in their minds.

67. They meet also with the results of the forms, which
they have in view for the time ,* though they are not in reality

492 YOGA. VASISHTHA.

; what they seem to be, nor are they entirely false; (being the idea�
lities of their mind).

58. Man views every thing in the same manner as he thinka

it in himself; as his fancy of an elephant in the shy, makes him
view the elephants in clouds.

59. He believes these elephants pursuing their mates, in his

thought; so it is the thought, that gives the outward forms of
things.

60. BAma! repel your drowsiness, and behold the supreme

soul in thy soul; and be as a bright gem by repelling the sha�
dows of all external things.

61. It is impossible, O Bkma, that one so enlightened as

thyself, will receive the reflexion of the world, as dull matter like
others (rather than a reflexion of the Spirit),

62. Being certain of its immateriality, never taint thy

mind with its outward colouring, or the knowledge of its reality;
but know it as no way distinct from the Supreme Spirit.

68. Mind in thyself the Being that is without beginning

or end, and meditate on the Spirit in Spirit. Do not let the
reflexions of thy mind, imbue their tinge in the pure crystal of
thy soul.

64. Be on thy guard, as never to allow the reflexions of your

njind, to taint the clear crystal of thy soul; but remain unmindful
of the visibles, and regai'dless of all worldly desires; (which are
causes of misery and repeated births and deaths).

CHAPTER XXII.

Resting in Supubmb Felicity.

Argument. Bemisfiion of the eina of the enlightened, and thior sight

of the pure Spirit.

Y ASISHTHA continued :�^Men of sound judgment, are freed

from mental perturbation, and are perfected in their
mastery over themselves, by restraining the flight of the mind,
and fastening it to its inward cogitation, (Gloss. The Yogi
given to meditation is master of his soul and mind).

2. They swerve from the sight of the visibiles as unworthy of

their notice, and seek after the knowledge of their chief good ;
they behold the all-seeing God in their mental and external
sights, and have no perception of the unintelligent perceptibles.
(t. e. They perceive the noumenon only in the phenomenon).

8, They are dormant amidst the thick gloom of error, over�

spreading the mazy paths of life, and arc awake under the trans�
cendent light (of divine knowledge), requiring the vigilence q|^
the living.

4. They are utterly indifferent to the sweet pleasures of this

life, as also to the cheerless prospects of future enjoyments (in the
next world). (The Yogi is equally averae to the present and
prospective pleasures of both worlds;.

5. They are mixed (like salt) with the water of spiritual

(divine) unity, and in the boundless ocean of omnipresence; and
they melt away as the ice in a river, by their rigorous austerities,
resembling the vigourous heat of the sun.

6. All their restless desires and passions are set to rest, at

the disappearance of their ignorance; as the turbulent waves of
rivers subside of themselves, in the absence of stormy clouds.

7. The net of desires, which ensnares men as birds in their

traps, is cut asunder by a spirit of dispassionateness; as the
meshes of a net, are tom into twain, by the teeth of a mouse.

494

YOGA VAlSISHTHA.

8. As the seeds of iaia fruits, serve to purify the foul water}

so doth philosophy tend to expurgate human nature, from all
its errors.

9. The mind that is freed from passions, from worldly con*

neetions and contentions, and from dependance on any one (person
or thing); is liberated also from the bonds of ignonmoe and
error, as a bird is set free from its imprisoning cage. (Tfne
freedom is the freedom from all cares, concerns tmd connecidons,
which are but boudages of the soul).

10. When the disturbances of doubts are settled, and the

wandering of curiosity is over, it is then that the fullmoon of
internal fulness, sheds its lusture over the mind.

11. As the mind has its true magnaminity, after its setting
from the hight of its dignity and highmindedness, so it begins to
have its eqimnimity in a 8i�te, resembling the calmness of the sea
after the storm.

12. As long as the shadow of solicitude, hangs over the

mind, it is darkened and stupified and broken in the heart, until
the sun of inappetency rises to dispel its gloom.

13. It is by the sunshine of the intellect, that the lotus-bed

dl^intelligcnce, shines in its pure lustre; and unfolds the foliage
of its virtues before the dawning light above it.

14. Intelligence is charmer of hearts and delighter of all in

the world; it is fostered by the quality of goodness (sattwaguna),
as the moon becomes full by her increasing digits.

, 15. What more shall I say on this subjeci^ than that he who
knows the knowable (God), has his mind expanded as the sphere
of heaven, which has no beginning nor end.

16. The mind which is enlightened by reasoning, is as exal�

ted in its nature, as to take pity even on the great gods Hari,
Hara, BrahmA, and Indra; (on account of their incessant avoca^
tions in the management of the world).

17. They are far from tasting the happiness of the egoistic
yogis, who are continually seeking to quench their thii^ (after
pleasure), from the waters appearing in the mirage as ihe;
parching.,deer (running to them by mistake).

STHITI KEANDA.
495

18. It is the heart�s desire of all beings^ that subjects them to

repeated births and deaths, which cause the ignorant- only and not
the wise, to appear and disappear like waves of the sea.

19. The world presents no other show in its course, except

that of the appearance and disappearance of bodies, which are
now seen to move about at the sport of time, and now fall as a
prdjr to it for ever.

20. But the spiritual body 'the spirit or one knowing the
spirit), is neither born nor dies in this world ; nor is it affected
by the decoration or perdition of the material body; but remains
unchanged as the vacuity of a pot, both when it is in existence
or broken to pieces. (The vacuous soul is aloof from the body).

21. As the understanding rises with its cooling moon-beams

within ns, it dispels the mist of erroneous desires rising before us
like the mirage of the dreary desert.

22. So long does the pageant of the world, present its dusky
appearance to our view, as we do not deign to consider the ques�
t's ** what am I, and what are all these about me�. (That is ;
whether I or these or all other things are true or false) ?�

28. He sees rightly, who sees his body as an apparition of hi�

error,>and the abode of all evils; and that it does not serve for
the spiritual meditation of his soul and his maker.

24. He sees rightly, who sees that his body is the source of
all the pain and pleasure, which betides one at different times
and places, and that it does not answer his purpose of spirituaJ
edification.

.25. He sees rightly, who sees the Ego to pervade the infinite
space and time, and as the source of all accidents and events, which
incessantly take place in them. (The Ego is ubiquitous).

26. He knows rightly, who knows the Ego to bo as minute

as a millionth or billionth part of the point of a hair, and perva�
ding all over the infinity of space and eternity of time.

27. Ho perceives rightly, who perceives the universal soul, to

he permeated in all the various objects of his sight, and knows
;them as sparks of the Intellectual Light.

496

YOGA VA^SISHTHA.

28. He perceives rightly, who perceives within himself the

omnipotence of the infinite Spirit, to be present in all the states
and conditions of beings, and the self-same Intellect to abide in
and prraide over all.

29. He understands rightly, who understands by his wisdom,

that he is not his body, which is subject to diseases and dangers,
to fears and anxieties, and to the pain and pangs of old age Ind
death.

30. He understands rightly, who understands his soul to

stretch above and below and all about him; whose magnitude
has no bounds nor an equal to it.

31. He knows, full well who kens his soul as a string (Sutra-
tamd), to which all things are strung as jems in a jewel; and
that it is not the mind or heart, which is seated in the brain or
bosom.

32. He kens rightly, who weens neither himself nor any thing
else as existent, except the impcrishable-Brahma,* and who knows
himself as living between the reality and unreality, (*. e. betwixt
the present and absent, and between the visible and invisible.
Gloss).

33. He is right, who beholds what they call the three worlds,
to be but parts of his self, and have been rolling about him as
the waves of the sea.

34. He is wise, who looks with pity upon the frail world,
and compassionates the earth as bis younger sister.

35. That great soul looks brightly upon the earth, who
has withdrawn his mind from it, by retrenching his reliance
on his egoism or tuism, (i. e. both on his subjectivity and
objectivity).

36. He sees the truth, who finds his body and the whole
world, filled by the colossus figure of the Intellect, without the
opposition of any sensible object.

37. He that looks on the states of misery and happiness,

which attend on worldly life, to be but the fluctuating eon>
ditions of 4.he ego, has no cause to repine or rejoice at them.

STHITI KHANDA.

487

38. He is the right-sighted man, who sees himself situated

amidst the world, which is filled with the divine spirit, (and the
endless joy emanating from it); he has nothing to desire or
dislike in this (or in his fntnre) state of existence.

39. He is the right (discerning) man, who has weakened his

estimation and dislike of what is desirable and disgusting to him
in the world, which is full of the essence of that being, whose
nature is beyond comprehension and conception. (The world
being fi)ll with the presence of God, we have nothing to like or
dislike, or to take or shun in it).

40. That great-sonled man is a great god, whose sonl like the
all-pervading sky extends over all, and penetrates through every
state of existence, without receiving the tincture of any. (Who
is informed with all and nntinged by any).

41 I bow down to that great soul, which has passed beyond

the states of light, darkness and fancy, (�. e. the state of waking
or life, sleep or death, and dreaming or transmigration, and which
is situated in a state of brightness and tranquility in supreme
felicity or heavenly bliss.

42. I bow down to that Siva, of transcendental understan*

ding; whose faculties are wholly engrossed in the meditation
of that eternal Being, who presides over the creation, destrao
tion and preservation of the universe, and who is manifest m all
the various wonderdus aud beautious grandeurs of nature.

CHAPTEE XXin.

IffUTATIOM or TBS WOBOEBS IB THB BEiII.H Of TBS BoSt.

Argnment. The dominion of the enlightened man over the realm of

hie Body, and the pleasure of the government of the mind.

V ASISHTHA continued The man that ia liberated in tliif

life, and is settled in the Supreme state of felicity, is not

tarnished by bis reigning over the realm of his body, and tnra-
ing about like a wheel.

2. The body of the wise man is as a princedom to him, and

calcnkted for his benefit and no disadvantage. It is compamlile
with the bower of a holy hermit, for the consummation of his
fruition and liberation.

8 . E&ma said :~How do you call, O great sage) the body

to be the dominion of a man, and how the Yogi can enjoy his
princely felicity in it 7

4. Yasishtha replied :�Beautiful is this city of the body,

amd fraught with every good to mankind, and being enlightened
% the light of the mind, it is prodnctive of endless blessings in
both worlds.

' 5. The eyes are the windows of this city, letting oat ths
light for the sight of distant worlds, the two arms are as the
two valves of this city-gate, with the hands like latches reach�
ing to the knees.

6 . The hairs on the body are as the moss and grass on the
walls, and the porous skin resembles the netted covering of the
palace; the thighs and legs are as the columns of the edifice,
and the feet with the ancles and toes, are as pedestals of the
pillars.

7. The lines marked under the sbloi of the feet, are as ia�
Boriptions marked on the foundation stone, and upon those at
the base of the pedestals of the pillars} and the outer skin wbuli
covers the flesh, marrow, veins uxd arteries, and the jointi of tiit

StSm KHAKDA 4M

Wy, Ul aa the heaatifttl piaster of the building, hiding the mor*

tar and bricks inside.

8 . The middle part of the body above the two thick thighs
contains the aqueducts, beset by the hairy bashes about them,
and likening to rivers running amidst a city, between rows of
trees on both sides of the banks.

9. The face is as the royal garden beautified by the eye*brows,

forehead and the lips; the glancing of the eyes, are as the blooms
ing lotuses; and the cheeks are as flat planes in it.

10. The broad bosom is as a lake with the nipples like bud^
of lotuses; the streaks of hairs on the breast, are as its herbage,
fn^the shoulders are as the projecting rocks (ghats) upon it.

11. The belly is the store�house, which is eager to receive

the deliciona articles of food; and the long lungs of the throat
are blown loudly by the internal winds.

12. The bosom is considered as the depository of jewels

(from their being worn upon it'; and the nine orifices of the
body, serve as so many windows for the breathing of the
citizens.

13. There is the open mouth like the open door-way, with
its tooth-bones slightly seen as its gratiaga; and the tongue
moving in the door way like a naked sword, is as the projecting
tongue of the goddess Kali, when she devours her food. (The
voracity of the goddess is well known whence she is called S[ali,
the consort of the all devouring Kdla-death).

. 14. The ear-holes are covered by hairs like long grass, and
the broad back resembles a large plain, beset by rows of trees on
its borders.

15. The two private passages serve as sewers and drains of

the city, to let out its dirt, and the heart is the garden-gronnd,
where the passions parade about as ladies. (Or, the region of
the mind is the garden-ground for the rambling thouglits as
ladies)..

16. Here the understanding is fast bound in chains as- n

prisoner, and the organs of sense are let loose as monkies to play
60a YOGA VASISHTHA.

about. The face is as a flower garden, the smiles whereof are

its Uooming blossoms

17. The life of the man, knowing the proper use of his
body and mind, is prosperous in everything; it is attended by
happiness and advantages, and no disadvantage whatever.

18. This body is also the source of infinite troubles to the

ignorant j but it is the fountain of infinite happiness to the wise
man.

19. Its loss is no loss to the wise; but its continuance is

the cause of continued happiness to the wise man.

20. The body serves as a chariot to the wise, who can tra�
verse everywhere by riding in it; and can produce and procure
everything conducive to his welfare and liberation.

21. The possession of the body, is of no disadvantage to

the wise man ; who can obtain by it, all the objects of his
hearing and seeing, of his touch and smelling, and his friends
tnd prosperity.

22. It is true that the body is subject to a great amount of

piun and pleasure j but the wise man can well bear with them,
(knowing them to be concommittant to human life).

23. Hence the wise man reigns over the dominion of his
body, without any pain or trouble, in the same manner as one
remains the lord of his house, without any anxiety or distur�
bance.

24. He is not addicted to licentiousness like a high mettled

steed; nor parts with the auspecions daughter of his prudence,
from his avarice after some poisonous plant.

25. The ignorant can see the cities of others, but not observe
the gaps and breaks of their own. It is better to root out the
fears of our worldly enemies (passions) from the heart, thaa
live under their subjection.

26. Beware of diving in the perilous river, which flows fast

by the dreary forest of this world, with the current of draire,
whirl-pools of avarice, and the sharks of temporal enjoyment.

27. Men often bathe their outer bodies in holy streams, with*

STHITI EHANDA. SOI

ont looking to the pnrification of their inward souls ; and they*

shave their persons at the confluence of rivers with the sea, in
hopes of obtaining their object. (Bathing in the sauger) (Sagora
sangama st&na), is sud to confer every object of desire).
28. All sensual people are averse to the unseen happiness of

the next world ; and dwell on the pleasure of their own imag�
ination in the inward recesses of their minds.

29. This city of the body is pleasant to one, acquainted with

his spiritual nature; because he deems it as the paradise of
Indra, which is filled with pl^urable fruits, as well as of
those of immortality (or future life and bliss).

80. All things depend on the existence of the city of the

body, yet nothing is lost by its loss since the mind is the seat
of everything. These bodily cities which fill the earth, cannot
be unpleasant to any body.

31. The wise man loses nothing by loss of the citadel of

his body j as the vacuity in a vessel is never lost, by the break�
ing of the vessel. (So the death of the body, does not destroy
the vacuous soul).

32. As the air contained in a pot, is not felt by the touch

like the pot itself, so is the living soul, which resides in the city
of the body.

33. The ubiquitous soul being situated in this body, enjoy.s

all worldly enjoyments, until at last it comes to partake of the
felicity of liberation, which is the main object it has in view.

34. The soul doing all actions, is yet no doer of them; but
remains as witness of whatever is done by the body ; and some�
times presides over the actions actually done by it.

36. The sportive mind rides on the swifting car of the body, as
one mounts on a locomotive carriage for the place of its desti�
nation, and passes in its unimpeded course to distant journeys.
(So the body leads one to his journey from this world to the
next).

86 . Seated there, it sports with its favourite and lovely objects

of desire, which are seated in the heart as its mistresses. (The

60S 70aA VA&ISBTHA.

embodied mind enjoys tbe pleasurable desires, rising before iSfroai

the recess of tbe heart).

37. These two lovers reside side by side in the same body, M
the moon and the star risdkhd, remain gladly in the same lunar
mansion.

38. The sage, like the snn, looks down from above the atmos�
phere of the earth, on the hosts of mortals that have been hewn
down by misery, like heaps of brambles and branches scattered
in the woods,

39. The sage has the full satisfaction of his desires, and full
possession of hir best riches, and shines as the full-moon without
the fear of waning.

40. The worldly enjoyments of the wise, do not tend to vitiate

tbeir nature; as the poisonous draught of Siva, was not capable
of doing him any injury, fl^e baneful effects of worldlinesi^
do not affect the wise).

41. The food which is habitual to one, (as the poison of Siva)
is as gratifying to him ; as a thief by long acquaintance forgets
his theivishness, and becomes friendly to his neighbours.

' 42. Tbe wise man looks upon the separation of his friends
and possessions, in the light of the departures (exits), of the
visitant men and women and actors and actresses, at the end
of a play from the theatre.

43. As passengers chance to meet unexpectedly, at the mchi-

bition of a play on their way ; so the wise people look unconcer�
nedly, at tbeir meeting with and separation from the occurrences
of life.

44. As our eye-sight falls indifferently on all objects about

ns, so doth the wise man look unconcernedly upon all things and
transactions of life.

45. The wise man is selfsnfficient in all conditions of life;

he neither rejects the earthly blessings that are presented to him;
nor longs or strives hard for what is denied to him.

46. The regret of longing after what one does not possess, as
also the fear of losing what he is in possesBioB.of;��dflesnotvacil-

STHITI KHAifcA.

50!}

hte the mind of the wise; as the plnmes of the dancing peacoch,
do not oscillate the nnshaking mountain.

47. The wise man reigns as a monarchy free from all fears
and doubts, and devoid of all cares and curiositj; and with a

mind freed from false fancies (of subtile and gross bodies).

48. The soul which is immeasnrable in itself, is situated in

the Supreme Soul; as the boundless Milky ocean, is contained
in the body of the one universal ocean.

49. Those that are sober in their minds, and tranquil in their
spirits, laugh to scorn the vile beasts of sensuality as madmen ;
as also those that have been bemeaned by the meanness of their
sensual appetites to the state of mean reptiles.

60. The sensualist eager for the gratification of bis senses, are
as much ridiculed by the wise; as a man who takes to him a
Woman deserted by another, is derided by his tribe.

, 61. The nnwiseman becomes wise by relinquishing all the

pleasures of his body, and subduing the emotions of his mind by
his reason; as the rider subdues the ungovernable elephant by the
goad (ankusa) in his hand.

62. He whose mind is bent to the enjoyment of carnal

pleasures, should first of all check the inclination, as they draw
out the poisonous plants from the ground.

63. The well governed mind, being once let loose, recurs like
a spoiled boy to its former habits; as the tree withered in
summer heat, grows luxuriant at a slight rain-fall.

64. That which is full out of its time, does not become
Lfuller in its season; as the river which is everfull, receives

no addition in the rains over its fulness. The full never

becomes fuller).

65. The mind that is naturally greedy, wishes for more with
all its fulness; as the sea with the sufficiency of its water to
overflood the earth, receives the rain waters and the outpourings
of innumerable rivers in its insatiate womb. (The greedy mind
like the insatiate sea, is neverfull).

66. The mind that is restrained in . its desires, is gladdened

504

YOGA VASISHTHA.

at ita little gains; and these being increased are reckoned as

blessings by the stinted mind.

67. A eaptive prince when enfranchised, is content with his

morsel of bread, who ere before had been discontented with a
realm in his free and uncaptured state.

68 . With the writhing of your hands and gnashing of your

teeth, and twisting of your limbs and body; yon must chastise
your reprobate members and mind. (So is Plato siud to have
chastised his angry self).

69. The brave and wise man, who intends to overcome his
enemies; must first of all strive to subdue the internal enemies
of his own heart and mind, and the members of his body.
(Subdue yourself, ere you subdue others),

60. Those men are reckoned the most prosperous, and best
disposed in their minds in this earth ; who have the manlines
to govern their minds, instead of being governed by them.
61. I revere those pure and holy men, who have quelled
the huge and crooked serpent of their minds, lying coiling in
the cave of their hearts; and who rest in the inward tranquility
and serenity of their souls.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The NoH-BHTiTt ov the Mihd.

Aipment The means of repressing the force of the senses, and of

curbing the sensual desires of men.

V ASISHTHA continuedThe vast domain of death, in

region of hell, is full of the fnrions elephants of our
sins; and the ungovernable enemies of the senses with the
arrows of desires, (s. e. Hell is the abode of sinners, sensualists
and the greedy).

2. Our senses are our invincible enemies, being the sources

of all misdeeds and wicked actions. They are the ungrateful
miscreants ag^ainst the body, in which they have found their
refuge.

3. The roving senses like flying birds, have found thmr

nest in the body; whence with their outstretched wings of
right and wrong, they pounce on their prey like vultures.

4. Ho who can entrap these greedy birds of the senses,'

under the snare of his right reason, is never ensnared in his
person in the trap of sin; but breaks its bonds as the elephant
does his fetters.

6 . He who indulges himself in sensual pleasures which are

pleasant at first, will have to bo cloyed in them in process of
time. (Pleasure is followed by pain. On. Bills of pleasure not
sincere.)

6 . He who is fraught with the tr^ure of knowledge in his

frail body, is not to be overcome by his inward enemies of
sensual appetite.

7. TTie king^ of earth ore not so happy in their earthly cita�

dels, as the lords of the cities of the own bodi^, and the masters
of &eir own minds. (Mastery over ones self, is better than
aver a realm).

Vox,. IL

64

6oe'

YOGA VA'BBflTHA.
8 . Hifwlio'lias brought the senses under Us slav^, and re�
duced the enemy of his mind to subjection; has the blossoms
of his understanding ever blooming within him as in the vernal
meadow.

9. He who has weakened the pride of his mind, and subdued

the enemies of his senses; has his desires all shrunken as the
lotuses in the cold weather.

10. 8o long do the demons of our desires, infest the region

of our hearts, as we are unable to bring the mind under the
subjection of our knowledge of the True one.

11. He is the fiiithful servant, who acts according to the

will of his master, and he is the true minister who does good
services to his prince. He is the best general who has command
over the force of his own body, and that is the best undautand-
ing which is guided by reason.

12. The wife is loved for her endearments, and the father is
revered for his protection of the child. A friend is valued by
bis confidence, and the mind for its wisdom.

13. The mind is called our father, for its enlightening our
understanding with the light of the sdstras derived by itself, and
for its leading us to perfection by losing itself in the Supreme
spirit. CHie mind like the father, is the instructor and bequea*
Iber of its all to man, ere it is extinct in the universal soul).

14. The mind that has well observed and considered all
things, that is enlightened and firm in its belief, and is employed
in laudable pursuits, is verily a valuable gem within the body.

15. The mind as a counsellor of our good, teaches us bow

to fell down the tree of our transmigration, and produce ibe
arbour of our future bliss.

16. Such is the gem of the mind, 0 Bdma 1 unless it is soil�

ed by the dirt and filth of sin and vice; when it requires to be
washed and cleansed with the water of reason, inorder to throw
its light on thee.

17. Be not dormant to cultivate reason as long as you abide in

the darksome abode of this world j nor thrust yourself to every

STHITI KHANDA. . -|07

�coideai, wUch awaits upon the ignorant and unreasonable men.

18. Donot overlook the mist of error which overspreads this

world of illusion, abounding with multitudes of mishaps and
mischief. (Harm watch, harm catch. Hold arms, against
harms).

19. Try to cross over the wide ocean of the world, by riding
on the strong barque of your reason, espying the right course by
yoor discretion, against the currents of your sensual desires.

20. 'Know your body to be a frail flower, and all its pleasure
and pain to be unreal; so never take them for realities, as in the
instance of the snare, snake and the matting; but renuon above
sorrowing for any thing as in the instance of Bhima and Bhasa
(which will be shortly related to yon).

21. Give up, O high minded Bdma I your misjudgments of

the reality of yourself, and of this and that thing; but direct
your understanding to the knowledge of the Beality which is
beyond all these; and by forsaking your belief and reliance in
the mind, continue in your course of eating and drinking as
before.

CHAPTER XXV.

Naeuative of DiUA, VtaIa and Eala.

Argament. Tho demon Sambara defeated by the deitieSi and his prodnc-
tioa of other demons by magic andsorceiy.

V ASISHTHA said:�O intelligent R&mal that dost shine

as the delight of mankind in this world, and endeavourest
after the attainment of thy chief good, by the accomplishment
of thy best objects.

2. Do not let the instance of the demons Ddma and VyfUa

or the snare and snake, apply to thy case; but tty to extricate
thyself from vain sorrowiag (at the miseries of the world), by
the lesson of fortitude as given in the story of Bhim& and Bhdsa.

3. R4ma asked 'What is that parable of the snare and

snake, which thou sayest must not apply to my case ? Please
relate it in full, to remove the sorrows of my mind and of all
mankind.

4. And how is that fortitude which thou pointest out for

my imitation, from the instance of Bhimd and Bhdsa, inorder
to get rid from all earthly sorrow?

5. Kindly relate the whole, and enlighten me with thy puri�

fying words, as the roaring of the rainy clouds, serves to alle�
viate the summer heat of peacocks.

6. Vasishtha replied Here meBdmal relate to you both

these anecdotes, that you may derive the benefit of aping accor�
ding the same.

7. There lived one Sambara�the chief of demons, and a

profound sorcerer in a subterraneous ceU, filled with enchan�
ting wonders like a sea of gems.

8. He constructed a magic city in the sky, with gardens and

temples of gods in it; and artificial suns and moons emblazon�
ing its vault.

9. It was beset with rich stones, resembling the gems of the

STHITl EHANDA.

S09

S nmftr n monniain j aad the palace of the demon was Ml with

opulence and treasures of every kind.

10. The beauties in his seraglio, vied with the celestial dames
in their charming strains; and the arbors of his pleasure garden,
were shaded by an awning of bright moon-beams on high.

11. The blue lotuses blooming in bis bed room, put to blush
the blue eyed maids of his court j and the gemming swans in the
lakes, cackled about the beds of golden lotuses in them.

12. The high branches of aureate plants, bore the blossoms

of artificial lotuses on them; and the rows of Karanga arbours
dropped down showers of mndara flowers on the ground.

13. His garden-house consisted both of cold and hot baths,

and refrigeratories and fire-places for the hot and cold seasons j
and the tarku (?) weapons of the demons, had baffled the arms
of Indra himself.

14. The flower-gardens on all sidra, had surpassed the mandara

groves of paradise; and the m^cal skUl of the demon, had set
rows of sandal trees, with their encircling snakes all around.

15. The inner compound which was strewn over with gold
dusl^ vanquished the glory of heaven; and the court-yard of
the palace, was filled with heaps of flowers upto the knee.

16. The earthen figure of Siva which was exposed for show,
had surpassed the image of Hari holding his discus and the
mace; and the gems sparkling as fire-flies in the inside apai^
ment, resembled the twinkling stars in the arena of heaven.

17. The dark night of the subterrene dwelling, was lightened

by a hundred moon-lights like the starry heaven, and he chaun-
ted his martial songs before his idol deity.

18. His magical elephant, drove away the Airdvata of Indra;

and his inward apartment was hoarded with the precious trea-
suns the three worlds.

19. All wealth and prosperity and grandeur and dignity,

paid their homage to him ; and tire whole host of demoiuf, hon�
oured him as their commander.

20. 13ie umbrage of his arms, gave shelter to the whole

610 YOGI VA'SISHTHA.

body of demons; and he was the receptacle of all sagacity, and

reservoir of every kind of treasnre.

21. This destroyer of the devat (^ds), had a gigantic and

terrific appearance; and commanded a large army of Asura-
demons to def^t the Sura�deities.

The gods also soaght every opportunity of harassing

the demoniac force^ whenever this exorcist demigod, went to

sleep or somewhere out of his city.

23. This enraged Sambara to a degree, that he broke the

trees in his rage, and employed his generals for protection of
his legions.

24. The devas finding their fit opportunities, killed the

demons one by one; as the aerial hawks pounce upon and kill
the feeble and timid sparrows.

26. The king of the demons then appointed other general

over his army, and they were as swift-footed and hoarse sound�
ing as the waves of the sea.

26. The Bevas destroyed these also in a short time; when

the leader of the demon band, pursued his enemies to their station
above the heavens.

27. The gfods fled from their heavenly abode for fear of them,
as the timorous dear fly from before the sight of Siva�s and
Gauri�s bull into the thick thickets.

28. The gods were weakned with weeping, and the faces of
Apsaras were sufEused in tears. The demon saw the heavenly
abode abondoned by the celestials, as it was the desolation
of the world.

29. He wondered about in his rage, and plundered and took

away all the valuables of the place. He burnt down the cities
of the regents of heaven, and then returned to his own abode.

30. The enmity between the deities and demons, was so

inveterate on both sides, that it forced the Deva; to quit their
heavenly abodes, and hide themselves in distant parts the
world.

31. But tiie enraged gods, succeeded at last by their peimver-

STHITI KHANDA.

611
anoe, to defeat and slay all the generals and combatants, that
were set agunst them by Sambara.

32. The discomfited demon, then gave vent to his fury, and
began to breathe out living fire from his nostrils like a burning
monntun.

S3. He after much search in the three worlds, fonnd out

the hiding place of the gods, as a wicked man succeeds in his
purpose by his best endeavours.

34. Then he produced by his sorcery three very strong and

fearful Asuras for the protection of his army, with ^eir hedious
appearances as that of death.

85. These horrible leaders of his army, being produced in his

magic, flew upward with their enormous bodies, resembling the
flying mountains of old.

36. They had the names of DAma�the snare, VyAIa�the

snake, and Kata�the mat given them for their entraping, en�
folding and enwrapping the enemy, according to the demon's
wish.

37. They were preadamite beings and devoid of changing

desires; and the want of their prior acts (like those of the human
kind), made them move about as free as spiritual being in one
uniform tenor of their course.

88. These were not bom as men from the seeds of their pre�
vious acts, with solid and substantial bodies; but mere artificial
forces and airy forms, as facsimile of the images in the demon's
mind.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Battlb of thb Dbitibs and Deuohs.

Argnment. The war of the gods with the Demons^ rising from the
Ras&tala or Infernal regions.

Y ASISHTHA continuedSo saying, the chief of the de�

mons despatched his generals Ddma, Vydla and Kata, to
lead his armies for the destruction of the Deities upon earth.

2. The demoniac army rose out of the foaming sea and in�
fernal caverns, in full armour and begirt with fiendish arms; and
then bursting forth with hedious noise, soared aloft with their
huge bodies, like mountains flying on high.

3. Their monstrous and mountainous bodies, hid the disk

of the sun in the sky j and their stretching arms smote him of
his rays. They increased also in their number and fflze under
the leadership of Ddma, Vydla and Kata.
(This is the war of the Gods and Titans, wherein Sambara
is the Satan, and his generals are the devils, Damon, Baal or
Bel andect) ?

4. Then the dreadful hosts of the celestials also, issued

out from the forests and caverns of the h^venly mountain-
Meru, like torrents of the great deluge.

6. The forces under the flags of the deities and demons,

fought together with such obstinacy, that it seemed to he an
untimely and deadly struggle between the g^ds and Titans as of
the prior world.

6. The heads of the decapitated warriors, decorated wi&

shining earrings, fell down on the ground like the orbs of the
sun and moon; which being shorn of their beams as at the end
of the world, were rolling in the g^at abyss of chaos.

7. Huge hills were hurled by the heroes, with the hoarse

noise of roaring lionsj and were blown up and down, by the
blast of an Ml destroying tornado.

STHITl KHANDA.

513

8. The broken weapons of the warriors, fell on monntain

tops, and ground them to granules; that fell down as hulstones
upon the lions, that had been resting by their sides below.

9. The sparks of fire that flew about by the commingled

clashing of the weapons, were as the scattered stars o� the sky,
flying at random on the last day of dissolution.

10. The ghosts of VetAlas as big as the t&la� or palmtrees,

were beating the t&la or time of their giddy dance, with the tAli
or clapping of their palms, over the heaps of carnage, floating
on floods of blood flowing as a sanguinary sea, on the surface
of earth.

11. Showers of shedding blood, had put down the flying dust of
the battlefield; aud numbers of the crowned heads sepamted
from their bodies, glistened amidst the clouds, like so many stars
sparkling in the sky.

12. All sides were filled by the demons, who blazed like
burning suiis with their luminous bodies, and held the tall halpn
branches in their hands for striking the enemy therewith, aud
with which they broke down the tops and peaks of mouutuns.

13. They ran about with their brandished swords in hand,

and broke down the buildings by the rapidity of their motion,
like the blast of a gale; and the rooks which they hurled at the
foe, were reduced to dost, like the ashes of a burning monntaini
14. The gods also pursued them as sacrificial horaes, and
drove the weaponless Asuras, like clouds before the storm.

15. They fell upon and laid hold of them like cats pouncing
upon rats, and seizing them for their prey; while the Asuias ulan
were seizing the devaa as bears lay hold on men, mounting on
high trees for fear of them.

16. Thus the gods and demigods dashed over one another, as
tiie forest trees in a storm, striking each other with their branch�
ing arms, and strewing the flowers of mutual bloodshed.

17. Their broken weapons lay scattered on all sides, HIta

heaps of flowers lying on the sides of a hUl after a strong gale is
OTsr.

VsL. II. 6S

614 YOGA VASISHTHA.

18. There waa a close fight o� both armira, with a confosed

noise filling the vaxilt of the sky; which like the hollow of the
TJdttmba� tree, resounded to the commingled ham of the gnats
rumbling within it.

19. The elephants that were the regents of the different

quarters of the skies, sent their loud roars, answering the
tremendous peal of the world-destroying cloud.

20. The thickened air grew as hard as the solid earth with the
gathering clouds, and the thickened clouds that became as dense
as to be grasped in the fist, were heavy and slow in their motion.

21. The broken weapons which were repelled by the war-

chariots and hit against the hills, emitted a rattling noise from
their inward hollowness, like the cacophony of a chorus.

22. The mountain forests were set on fire by the firy weapons,
and the burning rocks melted down their lava with as dreadful a
noise, as that of the volcanic mount of meru with its melting
gold, and blazing with the effulgence of the twelve suns of the
zodiac.

23. The clamour of the battle, was as that of the beating

waves of the boisterous ocean, filling the vast deep of the ^th,
and rraounding hoarsely by their concussion.

24. The huge rocks which were hurled by the demons,

flew as birds in the air with their flapping wings sounding as
thunder claps; while the hoarse noise of the rocky caverns,
sounded as the deep sounding main.

26 The damour of the warfare resembled the rumbling of

the ocean, at its churning by the Mandara mountain, and the
clashing arms sounded as the clappings of the hands of the gods,
in their revelry at for the ambrosial draughts.
26. In this warfare of the two armira, the haughty demons
gained the day; and laid waste the cities and villages of the gods,
together with whole tract of their hills and forests.

27. The mounttunoos bo^es of the demons also, were pi�ced

by the great wrapons of the gods; and the vault of heaven wad
filled with the flying weapons, flung by the hands of both parties.

. STHITI KHANDA. SIS

� 28. The btusting lockete broke the peaks and pinnacles

oC the rooks by hundreds; and the flying arrows piereed the &ce8
of both iw^ties of the gods and demigods.

> 29. 'The whirling didm lopped off the heads of the warriors
like blades of grass, and the damonr of the armies rolled with
an uproar in the midway sky.

80 i Struck by the flying weapons, the heavenly oharioteors

fell upon the ground; and their celestial cities were deluged
by the hydraulic engines of the demons.

31. Flights of swords, spears and lances were flying

in the air, like rivers ruiming down the sides of mountains'; and
the vault of heaven was filled by war-whoops and shouts of the
combatants.

82. The habitation of the regnant divinities, were falling

under the blows of demons from behind; and their female apart�
ments reechoed to the lamentations and jingling trinkets of the
goddesses.

83. The stream of the flying weapons of the demons, washed

the bodies of fighting men with blood, and made them fly off
from the battle-field with hideous cries.

84. Death was now lurking behind, and now hovering over
the heads of the gods and leaders of armies; like a blaek-bee
now skulking in, and then flitting over the lotuses; while the
armies on both sides, were discomfited by the blows of the gods
and demigods on the battle field.

36. The demons flew in the air like winged mountains,

moving around the sky; and making a whizzing rustle that was
dreadful to hear.

86. The mountainous bodies of the demons, being pierced by.

the-weapons of the gods, were gushing out with streams of blood;
which converted the earth below to a crimson sea, and ting^ the
air with purple clouds over the mountain heights.

87. Many countries and cities, villages and forests, vales

and dal^ were laid waste; and innumerable demons and eleph-
' abts, horses and human beings were put to death.
616

YOGA VABKHTHA.

38. Also nnmben of elepliants were pierced, with longf

and pointed shafta of steel and ironand huge Airavatas were
bruised in their bodies, by the blows of steeled fists.

89. Flights of arrows falling in showers like the delnvian

rains, crushed the tops of mountains; and the friction of thun�
derbolts, broke down the bodies of the moantsinoiu giants.

40. The furious flames of heavenly fire, burned the bodies

of the infernal hosts} who in their turn, quenched the flame
with water-spouts drawn out of the subterranean deep.

41. The enraged demons flung up and hurled, the huge hills
to oppose the falling fires of the gods; which like a wild con�
flagration, melted down the hardstones to liquid water.

42. The demons spread a dark night in the sky, by the sha�
dow of their arms > which the gods destroyed by the artificial
flame of tightenings, blazing as so many suns in heaven.

43. The fire of the tightenings, dried up the waters of the

raining clouds; and the clashmg of arms, emitted a shower of
fire on all sides.

44. The shower of thunder-arms, broke down the battery

of mountain ramparts; and the moi^heous weapon of slumber
dispelled by that of its counteraction.

46. Some bore the sawing weapon, while others held the
Srahmdstia�the invincible weapon of warfare, that dispell�
ed the darkness of the field by its flashing.

' 46. The air was filled with shells and shots, emitted by the
fire-arms; and the machine of hurling stones, crashed the mis�
sile weapons of fire, (i^n^astra).

47. The war chariots uith there up-lifted flags and moon-
like disks, moved as clouds about the horizon, while their wheel
rolled with loud roaring under the vault of heaven.

48. The incessant thunders of heaven were killing the demons

in numbers, who were again restored to life by the gpreat art
of Sukra, that gave immortality to demoniac spirits*

49. The gods that were now victorious and now flying away

BTHITI EHANDA.

617
wiUi 1os8| wwe now lookmg to their good stars, and now to the
inanspicions ones in vain.

60. They looked upon heaven for signs of good and evil
with their uplifted heads and eyes, but the world appeared to them
as a sea of blood from the heaven above to the earth below.

51. The world seemed to them as a forest of full blown

mbicnnd (Einsuka) flowers, by the rage of their obstinate en�
mity, and appffiued as a sea o� blood filled with mountains of
dead bodies in it.

52. The dead bodies hanging pendant on the branches of

trees, appeared as their fruits moving to and fro by the
breath of winds.

68. The vault of the sky was filled with forests of long and
large arrows, and with mountains of headless trunks with
their hundred arms (as those of Briarius).

64. These as they leaped and jumped in the air, plucked the
donds and stars and the heavenly cats of the celestials with their
numerous arms; and hurled their mountain like missile arms and
clubs and arrows to the heaveiis.

66. The sky was filled with the broken fragments of the
edifices, falling from the seven spheres of heaven, and their
incessant fall raised a noise like the roaring of the deluvian
clouds.

66. These sounds were resounded by the elephants of the

deep (p&tdls); while the bird of heavon-ffaruda, was snatching
the gigantic demons as his prey.

67. The dread of the demons drove the celestial deities, the
Siddhas and S&ddays and the gods of the winds, together with
the Einnaras, Gandharvas and Ch^ranas, from all their di�
fferent quarters to one indistinct side. (There was no distinct-
tion of the sides in the chaotic state).

68. Then there blew a tremendous tornado like the all-des�

troying Boreas of universal desolation; laying waste the trees of
the garden of paradise, and threatening to destroy the gods;
while the thunders of heaven were splitting and breaking down
the mountains flung to the face of the sky.

CHAPTER XXVn

Admonition of Baahha.

Arf;nment. Tho defeated Devaa have recourse to Brahmd in their danger,

who tells them the way of their averting it.
y ASlSHTHA relatedAs the war of the gods and Titans,
was raging violently on both sides, and their bodies were
pierced by the weapons of one another.*�

2. Streamsof blood, gushed out of their wounds like water�

falls in the basin of Ganges; and the gods caught into the snares
of the demigods, groaned and roared aloud like lions.

� 3. Byala (Bdal) with his stretching arms, was crushing the

bodies of the gods; and Kata was harassing them in their unequal
'challenge with them,

4. The Daityas waged their battle with the rage of the mid�
day sun, and put to flight the Airavata elephant of Indra-the
leader of the gods.

5. The Devas dropped down with their bodies gored with

wounds, and spontting with blood i and their armies fled on all
sides, like the currents of a river overflowing and breaking down
its bank. ^

6. Ddina, Byla and Kata pursued the flying and run away
gods, in the same manner as a raging fire rnns after the wood
for its fuel.

7. The Asuras sought and searched long after the gods in

vain, for they bad disappeared like the dear and lions, among the
thickets after breaking loose of their snares.

8. Failing. to find out the gods, the generals Ddma, Bal

and Kata, repaired with cheerful hearts to their chief in his abode
in the infernal region.

0. The defeated gods after halting awhile, had then their

loconrse to the almighty Brahmd, inorder to consult him on the
means of gaining their victory over the demons.

8THITI KHANDA

519

10. Brabmd then appeared to the blood besmeared Devas \ritb

his purple countenance, as the bright and cooling moonbeams
appear in the ereing on the surface of the sea, tinged with the
crimson hues of the setting sun.

11. They bowed down before him, and complained of the

danger that was brought upon them by Sambaia, through his
generals Ddma, By^la and Kata, whose doings they fully related
to him.

15. The judging�Brahmd having heard and considered all

this, delivered the following encouraging words to the host of gods
before him.
13. Brahmd said "You shall have to wait a hundred thon>
sand, years more, for the destruction of Samvara under the arms
of Hari in an open engagement.*

14. You have been put to flight to-day by the demoniac

t)dma, Bydk and Kata, who have been fighting with their magi�
cal art (and deceitful weapons).

16. They are elated with pride at their great skill in warfare,
but it will soon vanish like the shadow of a man in a mirror.

16. These demons who are led by their ambition to annoy you,
will soon be reduced under your might, like birds caught in a
snare.

17. The gods being devoid of ambition, arc freed from the
vicissitudes of pain and pleasure; and have become invincible by
destroying the enemy by their patience.

18. Those that are caught and bound fast in the net of their
ambition, and led away by the thread of their expectation, are
surely defeated in their aims, and are caught as birds by a
string.

19. The learned that are devoid of desire, and are unattach�
ed to anything in their minds, are truly great and invincible,
as nothing can elate or depress them at any time.

* Hari in the form .of Krisna, destroyed the demons chief Sambara Qr
Eialiya under his feet j as the sou of God in the form of Christ, defeated
Batan and bruised his head under his feets.

620

YOGA V/SISHTHA.

20. A man however grent and experienced he may be, ia

easily overcome by a boy, when he is enticed to putsoe after
every thing by his avarice.

21. The knowledge that, this is I and these are mine and
apart from all others), is the bane of human life; and one
with snch knowledge of his self and egoism, becomes the recep�
tacle of evils like the sea of briny waters.

22. He who coniiii^ his mind within a narrow limit, for

want of his great and extended views, is called dastardly and

narrow-minded man notwithstanding with all his learning and
wisdom. (Why then do yon compress the unlimited soal, within
the limited nut-shell of your body ?).

23. He that puts a limit to his soul or dimd, which is

unbounded and infinite, both surely reduce his magnanimity
or garimi to the minuteness or anima by his own making.

24. If there be anything in the world beside the oneself,

that may be thine or worth thy desiring, thou mayst long
to have it; but all things being but parts of the Universe, there
is nothing particular for any one to have or seek.

25. Beliance on earthly things is the source of unhappiness,

while our disinterestedness with all things, is the fountain of
everlasting felicity.

26. As long as the Asnras are independant of worldly things,

they must remain invincible; hut being dependant on them,
they will perish as a swarm of gnats in the flame of wild fire.

27. It is the inward desire of man that makes him miserable

in himself, and became subdued by others; otherwise the
worm-like man is as firm as a rock. (Cringing avarice makes
one a slave to others, but its want makes a lion of a weak man),

28. Where there is any desire in the heart, it is thickened

and hardened in time; as every thing in nature increases in i1�
bulk in time; but not so the things that are not in existence,
as the want of desires (�. e. All what exists, has its increase
likewise, but a nullify can have no increase).

29. 1)9 you, O Indra! try to foster both the egoistic selfish-

STHITI KHANDA.

6Sl

nesi, as. well as the ambition of DAma and others for their uni�
versal dominion, if yon want to cause, their destruction.

80. Know, it is avarice which is the cause of the poverty,

and all dangers to mankind ; just as the Karanja tree is the
source of its bitter and pernicious fruits.

31. All those men who rove about under the bondage of
avarice, have bid farewell to their happiness, by subjecting
themselyes to misery.

32. One may be very learned and well-informed in every

thing, he may be a noble and great man also, but he is sure
to be tied down by his avarice, as a lion is fettered by his chain.

33. Avarice is known as the snare of the mind, which is

situated like a bird in its nest of the heart, as it is within the
hollow of the tree of the body.

84. The miserable man becomes an easy prey to the clutch�

es of death by his avarice, as a bird is caught in the birdline ,
by a boy, and lies panting on the ground owing to its greediness.
35. You gods, need not bear the burden of your weapons any
more, nor toil and moil in the held of war any longer; but try
your best to inflame the pernicious avarice of your enemies to the
utmost.

36. Know, O chief of the gods, that no arm nor weapon,

nor any polity or policy, is able to defeat the enemy, until
they are defeated of themselves by their want of patience,
through excess of their avarice.

37. These DAma, ByAla and Kata, that have become elated
with their success in warfare, must now cherish their n.mbit.iAn
and foster their avarice to their ruin.

88. No sooner these ignorant creatures of Sambara, shall

have gained their high desires, than they are sure to be foiled
by you in their vain attempts. (The great height must have its

. fall).

89. Now ye gods! excite your enemies to the war by your

policy, of creating in them an ambition and intense desire for
Gonqattt, and by this you will gain your object.

Vot. II.

622 YOGA VA-BISHTHA.

40. They being subjected by their desire, will be easily

subdued by you; for nobody that is led blindfold by his desires
in this world, is ever master of himself.

41. The path .of this world, is either even or rugged, accon*
ding to the good or restless desires of our hearts. The heart is
like the sea in its calm after storm, when its waves are still as
our subsided desires, or as boisterous as the stormy sea with oar
increasing rapacity.

CHAPTEE XXVra

Thb Ebkbwsq Battlb of tqb Gods abd Demons.

Aigament, The rising Desires of the Demons, causing them to rosunu

the Battle.

V ASISHTHA Continued:�Saying so, the god Brahmd

vanished from the sight of the gods, as the wave of the sea
retires and mixes with its waters, after having dashed and
crashed against the shore.

2. The gods, having heard the words of Brahmd, retomed

to their respective abodes ; as the breeze bearing the fragrance
of the lotus, wafts it to the forests on all sides.

3. They halted in their delightsome houses for somedays,

as the bees rest themselves in the cells of flowers after their
wanderings.

4t. Having refreshed and, invigorated themselves in the

coarse of time, they gave the alarm of their rising, with the
beating of their drum3,*8oanding as the peal of the last day.

5. Immediately the demons rose from the infernal regions,

and met the gods in the midway air, and commenced their dread*
ful onset upon them.

6. Then there was a clashing of the armours, and olattermg

of swords and arrows, the flashing of lances and spears, and thW.
crackling of mallets and various other wapons, as battle a^'
and discuses, thunderbolts, and hurling of rockstones a nd huge
trees and the like.

7. There was also many magical instruments, which nur-on

all sides like the torrents of rivers j while rocks and hilfi, high
mountains and huge trees, were flung and hmrled from both
sides, filling the earth with confused noise and mmbling.

8. The encampment of the gods, was beset by a magi<�l

flood of the demons, resembling the stream of tihe Gangts *
while showers of firearms and missiles of all sorts, were hurled
upon their heads from above.

624

YOG 4 VA'SISHTHA.

9. Many big bodies of the gods and demons, rose and fongbt
and fell by tnrns, as the elemental bodies of earth and the other
elements, rise to and disappear from view by the act of MAya
or illusion. (The enormous bodies of the warriors, fought
with one another in the same manner, as the jarring elements
clash against each other).

10. Big bombs broke the heads of mountains, and the earth
became a vast sheet of blood like a sanguine sea. The heaps
of dead bodies on both sides, rose as forests to the face of
heaven.

11. Living lions with iron bodies, and rows of saw-like

teeth and nails white as KAsa flowers, were let loose by the magio
art to roam rampant in the airy field; devouring the stonra,
flung by the Gods and demons, and bursting out into shells and
shots and many other weapons.

12. The serpentine weapons flew with their monntmnons

shapes in the ocean of the sky ; having their eyes flashing with
their venomous heat, and burning with the fire of the twelve
suns on the last day of desolation.

13. The hydraulic engine sent forth floods of weapons,

whirling as whirlpools, and sounding loud as the rattling thun�
der; and sweeping the hills and rocks in their current.

14. The stone missiles which were thrown by the Garuda

engine, to the aerial battle field of the Gods, emitted at inter�
vals water and fire, and sometimes shone as the sun, and at
others became altogether dark.

15. The Garuda weapons flew and roared in the sky, and the
fire-arms spread a conflict of burning hills above; the burning
towers of the gods fell upon the earth and, the world became
as unendurable as in its conflagration on the last day.

16. The demons jumped up to the sky from the surface of

the earth, as birds fly to heaven from mountain tops. The gods
fell violently on the earth,, as the fragment of a rock falls pre�
cipitately on the ground.

17. The long weapons sticking to the bodies t)f the deities

STHITI KHANDA.

625

and demons, were as bashes with their burning pain; thus their
big statures appeared as rocks decorated with arbors growing
upon them.

18. The gods and demons, roving with their mountainous

bodies, all streaming in blood, appeared as the evening clouds of
heaven, pouring the purple floods of celestial Gangd (Mand4kini).

19. Showers of weapons were falling as water-falls or showers

of rain, and the tide of thunders flowed as fast as the fall of
meteoric fire in promiscuous confusion.

20. Those skilled in the arts, were pouring floods of purple

fluids, mixed with the red clay of mountains, from the pipes of
elephant�s tranks j as they sputter the festive water of Phagua,
mixed with the red powder (phdga) through the syringe (phich*
k^ri). (The pouring, of holy (hori) water is a sacrament of
Krishnites, as well as of Christians j but this baptismal function of
Krishna among his comrades, is now become a mockery and
foolery even among the coreligionist-vaishnavites. The text ex�
presses it aa�punyaearsaaa or purifying sprinkling).

21. The Davas and Asuras, though worried by one another,

did not yet give up their hope of victory, but hurled the weapons
from their hands for mutual annoyance; and riding on the broad
backs of big elephants, they wandered in the air, spreading their
effulgence all around.

22. They then wandered in the sky like flights of inauspici�

ous locusts, with their bodies pierced in the beads, hands, arms,
and breasts, and filled the vault of the world like the flying clouds,
obscuring the sun and the sides of heaven, and the sui'face and
heights of the earth.

23. The earth was battered and rent to pieces by the frag�
ments of broken weapons, falling from the waists of the com�
batants, who assailed one another with their loud shouts.

24. The sky re-echoed to the thunder-claps of the mutual

strokes of the weapons, the clattering of the ston(� and trees,
and the blows of the warriors on one another, as it was the
bustle of the day of universal destruction.

25. The disordered world seemed to approach its untimely end,

586

70GA YA^SISHTHA.

by the blowitig of the furiouB winds mixed with fire and water
(as in the chaotic state); and the many suns of the deities and
demons, shining above and below, (as it is predicted of the dread�
ed last day).

86. All the quarters of heaven, seemed to he crying aloud,

with the sounds of the hurling weapons, rolling as mountmn
peaks; roaring as lions, and borne by the blowing winds on all
sides.

27. The sky appeared as an ocean of illusion, burning with

the bodies of the warriors like flaming trees, and rolling in sur�
ges of the dead bodies of the gods and demons, floating on it
like mountains; while the skirts of the earth, seemed as forest,
made by the clubs and lances and spears, and many other weapons
incessantly falling upon them.

28. The horizon was surrounded by the big and impenitrable

line of demoniac bodies, resembling the chain of Sumeru moun�
tain girding the earth; while the earth itself 'resembled the ocean
filled with the mountainous bodies of fallen warriors, and towers'
of the celestial cities blown down by the winds.

29. The sky was filled with violent sounds, and the earth
and its mountains, were washed by torrents of blood; the blood-'
sucking goblins danced on all sides, and filled the cavity of the
world with confusion.

30. The dreadful warfare of the gods and Titans, resemble^

ilie tumults which rage through the endless space of the world,
and that rise and fall with the vicissitudes of pleasure and pain,
which it is incessantly subject to. (t. e. The world is a, .field of
continued warfare of good and evil, like the battle-field of the
gods and demons).
CHAPTER XXIX.

Defeat of the Dehoks.

Argument. The Demons elated with the pride of their bodily strength,
are at last foiled and put to flight by the gods.

V ASISHTHA continued:�^In this manner, the energetic and

murderous Asnras, repeated their attacks and waged many
wars with the Gods.

2, They carried on their warfare sometimes by fraud and

often by their aggressiveness ; and frequently after a truce or
open war was made with the gods. They sometimes took
themselves to flight, and having recruited their strength, they
met again in the open field; and at others they lay in ambush,
and concealed themselves in their subterranean caves.

8. Thus they waged their battle for five and thirty years
against the celestials, by repeatedly fiying and withdrawing
themselves from the field, and then reappearing in it with their
arms.

4. They fought agsun for five years, eight months and ten
days, darting their fire arms, trees and stones and thunders upon
the gods.

S. Being used to warfare for so long a period, they at last

grew proud of their superior strength and repeated successes, and
entertained the desire of their final victory.

6. Their constant inractice in arms made them sure of their

success, as the nearness of objects casts their reflection in the
mirror. (Constant application mak^ one hopeful of success).

7. But as distant objects are never reflected in the glass,

so the desire for any thing, is never successful without intense
application .to it.

9. So when the desires of the demons Dima and others;

became identified with their selves, their souls were degraded

628 TOGA VA�SISHTHA.

from their greatness, and confined to the belief of the desired

objects.

9. All worldly desires lead to erroneous expectations, and

those that are entangled in the snares of their expectations, are
thereby reduced to the meanness of their spirits.

10. Falling into the errors of egotism and selfishness, they

were led to the blander of mdtatem or thinking these things as
mine; just as a man mistakes a rope for a snake.

11. Being reduced to the depravity of selfishness, they be�

gan to think their personalities to consist in their bodies, and to
reflect how their bodies from the head to foot could be safe and
secure from harm.

12. They lost their patience by continually thinking on the

stability of their bodies, and their properties and pleasures of life,
(t. e. The eager desire of worldly gain and good, grows into im�
patience at last).

13. Desire of their enjoyments, diminished their strength

and valour; and their former acts of gallantry now became
a dead letter to them.

14. They thought only how to become lords of the earth,

and thus became lazy and enervated, as lotus-flowers without^
water. (As the thought of grandeur enervated the Romans to^
impotence).

16. Their pride and egoism led their inclination to the plea�
sures of good eating and drinking, and to the possession of every
worldly good. (Luxury is the bane of valour).

16. They began to hesitate in joining the warfare, and

became as timid as the timorous deer, to encounter the forious
elephants in their ravages of the forest.

17. They moved slowly in dispair of their victory, and for

fear of losing their lives, in their encounter with the forious
elephants (of the gods) in the field.

18. These cowards wishing to preserve their bodies from the

hands of death, became as powerl^ as to rest satisfied with
having the feet of their enemies set up on their heeds. (*. s. Hiey

STHITI KHANDA. S29

fell, at the feet of their foes to spare their livra; (as they say |
that cowards die many times before their death).

19. Thus these enervated demons, were as disabled to hill

the enemy standing before them j as the fire is unable to consume
the sacred ghee offering, when it is not kindled by its fuel.

50. They became as gnats before the aggressive gods, and

stood with their iruited bodies like beaten soldier.

51. What needs saying more, than that the demons being
overpowered by the gods, fled away from the field of battle for
fear of their lives.

SS. When the demons D&ma, By&la, Kata and others, who
were renounced before the gods in their prowess, fled cowardly
in different ways j�

53. The force of the Daityas, fell before the deities, and fled
from the air on all sides, like the falling stars of heaven, at the
end of a kalpa age or last day (of judgment).
54. They fell upon the summits of mountains, and in the
arbours of the Sumera range; some were enwrapt in the
folds of the clouds above, and others fell on the banks of distant
seas below.

�5. Many fell in the cavities of the eddies of seas, and in

the abyss of the ocean, and in the running streams: some fell
into for distant forests, and other dropped down amidst the bur*
ning woods of wild fire.

�6. Some being pierced by the arrows of the celestials, fell

in distant countries, villages and cities on earth; and others
were hwfed in.thi(^ jungles of wild beasts, and in sandy deserts
and 'fef%ild conflagrations. (�. e. The demons were hurled down
by the gods from high heaven to the earth below).

�7. Many fell in the polar regions, some alighting on the

miouflliiin toj^and others sinidng in the lakes below; while
several of them were tossed over the countries of Andhra, Drd-
vida, Edshmir and Persia.

' �8. Some sanlk in billowy seas and in the watery, maze of

Vex. II{>� 67

�|p TQQA ViAltBHiraA.

Gangetb atd others fell on distant islands, in different'parts'of

the-Jamhndwipa, and in the nets of fisheivmen.

.29; Thus the enemies of the gods, lay- everywhere with

their monntainons bodies, all foil of* scarS' from head to

foot; and maimediin their handsand arms. -

%

30. Some were hanging on the branches of trees, by their

outstretched entrails, gashing oat with blood'; others with their
cropt oS crowns and heads, were lying on.tbe gronnd vnth
open and fiery eyes.

31. Many were lying with their broken armours and yreap*
ons, slashed by the superior power of the adversaiiy, and vrith
their robes and attire all dismantled and tom by their-&11.

32. Their helmets which were terrific by thor blaze, wne

hanging down their necks; and the braids of their hairs woven
with stones, hung loosely about their bodies.

S3. Their heads which were oovoredwith hard brazen and

pointed coronets, were broken by slabs of stone, which
were pelted upon them from the hands of the gods.

34. In this manner the demons were deriiroyed on all sides,,

together with all weapons at the end of the battle; whieh devo*
ured them, as the sea water dissolves the dust;
CHAPTER XXX.

AcCOUIZT 07 TBS SUBSEqUBKT LlVSS 07 THE DeHOHS.

Ai;gainen& Acoount of the tonnente of the Demons in the regions of

Plato, and their euoceeding births.

^ASISHTHA continued:�^Upon destruction of the demons^

I itbe gods were exceedingly jojrons; but Ddma and the<

other leaden of the Dutyas, became immerged in sorrow aaid
Rriirf.

2. Upon tiiis Sambara was full of wratli, and his anger was
kindled^ihe the all destroying fire against his generals, whom he
called aloud by their names and said, where are they ?

3. But they fled from their abodes for fear of his ire, and
hid themselves in the seventh sphere of the infernal regions,

4. There dwelt the horrid myrmidons of death, formidable as

their lord Pluto (Yama) himself; and who were glad with their
charge of gpiarding the abyss of bell.

6. Dauntless warders of the hell-gate received them into

their favour, and having given them shelter in the hell-pit,
gave them their three maiden daughters in marriage.

6. They there passed in their company, a period of ten thou�

sand years, and gave a free vent to their evil desires up to the end
of their lives. (The evil thoughts being the progeny of hell).

7. Their time passed away in such thoughts as these, t-ha t,

*'this is my consort and this my daughter, and I am their lord
and they were bound together in the ties of mutual affections
as strong as the chain of death.

8. It happened on one occasion that Yama�the god of retri>

butive justice, gave his call to that spot, in order to survey the
state of affairs in the doleful pits of hell.

9- The three Asuras, being unware of his rank and dignify,

(by seeing him unattended with his ensigns), failed to malrA their

632 YOGA VA^SISHTHA.

obaisanoe to the lord of hell, by taking him to thdr peril aa one

of his servahts.

10. Then a nod of his eyebrows, assigned to them a place in

the burning furnace of hell; where they were immediately cast
by the stem porters of hell gate.

11. There they lay burning with their wives and children,
until they were consumed to death, like a straw-hut and withered
trees.

12. The evil desires and wicked propensities, which they

contracted in the company of the helUch train, caused their
transmigration to the forms of Kirdtas, for carrying on their slau�
ghters and atrocities like the myrmidons of Yama.

13. Getting rid of that birth, they were next born as ravens,
and then as vultures and falcons of mountain caves, (preying on
the harmless birds below).

14. They were then transformed to the forms of hogs in

the land of Trigarta, and then as mountain rams in Magadha,
and afterwards of heinous reptiles in caves'and holes.

15. Thus after passing successively into a variety of other

forms, they arc now lying as fishes in the wood-land lakes of
Cashmir.

16. Being burnt in hell fire at first, they have now their
respite in the watery lake, and drink its filthy water, whereby
they neither die nor live to their hearts content.

17. Having thus passed over and over into various births,
and being transformed again and again to be reborn on earth,
they are rolling like waves of the sea to all eternity.

18. Thus like their endless desires, they have been eter�
nally rolling like weeds in the ocean of the earth; and there
is no end of their pains until the end of their disires.

CHAPTEE XXXI.

Invbbtiqatioh oy Rbalitt and Unreautt

Argument. Egoiem the cause of Poverty and Calamity, Ulnstrated in

the instance of Ddma and othera.

Y ASISHTHA continued :~It was for your enligWen-

meni, O high minded Edma I that I have related to you

the instance of Ddma and Bydia, that yon may derive instrucrion
thereby, and not let it go for nothing as a mere idle stoiy.

2. Following after nntrath by slighting the truth, is at�

tended with the danger of incurring endless miseries, which the
careless pmsuer after it, is little aware of.

S. Mind ! how great was the leadership of Sambara�s army,

(once held by Ddma and his colleagues), and whereby they de�
feated the hosts of the immortal deities, and reflect on the
change of their state to contemptible fishes in a dry and dirty
quagmire.

4. Mind their former fortitude, which put to flight the

legions of the immortals; and think on their base servility as
hunters, under the chief of Kirdtas afterwards.

6. See their unselfishness of mind and great patience at first,

and then see their vain desires and assumption of the vanity
of egotism at last.

6. Selfish egotism is the root of the wide extended branches

of misery in the forest of the world, which produces and bears
the poisonous blossoms of desire.

7. Therefore, O Edma I be deligent to wipe off from thy

heart the sense of thy egoism, and try to be happy by thinking
always of the nullity of thyself.

8. The error of egoism like a dark cloud, hidst the bright

disk of the moon of truth under its gloom, and causes its cool�
ing beams to disappear from sight.

834

TOGA VASISHTHA.

9. The three Daityas ByAla and Kata, being under

the demoniac inflnence of Egoism, believed their nonentity as
positive entity by the excess of their illusion.

10. They are now living as fishes in the muddy pool of a

lake, among the forest lands of BLashmira, where they are con�
tent at present with feeding with zest upon the moss and weeds
growing in it. (The watery land of B^hmir is wdl-known to
abound in fishes feeding on aqimtic herbs and moss).

11. BAma said:�^Tell me sir, how they came to existence

when they were nonexistent before; for neither can a nil he an
ens, nor an entity become a nonentity at any time.

12. Yasisbtha replied :�So it is, O strong armed BAmat

that nothing can ever be something, or anything can ever be
nothing. But it is possible for a little thing to be great, as for
a great one to be reduced to minuteness. (As it is the case in
the evolution and involutions of beings).

18. Say what nonentity has come to being, or what entity

has been lasting for ever. All these I will explain to yon by
their best proofs and examples.

14. BAma answered-Why sir, all that is existent is ever

present before us as our own bodies, and all things beside our�
selves ; but you are speaking of DAma and the demons, as
mere nullities and yet to be in existence.

15. Yes BAma, it was in the same way, that the non-existent
and unreal DAma and others seemed to be in existence by mere
illusion, as the mirage appears to us to be full of water by our
optical delusion (cur deception of vuAon).
16. It is in like manner that ourselves, these gods and
demigods, and all things besides, are unrealities in &ct, and yet
we seem to turn about and speak and act as real persons.

IT. My mdstence is as unreal as thine, and yet it appears as

real as we dream our death in sleep. (So we dream of our
existence while we are awake).

18. As the tight of a dead friend in a dream is not a reality,

so the notion of the reality of the world, ceases upon the eon-

STEITI EHANDA.

535

viction of its unreality, as that of the demise of the person seen

in a dream.

19. But snch assertions of oar nihility are not acceptable to

them, who are deluded to the belief of the reality of sensible
objects. It is the habit of thinking its reality, that will not
listen to its contradiction.

20. This mistaken impression of the reality of the world,

is never to be effaced without the knowledge of its unreality,
derived from the Sdstras, and the assuetude of thinking it so.

21. He who preach^ the unreality of the world and the'

reality of Brahma, is derided by the ignorant as a mad man;
(for his negation of the seeming reality, and assertion of- the
unseen God).

22. The learned and the ignorant cannot agree on this sub�
ject, as the drunken and sobermen can not meet t(^ether. It
is one who has the distinct knowledge of light and darkness, that
knows the difference between the shade and sunlight.

23. It is as impossible to turn the ignorant to truthj from'

their beli^ in the reality of unrealities, as to mi&e a dead body
to stand on it 1^ by any effort.

24. It is in vain to preach the doctrine of ** to panf \aiaalb

Brahma is all'' to the vulgar, who for want of their knowledge

of abstinct meditation, are devoted-to their sensible notions.

26.. There prohibition is a admonition, giving to the ig�

norant, (who are incapable of persuations); as for- the learned
who know themselves to be Brahma,-it is useless to lecture them
on this subject (which they-are already acquainted with).

26. The intdligent man, who belives that the supremely'

qnisaeent spirit of Brahma^ pervades the whole universe, is-not'
to be led away by any from his firm belief.

27.. So nothing can shidEe the' faith of that man, who

kneWB' hiaseif asinoiother, beside the Supreme Being who-is-^
in all '} and-thinks^himnlf to>be dependant on the snbstan'tiality'
of God,.aathe:formal ring^^pendB on its substance of gold;

28. The ignorant have'no notion of the spirit; beside that

636

YOGA VABI8HTHA.

of matter, which they believe as the cause and effect (Edrya

Edrana) of' its own production; but the learned man sees the
substantive spirit, in all forms of creation, as he views the
substance of g'old in all the ornaments made of that metal.

29. The ignorant man is composed of his egoism only, and

the sage is fraught with his spirituality alone; and neither of
them is never thwarted from his own belief.

80. What is one�s nature or habit (of thinking), can hardly

be altered at any time; for it would be foolish in one, who has
been habituated to think himself as a man, to take himself for a
pot or otherwise.

31. Hence though ourselves and others, and that Dima and
the demons are nothing in reality; yet who can believe that we
or these or those and not what ourselves to be.

82. There is but One Being that is really existent, who is

truth and consciousness himself, and of the nature of the vacuum
and pure understanding. He is immaculate, all pervading,
quiracent and without his rise or fall.

83. Being perfect quietude and void, he seems as nothing

existent; and all these creations subsist in that vacuity as
particles of its own splendour.

64. As the stars are seen to shine resplendent in the darkness

of night, and the worms and waves are seen to float on the
Burf&e of the waters, so do all these phenomena appear to occur
in his reality.

85. Whatever that being purposes himself to be, he conceives

himself to be immediately the same: it is that vacuous
Intellect only which is the true reality, and all others are also
real, as viewed in it and rising and setting in it out of its own
will (volition or bidding).

36. Therefore there is nothing r^ or unreal in the three

worlds, but all of or the same form as it is viewed by the In>
ellect, and rising before it of its own spontaniety. (Ihe three
worlds are composed of this earth and the worlds above and
beneath it, called as swarga-martya and patala).

STHKTl EHANDA.

.B37

37, We lutte also sprung from tbat WiU Divine as Ddma

and others; hence there is neither any reality or unreality in
any of us, except at the time (when we exist or cease to do so).

38. This infinite and formless void of the Intellect is

ubiquitous and all pervading; and in whatever form this intellect
manifests itself in any place, it appears there just in the same
figure and manner.

30. As the divine consciousness expanded itself with the

images� of Ddma and others, it immediately assumed those
shapes by its notions of the same. (But here it was the consci*
ousness of Samvara or Satan, which manifested itself in those
shapes, and implies every thing to be but a manifestation of our
notion of it).

40. So it is with every one of us, that all things are produced
to our view, according to their notions which are presented to
our consciousness. (This is the tenet of conceptualism or idea*
lism, which bears resemblance to the doctrine of Bealism. Sec
Cousin�s treaties �De Intellectibus �).

41. What we cail the world, is the representation of things

to us as in our dream; it is a hollow body as a bubble rising in the
empty ocean of the Intellect, and appearing as the water in the
mirage.

42. The waking state of the vacuous intellect, is styled the

phenomenal world, and its state of sleep and rest, is what we
call liberation, emancipation or salvation from pain (dtyantika
duikha nivriUi mokaAa).

43. But the Intellect which never sleeps, nor has to be

awakened at any time (but is ever wakeful), is the vacuity of
the Divine Mind, in which the world is ever present in its
visible form, (and to which nothing is invisible).

44. There the work of creation is united with the rest of

ntrvdna, and the cessation from the act of creation, is joined
with uninturrupted quiescence; and no difference of alternate
work and rest whatever subsists in God any time. (There is no
such thing as ''God rested from his works �).

voL. n.

68
mk mmm.

45, Tbe Dirine Intellect views its ownfonnitttliew6iljj

and tbe world in itself in its true sense; as the blinded eye sees
the internal light io its orbit. (?)

46. The Divine Intellect like the blinded eye^ sees nothing
from without, but views every form within itself; because there

is no visible nor phenomek world, beside what is sitited

within the vacnons sphere of the intellect.

41. There are all these things every where, as we have ideas
of them in our minds; bat there is never any thing any where, o!
which we have no previous idea in the mind. It is the one quiet
spirit of God, which lies ettended in all these forms coming to
DOT knowledge. Therefore knowing him as aU in all, give up
all your fears and sorrows and duality, rest in peace in his unity,

48. The great intellect of God, is as solid and dear as a

block of crystal, which is both dense and transparent in the in>i
side. They appear to be all hollow within, hut replete with the
images of all things from without.

CHAPTER XXXn.

0� Good Conddct.

Argameni Passing from the meaner to higher births, is the way te

the attainment of Liberation, and supreme felicity.

R A.MA sudTell me sir, how Ddma, Bdyla and Kata ob*

tained thmr liberation at last like all other virtnons sonls,^
and got released from the torments of hell, like children getting
rid of the fear of Yakshas and Pisfiohas.

2. Yasishtba replied:�Hear, O thou support of Raghu�s

race 1 what Yama said in respect of Ddma, By&laand their com�
panions, when they besought for their liberation through his
attendants in hell.

S. That Ddma and others would obtain their liberation, upon

their release from their demoniac bodies by death; and upon
hearing the account of their lives and actions.

4. Rdma saidTell me sir, how, when and from what-

source, D4ma and others, came to learn the accounts of their
lives, and in what manner they obtained their release from hell,

6. Vasishtha repliedThese demons being transformed to

fishes in a pool, by the bank of the great lotus lake in Kashmere,
underwent many miserable births, in their finny forms in' the
same bog.

6. Being then crushed to death in that marshy ground under

the feet of buffaloes, they were transformed afterwards to the
shapes of cranes, frequenting that lake of lotuses.

7. There they fed upon the moss and mushrooms and tender
petals of lotuses, and had to live upon the leaves of aquatic
plants and creepers, that floated on the surface>f;the;wave8.

8, They swung in cradles of flowers, and rested on beds of

blue lotuses; and dived in vortices of the waters, or flew under
the cooling showers of rainy clouds.

9. These charming cranes i^ul herons, were at last becleansed

640 TOGA VA13ISHTHA.

of their bnitlsh foulnhss, by their vegetable food of svreet fruits

and floirers, and by their pure beverage of the crystal lake, ths
food of holy saints.

10. Having by these means obtained a clear understanding,

they were prepared for their release from the brutish state, as
ipen when enabled to distinguish and get hold of the qualities of
Satya and rtyas (i. e. of goodness and virtue), from that of tama�
or wrong and evil, are entitled to their liberation.

11. Now there is a city by name of Adhisthdna, in the

happy valley of Kashmere, which is beset by mountains and trees
on all sides, and very romantic in its appearance.

12. There is a hill in the midst of that city known as Fra<

dyumna Sekhara, which bears resemblance to a pistil, rising from
the pericarp within the cell of a lotus-flower.

13. On the top of that hill, there is an edifice towering

above all other buildings; and piercing the s^ with Us high
turrets, which appears like pinnacles above its summit.

14. On the north-east corner of that edifice, there is a hollow

at the top of its towering head; which is overgrown with moss,
and is continually resounding to the blowing winds.

15. There the demon Sydla built his nest in the form of
a sparrow, and chirped his meaningless notes, as one repeats
the Vedic hymns without knowing their meanings. (This chant*
ing is elsewhere compared with the oroasking of frogs).

16 There was at that time a prince in the same city, by name

of Yatatkara or the renowned, who reigned there like Indra over
the gods in heaven.

17. Then the demon Ddma became a gnat and dwelt in

that dwelling, and continued to buzz his low tone in the crevice
of a lofty column of that building.

18. It then came to pass, that the citizens of Adhishthdni^

prepared a play ground by name of Batndvati-vehsra in that
city.
19. ^here the minister of the king known as Narasinha by
name, took bis residence. Ho understood the fates of human

B T H ITI KHANDA 541

kind, u iht Mtronoiner knows the stars of heaven on a small

oelestial ^be, which he holds in his hand.

20. It; happened at that time, that the deceitfnl demon Kata,
is as reborn as a parrot, and became the favourite of the minister,
by being kept in a silver cage in his honse.

21. It then turned out that the minister recited this poetical
narrative of the Titan war to the inmates of the house.

22. And the parrot Kata, happening to hear it, remembered

his past life, whereby he was absolved of his sins, and attained his
final liberation.

23., The sparrow dwelling on the top of the Fradynmna bill,

also chanced to hear the narration of his life in that place, and
obtained his emancipation thereby.

24. Ddma who in the form of a gnat, resided in the palace,

happened also to hear the minister�s recital of his tide, and
obtained thereby his peace and release.

25. In this manner, O Bdma! the sparrow on the Frady*

umna mount, the gnat in the palace, and the parrot on the play
ground, had all their liberation.

26. Thus I have related to you the whole of the story of the
demon Ddma and others, which will fully convince you of the
vanity of the world.

27. It is the ignorant only that are tempted to vanity � by

their error, as they are led to the delusion of water in a mirage j
and so the great also are liable like these demons, to fall low from
their high stations by their error.

28. Think of one of these, that reduced the high Meru and
Mandara mountains with a nod of his eye brows, was constrained
to remain as a contemptible gnat in the chink of a pillar in the
palace. (So the huge Satan entered the body of the small and
hateful sei^ent, and the gigantic devils in the hateful bodira of
the herd of swine).

29. Look at another who threatened to destroy the sun and

moon with a slap, living at last as a poor sparrow in a hole of
tbs peak of the Fiadyumna mountam.

642
TOGA YA^ISHTHA.

SO. Look at the third who balanced the moantMera like

a flower honqnet in his hand, lying imprisoned as a parrot in the
cage at the house of Nrisingha.

31. When the sphere of the pure intellect, is tinged with the
hue of egotism, it is debased to another form without changing
its nature (by another birth).

82. It is because of the wrong desire of a man that he takas

the untruth for truth, as if by the excessive thirst of a person,
that he mistakes the mirage for water, and thereby loses both
his way and his life.

S3. Those men only can ford across the ocean of the world,
who by the natural bent of their good understanding, are inclined
to the study of the Sdstras, and look forward to their liberation,
by rejecting whatever is vicious and untrue.

84. Those who are prone to false reasoning and here^, by

rejecting the revelations, are subject to various changes and
miseries, and fall like the running water into the pit, by loss of
their best interests in life.

35. But those who walk by the dictates of conscience, and

follow the path pointed by the A'gama (Veda); are saved from
destruction, and attain their best state (of perfection and
bliss).

36. O highminded Rdma! he whose mind always longs after

having this thing and that, loses the best gain of his manliness
(parama parnshdrtha) by his avarice, and leaves not even ashes or
traces behind.

37. The high-minded man regards the world as a straw, and

shuns all its concerns as a snake casts off its slough.

38. He whose mind is illumined by the wondrous light of

truth, is always taken under the protection of the gods, as the
mundane egg is protected by Brahmd: (or rather under the wings
of Brabmd�s s\van,hatohing over its eg^).

89. Nobody should walk in paths which are long and wwt*
risome, crooked and winding, and encompassed by daqgets and

STHITI EBANDA.

'di�Sctilt{es; f>eoaa8e ftiha�the ascending node, lost its Efe by its

couihnliilear course, to drink the nectarine beams o� the moon.

40. He who abides by the dictates of the true s^stras, and

associates with the best of men, are never subject to the darkness
of error.
41. Those who are renowned for their Virtues, hate the
power to bring their destiny under their command, convert all
^mr evils to good, and render their prosperity perpetual.

42. Those who are unsatisfied with their qualifications (but

wish to qualify themselves the more), and those who thirst after
knowledge and are Seekers of truth, are truly called as human
beings, all others are but brutes.

43. Those, the lakes of whose hearts are brightened by the

moonbeams of fame, {i. e. whose heart are desirous of fame);
have the form of Hari seated in their hearts, as in the sea of
milk.

44. The reapted desire of enjoying what has been enjoyed,

and of seeing what has often been seen, is not the way to get
rid of the world; but is the cause of repeated birth, for the same
enjoyments.

45. Continue to abide by the established rule of conduct, act

according to the Sdstras and good usages, and break off the bonds
of worldly enjoyments, which are all but vanities.

46. Let the world resound with the renown of your virtues
reaching to the skies; because thy renown will immortalize thy
name, and not the enjoymento thou hast enjoyed.

47. Those whose good deeds shine as moonbeams, and are

snng by the maidens of heaven, are said to be truly living, while
all others unknown to fame are really dead.

48. They that aspire to their utmost perfection by their un*

failing exertions, and act according to the precepts of the Sdstras,
are surely sucessful in their attempt.

49. Abiding patiently by the S4stra, without hastening for

success; and perfecting one�s self by long practice, produce the
ripe fruits of consummation.

544

TOai ViAlSSfHA.

50. Now B&ms, renounce all your eorrow and fear, year tn*
kieties, pride - and hastiness; condnct yourseU by the ordinanoei
o� law and s^stras, and immortalize your name.

61. Take care, that your sensuous soul do not perish as a

prey in the snare of your sensual appities, nor as a blind old
man by falling in the hidden pits of this world.

52. Do not allow yourself henceforward to be degraded

below thq vulgar j hut consider well the sdstras as the best
weapons, for defeating the dangers and difficulties of the world.
63, Why do you endanger your life in the muddy pit of
this world, like an elephant falling in a pitfall under the keen
arrows of the enemy ? Avoid only to taste of its enjoyments,
and you are free from all danger.

64. Of what avail is wealth without knowledge; therefore

devote yourself to learning, and consider well your riches to he
.but trash and bubbles.

66. The knowledge of heretical S&tras; has made beasts of

�. men, by making them only miserable and unhappy by their
unprofitable arguments.

66. Now wake and shake off the dullneai of your long, deep
' find death like sleep, like the torpor of the old tortoise lying in
�the bog.

: 57. Bise and accept an antidote to ward off your old age and
death; and it is knowledge of this prescription, that all wealth
and property are for our evils, and all pleasures and enjoyments,
tend only to sicken and enervate our frames.

68. Know your dfficulty to be your prosperity, and your dis�

respect to be your great gain. Conduct yourself according to
the purport of the sdstras, as they are supported by good usage.

59. Acts done according to the sdstras and good usage also,
are productive of the best fruits of immortality.

60. He who acts well according to good usage, and considers

everything by good reasons, and is indifferent to the pains and
fileasures of the world; such a one flourishes like an arbor in the
spring, with the fruits and flowers of long life and fame, Tirtnes

. and good qualities and prosperity.

CHAPTER XXXin.

CONSIDEUATION OF EoOTSJt.

Argamont. Of good attempts, good company and good studios; also of

liberation by llenunciation of Egoism and ViTorldy Bondage.

Y ASISHTHA Continued Seeing tlie eompleto success o�

every undertaking, depending on your own exertion at all
times and places, you should never be slack in your energy at all,

2. See how Nandi gratified the wishes of all his friends and
relations by his own exertions, and how he became victorious over
death itself, by his adoration of MahAdeva by the side of a lake.

3. See also, how the Ddnavas too got the better of the gods,
who were fraught with every perfection, by their greater wealth*
and prowess, as the elephants destroy a lake of lotuses.

4. See, how Maruttd the King of demons, created another

world like that of Brahmd, by means of his sacrifice through the
great sage Samvarta (the law giver).

6. See, how Viswdmitra (the military chief) obtained the dig-

nity of Brahmanhood by his great energy and continued exer�
tions. He obtained by his austerities what is impossible to be
gained by another.

6. Sec, how the poor and unfortunate Upamanyu, obtained his

neotarious food of the cake and curdled milk, by his worship of
Siva, from the milky ocean in days of yore.

7. See how the god Vishnu devoured (destroyed), like a wild

fire the demons of the triple world, likening the tender
filaments of lotuses; and how the sage Sweta became victorious
over death by means of his firm faith in Siva (as it is described
in the Linga Purina).

8. Remember, how the chaste Sdvitri, brought back her

spouse Satyavdna from the realm of death, by her prciYailing on
stern Yama with the suavity of her discourse.

Vox,, II.

69

646

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

9. There is no great exertion of any kind that goes unrewardo

ed in this world ; all impossibility is thought possible by ardent
pursuit after it, (or to the ardent pursuer, as it is said; Fortune ia
found by the swiftest pursuer).

10. So men having-full knowledge of the spirit, and ex�

erting their utmost devotion, are enabled to root out their destiny
of transmigration, which isfraught with so much pain and
pleasure, (both of which are equally hurtful to the soul).

11. All visible things arc full of danger to the sight of the
intelligent. There is no pleasure to be had from anything,
without its concommittant pain, (cither preceding or following it).

12. Though it is difficult to know the Supreme Brahma, and

facile to attain supreme felicity j yet should Brahma be sought
at first, as the giver of ail felicity. (Seek happiness through its
giver�the Great God).

13. Forsake your pride, and rely on your unalterable peace

of mind; consider well your worthiness in your understanding,
and stick to your attendance on the wise and good.

14. There is no other way for your salvation in this ocean of

the world, save by your attendance on the wise. All your pil�
grimage, austerity and learning of the Sdstras, are of no avail
to your liberation.

15. lie is called the wise, whose greediness, anger and erro-.
neons conceptions, arc on their wane day by day; and who walks
in the path of rectitude, as it is inculcated in the Sdstra.

16. The society of spiritual guides, serves to dispel the visi�

bles from the sight of the devout, as the invisibly are hidden from
sight, (i. e. as they are not in being).

17. In the absence of all other objects, there remains the Su�
preme Spirit alone in view, and the human soul having nothing
else to rest upon, rests at last in the Supreme Soul only.

18* The visibles did not exist before, nor are th^ produced
from naught j they are not in existence though seen in our pre
sence, nor ^re they to exist in future. The supreme alone
exist for ever without change or decay.

STHITI HANDA.

647

19, I hare already eliown you by various instances the false�

hood of the visibles (in the book of Genesis) j I will now show
yon the falsity of existence, as it is known to the learned..

�0. Now that our passive consciousness of the three worlds,,

being the sober truth with the wise, there can bo no room for-
the unrealities of matter and mdyd-iSlxmaa, to enter into our
belief. (Wo know nothing of the external world, except our
inward consciousness of it. Berkeley).

81. Whatever wonders are displayed by the active intellect

to the inactive souVthe same is thought to be the world. (There
is no outward world, beside the working of the intellect).

88. The notion of the sphere of the world, is derived from

the rays of the central intellect, stretching to the circumference
of the understanding, and there being no difference between the
radiating point and the radiated circle, acknowledge the iden�
tity of the radiator, the radii and the perephery. (t. e. Of the
intellect, its intelligence and the world).

83. The twinklings of the intellectual eye in its acts of open�

ing and shutting, cause the notions of the appearance and dis�
appearance of the world in continued succession.

84. One unacquainted with the true sense of Ego, is blind

amidst the luminous sphere of the intellect, but he who knows
its true meaning, finds himself amidst the sphere of spiritual
light, (or rather loses himself in the divine light).

85. He that understands the Divine Ego, docs no more re�

tain the notion of his own egoism; but mixes with the Supreme
soul, as a drop of water is lost in the waters of the ocean.

86. In reality there exists no 1 or thou nor the visible world

nor anything else; but all these blend upon right reasoning in
the One Ego, which remains and subsists after all other existen�
ces.

87. Even clear understandings are sometimes clouded by false

apparitions, as those of ogres &o; when there are no such things,
just as children are seized with false fear of goblins.

88. As long as the moonlight of the intellect, is obscured

548

TOGA VA'SISHTHA.

by the darkness oC egbism, so long tiie Iotas lake o� spirituality,

will not come to its bloom.

29. Tho feeling of egoism being wiped off from tbe mind,
the sense of self and scliish passions, will vanish of themselves
from the heart j and there will bo an utter end of the fears of
death and hell, as also of tho desires of heaven and liberation.

30. So long as the egoistie feelings float about, like clouds

over the sphere of the mind, there will be no end of desires, grow�
ing in the heart like weeds in the plains.

31. As long as the cloud of egotism continue to overcast the

mind and obscure its intelligence, the humidity of dullness
will fill its sphere, and prevent the light of intellect to pierce
through it.

32. Egoistic pride is unmannerly in men, and is taken in the

light of vanity, it is the cause of sorrow and not delight; and
is as bug-bears to boys.

33. The vain assumption of egoism, is productive of a great

many errors, it leads to the ambition of gaining an infinity of
worlds, as it was in the cases of the foolish demons.

34. The conceit that I am such and such (a great man), is

an error than which there is none other, nor is ever likely to be
a greater error to lead us to utter darkness.

35. Whatever joy or grief betides us at any time in this

cliangcful world, is all the effect of the rotatory wheels of egoism,
turning up and down at every moment.

36. He who weeds and roots out the germs of egoism from
his heart, he verily prevents the arbor of his worldliness {Sam-
dra VriksAa), from jutting out in a hundred branches.
87. Egoism is the sprout of the trees of our lives, in their
interminable revolutions through the world j and meity or the
sense that '�this is mine," is the cause that makes them expand in
a thousand branches. (1 am one, but claim many things as
mine).

38. Swift as the flight of birds, do our desires and desirable

objects disappear from us; and upon mature consideration, they

STHITI KHANDA

549

prove to be bat babbles, bursting on tbo evanescent waves of our

lives.

89, � It is for want of the knowledge of the one Ego, that wo

think ourselves as I, tbon, this or the other; and it is by shut�
ting out our view of the only soul, that wo see the incessant re�
volutions of this world and that.

40. As long as the darkness of egoism reigns over the wil�

derness of human life, so long doth the goblin of selfishness
infest it with its wanton revelry,

41. The vile man that is seized by the avaricious demon of

selfishness, is at an ntter loss of any moral precept j and any
mdntra of his religion to satisfy his wants.

42. Edma said:�^Tell me, O venerable Brdhman, how wo

may be enabled to suppress our egoism or selfishness, for evading
the dangers and difficulties in our course through the world.

43. Vasishtha replied:�^It is by seeking to settle mind

in the resplendent soul, as it shines in the transparent mirror of
the intellect, that it is possible for any body to suppress the cons�
ciousness, of his self or i>ersonal existence. (��. e. By losing one�s
self in the self-existence of the Supreme Soul).

44. A closer investigation into human life, proves it to be a

maze full with the false shows of magic. It is not worth loving
or bating, nor capable of causing our egoism or pride.

45. He whose soul is free from egoism, and devoid of tho

impression of tho phenomcnals; whose course of life runs in an
even tenor, is the man who can have no sense of egoism in him.
(Whoso life doth in one even tenor run, and end its days as it has
begun. Pope.)

46. He who knowing his internal shlf to bo beyond the

external world, and neither desires nor dislikes anything in it, but
preserves the serenity of his temper at all times, is not susceptible
of egoism.

47. Whoso thinks himself to be the inward noumena, and

distinct from the outward phenomena, and keeps the calm equa�
nimity of his mind, is not raffled by the feeling of his egoism.

550

YOGA ViSlSHTHA

48. Bdma said;�^Tell me, sir, what is the form of egoism,

and whether it consists in the body or mind or of both of these,
and whether it is got rid of with the riddance of the body,

49. Vasishtha replied:�^There are three sorts of egoism,

Bdma I in this triple world, two of which are of superior nature*
but the third is of a vile kind and is to be abandoned by all.

60. The first is the supreme and undivided Ego, which is diff�
used throughout the world; it is the Supreme soul (Paramd*
tma), beside which there is nothing in nature.

51. The feeling of this kind of egoism, leads to the liberation

of men, as in the state of the living-liberated; but the know�
ledge of the ego, as distinct and apart from all, and thought to
be as minute as the hundredth part of a hair, is the next form
of self-consciousness, which is good also.

52. This second form of egoism, leads also to the liberation

of human souls, even in the present state of their existence,
known as the state of living-liberation (Jivan�Mukta).

53. The other kind of egoism, which is composed of the

knowledge of the body, with all its members as parts of the Ego,
is the last and worst kind of it, which takes the body for the soul
or self.

64. This third and last kind, forms the popular belief of man�
kind, who take their bodies as parts of themselves ,* it is the
basest form of egoism, and must be forsaken in the same manner,
as we shun our inveterate enemies.

66. The man that is debased by this kind of egoism, can

never come to his right sense; but becomes subject to all the evils
of life, under the thrall of the powerful enemy.

56. Fossest with this wrong notion of himself, every man

is incessantly troubled in his mind by various desires, which ex�
pose him to ail the evils of life.

57. By means of the better egoisms, men transform them�

selves to gods; but the common form of it, debases a man to the
state of a beast and its attendant evils.

^ 68. That I am not the body, is the certmnty arrived at by

8THITI KHANDA.

561

the great and good, who believing themselves to be o� the first

two kinds, are superior to the vulgar.

69. Belief in the first two kinds, raises men above.the com>
mon level; but that in the lower kind, brings every misery on
mankind.

60. It was owing to their baser egoism, that the demons

Ddma, VyAIa and others, were reduced to that deplorable State,
as it is related in their tale.

61. <�Bdma saidTell me, sir, the state of that man, who by
discarding the third or popular kind of egoism from his mind,
attains the well being of his soul in both the present and future
worlds.

63. Vasishtha repliedHaving cast off this noxious egoism,

(which is to be got rid of by every body), a man rests in the Su�
preme Spirit in the same manner, as the believers in the two
other sorts of it. (t. e. Of the Supreme and superior sorts of
spiritual egoisms, consisting in the belief of one�s self, as the im�
personal or personal soul�the undivided or individual spirit).

63. The two former views of egoism, place the egotist

in the all pervasive or all exclusive spirit; (in the Ego of the
Divine Unity).

64. But all these egoisms which are in reality but differ�
ent forms of dualism, being lost in the unity, all conciousness
of distinct personality, is absorbed in the Supreme monoity.

65: The good understanding should always strive to its ut�

most, to get rid of its common and gross egotism, inorder to feel
in itself the ineffable felicity of the unity.

66. Benunciation of the unholy belief of one�s self person�

ality in his material body, is the greatest good that one can at�
tain to for his highest state of felicity paranza padam.

67. The man that forsakes the feeling of his egoism (or per�
sonality) from his mind, is not debased nor goes to perdition by�
either his indifference to or management of worldly affairs (t. e.
The doing of refraining from bodily or worldly actions, is equally
indifferent to the philosophic mind).

562

TOGA VASISHTHA.
68. The m''n who has got rid of his egoism by the subsi*
dence of his selllshness ia himself, is indifferent to pain and
pleasure, as tbs satiate are to the taste of sweet or sour,

69. The man detesting the pleasures of life, has his full bliss
presented before himself; as the mind cleared of its doubts and
darkness, has nothing hidden from its sight.

70. It is by investigation into the nature of egoism, and

forsaking this gross selfishness, that a man crosses over the ocean
of the world of his own accord.

71. The man who -having nothing of his own, and knowing
himself as nothing, yet has all and thinks himself as all in all,
and who though possessed of wealth and properties, has the mag�
nanimity of his soul to disown them to himself j he is verily
situated in the Supreme soul, and finds his rest in the state of Sub-
preme bliss, . (i. e. The world is the Lord�s, and human soul
as a particle of the Divine, has its share in all and every thing).

CHAPTER XXXIV.

End of the Stout of Dama and BrAtA.

Argument. The Gods annoyed by Bhfma and others apply to Hari,

Who thereupon destroys them with Samvara also.

Y ASISHTHA continued:�^Now, hear me relate to you, what

Samvara did after the flight of DAma and his train; and
how he remained in his rocky stronghold in the infernal
region (Pdt&la).

%. A fter the complete overthrow of the v^hole army of Sam�

vara, and their downfall from heaven like innumerable rain-drops,
falling from an over-spreading cloud, and afterwards dispersing
itself and disappearing in autumn

8. Samvara remained motionless for many years in his strong

citadel, at the loss of his forces defeated by the gods } and then
thought within himself, about the best means of overcoming the
celestials.

4. He said, "the demons Ddma and others, that I produced

by my black-art of exorcism, are all overthrown in battle, by
their foolishness and vanity of pride and egotism.

5. "I will now produce some other demons by the power of

my charm, and endue them both with th6 power of reason and
acquaintance with spiritual science, in order that they may know
and judge for themselves.

6. �These then being acquainted with the true nature of

things, and devoid of false views, will not be subject to pride
or vanity, but be able to vanquish the deities in combat".

7. Thinking so In himself, the arch-flend produced a host of

good demons by his skill in sorcery; and these creatures of hiS
spell filled the space of the sky, as bubbles foam and float on
the surface, of the sea.

8. They were all knowing and acquainted with the know-

Von. II. I

564

YOQA VASISHTHA.

ables; they were all dispassionate and sinless, and solely intent on
their alloted duties, with composed minds and good dispositions.

9. They were known under the different names of Bhima,

Bh&ha and Dridhaj and they looked iipoa all earthly things

as straws, by the holiness of their hearts.

10. These infernal spirits burst out of the ether and sprang
up to the upper world, and then spread orer the face of the
sky as a flight of locusts. They cracked as gpins, and roared
and rolled about as the clouds of the rainy season.

11. They fought with the gods for many cycles of years,
and yet they were not elated with pride, owing to their being
under the guidance of reason and judgement.

12. For until they were to have the desire of having any*
thing, and thinking it as "this is my own,�' so long were they in�
sensible of their personal existence, such os "this is I, and that
one is another;� aud consequently invincible by any. (Selfish�
ness reduces to slavery and subjections).

13. They were fearless in fighting with the gods, from the
knowledge of their being equally mortal as themselves; and from
their want of the knowledge of any difference subsisting between
one another, (i. e. They regarded themselves and their adversaries
with an equal eye of indifference, as all were equally doomed to
death, and therefore never feared to die.

14. They rushed out with a firm conviction that, the un�
substantial body is nothing, and the intellect is lodged in the
pure soul; and that their is nothing which we call as I OT
another.

15. Then these demons who were devoid of the sense of

themselves and their fears were necessarily dauntless of the
fear of their decease or death; and were employed in their pre�
sent duties, without the thoughts of the past and future.

16. Their minds were attached to nothing, they slew their

enemies without thinking themselves as their slayers; they did
their duties and thought themselves as no doers of them; aoid
they were utterly free from all their desires.
STHITl KHANDA.

655

17. They waged the war under the sense of doing their
duty to their master ; while their own nature was entirely free
from all passion and affection, and of even tenor at all times.

18. The infernal force under the command of Bhfma,

Bhdsha and Dridha, braised and burned and slew and devoured
the celestial phalanx, as men knead and fry and boil the rice
and afterward eat up as their food.

19. The celestial army being harassed on all sides by Bbima,

Bhdsha, and Dridha, fled precipitately from the height of heaven^
as the Ganges runs down from Himalayan height.

90. The discomfited legion of the deities, then resorted te

the god Hari, sleeping on the surface of the ocean of milk; as
the bodies of the clouds of heaven, are driven by the winds to the
tops of mountains; (beyond the region of storm).

21. The god lying folded in the coils of the serpent, as a

consort in the arms of his mistress; gave the gods their hope of
fintd success in future. (Hari or Krishna on the serpent, is
typical of Christ's bruising the head of the Satanic serpent).

22. The gods kept themselves hid in that ocean, until it

pleased the lord Hari, to proceed out of it for the destruction of
the demons.

23. Then there was a dreadful war between Vishnu and

Samvara, which broke and bore away he mountains as in an un�
timely great deluge of the earth.

24. The mighty demon being at last overthrown by the

the might of Ndrdyana, was sent to and settled in the city of
Vishnu after his death. (Because those that are either saved
or slain by Vishnu, are equally entitled to his paradise).

25. The demons of Bhima, Bh&sha and Dridha, were

killed in their unequal straggle with Vishnu, and were extin.-
guished like lamps by the wind.

26. They became mctinct like flames of fire, and it was

not known whither their vital flame had fled. Because it is the
desire of a person that leads him to another state, but these
haymg no wish in them, had no other place to go.

556
TOGA VASISHTHA.

27. Hence the wishless soul is liberated, hut not the wistful
mind j therefore use your reason, O Rdma, to have a wistless mind
and soul. '

28. A full investigation into truth, will put down your de-
� sires at once ; and the extinction of desires, will restore your

mind to rest like an extinguished candle.

29. Consummate wisdom consists in the knowledge of there,

being nothing real in this world, and that our knowledge o�
reality is utterly false, and that nihility of thing, is the true
reality.

80. The whole world is full with the spirit of God, what�
ever otherwise one may think of it at any time; there can be no
.other thought of it except that it is a nihility, and this forms
pur perfect knowledge of it.

; 31. The two significant words of the will and mind are mere

insignificant fictions, as head and trunk of the ascending and

descending nodes of a planet; which upon their right under�
standing, are lost in the Supreme Spirit, (i. e. It is only the
divine will and spirit that is all in all).

32. The mind being accompanied by its desires, is kept con�

fined in this world, but when that is released from these, it is
said to have its liberation.

. 33. The mind has gained its existence in the belief of men,
ojring to the many ideas of pots and pictures ishata-patadi)�, and
other things which are imprinted in it; but these thoughts being
repressed, the mind also vanishes of itself like the phantoms of
goblins (yakshas�yakkas).*

34. The demons Ddma, Bydla and Kata, were destroyed by

reliance on their minds, (*. e. by thinking their bodies as their
souls) t but Bhima, Bhitsha and Dridha were saved by their be�
lief in the Supreme soul, as pervading all things. Therefore,
O Rama! reject the examples of the former, imitate that of the
latter.

first peopled by the Takkaa (yakShaa) who follow

0u ttiQ tiMiu of tho Brnksliai Rdvnwi iBl&nde

STHITI KHANDA.

557

85. ''fie not guided by the example of DAmUj Bydla and

Kata/^ is the lesson that was first delivered to me by fira-
hmd-the lotus-bom and my progenitor himself.

86. This lesson I repeat to you, O R^ima, as my intelligent

pupil, that you may never follow the example of the wicked^-
demons Ddma and others; but imitate the conduct of the good
spirits, Bbima and others in your conduct

37. It is incessant pain and pleasure that forms the fearful

feature of this world, and there is no other way of evading all
its pangs and pains, save by your apathetio behaviour, which
must be your crowning glory in this life.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Dxscbiption of Iksouoiakcb.

Argument. On tlie Abandonment of worldly desires, ss oondocire to

the composure of the Mind, and society of the good, aooompanied with

rationality and spiritual knowledge, constituting the Smadhi of the sonl

Y ASISHTH A Continued :-~>BIe8Bed are the virtaons, who have

cleansed their hearts from the dirt of ignorance ; and vietori*
ous are those heroes, who have conquered (heir insatiable and un�
governable minds.

2. It is self-control or the government'of one�s own mind,

that is the only means of wading through all the troubles and
distresses, and amidst all the dangers and difficulties of this world.

8. Hear the summary of all knowledge, and retain and

cultivate constantly it in your mind; that the desire of enjoyment
(avarice) is our bondage in the world, and its abandonment is our
release from it.

4. What need is there of many precepts, learn this one truth

as the sum substance of all, that all pleasures are poisonous and
pernicious, and you must (ly from them as from venomous snakes
and a raging fire.

5. Consider well and repeatedly in yourself, that all sensible

objects are as hydras and dragons; and their enjoyment is gall
and poison. Avoid them at a distance and persue after your
lasting good.

6. The cupidinous mind is prodaotive of pernicious evils, as

the sterile ground is fertile only in thorns and brambles. (The
vitiated mind brings forth but vice, as tho vicious heart teems
with guilt).

7. The mind devoid of desire, lacks its expansion, as the

heart wanting its passions and affections, is curbed and contracted
in itself.

8. The goodly disposed mind ever teems with virtues, that are
THITI KHANDA.

5i9

opposed to wrong acts and vice, as the ground of a good quality,

grows only the good and useful trees in spite of weeds and hushes.

9. When the mind gains .its serenity by culture of good

qualities, the mist of its errors and ignorance gradually fade and
fly away, like clouds before the rising sun.

10. 7be good qualities coming to shine in the sphere of tho

mind, like stars in the moonlight sky, gives rise to the luminary
of reason to shine over it, like the bright sun of the day.

11. And as the practice of patience grows familiar in the

mind, like the medicinal van�a-loeAana within the bamboo; it
gives rise to the quality of firmness in the man, as the moon
brightens the vernal sky.

12. The society of the good is an arbour, affording its cooling

shade of peace, and yielding the fruit of salvation. Its effect in
righteous men, is like that of the stately jara/tf-tree, distilling
the juice of spiritual joy from the fruitage of samddhi (sang*
froid).

13. Thus prepared, the mind becomes devoid of its desires and
enmity, and is fie^ from all troubles and anzieti^. It becomes
obtuse to the feelings of grief and joy, and of pain and pleasure
also, and all its restlessness dies in itself,

14. Its doubts in the truths of the scriptures die away, as

the ephemerides and all its curiosities for novelties, are put to a
stop. Its veil of myths and fictions is unveiled, and its
ointment of error is rubbed out of it.

15. Its attempts and efforts, malice and disdain, distress and
disease, are all removed from it ; and the mist of its grief and
sorrow, and the chain of affections, are all blown and tom away.

16. It discards the progeny of its doubts, repudiates the

oOnsoits of its avarice, and breaks loose from the prison-house
of its body. It then seeks the welfare of the soul, and attains
its godly state of holiness.

17. It abandons the causes of its stoutness (�'. e. its nourish-

xnratsnand enjoyments), and relinquishes its choice of this thing

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

CIO

and that j and then remembering the dignity of the soul,'it casts
o�E the covering of its body as a straw.

18. The elevation of the mit\.d in worldy affairs, tends to its

destruction, and its depression in tliese leads to its spiritual
elevation. The wise always lower their minds (pride); but fools
are for elevating them (to their ruin).

19. The mind makes the world its own, and ranges all about
it} it raises the mountains and mounts over them; it is as the
infinite vacuum, and comprehends all vacuity in itself; and it
makes gods of friends and foes of others unto us.

20. The understanding being soiled by doubts, and forget�

ting the true nature of the intellect, takes upon it the name of
the mind, when it is full of all its worldly desires.

21. And the intellect being perverted by its Various disires,

is called the living soul; the animal soul being distinct from the
rational soul.

22. The understanding which forgets its intellectuality, and

falls into the error of its own personality, is what we call the
internal principle of the mind which is all hollow within.

23. The soul is not the man of the world (i. e. no worldly
being), nor is it the body or its blood. All material bodies are
but gross and dull matter; but the soul in the body is empty
air and intangible.

24. The body being dissected into atoms, and analised in all
its particles, presents nothing but blood and entrails as the'plan-
tain tree, which when cut into pieces, presents naught but its
folded rinds.

25. Know the mind and living soul as making a man, and
assuming his mortal form; the mind takes its form by itself
according to bis own option.

26. Man stretches his own sphere of action by his own option
only to entrap himself in it, as the silkworm weaves its cockoon
for its own imprisonment.

27. The soul lays down its error of being the body, when it
has to forsake the same at some time or other (t. t, sooner or

BTHITl KfiANDA.

561

later), and assume another form as the germ sprouts forth into
leaves, (t. e. The body is not the soul, nor is the soul the same
with the body, as the materialist would have it; because the soul
has its transmigration, which the body has not).

S8. As is the desire or thought in the mind, so is it born in

its next state of metempsychosis. TIcnco the now born babe
is given to sleeping, because it thinks itself to be dead, and
lying in the night-time of his death. It is also given to the drea�
ming of those things, which had been the objects of its desire or
thought in its previous state or birth. (This establishes the doc�
trine of innate ideas in the dreaming state of new-born babies).

29. So sour becomes sweet by mixture with sugar, and the

bitter seed produces sweet fruits by being sown with honey. So
on the contrary, sweet becomes bitter by intermixture of gall and
wormwood. (This is a fact in horticulture.�ArAm SAsira, and
applies to the goodness and badness of the human mind, accord�
ing to its good and bad associations).

SO. Aiming after goodness and greatness, makes a man good

and great ; as one wishing to be an Indra or a lord, dreams of
bis lordliness in his sleep. (The mind makes the man).

31. Inclination to meanness bemeans a man, and a tendency

to vilencss vilifies his conduct in life; as one deluded by his fancy
pf devils, comes to see their apparitions in his nightly visions.

82. But what is naturally foul or fair, can hardly turn

otherwise at any time j as the limpid lake never becomes muddy,
nor the dirty pool ever becomes glassy. (Nature of a thing is
unchangeable).

33. The perverted mind produces the fruits of its perversion

in all its actions, while pnremindedness is fraught with the
effects of its purity everywhere.

34. Good and great men never forsake their goodness and
greatness, even in their fall and decline; so the glorious sun fills
the vault of heaven with his glory, even when he is sinking
below (the horizon).

35. iJThere is no restriction or freddon of the human soul, to

Von. IL 71

562

rOGA VAISISHTHA.

or from any action or thing herein; it is a mere passive and niie-

tral conscionsness, of all that passes before it as a magic scene.

86. The world is a magical city, and as a mirage appearing

to sight; it is of the nature of the delusive panorama, showing
many moons of the one, whose unity admits of no duality. So
the one Brahma is represented as many by delusion. (The
Hindus contrary to Europeans, have many suns but one moon.
Escas�Chandra).

37. All this is verily the essence of Brahma, and this is the
sober reality; the substantive world is an unsubstantiality, and
peers out to view as a hollow phautom. (It is a phantasmago�
ria of phantasms).

88. That I am not the infinite but an infinitisimal, is the

misjudgment of the ignorant; but the certitude of my infinity
and supremacy, is the means of my absorption in the Infinite and
Supreme.

89. The belief of one�s individuality in his undivided, all per�

vasive and transparent soul, as �I am this,� is the cause of his
bondage to his personality, and is a web spun by his erroneous
dualism. (Knowledge of a separate existence apart from soleity,
amounts to a dualistic creed).

40. Want of the knowledge of one�s bondage or freedom,*and

of his unity or duality, and his belief in the totality of Brahma,
is the supreme truth of true philosophy.

41. Perfect transparancy of the soul, amountiug to its nihi�

lity, and its want of attachment to visible appearances, as also
its unmindfuluess of all that is, are the conditions for behhldiug
Brahma in it. There is no other way to this.

42. The purity of the mind produced by acts of holiness, is

the condition for receiving the sight of Brahma; as it is the
whiteness of the cloth that can receive any colour upon it,

43. Think thy soul, O Bdma I as same with the souls of all
other persons, and abstain from all other thoughts, of what is
desirable or undesirable, what invigorates or enfeebles the body,
and what brings liberation after bondage, or Salvution after sin-

STHITI KHANDA.

503

fulness. (Since none of these states appertains to the universal

soul, which is quite free from them).

44. The mirror of the mind being cleansed bjr the knowledge
of the Sdstras, and dispassionateness of the understanding, it re�
ceives the fieilexion of Brahma, as the clear crystal reflects the
images of things.

45. The sight which is conversant with visible objects and

not with images and ideas in the mind, is called false vision of
what is soon lost from view. (t. e. Mental sight is more lasting
than that of the visual organs).

46. When the mind is fixed upon God, by abstracting its

sight from all mental and ocular visions, it has then the view
of the Supreme before it. (This is called spiritual vision).

47. The visible sights which are obvious to view, are all but
unreal phantoms; it is the absorption of the mind in the Divine,
that makes it identical with the same and no other.

48. The visibles now present before us being absent from

our view, either before or after our sight of them, must be con�
sidered as absent in the interim also. Therefore one unacquainted
with bis mind, U as insensible as the man that knows not what
he holds in bis hand.

49. One having no knowledge that "the world is the same

with the Supreme spirit,�^ is always subject to misery j but the
negation of the visibles as distinct from God, gives us both .the
pleasure of our ejoyments here, and our liberation in future.

60. It is ignorance to say the water is one thing and its

wave is another; but it shows one intelligence, who says they
are the one and the same thing.

51. The vanities of the world, are fraught with sorrow,

therefore discard all its appendages from thee. The aband<Miment
of superfluity, will conduce to thy attainment of wisdom at last.

62. The mind being composed of vain desires, is an unreality

in itself; say therefore, O Bdma! why should you sorrow for
something which in reality is nothing.

53. Do you, O Rdma! look upon all things as traps set- to

564-

YOGA VASISHTHA.

ensnare tie s&ul ; and regard them with the eye of rin onhindT
kinsman looking upon his retatives, with an eye of apathy
and unconcern.

64. As the unkind relative is unconcerned with the joys and

griefs of his relations; so shonidst thou remain alooF from all
things, by knowing the falsehood 'of their natures.

55. Rely on that eternal Spirit, tvhich is infinite knowledge

and felicity, and which is between the viewer and the view, (*. e.
betwist the noumenon and the phenomenon). The mind being
fixed to that truth, will adhere to it as clay, after the swiftness
of its flight is at an end.

56. The airy flight of the mind being restrained, the sluggish
body must cease to run about; and the cloud of the dust
of ignorance, will no more spread over the city of the world.

57. When the rains of our desires are over, and the calmness
of the mind is restored; when the shuddering coldness of dulness
has fled, and when the mud of worldliness is dried up:�

58. When the channel of our thirst is dried up, and the
drinking pots are sucked up and emptied; when the forest of the
heart is cleared, and its brambles are rooted out, and th^ frost
of false knowledge has disappeared;�

59. It is then that the mist of error vanishes from view, like
the shadow of night on the approach of dawn; and the frigidity
of dullness is put to flight, like the poison of snake-bite by the
potent charm of mantras.

60. Then the rivulets of our desires, do not run down the rock
of the body; nor do the peacocks of our fleeting wishes, fly and
sport on its top.

61. Tlic sphere of our consciousness becomes as the clear sky}

and the luminary of the living soul, shines as brightly over it
as the midday sun.

6S. The cloud of error is dispelled and succeeded by the

light of reason; and the longings of the soul, being purified oi
their dross, make it shine brilliantly amidst its sphere.

63. Then raptures of serene delight, shoot forth in the soul

STHITI KHAKDA.

5G5

like blooming blossoms in the open air; and a cool light is sbed
upon it, like the cooling beams of the autumnal moon.

64. This ecstacy of the soul, unfolds all prosperity before it,
and fructifies with abundance the well cultivated ground of the
reasoning mind. (Truth is the fruit of holy joy in the reason�
able mind).

65. It sheds its clear lusture all over the world, and shows
the depths of the hills and forests, and everything on earth in
their clearest light. (Heavenly joy unfolds all things to lights

66. It expands the mind and makes it translucent, and

the heart as a clear lake, renders blooming with blossoms of the
lotus of satya, and without the ^mt-rajas of egoism. It is never
infested by the swarming passions of pride or tamas,

67. The mind then being purged of its selfishness, turns to

universal benevolence and philanthropy; and being quite calm
in itself without any desire of its own, it reigns as lord over the
city of its body.

68. The man whose investigation has made him acquainted

with all things, whose soul is enlightened with truth ; whose
min^ is melted down from his highmindedness; who is calm
and quiet in his understanding, and looks at the unpleasant
course of the births and deaths of men with pity ; he verily lives
happily in the realm of his body, without his feverish
anxieties about anything.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Descsiftiok OT the IntELLEOTHAIi Spheee.

Argument The Intellect as pervading all things, and making ua ao<

quainted with them.

E kMA said :�^Tell me O BrAhmanI how the mundane

' eystem subsists in the extra mundane immetirial soul, for
the sake of my advancement in knowledge.

2. Yasishtha replied:�The worlds having no separate exis*

tence (before or after their formation) except in the Supreme
mind, they are all situated in the Divine Intellect, like the
unheaving and unseen would be waves of the sea.

S. As the all-pervading sky is not to be seen owing to its

extreme tenuity; so the undivided nature of the all-pervasive
intellect, is not to be perceived on account of its rarity.

4. As the gem has its brilliancy in it, whether it is moved

or unmoved by any body, so the unreal world has its potential
existence in the Divine Spirit, both in its states of action and
inactivity. (Hence the eternity of the world in the Eternal
Mind).

6. As the clouds abiding in the sky, do not touch the sky or

have a tangible feeling of its vacuity; so the worlds subsisting in
the receptacle of the Intellectual soul, have no contact with the
extraneous (parA) intellect, which is unconnected with its contents,
6. As the light residing in the waters of the sea or a pot of
water, is not connected either with the water or pot, nor is it felt
by us but by its reflexion; so the intangible soul abides uncon�
nected in its receptacle of the body, and reflects itself to oar
knowledge only,

7. The intellect is devoid of every desire and designation; it

is the indestructible soul, and is named by our intelligenoe of it
as (Chetya) intelligible; or from some one of our intdligible
ideas as the living soul &c.

STHITI KHANDA.

607

8. It is clearer than the translucent air, and finer than it by

a hundred times; it is known as an undivided whole by the
learned; who view it as identic with the whole undivided world,
which it comprehends within itself.

9. As the sea water shows itself in various forms in all its

waves, so the intellect does not differ from it, in showing us its
various representations of its own motion.

10. The diversities of our subjective and objective knowledge

of myself and thyself and these (ego &c tu), are like the varieties
of waves and billows in the ocean of the intellect, these are
but erroneous notions, since they are representations of the same
element, and the very same intellect.

11. The various states of the intellect (Chit), intellection

(ChintA), intelligence (Chittam) and iutellegibles (Chetyas), all
appertain to the main principle of the soul. They are differently
conceived by the learned and ignorant, but the difference is a
mere conceit (KalpanA).

12. The intellect presents its two different aspects to the

wise and unwise people; to the ignorant, it shows its unreal
nature in the realistic conception of the world, while to the
learned it exhibits its luminous form in the identity of all things
(with God).

13. The intellect enlightens the luminous bodies of the sun

and stars, by its internal vintellectual) light; it gives a relish to
things by its internal taste; and it gives birth to all beings
from its inborn ideas of them.

14. It neither rises nor sets, nor gets up nor sits; it neither
proceeds nor recedes to or .fro, it is not here nor is it no where.
(Omniscience is present every where and is ever the same'.

15. The pure and transpicuous intellect which is situated in

the soul, displays in itself the phantasm^oria which is called
the world.

16. As a heap of fire emits its flame, and a luminous body

blazes with its rays; and as the sea swells in surges and breaks
in with its arms, so the intellect bursts out in its creations.

6G8

TOGA VASISHTHA.

(Omniscience is tlie cause and not p�cipience of the world�

God makes all things, and does not percieve them like us).

17. rthns the intellect which is selfmanifest and omnipresent

of its own nature, dcrelopes and envelopes the world by its own
manifestation and occuetation, and by its acts of integration
and segregation {tdnhara and nirAdra)} or the acts of accretion
and secretion.
18. It is led by its own error and of its own accord, to forget
and forsake its state of infinitude; and then by assuming its in�
dividual personality of egoism (that I am), it is converted to an
ignoramus. (So men of contracted views turn to be dunces).

19. It falls from its knowledge of generals to that of parti�

culars, by its act of specialization; and comes to the descrimination
of the positive, and negative, and of inclusion and ezclusion (or
admission or rejection).

2U. It strives and struggles within the confines of the sensuous

body (owing to its degradation from spirituality); and it multi�
plies in these bodies like the weeds sprouting out of the bosom
of the earth, (r. e. From its unity becomes a multiplicity in the
many animal bodies).

21. It is the intellect that stretches the spacious vacuum, to

make room for the subsistence and growth of every thing; and
makes the all and ever moving air and the liquid water, for the
vitality and nourishment of all.

22. It makes the firm earth (terrafirma) and the light-some

fire and the fixed worlds all around; and employs time by its
injunctions and prohibitions, (to do or undo any thing).

23. It gives fragrance to flowers, and grows by degrees their

filaments and pistils; and it makes the moisture of the poms
ground, to grow vegetables on earth.

24. The rooted trees fructify with fruits, by their juicy saps
from beneath; and they produce their fruitage, and desplay their
foliage with lineaments in them, as their veins and arteries. ^

25. It renovates the forest with its gifts of various hues;

and dies them with the variety of colours in the rainbow of India.

STDITI KHANDA.

660

26. It bids the foliaras, fruits and flowtits to wait on the

flowery season of Spring; and then brings their fruitage to per�
fection, under the heat of the summer sun.

27. It makes the dark blue clouds of heaven, to wait on the

approach of the rainy weather; and causes the harvest of fields,
to follow in the train of autumn.

28. ^he cold season is decorated with its smiling frost, in its
faces of the ten sides of the sky; and the dewy weather is made
to waft its icecles of dew drops, on the pinions of the chilling
winds of winter.

29. It makes the ever moving time, to revolve in its rotation

of years and cycles and Yuga ages; and causes the tide of crea�
tion to roll on in its waves of worlds, on its bosom of the ocean of
eternity.

* 80. Its decrees remain fixed with a wonderful stability, and

the earth(terra or dhara), continues firm (dhira or sthira), with its
quality of containing all things. (In this sloka there is both a
homonym and paronym of similar sound and sense in the
word ihar& derived from the root dhri : namely, dhird, dhard ,�
sthird, terra and dharana and dharini),

81. It made the universe, teem with fourteen kinds of beings

in its as many worlds of the chaturdasa-bhnvanas; and these are as
different in their modes of life as in their forms and figures.
(The Atharvan or last Veda reckons tri-sapta or thrice seven
worlds).

62. These are repeatedly produced from and reduced to nothing,

and move in their wonted courses for ever, as bubbles in the water�
less ocean of eternity.

88. Here the miserable multitudes, moving mad in vain strug�

gles after their desired objects, and in their imbecility under the
subjection of disease and death. They are incessantly coming to
life and going attay in their exists, remaing in their living states
ftod acquiring their ends, and for ever running to and fro, in their
l!q)eated births and deaths in this world.

VOL. II,

72

CHAPTER XXXyil.

UrASAMA. The Sameness or Quietism of the Sout.

Argiimoiit .�The sameness of tlie Spirit from its want of perturbation

bjr wordly matters ; and equanimity of the mind in all circumstances.

y ASISHTHA added;�In this manner are these series of

worlds, revolving in their invariable course, and repeatedly
appearing and disappearing in the substantiality of Brahma.

Z. All this is derived from the one self-existence, and have be�
come the reciprocal causes of one another, by their mutual trans�
formations ; and again they are destroyed of themselves by their
mutual destructiveness of one another.

�1. But as the motion of the waters on the surface, docs net
aSect the waters in the depth of the sea; so the fluctuations of
the changing scenes of nature, make no alteration in the ever
tranquil spirit of Brahma.

4. As the desert in summer heat, presents the waters of mi�

rage to the clear sky, so the false world, shows its delusive ap-
pcarences to the mind.
5. As the calm soul seems to be giddy in the state of one�s
drunkenness, so the essence of the intellect which is always the
same, appears as otherwise in its ignorance.

6. The world is neither a reality nor unreality; it is situated

in the Intellect but appears to be placed without it. It is not
separate from the soul, although it seems to be different from it,,
as the ornament appears to differ from its gold.

7. Rdma! that soul of your�s, whereby you have the percep�

tion of form and figures and of sound and smell, is the Supreme
Brahma pervading all things.

8. The pure soul being one in many, and inherent in all ex�
ternal objects, cannot be thought as distinct from those, thatap^i
pear otherwise than itself.

9. Rfipial it is the difference of human thoughts, that judges

STHITI KHANDA.

571

differently of the existence and non-existence of things, and of

their good and bad natures also; It judges the existence of the
world, either as situat^in or without the Divine Spirit.

10. Whereas it is i^ossiblc for any thing to exist beside the

Spirit of God, it was the Spirit that �willed to become many�.
And as there was nothing beside itself, which it could think of
or find for itself, it was necessarily that it became so of itself, and
witliout the aid of any extraneous matter. (Prose).

11. (Prose). Therefore the will to do this or that, or try

for one thing or other, docs not relate to the soul but to the
mind. Thus the optionless soul, having no will of its own, does
nothing except cogitating on what is in itself. It is no active
agent, owing to the union of all agency, instrnmentality and
objectivity in itself. It abides no where, being both the recipient
and content, or the container and the contained of everything in
itself. Neither is the willess soul actiouless likewise, when the
acts of creation are palpable in itsalf (karmaprasidhi). Nor is it
possible that there is any other cause of them. {NanyahaHA
dvUiryaAam. Sruli),

12. RAma! you must know the nature of Brahma to be

no other (iieiara-nou alter) than this; and knowing him as no
agent and without a second, be free from all anxiety.

13. I will tell you further that:�Though you may

continue to do a great many acts here, yet tell me in a word,
what dost thou do that is worth doing. Bely on the want of
your own agency, and be quiet as the sapient sage. Remain as
calm and still, as the clear ocean when unshaken by the breeze.
14. Again knowing well, that it is not possible for the swift�
est runnera to reach their goal of iierfection, how far so ever
they may go. You must desist in your mind from pursuing
after worldly objects, and persist to meditate ou the spirituality
of your inward and iatellcc.tual soul.

CHAPTER XXXVm.

The Same Quietness oe Quietude ot the Smeit.

Aignment. The unconnected Soul boitag connected with the Mind, m

believed as the Active Spirit by the unwise. But the quiet spirit of the
wise, which is unafEoctcd bjr its actions, is ever free and emancipate (kom
the acts.

Y ASISHTH A resumed :�(Prose). Such being the state of the

wise, the actions they are seen to do, whether of goodness
or otherwise or pleasureable or painful, in and whatsoever they
are engaged, are nil and as nothing, and do not affect them as
they do the other worldly mortals. (The unconcemedness of the
wise, is opposed to the great concern of fools in their actions).

2. For what is it that is called an action, but the exertion

of mental and voluntary energies, with a fixed determination and'
desire of performing some physical acts, which they call the ac�
tions of a person. (Bat the apathetic minds of the wise, being
insensible both of the purposes and their ends, there is no impu�
tation of ^ency which can ever attach to them. (Gloss).

S. ?Fhe production of an act by appliance of the proper means,

and the exertion and action of the body in conformity with one�s
ability, and the completion of the effect compatible with one�s
intention, together with the enjoyment of the result of such
agency, are defined and determined as the action of the man. (It
is the deliberate and voluntary doing of an act, and not the nn-
intentional physical action, that constitutes human agency. Gloss).

4. (Yerse). Moreover, whether a man is agent or no agent

of an action, and whether ho goes to heaven or dwells in hell,
his mind is subject to the same feelings, as he has the desires in
his heart. (The mind makes a heaven of hell, and a hell of
heaven by its good or bad thoughts. Milton).

5. (Prose). Hence the ogency of thp ignorant, arises from

their wishbg to do a thing, whether they do it or not; but not

STHITI KHAKDA.

673

SO of tbe wise, who having no will, are not culpable even for
their involuntary actions. Untutored minds are full with the
weeds of vice, but well cultivated souls are quite devoid of
them. Gloss. (So; �If good we plant not, vice will fill the
place: And rankest weeds the'richest soils deface'').

6. He who has the knowledge of truth (tatwajn^na', becomes

relaxed in his earthly desires; and though he acts his part
well, he does not long eagerly for its result as others. He acts
with his body but with a quiet unconcerned mind. When suc�
cessful, he attributes the gain to the will of God; but the
worldly minded arrogate the result to themselves, though they
could not bring it about.

7. Whatever the mind intends, comes verily to pass, and

nothing is achieved without the application of the mind ;
whereupon the agency belongeth to the mind and not to the

� body. (An involuntary action is not a deed}.

8. The world doth proceed from the Mind (Divine); it is

the mind (by being a development of it), and is situated in the
(infinite and eternal) mind; knowing all things as such manifes�
tations of the powers of the intellect, the wise man remains in
the coolness of his desire or luke warmness.

9. The minds of spritualists (or those knowing theasonl),

come to the state of that perfect insensibility of their desires,
as when the false watery mirage is set down by the raining
clouds, and the particles of morning dews, are dried irp by the
raging sun. It is then that the soul is said to rest in its perfect
bliss (The turya-tamsonei or impassibility).

10. This is not the felicity of the gmto of pleasure, nor

the dolour of sorrow or discontent; it consists not in the liveliness
of living beings, nor in the tropidity of stones. It is not
situated in the midst of these antithesis, {i. e. in tlie sandhisthdua
or golden medium between these) ; but in the knowing mind
which is Bhwmdnmda �all rapture and ravishment. (Neither is
il allegrow nor il apinteroao, the true bliss of man).

11. But the ignorant mind (which is unacquainted with

this state of transport; is trnsported by its thirst after the

S74

YOGA VASISHTHA.

moving waters o� earthly pleasures ; as an elephant is misled to

the foul pool, where he is plunged in its mud and mire,
without finding any thing that is really good.

12. Here is another instance o� it based upon a Stanza in the

Sruti, which says thatA man dreaming himself to be falling
into a pit, feels the fear of his fall in bis imagination even when
he has been sleeping in his bed; but another who actually falls
in a pit when he is fast asleep, is quite insensible of his falls.
Thus it is the mind which paints its own pleasure and pains, and
not the bodily action or its inactivity.

13. Hence whether a man is the doer of an action or not, he

perceives nothing of it, when his mind is engrossed in some other
thought or action; but he views every thing within himself,
who beholds them on the abstract medition of his mind. The
thinking mind sees the outward objects, as reflexions of his pure
intellectcast without him. (The spiritualist regards the outward
as images of his inward ideas, in opposition to the materialist,
who considers the internal ideas to be but reflexions derived from
external impressions).

14. Thus the man knowing the knowahio soul, knows himself
as inaccessible to the feelings of pleasure and pain. Knowing this
as certain, he finds the existence of no other thing, apart from
what is contained in the container of his soul, which is as
a thousandth part of a hair. This being ascertained, he views
every thing in himself. With this certainty of knowledge, he
comes to know his self as the reflector of all things, and present
in all of them. After these ascertainments, he comes to the
conclusion that ho is not subject to pain or pleasure. Thus
freed from anxieties, the mind freely exercises its powers over
all customary duties, without being concerned with them.

1.5. He who knows the self, remains joyous even in his cala�
mity, and shines as the moonlight, which enlightens the world.
Kc knows that it is his mind and not hissclf, that is the agent
of his actions although he is the doer of them : and knowing the
agency of tlie mind in all his actions, he does not assume to
himself the merit of the exercise of his limbs, bands and feet.

STHITI KHANDA.

676 .

nor expects to reap tlie rewards o� all his assidaous labours

and acts.

16. Mental actions (thoughts) bcingbronght to practice, tend

to involve their unguarded agents of ungoverned minds, into
the endurance of its consequence. Thus the mind is the seed (root)
of all efforts and exertions, of all acts and actions, of all their
results and productions, and the source of suffering the conse�
quences of actions. By doing away with your mind, you make a
clean sweep of all your actions, and thereby avoid all your
miseries resulting from your acts. All these are at an end with the
amesihetia of the mind. It is a practice in Yoga to allay (laisser
aller), the excitement of the mind to its ever varying purposes.

17. Behold the boy is led by his mind (fancy) to build his
toy or hobby-horse, which he dresses and daubs at his wil-
full play, without showing any concern or feeling of pleasure
or pain, in its making or breaking of it at his pleasure. So doth
man build his aerial castle, and level it without the sense of his
gain or loss therein. It is by his acting in this manner in all
worldly matters, that no man is spiritually entangled to them.
(Bo your duties and deal with all with a total unconcernedness
and indifference).

18. What cause can there be for your sorrow, amidst tho
dangers and delights of this world, but that you have the
one and not the other. But what thing is there that is delec�
table and delightful to be desired in this world, which is not
evanescent and perishable at the same time, save yourself (soul),
which is neither the activ,e nor passive agent of your actions
and enjoyments; though they attribute the actions and their
fruitions to it by their error.

19. The importance of actions and passions to living beings,

is a mistake and not veritable truth. Because by tho right con�
sideration of things, we find no action nor passion bearing
any relation to the soul. Its attachment or aversion to the
senses and sensible actions and enjoyments, is felt only by the
sensualist, and not by them that are unconscious of sensuous
affections (as the apathetic ascetics).

576

YOGA ViSlSHTHA.

20. There is no liberation in this world for the worldly

minded, while it is fully felt by the liberal minded Yogi, whose
mind is freed from its attachments to the world, in its state of
living liberation. (Jivan-mukta).

21. Though the Sage is rapt in the light of his self-conscions*

ness, yet he does not disregard to distinguish the unity and
duality, the true entity from the non-entities, and to view the
omnipotence in all potencies or powers that are displayed in
nature: (for these display His power and goodness b^ond our
thought).

22. (Verse). To him there is no bond or freedom, nor li�

beration nor bondage whatever, and the miseries of ignorance are
all lost in the light of bis enlightenment. (Bondage and freedom
here refer to their causes or acts (^n^�) by the figure of metonymy j
and that these bear no relation to the abstracted or spiritoalistib
Yogi).

23. It is in vain to wish for liberation, when the mind is

tied down to the earth; and so it is redundant to talk of bondage,
when the mind is already fastened to it. Shun them both by
ignoring your egoism, and remain fixed to the true Ego, and
continue thus to manage yourself with your unruffled mind on
earth. (The whole of this is a lesson of the Stoical and Platonic
philosophic and unimpassioned passivity).
CHAPTER XXXiX.

On the Unity op all thinos.

A.Tgainent, Explanation of Divine Omnipotence, and inilbilitj of

Vasishtha to give fall exposition of it.

T>.^CMA tojoinedi�(Pi'ose) Tell me, 0 high-minded sage, how

could the creation proceed from the Supremo Brahma,
whom 741 represent to remain as a painting in the tableau of
vacuity.

2 Vasistha replied :�O prince, such is the nature of Brah�

ma, that all power incessantly flows from him, wherefore every
power is said to reside in him. (It is unvedantic to say, that
Brahma is omnipotent or the reservoir of power, and not omni�
potence or identic with all power himself).

S In him resides entity and non-entity, in him there is unity,

duality and plurality, and the beginning and end of all things.
(Because omnipotence has the power to be all things, which
limited powers cannot do).

4 This is one and no other else {i c it is all that is, and there
is none else beside it {Id esl mn alter). It is as the sea, whose
waters have endless varieties of shapes, and represent the
images of myriads of stars in its bosom i rising spontaneously
of themselves.

5 The density of the Intellect mahes the mind, and the

min^ brings forth all the powers of thinking, willing or voli�
tion, and of acting or action. These it produces, accumulates,
contains, shows and then absorbs in itself.

6 (Verse) Bndimaisthc source of all living beings, and

of all things seen all around ns. His power is the cause of ex�
hibiting all things, in their incessant course or quieseance.

7 All things spring from the Supremo Sprit, and they re�
tide in his all comprehensive mind. They are of the same

Voiu n. 78

678 YOGA VASKHTHA.

nature with that of fheir sonroe^ as the water of the sweet and
saltish lakes.

8 R^ma interaptcd here and said;�Sir, your discourse is

veiy dark, and I cannot understand the meaning of the words
of youi'i^pecch.

9 There is that nature of Brahma, which you said to be

beyond the perception of the mind and senses, and what are
these perishable things, which you say to have proceeded from
him. If your reasoning comes to this end, I cannot then rely
upon it.
10 Because it is the law of production, that anything that
is produced from something, is invariably of the same nature
with that of its producer.

11 As light is produced from light, corns come from corn,

and man is born of man, and all kinds come out of their own
kind.

12 And BO the productions of the immutable Spirit, must

also be unchangeable and spiritual too in their nature.

13 Beside this the Intellectual Spirit of God, is pure and

immaculate; while this creation is all impure and gross matter.

14 The great Sage said upon hearing these words Brahma

k all purity and there is no impurity in him; the waves moving
on the surface of the sea may be foul, but they do not soil the
waters of the deep.

15 You cannot conceive Rdma, of there being a second person

or thing beside the One Brahma > as you can have no con�
ception of fire beside its heat. (Its light being adscititious).

16 Rdma rejoined:�Sir, Brahma is devoid of sorrow, while

the world is full of sorrows. I cannot therefore clearly under�
stand your words ; when you say this to bo the offspring
of that. (The maculate equal to the immaculates or the perkh-
able to the imperkhable is absurd).

17 Yalmiki said to Bharadwdja:�The great Sage Vaa lnh.

tha remained silent at these words of Rdma; and stopped
in his lecture with the thoughtfulness of hk mind.

STHITI KHANDA.

B79

18 His mind lost its wonted clearness (in its conEnsion ),

and then recovering its perspicacity, he pondered within himsel�
in the following manner.

19 The educated and intelligent mind, that has known the

kno^&blfi One, has of itself got to the end of the subject of
liberation, by its own reasoning and intuition as that of Bdma.

20 It is no fault of the educated to be doubtful of something,

until it is explained to them to their full satisfaction, as in the
case of Baghava. (Belating the identity of the cause and its
effect).

21 But the half-educated are not ilt to receive spiritual

instruction, because their view of the visibles, which dwells on
obvious objects, proves the cause of their ruin : (by obstructing
their sight of the spiritual).
22 But he who has come to the sight of transcendental light,
and got a clear insight of spiritual truths, feels uo desire for
sensual enjoyments ; but advances in course of time to the con�
clusion, that Brahma is All in all things (/o pan),

(The transcendental philosophy of modern German school8,have

arrived at the same conclusion of Pantheism, Ho Theos to pan).

23 The desciple is to be prepared and purified at first, with

the precepts and practice of quietism and self-control (Sama
and damdy, and is then to be initiated in the creed that "All this
is Brahma, and that thyself art that pure Spirit.�

24 But who so teaches the faith of "all is Brahma� to the

half taught and the ignorant; verily entangles him in the strong
snare of hell. (Because they take the visible for the invisible,
which leads them to nature and idol worships which casts them
to hell).

25 The well discerning Sago should tell them, that are en�
lightened in their understandings, whose desire of sensual
gratifications has abated, and who arc freed from their wordly
desires, that they are purged of the dirt of their ignorance, and
are prepared to receive religious and spiritual instruction.

26 The spiritual guide who instructs his pupil without

580

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

'woigbing well his habits and conduct, is a silly pedagogue and

sinks into hell and has to dwell there until the last day of judg�
ment ; (to answer for misleading his disciples).

27 The venerable Yasishtha, who was the chief of sages, and

like the luminous sun on earth, having considei'ed these things,
spoke to RAma as follows. (The sages are said to be luminous
both from the fairness of their Aryan complexions, as also on
account of their cnlightend understandings).

28 Yasishtha said;�I will tell thee RAma at the conclusion,

of this lecture, whether the attribution of the dross of gross
bodies, is applicable to Brahma or not. (�. e, how a spiritual body
may assume a material form &o).

29 Know now that Brahma is almighty, all pervading,

ubiquitious and is all himself, because of his omnipotence, which
can do and become all and every thing of itself.

30 As you sec the various practices of magicians and the

trickeries of jugglers, in producing, presenting, and abstracting
many things in the sight of men, that are all but unreal shows j
so doth Brahma produce, present and retract all things from and
into himself.

81 The world is filled with gardens as those in fairy lands,

and the sky is replenished with the airy castles of Oandharvas
and the abodes of gods ; and men arc seen to descend from the
cloudless sky, to the surface of the earth, and rise upwards to
heaven : (in vimanas or balloon).

32 Fairy cities like the palaces of the Gandharvas of the

ethcrial regions, are shown on earth, and filled with the fairies of
the Fairyland, (t. e. the courts and palaces of princes, which
vie with the abodes of gods). �

33 Whatever there is or has been or is to be in this world

in future, are like reflexions of the revolving sky and heavenly
bodies, or a brazen ball affixed to the top of a tower, and darting
its> golden light below.

34 All these are but exhibitions of the various forms of

manifestations of the selfsame God. ( " These as they change.

STHITI KHANDA. 681

�these are but the varied God." Thomson. So Wordsworth

and the-Persian Mystics).

85. Whatever takes place at any time or place and in any

form, is but the variety of the One Self-existent reality. Why
therefore, O Edma! should you give vent to your sorrow or joy,
or wonder at any change of time or place or nature and form
of things, which are full of the spirit of God, and exhibit the
endless aspects of the Infinitive Mood.

86. Let the intelligent preserve the sameness (samafa) of

their minds and dispositions amidst all changes; knowing them
as the varying conditions of the same unvarying Mind.

87. He who secs his God in all, and is fraught with equani�
mity, has no cause of his wonder of surprise, his grief or delight
or any fluctuation of his mind, in any change in nature or vicis�
situde of his fortune : (because the one Omnipresence is present
in all events, and its Omnipotence directs all potentialities).

88. The unaltered mind continues to view the varieties of the

power of his Maker, in all the veriatious of time and place, and
of all external circumstances.

89. The Lora proposes these plans in the formation of his

creation, and exhibits as the sea does its waves in endless vari�
eties and successions from the plenitude of his mind.

40. So the Lord manifests the powers situated in himself, as

the sea docs its waves in itself. Or as the milk forms the butter,
the earth produces the pot {g/iata), and the thread is woven into
the cloth (pafa). So the bafa or fig-tree brings forth its fruit,
and all other varied forms are contained in their sources. But
these formal ehanges are phenomenal not real. They are mere
appearances of the spectrum, as those of apparitions and spectres.*

41. There is no other agent or object, nor an actor and its

act, or any thing which is acted upon, nor is there any thing
that becomes nothing except it by but a variety of the one
unity. {In nililo rivertipass),

*Bnl> these formal ohangos are phenomenal and not real. They are mere
appearances. Gloss.

588

YOGA VABI8HTEA.

42. The mind iihat witnesses the spiritual truths, and remains
with its unimpaired equanimity, and is undepressed by external
accidents, comes to see the light of truth in itself. (Truth like
the sun shineth in the inmost soul).

43. (Verse). There being the lamp, there is its light also; and
the sun shining brings the day with him. Where there is the
flower, there is its odour likewise ; so where there is the living
soul, there is the light or knowledge of the world in it.

44. The world appearing all around, is as the light of the

soul ; it appears as the motion of the wind, whereof we have no
notion of its reality or unreality. (So says Herbert Spencer con�
cerning our notion of motion. We see the wheel iu motion and
changing its place, but have no idea of its motion).

45. The immaculate Soul, is the prime mobile power of the

appearance and disappearance of the myriads of gross bodies
which like the revolving stars of the sky, and the season flowers
of the spring, appear and reappear to us by turns, like the ups
and downs of wheels in motion. We see their revolutions, but
neither see their motion nor the soiil the giver of motion).

46. All things die away when our souls are without us, but
how can any thing be null when wo are in possscssion of our
souls 7 (Everything exists with ourselves, but wo lose all, with
loss of our souls).

47. All things appear before us in the presence of our souls,

and they vanish from before us in their absence from the body.
(Every thing is existent with ns with the existence of our souls,
and nothing is perceived by us without them, as when we are
dead).

48. Everything is born with us with our souls, and is lost

with loss of them. (The living have all, but the dead arc lost to
everything).

49. But how can the soul be bom when it is self-existent

with the Divine? It is the same that views all things in the one.
All (to pan).
60. The omniscience of the Soul, presents all things to its

BTHITI KHANDA.

583

View. (And the human soul, when in conjunction with the

Divine, has a clear view of everything).

61. The minds of men are endowed with their knowledge at

their very birth. Then growing big by degrees inconrse of
time, they expand themselves in the form of this spacious forest
of the world.

63. The wood of the world is the fastening post of the soul,
where our blooming desires are fraught with fruits of poignant
griefs. It branches out with gratifications, blossoms with hoary
age, and is breaking its goodly post, and wandering at large of
its free will.

CHAPTER XXXX.

Bbahma Identic with the World.

OR

Identity op the Wordd with Brahma.

Aignment. Production and names of the Varieties of Animal Life and

their spiritual Natures.

R AMA said:�Tell me, sir, about the production o� animal

beings from Brahma, and let me know their different names
and natures in full length.

2. Vasishtha replied :�The manner in which the different

. species of beings arc produced from Brahma, and how they are
destroyed afterwards, as also how they obtain their liberation at
last:�

3. Also the manner of their growth and sustentation, and

their fitness in the world, are all what you must hear me now tell
you in brief.

4. The power of the intellect of Brahma exerts of its free

will, and this omnipotence becomes whatever is thought of
(cbetya) in the Divine Intellect.

5. The intellection becomes condensed to a certain subtile

form, which having the powers of conception {tanhalpa), becomes
tbe principle entitled the Mind.
6. The mind then by an effort of its conception (called the
Will), expands itself to an unreal (ideal) scenery like that of the
Fairyland, by falling off from the nature of Brahmic Incogitenoy.

7. The intellect when remaining in its original state, appears

as a vacuum or vacancy; but upon manifesting itself in the form
of the mind, it is seen as the visible sky by men.

8. Taking the conception of the lotos-bom, it finds itself in

its conceived form of the lotus (BrahmA), and then it thinln of
creation in the form of Prajdpati or lord of creatorM.

StHttl ISHANDA.

BBS

1^. tte then formed from hia thonght (chitta) this creation^ -
tsontaining the foAtteen worlds with all the bostle of living
beings in them.

10. The mind itself is a vacuity with a vacuous body; its

oenception is the field of its action, and its sphere is full with,
the false workings of the mind.

11. Here there are many kinds of beings, labouring under

l^re&t ignotance as the besats and brute creatures. There are some
with enlightened minds as the sages; and others staggering in
the intermediate class, as the majority of mankind.

12. Among all living beings that are confined in this earth,
it is only the human, race living in this part (India), that are
capable of receiving instruction and civilization.

13. But as most of these are subject to diseases and distress,

and are suffering under the thrall of their ignorance, enmify
and fear; it is for them that I will deliver my lecture on social
and saintly conduct �rUU (in the 42nd capter of this
book).

14. I will dso treat there about the everlasting, imperisha>

ble and omnipresent Brahma, who is without beginning and end,
whose mind is without error, and of the form of Intellectual
fight.

16. How endless beings are put to motion, by tlie momentum,

of a particle of his motionless body; and resembling the rolling
of boisterous waves on the surface of the clear and tranquil
ocean.

16. B.dma asked:�How sir, do yon speak of a part of the

infinite Spirit, and of the momentum of the motionless G-od;
as also of a change and effort of it, that is altogether without
them (vikdrdvikrama).

17. Yasuhtha repliedIt is the usual and current mode

of ezpremion, both in the sistras and language of the people
to sa/, "all tiiia is made by or come from Him�, but it is not so
in its real and spiritual sense.

18. No change or partition, and no xdation of space ot

VoL. n. 74

666

YOGA VASISHTHA.

time, bear any reference to the Supreme, who is anehangeable,

infinite and eternal; nor is there any appearance or disappear-*
ance of Him at any time or place, who is ever invisible every
where.

10. There never was nor can there ever be any way, of re�
presenting the incomprehensible, except by symbolical expres�
sions } it was therefore in accordance to common speech, that I
Lave made use of those words.

20. Whatever words or sentences are need here as i^mbolical

of some sense, whether they express as �produced from it

or as a change of the same �ianmaya�, the same should be used,

in that sense all along.

21. It is tajja, as when we say �fire proceeds from fire'^

(meaning, the �mundane Brahma comes out of the spiritual
Brahma.'� Here fire is symbolical of Brahma and the world).
It is tanmaya in the expression �Brahma is the producer and
produced�, (which means the identity�and transformation of
the creator to the creation).

22. The first form is applied to the world as proceeding

from Brahma : but the other form of the producer and produced,
means also the creative power which made the world.

23. The expression *'idam � anyat-^idem alim or this is

one thing and that another, is false, the difference is verbal and
not real; because there is no proof of it in the nature of God,
which is one and all.

24 The mind, by reason of its birth (tajja) from Brahmi^

is possessed both of the power and intelligence of bis Intellect,
and is enabled to accomplish its intended purpose, by means of
its intense application.

25. To say that one flame of fire, is the producer of another,

is mere logomachy, and there is no truth in this assertion.
(Because it is no other thing produced by another, but the very
thing).

20. That one is the producer of another is also a paralogy;

because the one Brahma being infinite, could produce no other
thing, beside reproducing himself. (For where and whence.

8TH1T1 KfiANDA. 6^7

coaid be get mother thing to create a thing anew beside in

himself ?).

27. It is the nature of disputation to contradict one another

bj replies and rejoinders ; but it is not right to foil the adver�
sary by false sophistry.

28. The learned know Brahma as the ocean rolling in its end*
less waves, and as significmt words and their significations,
which go together as Brahma and his creation.

29. Brahma is the Intellect�(y/ieV, Brahma is the mind�

mams, Brahma is intelligence �and Brahma is sub�
stance� VastAu; He is Sound�He is understanding�
ciii, and He is in the principles of things-DAa^��.

80. The whole universe is Brahma, and yet He is beyond

all this. In reality the world is a nullity, for all is Brahma
alone.

81. This is one thing and that is another, and this is a part
of the great soul, arc all contradictory assertions of ignorance
(false knowledge), as no words can express the true nature
of the unknown.

82. The spirit rises as the flame of fire, and this flame is
significant of the mind. Its tremor signifies the fluctuation of
the mind, which in reality is not the case, there being no rise or
fall of the Divine Mind.

88. It is untruth that wavers and equivocates in double tn-

tendres. It prevaricates the truth, as the defective eye views
the doable inoon in the sky.

84. Brahma being all {to-pari^ of himself, and all pervading

and infinite of his own nature, there can be no other thing be�
side himself, and anything that is produced of him, is likewise
himself.

85. Beside the truth of the existence of Brahma, there is

nothing which can be proved as absolutely certain i and it is
a scriptural truth which says, �verily all this is Brahma."

86. This also must be the conclusion, which you will arrive,
at by your reasoning, and which I will propound with many
instances and tenets in the Book of Nirvana or Exrinctiou.

m TOGA VASISHTHA.

87. There ore many things here in connection with thiv

nngle qnestion of which yon are ig^orant^ and all which yon
will come to hnow folly in fotnre, for dispelling' yonr donbt�
on the sobject.

88. The unrealiiy having disappeared, the reality appears

to view, as the darkness of night being dispelled, the visible
worid comes to sight.

89. The spaoioos world which appears to your false sight

of it, will vanish, O Bdma ! on your attaining to the state of
calm quietism. The &llacious appearances most disappear from
your vision, as soon as the light of truth comes to dawn upon
yonr soul.

CHAPTER XLL
DiiscBiFnoir oi* Iqitobance.

Aigmnenb Delnsion the cause of error.

R ^A fiaid:~Sir, I feel your speech to be as cooling and

shining as the water of the milky sea; it is as deep and
copious as the vast ocean:�

2. I am sometimes darkened and enlightened at othem, by

the variety of your discourses, as a rainy day is now obscured by
the doud, and again shinra forth brightly with sunshine.

8. I understand Brahma as infinite and inconceivable, and

the life and light of all that exists. I know that light never
sets; but tell me, how they attribute many qualities that are
foreign to his nature.

4. Vasishtha replied:�^Ihe wording and meaning of my

lectures to you, are all used in their right and ordinary sense,
they are neither insignificant or meaningless, equivocal or am�
biguous, or contradictory of one with another.

6. Ton will understand the proper import of my phraseology,

when the eyesight of your understanding becomes clearer, and
when the light of reason will rise in your mind.

6. Do not mistake the meanings of my words, or the phraa*

eology I have used all along, inorder to explain the subject of my
leotum, and purport of the sdstras, for your acquaintance with
tkem.

7. When you will come to know the clear Truth of Bra�

hma, you will know more regarding the distinctions of signi-
fiomt words, and their significations and significates.

8. The distinctive verbal ngns are invented for the commu�

nication of our thoughts, in conveying our instructiomsto others
and for our knowledge of the purport of the sdstras.

9. Words and their meanings, phrases and their construe-

tions, axe used for the instruction of others; they ate applied to
690

YOGA V^ISHTHA.

the use of the ignorant, and never apply to those who are ao�
quainted with truth (by their intention).

10. There is no attribute, nor imputation, that bears any

relation with the free and unsullied soul. It is the dispassionate
spirit of the supreme Brahma, and the same is the soul of the
existent world.

11. This subjcet will again be fully discussed and dilated

.upon with various arguments, on the occasion of our arriving to
the conclusion of this subject (in the book of Nirvdna).

12. 1 have said so far about verbiology at present, because

it is impossible to penetrate into the deep darkness of igno<
ranee, without the means of verbiage (flux de mots).

13. As conscious ignorance offers herself a willing sacrifice to

the shrine of knowledge, she bids her adversary�the destroyer
of error, to take possession of her seat in the bosom of man.
(Here is a double entendre of the word-api^fya, the former
meaning ignorance as well as a concubine, and the latter signi�
fying the wife and knowledge ; hence it implies the advance of
knowledge upon disappearance of her rival ignorance).

14. As one weapon is foiled by another, and one dirt is re�

moved by the other (couf ilmg and ashes), and as one poison is
destroyed by another, and also as one foe is driven out by another
enemy {similet curantur).

16. So Bdma, the mutual destruction of errors, brings joy

to the soul. It is hard however to detect the error; but no
Boorier it is found out than it is put to destruction. It means the
confutation of false doctrines by one another. ^

16. Ignorance obscures our. perspicacity, and presents the

false and gross world before us. We all view this wonderful
universe, but know not what and how it is.

17. Unobserved it rnshes to our view, but being examined

with attention, it flies upon keen observation. We know it is a
phantasm, and yet find it appearing with its dimensions and
figures before us.

18. O the wonderful enchantment, which has spread out

fiTSITI EHAKDA. 801

this world, and made the unreality to appear as a sober reality, to

the knowledge of every one of ns.
19. This earth is a distinct wide extended superfices, restiugs
on the indistinct surface of an unknown substratum. He is the
best of beings that has stretched this enchantment.

20. When you are enlightened with the thought, that ail
this is inexistant in reality; yon will then become the knower of
the knowable (G-od), and understand the import of my lectures.

21. So long as you are not a\rakencd to true knowledge, rely

fipon my words, and know this immensity as the creature of the
incorrigible and immovable ignorance.

22. All this imensity, that appears to sight, is but the

picture of your mistaken thought j it is all unsubstantial, and a
mere manifestation of your deluded mind only.

28. He is entitled to liberation, whose mind is certain of the

reality of Brahma; and knows the moving and unmoving figures
without, as the thoughts of the mind presented to the sight.

. 24. The whole scale of the earth, is as a net of birds to catch

the fleeting mind; it is as false as a landscape in the dreamj
which represents the unreal as real ones to the mind.

25. He who looks upon the world without his attachment

to it, is never subject to grief or sorrow on any account. And
he who thinks all these forms as formless, sees the formless spirit.

26. The forms of the formless spirit, is the formation of

ignorance, and when the blemishes of passions and mutations, do
not even belong to gi-eat souls, how can these attributes relate to
thp greatest God.

27. The attributes given to the Supreme Spirit, are as dust

thrown upon the Surface of limpid water; it is our thoughts only
that attribute these qualities to the inconceivable One, as we
attribute certain meanings to words, (that bear no relation to
them).

I It is usage that establishes the meanings of words, which

continue to be inseparably joined with them; and it is usage
that determines their use in* the s&stras.

m YOQA VA^SISHTHA.

29. As the xslotib cannot be ihongbt of without its thread, Id

llie soul is unintelligible without the medium of words ^vingf
its true difinition.

80*. It is possible to gain the knowledge of the soul from the

sastras, without one�s self>consciousness of it; as it is possible to
get over the sea of ignorance, by means of spiritual knowledge.

81. Bdma j it is impossible to arnTC at the state of what is

called imperishable life and bliss, when the soul is any how
')x)llated by the blemishes of ignorance.
82. The mustence of the world verily depends OU the exis*
tence of the Supreme; know this, and do not question how and
whence it came to exist.

83. Let it be for thee to think only how thou shalt get rid
of this unreality; for it is upon the disappearance of the imrea-*
lity, that thou canst know the real truth.

84. Leave off thinking whence is all this, bow it is and how
it is destroyed at last; believe it to be really nothing, but only
appearing without being actually seen.

85. How can one know, how the unreality appears as reality
by his mistake of it, when the error of reality, in the unrial, hu
taken a firm footing in his mind ?

86. Try your best to destroy this prejudice of yours, and

then you will know the truth. And verily such men are the
gn^atest heroes and most learned in the world, who are freed
from prejudices.

37. Strive to destroy your baneful ignorance, or it is sure

to overpower on thee as upon the rest of mankind.

38. Take care, lest it should enthral thee to the pain of thy
repeated transmigrations, and know ignorance to be the root of
all evils and companion of every vice. It creates a man�s interest
in what proves his peril.

89. Avoid quickly this false view, the baneful cause of your
fears and sorrows, and of your diseases and dangers; and the
germ of errors in the mind; and thereby ford over this perilous
ocean of the world.

CHAPTtlB XLII.

PEODUCnON OF JiVA OB LIVING SOUI.3.

Argument. Condensation of Desires in tlio Intellect. And Formation

of living soala thereby,

y ASISHTHA continued !�Hear now RAma 1 the antidote

agfainst the wide extended malady of Ignorance, and the
raging endemic o! unreality, which vanishes from view upon,
your close inspection of it.

8. That which was proposed to be said (in chapter XL),

concerning the SAtwika and RAjasika qualities. I am now
going to expound the same, on account of investigating into
the powers of the mind.

8. The same Brahma who is all-pervading, undecajdng and

immortal; is known as intellectual light and without beginning
and end, and free from error.

4. The Intellect, which is body of Brahma, and has its

.vibration in itself, becomes agitated and condensed at intervals,
as the translucent water of the ocean has its motion of itself,
. and becomes turbid and thickened by its purturbation.

{i.e. The mind is possest of motion contrary to dull and motion�

less matter, and it is by its moving force, that it forms the
gross bodies, as the huge surges of the sea).

5. As the water of the sea, is agitated in itself without any

motion or excitation from without; so the Almighty power
exerts its force in itself, throughout all its eternity and in�
finity. (The water composed of the gatesy is always in motion),

6. As the air stirs in its own bosom of vacuity for ever, so

the power of the Divine Spirit, exerts itself spontaneusly and
freely in its own sphere of the spirit.

7. And as the flame rises high of its own accord, ek> the
. power of the spirit, extends in itself in all directions. (It is
the nature of the flame to rise upward only,- but that of the
VOL II. 76

694 YOSA VA^ISSTHA.

Spiril^ is to move in OTeiy wsy and all round the great circle of
creation).

8. As the sea seems to move* with its sparkling waters, re>

fleeting the snn and moonbeams upon its surface, so the al*>
mighty spirit appears to shake with the fleeting reflections of
creation in its bosom.

9. As the sea sparkles with the golden beams of the stury

frame; so the translucent vast soul of God, shines with the
light ift its own intellectoal sphere.

10. As chuns of pearly rays, glitter to our (nght in the empty

sky; so sundry forms of things fly about in the valrt* vacuity of
the intellect. (These are as bubbles in the,vast expanse of the
Divine Mind).

11. These intellectual images, being pushed forward by the

force of intellect, they begin to roll in its vacuons sphere like
waves in the sea. (They are the same in substance, though
different in appearance).

12. These images though inseparable from the intellect of

the Divine spirit, yet they seem to be apart from it/ like the
light in the holes of needles and other oavities. (The glory of
God, is the life and life of ail).

13. The universal Omnipotence exhibits itself in those parti*

cular forms, as the moon shows her various horns in her different
phases.

14. Thus the intellectual power of the Supreme spirit, eota-

ing to idiine forth as light, refracts itself in varioas forms as
the very many semblances of that great light.

15. The Supreme q>irit, though oonscions of its nature of

infinity and indivisibility, yet assumes to itsdt the state of Hs
individuality, in every separate and limited form of ereated beings.

13. When the supreme Entity takes upon itself these several
forms, it is immediately joined by a train of qualities and proper�
ties, with quantity, modality and the like as foliowws in its tiain.

17. The unsubstantial intellect, deeming itsdf as a SuhStHlse

by its being separated from the supreme sou); becoBMS divided

STHITI EHANDA.

into infinity like the waves of the sea water: (which is one tuad.
many).

18. As there is no material difference of the armlet and

bracelet^ from their matter of the same gold; so it is the intellect
and the soul the one and same thing. It is the thought that
makes the difference in their different modes.

19. As there is no difference between one lamp and the othera,

that are lighted from the same light; so it is of all souls and
intellects, which are alike in their nature, but differ only in
their particular attributes-i^ad/its.

90. The Intellect, being put to action by the force of the

soul on particular occasions, pursues its desires and the objects
of its fancy.

�1. The same intellect also, taking its volitive and active
forms at different times and places; is styled the embodied soul or
qiiiit, and known as Kthetrajna.

22. It is so named from its familiarity with the body or

Kthebra, and its knowledge of the inward and outward actions
of it; (or from its knowing its person and personality).

28, This being fraught with its desires, is designated as

Egoism or selfishness; and this again being soiled by its fancies,
takes the name of the understanding.

24. The nnderstanding leaning to its wishes, is termed the

mind; which when it is compacted for action, takes the name
of the senses or sensation.

25. The senses are next furnished with their organs called
the organs of sense, which being joined with the organs of action,
the hands and feet are jointly denominated the body.

26. Thus the living soul being tied to its thoughts and
.derires, and being entrapped in the net of pain and sorrow^
is termed ^iUa or heart.
VI* T)me ^0 gradoal development of the intellect, produces
its sneesisive results (or phases as said above); so these are i^e
diffemnt states or oonditions of the living soul, and not so many
jforms of it, bat aQ these are the imparities of the sonl.

M6 yoga va'sishtha.

28. The living soul becomes associated with egoism in its

embodied state, and this being polluted by its egoistic under�
standing, it is entangled in the net of selfish desires, which
becomes the mind.

29. The concupiscent mind becomes eager to engraft itself in

its cosorts and offsprings, and to secure the false possessions of
the world to itself and without a rival.

80. The tendencies of the mind, pursue their desired objects,

as the cow follows the lusty bull; and the mind runs after its
objects only to be polluted by them, as the sweet sti-eam of the
river, meets the sea to become bitter and briny.

31. Thus the mind being polluted by its selfishness, loses

the freedom of its will; and becomes bound to its desires, as the
silkworm is enclosed in the cuckoon.

32. It is the mind that exposes the body to confinement, by

its pursuit after its desires, until it comes to feel the gall of iu
own thraldom, and the bitter regret of the conscious soul. �

83. Knowing itself to be enslaved, it bids farewell to the

freedom of its thought and knowledge; and begets within itself
the gross ignorance, which rages and ranges free i.n the forest of
this world, with its horribly monstrous appearance.

84. The mind containing within it the flame of its own

desires, is consumed to death like the fettered lion in a fire;

35. It assumes to itself the agency of all its various actsi,

nnder its subjection to a variety of desires; and thus exposes
itself to the changes of its state, in this life and All its futur^e
. births.

86. It labours continually under all its octuple state df

understanding; namely that the knowledge, intelligence And

mivity or active agency, and its egoism or selfishness, all of

which are causes of all its woe. . i

87. It is sometimes styled the prakriH or character, and at

othen the mdya or seat of self delusion. The mind-masus is
often converted to maids or foulness, and very often to kamumo^
activity.

fiTHITI KHA19DA. 997

88. It is sometimes designated as bondagey and is often S 3 mo*
nymous with the heart; it is called also as avidyd or ignorance,
and frequently identified with the will or volition likewise.

89. Know B^ima, the heart is tied to the earth by a chain

of sorrow and misery ^ it is brimful of avarice and grief, and
the abode of passions.

40. It is living dead with the cares of age and the fear of
death, to which the world is subject; it is troubled with desire
and digust, and stained by its ignorance and passions.

41. It is infested by the prickly thorns of its wishes, and

the brambles of its acts; it is quite forgetful of its origin, and
u beset by the evils of its own making.

42. It is confined as the silkworm in its own cell, where it

is doomed to dwell with its sorrow and pain; end though it is
but a minim in its shape, it is the seat of endless hell-fire. (A
hair as heart. Pope. The heart is hell &c, MQton).

43. It is as minute as tlte soul, i^d yet appears as huge as

the highest hill; and this world is a forest of wild poisonous
trees, branching out with their fruits of decay and death.

44. The snare of desire is stretched over the whole world;

its fruits are as those of the Indian fig trees, which has no pith
or flavour within.

45. The mind being burnt by the flame of its sorrow, and
bitten by the dragon of its anger; and being drowned in the
boisterous sea of its desires, has entirely forgotten its Great
Father.

46. It is like a lost stag straying out of its herd, and like
one demented by his sorrows; or more like a moth singed by
the flame of world affairs.

47. It is tom away as a limb from its place in the Spirit,

and thrown in an incongenial spot; it is withering away like a
lotus plant pluck from its root.

48. Being cast amidst the bustle of business, and among

men who are inimical or as dumb pictures to him, every man is
groveling in this earth amidst dangers and difficulties.

TOQA VA�SISHTaA.

SOB

49, Maa is exposed to the dlffloolties of this dark and dismal

world, like a bird fallen in the waters of the sea; he is entan�
gled in the snare of the world, like one snatched to the fairy
land in the sky.
60. The mind is carried away by the cnrrent of hnsiness,
like a man borne by the waves of the sea. Lift it, O brave
Bdmaj from this pit, as they do an elephant sinking in the mndr.

Sll Lift up thy mind by force, 0 Edmat like a bullock

from this delusive pnddle {pahala) of the world, where it is
shorn of its brightness and is weackend in its frame.

52. B4ma i the man whose mind is not troubled in this

world, with successive joy and grief, and the vicissitudes of
decrepitude, disease and death, is no human being: but resemble
a monstrous Bakassa, although he may have the figure of a man
on him. (It is not humanity to devoid of hmnan feeling).

CHAPTER XLllI.

T&b Repositobies oe Livinq SotJLS,

Argument. The Transmigrationa of Souls by virtue of their ActSi

and the way of their salvation.

Y ASISHTHA continued s�Thus the living soul being deriv�

ed from Brabma, assumes to itself the form of the mind,
and is tossed about with the thoughts and cares of the world.
It is then changed into thousands and millions of forms, as it
figures to itself in its imagination.

2. It has undergone many prior births, and is in the course

of migrating into many more; it will transmigrate into many
more also, which are as multitudinous as the fiitting particles
of a water-fall (splitting to many atoms).

8. These atomic souls of living biengs, being subjected to

their desires by the great variety of thdr wishes; are made to
wander under many forms, to which they are bound by their
desires.

4. They rove incessantly to different directions, in distant

countries both by land and water; they live or die in those
places, as the bubbles, blow out but to float and burst, and
then sink in the water below.

6. Some are produced for the first time in a new kalpa age,
and others are bom a hundred times in it; some have had only
two at three births, while the births of others are unnumbered
(in a kalpa).

6. Some are yet unborn and are to be born yet on earth, and
Bumy others have passed their births by attainment of their
Kberation at last. Some are alive at present, and others are no
more to be bora.

7. Some are born again and again, for myriads of kalpas,

( 908 MS lemaining in one state all along, and many in varions
states r^wntedly changing their forms and natures.
600

YOGA VASISHTSA.

8. Some are subjected to tbe great misery o� bell, and some

are destined to a little joy on earth; some enjoying the great
delights of the gods in .heaven, and others raised to the glory of
heavenly bodies above.

9. Some are bom as Kinnaras and G-andharvas and others

as Vidyadharas and huge serpents; some appear in the forms

of Scfl, Indra and Yanina (Onranas), and others in those of the
triocnlar Siva and the lotus�born BrahmA.

10. Some become the KnshmAnda and VetAla goblins, and

others as Yaksha and RAksha cannibals; some again become
the Brahmdnas and the ruling class, and others become Vaisyas
and Sndras. (The four tribes of Indo�Aryans).

11. Some become Swapacha and Chandala (eaters of dog

and hog-flcsh), and others as KirAtas and Pukkasa (eaters of
rotten bodies); some become the grass and greens on earth, and
others as the seeds of fruits and roots of vegetables, and as moths
and butterflies in the air.

12. Some are formed into varieties of herbs and creeping

plants, and others into stones and rocks; some into JUma and
Kadamha trees, and others into Sdla, Tdla and Tatndla forests.

13. There are some placed in prosperous circumstances, and

become as ministers and generals and rulers of states ; while
others are clad in their rags and remain as religious recluses,
munis and taciturn hermits in tbe woods.

14. Some are born as snakes and hydras, worms, insects and
ants; whilst there are others in the forms of great lions, big
buffaloes, stags and goats, the bosguavas and fleet antelopes in
forests.

15. Some are begotten as storks and cranes, ruddy geese

and cuckoos; and others are become their pastures in the shapes

. of lotuses and water lilies, the nilumbium and other aquatio

shrubs and flowers.

16. Some are brought forth as elephants and their cubs,, and
as wild boars, bulls and asses; and others come into being M
bees add beetles, flies and gadflies, gnats and mu8(]^uitoes.

STHrri EHANDA. 6Q1

17. any are born to difficulties and dangers,^d many to

prosperity and adversity; some are placed in hell pits and others
in their heavenly abodes.

18. Some are situated in the stara^ and some in the hollows
of trees ; some move upon the wing^s of the winds, and others
rest in the still air above or fly freely in the sky.

19. Many dwell in the sunlight of the day, and many sub�
sist under the moonbeams at night; while there be others sub*
sisting upon the beverage, which they draw from the herbacious
plants.

20. Some are liberated in their life-time, and rove about free�
ly in this earth; while others live in their blissful states, (in holy
and lonely hermitage). Some are altogether emancipate in thejr
reliance in the Supreme Spirit.

21. There are some that require long periods for their blessed
and ultimate liberation; and others there arc that disbelieve
'the intellectuality and spirituality of mankind, and dislike
their being reduced to the solcity of the soul, or to be reduced
to th^ oneness or unity with the Supreme soul�Eaivalya.

22. Some become regents of the skies above, and others roll
down in the form of mighty streams, some become females of
�beautiful appearances, and others as ugly hermaphrodites and
abnormities.

28. Some are of enlightened understandings, and some are

.darkened in their minds. Some are preachers and lecturers of
knowledge, and others in their ecstatic trance of Samddhi.

, 24. The living souls that are under the subjection of their
denres, are so powerless of themselves, that they have forgotten
their &eedom, and are fast chained to the fetters of their wishes.

25. They rove about the world, now flying up fmd then
ftdling down in their hopes and fears; and are incessantly tossed
xtp, and down, like playing balls flung on all sides, by the relent�
less hands of playful Death.

26. . Sntrapped in the hundred fold snare of desire, a�d con�

verted to the varioQB forms of their wishes, they pass, from oW

Voi.. II. 78

60 a YOGA VifSlSHTHA.

body to another, as the birds dy from one tree to alight on

another.

27. The endless desires of the living soul, bred and led
the false imt^inalions of the mind, have spread this enchanted
snare of magic or mdya, which is known by the name of the
great world.

28. So long are the stnpified souls doomed to rove about

in the world, like the waters in a whirlpool; as they do not
come to understand the true nature of their selves, as selfsame
with the Supreme-Self.

29. Having known and seen the true Self, by forsaking

their false knowledge of it, they come to their consciousness
of themselves, as identic with the divine Self; and having at�
tained this in process of time, they are released from their doom
of rivisiting this world of pain and sorrow.

80. There are however some insensible beings, who notwith�

standing their attainment of this knowledge, are so perverted
in their natures, that they have to return again to this earth,
after passing into a hundred lives in it in various shapes, (owii^
to their disbelief in the self).

31. Some there are who after having attained to higher

states, fall down again by the lowness of their spirit^ and appear�
ing in the shapes of brute creatures, have to fall into hell at last.

32. There are some great minded souls, who having pro�
ceeded from the state of Brahma, have to pass here a single life,
after which they are absorbed in the Supreme soul. tSuch were
the sage Janaka and the sagely Seneca).

33. There are multitudes of living beings in other worlds

also, some of whom have become as the lotus-born Brahmd, and
others as Hara (the Homs of the Egyptian trinity).

34. There are others who have become as gods and brote
creatures in them, and there are snakes and other reptiles also in
them as well as in this earth. (Astronomers have descried kine
in the moon, and Hindoos have found it to abound in deer,
whence the moon is called mrigdnka by them. So are the cons�
tellations in the heavens).

STHITI KHANDA.

003

85. There are other worlds as obvious to view as this earth

' (in the starry heavens), and there are many such worlds that

have gone by, and are yet to appear (in the immensity of space).

86 . There are various other creatures of different shapes,

produced by various unknown causes in the other worlds idso,
which have their growths and deaths like those of this earth.

87. Some are produced as Gandharvas, and others as Yakshas

(the Yakkas at Ceylon); and some are generated as Suras
(Sorians); and some others as Asuras (Assyrians) and Daityas
(demons).

88 . The manners and modes of life of the peoples in other

parts of the globe, are as those of the men living in this part of
the earth.

89. All creatures move according to their own natures and

mutual relations for ever more, as the waves and currents of a
river move forward, following and followed by others in regular
succession.

40. The whole creation moves onward in eternal progression,

in its course of evolution and involution, and in its motions of
ascension and descension like the waves of the ocean.

41. In this manner do the multitudes of living beings, pro*

need from the Supreme Spirit, who with the consciousness of
their self'existence, rise from and fall atlast into it. (The con-
BciousnesB of the universal soul, is divided into the individual
souls of beings, that are derived and detached from it).

42. All created beings are detached from their source, like
the light from the lamp and the solar rays from the sun; they
are like sparks of red hot iron, and the scintillation of fire.

48. They are as the particles (or minute moments) of time,

and the flying odours of flowers; or as the cold icicles and the
minutial of rain water, borne by breeze and cooling the air all
around.

44. So the flitting particles of life, flying from one spot to

another, and filling different bodies with animation, are at last
absorbed in the main spring of vitality whence they had risen,

$04

YOGA YA3lSHrBA

45. The particles of vital ur, being thus ^leaj out ,

Mattered over the aniverse, come to assume the varioos forms ol^
animated beings in all the worlds, but they are all mere creations
of our ignorance, and are in reality like the rolling waves of
water in the vast ocean of eternity.

CHAPTER XLIV.

T^B IkOABRATION 07 HTIHAR SOTTUS IK TBB WOBtD*

AiRoment. Disoassion aboat incamatioA of the spirit, and its extinotioli

by death and liberation.

R X.MA askedI understand now how the particles of the

' Divine Spirit, take the forms of the living souls ; but I
cannot conceive how it assumes the corporeal body composed
of bones and ribs.
2. Vdsishtha replied: ~Why don't you know it Rdma, when
I have explained it to you before? Where have you lost your
deductive reasoning of arriving to the conclusion from ^osO

5. All these corporeal bodies in the world, and all these mov*
ittg and unmoving persons and things, are but false represen*
tations, rising before ns as the visions in our dreams.

4. The phenomenal world differs only in its being, but a

longed and more delusive dream; it is as the eight of the double
inoon by optical deception, and of a mountain in the delusion
of darkness.

6 i The enlightened mind which is cleared of its drowsiness

of ignorance, and is freed from the fetters of its desire, views
the world to be no more than a dream.

6 . The world is a creation of the imagination, by the nature

of all living souls, and it remains therefore impressed in the
soul} until it attains its final liberation.

7. The fleeting essence of the soul, is like the eddy of waters j

or like the germ tiie seed, or more like the leaflet of a sprout.

8 . And as the flower is contained in the branch, and the

fruit unthih its flowers; so this creation of the imagination, is
contained in the receptacle of the mind.

9. As the ever-changing form of the chamdion, exhibits

but a particular hue at a time; so the ever-varyingtaind

606

YOGA VAISISHTHA.

shows only the figure, which is prominent in its thought for the
time being : (and this inward figure is reflected by the visual
organs).

10. The same thought assumes a visible form, as the clay

tabes the form of a pot; and the good thoughts and actions
of the prior state of life, serve to give the soul a goodly form
in its next birth on earth.

11. We see the mighty lotos-born BrahmA situated in the

cell of that flower, and find it to bo the effect of the good
thoughts he had in his mind.

12. This unlimited creation is the false fabrication of imagi�

nation; whereupon the living soul in conjunction with the
mind, obtained the state of Virinchi the Brahmd, (vir inch-
oatious or incipiens the primary man, otherwise called ddima-
purmka�Kd&m. or the first male).
13. Bdma said:�require, Sir, to be fully informed, whether
all other beings sprang from the same cause as Brahmd�the
lotus-bom.

14. Yasishtha answered:�Hear me tell you, O long-

armed BAma, the manner of BrahmA�s having the body; and
from his instance, yon will learn about the existence of the world.

15. The Supreme soul, which is unlimited by time or space,

takes of his own will, and by the power of his Omnipotence,
the limited forms of time and space upon himself.

16. The same becomes the living soul, and is fraught with
various desires in itself, of becoming many :�aham hahn ayam.

17. When this limited power which is BrahmA, thinks on

the state of his having been the Hiranya-garbha, in his former
state of existence in the prior Ealpa; he is immediately trans�
formed to that state which is in his mind, and which is ever busy
with its thoughts and imaginations.

18. It thinks first of the clear sky, the receptacle of sound,

and which is perceptible by the auditory organs; and this thought
being condensed in the mind, makes it vibrate as by the wind
of the air.

8THITI KHANDA.

607

19. It tLitiks then on the vibrations o� air, which are the

' objects of feeling, through the porous skin and the mind; and
is moved by the thoughts of air and wind to assume that form,
which are invisible to the naked eye.

20. The condensation of the elements of air and wind to*

gether, produced the idea of light which is the cause of sight,
and which has the colours and Bgurcs for its objects; and thus
the mind being actuated by its triple thoughts of air, wind and
light, produced the property of fire.

21. These joined immediately to produce the idea of coldness

the property of water; and the mind then came to form the
quadruple ideas of the four elements of air, wind, fire and water.

22. These united together produced the gross form of

earth�the receptacle of scent; and then the mind being filled
with these minute elementary particles in its thoughts of them,
forsook its fine form of the spirit for its gross body of the
quintuple elements, (called the quintessence of material bodies
( pancAabhauitka ).

23. It saw tb<s body shining as a spark of fiire in the sky,

which joined with its egoism and understanding, formed its
personality.
24. This is called the spiritual body (lingasarira>,�^the
embodying octuple, which is situated as the bee in the pericarp
of the lotus like heart, and which gives growth to the outer
body by its inner working, (as the inner seed grows the outer
tree).

26. It is thickened by the action of the heart of it�s internal

process of calefaction, like the bel fruit or woodapple. And the
enter body receives the qualities of the inner mind, as the jewel
shines with the lustre of the little particle of gold, which is
infused in the melted state of the metal in the crucible.

26. The quality of the inner soul or mind, manifests itself

in the outer body, as the quality of the seed appears in the form
and taste of its fruit. The mind then dwells upon the thoughts
of its actions, which have their display in the several organs,
and members of the bsdily actions, which are produced by the

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

motions of the inner thonghts and aotsj as iihe leaves and

^branches of trees are projected by the inner process and ope^
.tions of the seed.

27. Its thoughts of upside and below, lifts and lowers its
head and feet upward and down-ward; and its thought of bpth
sides, extends its two arms to the right and left.

28. Its thoughts of the backward and forward, places its

back behind, and its breast and belly before it; and the hairs on
the head and fingers of the hands, are as the filaments and
twigs of trees.

29. In this manner did Brahmd, who is called a muni or

mental being, from his having sprung the mind of Brahma, pro*
duced the several parts of his body, according to his thonghts of
their usefulness to it.

50. He brought the body and its limbs to compactness, as tho

seasons bring their fruits and grains to perfection. Thus is every
thing perfected in time, and all beings have their beautiful
bodies and figures.

51. He, the lord Brahmd was the progenitor of all beings,
and fraught with the qualities of strength and understanding,
activity, dignity and knowledge. (The Smriti attributes the
Sidihi chatuahtaya or quadruple perfections to him).

82. Being begotten by the vacuous Brahma, he resides in

the lap of vacuity; and is of the form of melted gold, like every
other luminous body in the heavens.

53. I!hough situated in the Supreme, yet the .mind of

Brahmd is liable to the mistakes of its own making; and at
times it quite forgets its having no begining, middle nor and,
like its source.

54. Sometimes the lord thinks himself, as identic with tire

waters which existed before creation in his mind; and at . ano*
ther as the mundane egg, which was as bright as the fire of ,nni>
versal destruction (see Manu 1).

35. Sometimes the lord thought himself, W the dark woodi

which covered the earth before creation of, UviDg/M\j|nMds,,,Ml^

&TBtTI KHANDA.

60S

^lien as the lotos bed (wbereio he was born). Afterwards he

become of many forms at each phase and epoch of creation.
(These epochs are called halpat or periods, in which the divine
mind manifested itself according to its wish within the different
stages of creation.

36. Thns BrahmA became the preserver of many kinds

of beings, which he created of his own will from his mind at
each stage or halpa-penoi ; of which he was the first that issued
from BrahmA himself. (He was the first begotten, and nothing
Was created but by him).

37. When BrahmA was first begotten, he remained in his

happy state of insensibility and forgetfulness (of his former exis>
tence) j but being delivered from his torpor in the womb, he
came to see the light, (t. e. He saw the light of heaven, after
his delivery from the darkness of the womb).

38. He took a corporeal body, with its breathings and

respirations (pranapana); it was covered with pores of hair,
and furnished with gums of two and thirty teeth. It had the
three pots of the thighs, backbone, and bones, standing on the feet
below; with the five air, five partitions, nine cavaties, and a smooth
akin covering all the limbs. (The five airs are pranapana &c.
The five partitions are, the head, the legs, the br^t, belly and

. the hands).

40. It is accompained by twice ten fingers and their nails

on them ;and with a couple of arms and palms and two or more
hands and eyes: (in the cases of gods and giants).

41. The body is the nest of the bird of the mind, and it is
hole of the snake of lust; it is the cave of the goblin of greedi-
ness, and the den of the lion of life.

42. It is a chain at the feet of the elephant of pride, and a

lake of the lotuses of our desire; The lo^ BrahmA looked upon
his handsome body, and saw it was good.

43. Then the .lord thought in himself, from his view of the
three times of the past, present and future, and from his sight of
the vault of heaven, with a dark mist as a group of flying
locusts.

Voi. II. 77

eio

roaA YAiSISHTHA

44. " Wliat ia this boundless space, and what had it bee*
before. How came I to being P* Thus pondering in himself, hd
was enlightened in his scml. (Thns did Adam inquire abont hit
blith, and the piuddction of the world in Miltons Paradise Lost);

45. He saw in his mind the different past creations, and te-
coUected the various religious and their various sects, wUch had
grown upon earth one after the other.

46. He produced the holjr Vedas as the spring does its flow*
ers; and formed with ease all varieties oi creatures from their ar�
chitypes in his mind,

47* He set them in their various laws and customs, as he

saw them in the city of his mind, for the purpose of thnr teniH
poral and spiritual welfare.

48. He thought upon the innumerable varieties of Sdstras

which had emsted before, and all of which came to exist on earth
in their visible forms, from their prototypes in his eternal mind ;
like the flowers springing from the womb of the vernal season.

49. Thus O Bdma I did Brahmd take upon him the form
�t the loto8*born, and create by his activity, all the different
features upon their models existent in his mind, which took their
Tarions forms in the visible World at his will. (So the Sufi and
Platonic doctrine of the phenomenal, as a copy of the noumena,
or the swan aoitW as bat a shadow of the tNvort manavi vt
mttini. Sec Alhuni).

CHAPTER XLV.

DiraKSAsrcB of au on ood.

AiNumeat. The miad being a finite production, its product of the

world, is as unreal as the thoughts of the mind.

^ASISHTHA coatinaed;�^The world appearing as substantiid,

' has nothing substantive in it; it is all a vacuity and loeia
representation of the imageries and vagaries of the mind. '
- 2. Neither is time nor space filled by any world at all, bat
by the great spirit, who has no form except that of vacaam.
� (The spirit of God fills the infinite vacuity from all eternity).

. 8. This is all imaginary, and as visionary as a city seen in a

dream; whatever is seen any where is fallacy, and existing in the
infinite vacuity. (All is void amidst the great void of Brahma�s
Hind).

. 4. It is a paintingwithoutitsbase, and a vision of unreal*

ities; it is an uncreated creation, and a variegated picture in
^pty air (without its canvas).

6. It is the imagination of the mind, that has stretched the

�three worlds, and �sde the many bodies contained in them.

Reminiscence is the cause of these creations, as the

the cause of vision. ^

is

8. The pageantry of the world is an erroneous representation,

like the elevations and depressions in a painting; they are not
distinct from the supereme spirit, in which they are situated as
buildings stand on their foundation. (Or as statues in bas-relieQ.

7. The mind has made the body for its own abode, as some
worms make their cortices or coatings, and the soul also has its
.gheaths or kosbas : (namely the annamayd kosha ^e).

8. There is nothing which the mind can not get or build in

4ts empty imagination, however difficult or unattainable it may
�ppear to be.

9. 'What impossibility is there of the same powers residing in

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

ei2

Omnipoienoe, which are possesaed by the mind in its seolnded cell ?

(The spiritual powers must be greater than the mental).

10. .It is not impossible, O Bdma I for any thing to be or not

to be at any time or always, when there is the omnipotent Lord,
who can create or annihilate all things at his will. (The positive
and the negative are co-etemal with the eternal Mind, though
it is an impossiblity in the order of nature, as ; �It is impossible
for the same thing to be, and not to be at the same time..^
Locke).

11. Mind that, when the mind is empowered to make its own-
body, and to form others in its imagination, how much more is
the power of the almighty to make and unmake all things at his:
will.

12. It is divine will that has brought the gods, the demigods
and all mankind into exsitenoe ; and it is by the cessation of the
(creative) will, that they cease to exist as the lamp is extingui�
shed for want of its oil.

13. Behold the sky and^all things under it]to be displayed by

the divine will, and understand the universe as the visionary
scene of thy dream laid open to thy sight.

14. There is nothing that is born or dies here at any time,

because eveiy thing is a nullity in its true sense.

15. There is also nothing, that becomes more or less in any

wise when there is nothing in existence ; for how can that (soul)
have a body when it is bodyless, and can it be parted, when it
is an undivided whole 7

16. Bdmal seeing by thy keen sightedness, that all these

bodies ore bodiless (t. e. only imaginary beings), why shouldsi
thou fall into the error (of taking them for realities ?).

17. As the mirage is made to appear by the heat of the sun,

so do these false appearances seem as true to thee from the certa�
inty of thy mind. So also are Brahmd and others but creatures
of thy fancy.

18. They are as false as the sight of two moons in the sky
by thy false imagination, it is the great fallacy of thy mind, thi^
represents these false forms of the world before thee.

BTHITI KHANDA.

SI 3 ;

1ft As the panenger in a boat sees the fixed objects on earth

to he moving about him, so these varieties o� visible objects
offer themselves to thy view.

20. Enow the world as an enchanted scene, presented by the

magic of thy error ; it is a fabrication of the working of

thy mind, and is a nullity though appearing as a reality.

21. All this world is Brahma, what else is there beside him f
What other adjunct can behave, what is that? Whence did it
come, and where is it situated ?

22. That this is a mountain and that is a tree, are append�

ages affixed by our error and mistake, it is the prejudgment of
the mind, that makes the unreality appear as a reality.

23. The world is the creation of error and idol of fools;

shun your fond desire and thoughts of it, Bsma, and think of
.thy unworldly soul.

24. It is as false as the visionary scene of a prolonged

dream, and an aerial building of the fancies of the mind.

25. Shun this grand display of the world, which is so subs�

tantial to sight, and so inane when felt; It is the den of the
dragons of desire, foaming with the poison of their passions.

26. Knowing the world as unreal, try to regard it as nothing;

because the wise will never go after a mirage knowing it such.

27. The foolish man .that runs after some imaginary object
of his heart�s desire, is surely exposed to trouble and disapoint-
ment for his folly.

28. Whoever desires to have any thing in this world, after

knowing it as an unreality, surely perishes with his soul for his
forsaking the reality.

29. It is only that error of the mind, which makes it mistake

a rope for a snake} and it is the variety of the thoughts and pur�
suits of men, that makes them roll about in the world.

30. When some vain thought labors in the mind, like the
moon appearing to move under the water} it begpiiles little child�
ren only, and not the wise as youself.

31. He who pursues the virtues for his future happiness.

�U T90A VA'flISSTQi.

�tirtly kit>dl�� th� fir 9 <tf bu iot^Ugenoe fa^dcibwy i|if �r^*{

bis ignoimnoe.

32. All the gross bodies that are seen here in this world, ank
all the creatures of the working of the mind, sc the building of
aerial castles in our ihonght.

33. It is the hearths deeire that produces these tliingf^ as it is

want of desire that destroys them all. The unrealities appear ae
true as the fairylands appearing to view. ' (Fairy cities like the.
sight of casUes in the icebergs).

84. Know Bdma, that nothing that is existent is lost on the

dissolution of the world, nor what is inexistent of its nature, eaa
ever come into existence.

85. Say Bdma, what things yon call as entire or broken, or

to be growing or decaying, when these ideas are but the forma�
tions of your sound or unsound mind or the working of your
fancy.

86. As children make and break their toy-dolls of clay at

will, BO the mind raises and erases its thoughts of all things
in the world, (by its repeated recollections and oblivions of
them).

37. As nothing is lost or drowned in the talismanie tank of

a conjuror, so nothing is dead or dissolved in the magical sea of
this world (sansdra sdgara'.

38. The unrealities being all untrue, it is true that nothing

is lost by their loss. Hence there is no cause for our joy or
sorrow in this unreal world. (Why sorrow, when afn^le
is broken, or a mortal is no more).

39. If the world is altogether an unreality, I know not what

may be lost in it; and if nothing whatever is really lost in it,
what reason can there be for the wise to sorrow for it ?

40. IftheDiety is the only absolute existence, what: else it

there for us to lose in it ? The whole universe being full with -
Brahma, there can be no cause of our joy or sornwr ^r asy
thing whatever.

41. ^ If the unreality can never COOK to wtbKftee, H opnot

VtSm EHAKDA.

Hit

hare its gtdwtb aho. Whatcaaseis there of our sorrow for

Aeir want of growth or existence ?

42. Thus every thing is butnnr^l and metecaoBe of onr

delosion, what is there that may be reckoned as the best boon
for ns, that the wiseman oan have to desire. (No real blim is
to be found on earth).

43. But all this when taken in the sense of their being fnH
with the Divine Spirit, what thing is there so veiy trifling for
the wise man to despose or refuse to take ?

44. Bat he who considers tho wmrld as an unreality, is never

sabject to joy or sorrow at bis gain or less of any thing. It is only
the igporant that is elated or depressed at the one or the other.

46. That which was not before nor will remain afterwards,
is likewise the same nihility at present ; therefore who so desires
the nnllity, is said in the Srnti to be null himself. (Ifae Smti
says. Nothing there was, nothing there is, uid nothing will
last in the end except the being of God).

46. What was before and what will be in the end, the same
is in being (t� esge) even at present; therefore, what is always
in eue, it is that entily alone that is seen everywhere and at all
times.

47. There are the unreal sky and moon and stars,, seen un-
demeath the water; it is only the deluded boys that like to
took at them, but never the wise: (who look at the reality and
not at its diadow).

48. Children take a liking for light, empty and gaudy

baubles; which are of no good or use to them nor any body
at all, and are rather led to sorrow at their loss, than derive any
good from their gain whatever.

49. Therefore act not as a child, O lotus-eyed B<ima t but

oondact yourself as the wise, imd by looking at these fleeting
baubles as ever evanescent, rely in the Everlasting alone.

66. Bdma I be not sad or sorry to learn, that all these with
thyself and myself are nothing in reality; nor be glad or joyous
tor know, that all these and ourselves are real entities. But reckon

610

YOGA VASISHTHA.

alike wkether these be or not be; because it is the One Beingi

that becomes and nnbecomes anything, it is the only Being, and
.all things that becomes.

61. Valmiki said:�As the sag^ was sapng in this 'manner,

the day glided away to its dusk; the sun departed to his even tide
and evening service, and with him the assembly parted to their
evening ablations and rest, after which they assembled again to
the court with, the rising sun.

CHAPTER XLVI.

Bxscaimoi^ of LiTiKO-LiBEBAHioir.

Aignment, ,The e^ndpatioa of Living souls from the thraldom of

the World.

i^ASISRTHA said No man knows sorrow as long as he is

' Y in possession o� his pleasant home, family and wealth;
but why should he be sorrowful upon their disappearance, know
ing them as a ghort�lived enchantment and accompaniment.

2. 'Wliat pleasure or pain can one derive, either from the

grandeur or detraction of his aerial castle, and what cause
of joy can he hare in his ignorant children, or of sorrow upon
iheir death f (An ignorant son is sorrow to his father. Solomon).

S. What joy is there in the increase of our wealth or family,

seeing them as the increasing mirage of water which can never
satisfy the thirsty. (The thirst of riches is never satisfied. Lat.
Awn toera /antes, Verg),

4). There is increase of care with the increase of wealth and

family i and there is no happiness in the increase of worldly pos>
sessions and affections. (Care follows increasing wealth. Little
wealth little care).

A. - The abundance of carnal enjoyments, which are delight�

some to the ignorant voluptuary, is quite distasteful and dis-
, gusting to the abstemious, wise and learned. (Carnal pleasures are
. biutash, but mqntal delights are relished by the wise).

. 6. What joy is there in the possession of temporaiy wealth

and family to the wise, that seek their lasting welfare, and are
quite indifferent about these f

7. Therefore, O Rdma I be truly wise in thy conduct in tlii�

vrotld; shnn the transient as they are transitory, and lay hold
on wluitever offers, of itself unto thee. (Be content with what
thou gettest).

VOL II.

78

YOGA VAl3ISHTfll,

ei8

8. Inappetency of what is nngotten, and enjoyment of what

is in present possession; are the true characteristic of the wise
and learned. (Contentment is abundance; and a contented mind
as a continued feast).

9. Take care of this bewildering world, where thy enemies

are lurking in many a deceitful shape ; and conduct thyself aa,
the wise man, evading the dangers that wait upon the unwise.
(The enemies are of seven shapes, viz : a swordsman, a poisoner,
an incendiary, a curser, an exorcist, a backbiter and an
adulterer).

10. They are great fools who do not look deeply into the
things, and think the world to be without any fraud or g^uile.
(The credulous are most imposed upon).

11. Fools are led by the deceitful speech of cheats, to fall

into the temptations of the world; but men of right understand�
ing place no reliance in them, nor plunge themselves into the
pit of errors. (It is cunningness to keep from the cunning).

12. He who knowing the unrealities, place no reliance in

anything ; is said to have mastered all knowledge, and is never
liable to error. (Descrimination of truth and untruth, and of
right and wrong, constitute the highest wisdom of man).

13. Who so knowing himself as fnul as any thing in this

frail world, has his faith in neither, is never liable to &Il into
the error of taking either of them for real.
14. Placed between the unreality and realUy of thiS' and
next life, yon must have the good sense of sticking to the Truth,
and nei&er wholly reject or stick to this or the next. (The
text says, stock not to the outward or inward alone: t. e, either
to the outer world or inner spirit entirely, but attepd to your
interests in both of them).

15. Though engaged in business, yet yon must remain, 0

B4ma! quite indifferent to all things; because the apathetic
and inappetent are truly happy in this wofld.

16. He who has nothing to desire or leave, but lives as he

is obliged to live, has his intellect as unanlUed as the lotus-leAf�
to which the laving waters never stick.

STHiri KHANDA.

619

17. Let tby accessory organs manage thy outvrord affairs

ot not} but keep thy appathetic soul qnite unconcerned mth all.
(�. e. The body and mind may attend to business ; but the soul
mast remain aloof from all).

18. Let not thy mind be plunged in and deeply engaged

with the objects of sense, by thinking them in vain to be thy
properties and possessions > bat manage them or not with utter
indifference of thy mind. (�. e. Observe a stoical indifference
in all thy wordly concerns).

19. When thou comest to feel, Bima I that the sensible

objects have ceased to give any relish to thy soul, then thon
shalt know thyself to have reached the acme of thy spiritnal
edification, and got over the boisterous sea of the world.

aO. The embodied or disembodied soul whether living or

dead, that has ceased to have any taste for sensuous enjoyments,
has attained its liberation without its wishing for it.

21. TryBAma! by your superior intelligence, to separate

your mind from its desires, as they extract the perfume from
flowers.

22. They that have not been swept away by the waves of
their desires, to the midst of the ocean of this world, are said
to have got over it; but the others are no doubt drowned and
lost in it. (This is the first time that I found the word budi/u
to occur in Sanskrit in the sense of drowned. See the verna*
cnlar Beng^i dubita also).

23. Sharpen your understanding to the edge of a razor,

erase the weeds of doubt therewith, and after scanning the na�
ture of the soul, enter into thy spiritual state of blessedness.

24. Move about as those who have attained to true know�

ledge, and elevated their minds with true wisdom; and do no^:
act as the ignorant wordling: who is mindful of the present
state, and unmindful of the future.

25. In conducting yourself in this world, you should imitate

them that are liberated in their life time, who are great in their

Ob YOQA

atHib and ondentandings, and who are ever nlufied- with t�eni>
eelvest ahd not follow the examples of the greedy a^ wicked'.

�6. Those having the knowledge of both wofl^s^ ^itheiK

sl^ht nor adhere to the oostoms of their oaaafxy, bht foBbitr
them like other people daring their life time. (*V e. Aot ia
hannony and oonformity with approved onstom'andTiBage)^

27. Great men knowing the tmth, are never inroad of t!hde
power or good qualities, nor of thmr honour or prosperity like'
the vnlgar people.

28. Great men are not depressed by adveraify, nier elated

by prosperity; but remain fixed like the son in the sky without
anything to support it.

29. Great minds like warriors ride in the ehairiote of their

bodies, clad in the armour of their knowledge; they have no
desire of their own, but conduct themselves according to the
ronrse of the time.

50. You too Bdma I have gained your extensive learning

in philosophy, and it is by virtue of your pmdenee, that you
can manage yourself with ease.

51. Suppress the sight of the visibles, and avoid your pride
and enmiiy; then roam wherever you will, and you will meet
with success.

52. Se sedate in all circumstances, unattached to the present,

and wishing to know all other things in future; have tiie ealni
composure of your mind, and go where you will.

33. Ydlmikisaid:�Bdma, being advised in this mannerly

the pure doctrines of the sage, brightened in his countenance;
and being full within himself with the ambrosia of his know*
pledge; shone forth like the ambrosial moon with her cooling
bdams.

CHAPTER XLVn.

DxsoBiEtioir Of thb WosLoa and tbeih Dsuiubgs.

ArgHma&t. Belatioo' of many past and Futore Worlda, and of the gods
and ^her beings contained in them.

1) ASIA Stud:�0 venerable sir, that art acquunted with all

Iv religions doctrines and versed in all branches of the Vedas,
i ana rot at perfect ease by thy holy preachings.

si. lam never satiate with hearing yonr speech, which hr

equally copious, clear and elegant.

3. Yoni have said sir, of the birth of Brabmd in course of

yoiur' lecture on the productions of the Satya and rdjasa qualities.
I Want you to tell me more on that subject.

4. Vasishtha answered:�^There have been many, millions of

Riahmds, and many hundreds of Sivas and Indras, together with
^ousands of Ndrdyanas, that have gone by; (in the revolution of
Uges).

6. There have been various kinds of beings also in many

other worlds, having their manners and customs widely differing
from one another.

6. There will also be many other productions in the worlds,

synchronous with others, and many to be born at times remote�
ly distant from one another.

7. Among these, the births of Brahmd and the other gods in

the different worlds, are as wonderful as the productions of many
thin gs in a magic show.

8. Some creations were made with Brahmd as the first bom,

others with Vishnu and some with Siva as the next created
beings. There were some other (minor productions), having the
funnis for the patriarchs. (These are the different periods of the
formation of the world under the different Demiurgs).

9. ' One Bnhmd was lotus-bom, another was produced from

thb itater; and i tiuid was born of an egg, and the fourth was

622 TOGA VA51SHTHA.

produced in the air. (These are named as the Tadmaja, NdrdyanSf

Andaja and Mhrata^.

10. In one egg the sun was bom with all his eyes, and in
another Vdsara�the Indra; in some one was bora the lotus-eyed
Vishnu, and in another he with his three eyes as Siva.

11. In one age was bora the solid earth, having no holes for
the growth of vegitables, in another it was overgrown with
verdure; it was again filled with mountainSj and at last COVei^
by living creatures.

12. The earth was full of gold in some place, and it was
hard ground at others; it was mere mud in many places, and
incrusted with copper and other metals in some.

13. There are some wondrous worlds in the universe, and

others more wondrous still than they; some of them are luminous
and bright, and others whose light have never reached nnto us.

14. There are innumerable worlds scattered in the vacuum

of Brahma�s essence, and they are all rolling up and down like
waves in the ocean. (Here the infinite vacuity, is represented
as the body of Brahma, and the sole substance of all other bodies).

16. The splendours of worlds, are seen in the SUPREME like

wavra in the sea, and as the mirage in the sandy desert; they
abide in Him as flowers on the mangoe trea

16. It may be possible to count the particles of the soler rays,

but not the number of worlds abounding in the Supreme Spirit.

17. These multitudes of worlds rise and fall in the Universal

Spirit, like gnats flying and following others in swarms in the
rainy season.

18. It is not known since when they have been in existence,

and what numbers of them have gone by, and ate rem^ing at
the present time.

19. They have been rolling without beginning like the billows
of the sea; those that are past and gone had their previous ones,
and they their prior ones also.

20. They rise over and over, to sink lower and lower ^ain ;
just as the waves of the sea, rising aloft and falling low by tniwb

STHITI SHAIJDA.

�23

21. There are series of mundane worlds like the egg of

Ibralimd, which pass away by thonsands like the hoars in coarse
of the year.

22. There are many sach bodies revolring at present, in the

spacions mind of Brahma; beside the mundane system of
Btahmd (Brahmdnda).

23. There will grow many more mundane worlds in the in�
finity of the divine mind, and they will also vanish away in
course of time, like the evanescent sounds in the air. (The sounds
are never lost, but remain in the air. BahdonUyam).

24. Other worlds will come into existence in the coarse of

other creations, as the pots come to be formed of clay, and the
leaves grow from germs in endless succession. (Here Brahma
is made the material cause of all).

25. So long doth the glory of the three worlds appear to the
sight, as long as it is not seen in the intellect, in the manner as
it exists in the divine mind.
26. The rismg and falling of worlds are neither true nor
wholly false; they are as the fanfaronade of fools, and as
orchids of the air.

27. All things are of the manner of sea waves, which vanish
no sooner than they appear to view, and they are all of the
nature of painings, which are impressed in the mind.

28. The world is a prospective, and all things are but paint�
ings in it; they are not without the tableau of the mind, and- are
represented in it as the figures on a canvas.

29. The learned in divine knowledge, consider the creations

proceeding from the Spirit of God, as showers of rain falHng
from the waters contained in the clouds.

SO. The visible creation is no more distinct from God, than

the sea water exuding from the earth and the earth itself, and
the leaves and seeds of the Bimul tree from the tree itself.

31. All created things that you sec in their gross or subtle
forms, have proceeded from the vacuity of the Divine Mind,
and are strung together, like a rosary of Wge and small gems
and beads.

'424 YOOA VA'SISHTHA.

82. Sometimes'ihe subtile air is . solidified in the � form of

tbe atmosphere, and therefrom is produced the great ^iah.jia4>
thence called the air�hom lord of creatures.

SS. Sometimes the atmospheric air is condensed into a solid

:form, and that gives birth to a Brahmd; under the title of tiie
atmospheric lord of creation.

84. At another time it is light that is thickened to a lumi'*

nous body, and thence is bom another Brahm4, bearing the
�appellation of the luminous lord of all creatures.

36. Again the water being condensed at another time/

produced another Brahmd designated the aquaeous lord of
creation.

36. Sometimes the particles of earth take a denser form�

. and produce a Brahmd known as the terrene Brahmd. (Such

was Adam made out of the dust of the ground).

87. It is by extraction of the essences of these four Brahmd^

that a fifth is formed under the name of the quintuple Btahmi,
who is tbe creation of the present world.

88. It is sometimes by the condensation of water, air or heatj

that a being is produced in the form of a male or female.
39. It is sometimes from the speaking mouth of this being,
and from his feet and back and the eyes, that different men
are produced under the appellations of Brdhmans^ Eshetriya�
Vaisya and Sudras. (These Kshetriyas are born from the arms
and eyes according to Mann).

40. Sometimes the great Being causes a lotus to grow out

� of his navel; in which is bom the great Brahmd known as the

lotus-born.

41. All these theories of creation (in the different Sdstras)

are idle dreams, and as false as the dreams in our sleeping state;
they are tbe reveries of fancy like the eddies of water.

42. Tell me what do yon think of these theories in your own .

judgment; do they not appear as the tales told to boys ?

48. Sometimes they imagine a being produced in the pare

STHITI KHANDA.

625

VBOoity of the Divine mindj this they call the golden and
mundane egg, which gave birth to the egg-born Brahmd.

44. It is said also that the first and divine Male, casts his
seed in the waters, which grows up to a lotos-flower which they
call the great world.

46. This lotos is the great womb of the birth of Brahmd,

and at another time of the sun also; sometimes the gods Varona
and Yayu also are born of it, and are thence called oviparoas.

46. Thos BamA, are the different accounts of the production

of BrahmA�the creator, so various also is the description of this
unsolid and unsubstantial creation.

47. I have related to you already about the creation of one

of these BrahmAs, and mentioned about the production of others
without specifying their several works.

48. It is agreed by all, that the creation is but the develop�

ment of divine mind; although I have related for your acquain�
tance, the various process of its production.

49. The SAtwiki and other productions, of which I told you

before, have all come to existence, in the manner I have narrated
to yon.

60. Now know the endless succession of all things in the

world; creation is followed by destruction as pleasure by pain;
and as ignorance is followed by knowledge, and bondage by
liberation.
61. Past creations and objects of affection being gone, others
come to rise in future, as the lamps are lighted and extinguished
by turns at home.

62. Th�prodaction and destruction of all bodies, ate as those

of BrahmA and the lamps, they assume their forms in their time^
but become an nndistinguishable mass after death. .

53. The four ages of the world, namely, the Saiya, Treta,
Dwapsraand Kali Jugas, revolve in endless rotation, Uke tlu�
wheel of the potter or of any other engine.

64. The Manvantaras and Kalpa <ycles succeed one another,

VoL II 79

'YOOtk VA'SISHTHA.

06

as the day and 'nig^ht, the morning and evening, altad the tWcA
of work follow those of rest by tarns.

55. All worlds and things are under the subjection of time..
They are subject to repeated successions, and there is nothing
without its rotation.

�56. They all proceed of their nature from the vacuum of

t)ivine Intellect, as the sparks of fire scintillate from the red-hot
iron.

57. All things once manifest, are neitt concealed in the divine
mind; just as the season fruits and flowers, disappear after their
appearance in season.

58. All productions are hut fluctuations of the mind of the

Supreme spirit; their appearances to our view, are as the sight of
two moons to infirm eyes.

69, It is the intellect alone, which exhibits these appearances

to our view; they are always situated in the intellect, though
they appear without it like the beams in the inner disk.

60. Know Bdma, the world to be never in existence; it is a

motionless show of that power, which resides only in the Supreme
spirit.

61. It is never as it appears to yon, but quite a different

thing from what it seems to be ; it is a show depending on the
power of the Omnipotent.

62. What the world exists since the makd kalpa or great
will of God, and there is no more any other world to come into
existence in future, is the conclusion of the learned holds good
to the present time. (This belief Is based on the holy text,
�so aikthoUa� God willed-�Let there be,^� and there was all").
68. All this is Brahma to the intelligent, and there is no
such thing as the world, which is a mere theory (upap&dya) of
the unintelligent.

64. The insapient consider the world as eternal, from the

continued uniformity of its coarse i but it is the effect of the
everlasting error, which raises the false supposition of the world.

65. It is their theory of repeated transmigrations, 4>hat they

STHITI KHANDA.

m'.

mnnot sajr anything otherwise; hot must conclude the world aa

�uch, in order to keep pace with their doctrine. (The doctr its of
perpetual metempsychosis of the Mimdusaba materialists, natural�
ly makes them suppose the eternity of the world).

66. But it ia to be wondered why they do not consider the

world to be destructible, seeing the incessant pcrishableness of all
things all around. (They flash as momentary lightenings in their
appearance, to be extingnisbed into nothingness soon after .

67. So others (the SAnkhyas) seeing the continuous course

of the sun and moon, and the stability of mountains and seas
all about, come to the conclusion of the indestructibility of the
world from these false analogies.

66. There can be nothing whatever, which does not reside

in the wide expanse of the Divine mind ; but as these are but
the conceptions of the mind, they can never have any visible
or separate form or existence.

6.9. All these appear in repetition, and so repeated is the

coarse of our births and deaths; as those of pain and pleasure
succeeding one another, and our rest and actions, following
each other for evermore.

70. This same vacuum and these quarters of the sky, with
all these seas and monutains, appear in the recurrent course
of creation with their various hues, liko those of the solar rays
seen through the chink of a wall.,

71. The gods and demigods appear again and again, and all
people come and depart by turns, bondage and liberation are
ever recurrent, and Indras and Somas eveA-eappear to view.

72. The god Ndrdyana and the demigods appear by turns,

and the sky is always revolving with the regents of all its sides,
the sun and moon, clouds and winds.

73. The heaven and earth appear again like the lotns-flower
full open to view, and having the mount Mem for its pericarp,
and the Sabya peak for its filament.
74. The sun resumes bis coarse in the maze of the sky like
a'lion, and destroys the thick darkness with bis rays, as the iioni
kiUa the huge elephant with his beaming nails.

6^8

YOGA VA'SISHTflA.

7&. See i^aia the moving moon shining with her bright
beams, resembling the white filaments of flowers; and anointing
the countenances of the etherial goddesses, with sweet ambrosial
light, and borne by the air and breezes of heaven.

76. Again the holy arbour of heaven sheds its heap of flow�
ers, on the deserts of meritorious men, as rewards of their virtue
ous acts.

77. Behold again the flight of time, riding as the esf|1e on

its two wings of acts and actions, and passing with the noise
of pat-pat over the vast maze of creation.

78. See another Indra appearing, after the by-gone lords of

gods have passed away; and taking his seat on the lotus-like
throne of heaven like a contemptible bee. (The passing lor&
of gods and men are as fleeting flies on flowers).

79. Again the wicked age of Kali appears to soil the holy
taiya ytwja, as the black body of NdrAyana fills the clear waters
of the deep, or as a blast of wind sweeps the dust of the earth
on its pellucid surface.

80. Again doth time form the plate of the earth like a pot�
ter, and turn his wheel incessantly, to bring on the revolutions
of his creations in successive kalpas,

81. Again doth the veteran time, who is skilled in tte work of
renovation, wither away the freshness of creation, as. the autum�
nal winds blast the foliage of a forest, inorder to produce th^tn
anew.

82. Again the dozen of zodiacal suns, rising at once and

burning the creation, leaves the dead bodies all around, like the
white bones lying scattered in a country.

83. Again the pusMara and dvartaka clouds, poured down

their rain water, deluging the tops of the boundary mountains,
and filling the face of the earth with foaming froth, swimming
bn the surface of one sheet of water.

84. . And after the waters had subsided and the winds had
peased to blow; the world appeared as a vast vacuum void AH
heings.
STHin KHANDA.

029

8g. Again we see living beings filling tbe earth, and felBing
for some years npon tbe moisture of its verdure, leaving their
decayed bodies, and being mixed up with their souls in the umver>
sal spirit.

86. Again the Divine Mind stretches out other creations

at other times, and these are drawn like picture of fairylands;
(airy castles) in the canvas of vacuum.

87. # Again the creation appears to view, and again it is sub.

merged in the water of deluvion, both of which follow one
another like tbe axles of a wheel.

88. Now consider, O RAma! if there is any stability of any

thing in this revolutionary world, beside its being a maze o�
continuous delusion.

89. The revolution of the world resembles the hallucination

of DAsura�s mind ; it is a phantasia without any solidity in it.

90. The world appearing so extensive and thickly peopled,

is but a fancied unreality like the erroneous appearance of two
moons in the sky. It is made of unreality though appearing
as real, and is not worth reliance by our ignorance of its
nature.

CHAPTER XLVIIl.

StOBY OB Da SUBA.

Aigament. Description of the vanity of worldly enjoyments, iHofr-

trsted in the tale of Ddsiirs.

Y ASISHTHA continued All worldly men that are erased

in a variety o� business, and are perverted in their under**
standings with a desire of opulence and enjoyments j can neve^
learn the truth, until they get rid of their worldliness.

2. He only who has cultivated his understanding, and sub-*

dued his sensual organs, can perceive the errors of the world,
as one knows a bel fruit held in his hand: {i. e. as one known
the places on earth in a small globe).

S. Any rational being, who scans well the errors of the world,,
forsakes his delusion of egoism, as a snake casts off his slough.

4. Being thus paralysed (unconscious) of his selfishness, he haa

no more to be born; as a fried grain can never germinate, though.

. it is sown in the field, and lies for ever in it.

5. How pitiable is it that ignorant men take so much pains
for the preservation of their bodies, which are ever subject to>
diseases and dangers; and liable to perish to-day or to-morrovr
at the expense of their souls.

6. Do not therefore, O Bdma I take so much care for the

dull body like the ignorant; but regard only fdf the welfare
of thy soul.

7. Bdma said :�Tell me Sir, the story of Ddshra, which is

illustrative of the visionary and air-drawn form of this rota**
tory universe, which is all hollow within. .

8. Vasishthareplied:�Hear me rehearse to you, 0 Bdmal

the narrative of Ddsura, in illustration of the delusive form of
the world, which is no more than the air-built utopia of our
brains.

�... ffrarri ksakda. m

id oil the surface of this land, the gteat and opAlent

province of Magadha, which is fall of flcwer trees of all kinds.

10. There is a forest of wide extending kadamba groyes)

which was the pleasant resort of charming birds of various sorts
and hues.

11. Here the wide fields \yere full of corns and grains, and
the sUrts of the land were beset by groves and arboUrs } and
the bmks of rivulets were fraught with the lotuses and water
lilies in their bloom.

12. The groves and alcoves resounded with the melodious

strains of rustic lasses, and the plains were filled with blades
of blossoms, bedewed by the nightly frost, and appearing aS
arrows of the god of lover Kdma,

15. Here at the foot of a mountain, decked with kamiketfn

flowers, and beset by rows of plantain plants and kadamba
trees, was a secluded spot over-grown with moss and shrubs.

14. It was sprinkled over with the reddish dust of crinUOn

flowers borne by the wihds, and was resonant to the warblings
of water fowls, singing in unison with the melodious strmns of
aquatic cranes.

16. On the sacred hill overhanging that spot, there rose a

kadamba arbor, crowded by birds of various kinds; and there
dwelt on it a holy sage of great austerity.

16. He was known by the name of Ddsura, and Was em*

ployed in his austere devotion; sitting on a branch of hie
kadamba tr^ with bis exalted soul, and devoid of passions.

17. Kdma said I want to know Sir, whence and how that
hermit came to dwell in that forest, and why he took his seat
on that high kadamba tree.

18. Vasishtha replied s�He had for his father, the renowned
sage Saraloman, residing in the same mountain, and resembling
the great Brahmdin his abstract meditation.

19. He was the only son of that sire, like Kacha the only
progeny of Vrihaspati, the preceptor of the gods, with whom
be came to dwell in the forest from his boyhood.

YOGA VA^ISHTHA,

20. Saraloma having passed many years oE his life in this

manner^ left his mortal frame for his heavenly abode, as a bird
qujj� its nest to fly into the air.

21. DAsura being left alone in that lonely forest, wept bit�
terly and lamented over the loss of his father, with as lond
w aili ngs as the shrieks of a heron upon separation from its
mate.

22. Being bereft of both his parents, he was full of sorrow

and grief in his mind ,* and then he began to fade away as the
lotas blossom in winter.

23. He was observed in this sad plight by the sylvan god

of that wood, who taking compassion on the forlorn youth, and
accosted him unseen in an audible voice and said

24. O sagely son of the sage I why weopcst thou as the

ignorant, and why art thou so disconsolate, knowing the insta�
bility of worldly things ?

26. It is the state of this frail world, that everything is

unstable here} and it is the coarse of nature that all things
are born to live and perish afterwards into nothingness.

26. Whatever is seen here from the great BrahmA down to

the meanest object, is all doomed to perish beyond a doubt.

27. Donot therefore wail at the demise of thy &ther,' bat

know like the rising and falling sun, every thing is destined
to its-rise and fall. (Here sun�the lord of the day^� ahah~paH,
is spelt aharpati by a vaHika of KAtyayna). *

28. Hearing this oracular voice, the youth wiped his eyes red
hot with weeping j and held his silence, like the screaming pear-
cock at the loud sound of the clouds. (The pea-cock is said to
cry at the sight, but to be hushed at the sound of a rainy cloud).

29. He rose up and performed the funeral ceremonies of his

sire, with devoutness of his heart; and then set his mind to the
success of his steady devotion.

80. He was employed in the performance of his austerities

according to the BrAhmanic law, and' engaged himaelf in die*
STHITI KHANOA^

63i

ii^arging Ms certmonial rites by the Srauta ritual, for tiie

accomplishment of his sundry vows.

81. But not knowing the knowable (Brahma), his mind

could not find its rest in his ceremonial acts, nor found its
purity on the surface of the stainless earth. (The earth appears
sullied to the tainted soul, but it is all unstained to the taintless

soul, which views it full with the holy spirit of God)#

82. ' Not knowing the fulness of the world with divine
Spirit, and the holiness of the earth in every place, he thought
the ground polluted (by the original sin), and did not find his
i'epose any wherCk

83. Therefore he made a vow of his own accord, to take his

seat on the branch of a tree, which was untainted with the pol�
lution of the earth. (Because the Lord said, �Cursed is the
ground for thy sake�; but not so the trees growing upon it).

34. Henceforth said he, "1 will perform my austerities on

these branching arbours, and repose myself like birds and sylvan
spirits, on the branches and leaves of trees.�

86. Thus sitting on high, he kindled a flaming fire beneath

him, and was going to offer oblations of living flesh on it, by
paring bits of his shoulder blade (mixed with blood).

86. When the god of fire thought in himself that, as fire

is the mouth whereby the gods receive their food, the offering of
a Bmhman's flesh to it, would wholly burn down their faces.
(Fire is the mouth of gods, says Veda, because the gods or
early Aryans were distinguished from the savages for their
taking cooked food and meat, while the latter took them raw for
want of their knowledge of kindling fire. Again all flesh
was palatable to the gods, except that of their brotherhood�
BrAhmans).

87. Thinking so, the god of fire appeared before him in his
full blaze, as the luminous sun appeared before the lord of
speech�Vrihaspati or Jupiter.

88. He uttered gently and said, �Accept young BrAhman

your desired boon from me, as the owner of a store, takes out*
his treasure from the chest in which it is deposited.

Voi. II.

80
634

TOaA V/33ISHTHA.

89. Being tbos aeoosted by the god, the Brdhman hoy minted
him with a laudatory hymn; and after adoring him with snitable
oSermga of flowers, addressed him in the following manner.

40. "Lord 11 find no holy place upon earth, which is full of

inequity and sinful beings; and therefore pray of thee to make
the tops of trees, the only places for my abode.''

41. Being thus besought by the Brihman boy, the god pro�
nounced "Be it so" from his flaming mouth, and vanish ^m
his sight.

42. As the god dissappeared from before him, like the day
light from the face of the lotus-flower; the son of the sage
being fully satisfied with his desired boon, shone forth in his
face like ^e orb of the full moon.

43. Conscious of the success of his dmire, his gladdened

countenance brightened with his blooming smiles ; just as the
white lotus blushes with its smiling petals, no sooner it perceives
the smiling moonbeams falling upon it.

CHAPTER XLIX.

DasoEipnoN of DisoWs Kadamba fobest.

Argament. ComparisonB of the Eadambe tree, and ita branches

leaves, fruits uid flowers and birds.

y ARlSHTHA ContinaedThus DAsura remained in the

forest, reaching to the region of the clouds, and forming
a stage for the halting of the tired horses of the meridian enn at
midday, (t. e. as high as to reach the sphere of the sun at
noon).

2. Its far stretching boughs spread a canopy under the vault

of heaven on all sides, and it looked to the skies all around with
its full blown blossoming eyes.

3. The gentle winds were shedding the fragrant dust from

the tufts of its hanging hairs, which studded with swarms of
of fluttering bees, and its waving leaves like palms of its bande>
were brushing over the face of its fairy welkin.

4. The banks with their long siimbbery, and the crimson

filaments of their milk�^white blossoms, were smiling like the
fair faces of beauties, with ihrir teeth tinged with reddish buo
of betel leaves.
fi. The creeping plants were dancing with delight,, and
shedding the dnst from the pistils of their flowers, which were
dusterd in bunches and beaming with the lustre of the foU
bright moon.

6. The earth with its thickenning thickets, and the warbling

tkakonu as amongst them, appeared as the milky path of heavmi
stnded with stars singing their heavenly strains.

7. Groups of peacocks sitting on the tops of branching trees,

appeared with variegated trains, like rainbows amidst the ver*
dant foliage, seeming as bluish clouds in the aznre sky.

8. The white ekauri deer with half of tiieir bodies hidden

under the coverts of the woods, and their fore parts appearing

638

TOGA VASISHTHA.

witliont the tihickets, appeared as so many moons witk tkeur

dark and bright sides in the sky.

9. The warbling of cAataks, joined with the trill of euckooi^

and the whistling of cAaioraa, filled the groves with a continuoua
harmony.

10. Flocks of white herons sitting on their nestling bought

seemed as bodies of tiddha sylphs, sitting quietly beside thei;r
coverts in heaven.

11. Waving creepers with their ruddy leaflets shaking with

the breeze, and their blooming blossoms beset by bees, re�
sembled the Apsaras heaven, flapping their rosy palms and
looking at the skies.

12. The clusters of Kumnda Of blue lotuses, moving on the

sky-blue waters with their yellow filaments, and shedding their
golden dust around, appeared as the rainbow and lightings,
darting their radiance in the azure sky.

13. The forest with thousands of uplifted branches, seemed

as the god Visva-rupa lifting his thousand arms on high, and
dancing with the breeze, with the pendant orbs of the sun and
moon, suspended' as the earrings to both his ears.

14. The groups of elephants lying underneath the branches,

and the clusters of stars shining above them, gave the woodlands
an appearance of the sky, with its dark clouds moving below^.
the blazing stars above.

15. The forest was as the store house of all sorts of fruits
and flowers, as the god firahmd was the reservoir of all sorts of
productions.
19 The ground glistened with the falling florets and the
farina of the flowers, as the firmameat glittered with the lustre
of solar and stellar light.

17. The flights of birds flying on the boughs of trees, and

those fluttering about their nests, and the flocks of fowls feeding
on the gp-onnd, made the forest appear as a city with its people .
above, below and all about it.

13. Its bowers resembled the inner appartments of hoiues�

STHITI EHANDA.

ear

with the bloBSoma waving as flags over them, and strewn ovee
with the white farina of flowers, as they decorate the floors with
flowers and powders, and hung flowers over them, as upon the
windows of houMS.

19. There was the joint harmony of the hnmming bees

and buzzing beetles ; the twittering of ehakorat and parrots,
and cooing of cohilm in the deep coverts of the woods > and
issuing out of their holes like the music of songstresses, com�
ing out in unison from the hollows of windows.

20. Birds of various kinds hovered about the coverts of the

sylvan goddesses; as they were the only guests of their lonely
retreats.

21. The bees were eontinually humming over the farinacious

pistils of flowers, and sounding water-falls were incessantly
exuding from the high hills in its neighbourhood.

22. Here the gentle zephyrs were continually playing with

the waving flowers j and the hoary elouds overtopped the lofty
trees, as they do the tops of mountains.

23. The sturdy woods resembling high hills, were rubbed by

the scabby cheeks of elephants, and stood unmoved though they
were incessantly dashed by their huge legs and feet. (See Ku-
mara Sambhava).

24. Birds of variegated plumage that dwelt in the hollows

of the trees, were as the various races of beings dwelling-in the
person of Vishnu. (Vishnu means the rcsidenee of beings like
Veraja).

25. With the movements of their painted leaves, resembling

the Angers of their palms, the trees seemed to keep time with the
dancing creepers, and point out the modes of their oscillation.

26. They danced also with delight with their branching

arms and clas{)ing armlets of the creepers, to think on the sub-
sistance, that every part of their body affords to all kinds of
living beings. (The produce of trees supplies the supportance
of all living creatures).

27. And thinking how they are the support of thousaudA of

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

�M

creeping plants, whioli entwine round them as their consorts,

thqr mg their joyous chime in the bussing ol the bees about
them*.

28. The flowers dropped down by the kind tiddha (sylphs)

from the trees, were hailed by the bees and cuckoos with their
joyous notes and tunes.

29. The tadamha tree seemed by its blooming blossoms, to

laugh to derision, the five woody arbors on the skirts which do

not bear their flowers. (These are the banian, bata and ficos
religiosns, the mango, the fig tree and frondos. <t. e. �r3f

and called or lords of woods).

^0. With its uplifted head reaching to the sky, and the flight
of birds flying over it like the hairs on its head, it seemed to
defy the pdrijada tree of Indra's heaven.

81. The body of bees thronging all about its person, gave it
the appearance the thousand eyed Indra, with whom it vied
in the greater number of its eyes.

32. It had a tuft of flowers on some part of its head, appear�

ing as the hood of a snake decorated with gems, and seeming as
the infernal serpent had mounted its top with his crowned head,
in<Hder to survey the wonders of heaven.

83. Besmeared with the pollen of its flowers, it appeared as

the god Siva anointed with his powdered ashes ; while its shady
bowers overhung with luscious fruits, refreshed the passing tra^
veUers with rest and repast.

34. The kadamha arbour appeared as the garden of paradise,

having alcoves under its thickening boughs, and grottos formed
by the flowery creepers below it; while the birds of heaven
hovered about it as its perpetual inhabitants.

CHAPTER L.

DasdWs S(7BTEY of the Hbatens.

Argnmenb D&sfira attrroya all the aky fhiin hla aeat on the Kadamba
tree.
�^ASISHTHA cotinucd:�Ddsura remained in this flowery
* arbour, as if he dwelt on a hill of flowers; and he felt in his
mind the delight, which the flowery spring and its fruitage could
infuse in the heart.

2. Ho mounted and sat over the high and airy top of the
tree, and looked on all sides like the god Vishnu surveying the
worlds.

8. There sitting on a branch which reached to the sky, he

was employed in his devotion, devoid of fear and desire.

4. From this his leafy and easy couch of repose, he oast his
curious eyes to view the wonders of nature on all sides.

6. He beheld a river at a distance glittering as a necklace

of g^ld, and the summits of distant hills rising as nipples on the
breast of the earth. The fair face of the sky appeared as the
face of a fairy, covered under the blue veil of a cloud.

6. The verdant leaves of trees were as the green garb of this

fairy, and the clusters of flowers were as garlands on her head;
the distant lakes appearing as water-pots, were decorated by
acquatic plants and flowers.

7. The fragrance of the blooming lotuses, seemed as the sweet

breathing of the fairy; and the gurgling of the waterfalls,
sounded as the trinkets fastened to her feet.

8. The trees touching the�skics ; were as the hairs on her

body, the thick forests resembled her thighs, and the orbs of
the sun and moon, were as eaiings pendent on her ears.

9. The fields of com seemed as pots of her sandal pasta, and

the rising hills were as her breasts, covered by the cloudy mantle
on their tops.

YOQi. V/SlSttfflA.

10. ' The eetts with their lucent waters were M heir inirrott>
to reflect the rajs of her jewels of the stany frame. Cl'he stars
ere explained in the gloss as drops of sweat on her person).

11. The season fruits and flowers were as embroideries on her

bodice, and the rajrs of the sun and moon were as powders over
her body, or as the pasted sandal on her person.

12. The clouds covering the landscape were as her garment,

and the trees and plants on the borders, were as the fringes or
the skrits of her raiment. In this manner he beheld all the ten
udra of heaven as full with the form of a fmry queen.
CHAPTER LI.

]>ASiailA'S BbBETTISO a 8017.

Argnment ;*�Mezital sacrifices of Doisura, and his prodnoUon and In-

struction of a son begotten by the sylvan goddesa

y ASlSHTHA continued t�Thence forward Ddsdra remained

as an ascetic in his hermitage, in that forest, and was
known as the Eadamba Disdra, and a giant of austere devo*
tion.

8. There sitting on the leaves of the creepers growing on

the branch of that tree, he looked up to heaven, and then
placing himself in the posture of he called back his

mind to himself.

S. Unacquainted with spiritual adoration, and nnpraoticed

to the ceremonial ritual, he commenced to perform his mental
sacrifice, with a desire of gaining its reward.

4. Sitting on the leaves of the creepers in his aerial seat,

he employed his inward spirit and mind, in discharging hie
sacrificial rites, of the sacred fire and horse sacrifice .

6. He continued there for the space of full ten years, in

his acts of satisfying the gods with his mental sacrifices of the
bull, horse and human immolations, and paying their honora^
riums in his mind.

6. In process of time, his mind was purified and expanded,

and he gained the knowledge of the beatification of his soul.
(It is believed that cereii|oniai acts, lead to the knowledge prodnc>'
tive of spiritual bliss).

7. His ignorance being despelled, his heart became purified

of the dirt of worldly desires ; and he came to behold a sylvan
goddess, standing beside his leafy and mossy seat.

8. She was a body of light and dressed in a robe of flowers;

her form and face were beautiful to behold, and her large bright
eyes turned wistfully towards him.

Von. n.

81.

64?

YOGA VA'SISHTSA.

9. Her body breathed tbe fn^rance of tbe blue lottts, and

her figure charmed bis inmost soul. He then spoke to the god�
dess, standing before him with her down cast looks.

10. What art thou, O tender dame! That lookest like a

ceeper fraught with flowers, and defiest the god cnpid with
they beautiousfom and eyes, resembling the petals o! the lotus.

11. Why standest thou as Flora, tbe befriending goddess

of flowering creepers ? Thus accosted, the dame with deer-like
eyes and protuberent bosom replied to him.

12. She said to tbe hermit with a sweet and ebarming voice
in tbe following manner:��Hayst thou prosper in obtaining
the objects of thy wishes

13. �For any tbmg which is desirable and difficult of attaiiw

ment in this world, is surely obtainable when sought after with
proper exertion by the great��

14. �1 am, O BiAhman I a sylvan goddess of this forest,

which is so full of creeping plants, and decorated by the beauti-

t ful kadamla trees.

15. *'Here 1 strayed to witness the festive mirth of tbe

sylvan goddesses, which always takes place on this therteenth
day of the lunar month of chaitra in this forest.

16. �1 saw here my companions enjoying their festival of

love, and felt myself sorry to think of my childlessness among
them.

17 Finding thee accomplished in all qualifications, I have

resorted hither with my suit of begetting a sou by thee.

18. �Please Sir, to procreate a son in me, or else I will

put my person in the flames, to get rid of my sorrow of child�
lessness.

Hearing tbe sylvan dame speaking in tbis manner, the her�

mit smiled at her, and spoke kindly to her with presenting
her a flower with his own Land, and said

SO. Depart O damsel { and betake thyself to the worship of

jSiva for a whole month, and then thou shalt like a tender creeper^,
beget a boy as beautiful as a bud by this time of the year.

BTHITI KHANDA. 64S

21. But that son o! thine, whom thou didst desire .of me at
the sacrifice of thy life, will betake himself to austerities. like
mine, and become a seer like myself : (because he will be born
of my blessing to thee).

iif. So saying the sage dismissed the suppliant dame now

gladdened in her face, and promised to perform the necessary for
her blessing�s sake.
23. The lotus-eyed dame then retired from him. and went
to her.abode; and the hermit passed his mouths, seasons and
years in his holy meditation.

24. After a long time the lotus-eyed dame returned to the

sage with her boy, now grown up to the twelth year of his age.

25. She made her obeisance and sat before him with her boy
of the moon bright face; and then uttered her words, sweet as
the murmur of the humble bee, to the stately Amra tree.

26. This sir, is the would be son (bhavya) of both of us, who

has been trained up by me in all the branches of learning. (The

Veda and its branches. The future would be, should be

the preter bMvita-vras to be).

27. He is only untaught in the best knowledge, which relea�

ses the soul from its return to this world of troubles. (By the best
or �u6Aa knowledge, is meant the j^ara-superior or spiritual
learning).

28. Do you now my lord I deign to instruct him in that

knowledge, for who is there that should like to keep his own boy
in ignorance, (of his future and best welfare) ?

29. Being thus besought by her, he bespoke to the tender

mother, to leave the child there and depart her own way.

80. She being gone, the boy remained submissive to his

father, and dwelt by his side as his pupil, like Aruna (Ouranos)
wiuting upon the sun.

80. Inured in austerity, the boy continued to receive his best

knowledge from the various lectures of his father, andjiassed
a long time with him in that place, under the name of the sage�s
son.

644

TOGA VA13ISHTHA.

The boy was tanght in Tarions nanatiTes and tales, and

Trith many examples and ocular instances}as also in historical
accounts wad eridences of the Veda and Vedanta :(for his best
knowledge of spirituality).

38. The boy remained attendant on the lecture of his father,

without feeling any anxiety; and formed his right notions of
things- by means of their anticedents. (The antecedent or prele�
minaiy causes of right judgements are, perceptions. Inferences,'
comparisons and testimony or authoritative statements of sdstraa.
(These are originally termed as pratyaksha, anumiti, Upamiti
and Sabda or Sabda>bodha).

34. The magnanimous father thus instilled true knowledge

into the mind of his boy, by means (of the quadruple ^rnKsess) of
right reasoning and correct diction, rather than regarding the
elegance of expr^sion; as the cloud indicates the approaching
rain to the peacock by its hoarse sounds. (The quadruple pro*
cess as mentioned above.)

CHAPTER LII.

Gs^vdbttb of thx Aib-bobb Einto.

Argument. Description of Dominions of the Airbom-Eing, and the

Frailty of Worldly posseesiona.

Y ASISHTHA continaedIt was on one occasion iLat I passed

by that (Ddsdra's) way in my invisible body, to bathe in
the dieavenly stream of fsandd^tW (milky way) in the etherial
regions.

2.. After my departure from that region by the way of the

Pleiades (saptarshi), 1 arrived to the spot where Ddsura dwelt on
his high Eadamba tree.

8. I came to listen to a voice proceeding from the hollow of

the tree in the forest, which was as charming as the buzzing of
the bee, fluttering about the bud of a lotus.

.4. Attend my intelligent son! said he, to a narrative that I

will relate unto thee by way of a simile of worldly things, and
it is pleasant to hear.

5. There is a very powerful Eing renowned in all the three

worlds for his great prosperity. His name is Ehottha or Air-
produeed, and able to grasp the whole world. (Like the air
whereof he was bom. Eha, Ehao and Ehaviyet un, is empty air
in Sanskrit, Hebrew and Arabic, and Ehali in Persian and Urdu).

6. All the lords of the earth bend their heads lowly under
his rule, and bear the badge of their submission to him with as
great an honour, as poor men are proud to carry about a bright
gem on the head.

7. He exulted in his valour and the possession of all kinds of

rarities, and there is no one in the three worlds, that is able to
fating him under his subjection.

8. His unnumbered acts and exploits, are fraught with

sneoesnve pain and pleasure} and they iure as interminable as the
continuous waves of the sea;

�48
700A Vi^ISHTHA.

' � 9. No one lias been able to cbeck the prowess o� that mighty
bravo by force of fire or sword, as none hath ever been able
to press the air or wind in his hand.

10. Even the gods Indra, Upendra and Hara, have fallen
short of follovnng his ste|� in his ambitions pursuits, and the
splendid inventions of his imagination.

11. With bis triple form of the Sdtwika, rajasiha and

timasika qualiti^, he encompasses the world, and is enabled to

accomplish all sorts of actions. (These are the qualities of good�

ness, moderation and excess, or the three states of deficien< 7 ,
mediocrity and excess of moral acts, according to the text of Aris-
totli^n Ethics. Bat I would prefer to call them the positive
comparative and superlative virtues, or rather the minimum, mean
and maximum states of virtues).

12. He is born in the extensive vacuity (of the spirit of

Brahma,with his triple body as that of a bird, (viz; the
flesh and bones and the feathers, and remains in vacuum as the
air and the sound.

13. He has built a city in that unlimited space of the

Universe, having fourteen provinces {ehaturdasa Bhuvana) (the
planetary spheres), iu its triple divisions (tribhuvana) of the
earth and regions above and below it.

14. It is beautified with forests and groves and pleasure-

lawns and hills, and bounded by the seven lakes of pearly waters
on all sides. (The city signifies the earth and the lakes the
seven oceans in it).

15. It is lighted by two lamps of hot and cooling light (the

sun and moon), which revolve above and below it in their
diurnal and nocturnal courses, as those of righteous and nefarious
people, (fhe original words, as the courses div& and niaacharai
or the day and nightfarers),

16. The king has peopled this great city of his with many
selfmoving Mies (animals), which move in their spheres quite
ignorant of themselves: (�. e, of their origpo, their coarse and
their fates).

STHITI KHANDA.�

64T

17. Some of tliese are appointed in higher and some in lowel

spheres, and others mote in their middle course; some destined
to live a longer time, and others doomed to die in a day (as the
ephimeredes).
18. These bodies are covered with black skins and hairs
(as thatched huts), and famished with nine holes (as their doors
or windows ); which are continnally receiving in and carrying

out the air to keep them alive.

19. They are supplied with five lights of sensation and per'^
ceptions and supported by three posts of the two legs and the
back bone, and a frame work of white bones for the beams and
bamboo rafters. It is plastered over with ilesh as its moistened
clay (or mud wall), and defended by the two arms as latches on
door way.

20. The Great king has placed his sentinel of the Yaksha
of egoism as a guard of this house; and thia guard is as ferocious
as a Bhairava in dark (ignorance), and as timorous as a tihirava
by the day (I. E. Egoism brags in ignorance, but flies before
the day-light of reason).

21. The masters of these locomotive bodies, play many

pranks in them, as a bird plays its frolics in its own nest.

22. This triformed prince (the mind) is always fickle, and

never steady in any; he resides in many bodies and playe
his gambles there with his guard of egoism, and leaves one
body for another at will, as a bird alights from one branch
upon another.

23. This fickle minded prince is ever changeful in his will;

be resides in one city and builds another for his future habitation.

24. Like one under the influence of a ghost, he stirs up from

one place and runs to another, as a man builds and breaks and
rebuilds his aerial castle at bis hobby.

25. The Mind sometimes wishes to destroy its former frame

and remove to another, and effects its purpose at will.

26. It is produced again as the wave of the sea, after it had

subsided to rest; and it pursues slowly and gradually a different'
coarse in its renewed coarse of life.

M8

YOQA VJkSlSHTHi.

27. This prince sometimes lepentsof hisoirii conduct Mid

acts in his new life, and then laments for his ignorance and
miseries and knows not what to do.

28. He is sometimes dejected by sorrow and at others elated

by snccesB, like the current of a river, now going down in the
hot season, and again overflowing its banks in the rains.
29. This king is led by his hobbies like tiie niters of the
sea by the winds; it pufis and swells, falls and rises, runs fast
and ceases to flow at once as in a calm.

CHAPTER LIII.

Dbsosiptiom of the Mchdahe Citt.

Aignment. Interpretation of the Parable of the Air-bom prince, and

ezpoiition of the Univene aa the production' of our Desiree.

]^ASISHTHA continued The boy then asked his holy sire,

T who was sitting reclined on his sacred Eladamba tree, in the

midstof the forest of the great Jambn-dwipa in the gloom of
the night.

2. The son sud;�^Tell me Sir, who is this Air-bom prince

of Snpematnral form, about whom you related to me just now;
1 do not fully comprehend its meaning, and want it to be ex-
pliuned to me clearly.

8 . You said sir, that this prince constracts for himself a new
abo^, whilst resi^g in his present body; and removes to the
same after he has left the old frame. This seems impossible to
mo, as the joining of one tense with another, the present with
^e fntnre.

4. iDdsdra replied:-�Hear me tell yon my son, the meaning

of this parable, which will explain to yon the nature of this
NvcHataonary world in its true light.

-6. I have told you id; first that a non-entity sprang in the
beGpnning from the entity of God, and this non-entity bdng
'Stretohed out afterwards (in the form of illusion), gave rise to
this illusory world called the cosomos,

6 . The vacuous spirit of the Supreme Deity, gives rise to

his formless will, which is thence called Air-bom (or the mind}.*
It is bora of itself in its formless state from the formless Spirit,
and desolves itsrif into the same; as the wave rising from and fid-
ling in the bosom of the sea. (Thus in the beginning was the
Will and not the Word, and the Will was in God, and the will
was God ; and it rises and sets in the Spirit of God).

7. It is the will which produces every thing, and there is no-

1htsg;prodaced bat by the Will. The Will is self-same with its

Vot II 82

TOGA VASISHTHA.

MO
objecl^ whicli constitutes and subsists in it; and it lives and dietf
alw along with its object: (The vriH of the willful mind, dwells
on some subject or other while it is living; but it perishes when
it has no object to think upon, and melts into insensibiliy; or else
it continues to transmigrate with its thoughts and wishes for
ever).

8 . Know the g^ds Brhamd, Vishnu, Tndra, Siva and the

Rudras, as o&prings of the willful Mind; as the branches are the
offshoots of the main tree, and the summits are projections of
the principal mountain.

9. This Mind builds the city of the triple world, in the

vacuum of Brahma (like an air-drawn castle); by reason of
its being endowed with intelligence from Omniscience, in its
form of Virinchi (vir-incho-ativus).

10. This city is composed of fourteen worlds (planetary

spheres) containing all their peoples; together with chains of
their bills and forests and those of gardens and groves.

11 . It is furnished with the two lights of the sun and moon,

(to shine as two fii'es by day and night); and adorned with many,
mountains for human sports. (Hence the mountainous Gods of
old, are said to be the sportive Devos-, ^ivi devah divayawti),

12. Here the pearly rivers are flowing in their winding

courses, and bearing their swelling waves and rippling billows,
shining as chains of pearls under the sunbeams and moonlight.

13. The seven oceans appear as so many lakes of limpid

waters, and shining with their submarine fires, resembling the
lotus-beds and mines of gems beneath the azure sky.

14. It is a distinguished place of gods, men and savages, who

make their commerce here, with commodities (of virtue uid vio^,
leading either to heaven above or to the hell below..

15. The self-willed King (the mind), has employed hsra

many persons (as dramatis penonae), to act their sevei^ P*uhi.
before him for his pleasure.

15.' Some are placed high aboye ibis stage to act as gods and*

STHITI EHANDA.

6dl

deities, and otbers ate set in lower pits o� this earth and infernal
regions, to act their miserable parts�as men and Ndgas. (The
Ntigas are snakes and snake worshippers, living in snbterraneons
cells like the serpentine race of Satan. The Bara and ChhotA

Naghores, and Naga hill people of Assam are remnants of

this tribe.
17. Their bodies are made of clay, and their frame work is of
white bones; and their plastering is the desh under the skin
as a pneumatic machine.

18. Some of these bodies have to act their parts for a long
while, while others make their exits in a short time. They are
covered with caps of black hairs, and others with those of white
and grey on their heads.

19. All these bodies are furnished with nine ctevices, consist�
ing of the two earholes, two sookets of the eyes, and two
nostrils with the opening of the mouth, which are continually
employed in inhaling and exhaling cold and hot air by thmr
breathings. (These airs are the oxygen and nitrogen gases).

20. The earholes, nostrils and the palate, servo as win�

dows to tho abode of the body; the hands and feet are the gate
ways, and the five inner organs are as lights of these abodes.

21. The mind then creates of its own will tho delusion of
egoism, which like a yaksAa demon takes possession of the whole
body, but flies before the light of knowledge.

22. The mind accompanied by this delusive demon, taVp g

great pleasure in diverting itself with unrealities; (until it comes
to perceive their vanity by the light of reason).

23. Egoism resides in the body like a rat in the bam-house,

and as a snake in the hollow ground. It falls down as a dew drop
from the blade of a reed, upon advance of the sunlight
reason.

24. It rises and falls like the flame of a lamp in the abode of
the body, and is as boisterous with all its desires, as the sea with
its ceaseless waves.

S5. The Mind constructs a new house for its future abode, by

652

70aA VA'SISHISA.

virtne of its interminable desires in its present habitation) and

which are expected to be realized and enjoyed in its future state.

26. But no sooner it ceases to foster its desires, than it ceaseu

to exist, and loses itself in that state of Supreme bliss of which
there can be no end. (Freedom from desire, is freedom from-
regeneration).

27. But it is bom and reborn by its repeated desires, as the

child sees the ghost by its constant fear of it. (Every desire rises

as a spectre to bind).
28. It is egoism (or the belief of one's real entity, that
spreads the view of this miserable world before him; but absence
of the knowledge of self-entity, removes the sight of all objects
from view, as the veil of thick darkness hides all things from
sight. (Without the subjective there can be no knowledge of
the objective).

29. It is by one's own attempt in this way, that he exposes

himself to the miseries of the world; and then he wails at his fats
like the foolish monkey, that brought on its own destraction, by
pulling out the peg from the chink of the timber; (which smash�
ed its testes. See Hitopadesa).

80. The mind remains in eager expectation of the enjoyment

of its desired objects, as the stag stood with its lifted month,
to have a drop of honey fall into it, from a honey-comb ha nging
on high.

. 81. The wistful mind now pursues its desired objects, and
now it forsakes them in disgust; now it longs for joy, and then
. grows sulky at its failure like a fretful child.

82. Now try diligently, my boy, to extricate thy mind from

all outward objects, and fix thy attention to tiie inward object
of this meditation. .

S3. The willful mind takes at its will its good, bad and mo�
derate or sober forms^ known under the names of
and tamai (as defined before).

34. The bad or vitiated form of the mind delights in world-

linesB, and by bemeaning itself with all its greedy appetites, r^
duces itself to the state of worms and insects in ite future biiths.

STHin EHANDA.

663

85. The good disposition o! the mind is inclined towards

virtnons deeds, and the acquisition of knowledge; and by these
means advances both to its soleness and self enjoyment ; (*. c. to.
its fidl liberation and the slate of the highest Brahma).

86. In its form of moderation, it is observant of the mles

and laws of society, and conducts itself in the world in the
company of friends and members of the family.

37. After relinquishment of all these three forms, and ab�

dication of egoism and desires, it reach to the state of the absolute
Supreme Being.

88 . Therefore shun the sight of tlie visibles, and repress

your deeting mind by your sober intellect; and diminish yonr
desires for all intemd as well as external goods. (�. e. both men�
tal qualifications and outward possessions).

89. For though you may practice your austerities for a thou
land years, and crush your body by falling from a precipice upon
stones�

40. Or although you burn your body alive on a fiaming

pyre, or plunge yourself into the submarine fire; or if yon fall in
a deep and dark pit or well, or rush upon the edge of a drawn
and sharp sword-

41. Or if yon have Brahm4 himself or even Siva for your-

preceptor, or get the very kind and tender hearted ascetic for yoUr
religious guide;�(The fftiru of this nature probably alludes
to Buddha, or Jina according to some, or to Dattdtreya or Dni>
v&b 4 according to others. Gloss).

42. Whether you are situated in heaven or on earth, or in the

regions of p6t4la�-the antipodes below; you have no way of -
liberation, save by keeping your desires under subjection.

48. Exert your manliness therefore, in domineering over

your irresistible and violent desires and pamions, which will
secure to you the pure and transcendent joy of peace and
holiness..

44. All things are linked together under the bandage of

cupidity; and this band being broken asunder, makes the desired
objects vanish into nothing.

654

TOGA VA'SISHTHA.

45. The real is unreal and the unreal is realj as the mind
may make it appear to be; all reality and unreality consists in
fivu conception of them, and in nothing besides.

46. As the mind conceives a thing to be, so it perceives the

same in actuality j therefore have no conception of anything,
if you want to know the troth of it.

47. Do yon act as the world goes, without yonr liking or

disliking of any tiling; and thus the desires being at an end,
the intellect will rise to the inscrutable beyond the knowledge
of the mind.

48. The mind which having sprung from the Supreme SonI
in the form of goodness, is inclined afterwards towards the un.
realities of the world; sorely alienates itself from the Supreme,
and exposes itself to all sorts of misery.

49. We are bom to the doom of death, bnt let ns not die
to he reborn to the miseries of life and death again. It is for
the wise and learned to betake themselves to that state, which is
free from these puns.

50. First learn the troth, and attain to the true knowledge
of your soul; and then abandon all your desire and dislike of the
world. Being thus prepared with a dead-like insensibility of your
internal feelings, you will be enabled to come to the knowledge
of that transcendental state, which is full of perfect bliss and
blessedness.

CfiAPTEH tilV.

CoaBSCTlVB OF DFSIBKSi

Argument. The rise, progress and decline o� Human Wished.

T he Son asked:�What is this desire, father? how is it prO'*

duced and grown, and how is it destroyed at last ?

2. DAsura repliedThe desire or will is situated in the

mind or mental part of the one eternal, universal and spiritual
substance of God.

8 . It gets the form of a monad from a formless unil^ and

then by its gradual expansion extends over the whole mind, and
fills it as a flimsy cloud soon covers the sky.

4. Bemaining in the divine Intellect, the mind thinks of

thinkables, as they are distinct from itself; and it's longing after
them is called its desire, which springs from it aS a germ. from
its seed.

6 . The desire is produced by the desiring of something, and

it increases of itself both in its size and quantity, for our
trouble only, and to no good or happiness at all.

6 . It is the accretion of our desires which forms the world,

as it is the accumulation of waters which makes the ocean; you
have no trouble without your desire, and being free from it, you
are freed from the miseries of the world, (wherein one has to
buffet as in the waves and waters of the sea).

7. It is by mere chance, that we come to meet with the ob>

jeets of our desire; as it is by an act of unavoidable chance also,
that we are liable to lose them. They appear before ns as second-
aiy luminaries in the sky, and then fiy away as the mirage vani>
sbes from view.

Asa man who has the jaundice eating a certain fruit,

sees every thing as ydlow as gold with his jaundiced eye ; so the
desire m the heart of man, pictures the unreal as a reality before
him.

666
YOGA V^SISHTHA.

9. Know ibis troth that yon are an unreality youtself; and

most h^me an unreality afterwards. (Because there is but one
self-existent entity, and all besides is but supposititions not
entities).

10. He who has learnt to dishelieve his own existence and

that of all others, and knows the vanity of his joy and grief,
is not troubled at the gain or loss of any thing (which is
hut vanity of vanities, the world is vanity).

11. Knowing yourself as nothing, why do you think of

your birth and your pleasures here ? you are deluded in vain
by the vanity of your desires.

12. Do not entertain your desires, nor think of an]rthiBg

which is nothing; it is by your living in this manner, that you
may be wise and happy.

13. Try to relinquish your desire, and you will evade all
difficulties: and cease to think of anything, and your desire for
it will disappear of itself.

14. Even the crushing of a flower is attended with some

effort, but it requires no effort to destroy your desire, which
vanishes of itself for want of its thought.

15. You have to expand the palm of your hand, in laying hold
of a flower; but you have nothing to do in destroying your
frail and false desire.

16. He that wants to destroy his desire^ can do it in a trice,

by forgetting the thought of his desired object.

17. The thoughts being repressed from other objects, and

fixed in the Supreme Spirit, will enable one to do what is im�
possible for others to effect.

18. Kill your desire by desiring nothing, and turn jaai

mind from all things, by fixing it in the Supreme, which yon can
easily do of yourself.

19. Our desires being quieted, all worldly cares come to a

stand still, and all our troubles are put to a dead lock.

20. . Our wishes constitute our minds, heute, lives, under�

standings and all our desiderative faculties; all which are hni

STHITI KHANDA.

657

different names for the same |thing without any difference in

their signification.

21. There is no other business of our lim than to desire

and to be doing, and when done to be desiring again: and as this
restless craving is rooted out of the mind, it sets it free from all
anxiety.

22. The world below is as empty, as the hollow shy above us;
both of those are empty nothings, except that our minds make
something or other of them, agreeably to its dssire or fancy.

23. All things arc unsubstantial and unsubstantiated by the

unsubstantial mind ; thus the world being but a creation of
our fancy a desideratum, there is nothing substantial for you
to think about.

24. Our reliance on unrealities proving to be unreal, leaves,

no room for our thinking about them; the suppression of their
thoughts produces that perfection insondance, than which there
is nothing more desirable on earth. Forget tbereforo all that
is unreal.

25. The nice discernment of things, will preserve you from

the access of joy and grief, and the knowledge of the Vanity of
things, will keep out your affection for or reliance on any person
or thing.

26. The removal of reliance upon the world, removes onr at�
tachment to it; and consequently prevents our joy or sorrow at
the gain or loss of any thing.

27. The mind which becomes the living principle, stretches �

out his city of the^world by an act of its imagination j and then �
tnrns it about as the present, past, and future worlds. (�. e.
The mind produces, destroys and reproduces the world, as it
builds and breaks and rebuilds its aerial castles).

28., The mind being subject to the sensational, emotional

and volitive feelings; loses the purity of its intelloctual nature,
and plays many parts by its sensuonsness.

29. The living soul also forgets the nature of the universal
soul from which it is derived, and is transformed to a puny
VoL II 83

e5d TOQA Y/SISHTBA.

animaleult in the heart of man, where it plajs its pranks like

an ape in the woods.

30. Its desires are as irrepressible, as the waves of the ocean,

and they rise and fall by turns like the waves, in expectation of
having every object of the senses.

31. Our desire like lire, is kindled by every straw ; and it

bums and blows out in its invisible form within tlie mind.
52. Our desires are as fickle as flashes of lightning, and proceed
from the minds of the ignorant, as the lightning darts itself
from the the watery clouds ; they are equally fleeting and
misguiding, and must be speedily avoided by the wise.

53. Desire is undoubtedly a curable disease, as long as it' is

a transient malady of the mind; but it becomes incurable, when
it takes a deep root in it.

84. The knowledge of the nnr^lity of the world, quickly

cures the disease of desire; but the certainty of worldly know�
ledge, makes it as incurable as the impossibility, of removing the
blackness of a coal.

35. What fool will attempt to wash a coal white, or covert a

materialist to a spiritualist ? Or turn a raven or Negro to
whiteness?

86. But the mind of a man, is as a grain of rice covered un�

der its husk, which is soon unhusked upon the threshing-floor.

37. The worldlinesB of the wise, is as soon removed as the

husk of rice, and the blackness of a cooking kettle.

88. The blemishes of a man, are blotted out by his own en�
deavours ; wherefore you must try to exert yourself to action at
all times.

89. He who has not been able to master over his vain
desires, and hobby whims in this world, will And them vanish
of themselves in course of time, as nothing false can last for
ever.

40. The light of reason removeth the &lse conception of

the world, as the light of the lamp dispels the darkness from
the room at sight, and night vision removes tlie secondary moo^
(of optical deception).

STHITI KHANDA.

65f

41. The world is not yours, nor are you of this world; there
is DO body nor anything here akin to you, nor are you so to any;
never think otherwise, nor take the false for true.

42. Never foster the false idea in your mind, that you are
master of large possessions and pleasant things; for know your�
self and all pleasant things, are for the delight of the Huprema
Maker and Master of ail.

CHAPTFR LV.
MEBTiNa OF Vasishtha and Da'sdea.

Argument. Ddsura�s reception of Vasiahtha, their conversation and

Farting.

Y ASISHTHA said;�Hear mc^ Riirna, that art the delight of

Kaghn�s race, and shinest as the moon in the firmament
of Raghu�s family; that after I heard the conversation that was
going on between D&sura and his son

2. I alighted from the sky on the top of the Kadamba tree,

which was decorated with its verdant leaves, and beautiful
fruits and flowers j and then with my spiritual body, I sat myself
slowly and silently on the top of the tree, as a light cloud
alights on the summit of a mountain.

S. 1 beheld Ddsura there, sitting as a giant by subduing the

organs of his body, and shining with the lustre of bis devotion,
as the fire blazing with its flame.

4. The lustre issuing from bis body, bad strewn bis seat with
purple gold, and lighted that spot, as the sun-beams emblazon
the world.

6 Seeing me presenting myself before him, Ddsura spread

a leafy scat for me to sit down, and then honoured me according to
the rules of ceremonial law.

6. Then 1 joined with the Inminions Ddsura in continuation

of his discourse, which was meant for the edification of his son,
and salvation of mankind from the miseries of life.

7. I then with permission of Ddsura, looked into the hollow

of the tree, and the herds of stags pasturing fearlessly about it,
and grazing and gathering ah mt it.

8. It was as delightful as a bower overhung with creepers,

, where the smiling flowers were shedding their light, and breath*
ing their fragrance to the winds.

9. The choury deer flapped tbeir long hairy and moon-brigUt

STHITI EHANDA. 861

tails, against the herbacious athoor, as the irhite flimsy donds

sweep over the sky.

10. The tree was adorned with fringes of pearly dewdrops,

and.arrayed all over with the flowery garb of his blossoms.

11. Smeared with the dust of its flowers, it appeared to be

anointed with sandal paste; while its blewsy bark mantled it
in reseate red.

12. Deeorated with flowers, the tree seemed to stand in its

bridal attire; and resembled the bridegroom in mutual embraee
with the twining brides.

13. The bowers of shrubberies all around, resembled the

leafy huts of hermits, wbieh with their overtopping blossoms,
seemed as a city, flaring with flying flags or (banners) in
festivity.

14. Shaken by the stages in the act of rubbing their bodies,

the trees darted their flowers in abundance upon the ground;
and the border-lands were as shattered, as if they were broken
by the horns of fighting bulls.

15. Peacocks daubed with dust of flowers, and flying on the

top of the adjacent hill, appeared as evening clouds gliding
over it.

16. Here the goddess Flora seemed to be sporting in the

lawns, with the roseate flowers in her bands, and smiling sweetly
in the blooming bloSsoms; she revelled with the nectarine honey
of flowers; and shed her beauty on all sides.

17. The closing buds resembling her eyelids, were lulled

to sleep by the forest breeze, breathing incessantly with the
fragrance of the flowers. The clusters of flowers forming her
breasts, were hid under the bodice of leaves.

18. She sat at the window of her alcove, formed by the

twining plants and creepei-s, and was dressed in the purple garb
of the flying farina of flowei's.

19. She swang in her swinging cradle of bluish blossoms,

and was adorned with various floral ornaments from her head to
foot. .

661

TOGA VAISISHTHA.

20. She moved about the flowers in the garb of the sylvan
goddess.-and looking with her cerulean eyes of fluttering blue-
bees on all sides; and sang to them in the sweet notes of the
black kokila in the arbours.

21. The bees tired with their labour of love, refreshed them�
selves with sipping the dew-drops trickling on the tops of the
flowers, and then making their repast on the farinatious meal,
slept together with their mates, in the cells of the flower cups.

22. The couples of bees dwelling in the cells of flowers, and

giddy with sipping the honey of the flower cups; were humming
their love tunes to one another.

23., The sage remained attentive for a moment to the mur�

mur, proceeding from the village beyond the forest; and now he
listened with pricked up ears, to the busy buzz of blue-bees and
flics at a distance.

24. The sages then beheld with their down cast looks oa
moon-beams, which were spread like a sheet of fine linen on the
blades of grass upon the ground below.

25. They beheld the beautiful antelopes, which slept in their

leafy beds on the ground, below the stretching boughs of
ahady trees, as if they were the progency of their native forest.

26. They saw the fearless birds chirping upon the branches,
and others sleeping confident in their nests; and they beheld
the ground covered by living creatures, feasting on the ripe fruits
fallen below.

27. They saw the long lines of black-bees, lying mute on

the ground like strings of beads, and blackening it with their
sable bodies.

28. The forest was redolent with fragrance, and the sky was
overhung by a cloud of flowers; the dust of Kadamba blossoms
tinged the ground with ambergrees, and the Kadamba fruits
covered the face of the land.

29. What need is there of saying more, than that there was
no part of the tree, which was not useful to living beings.

SO. 'Hers the deer were sleeping on the fallen leaves, and

STHin KHANDA.

�63

there were others resting on the barren ground; the birds sat
on the banks and beaches of the rivulets all about that loft/
tree.

31. As they were viewing in this manner the beauties

of the forest, the night passed away as soon as a night of
festivity.

32. The son of the hermit kept conversing with me on

many subjects, and derived many useful instructions from my
teaching.

33. ^ As we had been conversing with one another on different

subjects, the night passed away as soon as that of a con>
jngal pair.

34. Now it began to dawn, and the blushing flowers com�

menced to ope their petals; while the host of the stars on
high, disappeared from their arena of the sky.

35. 1 then took my departure, and was followed by the

hermit and his son to some distance from their Kadamba tree,
where I left them for my aerial course to the heavenly stream.

36. There having performed my holy ablution, I came down

under the vault of heaven, and then entered the celestial region
of the sages, which is situated in the midway sky.

87. Now I have related to you, Rdma, this story of D&suni,

that you may learn from his instance the unreality of the
apparent world, and as it is but a shadow of the ideal one (in
the Divine mind).

38. It was for this reason, that 1 have given yon the
narrations of DAsura, by way of explanation of the phenominal
world, as a shadow of the noumenal.

39. Now therefore know the Spirit like DAsura, and imitate
his example in the magnanimity of your soul. Forsake the
unreal, and pursue the reality for your permanent delight.

40. Rub out the dirt of desire from your mind, and see the
image of truth in it as in a mirror; you will tlius attain to the
highest state of knowledge, and be honoured in all worlds ay a
perfect being.

CHAPTER LVI.

Oh the Soul and its Inehtness.

Argnmeat, Consideration of the activity and inactivity of the Soul,

and tlie Vanity of the Visibles.

V A SIS TIT HA continued:�Knowing the world as a nihility,

you must cease to take any delight in it j for what |^ason-
able being, is there in it that would delight in its unreality.

2. If you take the phenominal world for a reality, you may

continue to enslave yourself to the unreal material, and lose the
spiritual nature of your soul.

8. Or if you know it to be a temporary existence, why then

should yon take any interest in what is so frail and unstable,
rather than care for your immortal soul ?

4. The world is no substantial existenee, nor are you a being

of its unsnbstantiality; it is only a clear reflection ef the divine
mind, and extending over all infinity. (And which is refracted
into all individual minds as in prismatic glasses).

6. The world is neither an agent itself, nor is it the act of

any agent at all; it is simply the reflexion of the noumenal,
without any agency of its own.

6. Whether the world is with or without an agent, or has

a maker or not, yet you can not tell it as a real substance, except
that it appears so to your mind.

7. The soul is devoid of all organs of action, and with all

its activity, it remains motionless and without action, as any*
thing that is inactive and immovable.

8. The world is the production of a fortutious chance

(Kdkotdiiya Sanyoga), and none but boys place any reliance
in it. (The world here means our existence in it, which is an
act of chance).

9. The world is neither stable nor fragile, but it is mutable

STHlTt KHAKDA.

COS

from one state to another, as it is known by its repeated

reprodnetions and visibility to ns.

10. It is neither evcrlastinff, nor is it a momenting thin";

its constant tnntability contradicts its firmness; and its ni�
hility, (as stated before) is opposed to its temporarity. (The
dictnm of the Veda of the eternity of �tsa/-nullity, nullifies, its

temporariousnegs).

11. If the sonl is the active power without its or^ns of

action, it must be unfailing and entire; liecanse the continuance
of its' inorganic operations can not weaken its powers, (i. e.
The performance of bodily actions d<�bilitatcs the body; hut
the immaterial mind is not impaired by its activity).

12. Therefore there is an irresistible destiny, which is aliso-

lutely overruling; it is existence and inexistence itself, it is
sedate and continuous, and all visible perturbations arc but
false appearances.

13. The limit of a hundred years of human life, is but a

very small portion of unlimited duration; it is therefore very
astonishing that, any one should be concerned with this small,
portion of his existence, here (in utter disregard of his eternal
life).

14. Granting the durability of wordly affairs, yet they are

not deserving of your reliance ; for what faith can yon rely .on
the union of two such opposites as the mind and matter ? (The
one being sensible and the other insensible, the one being
infinite and imperishable, and the other a finite and frail subs*
tance).

15. Bnt if the state of worldly things he unsteady and un�

certain, it can not be deserving of yonr confidence. Say, can you
be sorry at the dissolving of the foam and froth of the milk or
water, then why should you lament at the loss of the perishable ?
(So said the Grecian philosopher, yesterday I saw a fragile
breaking, and today I saw a mortal die).
18. Know, 0 strong armed Udmat that reliance on the
world, is the fetter of the soul to it; it does not behove any
bedy to join the perishable and impcrisbble together like the
VoL. II. 84.

6C6 YOGA VjfSrSHTHA.

water and its froth. (The one being lasting and the other a
transient thing).

17. Altliough the soul is the agent (or source) of all actions,
yet it remains as no agent at all ; it is unconnected with its
actions, as the lamp with its light. (The mind being the doer
of actions and not the sonl).

18. Doing all it does nothing, but like the sun directs the
business of the day without doing anything by itself. It mores
like the sun without moi^ng from its place, but retains its station
in its own orbit. (The sun is the causal agent of diurnal duties,
hut men are the active agents of their actions).

19. There is some other hidden cause guiding the course, of

the world, beside the soul and body; as there is an unknown
cause of the course of the Aruna river, notwithstanding its being
blocked by stones.

20. When you have known this for certain, O Bdma by

' your own proiicience, and have well ascertained this truth by

its clearest evidence

* 21. You ought no more to place any reliance on material

things, which are as false as an ambient flame, or a vision in
dream, or as any falsehood whatever.

22. As a stranger is not to be taken into your friendship, on

his first api>carance; so yon must never trust or rely on any�
thing of this world through your ignorance.

28. Never place your reliance on anything of this world,

with that fond desire, as the heated man looks to the moon,
the cold stricken to the sun, and the thirsty doth to the water
in the mirage.

24. Do yon look upon this ideal world (which is bora of

your brain), as you view a creature your conception, a vision
in your dream, or an apparition or the appearance of two moons
in the sky, by your visiul deception.

25. Shun your reliance on the fair' creation of your imagi�

nation (the objects of sight &e.), and without minding what-
you are, conduct yourself cheerfully in your sphere.

STHITI KHANDA.
667

26. Shun your desires and the thought o� your agency, even
when you are doing any thing at all. (The soul residing in*
the body, is yet aloof from all its acts* though its presence in
the body, justifies its being 'accessary to if not the accomplice
of them. (Gloss).

27. It is a general law (niyali or nature�of things), that the

propinquity of the cause, causes the act, even without the will
of the actor; as the presence of the lamp, enlightens the room
without the will of the lamp. (An involuntary action is no less
the act of the actor than a voluntary one).

28. Look at the kurchi tree blooming and blossoming under

the influence of heavy clouds, and not of its own accord. So it
is destined for the three worlds to appear to sight, under the in�
fluence of the Supreme Being: (though he may not will or ordain
it so. (So also the presence of matter,. effects the work
by material laws, without the special behest or employment of
the matter to the performace of same. Gloss).

29. As the appearance of the sun in the sky, employs all

beings to their diurnal duties without his will or injunction,
BO the omnipresence of God causes the actions of all beings of
their own spontaniety, and without his will, act or flat. (This is
called the overruling and universal destiny).

80. And as a bright gem reflects its light, without any will
on its part; so the mere existence of the Deity, causes the exis�
tence of all worlds; (as they are in attendance upon IIis
presence).

81. Thus are causality and its want also both situated in
your soul, which is thence called the cause of your actions,
because of its presence in the body ; and as no cause likewise
owing to its want of will, (which is the property of the mind;
and not of the soul).

82. The entity of the soul being beyond the perception of

sense, it is neither the agent nor recipient of any action; but
beingconfined in the sensible body, it is thought to be both au
active and passive agent.

668

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

33. Thus.the properties both of causality and its want,, re�

side in the soul; yon may take it in any light, you may choose
for your purpose, and rest content with yonr belief.

34. Bnt by firmly believing yourself to be situated in the

bo<1y, and yonr doing of actions without thinking yourself as
their author, will save you from the eulpability of all yonr acts.

85. The man that does not employ his mind to his actions,
becomes indifferent (vir/tga) to the world; and he is freed from
it, who is certain of his being no agent of his actions.

86. Wlicther a man is fond of his enjoyments, or forsakes

them in disgust; it is all the same to him, if he but think him�
self to be no actor of them. (Set not your mind to act, if yon
want to be set free in fact).

37. But if yon wish to remain BAma, with your high ambi�
tion of doing every thing in the world, that is also good, and
you may try to do the same.

35. But if I do not fall to so griiai an error, as to have this

high aspiration of your's, I am never liable to the passions of
anger and enmity, and other violent emotions in this world.

39-> Tlio bodies that we bear, arc iiourislred by some and

immolated by others: such being the state of our own being ;
we have no cause for our joy or sorrow in it,

40. Knowing ourselves to be the authors of our own happi�

ness and misery, and as causes of the rise and dissolution of
the world from our view, we have no reason to be joyous or
sorry in it.

41. Then there is an end of the joys and sorrows of our

own making, when we have that sweet composure, which is a
balm to all the diseases in our soul.

42. Fellow feeling to all living beings, makes the best

state of the mind ; and the soul that is so disposed, is nut sub�
ject to transmigration.

48. Or make this the best lesson, RAma ! for yonr conduct
in life, that with all your activities, you continue to think

STHITI KHANDA.

669

yontscif ns no actor at all. (Because the belief of one�s agency,

leads him to the fruition of this act in repeated births).

44. Remain quiet and steady as thou art, by resigning all

things to themselves j and never think that it Is thou that dost
or undocst anything, (which is destined to be so or otherwise
by the Divine will).

45. But if you look to the different modes of your doing

one thing or the other, yon can have no rest or quiet, but must
run in the way leading to the trap of perpetual toil and misery.
46. The belief of a man�s corporeality, that he is a des�
tructible body, and no spiritual being, is to him but a bed of
thorns; it must therefore be avoided by all means, in order to
evade the danger of his imminent destruction.

47. Corporeality is to bo shunned as a hell-hound feeding on

canine meat; and after disappearance of the cloud of corporeity
from view, the light of spirituality will appear before the sight.

48. The pure light of spirituality j presents the appearane

of the bright moon-beams of holiness, after dispersion of clouds
of corporeal desires ; and it is by the help of this light, that the
spiritualist is enabled to steer across the ocean of this world.

49. Do you, O Rdma, remain in that best and blessed state,

wherein the wisest, best and holiest of men have found their rest;
and it is the constant habit of thinking yourself as nothing nor
doing anything; or that you are all things and doing every thing ;
as the Supremo soul knows itself to be; and that you are some
person, having a personality of your own, and yet no body (i. e,
not the body in which thou dost abide); but a spiritual and
transcendent being.

CHAPTEB LVII.

NaTURB of VoLtKITY AW0 NOLLEITY.

Argument. The bondage of volition causing our perdition, and the

freedom of Nolition os leading to salvation.

R AISIA said :�Thy words, O Brdhman I are true and well

spoken also. I find the sonl to be the inactive i^ent o�
actions, and the impassive recipient of their effects, as also the
spiritual cause of the corporeal.

Z. I find the sonl to be the sole lord of all, and ubiquitous

in its course; it is of the nature of intelligence and of the
form of transparency. It resides in all bodies, as the five ele�
ments compose the terraqueous bodies.

3. I now come to understand the nature of Brdhma, and I

am as pacified by thy speech, as the heated mountain is cooled
by rain waters.

4. From its secludcdness and nolleity, it neither does nor

receives any thing; but its universal pervasion, makes it both
the actor and sufferer.

5. But sir, there is a doubt too vivid and rankling in my mind,

which I pray you to remove by your enlightened speech, as the
moon-beams dispel the darkness of the night.

6. Toll me Sir, whence proceed these dualities, as the reality

of one and the unreality of the other, and that this is 1 and
this not myself. And if the soul is one and indivisible, how
is this one thing and that another.
7. There being but one self-existent and self-evident sonl
from the beginning, how comes ..it to be subjected to these
oppositions, as the bright disk of sun comes to be obscured under
the clouds.

8. Vasishtha answered�RAma I I will give the right answer

to this question of yours, as I come to the conclusiou; and then
you will learn the cause of these biplicities.

BTHITI KHANDA. fi7l

You will not be able,^RAnia! to comprehend my answers

to these qnerira � oE yours, until you come to be acquainted with
my solution of the question of liberation.

10. As it is the adult youth only, who can appreciate the

beauty of a love^ng; so it is the holy man only, who can grasp
the sense of my sayings on these abstruse subjects.

11. Sayings of such great importance, are as fruitless with

ignorant people, as a work on erotio subjects is useless to
children.

12. There is a time for the seasonableness of every subject

to men, as it is the season of autumn which produces the harvest
and not the vernal spring.

13. The preaching of a sermon is selectable to old men, as

fine colourings are suitable to clean�canvas; and so a spiritual
discourse of deep sense, suits one who has known the Spirit.

14. I have ere while mentioned something, which may serve

to answer your question, although yon have not fully com<
prehended its meaning, to remove your present doubts.

15. When you shall come to know the Spirit in your ownf
spiril^ you will doubtlessly come to find the solution of your
query by yourself.

16. I will fully expound to you the subject matter of your

inquiry, at the conclusion of my argument; when you shall haVe
arrived to a better knowledge of these things.

17. The spiritualist knows the spirit in his own spirit; and it
is the good grace of the Supreme spirit, to manifest itself to the
spirit of the spiritualist.

18. I have already related to yon Rdma 1 the argument

concerning the agency and inertness of the soul, yet it is your
ignorance of this doctrine, that makes you foster your doubts.

19. The man bound to bis desires is a bondsman, and one

freed from them is said to be set free from his slavery; do you but
cast away your desires, and you will have no cause to seek
for your freedom: (as you are then perfectly free yourself).
20. Forsake first your foul (tfimasi) desires, and then be�

672

yogaIvsishtha.

freed from your detiirc of wordly possessions; foster your better

wishes next, �nl at last incline to your pure and holy Icaninjo^.

21. After havins; conducted yourself with your pnre desires,

pret rid of these even at the end; and then beings freed from all
desires, be inclined to and united with your intellect: (�. e.
knowing all and longing for nothing).

22. Tlieu renounce your intellectual propensity, together with

your mental and sensible proclivities; and lastly having reached
to the state of staid tranquility, get rid of your mind also in
order to set yourself free from all other desires.

23. Be an intellectual being, and continue to breathe your

vital breath (as long as you live '; but keep your imagination
under controul, and take into no account the course of time, and
the revolution of days and nights.

24. Forsake your desire for the objects of sense, and root out
your sense of egoism, wiiicli is the root of desire. Let your
understanding be calm and quite, and yon will be honoured by all.

25. Drive away all feelings and thoughts from your heart
and mind; for he that is free from anxieties, is superior to all,
(who labour under anxious thoughts and cares).

26. Let a man practice his hybernation or otiicr sorts of in�

tense devotion or not, he is reckoned to have obtained his libera�
tion, whose elevated mind has lost its reliance on wordly things.

27. The man devoid of desires, has no need of his observance

or avoidance of pious acts > the freedom of his mind from its
dependence on anything, is sufficient for his liberation.

23. A man may have well studied the SAstras, and discussed
aliont them in mutual conversation; yet he is far from his per�
fection, without his perfect inappetency and taciturnity.

29. There are men who have examined every thing and roved
in all parts of the world; yet there are few among them that have
known the truth.

SO. Of all things that arc observed in the world, there is

nothing �mong them which may be truly desirable, and is to be
sought after by the wise.

STHITI KHANDA, �i73

SI. All tins ado of the world, and all the pnrsaits of men,
tend only towards the supportancc of the animal body-, and there
is nothing in it, leading to-the edification of the rational soul.

32. Search all over this earth, in heaven above and in the
infernal regions below; and you will find but few persons, who
have known what is worth knowing. (Tiie true nature of the
soul and that of God, is unknown to all finite Imiugs every
where).

33. It is hard to have a wise man, whose mind Is devoid of

its firm reliance on the vanities of the world ; and freed from its
desire or disgust of something or others, as agreeable or dis�
agreeable to its state.

84.. A mnn may be lord of the world, or he may pierce

through the clouds and pry in heaven (by his Yoga); .yet he can.
not enjoy the solace of his soul without his knowledge of it.

85. I. venerate those higbminded men, who have bravely

subdued their senses; it is from them that we can have the
remedy to remove the curse of our repeated births. (It is by
divine knowledge alone that we can avoid the doom of trans�
migration).

3S. 1 see every place filled by the five elements, and a sixth
is not to be seen any where in the world. Such being the case
every where, what else can I expect to find in ^rth or heaven or
in the regions below.

37. The wise man relying on his own reason and judgment,
outsteps the abyss of this world, as easily as he leaps over a
ditch; but he who has cast aside his reason, finds it as wide as
the bro^ ocean. (The original word for the ditch is gospaia�
the cove of a cows hoof�a 6uUie^ac).

38. The man of enlightened understanding, looks upon this

globe of the earth, as the bulb of a Kadamba flower, round as
an apple or a ball �ieret atque rotundua; he neither gives nor
receives nor wants of aught in this world.

89. Yet fie for the foolish that fight for this mite of the
earth, and wage a warfare for destruction of millions of their
fellow creatures.

VoL. II.

85

674

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.
40. What, if any one is to live and enjoy the bleasings of
this world for a whole Kalpa when, he can not escape the
sorrow, consequent on the loss of all his friends during that
period.

41. He wlw has known the self, has no craving for heavenly
bliss within himself > because ho knows his gain of all the three
worlds, can never conduce to the strengthening of his soul.

42. But the avaricious are not content with all they have,
and like the body of this earth, is not full with all its bills and
mountains and snrroanding seas. (Tbe earth is never full with
all its fullness).

43. There is nothing in this earth or in the upper and lower

worlds, which is of any use to the sage acquaintel with spiritual
knowledge.

44. The mind of the self-knowing sage, is one vast expanse

like the spacious firmanent, it is tranquil and sedate and uncons�
cious of itself.

46. It views the body as a net work of veins and arteries,

pale and white as frost, and all cellular within.

46. It sees the monntiuns floating as froth, on the surface of

the pellucid ocean of Brahma; it looks upon the intellect blazing
as brightly as the sun, over the mirage of existence.

47. It finds the nature of the soul, to be as extensive as the

vast ocean, containing the creations as its billows; and it con�
siders the all-pervasivo soul as a big cloud, ndning down in
showers of Sastrds or knowledge.

48. The fire, moon and the sun, appear as the fuel in a fur�
nace, requiring to be lighted by the blaze of the intellect, as
every opaque atom in nature.

49. All embodied souls of men, gods and demigods, rove in

the wilderness of the world, lor feeding upon their fodder of
food, as the deer graze in their pasturage.

50. ^ The world is a prison house, where every one is a

prisoner with his toilsome body. The bones are the latches of
this dungeon, the head is its roof, and the skin its leather; and

STHITI KHANDA.

�75

the blood and ii>esb of the body, are as the drink and food of the
imprisoned.

51. Men- were as doUs covered' with skin for the amusement
ef boys, and they are continually roving in q,ne8t of sustenance,
like the (�ttle running towards their pasture grounds.

5Z. Btrt thehigh nrinded man is not of this kind; he- is not
moved by worldly temptations, as the- mountain is not to be
shaken by the gentle bre^.

53. The truly great and wise man, rests .in that highest

state of eminence; where the stations of the sun and moon, are

seen as the nether regions.

54. It is by the fight of the Supreme Spirit, that all the.

worlds are lighted, and the mind's of all are enlighted. But the
ignorant are immerged in the ocean of ignorance, and nourish
their bodies only in disregard of their souls.

55. No worldly good can allure the heart of the wise, who
have tested the vanity of temporal things ; and no earthly evil
can obscure their souls, which are as bright as the clear sky
which no cloud can darkem

56. No wordly pleasure can gladden- the soul of the wise

man, as the dance of monkies can give, no-joy to the-heart of
Hara, that deliglits in the dancing of Gauri.

57. No earthly delight can have its seat in the- heart of the
wise, as the sun-light is never reflected in-� gem- hidden under
a bushel.

58. The material world appears as a solid rock to- the stolid
ignorant; but it seems as the cvanascent wave to- the wise. The
ignorant take a great pleasure in- the transitory enjoyments of
the world; but the- wise take- them to no account, as the swan
disdains to look upon the moss of the lake.

CHAPTER LVIII.

Tub Song or Kacha.

Argument The Pantheistic views of the soul as the one in all, is

shown in tlie song of Kacha. ^

Y ASISHTHA said On this subject I will tell yon, Ram4 J

the holy song which was sung of old by Kacha, the son of
Vribaspati�the preceptor of the gods.

2. As this son of the divine tutor, resided in a grove in

some part of the mount Mem (the Altain chain-the homestead
of the gods); he found the tranquility of his ^rit in the Su�
preme soul, by means of his holy devotion.

S. His mind being filled with the ambrosial draughts of

divine knowledge, he derived no satisfaction at the sig^it of the
visible world, composed of the five elemental bodies.

4. Being rapt in his mind with the vision of the Holy

Spirit, he saw nothing else beside him, and then fervently utter*
ed to himself in the following strain.

5. What is there f(w me to do or refuse or to receive or re�

ject, and what place is there for me to resort or refrain from
going to, when this whole is filled by the Divine Spirit (io jbum),
as by the water of the great deluge.

fi. I find pleasure and pain inherent in the soul, and the
sky and all its sides contained in the magnitude of the soul.
Thus knowing all things to be full of tbe holy spirit, I forget
and sink all my pains in my spirit.

7. The spirit is inside and outside of all bodies, it is above

and below and on all sides of all. Here, there and every where is
the same spirit, and there is no place where it is not.

8. The spirit abides every where and aU things abide in tbe

spirit ; all things arc self-saae with tbe spirit, and 1 am situated
in the same spirit.

9. There is nothing intelligent or insensible which is not the

STHITI KHANDA.

877

spirit, all is spirit and so am I also. The spirit fills the whole
space and is situated in every place.

10. I am as full of that spirit and its ineffable bliss, as the all
encompassing water of the great deluge. lu this manner was
Kaclia musing in himself in the bower of the golden mountain.
(The Altain chain is called the golden mountain for itsabounding
in gold mines).

11. He uttered the sound Om (on or amen), and it rang on

all rides as the ringing of a bell; he first uttered a part of it
the vocal part�o, and then the nasal�^n, which tops it as a tuft
of hair. He remained meditating on the spirit in his mind>
not as situated in or without it, (but as the all pervasive soul).

12. Thus Rama I did Kacha continue to muse in himself

and chant his holy hymn, being freed from the foulness of flesb,
iuid rarified in bis spirit like the breath of the wind. His soul
was as clear as the atmosphere in autumn, after dispersion of
the dark clouds of the rainy season.

CHAPTER LIX.
TTokks or Bbahma's Creatioit,

Argument. Vanity of the World born �f Btahma�iJ conception. It*

Disappearance and Liberation.

V ASISHTH A continued:�Ttiere is nothing in this nrorB

except the gratificatiea of the- camnT appetites, and the-
pleasure of eating, drinking and concupiscence with the valgar;
but it is the hmting good of men, whic& is desired by the-good
ud great.

2.. The crooked and creeping beings and things,, and beasts-
and wicked men and ignorant people only, are gratified with
ramal pleasures;, they are all fond ^ everything conducing
to their bodily enjoyments.

3. They are human asses, who dote on the beauty of femaTe

bodies, which are no better than lumps of flbsb, blood and
bones.

4. This may be desirabTe to dogs and devonrihg animal's,

but not to man (who is a rational and spirituaf being). Alf
animals have their fliesby bodies, as the- trees have their trunks-
of wood, and the minerals their forms of earth.

5. There u the earth below and' the sky above, and nothing
that is extraordinary before ns; the senses pursue the sensible-
objects, but human reason finds no relish in- them.

3. The consciousness (or intuition) of men. lead's theib only to-

error; and true happiness, which is desired by ali iA situated
beyond all sensible objects and gratiffcations.

7. The end of worldly pleasure is sorrow and misery, as the-

product of a flame is soot and blluskness ; and the ftinotions
of the mind and senses, are all Sleeting having their rise and fall'
by turns. 'All; enjoyments are short lived^ owing to the fugacity
of the objects, and the decay of the powers of out tnjoying-
tbem)..

STHITI KHANDA.

�7d

8. Prosperity fiules away as plant encircled by a pnisonons

viper ; and our consorts die away as soon as anything bora o�
blood and flesh. (Fortune is fleeting and life a passing dream).

9. The delusion of love and lust, makes one body to em�

brace another, both of which are composed of impure flesh and
blood. Such are the acts, O Rdma I that delight the ignorant.

10. Wise men take no delight in this unreal and unstable

world, which is more poisonous than poison itself, by infecting
them that have not even tasted the bitter g^ll.
11. Forsake therefore your desire of enjoyment, and seek to
be united with your spiritual essence ; because the thought of
your materiality (or being a material body), has taken possession
of your mind ; (and seperated you from yourself and the spirit
of God).

12. Whenever the thought of making the unreal world, rises

in the mind of BrahmA the creator, he takes an unreal body
upon him of his own will.

13. It becomes as bright as gold by his own light, and then

he is called Virinchi, {virmeifient) on account of his will; and
BrahmA also for his being born of Brahmd. (He is represent^
as of red colour, as Adam is said to be made of red earth).

14. RAma asked How does the world become a solid sub�
stance, from its having been of a visionary form in the spirit
or mind of God ?

16. Vasishtha replied:�^When the lotus-born male (BrahmA),

rose from his cradle of the Embryo of BrahmA, he uttered the
name of Brahma whence he was called BrahmA. (The word
Brahm answers the Hebrew Brahum�create them, and corres-
ponds-with the Laten /fes^bhuya

16. He then had the conception (Sankalpa) of the world in

bis own imagination, and the same assumed a visible and solid
form by the power of his will, called the conceptional or con�
ceived world. (Sankalpasri).

17. He conceived at first luminous idea of light, whicb

having assumed a visible form spread on all sides, as a creeping

880

YOGA VifSlSHTHA,

plant is -outstrecthed all about in antnmn. (Light was the

first work of creation).

18. The rays of this light pierced all sides like threads
of gold; they shone and spread themselves -both above imd
below.

19. Concealed amidst this light, the lotus-bom Hiranj'a^

garbha, conceiveil in his mind a figure like his luminous form,
and produced it as the four faced Bralim�.

20. Then the sun sprang forth from that light, and shons

as a globe of gold amidst his world encircling beams.

21. He held the locks of his flaming hair on his head,

which flashed as fire all around him } and filled the sphere of
heaven with heat and light.

22. The most intelligent Brabmd, produced afterwards some

other luminous forms from portions of that light, which' pro�
ceeded from it the like waves of the ocean; (and these are
thence called the Marichis or rays, who were the first patriarchs
of other created beings).

23. These most potent and competent beings, were also pos-'
sessed of their concepts and will, and they produced in a moment
the figures as they thought of and will^.

24. They concieved the forms of various other beings also,

which they produced one after the other, as they desired and
willed.

25. Then did Brahmd bring to bis recolection the eternal

vedaa and the many ceremonial rites, which he established a
laws in his house of this world.

26. Having taken the gigantic body of Brahma, and the ex�
tensive form of the mind�manas, he produced the visible world
as his own offspring�Santati. (Brahmd means briAat -gtea ,\,;
and lantate derived from the root tan Latin-^eoreo mcana coq.
tinnation of race).

27. He stretched the seas and mountains, and made the trees
and up^r worlds. He raised the Meru on the surface of the
earth, and all the forests �nd groves upon it.

STHITI KHANDA.

08l

28. It vras lie who ordained happiness and misery, birth and
death and disease and decay ; and ho created the passions and
feelings of living beings, under their threefold divisions of Satya,
rajas and tamas.

29. Whatever has been wrought by the hands (faculties) of

the mind of Brahma before, the same continues to be still per�
ceived by our deluded vision.

30. He gave the mind and laws to all beings, and makes the
worlds anew as they arc situated in his mind.

31. It is error, that has given rise to the erroneous con�

ception of the eternity of the world, whereas it is the eonccpliou
of the mind alone that creates the ideal forms. (The world is
neither material nor substantial, but a conceptual and ideal
creation of the mind).

82. The acts of all things in the world, are produced by

their conception and wishes; and it is the concept or thought,
that binds the gods also to their destiny.
33. The great BrahmA that was the source of the crcyition
of the world, sits in the meditative mood, contemplating on all
that ho has made.

34. It was by a motion of the mind, that the wonderful

form of the living principle was formed ; and it was this that
gave rise to the whole world, with all its changeful phenomena.

85. It made the gods Indra, Upendra and Mohendra and

others, and also tho hills and seas in all the worlds above and
below us, and in the ten sides of the heaven above-

36. BrabmA then thought in himself. 'T have thus stretched

out atlargo tho net work of my desire, I will now cease from
extending the^bjects of my desire any further�.

37. Being so determined, ho ceased from the toil of his

creation, and reflected on the eternal spirit in his own spirit.
(According to the Sruti:�the spirit is to be reflected in the
spirit).

88. By knowing the spirit, his mind was melted down by

its effulgence, and reclined on it with that ease, as one finds in
his soft sleep after long labour.

VOL. II.

86.

682

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

39. .Being freed from his selfishness and egoism^ he felt that
perfect tranqnility which tlie soul receives by resting in itself^
and which likens the calmness of the sea by its subsidence
in itself.

40. The Lord sometimes leaves off his meditation, as the re>
servoirs of water sometimes overflow their hanks and boundaries.

41. He beholds the world as a vale of misery, with very

little of happiness in it; and where the soul is fast bound to its
alternate passions, and led by the changes of its hopes and
fears.

42. He takes pity on the miserable condition of man, and

with a view of their welfare, promulgates the sacred sdstras
and rites, which are full of meaning for their guidance.

43. He propounds the Vedas and their branches-the Vedang-

as, which are fraught with spiritual knowledge, and precepts
of wisdom, and he revealed the Puranas and other sdstras for the
salvation of mankind.

44. Again the spirit of Brahmd reclined on the supreme

spirit, and was relieved from its toil ; and then remained as
tranquil as the becalmed ocean, after its churning by the
Manddra.

45. Brahmd having observed the efforts of mankind on

earth, and prescribed to them the nilcs of their conduct, returned
to himself, where be sat reclined on his lotus scat.

46. He remains some times entirely devoid of all his desires}

and at others he takes upon him his cares for mankind from his
great kindness to them.

47. He is neither simple in his nature, nor does he assume

or reject his form in the states of his creation and cessation. He
is no other than intelligence, which is neither present in nor
absent from any place.

48. He is conversant with all states and properties of things,

and is as full as the ocean without intermixture of any crude
matteain him.

49. Sometimes he his quite devoid of all attributes and desire^

STHITI KHANDA.

683

and is only awakened from his inertness, by his own desire of

doing good to his creatures.

60. I have thus expounded to you concerning the existence

of Brahmd (Brdhmi Sthiti), and his real states of Sdtwika,
Yidbyanika and Suranikas creation. (The first is the creation
of his intellectual nature, and- the second that of his mind
or will or mental form.

61. The intellectual creation is what rises of itself in the

Spirit of Brahma, and the mental is the result of his mind and
will. The first is the direct inspiration of Brahmd into the
Spirit of Brahmd.

62. After creation of the material world by the rd/asika

nature of Brahma, there rises the visible creation in the air
by the will of the creator. (This is called the madhyanika, be�
cause it is the intermidiate creation, between the elemental and
animal creations).

63. In the next step of animal creation, some were born as

gods (aiigcls) and others as Yakshas-demigods, and this is called
the auranika, because the suras or gods were created in it.

64. Every creature is born in the shape of its inherent

nature, and then it is either elevated or degraded, according to the
nature of its associations. It lays also the foundation of its
future state of bondage to birth or liberation, by its acts,
commenced in the present life.

66. In this manner, O Bdma! has the world come to ex�

istence. Its creation is evidently a work of labour, as it is brought
to being by various acts of motion and exertion of the body
and mind �, and all these products of the god�s will, are sus�
tained also by continuous force and effort on his imrt.

CHAPTEB LX.
Pkoduction of Living Beings.

Argument. Production of the bodies of Living Beings, according to

the degrees of their Besson.

TJASISHTIIA continued :�O strong armed Rdma! after the

� great father of creation, ho took himself to his activity,
ho formed and supported the worlds by his energy and might.

2. All living and departed souls, are tied like buckets by the
rope of their desire, and made to rise and fall in this old well of
the world, by the law of their predetermined destiny (or Fate that
binds Siva or Jove himself).

3. All beings proceeding from Brabmd, and entering the

prison house of the world, have to be concentrated into the body
of the air-born Brahmd; as all the waters of the sea have to be
whirled into the whirlpool in the midst of the sea. (All things
were contained in and produced from Brahmd the Demiurg).

4. Others are continually springing from the mind of

Brahmd, like sparks of fire struck out of a red-hot iron; while
many are flying to it as their common centre.

5. Bamd I all lives are as the waves in the ocean of the ever*
lasting spirit of Brahma ; they rise and fall in him according
to his will.

6. They enter into the atmospheric air, as the smoke rises

and enters the clouds, and are at last mixed up together by the
wind, in the spirit of Brahma.

7. They are then overtaken by the elementary particles, ot

atoms flying in the air, which lay hold on them in a few days; as
the demons seize the host of gods with violence. (These become
the living and embodied souls, joined with the many properties
of the elements).

8. ' Then the air breathes the vital breath in these bodies;
which infuses life and vigour in them.
STHITI KHANDA

685

9. Tbufl do living beings manifest themselves on earth,

while there are other flyings in the form of smoke as living
spirits. (So the |[spirituailists view the spirits in the etherial
clouds).

10. Some of them appear in their subtle elemental forms in

their airy cells in the sky, and shine as bright as the beams of
the luminous moon. (These are Ungadehas or individual
spiritual bodies).

11. Then they fall upon the earth like the pale moonbeams
falling upon the milky ocean.

12. There they al ight as birds in the groves and forests,

and become stiffened by sipping the juice of fruits and flowers.

13. Then losing their aerial and bright forms of the moon�
beams, they settle on tlmse fruits and flowers : and suck their
juice like infanta hanging upon the breasts of their mothers.
(These are the protozoa, the first and embryonic state of living
beings).

14. The proto^'oas are * strengthend by drinking the juice

of the fruits, which are ripened by the light and heat of the
sun, and then they remain in a state of insensibility; until they
enter the animal body.

15. The animated animalcules, remain in the womb with

their undeveloped desires ; in the same manner as the unopening
leaves, are contained in the seed of the hata or Indian fig tree.

16. All lives are situated in the Great God, as fire is in�
herent in the wood, and the pot resides in the earth; and it is
after many processes that they have their full development.

17. One that has received no bodily form, and yet moves
on without manifesting itself, is said to be a satya or spiritual
being, and has a large scope of action (as the gods).

18. He is said to have a birth, who gets his liberation

in or after his life time; but whoever is obliged to be reborn by
his acts, is said to belong to the r&jat� tdtvika class.

19. Any one of this class who is bom to mle over others,
berames gfiddy with pride (tamas), he is said to be of the nature

688 VOQA Va'SKHTHA.

of ignorance tdmasika, and I will now speak of tLis class of

beings.
20. Those who arc born originally with their Sdtwika na*
tare, are pure in their conduct and have never to be bom again.

21. Men of raja�sdtwika temperament have to be reborn

on earth j but being elevated by their reasoning powers, they
have no more to be born in this nether world,

22. Those who have directly proceeded from the Sapreme

Spirit (without any intermixture of these natures), are men
fraught with every quality, and are very rare on earth.

23. The various classes of tdmasa creatures of ignorance,

are both insensible and speechless j and are of the nature of im�
movable vegetables and minerals, that need no description.

24. How many among the gods and men, have been reborn
to the cares of the world, owing to the demerit of their past
action; and I myself though fraught with knowledge and
reason, am obliged to lead a life of the rAjasa-sAtivika kind
(owing to my interference in society).

25. It is by your ignorance of the Sapreme, that you behold

the vast extention of the world ; but by considering it rightly,
yon will soon find all this to be but the One Unity.

Notes on the Sdeanika, Satwika &o.

1. Tlio ViilhyaniJia $ is tho sphpro of the eternal laers of God, preaided over
by Brahmi!, who ia thence atyled tho Yiclhi or diapenaator of the laws of
tlio creation of the miindano ayatom.

2. Tho Burauika ; ia tho sphere of the Snpomatnral powera or the divine

ngenoiea, governing and regulating the management of created nature. Thia
ia tho angolio sphere of deities.

!). Nardnika ; ia tho sphere of human being, oonaiating also of the aubordi-
nnto orders of beings, placed under tho dominion of man. This is the sublunary
sphere wherewith we arc conoemod.

4. Tho Satwika, are righteous men, endued witli tho quality of goodness.

6. The BAjaaika; ia the body poUtio, guided b;^ the laws of society.

6. Tho Tumaaika: ia the ignorant rabble, and infatuated people.

CHAPTEn LXl.

Os Birth, Death asd Existence.

Argutneut. !Tbe Liberation of the Rdja�satwika natures, and des�

cription of knowledge and Indifference.

V ASISHTHA continued:�Those that are born with the

nature of Rdiasa�sdiwika, remain highly pleased in the
world, and are as gladsome in their faces, as the face of the sky
with the serene light of the moon-beams.
2. Their faces are not darkened by melancholy, but are as
bright as the face of heaven; they are never ex 2 )osed to troubles,
like the lotus flowers to the frost of night.

8. They never deviate from their even nature, but remain

unmoved as the immovable bodies; and they persist in their
course of bencficience, as the trees yield their fruits to all.

4. BAma! the rAja and sAtya natured man, gets his libera�
tion in the same manner, as the disk of the moon receives its
ambrosial beams.

5. He never forsakes his mildness, even when he is in trouble;

but remains as cool as the moon even in her eclipse. He shines
with the lovely virtue of fellow-feeling to all.

6. Blessed are the righteous, who are always even temper�

ed, gentle and as handsome as the forest trees, beset by creepers
with clusters of their blossoms.

7. They keep in their bounds, as the sea remains within its

boundaries, and ore meek like yourself in their even tempers.
Hence they never desire nor wish for any thing in the world.

8. You must always walk in the way of the godly, and not
run to the sea of dangers; thus you should go on without pain
or sorrow in your life.

9. Your soul will be as elevated as the rajasa and satwika

states, by your avoiding the ways of the ungodly, and consider�
ing well the teachings of the SAstras.

888

YOGA VA'SKHTIIA.

10. Consider well in your mind the frail acts, which arc
attended with various evils; and do those acts which are good
for the three worlds, both in their beginning and end, and for�
ever to eternity.

11. The intelligent think that as dangerous to them, and not

otherwise J by reason of their being freed from narrow views,
and the false spectres�the offspring of ignorance,

12. You should always consider in yourself for the enlighten�

ment of your understanding, and say ; O Lord 1 what am I, and
whence is this multiciplity of worlds ?

13. By diligently considering these subjocta in the society

of the wise and righteous, you must neither be engaged in your
ceremonial acts, nor continue in your unnecessary practices of
the rituals.

14. You must look at the disjunction of all things in the

world from you, {*. e. the temporaneousuess of wordly things) j
and seek to associate with the righteous, as the peacock yarns for
the rainy clouds.

15. Our inward egoism, outward body and the external

world, are the three seas encompassing us one after the other.
It is right reasoning only which affords the raft to cross over
them, and bring us under the light of truth.

16. By refraining to think of the beauty and firmness of your

exterior form, you will come to perceive the internal light of
your intellect hid under your egoism; as the thin and connecting
thread is concealed under a string of pearls. (The hidden thread
underlying the links of souls, is termed Suiratmd.

17. It is that eternally existent and infinitely extended blessed

thread, which connects and stretches through all beings ; and as
the gems are strung to a string, so arc ail things linked together
by the latent spirit of God.

13. The vacuous space of the Divine Intellect, contains the

whole universe^ as the vacuity of the air, contains the glorious
sun; and as the hollow of the earth, contains an emmet.

19. As it is the same air which fills the cavity of every pot

STBtTI BHANDA.

881

on forth, so it i� the one and the same intellect and spirit o�

God, which fills, enlivens and snstains all bodies in every place.
(The text says, �The Intellect knows no difference of bodiei^ bat
pcmdes alike in all)<i

20. As the ideas of sweet and sour are the same in all men,
so is the consciousness of the Intellect alike in all mankind. (*. 0 .
we are all equally conscious of our intelleetuality, ns we are of
the sweetness and sourness of things).

2L There being but one and only one real stthstancc in exis�
tenee, it is a palpable error of your ignorant folks to say, �this
one exists, and the other perishes or vanishes away*\ (Notking
is bom or extinct, but all exist in God. So is Malbranche's
opinion of seeing ail things in God).

22. There is no such thing, Rfima, which being once pro*

duccd, is resolved into naught at at any time; all these ate no
realities nor onieaiittesb but r^resentations or reflexions of the
Real One.

25. Whatever is visible and of temporary existence, is with*

oat any perceptible substantiality of its own; it is only an object
of onr fallacy, beyond which it has no existence. (UenCe they
are no move than unrealitira).
24. Why, O Baraal should any body suffer himself to he
deluded by these unrealities ? All these accompaniments here,
being no better than causes of our delusion.

26. The accompaniment of unrealities, tends only to our delu*

sion here} and if they are taken for realities, to what good do they
tend than to delude ns the more. (It is better to let the nniwal
pass as unreal, than to take them for real, and bo utterly,
deceived at last

Toi. II.

87

CHAPTER LXn.

Spxbch op thb Ditikb Mbssbvqbb.

Aifoment. Belation of the virtues of R<tma ss dictated in the Sdstru,

and of the advancement of others, by means of good company and self<
�xerdOQ.

T he diligent and rationalistic inquirer after truth, has a na�

tnral aptitude to resort to the society of the sapient and good
natnred Guru, and dicusses on matters of the Sastras by the rules
of the Sastras he has learnt before and not talk at random.

�. It is thus by holding his argumentation on the abstruse

science of yog^, with the good and great and unavaricioos learned,

tiiat he can attalh to true wisdom. .

8, The man that is thus acquainted with the true sense of

the Sastia, and qualified by his habit of dispassionateness in the
society of holy men, shines like yourself as the model of Intel"
ligenoe.

4. Your liberal minded ness and self-reliance, combined with

your eool-headedness and all other virtues, have set yon above
the reach of misery and all mental affliction; and also freed yon
from future transmigration, by your attainment of liberation in
this life.

6. Yerily have yon become as the autumnal sky, clwred of

its glowy clouds; you are freed from worldly cates, and fraught
viith the best and highest wisdom.

6. He is truly liberated, whose mind is freed from the fluctu�

ations of its thoughts, and the flights and fumes of its thickening
fancies, and ever crowding particulars. (The ultimate generali�
sation of particulars into unity, is reckoned the highest consnm-
mation of man).

7. Henceforward will all men on earth, try to imitate the

noble disposition of the equanimity of your mind, which u de�
void of its passions of love and hatred, as also of affection and
enmity.

BTHin khanda.

�*1

8. ThoM who conform with their cuetome of the country,

tad conduct themselres in the ordinary course of men in theiir
ontwaid demeanour, and cherish their inward sentiments in the
close recesses of their bosoms, are reckoned as truly wise, and are
sure to get over the ocean of the world on the floating raft
of their wisdom.

9. The meek man who has a spirit of universal ioleratioa

like thine, is worthy of receiving the light of knowledge i and of

understanding the import of my sayings.

10 Live as long as you have to live in this frail body of

yours, and keep your passions and feelings under the sway of
your reason; act according to the rules pf society, and keep your
desires under subjection.

11. Enjoy the perfect peace and tranquility of the righteoua

sad wise, and avoid alike both the cunning of foxes and silly
freaks of boys.

Men who imitate the purity of the manners and conduct

of those, that are bom with the property of goodness, acquire in
procetn of time the purity of their lives also. (Men'become viiv
tnons by imitation of virtuous examples).

18. The man who is habituated in the practice of the man�

ners, and the modes of life of another person, is soon changed to
that mode of life, though it be of a different nature, or of
another species of being. (Habit is second nature).

14, The practices of past lives accompany all mankind in

their succeeding births, as their preordained destiny; and it is
only by our vigorous efforts that we are enabled to avert our
fatw, in the manner of princes overcoming the hostile force, ly
greater might of their own.

16. It is by means of patience only, that one must redeem hli

good sense; and it-is by patient indtistry aloue, that one may. be
advanced to a higher birth from his low and mean condition.

16. It is by virtue of their good understanding, that the

good have attainded their better biiihs in life; therefore employ
yourself, 0 Bdma! to the polishing of your tadontauding.

YOGA V/SISHTHA,
fiz

17. The gedfMting man ia posacMed of ovny (ood, ond

�aorta liw eCorta for attainment of godlineaa; it la by moana of
�manly offorta only, Aat men obtain t!ie moat preeiona blaaringa.

18. Thoae of the beat kind on earth, long for their Mberation
in ftiture, which also requires the exertion of devotion and
meditation for its attainment.

19. There is nothing in tbia earth below, or in the heaven of

the edeatiala above, which ia unattainable to the man of pai^,
l>y means of his manly efforts.

50. It ia impossible for yon to obtain the object af yowr

desire, without the exercise of your patience and dispassionate^
ness, and the exertion obyonr prowess and ansterities of
eXarya. Nor is it possible to snceeed in any without the right
use of reason.

51. Try to know yourself, and do good to all ereatnres by

your manliness; employ your good understanding to drive all
your eares and sorrows away j and you wiU thus be liberated
from all pain and sorrow.

83. O Bdma I that art fraught wltb all admirable qnalllfes,

and endued with the high power of reason; keep thyself steady
in the acts of goodness, and never may the erraaeous cares of
this world betake thee in tby future life.

YOGA VASISHTHA.

BOOK V.

THE UPASAMi EEANDA ON QUIETISM.

CHAPTER I.

Thk Arkika or Daily Bitval.

AiRomeot. fni* Book on calm qniet and rest, neeessarfty foRoirs tkoso
of Creation and auatsatatioB; as tbs slespiog tioie of niglit saccecds the
Working time of tlte Day, and as the rest of God foQowad his woik of Cna*
turn and aupportance.

T ASJSHTHA saidHear roe, Rdma, now propose to you

the subject of quietude or rest, which follows that of
Existence and sustentation of the universe; and the knowledge
of which will lead you to ninam cor final extinction} (as-the
eveaiag rest, leads t� sound sleep at night, and qmetnde is fo(*
lowed by quitna,

fi, Yfiltalkt sa/a^r,�At Yaswhlha was delivering his holy

weordfh the aasembly �d the princea remained, as still aa the
stany train, is the clear dcy an autuminad night.
S. The listening princes looking in mate gaze, at the vene-
rahh wge amidat the aaseotUy, resembled the tmmoving lotnsea
lookiag ifii tite lumioQRa wn {rose tbw breathless beds*

4. The princesses in the buem forgot their jovialty, at hearing

the sermon of the sage; and their minds heeame as coel and qniet
a� ia thaloag ahasitee <4 thmr eonsorta*

fhe foaniag damashi with fiappcvs in their bands^ remain�

ed as aa s fiock of fl^ping geese resting o� n tetus-bed } and
the jingHag of the gems and jewels on their anna, eeased like
the chirping at birds or- the trees at n^ht.

The princes tiwt bsard these doctrine^ sat selecting en

their hiddaa tasaaiDgi^ wi^ tiieir into fiugesa (picking to the

TOGA VA'SISHTHA.

e�4

tip o( tbeir noset in thongbtfalness; and others pondered da

�ibeii deep sense, by laying the fingers on their lips.

7. The .countenance of Bdma flashed like the hlndiing

lotos in the morning, and it brightened by easting away its
melancholy, as the sun shines by dispelling the darkness of
night.

8- The king of kings^-Dasaratha felt as delighted in hearing

the lectures of Vasishtha, as the peacock is gladdened at the roar*
ing of raining clouds.

9. Sarana the king�s minister removed his apish fiekle mind

from his state affairs, and applied it intensely to attend to the
teachings of the sage.

10. Laxmana who was well versed in all learning, shone

as a digit of the bright crescent moon, with the internal light of
Vasishtha�s inslractions, and the radiance of his Spiritual know�
ledge.

11. Satrughna the subduer of his enemies, was so full of de�

light in his heart at the teaching of the sage; that his face
glowed with joy, like the full moon replete with all her digits.

12. The other good ministers, whose minds were absorbed in

the cares of state afihirs; were set at ease by tbe friendly admoni�
tion of the sage, and they glowed in their hearts likelotns-'
buds expanded by the sunbeams.

IS. All the other chiefs and sages, that were present in that
assembly, had the gemaof their hearts purged of their dross by
the preachings of Vasishtha; and their minds glowed irith fervour
from his impmssive speech.
14. At this instant there rose the lond i>eal ot eoneh shelli^'
resembling the full swell of the sounding main, and the deep
and deafening roar of summer douds, filling the vault of the
sky, and announcing the time of midday service. fThe iritandkga �
services are performed at the rising, setting and verfical snni

15. The loud uproar of the shells, drowned the fteble voice of
the muni undep it, as the high sounding roar of rainy douds, put

STHm KHANDi.

69S

down ih� notes of the tweet cuckoo. (It it nid, tke cuckoo ceta-
tt toting in the rains. '�mwn I

16i The mmu stopped his breath and ceased to give utterance
hit speech} because it Is itt vain to speak where it is not heeded or
listened to. (The Wise should hold their tongue, when it hat
lost its power to hold people by their ears).

17. Hearing the midday shout, the sage stopped for a mom�
ent and then addressed to ftdma I after the hubbub was over
and said^�

18. Rdmal I have thus far delivered to you my daily lecture

for tills day; 1 will resume it the next morning, and tell you all
tliat 1 have to say on the subject.

19. It is ordained for the twice bom classes to attend to the

duties of their religion at midday; and therefore it does not be<
hove us to swerve from discharging our noonday services at this
time.

20. Rise therefore, O fortunate Bdma I and perform your

sacred ablutions and divine services, which you are well acquaint*
ed with, and give your alms and charities adso as they are ordain*
ed by law.

21. Saying so, the sage rose from his seat with the king
and his courtiers, and resembled the sun and moon, rising fropi
the eastern mountain with their train of stars.

22. There rising made the wliole assembly to rise after them*
as a gentle breeze moves the bed of lotuses, with their nigre^nt
eyes of the black bees sitting upon them.

23. The assembled prince rose up with their crowned heads,

and they marched with their long and massive arms like a body
of big elephants of the Vindbyan hills with their lubberly legs.

24. The jewek on their persons rabbed against each other, by

their pushing up and down in hurry, and displayed a blaze
like tiiat of the reddened clouds at the setting sun.

25. The jingling of the gems on the coronets, resembled the

humming of bees j and the diuhing rays of the crowns* spread
the various oolonn of the rainbow around.

vooA

The beauties in tlie court hall resembling the tender me<

pens, and holding the chouri flappers like clusters of bloBsoms in
their leaMike plams, formed a forest of beauties about the ele�
pbantine forms of the brave princes. (It means the joint egress
of a large number of damsels employed to fan the princes in the
Court hall).

27. The hall eras emblazoned with the rays of the blazing
braoelts, and seemed as it was strewn over with the dust of Mas-
dara flowers, blown away by the winds.

28. There were crystal cisterns of pure water, mixed with ice
and pulverized camphor; and the landscape around was whitened
by the kuta grass and flowers of autumn.

29. The gems hanging down the head-dresses of the princes,

cast a reddish colour over the hollow vault of the hall; and ap�
peared as the evening twilight preceding the shade of nigh^
which puts an end to the daily works of men.

30. The fair faces of the fairy damsels, were like lotuses
floating on the watery lustre of the strings of pearls pendant
upon them; and resembling the lines of bees fluttering about the
lotuses; while the anklets at their feet, emitted a ringing sound
as the humming of bees.

31. The largo assemblage of the princes, rose up amidst the

assembled crowds of men; and presented a scene never seen
before by the admiring people.

32. The rulers of the earth bowed down lowly before their
sovereign, and departed from his presence and the royal palace in
large bodies ; likening the waves of the sea, glistening as rain�
bows by the light of Ihrir gemming ornaments.

33. The chief minister Sumantra and others, that were best
acquainted with royal etiquette, prostrated themselves before their
king and the holy sage, and took their way towards the Mj
stream; fbr performance of their sacred ablutions.

34. The Rishis Vdmadeva, Viswdmitra and others, lAood. in

I2w presence of Vasishtiia} and waited for hit ban to makeb
their d^rtnre.
UPASAUA KHANDA

697

S5. King Dasarafcha honored the sages one by one, and then
left them to attend to his own business.

36. The citizens returned to the city, and the foresters

retired to their forests, the aerials flew in the air, and all went to
their respective abodes for rejoining the assembly on the next
morning.

37. The venerable Visfiwmitra, being besauglit by the king

and Vasishtha, stayed and passed the night at the abode of the
latter.

38. Then Vasishtha being honoured by all the princes, sages

and the great Brdhmanas, and adored by Edma and the other
princes of king Dasaratha�s royal race:�

89. Pi-oceedcd to his hermitage, with the obeisance of the

assembled crowd on all sides ; and followed by a large train, as
the god Brahmd is accompanied by bodies of the celestials.

40. He then gave leave to lldma and his brother-princes,

and to all his companions and followers, to return to their abodes
from his hermitage in the woods.

41. He bade adieu to the aerial, earthly and the subterraneous

beings, that kept company with him with their encomiums on
his merits ; and then entering his house, he performed his
Br4hmauical rites with a dutious disposition.

CHAPTER ir.

B/ma.'8 Recapitui.ation of Vasishtha�s Lecttoes.

Argument. Performance of Daily Ititea, and Rdma�s Beflection of

Vuaislitha�H Teaching at night.

V AIiMI'KI continued his relation to Bharadwdja and said:�

After the moon-bright princes had got to their residence,
they discharged their daily senriecs according to the dinmal
ritual.

2. Even Vasishtha and the other saints, sages, and Brdhmans

not excepting the king and the princes, were all engaged in their
holy services at their own houses.

D. They bathed iu the sacred streams and fountains, filled

with floating bushes of lotuses and other aqnatic plants, and
frequented by the ruddy geese, cranes and storks on their
border.
4. After they had performed their ablutions, they made
donations of lands and kine, of scats and beddings and of sesailD*
nm grains, with gold and gems, and food and raiments to the
holy Brdhmans.

5. They then worahipped the gods Vishnu and Siva in tl�eir

temples, and made oblations to the snn and regents of the skies
in their own houses, with offerings of gold and gems; which are
sacred to particular deities and the planets. (Particular gems
and metals are sacred to tiieir presiding divinities).

6. After their offerings were over, they joined with their sons
and grandsons, friends, and relatives, and their guests also, in
partaking of their lawful food. (Unlawful food is hateful to
the faitliful).

7. Shortly after this, the daylight faded away at the eighth

watch (yamdrdha) of the day; and the charming scene of the
city began to disappear from sight.

8. The people then employed themselves to their proper

UI'ASAMA KHANDA.

699

duties at the decline of the day, and betook to their evening

service with the failing beams of the setting sun.

9. They recited their evening hymn (SaiidhyA), repeated their

japamantras, and uttered their prayer for the forgiveness of
sins {agha martham) ; they read aloud their hymns and sang
their evening song of praise.

10. Then rose the shade of night to allay the sorrow of

lovelorn damsels, as the moon arose from the milky ocean of the
east, to cool the heat of the setting sun.

11. The princes of Raghu's race then reclined on their downy

and flowery beds, sprinkled over with handfuls of camphor pow�
der, and appearing as a sheet of spreading moon-light.

12. The eyes of all men were folded in sleep^ and they pas�
sed the live-long night as a short interval; but RAma kept wake-
ing in his bed, meditating on all things he had heard from the
sage. �

13. Rdma continued to reflect on the lectures of Vasishiha,

which appeared as charming to him, as the cry of the parent
elephant, is gladsome to its tender young (karabha).

14. What means this wandering of ours, said he, in this

world, and why is it that all these men and other animals,
are bound to make their entrances and exits in this evanescent
theatre ?
15. What is the form of our mind and how is it to be govern�
ed ? What is this illusion (MAyA) of the world, whence hath
its rise and how is it to be avoided ?

16. What is the good or evil of getting rid of this illusion,

and how does it stretch over and overpower on the soul, or is
made to leave it by any means in our power ?

17. What does the mmi say with regard to the means, and
effect of curbing the appetites of the mind ? What docs he
say regarding the restraining of our organs, and what about the
tranquility of the soul ?

18. Our hearts and minds, our living souls and their delur^
sion, tend to stretch out the phenomenal world before its; and
our very souls make a reality of the unreal existence.

700

YOGA V/SISHTHA.

19. All these things are linked together in otir minds, and are
weakened only by the weakening of our mental appetites. But
how are these to be avoided in order to get rid of our misery.

20. The slender light of reason is over-shadowed, like a sin*

gle crane in the air, by the dark cloud of passions and appetites ;
how am I then to distinguish the right from wrong, as the goose
separates the milk from the water ?

21. It is as hard to shun our appetites on the one band, as it

is impossible to avoid our troubles bore, without the Utter aUIli*
bilation of our appetency. Here is the dilBculty in both ways.

22. Again the mind is the leader to our spiritual knowledge

on the one hand, and our seducer also to worldliness on the
other. We know not which way to be led by it. Tlie difficulty is
as great as a man's mounting on a mountain, or a child's escaping
from the fear of a yaksha.

23. All worldly turmoil is at an end, upon one's attainment

of true felicity; as the anxieties of a maiden are over, after she
has obtained a husband,'

24. When will my anxieties have their quietism, and when

will my cares come to an end ? When will my soul have its
holiness, and my mind find its rest from acts of merit and
demerit ?

25. When shall I rest in that state of bliss, which is as cool�

ing and complete in itself; as the full-moon with all her digits,
and when shall I rove about the earth at large, free from worldly
cares and ties ?
26. When will my fancy stop from its flight, and concen�
trate into the inward soul ? When will my mind be absorbed in
the Supreme soul, like the turbulent wave subsiding in the breast
of the quiet sea ?

27. When shall I get over this wide ocean of the world,
which is disturbed by the turbulent waves of our desires, and is
full of the voracious crocodiles of our greedy avarice, (and get
r!d of this feverish passion ?

28. When shall 1 rest in that state of complete quiesceneee

UPASAMA KHANDA.

701

and unfeelingfness of my mind, wbicli is aimed at by the seekers

of liberation, and the all-tolerant and indifferent philosophet.

(It is the sullen apathy of stoicism, which constitutes the

true wisdom and happiness of asceticism also).

<29. Ah! when will this continuous fever of my worldliness

abate, which has irritated my whole body by its inward heat,
and deranged my humours out of their order!

80. When will this heart of mine cease to throb from its
cares, like the light of the lamp ceasing to flutter without the
wind; and when will my understanding gain its light, after dis�
persion of the gloom of my ignorance.

31. When wilt these organs and members of my body, have

their respite from their ineessant functions; and when will this
parched frame of mine get over the sea (flame ?) of avarice, like
the pheenix rising from its ashes.

82. When will the light of reason like the clear atmosphere
of the autumnal sky, dispel this dark cloud of my ignorance,
that envelopes my heavenly essence under the veil of this sorry
and miserable foim.

S3. Our minds arc filled with the weeds of the maudara
plants of the garden of paradise: (e. e. desiring the enjoyments
of heaven). Ilut my soul pants for its restitution in the Supreme
spirit.

34. The dispassionate man is said to be set in the pure light

of reason; it is therefore that {>assionloss state of my mind
which I long to attain.

85. But my restless mind has made me a prey to the dragon

of despair, and I cry out in my sorrow, O my father and
mother! help me to get out of this difliculty.

86. I exclaim also saying :�O my sister understanding!

condescend to comply with the request of thy poor brother; and
consider well the words of the wise sage for our deliveranee from
misery.

37. I call thee also, O my good sense to my aid, and beg of

70S

TOGA VASiSHTnA.

the�, O progeny o� tby virtuoos mother i to remain firm by my

side^ th my straggle o� breaking the bonds of the world,

38. Let me first of all reflect on the sayings of the sage on

Resignation (Vairt^ya), and then on the conduct of one who
longs for his liberation, and next about the CreatiOQ o� the WOrld,
(in the Srishti Prakarana).

89. Let me remember afterwards all that he has said on the

Existence of the universe (Sthiti Prakarana), together with its
beautiful illustrations; all of which are replete with sound wisdom
and deep philosophy.

40. Although a lesson may he repeated a hundred times over,

it proves to be of no effect, unless it is considered with g^od
understanding and right sense of its purport. Otherwise it is as
the empty sound of autumn clouds without a drop of rain.

CHAPTER III.

Description of the Royal Assembly.

Argument Tbe Meeting of tbe next morning, and the concourse of

Attendants.

Y ALMIIeCI continued RAma passed in this manner the live�

long night, in his lengthened chain of reflection ; and in

eager expectation of dawn, as the lotus longs for the rising sun
at day break.

2. Gradually the stars faded away at the appearance of

aurora in the east, and the face of the sky was dimly pale, before
it was washed over with the white of twilight.

8. The beating of the morning and -the alarm of trumpets,

roused RAma from his reverie; and he rose with his moonlike
face, blooming as the full-blown lotus in its leafy bed.

4. He performed his morning ablution and devotion, and

joined with his brothers and a few attendants, inordcr to repair
to the hermitage of the sage Yasishtha.

8. Having arrived there, they found the sage entranced in

bis meditation in his lonely solitude ; and lowly bent down their
heads before him from a respectful distance.

6. After making their obeisance, they waited on him in the

compound, until the twilght of morning, brought the day-light
over the face of the sky.

7. The princes and chiefs, the saints, sages and BrAbmans,

thronged in that hermitage, in the manner of the celestials
meeting at the empyrean of BrahmA.

8. Now the abode of Yasishtha was full of people, and the

crouds of the cats, horses and elephants waiting at the outside,
made it equal to a royal palace in its grandeur.

9. After a while the sage rose from his deep meditation,

and gave suitable receptions to the assembled throng that
bowed down before him.

904

yooA va^ishtha.

10. Then Vasishtha accompanied with ViswAmitra, and

followed by a long train of mmi� and other men, came oat of the
hermitage, and ascended and sat in a carriage, in the manner of
the lotos-born Brahmd sitting on his lotos seat.

11. He arrived at the palace of Basaratha, which was sur�

rounded by a large army on all sides, and aligthed there from his
oar, as when Brahmd descends from his highest heaven to the

city of Mrai beset by the whole host of the cel^tials.

12. He entered the grand court hall of the king, and was
saluted by the courtiers lowly bending down before him j aa
when the stately gander eaters a bed of lotuses, amidst a body of
acquatic birds (all staring at him).

13. The king also got up, and descended from his high
throne; and then advanced three paces on barefoot to receive the
venerable sage.

14>. Then there entered a large concourse of chiefs and

princes, with bodies of saints and sages and Brdhmans and
hori, potri preists.

15. The minister Sumantra and others came next with the
learned pandits Saumya and others; and then BAma and his
brothers followed them with the sons of royal ministers.
16. Next came the ministerial officers, the ministerial priests
(hotripotris), and tiie principle citizens, witli bodies of the MAlava
wrestlers and servants of all orders, and townsmen of different
professions.

17. All these took their respective seats, and sat in the
proper order of their ranks, and kept looking intently on the sage
Vasishtlia, with their uplifted hca^ and eyes,

18. The murmur of the assembly was hashed, and the redta-
� tion of the panegyrists was at a stop; the mutual greetings and

conferences were at an end, and there ensued a still silence in the

assembly.

19. The winds wafted the sweet fragrance from the cups
of full blown lotuses; and scattered the dnlciate dust of the
filaments in the spacious hall.

DPASAMA KHANDA,

705

to. The clusters oE flowers hung about the hall, diffused

their odours all around ; and the whole court house seemed, as
it were sprinkled over with perfumes of all sorts.

21. The queens and princesses sat at the windows, aud upon
their couches in the inner apartment, which was strewn over
with flowers, and behold the assemblage in the outer hall.

2i. They saw <werytbing by the light of the Sllll, whicU

shed upon tlicir open eyes through the net work on the windows ;
and also by the radiance of.the gems, which sparkled on their
delicate persons. The attendant women remained silent, and
without waving their fans aud ehouries ; (for fear of the sounding
bracelets on their arms).

23. The earth was sown with orient jHiarls by the dawning
sun-beams, and the ground was strewn over with (lowers glisten�
ing at the sun-light. The lightsome locusts did not light upon
them, thinking them to be sparks of Arc, hut kept hovering in
the midway sky as a body of dark and moving cloud.

24. The respectable people sat in mute wonder, to hear the

holy lectures of Vasishthaj because the aovcoable ml vice, which is
derived from the society of the good; is beyond all cstimalion.

25. The Siddlias, VidyAdharas, saints, Uriilunans and r^-

pectable men, gathered from all sides of the sky and forests, and
from all cities and toivns round about Vasisluha, and saluted
him in silence, because deep veneration is naturally mate and
wanting in words.
26. The sky was strewn over with the golden dust, borne by
the fluttering bees from the cups of farinacious lotuses; whcrciii
they were enclosed at night; and the soft airs blew sonant with
the tinkling sounds of ringing bells, hanging in strings on the
door ways of houses. (The Gloss says; it is usual in Nepaul and
at Deccan, to suspend strings of small bells over the gate ways).

27. The morning breeze was now blowing with the fragrance
of various flowers, and mixing with the perfume of the sandal
paste; and making the bees fly and flutter on all sides, with
their sweet humming music,

Vor.. 11.

89

CHAPTER IV.

Inquiries of Raua.

Argnment Dasaratha�s Pralae of Vasishtha�a speech, and Bams's

Queries by beiiest of the sage.

Y ALMIKI continued:�^Then king Dasaratha made this speech

to the chief of sages, and spoke in a voice sounding as a deep
cloud, and in words equally graceful as they were worthy of
confidence.

2. Venerable sir, said he, your speech of yesterday bespeaks

of your intellectual light, and your getting over all afflictions by
your extremely emaciating austerities.

3. Your words of yestei-day, have delighted us by their

perspicacity and gracefulness, as by a shower of enlivening
ambrosia.

'4f. The pure words of the wise, are as cooling and edifying
of the inward soul; as the clear and nectarious moon-beams,
serve both to cool and dispel the gloom of the earth.

6. The good sayings of the great, afford the highest joy

resulting from their imparting a knowledge of the Supreme,
and by their dispelling the gloom of ignorance all at once.

6. The knowledge of the inestimable gem of our soul, is

the best light that we can have in this world; and the learned
man is as a tree beset by the creepers of reason and good sense.

7. The sayings of the wise serve to purge away our improper

desires and doings, as the moon-beams dispel the thick gloodi
of night.
8. Your sayings, O sage, serve to lessen our desires and
Rvarice which enchain us to this world, as the autumnal winds
diminish the black clouds in the sky

9. Your lectures have made us perceive the pure soul in its

clear light, as the eye-salve of antimony (eoUyrium antigmu

UPASAMA KHANDA 70T

nij^am); makea th� born-blind man to see the pure gold with
his eyes.

10. The mist oE wordly desires, which has overspread the

atmosphere of our minds, id now beginning to disperse by the
autumnal breeze of your sayings.

11. Your sayings of sound wisdom, O great sage f have

ponred a flood of pare delight into our souls, as the breezy
waves of nectarious water, or the breath of maiidara flowers
infuse into the heart.

12. O my Bdina! those days are truly lightsome, that you

spend in your attendance on the wise; otherwise the rest of
the days of one�s life time, are indeed darksome and dismal.

18. O my lotus-eyed Rdma 1 propose now what more you

have to know about the imperishable soul, as the sage is favour�
ably disposed to communicate everything to you.

14. After the king had ended his speech, the venerable and
high-minded sage Vasishtha, who was seated before Edma,
addressed him saying:�

15. Vasishtha said :�0 Bdma�the moon of your race, do

yon remember all that I have told yon ere this, and have you
reflected on the sense of my sayings from first to the last.

16. Do yon recollect, O victor of your enemies ? the subject

of creation, and its division into the triple nature of goodness &o;
and their subdivision into various kinds ?

17. Do you remember what I said regarding the One in all,

and not as the all, and the One lieality ever appearing as un�
reality ; and do you retain in your mind the nature and form
of the Supreme Spirit, that I have expounded to you ?

18. Do you, O righteous Rdma, that art deserving of every

praise, bear in your mind, how this world came to appear from
the Lord God of all ?

19. Do you fully retain in your memory the nature of

illusion, and how it is destroyed, by the efforts of the under�

standing; and how the Infinite and Eternal app^rs as finite and
temporal as space and time ? (These though infinite appear limited
to us), *
708

YOGA VifSISTlTHA.

� 20. Do yon, O blessed RAma!�keep in yonr mind; that mail'

is no other than his mind, as I have explained to you by its
proper detliiition and arguments ?

21. Have you, Rfiina! considered well the moaning! of my'

words, and did you reflect at night the reasonings of yesterday
m your mind ? (As it behoves us to reflect at night on tlie lessons
of the day).

22. It is by rc|>eated reflection in the mind, and having by

heart wbat you have learnt, tliat you derive the benefit of your
learning, and not by your laying aside of the same in negligence.

2!l. You arc then only the proper receptacle of a rational dis�
course and a holy senmni, when yon retain them like brilliant
]>earls in the chest of your capacious and reasoning breast.

24. Vulmiki said:�RAina being thus aildressed by the

sage�the valiant progeny of the lotus-seated Brahnid, fonnd
his time to answer him in the following manner. (Vasishtha�s.
valour is described in his services to king Suddsa).

25. Rdma re])liotl ;�yoa Sir, who are acquainted with all
sAstras and en'ods have expounded to me, the sacred truths,
and I have, O noble Sir, fully comprehended their purport.

26. T have deposited every thing verbatim that you said in

the casket of my heart, and have well considered the meaning of
your words during the stillness of my sleepless nights.

27. Your words like siin-be.ims dispel the darkness of the

world, and your radiant words of yesterday, delighted me like
the rays of the rising snn.

28. O great sir, I have carefully preserved the substance

of all your ])ast lectures in my mind, as one preserves the most
valuable and brilliant gems in a casket.

20. What aecomplisheil man is there, that will not bear on.
his head the blessings of admonitions, which arc so very pare
and holy, and so very charming and delightful at the same time ?

30. We have shaken off the dark veil of the ignoramse of

thi; world, and have bettome as enlightened by your favor, aa
the days in autumn after dispersion of rainy clouds.

UPASAMA KHANDA.
70�

81. Your instructions are sweet and Graceful in tlie first, place
(by tlie elegance of their stylet; they are edifyiiiff in the midst
(by their t^nnd doctrines) j and they are sacreil by the holiness
they confer at the end.

32. � Your flowery speech is ever delightsome to us, by the

quality of its bloominv and unfading beauty, and by virtue of
its conferring onr lasting (rood to ns.

33. O sir, that are learned in all sdstras, that art the cha�
nnel of the holy water-sof divine knowledge, that art firm in thy
protracted vows of purity, do tlion expurgate ns of the dross
of our manifold sins by your purifying lectures.

CHAPTER V.

Lecturb on Tranquility of the Soul and mind.

Argument. Tlie existence of the world in ignorant minds, and tranqui�

lity Of the spirit.

V ASISHTHA said:�Now listen with attention the subject

of quietism foe your own p^od, wherein you will find the
best solutions (of many questions adduced before).

2. Know BAma, this world to be a continuous illusion, and

to be upheld by men of rajaxa and fawaxa natures, consisting of
of the properties of action and passions or ignorance, that sup�
port this illusory fabric, as the pillars bear up a building.

8. Men born with the taJlyika nature of goodness like your�

self, easily lay aside this inveterate illusion, as a snake casts off
its time-worn skin (slough).

4. But wise men of good dispositions (or satwika natures),

and those of the mixed natures of goodness and action, (rajasa-
satyika), always think about the structure of the world, and its
prior and posterior states; (without being deluded by it).

5. The understandings of the sinless and which have been

enlightened by the light of the SAstras, or improved in the so�
ciety of men or by good conduct, become as far sighted as the
glaring light of a torch.

6. It is by one's own ratiocination, that be should try to

know the soul in himself ; and he is no way intilligent, who
knows not the knowable soul in himself.

7. The intelligent polite, wise and noble men, are said to have
the nature of rajasa-satwika (or the mixed nature of goodness
and action) in them: and the best instance of such a nature
is found, O. BAma! in thy admirable disposition.

8. Let the intelligent look into the phenomena of the work

themselves, and by observing what is true and untrue ini^
attach themselves to the truth only.

UPASAMA KHANDA.

711

9. TThat which was not before, nor will be in being at the

end, is no reality at all bat what continnes in being both at first
and last, is the true existence and naught besides.

10. He whose mind is attached to anght, which is unreal

both at first and at last, is either an infatuated fool or a brute
animal, that can never be brought to reason.

11. It is the mind that makes the world .and stretches it as in

its imagination; but upon a comprehensive view (or closer inves�
tigation) of it, the mind is in its nothingness.

BAma said:�am fully persuaded to believe, sir, that the

mind is the active agent in this world, and is subject to decay
and death, (like the other organs of sensation).

12. But tell me sir, what are the surest means of guarding tho
mind from illusion, because you only are the sun to remove the
darkness of Raghu�s race.

lA. Vasishtha replied :�The best way to guard the mind from
delusion, is first of all the knowledge of the SAstras, and next the
exercise of dispassionateness, and then the society of the good,
which lead the mind towards its purity.

15. The mind which is fraught with humility and holiness,

should have recourse to preceptors who are learned in philosophy.

16. The instruction of such preceptors, makes a man to

practice his rituals at first, and then it leads the mind gradually
to the abstract devotion of the Most-Holy.

17. When the mind comes to perceive by its own cogitation,

the presence of the supreme spirit in itself ; it secs the universe
spread before it as the cooling moonbeams.

18. A man is led floating as a straw on the wide ocean of the

world, until it finds its rest in the still waters under the coast of
rmson.

18. Human understanding comes to know the truth by means

of its reasoning, when it puts down all its difiiculties, as the
purewater gets over its sandy bed.
20. The resonable man distinguishes the truth from untruth,
as the goldsmith separates the gold from ashes; but the unrSa*

712 YOGA V/fSTSHTHA.

mnable are as the ignorant, incapable to distingnish the <Jn*

from the other.

21. The divine Spirit is imperishable after it is once known to-

the human soul; and there can be no access of error iiito it, as
long as it is en]ightene<l by the light of the holy spirit.

22. The mind which is ignorant of truth ; is ever liable to

error, but when it is acquainted with truth, it becomes freed from
its doubts} and is set above the reach of error.

23. O ye men 1 that are unacquainted with the divine spirit,

you bear your souls for misery alone ; but knowing the spirit, you
become entitled to enternal happiness and tranquility.

21!. How are ye lost to your souls by blending with your bo�
dies, expand the soul from under the earthly frame, and you will
be quite at rest with yourselves.

25. Your immortal soul has no relation to your mortal

bodies, as the pure gold bears no affinity to the earthen crucible
in which it is contained.

26. The Divine Spirit is distinct from the living soul, as.
the loins flower is separate from the water which upholds it;
as a drop of water is unattached to the lotus-leaf whereon it
rests. My living soul is crying to that Spirit with my uplifted
arms, but it pays no heed to my cries.

27. The mind which is of a gross natnre, resides in the cell

of the body, like a tortoise dwelling in its hole; it is insensibly
intent upon its sensual enjoyments, and is quite neglectful about
the welfare of the soul.

28. It is so shrouded by the impervious darkness of the world,

that neither the light of reason, nor t!�e flame of fire, nor tha
beams of the moon, nor the gleams of a dozen of zodiacal suns^
have the power to penetrate into it.

29. But the mind being awakened from its dormancy,' begins
to reflect on its own state; and then the mist of its ignorance

flies off, like the darkness of the night at sun-rise.

SO. ^ As the mind i:eclincs itself coustantiy on the doway >fced

UPA8AMA KHANDA.
?13

o� its melitafcion, for the sake of its enlightenment; it comes to

perceive this world to be but a vale of misery.

SI. Know Rdma I the soul to be ns unsullied by its outer

covering of the body, as the sky is unsoilcd by the clouds of dust
which hide its face ; and as the petals of the lotus are untainted
by the dew-drops, falling upon them at night. (No liquid is
attached to the oily surface of lotus-leaves).

33. As dirt or clay clinging to the outer side of a gold orna�

ment, cannot pierce into the inside; so the gross material
body is attached outside the soul, without touching its inside,

33. Men commonly attribute pleasure and pain to the soul;

but they are as separate from it, as the rain drops and the flying
dust, are afar and apart from the sky.

34. Neither the body nor the soul is subject to pain or

pleasure, all which relate to the ignorance of the mind; and this
ignorance being removed, it will be found that they appertain
to neither. (The mind alone is subject to both through its
ignorance; but the philosophic mind knows all partial evils
sarvdrti, to be universal good).

36. Take not to your mind O Bdma I the pain or pleasure

of either ; but vciw them in an equal light, as you view things
in the tranquility of your soul.

86. All the outspreading phenomena of the world, which

are beheld all about ns, are as the waves of the boundless ocean
of the Divine Spirit; or as the gaudy train of the peacock, dis�
played in the sphere of our own souls. (So the mind displays its
thoughts in a train).

37. The bright substance of our soul, presents to us the

picture of creation, as a bright gem casts its glare to no purpose;
but by its own nature. (And so the mind deals with its di-eams
in vain).

88. The spirit and the material world, are not the same
thing; the spirit is the true reality, and the duality of the world,
is only a representation or counterpart of the Spirit.

40. But Brahma, is the whole totality of existaate, and know

Von. II. 90

714

TOGA ViSISHTHA.

the universe as the expansion of the nniversal soul; therefore

O RAmal give up your error of the distinction of one thing from
another; (lit; such as I am this one, and the other is another).

40. There can be no distinction, RAma, in the everlasting

and all extensive plenum of Brahma; as there is no difference
in the whole body of water of the wide extended ocean.

41. All things being one and alike in the self-same snbstra-
tnm of the Supreme Soul, you cannot conceive of there being
any other thing- (a duality) in it, as you cannot imagine a
particle of frost to abide in the fire.

42. By meditating on the Supreme Soul in yourself, and by

contemplation of the intelligent Spirit in your own intellect, you
will find the glory of the Supreme Spirit^ shining brightly in
your pure spirit.

48. Therefore ease your mind, O BAma! and know that

there is no mistake nor error in your believing the all as one;
and that there is no new-birth or a new born being* (in the
world), but all that is or come to existence, is ever existent in the
Supreme.

44. Ease yourself, O RAma I by knowing that there is no

duality (save the Unity of God); and that there is no contra�
riety of things (as that of heat and cold), except their oneness in
the Divine moniety. Then knowing yourself as a spiritual being,
and sitnated in the purity of Divine essence, you shall have no
need of devotion or adoration (in ordor to appease or unite your�
self with the Deity). And knowing also that you are not sepa�
rated from God, forsake all your sorrow (to think of your help�
less state).

45. Be tolerant, composed and even-minded ; remain tran�

quil, taciturn and meek in your mind; and be as a rich jewel,
shining with your internal light. Thus you will be freed from
the feverish vexations of this worldly life.

46. Be rational and dispassionate and calm in your draire ;

remun sober minded and free from ardent expectations; and

rest satisfied with what you get of your own lot, inorder to be
freed Ifi^ the feverish heat of worldliness. .

UPASAMA KHAKDA. 71S

47. Be nnimpassioned and anperturl>ed witb earilily cares;

be pare and sinless, and neither be pennrioas nor prodigal, if yon
will be freed from the fever heat of this world.

48. Be free from all anxiety, O Kdma 1 by your obtaining of

that good which the world cannot give, and which satisfies all onr
earthly wants. Have this sapermundane bliss, O B.4ma, and be as
fall as the ocean, and free from the feverish cares of this world.

49. Be loosened from the net of thy loose desires, and wipe off
the nngent of delnsive affections from thy eyes: let thy soul
rest satisfied with thyself, and be freed from the feverish
anxieti^^of the world.

ft<m sr t s! I

I 8L I

50. With yonr spiritual body reaching beyond the unbound�

ed space, and rising above the bight of the highest mouutain, be
freed from the feverish and petty cares of life.

61. By enjoyment of what you get (as your lot), and by

asking of naught of any body anywhere > by your charity rather
than your want or asking of it, you must be free from the fever
of life.

52. Enjoy the fulness of your soul in yourself like the sea,
and contain the fulness of your joy in your own soul like .the
full moon. Be self-sufficient with the fulness of your knowledge
and inward bliss.

53. Knowing this world as unreal as a pseudocopio sight,

no wise man is misled to rely in its untruthful scenes. So you
BIma, that are knowing and ''unvisionary, and are sane and
sound headed, and of enlightened understanding, must. be al�
ways charming with your perfect ease from sorrow and care.

. 64. Now B4ma I reign over this unrivalled sovereignty, by

the direction of your sovran Sire, and manage well everything
under yonr own inspection. This kingdom is fraught with every
blessing, and the rulers are all loyal to their king. Therefore
you must neither l^ve out to do what is your duty, nor bs�
elated with your happy lot of royalty.

CHAPTER VI.

Lectubb oh the DiscHAasE or Duty. .

Argument Effect of Acts, Transmigration of souls and their Libera�

tion in Life time.

V ASISUTHA continued: �In my opinion, a man is liberated

who does his works from a sense of his duty, and without
any desire of his own or sense of his own agency in it. (Here
subjection to allotted duty, is said to be his freedom; but that to
one's own desire or free choice, is called to be his bondage and
slavery).

2. Who so having obtained a human form, is engaged in

acts 'out ol his own choice and with a sense of his own agency',
he is subjected to his ascension and descension to heaven and hell
by turns, (according to the merit or demerit of his acts, while
there is no such thing in the doing of his duty).

3. Some persons who are inclined to nndnteous (or illegal)

acts, by neglecting the performance of their destined (or legal)
duties, are doomed to descend to deeper hells, and to fall into
greater fears and torments from their former states.

4. Some men who are fast bound to the chain of their

desires, and have to feel the consequences of their acts, are made
to descend to the state of vegetables from their brutal life, or
to rise from it to animal life again.

5. Some who are blessed with the knowledge of the Spirit,

from their investigation of abstruse philosophy, rise to the state
of moniety (Kaivalya) j by breaking through the fetters of desire.
(Kaivalya is the supreme bliss of God in his soleity, to which
the divine sage aspires to be united. Or it is the complete unity
with oneself irrespective of all connections).

6. There are some men, who after ascending gradually in

the scale^ of their ci-cation in former births, have obtained their
liberation in the present life of r&ja � Sitvika or active goodness.

UPASAMA KHANDA

717

7. Such men being born again on earth, assume their bright

qualities like the crescent moon, and are united with ail pros*
perity, like the Knrchi plant which is covered with blossoms in
its flowering time of the rainy season. (The good effects of
former acts, follow a man in his next birth).

8. The merit of prior acts follows one in his next state, and
the learning of past life meets a man in his next birth, as a
pearl is born in a reed. (A particular reed is known to bear pearly
seeds within them, well known by the name of Vauialochana'),

9. The qualities of respectability and amiableness, of affability

and friendliness, and of compassion and intelligence, attend upon
these people like their attendants at home. (�. e. He becomes
master of them).

10. Happy is the man who is steady in the discharge of his

duties, and is neither overjoyed nor depressed at the fruition
or failure of their results. (Duties must be done, whether they
repay or not).

11. The defects of the dutiful and their pain and pleasure,

in the performance of duties, are all lost under the sense of their
dnteousness; as the darkness of niglit, is dispelled by the light of
the day, and the olouds of the rainy season, are dispersed" in
autumn. ^

12. The man of a submissive and sweet disposition, is liked

by every body;as the sweet music of reeds in the forest, attracts
the ears of wild antelopes. (The deer and snakes, mn said to be
captivated by music of pipe).

13. The qualities of the past life, accompany a man in his

next birth.; as the swallows of the rainy weather, attend on a
dark cloud in the air. (This bird is called a hansa or hernsaw by
Shakespeare; as, when it is autumn, I can distinguish a swallow
from a harnsaw).

14. Being thus qualified by his prior virtues, the goodmsn

has recourse to an instructor for the development of his ..under�
standing, who thereupon puts him in the way to truth.

15. The man with the qualities of reason and resignation of

718

VOOi VJL^ISfiTHA.

hii tnind, beholds the Lord as one, and of the same form as the
imperishable soul within himself.

16. It is the spiritual guide, who awakens the dull and sleep*
ing mind by his right reasoning; and then instils into it the
words of truth, with a placid countenance and mind.

17. They are the best qualified in their subsequent births,

who learn first to awaken their worthless and dormant minds,
as they rouse the sleeping stags in the forest.

18. It is first by diligent attendants on good and meri-

torious guides (or. gurus), and then by cleansing the gem of
their minds by the help of reasoning, that the pure hearted men
.come to the light of truth, and perceive the divine light shining
in their souls.

CHAPTER VII.

Ok AmiKMEKT of Divikk Kkowi.bdox.

Aii^ment. Attainment of knowledge by Intuition, compared to the

falling of a fruit from heaven.

Y ASISHTHA continued:�^I have told yon Rdma, the usual

way to knowledges for maukind in general; I will now
tell yon of uiother method distinct from the other.

2. Now R&mal we have two ways which are best calculated

for the salvation of souls, bom in human bodies on earth: the one
is by tbeir attainment of heavenly bliss, and the other by that of
their final beatitude (apavargea).

8. And there are two methods of gaining these objects; the one
being the observance of the instructions of the preceptor, which
gradually leads one to his perfection in the course of one or
reiterated births.
4. The second is the attainment of knowledge by intuition,
or by self culture of a partly intelligent being; and this is 'as
the obtaining of a fruit falling from heaven.

6. Hear now of the attainment' of intuitive knowledge, as

that of getting a fruit fallen from the sky, from the old tale
which I,will now recite to yon. 4

6. Hear the happy and holy-story, which removes the fetters

of our good and evil deeds, and which the last born men (now
living), mnst�taste with a zest for their enlightenment, as others
relish a fruit follen from heaven for their entertainment.

CHAPTER VIII.

Sons op ths Sibdhas ob Holt Adbpts.

Argnraent. Wandering of Janaka in a Vernal garden, and liearing the

Song of Siddhae.

V ASISHTHA continued:�^There livee the mighty king of

the Videhas (Tirliutians) Janaka by name, who is blessed
with all prosperity and unbounded understanding.

Z. He is as the ever fruitful kalpa tree to the host of his

suitors, and as the vivifying sun to his lotus-like friends; he
is as the genial spring to the florets of his relatives, and as
the god Cupid to females.

8. Like the dvija�rdja or changeful moon, he gives delight

to the dvija�or twice born Brdhmans, as that luminary gives
the lilies to bloom; and like the luminous sun he destroys the
darkness of his gloomy enemies. He is an ocean of the gems .
of goodness to all, and the support of his realm, like Vishnu the
supporter of the world.

4. He chanced on a vernal eve to wander about a forest,

abounding in young creepers with bunches of crimson blossoms
on them, and resonant with the melody of mellifluous kokilat,
warbling in their tuneful choirs.

6. He walked amidst the flowery arbours, resembling the

graceful beauties with ornaments upon them, and sported in
their bowers as the god Vdsava disports in his garden of Nandam.
(Eden or Paradise).

6. Leaving his attendants behind him, he stepped to a grove

standing on the steppe of a hill, in the midst of that romantic
forest, which was redolent with the fn^rahee of flowers borne
all about by the playful winds.

7. He heard in one spot and within a bower of i&mla trees,

a mingled voice as that of some invisible aerial spirits (siddhd),
proceeding from it.
UPAS^l &RANDA.-

Tfl�

- 8. I will ifOw ^ite to yoa, O lotos-Oyed B&mal Ae songs

the sidhSBS, residing in the letired solitudes o� moantainoitt*

regions, and dwelling in the Oavems of hills, and which rdatr
principally to their spiritual meditations.

9. The raddhas sang :--We adore that Being which is neither

the subjective nor objective, (not the viewer nor the view); and'
which in our beliefs is the positive felicity, that rises in our souls,
and has no fluctuation in it.

10. Others chanted:� W e adore that Being which is bo<

yond the triple states of the subject, its attribute and its object i
(who is neither the sight, seeing and the seer). It is the light of
that soul, or spiritual light which exists from before the light of
vision, which is derived from the light of the sun. (Srdti. The
light of the Spirit shone before the physical lights of the sun,
moon, stars, lightning and fire).

11. Others chanted:�We adore that Being, which is in the

midst of all what is and what is not, (t. e. between existence and
nop>existence); and that spiritual light, which enlightens all
lightsome objects.

12. Some sang :�We adore that real existence which is all,
whose are all things, and by whom are all made, from whom have
all sprung, for whom they exist, in whom they subsist, unto
whom do all return, and into which they are all absorbed.

13. Some caroled:�We adore that Spirit, which begins with

the letter a and ends in A with the dot m; (t. e. aham or egd) i
and which we continually inspire and respire in our breathings,
(aham) hansah.

14. Others said:�^Those who forsake the God-Isha, that is

situated within the cavity of their hearts (hrid), and resort to
others, that are without them, are verily in search of trifles by
disr^arding the gem kauttabka (philosopher's stone); which is
placed in their hands.

15. Others i^ain declared It is by forsaking all other

desires, that one obtuns this object of his wish; and this being
had, the poisonons plants of all other desires, are entirely uprooted
from the heart.

VoL. II. �

91

m YOQA TXaiSHTRA.
16. Some of tliem pronounced saying :-~The foolisli man wlio
knowing the insipidity of all worldly things, attaches his mind to

tartbly object, ii an ass and no human being.

17. Others saidThe sensual appetites, which incessantly

rise as snakes from the cavities of the body, are to be killed by
tbe cudgel of reason, as Indra broke the hills by hU thunder'
bolts.

18. At last they said:�^Let men try to secure the pore

hapinness of quietism, which serves to give tranquility to the
minds of tbe righteous. The sober-minded that are situated in
their real and natural temperament, have their best repose in the
lap of undisturbed and everlasting tranquility.

CHAWEE IX.

RxVLBOnONS 07 Janaka.

Argument. Abetraotion of Janaka�s mind, from the Vanitiea of iha

World.

^ASISHTHA continuedUpon hearing these Sonata of th�

V Siddhas (holy spiritsl, Janaka waa dejected in his mind,
like a coward at the noise of a conflict.

2. He returned homeward, and conducted himself in silence

to his domicile, as a stream glides in its silent course under the
beaohening trees, to the bed of the distant main.

8. He left behind all his domestics in their respective dwel>

lings below, and ascended alone to the highest balcony, ae the
sun mounts on the top of a mountain.

4. Hence he saw the flights of birds, flying at random in

different directions ; and reflected on the hurrying of men in the
same manner, and thus bewailed in himself oil their deplorable
conditions.

6. Ah me miserable I that have to move about in the pitiable

state of the restlem mob, that roll about like a rolling stone (or
ball), pushed backward and forward by another.

6. I have a short span of endless duration, alloted to my

share of lifetime; and yet I am a senseless fool to rely my trust
in the hope of its durability.

7. Short is the duration of my royalty also, which is limited

icrtlieperiod of my lifetime only; how is it then that I am
secure of its continuance as a thoughtless man.

8. I have an immortal soul lasring from before, and to oonii�

nne even after my present existence, the present life is a destruc*

. tible One, and yet I am a fool to rely in it, like a boy believing
the paifrted moon as real.
9. AA .1 what sorcerer is it that hath thus bewitched me by hii
magic wand, as to make me believe I am not q^ll*hoand at all.

724

YOGA VABISHTHA.

10. What faith can 1 rely in this world which has nothing
snhstantial nor pleasant, nor grand nor real in it; and yet 1 know
not why my mind is deluded by it.

11. What is far from me (�. e. the object of sense, appeals

to be near me by my sensation of the same); and that which is
nearest to me {i. e. my inmost sonl), appears to be farthest from
me,(by my want of its perception). Knowing this I must abandon
the ontward (sensible objects), inorder to see the inward sonl.

12. 'This hurry of men in their pursuits, is as impetuous and

transient as the torrent of a whirlpool. It precipitates them!
to the depth of their dangers, and is not worth the pain it gives
to the spirit.

13. The years, months, days and minutes, are MvoUving with
snocession of our pains and pleasures; but these are swallowed
up, by tht r^ated trains of our misery: (rather than that of
happiness).

' 14. I have well considered everything, and found them all
perishable and nothing durable or lasting; there is nothing to
be found here worthy of the reliance of the wise.

15. Those standing at the head of great men to>day, arO

reduced low in the course of a few days; what worth is there in
giddy and thoughtless greatness, which is deserving of onr
estimation.

13. I am bound to the earth without a rope, and am soiled

herein without any dirt (in my person)} I am fallen though sitting
in this edifice. O my soul 1 how art thou destroyed while thou art
living.

17. 'Whence has this causeless ignorance oveivpowQred liiy

intelligent sonl, and whence has this shadow overspread its lustre^
ai a dark dond overshades the disk of the sun ?

18. Of what avail are these large possessions and numerous

'rdations to 'me, when my soul is desponding in despair, like
children under the fear of ghosts and evil spirits.

19. � idow diall I rest any reliance in my sSnSual enjoyments

which are the harbingers' of d^th and diSelise, and Wliftt
UPJkSAliA KHANOA

enee it that# on ny posaeBnons, wUch we franght only with

wazietiee and eares ?

20. ' It matters not whether these friends, the feeders on my

fortane, may last or leave me at once; my prosperity is bnt a
bubble and a false appearance before me.

21. Men of greatest opulence and many good and great men
and oar best friends and kindest relatives, that have gone by, now
live in our remembennce only.

22. Where are the riches of the monwchs of the earth, and
where the former creations of Brahma. The past have given
way to the present, and these are to be followed by future
ones; hence there is no reliance in anything.

23. Many Indras�have been swallowed up like bubbles in the

ocean of eternity; hence the like expectation of my longivityi is
ridiculous to the wise.

24. Millions of Brahmas have passed away, and their pro�

ductions have disappeared under endl^ successions; the kings of
earth have fled like their ashes and we reduced to dost; what
is the confidence then in my life and stability ?

25. The world is but a dream by night, and the senfm-

ons body is bnt a miconception of the mind. If I rriy any cre�
dence on them I am really to be blamed.

26. My conception of myself and preeeption of other things,

are folse imaginations of my mind. It is my egoism that has
laid hold of me, as a demon seizes an idiot.

27. Fool that I am, that seeing I do not see, hCw the span
of my life is measured every moment by the imperceptible ins�
tants. of time^ and their leaving but a small portion behind.

26. I see the juggler of time seiang on Brdhmas, Yishnns

And Bndias^ and making playtiiings of them on his play ground
of the world, and flinging them as balls all jrimnt.

29. I see the dhysaud nights are incessantly passmg away,

without imsenting me �t oppertanily whieh I oen hehold^e
(m impsrislisbleoiie.

TOQA Y18I8HTHA.

7M
80. The objects of sensual enjoyment, a� laridAg in the
minds of men, like cranes gabbling in the lakes, and their is no
proapeot of the true and best object in the mind of any body,

31. We meet urith one hardship i^ter anotber, and bnffet

in the waves of endlera miseries in this earth; and yet are we
so shameless, as not to feel ourselves disgusted with them.

82. We see all the desirable objects to which we attach our

thonghts,to be frail and perishing and yet we do not seek the
imperishable on, and our everlasting good in the equanimity of
the Soul.

33. Whatever we see to be pleasant in the beginning (as

pleasures), or in the middle (as youth), or in the end (as virtuous
deeds), and at all times (as earthly goods), are all nnholy and
subject to decay.

84. Whatever obects are dear to the hearts of men, they are
all found to be subject to the changes of their rise and fall: (�*. e.
their growth and decay).

35. Ignorant people are every where enclined to evil acts,,

and they grow day by day more hardened in their wicked
practices. They repent every day fcnr their sins, but never reprove
themselves for the better.

86. Senseless men are never the better for anything, being
devoid of sense in their boyhood, and heated by their passions
in youth. In their latter days, they are oppressed with the care
of their families, and in the end thy are overcome by sorrow and
remorse.

. 37. Here the entrance and e�t Q. e. the birth and death), are
both aocompained with pain and sorrow; (for men come to and
go away from the world with cryingb Here every state of life
is contaminated by its reverse, (as health by disease, youth by
age, and alBuenoe by proverty). Everything is unsubstantial in
this seeming substantial world, and jet the ignorant rely in its
unreal substantiality.

88. The real good that is derived here by means of painful

austerities, are the mdoous sacrifices of atvemedia and

others, hr the attainment of heaven; wh(eh Jim no reality in it,

UPASAMA KBAKDA.

by reason of its siiort duration of the small portion of a kalpa,

eompared with etemitj. (The Hindu hearen is no lasting bliss)*

89. What is this heaven and where is it situated, whether

mIow or above us or in this nether world ; and where its resi�
dents are not overtaken by multitude of locust-like evils ? f�The
Srdti says; "Evil spirits infest the heavens and they drove the
gods from it. So we read of the Titan^s and Satan's band
invading heaven).

40. We have serpents creeping in the cells of our hearts,

and have our bodies filled with the brambles of diseases and
dangers, and know not how to destroy them.

41. I see good is intermixed with evil, and pain abiding

with pleasure; there is sorrow seated on the top (excess) of joy.
So I know not whereto I shall resort.

42- I see the earth full of common people, who are incessan�
tly bom and dying in it in multitudes; but I find few honest
and righteous men in it.

43. These beautiful forms of women, with their eyes like

lotuses, and the gracefulness of their blandishments, and their
charming smiles, are made so soon to fade and die away.

44. Of what note am I among these mighty beings (as Bra�

hma and Vishnu), who at the twinkling of their eyes, have crea�
ted and destroyed the world; and yet have succumbed to death
at last. (This last passage shows that the Hindu gods were
mortal heroes of antiquity).

46. Yon are constantly in search of what is more pleasant

and lasting than others, but never seek after that highest pnuh
perity, which is beyond all your earthly cares.

46. What is this great prosperity in which you take so much

delight, but mere vexation of your spirit, which proves thw
vanity to be your calamity only.

47. Again what are these adversities which you fear so much,
they may turn to your true prosperity, by setting you free from
earthly broils and leading you to your future felicity.

7S8

TOaA VAtllSBTBA.

. 48..; The mind is broken to pieces by its fean, 13ce the . frag--
ments of the. moon, floating -on the wares of this ocean o� the.

world. Its selfishness has tossed it to and fro, and this world
being got rid ofj it is set at perfect ease (from all vicissitadea
of fortune).

49. There is an unavoidable chance (necessity), notnating our

worldly affairs and accidents; it is impudence therrfore to wel>.
come some as good, and to avoid others as evil.
50. We are prone to things that are pleasant to the sight,
but bear a mortal flame in them, and consume ns like poor moths,
in the flames, which it is bright to see but fatdl to feel.

61, It is better to roll in the continual flame of bell-fire to

which one is habituated, than rise and fall repeatedly in tha
furnace of this world, as from the frying pan into the fire.

59. This world is said by the wise, to be a boundless ocean of

woes (vale of tears); how then can any body who has fallen
amidst it, expect any happiness herein ?

63. Those who have not fallen in the midst and been
altogether drowned in woe, think the lesser woes as %ht and
delight, as one condemned to be beheaded, is glad to escape^
with a light punishment.

64. 1 am grown as the vilest of the vile, and resemble a blocb

of wood or stone; there is no difference in me from the ignorant
down, who has ney:er had the thought of his eternal conoenui
in his head.

, 6^, rThe great arboui: of the world, mth its very many biaa^
ches and twigs and fruits, hath sprung from the mind and i|'
rooted in it. (The outer world has its existence in the sensitive
mind only; because the insensible bodies of the dead and inani�
mate tlungs, have no consciousness t>f it.

66. It is the conception (sankalpa) of the world, in my mind^

that causes its ; existence and.presents its appearance before me,
1 will now try to. efface-this conception from my mind, dad-
forget this-' world altogether. (This doctrine of MealiaT a
derived, Isy Janaka from his own Intuition (Svena-Jndtena).

UPASAUA EHANDA,

720

67. I will no longer allow myself to be deladftd like monkeyi

witb the forms of things, which I know are not real; mere ideal,
bat cbangefal and evanescent. (Here also Janidca learns by in�
tuition not to rely on concrete forms, but to hare their general
and abstract ideas).

68. I have woven and stretched out the web of my desires,

and collected only my woes and sorrows; I fell into and fled from
the snare of my own making, and am now resolved to take my
rest in the soul.

69. I have much wailed and bitterly wept, to think of the

depravity and loss of my soul, and will henceforth cease to la�
ment, thinking that I am not utterly lost.

60. I am now awakened, and am glad to find out the robber of

my soul; it is my own mind, and this I am determined to kill, aa
it had so long deprived me of the inestimable treasure of my soul.

61. So long was my mind at large as a loose and unstrung

pearl, now will I pierce it with the needle of reason, and string
it with the virtues of self controul and subjection to wisdom.

62. The cold icicle of my mind, will now be melted down

- by the sun-heat of reason; and will now be confined in theinteiv
.minable meditation of its Eternal Maker; (from where it cannot
return. Srhti).

63. I am now awakened to my spritual knowledge, like these

holy Siddhas, saints and sages; and will now pursue my spritual
inq[uries, to the contentment of my soul,

64. Having now found my long-lost soul, I will continue to

look upon its pure light with joy in my lonely retirement; and
will remun as quiet and still in coi^templation of it, as a motion�
less cloud in autumn.

85. And having cast awfy the false belief of my corpotMli^

(f, 0 . of being an embodied being), and that these posseniona
and properties are mine, and having subdued my force by mighty
enemy of the Mind, I wiU attain the trimqoility of my soul by
the help of my reason.

Yez.. n. 92.

CHAPTER X.

SlLXNT AND SOUTABT RXVLBCTIITS Of

'Atgomenti ^Tanaka though employed in Bitoal eervioey oontinuee Inn

iii invitation, and comes to the conclusion of his immorality.

V ASISHTHA related:�^While Janaka was thus mtislftg' is

his mind, there entered the chamberlai n before him, in
the manner of Arana standing before the chariot of the son.

2. The Chamberlain said O sire! thy realm is safe under

thy protecting arms; now rise to attend to the daily rites, as
it becomes your majesty.

8. There the maidservants are waiting mth their water pets^

filled with water perfumed with flowers, camphor and saffron
for your bathing, as the nymphs of the rivers, have presented thAm-
selves in person before you.

4. The temples are decorated with lotuses and other flowery

with the bees flattering upon them; and hung over with find
muslin, as white as the fibers of lotus stalks.

6, The altars are filled with heaps of flowers, aromatic 'drhgi

and rice; and adorned with every decoration in the princely
�style.
7. The Brdhmans are waiting there for your majesty�s pre-
' fence, after making their sacred ablation and purifications, and
'offering their prayers for the remission of sins; and aro expecting
to get their worthy gifts from thee.

8. The hand-maids are attending to their duties, graced with

^hl>pen (chdmaras) in their hands; and the feasting ground is
deaused with mndal paste and water.

9. Rise therefore from thy seat, and be it well with thea>fh

perform the prescribed duties; because it does-not becnmC'tbeHthit
of men, to he belated in the discharge of thdr duties. �

10. Though thus besoughlrby the head chamberhiin, yet tiie

UBABAKA KHANDA.

k\ig leauned in his meditative mood, thinking on the wonder�

ful phenonpena of natnre.

11. This royalty and these duties of mine, said he, are for a
very short time; 1 do not require these things that are so transitory
in their natnre.

12. 1 most leave these things, that are at best hut waters- of
the mirage; and remain close to myself in my lonesome seclusion,
like a calm and solitary lake or sea.

18. These pleasures of the world, that are displayed around'

ns, are entirdy useless to me; I will leave them with promptnew
on my part, and renuun in my happy retirement.

14. Abandon, O my heart I thy shrewdness in pursuing after

the objects of thy desire; inorder to avoid the snares of disease '
and death (which have been set on thy way).

15. In whatever state or condition of life, the hrart is set to

hanker for its' delight; it is sure to meet with some difficulty,
distress or disappointment coming out of the same.

16. Whether your heart is engaged in, or disengaged from'

the objects of sense, yon will never find any one of them, either in
aot or thought, conducing to the time happiness of your soul.

17. Forsake therefore the thoughts of the vile pleasure of-

your senses, and betake yourself to those thoughts, which are
fraught with the true hafqiineBB of the soul.

18. Thinking in this manner, Janaka remained in mute'

nlence, and his resdess mind became as still, as it made him
ait down like a picture in painting or as a statue.

19. The chamberlain uttered not a word any more, but stood'
silent in mute respect through fear of his master, from Us
knowledge of the dispositions of kings.
�0. Janaka in his state of silent meditation, reflected agaiif
on the vanity of human life, with cool calmness of his inind,'
mid said:�

' 'HI. Kji>w must 1 be diligent to Hod out the best iand most
IIMimii tnaaaure in the world, and know what is. that impsihdi*
side thinff, to which 1 shall Und my soqlas its surest-ttnohor.

7n YOGA VA'l^lBHTHA.

�2. What M the good of mj acts or my oeeution from them,

�ince nothing is produced of anything, which is not perishable
in its nature. (Thence the product of acts is perishing, and its
want is a lasting good).

23. It matters not whether the body is active or inactive,

since all its actions end in utter inaction at last as all force is
reduced to rest. It is the pure intellect within me that is always
the same (�. e. ever active and undecaying), and which loses no-
ihbg from the loss of the body or by want of bodily actions,
^e body is a dead mass without the active principle of the �
mind).

24. I do not wish to have what I have not, nor dare leave
what I have already got; I am content with myself; so let me
have what is mine and what I have. (The Yogis like Stoics,
were fatalists and content with their lot).

25. I get no real good by my acts here, nor lose anything

by retnuning from them. What I get by my acts or want of
action, is all Nil and Null of Vanity or Vanities, and nothing
to my purpose or liking.

26. Whether I am doing or not doing, and whether my

acts are proper or improper; I have nothing to desire here, nor
anything desintble that I have to expect from them. Hence no-
exertion will bring on the desired object, unless it is given by.
our lot).

27. I have got what was duo to my past actions, and this
body is the result of my former acts. It may be in its motion':
and action, or it may be still and fade away, which is the same*
thing to me.

28. The mind being set at ease by want of its action or pas*-
mon, the actions of the body and its members, are alike in their
effects to those of not doing them. (Involuntary actions done^
without the will are of no account).

29. The acts of men are reckoned as no acts of tireir�s, whioh

happen to take place as the results of their destiny or prewlouA
actions.' (Ihe action or passion relates to the mind only,

UPAIAMA SHA8DA.
78�

the doing of deetiny being involanUty, each notion of men ie nc-

oonnted as no notion of theirs.

80. The impression which the innwrd soni bears of its past
notions and passions, the same gives it*s colonr to the nature and
character of the actions of men afterwards. Now that my sonl
has obtaind its imperishable state of spirituality, I am freed from
the mutabilities of the transmigrations of my body and mind.

Commentary Janaka arrives after all his previous reason*

ings and deductions, to the conclusion of the certainty of his
bang an intellectual and spiritual being, endowed with an im*
mortal sonl, and entitled to everlasting life, after the destruction
of the frail body and the changeful mind with it.

CHAPTER XI

lUBJWjnON Qf 791 VStl,

Argnment Janaka�B Diaohsrge of his Diky Bites, and AdmoniUoa to.

his Mind.

V ASISHTHA relatedHaving thonglit so, Janaka rose np

for p^ormance of his daily rites as usnal, and without the
sense of his agency in them. He did his dqty in the same man*
ner as the sunrises every day to give the morn, unthout his opns*
cionsness of it.

8. He discharged his duties as they presented themselves to

him, without any concern or expectation of their rewards. He
did them awaking as if it were in his sleep. Gloss:�He did his
acts by rote, but wot not what he did in his insensibilily of
them ; and such acts of insensibility are free from culpability or
retribution.

8. Having discharge his duties of the day and honoured

the gods and the priests, he passed the night absofbed in his
meditations.

4. His mind being set at ease, and his roving thoughts re*
pressed from their objects, he thus communed with his mind
at the dead of nighty and said

5. O my mind that art roving all about with the revolving

world, know that such rostlessness of thine, is not i^^teeahle to
peace of the soul; therefore rest thou in quiet from thy wander*
ings abroad.

6. It is thy business to imagine many things at thy pleaaiura^

and as thou thinkest thou hast a world of thoughts present
before thee every moment. (For all tilings ate but creations of i
the imaginative mind).

7. Thou shootest forth in innnmeraUe woes by the desire of

endless enjoyments, as a tree shoots out into a hundred btanohes,
by ^ being watered at the roots.

B. iNdir li �ftr bid)fa� *�! liVM aiid woridly affairs, ar�

all pirodtidiioaa of oitr wistful thon^htcb I pmj thee therefore, O
tty ttibdl te rest -in ^niet by abandonment of thy earthly
desires.

9. O my friendly mind I weigh well this transient world in

thy thoughts, and depend upon if, shouldst thou find aught
of substantiality in it.

10. Forsake thy fond reliance on these risible-phenomena ;

leave these things, and rove about at thy free will without caring
for any thing.

11. Whether this unreal�scene, may appear to or disappear

from thy sight, thou shouldst not suffer thyself to be affected
by it in either case.

12. Thou canst have no concern with the visible objects

(phenomenal world); for what concern can one have with any
earthly thing which is inezistent of itself as an unsubstantial
shadow?

13. The world is an unreality like thyself, hence there can

be no true relation between two unrealities. It is but a logo�
machy to maintain the relation of two negatives to one

another.

14. Granting, thou art a reality and the world is unreal,

still there eanbeho agreement between you, as there is none
between the living and the dead, and between the positive
and negative ideas.

16. Should the mind and the world be both of them realities
and co-existent for ever, then there can be no reason for the joy
or sorrow of the one at the gain or loss of the other.

16. Now therefore avoid the great malady of worldliness, and

enjoy the silent joy in thyself, like one sitting in the undisturbed
depth of the Ocean, with the rolling tide and waves above his
head.

17. Do not consume like a puppet in pyrotechnics with the

fiery remorse of worldliness, nor be burnt down to the darkness
of despnr in tiiis gloomy scene of the world.

TOQA TiSISHTEUL
T�e

18. 0 wicked mind I there ie noilung here w good and great,

whereby thou may�t attun thy highest perfection, except by
the forsaking of all frivolities and dependance on thy entire
resignation to the unchangeable One.

CHAPTEE XII.

Osr THS GaSATNESS OTf Imtsluobmcb.

Argument. The Living Liberation of Janaka, and the preeminence of

reason and intelligenoe.

Y ASISHTHA continued :�Janaka having expostulated in bis

manner with his miud^ attended to the affairs of the state
without shrinking from them by his mental abstraction.

2. He was however not gladdened by the gladsome tasks and

tidings, but was indifferent to them as in his slumber of fixed
mindedness in bis maker.

8. Hence forward he was not intently employed in bis duties,

nor forsook them altogether; but attended unconcernedly to the
business which presented itself to him.

4. His constant habit of reasoning, enabled him to understand

the enternal verity: and preserved his intellect from blunders, as
the sky is untouched by the flying dust.

6. By his cultivation of reasoning, his mind was enlightened

and fraught with all knowledge.

6. Unaccustomed to duality, his mind had learnt to know the

sole unity only; and his intelligent soul shone within him, as the
full bright sun in the sky. (He felt a flood of light in himaelf,
as the believer finds in his inmost soul. Gloss).

7. He became acquainted with the Soul, that is inherent in all

bodies, and beheld all things abiding in the ommipotence of the
Intellect, and identic with the infinite.

8. He was never too joyous nor exceedingly sorrowful, but

preserved his equanimity amidst the conflicts of his soul and
sensible objects; (between spirituality and materiality).

9. Hhe venerable Janaka, became liberated in his living state

since that time ;and is since renowned as a veteran theosophisi
among mankind.

Vot. II.

98
7M

YOQA TASISHTHA.

10. He continues thence forward to reign over the land of

the Videlia people, without being subject to the feelings of joy
or sorrow for a moment.

11. Knowing the causes of good and evil, he is neither elated

nor dejected at any favourable or unfavourable ciroumstaneea of
his life, nor does he feel glad or sad at the good or bad accident
relating the state.

12. He did his duties without setting his mind to them,

which was wholly employed in his intellectual speculations.

IS. Bemaining thus in his hypnotic state of sonnd skep

(abstraction), his thoughts are quite abstracted from all objects
about him.

14. Heis unmindful of the past, and heedless about the future;
and enjoys the present moment only, with a gladsome heart and
cheerful mind.

15. He obtained, obtainable what is worthy to be obtained,

by bis own ratiocination (or self-refiection), and not O lotus*eyed
Bdma! by any'other desire: (�. e. by abandoning all his wotdly
desires).

16. Therefore we should reason (or reflect) in odr minds, so

long as we succeed to arrive at the conclusion of thesubjeet.

17. The presence of the Holy Light, is not to be had either

by the lectures of a preceptor, or the teaching of the sdstras; it is
not the result of meritorious acts, nor of the company of the holy
men; but the result of your own intellection.

18. A good understanding assisted by the power of its accom*

panying percipience (prajand), leads 40 the knowledge of that
highest state, which the acts of your piety cannot do.

19. He who has set before his sight the been light of the
lamp of his percipiefioe, is enabled to see both the past and future
& his presence; and no shadow of ignorance intercepts his vision.

20. It is by means of his percipience, that one is enabled

to cross over the sea of dangers; as a passenger goes across a
ifrer n a boat or raft.

SI. The man that is devoid of his presoienes^ it ovtttalHSi

t^PASiiU ItitAHDi
even by amalt misbaps; aa * U^t attaw ia blown away by fba
iligbteifi breeaa.

22. One wbo is andaed with fomigbt, passes ovet tbe eTeni-
tnl oeean of the world, without the assistance of friends and
guidwice of the Sdstma.

23. The man with foreknowledge, sees the result of his ac�
tions beforehand j bnt one withont his prevision, is at a loss to
judge of the imminent events.

24-. � Good company and learning, strengthen the understand-

ing; as the watering of a plant, tends towards its growth and
fructification.

25. The infant understanding like a tender shoot, takes a

deep root in time; and having grown up like a tree, bears
the sweet fruit in its season; like the cooling moonbeams at night.

26. Whatever exertions are made by men for the acquisition

of external properties, tbe same should be more properly devoted
for the improvement of their understandings at first. (�'. e. intell�
ectual improvement should precede that of outward circumstances).

27. Dullness of the understanding, whieh is the source of all

etils, and the storehouse of misery, and the root of the arbour of
worldliness, must be destroyed first of all.

28. Great minded men get in their understandings, whatever

good they may expect to find in this earth, in heaven above aiid
in the nether world. (The mind is the seat of all treasures).

29. It is by means of epe�s good understanding only, that he

can get over the ocean of the world; and not by his charities,
pilgrimages or religious austerities.

30. The divine blessing attending on mortal men on earth,

is the sweet fruit of the tree of knowledge. (Here is a coutiast
with the mortal taste of the forbidden fruit of knowledge),

81. Wisdom nips with its sharp nails, the heads of the ele�
phantine (gigantic) bonds of' giddiness, with as much ease as
the lion kills the deer, or as if it were destroying a strong lion by
a weak shakal. (Weak wisdom having the power of destroying
the wild worldliness)-

TOaA VA''SISHTflA.

740

, 82. Aa ordinary man is often seen to become tbe ruler of

men, by means of his greater knowledge tbanotben; and the
wise and discreet are entitled to glory in both worlds.
83. Reason overcomes all its adversaries, dealing in diverse
forms of sophistry; as a disciplined warnor, overpowers on a host
of untrained savage people.

. 84. Reasoning is as the philosophers stone, which converts

the base metals to gold; and is hidden in the casket of rational
souls as the best treasure. It yields the desired fruits of men like
the kalpa plant of Paradise at a thought.

35. The right reasoner gets across tbe wide ocean of the
world, by means of his reasoning, while the unreasonable rabble
are born away by it�s waves; as the skillful boat-man cuts across
the current, while the unskilled waterman is tossed about by the
waves.

86. A well directed understanding leads to the success of an

undertaking, but the misguided intellect goes to the rack and
ruin; the one sails to the shore before the wind; but the other is
tossed in his wrecked vessel over the wide gulph of the world.

. 87. The keen sighted and unbiassed wise man, is never

over-come by the evils arising from his desires: as the arrows of
the adversary, do not pierce the body of a soldier in armour.

88. The sapience of a man. gives him an insight into every

thing in the world and, the all knowing man, is neither subjected
to dangers nor reverses of his fortune.

39. The dark and wide-stretching cloud of blind egoism,

which overshadows the sun-light of the Supreme Spirit within
us, is driven away by the breath of intelligence.

40. The improvement of the understanding, is the first requi�

site towards the knowledge of the Supreme soul; as tho culti�
vation of the ground, is of primary importance to the former,
desirous of reaping a rich harvest.

CHAPTER Xm.

GoySEKHENT OP THE MiND.

Argament Beasona and Buies of Restraining the Mind fonn the ia -

stance of Janaka�s in�one�e�ee.

Y ASISHTHA continued:�^Now Rdma! Reflect on the Su�

preme spirit, in thy own spirit like Janaka; and know the
object of the meditation of the wise, without any difficulty or
failing.

2. The wise men of the latter genus rdiaia^tdtvtka or active

goodness, obtain their desired objects by themselves tof their
own intitution), like Janaka and other holy sages.

3. As long as yon continue to restrain your organs of sense

from their objects, so long will the divine soul grace your oim
inward soul with its presence.

4. The Lord God and Supreme soul, being thus gracious to

thee; thou sbalt see a halo of light cast over all things, and dis�
persing all thy woes from thy sight.

6. The sight of the Supreme spirit, will remove the plentiful

seeds of bias from thy mind ; and it will drive away the woeful
sights of misery, pouring upon thy view in copious showers.

6. Continue like Janaka in the wilful discharge of thy duties,

and prosper by placing thy intellectual sight, on the divine light
shining in thy inward spirit.

7. It was by bis inward cogitations, that Janaka found the

transitoriness of the world; and by placing his faith in the un�
changeable Spirit, he found its grace in time.

8. Hence neither the pious actsbf men, nor their riches nor
friends, are of any use to them for their salvation from the miseries
of life, unless it be by their own endeavor for the enlightenment
of their soul.

9. Th^ who rely their faitih-m tiie gods, uid depend upon
them for fulfilment of their desires and future rewards, are

74S TOO! YASn&TBl.

perverted in their onderstondingSi and cannot be hein of immor*

tality.

10. It is by reliance in one'e reaeotaing and resignationi

and by his spiritual vision of the Supreme spirit, that he ia
nved from his misery in this ocean of the world.

11. The attainment of this blessed knowledg^e of intuition,

which removetb onr ignorance, is as what they call tby getting
of froit fallen from heaven. 'i.e. a heavenly and accidental fmit).

12. The intelligence which looks into itself as Janaka^s,

finds the sonl developing of itself in it, as the lotns-bnd opens
of itself in the morning.

IS. The firm conviction of the material world, melts into

nothing nnder the light of persipiencei as the thick and tangible
ice, dissolves into fluidity nnder the heat of the sun.

14. The consciousness that this is 1 (t. e. One�s self-con-

soionsnms^ is as the shade of night, and is dispelled at the
rise of the sun of intellect, when the Omnipresent light appears
vividly to sight.

15. No sooner one loses bis self-eonciousness that 'this is

himself,' than the All-pervading Sonl opens fully to his view.
16. As danaka has abandoned the consciousness of his
personality, together with his desires also; so do you, 0 in�
telligent Rdma, forsake them by your acute underatanding
-and of the mind discernment.

17. After the cloud of egoism is dispersed, and the sphere

is cleared all around; the divine light appears to shine in it, as
brightly as another sun.

18. It is the greatest ignorance to think of one's egoism

(or self-personality); this thought hein^ relaxed hy the sense
of onr nothingmoss, gives room to the manifestation of holy
light in the soul.

18. Neither think of the entity nor non-entity of thyself

or others; but preserve the tranquility of tby mind from both!
the thoughts of positive and amative emstences; inorder to get
nd of of disUnethm be tw ee n the p^ncer and li6

CPAtlllA KKAMDl. ^41

prodaeed; (�. 0, of ib� eaase and effect, the both of irhidtaro

identic in Vedanta) or epiritnal philosophy.

20. Again your fostering a fondness for something as gr(^,

and a hatered to others as bad; is bat a disease of your mind for
your uneasiness only. (Since all things are good in their own
kinds, and nothing bad in its nature, and in the sight of God,
who pronounced all things gpod).

21. Be not fond of what you think to be beautiful, not

disgusted at what appears hateful to you, get rid of these antar
gonist feelings, and be even minded by fixing it on One,
before whom all things are alike and equally good : (all partial
evil is universal good Pope.

22. They that view the desirable and the detestable in the
�ame light, are neither fond of the one nor averse to the other.

23. Until the fancy of the desirableness of one thing and

dislike of the other, is effaced from the mind, it is as hard to have
the good grace of equanimity, as it is difficult for the moon*
Bght to pierce through the cloudy sky.

24. The mind which considers one thing as some thing a

prepos, and another as nothing to the purpose, (the one as desirable
and the other worthless ); is deprived of the blessing of indiffer*
enee, as the brier tdieia is despised, not standing with all its
fruits and flowers.

23. Where there is a craving for the desirable, and an aveiv

sioa to what is unseemly, and when there is a cry for gain and
an outcry at one�s loss; it is impossible for even mindedness,
dupassionatenen and tranquility of the mind, to abide then
and there in that state.

26. There being only the essence of one pure�Brahitia

diffused throughout the universe, how very improper is it to t^e
the one a� many, and among them something good or bad;
(when the Maker of all has ipade all things good).

. 27. Our desires and dislike, ate tbe two-apes abiding on the
'tree of our hearts; apd while they continue tp shake and swing
^t 'with' their jogging and jolting, there can be no rest in it.

YOGA VASISHTBA.

74i

28. Freedom from fear and desire, from exertions and action,
together, with sapience and equanimity, are the inseparable
accompaniments of ease and rest.

29. The qualities of forbearance and fellow feeling, accom�

panied with contentment and good understanding, and joined
with a mild disposition and gentle speech, are the indispeosabld
companions of the wise man, who has got rid of bis desires and
the feelings of his liking or dishke.

SO. The mind running to meanness, is to be repressed by

restraining the passions and appetites; as the current of water
running below, is stopped by its lock gate.

31. Shun the sight of external things, which are the roots of
error and fallacy; and consider always their internal properties
both when you are awake and asleep, and also when you arS
walking about or sitting down.

32. Avaricious men are caught like greedy fishes, in the hid�
den net of their insatiable desires, and which is weven with the
threads of worldly cares, and is under the wafers of worldly
affairs.

33. Now Rdma 1 cut the meshes of this net, with the knife
of thy good understanding; and disperse it in the water, as a
tempest rends the thick cloud and scatters it about the air.

34. Try O gentle Rdma I to uproot the root of worldliness,

which sprouts forth in the weeds of vice, with the hatchet of your
persevercnce and the eliminating shovel of your penetration.

35. Employ ycur mind to hew down the cravings your mind,
as they use the axe to cut down a tree, and you will then
rest in quiet as you arrive at the state of holiness.

36. Having destroyed the former state of your mind by its

present state, try to forget them both by your heedless mind in
future, and manage yourself unmindful of the world. (There
is a play of the word mind in the origiaal).

37. Your utter oblivion of the world, will prevent the revival
of your mind; and stop the reappearance of ignorance wfaiobii
concommktant with the mind.

UPASAlii KHAiNDA.

745

38. Whether yon are vdcing or sloping or in any other state

of yonr lifei yon most remember the nihility of the world, and
resign your reliance in it.

39. Ijeave oS your selfishness (mamatfi-or-neito^eM), O Bdma I

and rely in the disinterstednras of your sonl; lay hold on what
erer oSen of itself to you and without seeking for it all about.

40. As the Lord God doth every thing, and is yet aloof from
all; so mnst thou do all thy acts outwardly, and without thyself
mixing in any.

41. Knowing the knowable, one finds himself as the in>

create sonl and Great Lord of all; but being apart from that soul,
he views only the material world spread before him.

42. He who has the sight of the inner spirit, is freed from
the thoughts of the external world, and is not subjected to the
joy or grief or sorrow and other evils of his life.

43. He is called a Yogi who is free from passions and enmi*

ty, wd looks on gold and rubbish in the same light; he is joined
with his Joy in his Yoga, and disjoined from all worldly desires.

44. He enjojs the fruit of his own acts, and minds not what
he wastes or gives away; he has the evenness of his mind in evmry
condition, and is unaltered by pain or pleasure. (The Sanskrit
mkh-iukkha means also prosperity and adversity, and good and
evil of every kind).

46. He who receives what he gets, and is employed with

whatever offers of itself to him, without considering the good or
evil that he is to gain by it, is not plunged into any difficulty.

46. He who is certain of the truth of the spiritual essence

of the world, pants not for its physical enjoyments, but he is
even-minded at all times.

47. The doll mind follows the active intellect in accomplish�

ing its objects, as the carnivorous cat or fox follows the Hon in
quest of meat,

48. As the servile band of the lion feeds on the flesh ao-
qtuted by his prowess, so the mind dwells upon the viable wid
Miuible object, which it perceives by power of the intellect.

Yei.. II. 94
749

TOQA VA'SlSHTfll.

49. Thas the nnsubstantial mind, lives upon the oater world

the Jielp of the intellect ^ bat as it comes to remember its oti�

gination from the intellect, it recoils back to its original state.

60. The mind which is moved and lighted, by the brat and
light of the lamp of the intellect; becomes extinct without its

physical force, and grows as motionless as a dead body.

61. The nature of the intellect is known to exclude the idea

of motion or pulsation from it; and the power which has vibra*
tion in it, is called intellection or the mind in the Sdstras.

62. The breathing (or vibration) of the mind, like the hissing
of a snake, is called its imagination (kalpana); but by knowing the
intellect as the Ego, it comes to the true knowledge of the
inward sonl.

63. The intellect which is free from thoughts {ehetgat), is the

ever lasting Brahma; but being joined with thought, it is styled
the imaginative principle or Mind.

64. This power of imagination having assumed a definite

form, is termed the mind; which with its volition and options, is
situated in the heart of living beings.

56. With its two distinct powers of imagination and volition,

it is employed in the acts of discriminating and chosing the
agreeable from what is disagreeable to it. (i. e. The imagination
and volitive facultira of the mind, supply it with the power of
discrimination and option, between what is fit or unfit for or suit*
able to it).

56. The intellect being seated in the heart with its thoughts
and volitions, forgets its spiritual nature, and remains as a dull
material substance: (f. e. the passivity of the heart as opposed to
the activity of the mind).

57. The intellect being thus confined in the hearts of all

animals in this world, continues in utter oblivion of its nature;
until it is awakened of itself, either by its intuition or instruction
of preceptors See.

58. So it is to be wakened by means of instruction, denved

from the SAstras and preceptors; as also by the practice dc

UPAS AHA KHANDA. 747

tlupasaionateaess, and subjection o� the organs o� sense and

action.

69. When the minds o� living beings, are roused by learning

and self-control} they tend towards the knowledge of the Great
Brahma, or else they rove at random about the wide world*

60. We most therefore awaken oar minds, which are rolling

in the pit of worldliness, through the inebriety of the wine
of error, and which are dormant to divine knowledge.

61. As long as the mind is unawakened, it is insensible

of every thing (in its true light); and though it perceives the
visibles, yet this perception of them is as false as the sight of
a city in our fancy.

62. But when the mind is awakened by divine knowledge,

to the sight of the supreme Being ; it presents every thing in
itself, as the inward fragrance of flowers pervades the outer-
petals also. (t. e. The inward sight of God, comprehends the
view of every thing in it).

63. Though the intellect has the quality of knowing every

thing, contained in all the three worlds; yet it has but a liltle
knowledge of them from the paucity of its d^ire of knowing
them. (t. e. Though the capacity of the intellect is unlimited,
yet its knowledge is proportionate to its desire of gaining it).

64. The mind without the intellect is a dull block of stone;

but it is opened by divine light, like the lotus-bud expanding
under the light of the sun.

65. The imaginative mind is as devoid of understanding, as

a statue made of marhle, is unable to move about by itself.

66. How can the regiments drawn in painting, wage a

war in a mutual conflict, and bow can the moon-beams, make the
medicinal plants emit their light ? (t. e. As it is life that makes
the armies fight, so it is the intellect that actuates the mind to its
operations. And as the plants shine by night by the sun-beams,
which are deposited in them during day, so shines the mind
by means of its intellectual light).

67. Who has seen dead bodies besmeared with blood to run

248

TOGA Vl&ISHTHA.

about on the ground, or witnessed the fragments of atonei

in the woods to sing in musical strains ?

68. Where does the stone idol of the sun, dispel the darkness
of the night; and where does the imaginary forest of the sky
spread its shade on the ground ?
69. Of what good are the efforts of men, who are as
ignorant as blocks of stones, and are led by their error in many
ways } except it he to endanger themselves by the mirage of
their minds ? (The exertions of the ignorant are as vain as the
labour of a Sisyphus).

70. It is the imagination that displays the non-existent as

existent in the soul, as it is the sun-beams, which exhibit the
limpid main in the mazy sands.

71. It is the moving principle in the body, which the

sophists designate as the mind } but know it as a mere force of
the winds, like the vital breath of living beings.

72. Those whose self-consciousness is not disturbed, by the

currents of their passions and desires; have their spiritual souls
like an unperturbed stream (of psychic fluid).

73. Sat when this pure consciousness is befouled by the false

fancies of this and that, and that this is I and that is mine >
then the soul and the vital principle, are both taken together
to form a living being.

. 74. The mind, the living soul and understanding, are all but
flbtitious names of an unreality, according to the conceptions of
false thinkers, and not of them that know the true spirit.

75. There is no mind nor understanding, no thmking

principle, nor the body in reality; there is the only reality of the
One universal spirit, which is ever existent everywhere. (So si^ .
the SrutiAll else are but transitory creatiems of imaginaiaon,
and so pass into nothing).

76. It is the soul, which is all this world, it is time and all
its fluctuations, it is more transparent than the atmosphere, and
it is clear as it is nothing at all.

77. 'Itjsnot always apparent, owing to its transparency;

UPASAMA KHANDA.

74�

yet it is ever ezistenl^ owing to onr conscionimess of it. The

spirit is beyond all things, and is perceived by our inward per�
ception of it.

78. The mind vanishes into nothing, before onr conscioosness

of the Supreme Sonl; just as darkness is dispelled from that
place, where the sunshine is present.

79. When the transparent and self-conscious soul, raises

other figures of its own will; then the presence of the soul is
forgotten, and hid under the grosser creations of the mind.
80. The Volitive faculty of the Supreme Spirit, is denomina�
ted the mind; but it is unmindedness and want of volition
on our part, which produces onr liberation, (t. e. our submis�
sion to the Divine Will, sets us free-from all liability, as it is said
in the Common prayer: "Let thy will (and not mine) be done*').

81. Such is the origin of the mind which is the root of

creation; it is the faculty of the volition of the principle of
onr consciousness, otherwise called the soul. (The mind is the
volitive faculty of the Spirit, see 80).

82. The intellectual essence being defiled by its desires,

after falling from its state of indifference ; becomes the principle
of production or producing the desired objects. (This is called
the mind or the creative power, and is represented as the first
male or the agent of procreation).

88. The mind becomes extinct, by loss of the vital power; as

the shadow of a thing disappears, by removal of the substaned.
(This passage establishes the extinction of the mind, with all
its passions, feelmgs and thoughts upon the death of a man).

84. The living body perceives in its heart, the notion of a

� djstuit place which exists in the mind, and this proves the identity
of the vital breath and the thinking mind. (Again the communi�
cation of the passions and feelings between the heart and mind,
proves them to be the same thing). (Hence the word. antah-kA-
ffina or inward sense, is applied both to the heart as well as-mind).

86. It is therefore by repressing the mind, that thp vitid

breath also repressed, to produce longivity and healthiness. (It is

YOQA VAiHSHTfil.

un

done by the following methods, viz; by dispassionatenem, sop*

pression of breathing, by yoga meditation, and by cessation from
bodily labour in the persmt of worldly objects).

86. The stone has the capability of mobility, and the fad of
inflammability ; but the vital breath and mind, have not their
powers of vibration or thinking'; (without the force of the intel�
lect and the spirit).

87. The breath of life is inert by itself, and its pulsation is

the effect and composed of the surrounding air; so the action of
the mind, is owing to the force of the intellect; whose pellucidity
pervades all nature.

88. It is the union of the intelleclual and vibrating i>owers,

which is thought to constitute the mind. Its production is as
false, as the falsity of its knowledge. (All mental phenomena
are erroneous).'

89. The mental power is called error and illusion also, and
these in ignorance of the Supreme Brahma, produce the know�
ledge of this poisonous world: (which springs from illusion of
the mind).

90. The powers of the intellect and vibration, combined with

those of imagination and volition which constitute the mind, are
productive of all worldly evils, unless they are weakened and
kept under restraint.

91. When the intellect thinks on or has the perception by

the pulsation caused by the air. The wind of breath gives
pulsation to the intellect, and causes its power of intellection;
a'id this intellectual power gives rise to all the thoughts and
desires of the mind.

92. The percussive intellect which extends over the undivided

sphere of the universe, is verily the thinking power, the mind is
a false imagination like the ghost of infants.

93. The intellect is the power of intellection, which cannot be

intercepted by any thing else, like the mind any where; as there is
no power^to-rise in contest against the almighty Indra. .(The
Intellect or chit being the Divine mind).

tTPASAHA KHAKDA.

94. Thus their being no relation between intellection and

the mind, it is wrong to attribute the mind with the power oi
thinking, which is not related with it.

95. ' How can this anion of the intellect with its vibration only,
be styled the mind with its multifarions functions. The cora*
mander alone cannot be called an army without its component
parts of horse, elephants and others.

96. Hence there is no such thing as a good or bod mind in any

of the three worlds, (when there is no mind at all). The bias of
its existence will be utterly removed by full knowledge of spiri�
tuality (tatwajnana). (That there is but one Spirit only).

97. It is in vain and to no purpose, that they imagine the

being of the mind. It is proved to be an unreality and having
no substantiality of its own.

98. Therefore, O magnanimous Rdma! never give rise to

false imaginations of anykind, and particularly that of the mind
which never exists any where.

99. False phantasies rise as the mirage, from want of a

full knowledge of things ; they spring in the heart which is as
barren as a desert, for want of the rain of full knowledge.

100. The mind is a dead thing owing to its want of a form

or activity, and yet it is a wonder as it is idolized in the cir�
cles of common people.
101. It is a wonder that the mind, having no soul nor essence,
nor a body nor size or support of its own, should spread its net
over all ignorant minds.

102. One who falls a victim to his unarmed and impotent

mind, likens a man who says, he is hurt in his body by the fal�
ling of a lotus-flower upon it.

103. The man that is undone by his inert, dumb and blinded
mind, (that neither sees nor seizes nor talks to him); is as one
who complains of his being burnt by the cool full-moon-beams.

104. People are verily killed by an antagonist, who is present

before them ; but it is a wonder that the ignorant are foiled
by the inexistent mind of their own making.

75> YOQA YidSISHTBA.

105. What is the power of that thing, which is a cteation of

mere fancy, and an unreal presentation of ignorance; and which
being sought after, is no where to be found.

106. It is a great wonder, that men should be overcome by

their impotent mind^, dealing in their delusions only.

107. It is ignorance that is ever exposed to dangers, and the

ignorant are always the victims of error. Know the unreal world
to be the creation of ignorance and of the ignorant only.

108. Oh t the misery of miseries, that the ignorant make

of this creation of their ignorance to themselvs, and that they
fabricate a living soul for their sufferings only. (A separate liv*
ing mxAjivatma, is denied in Vedanta).

109. I weet this frail world to be a ermtion of the false ima�

gination of the ignorant, and this earth to be as fitigilo as to be
broken and borne away by the waves of the ocean.

110. It is like the dark collyrium, which is broken down by

the surrounding waters or seas, serving as its grinding mill; and
yet men are maddened with it, as those struck by moon-beams.
(Moonstruck lunatics).

111. The visible world disappears at the sight of reason, as a

man flies from the sight of his foe; and the train of imaginary
creations fly before it, like hosts of demons vanquished by the
gods.

112. Thus is this world, which is a false creation of fanc^,

and exists nowhere except in the idle brains of the ignorant* lost
into nothing at the sight of reason.

113. He who is not able to govern his mind, and efface the
thoughts of this false world, arising in the minds of the ignorant
only ; is not worthy of being advised in the abstruse doctrine
of spirituality.
114. Those who are confirmed in their belirf of the visibles,
and are self-sufficient in their knowledge of these; are unable to
grasp the subtile science of abstract philosophy, and are there�
fore unfit to receive spiritual instruction.

115. These men are insensible of the soft tunes of the Ittt^

OPAIAIU KSAltDJL 7B

Vrlio are accTistomed to the loud beatings o! drum, and thqr aie
Btartied at seeing the face of a sleeping fnead (t. e, their hMden
son^.

116. they who dy with fear &om the loud songs (preachings
of false preachers, cannot have the patience to listen to the silent
letson of their inward monitor) and they who are deluded by
their own minds, can hardly be reclaimed by any other.

117. Those who are tempted to taste the gaJl of worldly

pleasures for sweet, ate so subdued by its effects on their un*
derstandings, that they lose the power of discerning the truth
altogether; and it is therefore useless to remonstrate with them.

Voi. n

8ft

CHAPTER XIV.

AnoBKTAlMBmWT or XHB tniKxivo Panroipt*.

j&rgamMt People onwoiil^ at pemtiKUoD, thcfir tmuniigratiaiis, end

porifioation of the mind.

Y ASISHTHA Baid; These mnltitiodes of men, tiwt are canied

away by the waves of tine torrents of the �ea of worldly
pttTSnits; are deaf and dumb to the admonitions of their i^iiri*
tnal instmotors.

2. They are not fit to derive the benefit of the spiritual

knowledge, which I have propounded in this yogasistra by my
rational discourses.

8. They who are bom blind and can see nothing, are not
to be presented with the picture of a garden, portrayed with
blooming blossoms and beautiful flowers the intelligent artist.

4. There is no such fool that would present fragrant odours

to one, whose nostrils are snorting under some nasal disease (pina>
sa. Polypus), nor so great a dolt, that would consult an ignor*
ant man on spiritual matters.

6. What lack'wit is there, that would refer a question ott

law or religious subjects, to one of ungoveraed passions and
organs of sense, or whose eyeballs are rolling with the mtod*
cation of wine.

6. Who asks of the dead the way he should go, or one in the
grave about the concourse in the city; and what witless is
there that resorts to an idiot to dear his doubts.

7. Of what good is it to advise a witling, whose serpentine

mind u coiling and creeping in the cave of his heart j and though
it lies there in silence and raghtless, is yet nn|pvemably wfld f

8. Know there is no such a thing as a wdl governed n^d,

for though yon may fling it at a distance from yon, yet if is never
lost or ann&ilated. CThe unsubdued mind recurs to us in lepent^
^birtlis}.

UPAIIM^l KlUITDl. W

8. The nmi^B wllo does sot beu bis nmj over bis bias
�sd dehttiTe mitad, ia tormented to death by ita TaBomoaB. amart,
aa if atong by a deadly reptile.

10. The learned baoar the vital poweia^ and the c^rataona
of the organa of eetioQ, to depend on &e action and force of the
aool; aay then, O Bdma, what ia that thing which they call the
mind. (The three fanctiona of motion, thought and organic
action, being conducted by force of the vital breath, it ia in
vain to auppoae the exiatence^^of the mind).

11. The vital breath givea the jforce tor bodily actions, and
the Boul producea the power of knowledge; the organa act by
their own force, and the aupreme spirit is the main aource of all.

12. All forces are but parts of the omnipotence of the supreme
Spirit; their difEerent appellations are but inventions of men.

13. What ia it that they call the living soul, and which has
blindfolded the world; and what they term as the mind, is really
an unreality and without any power of its own.

14. B&ma I I have seen the continued misery arising from

their false conception of the unreal mind ,* and my pity for them
has caused my incessant sorrow.

15. But why should I sorrow for the ignorant rabble,

who bring their woe by their own error ? The common herd is
bom to tiieir misery Hke beasts and brutes.

16. The ignorant rabble are born in their dull material bodies,
for their destraction only. They are born to die away incessant*
ly, like the waves of the ocean.

17. What pity shall 1 take for them, that are seen every day
to perish under the jaws of death, like numbers of animals
immolated in the shambles.
It. For whom shall I sorrow, when I see billions and
ttfllions oQgnats and moths, are destroyed day by day, by gusts
of wind (which is their element and support).

19. Whom shall 1 sorrow for, when I observe on every

gyta the millions of deer and beasts of chase, that are killed
every day in the hills andfoi:eBt8,by their hunters and sportiimeo.

756 TOOAVXiSISHTBi.

20. Whom shall I fed for, when I find innumerable shoals

of smdl fishes, that are deTomred eveiy day in the waters, by
the bigger ones I

21. I see an infinite nnmber of animalculesi to be eaten up

by flies and fleas; which in their turn, are deronred by the Tora-
cious spiders and scorpions.

22. The frog feeds on flies, and is on its turn devoured by

snakes. The birds of prey swallow the snake, and the weasel
pr^B upon them.

23. The weasel is killed by the cai^ which is killed again by

the dog i the bear destroys the dog, and is at last destroyed by
the tiger. ( ^S'�lieft�iirWlJOne animal is food to another.)

24. The lion overcomes the tiger, and is overcome on its turn
by the Sarabha, (afabnlons beast with dght feet). The sarabha
is overthrown by it &ll on rooky steeps^ in its attempt to jump
over the gatliering clouds.

26. The clouds are worsted by tempests, and these again

are obstructed by the rising rocks and mountains. The mountains
are split by thunder claps, and the thunderbolts of heaven are
broken by the thundering Sakra. (Jove).

86. This Sakra or Indra is vanquished by Upondra or

Vishnu (his younger brother), and Vishnu is made to undergo
his incarnations in the shapes of men and beasts. He is snb�
jeoted to the vicissitudes of pain and pleasure, and to the
conditions of disease, decay and death. (Change is the order oi
nature.)

27. Big'bodied beasts are fed upon by the leaches and fleas
that stick to their bodies to suck their blood; and men fraught
with knowledge and armed with weapons j are infested by their
bloodsucking bugs and gnats.

28. Thus the whole host of living bodies, are continually

' exposed to feed upon and to be fed by one another, with re�
morseless voracity.

29. . There is an incessant growth of leaches, fleas and ants,

and other small insects and worms on the one hand; and a con*
UPAIAlIl UANDA. TS?

ianned diMolation of both the big and puny bodiw in every

plaoe on earth.

80. The womb of tho watera, bean the breed of fishee,

whalra, hippopotamus and other aquatic animals ; and the
bowels of the earth, prodnoe the moltitades of worms and
reptiles to infinity.

81. The air teems with the brood of birds of varioos binds,
and the woods abound with wild beas^ and lions and tigen,
the fleet deer and other brutes.

82. There are inborn worms growing in the intestines, and

upon the skin of animal bodies; and parasitioal insects and
animalonles, feeding upon the bark and leaves of trees.

88. Insects are seen to be bom in the orusts of stones, as

frogs, vajrakitas and others ; and many kinds of worms and
insects, are found to grow in and subsist upon the foeoes and
and excrements of animals.

84. In this manner an endless number of living beings,

are being bora and perishing for ever and ever; and it is of no
avail to them, whether kind hearted men are joyous or sorrowful
at their births and deaths.

85. The wise can have no cause for their joy or grief, in
this continued course of incessant births and deaths of the
living world.

86. Such is the nature of all the different series of animal

beings, that they incessantly grow to fall off like the leaves
of trees. (These are known as the ephamerides and the heirs and
poor pensioners of a day).

37. The kind hearted-man, who wishes to remove the sorrows

of the ignorant by his advice, attempts an impossibility, as
that of shrouding the allpervarive sunshine, by means of his
umbrella.

88. It is useless to s^ve advice to the ignorant, who are no

better than beasts in their understandings ; as it is fruitless to
talk to a rock or block of wood or stone in the wilderness.

89. .'The dull-heoded ignorant, who are no better than beasts,

are dragged by their wilful minds,like the cattle by their halters.

75S

Tuta TAiSIfHTHA.

40. Iti would make even the stones to melt into tears, to see
the ignorant plunged in the slough of their perverted minds,
and employed in acts and rites for their own min. (The ruin of
their souls caused by ritualistio observances.)

41. Men of ungoverned minds, are always exposed to dangers

and difficulties j but the expurgated minds of the wise, are free
from the evils and mishaps of life.

42. Now Bdma, consider well the miseries of ungoverned

minds ; and betake yourself to the knowledge of the knowable
One. {i. e, tlie One alone that is worthy of being known).

43. Never entertcun in your imagination; the vain bugbear

of a mind, which has no real existense of its own ; and beware
of this false belief, which may betray you like the ideal ghost
of children.

44. As long as you are forgetful of the soul, you must remain
in utter ignorance ; and so long will you continue to be tortur�
ed by the dragoni residing in the recess of your heart.

45. Now you have known the whole troth, as I have ex�
pounded to you; that it is your imagination only, that presents
you with the idea of your mind, of which yon must get rid
for ever.

46. If yon rely in the visibles, you are subject to the delu�
sion of your mind; but no Booner,*you shun your reliance in
them, than you are liberated from your illuinon of it.

47. The visible world is a combination, of the three qualities

of rajas and tamos ; and it is exposed before yon, by

your mdya or illusion only, as a snare is spread for entanglement

of beasts.

48. Think of the inexistence both of the subjective-self an d

the objective world; and remain as firm as a fixed rock on earth,
and behold the Lord only, in the form of infinite space in tby
heart. (This is Yasishtha�s Vacuism).

49. S!inn Bdma, the false thoughts of thy self-existence, and

that of the visible world also; and forsake thy belief in the
duality, inorder to settle thyself in the infinite unity.

UPASAMA KHAKOA.

769

50. ConU&ue to mtditata on tbe soul, as it is situated between

tbe subjective viewer, and tbe objective view of this world; and
as it is existent in tby vision, wbicb lies between tbe two. (t. e.
between yourself and tbe visible object, which is empty space).

51. Forsake the ideas of the subject and object of your taste,
(i. e. of the taster and tmtable) 3 and thinking on tlicir interma*
diate state of gustation or tasting, be one with tbe soul.

62. Rdma, place yourself in the position of your thought or

power of thinking, which lieth betwixt the thinker and tliink*
ables; support your soul on the supportless soul of all, and re�
main steady in your ineditation.

63. Forsake the cares of the world, and be exempt from the
thoughts of existence and non-existence 3 meditate on the universal
soul and be settled with thy soul in that soul.

54. When you have learnt to think on the thinkable one, by

relinquishing the thought of your own existence; you shall then
arrive to that state of the unconsciousness, which is free from
misery (or the state of supreme bliss).

65. Know your thoughts to bo your fetters, and your self-

consciousness as your binding chain ; therefore O ftlima! loosen
the lion of your soul, from the prison house of your mind.

56. By departing from the state of the Supreme Soul, and

falling to the thoughts of the mind, you will be crowded
by your imaginations, and see only the objects of your thought
all about you.

67. The Knowledge, that intellection or thinking power is

distinct from the soul, introduces the existence of the unhappy
mind, which must be got rid of for the sake of true happiness,
(by knowing them as the one and samething).

68 . When you become conscious of the Supreme soul in you,

and as permeated throughout all nature, you will then find the
thinker and his thinking, the thinkables and their thoughts,
vanish into nothing.

69. The thought that **1 have a soul and a living soul also,'^

brings on us all tbe miseries to which we are exposed to all

WY �001 VA'siSBDHA.

eternity, (i. e. cottscioiianesa of a personal entity^ causes the Woai

which personality is ever liable to).

60. !fhe consciotisttess that am the one soul, and not a

living being or distinct eAiStenc^ i** (becatlse all things distinct
from the universal soul are nothing at all); is called the tran*
ijuility of the spirit and its true felicity.

61. When you are certmn, 0 Bdma t that the. world is the
ttniversal soul itself, you will find the false distinctions of yoUr
mind and living soul) to be nothing in reality.

62. When you come to perceive that all this is your very self,
your mind will then melt away into the soul, aS the darkness
dissolved in the sunlight, and the shadow disappears in the air.
63. As long as yon cherish the snake of your mind within
yourself, yon are in dangler of catching its poison ; but this being
removed by your yoga, meditation, you escape the danger at once.

64. Be bold, O Bdma I to destroy the mighty demon of the

deep rooted error of your mind, by the power of incantation
(mauirat) of yonr perfect knowledge.

63. Upon disappearance of the demon of the mind from the

dwelling of your body, as when a Yaksha disappears in the air,
you will be free from every disease, danger, care and fear.

66. Dispassionateness, and disinterestedness, joined with the

knowledge of unity, melt down the substance of the mind, and
confer the best and highest state of felicity and rest in the
Supreme spirit; and bring on that state of tranquility which is
the main aim of every body. May all these bleanngs attend
upon you.

CHAPTfiR. XV.

Oil Avamcb.

Atgttmcat. Description of a varies as the Root of all Evils.

Y ASlSltTHA conbtaned The soul by foIIoNving the unholy

essence of the mind, vvhich is the source of the world, is led

to fall into the snare, which is laid by it for all living beings.

2. The sottl then loses the brightness of its Spiritual form^

and takes the gross shape of the senses : it waits Upon the guid*
ance of the mind, and indulges in its impure imaginations.

S. It falls into parico, which like a poisonous plant makes

it senseless, and spreads a fearful anathesia over it.

4. Avarice like a dark night, hides the soul under the gloom
of oblivion, and produces endless pangs to the soul.

5. The god Siva withstood the flame of the kalpa cenflagm�

tion, but no bod> can withstand the fierce fire of avarice.

6. It bears a form as formidable as that of a long, sharp

and sable dagger; vthich is cold in appearance, but very injurious
in her efiiects.

7. Avarice is an evergreen plant, bearing bunches of plenteous

fruits on high; which when they are obtained and tasted, prove
to be biter and gall.

8. Avarice is a voracious wolf, prowling in the recess of the

heart; and feeding unseen on the flesh and blood and bones of
its sheltering body.

9. Avarice is as a rainy stream, full of foul and muddy water;

now overflowing and breaking down its banks, and then
leaving empty its dirty bed.

10. The man striken with avarice, remains niggardly and

broken hearted at all times; his spirits are damped, and his
sordid sonl is debased before mankind. He is now dejected, and
How he weeps and lays himself down in despair.

�VoL. i�

86

762

tOQA V/fSISHTHA.

11. � He wlio has not this black adder of greediness, bartovr'

ing in the recess of his heart, has the free play of his vital
breath, which is otherwise poisoned by tho breath of the viper
rankling in his breast.

12. The heart which is not darkened by the gloomy night

of greediness, feels tho rays of humanity sparkling in it, like the
glancing of the bright moon-beams.

13. The heart that is not oaten up by the corroding cares of

avarice, is as an uncankered tree, blooming with its blossoms of
piety.

14. The current of avarice, is ever running amidst the wil�

derness of human desires, with ceaseless torrents and billows, and
hideous whirlpools and vortices around.

16. Tho thread of avarice, like the longlino of a flying kite

or tossing top, whirls and furls and pulls mankind, as its toys and
playthings.

16. The rude, rough and hard-hearted avarice, breaks and

cuts down the tender roots of virtues, with the remorseless axe of
its hai-dihood.

17. Foolishmen led by avarice, fall into the hell pit, like tho
ignorant deer into the blackhole ; by being enticed by the blades
of grass, seattered upon its covering top.

18. Men are not so much blinded by their aged and decayed
eyesight, as they are blinded by the invisible avarice seated in
their hearts.

19. The heart which is nestled by tho ominous owl of avarice,

is as bcmcancd as the god Vishnu, who became a dwarf in beg�
ging a bit of ground from Bdli.

20. There is a divine power, which hath implanted this in�

satiable avarice in the heart of manj which whirls him about, as if
tied by a rope, like the sun revolving round its centre in the sky.

21. Ply from this avarice, which is as henious as the veno�

mous snake. It is the source of all evils, and even of death in
this- mortal world,

22. Avarice blows on men as the wind, and it is avarice that

UPASAMA KHANDA.

763

makes them ' sit still as stones; avarice makes some as sedate
as the earth, and avarice ransaks the three worlds in its rapid
course.

23. All this concourse of men, is impelled to and fro by

avarice, as if they are pulled by ropes; it is easy to break the
band of ropes, but not the bond of avarice. (There is a play
of words here, as that of band, bond and bondage).

24. Then BAma, get rid of avarice by forsaking your desires;

because it is ascertained by the wise, that the mind dies away
by want of its desires (to dwell upon).

25. Never observe the distinctions of my, thy and his in all
thy wishes, but wish forthc good of all alike; and never foster
any bad desii-c, (which is foul in its nature).

26. The thought of self in what is not the self, is the parent
of all our woe; when you cease to think the notself as the self
you are then reckoned among the wise.

27. Cut off your egoism, O gentle BAma! and dwell in thy
unearthly self by forgetting yourself, and by dispelling your
fear from all created -being. (Here is an alliteration of the
letter bh ^ in the last line, as <9^, ^9.

CHAPTER XVI
Heaunq o? Atabicb.

Argnment. Tho way to foraoke the deaires^�ittM�becoiae liberated in

thia life aud the next.

R AMA Boid:�It is too deep for me sir, to tinderstand wliai

you say to me, for the abandonment of my egoism and
avarice.

2. For how is it possible, sir, to forsake my egoism, without

forsaking this body and every thing that bears relation to it?

S. It is egoism whioh is the chief snpport of the body, as a

post or prop is tho support of a thatched house.

4. The body will surely perish witliout its egoism, and will
be cut short of its durablity, as a tree is felled by application
of the saw to its root.

5. ^ow tell me, O most eloquent sir, how I may live by

forsaking my egoism (which is myself); give me your answer,
acording to your right judgment.

6. Yasishtha replied:�O lotus-eyed and respectful Bdma 1

abandondonment of desires, be said to be of two kinds by the wise,
who are well acquainted with the subject; the one is called the
jneya or kiiowablc and the other is what they style the thinkable
(or dheya).

7. The knowledge that I am the life of my body and its powers,

and these are the supports of roy life, and that I am something.

8. But this internal conviction being weighed well by the

light of reason, will prove that neither am I related with the
external body, nor duos it boar any relation with my internal
soul.

9. Therfore the performance of one*8 dutiet^ with ealmnesa

and coolness of his understanding, and without any desire of
fruition, is called the abandonment of desire in thought.

10. But the understanding which views things in an equal

UPASAMA RHANDA.

765

light, and by forsaking its desires, relinqnishes the body

without taking any concern for it, and is called the knowing
abondonment of desires, (i. e. of which the Yogi has full
knowledge).

�11. He who foregoes with ease the desires arising from his
egoism, is styled the tliinkiiig. abjurcr of his desires, and is
liberated in bis life time.

12. He who is calm and even-minded, by his abandonment

of vain and imaginary desires; is a knowing deserter of his
desires, and is liberated also in this world.

13. Those who abandon the desires in their thonght, and

remain with listless indifference to everything, are like those
who are liberated in their life time.

14. They are also called the liberated, who have had their
composure {in�oncianee) after abandonment of their desires, and
who rest in the Supreme Spirit, with their souls disentangled
from their bodies. (This is called the disembodied libertioii.
15. Both these sorts of renunciation are alike entitled to
liberation, both of them arc extricated from pain; and betb
lead the liberated souls to the state of Brahma.

16. The mind whether engaged in acts or disengaged from

them, rests in the pure spirit of God, by forsaking its draires.
(There is this difference only between them, that the one has an
active body, while the other is without its activity).

17. The former kind of yogi is liboi-ated in his embodied

state, and freed from pain throughout his life time; but the latter
that has obtained his liberation in his bodiless state after his
demise, remains quite nnconseious of his desires. Cl^he liberated
soul is freed from desire after death. Their desires being dead
with themselves, they have nothing to desire).

18. He who feels no joy nor sorrow at the good or evil,

which befalls to him in his life time, as it is the course of
nature, is called the living liberated man.

19. He who neither desires nor dreads the casualties of good

766

TOGA V^ISHTHA.

or evil, which are incidental to human life; bat remains quite

regardless of them as in his dead sleep, is known as the truly
liberated man.

20. He whose mind is freed from the thoughts, of what is

desirable or undesirable to him, and from bis differentiation of
mine, thine and his (t. e. of himself from others), is called the
truly liberated.

21. He whose mind is not subject to the access of joy and

grief, of hope and fear, of anger, boast and niggardliness, is said
to have his liberation.

22. He whose feelings are all obtund within himself as in

his sleep, and whose mind enjoys its felicity like the beams of
the fullmoon, is said to be the liberated man in this world.

23. Valmiki says:�After the sage had said so far; the

day departed to its evening service with the setting sun. The
assembled audiance retired to their evening ablations, and
repaired again to the assembly with the rising sun on the next
day.

CHAPTER XVII.

On the Exterpation op AvaricB.

ArpinenL Liberation of Embodied or living beings.

V ASISHTHA said;�It is dillicalt O Edina i to describe in

words the inexplicable nature of the liberation of dcsem-
bodied souls; hear me tbercfoPc relate to you filrtlicr about the
liberation of living beings.

2. The desire of doing one�s duties without expoet.ation of

their reward, is also called the living liberation, and the doers
of their respective duties, arc said to be the living liberated.

3. The dcpcndancc of beings on their desires, and their

strong attachment to external objects, are called to be their bond*
age and fetters in this world, by the doctors in divinity.

4. But the desire of conducting one�ssclf according to the

course of events, and without any expectation of fruition, con�
stitutes also the liberation of the living; and is concommittant
with the body only, (without vitiating the inner soul).

6. The desire of enjoying the external objects, is verily the

the bondage of the soul; but its indifference to worldly enjoy�
ments, is what constitutes one's freedom in his living state.

6. Want of greediness and anxiety prior to and on account of

some gain, and absence of mirth and change in one's disposi�
tion afterwards, (e. e. after the gain'; is the true freedom of men.

7. Know, O high-minded Edma! that desire to be the greatest

bondage of men, which is in eager expectation of the possession
of anything. (Lit: that such things may be mine).

8. He who is devoid of desire of everything, whether existent

or inexistent in the world j is the truly great men, with the
greatest magnanimity of his soul.

9. Therefore, Edma I forsake the thoughts both of thy

bondage and liberation, and also of thy happiness and misery;
and by getting rid of thy desire of the real and unreal, remain
as calm as the undisturbed ocean.

768

YOflA VA'StSHTHA..

10 Think thyself, O most intelligent Rftma ! to be devoid oJ

death and decay, and do not stain thy mind with the fears of
thy disease or death : (because thy sonl is free from them).

11. These substances are nothing, nor arc you any of these
things that yon sec; there is something beyond these, and know
that yon are that very thing, (which is the soul or a spiritnal
being).
H. 1)110 phenomenon of the world is an unreality, and every
thing here is unreal, that appears real in thy sight; knowing
then thyself to be beyond all these, what earthly thing is there
that thou oans�t crave for ?

13. All reasoning men, O Rdma! consider themselves in some

one of these four different lights in their minds, which I shall now
explain to you in brief.

14. He who considers his whole body (from his head to foot),
as the progeny of his parents (t. e, devoid of his spiritnal part), is
surely born to the bondage of the world. (This is the first kind).

15. But they who are certain of their immaterial soul, which
is finer than the point of a hair, are another class of men ; who
arc called the wise and are born for their liberation. (This is
the second).

16. There is a third class of men, who consider themselves

as same with the universal soul of the world; such men O support
of Raghu�s race, are also entitled to their liberation. (These be�
long to the third kind.)

17. There is again a fourth class, who consider themselves

and the whole world to be as inane as the empty air (or vacum);
these arc surely the partakers of liberation.

18. Of these four kinds of beliefs, the first is the leader

to bondage; while the three others growing from purity of
thought^ lead to the path of liberation.

19. Among these, the first is subject to the bondage of avarice;

but the other three proceeding from pure desire, are erowned with
liberatidn.

20. Those of the third kind, who consider themselves same

UPaSaMA KHAKDA. 709

With the Universal soul, are in my opinion never subject to

Borrow or pain.

21. The magnitude of the Supreme spirit, extends over and

below and about all existence; hence the belief of *' all in One,
or One in all�* never holds a man in bondage.

22. The fourth kind�VacUists (or sunya^adis), who believe

in the vacuum, and maintain the principles of nature or illusion,
hre in ignorance of divine knowledge, which represents God ad
Siva, Isha, male, and eternal soul.

23. He is all and everlasting, without a second or another

like him; and he is pervaded by his omniscience, and not by the
ignorance called �tdyd or illusion.

24. The spirit of God fills the universe, as the water of the
Ocean fills the deep (pAtdla); and stretches from the highest
heaven (empyrian), to the lowest abyss of the infernal regions,

25. Hence it is his reality only which is ever existent, and no

unreal world exists at any time. It is the liquid water which
fills the sea, and not the swelling wave which rises in it.

26. As the bracelets aud armlets are no other than gold, so

the varieties of trees and herbs, are not distinct from the Univer-^'
sal Spirit.

27. It is the one and same omnipotence of the Supreme spjrit)

that displays the di�erent forms in its works of the creation.

28. Never be joyous nor sorry for anything belonging to thee

or another, nor feel thyself delighted or dejected at any gain or
loss, that thou mayest happen to incur. (For know everything
to be the Lord�s and nothing as thine own. Or. *�The Lord
gave, aud the Lord hath taken away>�. Job).

29. Be of an even disposition, and rely on thy essence as one

With the Supreme soul. Attend to thy multifarious duties, and
thus be observant of unity in thy spiritual concerns, and dualitiei
in thy temporal affairs.

80� Take care of falling into the hidden holes of this world)
in your pursuit after the varieties of objects; and be not liko
an elephant falling into a hidden pit in the foresti

Vot. II.

97

770

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

31. O Bdma of great soul f There cannot be a doalityi as it

is thought in the mind; nor O BAma of enlightned soul; can
there be any unity or duality of the soul. The true essence is
ever existent with out its unity or duality, and is styled the all

and nothing particular, and as itself>Svarupa or suiform. (The soul

is not unity, because one is the prime number of all ethers by
addition with itself} not is it a duality, having no second or
another like it. It is the indefinite all or whole: and no definite
that this or so says the Sruti: n�inw? ^ WPnfvt I

82. There is no ego or thy subjective-self, nor the objective

'worlds that thou secst. All this is the manifestation of the eter�
nal and imperishable omniscience, and know this world as
neither an entity nor non-entity by itself.

33, Know the Supreme being to be without beginning and

end, the enlightener of all lights, the undccaying, unborn and
incomprehensible one. He is without part, and any change in
him. He is beyond imagination and all the imaginary ob�
jects all about ns.

34. Know for certain in thy mind, that the Lord is always
present in the full light of thy intellect. He is the root of thy
consciousness, and is of the nature of thy inward soul. He is
conceivable in the intellect, and is the Brahma-the all and ever�
lasting, and the all-pervadbg, the subjective I, and the objective
thou and this world.

CHAPTER. XVIII.

Livmo Libbsation ob Tbub Feucity of han ik this Lifb.

Aigament. The Trae EufranchLwment of the Sou], ia the Living state

of man in this world.

Y A'SISTHA continued:�I will now relate to yon, O Rdmaf

the nature of those great men, who conduct themselves in
this world, with their desires under their subjection, and whose
minds are not blemished by evil inclinations.

2. The sage whose mind is freed in his life-time, conducts

himself unconcerned in this world; he smiles secure at its occur*
rences, and is regardless of the first, last and middle stages of
his life: (namely; the pains of his birth and death, and the whole
course of his life).

3. He is attentive to his present business, and unmindful of

every other object about him; be is devoid of cares and desires,
and his thought is of his internal cogitations only.

4. He is free from anxiety in all places, who tolerates what^

ever he happens to meet with ; he sees the light of reason in
his soul, and walks in the romantic groves of his musings.

6. He rests in that transcendental bliss, with prospects as

bright as the cooling beams of the full-moon, who is neither
elated nor depressed in any state of his life, nor droops down
nnder any circumstance.

6. Whose generosity and manliness do not forsake him, even

when he is beset by his bitterest enemies; and who is observant
of his duties to his superiors, such a man is not crest-fallen in
this world.

7. Who neither rejoices nor laments at his lot, nor envies

nor hankers after the fortune of another ; but pursues his own
business in quiet silence, is the man that is never down-cast in
this world.

8. Who, when asked, says what he is doing; but unasked re-

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.
77a

mains . as a dead block; and is freed from desire and disgust;

be is never depressed in bis heart and mind. fFhe Urdu poet
expresses this sort of unconcern, more beautifully, when he says
Should one ask you of aught, look to his face and reply him not.
Koi kueh*h puehhe to muni dekh har ehitp rahjana &c. And who
so understands the hearts of men, is never sick at his heart).

9. He speaks agreeably to every one, and utters gently what

he is required to say; he is never put out of countenauce, who
understands the intentions of others. (Speaking agreably or his
questioners means what pleases every body, be it good or bad for
him as it is said in Chanakya�s excerpta: WW*

W vraiW wanfrtUW*. Because says Bharavi. *It is rare to have

a useful saying, which is delectable also at the same time.

10. He sees the right and wrong dealings of men, and

the acts of the depraved desires of their minds j but knowing all
human affairs as clearly as in a mirror in his hand, he holds his
peace with every one.

11. Standing on his firm footing (of non-challancc), and

knowing the frailty of worldly things, he smiles at the
vicissitudes of nature with the cold frigidity (sang froid) of his
heart: (like the laughing philosopher).

lit. Sueh is the nature BAma,-of the great souls, who have
subdued their minds, and know the course of nature, as I have
described to yon.

13. I am unable to describe to yon, the fond beliefs of the

minds of the ignorant populace, who are plunged in the mud
of their sensual enjoyments (like earthly worms). (Who ars of
ungovemed minds).

14. Women, devoid of understanding, and graced with their

personal charms, are the idols of these people; who are fond of
their golden forms, without knowing them to be the flames of
bell fire.

16. Wealth, the fond object of tbe foolish people, is fraught

with every ill and evil desire; its pleasure is poison and pro*
ductive of misery, and its prosperity is replete with dangers.

UPASAMA KHAMDA.

773

16 � Its use in tbe doing o� meritorious deeds, and various

acts of piety, is also fraught with a great many evils, which I
have not the power to recount. (The works of merit being pro�
ductive of pride and passions, and those of piety being the source
of transmigration).

17. Therefore RAma! keep your sight on the full view (clair�
voyance) of your spirit, by retracting it from the external vi�
sibles and internal thougts; and conduct yoarself in this world
as one liberated in his life-time.

18. Being free from all your inwanl passions and feelings
of affection, and having given up all your desires and expec�
tations; continue in the performance of your outward duties in
this world.

19. Follow all your duties in life with a noble pliability of

your disposition; but preserve the philosophic renunciation of
everything in your mind, and conduct yourself accordingly in
this world.

20. Think well on the fleeting states of all earthly things,

and fix your mind in the lasting nature of your soul ; and thus
conduct yourself in this transitory stage, with the thoughts of
eternity in your mind.

21. Conduct yourself, RAma, with your inward indifference

and want of all desire: but show your outward desire for what�
ever is good and great. Be cold blooded within yourself but
full of ardour in your external demeanour.

22. Conduct yourself among men, O RAma 1 with a feigned

activity in your outward appearance, but with real inaction in
your mind; show yourself as the doer of your deeds, but know
in your mind to be no actor at all.

2$. Conduct yourself such, O RAma! with yonr full know�

ledge of this world, as if you are acquainted with the natures of
all beings herein; and go whereever you please with yonr intimate
acquaintance of everything there.

24. Demean yourself with mankind, with a feigned appear�

ance of joy and grief, and of condolence and congratulation with

774

yOQAViirSISHTHA.

others, and an aceamed shape of activity and action among

mankind.

25. Manage yonrself* O Rdmal with full possession of

yonr mind, and untinged by pride and vanity, as if it were as
clear as the spotless sky.

80. Gooa through your life ushaekleJ by the bonds of

desire, and join in all the outward acts of life, with an unaltered
evenness of your mind under every circumstance.
27. Donot give room to the thoughts of yonr bondage or li�
beration in this world, nor of the embodiment or release of your
soul here; but think the revolving worlds to be a magic scene,
and preserve perfect tranquility of your mind.

28. Know all this as an illussion, and it is ignorance only, that

presents the false apprearanco of the world to sight; and yet wo
take them for true, as you view the water in the burning beams
of the sun in a desert.

29. The unobstructed, uniform and all pervading soul, can

have no restriction or bondage; and what is unrestricted in itself,
cannot have its release also.

SO. It is want of true knowledge, that presents the false

view of the world before us; but the knowledge of truth disper�
ses the view; as the knowledge of the rope, dispels the fallacy
of the snake in it.

81. You have known the true essence of your being by yonr
right discernment, (that it is He�the Sat); you are thereby freed
from the sense of your personality, and are set free as the subtile
lur.

82. You have known the truth, aud must give up your know�
ledge of untruth, together with the thoughts of your friends
and relatives, all which are unreal in their natures.

83. Such being the case, you must consider yourself (yonr
soul), as something other than these; and that you have received
the same, from the Supreme source of all.

84. This soul bears no relation to your friends or possessido,

to your good or evil actions, or to anything whatever in this world;
why then should you think of or be sorry for anythiug at all ?

UPASAMA KHANOA,

778

85. When yon are conrinced that this vciy soul coostitntcs
your rasenceJ yon have nothing to fear from the erroneous
conception of the world, which is no more than a misconception.

86. You can have no concern, with the weal or woe of a friend
or foe, who is not born so to you; for every one being bom for
himself, you have no cause of i<^ or grief for any body; (whether
be is friendly or not to yon).

37. If thou knowest that thon hadst been before (creation),

and shalt be so for everafterwards (to eternity); you are truly
wise.

38. Shouldest thou feel so much for the friends, by whom thou
art beset in this life; why dost thou then not mourn for them,
that are dead and gone in thy present and past lives ?

39. If thou wert something otherwise than what thou art

at present, and shalt have to be something different from what
now thou art, why then shouldst thon sorrow for what has not
its self'identity ? \,i, e, the body which is changed in all its trans�
migrations).

40. If thon art to he bom no more, after thy past and

present births, {i.e. if there be no further transmigration of thy
soul', then thon hast no cause for sorrow, being extinct thy�
self in the Supreme Spirit.

41. Therefore there is no cause of sorrow, in aught that

occurs according to the course of nature; but rather be joy�
ous in pursuing the duties of thy present life; (for want of thy
knowlegde of thy past and future states).

42. But do not indulge the excess of thy joy or grief, but
preserve thy .equanimity everywhere; by knowing the Supreme
Spirit to pervade in aU places.

43. Know thyself to be the form of the infinite spirit, and

stretching wide like the extended vacuum; and that thon art the
pure eternal light, and the focus of full effulgence.

44. Know thy eternal and invisible soul, to be distinct from all
worldly substances j and to be a particle of that universal soul,
which dwells in and stretches through the hearts of all bodies; and

70QA VASISfiDMA.

is like the nnseen thread, running through the holes and codflec^
ting the links oE a necklace; (or like the string in the beadd
of*a rosary. (This connecting soul is denonliuated the Sutrdtmdj
which fills, bounds, connects and equals all).

45. That the continuation of the world. Is caused by the re*

})roduction of what has been before, is what you learn from the
unlearned ; and not so from the learned, (Who know the world to
be nothing). Know this and not that, and be happy in this life.

46. The course of the world and this life, is ever tending to
decay and dcscase. It is ignorance that represents them to be
progressing to perfection. But you who are intelligent, knowest
their real natures (of frailty and unreality),

47. What else can bo the nature of error but falsehood, and
what may the state of sleep be, but dream and drowsiness ? (So is
this world a mistaken existence, and this life a mere dream of
unreal appearance, which so vividly shines before you).

48. Whom do yott call your good friend, and whom do you
say your great enemy ? They all belong to be Sole One, and pro�
ceed alike from the Divine will.

69. Everything is frail and fickle, and has its rise and fall from
and into the Supreme Spirit; it likens the wave of the sea, rising
and falling from and into the same water.

50. The worlds are rolling upward and going down again,
like the axis and spokes of a wheel. (The rotations of the
planets in their circuits above and below the sun).

61. Thecelestials sometimes fall into hell, and the in femals ate
sometimes raised to heaven ; animals of one kind are regenerated
in another form, and the people of one continent and island are
reborn in another; (as men are led from one country and climate
to another, and settle there).

52. The opulent are reduced to indigence, and the indigent

are raised to affuence; and all beings are seen to be rising andfall*
ing in a hundred ways.

63.' Who has seen the wheel of fortune, to move on slowly

in one straight forward coarse for ever, and not tumbling in iti

UPASAMA KEtANDA.

Til

tips aild downs, nor turning to this side and that in its winding
and uneven route. Fixedness o� fortune is a fietion, as that of
finding the frost in fire.

54. Those that are called great fortunes, and their compon�
ents and appendages as also many good friends and relations ; are
all seen to fly away in a few days of his transient life.

65. The thought of something as one's own and anothers�, and

of this and that as mine, thine, his or others�, arc as false as thd
appearance of double suns and moons in the sky.

50. That this is a friend and this other a foe, and that this
Is myself and that one is another, are all but false concc])tions of
your mind, and must bo wiped off from it; (since the whole is but
the one Ego).

57. Make it thy pleasure however to mix with the blinded

populace, and those that are lost to reason ; and deal with them
in thy usual unaltered way. (Mix with the thaughtless mob, but
think with the thoughtful wise. So says Sadi, I learnt morals
from the immoral, adabaz bedabauamoMfam).

68. Conduct thyself in such a manner in thy journey

through this world, that thou mayst not sink under the burden
of thy cares of it.
69. When thou comest to thy reason, to lay down thy earthly
cares and desires; then shalt thou have that composure of thy
mind, which will exonerate thee from all thy duties and dealings
in life.

60. It is the part of lowmindcd men, to reckon one as a friend

and another as no friend; but noble minded men do not observo
such distinctions between man and man. (Lit. Their minds are
not clouded by the mist of distinction).

61. There is nothing wherein 1 am not, (or where there is

not the Ego); and nothing which is not mine (e. e. beyond the
Ego): the learned who have considered it well, make no differ�
ence of persons in their minds).

62. The intellects of the wise, are as clear as the spacious

firmament, and their is no rising nor setting of their intellec�
tual light, which veiws everything as serenely as in the serenity

VoL. II. 98

7T0

tOQA VA^SISHTHA.

oE the atmosphere and as plainly as the pl�n surface of the eaiiti*

63. Know R�ma I all created beings, are friendly and tuefni
to you, and there is no body nor any in the world, wherewith you
are not related in some way on yOur part. (No body is a nnit
himself, but forms a part of the universal whole>.

64. It is erroneous to look any one as a friend or foe, among

the various orders of created beings in the universe; which in
reality may be serviceable to yon, however nnfriendijr they may
appear at first.

CHAPTER XIX,

Oh Holy Khowlsidoh.

Argument. Stoiy of Fuuya and Pdranui and tho inetruction of the

fqmter to the latter.

V ASISHTHA oontinued will now sot before you an ex�

ample on tho subject (of the distinction of friend and foe),
in the instance of two brothcra, who wore born of a sago on
tho banks of Gauges, going in three directions of iri/>aiAa or
tritrot as trivia.

2. Hear then this holy and wonderful talc of antiquity,

which now occurs to my mind on the subject of friends and
enemies, which 1 have been relating to yon.
8. There is in this continent of Jambudwipa (Asia), a
mountainous region beset by groves and forests, with tho high
mount of Mahendra rising above the rest.

4. It touched the sky with its lofty peaks, and the arbour of
its kalpa trees ; spread its shadow over the hermits and kinnafas
that resorted under its bower.

6. It resounded with tho carol of the sages, who chauniwl the

Samaveda hymns on it, in their passage from its caverns and
peaks to the region of Indra : (tho god of the vault of heaven).

6. The fleecy clouds which incessantly drizzled with rain

water from its thousand peaks; and washed the plants and
powers below, appeared as tufts of hair hanging down front
heaven to earth.

7. The mountain re-echoed to the loud roars of the impetu�

ous octopedes Sarabhas, with the thunder claps of kalpa skuds
from the hollow mouths of its dark aud deep clouds. (So Hima-
aya is said to warble to tho tunes of Kinnaras from its cavern
mounts). *

* So it is representod in Kumara Sambhava.

780

YOGA VASISHTIIA.

8. The thundering noise of its cascades falling into its ca>

Tcrns from precipioe to prcoipioe, has put to blush the loud road
of tlic Surges of the sea.

9. There on tableland upon the craggy top of the moun�

tain, flowed the sacred stream of the heavenly Ganges, for the
ablution and beverage of the hermits.

10. There on the banhs of the trivlous river-tripatha-Gan-

ga, was a gemming mountain, sprakling as bright gold, and
decorated with blossoming trees..

11. Thoro lived a sago by name of Dirghatapas, who was a

personification of devotion, and a man of enlightened understand�
ing ; he had a noble mind, and was inured in austerities of de�
votion.

12. Tliis sage was blessed with two boys as beautiful as tho
full moon, and named Pnnya and Pavana (the miritorions and
holy), who were as intelligent as tho sons of Vrihaspati, known
by the names of tho two Kachas.

13. He lived there on tho b.ank of the river, and amidst a

grove of fruit treesj with his wife and the two sons born of them.
14. In course of tinio tho two boys arrived to their ege of
discretion, and the older of them named Punya or meritorious,
was superior to tho other in all his merits.

15. Tho younger boy named Pdvana or the holy, was half
nwakened in his intellect, like the half blown lotus at the dawn
of the day; and his want of intelligence kept him from tho
knowledge of truth, and in the uncertainty of his faith.

16. Then in the course of tho all destroying time, the sage
came to complete a century of years, and his tall body and long
life, were reduced iu their strength by his ago and infirmity.

17. Being thus reduced by decrepitude in his vitalityi he

bade adieu to bis desires in this world, which was so frail and
full of a hundred fearful accidents to human life: (namely;
the paijis attending upon birth, old age and death, and tho feam
of future transmigration and falling into boll fire).

IS. Tho old devotee Birgliatapas, quitted at last bU mortal

UPASAMA EHANDA.

781

frame in tlie grotto of the mount; as a bird qnits its old ucst for
cver^ or as a water-bearer lays down the log of his burthen from
his shoulders.

19. Tlis spirit then fled like the fragrance of a flower to

that vacuous space, which is ever tranquil, free from attributes
and thought, and is of the nature of the pure intellect.

20. The wife of the sage finding his body lying lifeless on
the ground, fell down upon it, and remained motionlm like a
lotus flower nipt from its stalk,

21. Having been long accustomed to the praeliec of yoga,

according to the instruction of her husband; she quitted her nndi-
cayed body, as a bco flits from an unfaded flower to the
empty air.

22. Her soul followed her husband�s unseen by men, as tho

light of the stars disappears in tho air at the dawn of the day.

23. * Seeing the demise of both parente, the cider son Punya
was busily o|p^loycd in performing their funeral services; but
the younger PAvana was deeply absorbed in grief at their loss.

24. Being overwhelmed by sorrow in his mind, ho wandered

about in the woods $ and not having the firmness of bis elder
brother, he continued to wail in his mourning.

25. The magnanimous Punya performed the funeral cere�

monies of his parents, and then went in search of his brother
mourning in the woods.

26. Punya said Why my boy, is thy soul overcast by the

cloud of thy grief; and why dost thou shed the tears from thy
lotus-eyes, as profusely as the showers of the rain, only to render
thee blind.

27. Know my intelligent boy, that both thy father and mo�
ther, have gone to their ultimate blissful state in the Supremo
Spirit, called the state of salvation or liberation.

28. That is the last i^ort of all living beings, and that is
the blessed state of all self subdued souls; why then mourn for
them, .that have returned to-�and arc reunited with their own
proper nature.

YOGA Vi&ISHTHA

n%

&9. Thou dost in vain indulge thyself in thy false and fruits
kn grief, and moumest for what is not to he mourned for at all;
(rather rejoice at it owing to their ultimate Uhetaj^on).

'80. Neither is she thy mother nor he thy father} nor art
thoa the only son of them, that have had numerous o&pring in
their repeated hirths.

81. IFhou hadst also thousands of fathers and mothers in thy

by-gone hirths, in as much as there are the streams of running-
waters in every forest. .

88. Thou art not the only son of them, that had innumerahle
sons before thee; for the generations of men, have passed away
like the currents of a running stream,

83. Our parents also had numherless offspring in their past

lives, and the branches of human generation are as numerous, as
the innumerable fruits and flowers on trees.

84. The numbers of our friends and relatives in our repeated

lives in this world, have been as great, as the innii^|srable fraita
and flowers of a large tree, in all its passed seasons.

85. If we are to lament over the loss of our parents and

ohildren, that are dead and gone; then why not lament also for
those, that we have lost and left behind in all our past lives 7

86. It is all but a delusion, O my fortunate boy, that is pre�

sented before ns in this illusive world; while in truth, O my sen�
sible child, we have nobody, whom we may call to he our real
friends or positive enemies in this world.

87. There is no loss of any body or thing in their ^ true sense

in the world; hut they appear to exist and disappear, like the apn
pearanee of water in the dry desert.

88. Th^ royal dignity that thou seest here, adorned with the
stately umbrella u^d flapping fans; is but a dream lasting for a
few days. ^

89. Cdnsidm these phenomena in their true light, ^gd thou

wilt find^my boy, that none of these nor ourselves nor one of
na^ are jbo last for ever: shun thmefoxe thy error of ^ ^aasiq^
world from thy mind for eTer,

ttPASAldi khakda.

Hi

40. these are dead and gone, and these arc existent be�
fore ns, are but errors of our minds, and cimturcs of onr false no�
tions and fond^desire^ and without any reality in them.

41. Our notions and desires, paint and present these Tarious
changes before Oilr sight; as the soler rays represent the water
in the mirage. So our fancies working in the field of onr igno^
lance, produce the erroneous conceptions, which roll on like enr-t
rents in the eventful ocean of the world, with the waves of faror^
Able and unfavorable events to lis.

CitAPTEll XX.

lllSMOJISTKATION Ol? PaVaNA.

Argument. Punya�a relation of hia varioua transmigrations and tlicit

Woes to r&vana.

P TTNYA said ;�^^Vho is onr father and who our mother, and
who arc onr friends and relatives, except our notion of
them as sUuh; and these again arc as the dust raised by the gusts
of our airy fancy ?

di. The conceptions of friends and foes, of our sons and rcia*
tions are the products of onr affection and hatered to them j
and these being the effects of our ignorance, arc soon made
to disappear into airy nothing, upon enlightenment of the
understanding.

3. The thought of one as a friend, makes him a friend, and

thinking one as an enemy makes him an enemy ; the knowledge
of a thing as honey and of another as poison, is owing to our
opinion of it.

4, There being but one universal soul equally pervading the

whole, there can be no reason of the conception of one as a
friend and of another as an enemy.

5. Think my boy in thy mind what thou art, and what is

tliat thing which makes thy identity, when thy body is but a
composition of bones, ribs, flesh and blood, and not thyself.

6. Being viewed in its true light, there is nothing as myself

or thyself; it is a fallacy of our understanding, that makes me
think mysdf as Fnnya and thee as Fdvana.

7. Who is thy father and who thy son, wbo thy mother
and who thy friend ? One Snpreme-self pervades all infinity,
whom callest thou the self, and whom the not self } (i. e. thine and
not thine).

8. If thoa.ari a spiritual substance (linga sarira), and hast

UPASAMA KHANDA, 785.

undergone many births, then tbon hadst many friends and pro�
perties in thy past lives, why dost not think of them also f

9. Thon hadst many friends in the flowery plains, where

thou hadst thy pasture in thy former form of a stag; why
thinkest not of those deer, who were once thy dear companions ?

10. Why dost thou not lament for thy lost companions of
swans ,in the pleasant pool of lotnses, where thou didst dive and
swim about in the form of a gander ?

11. Why not lament for thy fellow arbors in the wood�
lands, where thou once stoodcst as a stately tree among
them?

lii. Thou hadst thy comrades of lions on the ragged craigs

of mountains, why dost not lament for them also ?

13. Thou hadst many of thy mates among the fishes, in the
limpid lakes decked with lotuses > why not lament for thy separa�
tion from them ?

14. Thou hadst been in the country of Das^rna (confluence

of the ten rivers), as a monkey in the grey and green woods: ^
prince hadst thou been in land of frost} and a raven in the woods
of Pundra.

15. Thou hadst been an elephant in the land of Haihayas,

and an ass in that of Trigarta; thou hadst become a dog in tlie
country of Salya, and a bird in the wood of sarala or sAl trees.

16. Thou hadst been a pipal tree on the Yindhyan moun�

tains, and a wood insect in a large oak (bala) tree ; thou hadst
bepn a cock on the Mandara mountain, and then born as a
BrAhman in one of its caverns; (the abode of Bishis).

17. Thou wast a BrAhman in Kosala, and a partridge in

Bengal; a horse hadst thou been in the snowy land, and a
beast in the sacred ground of BrahmA at Pushkara (Pokhra).

18. Thou hadst been an insect in the trunk of a palm tree,

� gnat in a big tree, and a crauc in the woods of Vindhya, that
art now my younger brother.

19. Thou hadst been an ant for six months, and lain within

Voi. II. 93

786

YOaA VA'SISHTHA.

tbe thin .baric ot a hTiugpetera tree in a glen of the Himalayan

bills, that art now born as my younger brother.

20. Thou hadst been a millepedes in a dunghill at a distant

village; where thou didst dwell for a year and half, that art
now become my younger brother.

21. Thou wast'once the youngling of a Pulinda (a hill tribe

woman), and didst dwell on her dugs like the honey sacking bee
on the pericarp of a lotus. The same art thou now my yoan<
ger brother.

22. In this manner my boy, wast thou born in many other

shapes, and hadst to wander all about the Jamba>dwipa, for my�
riads of years : And now art thou my youngfer brother.

23. Thus I see the post states of thy existence, caused by the
antecedent desires of thy soul; I see all this by my nice discern*
ment, and my clear and all-viewing sight.

24. I also remember the several births that 1 had to undergo

in my state of (spintoal) ignorance, and then as 1 see clearly
before my enlightened sight.

25. I also was a parrot in the land of Trigarti^ and a frog at

the beach of a river; I became a small bird in a forest, and was
then bom in these woods.

26. Having been a Pulinda huntsman in Yindhya, and then as

a tree in Bengal, and afterwards a camel in the Yindhya range,
I am at last born in this forest.

27. I who had been a chdtaka bird in the Himalayas, and a

prince in the Paundra province ; and then as a mighty tiger in the
forests of the sahya hill, am now become your elder brother.

28. He that had been a vulture for ten years, and a shark
for five months and a lion for a full century * is now thy elder
brother in this place.

29. I was a chakora wood in the village of Andhara, and a

ruler in the snowy regions; and then as the proud son of a priest
named saildch4rya in a hilly tract.
.30. I remember the various customs and pursuits of different

UPASAMA KHANDA.

peoples on earth, that I had to oheerve and folW in my

repeated transmigrations among them.

31. In these several migrations, I had many fathers and

toothers, and many more of my brothers and sisters, as also
friends and relatives to hundreds and thousands.

32. Pot whom shall I lament and whom forget among this
number; shall I wail for them mily that I lose in this life ?
But these also are to be buried in oblivion like the rest, and such
is the course of the world.

33. Numberless fathers have gone by, and unnumbered

mothers also have passed and died away; so nnnmorablo
generations of men have perished and disappeared, like the &!�
ling off of withered leaves.

Si. There are no bounds, my boy, of our pTeasuros and pains

in this sublunary world; lay them all aside, and let us remain un�
mindful of all cxistenco; (whether past, preicnt or future) 1

35. Forsake thy thoughts of false appearances, and relinquish

thy firm conviction of thy own egoism, and look to that ultimate
course which has led the learned to their final beatitude.

36. What is this commotion of the people for, but a stn^-

gling for rising or falling (to heaven or hell); strive therefore for
neither, but live regardless of both like in different philosopher;
(and permit thyself to heaven).

37. Live free from tliy earns of c\I?tonec and ineristennn, and
then thou shalt be freed from thy fears of decay and death.
Bemembcr nnrufiled thy self alone, and be not moved by any from
thyself possession by the accidents to life like the ignorant.

88. Know thou hast no birth nor death, nor weal or woe of
any kind, nor a father or mother, nor friend nor foe anywhere.
Thou art only thy pure spirit, and nothing of an unspiritoal
nature.

89. The world is a stage presenting many acts and scenra }

and they only play their parts well, who are excited neither by
its passions and feelings.

788

Yoga viSisHTHA.
40. Those that are indifferent in their viewSi have their
quietude amidst all the occurrences of life} and thos^ that have
known the True One, remain only to witness the course of nature.

41. The knowers of God do their acts, without thinking

themselves their actors; just as the lamps of night witness
the objects around, without their consciousness of the same.

42. The wise witness the objects as they are reflected in

the mirror of their minds, just as the looking glass and gems
receive the images of things.

43. Now my boy, rub out all thy wishes and the vestiges of
thy remembrance from thy mind, and view the image of the serene
spirit of God in thy inmost soul. Learn to live like the g^at
sages with the sight of thy spiritual light, and byefftcisg
all false impressions from thy mind.

CHAPTER XXL

RlFKBSSIOir 09 DxSIBES by heaths 09 YoOA-MEDITATIOir.

Aigameni.' Desires are the sbookles of the soul, md ndease from them
leading to its liberatioa.

Y ASISHTHA continaed t�Fttvana being admonished by

Pnnya in the said manner, became as enlightened in his
intellect, as the landscape at the dawn d day.

S. They continued henceforward to abide in that forest, with

the perfection of their spiritual knowledge, and tb^ wandered
about in the woods to their hearts content.

8. After a long time th^ had both their extinction, and rest
ed in their disembodied state of mrvana ; as the mUesa lamp
wastes away of itself.

4, Thus is the end of the great boast of men, of having

large trains and numberless friends in their embodied states
of Ufetime, of which alas t they carry irothing with them to
their afterlife, nor l(�Te anything behind, wh^ they can pro*
perly call as theirs.

5. The best means of our release from the mnltifiurions .ob�

jects of onr desire, is the utter suppression of onr appetites,
father than the fostering of them.

6. It is the hankering after objects, that augment onr ap�

petite, as our thinking on somethmg increases onr thoughts
about it. Jnst so as the fire is emblazoned by sui^ly of the fuel,
and extingoished by its want.

7. Now rise O Bdma I and remun aloft as in tby aerial

ear, by getting loose of your worldly desires; and looking piti-
fnlly on the miseries of grovelling mortals from above.
8. This is the divine state known as the position of Brahma,
which looks from above with unconcerned serenity upon all.
By gaining this state, the ignorant also are freed from misery.

790

YOGA VASISHTHA.

9. One walking witk reason as liis companion, and baving

bis good nndetsiiooding for his consort, is not liable to fall into
the dangerous trap-doors, which Ue hid in his way through
life.

10. Being bereft of all properties, and destitute of friends,

one has no other help to lift him up in his adversity, beside his
own patience and reliance in God.

11. Let men elevate their minds with learning and dispas-
nonatcnera, and with the virtues of self-dignity and valour,
inorder to rise over the difficulties of the world.

. 12. There is no greater good to ho derived by any other

means, than hy the greatness of mind. It gives a security
which no wealth nor earthly treasure can confer on men.

13. It is only men of weak and crazy minds, that are often
made to swing to and fro, and to rise and sink up and helow,
in the tempestuous ocean of the world.

14. The mind that is fraught with knowledge, and is full

with the light of truth in it, finds the world filled with ambrosial
water, and moves over it as easily, as a man walking on his
dry shoes, or on a ground spread over with leather.

16. It is the want of desire, that fills the mind more than
the fulfilment of its desires; dry up the channel of desire, as the
autumnal heat parches a pool.

16. Else it empties the heart (by sucking up the heart bloods,
and lays open its gaps to be filled by air. The hearts of the
avaricious are as dry as the bed of the dead sea, which was
sucked up (dnuued), by Agasti (son of the sage Agastya).

17. The spacious garden of human heart, doth so long flourish

with the fruits of humanity and greatness, as the restless ape of
avarice does not infest its fair trees. (The mental powers are
the trees, and the virtues are the fruits and flowers thereof).

18. The mind that is devoid of avarice, views the triple

world with the twinkling of an eye. The comprehensive mind
views all space and time as a minim, in comparison to its concep?
tion of t!he infinite Brahma with itself.
UPASAMA EBANDA.

W1

19. Tb(a<e is that coolness (sangfroid) in the mind of the

unavaricioos man, as is not to be found in the watery luminary
of the moon; nor in the icy caverns of the snow<capt Himalayas.
And neither the coldness of the plantain juice nor sandal paste,
is comparable with the cooUheadedness of inappetency.

20. The undesirons mind shines more brightly, tban the

disk of the full moon, and the bright countenance of the goddess
of prosperity (Lakshmi).

21. The urchin of appetence darkens the mind in the same

manner, as a cloud covers the disk of the moon, and as ink*hlack
obliterates a fair picture.

22. The arbour of desire stretches its branches, far and wide
on every side, and darkens the space of the mind with their
gloomy shadow.

23. The branching tree of desire being cut down by its root,
the plant of patience which was stinted under it, shoohi forth
in a hundred branches.

24. When the unfading arbour of patience, takes the

place of the uprooted desires; it produces the tree of paradise,
jeilding the fruits of immortality. (Patience reigns over the
untransmuted ill).

25. O well-intentioned BAma! if yon donot allow the sprouts

of your mental desires, to germinate in your bosom, you have
then nothing to fear in this world.

2G. When you become sober-minded after moderating your

hearts desires, you will then have the plant of liberation grow�
ing in its full luxuriance in your heart.

27. When the rapacious owl of your desire, nestles in your

mind, it is sure you will he invaded by every evil, which the
foreboding bird brings on its abode.

28, Thinking is the power of the mind, and the thoughts

dwell upon the objects of draire; abandon therefore thy
thoughts and their objects, and be happy with thy thought�
lessness of everything.

798

TOGA VA'SISHTnA.

29. Atiythiog that depends on any faculty, is lost also upon

inaction of that faculty; therefore it is by suppression of-yonr
thinking (or thoughts), that you can put down your desires, and
thereby have rest and peace of your mind.

SO. Be free minded, O Ildma I by tearing off all its worldly

ties, and become a great soul by suppressing your mean desires
of earthly frailties: for who is there that is not set free, by being
loosened from the fetters of desire, that bind his mind to this
earth.

CHAOTBR XXtI.

NaBBATIVE of VlBOaCtlANA.

Argument. Account ol king Bali and his kingdom, and tho lufonal
Ilegions ; His Besigaatioa of the World, and Rumbles over the Sumera
mountaina

V ASISHTHA said ^-O Rdmal that art the bright meon

of Raghn�s race, yon shonid also follow the example of Bali,
in acqiriring wisdom by self-discernment. (Bali the Daityaking
and founder of Malta Bali para, called Maralipura ia Deccan,
and in Southey�s poem on its Ruins).

2. Rdma said S�Venerable Sir, that art acquainted with all

natures, it is by thy favour that I have gained in my heart all
that is worth gaining ; and that is our final rest in. the purest
state of infinite bliss.

3. O sir, it is by your favor, that my mind is freed from tho

great delusion of my multifarious desires; as the sky is cleared
of the massy clouds of the rainy weather iu autumn.

4. My soul is at rest and as cold as a stone j it is filled with

the ambrosial dmught of Divine knowledge and its holy light; I
find myself to rest in perfect bliss, and as illumined as the queen
of the stars, rising ia her full light in the evening.

3. O thou dispellcr of my doubts, and rescmblest the clear

autumnal sky, that clears the clouds of the rainy season ! I am
never full and satiate with all thy holy teachings to me.

6. Relate to me Sir I for the advancement of my knowledge,

how Bali came to know the transcendental truth. Explain it
fully unto me, as holy saints reserve nothing from their suppliant
pupils.

7. Vasishtha repliedAttend Rdma ! to the intermting

narrative of Bali, and yoiir attentive hearing of it, will give you
the knowledge of the endless and everlasting truth and immut*
able verities.

Vot. II.

100
794

YOGA VASISHTHA.

8. There is in the womb of this earth, and in some particular

part of it, a place called the infernal region, which is situated
below this earth. (The.Ji^raor Pfttaia means the antipodes,
and is full of water).

9. It is peopled by the milk white Nuades or marine g^des*

BC88, bom in the milky ocean>sweet water, and of the race' of

demons, who filled every gap and chasm of it with their progeny.'
(The subterranean cells, were peopled by the earth-bom Titans).'
' 10. In some places it was peopled by huge serpents, with a
hundred and thousand heads; which hissed loudly With their
parted and forky tongues, and their long projected fangs.

11. In other places there were the monntainons bodies Of

demons, walking in their lofty strides, and seeming to fling above
the balls of the worlds as their bonbons, in order to devour them.

12. ' In another place there were big elephants, upholding the
earth on their elevated probosccs, and supporting the islands
upon their strong and projected tusks. (These elephants were
of the antedeluvian world, whose fossile remains are found tmder
the ground).

IS. There were ghosts and devils in other places, making

hideous shneks and noise; and there were groups of hellish
bodies, and putrid carcasses of ghostly shapes.

' 14. The depth of the nether world concealed in its dark-
some womb, rich mines of gems and metals, lying under thef
surface of the earth, and reaching to the seventh layer of pdtdla
or infernal regions.

15. Another part of this place, was sanctified'by the dust of

the lotus-like feet of the divine Kapila (Siva or Pluto); who was
adored by the gods and demigods, by prostration of their exalted
heads %t his holy feet.

16. Another part of it was presided by the god Sivi^ in Mis

form of a golden phallus (linga); -which was worshipped by the
ladies of the demons, with abundant offerings and merry xeveU
lies. (Siva or Pluto�the infernal god was fond of Ba^hanale
and revels).

UFASiUA KHANDA.

7;95,
- 17. Bali the sdn of Virochana, reigned in this place as the
king of demons, who supported the burden of his kingdom, on.
the pillars of their mighty arms.

I'd.� He forced the gods, VidyAdharas, serpents, and the king

of the gods, to serve at his feet like his vassal tmn, and they
were ^lad to serve him as their lord.

19. He was protected by Hari, who contains the gemming

worlds in the treasure of his bowels (brahmAnda~~ bhdndo>
dara), and is the preserver of all embodied beings, and the
support of the sovereigns of the earth.

20. His name struck terror in the heart of AirAvata, and

blade his cheeks fade with fear ; as the sound of a peacock
petrifies the entrails of serpents; (because the peacock is a ser*
pivoTous bird).*

21. The intense heat of his valour, dried up the* waters of

the septuple oceans of the earth; and turned them to seven dry
beds, as under the fire of the universal Confiagration.

' 22. But the smoke of his sacrificial fire, was an amulet to
the people for supply of water; and it caused the rains to fall as
profusely from above as the seas fallen below from the waters
above. (This alludes to the dynamite which was ignorantly
believed to be a talisman).

28. His frowning look, made the high heads of mountains

stoop low to the ground; and caused the lofty skies to lower
with water, like the high branches of trees when overloaded with ;
fruits. (It mean^ that the mountains and skies were obedienb
to his bidding).

� 24. This mighty monarch reigned over the demons for my�
riads of years; after he had made an easy conquest of tdl the
Areasores smd luxdries of the world.

2&. Thus he lived for many ages, which glided on like the
eonise of a river rolling about like the waters of whrilpool; and.
witnessed theincessont flux and reflux of the generations of gods^
demons and men, of the three worlds.

- �^---y

* Aintvaia sigDifies both Indra, the god of eocltim snd tbe celestiala, m
A toirlils vehicle, thooleplumtiiiecloQdf. ....

796

rOGA VifelSHtHA.

26. The king o� the demons felt at last, a distaste to all ihe
enjoyments of life, which he had tasted to surfeit} and he feH
also an ueasincss amidst the variety of bis pleasures.

27. lie retired to the farthest polar mount of Mern, and there
sitting at the balcony of one of its gemming pinnacles, he reflect
tod on the state of this world and the vanity of mortal life,

28. How long yet, thought he in himself, shall I have to rule

over this world with my indefatiguable labour j and how mucli
more must I remain to roam about ihe triple world, ia my sue^
cessive transmigrations ?

29. Of what use is it to me to have this unrivaled sovereignty,

which is a wonder in the three worlds; and of what good is it to mo,
to enjoy this plenteous luxury, which is so charming to the senses ?

SO. Of what permanent delight are all these pleasures tome,

which are pleasant only for the present short time, and are sure
to lose all their taste with my zest in them in the next moment?

31. There is the same rotation of days and nights in nnvary>

ing succession, and the repetition of the same acts day after day.
It is rather shameful and noway pleasant to any one, to continue
in the same unvaried course of life fw a great length of time.

32. The same embraces of our beloved ones, and partaking

of the same food day by day, are amusements fit for playful boys
only, but are disgraceful and disgusting to great minds.

33. What man of taste is there, that will not be disgusted to

taste the same sweets over and over again, wbieh be Iw tasted
all along, and which have become Vapid and tasteless to^^ay ; and
what sensible man can continue in the same coarse, without the
feelings of shame and remorse J

84. The revolving days and nights bring the same revolution
of duties, and I ween this repetition of the same ua^a-kritaiya
karamm, is as ridicnions to the wise, as the mastication of his
grinded meak-charhila charbana. (Kritasya Intwnm m ndstl^
mritasya maranam yatha. There is no doing of an act, which
has been done ? Nor the dying of a man, that's already dead).

35. The actions of men are as those of the waves, which rise

UPASAUA KHANtTA.

to fall and then rise again to subside in the waters. (This rising
and falling over and anon again, is to no purpose whatever).

� 86, The repetition of the same act, is the employment of mad

men ; and the wise man is laughed at, who reiterates the same
ehime, as the conjugation of a verb by boys, in all its moods,
tenses and inflexions.

37. What action is that which being once completed, does

not recur to us any more, but crowns its actor with his full suc�
cess all at once ? (It is cessation from repetitimi of the same action;
i. e. inaction).

38. Or if this bustle of the world, were for a short duration

only, yet what is the good that we can derive from our engaging
in this commotion ?

39. The course of actions is as interminable, as the ceaseless

repe tends of Imyish sports; it is hollmv harping on the. same
string, which the more it is played upon, the moru it reverberates
to its hollow sound. (The acts of men make a renown and vain
blustering sound only, and no real good to the actor).

40. 1 see no sueh. gain from any of our actions, which being^
once gained, may prevent our further exertions. (Action leads
to action, but non>action is a leader to quiescence or naitkarma).

41. What can our actions bring forth, beside the objects of
sensible gratifleation ? They cannot'l>ring about anything that is
imperishable. Saying so, Bali fell in a trance of his profound
meditation.

42. Coming then to himself; ho said:�Ah 11 now come to

remember, what 1 bad heard from my father�; so saying ho stre�
tched his eye-brows, and gave vent to what he though tin his mind.

43. �1 bad formerly asked my father Virochan^ who was

versed in spiritual knowledge* and acquainted with the manners
of the people of former and later ages,

44. Saying: what is that ultimate state of bring, where all

out pains and pleasures cease to exist; and after the attainment of
which, we have no more to wander about the world, we pass
through repeated transmigratiems.

TOGA ViSiSHTBA.

46. Wbat is tbat iSnal state towards which all onlr dndeavonn
are directed, and where onr minds are freed from their error; and
where we obtwn onr fall rest, after all onr wanderings and trans-
migrations?

46. What is that best of gains, which g^ves fall satisfaction

to the cravings of the soal; and what is that glorioos object^
whose sight transcends all other ol^ects of vision ?

47. All these various luxanes and snperflaities of the world,

are no way condacive to oar real happines; in as much as thqr
misl^ the mind to error, and corrupt the souls of even the
wisest of men.

48. Therefore, O fiither, show me that state of imperishable

felidlty, whereby 1 may attain to my everlasting repose and tran*
qnility.

49. My father having heard these words of mine, as he was

then sitting under the shade of the kalpa tree of paradise, whose
flowers were fairer tar than the bright beams of the nocturnal
luminary, and overspread the gpround all around} spoke to me in
his sweet melleiluous accents the following speech, for ihepniposo
of removing my error.

CHAPTER XXm.

Sjbbch o� ViaocHANA ON Subjection oe the Mind.

Aignment. The soul and mind pereonifled as a monarch and hia

minister.

Y IBOCHANA snidThere is an extensive country, my son,

somewhere in this universe, with a spacious concavity
therein, whose ample space is able to hold thousands o� worlds
and many more spheres in it.

2. It is devoid of the wide oceans and seas' and high mountains,

as there are in this earth; and there are not such forests, rivers
and lakes, nor holy places of pilgrimage, as you sec here
below.

8. There is neither land nor sky, nor the heavenly orbs as on

high; nor are there these suns and moons, nor the regents of the
spheres, nor their inhabitants of gods and demons.

4. There are no races of Yakshas and Bakshas, nor those

tribes of plants and trees, woods or grass} nor the moving and
immovable beings, as you see upon the earth.

6. There is no water no land, no fire nor air, nor are there the
mdes of the oompaffi, nor the regions you call above and below.
There is no light nor shadow, nor the peoples, nor the gods Hari,
Indra and Sivai nor any of the inferior deities or demigods there.

6. There is a great sovereign of that place, who is full of ineff*

able light. He is the creator and pervader of all, and is all in all,
but quite quiescent in all placM and things.

7. He had elected a minister, who was clever in administration

and brought about what was impossible to be done, and prevented
all mishaps from coming to pass.

8. He neither ate nor drank, nor did nor knew anything, be^
side minding and doing his master�s behests. In all other rea>
pects he was as inaotiim as a block of stone.

9. He copducted every business for his master, who renudoed

800
YOGA VA'SISHTnA.

quite retired from all his business, with enjoyment of bis rest and
case in his seclusion, leaving all his concerns to be managed by
his minister.

10. BaU said :�Tell me sir, what place is that which is devoid
of all population, and free from all disease and difficulty; who
knows that place, and how can it bo reached at by any
body.

11. Who is that sovereign of sovran power, and who that

minister of so great might; and who being quite apart from the
world, are inseparably connected with it, and are invincible by
our almighty demoniac power. (This monarch and master is the
soul and his minister is the mind).

12. Relate to me, O thou dread of the gods! this marvelous

ntory of the great might of that minister, inorder to remove
the cloud of doubt from my mind, and also why he is unconquer>
able by us,

18. Virochana repliedKnow my son, this mighty mi*

nister to be irresistible by the gigantic force of the Asnra giants,
�even though they were aided by millions of demons fighting on
their side.

14. Ho is invincible, my son, by the god of a thousand eyes

(Indra), and also by the gods of riches and death (Kuvera and
Yama, who conquer all, and neither the immortals nor giants, can
ever overpoper him by their might.

15. All weapons are defeated in their attempt to hurt him,

and the swords and mallets, spears and bolts, disks and cudgels,
that are hurled against him, are broken to pieces as upon their
striking against a solid rock.

16. He is unapproachable by missiles, and invulnerable by

arms and weapons, and unseizable by the dexterity of warriors!!
and it is by his resistless might, that he has brought the gods
and demigods under his subjection.

17^ It was he (the proud mind) that defeated our forefathers,

the mighty Hiranyas (Hiranyaksha and Hiranya Kasipu), before
they wore destroyed by the great Yishuu; who' felled � the

UPASAttA KHANDA. 801

biff Asnras, as a storm breaks down the sturdy and rocklike

oaks. *

18. The gods Ndrdyana and others (who had been the ina>
tractors of men), were all. foiled by him and confined in their
cells of the wombs of their mothers; (by an imprecation of the
sage Bhrigpi, who denounced them to become incarnate in human
forms).

19. It is by his favour that Kdma (cnpid), the god with his
flower bow and five arrows, has been enabled to subdue and over*
come the three worlds, and boasts of being their sole emperor.
(KAma ealled also Manoja, is the child of maua or mind, and
Eandarpa for his boast of his triumph).

20. The gods and demigods, the intelligent and the foolish,
the deformed and the irascible, are all actuated by his influence.
(Love is the leader to action according to Plato).

21. The repeated wars between the gods and Asuras, are
the sports of this minister; (who deliberates in secret the dcsti*
nies of all beings. The restless mind is continually at warfare).

22. This minister is only manageable by its lord-the silent

soul, or else it is as dull as an immovable rock or restless as the
wind.

28. It is in the long run of its advancement in spiritual

knowledge, that the soul feels a desire in itself to subdue its
minister; who is otherwise Ungovernable of its nature by lenient
measures. (Govern your mind or it will govern you. The mind
is best taught by whip).

24. You ore then mid to be valiant, if you can conquer this
greatest of the goints in the three worlds, who has been worrying

people out for their breath. (The mind longs for occupation).

26. After the rising of the intellect, the world appears as a

� It is recorded, that the forefathers of Bali to the fonrth ascent, were

an destroyed hyTlshnn, who took upon him the flnt four shapes of histeninoar*
naUana, namely ; those of the fish, tortoise, the hoar and the biform man and
lion, to destr^ them one after another; till he took his fifth form of the
dwiurf, to kill Bali also. Hence it was one family of the Asuras at Uaralipara
in Deccan, that caUod down Tisbnn five times from his heaven for their
fisstmetion).

Yoii. II.

101

802

yOGAVA^SISHTHA.

flower-gardon, and liko tho lake of blooming lotoses at snnrise;

and its setting covers the world in darkness as at sanset. (u e. in
nnconsciousness).
26. It is only by the aid of this intellect of yonrs, and by
removal of your ignorance, that you can subdue this minister,
and be famed for your wisdom. (Good government of the mind,
is more renowned than that of a rmlm).

27. By subduing this minister, you become the subduer of

the world, though you are no victor of it; and by your unsub�
jection of this, you can have no subjection over the v^orld, though
may bo the master of it.

28. Therefore be deligent to overcome this minister, by

your best and most ardent exertions, on account of effecting your
perfect consummation, and securing your everlasting happiness.

29. It is easy for him to overcome the triple world, and keep
all its beings of gods and demons, and the bodies of NAgas and
men, together with the races of Yakshas and llakshas, and the
tribes of serpents and Kinnaras, who has been able to subdue
this minister by his superior might. (Govern yourself, *and you
govern all besides).

CHAPTER XXIV.

On thb Hsalino and Improvement op the Mind.

Argmnont. Quelling of the misleading mind, and waiting upon the

Bovereign soul, with the perfection of Platonic Quitisin.

T>ALI said:�^Te!l me sir, plainly who is this minister oF so

great might, and by what expedients can so miighty a being
be vanquished and brought under subjection.

2. Virochana replied:�Tho�igh that minister, is invincible

and stands above all in his great mightyet I will tell yon the
expedients, whereby he may bo overcome by you or any one else."

S. Son I It is by employment of proper means that he may

be easily brought under subjection, and by neglect'oE which ho
will have the upper hand of yon like the snake poison, if it is
not repelled in time by means of efficacious mantras and in�
cantations.

4. The ministcral mind being brought up like a boy in the

right way he should go; leads the man to the presence of the
sovran soul, as the rd/a yoga or royal service advances the servant
before his king.

5. The appearance of the master makes the minister dis�

appear from sight; as the disappearance of the minister, brings
one to the full view of his king.

6. As long as one docs not approach to the presence of his

king, ho cannot fail to serve the minister ; and so long as he
is employed in service of the minister, he cannot come to the
sight of his king.

7. The king being kept out of sight, the minister is seen to

exercise his might ; but the minister being kept out of view, the
king alone appears in full view.

8. Therefore must we begin with the practice of both these

cxemiscs at once; namely; approaching by degrees to the sight of
the king, and slighting gradually the authority, of the minister.

804

YOGA VASISHTHA.

9. It must be by the exercise of yonr contintted manly ex�

ertions and diliprent application, that yon empoly yourself in
both these practices, inorder to arrive to the state of your well
being.

10. When you are sncoessful in yonr practice, yon are sure
to reach to that blissfnl country; and though you are a prince of
the demons, you can hare nothing to abstract yonr entrance
into it.

11. That is a place for the abode of the blessed, whose desires
are at rest and whose doubts are dissipated, and whose hearts are
filled with perpetual joy and calmness.

12. Now hear me, explain to yon, my son, what that place
is which I called a country. It is the seat of liberation (moksha),
and where there is an end of all onr pains.

IS. The king of that place is the soul of divine essence, which
transcends all other sobstances; and it is the mind which is ap�
pointed by that soul as its wise minister-

14. The mind which contains the ideal world in its bosomy
exhibits its sensible form to the senses afterwards j as the clod
of clay containing the mould of the pot, shows itself as the
model of a pot to viewj and the smoke having the pattern of
the cloud in its essence, represents its shadowy forms in the sky.
(The pattern of everything is engraven in the mind).

15. lienee the mind being conquered, everything is subdued

and brought under subjection; but the mind is invincible mthont
adoption of proper means for its subjugation.

16. Bali interrogatedWhat are these means, sir, which we

are to adopt for quelling the mind; tell it plainly to me, that I
may resort to the same, for this conquering invincible barrier
of bliss.

17. Virochana answered. The means for subduing the

mind, are the want of reliance and confidence on all external
and sensible things, and absence of all desire for temporal
possessions.

18. ^is is the best expedient for removal the great da-

UPABAMA KHAKDA. 805

liision oE this world, and sabdoing (he big elephant oE the mind
at once.

19. This expedient is both very easy amd practicable on one

hand, as it is arduous and impracticable on the other. It is the
constant habit oE thinking so that makes it &cile, but the want
oE snch habitude renders it difficult.

20. It is the gradual habit oE renouncing our fondness for

temporal objects, that shows itself in time in our resignation of
the world} as continuous watering at the roots of plants, makes
them grow to large trees afterwards.

21. It is as hard to master anything even by the most

cunning, without its proper cultivation for some time; as it is
impossible to reap the harvest from an unsown and uncultivated
field.

22. So long are all embodied souls destined to rove about the
vnldemess of the world, as their is the want oE resignation in
thdr heart of all the sensible objects in nature.

28. It is impossible without the habit of apathy, to have a

distaste for sensible objects, as it is no way possible for an
ablebodied man, to travel abroad by sitting motionless at
home.

24. The firm determination of abandoning the stays of life,

and a habitual .aversion to pleasures and enjoyments, make a
man to advance to purity, as a plant grows in open air to its
full height.

26. There is no good to be derived on earth, without the ex�

ertion of one�s manliness, and man must give up his pleasure and
the vexation of his spirit, inorder to reap the fruit of his actions.
� 26. People speak of a power as distiny here, which has
nrither any shape nor form of itself. It means whatever comes
to pass, and is also called our lot or fatality.

27. The word destiny is used also by mankind, to mean

an aedident over which they have no control, and to which they
submit with passitm obedience.

28. They use the word destiny for repression of our joy and
grid (at what is unavoidable ); but destiny however fixed as &te.

80J YO�GfA VA'SISHTHA.

is overcome and set aside by means of manly exsertidns ]^n

mmiy instances).

29. As the delusion of the mira^, is dispelled by the light of

its true nature j so it is the exertion of manliness, which upsets
destiny by effecting whatever it wishes to bring about.

SO. If we shonld seek to know the cause for the good or

bad results of our actions, we must learn that they turn as well
as the mind wishes to mould them to being.

81. Whatever the mind desires and decrees, the same become
the destiny; there is nothing destined (er distinctly to be
hnown), as what wc may call to be distined or undestined.

32. It is the mind that docs all this, and is the employer of
destiny ; it destines the destined acts of destiny.

83. Life or the living soul is spread out in the hollow sphere
of the world, like air in vaceum. The psychic fluid ciiculates
through all space.

(The psychic fluid extending throughout the universe, accor�

ding to the theory of Stahl).

S t. Destiny is no reality, but a term invented to express the

property of fixity, as the word rock is used to denote stability.
Hence there is no fixed fate or destiny, as long as the mind
retains its free will and activity.

35. Afte.' the mind is set at rest, there remains the prineiplo
of the living soul (Jiva- zoo). This is called tbo. p�r��/ia or
embodied spirit, which is the source of the energies of the body
and mind.

36. Whatever the living soul intends to do by means of its

spiritual force, the so mo comes to take place and no other. (There
being nor even the influence of the mind to retard its action.
So my son, there is no other power in the world except that of
spirit or spiritual force).

87. Reliance on this spiritual power will uproot your depen-

dance on bodily nutriments; and there is no hope of spiritual
happiness, until there is a distate towards temporal enjoyments.

88. It'^ is hard to attain to the dignity of the all conquering^

UPASAMA EHANDA. 807

telf-snfficiency, as long as one has the dastardly spirit of his

earthly cravings.

� 39. As long os one is swinging in the cradle of worldly

affairs, it is hard for him to find his rest in the bower of peace'*
ful tranquility.

40. It is hard for you to get rid of your serpentine (crooked)

desires, without your continued practice of indifference to and
unconcernedness with worldly affairs.

41. Bali rejoined :�^Tell me, O lord of demons! in what

manner, indifference to worldly enjoyments, takes a deep root in
the human heart > and produces the fruit of longivity of the em�
bodied spirit on earth. (By longivity is meant the spiritual life of
man, and his resting in the divine Spirit, by being freed from the
aceidents of mortal life).

42. Virochana replied:�^It is the sight of the inward spirit,

which is productive of indifference to worldly things; as the
growth of vines is productive of the grapes in autumn.

43. It is the sight of the inward Spirit, which produces our

internal unconcernedness with the world; as it is the glance of
the rising sun, which infuses its lustre in the cup of the lotus.

44. Therefore sharpen your intellect, by the whetstone of

right reasoning; and see the Supreme Spirit, by withdrawing
your mind from worldly enjoyments.

.46, There are two modes of intellectual enjoyment, of which

one consists of book learning, and the other is derived from atten�
dance on the lectures of the preceptor, by those that are imperfect
jn their knowledge, {i. e. the one is theoretical for adepts and
the other is practical for novices).

46. Those who arc a little advanced in learning, have the

double advantage of their mental enjoyment, namely; their re�
flection of book, learning and consultation with wise preceptors
on practical points. (Hence the practice of Yoga requires a
Yogi guide also).

47. Those who are accomplished in learning, have also two

. parts of their dutira to perform; namely, the profession of the

B^Uas teaching them to others, and the practice of indifference

808

VOa^ VA'StSBTHA.

for tbem^lves. (Bttt the last and lowest kind, 0|i1y have to wut
on the gurn and reflect on what they hear from him).

48. . The flottl being purified, the man is fitted for Spiritnal
learning; as it is the clean linen only which is fit to receive every
good tincture upon it.*

49. The mind is to be tnuned by degrees, like a boy in the

path of learning; namely by means of persuation and good lec�
tures, and then by teaching of the sdstras, and lastly by discus-
aion of their doctrines.
60, After its perfection in learning and dispersion of all diffi�
culties and doubts, the mind shines as a piece of pure crystal,
and emits its lustre like the cooling moonbeams.

61. It then sees by its consummate knowledge and clear

understanding, in both the form of its God the Spirit, and the
body which is the seat of its enjoyments on earth.

6%. It constantly sees the spirit before it, by means of its

understanding and reason; which help it also to relinquish its
desire for worldly objects and enjoyments.

63. The sight of the Spirit produces the want of desires,

and the absence of these shows the light of the spirit to its sight;
therefore they are related to each other like the wick and oil of
the lamp, in producing the light, and dispelling the darkness of
the night.

64. After the loss of relish in worldly enjoyments, and the

sight of the Supreme Spirit, the soul finds its perpetual rest in
the essence of the Supreme Brahma.

66. The living souls that place their happiness in worldly

objects, can never have the taste of true felicity, unless they rely
themselves wholly in the Supreme Spirit.

68. It may be possible te derive some delight from acts of

charity, sacrifices and holy pilgrimage; but none of these can
give the everlasting rest of the Spirit.

67. No one feels a distaste for pleasure, unless he examines

* Instrootion of alntniae knowlodge from yogi to the impoKO, is pearls

More swine ; as it ii said; vfsqnrr vn w w wi* I

UPASAMA KHANDA 809

ib natare and effects in himself; and nothing can teach the

way of seeing the soalj unless the soul reflects on itself,

58. Those things are of no good whatever, my boy, that

may be had without one^s own exertion in gaining it; nor is there
any true happiness, without the resignation of earthly en>
joyments.

59. The Supreme felicity of rest in the state of Brahma, is

to be had nowhere in this wide world, either in this mundane
sphere, or anywhere else beyond these spheres.

60. Therefore expect always how your soul may find its rest
in the divine Spirit, by relying on the exertion of your manlU
ness, and leaving aside your dependance on the eventualities of
destiny.

61. The wise man detests all worldly enjoyments as if they

are the strong bolts or barriers at the door of bliss; andit is the
settled aver�sion to earthly pleasures, that brings a man to
his right reason.

62. As the increasing gloominess of rainy clouds, is follow�

ed by the serenity of autumnal skies, so clear reasoning comes after
detestation of enjoyments, which fly at the advance of reason.

63. As the seas and the clouds of heaven, help one another
' by lending their waters in turn; so apathy to pleasures and right

reasoning, tend to produce each other by turns.

64. So disbelief in destiny, and engagement in manly exer�

tion, are sequences of one another, as reciprocities of service are
consequences of mutual friendship.

65. It must bo by the gnashing of your teeth (*. e. by your

firm resolve), that you should create a distaste even of Idiose
things, which you have acquired by legal means and conformably
to the custom of your country.

66. You mtut first acquire your wealth by means of your

manly exertions, and then get good and clever men in your
company by means of yonr wealth : (t. e. patronise the learned
therewith, and improve yonr mind by their instructions).

67. Association with the wise produces an aversion to the

Vot. n. 102

YOGA VA'SlSnTnA.

�mo

sensual .enjoyments of life, by oxciting the reasoning potrer,

which gains for its reward an increase of knowledge and learning.

'68. These lead gradually to the acquirement of that state of

consummation, which is concomitant with the utter renuncia�
tion of worldly objects.

69. It is then by means of your reasoning that you attain

to that Supreme State of perfection, in which you obtain your
perfect rest and the holiness of your soul.

70. You will then fall no more in the mud of your miscon-
oeptions; but as a pure essence, you will have no dependance on
anything, but become as the venerable Siva yourself.

71. Thus the steps of attaining consummation, are first of

all the acquisition of wealth, acconling to the custom of the
caste and country; and then its employment in the service of
wise and learned men. Next follows your abandonment of the
�world, which .is succeeded by your attainment of Spiritual
knowledge, by the cultivation of your reasoning powers. *
W Reason is a Jivino attribnto and givon to man for his disoemment ef
tmth from untmth, and of true felicity of the soul, from its fetters of the frail�
ties of this world).

CHAPTER XXV.

Reflisctions of Bali.

Aigumcnt. Rise of intellectual light iu Bali�s mind, and hie Reference'

Co Sukra for Advice,

TVALI said:�In this manner did my sapient father advise

me before on this subjeet, which I fortunately remember a�
the present moment for the enlightenment of my understanding.

2. It is now that I feel my aversion to the enjoyments of life,

and come to perceive by my good luck the bliss of tranquility,
to liken the clear and cooling ambrosial drink of bcavenly blis.

S. 1 am tired of all my possessions, and am weary of my conti�

nued accnmnlation of wealth, for the satisfaction of my endless
desires. The live-long care of the family also has grown tiresome
to me.

4. But bow charming is this peace and tranquility of my soul,

which is quite even and all cool within itself. Here are all our
pleasures and pains brought to meet upon the same level of
equality and indifference.

5. I am quite unconcerned with any thing and am highly

delighted with my indifference to. all things ; I am gladdened
within myself as by the beams of the fall-moon, and feel the
orb of the full moon rising, within myself.

6. O 1 the trouble of acquiring riches, which is attended by

the loud bustle of the world and agitation iu the mind, and the
heart burn and fatigue of the body ; and is aecompained with
incessant anxiety and affliction of the heart.

7. The limbs and flesh of the body, are smashed, by labour

and all bodily exercises that pleased me once, now appear to be
the long and lost labours of my former ignorance.

S. 1 have s^n the sights of whatever was worth seeing,

and enj[oyed the enjoymonta which knew no hounds; 1 hava

812 YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

overcome all beinge; but wbat is tbe good^ (that I have derived
from all this).

0, There is only a reiteration of the Very same things, that

I bad there, here and elsewhere; and I found nowhere now any
thing new, that 1 had not seen or known before.
10. I am now sitting here in foil possession myself, by
resigning every thing and its thou^tfrom my mind; and there�
by 1 find that nothing whatever nor even its thought forma
any componen-part of myself;

11. The best things in the heaven above, earth and in this
infernal regions, are reckond to bo their damsels, gems and
jewels; bat all these are destroyed and wasted sooner or later
by the cruel hand of time.

12. 1 have acted foolishly all this time, by waging a contine-

ous struggle with the gods, for the sake of tbe trifle of worldly
possessions. (The warn of the earth-born demons and the foreign
deities arc well known in the early history oi the world);

13. What is this phantom of the world, but a creation of

tbe brain; what then is the harm of forsaking it forever in which
great souls take no delight whatever?

14. Alas 1 that I have spent such a large portion of my life

time, in pursuing after trifles in the ignorant giddiness oi my
mind.

15. My fickle and fluctuating desires, have led me to do many

acts of foolishness, in this world of odds and trifles, which now fill
me with remorse and regret. (Remembracne of the past, is fraught
with regret. -

16. But it is in vain to be overwhrimed with the sad thoughts

of the past, while 1 should use my manly exertions to improve
the present. (The present time is in our hand, but who the past
can recall, or the future command.

*17. It is by reflecting on the eteroal cause of the endless in�

finity of souls in the soul, that one can attain his perfect felicity i
as the god^ got the ambrosia from the Milky ocean. CTme blki is
to be derived from the blissful Diety.

UPASAMA KHANDA.

HI3

18. I most coQsuIi my preceptor Sukra, concerning the Ego

and the soul and spiritnal vision, of the soot of souls in order
to expel my ignorance in these matters.

18. I most refer these questions to the most venerable Sukra,

who is always complacent to his favorites ; and then it is possible
that by his advice I shall be settled in the highest perfection of
seeing tbenupi-eme spirit, in my spirit, because the words of the
wise, are ever fraught with full meaning and are fruitful of the
desired object.
CHAPTEB XXVI.

Admonition of Sukra to Bali.

Argument, Suki'ie appearance at the call of Bali; and hie advice to>
him on tile attainment of divine knowledge.

�I7ASISTHA saidSo saying tho mighty Bali dosed his eyes,

� and thought upon the lotus-eyed Sukra, ahiding in his
heavenly abode. (Sukra the planet Venus represented as the
preceptor of demons, as Vrihaspati the planet Jupiter is said to-
be the Spiritual guide of the deities),

2. Sukra, who sat intently meditating on the all^ervading-

spirit of God, eame to know in his mind, that he was remem�
bered by his desciple Bali in his city.

3. Then Sukra the soa of Bhrigu,. whose soul was united

with tho all-iKirvading inGnite and omniseient q>irit, descended
with his heavenly body at the gemming window of Bali, ('deco�
rated with gloss doors).

4. Bali knew the body ol his guide by its lustre>^ as the-

letus Gower perceives the rising sun by his dawning beams.

5. He then honoured his or guide, by adoring bis feet

on a scat decked with gems, and with offering of maadara

flowers upon him.

6. As Sukra took has rest on the gemming seat from the-

labour of bis journey, he was strewn over with offerings oi geins-
en his body, and heaps of mandara flowers upon his bead; after
which Bali addressed him thus

7. Venerable sir, this illustrious presence of thy grace before-

me, emboldens mo to address to thee> as the monung sun-beams.
send all mankind to-their daily work.

8. I have come to feel an aversion, Sis,, to- all kinds of worldly

enjoyments, which are productive of the delusion of onr souls;,

and want to know the truth relating to it� in. order to- dispel my
ignorance df myself. �

UPASAMA RHANDA.

�15

y. Tell me, sir, in sliort, what are these enjoyments good for,
and how far they extend j and what am I, thoa or these people
in reality. (Extenrt of enjoyments-hhoga, means their limitation
and duration).

10. Snkra answered :�T can not tell you in length about
it, as I have soon to repair to my place in the sky. Hear me O
monorch of'demons tell this much briefly to yon at present.

11. There is verily but the intellect in reality, and all this

'existence beside is verily the intellect and full of intellect: The

mind is the intellect, and I, thou and these people arc collectively
the very intellect. (Gloss. These sayings are based on the srntis,
namely; All these are but different aspects of the one intellect.
Again ; All things depend on the Also ;->-This chit am

I, thou and this Brahma and ludra and all others. There
is no other looker or the subjective; or the hearer or objective
beside the o?iit i and so lot'th)..

12. If you are wise, know you derive every thing from this
Chit�the universal Intellect j or else all gifts of fortune are as
trseless to you as the offering of butter on ashes(which cannot
consume it, or make a burnt offering of it to the gods).

13. Taking the intellect as something thinkable or object of

thought, is the snare of the mind; but the belief of its frecne^s
or incomprehensibility, is what confers liberation to the soul.
The incomprehensible intellect is verily the universal soul,
which is the sum of all doctrines. (All faiths and doctrines tend
to the belief of ono unknowable God). <

14. Knowing this for certain, look on everything as such;

and behold the spirit in thy spirit, inorder to arrive to the state
�f the Infinite spirit. (Or else the adoration of a finite object,
must lead to a finite state).

15. I have instantly to repair to the sky, where the seven

munis are assembled; (the seven planets or the seven stars of the
pleades'saptarshi?), where I have to continue in the performance

of my divine service.

16. I tell you, O king I that you must not of yourself get

616

YOGA VA'STSHTllA.

rid of your duties, as long as you are in this body of your�s,

bring though your naind may be freed from everything. (The
embodied being mast continue in the discharge of his bodily duty).

17. So saying, Snkra flew as a bee besmeared with the fari-

nacions gold-dust of the lotus, to the aureate vault of heaven;
and passed through the watery path of the waving clouds, to
where the revolving planets were ready to receive him.
CHAPTER XXVit.

IIebetube of Bai.i.

Argument. Bsili attains to his state of Ecstacy, I>y his observanee ojt.
^ukra's precepts.:

�ITASISIlTflA saiil;�After Sakra, the son of Bbriga iuA

* senior in the assembly of gotls and demigods, had wxit
Ins dcpartarc, Bali the best among the intelligent, reflected: HtOi.
in himself.

2. Truly has the seer said, that the Intellect composes tbo.
three worlds, and that 1 am this Intellect, and the lutellcct
fills all the quarters, and shows itself in all oar actions.

3. It is the Intellect which pervades the inside and ontside o�

'bvery thing, and there is nothing anywhere which is without the
Intellect.

' 4. It is the Intellect that perceives the sunbeams and moon*

light, or else there would be no distinction between them and
darkness, had not there been this intellectual perception.

' 5. If there were no such intellectual perception as thi� earth

is land, then there would he no distinction of earth and watw>
nor the word earth apply to land.

'6. If the Intellect would not understand the vast space as

the quarters of the shy, and the mountains as vast protuberances
on earth; then who would call the sides and the mountains by
tho^ names ?

7. If the world were not known as the world and the vacuum
ds vacuity, then who would distinguish them by the names that
are-in common use ?

..i 8. If this big body was not jmreeived by the intellect, how
proper could the bodies of embodied beings be called by their
names �

9. The Intellect resides in every organ of sense, it dwells in

the body mind aiid all its desires; the intellect is in the interna!
Vot. II. 103

Yoga va'sishtha.

M8

anil external parts of the body, and the intellect is nil that is
in existent and non-existant, (Because the inteUe<;t has the
notions of .all these things, which would not come to exist,
4f they were not in the rntellect),

'lO. The Iiitellei't forms my wholeself, l>y its feeling and

Jcnowing of everything that I feel and know ; or else i�tJaii
neither perceive or conceive nor do anything with my liody aloiiei^
and-without guidance of the intellect.

11. What avails this body of mine, which is inert and in�
sensible as a block of wood or stone-; it is the intellect tliat
makes my self, and it is the intelligent spirit which is the niii-
veisal Soul.

1-it. I am the pniellect which resides in the sun and in the

sky, and 1 am the intellect which dwells in the bodies of aU
Ix'lngs; 1 am the same intellect which guides the gods and
demigods, and dwells alike in the movables and immovable
hollies.

13. The intellect being the solexistence, it is in vain to

suppose aught besides; and their being naught otherwise, there
can be no difference of a friend or foe to us.

H. What is it if I Bali, strike off the head of a person from

his body, 1 can not injure the soul which is everywhere and
fills all space.

15. The feelings of love and enmity are properties of the

intellect (Soul), and arc not separated from it by its separation
from tlie body. Hence the passions and feelings are insepar�
able from the Intellect or smtl.

i 6. Tliere is nothing to be thought of beside the latellect,

and notliing to be obtained anywhere, except ftoni the spacious
womb of the Intellect, which comprehends all the three worlds.

� 17. But the passions and feelings, the mind and iii powers,
are mere attributes and not properties of the Ii^ellect i which
being altogether a simple and pure essence, is free from every,
attribute.

13. The Intellect cAii is the Ego, the emnipresent, all pervsp

UPASAMA KHANT>A. fit�

�ive and' �rer felicitous soul; it is beyond all other attributes,

and without a duality or parts.

19. The term Intellect ehit^ which is applied to the nameless

power of intellection�vs bat awerbal symbol signifying the
omniscient Intelligence,- which< is manifest in all places. (�. #.
The Divine Intellect is both omniscient as well as omnipresent,
while human understanding is narrow and circumscribed).

2^0. The Ego is the Supreme Lord, that is ever awake and
sees all things without manifesting any appearance of himself.
He is purely transparent and beyond all visible apiveavaoees*

2t. All its attributes are lame, partial and imperfect. Eken
time which lias its phases and parts, is not a proper attribute fdr
it. It is but a glimpse of its light that rises before us, but the
eternal and infinite light,.is beyond.our comprehensionw

22. 1 must think of it only in the form of lighk- in my own

self, and know it apart from all other thinkables and 'thought*,
and quite aloof from all shades and colours.

23. 1 salute his self-same form of Intelligence, and the

power of Intellection, unaccompanied by the intelligible, and
employed in its-proper sphere.

24v I salute tliat Kght of his in'me, which reprraents every

thing to me; which is beyond all thought, and is of the form
of Intellect, going everywhere and dilihg all space.

25. It is the quiet consciousness of all beings, the real

Intellect (sach-chit), the Ego and-the Great; the- Ego which is
as infinite as space, and yet minuter than an atom, and spread�
ing in all alike.

26. 1 am not snhjecb to the states of pleasure and pain, I am

Qonscious of myself and of no-other existence besides myself*;
aud I am Intelligence-ndthunt the intelligibles spread oat before
me.

27. No worldly entity nor non-entity (t. e. neither the gain

sf any object nor its wanf^, can-'work any change in me > for
the possession of worldly objects would d-stroy me at once, by
tiuiic.8e�aatiug my soul frotiLGodj..

�30

TOGA VASrSHTHA.

28. la my opiaion there is nothing that is distinct from

me, Mrhen we know all things as the produce of the sanre
sonreo ?

Z9. What one gets or- loses is no gain or loss to any {u e. to.

. the gainer or loser) > because the same Ego always abides in al!^
and is the Maker of all and pervading everywhere.

30. Whether I am any of the thinkable ohjeets or not, it

matters me little to. know; since the Intellect is 8].>vays a single-
thing, though its intclligibles (i. e. its jirod'actions or thoughts^
are endless.

31. I am so long in sorrow, as my soul is not nnited-withi

ftho Holy spirit. So saying, the most discerning Ball felt to a
deep meditation.

82. He reflected on the half mantra of Om (i. e, the dot

�only); an. cnhlem of the Infmite God; and sat qnietly with idl hia
.'deeircB and fancies lying dormant in him.
S3. Ho sat undaunted, by suppressing his thoughts and hih
thinking powers within him; and remained with liis subduedi
idesircs, after having lost the cousciousness of his meditation, and
of his being the meditator and also of meiMtated object. (*. e.
without knowing himself as the subject or object of hia
ihonghts and acts).

Si. While Ball was entranced in this manner at thn window

.which was decked with gems, he became i^umined in his mind
as a lighted lamp flaming unshaken by the wind. And be-
..remained long in his steady posture as a statue carved -of'
a stone.

35. He sat with his mind as clear as the autumnal sky,,

[ after having cast off all his desires and mental anxieties, and
dciog filled within himself with his splcitual light.

CHAPTER XXVin.

i��� DEScntPTioN OP Batj^s Ast^sthesia.

Argument. Anxiety of tlie demons at the supiiienesia of Bali, and Uio

'Appearanee of Sukra with them before hiin.

V ASI&IITHA contiuiicil:�The servile-demons ot Bkli, (beings

impatient at this numbness of their king'), ascended hastily^'
to his high crystal palace, and stood at the door of liis chamber.

2.. There were his minsters Dimblia and others among tbeip,.
a>nd his generals Kumnd'a and others also. There were like�
wise the ])rinees Sura and others in the uninbcr, and his cham�
pions Vritla and the rest.

&I Tlicrc wera Hayagriva asid the other captains of his armi<*
es, with his friends Akraja and others. His associates Laduka
and some more joined the train* with his servants Yalluka auid
Bsatiy morew

4. There were- aho the gods Kuvera, Yama and Indra that
�paid him their tribute; and the Yakshas, Vidyddhars and Ndgas.
that rendered him, their services. (Were the Vidyddhars tlie-
Yedias or gipsies of modem India?).

h. There were-the heavenly aymphs BlambhtL and Tilottanidi

ju the mudber, with the fanning and flapping damsels of hia
�eourt; and the deputies of diffei'ent provinces and of hilly and
jaaritime districts, were aIso.in>attendfuice.

6k Tliese accompanied by the Siddhas inhabiting difforenh

parts of the three worlds, all waited at that place to tender their
services to Bali.

7. They beheld Bali with reverence) witla his head hanging

down with the crown upon it, and his arms hanging loosely wilh
.the pendant bracelets on themk

. 8. Seeing him- thtis, the great Asuras made their obeisance to.
him in due Form, and were stupified witli sorrow and fear, and
jstiiuck with wonder and joy by.tuins at this sad plight of his.

TOGA V^ISHTHA.

9. Tlie ministers kept pondering about wbat was the

with him, and the demons besought their alf knowing piw-
eeplor Sukra, for his explaining the case to them.

10. Quick as thought they beheld the shining figure of

Sukra, standing eonfest to their sight, as if they saw the phantom
of their imagination appearing palpable to view,

11. Sukra being honoured by the demons,, took his seat on

a sofa ; and saw in his silent meditationi the state of the mind of
the king of demons.

12'. He semaaned for a while to behold, with, flight, hoar

the mind of Balt was freed from errors, by the exercise of it*
reasoning powers.

13.. The illustrious preceptor, tlie Uistre of whose person pt^

' to- shame the brightness of the milky ocean, then said smiling, iot.
the listening throng of the demons.

14. Know ye demons, this Bali to have become an adept in^

his spiritual knowledge^ and. to have fixed his seat in holy lights
by the working of his intellect: (t. e. by his intuition only;.

15. Let him alone, ye good demons, remain, in. this, position,
icsting in himsell and behekling tha impensbable one withia
himself in his reverie..

IG. Lo! here the weary pilgrim to have got his rest, and his
mind is freed from the errors of tliis false world.. Disturb him not
with your sia'ccb, who is now as cold as iee..

17. Ike has now received tliait light of knowledge amidst the
gloom of ignorance, as the waking mambeholds- the full blaae
of the sun, after dispersion of the darkness of his sleep at down.

18. He will in. time wake from bis krance, and rise like the
germ of a seed, sprouting from the seed vessek in its proper
season.

10. Go ye leaders of the demons from henS) and perform,

your respective duties assigned to yon by your master ; for it
will take a thousand, years, for Bali to wake from bis trance: (as
a moment�s sleep makes a myriad of years in a dream),

810, Aft^r Sukra the Guru.and guide of the demons, hsA.

<OI>ASAKA KIIAKDA.
�m

�polccn in this manner, they were Tilled with alternate jey

and ^rief in their hearts, and cast aside their anxiety abunt him,
�8 a tree casts its withered leaves away�

21. The Asura�s then left their kin$; Bali to rest in his
lace in the aTovesaid manner, and retnriied to their respective
offices, as the/ had been emplc^ed heretofore.

22. It now became night, and all men retired to their eai th�
ly abodes, the serpents entered into their boles, the stars appear^-
ed in the skies, and the gods reposed in their celestial domes.
The regents of all sides and mountainous tracts, went to the
own quarters, and the beasts of the forest and birds of the air,
ded and ilew to their own eoverts and nests.

X)CIX.

IJaLi�s IlKSUSClTATtON TO SENSIBltlTt.

Argument. SulC-cenfincmont of the Living-libcrateil Bali in ilio

Vrtl Begiopa.

Y ASTSHTIIA related After the ihotisand years of the eelcs^

rials, had rolled on in Bali�s Unconsciousness; he was roused,
io his sensibility, at the bcatin;; of heavenly drums by the gods
above : (the loud peal of clouds).

2. Bali being awake, his city (Mavaiipuram) was renovated

with fresh beauty, as the lotns-bcd is revivified by the rising sun
in the eastern horizon: (Vairineha or Brahmd-loca, placed at the
Bunrising points).

3. Bali not finding the demons before him after ho was

awaked, fell to the reflecting of the reveries daring his state of
antrancement (Samadhi).

.4. O how charming! said he, was that cooling rapture of

spiritual dclighi^ in which my soul had been enraptd for a
short time.

5. 0 how I long to resume that state of felicity t becanse

these outward enjoyments \Vhich I have relished to my fill, have
ceased to please me any more.

'6. I do not find the waves of those delights even in the. orb
of tho moon, as I felt in the raptures trhich undulated in my
soul, during tho entranced state of my insensibility.

7. Bali was again attempting to resume his state of ineicci*

tability, when he was interrupted by the attendant demons, aS
the moon is intercepted by the surrounding clouds.

S. He cast a glancing look upon them, and was going to close

his eyes in meditation; utter making his prostration on the
ground; but was instantly obtruded upon by their gigantic
sialurcs standing all around him.

9. He then reflected in himself and said. The intelleet

UPASAMA KHANDA.

825

Veing devoid of its option, there is nothing for me to dcsiro;

but the mind being fond of pleasures vainly pursues after them:
(which it cannot fully gain, enjoy or long retain).

10. Why should I desire my emancipation, when I am not

confined by or attached to anything here: it is but a childish freak
to seek for liberation, when I am not bound or bound to anything
below. (The soul is perfectly free of itself, but it is the mind
that enchains it to earth).

11. 1 have no desire of enfranchisement nor fear for incar�

ceration, since the disappearance of my ignorance; what need
have I then of meditation, and of what good is meditation to me ?

12. Meditation and want of meditation arc both mistakes of

tlio mind; (there being no efficacy or ineffieaey of cither). Wo
must depend on our manliness, and hail all that comes to pass
on us without rejoicing or shrinking: (Since all good and evil
proceed from God).

13. 1 reijuire neither thoughtfulness nor thoughtlessness,

nor enjoyments nor their privation, hut must remain unmoved
and firm as one sane and sound.

I t. I have no longing for the spiritual, nor craving for tem�

poral things; I have neither to remain iu the meditative mood,
nor in the state of giddy worldlincss.

15. I am not dead, (because my soul is immortal); nor can I

be living, (because the soul is not connected with life). I am not
a reality (as the body), nor an unreality, (composed of spiritual
essence only); nor 1 am a material or aerial body (being neither
this body nor Vital air). Neither am I of this world or any
other, but self-same ego�the Great.

16. When I am in this world, I will remain hero in quiet;

when 1 am not here, I abide calmly in the solace of my soul.

17. What shall I do with my meditation, and what with all

nay royalty ; let any thing come to pass as it may; 1 am no�
thing for this or that, nor is anything mine.

18. Though I have nothing to do, (because I am not a free

agents nor inaster of my actions); yet 1 most do the duties
VoL. II. . 104

YOGA VifilSHTHA.

appertaining to my station in sodety. (Done the duties of one's

station in life, is reckoned by some as tbe only obligation of
man here belonr. So says the poet: "Act irell thy part, there
are the honor lies.�).

19. After ascertaining so in his mind, Bali the wisest of the

wise, looked upon tbe demons with complacence, as the snn look-
eth upon the lotuses.

20. With the nods and glancings of his eyes, he received

their homages; as the passing winds bear the odours of the flowers
along with them: (meaning to say; His cursory glances bore their
regards, as the fleet winds bear the fragrance of flowers the rose).

21. Then Bali ceasing to think on the object of his medita�

tion ; accosted them concerning their respective offices under him.

22. lie honoured the devas and his gurus with due respect,
and saluted his friends and ofllccrs with his best regards.

23. He honoured with his largesses, all bis servants and

suitors; and he pleased the attendant maidens with various
persons.

21. So he continued to prosper in every department of his

government, until he made up his mind to perform a great sac�
rifice (yajna) at one time.

25. He satisfied all beings with his great gifts, and gratified
the great gods and sf^cs with due honour and veneration. He
then commenced the ceremony of the sacrifice under the guidance
of Sukra and the chief ffvru* and priests.

26. Then Vishnu the lord of Iiakshmi, came to know that

Bali had no desire of earthly fruition; and appeared at his sac�
rifice to crown him with the success of bis undertaking, and con�
fer upon him bis desired blessing.

27. He cunningly persudel him, to make a gift of the world

to Indra his elder brother, who was insatiably fond of all kinds
of enjoyment. (Indra was elder to Vishnu, who was thence
called Upendra or the junior Indra).

28. Having deceived Bali by his artifices of dispossessing

him of tbe three worlds, he shut him in the nether world, as

UP^AMA KHANDA.
627

they confine a monkey in a cave under the |�ronnd. (This was

by Vishnu's incarnation in the form of a dwarf or puny man,
who considered to be the most canning among men. {mulimn
in parvo ; or a man in miniatue).

29. Thus Bali continues to remain in his confinement to this

day, with his mind fixed in meditation, for tha purpose of his
attainment of Indraship again in a future state of life.

30. The living liberated Bali, being thus restrained in the

infernal cave, looks upon his former prosperity and presents ad>
versity in the same light.

31. There is no rising or setting of his intelligence, in the

states of his pleasure or pain; but it remained one and the same
in its full brightness, like the disk of the sun in a painting.

32. He saw the repeated flux and reflux of worldly enjoy�

ments, and thence settled his mind in an utter indifference about
them.

33. He overcame multitudes of the vicissitudes of life for

myriads of years, in all his transmigrations, in the three worlds,
and found at last, his rest in his utter disregard of ail mortal
things.

34. He felt thousands of comforts and disqiricts, and hund-

dreds of pleasures and privations of life, and after his long
experience of these, he found his repose in his perfect quiesence.

35. Bali having forsaken his desire of enjoyments, enjoyed

the fulness of his mind in the privation of his wants; and re�
joiced in self-sufficiency of his soul, in the loneliness of his sub�
terranean cave.

36. After a course of many years, Bali regained his sover�

eignty of the world, and governed it for a long time to his heart�s
content.

37. But he was neither elated by his elevation to the dignity

of Indra->the lord of gods; nor was he depressed at this pros�
tration from prosperity.

38. He was one and the same person in every state of his
life, and enjoyed the equanimity of his soul, resembling the
serenity of the etherial sphere.

828

YQQA VAlSISHTHA.
89. I have related to you the whole stoiy of Bali�s attaiu-
meat of true wisdom, and advise you now, O B&ma I to imitate
his example for your elevation, to the same state of perfection.

40. Learn os Bali did by his own discernment, to think

yourself as the immortal and everlasting soul j and try to r^ch
to the state of your oneness or soleity with the Supreme Unity,
by your manliness: (of selLoontroul and self-resignation).

41. Bali the lord of the demons, exercised full authority over
the three worlds, for more than a millennium; but at last he
came to feel an utter distaste, to all the enjoyments of life.

42. Therefore, O Victorious Bdma, forego the enjoyments

of life, which arc sure to be attended with a distaste and nausia
at the end, and betake yourself to that state of true felicity,
which never grows insipid at any time.

43. These visible sights, O Bamd I arc as multifarious as

they are temptations to the soul; they appear as even and char�
ming as a distant mountain appears to view; but it proves to be
rough and rugged as you approach to it. (The pleasant paths of
life, cannot entice the wise; they are smooth without, but
nigged within).

44. Restrain your mind in the cavity of your heart, from its
flight in pursuit of the perishable objects of enjoyment, cither
in this life, or in the next, which arc so alluring to all men
of common sense.

43. Know yourself, as the self-same intellect, which shines as

the sun throughout the universe; and illumines every object in
nature, without any distinction of or partiality to one or the other.

46. Know yourself O mighty lldma! to be the infinite

spirit, and the transcendent soul of all bodies ; which has mani�
fested itself in manifold forms, that arc as the bodies of the
internal intellect.

47. Know your soul as a thread, passing through and inter�

woven with every thing in existence; and like a string connec�
ting all the links of creation, as so many gems of a necklace or
the beads of a rosary. (This hypostasis of the supreme spirit, is

UPASAMA KHANDA. 82%

knovn as the swtrdtmd or the all-connecting sonl of the universe:

as the poet expresses it. Breaths in our soul, informs our mor�
tal part, as full as perfect in a hair as heart. Pope.

48. Know yourself as the unborn and embodied sonl of viraf^

which is never born nor ever dies j and never fall into tbo
mistake of thinking the pure intellect, to bo subject to birth
or death. (The emboided soul of viraj, is the universal sonl as
what the poet says. �Whose body nature is, and god tbo soulj.�
49. Know your desires to be the causes of your birth, life,
death and diseases; therefore shun your cupidity of enjoyments,
and enjoy all things in the manner of the all witnessing intellect,
(t. e. Indulge yourself in your intellectual and not corjwreal
enjoyments).

60. If you remain in the everlasting light of the sun of your

intellect, yon will come to find the phenomenal world to be but
a phantom of your dream.

51. Never regret nor sorrow for any thing, nor think of
your pleasures and pains, which do not affect your soul j you are
the pure intellect ana the all pervading soul, which manifests it�
self in every thing.

52. Know the desirables (or worldly enjoyments) to bo your

evils, and the undesirable (sclf-mortification) to be for your
good. Therefore shun the former by your continued practice of
the latter.

53. By forsaking your views of the desirables and undesir�

ables, you will contract a habit of hebitude; which when it takes
a deep root in your heart, you have no more to be reborn in
the world.

54. Retract your mind for cveiy thing, to which it runs like
a boy after vain baubles; and settle it in yourself for your
own good.

65. Thus by restraining the mind by your best exertions, as

also by your habit of self-control, you will subdue the rampant
elephant of your mind, and reach to your highest bliss after�
wards.

56. Do not become as one of those ignorant fools, who believe

830

YOGA ViSiSHTHA.

tlteir bodies as tbeir real good; and who are inFatnated by

sophistry and infidelity, and deluded by impostors to the grati*
fication of their sensual appetites.

57. What man is more ignorant in this world and more sub*
jcct to its evils, than one who derived his Spiritual knowledge
from one who is a smatterer in theology, and relies on the
dogmas of pretenders and false doctors in divinity.

58. Do you dispel the cloud of false reasoning from the at>
mosphere of your mind, by the hurricane of our right reasoning,
which drives all darkness before it.

59. You can not be said to have your right reasoning, so long
as you do not come to the light and sight of the soul, both by
your own exertion and grace of the Supreme Spirit.

60. Neither the Veda nor Vedanta, nor the science of logic
or any other Sdstras, can give you any light of the soul, unless
it appears of itself within you.

61. It is by means of your selfculture, aided by my instruc�

tion and divine grace, that yon have gained your perfect know�
ledge, and appear to rest yourself in the Supreme Spirit.

62. There are three causes of your coming to spiritual light.

Firstly your want of the knowledge of a duality, and then the
effulgence of your intellectual luminary, (there soul) by the grace
of God and lastly the wide extent of your knowledge derived
from my instructions.

63. Yon are now freed from your mental maladies, and have
become same and sound by abandonment of your desires, by
removal of your doubts and errors, and by forsaking the mist
of your fondness for external objects,

64. 0 Rdma! as you get rid of the faults (errors) of your

understanding, so you advance by degrees in gaining your know�
ledge, in cherishing your resignation, in destroying your defects,
in imbibing the bliss of ecstacy, in wandering with exultation,
and in elevating your soul to the sixth sphere. But all this is
not enough unless you attend to Brahmahood itself. (These we
called the SiiptabAitmika or seven stages of the practice of Yoga).

CHAPTEE XXX.

pAt.i. Hiuaxya Kasipo axu Rise of PttAirr.Ai)A,

Argiim^snt. Slaughter of Demons by Ilari.

Y ASISHTHA continned:�Attend Kama, to the instrnetive

narrative of Prahidda-tlic lord of demons; who became an
adept by his own intuition.

2. There was a mighty demon in the inrcrnal regions, Ilir-

anykasipu by name; who was os valiant as NarAyann himself,
and had expellal the gods and demigods from their abodes.

8. He mastered all the treasures of the world, and wrested

its possession from the hands of Ilari; as the swan encroaches
upon the right of the bee, on the large folia of the lotus.

4. He vanquished the Gods and Asuras, and reigned over

the whole earth, as the elephant masters the lotus-bed, by ex�
pulsion of the drove of swans from it.

5. Thus the lord of the Asuras, having usurped the

monarchy of the three worlds, begot many sons in course of
time, as the spring brings forth the shoots of trees.

6. Tlicse boys grew up to manhood in time, with the display

of their manly prowess �, and like so many brilliant suns, stietched
their thousand rays on all sides of the earth and skies.

7. Among them Prahlada the eldest prince became the re�

gent, as the Kaustubha diamond has the pre-eminence among all
other precious Jems. (The Kaustubha gem was set in the breast�
plate of Vishnu).

8. The father Hiranyakasipu delighted exceedingly in his

fortunate son PrahlAda, as the year rejoices in its flowering
time of the spring: (�. e. The father delights in his promising
lad, as the year in its vernal season).

9. Supported by his son on one hand, and possessed of his

force and ti'easores on the other; be became puffed up with his
pride, as the swollen elephant emitting his froth from his

832 TOGA V/IlSISRTHA.

triangular month. (Composed of the two sides of the tUSks, and

the lower part).

10. Shining with his lustre and elated by his pride, he

dried and drew up the moisture of the earth, by his unbearable
taxation ; as the all-destroying suns of universal dissolution,
parch up the world by their rays. (Here is a play of the word
Kara, in its triple sense of the hand, tax and solar rays).

11. His conduct annoyed the gods and the sun and moon, as
the behaviour of a haughty boy, becomes unbearable to his
fellow comrades.

12. They all applied to Brahmd, for destruction of the

arch demon ; because the repeated misdemeanours of the wicked,
arc unbearable to the good and great.

13. It was then that the leonine Hari-Narasingha, clattered

his nails resembling the tusks of an elephant; and thundered
alond like the rumbling noise of the Dig-kaites (the regent
elephants of all the quarters of heaven), that filled the concave
world as on its last doomsday.

14. The tusk-like nails and teeth of Vishnu, glittered like

flashing lightnings in the sky ; and the radiance of his earring^
filled the hollow sphere of heaven, with curling flames of living
fire. (The word dwija or twice born is applied to the nails and
teeth, as to the moon and a twiceborn Brahman .

15. The sides and caverns of mountains presented a fearful

aspect, and the huge trees were shaken by a tremendous tempest 1
that rent the skies and tore the vault of heaven. (This is the
only place where the word dodruma occurs for the Greak dendron
in Sanskrit, shortened to drn a tree, the root of Druid a
woodman).

16. He emitted gusts of wind from his mouth and entrails,

which drove the mountains before them; and his eyeballs
flashed with the living fire of his rage, which was about to
consume the world.

17. His shining mane shook with the glare of sun-beams,

and the pores of the hairs on his body, emitted the sparks of
fire like the craters of a volcano..

U.PASAUA KHANOiL

933

}8t Tlie moanituns on all sides, shook with a tremendous

shaking;, and the whole body o� Hari, shot forth a variety
of arms in every direction.

19. Uari in his leoanthoopic form of half a man and half

a lion, killed the gigantic demon by goring him with his tnskis^
as when an elephant bores the body of a horse with a grating
sound.

20. The population of the Pandemonium, was burnt down

by the gushing fire of his eye balls ; which (lamed as the all
devouring conflagration of the last doomsday.

21. The breath of his nostrils like a hurricane i drove every�

thing before it; and the clapping of his arms (bahwasphota),
beat as loud surges on the hollow shores.

22. The demons fled from before him as moths from the.
burning fire, and they became extinct as extinguished lamps,
at the blazing light of the day.

23. After the burning of the Pandemonium, and expulsion

of the demons, the infernal regions presented a void waste, as
at the last devastation of the world.

24. After the Lord had extirpated the demoniac race, at

the end of the Titanic ago, he disappeared from view with the
grateful greetings of the synod of gods.

25. The surviving sons of the demonji who had fled from
the burning of their city, were afterwards led back to it by
PrahMda ; as the migrating fowls are made to return to the
dry .bed 6i a lake by a shower of rains.

26. There they mourned over the dead bodies of the demons,
and lamented at the loss of their possessions, and performed at
last the funeral ceremonies of their departed friends and
relatives.

27. Afterburning the dead bodies of their friends, they

invited the relics of the demons j that had found tiieir safety by
flight, to return to their deserted habitations again.

28. The Asuras and their leaders, now continued to mourn

You II. . 105

834

TOGA TA&ISHTHA.

wiik their disconsolate minds and disfigured bodies, like lotoses

beaten down by the frost. They remained without any effort
or attempt as the figures in a painting; and without any hope
of resttscitatioD, like a withered tree or an arbour stricken by
L�ghtning.

CHAPTER .XXXI.

Fbahlada�s Faith in Vishnu.

Argamont. Frahlada�s Lamentations at the slanghter of tbe demons,

and his conversion to Yiskunism.

Y ASISHTHA continued PrahUda remained disconsolate in

his subterranean region, brooding over the melancholy

thoughts of the destruction of the Danavas and their habi�
tations.

2. Ah I what is to become of us, said he, when this Hart

is bent to destroy the best amongst ns, like a monkey nipping
the growing shoots and sprouts of trees.

3. I do not see the Daityas anywhere in earth or in the

infernal regions, that are left in tbe enjoyment of their proper�
ties > but are stunted in their growth like the lotuses growing
on mountain tops.

4. They rise only to fall like the loud beating of a drum,

and their rising is simultaneous with their falling as of the
waves in the sea. (t. e. no sooner they ris^ than they are
destined to fall).

5. Woe unto us! that are so miserable in both our inward

and. outward circumstances; and happy are our enemies of light
(Devas), that have their ascendency over us. O the terrors of
darkness 1

6. But our friends of the dark infernal regions, arc all

darkened in their souls with dismay : also their fortune is as
transitory as the expansion of the lotus-leaf by day, and its
contraction at night.

7. We see the gods, who were mean servants at the feet of

our fother, to have usurped his kingdom; in the manner of the
timid deer, usurping the sovereignty of the lion in the forest.
(So said the sons of Tippo Sultan, when they saw the English
polluting hU library with there hands).

836

TOGA VA'SISHTHA.

8. We find oar friends on the other hand^ to be all dis-

figured and effortless ; and sitting melancholy and dejected in
their hopelessness, like lotuses with their withered leaves and
petals.

9. We see the houses of our gigantic demons^ filled with

clouds of dusts and frost, wafted by gusts of wind by day and
night; and resembling the fumes of fire which burnt them down.

10. The inner apartments are laid open Avithout their doora
and enclosures, and are overgrown with the sprouts of barley,
shooting out as blades of sapphires from underneath the ground.

11. Ah I what is impossible to irresistible fate, that has so

reduced the mighty demons; who arc while used to pluck the
flowers from the mountain tops of Meru like big elephants, and
are now come to the sad plight of the wandering Devas of yore.

12. Our ladies are lurking like the timorous deer, at the rus�
tling of the breeze amidst the leaves of trees, for-fear of the
darts of the enemy whistling and hurling in the open air.

13. 01 the gemming blossoms of the guluncha arborets, with

which our ladies used to decorate their cars, arc now shorn and
torn and left forlorn (desolate) by the hands of Hari, like the lorn
and lonesome heaths of the desert.

14. They l^ive robbed us of the all-producing kalpa-trees, and

planted them in their nandana pleasure gardens, now teem�
ing with their shooting gems and verdant leaflets in the etlpdal
sphere.

16. The eyes of haughty demons, that formerly looked with

pity on the faces of their captured gods } are now indignantly
looked upon by the victorious gods, who have made captives of
them.

16. It is known, that the water (liquid icor) which is pouted

from the mouths of the spouting elephants of heaven on the
tops of the mountains, falls down in the form cascades, and
gives rise to rivers on earth. (It means the water spouts resem�
bling the tranks of elephants, which lefted the sea water to the
sky, and let them fall on mountain tops to rUn as rivers below).

UPA8AMA EHANDA.
837

17. But the froth exuding from tbe faces of our elephaniic
giants^ is dried up to dust at the sights of the Dcvas, as a chan�
nel is sucked up in the dry and dreary desert of sand.

18. Ah! where have those Daityas fled, whose bodies were
as big as the peaks of mount Meru onco, and were fanned by
tbe fragrant breeze, breathing with the odorous dust of Mitndara
flowers. (Maudara is the name of a flower of the garden of
Paradise).

19. The beauteous ladies of tbe gods and Gandharvas, that

were once detained as captives in the inner apartments of de�
mons, are now snatched from us, and placed on Meru (the scat of
the gods), as if they are transplated there to grow as heavenly
plants.

20. O how painful is it to think I that the fading graces

of our captured girls, are now mocked by the heavenly nymphs,
in their disdainful dance over their defeat and disgrace.

21. O it is painful to think I that the attending damsels,

that fanned my father with their eliouri flappers, are now wait�
ing upon the thousand-eyed Indra in their servile toil.

22. OI the greatest of onr grief is, this sad and calamitous
fall of ours at the hands of a single Hari, who has reduced us to
this state of helpless impotency.

23. The gods now reposing under the thick and cooling
shades of trees, are as cool as the rocks of the icy mountain
(Himalaya); and do not burn with rage nor repine in grief like
ourselves.

24. The gods protected by the power of Sauri (Ilari), are

raised to the pinnacle of prosperity, have been mocking and res�
training us in these caves, as the apes on trees do the dogs be�
low. (The enmity of dogs and apes is proverbial, as obstruc�
ting one another from alighting on or rising aliove the ground).

26. Tbe &ces of our fairies though decked' with ornaments,

are now bedewed with droin of their tears; like the leaves
lotuses with the cold dews of night.

838

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

26. The old stage of this aged world, which was worsted and
going to be pulled down by oar might, is now supported upon
the azure arms of Hari, like the vault of heaven standing upon
the blue arches of the cerulean sky.
27. That Hari has become the support of the celestial host,
when it was about to be hurled into the depth of perdition; in
the same manner as the great tortoise support^ the mount Man-
dara, as it was sinking in the Milky ocean in the act of churning
it. (Samudra manthana). This was the act of the post-deluvians
reclaiming from the sea all that had been swept into it at the
great deluge.

28. This our great father, and these mighty demons under
him, have been laid down to dust like the lofty hills, that were
levelled with the ground by the blasts of heaven at the end of
the Kalpa.

29. It is that leader of the celestial forces, the peerless des�

troyer of Madbn (Satan), that is able to destroy all and every
thing by the fire in his hands, (the flaming lightnings preceding
the thunder-bolts of Indra. (The twin gods, the thundering (va-
jrapani) Indra and the flaming (analapani) Upendra, bear great
affinity to Jupiter tonitruous or the thundering Jove, and his
younger brother the trident-bearer Neptune).

30. His elder brother Indra baffles the battle axes in the
hands of the mighty demons, by the foi-ce of the thunder-bolts
held by his mightier arms, as the big male monkeys kill their
male offspring. (These passages prove the early invention of
fire arms by the Aryans, to have been the cause of their victory
over Daityas or the demigods).

31. Though the missive weapons (lightnings), which are let

fiy by the lotus-eyed Vishnu be invincible; yet there is no
weapon or instrument which can foil the force of the thunder :
(lit break the strong thunderbolt). (Vishnu the leader of Vishas
or the first foreign settlers of the land, oveipowerd the earth-
born Daityas by bis fire and fire arms, and dispossessed them
their soil, and reduced them to slavery. The descendanta of the

UPASAMA EHANDA. 6S9

Vishu are the Yaishyaa, who settled in India long before the
Aiyans).

32. This Hari is inured in warfare^ in the previous battles

iaught between him and oar forefathers; in which they uprooted
and flung great rocks at him, and waged many dreadful
campaigns.

83. It cannot be expected that he will be afraid of us, who

stood victorious in those continuous and most dreadful and dcs*
tractive warfares of yore.

34. I have thought of one expedient only to oppose the

rage of Hari, beside which 1 And no other way for our safety,
(lit�remedy).

35. Let us therefore with all possibe speed, have recourse

to him, with full contritencss of our souls and understanding;
because that god is the true refuge of the pious and the only
resort of every body.

86. There is no one greater than him in all the three worlds ;
for 1 come to know, that it is Hari only, who is the solo cause
of the creation, sustentation and destruction or reproduction of
the world.

37. From this moment therefore, 1 will think only of that

unborn (inceate) NArdyana for ever more; and I must rely on
that NArdyana, who is present in all places, and is full in myself
and filling all space.

88. Obeisance to Ndrdyana forms my faith and profession,

for my success in all undertakings; and may this faith of mine
ever abide in my heart, as the wind has its place in the midst of
empty air.

39. Hari is to be known as filling all sides of space and

vacanm, and every part of this earth and ail these worlds; my
ego is the immeasurable Spirit of Hari, and my inborn soul is
full of Vishnu.

40. He that is not full with Vishnu in himself, does not be�
nefit by his adoration of Vishnu; but he who worships Vishnu
byihinking himself as such, finds himself assimilated to his god.

840

Y09A VXSISHTHA,

and becomes one with him. (Or rather he loses himself in his
Ood and perceives nought besides).

41. He who knows Hari to be the same with Prahldds, and

not different from him, 6nds Ilari to fill his inward sonl
with his spirit: (So says the Sruti:�Frdhlada was the incarnate
Hari himself).

42. The eagle of Hari (son of Yinatd) flies through the

infinite space of the sky as the presence of Hari fills all infinity,
and his golden body-light, is the seat of my Hari also. (Here the
bird of heaven means the sun, which is said to be the seat of
Hari).

43. The claws, of this bird,�Kara (or rays) serve for the
weapons of Vishnu; and the flash of his nails, is the flash of the
Vishnu�s weapons. (Here Garuda bird of heaven, serves for a
personification of the sun, and his claws and nails represent the
rays of solar light).

44. These are the four arms of Vishnu and their armlets,
which a.rc represented by the four gemming pinnacle of mount
Mandara which were grappled by the hands of Hari, at his
churning of the milky ocean with it.
45. This moonlike figure with the chonri flapper in her hand
and rising from the depth of the milky ocean, is the goddess of
prosperity (Laksmi) and associating consort of Vishno.

46. She is the brilliant glory of Hari, which was easily ac�
quired by him, and is ever attendant on bis person with undi-
minished lustre, and illuminates the three worlds as a radiant
medicinal tree� mahanthadhi,

47. There is the other companion of Vishnu called M4y4 or

illusion, which is ever busy in the creation of worlds upon worlds,
and in stretching a magical enchantment all-about them.

48. Here is the goddess Victory (Jayd), an easy earned

tendant on Vishnu, and shines as a shoot of the kalpa tree,
extending to the three worlds as an all-pervading plant.

49. These two warming and cooling luminaries of the^son

CPASAUi KHAKDA.

841

and moon, wliich serve iib manifest all the worlds to view, are
the two eyes situated on the forehead of my Vishnu.

60. This azure sky is the cerulean hue of the body of my

Vishnai which is as dark as a mass of watery cloud } and darkens
the sphere of heaven with its sky blue radiance. The meaning
of the word Vishnu was afterward changed to the residing
divinity in all things from the root vish.

61. Here is the whitish conch in the hand of my Hari, which

is sonant with its fivefold notes (panebajanya), and is as
bright as the vacuum�the receptacle of sound, and as white
as the milky ocean of heavens (the milky path).

62. Here I see the lotus in the hand of Vishnu, representing

the lotus of his navel the seat of Brahmd, who rose from and
sat upon it, as a bee to form his hive of the world.

63. 1 see the cudgel of my Vishnu's hand (the godd)

studded with gems about it, in the lofty peak of the mountain
of Sumeru, beset by its gemming stones, and hurling down
the demons from its precipice.

64. I see here the discus (chaukra) of my Hari, in the rising

' luminary of the sun, which fills all sides of the infinite Space,

with the radiant beams emanating from it.

66. I see there in the flaming fire, the flashing sword-nandaka

of Vishnu, which like an axe hath cut down the gigantic bodies
of Daityas like trees, while it gave great joy to the gods.
66^ -^4ee also the great bow of Vishnu (Sdranga), in the va*
negated rafflbow of Indra; and also the quiver of his arrows in
the Pushkara and Avarta clouds, pouring down their rains like
piercing arrows from above.

57. The big belly (Jathara) of Vishnu, is seen in the vast

vaottity of the firmament, which contains all the worlds and all
the past, present, and future creations in its spacious womb.

68. I see the earth as the footstool of Virdj, and the high
sky as the canopy on his head; his body is the stupendous fabrio
of the universe, and his sides are the sides of the compass.

VoL II 106

84S

YOGA VAiSISHTHA.

69. 16^ the great Vishnu Tisihly manifest to my view, as

shining under the cerulean vault heaven, mounted on his
eagle of - mountain, and holding his conchshell, discus, cudgel
and the lotus in his hands (in the manner described above).

60. I see the wicked and evil minded demons, flying from
me in the manner of the fleeting straws, which are blown and
borne away after by the breath of the winds. (Litas the
heaps of straw or hay tamo),

61. This sable deity with his hue of the blue sapphire and
mantle yellow, bolding the club and mounted on the eagle and
accompanied by Lakshmi; is no other than the selfsame
Imperishable One. Vishnu latterly called (Krishna) is the queller
of demons, like christ in the battle of the gods and Titan, and is
believed to be the only begotten Son of God).

62. What adverse Spirit can dare approach this all-devour*

ing flame, without being burnt to death, like a flight of moths
falling on a vivid Are ?

63. None of these hosts of gods or demigods that I see

before me, is able to withstand the irresistible course of the
destination of Vishnu. And all attempts to oppose it, will he as
vun as for our weak-sighted eyes to shut out the light of the sun.

64. I know the gods Brahmd, Indra, Siva and Agni (ignia�>
the god of Are), praise in endless verses and many tongues, the
Vishnu as their Lord.

65. This Lord is ever r^plendant with his dignity, and is

invincible in his might; He is the Lord beyond all doubt, dis�
pute and duality, and is joined with transcendant majesty.

66. I bow down to that person, which stands as a firm rock

amidst the forest of the world, and is a defence from idl fears
and dangers. It is a stupendous body having all the worlds si�
tuated in its womb, and forming the essence and substance of
every distinct object of vision. (Hera Vishnu is shown in hk
microcosmic form of Viraj (Virat murti).

CHAPTER XXXIL

ThH SpIEITUAL and POEMAl WoESHIP OF ViSHNU.

Argnmeat. PrahlMa�s Worship of Vishnu both in spirit and his lmage>

Witnessed by the gods, as the Beginning of Hero and Idol Worship.

T7ASISHTHA continued:�After Prahidda had meditated on

< Vishnu in the aforesaid manner, he made an imago of him
as Nitriyana himself, and thought upon worshipping that enemy
of the Asura race. (Here Vishnu�the chief of Vishas and
destroyer of Asuras, is represented as the spirit of Ndrayana,
and worshipped in that form).

2. And that this figure might not be otherwise than the

form of Vishnu himself, he invoked the Spirit of Vishnu to be
settled in this his out-ward figure also. (This was done by
, incantation of Pranpratishthd, or the charm of enlivening an
idol in thought).

8. It was seated on the back of the heavenly bird Gamda,

arrayed with the quadruple attributes (of will, intelligence,
action and mercy), and armed with the fourfold arms bolding the
oonchshell, discus, club and a lotus. (This passage shows the
the fictitious representation of the person of Vishnu, with his
fourfold arms of these, the two original arms with the cudgel
and discus were in active use, while the two fictitious and
immovable ones, with the conchshell and lotus, were clapped on
far mere showl.

4. His two eye-balls flashed, like the orbs of the sun and
moon in their outstretched sockets; his palms were as red as
lotuses, and his bow taranga and the sword nandaka hang on his
two shoulders and sides.

5. 1 will worship this image, said he, with all my adherents

and dependants, with an abundance of grateful offerings agreeable

844

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

to my taste. Gloss. Things delectable to one's taste, are most

acceptable to the gods. *
6. I will worship this great god always, with all kinds of
oflering of precious gems and jewels, and all sorts of articles for
bodily use and enjoyment.

7. Having thus made up his mind, Frahldda collected an

abundance of various things, and made offerings of them in his
mind, in his worship of Mddbava-tho lord of Lakshmi. (M6 and
Bdma are titles of Lakshmi).

8. He offered rich gems and jewels in plates erf many kinds,

and presented sandal pastes in several pots; he burnt incense and
lighted lamps in rows, and placed many valuables and ornament's
in sacred vessels.

9. He presented wreaths of Mandara flowers, and chains of

lotuses made of gold, together with garlands of leaves and flowers
of kalpa plants, and bouquets and nosegays studded with gems
and pearls.

10. He hung bangings of leaves and leaflets of heavenly

arbors, and chaplets and trimmings of various kinds of flowers,
as vaJtas and kunias, kinkiratat and white, blue and red
lotuses.

11. There were wreaths of kahlara, Kunda, Kdsa and Kin-

tuka flowers; and dusters of Atoka, Madana, Bela and kdnikdra
blossoms likewise.

12. There were florets of the Kadamha, Yakala, nimia,

Sind&ttvdra and Tdlhikat also; and likewise heaps of fdribhadra,
guggnli and Vendnka flowers.

13. There were strings of priyangu, patala, pdta and pdtala

flowers; and also the blossoms of dm.ra, dmrataka and gavyat ;
and the bulbs of haritaki and vihhitaki myrabolans.

* The former flgpire of meditation was that of Virij, the god who with his
thousand heads, hands and legs and feet �

UT^i� shows the Doitya Titan Briarens with his hnndred heads and bands ; but
he figure of worship in this chapter is that of Vishnn, with his fonr arms, one
ad and two legs only, as a more oompendions form for common and
practical worship. '

UPASAMA RHANDA.

84�

14. The flowers o� Sdla and iamdla trees, were sirang to�
gether with their leaves ; and the tender buds of Saiakiras, were
fastened together with their farinacions pistils.

16. There were the ieiaim and centipetalous flowers, and the
shoots of ela cardamnms j together with everything beautiful to
sight and the tender of one's soul likewise.

16. Thus did PrAhlada worship his lord Hari in the inner
aparment of his house, with offerings of all the richest things in
the world, joined with true faith and earnestness of his mind
and spirit. *

17. Thus did the monarch of DAnaras, worslup his lord Hart
externally in his holy temple, furnished with all kind of valuable
things on earth. (The external worship followed that of his
internal worship in faith and spirit. These two are distinctly
called the mdnasa and hdjhya pujat and observed one after the
other by every orthodox Hindu, except the Brabmos and ascetics
who reject the latter formality.

IS. The Ddnava sovereign became the more and more gratified
in his spirit, in proportion as he adored his god with more and
more of his valuable outer offerings.

19. Henceforward did FrablAda continue, to worship his

lord god day after day, with earnestness of his soul, and the
same sort of rich offerings every day.

20. It came to pass that the Daityas one and all turned
Ymshnavas; after the example of their king; and worshipped
Hari in their city and temples without intermission.

21. This intelligence reached to heaven and to the abode of

the gods,. that the Daityas having renounced their enmity to

* The fiowen and offoringa mentioned in this plaee, are all ot a white hne,
and apeoiaily aaoied to Viahnn, m there are others peonliar to othier deities,
whose priests and yotariea most careftilly distingnish from one another. The
adoration of Vishnu oonsists, in the olfering of the following artioles, and
Ohsermnoe of the rites as mentioned below; vit. Fnmigation of incense and
lighting of lamps, presentation of offerings, at food, raiment, and jewels suited
to the adorer's taste and best means, and presents of betel leaves, nmbrellas,
mirrors and ohowri flappers. Lastly, scattering of handfuls of flowers^
tuning round the idol aha making obeisanoe Ae.

W rOQA VA^ISHTHA.

Vishnn, have turned his faithful believers and worshippers i*

toto. *

23. The Devas were all astonished to learn, that the Daityas
had accepted the Vaishnava faith; and even Indra marvelled
with the body of Budras about him, how the Daityas came to be
so at once.

23. The astonished Devas then left their celestial abode, and
repaired to the warlike Vishnu, reposing on his serpent couch in
the milky ocean.

24. They related to him the whole account of the Daityas,

and they asked him as he sat down, the cause of their conversion,
wherewith they were so much astonished.

25. The gods said:�How is it Lord t that the demons who

had always been averse to thee, have now come to embrace
thy faith, which appears to us as an act of magic or their
hypocrisy.

26* How different is their present transformation to the

Vaishnava faith, which is acquired only after many transmigra�
tions of the soul, from their former spirit of insurrection, in
which they broke down the rocks and mountains.

27. The rumour that a clown has become a learned man, is

as gladsome as it is doubtful also, as the news of the budding of
blossoms out of season.

28. Nothing is graceful without its proper place, as a rich

jewel loses its value, when it is set with worthless pebbles.
(The show of goodness of the vile, is a matter of suspicion).

29. All animals have their dispositions conforming with

* jftxTww

� Bralimi was the god of Brahmanas, and Vishnn was worshipped the early
Vaisya colonists of India; while siva or Uahadova was the dity of the
aborigenal Daityas. These peoples after long contention came to he anwlga-
mated into one great body of the Hindns, hy their adoption of the mixed
creed of _ the said triality or trinity, under the designation of the XTinne
dnty. Still there are many people that hare never bMn united nnder this
triad, and maintain their seTsral creeds with tenacity. See Wilson�s Hindn
Beligion. .

upasama khanoa.

M7

their own natures; how then can the pure faith of Vishnu,

agree with the doggish natures of the Daityas ?

30 It does not grieve us so much to be pierced with thorns

a^d needles in our bodies, as to see things of opposite natures,
to be set in conjunction with one another.

SI. Whatever is naturally adapted to its time and place, the

same seems to suit it then and there; hence the lotus has its
grace in water and not upon the land.

82. Where are the vile Daityas, prone to their misdeeds at

all times; and how far is the Vaishnava faith from them that
can never appreciate its merit.

33. O lord! as we are never glad to learn a lotus-bed to be

left to parch in the desert soil; so we can never rejoice at the
thou^t, that the race of demons will place their faith in
Vishnu�the lord of gods.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

P&ahlada's Soppucation to Hasi.

Argument. Han�s Visit to Prahlida, and his Adoration of him.

Y ASISHTHA said:�The lord of Lakshmi, seeing the gods

BO clamorous in their accusation of the demons, gave his
words to them in sounds as sonorous as those of the rainy clouds,
in response to the loud noise of screaming and thirst-striken
peacocks.

2. The Lord Hari said:�Don�t yon marvel ye gods I at

Prabldda�s faith in me; as it is by virtue of the virtuoustfmts of
his past lives, that pious prince is entitled to his final libera*
tion in this his present life.

3. He shall not have to be bom again in the womb of

a woman, nor to be reproduced in any form on earth; but must
remain aloof from regeneration, like a fried pea which does not
germinate any more.

4. A virtuous man turning impious, becomes of <�une the

source of evil i but an unworthy man becoming meritorious,
is doubtless a stop towards his better being and blessedness.*'^ '

5. You good gods that are quite happy in your blessed

seats in heaven, must not let the good deserts of Prahlida be
any cause of your uneasiness.

6. Vabishtha resumedThe Lord having thus spoken to

the gods, became invisible to them, like a feather floating on
the surface of waves.

7. The assemblage of the immortals then repaired to their

heavenly abodes after taking their leave of the god; as the
particles of sea water are borne to the sky by the zephyrs, or by
the agitation of the Mandara mountain,

8. The gods were henceforth pacified towards Prahldda;

because the mind is never suspicious of one who has the credit
of bis superiors.

UPASAMA KHANDA.

649

' 9. FraLlida also continued in tile daily adoration of his god,

with the contritencss of his heart, and in the formulas of his
spiritual, oral and bodily services.
10. It was in the course of bis divine service in this
manner, that he attained the felicity proceeding from his right
discrimination, self-resignation and other virtues with which
he was crowned.

11. He took no delight in any object of enjoyment, nor

felt any pleasure in the society of his consorts, all which ho
shunned as a stag shuns a withered tree, and the company of
human beings.

12. lie did not walk in the ways of the ungodly, nor spent
his time in aught but religions discourses. His mind did not
dwell on visible objects, as the lotus never grows on dry land.

13. His mind did not delight in pleasures, which were all
linked with pain; but longed for its liberation, which is as
entire of itself and unconnected with anything, as a single grain
of unperforated pearl.

14. But his mind being abstracted from his enjoyments,

and not yet settled in its trance of ultimate rest; had been only
waving between the two states, like a cradle swinging in both
ways.

15. The god Vishnu, who knew all things by his all-knowing
infelligence; beheld the unsettled state of Frahlada's mind, from
bis seat in the milky ocean.

16. Pleased at PrahUda's firm belief, he proceeded by the

sub-terranian route to the place of his worship, and stood confest
before him at the holy altar.

. 17. Seeing his god manifest to his view, the lord of the
demons worshipped him with two fold veneration, and made
many respectful offerings to his lotus-eyed deity more than, his
usual practice.

18. He then gladly glorified bis god with many swelling

orisons, for his deigning to appeM before him in bis house of
worship.

VOL 11

107

660

voai va'sisbtha.

19. Frahl&da said adore thee, O my lord Hari! that

art unborn and undecaying; that art the bleeeed receptacle of
three worlds that dispellest all darkness by the light of thy
body; and art the refuge of the helpless and friendless.
20. I adore my Hari in his complexion of blue-lotns leaves,
and of the eolour of the autumnal sky} I worship him whose
body is of the hue of the dark hhravtara bee; and who holds
in his arms the lotus, discus, club and the conch-shell.

21. I worship the god that dwells in the lotus-like hearts

of his votaries, with his appearance of a swarm of sable bees;
and bolding a conch-shell as white as the bud of a lotus or
lily, with the earrings ringing in his ears with the music of
humming bees.

22. I resort to Hari's sky-blue shade, shining with the starry

light of his long stretching nails; his face shining as the full-
moon with bis smiling beams, and his breast waving as the
surface of Ganges, with the sparkling gems hanging upon it.

23. I rely on that godling that slept on the leaf of the fig
tree, (when his spirit floated on the surface of the waters); and
that contains the universe in himself in his stupendous form dt
Virdj; that is neither bom nor grown, but is always the whole
by himself; and is possest of endless attributes of his own
nature.

24. I take my refuge in Hari, whose bosom is daubed with

the red dust of the new-blown lotus, and whose left side is
adorned by the blushing beauty of Lakshmi; whose body is
mantled by a coloured red coverlet; and besmeared with red
sandal paste like liquid gold.

25. 1 take my asylum under that Hari who is the d^

tractive frost to the lotus-bed of dmnons; and the rising sun
to the opening buds of the lotus-bed of the deities; who is the
soucre of the lotus-born Brahmd, and receptacle of the loU-
form seat (manium) of our understanding.

28. My hope is in Hari�the blooming lotus of the bed of the

triple world, and the only light amidst the darkness of the

UPASAUA EHANDA.

851

anirerse; irhoisthe principle of tbe'mtellect-'cliii;, amidest*

the gross material world the gross and who is the only remedy
of aU the evils and tronblra of this transient life.

27. VaaUhtha continued:�Hari the destroyer of demonSj

who is graced on his side by the goddess of prosperity; being
landed with many snoh graceful speeches of the demoniac lordf
answered him as lovingly in his blue lotnslike foim> as when
the deep clouds respond to the peacocks* screams.
CHAPTER XXXIV.

Fbahlasa�s Self kkowledoe of Sfibituaubm.

Argument. Prahlada�s Meditations and attainment of spiritual

knowledge by the blessing of Vishnu,

T he Lord said .*�0 thou rich � jewel on the crown of the

Daitya race I Receive thy desired boon of me for alleviation
of thy wordly afflictions.

2. Frahldda repliedWhat better blessing can I ask of

thecj my Lord I than to instruct me in what thou thinkest thy
best gift, above all other treasures of the world, and which ia
able to requite all our wants in this miserable life.

8. The Lord answeredMayst thou have a sinless boy t

and may thy right discrimination of things, lead thee to iliy
rest in God, and the attainment of thy Supreme felicity, after
dispersion of thy earthly cares, and the errors of this world.

4. Vasishtha rejoined:�Being thns bid by his god, the lord

of demons fell into a profound meditation, with his nostrils
snoring loudly like the gurgling waters of the deep.

5. As the lord Vishnu departed from his sight, the chief of

the demons made his oblations after him; consisting of handfuls
of flowers and rich gems and jewels of various kinds.

6. Then seated in his posture of pctdmd�am, with his legs

folded over one another, upon his elevated and elegant seat;
and then chaunted his holy hymn and reflected within himself.

7. My deliverer from this sinful world, has bade me to have

my discrimination, therefore must I betake myself to discrimi�
nate between what ia true and falsehood.

8. I rnnst know that I am in this darksome world, and

must seek the light of my soul as also what is that principle
(Ego), that makes me speak, walk and take the pains to earn
myself.

9. I perceive it is nothing of this external world, like any of

UFASAMA KHA^DA.

85S

its. verdant trees or Mils;' the external bodies are all of a gross
nature, but my ego is quite a simple and pure essence.

10. I am not this insensible body, which is both dull and

dumb, and is made to move for a moment by means of the vital
airs. It is an unreal appearance of a transitory existence.
' 11. I am not the insensible sound, which is a vacuous 8ub>
stance and produced in vacuity. It is perceptible by the ear>hole,
and is as evanescent and inane as empty air.

IB. I am neither the insensible organ of touch, or the

momentary feeling of taction; but find myself to be an inward
principle with the faculty of intellection, and the capacity of
knowing the nature of the soul.

13. I am not even my taste, which is confind to the relishing

of certain objects, and to the organ of the tongue; which is a
trifling and ever restless thing, sticking to and moving in the
cavity of the mouth.

14. I am not my sight, that is employed in seeing the visibles

only; it is weak and decaying and never lasting in its power,
nor capable of viewing the invisible Spirit.

15. I am not the power of my smelling, which appertains

to my nasal organ only, and is conversant with odorous sub-
stances for a short moment only. (Fragrance is a fleeting thing!.

16. I am pure intelligence, and none of the sensations of my

five external organs of sense; I am neither my mental faculty,
which is ever frail and fruit j nor is there any thing belonging
to me or perticipating of my true essence. I am the soul and
an indivisible whole.

17. lam the ego or my intellect, without the objects of in<

tellection; (i. e. the thinking principle freed from its thoughts).
My ego pervades internally and externally over all things, and
manifests' them to .the view. I am the whole without its parts,
pure without foulness and everlasting.

. 18. It is my intellection that manifests to me this pot and

that punting, and brings all other objects to my knowledge by its
pure light; as the sun and a lamp show everything to the sight.

854

TOaAYAiSISHTHA.

� 19. Ab 1 1 come to remember ibe whole troth at preseot,

that I am the immutable and all pervading Spirit, shining in
the form of the intellect (Gloss. The internal and intellectoal
Sool, is the Spirit of God).

20. This essence evolves itself into the varions facolties of

sense; as the inward fire unfolds itself into the forms of its
flash and flame, and its parks and visible light.

21. It is this principle which unfolds itself, into the forma

of the different organs of sense also ; as the all-diffosive hffiit
of the hot season, shows itaelf in the shape of mirage in sand/
deserts.
22. It is this element likewise which constitutes the subs*
tance of all objects; as it is the light of the lamp which is the
cause of the various colours of things; as the whiteness or other
of a piece of cloth or any other thing. (The intrinsic perce-
plevity of the soul, causes the extrinsic senses and their separate
organs).

23. It is the source of the perception of all living and

waking beings, and of everything else in existence ; and as a
mirror is the reflector of all outward appearances, so is the Soul
the reflective organ of all its internal and external phenomena.

24. It is by means of this immutable intellectual light

alone, that we perceive the heat of the sun, the coldness of the
moon, solidity of the rock and the fluidity of water.

25. This one is the prime cause of every object of our con�
tinuous perceptions in this world; this is the first cause of
all things, without having any prior cause of its own. (The soul
produces the body, and not the body brings forth the soul).

26. It is this that produces our notions of the continuity

of objects that are spread all around us, and tidee the name
of objects from their objectivity of the soul; as a tiling ia
called not from the heat which makes it such.

27. It is this formless cause, that is the prime cause of all

plastic and secondary causes; (such as Brahmd tiiecreative agent
and others). It is from this that the world has its prodoetioD, a8
coldness is the produce of cold and the like.

UPAfiAHA BiHAKDi.

85^5

28. The gods Brahmd, Vishnu, Rudra and Indra, who aro
causes of the existence of the world, all owe their origin to this
prime cause, who has no cause of himself.

29. I hail that Supreme soul which is imprest in me, and

is apart from every object of thought of the intellect, and
which is self manifest in all things and at all times.

80. All beings besides, stand in the relation of modes and

modalities to this Supremo Being ; and they immerge as pro�
perties in that intellectual Spirit.

81. Whatever this internal and intelligent Soul wills to do,

the same is done every where; and nothing besides that self�
same soul exists in reality any where.

82. Whatever is intended to be done by this intellectual

power, the same receives a form of its own ; and %vhatever is
thought to be undone by the intellect, the same is dissolved into
nought from its substantiality.

S3. These numberless series of worldy objects, (as this

pot, this puntings and the like), are as shades cast on the
immense mirror of varuum, (or as air-drawn pictures represent�
ed on the canvas of empty Space).

84. All these objects increase and decrease in their figures

under the light of the soul, like the sbado^vs of things enlarging
and diminishing themselves in the sun shine.

86. This internal Soul is invisible to all beings, except to

those whose minds are melted down in piety. It is seen by
the righteous in the form of the clear firmament.

86. This great cause like a large tree, gives rise to all these
visible phenomena like its germ and sprouts ; and the move�
ments of livings, being, are as the flittcrings of bees about this
tree.

87. It is this that gives rise to the whole creation both in

its ideal and real and mobile or quiescent forms; as a huge rook
gives growth to a large forest with its various kinds of big trees
and dwarf shrubberies. fTo Him no high, no low, no great, no
small, He fills, he bonndi^ connects, and equals all. Pope).

856

TOGA V^ISHTHA.

38. It is not apart from anything, existing in the womb of

this triple world; bat is residing alike in the highest gods,
as in the lowest grass below; and manifests them all fall to
our view.

39. This is one with the ego, and the all-pervading soul; and
is situated as the moving spirit, and unmoving dullness of the

whole.

40. The universal soul is beyond the distinction, of my,

thy or his individual spirit $ and is above the limits of time, and
place, of number and manner, of form or figure or shape or size.

41. It is one intelligent soul, which by its own intelligence,

is the eye and witness of all visible things ; and is represented
as having a thousand eyes and hands and as many feet.
(Wherewith he sees and grasps everything, and stands and
moves in every place).

42. This is that ego of my-solf, that wanders about the fir�
mament, in the body of the shining sun; and wanders in other
forms also, as those of air in the current winds. (The first
person 1 is used for supreme ISgo).
43. The sky is the azure body of my Vishnu with its
accompaniments of the conchshell, discus, club and the lotus,
in the clouds, all which are tokens of prosperity in this world
by their blissful rains. (Vishnu is the lord of Lakshmi or pros�
perity, which is another name for a plenteous harvest. Her
other name Sris the same with ceres�the goddess of com and
mother of Frosperine in Grecian mythology). ^

44. I find myself as identic with this god, while I am sitting

in my posture of padmasana and in this state of Samddhi �
hypnotism, and when I have a'..Miinedmy perfection in quietism,
(which is the form of Vishnu in the serene sky).

45. I am the same with Siva�the god with his three eyes,
and with his eye-balls rolling like bees, on the lotus face of
Ganri; and it is I that in the form of the god, Brahmd, contain

* Tbe history of Sankrit -words derires the name Lakshmi from the appel�
lation of king DUipa�s qnoen, who was so oalled from her Inokinesi. Thns the
words {ueig aad UuikKy (ralgs), are sjDonimons add saine iasoond sad sense).

UPA3AUA KHANDA.

887

the whole oration ia me, as a tortoise contracts its limbs

in itself. (The soal in rapture, seems to contain the macrocosm
in itself).

46. I rule over the world in the form of Indra, and as a monk
I command the monastery which has come down to me. e, e. I am
an Indra, when I reign over my domain; and a poor monk,
when I dwell in my humble cell.

47. I (the Ego) am both the male and female, and I am

both the boy and girl; I am old as rc^rds my soni, and
I am young with regard to my body, which is born and ever
renewed.

48. The ego is the grass and all kinds of vegetables on

earth; as also the moisture wherewith it grows them, like its
thoughts in the ground of the intellect; in the same manner as
herbs are grown in holes and wells by their moisture, t. e. The
ego or soul is the pith and marrow of all substance.

49. It is for pleasure that, this ego has stretched out the
world; like a clever boy who makes his dolls of clay in play.
(God forms the world for his own amusement).

60. This ego is myself that give existence to all being, and

is I in whom they live and move about; and being at last

forsaken by me, the whole existence dwindles into nothing.
CThe ego is the individual as well the universal soul).
51. Whatever image is impressed in the clear mirror or
mould of my intellect, the same and no other is in real existence,
because there is nothing that exists beside or apart from
myself.

62. I am the fragrance of flowers, and the hue of their

leaves; I am the figure of all forms, and the perception of
perceptibles.

63. Whatever movable or immovable thing is visible in

this world; I am the inmost heart of it, without having any
of its desires in my heai^.

64. As the prime element of moisture, is diffused in nature

Von. II. 108

858

TOQA VAtllSHTHA.

in the form of water; so is my spirit overspread in vcgetilbles

and all things at large in the form of vacuum. (Which is in the
inside and outside of every thing).

65. I enter in the form of consciousness, into the interior

of everything ; and extend in the manner of various sensation
at my own will.

66. As butter is contained in milk and moisture is inherent

in water; so is the power of the intellect spread in all beings,
and BO the ego is situated in the interior of all things.

57. The world exists in the intellect, at all times of the

present, past and future ages ; and the objects of intelligence,
are all inert and devoid of motion; like the mineral and vegetable
productions of earth.

68, I am the all-grasping and all-powerful form of Viraj,

which fills the infinite space, and is free from any diminution
or decrease of its shape and size. 1 am this all-pervading and all-
productive power, known as Virat mdrti or macrocosm (in dis�
tinction from the �ukhtma-deha or microcosm).

59. 1 have gained my boundless empire over all worlds,

without my seeking or asking for it; and without subduing it
like Indra of old or crushing the gods with my arms. (Man
is the lord of the world of his own nature, or as the poet says>

am the Monarch of all I survey, and my right there is none

to dispute ").

60. O the extensive spirit of God I I bow down to that

spirit in my spirit; and find myself lost in it, as in the vast
ocean of the universal deluge.
61. I find no limit of this spirit; as long as I am seated in
the enjoyment of my spiritual bliss; but appear to move about
as a minute mollusk, in the fitthomless expanse of the milky
ocean.

62. This temple of Brahmanda or mundane world, is too

small and straitened for the huge bo^ of my soul; and it is
impossible for me to be contained in it, as it is for an elephant
to enter into the hole of a needle.

UPASAUA SHANDA.

859

,88. My body stretebes beyond tbe region of BrahmA, and my

attributes extend beyond the categories of tbe schools, and
there is no definite limitation given of them to this day.

64. The attribnte of a name and body to the unsupported

soul is a falsehood, and so is it to compress the unlimited soul
within the narrow bounds of the body.

65. To say this is I, and this another, is altogether wrong;

and what is this body or my want of it, or the state of living
or death to me ? (Since the soul is an immortal and ctherial
substance and my true-self and essence).

66. How foolish and short-witted were my forefathers,

who having forsaken this spiritual domain, have wandered as
mortal beings in this frail and miserable world.

67. How great is this grand sight of the immensity of

Brahma; and how mean are these creeping mortals, with their
high aims and ambition, and all their splendours of royalty.
(The glory of God, transcends the glory of glorious sun).

68. This pure intellectual sight of mine, which is fraught

with endless joy, accompanied by ineffable tranquility, surpasses
all other sights in tbe whole world. (The rapture of heavenly
peace and bliss, has no bounds).

69. I bow down to the Ego, which is situated in all

beings; which is the intelligent and intellectual soul, and quite
apart from whatever is the object of intellection or thought: (i.e.
the unthinkable spirit).

70. I who am the unborn and increate soul, reign trium�

phant over this perishing world; by my attainment to the state
of the great universal spirit, which is the chief object of gain-
the iHmmmnbotium of mortal biengs, and which I live to enjoy.
(This sublimation of tbe human soul to tbe state of the supreme
spirit, and enjoyment of spiritual beatification or heavenly rap�
ture, is the main aim and end of Yoga meditation).

71. I take no delight in my unpleasant earthly dominion,

which is full of painful greatness; nor like to lose my ever�
lasting realm of good understanding, which is free from
trouble and full of perpetual delight.

800

rOGA VA'SISHTHA.

72, Cursed be tbe wicked demons tbat are so sadly ignorant

of their souls} and resort for the safety of their bodieSj to their
strongholds of woods and hills and ditches, like the insects
those places.

75. Ignorance of the soul leads to the serving of the dull

ignorant body, with articles of food and raiment; and it was
thus that our ignorant ciders pampered their bodies for no
lasting good.

74!. What good did my father Hiranyakasipu reap, from bis

prosperity of a few years in this world; and what did he acquire
worthy of his descent; in the line of the great sage Kasyapa ?

76. He who has not tasted the blissfullness of his soul, has
enjoyed no true blessing, during his long reign of a hundred
years in this world.

76. He who has gained the ambrosial delight of his spirit

tnal bliss, and nothing of the temporary blessings of life; has
gained something which is ever full in itself, and of which there
is no end to the end of the world.

77. It is the fool and not the wise, who forsakes this infinite
joy for the temporary delights of this world ; and resembles
the foolish camel which foregoes his fodder of soft leaves, for
browsing the prickly thorns of the desert,

78. What man of sense would turn his eyes from so ro�
mantic a sight, and like to roam in a city burnt down to the
ground: and what wise man is there tbat would forsake the
sweet juice of sugarcane, inorder to taste tbe bitterness of
Nimba 7

79. I reckon all my forefathers as very great fools, for

their leaving this happy prospect, inorder to wander in the
dangerous paths of their earthly dominion.

80. Ah! how delightful is the view of flowering gardens,

and how unpleasant is the sight of the burning deserts of sand ;
bow very quiet are these intellectual reveries, and how very
boisterous^ are the cravings of our hearts {

81. There is no happiness to be had in this earth, that would

UPASAMA EHANDA 861

tnake us wisb for our sovereinty in it; all happiness consists

ia the peace of the mindj which it concerns us always to seek.

82. It is the calm, quiet and unaltered state of the mind,

that gives us true happiness in all conditions of life; and the
true relemn of things in all places and at all times, and under
every circumstance in life.

88 . It is the virtue of sunlight to enlighten all objects,

and that of moonlight to fill us with its ambrosial draughts;
but the light of Brahma transcends them both, by filling the
three worlds with its spiritnal glory ; which is brighter than sun�
beams, and cooler than moon-light.

84. The power of Siva stretches over the fulness of know�

ledge, and that of Vishnu over victory and prosperity (Jayas-
Lakshmi). Fleetness is the character of the mental powers, and
force is the property of the wind.

85. Inflamation is the property of fire, and moisture is that

of water; taciturnity is the quality of devotees for success of
devotion, and loquacity is the qualification of learning.

86 . It is the nature of the serials to move about in the

air, and of rocks to remain fixed on the ground; the nature
of water is to set deep and run downwards; and that of moun�
tains to stand and rise upwards.

87. Equanimity is the nature of Saugatas or Buddhists, and-

carousing is the penchant of wine-bibers; the spring delights in
its flowering, and the rainy season exults in the roaring of
its clouds.

88 . The Takshas are full of their delusiveness, and the

celestials are familiar with cold and frost, and those of the
torrid zone are inured in its heat. (This passage clearly shows
the heaven of the Hindus, to have been in the northern r^ons
of cold and frost).

89. Thus are many other beings suited to their respective

climes and seasons, and are habituated to the very many modes
of life and varieties of habits; to which they have been accostom-
ed in the past and present times.

862 TOQA YifelSHTiliA

90. It is tbe one Uniform and Unchanging Intellect, tJaat

ordains these multiform and changing modificati^s of powers
and things, according to its changeable will and velocitj.

91. The same unchanging Intellect presents these hundreds

of changing scenes to us, as the same and invanable light of
the sun, shows a thousand varying forms and colour to the sight.

92. The same Intellect sees at a glance, these great multi*

tudes of objects, that till the infinite space on all sides, in all the
three times of the present, past and future.

93. The selfsame pure Intellect knows at once, the various

states of all things presented in this vast phenomenal world, in
all the three times that are existent, gone by and are to come
hereafter.

04. This pure Intellect reflects at one and the sametime, all
things existent in the present, past and future times ; and is full
with the forms of all things existing in the infinite space of the
universe.

95. Knowing the events of the three times, and seeing the
endless phenomena of all worlds present before it, the divine
intellect continues full and perfect in itself and at all times.

96. The understanding ever continues the rame and unal�

tered, notwithstanding the great variety of its perceptions of in-
numerables of sense and thought: such as the different tastes of
sweet and sour in honey and nimba fruit at the sametime. (t. e.
The varieties of mental perception and conception, make no
change in the mind), as the reflexion of various figures, makes
no change in the reflecting glass,

97. The intellect being in its state of arguteness, by abandon�

ment of mental desires, and knowing the natures of all things
by reducing their dualities into unity

98. It views them alike with an equal eye and at the same�
time; notwithstanding the varieties of objects and their great
difference from one another, (t. e. All the varieties blend into
unity).

99. By viewing all existence as non-existence, you get rid (A

Dl^Aia KHANDA. 863

yonr existiitg'pains and troubles, and by seeing all existence in

ligbt.of n&ility; you avoid tbe suffering o� existing evilsi

100. Tbe intellect being withdrawn from its view of the

events of the three tenses (�. e. the occurrences of the past,
present and fiTture times), and being freed from the fetters of its
fleeting thoughts, there remains only a calm tranquility.

101. The soul being inexpressible in words, proves to be a

negative idea only | and there ensues a state of one�s perpetual
unconsciousness of his soul or selfexistence. (This is the state of
ancesthesia, which is forgetting oneself to a stock and stone).

103. In this state of the soul it is equal to Brahma, which

is either nothing at all or the All of itself; and its absorption
in perfect tranquilness is called its liberation (moksha) or eman�
cipation from all feelings (bodhas).

JOS. The intellect being vitiated by its volleity, does not sec
the soul in a clear light, as the hoodwinked eye has not but a
dim and hazy sight of the world.

104). The intellect which is vitiated by the dirt of its desire

and dislike, is impeded in its heavenly flight, like a bird caught
in a snare. (Nor love nor hate of aught, is the best state of
thought).

105. They who have fallen into the snare of delusion by

their ignorant choice of this or that, are as blind birds falling
into the net in search of their prey.

106. Entangled in the meshes of desire, and confined in the

pit of worldlineffii, our fathers were debarred from this unbarred
sight of spiritual light and endless delight.

107. In vain did our forefathers flourish for a few days on

the surface of this earth; only to be swept away like the flutter�
ing flies and gnats, by a gust of wind into the ditch.

108. If these foolish pursuers after the painful pleasures of

the world, had known the path of truth they would never fall
into the dark pit of unsubstantial pursuits.

109. Foolish folks being subjected to repeated pains and

pleasures by their varioas choice of things; follow at last the

864 YOaA YAlBIS^aA.

fate of ephemeral worms, that are bom to move and^dte ^�liJjeir

native ditches and bogs; (t. e. Aathey areboffl of eartiiand
dust so do they return to dust and earth again).

110. He is said to be really alive who lives trae to nature,

and the mirage of whose desires and aversion, is suppressed like
the fumes of his fancy, by the rising cloud of his knowledge
of truth.

111. The hot and foul fumes of fancy, fly afar from the
pure light of reason, as the hazy mist of night, is dispersed by
the bright beams of moon-light.

112. I hail that soul which dwells as the inseparable intellect

in me; and I come at last to know my God, that resides as a
rich gem enlightening all the worlds in myself.

113. I have long thought upon and sought after thee, and
I have at last found thee rising in myself; I have chosen thee
from all others; and whatever thou art, 1 hail thee, my Lord 1
as thou appearest in me.

114. I hail thee in me, O lord of gods, in thy form of infini�

ty within myself, and in the shape of bliss within my enraptur�
ed soul; I hall thee, O Supreme Spirit 1 that art superior to and
supermost of all.

115. I bow down to that cloudless light, shining as the didc of

the full moon in me; and to that salf-same form, which is free
from all predicates and attributes. It is the self risen light in
myself, and that felicitous salfsame soul, which I find in myself
aiier ego.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Meditation on Beauha in One�s Sede.

Argument. Pantheiatic Adoration of tho unireisal soul.

P RAIILADA Gontinued;�Om is the proper form of the One>

and devoid of all dcfaloatlon ; that Oin is this all, that is
contained in this world. (Tho Sruti says: � Om is Brahma, and
Om is this all, it is the first and last &c.).

3. It is the intelli^ncp, and devoid of flesh, fat, blood pnd

bones ; it abides in all things, and is the enlightener of the si^u
and all other luminous bodies.

S.. It warms the fire and moistens the water; (t. e. gives h^t
a'n^' n^oihtur^ to' the fire and water). It gives sensation"to
tbe^iIHba, and enjoys all things in the manner of a princo.'
(Worms in the sun, refre^Os'in the bi'eeEe &c. Pope). ^

4. It rests without sitting^ it goes without walking; it is.

abtive in its inactivity^ it acts all without coming in tact witli
any thing. '�

' 5. It is the past and gone, and also tho present and even noW;
it is both the next moment, and remote future also ; it is all that*
is fit and proper, and whatever is unfit and improper likewise.
(Changed through all, and yet in all the same. All Disoordf
harmony not understood, tends to universal good. (Pope).

6 . -Undaunted, it produces all productions, and spreads the

worlds over one another; it continues to turn about the worlds/
Urom the Sphere of Brahma to the lower grounds of grass.. (So
^Qpe:�Spreads through all extent, spreads undivided, operated
unspent).

I 7. Thodgb unmoving and immutable, yet it is as fleeting

and obangeable as the flying winds; it is inert as the solidt
Epde, and mote transparent than the subtile ether. ' "These aa
they change, are but the varied God." Thomson.

Vot. 11.

109

866
TOQA VA^ISHTHA.

8 . It moves the minds of men, as the winds shake the leaves

of trees; and it> directs the organsj>f sense, ass charioteer
manages his hor^.

9i The Intellect ntsas the lord of this hodilj mansioD; which

is carried about as a chariot by the equestrians of the senses ;
and sitting at its own ease as sole monarch, it enjoys the fruitions
of the bodily actions.

10. It is to be diligently sought after, and meditated upon

and landed at all times; because it is by means of this only, that
one may have bis salvation from the pains of his age and death,
and the evils of ignorance:

11. It is easily to be found, and as easy to he familiarised as

a friend; it dwells as the humble bee, in the recess of the lotos*
like heart of every body.

12. Uncalled and nninvoked, it appears of itself from within

the body; and at a slight call it appears manifest to view. (So
the Smti :-->The soul becomes palpable to view).

13. Constant service of and attendance on this all-opnlent

Lord, never make him proud or haughty, as they do any other
rich master to his humble attendants.

14. Thu Lord is as closely situated in every body, as fragrance

and fluidity, are inherent in flowers and sesamum seeds; and as
flavour is inseparably connected with liquid substances.

16. It is by reason of our unreasonableness, that we are

ignorant of the Intellect, that is situated in ourselves; while our
reasoning power serves to manifest it, as a most intimate friend
to our sight.

16. As we come to know this Supreme Lord, that is situated

in us by our reasoning; we come to feel an ineffable delight in
ns, as at the sight of a beloved and loving Mend.

17. As this direst Mend appears to view, with his ben^

itaflnence of shedding full bliss about us; we come to the sig^t
of such glorious prospects, as to forget at once all our eartiriy
enjoyments before them.

(7PASAMA EHANDA.

18. All his fetters are brok@a loose and, �fdl off from him,
and all his enemies are put to an end} whose mind is not perfora�
ted by his ciainngs, like houses dug by the injurious mice.

19. This one in all pan) being seen in us, the whole world
is seen in Him; and He being heard, every thing is heard in
Him: He being felt, all things are felt in Him; and He being
present, the whole world is present before us.

20. He wakes over the sleeping world, and destroys the

darkness of the ignorant; He removes the dangers of the distress
Bed, and bestows His blessings upon the holy. So the sruti
ntptetujdgani God never sleeps Jones. The ever wakeful eyes of
Jove. To wakes over the sleeping worlds. Iliad).

21 . He moves about as the living soul of all, and rejoices as

the animal soul in all objects of enjoyment; it is He that glows
in all visible objeets in their various hues. (Shines in the sun,
uid twinkles in the stars; blazes in the fire, and blushes in
flowers. Pope).

22. He sees himself in himself, and is quietly situated in

idl things; as pungency resides in peppers, and sweetness in
sngar Ac.

23. He is situated as intelligence and sensations, in the

inward and outward parts of living beings; and forms the essence
and existence of all objects, in general, in the whole universe.

24. He forms the vacuity of the sky, and the velocity of the
winds; He is the light of igneous bodies, and the moisture e�
aqueous substancs.

26. He is the firmness of the earth, and the warmth of the

fire; He is the coldness of the moon, and the entity of every
thing in the world.

26. He is blMkness in inky substances, and coldness in the

p ertiflleg of snow; and as fragrance resides in flowers, so is he
resident in all bodies,

27. It is his essence which fills all space, as the essence of time
fills all duration; and it is his omnipotence that is the fountain
of all forces, as it is Us omnipresence that is the support of every

86S

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

things in eveiy place. (This is the peevasion^ of omhiprewiice

' wrongly called as pantheism) .*

28. As the Lord unfolds everything to light, by the external

Organ of sight and the internal organ of thinking; so - the)
Great God enlightens the gods (sun, moon,'Indra and others
by liis own light. (The Natural Theism which represented the
visible heavens and heavenly bodies as gods, maintained also
the doctrine of the One Invisible God, as shining and supporting
them all by his presence. Gloss).
29. I am that I am, without the attributes (of form or'
figure or any property) in me; and I am as the clear air, unsullied''
by the particles of flying dust; and as the leaves of lotuses/
untouched by their supporting and surrounding waters. .' '

' SO. As a rolling stone gathers no moss, so there is nothing'

that touches or bears Any relation to my airy mind; and the pain
aiid' pleasnrd Wbith betake the' body, vahnot^edi my form of-
the inner soul.

31. The soul like a gourd fruit, is not injured by the shower
of rain falling oti the outer body resembling its bardicrust; a^
the intellect like the flame of a lamp, is not to be held � fast
fastened) by a rope.

32. So ibis ego of mine which transcends every thing, is nbf

to be tied down by any thing to the ear^; not does'it b^r anjr
Velation. with the objects of sense or my mental dcsiresj'ior �any*
thing existant or not in existence imtbis world.

Stf. .Who has the power to grasp the etapty

jeohfine the mind ? 'You may cut th'e 'body' to i'-ihtoslt^
ihut yon (�imot'divide the invisible and -'tbh indiVulibl#) VAtdddf^
Spirit rising in me.

' .34! As the .pot being brdken br-hor^, 'or rernbv'ed'fronr'^ts

place, there is no loss sustained by its Containing or contain^ air j
so the body being destroyed, there is no damage done to (he

� (TVw is.tbc doctrine of the indwelling gpirit pervading ail natnie):

or u the poet says i�A motion or epirit that impela .

' . All thinking things, all objects of thonght,

And'rollS thiough'alt things ** WoidswoHb). **

l^^ASAMA KHiNDA. 869

nncoanecied soul} and thn mind is as false a name, as tltat of a

demon or Fisdcba.

35.' The destm'ction 6f'the ^oss body, does not injnre the
immaterial soul;; and what is the mind, bat the perceptiva
power of desires And gross pleasures and pains. (The organ
of Iho inind'is destroyed with the body).

'' 36. 1 had such a percipient mind before, but now I have
found my rest*in quiescence. 1 find it is another thing beside
myselfj becau^ it perceives and partakes of the enjoyments o�
life, and is exposed to the dangers that betake the body.

37. There is another one in me (i. e. the soul or intellccQ^.

which, beholds the actions of the other (t. e. of the mind) as a
theatricact; and witnesses the exposure of the body to peril, as its,
last sad and catastrophe.

.* 38. It is'tbe wicked spirit, that is caught in ignorance; but

the pure spirit hra nothing to suffer: and 1 feel in myself neither
the wish of my epntipning in worldly enjoyments, nor a desire',
of forsaking them altogether. (I enjoy my life while it lasts).* ^
39'. Let':,what maiy come to pass on me, and whatevOr
may happen to pass away from me j 1 have neither the exi^ta<
tion of pleasures for mo, nor an aversion to the suffering of pain,
(in my gain or loss of any thing, in my resignation, of myself
to God). , , , ^

< 40. Let pleasure dr paih betake or forsake me as it may.

Without my being concerned with or taking heed of either; be>
flause�likaioW the ^actuating desires, to be incessantly rising and
setting in the sphere of my. mind.

1 4b.' Ilet'^thdM''d(�ires depart from me^ for I � have nothing

to�do'.with them] nor have they any concern with me.; Alas I
how have I been all this time, misled to these by ignorance,,
Which is iny greatest enemy.

* 42. It'is by favour of Yisbha, and by virtue of my. pore

'Vushnava faith, rising in me of itself, that my ignorance is now.

* Nor lore thy life nor hatoi hot lire while thoa lirmt; HoW fong or short,
permit to heaven. Dum vivimw, vinamus.

870

YOQA VAl^ISHTflAi

wholly dispelled from me, and (he knowledge of ihe True One
is revealed unto me.

43. My knowledge of troth has now driven away my egoism

(or knowledge of myself) from my mind j as tiiey drive a spirit
from its hiding-place in the hollow of a tree.

44. I am now pnrified by admonition (mantra) of divine

knowledge to me, and the arbour of my body is now set free
from egoism, which set as a demon (Yaksha) in it.

45. It is now become as a sacred arbour, blooming with

heavenly flowers; and freed from the evils of ignorance, penury,
and vain wishes, which infested it erewhile.

40. Loaded with the treasure of sacred knowledge, 1 find

myself sitting here as one supremely rich; and knowing all
is to be known, 1 see the sights that are invisible to o^ers.

47. I have now got that in which nothing Can be wanting,

and � wherein there is no want besides; it is by my good
fortune that 1 am freed from all evils, and the venomons serpents
of worldly cares.

48., My chill and frigid ignorance is melted down, by the light

of knowledge; and the hot mirage of my desires, is now quenched*
and cooled by my quietude; I see the clear sky on all sides
without any mist or dust, and I rest under the cooling umbrage
of the tranquility of my soul.

49. It is by my glorification of God, and my thanksgivings to

Vishnu, my holy rites and also by my divine knowledge and
quietism; that 1 have obtained by grace of my God, a spadoua *
room and elevated position in spirituality.

50. 1 have got that god in my spirit imd have seen and
known him also in his spiritual form. He is beyond my own
ego, aud 1 remember him always in tiiis manner.

51. 1 remember Vishnu as the great Spirit, tmd eternal

Brahma in his nature; while my egoism or selfishness is confined
as a snake, in (he holes of my organic frame, which is wholly (he
laud of death. (The animal soul is born to die with the mortal
body).

(JPASAMA ^AKDA.

871

62. It is entangled in the bashes of its pricking desires, resem�

bling the prickly harauja ferns; and ad mist thetnmnltsoE
raging passions, and a thousand other broils of this world.

53. It is placed amidst the conflagration of calamities, and

is encircled by the flames of smart pain at all times} it is sub�
jected to continual ups and downs of fortune, and repeated
risings and filings in its journey in this world.

64. It has its repeated births and deaths, owing to its inteiv
minable d^ires; and thus I am always deceived by this great
enemy�my own egoism.

65. The animal soul is powerless at night, as if it were caught

in the clutches of a demon in the forest; so I feel it now to be de�
prived of its power and action, while 1 am in this state of my
meditation. (The animal spirit is dormant in its states of
physical and spiritual trance).

66 . It is by grace of Yishna, that the light of my understand�

ing is roused j and as I see my God by means of this light, I lose
the sight of my demoniac igoism : (t. e, I become unconscious of
my existence at the sight of my Lord).

67. The sight of the demoniac egoism dwelling in the cavity

of my mind, disappears from my view in the like manner; as the
shadow of darkness flies from the light of a lamp, and as the
shade of night is dispersed by day light.

58. As yon know not where the flame of the lighted lamp is
fled, after it is extinguished; so we know not where our Ipidly
egoism is hid, at the sight of our God before us.

59. Idy rich egoism flies at the approach of reason, as a

hnvy loaded robber, flies before the advance of day light; and our
false egoism vanishes as a demon, at the rising of the true Ego
of God.

60. My egoism bring gone, I am set at ease like a tree, freed

from a poisonous snake rankling in its hollow cavity I am at
rest and in my insensibleness in this world, when 1 am awakened
to my. spiritual light.

879'

YOGA VABI8HTHA.

61. I have escaped from the hand of my captor^ and gmned

iny permanent ascendency over others; 1 have got my internal
coldness aang froid, and have allayed the mirage of my thirst-
after vain glory.

� 62. I have bathed in the cold bath of rain yirater, and am

pacified as a.rock after the cooling of its conflagration'; lam
cleansed of my egoism, by myi-knowledgcof the true nieaning ot
Ihe term. > r

63. What is ignorance and what are our pains and aflliction ?-
what are our evil desires, and what are opr diseases and dangers
All these with the ideas of heaven and liberation, together
with the hope of heaven and the fear of hell, are but false con*,
ceptions proceeding from our egoism or selfishness (of the
cravings and loathings of our. hearts).

64. As a picture is drawn on a epnyas apd. not inr empty air,,

so our thoughts depend on opr selfish principle'and upop jts
wont. And as it is the clear linen, that�^re^ivCs the yellow' eol-.
our of safron; so it is the pure soul that fece�ivea'�^e' image of
O'od. It is egoism which vitiates the soul with the bilious^

� 'Si

passions of tho heart, as 'a dirty cloth vitiates a goodly paint,

with its inborn taint.

* ,

65. Purity of the inward soul, is like the clearness of the.

autumnal sky; it is devoid of the cloudiness of egoisnh and the.
djrizzling drops pf desires, (t. e. A pure soul is ga clear as the
imcloudcd sky).

'' 66. 1 bow down to thee, O my soul inmostT- that a?

stream of bliss � to me, with pure limpid waters amidst,'and wi*
6 ioht the dirt of egoism about thee. - -
' 67. i hail thee, O thou my soul I that art an ocean of joy to
ine, uninfested by the sharks of sensual appetites, and "tindistuc-^
bed by the submarine fire of the latent mind.

68 . I prostrate myself before thee, O thou quick 'sotd of,

ininel that art a mountain of delight to me, without the hovef*
ing clouds of egoistic passions, and the wild fires of gross appetite^
and desires.

DPimiMA&HiNDA.

eTS

0d. I'bow to tbeia, O tiioa soul in me! tliat art tlie Heavenly
lake of MAnaea to me, mth tbe blooming lotuses of delight}
and'without the billows of cares and anxieties. '

70. I greet thee my internal spirit I that floatestin the shape

of a swan (hansa) in the lake of the mind(m&nasa) of every indi*
vidoal, and residest in the cavity of the lotifornli cranium (Brahma*
randhra), with thy outstretched wings of consciousness and
standing.

71. All hail to thee, O thou full and perfect spirit! that art
the undivided and immortal soul, and appearcst in thy sever^
parts of the ihind and senses > like the fulUmoon containing all
its digits in its entire self.

72. Obeisance to the sun of my intellect, I which is always in

its ascendency, and dispels the darkness of my heart; which per*
vades everywhere, and is yet invisible or dimly seen by us.

78. I bow to my intellectual light, which is an oilless lamp

of benign effulgence, and burns in full blaze within me and
without its wick. It is the enlightener of nature, and quite still
in its nature.

74. ' Whenever my mind ui heated by cupid's fire, I cool it by

the coolness of my cold and callous intellect coolness; as they
temper the red hot-iron with a cold and hard hammer.

75. I am gaining my vietoty over all things, by'killing my

egoism by the Great EgO} and by making my senses and
mind to destroy themselves.

76. I bow to thee, O thou all subduing faith, that dost crush
omr ignorant donht by thy wisdom; dispellest the unrealities by
thy knowledge of the reality, and romovest our cravings by thy
con tentedness.

77 : *1 snbsut solely as the transparent spirit; by killing my

aaind by the great' Mind, and removing my egoism by the sole
and by driving the unrealities by the true Beality.

'78. I rely my body (t. e. I depend for my bodily existence),

on the moving principle of my soul only; without the conscious*
VOL. II. 110

AM YOOATi&ISHTHA.

JMM of my self emstence, my egoum� my mind and all efforta

�ad actions.

79. I have obtained atlast of its own accord, and by tbe infinifa
.grace of the Lord of all, the highest blessing of cold heartednen
ifDd inmeianee in mys^.

80. lam now freed from the heat of my feverish passions,

by subsidence of the demon of my ignorance; from disappearance
of the goblin of my egoism.

81. I know not where the falcon of my false egoism has

fled, from the cage of my body, by breaking its string of desires
to which it was fast bound in its feet.

82. I do not know whither the eagle of my egotism is flown,

from its neit in the arbor of my body, after blowing away its
�thick ignorance as dnst.

88 . Ah! where is my ^ism fled, with its body besmeared

/with the dust and dirt of worldliness, and battered by the rocks
of its insatiable desires? It is bitten by the deadly dragons of
fears and dangers, and pierced in its hearts by repeated disap*
pointments and despair.

84. 011 wonder to think what I had been all this lame^
when I was bound &stby my egoism in the strong chain of my
personality.

85. I think myself a new bom being to day, and to have

become highminded also, by being removed from the thick
dottd of ^ism, which had shrouded me all this time.

85. I have seen and known, and obtuned this treasure of my

�onl, as it is presented to my understanding, by the verbal testi*
monies of the sistras, and by the light of inspiration in my honr
of meditation (mmddhi).

87. My mind is set at rest as extinguished fire, by its bang

tdeased from the carmof the world; as also from all otiier
thoughts and desires and the error of egoism. I am now set bee
from my affections and passions, and all delights of tbe world,
�s also my craving after them.

VPASAUA KHANDA.

97S

88 . I hsTd passed over the impassable ocean of dangers and

difficnlties, and the intolerable evils o� transmigration; by the
disappearance of my internal darkness^ and sight of the One Great
God in my intellect.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
Htun to thx Sovl.

AtgmabtA, Frahl&da getting'tbo light of his internal soul, d^ghii

himself as ono in the company of bis sweet-heart

P BAHIADA continuedI thank thee, O lord and great spirit t

that art beyond all things, and art found in myself by my
good fortune*

2. 1 have no other friend, O my Lord, in the three worlds

except thee; that dost vouchsafe to embrace and look upon me,
when I pray unto thee.

8 . It is thou that preservest and destroyest all, and givest

all things to every body j and it is thou, that makest us move
and work, and praise thy holy name. Kow art thou found and
Been by me, and now thou goest away from me.

. 4. Thou fiUest all being in the world with thy essence j thou
art present in all places, but where art thou now fled and gone
from me.

6 . Great is the distance between ns, even as the distance of

the places of our birth, it is my good fortune of friend I that has
brought thee near mo today, and presented thee to my sight (so
fleeting is spirituaKivision.

6 . I hail thee, thou felicitous one! that art my maker and

preserver also; I think thee that art the stalk of this fruit of
this world, and that art the eternal and pure soul of all.

7. 1 thank the holder of the lotus and discus, and thee also
that bearest the crescent half moon on thy horehead-g^t Siva.
' 1 thank the lord of gods-lndra, and Brahmd also, that is bom
of the lotus.

8 .. It is a verbal usage that makes a distinction betwixt thee

and ourselves, (t. e. between the Divine and animal souls ); but
this is a false impression as that of the diffwence between
waves and their elemental water. .

UPA8A11A CHANDA. 877

9. Thon showesb tb}rae1� in the shapes of the endless Ts^eties

of beings, and existence and extinction are the two states of
thjself from all eternity.

10. I thank thee that art the creator and beholder of all,
and the manifester of innumerable fdrms. I thank thee that
art the whole nature thyself.
11. I have undergone many tribulations in the long conrse
of past lives, and it was by thy will that I became bereft of
my strength, and was burnt away at last.

12. I have beheld the luminous worlds, and observed many

visible and invisible things; but thou art not to be found in
them. So I have gained nothing (from my observations).

13. All things composed of earth, stone and wood, are

formations of water (the form of Vishnu); there is nothing here,'
that is permanent, O god, beside thyself. Thou being obtained�
there is nothing else to desire.

. 14u I thank thee lord 1 that art obtained, seen and knowm
by me this day; and that shalt be so preserved by me, as nevei%
to be obliterated (from my mind).

15. Thy bright form which is interwoven by the rays of;

light, is visible .to ns by inversion of the sight of the pupils
of our eyes, into the inmost recesses of our heart.

13. As the feeling of heat and cold is perceived by touch,.

and as the fragrance of the flower is felt in the oil with which
it is mixed; so 1 feel thy presence by thy coming in contact
with my heart.

17. As the sound of music enters into the heart through

the eats, and makes the heart strings to thrill, and the hairs of
the body to stand at an end; so is thy presence perceived in
our hearts also.

18. As the objects of taste are felt by the tip of the tongue,
which conveys their relish to the mind; so is thy presence felt by
my heart, when thou touehest it with thy love.

*19. How can one slight to look and lay hold on his Inner
sobI, shoots .t]iroug}i every senseof his bodjr; whenhe

678 TOGA VifSISHTHA.

takes up a sweet scenting flower, perceptible by the sense, of

smelling only,and finally decorating bis onter pereon with it;

20. How can the supreme spirit, which is well known to

us by means of the teachings of the Vedas, Vedanta, Sidhantae
and the Puranas, as also by the Logic of schools and the hymn#
of the Vedas, be any way forgotten by US?

21. These things which are pleasant to the bodily senser,

do not gladden my heart, when it is filled by thy translucent
presence.

22. It is by thy effulgent light, that the sun shines so bright;

as it is by thy benign lustre also, that the moon dispenses her
cooling beams.
23. Thon hast made these bulky rocks, and npheld the
heavenly bodies; thou hast supported the stable earth, and
lifted the spacious firmament.

24. Fortunately dihon hast become myself, and I haigo

become one with thyself, I am identic with thee and thon wiili
me, and there is no difference between us.

26. I thank the great spirit, that is expressed by tnnur by

the words myself and thyself; and mine and thine.

2 ff. I thank the infinite Ood, that dwells in my unegoistio

mind; and 1 thank the formless Lord, that dwells in my tnmquit
soul.

27. Thon dwcllest, O Lord! in my formless, tranqnif,

transparent and conscions souli as thon residest in thy own
spirit, which is unbounded by the limitations of time and space.

28. It is by thee that the mind has.its action, and the senses
have thrir sensations; the body has all its powers, and the vital
abd respirative breaths have their inflations and afihtions.

29. The organs of the body are led by the rope of desire
to their several actions, and being united with flesh, blood and
bones, are driven like the wheels of a car by the charioteer of
the mind.

30. I aip the coiucious&eM of my body, and an anther fbo.

UPASAMA KHANDl.

879

bodjr itself not my egoUm of it; let it therfora rise or &11, it is

of no. advantage or disadvantage to me.

81. I �ma born in tbesame time with my ego, (as a personal^

corporeal and sensible being); and it was long afterwards that

1 had the knowledge of my sonl; I had my insensibility last of

all, in the manner of the world approaching to its dissolntion at
.the end.

82. Long have I travelled in the long-some journey of the

world; 1 am weary with fatigue and now rest in quiet, like the
Pooling fire of the last conflagration, (i. e. of the doomsday).

88 . I thank the Lord who is all (to pan), and yet without all
and everything} and thee my soul l that art myself likewise.
I thank thee above those SAstras and preceptors, that teacb the
ego and tu (�. e. the subjective and objective).

Si. 1 hail the all witnessing power of that providential

spirit, that has made these ample and endless provisions for
others, without touching or enjoing them itself.

. 86. Thou art the spirit that dwellest in all bodies in the form
of the fragrance of flowers, and in the manner of brmth in
bellows; and as the oil resides in the sesamum seeds,

86 . How wonderful is this magic scene of thine, that thou

appearest in everything, and preservest and destroyest it at
lut, without having any persontdity of thy own.

87. Thou makest my soul rejoice at one time as a lighted

lamp, by manifesting all things before it; and thou makest it
joyous also, when it is extinguished as a lamp, after its epjoy-
ineat of the visibles.

88 . This universal frame is situated in an atom of thyself, as

the big banian tree is contained in the embryo of a grain of
itslflg.

89. Thou art seen, .0 lord, in a thousand forma that glide

ijinderonr sight; in the same manner as the various forms of
elephants and horses, cars and other things are seen in the passing
clouds on the sky^

880 toai VA^ISHTHl.

40. � Tbou art both the existence and absence of all 'thiiigs,
that are either present or lost to our view; yet thon art quite
apart from all worldly existences, and art aloof fromwll entities
and non-entities in the world.

41. Foifake, 0 my soul! the pride and anger of tby mind,

and all the foulness and wiliness of thy heart; because the high-
minded never fall into the faults and errors of the common people.

42. Think over and over on the actions of thy past-life,

and the long series of thy wicked acts; and then with a sigh
blush to think upon what thou hadstbecn before, and cease to do
such acts anymore.

43. The bustle of thy life is past, and thy bad days have
gone away ; when thou wast wrapt in the net of thy tangled
thoughts on all sides.

44. Now thou art a monarch in the city of thy body, and
hast the desire of thy mind presented before thee; thon art set
beyond the reach of pleasure and pain, and art as free as the air
which nobody can grasp.

45. As thou hast now subdued the untractable horses of

tby bodily organs, and the indomitable elephant of thy mind;

and as thon hast crashed thy enemy of worldly enjoyment, so
dost thou now reign as the sole sovereign, over the empire of
thy body and mind. ^

46. Thou art now become as the glorious sun, to shine within
and without us day by day; and dost traverse the unlimited
fields of air, by thy continued rising and setting at every place
in our meditation of thee.

47. Thou Lord! art ever asleep, and risest also by thy own
power; and then thou lookest on the luxuriant world, as a lover
looks on his beloved.

48. These luxuries like honey, are brought from great dis�
tances by the bees of the bodily o^ans} and the spirit tastes
the sweets, by looking upon them through the windows of
its eyes. (The spirit enjoys the sweets of offerings, by

of its internal senses}.

49. The seat of the intellectual world in the cranium is

UPASAMA EHANDA.

881

always dark, and a path is made in it by the breathings of ins>

piration and respiration (prAnapdna), which lead the soul to the
sight of Brahma: {lit : to the city of Btahmd. This is done by
the practice of pr&ndydma).

50. Thou Lord I art the odor of this flower-like body of

thine, and thou art the nectarioos juice of thy moonlike frame,
the moisture of this bodily tree, and thou art the coolness of
its cold humours; 'phlegm and cough).

51. Thou art the juice, milk and butter, that support the
body, and thou being gone (O soul |). The body is dried up and
become as full to feed the Are.

52. Thou art the flavour of fruits, and the light of all
luminous bodies; it is thou that perceivest and kuowest all
things, and givest light to the visual organ of sight.

63. Thou art the vibration of the wind, and the force of our
elephantine minds; and so art thou the acuteness of the flame of
our intelligence.

54. It is thou that givest ns the gift of speech, and dost stop
our breath, and makest it break forth again on occasions. (Speech
�VAch-vox in the femenino gender, is made Vdchd by affix
d according to Bhaguri).

55. All these various series of worldly productions, bear the

same relation to thee, as the varieties of jewelleries (such as the
bracelets and wristlets); are related to the gold (of which they
are made).

66 . Thou art called by the words I, thou, he &c., and it is

thyself that callest thyself such as it pleascth thee. (The
impersonal CK)d is represented in different persons).

57. Thou art seen in the appearances of all the productions

of nature, as wo see the forms of men, horses and elephants in
the clouds, when they glide softly on the wings of the gentle
winds. (But as all these forms are unreal, so God has no fornx
in reality).

68 . Thou dost invariably show thyself in all thy creatures on

earth, as the blazing fire presents the figures of horses and
elephants in its lambent flames. (Neither has God nor fire any
form at all).

VoL. II. in

882

YOGA VASISHTHA.

59. Thou art the unbroken thread, by which the orbs ol

worlds are strung'together as a rosary of pearls; and thou art the
field that growest the harvest of creation, by the moisture of thy
intellect. (The divine spirit stretches through all, and contains
the pith of creation).

60. Things that were inexistent and unproduced before crea�

tion, have come to light from their hidden state of reality
by thy agency, as the flavour of meat-food, becomes evident
by the process of cooking. *

61. The beauties of existences are imperceptible without

the soul; as the graces of a beauty are not apparent to one
devoid of his eyesight.

62. All substances arc nothing whatever without thy in�

herence in them; as the reflection of the face in the mirror (or a
picture in painting), is to no purpose without the real face or
figure of the person.

63. Without thee the body is a lifeless mass, like a block of

wood or stone; and it is imperceptible without the soul, as the
shadow of a tree in absence of the sun.

64. The succession of pain and pleasure, ceases to be felt

by one who feels thee within himself; as the shades of darkness,
the twinkling of stars, and the coldness of frost, cdbe to exist
in the bright sunlight.

65. It is by a glance of thy eye, that the feelings of pain

and pleasure rise in the mind; as it is by the beams of the rising
sun, that the sky is tinged with its variegated hues.

66. Living beings perish in a moment, at the privation of

thy presence; as the burning lamp is extinguished to darkness,
at the extinction of its light. (Light and life are synonymous
terms, as death and darkness arc bomomyms).

67. As the gloom of darkness is conspicuous at the want of

light; but coming in contact with light, it vanishes from view, t

� (I. M, ^As the work is known after it is worked out hy the workman).

t So there is hot dead matter without the enlirening soul, and ovetT
-i%fuU of life with the soul inherent in it).

UPASAMA EHANDA

883

68. So the appearances of pain and pleasure, present them*

selves befor the mind, during thy absence from it; but they
vanish into nothing at the advance of thy light into it.

69. The temporary feelings of pleasure and pain, can find

no ^om in the fulness of heavenly felicity (in the entranced,
mind) ^ just as a minute moment of time, is of no account in tho
abyss of eternity.

70. The thoughts of pleasure and pain, are as the short�

lived fancies of the fairy land or castles in air; they appear by
turns at thy pleasure, but they disappear altogether no sooner
thy form is seen in the mind.

71. It is by thy light in our visual organs, that things

appear to sight at the moment of our waking, as they are
reproduced into being; and it is by thy light also poured into
our minds, that they are seen iu our dream, as if they are all
asleep in death.

72. What good can we derive from these false and transient
appearances in nature ? No one can string together the seeming
lotuses that are formed by the foaming froth of the waves.

73. No substantial good can accrue to us from transitory

mortal things ; as no body can string together tho transient
flashes of lightning into a necklace. (This is in refutation of
the usefulness of temporary objects maintained by the Saugatas).

74. Should the rationalist take the false ideas of pain and'
]^leasure for sober realities; what distinction then can there be
between them and the irrational realists (Buddhists).

75. Should you like the Nominalist, take everything which

^ears a name for a real entity; I will tell you no more
than that, you are too fond to give to imaginary things a ficti�
tious name at your own will. (Gloss:�according to the ideas

� and desires of one�s own mind, or giving a name to airy nothing).

76. But the soul is indivisible and without its desire and
egoism, and whether it is a real substance or not we know no�
thing of, yet its agency is acknowledged on all hands in our
bodily actions).

77. All joy be thine! that art boundless in thy spiritual

884

TOGA VA'SISHTHA.

body, and ever disposed to tranquility; that art beyond the

knowledge of the Vedas, and art yet the theme of all the
sastras.

78. All joy to titee {that art both bom and unborn with the
body, and art decaying nndecayed in thy nature; that arf 'the
unsubstantial substance of all qualities, and art knoTm and
unknown to every body.

79. I exult now and am calm again, I.movc and am still

afterwards; I am victorious and live to win my liberation
by thy grace; therefore 1 hail thee that art myself.

80. When thou art situated in me, my soul is freed from all
troubles and feelings and passions ; and is placed in perfect rest.
There is no more any fear of danger or difficulty or of life and
death, nor any craving for prosperity, when I am absorbed in
everlasting bliss with thee.

CHAPTER XXXVII,

Disosdeb and Disqdite or the Asuea Realu.

Argument. As Prahlida was absorbed in Meditation, liia dominions

were infested by robbers for want of a Buler, and the reign of terror.

Y ASISHTIIA said r�Frahldda tbedcfcatcr of inimical hosts,

was sitting in the said manner in divine meditation, and
was absorbed in bis entranced rapture, and ondisturbed anaeithetia
or insensibility for a long^ time.

2. The soul reposing in its original state of unalterable eca-

taais, made his body as immovable as a rock in painting or a
figure carved on a stone (t� iaa relief),

3* In this manner a long time passed upon bis hybernation,

when he was sitting in bis bouse in aposture as unshaken as the
firm Mem is fixed upon the eartlu

4. He was tried to be roused in vain, by the great Asuras of

his palace because bis deadened mind remained deaf to tbeir calls
like a sold rock, anU was as impassive as a perched grain to the
showers of rain.
5. Thns he remained intent ttpon his God, with his fixed
and firm gaze for thousands of years ; and continued as unmoved,
as the carved sun upon a stone (or snudial).

6. Having thus attained to the state of supreme bliss, the

sight of infelicity disappeared from his view, as it is unknown
to the supremely felicitous being. (So the Srati. In Him there
is all joy and no woe can appear before Him).

7. During this time the whole circuit of his realm, was

ovempread by anarchy and oppression; as it reigns over the
poor fishes. *

8. For after Heranya-kasipa was killed and his son bad be�
taken himself to asceticism, there was no body left to mle over
the realms of the Asnra race.

* (The analogy of mataya nyaya or piscene oppresaion, moaua the havoc

which is oomitt^ on the race of fishes by thoir own kind, ns also by all other
jnsoivoTouB animals of caxth and air, and tyranny of the strong over the weak).

see TOGA ya'sishtha.

9. And as FiulilAda was not to be roused from his slumber, by

the solioilations of the Paitya chiefs, or the cries of his oppressed
people:�

10. They� the enemies of the gods, were as sorry not to have
their graceful lord among them; as the bees are aggrieved for
want of the blooming lotus at night, (when it is bid under its
leafy branches).

11. They found him as absorbed in bis meditation, as when

the world is drowned in deep sleep, after departure of the sun
below the horizon.

12. ' Tho sorrowful Daityas departed from his presence, and
went away wherever they liked ; they roved about at random, as
they do in an ungovemed state. -

13. The infernal regions became in time the seat of anarchy

and oppression; and the good and honest dealings bade adieu to
it all atonco.

14. The houses of the weak were robbed by the strong, and
the restraints of laws were set at naught; the people oppressed
one another and robbed the woman of their robes.

16. There were crying and wailing of the people on all sides,
and the houses were pulled down in the city; the houses andt
g^ardens were robbed and spoiled, and outlawry and rapacity
spread all over the land.

16. The Asnras were in deep sorrow, and their families were
starving without food or fruits j there were disturbance and riot
rising every where, and the face of the sky was darkened og
all sides.

17. They were derided by the younglings of the gods, and

invaded by vile robbers and envious animals ; the houses were
robbed of their properties, and were laid waste and void.

18. The Asura realm became a scene of horror, by lawless

fighting for the wives and properties of others; and the waUings
of those that were robbed of their wealth and wives, it made
the scene seem as the reign of the dark Kali age, when the atrocious
marauders gie let loose to spread devastation all over the earth.

CHAPTER XXXVlIl.

ScETiTiiry INTO THE Natube oe God.

Avgament. Hari's care for preservation of the order of the world|

a&d his advice to Frahlida.

Y ASISHTHA continued s�Now Hari who slept on his couch

of the snake, in his watery mansion of the Milky ocean,
and whose delight it was to preserve the order of all the groups
of worlds}�

Looked into the course of world in his own mind, after

he rose from his sleep at the end of the rainy season for achievo
ing the objects of the gods. (Vishnu rises after the rains on the
eleventh day of moon |

8. He surveyed at a glance of his thought the state of the

triple world, composed of the heaven, the earth and the
regions below) and then directed his attention to the affairs
of the infernal regions of the demons.

4. He beheld Prahldda sitting there in his intense hypnotic

meditation, and then looked into the increasing prosperity of
Indra's palace.

6. Sitting as he was on his serpentine couch in the Milky

Ocean, with his arms holding the conchoshell, the discus, and the
dub and lotus in his four hands;�

6. He thought in his brilliant mind and in his posture of pa~

dmaaana, about the states of the three worlds, as the fluttering
bee inspects into the state of the lotus.

7. . He saw Frahldda immerged in his hypnotism, and the� in�

fernal regions left without a leader; and beheld the world was
about to be devoid of the Baitya race.

8. This want of the demons, thought he, was likely to cool

the military ardour of the Devas; as the want of efeuds serves
to dry up the waters on earth.

9. Liberation which is obtained by privation of' dualism and

VOQA Va'SISHTBA.

egoism, brings a man to tbat state of asceticism; as the want of

moisture tends to dry up and deaden the promising plant.

10. The Gods being at rest and contented in themselves,

there will be no need of sacriiies and offerings to please and ap�
pease them; and this will eventually lead to the extinction of
the gods} (for want of their being fed with the butter and fat
of the sacriiies).

11. The religious and sacrificial rites, being at an end among

mankind, will bring on (owing to their impiety), the destruction
of human race, which will cause the desolation of the earth (by
wild beasts).

13. What is the good of my providence, if were I to allow this

plenteous earth to go to ruin by my neglect ? (It would amount
to Vishnu�s violation of duty to preserve the world).

14. What can I have to do in this empty void of the world,

after the extinction of these created beings into nothing, than
to charge my active nature to a state of cold inactivity, and lose
myself into the Anaesthesia of final liberation or insensibility.

15. I sec no good in the untimely dissolution of the order of

the world, and would therefore have the Daityas live to its end.

16. It is owing to the struggles of the demons, that the

deities are worshipped with sacrifices and other religious rites for
their preservation of the earth > therefore they are necessary for
the continuation of these practices in it.

17. 1 shall have therefore to visit the nether world, and

restore it to its right order; and appoint the lord of the demons to
the observance of his proper duties j in the manner of the season
of spring returning to fructify the trees.

IS. If I raise any other Daitya to the chieftainship of tte

demons, and leave Pralhada in the act of his meditation; it is
sure that he will disturb the Devas, instead of bearing obe^ence
to them. Because no demon can get rid of his demoniac nature
like Praldda.

DPASAUi ZUmL

19. P�IhAda is to live to old age in his sacred person, and to

reside therein to the end of the kalpa age, with this very body of
his; (without undergoing the casualties of death and transmi*
gration).

20. So it is determined hy Destiny, the divine and overruling

g^dese j that Fralhdda Urill continue to reign to the end of the
kalpa, in this very body of his.

21. I must therefore go, and awaken the Daitya chief from his
trance, as the rouring cloud rouses the sleepy peacocks, on the
tops of hills and banks of rivers.

22. Let that self ridden (twayam^miekla) and somnolent

{tam&dhittha) prince, reign unconcerned (amanaskdra) over the
Daitya race i as the unconscious pearl reflects the colours of its
adjacent objects.

23. By this means both the gods and demigods, will be pre�
served on the face of the earth ^ and their mutual contention for
superiority, will furnish occasion for the display of my prowls.

2A.. Though the cieation and destruction of the world, be indi-

6erent to me; yet its continuation in the primordeal order, is of
much concern to others, if not to my insusceptible self.

25. Whatever is alike in its existence and inexistence, is the

same also in both its gain and loss, (to the indifferent soul). Any.
effort for having any thing is mere foolishness; since addition
and subtraction presuppose one another. (Gain is the supplying
of want, and want is the privation of gain).

26. I shall therefore hasten to the infernal region, and

awaken the Daitya prince to the sense of his duty; and then will
1 resume my calmness, and not play about on the stage of tho
world like the ignorant. (The sapient God is silent; but foolish
souls are turbulent).

27. I will proceed to the dty of the Asnras amidst their

tumultuous violence, and rouse the Daitya prince as the sunshine
raises the drooping lotus; and I shall bring the people to order
and union, as the rainy season collects the fleeting dBhds on the
summits of mountains.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Aduokitions 07 Hast to PsAnLADA.

Argument. Hari enten into the Daitya city, blows hie conoh-^ell, and
ilirects Prahlada to reign and mie over his realm.

Y ASISHTHA coatmuedThinking thus within himself,

Hari started from his abode in the Milky Ocean with his
companions, and moved like the immovable Manddra mountain
with all its accompaniments.

2. He entered the city of Frahldda resembling the metropolis

of Indra, by a subterranean passage lying under the waters of
the deep. (This passage, says the gloss, leads to the tweta dwtpU
or white island of Albion�Britain) but literally it means the
underground passage of waters).

3. He found here the prince of the Asuras, sitting under a

golden dome in his hypnotic trance, like Brahmd sitting in his
meditative mood in a cavern of the Sumeru mountain. (This
shows Brahmil the progenitor of mankind or of the Aryan
Brahmanic race, to have been a mountaineer of the Altai or N.
polor ranges, called Sumem contra Kumem-the S. pole).

4. There the Daityas being tinged in their bodies, by 'the

bright rays of Vishnu�s person, fled far away from him, like a
flock of owls from the bright beams of the rising sun. (The
Daityas are night rovers or nita eharat, and cannot maintain
their ground at sun rise).

6. Hari then being accompanied by two or three Daitya ohiefis

entered the apartment of Prahldda, as the bright moon enters
the pavilion of the sky at eve, in company with two or three stars
beside her. (Moon in Sanskrit is the nude consort of the stars,
and called Tard-pati).

6. Them seated on his eagle and fanned with the flapper of

Lakshmi, and armed with his weapons, and beset by the saints
hymning his praise

UPASAMA E.HANDA.

891

7. He Slud, 0 great soul t rise from tby trance; and then

blear bis pdneAa janya sbell, wbicb resounded to tbe vault of
beaven.

8. Tbe loud peal of tbe Concb, blown by tbe breath of Vishnu,

roared at once like tbe clouds of the sky, and the wares of the
great deluge with redoubled force.

9. Terrified at the sound, tbe Baityas fell flat and fainting on

tbe ground; as when the flocks of swans and geese, are stunned at
the thundering noise of clouds.

10. But tbe party of Vaislinavas, rejoiced at tbe sound

without tbe least fear i and they flushed with joy like the Knrehi
flowers, blooming at the sound of the clouds. (Kurebi buds are
said to blossom in the rains).

11. Tbe lord of the Danavas, was slowly roused from Lis
sleep; in the manner of the kadamba flowers, opening their
florets by degrees at the intervals of rain.

19. It was by an act of the excrition of his breathing, that he

brought down his vital breath, which was confined in the
Vertieal membrane of the cranium; in the manner that the
stream of Ganges gushes out from the high*hiil, and mixes and
flows with the whole body of waters into the ocean. (So it is
with our inspiration and respiration, which carry up and down
our vital breath, to and from the sensory of the bnun).
13. In a moment the vital breath circulated through the
whole body of FrahlAda; as the solar beams spread over the whole
world soon after they emnate from the solor disk at sun rise.

14. The vital breath, having then entered into the cells of the
nine organs of sense; his mind became susceptible of sensations,
received through the o^ns of the body like reflexions in a mirror,

15. The intellect during to know the objects, and relying

in the reflexions of the senses, takes the name of the mind} as
the reflexion of the face in the mirror, refracts itself i^n to the
visual organ.

16. The mind having thus opened or developed itself, his-

eyelids were about to open of themselves; like the petals of the-
blue lotus, opening by degrees in the morning. .

893 rOOA VifSISHTBA^

17. The breathings then, by conveying the sensations to the

body, through the veins and arteries, give it the power of mot
tion; as the current breeze moves the lotuses.

18. The same vital breath, strengthened the powers of his mind
in a short time; as the billows of a river, become more powerful
when it is full of water.

19. At last his eyes being opened, his body shone forth with
vivacity, by its mental and vital powers; as the lake blushes
with blooming lotuses at the sun�s rising above the horizon.

20. At this instant, the lord bade him awake instantly at bis
word; and he rose as the peacock is awakened, at the roar of

A /tlnnA.

21. Finding his eyes shining with lustre, and hu mindi

strong with its past remembrance; the lord of the three worldr^
spoke to him in the manner, as he had formerly addressed the
lotus-bom Brabmd himself.

22. Oholy youth! remember your large (dominions), and

bring to your mind your youthful form and figure j then think
and ponder, why yon ^uselessly transform yout^f to this
torpid state.

23. Yon who have no good to desire nor any evil to shnn, and
look on want and plenty in the same light; you must know tiiat
what is destined by God, is all for your good.

26. You shall have to live here, in the living liberated state
of your mind, and in. fall possession of your dominions, for d
kalpa period; and shall have to pass your time with this body
of yours, and without any anxiety or earthly trouble whatever.

26^ The body being decayed by this time, you shall haya, ..
still to abide with your greatness of soul to theend.s^�tiij'the
body being broken down like an earthen 5,e yi<inife

like the contained �r of the pot, come ^ the common

ur of vacuum. '

27. Your body which is is to endure

in its purity to the end of witness generaUona,

passing before it without

UPASAMA RHANDA.-

698,

2 ||). The end of the kalpa or dooms day, is yet too far when the
twelve sans will shine together; the rocks will melt away, and
the world will be burnt down to ashes. Why then do yon waste
away yonr body even now ?

29. Now �the winds are not raging with fury, nor is the
world grey with age and covered with ashes over it. The marks
on the foreheads of the immortals are still nneffaced, why then
waste yonr body before its time ?

50. The lightnings of the deluging clouds, do not now flash

nor fall down like asoka flowers, why then do yon vainly waste
yonr preeions body so prematurely f

51. The skies do not poor out their showers of rain-water on

earth, so as to overflood the mountain tops, nor do they burst
out infire and bunt them down to ashes; why then do you waste
away your body in vain 7

52. The old world is not yet dissolved into vapour, nor fused
to fumes and smoke; neither are the deities all extinct, after
leaving BrahmA, Vishnu and Siva to survive them; why then
do you waste yourself in vain ? (If they are all alive, you should
learn to live also).

SS. The earth on all sides is yet so submerged under the

water, as to present the sight of the high mountains only
on it, why then waste you away your body in vain, (before the
last doom and deluge of the earth ?).

84. The sun yet does not dart his fiery rays, with such fury
in the sky, as to split the mountains with hedious cracks ; nor
do the diluvian clouds rattle and crackle in the midway sky;
(to presage the last day, why then in vain waste you your body,
that is not foreboded to die ?).

35. I wander eveiywhere on my vehicle of the eagle, and

take care of all animal beings Irat tb^ die before their time., and
do not therefore like your neligenee of yourself.
86 . Here are we and there the bills, these are other beings
and that is yourself; this is the earth and that the sky, all these
are separate entities and must last of themselves; why then
shoold yon neglect your body, and do not live like the. living ?

894

YOQA VA^ISHTHA.

87. The man whose mind is deluded by groaa igfhorance^ and

one who is the mark of afflictions, is yerily led to hail his death.
(So the Smriti saysVery sick and corpulent men have their
release in death).

38. Death is welcome to him, who is too weak 'and too poor
and grossly ignorant; and who is always troubled by such and
similar thoughts in his mind. (The disturbed mind is death and
bell in itself).

39. Death is welcomed by him, whose mind is enchained in

the trap of greedy desires and thrills between its hopes and
fears J and who is hurried and carried about inquest of greed, and
is always restless within himself.

40. He whose heart is parched by the thirst of greed, and

whose better thoughts are choked by it, as the sprouts of com are
destroyed by worms; is the person that welcomes his death at
all times.

41. He who lets the creeping passions of bis heart, grow as

big as palm trees, to overshadow the forest of his mind, and bear
the fruits of continued pain and pleasure, is the man who hails
his death at ail times.

42. He whose mind is festered by the weeds of cares, grow*

ing as rank as his hair on the body ; and who is subject to the inces�
sant evils of life, is the man that welcomes death for his relief.

43. He whose body is burning under the fire of descases,

and whose limbs are slackened by age and weakness, is the man
to whom death is a remedy, and who resorts to its aid for relief.

44. He who is tormented by his ardent desires and raging

anger, as by the poison of snake biting, is as a withered tree,
and invites instant death for his release.

45. It is the soul's quitting the body that is called death;

and this is unknown to the spiritualist, who is quite indifferent
about the entity and nonentity of the body.

46. Life is a blessing to him, whose thoughts do not rove

beyond thq confines of himself; and to the wise man also who
knows and investigates into the true nature of things.
upasama kbakda.

89S

47. Life is a blessing to him also, who is not given to his

egotism, and whose understanding is not darkened by untruth,
and who preserves his evenness in all conditions of life.

4S. His life is a blessing to him, who has the inward sati�<
faction and coolness of his understanding, and is free from
passions and enmity} and looks on the world as a mere witness,
and having his concern with nothing.

49. He is blest in his life, who has the knowledge of what<

ever is desirable or detestable to him, and lives aloof from both;
with all his thoughts and feelings confmdcd within himself}
(literally, within his own heart and mind).

60. His life is blest, who views all gross things in the light
of nothing, and whose heart and mind are absorbed in his silent
and conscious soul. (t. e. Who witnesses and watches the emo�
tions and motions of his heart and mind.

51. Blessed is hia life, who having his sight represses it from
viewing the affairs of the world, as if they are entirely unworthy
of him.

62. His life is blessed, who neither rejoices nor grieves at

what is desirable or disadvantageous to him; but has his content�
ment in every state of his life whether fauourable or not.

63. He who is pure in his life, and keeps company with pure
minded men; who spreads the purity of his conduct all about,
and shuns the society of the impure; is as graceful to behold,
as the hoary swan with its snow white wings, in the company of
the fair fowls of the silvery lake.

64. Blessed is his life, whose sight and remembrance, and

the mention of whose name, give delight to all persons.

65. Know the life of that man, O lord of demons to be truly

happy, whose lotus like�appearence is as delightsome to the
beelike eyes of men, as the sight of the full moon is delightful to
the world.

CHAPTER liX.

Rksuscitation ov PkablIsa.

Argament. On the neceasitjr of the obeerrance of duty, both in the

eecalar as well as Beligious Life.

T he Lord continued:�It is the soundness of the body, which

men call life; and it is the quitting of the present body for
a future one, which they call death. (Activity is the life of
the body).

2 . Yon are released from both these states, O high minded

youth! and have nothing to do with your life or death anymore.
(Because the living liberted are freed from the cares of life, and
future transmigratons also).

3. It is for your acquaintance, that I relate to yon the corn*

ponents of life and death; by knowledge of which you will not
have to live nor die, like other living beings on earth: Qn
pain and misery).

4. Though situated in the body, yet you are as nnemhodied

as the disembodied spirit ; and though embosomed in vacuity, yet
are you as free and fleet as the wind, on account of your being
unattached to vacuum. (Unattachment of the soul to the body
and vital spirit, constitutes its freedom).

6 . Your perception of the objects of the touch, proves you to

be an embodied being; and your soul is said to the cause of
that perception; as the open air is said to be the cause of the
growth of trees, for its putting no hindrance to Hieir height.
But niether the soul is cause of perception, nor the air of the
growth of trees. It u the mind which is the cause of the one,
as moisture of the other).

6 . But the perception of outward things, is no test of their

materiality to the monoistic immaterialist; as the sight of things
in a dream, is no proof of their substantiality, nor of the
corporeality of the percipient soul. (All external perceptions,
arc as those in a dream).

UPASAMA KHaNDA.

897

7. All tilings are comprehended, in yourself, by tbe light of

your intellect; and yonr knowledge of the only One in all, com*
prebends every thing in it. How then can you have a
body either to take to yourself or reject it from you ?

8 . Whether the season of the spring appears or not, or a

hurricane happens to blow or subside ; it is nothing to the
pure soul, which is clear of all connection whatever. (The soul
is unconnected with all occurences).

9. Whether the hills fall headlong to the ground, or the

flames of destruction devour ail things; or the rapid gales rend
the skies, it is no matter to the soul which rests secure in itself.

10. Whether the creation exists or not, and whether all

things perish or grow ; it is nothing to the soul which subsists
of itself. (The increate soul is self existent and ever lasting).
11. The Lord of this body, does not waste by waste of its
frame, nor he is strengthened by strength of the body ; neither
does it move by any bodily movement, nor sleep when the body
and its senses are absorbed in sleep.

12. Whence does this false thought rise in your mind, that
yon belong to the body, and are an embodied being, and that
you come to take, retain and quit this mortal frame at different,
times?

13. Forsake the thought, that you will do so and so after

doing this and that; for they that know the truth, have given up
such desires and vain expectations. (Since God is the dis�
poser of all events).

14. All waking and living persons, have something or other

to do in this world, and have thereby to reap the results of their
actions; but he that does nothing, does not take the name
of an active agent, nor has anything to expect; (but lives
resigned to the will of Providence).

15. He who is no agent of an action, has nothing to do with

its consequence; for he who does not sow the grains, does not
reap the huvest. (For as you sow, so you reap).

VoL. II.

113

898

YOGA ViCSISHTHA.

16. Desinence of action and its fruition, brings on a

quiesccne, which when it has become habitual and firm, receives
the name of liberation: (which is nothing to have or crave, save
what God gave of his own will, agreeably to the prayer, *�Let

not mine, but thy will be done)."

17. All intellectual beings and enlightened men, and those

that lead pure and holy lives, have all things under their com�
prehension, wherefore�there is nothing for them left to learn
a new or reject what they have learnt. (The gods end sages are
all knowing, and have nothing to know or unknow any more).

18. It is for limited understandings and limited powers

of the body and mind, to grasp or leave out some thing; but to
men of unbounded capacities, there is nothing to be received
or left out. (Fulness can neither be more ful, nor wanting
in any thing).

19. When a man is set at case after cessation of his relation

of the possessor or possesion of any external object, and when
this sense of his irrelation becomes a permanent feeling in him,
be is then said to be liberated in his life time. (Total unconneo-
tion is perfect freedom).

20. Great men like yourself, being placed in this state of peN
pctual unconcern and rest > conduct themselves in the discharge
of their duties, with as much ease as in their sleep. (Here is
the main precept of the combination of internal turpitude with
bodily action in the discharge of duties).

21. When one�s desires are drowned in his reliance on God,

he views the existing world�shining in his spiritual light.

22. He takes no delight in the pleasing objects about him,

nor does he regret at the afflictions of others; all his pleasure
conastbg in his own soul: (at its total indifference).

23. With his wakeful mind, he meets all the affairs of his
concern with his spiritual unconcern; as the mirror receives the
reflexions of objects, without being tainted by them.

24. 'In his waking he reposes in himself, and in his sleep

he reclines amidst the drowsy world^; in his actions he turns

UPASAMA EHANDA.

899

about as frolicsome boys, and his desires lie dormant in his

eonl.

25. O thou, great soul, thus continue to enjoy thy supreme

bliss, for the period of a Kalpa (a day of Brahmd), by relying
your mind in the victorious Vishnu, and with enjoying the
prosperity of thy dominions by exercise of your virtues and
good qualities. (The ultimate lesson is, to bo observant of the
duties which are paramount on every body, with relinquishment
of all personal desire for one�self).

CHAPTER XLT.

Installation of Pbahlada in ms Rbalm.

Argument. Hnri�a Inauguration of Prahldda with klessiagH, and

appointment of him to the Qovormnent.

T7ASISHTIIA said:�After Ilari the receptacle of the three

� worlds, and observer of eveiything that passes in them j
had spoken in the aforesaid manner in his lucid speech, shedding
the coolness of moon beams :

2. Prahldda beeamc full blown in his body, and his eyes

shone forth ns blooming lotuses; ho then spoke out with full
possession of his mental powers.

3. Prahldda said:�Lord! I was much tired with very

many state affairs, and in thinking about the weal and woe of
my people. I have now found a little rest from my labour.

4. It is by thy grace, my lord ! that I am settled in myself;

and whether I am in my trance or waking state, I enjoy the
tranquility of my mind at all times.

5. I always see thee seated in my heart, with the clear .sight�

edness of my mind ; and it is by my good luck, that I have
thee now in my presence and outside of it.

(5. I had been all this time, sitting without any thought in
me; and was mixed up as air in air, in my mind's internal
vision of thee.

7. I was not affected by grief or dnlness, nor infatuated by

my zeal of asceticism or a wish of relinquishing my body; (that
I remained in my torpid trance).

8 . Tlie One All being present in the mind, there is no room

for any grief in it, at the loss of .anything besides ; nor can any
care for the world, or caution of the body or life, or any fear of
any kind, abide in his presence.

S). It is simply by pure desire of holiness, rising spon-

tlPABAMA RHANDA.

not

ianeonsty of itself in me > that I had been situated in my

saintlike and holy state.

10. Yes my Lord, I am disgusted with this world, and long

to resign its cares; together with all the mutations of joy
and grief, which rise alternate in the minds of the unen�
lightened.

11 . 1 do not think that our embodied state is subject to

misery, and that our being freed from the bonds of the body;
is the cause of our release : it is wordlincss that is a venomous
viper in the bosom, and torments the ignorant only and not the
sage. (Bccansc it is mind and not the body, that is addicted
to pleasure, and feels the stings of pain).

12 . It is the ignorant and not the learned, whose minds

fluctuate with the thoughts, that this is pleasure and the other
is pain, and that 1 have this and am in want of another. (The
more they have, the more they crave).

13. The ignorant man thinks himself, to be a person distinct

from another j and so all living beings devoid of the knowledge
of truth, entertain and exult in their egoistic thoughts.

14. The erroneous idea that, such things are acceptable to

me, and others are not so; serves only to delude the ignorant,
and not the wise (who acquiesce to whatever occurs to them).

15. All things being contained by and situated in my all-

pervading spirit, how can we accept one and reject anotlier
thing, as distinct from and undesirable to the selfsame One ?
(Shall we desire only good from God, and not the evil also ? Job).

16. The whole universe whether real or unreal, (or composed

of its substantiality and vacuity), is a manifestation of Omni�
science ; we know not what is desirable or detestable in it to be
accepted or rejected by us. (But must submit to the wise ordi�
nance of providence).

17. It is only by discrimination of the natures, of the viewer

and the view, (*. e. of the subjective soul, and the objective
' world); and by reflecting the Supreme Soul in one's self, that
the mind receives its rest and tranquility.

002

yoga va'sishtha.

18. . I was freed daring mjr trance, of the conscionsness of

my being or not being, and of whatever is desirable or detes�
table to any one ; and I continue also, in the same state of my
mind even after 1 am awakened.

19. This state being familiar to me, 1 see every tbin^ in

the spirit within myself; and 1 act according as it pleaseth thee,
(t. e. Not by mine but thy will).

20. O lotus-eyed Hari! thou art adored in all the three

worlds; wherefore it behoveth thee to receive my adoration
also, offered in the proper form.

21. Saying so, the lord of Ddnavas, presented his platter of

presents (arghya) before the god, as the lord of hills pays his
offerings to the full-moon. (This hill is the mount of moon
rising, which is bailed and welcomed by it).

22. He worshipped Hari first of ail, together with his

weapons and bis Vehicle Garuda; and then he adored the
bands of the gods and Apsaras that accompanied him and the
three worlds contained in him.

23. After he had done worshipping the lord of the worlds,

with the worlds situated within and without him; the Lord of
Laxmi spoke to him saying

24. Rise, O lord of Dsnavas] and sit upon your throne, until
I perform your inauguration this very moment.

25. Hari then blew his pdnehajav^a shell summoning the

five races, of the gods, siddbas, sAdbyas and men and Diutyas,
to attend at the ceremony.

26. After this the lotus-eyed god placed him on the throne
which he deserved, and whereon he caused him to sit as cloud
rests on the summit of a mountain.

27. Hari then caused him to make his sacred ablation, with
the waters of the milky and other oceans; and those of the
Ganges and other holy rivers, which were presented before him.

28. All bodies of BrAhmans and Rishis, and all groups of

SiddhaS* and Vidyddharas; with the Loka-pAlas or regents of the
quarter^, attended and assisted at the ceremony.

UFASAUA KUAN0A.

903

29. Then Hari the immeasurable Spirit, annointcd the great

Asura in the kingdom of the Daityas; and the Maruta winds
lauded his praise, as they do the hymus of Hari in heaven.

80. Then blessed by the gods and applauded by Asiiras,

Frahldda greeted them all in his turn j and was thus addressed
at last by the slayer of Madhu�the demoniac Satan.

SI. The Lord said :�Do thou reign here as sole monarch,
as long as the mount Merit stands on the earth, and the sun and
moon shine in the sky; and be fraught with all praiseworthy
virtues of thine own.

82. Govern thy realm without any interested motive of thy

own, and without showing any symptom of anger or fear on
your part > but preserve your moderation and a tolerant spirit
in all your affairs-

83. May you never have any disquiet, in this realm of excel�
lent soil and plenteous provisions; nor do yon create any distur�
bance to the gods in heaven, or to men on earth below.

34. Conduct yousclf in your proper course at all events,

which may occur to you at any time or place; and never allow
yourself to be led astray, by the caprice of your mind or the
freaks of fancy.

36. Keep in mind your spiritual being, and abandon your,

egosim and selfish: views altogether; and then by manning your
affairs in one even tenor, both in your want and prosperity, you
will evade all the vicissitudes of fortune.

36. You have seen both the ways and dealings of this world,
and measured also the immeasurable depth of spiritual know�
ledge. You know the state of every thing in every place, and
require no advice of any body.

87. As you are now perfectly devoid of your auger, passions

and fears, there is no more any chance of further broils between
the g^ods and Asuras, under your rule over them in future.

38. No more will the tears of Asura females, wash the deco�
rations on their faces; nor will the currents of rivers rise as high
as lofty trees, with floods of tears from their weeping eyes.

904

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

39. Tho cessation of hostilities between the gods and demons,

will render the earth as quiet from this day, as the unruffled
ocean after its churning by the Mandara mountain.

40. The wives of the gods and demigods, will no more be led
away in captivity by one another; but will rest fearless under
the marital roofs of their husbands in futaijc.

41. Let thy expectations now rise from their dormancy, of

many long nights of dismal darkness', and be crowned with
success and prosperity; and do thou, O progeny of Danuj
enjoy thy unconquerable royal fortune, as in the company of thy
charming consort.

CHAPTEE XLII.

SpIEITtlALITY OF PrADHLADA.

Argument. The merit of hearing the narrative of Vislinu, and the

cause of PrahlMa's awaking from bis trance.

V ASISHTHA continuedThe lotns-eycd Hari, having said

thus much to Prahlitda, departed with the whole concourse
o� the assembled gods, Kinnaras and men, from the abode of the
Asura.

2 . Then did Frahldda and his associates throw handfuls of

flowers on the departing god, as be was mounted on the back of
the king of birds (Garuda�the eagle or bird of heaven).

3. The god crossed the heavenly Ganges and reached at the

milky ocean, where he took iiis serpent couch as the black bee
sits on the lotus-leaf.

4. The God Vishnu sat on his serpent seat with as much

ease, as Indra sits in heaven in the assembly of the gods; and as
the lord of the demons, was made to sit in the infernal region
wholly devoid of all his cares.

6 . I have now related to you, Edma I the whole narrative of

Prahl&da�s coming to his sense, from the state of bis insensibility;
and this account is as charming to tho holy hearer, as the cool*
ing moon-beams are refreshing to the tired traveller.

6 . The man that ponders in his mind, the manner of Prahld-

da's resuscitation to life; is regenerated in that felicitous state,
from the sinfulness of his former condition.

7. A cursory rehearsal of his narration, wipes off the sins

of men; while the deep consideration of its spiritual sense, leads
one to his eternal salvation.

9 . The ignorant are released from their ignorance, and the

deep tiiinker is released from his sins; therefore do not neglect
to ponder well on it, for the remission of all your sins.

The man who considers well the manner of Prahldda�s

II. 114

�m � tOQA VASiSUf

gfalmng his proficiency, gets a remission of all the sins commit

ted by him in his repeated previous states of life.

10 . Rama said �Tell me sir, how the sound of the pducAa*

fatty a conch shell, roused the mind of the devout Prahlada from
its immersion in holy meditatiob.

11. Vasistha replied:�Rnow Bdma, that there are two

states of liberation attending on sinless persons, the one is the
emancipation of one in his embodied state in this life, and the
other is after his departure from here.

12. The embodied liberation means one�s continuence in his

living body, but with a state of mind freed from its attachment
to worldly things, and librated from the desire of fruition and
reward of all his meritorious acts.

13. The disembodied liberation is obtained after the soul is re-*

leased from the body, and is settled in the Supreme Spirit. It
is an cnfranchisment from the recurrence of future life and birth
in this mortal world.

14. The living liberated man is like a fried grain, whose

regerminating power is parched within itself, and the desire of
whose heart is purified from every expectation of future reward
or regeneration.

15. He remains in the pure, holy and magnanimous state

of his mind, who resigns himself solely to the meditation of the
Greal soul, and continues as if he were asleep in his living
and waking states.
16. Being thus entranced in his inward meditation, he con�
tinues in a torpid state for a thousand years, and wakes again to
his senses, if he is allowed to live long ever after that period.

17. Prahldda remained thus with his holy thoughts suppres�

sed within himself, until he was roused from his trance by the
shrill sound of the conch-shell.

18. Hari is the soul of all beings, and he who assimilates

himself to that god in his thought ; becomes identified with the
supreme soul, which is the cause of all.

19. No sooner the god thought that Prahlada should come

nPASAMA,�EH4in>A. 907

to liis sense, than his sensation came immediately to him at the

divine will.

20. The world has no other cause, hat the divine spirit;
which with the assistance of the causal elements, takes different
forms on itself at the time of creation; and therfore it is the
spirit of Hari that constitutes the world,

21. The worship of God in spirit, presents Ilari to the spiri*

toal sight; and the worship of Hari in his outward form,
represents the figure to the soul and the inner mind.

22. Do you, O Rdma! put out the visible sights from your
view, and look at the inmost soul within yourself ; being thus
accustomed to spiritual meditation, you will soon have the sight
of your God.

23. The world presents a scene of the gloomy rainy weather,

with showers of woes falling on all sides; it is likely to freeze
us in ignorance, unless we look to the sun of our reason (or, un�
less we abide under the sunshine of 'reason).

24. It is by grace of God that we can avoid the delusions of

the world, as wo may escape from a goblin by means of a spell,

25. It is at the will of the spirit, that the thick darkness of

the mind, is dispersed and cleared off in time; the world is a net
work of delusion, which is scattered like a smoke by the breeze
of reason.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Rest aud Repose of Prahlada.

Argument All knowledge is derived bjr one�s own attonUon and

personal exertion, joined with his reliance on the grace of God.

E itMA said:>~Sir, yonr knowledge of all truths, and the light

' of your holy discourses, have gratified me as much, as the
cooling moon-beams gratify the medicinal plants : (whence the
moon is called o�kadh(sa or lord of medicinal drugs).

2. Your gentle and purifying words arc as gratifying to my

ears, as the beautiful and sweet flowers delight the external senses
(by their colours and odours). (Sweet words are often compared
with flowers by Persian and Urdu poets: as, gnleazrouzeijaved.
Elahikar takhnr meriko vp phol.)

8. Sir, if the exertions of men, as you said, be the causes of

their success, how was it that Prahldda came to be enlightened
without his effort or attempt ? (in obtaining his divine knowledge
without his learning or help of a preceptor).

4. Vasishtha replied :�^Yes Rdma, it was by his manly exer�

tion, that the highminded PrahlAda had acquired his divine know�
ledge ; and there was no other cause (of his knowing and having
whatever he know and posscsscil).

5. The soul of man is the same as the spirit of NArdyanai,

(which means abiding in man) j and there is no difference be�
tween them, as there is none between the oil and the sesamnm
seed; and as the cloth and its whitenss, and the flower and its
fragrance are not distinct things. (Because the spirit of God was
breathed into the nostrils of man. NArdyana and Pnntsha
both mean the spirit dwelling in man). -

6. And Vishnu is the same with his spirit or the soul of

man, and the human soul is the same with Vishnu; (which means
tho inherent spirit); Vishnu and the soul arc synonimons
terms as the plant and the vegitable.

UPASAMA KHANDA

909

7. Praliliula came at firat to know the soul by himselfj (of

his own intuition)j it was afterwards by means of his intellectual
power, that ho was led to the pursuatioa and made many pro$y>
lites after his own example.

8. It was by bis own desert, that PrahlAda obtained his boon

from Vishnu j and it was by the exercise of his own reasoning,
that he came to the knowledge of the eternal Mind.

9. Sometimes the soul is awakened of itself by one�s own

intuition, and at others it is roused by the grace of the personal
god Vishnu, owing to one�s faith in his person. (As it is said :
�Thy faith will save thee).�

10. And though this god may be plcasoil with his prolonged
Bcrvioo and devout worship, yet he is unable to confer spiritual
knowledge to one devoid of his reasoning faculty. (Or to one
who has no understanding. lienee gross idolaters can have no
salvation, which is to be had by spiritual knowledge only.
Blind faith is of no good, without the light of reason).

11. Hence the primary cause of spiritual light is the intell*

igence of a man, and which is gained by exertion of his mental
powers only) the secondary causes may be the blessing and
grace of a deity, but I wish you to prefer the former one for
your salvation. (So it is knowledge and intrinsic merit which'
exalt a man, and not the mere favour of a patron, is over able to
raise the unworthy).

18. Exert therefore your manliness at first, to keep the

quintuple organs of sense under proper control; and babituato
yourself with all diligence to cultivate your understanding, and
the power of reasoning.

IS. For know whatever gain any one makes at any time, it
is owing to his own endeavours only that he gains the same, and
not by any other means whatever.

14. It is only by dependence on your manly powers, that

you can surmount the insuperable barriers of your sensual
iqq>etiteB; and then by crossing over the ocean of this world,
reach to the other shore of supreme felicity.

910

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

15. lb requires uo exertion or manly effort to see the figure

oC Vishnu; but the mere sight of the image is not suSicieQt tO
Sftve you, or else the birds and beasts would all be saved by look*
ing at it.

10. If it wore in the power of the spiritual guide also to save

his foolish followers by his preachings ; it would be possible also
to the leaders of camels and kine, to save their herds in their future
lives. (This figure is set in many temples, and in stones also).

17. It is in the power of the mind only to acquire anything

good for one�s self, and not the favour of Hari or that of HarS;,
or the influence of money, that is able te effect anything.

18. It is by means of constant practice, accompanied by self-

resignation and self-controul, that one is enabled to effect any�
thing ; and whatever ho is unable to do by these means, is
impossible for him to do by any other in the three worlds.

19. Look to the spirit in the spirit, and adore the spirit in your
own soul; behold the supreme soul in yourself, and have the
universal soul in your own soul, and thus remain with it.

20. Fools flying from attending to the sdstras, or practising

their self-devotion and exercise of reason, have adopted to
themselves the Vaishnava faith as a path leading tc their better-
being; (or a means towards the great object of final beatitude).
21. Practice and diligence aresaid to be steps to self-edification,
and rites and ceremonies are represented as secondary courses
resorted to for want of the former I

22. The senses being refractory what is the good of cere�

monial observances, and these being under control, it is useless
to observe the ritual. (In both ways the rituals are useless to
men of virtuous and vicious habits; the former being in no need,
of them and the latter not benefitting by them.

23. Without rationality and dispassionateness of his spirit,

it is hard to have Hari (or spirituid felicity); and when there is
the cool and calm reasoning of the mind, it is as useless to have
the ided of Hari, as to place a lotus in the hand of the dead and
liberated.

tJPAdAiiA tUL^tJk. 9li

�4. When you have the qualities o� abstraction ahd ccmposlire

in yoar mind, think you have every thing inyotir^lf; for these

being in your possession, you become an adept, or else you are

an ass of the forest, (that is good for nothing).

25. Men arc eager to find favour in the sight of the gods
(and great men); but they do not seek the favour of their hearts
and minds: (which can give them whatever blessing is derived
from any other).

26. Vishnu the indwelling spirit of the body, is situated in

the inmost soul of every individual; it is tlie ignorant fool
only that forsake the innermost Vishnn, and seek the outer
form for its leading to the other; (which is more closely allied
to us than the latter).

27. The eonciousness dwelling in the cavity of the heart, is

the true body of the everlasting spirit; ttnd the outward form
of Vishnu, holding the conchshell, cudgel, lotus and the discus,
is but a false representation of it. (A fabrication of the ignorant
for the immatereal spirit, in a matcreal form).

28. He who forsakes the real form, and follows the fictitious
one, lets off the ambrosia pass from his band, in pursuit of
some promised confectionary.

29. He who is Udf settled amidst the charming scenery of hiS

spiritual meditation, lets his frantic mind to rove at large, after
every object that presents itself before him.

SO. He who has not the abstract knowledge of the soul in

himself, is under the subjection of bis infatuated mind; and
worships the image bearing the conch, discus, club and lotos in
its hands, as the supreme Lord and God.

31. It is by practice of continued austerity, and a prolonged

worship of this deity, that the mind of the devotee becomes purified
in process of time, and gets rid of its turbulent passions at last,

S2. But the daily practice of self�contro! and abstract medi<

tation, gives the mind the same purity, and like the or

mango fruit, it gets its accompanying virtues one by one. (The

virtacs of the mango are its flavonr, colour &c).

013

YOGA VA'SlSnXHA.

83. So the soul is said to got in itself the virtues of peace,

contentment and the rest, by means of the external adoration of
Hari; and it is for this reason that the practice of idol worship
is prescribed in the Sastras. (As a preparatory step to hoHness
and spiritual worship).

84. He who obtains his boon from the all powerfnl god,
gets it in reward of his merit ; as a fmit of the tree of his
long practice.

85. It is mental labour (AV .��painstaking), which is the

foundation of every improvement, and of all lasting good in
life; just as the cultivated soil is the cause of the good condition
of the harvest.

86. Even the digging of the ground, and the pulling of the
hill (by bodily labour), is productive of no good without appli�
cation of the mind. (Gloss. The digging of the ground alludes
to the mining of the earth by the sons of Sagara; and the
pulling of the hill refers to the churning of tho sea with Man-
dara by the gods and demons. Both these hardy works were-
for the sake of obtaining the gems hid under them which
required knowledge (of geology).

87. Men may undergo a thousand t||wsmigrationB, and

wander about the earth in various birt^jjphd shap&i, and yet
find no rest composure of their minds.

88. They may worship BrahmA, Vishnuimd the Budras for

ever, and gain their favour also, and yet can have no salvation
owing to the perturbed state of their minds.

89. Leave off worshipping the visible form or image of.

Vishnu (or any other god), either internally or externally in
your mind or before your sight; and put an end to your
transmigration, by meditating on your consciousness alone.

40. Behold the unsullied form of One infinite God in yonr -

conscious self, and by forsaking all whatever it is conscious of.
Kelish the sweet essence of the one real entity, and go over the.
ocean of repeated births in the mortal world.
CttAPTEE XLIV.

Of GaIdhi and his Destsvctioi^.

Aliment. Narratire of Gadhi in illostration of the Adoration of

Viahnn.

Y ASISHTAA 8aid:-^BAma; it is tAe gov'ernmeat of the

restless mind alone, that is able to destroy the delusion,
which causes the interminable transmigrations in this mortal
world. There is no other means to this end.

2. Hear attentively, O sinless RAmal this stoty which I

am going to relate to you, inorder to show you the intricacy
of understanding the nature of worldly delusions.

8. There is the large district of Kosala on the surface of

this land, which is full of forests and fruitful trees, forming
as groves of Kalpa arbors j and abounding with minerals like
the Sumeru mountain.

4. There lived a learned Brihman, known by the name

of Gddhi; who was intelligent and versed in the Vedas, and
rem^ed as an image of virtue.

6. From his youth he continued with the nalmtinBa of his.

mind, and abstracted from and indifferent to worldly affairs; and
was of as pure and unsullied a soul as the clear sky above.

6. Then intent on some fixed purpose of his mind, he left

the company of his friends, and went out to a forest to perform
his auatre devotion,

T. He found there a lake filled with full blown lotuses, and

the moon shining in the sky with the scattered stars about
her) and all shedding their lustre like showers of rain.

8. He went down into the lake, and stood in the midst of

the waters npto his neck; his body was below water, and
his head floated over it as a lotus; and he stood upon his
devotion, intent with a view to have the sight of Vishnu
present before him.

Vot. n.

115

914

YOGA Vl'&lSHTItA.

9. . He thus passed full eight monthSj continuing with hiM

body immerged in the water of the lake; and his face was
shrivelled and wan, like the lotoses of his lake for want of
son shine.

10. When he was emaciated by his aosteriries, his god Hari

appeared before him, in the manner of a dark cloud of the rainy
weather, appearing over the parched earth of the hot season.

11. The liord said:�^Bise O Brdhman! from amidst the

water, and receive thy desired blessing of me; because the tree
of thy vow, is now pregnant with its expected fruit.

12. The Brdhman replied;�! bow to thee, O my lord

Yirimn! thou art the receptacle of the three worlds, and the re�
servoir of innumerable starry worlds, which rise as lotuses in
the lake of thy heart, and whereon thon sittest like the black
bee (to behold their beauty).

13. ! want to behold my lord, the spiritual delusion which

thou hast ordained to blind fold this world, and known as
Vishnu Mdyd.

14. Vasishtha said:�To this the god replied;�you shall

verily behold this delusion, and get rid of it afterwards, by
virtue of thy devotion. Saying so, the god disappeared from
bis sight as an earial castle.

15. Vishnu being gone, the good Brdhman got up from his
watery bed, in the manner of the fair and humid moon, rising
from amidst the cool and white milky ocean.

16. He was glad in his soul at the sight of the lord of world,
and his heart was as full blown with joy; as the Eumuda (selene)
lotuses unfold at the sight of the moon.

17. He then passed some days in that forest, overjoyed in

his mind by the sight of Hari, and employed himself in Charge
of his Brdhmanical duties.

18. Once on a time as he had been bathing in the lake, over*

spread with full-blown lotuses, bethought upon the words of
Vishnu, as the great sages' reflect in their minds the sense of
texts of Vedas.

UPASAMA EHANDA.

915

19. Then in the act of his discharging his sacerdotal fnhctions

in the midst of sacred water, he made his mental prayer for the
expurgation of his sins. (This is the ceremony agha^marshna).

20. As he was preforming this act in the midst of the water,

he chanced to forget his sacred mantras (texts), and was drown�
ed in deep water in the confusion of his mind.
21. He thought that his body had fallen down like a moun�
tain tree, in the dale below by a blast of wind; and that his
dead corpse was taken up and mourned over by his friends.

22. He thought that his vital breath had fled away from his
beings, and the members of his body were as motionleBS as the
shrubs of sugar cane; laid down on the ground by a hurricane.

23. He thought his countenance to have faded away, and'

grovm as pale as the withered leaf of a tree; and that his body
now turned to a carcass, was lying on the ground like a lotus-
bud tom from its stalk.

24. His eye balls were as dull and dim, as the stars of the
morning are shorn of their beams; and the g^^nnd seemed to-
be as dry to him as in a draught of rain watevj and ^led with*
flying dust on all sidesa

25. He believed his dead body was beset all about by his
kind friends, weeping upon it with their sad and sorrowful conn-
tenaue(�, and loudly lamenting and crying over it like bitds-
npon trees.

26. He thought his faithful wife sitting at his feet as band<-

some lotus flower, and! weeping as {srofusely with a shower of
tears from her�^lotus like eyes, as the rushing of waters at the
breaking of an embankment.

27. His sonowing mother with her loud wailing and mourn�
ful ditties, was buzzing like the humming bee; and holding the
chin newly over grown with whiskers in her tender hand.

28. His friends were sitting by his side with their dqeoted
looks, and with strickling tears dropping down their faces and
cheeks; and these washed his dead body, as the molting dews
on withered leaves, bedew the parent tree.

18-

TOGA VA'mSHTHA.

' 29. The members of his body bow ceased to befriend hior,
like strangers who deoHne to become friends for fear of fotnre
separation, or turning unfriendly everjafterwards in life.

80. . The open lips leaving the teeth bare, seemed to deride at
the vanity of human life; as the white and bony teethed ascetica
and cynics do on fickleness of worldly events.

SL His month was as speechless, as that of a devotee in his

meditation; and the body was as motienless, as it was made of
mud and clay ; it slept to wake no more, like a sage absorbed its
his hypnotism.
82. It remised quiet with its lifted ears, as ^ to listen to tho
cries and wailings of the mourning friends; inorder to judge
the degrees their affection and grief for him.

83. Then the relatives raised their loud lamentations, with,

the sobbing and bitting of their breasts, swooning and rising, and .
shedding floods of tear from their leeky ^es.

34. Afterwards the sorrowful relations, removed the disgust-

ing corpse with their Utter cries for its funeral, seeing it no>
more in future in this passing world.

85. Then they bore the body to the funeral ground with its
rotten flesh and entrails, and daubed all over with mud and dust,
and placed it on the ground, strewn over with unnumbered bones
and skeletons, and dried and rotten carcasses.

36. Fights of flying vultures shaded the sunbeams on hig^

and the burning piles drove the darkness below; the fearful glare
of open mouthed jackals flashed en all sides, as they wen flames
of living fire.

87. There the ravens were bathed in floods ^ blood, and the
crows dipping their wings in it; ravenous birds were tearing the
entrails, and the old vultures were entrapped in those sMngs.

38. The friends of the dead burnt the corpse in the funeral
flame and reduced to ashes; and the moisture of the bod|y flew
in fumes, as the waters of the ocean are evaporated the in**
rine fire. '

89k The burning wood of the funeral pile, eoBSumed tiie dead

UPASAMA KBAKDA<

MT

body with loud enoldog noke; and tiie dry f�e! of the pile^
liaahed in ambient fiames with corling smoke over them.

40. The devouring fire gnawed down tl^ bones with crackl�
ing noise, and filled the atmespbeK with the filthy stink and
stench. It gorged np aU that was s<^t or hard, as the elephant
devoon the leeds with the moistnre contained in thw eellolat
vessels.

CHAPTER XLV.

OaDHI BXBOBN as a ChAHSALA, ass ICADK Kise

OTEE THE Eu TeIBE.

Argnment GAdhi rebont in n Chandall, Bia Life end Election as Eibg'

of Kir.

V ASISHTHA sud:�'Then6Adhr,'ltan^Dgaslie was amidsfc

the water with his sorrowful heart, saw many other occms
fences in the oleamess of his mind.

2. He saw a vilhge in the yicinity of Bhnta mandala (Botan)

fnll of its inhabitants, and that he was reborn there in the womb
of a Chandala woman, in which he remained with great pain.

8. Confined in the cavity of the womh> he felt his body pres*

Bed by the pressore of the intestines, while his senses were sorely
annoyed by being constrained to abide the stink the orduro
and Mth in the intestinal parts of Chandala wmnan.

4. After the foetus was matured, he was bom in proper time,

with its black complexion like a dark cloud of the rainy season,
and soiled with filth all over its body.

5. It grew np to childhood and then to boyhood in the

Chadala�s honse, and moved about here and there like a pebble
thrown up by the current of the Yamuna streun.

6. It reatdied its twdfth and then its sixteenth year of age,

and had its body fully developed like a rainy eloud increasing in
its size.

7. l%en aocompanied by a pack of hounds, the lad roved

from one forest to mother, and ccmtinned to hunt after and
kill the wild deer, in his occupation of a hun tannsn.

8. He was then joined with a ChandAli spouse, as as

the leaf of a tamdla plant, and who with her budding breasts ;
and swarthy hands and palms, resembled the newly (grouting
stalks and leaves of trees.

tJ}�ASAMA UnJititJA.

B10

9. Slid was black and swarthy in her whole complexioni

except her two rows o� milk white teeth> and had all her limbs
,BS brisk and supple as the tender creepers of the forest.

10* They sported together in the skirts of the forest in their

youthful dalliance} and wandered about the flowery meadoWS}
like a couple of nigrescent bees.

lit When tired they took their seats on beds of leaves and
creepers, which we spread over the plains, like those strewn over
the skirts of the Yindhya hills, by the driving winds.

12.. Th^ reposed in woodland groves, and slept in the ca*

vems of monntains; they sat on h^ps of leaflets, and had their
abode under shrubberies and bowers of creeping plants.
13. Th^ decorated their heads with hinkirata flowers, and
their necks and bosoms with blossoms of various kinds. They
hung ketaka flowers in their earholcs, and made necklaces of
amra florets.

14. Th^rolM on beds of flowers and roved about the foot of

the mountain} they knaw all the arbours where to resort, and
were skilled in archery and hunting the deer.

15. They begot many children as the offshoots of their race

in the hilly region; and they were as rude and rough ae the
prickly thorns, of the khadira plant,

. 16. After passing their youth in family life, they came g^

dually to their decay and decline; till atlast they were overtaken
by decrepit old age, which was as dry of pleasure as the parched
ground of the desert.

17. Then returning to their native village in the Bhnta or

Bhota district, they built for themselves a poor hut of leaves and
straws, and there lived aa recluse hermits; (passing their lives in
holy devotion).

18. GAdhi found his body worn out with age, and grown as
thin and lean as a dry leaf, and as a withered tamala tree growing
in a monntmn cave; wUch for want of moisture soon dwindles
^to decrepitude.

19. He saw his Chandala family increasing in its members.

YOGA VX&lSBTttA.

'MO

�ad Aimaelf becoming cramped in his means and ciabbed in bit

speech in his extreme old age>

to. As Gtidhi fonnd himself to be the oldrat man alive

among the Chandalas, and had his comfort in tiie members of
his family in bis dotage

21. He came to see at last all his family to be swept away by

the croel hand of death, as the rain water carries away the fallen
leaves of the forest.

22. He continned to lament over their loss, with his heart

rent with sorrow; and his eyes were suffused in tears, like those
of a stag deer separated from its companions.

23. Thus pamingsome days in that forest with his heart

overflown with grief, he left atlast his natal land, as the ai|natio
fowls quit their native lake, when its waters and the lotns plants
are dried up.

24. He travelled through many countries with his sad and

sickly heart, without finding a spot of rest and repose; and was
driven to and fro, as a cloud is carried by contrary winds.

26. On one time he entered the opulent city of the Kirs,

and observed the birds flying over it, like so many balloons hang*
ing in the air.

26. There he saw rows of trees on both sides of the road,

waving their variegated leaves and clusters of flowers like ena*
melled cloths and gems; and the path strewn over with beauU*
f ul flowers of various kinds up to the heels.

27. He then came to the royal road, resembling the milky

path of heaven; and found it filled by soidieis and citizens, and
their women without number.

28. He saw there the auspicious royal elephent decorated

with its gemming and embroidered trappings; and appeming ui
the golden mountain of the gods moving on the earth.

29. He learnt it to be rambling about insearch of a new'

king, to be elected in lien of the last king who was lately dead.
The royal elephant was employed as a jeweller to select the best
gem to be placed on the royal throne.

UIPASAMA KHANDA.

. 921

SO. !the Chanddia remained to look steadfastly on the elephant

witti his carious eye^ and found it to be no other than, a hill
in motion.

81. As he teas looking on it with amazement, the elephant

imme to him and lifted him with his trank; then setting him on

his head with respect, bore him as the mount Mern bears the sun
on its top.

82. Seeing him to sitting on the animal�s head, the people

sounded their trumpets; the noise whereof wes as loud as that
of the resounding ocean, to the roaring of the deluvian douds in
the sky.

88. Then the acclamation of �Victory to the king,�rose

from the assembled throng and filled the air around; and seemed
as it were the united cry of matutinal birds over the waking
(or rising) worid.

34. Next rose the loud voices of the panegyrists, which

moved in the air like the dashing waves of the sea.

86. Then the matrons joined to anoint him as their king,

and moved about him like the waves of the sea; surrounding the
Mandara mountain after its labour of churning.
36. The respectable ladies adorned him afterwards with
many ornaments of various gems, as the sea laves the rock on
its shore; with the many coloured waves under the beams of the
rising sun.

37. Youthful maidens poured cooling ointments on him,

as tiie raining clouds pour down their waters, on the tops of
mountains.

38. Other women decorated his person with wreaths of

fragrant flowers, with their tender hands; as the season of spring
adorns the forest with variety of flowery with her hands of the
tender stdka and branches.

89. They put a gpreat many paints and pastes upon his person,
which decorated it, as the rays of the sun, paint the mountain
with the many colours of its minerals.

40. His body being decorated udth ornaments made of gems

-VoL II. 116

92<

YOGA VASISHTHA.

and gold, attracted all hearts unto him j as the mount Meni
is attractive of all hearts, by the variegated clouds of evening
shining upon it.

41. He was adorned by beauteous maids, with shoots of

creeping plants ; which gave him the appearance of the kalpa
^tree, entwined by its creepers.

4ii. Being thus anointed and decorated, he was attended to

by all the royal family and subjects; as a diady and flowering
tree, is resorted to by the travellers.

43. They ail assembled and installed him on the throne, as

the gods join together, to place Indra on the throne, after he is
borne on the back of the Airdvata elephant.

44. In this manner, was the Chanddia made a king in the city
of the Kirs; and he was as much overjoyed at his unexpected
good fortune, as a raven is delighted to find a stout dead deer in
the forest.

43. Ilia feet were rubbed by the lotus like hands of the Kiri
(jUecu, and his body daubed with odorous ])owder of frankiusence,
which gave it the brightening appearance of the evening with
the crimson clouds.

46. lie flaunted in the Kir city and in the midst of their
women, as a lion struts in the company of lionesses in the flowery
forest,
47. lie now forgot his former pains and sorrows; and his
jicrson was as much cooled, as by wearing a necklace of pearls,
dropped from the heails of elephants killed by lions. And he
was as mxich delighted at the enjoyment of the luxuries in
comimny with these good people, as a sun-burnt elephant is
refresh^, in a lake full of water and forage.

48. He reigned here for sometime in his self-gotten kingdom,

having extended his power and mandates on all sides; he ruled
the state through the medium of the ministers, and was himself
known by the name of Odvala throughout his dominions.

CHAPTER XLVI.

Gadhi's Loss of his Visiohabt Eihoooh.

Argnmeot. Continuation of Oadhi's Vision

�yASISHTHA continued;�^Tlius wi|^ G^hi surrounded by

* his courtiers, and attended by bis ministers; the chiefs
paid their homagfo to him, and the royal umbrella was raised
above his head and the ohonri flapped about him.

2. He attained great dignity on seeing bis mandates were

carried out on every side. He was delighted to learn the state
affairs, and to be informed that his subjects were happy and
lived fearless within his dominion.

3. The pseans of the panegyrists, made him forget himself

nnd his former state; and the excess of his delight, made him as
giddy as if by intoxication.

4. Ho reigned for full eight years over the Kiri kingdom,

and managed himself in an honourabfe manner all'along that
time.

5. Ho was once sitting at his pleasure and without his regal

attire in the open air; and was looking at the clear firmament,
which was devoid of clouds and dtirkness, and' without the light
of the sun, moon and stars.

6. His heart was full with the enjoyment of royal dignity,

and did not think much of the trinkets and ornaments, which
were loaded upon him.

7. He went abroad at one time in this naked state of his

body, and beheld the setting sun bending his course below the
horizon from his wonted path of glory. (The setting sun refers
to his present state and his impending fall).

8. He saw there a band of chanddlas of black complexions

and big bodies, singing like melo^ous cuckoos the approach
of the vernal season.

9. They wore striking the strings their wired instruments-

9�

TOGA VAISISHTHA.

fyM, with the stroke of their tremhUng fingers; as the swarm

of sweet sounding bees, shake the tremulous leaves of trees with
their flattering and buzssingi

10. There stood an old man among them, who seemed to be

the leader of the band; and appeared with his grey head and
rnby eyes, like the mount Mcru with his snow covered top and
gemming caverns. ^

11. He accosted tilling sayingHow is it, O Kdlanjakaf

that you came to be here, has the king of this place taken you
for his associate on occount of your skill in music?

12. Docs he take a liking for sweet songsters, as they do for

the musical kokilas.and does he load upon them his favours, with
presents of household cloths and seats f

18. I am as much glad to see you here today (in this happy
condition of yours), as men are pleased to see the mango tree,
fraught with its fruits and flowers in spring.

14. I am as glad in my heart as the budding lotus at the

sight of the rising sun, and the seline or medicinal plants at moon
rise; and as great men are pleased with all their best gains,
so am I pleased at seeing thee here, because the highest limit
joys is the sight of a friend.

15. As the Chanddla was addressing the king in the said

manner, he acquainted him of the manner in which the wheel
of time turned to his favour. (Here is a misprint of avadhirana
for avodhdrana, which would alter the meaning and eapress,
that he felt ashamed at the speech).

16. At this instant his consorts tmd servants that were stand�
ing at the window, overheard their conversation, and were in
deep sorrow to learn that he i^as a Chandra by birth.

17. They were as sick at heart as the lotus-flowers under a

shower of frost, and as a tract of land under a draught; and the
citizens were as cheerless upon learning this, u upon seeing the
conflagratttn of a mountain wood.

18. He hurled his defiance at these words of the old ChandUa,

UFASAMA KHANDA,

025
�a tlie lion lymg on tbe ground, shows his teeth at the sneering
of a cat on the top of a tree.

19. He fled in haste into the inner apartment, and amotig its
sorrowful inmates, with as much palpitation of his heart, as the
reluctant swan enters a lake of withering lotuses, in the dry
season.

20. His limbs grew stiff, and his countenance became pale
with fear; and his knees tottered with inward rage, as the trunks
of trees shake with the burning fire in their hollows: (The tam
or tdiu tree is an instance of it. Gloss).

21. Ho beheld all persons there sitting in a malancholy

mood, with their downcast looks and drooping heads; like the
bending tops of plants, eaten up at the root by mice and rats.

22. The ministem, the ladies of the harem and all people of
the city, refrained from touching his person, as they avoid the
touch of a dead body lying in the house.

23. The servants ceased to minister unto him, and the ladies
with all their love and sorrowed for him, loathed his company.

24. They looked upon his cheerless face and dark complexion
with its departed lustre, as the funeral ground which every one
loathes to look upon.

26. Though the people sorrowed for his darksome body, now
smoking with fumes of his grief; yet they durst not approach his
person, which appeared to burn as a volcano amidst its smoke.

26. The courtiers left him with the heavings of their hearts,
nor were his orders obeyed any more, than those of quenching
the cool ashes with water.

27. The people fled from him as from a henions BAkshasa,

wlio is the cause of evil and danger only.

28. Thus was he shunned by all, and left lonesome amidst

the populous city; and became as an unbefriended traveller
passing throi^ a foreign country, without money or skill to
support him.

29. Though ho called and accosted every body, yet he gob

no answer from any one; as the hollow sounding reed, is never
returned with a reply by any of the passers by.

926 YOGA VAlSlSHTlIA.

80. They all said to oi>e another, that the gnilt of their long
association with the Chanddla, cannot be expiated by any other
penance,' than by the act of bnrning themselves alive on the
funeral pile in the form of self-immolation.

81. Being so resolved, the ministers and citizens all joined

together, and raised for themselves piles with heaps of dry wood.

82. These being lighted, blazed all about the ground like
stars in the sky, and the city was Blled with lend wailings of
the people all around.

S3. The wailing wives were shedding showers of tears with

their loud and piteous cries; and the weeping people were heaving
their heavy groans with their choked voices, all about the burning
furnaces.

84. The plaintive cries of the dependants of the self-cre�

mating ministers, rose as the swell of whistlings winds amidst
the forest trees.

85. Tlie bodies of great Brdhmans,. that were burnt on

the piles, sent forth their fatted fumes in the air; which were
scattered about by the winds, and overcast the landscape as with
a portentous mist.

86. The winds bore aloft and spread Far and wide in the open
sky, the stench of the burning fat and flesh of men; which
invited flocks of the flying fowls of the air to the Feast, and the
disk of the sun was hid under the wide extending shadow of the
winged tribe.

87. The flame of the bnrning pile, borne by the winds to the
sky, burned as a conflagration on high; and the flying sparks of
fire scattered in the air, appeared as falling meteors bluing in
the horizon.

88. Here the helpless boys were crying for tlieir ornaments
being robbed by attrocioos robbers, owing to their want of
guardians; and there the citizens were threaded with the
loss both of their lives and properties by the dacoits.

89. On one side the people were seen to lament the loss of
their �.relaUves (in the destructive fire); on the other were the

UPA9AMA KHANDA

927

lands of tlieives, larking and prying anobscrvcd about thelionscs

for plunder and booty.

'40. As adverse fate brought on tbis direful cliango on tbe

devoted city} its horrified inhabitants remained in mute am*
azement; as on the last doom of nature.

41. Oavala, the ChandAIa prince, whose mind was purified

and whose mannera were refined in the society of the great men
of the palace; witnessed the sad catastrophe of the state, and
mourned in himself with a pensive heart.
42. It is all owing to me, said he, that all this woe has befal*
len on this state; and that time has brought on the untimely
dissolution of the doomsday; both on this realm and the royal
family and its ministerial oificers.

43. What is the good of this miserable life of mine ? My

death is a blessing to me than living in this wretched state.
It is better for the mean and base to die away, than live to be
reviled by others.

44. Thus rcsolval, Gavala prepared a pile for himself, and

made an offering of his body in the burning furnace, like the
poor moth dropping on fire, without betraying a sigh.

45. As Gavala cast his body (nick named as Gavala) amidst

the flame, and was palling his limbs singed by the fire; their
violent motion and his painful emotion, rou8(>d the dreaming
GAdbi from his reverie amidst the water.

46. VAlmikd said As the sage was saying these things,

the day departed with the setting sun to its evening devotion;
the congregation broke with mutual salutations, for.the perfor*
mance of their evening ablations, and assembled again with the
rising sun after dispersion of the gloom of night.

CHAPTER XLVII.

VSBIFICATION 0 � GlOSl's VlSIOU.

Argument, QAdhi leame from a guest the report of the Seri people,
and goes out to inquire into the faot on the spot.

V ASISHTHA resnmed :-->Gd(lhi was soon afterwards relieved

from the perturbation of his mind at the delusions of the
world; and ho was set at rest from his perturbed state, like the
disturbed sea after subsidence of its waves.

i. His mind being freed from its painful thoughts, regained

its repose after the troublesome dream, had passed away, and
he resumed his calmness, as the god Brahma had his rest, after
the labour of his creation was over at the end of the kalpa :
(the time of his creative will or the duration of creation).

S. He regained his senses slowly, as a man upon waking from

his sleep; and as one gains his sobriety after i^e passing off of
his ebriety.

4. He then said to himself, I am the same Gddhi and in the

same function (of my sacred ablution in the water). All this is
nothing that I had been seeing so long, and thb I see as clearly
as men see things after dispersion of the shade of night.

6. Remembering himself what he was (t. e. coming to him*

self), he lifted his feet from amidst the water (�. e. got ont of it);
as the lotus*bud lifts its head above the water, after the &ost is
over in spring.
6. He said again, this is the same water, sky and earth
(where I stood before); but what I was just seeing, is quite as�
tonishing to me.

7. What am I and what do I see now, and what was I and

had been doing all this time? With these thoughts he remained
a long time with his knitted brows and staring eyes.

8. It^was my weakness, said he, that showed me this delo-

XJPASAMA KHANDA.

Bton} and knowing it for certain* he came out of the water, aa

the rising sun appears above the horizon. ^

0.' Then rising on the bank, he said;�Ah I where is that

mother and wife of mme, who attended on me at tke moment
of my d^th.

10. dr were my parents dead in the ignorant state of my

boyhood, like the parent plant of a young shoot, cut off by the
sword of death J

11. I am unmarried and know not the form of a wife, and

am as ignorant of conjugal love, as a BrAhman is stranger to
the pernicious taste of forbidden liquors.

12. I am too far from my country and know none of my

friends and relatives; unto whom I shall return and therto
to die,

13. Therefore all these scenes that 1 have come to see, are
no more than the forms of the fairy land pictured in my fancy.

14. Be it as it may, all this is but delusion and dream, and

we are living dead among our friends; it is all magpie and
delusion, and nothing is true or real herein.

15. Our minds are as wild beasts, roaming furiously in the

forest of error; which presents endless scenes of delusion to living
beings at large.

16. Beflecting on these delusions in his mind, GAdhi passed

some days at his own house amidst the woods.

17. Once on a time he happened to entertain a BrAhman at

his house as his guest, who resorted there to take his rest from
his travels.

18. He was highly gratified with feasting upon fruits and

syrup of flowers, and was as refreshed supplied with sap as the
tree which is supplied by the bounteous spring, and shoots forth
in its foliage and fruita^ in time.

19. They then performed their evening service, and turned

their beads, and afterwards took to their beds made of tender
leaves and grass.

�0. There they b^gan to talk on divine subjects, with whioh

Voi.. II. 117

930

TOOAVi)]SISHTHA.

they were conversant ; and the words fell from the lips, like
the sweet; of the vernal season.

21. Then Gddhi asked his guest in the course of 'their

conversation, saying; why is it sir, that yon are so thin and lean
and appear to lie so very weary.

22. The gnest replied:�Hear me sir, relate to yon the canse

both of my leanness and weariness, and 1 will tell yon the tme
facta, and not as a travelling teller of tales deals and lies.

23. There ia on the surface of this land, and in the woody

tracts of the north, the great district of the Kir (Kirgis ?),
which is far renowned for its richness. (Kir the land of the
Gees in Afganistan}.

24. I lived in the city there, and was honoured by its

inhabitants, and the gust of my sonl and mind were mightily
pleased with the variety of dainty food that 1 used to get there.

25. There it was once related to me by some one in the way

of gossip, that a chanddia had once been the king of that
country for the space of eight years.

26. I inquired of the village people abont the tmth of this

report, and they all told me with one voice, that a chand&la, had
redly reigned there for full eight years.

27. But being discovered at last as such, he immolated

himself on the burning pile; which was followed by the self-
immolation of hundreds of Brdhmans on the funeral pvre.

28. Hearing this news from their mouths, I departed from

that district, intending, O Brahman, to do my penance, by
making a pilgrimage to Fraydga (Allahabad, on the Doab or
confluence of the two sacred streams of Gunga and Jamuna).

29. I made my eiandrayatta fast for three days and nights,,

and had to break my fast only this day. It is for this reason,,
that have become so very thick and lean, as you find me
at present.

80. Vasishtha said Gddhi on hearing this, made a hundred

inqueries of his guest about the matter, to which he answered
everything in verification of the fact.
UPABAMA KHAKDA;

S31

81. OAdhi was quite surprised at this samtion, abd passed

the night till sunrise in great palpitation of his heart.

82. Waking in the morning, he made his ablution and

discharged his matins; then took leave of his guest, and began
to reflect in himself with his bewildered understanding.

83. He said to himself, what I saw in my delusion, is

ratified as a foct by my Brahman guest. I am puzzled to
think, whether this be a magic, or a fasoinataon of the conjurer
Sambara.

34. What I saw about my death amidst my relatives, was

undoubtedly a delusion of my mind; but the latter part of my
vision (of becoming a ChandAla), is verified by the Brtthman^s
observance of the penance ChAndrdyana for his having entered the
ChandAla city.

85. I must therefore learn fully the particnlars of the

ChandAla, and proceed immediatly to the Bhuta country (Butan?)
with an undaunted mind.

36. Thus determined, GAdhi rose to visit the distant

district, as the sun rises over the horizon to visit aU the sides of
Sumem: (the Attain chain, at the bottom of which the conntiy of
the Kirg^ is situated).

87. He travelled onwardi and obtained at last the sight of

the country he had seen in his dream; as intelligent and way
&ring men, reach to their desired destinations in distant regions.

88. Finding everything, however unattainable it may appear

at first, to be attained by perseverance, GAdhi was resolved
to make a test of the truth of his delusive dream.

89. He had proceeded from his home, with the swiftness of a

current rivulet in the rainy weather; and traversed through many
unknown countries, as a cloud passes over distant realms on the
back of its aiiy steed.

.40. At last he came to the country of the Bhatas (Bhotea8\

a people following their own debased customs; and thought
himseU to be got amongst a savage people,as a camel is con�
founded to find itself, fallen in a kaiaoja forest, in qu^t of

93S TOGA VA1SISHTHA.

thorny thistles. fThe camels or cramelas are called kaniaia

Ihojet, from their brovsing the hrambles).
41. There he sanr in its vicinity a city, as what he had seen
in his delusion; and resembling in every respect the halntation
of the Gandharva race.

42. Proceeding onward, ho saw at the further CUd, thC

locality of the ehanddlas, resembling the hell-pit of the infernal
region. (The out-cast^ are always located at the. filthy out*
skrits of towns).

43. It was as spacions a place as what he had seen in bis

vision, and beheld his own likeness in the dream appearing in the
figures of the chandAIas, as one sees the shape of a Gandharva
or ghost, in his dream or delirium.

44. He saw in that place the habitation of chand^las, as

what he had seen before in his delusion} and observed with grief
and coldness of his mind, (the deserted abodes of his fellow
ChandAlas).

45. He saw his own residence flooded over by rain water

grown with sprouts of barly and brambles; his house was left
roofless, and his bedstead was almost indiscernible.

46. His hut presented the picture of poverty and wretched�

ness, and its compound was a scene of ruin and desolation; (as
if it was laid waste by the hand of oppression and pillage).

47. GAdhi stood long gazing upon the dry white bones of
bulls and cows, buffaloes and horses, which lay strewn over the
plains round about his hut; and which he remembered to be the
remains of the beasts of his prey and slaughter, (lit the
bones broken under the teeth and jaws of men and wild b^ts).

48. He saw the dry hollow skulls lying on the ground,

which had served for his eating and drinking vessels before;
^d which still lay unmoved on the spot, and were filled with
rain water; (as if to supply him with drmk).

49. He saw strings of the dried entrails of the beasts of

his victim, -lying like parched plants on the plain, and pining
.with thirst for the rain-water.,

UPASAMA KHANDA.

033

60. Gidhi who was conscioos of himself (as GAdhi), the

Bnhman looked long at his former honse and its environs, re�
sembling the dry and delapidated skeleton of a human body,
lying unhuried on the naked land.

61. He stood amazed at what he saw, and then withdrew

himself to the adjacent village; as when a traveller repairs to
the habitation of the Aryas, from his sojourning in the land of
barbarians (MlecVohas).

62. There he asked some one saying, sir, do you remember

anything concerning the former state of yonder village, and the
lives of its chanddla inhabitants?

53. 1 have beard all good people say, that knowing men
are conversant with the annals of all places, as they know every
spot on a globe in their hand.

54. If you recollect aught of the good old chanddla that,

lived retired at yonder spot, and if you remember his adventures,
as every one does the past accidents of his own life

65. If you are acquainted with the particulars thereabouts,

then please to relate them unto me; for it is said there is great
spirit in directing a stranger, and in dispelling the doubta of
one hanging in suspense.

68. The village people being one by one importuned in this

manner by the strange Br&hman; they were as much surprised
at his odd request, as physicians are concerned at the abnormal
complaint of a patient.

67. The villagers said:�It is an undeniable truth, O

BrAbman! as you ray, that there lived a chandAla of hedious
shape by name of Katanjala at that place.

68. He was beset by a large family, consisting of his sons,

grandsons, friends and servants; and had other relatives and
kinsmen besidra. His children were as many as the fruits of
a mango tree.

69. But cruel fate snatched all his family in course of time
as a conflagration bums down a mountain forest with all its
fruits and^oWers at once.

934

rOQA VABISHTHA.

60. He then deserted his native land and went over to the
city of the Kirs, of which he became the kin; and reigned
there for the space of twice fonr years.

61. The citizens coming to know his mean birth i^terwards,

drove him from there at last; as they remove a noxious and
poisonous tree from the garden.

62. G�dhi' seeing the people immolating themselves on

funeral piles entered into a burning pyre, which he had prepared
for himself; and was thus purified with others by the sacr^ fire
jpavdka,

63. But tell us, O Br&hman, why you are so curiously

inquisitive about the chanddli^ and as to whether he was any
friend of yours, or yon had contracted any friendship with him.

64. Being accosted in this manner, Gddhi made many more

inquiries of them concerning the chanddia, and passed a wbolo
month in their serveral hous(� on his inquiry.

65. He also told the village people, all that he knew of the
chanddla in his dream j and they heard him attentively relating
the whole stoiy from first to last.

66. Gddhi being informed of all the particulars r^arding

the chanddia, both from the hearsay of the people as well as
from his personal observations; returned equally ashamed and
astonished to his abode, with the disgraceful reflection of bis
past vileness, which was stamped like the black spot of the moon
upon the tablet of his mind.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

On THS WONOBOITS PoWXE 07 iLtOSlON.

Aiigfamettt. Devotion of Oddhi after his return, and Vishnu�s exhibi�

tion of ttie extraordinoiy power of delusion to him.

V ASISHTHA continued r�Gddbi was bewildered in bis mind,

at all that be beard and observed about tbe Cbanddla and
bis residence, and felt uneasy to learn more about them.

2. He went back to tbe place, and observed tbe abodes that

lay scattered upon tbe plain; as when tbe lotus-born Brabmft
looks over the mins, made by the great deluge at the end of a
kalpa age.

8. He said to himself, these bones lying scattered about tbe

rained huts in this forest, look like little imps(pisdohas), gathered
round the trees standing on the burial ground.

4. These posts and pegs of elephant�s tusks, that are fastened

to and upon the walls of tbe ruined bouses j look like the craigs
of mount Meru, drowned under the waters of the kalpa deluge.

6. Here the Chanddla feasted on his meat food of monkey�s

flesh, and dressed with the sprouts of young bamboos; and
there he caroused on his country grog, in company with his
drunken friends.

6. Here he slept in the embrace of his murky spouse, on his

bed of tbe lion�s skin; being drunk with the better liquor mixed
with the ichor, mruding from the frontal proboscis of the
elephant.

7. There was a papk of hounds, tied to the trunk of the with�

ered BAaraeda tree, and fed with the rotten flesh of the putrid'
carcasses.

8. Here I see three earthen vessels covered with the hides of

bnfEalos, resembling fragments of dark clouds} and which bad
once contained the predons pearls falling from the sculls of

TOGA TASISHTHA.

elaia elephants. (The loir and poor people, oseearthen pots and

boiling kettles for boxes and chests).

9. I see the site of the place which I had seen in my dream,

and where the Chand41a boys played on the dost, with as much
glee and gaiety, as the cuckoos hare in ffitting on the tofts
of mango leaves.

10. I see the place I had seen in my vision, where the boys
sang responsive to the tune of their bamboo pipes; and drank
the milk of bitches, and adorned themselves with flowers from
the funeral grounds.

11. Here the Emilies of the wedding parties, met together

to celebrate their marriage festivity; and danced and sang as
loudly, as the noise of the dashing wavra of the s^.

IZ. There I find the bamboo cages, still suspended on high;

which were laid before, for catching the flying birds of the air;
inorder to be killed for the food (of their slayers).

13. Vasishtha resumed:�Thus GAdhi remained for a long time

on the spot, observing all what he remembered to have seen in
his dream; and was lost in wonder, to think on the miraculous
disclosure of these things in his dream. (Lit:�heartnitrings
palpitated with surprise &o.}.

14. He then departed from that place, and travelled through

many countries beyond the boundaries of Butan, for a long time,

15. He passed over many rivers and rocks, and through many
deserts and forests; nntil he reached to the snowy mountain,
and the habitation of humankind beyond its borders.

16. He then arrived at the city of a great monarch, the towers

of which rose as hills npon the earth; and there stopped after his
long journey, as when HArada rests in his heavenly dome, after
the fatigue of travelling through the numerous worlds.

17. He beheld in that city all the places answering to the

romantic thoughts in his mind, and those as he had seen and
enjoyed in his dream, and then asked the citizens in a respectful

IV^ Good Sirs, said he, do you remember any thing regard-

UPASAMA EHAKDA.
�37

{ng the Chanddla king that reigned h�e tot Bomeiune, which, i�
you do, be pleased to relate unto me in its proper order.

19. The citizens replied:�^Yes, O Brihman, there reigned

here a Chanddla king for full eight years, and he was elected
to its goverament, by the auspicious elephant of the realm.

90. Being at last discorercd to be of so vile a race, he com*

mitted his self-immolation on the funeral pyre ; and it is now a
dozen of yealrs, since the direful event has taken place.

21. In this manner the inquisitive G^dhi continued in his

inquiry of every man he met with, and was satisfied to learn
the same information from the month of every body there.

22. He then beheld the king of that city coming with his
body guards and vehicles, and whom he recognized to be no
other than the god Vishnn and his attendents as he had seen in
bis devotion, and were now going ont of the city.

28. He saw the sky shadowed by the cloud of dust raised by

the feet of the passing procession $ and remembered with gri^
the like state of his pomp under his past kingship.

24. He said to himself, here are the same Kiri damsels with
their rosy skins, resembling the petals of lotuses; and those with
their bodies blazing as liquid gold, and their cerulean eyes trem�
bling like blue lotuses.

25. The waving of the chonri flappers, flashes with the light
of br^ht moonbeams > and resemUes the falling waters of a
cascade, and clusters of kdsa flowers.

26. Beautiful maidens, waving the snow white fans in their

beauteous hands, resembled the forest fdants with pearly flower
on their bmnches.

27. The rows of furious elephants, standing on both sides

of the land, are like thick lines of kalpa trees, growing on ridges
of the Sumera mountuns.

28. These chieftains resembling the gods Yams, Knvera and

Vamna�^the lord of waters, are like the regents of the different
quarters of the sky, accompanying Indra�the lord of heaven*

29. These long extending lines of goodly edifices, whiok ait

Vofc. H. . 118

TOGA VilSISHTHA.
dM

fall of a great variety of tMngs, and aboanding in all aoirts

comforta, resemUc a grove of kidpa traes, ocmferring idl the oV
jeote of desire.

SO. In this royal city dC tbe Kirs, and in tbe mannera of its
osaemhled people, 1 see exactly the same cnstoms and usages, as
those of the kingdom of my past life.

81. Truly this is but a vision ia my dream, and appearing

as. a reality in my walking state; 1 cannot understand why this
delusive magic show is spread out before me.

32. O yes, I am as fast hound by my ignorance, and capti�

vated by my reminiscence, as a captive bird in a net, that has
lost all power over itself.

33. O fie! that my silly mind is so deluded by its desires,

that it is always wont to mistake the shadow for the substance,
of people dwell on their aerial castles.

84. This extraordinary mag^c, I ween is shown to me by

Yishu�the holder of the discus, of whom I recoUeot to have
asked the favour of showing Mdya or delusion to me.

85. I will now betake myself to aiutere devotion in the ca^

vern of a hill, in order to learn the origin and subsistence of delu�
sion. (�. e. How the deceitful! delusion sjmng from the truth?
fnl God, and where in it consists).

36. Having long thought in this manner, Gddhi went, out

of the city, and came to the cavern of mountain; where he
rested after all his travels and tn^vail of thought^ like a . lion
tired with his roaming for forage.

87. He remained there for a whole year, living only on the

water of the cataract collected in the hollow of his palm j lud
devoted himself to the worship of Vishnn, the holdw of the
SAringi bow.

88. Then the lotos eyed god appeared to him in bis watery
form, which was as dear and gumsefnl to right, as the limpid
lake d^ utnmn with the blue lotoses foil Mown opM it.

- 89( With this form, thegod approadied to the hermit's cell in

UPASAUA KHANOA.

939

the motmtam, and etood over it in the KkeneM of a transparent

mdoy cloud, resting on the humid atmospherOk

40. The lord spoke to him saying:�Ohdhi thou hast fully

seen the great spell of my magie (mKya); and known the
network ot delusion, which is spread by destiny over all? the
affairs of this world. (�. e. man is destined, and to be deluded
to think the false scenes of the world as real ones).

41. Thou hast now weH understood the nature of dlelosion^

which thou didst desire in thy heart to know, what is it again
that thou wantest to know, by these austerities of thine in
this mountain cave ?

42. Yasishtha saidGddhi the best of Brdhmans, seeing

Haii addresang him in this manner, honoured him duly with
strewing plentifid of flowers at his divine feet.

43. After Qddhi had made his offering (A flowers, with due
obeisanee and turning round the deity; he addressed him with his
words, sonndiag as sweet an notes of thn diAtaka to the bloom*
ing lotas.

44. G4dhi said r�Lord 11 have seen the dark delusion, that
thou hast shewu me- in her form of gloominess ; I pray Ihee now
to show her unto me in her foir form, as the son appears after
the gloom of night.

46. The mind which is vitiated the- dirt of its desires,

mews a g^t many errors, rising before it Ifte false phan*
toms and visions in a dream; bat how is it my lord! that the
same visions eeniinne to bo seen in the waking state also (or as
waking dreasn likewise ?

46. Itwasferamementonfy�thall tiionght to- have seen

some thing as Mae as a dream, when I stood amidst the waters
but how was it, O thou enKghtener of the mind, thidi it became
manifest to my outward sense and sight ?

47. Why was notthedeluuoaof my birth and death as a

(Thanddla, which took pW tong ago, ai^ lately verified by many
visible vestiges, confin^ in my memory-only, aeweU as other idle
creations of the brain, but became palpable to my naked eyevf .

940

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

48. .The lord replied>Clddhi! it is the natore of deleriain

as of one�s desires, to present many false appearances to vievr;
and to make one believe what he has never seen before, to be pre�
sent to his external sight, which in reality is a vision of his
mind only.

49. ^ere is nothing on the outside of any body as the

earth, sea, hills and the sky ; they are all contained in the mind
as the fhiits, flowers and leaves of trees, are born in the seed and
grow from its germ.
50. Like fruits and flowers growing out of the seed and its
sprout, this earth and all other things are the productions of the
mind alone, and not distinct from it in their essences {i. e. all
sensible perceptions are not reflexiems of the inborn ideas o�
the mind).

51. Know itfbr certain that this earth and all other things,
are situated in the mind and not outside of it; as the fruit�
flowers and leaves are all contained in the- inside of the- seed and
not without it.

52. The sight of things present, and the thoughts^ of the

absent past and unseen future, are all but acts of the mind, aa
the making and unmaking of pots, are both of them the doinga
of the pot maker.

53. Whatever notions there are in the minds of m�a from

their youth to age are alike to. the phantoms of their dream,-
or the deliriums of their ebriety or some (mental) disease.

64. The settled desires of the mind present a thousand ap�

pearances before its sight, as the rooted plants on earth, abound
witii fruits and flowers of vaiQh>QS kinds, on the surface of the
ground.

55. Bat the plants being rooted out fA. the ground, there-
remains no vestige of a fruit or flower or leaf upon earth : so the
desires being driven oat of the mind, there is no more any trace
of anything left behind them; nor is there any probability of
future transmigrations, when the reminiscence of the past is
utterly obliterated from the souh

UPASAM& KHANDA.

Ml

5S. It is no wonder for the shifting stage of the mind, to pre�

sent you the single scene of the ChandAIa, when it has in store,
and can with equal ease show you an infinity of appearances
at its pleasure. (The drama of life ezhihits but a partial scene
at a time).

&7. It was the impression {eidolon) in thy mind, that made

thee think thyself as the Chanddia, in the manner of the many
phantoms, that rise before the mind in the deliriiun of a sickly
person.

58. It was the same phrenzy that made thee see the advent
of thy Brdhman guest, and entertain him with board and bed ;�
and all thy conversation with him, was no other than the phanta�
sies of thy mind.

Bft, Then the thoughts of thy departure from home, and

arrival at the district of the Bhootas, thy sight of the Bhotias
and their villages and habitations, were but aberrations of thy
mind.
60. Next thy sight of the ruins of the former abode of Kat-
anjala, and the aouount that thou didst get of him from the
months of the people, were all the fumes of thy fancy.

61. Afterwards thy visit to the city of the Kirs, and the tale
told thee of the Chanddla's reign by the people, were the excogi*
tations of thy own mind.

62. Thus aU that thou didst hear and see, was the net-work
of tiiy imagination, and what thou dost believe as true is as
fabo as a phantom of thy brain.

�8. The mind infatuated by its hopes mtd desires sees every�
thing before it, how&r soever it may be removed from itj as one
dreams of objects as present before him, which would take a
whole year for him to reach at.

64. There was neither the geert nor the cify, nor were there
the Bhoteas or the Kiris that thou didst see in reality. It was
all a day dream, that thou didst see with thy mind�s eye.

65. The truth is, that on thy way to the country of the
Bhoteas at one time, thoa didst bait in the cave of this

942 YOGA VASISHTHA.

mottntain, as a stag rests himself in a forest^ after his long

wandering.

66. There being tired with the fatigue of thy travdj thon
didst fall into a sound sleep ; and dreamt of the Bhotia city and
the Chanddla, in thy reverie without seeing anything in reality.

67. It was there and in the same state of thy mind that
thou sawest the city of the Kirs ; and it was the delusi(Hi of thy
mind that showed thee those things at the time of thy devotion
in the water.

68. In this manner thou dost see many other things, where*
ever thou goest at any time ; as a high flier sees his vagaries on
all sides about him. (All worldly sights, are but vagaries of
imagination).

69. Bise therefore and remain unshaken in the discharge of

thy duties, without being misled by the vi^aries of thy mind;
because it is practice of one's profession that leads him to success,
and not the ideals or his mind. (t. e. mind thyself what thoa
art, and not what thou dost fancy to be).

. 7Q. Yasishtha said-Sq saying the lotus naveled Hari, who

is worshipped by the saints and sages in all places, went to hia
abode in the sea, where he was received by the hands of the gods
and holy sages, who led him to his residence. (Vishnu is
called lotus-naveled avvnr: on account of Brahma�s birth from
it, who is thence named the lotus-born I).
CHAPTER XLIX.

G/oni�s GAimNo of Tbue KNOvtsoox.

Argnnent. G4dhi gains his knowledge and Liberation from Eari in

his Life time.

y ASISHTHA continued:�^Visbna being gone, Gddhi began

to wander again about tbe Bhot country, as a cloud conti�
nues to move about in the air.

2. Having collected many informations about himself in the

life of the chandAla, be betook himself again to the worship o{
Vishnu in the cave of a mountain.

3. In course of a short time, Hari appeared to him again; as

it is his nature to be pleased with a little devotion, made with
sincerity of heart.

4. The god spoke to 64dhi with as much complaisance, as

the watery cloud addresses the peacock; and asked him what
he wanted again by his repeated devotion.

5. G4dbi replied;�Lord 11 have again wandered about the

countries of the Bhotahs and Kirs for these past six months, and
found no discrepancy in the accounts, they gave of me lately
from the former onra.

6. Thou hast told me. Lord { all this to be mere delusion,

(which prove to be positive facts by the testimony of every
body). 1 know the words of the great, serve to dissipate and not
increase the delusion; (as it is done by thy words).

7. The Lord sud r�It often happens that many things are
of nmultaneouBoccurrence at the one and same time; as the kdka^
idliya tanyoya or the qmchronous flying of the crow and the
foiling of the fruit upon him. Thus it was that the idea of the
Chand&la was of cotemporaneons growth in the minds of all the
Bhotas and Kirs as of thyself: as there are many men that are
prepossessed with the same opinion with others, however wrong
it may be.

944

yoga VA'SHaSTHA.

8. It v^as by cause of this, that they cortesponded with thy

thoughts, and related thy story as thou didst reflect it thyself i
because a cogitation or reflection of something cannot be
otherwise at the saiUe time} 0)nt it mUst appeur to every body
alike).
9. It is true that a Chand&la had erected a house at the hor>
der of the village, which thou didst see to be now reduced to
ruins; but it was an erroneous conception of thine, to think
thyself the very man, and to have built the very house. (It
was the mistake of thy personality for another, as it often
overtakes the minds of many men).

10. Sometimes the same mistake lays hold on many minds,

as the multitude is seen to be led astray, by the simultaneous cur�
rent of the same opinions in many ways.

11. In this manner many men see at once the same dream,
as the giddy heads of drnken men, fall equally into the same
kind of dizziness at the same time, of seemg the earth and skies
turning and rolling round them.

12. Many boys are seen at once to join in the same sport, and
a whole herd of stags is observed to meet together in the same
verdant field.

13. Many men are seen simultaneously to pursue the same

employment, for the purpose of gaining the like object of their
pursuit; (as it is seen in the flight and fighting of an army for
their safety or victory).

14. It is commonly said, that time is the giver (or producer)

and obstructer of the objects of human pursuits as of all other,
events; but time is as quiescent as the supreme spirit, and it
is the desire and exertion of people, that are the causes of their
desired ejects.

15. Time is a formless void, and is identic with the nature

'and form of the increate great Lord God himself. It is neither
the giver nor taker of anything to or from any one at any time.

16. Time according to its common reckoning by years, kalpas

and yuga ages, is classed among the categories of substance} but
time far from being a subitance, is the source of all substances.

UPASAMA KHANOA.

94t

17. Mea of deluded uaderstanding are subject to the errors,

arising from the like cause of their fallacy; and it was owing to
this false conception, that the Bhota and Kiri people, fell into
the very same error. (Like cause means, the same kind of bias or
prejudice &c).

18. Therefore employ thyself to do thy duty, and try to kno^

thy true-self} get rid of the error of thy personality (as so and so),
and more about as freely as I do by myself: (as a free aerial
Spirit).

19. Saying this, the lord Vishnu disappeared from his sight�
Und Qidhi remained in his cave, with great perplexity of his
mind.

20. He passed some months on the same hill, and then res�
umed his devotion to Vishnu with redoubled fervency.

21. He saw his god appearing again to his view, when he

bowed down before him, and addressed him as follows i �

22. Gddhisaid: �O Lord! Tam quite bewildered with the

thought of my Chanddlship, and my reflection on (he delusions
of this world.

23. Do thou deign to extricate me from my errors, and em�

ploy me to the only act of adoring the Holy one.

24. The lord said:�^lliis world, O Brdbman f is a delusion,

like the enchantment of the conjurer Sambara; all things here,
are the wondrous productions of imagination, and proceed from
forgetfulness of the self.

25. It was your error that made you see many things, in
your sleeping and waking dreams.

26. The Kirs were led also to see the same things like thy�
self, and to mistake those falsities as true, owing to the same error
laying hold of all of you at the same time. (As the tricks of a
ju^ler^are thought to be true by the observers).

27. Now hear me tell you the truth as it was for your own
good } and whereby your error will fade away, like a creeping
plant in the chilling month of November.

28. The Chanddla Kdtanjakd, whom thou thinkest to be thy�

self, was a man really existent in the same locality before.

VoL II. 119

946

YOGA VX^ISHTBA.

20. Who being bereaved of hie fomtljr there, went Oat from
that place to wander about in foreign parts j when he became
king of the Kiris, and afterwards immolated himself in the fire.

SO. This state of Katanjaka entered into tby mind, when

thou hadst been standing amidst the water in thy devotion;
and the thoughts of the whole career of the Chandahi) had
altogether engrossed thy mind.

31. Things which are seen or thought of once, can hardly

escape from the memory; and it sometimes happens that the
mind comes to see many things in its imagination, which it has
never seen before its eyes.
82. In the manner of a man's vision of a kingdom in his
dream, and like the delirium caused by the vitiated humonn^
of the body; the mind sees- many day dreams and deleriums^
in its waking a^ healthy states also.

83. The past conduct of Kitanja presented itself to your

mind, as the post and future events of the world, are present be*
fore the mental vision ofao oracle;(lit:�aseerof tbethne
times).

84. That this is I, and these things and those friends are
mine; is the mistake of those that are devoid of their kU*
knowledge; (as thou didst think that Katanja to be thyself, and
his house, goods and relatives to be thine also).

35. But that �I am all in all� is the belief of the truly wise,
which prevents them from falling into such mistakes; and keeps
them from the wrong notions of individualities and particulari-
Ideq, from their belief in the generality of all persons and
things.

.36. This general and oecumenical view of all things, preserves

people from the mistaken notions ot pleasure and pain; and
makes the drowning wretch as bouyant, as the floating gourd or
bottle tied to a sinking, net.

. *^7. il^ut thou art entangled in the snare of thy desires, and
Aft* lost to thy good sense; nor canst thou be at tby perfect

UPASA3IA EHINOA 947

ease, as loBg 08 thou dost sofier under t^e sjimptoms oE thy

nekaess.

39. It is beeanser of thy imperfect knowledge�, that thon art

incapable to ward ofE the errors of thy mind ; Jmt as it is iniipos-
sible for a man to protect himseif from the rain, without his
endeavours to raise a shed or shelter for himself#

39. Thou art easily susceptible of .every impression of thy

untutored mind, as a small tree is easily over-reached by a tall
person.

40. The heart is the nave or axis of the wheel of delusion ;

if thou canst stop the motion of this central power, there is
nothing to disturb thee any more, (self-regret, says the gloss,
serves to stop the motion of the heart).

41. Now rise and repair to the sacred bower on this moun�
tain, and there perform your austerities for full ten years with a
steady mind; so that thou mayst attain to thy porfcct knowledge
at the end of this period.

42. So saying, the lotus-eyed god disappeared from .that

place, as a flimsy cloud or candle-light or the billow of Jamuna,
is put out by a slight gust of the wind.
34. Gddlii then gradually gained bis dispassionateness, by
means of his discrimination; as the trees fade away for waut of
moisture, at the eud of autumn.

44. Now getting rid of the vagaries of his mind, Gddlii

remained to reflet upon and blamed himself, for his fostering
the false thoughts of the Chanddla and t he like.

45. ' He then with his heart melting in pity and sorrow for
himself, repaired to the Rishyd-miikha mount, for the purpose of
m akin g his penitence ; and he sat there in the manner of a rniny
cloud, stopping on the top of a mountain.

46. He relinquislieil all his desires, and performed his austere

devotion (as it was his duty); and at last he attained the-knpw-
ledge of his self, after the expiration of the tenth year of hi|
penitence.

MS TOQA TiiSISBTHA.

47. Hamg obtused bk knowledge of bimeeH like tbe greafc*

Bonled' Brsbmd, and getting rid of hk fears and sorrows in tbia
world of retribntion; be wandered about with tbe joy of a living
liberated being, and with perfect tranquility of bk mind, resem*
bling tbe serene lustre of tbe folbmoon, revolving in the sphere
of tbe sky.

CHAPTER L.

Intentions of Bsha.

Argnment. Ou snbjection of the mind and greatness of knowledge ;

and stoutness of the heart as the cause of all eril.

V ASISHTBA continued>Know Rdma, this delnsion to be

as extensive in its form, as it is inexplicable in its nature;
it is fraught with ignorance; it is a spiritual illusion and
no sensible deception.

2 . Look on the one hand at the erroneous dream of the Brdh-

man for a couple of hours, and his transformation into the state
of Chandala which lasted for many years.

3. Observe how the false conception of the Brdhman, ap�

peared as present to his sensible preception; and see how the
false thought appeared as true to him, and his true knowledge
of him-self vanishing at last into untruth.

4. I say therefore this illusion, to be utterly inexplicable in

its nature; and how it leads the unguarded mind, to a great many
errors and difficulties and dangers at last.

S. Rdma asked:�How Sir, can we pnt a stop to the wheel

of delusion, which by its rapid rotation, is constantly grinding
every part of our body? (Figuratively used for every good quality
of the mind. Gloss^.

6 . Vasishthasaid;�Know Bdma, this revolving world �

the wheel of delusion, and the human heart is the nave or axis of
this great wheel; which by its continual rotation produces all
this delusion within its circle.

7 . If you can by means of your manly exertion, pnt a stop

to the motion of your heart, as it were by fixing a peg to the
loop-hole of the wheel, you stop the rotation of the circle of
delnsion at once.

8 . Again the mind is the nave of the wheel of ignorance; and

if you can stop its motion, by binding it fast by the rope of your

950 TOGA VA^ISHTHA.

good sense; yon escape the danger of falling into the vortigen-
008 rotation of errors.

9 . BAma, yon are well skilled in the. art of fighting by hur�

ling the discus, and cannot be ignorant of preventing its motion
by stopping it at the central hole.

10. Therefore, O BAma! be deligent tO StOp the nOVe of yojir

mind, and you will be enabled ihereby to preserve yourself, both
from the revolution of the world and vicissitudes of time.

11. The soul that rejects this counsel, is exposed to entermi-

nable misery; while by keeping it always before the sight of the
mind, it avoids all difficulties in this world.

12. There is no other medicine for any body, to heal the de-
seaso of his worldliness, save by restraining the mind' to its
own pivot.

13. Forsake therefore, O Rdmal your acts of holy pilgri�

mage, and observance of austerity and charity; (which are of no
avail to the peace of the soul); but keep the mind under your
control, for attainment of your supreme felicity.

14. The world is situated in the mind, as the air is confined

in a pot; but the mind being restricted to itself, the world
is lost to it; as the pot just broken, lets out the air to mix
in endless vacuity.

15. You who are for ever confined in the imaginary world
of your mind, like a gnat confined in the hollow, of a pot; will
get your release only by breaking out of this confinement, like
the gnat flying into the open air.

16. The way to get rid of the delusions of the mit\d, is to

fix your attention only to the present moment; and not to. em�
ploy your thoughts about the past and future events. (This
wjir keep your attention close to yourself;.
17; You will,then arrive to the state.ofi that holy unmindt
fulness called Hon-ehalanee, when you cease to pursue at;oace.
any of.the obje<i(�,of ypur depireor imagination..

13.. The miAd it ohRCwed.jsoJoiig^Boit luM flte miat: OS' its

UFASAHA KHAKDA.

051

desires and fancies flying over it; as the sky is overeat os Ibng
as the vratety clouds overspread upbn it.

19. As long aS the intelligetit soul it joiaed with the facdity

of the mind, so long it is sahjoct to its gross desires and thickets
ing train of its fancies; as the sky is filled with bright moon�
beams as long as the moon shines in it. (t. e. As there is no
moon-light without the moon, so there iS nd fiincy without the
mind, nor is there any mind which is devoid of its fancies).

50, When the intelHsent soul is known without the medium

of the mind, (t. e. When the sonl is seen face to face;
then the existence of the world, is rooted ont from the mind, like
trees burnt down to their roots.

51. Intelligence unappertaing to the mind, is called perspica�

city (pcatyak chetana) : which is of a nature nnconupctcd with
intellectuality, and freed from the foulness of the fumes of
fancy, (i, e. quite clear of all mental thought).

SS. That is verily the state of truth and of true felicity.

It is the true state of Spirituality, and a manner of omni-
sience; having all-sightedness of its own, and seeing all things
in itself. It is quite unconnected with any mental operation,
and is enlightened by the light of the spirit.

53. Whenever there is the action of the mind, it is invariably

accompanied with the train of desires and the sense of pleasure
and pain; and the feelings and passions are its concomitants, as
the ravens are accompaniments of the burning ground. (The
mind is the sensorium of feelings).

54. The minds of the intelligent are not, without their

action, but they are aloof of those feelings, by their knowledge of
the vanity of earthly things. And though these feelings are
contained like plants in the seed vessel of their mind; yet they
ate not allowed to germinate in its sterile soil.

26. They (the wise), have come to know the unsubstantialityand

uncertainty of all worldly things and events, both by their know�
ledge of the natures' of things; and by means of their acquaintance
with the Sdatrais ; as also by their association with holy men, and
their habitual obsenraiice of the practices of s pious and saintly life.
YOGA VA^felSHTHA.

Mi

�8. They have foreibly withdrawn their minds f^osk ignoratacdt

by their determined exertions to gain the true knowledge of things}
and have strenuously applied them to the study of sdstras, and
tha good conduct of righteous people.

27. But it is the purity of the soul only, that has the sight
of the Supreme spirit; as it is the brilliancy of the gem itself)
that makes itdiscernable amidst the waters of the deep, and en>
ables it to be redeemed from darkness, (t. e. Human soul being a
reflexion of the Supreme, lends its light to the vision of the other).

28. As the soul naturally desires to get rid of things, which

it has como to know to be attended with pain to it; so the
Soul is the sole cause of knowing the Supreme; (by its discard*
ing the knowledge of the gross objects, which^ interposes between
it and the Divine, and obstructs the view of the latter).

29. Be therefore freed from your thoughts of all other things,

both in your waking and sleeping states, and when you talk to
or think of any body, give or recieve anything to or from another.
Kcly and reflect on your consciousness alone, and watch constant*
ly its secret admonitions and intuitions.

30. Whether when you are born or going to die, or do any*

thing or live in this world, be steadily attentive to your conscious
self, and you will perceive the clear light of the soul ; (and have
your clair voyanee).

31. Leave off thinking that this is I and that is another,

because all are alike before the Lord of all > and give up wish*
ing this for thyself and that for others, for all things belong to
God. Rely solely on the one, and that is thy internal conscions*
ness alone.

32. Be of one mind in your present and future states of life,

and continue to investigate into its various phases in your own
consciousness, (i. e. Know yourself in all the varying circums*
tances of your life).

83. In all ihe changes of your life from boyhood to youth

and old age, and amidst all its changing scenes of prosperity
and adversity, as also in the states of your waking, dreaming
and Bohnd sleep, remain faithful to your consoiousness. (�. e.

UPASAUA KHANDA. 953

Never lose the knowledge of your self-identity j (as the one and
unchanging soaI)>

84. Melt dovm yonr mind as a metal, and purify it of its

dross of the knowledge or impression of extern^ things;

break off the snare of your desires, and depend on year cons�
ciousness of yourself.

35. Get rid of the dis^ue of your desire, of whatever is

marked as good or bad for yon; and turn your sight from all,
whieh may appear as favourable or unfavourable to you; and
rely on your consious ness of pure intelligence. (This is hav�
ing perfect mastery of yourself;.

86 . Leave untouched whatever is tangible to the touch, and

obtainable to yon by your agency or instrumentality; remain un�
changed and unsupported by any thing in the world, and depend
only on your own consciousness: (as the intangible spirit).

37. Think yourself as sleeping when you are awake, and re�
main as calm and quite as you are insensible of any thing; think
yourself as idl and alon^ and as instinct with the Supreme
Spirit.

38. Hiink yourself free from the changing and unchanging

states of life, (�. e. from the states of life and death and of wak�
ing and rieep); and though engaged in business, think yourself
as disengaged from all concema

39. Forsake the feelings of your egoism and nonegoism (as

this is mine and that is others); and be undivided from the rest
of the world, by thinking yourself as the macrocosm of the
cosmos, and support yourself on the adamantine rock of your
consciousness, by remaining unshaken at all events.

40. Continue to cut off the meshes of the net of your inter�
nal desires, by the agency of your intellecl and its helpmate of
patience; and be of the profession of belonging to no profession;
(of any particular fidtb or creed or calling).

41. The sweet taste of trusting in the true faith of consci-

ousnen, converts even the poiuson of folse faiths to ambrosia:
(�. e. Belief in soul is the soul of all creeds).

Voi. n.

120

954

YOGA VA'SISHTHA.

42. It is tben only, that the great error o� taking the false
'world for trne, prevails over the mind ; when it forgets to remotd*
her the pure and undivided self-couscioosness ; (and takes the
outward forms for true).
43. Again the progress of the great error, of the subs*
tantiality of the world, is then put an end; when the mind
relies its trust, in the immaculate and undivided consciousness
or intelligence.

44. One who has passed over the great gulf of his desires,
and known the true nature of his soul ; has his consciousness
shiiiina within himself, with the full blaze of the luminous sun.

4a. One who knows the nature of his soul, and is settled in
the ti:iii.-!<*(;n�lental bliss of knowing the peerless One; finds the
most iiecturious food as a poison to him. (t. e. The taste of
spiritual bliss, is sweeter far than that of the daintiest food).

46. We revere those men, who have known the nature of the
soul, and have reached to their spiritual state; and know the rest
bearing the name of men, as no better than asses in human shape.

47. Behold the devotees going from hill to hill, and roving
like bigbodied elephants, for the performance of their devotions;
but they are far below the spiritualist, who sits as high above
them as on the top of the mountain.

48. The heavenward sight of consciousness, reaching heyond

the limits of all regions to the unseen and invisible God; derives
no help from the light of the sun and moon, which can never
reach so far* as the highest empyrean).

49. The lights of the luminaries fade away like candle lights,
before the sight of consciousness; which sees the great lights of
the sun and moon and all, within the compass of its knowledge.

50. He who has known the truth of God, stands highest above
the rest of men, by reason of his self-sacrifice, and the great�
ness of his soul, by means of his practice of yoya � and is dis-
tingfuished from others by the brightness of his person. (The
entemal light shines in the body also).

61. Like Him whose effulgence shines forth unto ns, in the
lustre of the sun, moon, stars, gems and fire, the pre-eminent

UPASAMA KHaNDA.

955

among men shine among mankind, in their knowltxlge of what

is knowable, and worthy to be known. (The. sapient shine with
their knowledge, as luminous bodies before us).

5�. Those that are ignorant of truth (or the true natures of
things), are known to be viler than the asses, and other brute
creatures that live upon the land �, and arc meaner than the mean
insects that dwell in the holes beneath the earth, (Knowledge
of truth ennobles man-kind, above their fcllow-ereatnres).
53. So long is an embodied being sai(i to be a devil of dark�
ness, as he is ignorant of spiritual knowledge j but no sooner is
he acquainted with his soul, and united with bis self in his intel�
lection, than be is recognized as a spiritual being.

54. The unspiritnal man is tossed about on earth as a carcass,

and is consumed with the fuel of his cares, as a dead body is
burnt away by the flames of its funeral fire; but the spiritualist
knowing the nature of bis soul, is only sensible of bis immortality.

55. Spiritualism flies afar from the man, whose heart is har�
dened in this world; just as tho glory of sunshine, is lost under
the shadow of the thickening clouds in the sky.

56. Therefore the mind is to he gradually curbed and con�

tracted in itself, bj a dislike of all earthly enjoyments; and the
knower of his self should try by long practice of abstinence, to
desiccate his spirit of its moisture, to the dryness of a faded leaf.

57. The mind is thickened and fattened by consolidating it�

self with those of others; and staining it with the affections, oif
wife and those of offsprings, relations and friends.

58. The passions and feelings also are often the causes, of the
solidity and stolidity of the mind; and these are its egotism and
selfishness, gaiety and impurity of thoughts, and its changing
tempers and affections. But most of all it is the sense of meity
that this is mine, that nourishes it to gross density. (The mind
is puffed up with the increase of possessions).

59. The mind is swollen on coming to prosperity, even

under the deadly pains of old age and infirmity; as also under
the poisonous pangs of penury and miserliness. (Stinginess is a
painful pleasure).

9�6

TOGAYA^ISHTHA.

60. The mind grows lusty in its expectation of some good in

prospect, even under the afflictions of disease and danger. It grows
stout with enduring what is intolerable, and doing what oi^ht
not to be done.

61. The heart too becomes stout with its affection for others,
and also with its draire and gain of riches and jeweb ; it becomes
lusty with its craving after women, and in having whatever is

pleasant to it for the moment.

62. The heart like a snake, is big swollen with feeding on false
hopes as air} and by breathing the empty air of passing delights
and pleasures. It is pampered by drinking the liquor of fleeting
hope, and moves about in the course of its endless expectations.
63. The heart is stanch in its enjoyment of pleasures, however
injurious they are in their nature ; and though situated inside
the body, yet it is subject to pine in disease and nncasings, under
a variety of pains and changes.

64. There grows in the heart of the body, as in the hollow of

a tree, a multitude of thoughts like a clump of orchids; and these
bearing the budding blossoms of hope and desire, hung down
with the fruits and flowers of death and disease.

65. Delay not to lop off the huge trunk of the poisonous
tree of avarice, which has risen as high as a hill in the
cavity of thy heart, with the sharp saw of thy reason; nor defer
to put off the big branch of thy hope, and prune its leaves
desires, without the least delay.

66 . The elephantine heart sits with its infuriate eyes, in the

solitary recess of the body; and is equally fond of ito ease as of
its carnal gratification: it longs to look at the lotus bed of the
learned, as also to meet a field of sugarcanes composed of fools
and dunces.

67. Bima I yon should, like a lion, the monarch of the forest,
destroy yom: elephantine heart which is seated amidst the
wilderness of your body, by thesharp saws of your undersUnding j
and break the protruding tusks of its passions, in the sairie man*
ner as they break down all bigbodies.

UFASAMA EHANDA.

f67

68. Drive away the crowlike ravenoos heart, from within the
nest of yonr bosom. It is fond of frequenting filthy places, as the
ravens hover over fnneral gronnds, and crows squat in dirty spots,
and fatten their bodies by feeding on the fiesh of all rotten carcas�
ses. It is canning in its craft and too cruel in its acts. It uses
the lips like the bills of the crow only to hurt others, and is one
^ed as the crow, look only to its own selfish interest; it is black

idl over its body for its black purposes and deeds.

69. Drive afar your ravenlike heart, sitting heavy on the tree
of your soul, intent on its wicked purposes, and grating the ear
with its jarring sound. It flatters on all sides at the scent of
putrid bodies, to pollute its nest with foul putrescence of evil
intents.

70. Again there is the pernicious hedious demon-avarice,

roving at large like a goblin, or lurking in ambush in the
dark cavity of the heart, as in a dreary desert. It assumes a
hundred forms, and appears in a hundred shapes (in repeated
births), pursuing their wonted courses in darkness (without any
knowledge of themselves and their right course).

71. Unless and until you drive away this wicked goblin of
your heart, from the abode of your intelligent soul (t. e. the
body) by means of your discrimination and dispassionateness,
and your power of mantrai and iantrat, you cannot expect to be
Buccessful (siddha) in your endeavours. (For perfection f%f|f)
Siddhi).

79. Moreover there is the serpentine mind, hid under the

dough of the body ; which with its poisonous thoughts, frothing
at the month as the destructive venom of mankind, is continually
breathing in and out as a pair of bellows, and inhaling and exhal�
ing the air as a snake, for the destruction of all other persons.

78. You must subdue, O Rdma, this great serpent of the

mind, lying hid in a cell of the cellular timal tree of your
body, by some mantraformula, pronounced by the Garuda of*
your intelligence; and. thus be free from all fear and danger for
ever.

958

YOaA.VA'SISHTHA.

74. Repress, O R^ma 1 thy vulture-like heart, that bears an

ominous figure by its insatiate ^eediness for dead bodies; itflies
about on all sides and being annoyed by the hungry orows and
kites, it rests in desolate cemctrics. (The greedy mind dwells on
the ruin of others).

75. It ransacks all quarters in quest of its meat of living and

dead bodies, and lifts its neck to watch for its prey, when it is
sitting silently with patience. The vulurous heart flics afar
from its resting tree of the body, and requires to be restrained
with diligence from its flight.

76. Again the apish mind is wandering through the woods

on all sides, and passing lastly beyond the limits of its natal
horizon in search of fruits; it outruns the bounds of its native
land and country, and thus being bound to nowhere, he derides
at the mulitnde, that are bound to their homely toil, and confined
in their native clime and soil.

77. The big monkey of the mind that sports on the tree of
the body, with its eyes and nose as the flowers of the tree, and
having the arms for its boughs, and the fingera for its leaves,
ought to be checked for one's success in any thing.

78. The illusion of the mind rises like a cloud with the mists
of error, for laying waste the good harvest of spiritual knowledge.
It flashes forth lightnings from its mouth, to burn down every
thing and not to give light on the way; its showers are
injurious to ripened crops, and it opens the door of disire (to
plunge the boat of the body in the whirlpool of the world).

79. Forsake to seek the objects of your desire, which are

situated in the airy region of your mind; and exert your energy
to drive off the cloud of your mind, in order to obtain the great
object of your aim.

80. The mind is as a long rope, that binds mankind to their

incessant acts. It is impossible to break or burn its knots in any
other way except by means of one�s self knowledge. Its bond
of transmigration is painful to all, until they obtain their final
emancipation.

81. Break boldly, O. Rdmaj by the instrumentality o� your

upasama khanda.

959

inappetency the bondage of your mind, that binds fast an

infinite number of bodies to the chain of their transmigration }
and enjoy your freedom without any fear for evermore.

82. Know avarice as a venomous snake, which destroys its

votaries by the ]Joison of its breath, and never yields to the good
counsel of any body. It is this serpent that has ruined mankind,
by its deceit and by laying in wait for its prey, it emaciates

the body to a stick.

83. Avarice which is liid in tlie body, and lurks unseen in its
cells, is as a dark cobra or hydra in its form ; it is to be burnt to
death by the fire of lukewarmness, for your safety and security
from all evil.

84. Now put your heart to rest by the intelligenee of your

mind, and gird yourself with the armour of purity for your
defence; forsake your fickle-mindedness for ever, and remain as
a tree uninfested by the apes of passion.

85. Purify both your ! body and mind with the sanctity of
your soul, and be dauntless and quiet by the aid of your
intelligence and clam composure of your intellect. Think
yourself as lighter and meaner than a straw, and thus enjoy
the sweets of this world by going across it to the state of
beatitude in this life.

CHAPTER LI.

Dsfliax Ot Uot)A''LAKA.

Argument Uddileka�s struggle for Liberation, amidst all bb vorldly

attachments.

V ASISHTHA said t�>Rely no confidence) O R4ma! in the

coune of the mind, which is sometimes continnons and
Bon^etimes momentary, now even and fiat and then sharp and
acute, and often as treacherous as the edge of a raeor.

2. As it occurs in the course of a long tim^ that the germ

of intelligence comes to sprout forth in the field of the mind; so
do yon, O R&ma t who are a moralist, grow it by qninkling
the cold water of reason over its tender bladra.

8. ^ As long as the body of the plant does not fade away in

coursc^of time, nor roll upon the ground as the decayed and dead
body of man; so long should you hold it up upon the prop
' of reason (t. e. cultivate your knowledge in your youth).*

: 4 . Knowing the truth of my sayings, and pondering on the

deep sense of these sayings of mine, you will get a delight in
your inmost soul, as the serpent killing peacock, is ravished
at the deep roaring of raining clonds.

6. Do yon like the sage Udd&laks, shake off your knowledge

of quintuple materiality as the cause of all creation, and accustom
yourself to think deeper, and on the prime cause of causes by
your patient inquiry and reasoning.

6. Rfima requested Tell me sir, in what way the sagely

Hdddlaka got rid of hb thoughts of the quintessential creation,
and penetrated deeper into the original cause of all, by the force
and process of hb reasoning.

7. Vasisktha replied Learn R&ma, how sage Udddlaka

of old, rose higher from hb investigation of quintuple, matter
to hb inquby into their cause, and the manner in which that
transcSndant light dawned upon his mind.

UPAS AM A KHANOA.

961

It was in some spacious corner of the old mansion of this

world, and on the northwest side of this land, a spot of ragged
hills and overtopping it as a shed.

9. Among these stood the high hill of Gandham&dana with a

table land on it, which was full of camphor arbours, that shed
the odonrs of their flowers and pistils continually on the ground.

10. This spot was frequented by birds of variegated hues,

and filled with plants of various kinds. Its banks were beset by
wild beasts, and fraught with flowers shining smilingly over the
woodland scene.

11. There were the bright swelling gems in some.part of"!!,

and the blooming and full blown lotuses ou another; some parts
of it were veiled by tufts of snow, and crystal streams gliding as
glassy mirrors on others.

12. Here on the elevated top a big cliff of this hill, which
was studded with sarala trees, and strewn over with flowers up to
the he^, and shaded by the cooling umbrage of lofty trees

13. There lived the silent sage by name of TJdddlaka, a

youth of a great mind, and with high sense of his honour. He
had not yet attained his maturity, ere he betook himself to the
coarse of his rigorous austerity.

14. On the first development of his iatellecl^ he had the light

of reason dawning upon his mind; and he was awakened to noble
aims and expectations, instead of arriving at the state of rest
and quietude.

15. As he went on in this manner in his coarse of austerities,

religious studies and observance of his holy rites and duties i the
genius of right reason appeared before him, as the new yeiur
presents itself before the face of the world.

16. He then began to cogitate in himself in the following

manner^ sitting aside as he was in his solitude, weary with
thoughts and terrified at the ever changing state of the world;

17. What is that best of gains, said he, which being oned
obtained, there is nothing more to be expected to lead us to our
rest, and which being once had, we have no more to do with our
transmigrations in this world ?

Voi II,- 1*1

9�S YOGA VASISHTHA.

18. When shall I find my permanent rest in-that state of holy

.and transcendent thoughtlessness, and remain above all the rest,
� as a cloud rests over the top of tie Sumeru mountain, or as the
polar star stands above the pole without changibg its pace.

IG. When will my tumultuous desires of worldly aggran-

dizement, merge in peaceful tranquillity; as the loose, loud and
boisterous waves and billows subside in the sea ?

20. When will the placid and unstirred composure of my

-mind, smile in secret within myself, to reflect on the wishes of
mankind, that they will do this thing after they have done
the other, which leads them interminably in the circuit of
their misery.

21. When will my mind be loosened from its noose of desire

and when shall 1 remain unattached to ail, as a dew drop on the
lotus'leaf? (It is called a�a�a�ya Sanyo or intangible connection).

22. When shall I get over the boisterous sea of my fickle

desires, by means of the raft of my good understanding?

28. When shall I laugh to scorn, the foolish actions of

worldly people, as the silly play of children ?

24f. When will my mind get rid of its desire and dislike, and
cease to swing to and fro in the cradle of its option and
caprice; and return to its steadinets, as a madman is ciUmed after
the fit of his delirium has passed away.

26. When shall 1 receive my spiritual and luminous body,

and deride the course of the world; and have my internal satis*
faction within myself, like the all knowing and all sufficient
spirit of Virfit.

26. With internal equanimity and serenity of the soul, and

indifference to external objects, when shall I obtain my calm
Quietness, like the sea after its release from churning.

27. When shall I behold the fixed scene of the world

before me, as it is visible in my dream, and keep myself aloof
from the same? (as no part of it).

. 28. When shall f view the inner and outer worlds, in the
light of a fixed picture iu the sight of my imagination; and

UtASAMA liflANDl. 9S�

when bIuII 1 meditate ou the whole iu the light uC an intellec�

tual system ?

29 . Ah I when shall I have the calmness of my mind and

soul, and become a perfectly intellectual being myself; when
shall 1 have that supernatural light in me, which enlightens. the
internal eye of those that are born bliqd?

80. When will the sunshine of n\y meditation, show unto

me the pure light of my intellect, whereby I may see the objects
at a distance, as I perceive the parts of time in myself.

31 When shall 1 bo freed from my exertion and inertness,

towards the objects of my desire and dislike ; and when shall I
get my self-satisfaction in my state of self-illumination.

32. When will this long and dark night of my ignorance

come to its end ? It is infested by my faults fluttering as the
boding birds of night, and infected with frost withering the lotua
of my heart (hrid-padma).

33. When shall 1 become like a cold clod of stone, in the

cavern of a mountain, and have the calm coolness of my mind
by an invariable samadii^comatoslty.

34). Wlien will the elephant of my pride, which is ever giddy

with its greatness, become a prey to the lion of right understand�
ing.

35. When will the little birds of the forest, build their nest
of grass in the braids of hair upon my head ; when I remain
fixed in my unalterable meditation, in my state of silenoe
and torpidity.

86. And when will the birds of the air rest fearlessly on my
bosom, as they do on the tops of fixed rocks, upon finding me si^
ting transfixed in my meditation, and as immovable as a rock. '

87. Ah I when shall 1 pass over this lake of the world, where�
in my desires and passions, are as the weeds and thorny
brambles, and obstructing my passage to its borders ol felicity.

88. Immerged in these and the like reflections, the twice-bbra

Udddlaka eat in his meditation amidst the forest.

89. But as his apish flcklemindedness turned towards sensible

964 TOGA YiTSISlTBA.

objects in different ways^ be did not obtwa the state of hibita-

tion rrbiob could render bim bappja

40. Sometime his apish mind turned away from leaning to

external objectSj and pursued with eagerness the realities of the
internal world or intellectual verities (known as sdtwika^.

41. At others his fickle mind, departed from the intangible

things of the inner or intellctual world; and returned with fond-
i\ess to outer objects, which arc'mixed with poison.

43. He often beheld the sunlight of spirituality rising within

himself, and as often turned away his mind from that golden
prospect, to the sight of gross objects.

43. Leaving the soul in the gloom of internal darkness, the

licentious mind flics as fast as a bird, to the objects of sense
abroad.

44. Thus turning by turns from the inner to the outer world,
and then from this to that again ; his mind found its rest in the
intenaediate space, lying between the light of the one and
darkness of the other, {i. e. in the twilight of indifference
to both).

. 45. Being thus perplexed in his mind, the meditative Brdhman

remained in his exalted cavern, like a lofty tree shaken to and fro
by the beating tempest.

46... He continued in his meditation as a man of fixed atten*

tion, at the time of an impending danger; and his body shook to
and fro, as it was moved forward and backward by the tiny
waves splashing on the bank.

. 47. Thus unsettled in his mind, the sage sauntered about the
hill; as the god of day makes his daily round, about the polar
mountain in his lonely course.

. 48. Wandering in this manner, he once observed a cavern,

which was beyond the reach of all living beings; and was as quiet
and still, as the liberated state of an anchorite.

. 49. It was not disturbed bythe winds, nor frequented by birds

and beasts; it was unseen by the gods and Gandharvas, and was
as lightsome as the bright concave of heaven. . .

UPASAMA �HANDA

965

60. It was covered with heaps of flowers, and was spread

over with a coverlet of green and tender grass; and being
overlaid by a layer of moonstones, it seemed to have its floor of
emareld.

51. It afforded a cool and congenial shade, emblazoned by the

ihild light of the bright gems in'its bosom > and appeared to be
the secret haunt of woodland goddesses, that chanced to sport
therein.

52. The light of the gems that spread over the ground, was
neither too hot nor too cold; but resembled the golden rays of
the rising sun in autumn.

53. This cave appeared as a new bride decked with flowers,

and holding a wreathed garland in her hand > with her countenance
fading under the light of the gemming lamps, and fanned by the
soft whistling of winds.

54. It was as the abode of tranquility, and the resting place of

the lord of oration; it was charming by the variety of its bloom*
ing blossoms, and was as soft and mild as the cell of the lotus
(which is the abode of the lotus-born BrahmA).

CHAPTER Lll.

Ratiocination of Uddalana:��

Argument. Ud<i&1aka�s Remonetration with himself, amidst the.

reveries of his meditation.

T 7 ASISTHA resumed :�^The saintly Udddlaka then entered itt

� tliat grotto of Gandba-mddana mountain, as the sauntering
bee enters into the lotus-cell, in the course of its romantic,
peregrination.

3. It was for the purpose of his intense meditation, that he

entered the cave and sat therein; as when the lotus-born creator,
had retired to and rested in his seclusion, after termination of
his work of creation.

5. There he made a seat for himself, by spreading the nn-

faded leaves of trees on the floor; as when the god Indra spreads
his carpet of the manifold layers of clouds.

4. He then spread over it his carpet of deerskin, as the bed�

ding of stars, is laid over the strata of the blue clouds of heaven.

6. He sat upon it in his meditative mood, with the watch�

fulness of his mind; as when an empty and light clond alights
on the top of the Bishyn-sringa mountain, (t. e. His mind was
as fleet, as a fleeting cloud).

6. He sat firmly in the posture of padmdiana like Buddha,

with his face turned upwards; bis two legs and feet coverd his
private parts, and bis palms and fingers counted the beads
of Brahmd.

7. He restrained the fleet deer of his mind, from the desires to

which it ran by fits and starts; and then he reflected in the
following manner, for having the unaltered steadiness of his
mind.

8. O my senseless mind! said he, why is it, that thou art

occupied in thy worldly acts to no purpose; when the sensible
never engage themselves, to what proves to be their bane after�
wards.

UPASAMA KHANDA

9. He who pursues after pleasure, by forsaking his peaceful

tranquility j is as one who quits his grove of mandara flowers, and
eaters a forest of poisonous plants. (Thoughts of pleasure poisons
the mind).

10. Thou mayst hide thyself in some cave of the earth, and
find a place in the highest abode of Bi-ahrnd, then yet thou canst
not have thy quiet there, without the quielesm of thy spirit.

11. Cease to seek thy objects of thy desire, which are beset
by dififlculties, and are productive of thy woe and anxiety j fly from
these to lay hold on thy chief good, which thou shalt find in thy
solitary retirement only.

12. These sundry objects of thy fancy or liking, which are so

temporary in their nature; are all for thy misery, and of no real
good at any time: (either when they arc sought for, or enjoyed or
lost to thee).

13. Why followest thou like a fool, the hollow sound of some
fancied good, which has no substantial in it? It is as the
great glee of frogs, at the high sounding of clouds that promise
them nothing. (Hence the phrase � megha mandukika, that is,
the frogs croaking in vain at the roaring of clouds; answering
the English phrases � Ashing in the air and milking the ram,
or pursuing a shadow &c.").

14. Thou hast been roving all this time with thy froggish
heart, in the blind pursuit after thy proAt and pleasure ; but
tell me what great boon has booted thee; in all thy rainblings
about the earth.
15. Why dost thou not Ax thy mind to that quietism, which
promises to give thee something as thy self-sufficiency; and
wherein thou mayst find thy rest as the state of thy liberation
in thy life time.

10. O my foolish heart I why art thou roused at the sound

'of some good which reaches unto thy ears, and being led by
thy deluded mind, in the direction of tliat sound j thou ful�
lest A victim to it, as the deer is entrapped in the snare, by
being beguiled by the hunter�s born.

YOGA VAllISHTHA.

'17. Bewtre, OfooIuhoiMi! to allow tiie caraal appetite to

take possesion of thy breast. And lead thee to thy destruction, as
the male elephant is caught in the pit, by being beguiled by the
artful koomki to fall into it. (The female elephant is called
koomki in elephant-catching).

18. Do not be misled by thy appetite of tastei to cram the

bitter gall for sweet; or bite the fatal bait that Is laid, to hook
the foolish fish to its distruction.

19. Nor let thy fondness for bright and beautiful objects,
betwitch thee to thy ruin; as the appearance of a bright light or
burning'ilre, invites the silly moth to its consumption.

20. Let not thy ardour for sweet odor, tempt thee to thy
ruin,; nor entice thee like the poor bees to the flavour of the
liquor, exuding from the frontal proboscis of the elephant, only
to be crushed by its trunk.

21. See how the deer, the bee, the moth, the elephant and
the fish, are each of them destroyed by their addiction to the
gratification of a single sense; and consider the great danger to
which the foolish man, is exposed by his desire of satisfying all
his refractory senses and organs.

22. O my heart I it is thou thyself, that dost stretch the

snare of thy desires for thy own entanglement; as the silk worm
weaves its own cell (cuckoon) by its saliva, for its own imprison�
ment.

23. Be cleansed of all thy impure desires, and become as pure

and clear as the autumnal cloud, (after it has poured out its
water in the rains); and when thou art fully purged and are
buoyed up as a cloud, you are then free from all bondage.

24. Knowing the course of the world, to be pregnant witit

the rise and fall of mankind, and to be productive of the pangs
of disease and death at the end; you are still addicted to it for
your destruction only.

25. But why do I thus upbraid or admonish my heart in

vain; it is only by reasoning with the mind that men ace en*
UPASAMA KUANDA. 069

abled to govern their hearts : {i. e. to repress all their teelings

and passions).

26. Bat as long as gross ignorance continues to reign over

the mind, so long is the heart kept in its state of daincss; as the
nether earth is covered with mist and frost, as long as the upper
skies are shrouded by the raining clouds.

27. But no sooner is the mind cleared of its ignorance, than

the heart also becomes lightei* (and cleared of its fueling) i as
the disappearance of the rainy clouds disperses the frost cover�
ing the nether earth.

28. As the heart becomes lighter and purer by means of the

mind�s act of reasoning; sol ween its desires to grow weaker and
thinner, like the light and fleeting clouds of autumn.

29. Admonition to the unrighteous proves as fruitless, as

tlio blowing of winds against Uie falling rain. (t. e. counsel
to the wicked is as vain, as a blast of wind to drive the pouring
rain).

80. 1 shall therefore try to rid myself of this false and vacant
ignorance ; as it is the admonition of the sAstras, to get rid of
ignorance by aP means.

31. 1 find myself to be the inextinguishable lamp of intel�

lect, and without roy egoism or any desire in myself; and have
no relation with the false ignorance, which is the root of egoism.

32. That this is I and that is another, is the false sugges�

tion of our delusive ignorance; which, like an epidemic disease,
presents us with such fallacies for our destruction.

33. It is impossible for the slender and finite mind to com�

prehend the nature of the infinite soul; as it is not possible for
an elephant to be contained in a nut shell. (Lit ; in the crust
of a bilva or bel fruit).

34. 1 cannot follow the dictate of my heart, which is a wide

and deep cave, containing the desires causing all our misery.

35. What is this delusive ignorance, which, like the error of

injudicious lads, creates the blunder of viewing the self-existent
one, in the different lights of I, thou, he and other personalities.

VoL. II. 122

970

YOGA VASISHTHA.
36. I analysed my body at each atom from the head to foot^
but failed to find what we call the "I" in any part of and
what raises my personality. (It is the body, mind and soul
taken together, that makes a person).

87.. That which is the *'1 am" fills the whole universe, and
is the only one in all the three worlds; it is the unknowable
conscionsness, omnipresent and yet apart from all.

38. Its magnitude is not to be known, nor has it any appella*

tion of its own; it is neither the one nor the otheiy DOr ao ilQ*
mensity nor minuteness: (but is greater than the greatest) and
minuter than the minutest), t

39. It is unknowable by the light of the Vedas, and its igno�

ranee whicli is the cause of misciy is to be destroyed by the
light of reason.

40. This is the flesh of my body and this its blood ! these are
the bones and this the whole body; Ihese are my breaths, bat
where is that I or ego situated y

41. Its pulsation is the effect of the vital breath or wind,

and its sensation is the action of the heart; there are also decay
and death concomitant of the body; but where is its 'T" situat*
ed in it.

42. The flesh is one thing and the blood another, and the
bones are different from them; but tell me, my heart, where is
the �I� said to exist.

43. These are the organs of smelling and this the tongue;
this is skin and these my ears; these are the eyes and this the
tonch'^wac; but what is that called the soul and where is it
situated.

44. 1 am none of the elements of the body, nor the mind nor
its. desire; but the pure intellectual soul, and a manif^ tutipn of
the divine intellect.

45. That I am everywhere, and yet nothing whatever is

anywhere, is th.e only knowledge of the true reality that we

t nNMVgTii, vruJl Bruti.

UPASAMA KHANDA.

Vil

e&a have, and there is no other way to it: (�. e., of coming to
know the same.) *

46. I have been lon^ deceived by my deceitful ignorance,

and am misled from the right path; as the young of a beast is
carried away by a fierce tiger to the woods.
47. It is now by my good fortune that I have come to detect
this thievish ignorance; nor shall I trust any more this robber
of truth.

48. I am above the reach of affliction, and have no concern

with misery, nor has it anything to do with me. This union of
mine with these is as temporary, as that of a cloud nuth a
mountain.

49. Being subject to my egoism, I say I speak, I know, I

stay, I go, &o.; but on looking at the soul, I- lose my egoism in
the universal soul.

80. I verily believe my eyes, and other parts of my body, to

belong to myself; but if they be as something beside myself,
then let them remain or perish with the body, with which I have
no concern..

81. Fie for shame! What is this word I, and who was its
first inventor ? This is no other than a slip slop and a namby
pamby of some demoniac child of earth, (i. e,. It is an earth-bom
word and unknown in heaven).

5'J. O! for this great length of time, that 1 have been grovel�
ing in this dusty den; aud roving at large like a stray deer,
on a sterile rock without any grass or verdure.

88 . If we let our eyes to dry into the Irue nature of things,

we are at a loss to find the true meaning of tlie word I, which is
the cause of all our woe on earth, (i, e., ignorance of ourselves
is the cause of our woe, and the obliteration of our personalities
obviates all our miseries). �

64. If you want to feel your in being by the sense of touch.

� wrmfswr f yf isi wsrwr y, Sruti.

972

YOGAVA'SISHTHA.�

thea tell me bow you find wbat you call I, beside its being a
gbost of your own imagination.

65. You set your I on your tongue, and utter it as an object

of that organ, while you really relish no taste whatever of that
empty word, which you so often give utterance to.

56. You often hear that word ringing in your ears, though
you feel it to be an empty sound as air, and cannot account
whence this rootless word had its rise,

67. Our sense of smelling, which brings the fragrance of

objects to the inner soul, conveys no scent of this word into our
brain.

58. It is as the mirage, and a false idea of something we

know not what; and what can it bo otherwise than an error, of
which wo have no idea or sense whatever.

59. I see my will also is not always.tlie cause of my actions,

hccanse 1 find my eyes and the other organs of sense are
employed in their respective functions, without the direction of
my volition.

60. But the difference between our bodily and wilful acts is
this, that the actions of the body done without the will of
the mind arc unattended with feeling of pain or pleasure unto us.
(Therefore let all thy actions be spontaneous and indifferent in
their nature, if thou shalt be free from pain or pleasure).

61. Hence let thy organs of sense perform their several

actions, without your will of the same; and you will by this
means evade all the pleasure and pain (of your success and dis�
appointment).

62. It is in vain that you blend your will with your actions,
(which are done of themselves by means of the body and mind);
while the act of your will is attended with a grief similar to that
of children, upon the breaking of the dolls of their handy work
in play, {i, c.. Boys make toys in play, but cry at last to
sec them broken).

63. Your desires and their productions arcthefac similes of

your minds, and not different from them; just as the waves are

tTPASMA RHANDA.

073

composed of the same water from which they rise. Such is the
case with the acts of will.

64. It is your own will that guides your hand to construct a

prison for your confinement j as the silly silkworm is confined in
the pod of its own making.

65. It is owing to your desires that yon arc exposed to the

perils of death and disease, as it is the dim sightedness of the
traveller over the mountainous spots that hurls him headlong in*
to the deep cavern below.

66 . It is your desire only^ that is the chief cause of your

being attached to one another in one place; as the thread
passing through the holes of pearls, ties them togctlicr in a long
string round the neck. (Every desire is a connecting link
between man and man).
67. What is this desire, but the creation of your false
imagination, for whatever you think to be good for yonraelf }
though it may not be so in reality); and no sooner yon cease
to take a fancy for anything, than your desire for it is cut off
as by a knife.

68 . This desire�the creature of your imagination�is the cause

of all your errors and your ruin also ; as the brCath of air is the
cause both of the burning and extinction of lamps and lightening
the fiery furnaces.

69. Now therefore, O my heart 1 that art the source and

spring of thy senses, do thou join with all thy sensibility, to look
into the nature of thy unreality, and feel in thyself the state
of thy utter annihilation-niVvdnd at the end.

70. Give up after all thy sense of egoism with thy desire of
worldliness, which are interminable endemics to thee in this life.
Put on the amulet of the abandonment of thy desires and
earthliness, and resign thyself to thy God to be free from all
fears on earth.

CHAPTER LIII.

The Rational Raptube oe Udsalaka :

Argument Description of tiie soul unsullied by its desires and egoism,

and the Difference subsisting between the body and mind.

U DDALAKA continued: �The intellect is an unthinkable

substance: it extends to the limits of endless spwe, and is
minuter than the minutest atom. It is quite aloof of all things,
and inaccessible to the reach of desires, &c.

2 . It is inaccessible by the mind, understanding, egoism and

the gross senses; but our empty desires are as wide extended, as
tbe shadowy forms of big and formidable demons.

3. From all my reasonings and repeated cogitations, I perceive

an intelligence within myself, and I feel to be the stainless
Intellect.

4. This body of mine which is of this world, and is tbe

depository of my false and evil thoughts, may last or be lost
without any gain or loss to me, since I am the untainted intellect.

5. The Intellect is free from birth and death, because there is

nothing perishable in tbe nature of the all pervasive intellect:
what then means the death of a living being, and how and by
whom can it be put to death ?

6 . What means the life and death of the intellect, which is

the soul and life of all existence : what else can we expect of the
intellect, when it is extended through and gives life to all.

7. Life and death belong to the optative and imaginative

powers of the mind, and do not appertain to the pure soul ^
(which is never perturbed by volition or imagination).

8 . That which has the sense of its egoism has also the know�
ledge of its existence and inexistence ; (and that is the mind);
but t^e soul which is devoid of its egoism can have no sense
of its birth or death: (since it is always existent of itself).

9. Egoism is a fallacy and production of ignorance, and the

UPASAMA KHANDA.. 97S

mind in no other than a appearance as the water in a mirage j

the visible objects are all grass bodies ; what then is that thing
to which the term ego is applied.

10. The body is composed of flesh and blood, and the mind
is considered as a nnllity of itself; the heart and the members
are all dull objects, what then is it that contains the ego ?

11. The organs of sense are all employed in their respective

functions for supporting the body ; and alt external bodies re�
main as mere bodies ; what then is it to which you apply the
term ego ?

12. The properties of things continue as properties, and the

substances always remain as substances; the entity of Brahma
is quite calm and quiet, what then is the ego among them ?

13. There is only one Being which is all pervading and sub�
sisting in all bodies } it exists at all times and is immensity
in itself. It is only the Supreme Spirit that is the intelligent
soul of all.

14. Now tell me which of these is the ego, what is it and

what its form ; what is its genus and what are its attributes;
what is its appearance and of what ingredients it is composed.
What am I and what shall 1 take it to be, and what reject as
not itself?

15. Hence there is nothing here, which may be called the

ego either as an entity or nonentity ; and there is nothing any�
where, to which the ego may bear any relation or any resem�
blance whatever.

16. Therefore egoism being a perfect non-entity, it has no

relation to anything at all ; and this irrelation of it with all
things being proved, its fiction as a duality (beside the unity of
God<, goes to nothing whatever.

17. Thus every thing in the world being full of the spirit of
God, 1 am ho other than that reality, and it is in vain that I
think myself as otherwise, and sorrow for it.

18. All things being situated in one pure and omnipresent

spirit; whence is it tlwt the meaningless word ego codd take
its rise ?
076

YOGA VASISHTHA.

19. So there is no reality o� any object whatever, except

that o� the snpreme and all-pervading spirit o� God; it is
therefore useless for us to inquire about our relation with any�
thing which has no reality in itself.

20. The senses are eonnected with the organs of sense, and
the mind is conversant with the mental operations ; but the in�
tellect is unconnected with the body, and bears no relation with

any body in any manner.

21. As there is no relation between stones and iron nails, so

the body, the senses, the mind and the intellect bear no rela�
tion witli one another, though they are found to reside together
in the same person.

22. The great error of the unreal ego having once obtained
its footing among mankind, it has put the world to an uproar
with the expressions of mine and thine, as that this is mine and
that is thine, and that other is another's and the like.

23. It is want of the light of reason that has given rise to

the meaningless and marvellous expression of egoism ; which is
made to vanish under the light of reason, as ice is dissolved un�
der heat of solar light.

24. That there is nothing in existence, except the spirit of

God is my firm belief, and this makes me believe the whole
universe, as a manifestation of the great Brahma himself.

25. The error of egoism presents itself before us in as vivid

and variety of colours as the various hues which tinge the face
of the sky ; it is better to obliterate it at once from the mind,
than retain any trace of it behind : (as I am this child, youth,
old man, &c).

26. 1 have altogether got rid of the error of my egoism, and

now recline with my tranquil soul in the universal spirit of God,
as the autumnal cloud rests in the infinite vacuum of the sky,

27. Our accompaniment with the idea of egoism is produc�

tive only of our misconduct and misery, by producing the great
variety oi^�*our acts of selfishness.

28. Egoism hath taken a'deep root in the moist soil of our

Upasama KBAK&A.
971

heftrta, ftnd sprouts forth in the field of our bodiiSh with the
germs of innumerable evils.

29. Ifete is death closely followittg the course of life, and

there is a new life hereafter awaiting upon our death ; now there
is a state of being distinct from its privation or not being, and
Again there is reverse of it in our transmigration, to our great
annoyance only.

SO. This I have gained, and this 1 will gain, are the
thoughts that constantly employ the minds of men } and the
desire of a new gain is incessantly kindled in the minds of the
senseless, as the ceaseless fiamc of the sun-stone is increased
in summer heat.

31. That this 1 want and this must have are thoughts ever
attendant on egoism; and the dull-headcd pursue dull material '
objects with as much ardour, as the heavy clouds hasten to halt
on high-headed hills.

32. Decay of egoism withers away tlie tree of worldliness,

which then ceases to germinate in the manner of a plant on sterile
rocks. (Or as seeds cast on sandy sounds).

S3. Your desires are as black serpents creeping in the hole of

your heart; but skulking their heads, at the sight of the snake*
cater Chiruda of reason.

84. The unreal world gives rise to the error of appearing as

real; as the unreal I and thou (or ego and nonego) seem to- bo
realities, though they are caused by mere pulsations of the
unreal mind.

35. This world rises at fint without a cause and to no

cause, how then call it a reality which is sprung from and to no
cause at all. (The visible world is produced by, and continues
with our error which, is no cause in reality).

36. As a pot made of earth long before} continuoj in the

same state at fdi times, so the body which has long ago come to
a^i�a te n cfl, still continues and will continue the same. (The body
being made of earth, remains in and returns to the earth again).

87. The b^finning and end of billows is mere water and

Von. II. 123

yoqavaisishxha.

moisture, and the intermediate part only presents a figure to

view; so the beginning and end of bodies is mere earth
and watery and the intermidiate state is one of bustle and
oommotion.
S 8 . It is the ignorant only that trust in this temporary and
fluctuating state of the body; which, like the billow, is hastening
to subside, in its original liquid and quiet state.

89. What reliance is there in any body, which makes a

iipre ia the middle, and is an nnr^ity both in its prior and

latter states.

40. So the heart also is as quiet as the intellect, both at first

and in the end; and remains immerged in itself, both when it
exists in the body or not. What then if it heaves for a little
while in the midst? (t.s., the palpitation of the heart between
its prior and latter states of inaction).

41. As it comes to pass in our dreams, and in our deluded

sights, of marvellous things; and as it happens in the giddiness of
ebricty, and in our journeying in boats

42. And as it turns out in cases of our vitiated humours, and

delusion of senses, and also in cases of extreme joy and grief,
and under some defect of the mind or body

43 . That some objects come to sight, and others disappear

from it: end that some appear to be smaller or larger than they
are and others to be moving; so do all these objects of our
vision, appear and disappear from our sight in the course of time.

44 . O my heart I all thy conduct is of the same nature, at

the different times of thy joy and grief; that it makes the long
of short and the short of long; as the short space of a single
night, becomes as tedious to separated lovers as an age; and an age
of joyous affluence as short as a moment.

45 . Or it is my long habit of thinking that makes the

untruth appear as truth to me; and like the mirage of the desert,
our mirage of life, presents its falsehoods as realities unto ns.

46. All things that we see in the phenominal world are un�
realities in their nature; and as the mind comes to know the no-
thing ness of thingsi, it feels in iteelf its nothingness also. �

UFASAMA khanda.

47. As tbe mind becomes impressed wiib certainty, o{ the

unsnbstantiality of external objects; its desire of worldly enjoy-
ments fade away, like the fading verdure of autumn.

48. When the mind comes to see the pure soul by means of its
intellectual light, it gets itself ridden of its temporal exertions;
and being thereby freed from its passions and affeetions, it rests
with its calm composure in itself.

49. And the heart attains its perfect pnrity, when, by

compressing its members of sensational organs, it casts itself
into the dame of the supreme soul, where all its dross is burnt
away.

60. As the hero boldly faces his death, with the thought of
his ascending to heaven, by fighting bravely in battle, so the
mind conquers all impediments by casting off all its worldly
desires aud attachments.

51. The mind is the enemy of tho body, and so is tbe latter an
enemy of the former; (because tho growth of the one imts down
the vigour of the other)but they both die away without the
half of each other, and for want of desire which supports them
both.

52. Owing to their mutual hostilities, and their passions and

affections towards each other, it is better to irradicate and destroy
both of them, for our attainment of supreme bliss. (As the
control of the body and mind leads to temporal happiness, so tho
niter extinction of both, is the moans to spiritual bliss).

63. The existence of either of these (*. e. of tho body or mind)

after death is as incapable of heavenly felicity, as it is for an
aerial fairy to fare on earth, (t. e.t neither the body nor mind
survives one�s death, as it is believed by many; and even if it
does, its gross nature would not permit it to enjoy the pure
spiritual felicity of heaven).

54. When these things (the body and mind), that are natur�
ally repugnant and opposed to one another, meet together in any
place or person, there is a continued clashing of their mutual
mischiefs, like the crashing of conflicting arms.

880 TOQA VA'SISHTHA.

65. � The base man that has a liking for this world of conflicia
is like one left to bom in a conflagration of showing flames.

66 . The mind stoat with its avarieions desires loads the body
with labour, and feeds upon its precious life^ as a ghost>yajt�/i<*
preys upon the body of a boy.

67. The body being harassed and oppressed with toil, at�
tempts to stop and stay the mind ; as an impious son intends to
kill his father, when he finds him to stand an open foe to his life,
(It is lawful to kill an enemy of one's life for self�defence).
aiwhr^* fsi ^ rif i w Twi

68 . There is no one who of his nature is a foe or friend to

another; but becomes a friend to one that is friendly to him,
and a foe to him that deals inimically unto him.

w|SWKW ensiHii*tqiiei Ti�JiWUT II

59. Tho body being put to pain attempts to kill the mind;
and tho mind is ever intent to make the body the receptacle of
its afflictions. (The intimate connection of the body and mind
causes them to participate in one another's pains).
60. What good then can possibly accrue to us from tho union
of the body and mind, which are repugnant to one another, and
which of their own nature can never be reconciled together.

61. The mind being weakened, the body has no pain to un�
dergo; wherefore the body is always striving to weaken the mind.

62. The body, whether it is alive or dead, is subjected to aU

sorts of evils by its hostile mind, unless it is brought under the
subjection of reason. (�. e, the unreasonable mind is an enemy
of the body).

63. When both the body and mind become stout and strong,
they join together to break all bonds, as the lake and rainwater
join together to overflow on the banks.

64. Though both of them are troublesome to us in their

different natures, yet their union to one end is beneficial to us, as
the co-operation of fire and water is for the purpose of cooking.

65. When the weak mind is wasted and worn out, the body

UPASAUA im&KDA. tSl

also becomes weakened and languid; but the mind being fuU,
the body is flushed like a flourishing arbor, shooting forth with
verdure.

66 The body pines away with, its weakened desires, and at

the weakness of the mind; but the mind never grows weak at
the weakness of the body; therefore the mind requires to be
curbed and weakened by all means.

67. I must therefore cut down the weed wood of my mind,

with the trees of my desires and the plants of my thirstiness;,
and, having reclaimed thereby a largo tract of land, rove about
at my pleasure.

68 . After my egoism is lost, and tho net of my desires is

removed, my mind will regain its calm and clearness, like the
sky after dispersion of the clouds at the end of tho rainy weather.

69. It is of no matter to mo whether this body of mine,

which is a congeries of my humours, and an great enemy of
mine, should waste away or last, after the dissolution of my
mind.

70. That for which this body of mine craves its enjoyments
is not mine, nor do 1 belong to it; what is the good therefore
of bodily pleasure to me. (when I have to leave this body and
that pleasure also forever).

71. It is certain that I am not myself the body, nor is the

body mine in any way; just as a corpse with all its parts entire,
is no body at all. (The personality of man, belongs to his mind
and not to his person).
72. Therefore I am something beside this body of mine, and
that is everlasting and never setting in its glory; it is by means
of tiiis that I have that light in me, whereby I perceive the
luminous sun in the sky.

73. I am neither ignorant of myself, nor subject to misray,

nor am I the dull unintelligent body, which is subject to misery.
My body may last or not, I am beyond all bodily accidents.

74. Where there is the soul or self, thm'e is neither the

mind, nor senses nor desire of any kind; as the vile Famaras

98S TOGAYA^ISHTHA.

never reside in the contiguity of princes. {Maitbireiat mean

monntuns also).

75. I have attained to that state in which 1, have surpassed

all things; and it is the state of my Boliety, my extinction, my
indivisibility, and my want of desires.

76. 1 am now loosened from the bonds of my mind, body

and the senses, as the oil which is extracted from the seeds of
sesamum, and separated from the sediments.

. 77. I walk about freely in this state of my transcendent�

alism, and my mind which is disjoined from the bonds of the

body considers its members as its dependent instruments and
accompaniments.

78. I find myself to be now situated in a state of trans�

parency and buoyancy, of self-contentment and intelligence,
and of true reality; 1 feel my full joy and calmness, and
preserve my reservedness in speech.

79. I find my fulness and magnanimity, my comeliness and

evenness of temper; 1 see the unity of all things, and feel my
fearlessness and want of duality, choice and option.

80. I find these qualities to be ever attendant on me. They

arc constant and faithful, easy and graceful and always propi�
tious to me; and my unshaken attachment to them has made
them as heartily beloved consorts to me.

81. 1 find myself as all and in all, at all times and in every
manner; and yet I am devoid of all desire for or dislike to any
one, and am equally unconcerned with whatever is pleasant or un�
pleasant, agreeable or disagreeable to me.

83. Removed from the cloud of error and melancholy, and re�
leased from dubitation and duplicity in my thoughts, I pere�
grinate myself as a flimsy cloud, in the cooling atmosphere of the
autumnal sky.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. �

CALCUTTA : It. BACCIIti

KAIttNOOK TRESS, I96, BOWBAZAR STREET.