Reading section 78

31. As the spangled heavens appear like a forest full of brilliant gems in it, so the world appears as full of the glory of God to the contemplative mind, and not as composed of earth or other material bodies in it.

32. It is intelligence alone, that shines in the form of world in the intelligent soul, and not any material body, which was never brought into being before.

33. As billows in the lake, rise and set and rise again, so the rising and falling days and nights present these various scenes to our knowledge.

34. Lílá said:—So it is, O mother of mankind! and so I come to remember now, that my present birth (state) is of a royal (_rájasika_) kind, and neither of too pure nor gross a nature. (_Sattvika or Támasika_).

35. I having descended from Brahmá, had undergone a hundred and eight births (in different shapes); and after passing various states, I find myself still in existence.

36. I recollect, O goddess! to have been born in another world before, and to have been the bride of a Vidyádhara, when I used to rove about as freely as a bee over flowers.

37. Being debased by my libertinism, I was born in this mortal world, and became the mate of the king of the feathered tribe (an eagle).

38. And then having been a resident in the woods, I was turned to a woodman’s mate, wearing a vest of leaves on my loins.

39. Growing fond of my life, I sported wantonly about the forest, and was changed to the _guluncha_ plant, delighting the woods with my leafy palms and flowering eyes.

40. This arboret of the holy hermitage, was held sacred by the society of saintly sages; and then I was regenerated in the form of an anchorite’s child, after the woods were burnt down by a wild-fire.

41. Here I was initiated in the formularies for removing the curse of womanhood, and became as a male being in the person of the handsome prince of Suráshtra (Surat), where I reigned for a hundred years (or for a whole century).

42. I was then denounced to become a weasel, and covered with leprosy, in the lowlands of Táli, on account of my misconduct in the government.

43. I remember, O goddess! how I became a bullock at Surat, and was goaded by thoughtless cowherd boys, in their merry sport for full eight years.

44. I bear in mind when I was transformed to a bird, and with what difficulty I broke the net, that was laid by birdcatchers for my destruction. It was in the same manner as we release ourselves from the snares of sinful desires.

45. I remember with pleasure when as a bee, I lighted lightly on the leaflets of blossoms, sipped the honey of the blooming buds, dined on the pistils, and slept in the cups of lotus flowers.

46. I wandered about in pleasant wood-lands and lawns, with my exalted and branching horns and beautiful eyes, in the form of an antelope, till I was killed by the dart of a huntsman in my mortal part.

47. I have been in the form of a fish, and was lifted up by the waves of the sea above the surface of the water. I saw how a tortoise was killed by the blow of a club on the neck, when it failed to break its back-bone.

48. I was a Chandála huntsman once, roving by the side of Charmanvatí (the river Chenab), when I used to quench my thirst with cocoa water, as I was tired with roaming.

49. I became a stork also, delighting in lakes with my mate, and filling the air with our sweet cries.

50. In another birth, I rambled about in groves of palm and tamála trees, and fixed my eyes with amorous looks and glances upon my lover.

51. I had next been a fairy Apsará, with a form as bright as melted gold, and features as beautiful as those of the lotus and lily, in which the celestials like bees and butterflies, used to take delight.

52. I remember to have decked myself in gold and pearls, and in gems and rubies upon earth, and to have sported with my youthful consorts in pleasure gardens and groves, and on hills and mountains.

53. And I remember also to have lived long as a tortoise on the borders of a river, and to have been carried away by the waves, sometimes under an arbour of creepers, over-hung with clusters of beautiful flowers; and at others to some wild cave washed by the waves.

54. I see how I acted the part of a goose with my covering of feathers, swimming on the high heaving waves on the surface of a lake.

55. Then seeing a poor gnat hanging on the moving leaf of a Sálmali branch, I became its associate and as contemptible a thing like itself.

56. I became an aquatic crane also, skimming playfully over the waters gushing from the hills, and slightly kissing the crests of the waves rising over the rapid torrent.

57. I remember also how I slighted the loves of amorous youths, and spurned off from me the Vidyádhara boys on the Gandha Mádana and Mandara hills.

58. I remember likewise the pangs of a lovelorn lass, when I lay pining in my bed, strewn over with the fragrance of camphor, and how I was decaying like the disk of the waning moon.

59. Thus I passed through many births, in the wombs of higher and lower animals, and found them all to be full of pain. And my soul has run over the billows of the irresistible current of life, like the fleet antelope, pacing its speed with the swiftness of the wind (_Vátapramí_).

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SECTION I.

EXPOSITION OF LÍLÁ’S VISION.

Ráma said:—Tell me sir, in what manner the goddesses broke out of the strongholds of their bodies, and the prison-house of this world (where their souls were pent up), and passed through infinite space, to survey the scenes beyond its confines. (_i.e._ How does the mind and the flight of imagination, reach to regions unknown and unseen before).

2. Vasishtha replied:—Where is the world and where is its support or solidity? They were all situated in the region within the minds of the goddesses.

3. They saw in it the hilly tract, where the Bráhmana Vasishtha had his abode and his desire of royalty (pictured it in their minds).

4. They saw in a corner of it the deserted mansion of the Bráhman, and they saw in it the surface of the earth stretching to the seas (_i.e._ in their mental view).

5. They beheld in that imaginary spot of earth the city of the prince, and the royal palace which he had enjoyed with Arundhati his consort (in his imagination).

6. How she was born under the name of Lílá, and worshipped the goddess of wisdom—Sarasvatí; by whom she was miraculously conveyed to the delightful region of the sky.

7. It was in the mansion situated in that hilly village, that she beheld the world placed within the space of a span of her mind.

8. Having come out of her vision of the world, she found herself seated in her house, as one finds himself lying in his own bed, after his rambling from one dream to another.

9. All that she saw was mere vision and void; there was no world nor earth, nor a house nor the distance thereof.

10. It was the mind which showed them these images, as it presents the objects of our desire to our view; or else there was neither any world nor earth in actuality.

11. The sphere of intelligence is infinite, and without any covering; and being agitated by the powers of one’s intellect, it presents all the objects of nature to his view, as the sky when agitated by heat produces the winds.

12. The sphere of the intellect is uncreated (being a mode of the Divinity itself); it is ever calm everywhere; and is supposed as the world itself by deluded minds.

13. He who understands rightly, views the world to be as unsubstantial as air; but whoso is misled by his wrong judgment takes it to be as a solid mountain.

14. As a house and a city are manifested to us in our dream, so is this unreal world presented as a reality to our understandings.

15. As is the misconception of water in the mirage, and the mistake of gold in a bracelet; so does all this unreality appear as a substantiality to the mistaken mind.

16. Discoursing in this manner between themselves, the two charming ladies, walked out of the house with their graceful steps.

SECTION II.

DESCRIPTION OF THE MOUNTAINOUS HABITATION.

17. Being unseen by the village people, they viewed the mountain which stood before them, kissing the vault of heaven, and touching the orb of the sun with its lofty peaks.

18. It was decorated with flowers of various colours, and covered with a variety of woods of various hues. There were waterfalls gushing with their tremendous roarings on one side, and groves resounding with the warbling of birds in another.

19. The clouds were variegated by the many coloured clusters of flowers sweeping over them, and cranes and storks sat screeching on the cloud-capt top of _gulancha_ trees.

20. There were the robust reeds, hedging the banks of rivers with their wide stretching stems and roots, and the strong winds tossing about the tender creepers, growing out of the rocky caves, for want of support.

21. The tops of trees covered with flowers, were over-topped by the sheds of clouds hanging from the vault of heaven; which shed profusely their pearly drops of rain water upon them, and formed the current streams below.

22. The banks of the streamlets were continually laved by the waves, raised by the winds playing upon the shaking arbours on them; and a continued cooling shade was spread by the branching trees all around.

23. Standing on that spot, the ladies beheld the hilly hamlet in the lawn, likening a fragment of heaven fallen upon the ground.

24. There the purling rills were softly gliding by, and here the brimming brooks wabbled in the ground. The birds of the air were chirping on the sprays and aquatic fowls were flying about the holes of the sea shore.

25. There they saw the herds of kine slowly moving and grazing in the plains, and filling the echoing woods with their loud lowing; and beheld the space, interspersed with shady groves and arbours and verdant meadows all about.

26. The cliffs were whitened with snow, impenetrable by sun-beams; and the tops of hills were covered with bushy brambles, forming as braids of hair upon their craggy heads.