Reading section 80

21. This is my eldest son Jyeshtha Sarmá, weeping in the house; and this is my milch cow, now grazing on the grassy plain in the forest.

22. I see this portico and these windows, once dear to me as my person, and besmeared with the dry powder of the _huli_ festival of the vernal season.

23. I see these pulpy plants of gourd planted with my own hands, and dear to me as myself, now spreading themselves over the oven place.

24. I see these relatives of mine, who had been the bonds of my life before, now smoking in their eyes with tears, and carrying the fuel for fire, with beads of _rudráksha_ seeds on their bodies.

25. I see that stony shore, baffling the force of the waves, which have been pelting their pebbles against it, now covered by bushes of the beach.

26. The verdant meadows were full of leafy plants, with pendant dew drops on their tips; and the plains were whitened by the hailstones falling on them in showers.

27. The mid-day was mantled by sun beams, as by a white mist of frost, and the arbours resounded with the humming of bees, fluttering about their clustering flowers.

28. The blooming palása glowing as reddish corals, had covered the trees and the land with heaps of crimson flowers.

29. The village rill was flowing with the floating fruits, which it bore from shore to shore; and the rustic lads jumbled together with loud noise, eager to lay hold on them.

30. The cool shady beach of the rill, was strewn over with pebbles, washed and carried away by the current, and covered by leaves falling from the trees.

31. There I see the altar of my house, which is so beautifully ornamented with the flowering creepers, and which is overhung on its windows by clusters of fruits and flowers.

32. Here lived my husband, whose life has fled to the sky in its aerial form, and became afterwards the lord of the earth, reaching to the surrounding seas.

33. I remember, how he had fostered the fond wish of obtaining royal dignity, and how ardently he looked forward on its attainment.

34. I see, O goddess! his royal dignity of eight days, which had seemed to be of so long a duration (as eighty years) before.

35. I see the soul of my Lord, residing in the empty space of this mansion, as in his former kingly state; although it is invisible to all as the current air in the sky, and as the odours borne by the winds.

36. It is in this vacuous space, that his soul is contained in the form of a thumb; which contains in its bosom, the whole extent of the realm of my lord, stretching to thousands of leagues in its circumference.

37. I see also O goddess! the spacious kingdom of my lord, in the space of my intellect, which makes room for thousands of mountains by the miraculous power of God, styled as illusion. (_máyá_).

38. I wish now, O Goddess! to see the earthly city of my lord again; let us therefore turn our course that way, as no place is distant to the resolute.

39. Vasishtha said:—Having said so, she bowed down to the goddess and entered into the shrine, and then like a bird, she flew into the air with the goddess.

40. It was a region devoid of darkness, and as fair as a sea of moonlight. And then it was as azure as the person of Náráyana, and as bright as the back of a locust.

41. They passed above the regions of the clouds and winds, as also beyond the spheres of the orbits of the sun and moon.

42. They passed beyond the path of the north polar star, and the limits of the circuits of the sádhyas and siddhas and other celestial beings.

43. Thence they ascended to the higher heavens of Brahmá and the Tushita divinities, and then upward to the sphere of Golaka (the zodiac); and thence again to the Sivaloka, and the sphere of the Pitris or the departed souls of the dead.

44. Passing thus beyond the spheres of the embodied living beings, and bodiless souls of the dead, they proceeded far and farther to the unknown regions of empty space.

45. Having passed the etherial sphere, they beheld nothing there, except the sun, moon and the stars shining below them.

46. There was only a deep darkness to be seen, filling the whole vacuity of space, and appearing as the basin of the waters of universal deluge, and as compact as the impenetrable cavity of a rock.

47. Lílá said:—Tell me, O goddess! what became of the light of the sun and other luminaries, and whence came this dense darkness as to be compressed under the fist (mushti-gráhya).

48. The goddess replied: you have got to a spot so remote from the spheres of heaven, that the light of the luminaries can never reach to it.

49. And as one in a deep dark pit, can see no light of a fire fly flitting over it; so the solar light is invisible to one behind the great belt of heaven.

50. Lílá said:—Oh! the great distance that we have come to, whence the great luminary of the sun also, appears as small as an atom below.

51. Tell me mother, what sort of a place is that which lies beyond this region, and how can we come to it after traversing this gloomy expanse.

52. Sarasvatí said:—Behind this is the great pole of the universe, which is scattered over with innumerable nebular stars in the form of the particles of dust.

53. Vasishtha said:—As they were talking in this manner, they glided imperceptibly to that pole, as the bee saunters over the solitary hut on the height of a mountain.

54. They then were at no pains to come down from that precipice, as there is no pains to effect what must certainly come to pass in the end, though it appeared difficult at first. (Or) that which is certain must come to pass, however hard it might seem at first.

55. They saw the system of the universe, laid naked to their sight, as the bold navigator beholds a world exposed to his view beyond the wide expanse of waters.

56. They saw the watery expanse to be ten times greater than the earth, and enveloping it in the shape of the crust of the walnut fruit.

57. Then there is a latent heat which is ten times as great as the water, and the circumambient air which is as much greater than the water; and then the all encompassing vacuum of which there is no end.

58. There is no beginning, middle or end of that infinite space; and it is productive of nothing, like a barren woman of her offspring.

59. It is only an extended expanse, infinite, calm and without beginning, middle or end, and is situated in the Supreme spirit.

60. Its immensity is as immeasurable as if a stone is flung with full force from its top, or if the phœnix would fly up to it with all his might, or if he would traverse through it in full velocity, it is impossible for him to reach from one end to the other, in a whole Kalpa age.

CHAPTER XXX.

DESCRIPTION OF THE MUNDANE EGG—(BRAHMÁNDA).

They passed in a moment beyond the regions of the earth, air, fire, water, and vacuum, and the tracks of the ten planetary spheres.

2. They reached the boundless space, whence the universe appeared as an egg (ovum).

3. They beheld under its vault millions of luminous particles floating in the air (nebulæ).

4. These were as innumerable bubbles, floating on the waters of the unlimited ocean of the sphere of the Intellect.

5. Some of them were going downward, and others rising upward; some turning round, and others appeared to their understanding to remain fixed and immovable.

6. These different motions appeared to them with respect to their own situations, as they saw them in their different sides.

7. Here there were no ups and downs and no upside or below, nor any going forward or backward. Here there are no such directions as men take to be by the position of their bodies.

8. There is but one indefinite space in nature, as there is but one consciousness in all beings; yet everything moves in its own way, as wayward boys take their own course.

9. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, why do we call upward and downward, forward and backward, if there are no such things in space and nature.

10. Vasishtha said:—There is but one space enveloping all things, and the worlds which are seen in the infinite and indiscernible womb of vacuity, are as worms moving on the surface of water.

11. All these bodies that move about in the world by their want of freedom (_i.e._ by the power of attraction), are thought to be up and down by our position on earth.

12. So when there is a number of ants on an earthen ball, all its sides are reckoned below which are under their feet, and those as above which are over their backs.

13. Such is this ball of the earth in one of these worlds, covered by vegetables and animals moving on it, and by devas, demons and men walking upon it.

14. It is covered also by cities, towns and mountains, and their inhabitants and productions, like the walnut by its coat.

15. Like elephants appearing as pigmies in the Vindhyan mountains, do these worlds appear as particles in the vast expanse of space.

16. Every thing that is any where, is produced from and subsists in space. It is always all in all things, which are contained as particles in it.

17. Such is the pure vacuous space of the Divine understanding, that like an ocean of light, contains these innumerable worlds, which like the countless waves of the sea, are revolving for ever in it.

18. Some of these are hollow within, and others as dark as the darkness in the end of a _kalpa_ age: and they are all moving about in the ocean of vacuity, like the waves of the sea.