Transcriber’s Notes

Inconsistent punctuation has been silently corrected.

Obvious misspellings have been silently corrected, and the following corrections made to the text. Other spelling and hyphenation variations have not been modified.

[Page 12, section 23] the did -> did the [Page 55, section 45] can comesout -> can come out [Page 73, section 16] various by styled -> variously styled [Page 77, section 9] and our is beyond -> and is beyond our [Page 116, section 20] pollen of -> pollen of flowers [Page 339, section 37] objects our worldly -> objects of our worldly [Page 357, section 60] and do not grove -> and do not grovel

Angle brackets: <...> have been used by the transcriber to indicate light editing of the text to insert missing words.

On [pages 88-89], Section 53 is numbered twice. This has not been modified.

The spelling of Sanskrit words are normalized to some extent, including correct/addition of accents where necessary. Note that the author uses á, í, ú to indicate long vowels. This notation has not been changed.

The Sanskrit words in Devanagari script in [footnote 3] are unclear in the original text. They are rendered here as a best guess by the transcriber.

The LPP edition (1999) which has been scanned for this ebook, is of poor quality, and in some cases text was missing. Where possible, the missing/unclear text has been supplied from another edition, which has the same typographical basis (both editions are photographical reprints of the same source, or perhaps one is a copy of the other): Bharatiya Publishing House, Delhi 1978.

A third edition, Parimal Publications, Delhi 1998, which is based on an OCR scanning of the same typographical basis, has also been consulted.

The term “Gloss.” or “Glossary” probably refers to the extensive classical commentary to Yoga Vásishtha by Ananda Bodhendra Saraswati. (Only available in Sanskrit).

THE
YOGA-VÁSISHTHA-MAHÁRÁMÁYANA.

VOL. II (part 1)

THE
YOGA-VÁSISHTHA
MAHÁRÁMÁYANA
OF
VÁLMÍKI

in 4 vols. in 7 pts.

(Bound in 4.)

Vol. 2 (In 2 pts.)

Bound in one.

Containing

Utpatti Khanda, Sthiti Prakarana and

Upasama Khanda to Chapter LIII.

Translated from the original Sanskrit

By

VIHARI LALA MITRA

CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.

UTPATTI KHANDA.

BOOK III.

YOGA VÁSISHTHA.

BOOK III.
UTPATTI KHANDA.

CHAPTER LI.
Description of Sindhu’s Dominions.

Vasishtha said:—The loud cry that the king was killed in battle by the rival monarch, struck the people with 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, were 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.

5. The doors of the royal treasury were broken open by the brave brigands, the valves flew off and the vaults re-echoed to the strokes. The warders were 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 chandála 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.

9. The chiefs assembled with ardour with their troops of horses, elephants and war-chariots, and announced the installation of Sindhu by his minister.

10. Chief engineers were employed in making the decorations 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 flying for life into the villages, where they were pursued by the victorious soldiers; and a general pillage spread in every town and village throughout the realm.

13. Gangs of robbers thronged about, and blocked the passages for pillage and plunder; and a thick mist darkened the light of the day for want of the magnanimous Vidúratha.

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 cars, elephants and horses, thickened in the air as a solid body of sound (pindagráhya).

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 over.

17. Then the tribute of the country poured into the city of Sindhu from all sides; and these loaded on horses and elephants, 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 ministers 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 subsided to rest under his reign; as the flying dust of the earth and the falling leaves of trees, fall to the ground upon subsidence 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, unfurling 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).

CHAPTER LII.
State of Man after Death.

Vasishtha said:—In the meanwhile, O Ráma! Lílá seeing her husband lying insensible before her and about to breathe his last, thus spoke to Sarasvatí:

2. Behold, O mother! my husband is about to shuffle his mortal coil in this perilous war, which has laid waste his whole kingdom.

3. Sarasvatí 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 Bráhman; 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 Vidúratha, was situated with all its territories in the inner apartment of Padma. (The incidents of Vidúratha’s life, being but a vision appearing to the departed spirit of Padma).

6. Again it was the sepulchral tomb of the Bráhman Vasishtha, situated in the hilly village of Vindhyá, that exhibited these varying scenes of the mortal world within itself. (i.e. As a panorama shows many 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 accidents unreal in their nature. Gloss:—The apparitions appearing before the souls of the dead lying in their tombs, are as false as the appearances presenting themselves before the living souls in 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 these bodies of mine and thine and this Lílá’s, together with this earth and these waters, are just the same as the phantoms rising in the tomb of the deceased Bráhman 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 objective 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 Bráhman’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 Bráhman and Padma, and not displayed in the empty space of their tombs, where there was no such erroneous 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 objective as different from each other. It is the removal of the distinction of the subjective and objective, that leads us to the knowledge of unity (the on or one or om).

14. Know the Supreme soul to be 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 as having no existence nor change in itself.

15. But the souls of other beings, exhibit their own natures in themselves; as those in the sepulchral vault of the Bráhman, displayed the various dispositions to which they were accustomed. (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 created thing in it; its consciousness of itself as an increate vacuity, comprehends its knowledge of the world in itself. (i.e. The subjective consciousness of the Ego, includes the knowledge of the objective world).

17. The knowledge of the mountain chains of Meru 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 plantain tree, are contained in one of its minute seeds.

20. All the three worlds are contained in an atom as 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 Lílá thy step-dame, has already gone to the world which contains the sepulchre of Padma, before the spirit of Vidúratha could join the same.

22. The moment when Lílá fell in a swoon in thy presence, know her spirit to be immediately conveyed to him and placed by his side.

23. Lílá asked:—Tell me, O goddess! how was this lady endowed here with my form before, and how is she translated to and placed as my step-dame beside my deceased husband?

24. Tell me in short, in what form she is now viewed by the people in Padma’s house, and the manner in which they are talking to her at present.

25. The goddess replied:—Hear Lílá, what I will relate to thee in brief in answer to thy question, regarding the life and death of this Lílá as an image of thyself.

26. It is thy husband Padma, that beholds these illusions of the world spread before him in the same sepulchre in the person of Vidúratha.

27. He fought this battle as thou didst see in his reverie, and this Lílá 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 Lílá as his wife, and it is the same deceit of a dream, which deludes thee to believe thyself as his consort.

29. As it is a mere dream that makes you both to think yourselves as his wives, so he deems himself as your husband, and so do I 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; wherefore knowing it a mere visionary scene, we must refrain from relying any faith in this visible phantasmagoria.

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

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

33. So this queen Lílá 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 dulcet as the notes of the Kokila, and her motions as slow as those of a lovelorn maiden.

35. Behold her eyelids like the leaves of the blue lotus, and her swollen breasts rounded as a pair of snow-balls; her form is as bright as liquid gold, and her lips as red as a brace of ripe Vimba fruits.

36. 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 ownself, that thou now beholdest with wonder.

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

38. 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 material 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 Vidúratha, that represented to Padma thy desired form of the youthful Lílá, 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 possest of the same unvaried soul which pervades all space, are made to behold one another in your own ways (agreeably 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 the varying fancies (vikshepa sakti); or tendencies (vásaná 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 the 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 inherent in the soul).

45. That such and such person were their fathers and such their mothers before, that they lived in such places, had such properties of theirs, and did such acts erewhile (are reminiscences of the soul).

46. That they were 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 Lílá’s mind, that I was worshipped and prayed by her:—

48. In order to confer upon her the boon that she might not become a widow; 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 Brahmá, and the totality of that intelligence of which all beings participate: it is for this reason that I was adored by her as the Kula Devi or tutelar divinity of all living beings.

50. 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 mouth.

51. Then after the insensibility attendant upon her death was over, she understood in her intellect her living soul to be placed in the same empty space with the departed spirit of Padma.

52. Her reminiscence 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 countenance, and her face was as bright as the orb of the moon; her eyes were as large as those of an antelope, and she was attended by her graceful blandishments for the gratification of her husband.

CHAPTER LIII.
Representations of Reminiscence.

Argument. Description of Lílá’s passage in the air, and her union with her husband’s spirit. Relation of the depravity of those that are unacquainted with and unpractised in Yoga.

Vasishtha said:—Lílá having obtained the blessing of the goddess, proceeded with her fancied body to meet her royal spouse in heaven beyond the skies.

2. Having assumed her spiritual 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.

3. 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 Sarasvatí, and welcome thee, O beauteous lady in this place. I have been waiting here on thy way through the sky in expectation of thee.

5. Lílá said:—Lead me, O lotus-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 palmistry. (?).

8. They passed the region of the clouds, and overstepped the tracks of the winds; then passing beyond the orbit of the sun, they reached the stations of the constellations.

9. Thence they passed through the regions of air and water (Indraloka), to the abodes of the gods and saints (Siddhas); whence they went across the seats of Brahmá, Vishnu and Siva to the great belt—of the universe.

10. Their spiritual bodies pierced through its orifice, as the humidity of ice water passes out of the pores of a tight water-jar.

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

12. Having traversed the spheres of Brahmá, 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. (i.e. The unlimited space of the mind and vacuity).

14. There they beheld an infinity of shapeless and nameless worlds, scattered about as the countless fruits in a great forest. (The 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 Brahmá, 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 Padma covered under the heap of flowers.

18. At this time Lílá lost the sight of the heavenly damsel, who had been her companion erewhile, and who had now disappeared from her sight like a phantom of her illusion.

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

20. This must be my husband, said she, ay my very husband, who fell fighting 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 (i.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 Lílá asked:—Tell me, O goddess! in what manner did the 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 (bhojakádrishta).

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

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

28. The waking Lílá said:—Why did not that Lílá meet her husband 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 unenlightened souls (as that of the young Lílá), 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.

30. So it is the established law from the beginning of creation, 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 falsehood of goblins as mere chimeras 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 atmosphere, 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 discrimination, and by his own merit and divine blessing, that he acquires 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 fire, 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 Lílá 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 Lílá’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 reflections of his past and constant remembrance of them.

39. So our notions of all these worlds are mere products of our reminiscence, and no creation of Brahmá or any other cause; but simple productions of our desire (which presents these figures to the imagination).

40. So they who are ignorant of the knowable spirit of God, have only the notions of the outer world in them; as they view the distant orb of the moon within themselves (in their minds).

CHAPTER LIV.
Reflections on Death.

Argument. The lot of living beings and the cause of their death. The duration of human life as determined by their acts and enjoyments, and the merit of their conduct in life time.

The goddess continued:—Those therefore who know the knowable God, and rely in virtue, can go to the spiritual worlds and not others. (Knowable 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 sunshine. (So gross matter has no room in the subtile spirit).

3. Lílá being ignorant of the knowable (God), and unacquainted 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 Lílá 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 I do at present.

5. 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?

9. The goddess said:—At the universal dissolution of the world, 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 of 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 commonly styled the ideal world.

12. The spirit of God residing in it, thought itself as Brahmá—the soul of the world, who reigned over it in his form of the mind, as if it was identic 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. (i.e. The primordial 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 intelligence 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 are 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 samvid-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 manifestations of the ideas of fluidity and solidity).

25. We are conscious of our dreams in some particular state of our intellect, and it is the wonderfully cunning nature of the intellect, that makes us think the unreal as real.

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, two, three and four centuries in the different Kali, Dwápara, Tretá and 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 our good or bad actions and habits, that human life extends above or descends below these limits.

30. Falling short of one’s duties lessens his life, as his excelling in them lengthens its duration; but the mediocrity of his conduct keeps it within its proper bound.

31. 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.

32. He who goes on doing his duties as prescribed by law of the Sástras, becomes both prosperous and partaker of the long life allotted by the rule of the Sástra.

33. 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. Lílá 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 we 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 are of three kinds, and have different ends upon their death. These are those who are ignorant, and such as are practiced in yoga, and those that are reasonable and religious.

36. Those practicing the dháraná 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 retention and bodily patience and endurance).

37. He who has not practiced the dháraná 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.

38. He whose mind is unsubdued, and full of desires and temporal cares and anxieties, becomes as distressed as a lotus torn from its stalk. (i.e. It is the subjection of inordinary passions, and suppression of inordinate desires and cares, which ensure our true felicity).

39. The mind that is not guided by the precepts of the Sástras, 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-sight 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 the 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 in 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 in 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 balloon).

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

48. He is borne in the air as a straw, and is carried 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 vortiginous vacuities, to find as it were, a place free from the vicissitudes to which the earth and ocean are subject. (i.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, sets 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 recedes; it disappears: Pope).

52. 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 thinking; 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 circulation, there ensues a collapse murch’ha or swooning.

55. When this state of apoplexy joined with delirium, has reached its climax, the body becomes as stiff as stone by the law of inertia, ordained for living beings from the beginning.

56. Lílá said:—But tell me, O goddess, why do these pains and agonies, this fainting and delirium, and disease and insensibility, overtake the body, when it is possessed of all its eight organs entire?

57. The goddess replied:—It is the law appointed by the author of life from the first, that such and such pains are to fall to the lot of living beings at such and such times. (Man’s primeval sin brought pain and disease and death into the world).

58. The primeval sin springs of itself as a plant in the conscious 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).

59. When the disease and its pain overpower the body, and prevent the lungs and arteries to expand and contract, in order to inhale and exhale the air, it loses its equipoise (samána) 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 consciousness of former knowledge will all be awake at the hour of death (which proves the immortality of the soul).

63. Though I am 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 body.

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 soul—chetana in many.

66. As a blade of grass is composed of joints in the midst, so is the even nature of the sentient or living soul; which is combined with the two states of birth and death amidst it.

67. The sentient soul is neither born nor dead at any time; but witnesses these two states as the passing shadows and apparitions 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 Purusha 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; 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 born at any time; it is this living principle only that continually revolves in the 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 inward soul that is led by its egoism to believe them as true, is subject to death at the dis-appearance 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 of Life and Death.

Lílá said:—Tell me, goddess! for edification of my knowledge, the manner in which a living 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 soul 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 vacuum. 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 mixing with the air, the soul is freed from the bonds of its desires, and flies 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.” The unconditioned—nirupadhika spirit, joins with the Holy spirit; but not so the conditioned (upádhika) soul of the unholy.

6. The soul having its desires and styled the animal spirit—Jíva, is otherwise than the átman—soul. 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 are called pretas or ghosts of the dead, which have their desires and earthly propensities attached to them; as the fragrance of the flower is concentrated in its pollen, and thence diffused through the air.

8. As the animal souls are removed to other spheres, after 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 linga or súkshma deha—the spiritual or subtile body of spiritualism.

10. What appears 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.

13. Some of the most sinful 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 pretárasthá continuing for a whole year after death). (It is allied to Abraham’s bosom or Irack of Mahomedans).

14. Rising 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 from the pains in their short lived prosperity, amidst their dreaming journey through life. (These transmigrations of the soul, are the consequences 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).

17. And others again that having undergone the torments of hell, according 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 either the insensibility of dead bodies, or that of mineral substances.)

19. These being awakened to sensibility after some period, either of duration 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, in order 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, are 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 blown away by the atmospheric air, upon the tops of trees and medicinal plants, where they rove about as the protozoa, after the insensibility of death is over.

25. 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 says:—Having 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 these entering the body of animals in the form of food, produce the semen, which becomes the cause of the lives and bodies of all living beings.

26. Thus the dead, figure to themselves some one of these states of living bodies, according to their respective 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 hands, come to fetch them to the realm of Yama; where they depart with them, (with their provision for one year offered in their Srádh 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 icebergs and pitfals, tangled with thorns and iron pikes, and bushes and brambles in its passage, as the punishment of its sins.

31. Those of the middling class, have a clear and paved passage, with soft grassy path-ways shaded by cooling arbours, 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 Yama—the lord of the dead. The other is the judge of our actions—Chitragupta, and this is his judgment given on my behalf”.

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

34. 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’s court), the soul is pronounced to reap the reward of its acts, whereby it ascends either to the blissful heaven above, or descends to the painful hell below.

36. 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; 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 form 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 diversified in different beings. (It is the plant and food that sustains 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 fœtus in the womb of the female.

39. The fœtus 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 moonlike beauty of youthful bloom, and its amorous disposition coming upon itself; and feels afterwards the effects of hoary old age, defacing its lotus-like face, as the sleets of snow, shatter and shrivel the lotus leaflets.

41. At last it undergoes the pains of disease and death, and feels the same insensibility of Euthanasia as before, and finds again as in a dream its taking of a new form.

42. It again believes itself to be carried to the region of Pluto, and subjected 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 final liberation from this changeful state.

44. Lílá said:—Tell me 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 abstract, 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 we see these manifestations, in the transcendental sphere of its pure intelligence.

47. In the beginning, God conceived himself as the lord of creation (Brahmá); 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 are 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 notwithstanding devoid of outward motion, and receive their sustenance by the roots; wherefore they are called Pádapas or pedobibers.

51. The hollow sphere of the divine intellect, beaming with intelligence, sends forth its particles of percipience, which form the consciousness of some beings, and sensitiveness in others.

52. 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).

53. It is according to one’s estimation of himself, that he has his 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.

Gloss:—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 nature.

54. Thus all moving and unmoving things, have their movable and immovable bodies, according to their intrinsic disposition 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.

57. 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.

58. The varying idiocrasy subsisting in vegetables and minerals, makes them feel themselves as such, and causes their various natures and forms, as they have to this time.

59. The inward constitution of all immovable objects, makes them remain in their stationary states; and so of all other substances, 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, and 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 (as ever subject to the intense cold of the frigid zone).

62. So also all kinds of moving and unmoving beings, are prepossessed with their own notions of things, and regard all others according to the peculiar nature of themselves. (Átmá vat &c.).

63. Again as the inhabitants of caves, know nothing of their outsiders; and as the frogs of dirty pools are unacquainted 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; and 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 you 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 Vidúratha 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 Vidúratha.

70. Lílá said:—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, in the spiritual form of pure intellect.

72. We 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.