The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 1 (of 4)

by Valmiki

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.

27. Cascades falling in torrents in the cavities of rocks, and scattering their pearly particles afar, memorialized the churning of the milky ocean by the Mandara mountain.

28. The trees in the glens, loaded as they were with their fruits and flowers, appeared as waiters upon the goddesses, and standing to welcome their approach with their rich presents.

29. Shaken by gusts of roaring winds, the forest trees, were shedding showers of their mellifluent flowers, as offerings to the sylvan gods and people.

30. The birds that approached fearlessly to drink the water dropping from the hill, now fled for fear of their seeming as sleets, shells and shots of archers.

31. The birds parched by thirst, and wishing to drink the water dashed by the waves of the rivulet, were hovering upon it as stars in the sky.

32. There were rows of crows sitting on the tops of the tall tála (or palm) trees, from whose sight the boys were hiding the remains of their sweetmeat.

33. There they beheld the rustic lads with garlands of flowers on their heads and garments; and roaming in the cooling shades of the date, jam and nimba trees.

34. They saw the lean and hungry beggar woman passing slowly by the way, and clad in her flaxen robe, with chaplets of blossoms for her ear dress.

35. They saw the lazy rustics sitting retired in their lonely retreats, and conversing afar from the noisy brooks where they could hardly hear one another.

36. They saw the naked mendicant boys, besmeared in their face and hands with curd, and with cow-dung upon their bodies, and holding the flowery branches of plants in their hands, and crowding in the compound.

37. The bushes on the verdant banks of the river, were shaken to and fro as in a swing by the dashing of the waves, which left their marks on the sandy shore, as the waters receded to their bed.

38. The house was full of flies cloyed with the sweets of milk and curds; but the children were moaning with cries for their want of sufficient food.

39. The herdswomen were observed to be fretting, at seeing their wristlets daubed by the cow-dung (which they were pasting); and the men were seen to be smiling, at seeing the eagerness of women, for tying the loosened knots of their hair.

40. The crows were alighting from the tops of hills, to pick up the offerings of the holy sages; and the paths about their houses, were strewn over with the sacred kuru and kurunta leaves.

41. The floral plants growing in the caverns of the hills, and about the precincts of the house, covered the ground every morning, with heaps of flowers to the depth of the heels.

42. There were the chouri kine and antelopes, grazing in one part of the forest; and also the tender fawn sleeping on the bed of grass under the gunja groves.

43. There were the young calves lying on one side, and shaking their ears to drive the flies away; which were fluttering on their faces, and upon the milk exuding from the sides of their mouths.

44. The rooms were stored with honey, which had been collected by driving the bees from the hives; the gardens were full of flowering asokas (asoka Jonesia); and their rooms were painted with lacdye.

45. The winds moistened by the showers of rain, had given the arboretum to bloom, and the blooming buds of Kadamba, overhung like a canopy, the beds of green grass below.

46. The Ketaka (keya) arbour was blooming white by removal of its weeds, and the water-course was gliding along with its soft murmuring tune.

47. The winds whistled in the windows of the caves, and the clouds rested on the roofs of the mountain tops; the ponds were brimful of water, and filled with lotuses like so many lightsome moons.

48. The green arbour cast its cooling and undivided shade upon the ground, where the dew-drops trembling on the blades of grass, glistened like twinkling stars in the azure sky.

49. The trees incessantly dropped down their ripened fruits, and dried flowers and leaves of various sorts, like showers of snow on the whitened ground.

50. There some clouds were seen to hang continually over the household compound, like the chirinti (or kulína) girls, that never forsake the abode of their parents; while there were others hovering over the roof of the house, and flashing in lightenings that supplied the place of lights.

51. The altar here, re-echoed to the loud roaring of the winds, confined in the caverns of the mountains; and the temple there, was graced by the twittering swallows and parrots, that alighted upon it in their numerous flights.

52. Soft breezes were moving slowly, loaded with the fragrance exhaled by the sleepy flowers (in the evening), and gently shaking the leaves of trees as they passed along the lawn.

53. There the ladies were attentive to the prattling and playful parrots and partridges, and here they listened to the melodious notes of the Kokila, responsive to the jarring crows on the branches.

54. The palma and tamála trees were loaded with fruits, and the forest trees were entwined by creepers, which waved their leafy palms around them.

55. There were the tender ivy creepers, clasping the branches on one side, and the fragrance of the efflorescent Kandala and silindhra plants, exhaled on the other. The tapering tála and tamála trees rising as high as spires, and a cooling breeze was blowing amidst the flower plants in the gardens.

56. There were the kine hastening to drink the water in the troughs, and garden trees hanging with loads of green unripe fruits and beautiful flowers; the running streams were hidden under rows of trees on the banks, and the stalks of plants were studded with flowers without alternation.

57. The gardens were perfumed with the nectarious fragrance of kunda flowers, and the lakes were redolent with the odour of lotuses, hiding the humble bees giddy with liquor, in their honied cells. The air was reddened with the roseate pollen, flying from the crimson lotuses (sthala padmas) of the land, and mocked the redness of Indra’s palace in the sky.

58. The gargling noise of the rivulets running down precipitately from the hills, and the whiteness of the hoary cloud, hanging with the hue of kundu flowers over them; the beauty of the flowery parterres in the compound of the house, and the melodious warbling of musical birds singing joyous in the air, enchanted the scene.

59. The youths were sporting on their beds of flowers, and the playful damsels were decked with flowery wreaths hanging down to their feet. The ground was adorned every where with sprouting and prickly shrubs and blades of grass; and there was a beauty displayed in the clasping of creepers about the clumps of reeds.

60. The new shooting buds and blossoms covered the trees around, and fragments of clouds shrouded the houses below; the ground was decorated by wreaths of icicles, and the flash of lightnings in the clouds over the houses, terrified the women within.

61. There was the fragrance of blue lotuses exhaling its sweets about, and the hoarse lowings of the kine, hastening to their green grazing ground. The confident deer and does were lying tamely in the house-yard, and the peacocks dancing merrily before the water-falls, as if they were the showers of rain water.

62. The odoriferous breezes were blowing giddily, with the flavour of the fragrance they bore about; and the medicinal plants were lending their lights like lamps at night. The nests of birds were resonant with ceaseless warblings, and the noise of the cataracts deafened the ears of men on the bank.

63. The pearly dew drops, that were continually dropped on the ground, from the leaves of trees and blades of grass; and the gleaming beauty of the ever blooming blossoms above, form with others, the everlasting charms of mountainous habitations, and baffle the description of poets.

CHAPTER XXIX.
Account of the Previous Life of Lílá

A Description of the Domestic Duties of a Hindu Lady.

The two goddesses then alighted in that cooling village seat, as the two states of felicity and liberation, meet in the tranquil spirit of the man knowing the Divine spirit.

2. Lílá, who had by this time, become personified to the form of pure intelligence, by her knowledge of yoga, now became a seer of the three times presenting themselves before her.

3. She remembered the whole course of her past life, and derived pleasure in relating the events of her former life and death.

4. Lílá said:—I recollect by thy favour, O goddess! and by sight of this place, all what I did and thought of in my past life.

5. Here I had grown up to old age, and here I had withered and become lean and thin as a skeleton. I was a Bráhmaní here, and had my body scratched by the dried sacrificial grass (kusa), which I had to meddle with.

6. I was the legal wife of my lord, and producer of his race, and was employed in the acts of milking the kine, and churning the curd (for butter and ghee). I had been mother of many sons, and a kind hostess to my guests.

7. I was devoted to the service of the gods, Bráhmans and good people, and rubbed my body with cow milk and ghee: I was employed in cleaning the frying pans and the boiling kettles of the house.

8. I boiled the food daily with a single bracelet of glass and one of conch-shell in my wrists; and served my father, mother, brother and daughters and sons-in-law with their daily victuals.

9. I was emaciated in my body like a domestic servant, by working all day and night; and ‘haste and hasten,’ were the words I used to repeat to myself.

10. Being thus busied and employed, I was so silly and ignorant, that I never thought within myself, even in a dream, about what I was and what was this world, although I had been the wife of a Bráhman.

11. Wholly engaged in the collection of fuel, cow-dung, and sacrificial wood and vegetables, I became emaciated in my body, which was wrapt in a worn out blanket.

12. I used to pick out the worms from the ears of the milch cow, and was prompt to water the garden of greens with watering pots in hand.

13. I used to go to the swelling lake every day, and get the fresh green grass for the fodder of my tender calves. I used to wash and clean the house every morning, and paint the doorway with the white tints of pasted and powdered rice (gundi).

14. I had to correct my domestics with gentle rebukes, and tell them to keep within their bounds like the billows in the rivers.

15. With my infirm body and ears shaking as dried leaves of trees, and supporting myself on a stick, I lived here under the dread of old age.

16. As she was speaking in this manner, and walking in company with Sarasvatí about the village, in the valley of the mountain, she was astonished to see her former seats of pleasure, and showed them to the goddess.

17. This was my flowery arbour, decorated by these torn pátala plants, and this was my garden alcove of flowering Asokas.

18. This is the bank of the pond where the calves were loosely tied to the trees; and this is my pet calf Karniká, which has refrained from browzing the leaves (in my absence).

19. This is my watering woman, now so languid and dirty in her appearance; and weeping these eight days in my absence, with her eyes daubed in tears.

20. This, O goddess, is the place, where I used to eat and sit, and where I slept and walked; and these are the places where I gave and received the things to and from my attendants.

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.

19. Some of these are whirling about with a jarring noise for ever, which is neither heard by nor known to any body. It is like the motion of men addicted to earthly pursuits by their nature.

20. Some of these are now growing in form, as if they were newly created, and are in the course of their development, like sprouts in the cells of seeds newly sown in the ground.

21. Some of these are melting away as icicles under heat, like the mountains that were melted down by the burning sun and heavenly fire, at the dissolution of the world.

22. Others have been continually falling downward without gaining the ground, till at last they dwindle away, and melt into the divine Intellect.

23. Others are as immovable in the air, as the animalculae in the water, which are moved to and fro by the wind, without any sign of motion or sensation in them.

24. Again nothing is stable in nature, but every thing is as changeful as the acts and usages enjoined in the Vedas and sástras, are altered and succeeded by others.

25. There are other Brahmás and other patriarchs, and many Vishnus and many Indras one after the other. We have different kings of men, and sometimes no ruler of them.

26. Some are as men and lords of others (Ishas), in this multiform creation, and some are creeping and crooked living beings on earth; some kinds are as full as the waters of the ocean, and others have become quite extinct in the world.

27. Some are as hard as solid stones, and others as soft as the poor insects and worms; some are of godly figures as the giants, and others of puny human forms.

28. Some are quite blind and suited to darkness (as owls and moles and bats); others are suited to light (as men, birds and beasts), and some to both (as cats and rats).

29. Some are born as gnats sucking the juice of the fruits of the fig tree; while others are empty within, and fly about and feed upon the air.

30. The world is thus filled with creatures beyond the conception of Yogis, and we can not form even a guess-work of the beings that fill the infinite vacuum.

31. This world is the sphere of these living beings; but the great vacuum spreading beyond it, is so extensive, that it is immeasurable by the gods Vishnu and others, were they to traverse through it, for the whole of their lives.

32. Every one of these etherial globes, is encircled by a belt resembling a golden bracelet; and has an attractive power like the earth to attract other objects.

33. I have told you all about the grandeur of the universe to my best knowledge, any thing beyond this, is what I have no knowledge of, nor power to describe. 34. There are many other large worlds, rolling through the immense space of vacuum, as the giddy goblins of Yakshas revel about in the dark and dismal deserts and forests, unseen by others.