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

by Valmiki

CHAPTER XXXVI.

SECTION I.
Collision of Equal Arms and Armigerents.

The heaps of arrows rising in spires above the ground, drove the cowards and the wounded afar from the field.

2. The hills of the dead bodies of men, horses and elephants, heaving in promiscuous heaps, and appearing as clouds fallen upon earth, invited the Yakshas and Rákshasas, and the carnivorous Pisáchas, to come and sport in the wide ocean of blood.

3. Now there commenced a commutual contest, betwixt men of rank and virtue, and those of good character, valour and strength on both sides; not excepting even the holy and household people, all of whom took part in the combat (that is, no condition of life, nor age nor sex, could escape the contagion of a warfare).

4. Duels were fought between these, like the clashing of one cloud with another; and like the confluence of two streams discharging their fury against each other.

5. As a rib is joined to another, and one side with the other, so met the horse against the horse, and elephant opposed the elephant in mutual conflict.

6. As one forest clasps and clings to another, and one hill is linked with the other in a range, so the duelists strove together, as one wave dashes against the other.

7. Footmen fought with footmen, as the reeds crush the reeds, and bamboos clash against one another, and the contrary winds struggle between themselves.

8. Cars falling upon cars, and chariots running against chariots, broke one another to pieces; and the citizens beat the rustics, as the Devas smote the demons of old.

9. The sky which had been erewhile clouded by the flight of arrows, was now emblazoned by the banner of the bowyer, resembling the rainbow of various colours.

10. At last the warriors who were overpowered in their conflict with unequal arms, fled away from the field, as they do from the fire of a conflagration.

11. Now the armigerents with discuses, met the thwarters of disks (chakras) in contest; and bowyers were opposed to bowmen, and swordsmen challenged the sword fighters in the field. So met the hookers and crookers with their co-rivals with crowbars (bhusundis) in hand.

12. Maces were opposed to maces (musalas), and lancers were set against the lance bearers (kuntas) in fighting. Spearmen braved the spearmen (rishtis), and the throwers of missiles were crossed with missives (prásas) in hand.

13. Mallets militated against mallets (mudguras), and clubs were contravened by clubmen in the conflict. Combatants with pikes (saktis), encountered the pikemen (sakti-dharas) face to face; and iron rods were crossed to pointed rods (súlas) in the strife.

14. Pugilists with missive weapons, counteracted the missiles of their antagonists (prásas), and those fighting with battle axes (parasus), baffled the poleaxes and pickaxes (paraswadhas) of their foes.

15. Trappers with their traps and snares, attacked the darters of nooses and lassos (pásas); and the darters of javelins (sankus), withstood the darts of the dartsmen on the other side. Daggers were opposed to daggers (kshurikas), and cudgels were presented before the cudgels (bhindipálas of the enemy).

16. Combatants with iron gloves contravened the boxers with iron fistcuffs (Vajramushtis), and those with iron cranes, pursued the fighters with crooked goads (ankusas) in hand. Warriors with ploughshares attacked the ploughmen, and those with tridents, fell upon the trident holders (trisúlins) in contest.

17. Champions with chained armours set upon the soldiers attired in mail (srinkhala jála); and they poured upon the field as flights of locusts, or as the waves in the troubled sea.

18. The air also seemed as a sea, with flying disks whirling as whirlpools (chakravartas), and the flight of reeds whistling like gusts of wind; while the range of running weapons seemed as sharks and dolphins moving about it.

19. The hollow of the heaven became as the great deep of the sea, impassable by the celestials, owing to the waving weapons, moving as sea monsters in the air.

20. Thus the armies of the two belligerent potentates, each composed of eight ranks or battalions, were furiously engaged with one another, as described below.

SECTION II.
Catalogue of the Forces.

21. Now hear me relate to you, the forces on the side of Padma, now named Vidúratha, and the allied powers that came to his side, from the Central and Eastern districts.

22. There came the hardy warriors of Kosala (Oudh) and Kási (Benares); those of Magadha (Behar) and Utkala (Orissa), situated in the east; and the Mekhalas (of Vindhya range), the Karkars (of Karnatic), and the Madras (of Madura) in the south.

23. The chiefs of Hema (Imaus) and Rudras and the Támraliptas (Tamils) from the south; the Prágjyotishas (of east Assam), and the horse faced Osmuks and Ambashtha cannibals.

24. Then there joined the Varna-koshthas and Viswotras, and the eaters of raw food and flesh and the fish eaters (piscivori); and those with faces like tigers, the Kiratas (Kirrhoids and Kira-antis), with the Sauviras and one legged people.

25. Next came the mountaineers of Mályavána, Sibira and Anjanagiri; and others having the ensigns of bulls and lotuses, and the people of the sun rising mountain (Udaya-giri) in the east.

26. Those that joined from the south east (prágdaxina), are the following, namely; the Vindhyaris, the Chedis, the Vatsas, the Dasárnas (near the confluence of the ten streams); and the Angas, Bangas and Upabangas (of Upper and Lower Bengal).

27. They that met from the south were, Kalingas and Pundras, the Jatharas, Vidarbhas and the hill people (on the Karnatic coast); the Sabaras, the outcasted savages, the Karnas and the Tripura people.

28. Those named Kantakas from their thorny district, the unenlightened Komalas (of Comilla?); the Karnas (Canarese), the Ándhras, the Cholas and the people on the borders of the Charmanvati river.

29. The Kakos or bald-headed and bearded people, and those of the Hema-kuta hills; the frizzled and long necked people, and the inhabitants of Kishkindha and cocoa forests.

30. The princes that joined with Lílá’s husband from the south, were as follows viz. the Vindhyans, the Kusumians (of Patna), the Mahendras and the Darduras (of the hills of the same names).

31. The Malays and the solar race, and the Prince of the (33) united states and the rich and united cities of Avanti and Sámbavati.

32. And those of Dasapura (or ten cities) of Katha (Kota), Chakra, Reshika Cutch and others, and the foresters of Upagiri and Bhadragiri hills.

33. The prince of Nagore and the chiefs of Dandaka forest, and the joint states of the people; the Sahas, Saivas, and the hill people of the Rishyamuka and Karkota and the Vimbila foresters.

34. Then came the inhabitants from the banks of Pampá, the Kerakas and Karkaviras; with the Kherikas, Asikas and the people of Dhrumapattana.

35. Next came the Kásikas and Khallukas, the Yadas and Tamraparnikas; the Gonardas, the Kanakas and the people of Dinapattam.

36. The Tamris (Tamils), Kadambharas, Sahakáras and Enakas (or deer hunters); the Vaitundas, Tumba-vanalas, and those attired in deer and elephant skins.

37. Then came the lotus-like Sibis and Konkans and the inhabitants of Chitrakuta mountains; with the people of Karnata, the Mantas, Batakas and those of Cattak.

38. The Andhras and Kola hill people (Koles), the Avantis and Chedis; with the Chandas and Devanakas and Kraunchavahas.

39. At last came the people from the three peaks of Chitrakúta mountains, called the Silákhára, Nanda mardana and Malaya, which were the seats of the guardian Bákshasas of Lanká.

40. Then those of the southwest where there is the great realm of Surástra (Surat), with the kingdoms of Sindhu (Sinde) Sauvira, Abhíra, and Dravidas (in Deccan).

41. Also those of the districts of Kikata, Siddha Khanda, and Káliruha, and the mount Hemagiri or golden hills and the Raivataka range.

42. Then the warriors of Jaya Kachchha (the victorious Cutch), and Mayavara (Mewar); as also the Yavanas (Ionians), the Bahlikas (Balkhs), the Marganas (nomads), and the grey coloured Tumbas (on the north).

43. Then there came Lahsa races and many hill peoples, inhabiting the borders of the sea (Caspian), forming the limit of the dominion of Lílá’s husband (Hindu Government) on the north.

44. Now know the names of the countries belonging to the enemy in the west, and of those composed of the following mountain ranges, viz.

45. The mount Manimán and the Kurar-pana hills, with the hillocks of Vanorka, Megha-bhava, and the Chakra-vana mountain.

46. There is the country of the five peoples limiting the territory of the Kása Brahmans, and after that the Bháraksha, the Páraka and Sántika countries.

47. Thence stretch the countries of the Saivyas, Amarakas, the Pachchyas (Páschátyas) and Guhutwas; and then the Haihaya country, and those of the Suhyas, Gayas and Tajikas and Hunas (Huns).

48. Then along the side of some other countries, there is the range of Karka hills, inhabited by barbarous people, devoid of caste, customs and limits of moral duties.

49. Thence stretches a country hundreds of leagues in length, to the boundary mountain of Mahendra, abounding in rich stones and gems.

50. After that stands the Aswa range with hundreds of hills about it; and extending to the dread ocean on the north of the Pariyátra range. (Paropamisus).

51. On the north western side, there are countries beyond the boundary mountains (of Asia), where Venupati was the king of the land.

52. Then there are the countries of the Phálgunakas and Mándavayas and many other peoples; and those of Purukundas and Paras (Paris?) as bright as the orb of the sun.

53. Then the races of Vanmilas and Nalinas and the Dirghas; who are so called, from their tall statures and long arms and hairs. Then there are the Rangas (Red men), Stánikas with protuberant breasts, and the Guruhas and Chaluhas.

54. After that is the kingdom of women (ruled by a queen), where they feed upon bullocks and heifers. Now about the Himálayas and its hills in the north (of India):—

55. These are the Krauncha and Madhumán hills; and the Kailása, Vasumán and the Sumeru peaks; at the foot of which are the people, known under many names.

56. Beside these there met the warlike tribes of India consisting of the Madrawars, Malavas and Sura-senas. The Rajputs of the race of Arjuna, the Trigartas and the one legged people and Khudras.

57. There were the Abalas, Prakhalas, and Sakas (Saccæ or Scythians). The Khemadhúrtas, the Dasadhanas, the Gavásanas and Dandahanas (club fighters).

58. The Dhánadas and Sarakas and Bátadhánas also, with the islanders and Gándháras and Avanti warriors of Malwa.

59. The warlike Takshasilas (Taxilas), the Bílavas, Godhanas and the renowned warriors of Pushkara (Pokhra).

60. Then there were the Tíkshas and Kálavaras, and the inhabitants of the cities of Káhaka and Surabhúti likewise.

61. There were the people of the Ratikádarsa and Antarádarsa also; and the Pingalas, the Pandyas, Yamanas and Yátudhánas Rákshasas too.

62. There were also the races of men, known as Hematálas and Osmuks, together with the hilly tribes, inhabiting the Himalaya, Vasumán, Krauncha and Kailasa mountains.

63. Hear me now relate to you the peoples that came from the north east quarter, which extends a hundred and eighty leagues in its circumference.

64. There came also the Kalutas and Brahmaputras, the Kunidas and Khudinas, with the warlike Malavas and the champions of the Randhra and forest states.

65. Then there were the Kedavas and Sinhaputras of dwarfish statures; the Sabas (Sabæ or Sabians?), the Kaccæs, the Pahlavis (ancient Persians), the Kamiras and the Daradas (the present Darduis or Himalayan hills).

66. There were also the people of Abhisa, the Jarvakas, the Pulolas and Kuves; the Kirátas and Yamupatas, together with the poor and rich people of desert lands and tracts of gold.

67. Thus Lílá saw in one view, the residences of the devas; the forest lands and the earth in all their beauty. She saw all the seats of opulence (viswavasus), and the edifices with which they were adorned; she beheld the summit of Kailása, and the delightful groves at its foot, and the level lands traversed by the aerial cars of Vidyádhara and celestial beings.[21]

CHAPTER XXXVII
Catalogue of the Forces continued.[22]

Vasishtha said:—Thus the ravaging war was making a rapid end of men, horse, elephants and all; and the bravos coming foremost in the combat, fell in equal numbers on both sides.

2. These (as named before), and many others were reduced to dust and ashes; and the bravery of the brave, served but to send them like poor moths to the fire and flame of destruction.

3. Know now the names of the central districts, not yet mentioned by me, that sent their warriors to the field, in favour of the consort prince of Lílá.

4. These were the inland forces of Sursena (Muttra), the Gudas (Gaudas?), and the Asganas (?); the Madhymikas and they that dwell under sunlight (the tropics).

5. The Sálukas and Kodmals, and Pippaláyanas; the Mándavyas, Pandyans, Sugrívas and Gurjars.

6. The Páriyátras, Kurashtras, Yamunas and Udumvaras; the Raj-waras, the Ujjainas, the Kálkotas (Calicuts) and the Mathuras (of Muttra).

7. The Pánchálas (Pánjábis), the Northern and Southern Dharmakshetras; the Kurukshetriyas, Pánchálakas and Sáraswatas.

8. The line of war chariots from Avanti, being opposed by the arms of the warriors of the Kunta and Panchanada districts, fell in fighting by the sides of the hills.

9. Those arrayed in silken attire, being dismantled by the enemy, fell upon the ground, and were trodden down by the elephants.

10. The bravadoes of Daspura, being hacked in their breasts and shoulders by the hostile weapons, were pursued by the Banabhuma warriors, and driven to the distant pool.

11. The Sántikas being ripped in their bellies, lay dead and motionless in naked field, and wrapped in their mangled entrails, which were torn and devoured by the voracious Pisáchas at night.

12. There the veteran and vociferous warriors of Bhadrasiri, who were well skilled in the battle field, drove the Amargas to the ditch, as they drive the tortoises to their pits.

13. The Haihayas were driving the Dandakas, who like fleet stags were flying with the swiftness of winds, and all gushing in blood by the pointed and piercing arrows of the enemy.

14. The Daradas were gored by the tusks of the elephants of their enemies, and were borne away in floods of their blood, like the broken branches of trees.

15. The Chínas (Chinese) were mangled in their bodies by darts and arrows, and cast their tortured bodies in the water, as a burden they could no longer support.

16. The Asúras, pierced in their necks by the flying lances of the Karnatic lancers, fled in all directions like the faggots of fire, or as the flying meteors of heaven.

17. The Sákas and Dásakas were fighting together, by holding down one another by the hair on their heads, as if the whales and elephants were struggling mutually from their respective elements.

18. The flying cowards were entrapped in the snares cast by the Dasárna warriors, as dolphins hiding under the reeds, are dragged out by nets on the blood-red shore.

19. The lifted swords and pikes of the Tongas (Tonguise), destroyed the Gurjara (Guzrati) force by hundreds, and these like razors balded the heads (i.e. made widows) of hundreds of Gurjara women. (It is their custom to remain baldheaded in widowhood).

20. The lustre of the lifted weapons of the warriors, illumined the land as by flashes of lighting; and the clouds of arrows were raining like showers of rain in the forest.

21. The flight of the crowbars (bhusundis), which untimely obscured the orb of the sun, affrighted the Abhíra (cowherd) warriors with the dread of an eclipse, and overtook them by surprise, as when they are pursued by a gang of plunderers of their cattle.

22. The handsome gold collared army of the Támras or tawny coloured soldiers, were dragged by the Gauda warriors, as captors snatch their fair captives by the hair.

23. The Tongons were beset by the Kanasas, like cranes by vultures with their blazing weapons, destroying elephants and breaking the discuses in war.

24. The rumbling noise (gudugudurava), raised by the whirling of cudgels by the Gauda gladiators, frightened the Gándháras to a degree, that they were driven like a drove of beasts, or as the dreading Drávídas from the field.

25. The host of the Sáka or Scythian warriors, pouring as a blue torrent from the azure sky, appeared by their sable garb as the mist of night, approaching before their white robed foes of the Persians.

26. The crowded array of lifted arms in the clear and bright atmosphere, appeared as a thick forest under the milk white ocean of frost, that shrouds the mountainous region of Mandara.

27. The flights of arrows which seemed as fragments of clouds in the air from below, appeared as waves of the sea, when viewed by the celestials from above.

28. The air appeared as a forest thickly beset by the trees of spears and lances, with the arrows flying as birds and bees; and innumerable umbrellas, with their gold and silver mountings, appearing as so many moons and stars in the sky.

29. The Kekayas made loud shouts, like the war whoops of drunken soldiers, and the Kankas covered the field like a flight of cranes, and the sky was filled with dust over their heads.

30. The Kiráta army made a purling noise (kulakula) like the effeminate voice of women; causing the lusty Angas to rush upon them with their furious roar.

31. The Kásas (Khasias) covering their bodies with kusa grass (in their grassy garbs), appeared as birds with feathers, and raised clouds of dust by flapping their feathered arms.

32. The giddy warriors of Narmada’s coasts, came rushing in the field unarmed with their weapons, and began to fleer and flout and move about in their merry mood.

33. The low statured Sálwas came with the jingling bells of their waist bands, flinging their arrows in the air, and darting showers of their darts around.

34. The soldiers of Sibi were pierced with the spears hurled by the Kuntas. They fell as dead bodies in the field, but their spirits fled to heaven in the form of Vidyádharas.

35. The Pándu-nagaras were laid groveling on the ground in their quick march, by the mighty and light footed army, who had taken possession of the field.

36. The big Páncha-nadas (Punjabis), and the furious warriors of Kási (Benares), crushed the bodies of stalwart warriors with their lances and cudgels, as elephants crush the mighty trees under their feet and tusks.

37. The Burmese and Vatsenis were cut down on the ground by the disks of the Nípas (Nepalese); and the Sahyas were sawn down with saws as withered trees.

38. The heads of the white Kákas (Caucasians), were lopped off with sharp axes; and their neighbouring prince of the Bhadras was burnt down by the fiery arrows (fire arms).

39. The Matangajas (of Elephanta) fell under the hands of Káshthayodhas (of Katiawar), as old unchained elephants falling in the miry pit; and others that came to fight, fell as dry fuel into the blazing fire.

40. The Mitragartas falling into the hands of the Trigartas, were scattered about as straws in the field, and having their heads struck off in their flight, they entered the infernal regions of death.

41. The weak Vanila force, falling into the hands of the Magadha army, resembling a sea gently shaken by the breeze, went down in the sands, as lean and aged elephants.

42. The Chedis lost their lines in fighting with the Tongans, and lay withered in the field of battle, as flowers when scattered in the plains, fade away under the shining sun.

43. The Kosalas were unable to withstand the war cry of the deadly Pauravas, and were discomfited by showers of their clubs, and missile arrows and darts.

44. Those that were pierced by pikes and spears, became as coral plants red with blood all over their bodies, and thus besmeared in bloodshed, they fled to the sheltering hills like red hot suns to the setting mountains (astáchala).

45. The flight of arrows and weapons borne away by the rapid winds, moved about in the air as fragments of clouds, with a swarm of black bees hovering under them.

46. The flying arrows seemed as showering clouds, and their feathers appeared as the woolly breed; their reedy shafts seeming as trees, were roving with the roar of elephants.

47. The wild elephants and people of the plains, were all torn to pieces like bits of torn linen.

48. War chariots with their broken wheels, fell into the pits like the broken craigs of mountains, and the enemy stood upon their tops as a thick mist or cloud.

49. The multitude of stalwart warriors meeting in the field, had given it the appearance of a forest of tála and tamála trees; but their hands being lopped off by weapons, they made it appear as a mountainous wood, with its clumps of tapering pine trees.

50. The youthful damsels of Paradise were filled with joy and glee, to find the groves of their native hill (Meru), full of the brave champions (fallen in the field).

51. The forest of the army howled in a tremendous roar, until it was burnt down by the all devouring fire of the enemy.

52. Hacked by the Pisáchas (Assamese), and snatched of their weapons by the Bhutas (Bhoteas), the Dasárnás (at the confluence of the ten streams of Vindhya) threw off their staffs, and fled as a herd of heifers (nikuchya karnidhavati—bolted with their broken staves. Pánini).

53. The Kásias were eager to despoil the tinsels from the dead bodies of the chiefs by their valour, as the summer heat robs the beauty of lotuses in a drying pool.

54. The Tushákas were beset by the Mesalas, with their darts, spears and mallets; and the sly Katakas were defeated and driven away by the Narakas in battle.

55. The Kauntas were surrounded by Prastha warriors, and were defeated like good people by the treachery of the wily.

56. The elephant drivers, that struck off the heads of their hosts in a trice, were pursued by the harpooners, and fled with their severed heads, as they do with the lotus-flowers plucked by their hands.

57. The Sáraswatas fought on both sides with one another until it was evening, and yet no party was the looser or gainer, as in a learned discussion between pandits and among lawyers.

58. The puny and short statured Deccanese, being driven back by the Rákshas of Lanka, redoubled their attack on them, as the smothering fire is rekindled by fuel.

59. What more shall I relate Ráma about this war, which baffles the attempt of the serpent Vásuki even, to give a full description of it with his hundred tongues and mouths.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Cessation of the War.

Vasishtha continued:—Now as the war was waging fiercely, with mingled shouts on both sides, the sun shrouded his burnished armour under the mist of darkness, and was about to set.

2. The waters of the limpid streams glided with the showers of stones flung by the forces, and falling on the fading clusters of lotuses growing in them.

3. Flashes of fire glittered in the sky, by the clashing of the shafts and darts below; and waves of arrows were seen, now approaching nigh and now receding at a distance.

4. Severed heads like loose lotuses, floated and whirled in the whirlpools of blood below, and the sea of heaven was filled with flying weapons, moving as marine animals above.

5. The rustling of the breeze and the whistling of the overshadowing clouds of weapons, frightened the aerial Siddhas and sylvan apes, with the fear of an approaching rain.

6. The day declined after it had run its course of the eight watches (Yámárdhas), and assumed the graceful countenance of a hero, returning in glory, after he has fought his battle.

7. The army like the day, declined in splendour, being battered in its cavalry, and shattered in its force of elephants.

8. Then the commanders of the armies, in concert with the ministers of war, sent envoys to the hostile parties for a truce to the fighting.

9. Both parties agreed to the armistice, seeing how much they were harassed in the engagement; and the soldiers with one voice, gave their assent to it.

10. They hoisted their soaring banners of truce on the pinnacles of the highest chariots (rathas); and a crier on each side, mounted over one, to give proclamation to the armies below.

11. They furled the white flags on all sides, which like so many moons in the gloom of night, proclaimed peace on earth by cessation from contention.

12. Then the drums sent their loud peals around, which were resounded by roarings of the clouds (Pushkarávartas) above and all about.

13. The flights of arrows and weapons, that had been raging as fire in the atmosphere, now began to fall in torrents, like the currents of the lake Mansaravara on the ground below.

14. The hands and arms of the warriors were now at rest like their feet; as the shaking of trees and the surges of the sea are at an end after the earthquake is over.

15. The two armies now went their own ways from the field of battle, as the arms of the sea run into the land in different directions.

16. The armies being at rest, there was an end of all agitation in the field; as the waves of the ocean are lulled to rest, on its calm after a storm (literally, after its churning by the Mandara mountain).

17. It became in an instant as dreadful as the dismal womb of death (Pútaná); and as deep and dark as the hollow pit of the sea, after its waters were sucked up by Agastya (the sun).

18. It was full of the dead bodies of men and beasts, and flowed in floods of purpling blood; it was resonant with the sounds of insects, like a heath with the humming of beetles.

19. The gory bodies were gushing with blood, and gurgling as the waves of the sea; and the cries of the wounded who wished to live, pierced the ears, and throbbed the heart strings of the living.

20. The dead and wounded weltering side by side in streams of blood, made the living think the dead as still alive like themselves.

21. Big elephants lying dead in piles in the field appeared as fragments of clouds, and the heaps of broken chariots seemed as a forest dispersed by the storm.

22. Streams of blood were running with the dead bodies of horses and elephants, and heaps of arrows and spears and mattocks and mallets, flowing together with broken swords and missiles.

23. Horses were lying girt in their halters and harnesses, and the soldiers wrapt in their mails and armours; and flags and flappers and turbans and helmets lay scattered in the field.

24. The winds were rustling in the orifice of the quivers, like the hissing of arrowy snakes, or as the whistling of the breeze in the holes of bamboo trees; and the Pisáchas were rolling on beds of dead bodies, as upon their beddings of straws.

25. The gold chains of the helmets and the head ornaments of the fallen soldiers, glittered with the various colours of the rainbow, and greedy dogs and jackals were tearing the entrails of the dead like long ropes or strings.

26. The wounded were gnashing their teeth in the field of blood, like the croaking of frogs in the miry pool of blood.

27. Those clad in party coloured coats with a hundred spots on them, had now their arms and thighs gushing in a hundred streams of blood.

28. The friends of the dead and wounded, were wailing bitterly over their bodies; lying amidst the heaps of arrows and weapons, the broken cars and the scattered trappings of horses and elephants, which had covered the land.

29. Headless trunks of the goblins were dancing about with their uplifted arms touching the sky; and the stink of the carrion, fat and blood, filled the nostrils with nausea.

30. Elephants and horses of noble breed, lay dead and others gasping with their mouths gaping upwards; and the dashing of the waving streams of blood, beat as loud as drums against their rock-like bodies.

31. The blood gushing out of the pores of the wounded horses and elephants, ran like that of a wounded whale into a hundred streams. And the blood spouting from the mouths of the dying soldiers flowed into a hundred channels.

32. Those who were pierced with arrows in their eyes and mouths, were uttering an inaudible voice in their last gasp of death; and those pierced in their bellies, had their bowels gushing out with a horrible stench; while the ground was reddened with thickened blood issuing out of the wounds.

33. Half dead elephants grasped the headless trunks with their uplifted trunks (proboscis), while the loose horses and elephants, that had lost their riders, were trampling over the dead bodies at random.

34. The weeping, crying and tottering wives of the fallen soldiers, fell upon their dead bodies weltering in blood, and embracing them fast by their necks, made an end of themselves with the same weapons.

35. Bodies of soldiers were sent with their guides on the way, to fetch the dead bodies from the field; and the hands of their lively companions, were busily employed in dragging the dead.

36. The field had become a wide river running with waves of blood, and breaking into a hundred whirling streams, carrying the severed heads, as lotuses swimming in them, and the torn braids of hair floating as bushes on them.

37. Men were busy to extract the weapons from the bodies of the wounded, who lamented loudly on account of their dying in a foreign land, and losing their arms and armours and horses and elephants in the field.

38. The dying souls remembered their sons and parents, their dear ones and their adored deities, and called out by their names; and began to sigh and sob with heart-rending heigh-hos and alacks.

39. The brave that died cursed their fates, and those falling in their fighting with elephants, blamed the unkind gods they had adored in vain.

40. The cowards fearing to be killed betook themselves to base flight; but the dauntless brave stepped forward amidst the whirlpools of blood.

41. Some suffering under the agony of arrows piercing their mortal parts, thought upon the sins of their past lives, that had brought this pain upon them; while the blood sucking Vetálas, advanced with their horrid mouths for drinking the blood of the headless trunks (Kabandhas).

42. The floating flags and umbrellas and flappers, seemed as white lotuses in the lake of blood below, while the evening stretched her train of stars like red lotuses in the etherial sea above.

43. The battle field presented the appearance of an eighth sea of blood; the rathas or warcars forming its rocks, and their wheels its whirlpools; the flags being its foam and froth, and the white flappers as its bubbles. (There are seven seas only on record).

44. The field of blood with the scattered cars, appeared as a track of land plunged in mud and mire, and covered over with woods broken down and blown away by a hurricane.

45. It was as desolate as a country burnt down by a conflagration, and as the dry bed of the sea sucked up by the sage Agastya (the sun). It was as a district devastated by a sweeping flood.

46. It was filled with heaps of weapons, as high as the bodies of big elephants lying dead about the ground.

47. The lances which were carried down by the streams of blood, were as big as the palm trees growing on the summits of mountains. (Compare the description in Ossian’s poems).

48. The weapons sticking in the bodies of the elephants, seemed as the shining flowers growing on verdant trees: and the entrails torn and borne up by vultures, spread a fretted network in the sky.

49. The lances fixed beside the streams of blood, were as a woody forest on the bank of a river; and the flags floating on the surface, appeared as a bush of lotuses in the liquid-blood.

50. Dead bodies of men were drawn up by their friends, from the bloody pool in which they were drowned, and the embedded bodies of big elephants were marked by men by the jutting weapons sticking in them.

51. The trunks of trees which had their branches lopped off by the weapons, appeared as the headless bodies of slain soldiers, and the floating carcasses of elephants seemed as so many boats swimming in the sea of blood.

52. The white garments that were swept down by the current, seemed as the froth of the pool of blood, and were picked up by the servants sent to search them out.

53. The demoniac bodies of headless soldiers, were rising and falling in the field, and hurling large wheels and disks upon the flying army on all sides.

54. The dying warriors were frothing forth floods of blood from their throats, and stones stained with blood were inviting the greedy vultures to devour them.

55. Then there were groups of Sutála, Vetála and Uttála demons dancing their war dance about the field, and whirling the rafts of the broken cars upon the flying soldiers on all sides.

56. The stir and last gasp of those that were yet alive, were fearful to behold, and the faces of the dying and the dead that were covered in dust and blood, were pitiful to the beholder.

57. The devouring dogs and ravenous ravens beheld the last gasp of the dying with pity; while the feeders on carrions were howling and fighting on their common carcass, till many of them became dead bodies by their mutual fighting.

58. Now I have described the sea of blood, which flowed fast with the gore of unnumbered hosts of horses, elephants and camels, and of warriors and their leaders, and multitudes of cars, and war chariots; but it became a pleasure garden to the god of death, delighting in his bed of bloodshed, and grove of the weapons beset all around.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
Description of the Battle-field Infested by Nocturnal Fiends.

Now the blood-red sun set down in the west, like a hero red with blood; and hid his lustre, which was dimmed by the brightness of the weapons of war in the western main.

2. The sky which had reflected the blood-red flush of the field of blood, was now dimmed by the setting of the glorious sun, and darkened by the veil of evening.

3. Thick darkness overspread the face of heaven and earth like the waters of the great deluge, and there appeared a body of ghosts (Vetálas), dancing in a ring and clapping their hands.

4. The face of the day like that of an elephant, being besmeared with the blackness of night fall, was again painted by the light of evening with the pearly spots of stars on the cheeks.

5. The busy buzz of Creation being silent in the dead darkness of night, like the humming of bees over the surface of the waters, the hearts of men were closed in sleep as in death, like the petals of the lotus at night.

6. The birds lay with their folded wings and fallen crests in their nests, as the dead bodies were lying in the field, covered with their wounds and weapons.

7. Then the fair moonbeams shone above, and the white lotuses were blown below; the hearts of men were gladdened, and the victors felt joyous in themselves.

8. The ruddy evening assumed the shape of the blood-red sea of battle, and the fluttering bees now hid themselves like the faces of the fallen soldiers.

9. There was an etherial lake above spangled with stars like the white lotuses on high; and here was the earthly lake below, beset by lotuses resembling the stars of heaven.

10. The bodies that were thought to be lost in darkness, were now recovered in light, as the gems hid under the water, are found scattered about in moonlight.

11. The battle field was filled by the Vetála demons, howling with their hideous cry; while bodies of vultures, crows and owls, were tearing the carcasses and sporting with the skeletons.

12. Then blazed the funeral piles as brightly as the starry frame on high, and the fire consumed the dead bodies together with their bones and raiments.

13. The fire burnt the bodies with their bones to ashes, after which it extinguished itself as if sated with plenty. The female fiends now began to sport in the water.

14. There arose a mingled cry of dogs and crows, of Yakshas and Vetálas, with the clapping of their hands; and bodies of ghosts were moving about as woods and forests.

15. The Dákinis (Dáyinis) were eager to steal away the flesh and fat from the piles, and the Pisáchas delighted in sucking the blood and the flesh and bones of the dead.

16. The demons were now looking and now lurking about the funeral piles, and the Rákshasas that rushed in, bore away the carcasses on their shoulders.

17. There came also bodies of ferocious Kumbhándas, and big Dámaras, uttering their barbarous cries of chumchum, and hovering over the fumes of fat and flesh in the shapes of clouds.

18. Bodies of Vetálas stood in the streams of blood like earthly beings, and snatched the skeletons with hideous cries.

19. The Vetála younglings slept in the bellies and chests of the elephants, and the Rákshasas were drinking their fill in the bloody field.

20. The giddy Vetálas fought with one another with the lighted faggots of the piles, and the winds were wafting the stench of the putrid carcasses on all sides.

21. The female fiends (Rúpikás), filled the baskets of their bellies with carrion, with a rat-a-tat (ratarata) noise; and the Yaksha cannibals were snatching the half-burnt carcasses from the funeral piles, as their roasted meat and dainty food (S. kali A. Kul).

22. Aerial imps (khagas) attacked the dead bodies of the big Bangas and black Kalingas, and flouted about with their open mouths, emitting the blaze of falling meteors.

23. The Vetála goblins fell down in the dark and discoloured blood-pits, lying hid in the midst of the heaps of dead bodies; while the Pisácha ogres and the leaders of Yogini sprites, laughed at them for their false step (vetála).

24. The pulling of the entrails (antras-ánts), vibrated as by striking the strings of wired instruments (tantras—or tánts); and the ghosts of men that had become fiends from their fiendish desires, fell a-fighting with one another.

25. Valiant soldiers were affrighted at the sight of the spectres (Rúpíkás); and the obsequies were disturbed by the Vetála and Rákshasa goblins.

26. The hobgoblins of the night (nisácharas), got frightened at the fall of the carcasses from the shoulders of the elves (Rúpíkás), who were carrying them aloft in the air; where they were waylaid by a throng of ghostly demons (bhúta-sankata).

27. Many dying bodies, that were lifted aloft with labour by the bogies (Dánas), were let to fall down dead on the ground, being found unfit for their food.

28. Pieces of blood-red flesh, fallen from the fiery jaws of jackals, resembled clusters of asoka flowers, strewn all around the funeral ground.

29. Vetála urchins were busy in putting on the scattered heads over the headless bodies of kabandhas (acephali); and bodies of Yaksha, Raksha and Pisácha ogres, were flashing as firebrands in the sky.

30. At last a thick cloud of darkness, covered the face or the sky, and the view of the hills and valleys, gardens and groves, was hid under an impenetrable gloom. The infernal spirits got loose from their dismal abodes, and ranged and ravaged at large over the field, as a hurricane under the vault of heaven.

CHAPTER XL.
Reflections on Human Life and Mind.

Vasishtha related:—The nocturnal fiends were thus infesting the gloomy field, and the myrmidons of death (Yama), roaming about it as marauders in the day time.

2. The naked and fleeting ghosts, were revelling on their provision of carrion in their nightly abode, and under the canopy of thick darkness, which was likely to be laid hold upon under the clutches of one’s hand (hasta-gráhya).

3. It was in the still hour of the gloomy night, when the host of heaven seemed to be fast bound in sleep, that a sadness stole in upon the mind of Lílá’s magnanimous husband (the belligerent prince Vidúratha by name).

4. He thought about what was to be done on the next morning, in council with his Counsellors; and then went to his bed, which was as white as moonlight, and as cold as frost. (A cold bed in the east vs. a warm one in the west).

5. His lotus-eyes were closed in sleep for a while in his royal camp, which was as white as the moonbeams, and covered by the cold dews of night.

6. Then the two ladies, issued forth from their vacuous abode, and entered the tent through a crevice, as the air penetrates into the heart and amidst an unblown bud of flower.

7. Ráma asked:—How is it possible sir, that the gross bodies of the goddesses, with their limited dimensions, could enter the tent through one of its holes, as small as the pore of a piece of cloth?

8. Vasishtha answered saying that:—Whoso mistakes himself to be composed of a material body, it is no way possible for him to enter a small hole with that gross body of his.

9. But he who thinks himself to be pent up in his corporeal body as in a cage, and obstructed by it in his flight, and does not believe himself to fill his frame, or to be measured by its length; but has the true notion of his inward subtle spirit, it is no way impossible for him to have his passage any where he pleases to go.

10. He who perceives his original spiritual state, as forming the better half of his body, may pass as a spirit through a chink; but whoso relies in his subsequent half of the material body, cannot go beyond it in the form of his intellect.

11. As the air never rises upward, nor the flame of fire ever goes downward; so it is the nature of the spirit to rise upward, as that of the body to go down; but the intellect is made to turn in the way in which it is trained.

12. As the man sitting in the shade, has no notion of the feeling of heat or warmth; so one man has no idea of the knowledge or thoughts of another person.

13. As is one’s knowledge so is his thought, and such is the mode of his life; it is only by means of ardent practice (of yoga and learning), that the mind is turned to the right course.

14. As one’s belief of a snake in a rope, is removed by the conviction of his error; so are the bent of the mind and course of conduct in life, changed from wrong to right by the knowledge of truth.

15. It is one’s knowledge that gives rise to his thoughts, and the thoughts that direct his pursuits in life: this is a truth known even to the young and to every man of sense.

16. Now then the soul that resembles a being seen in a dream or formed in fancy, and which is of the nature of air and vacuum, is never liable to be obstructed any where in its course: (for who can constrain the flight of his imagination?).

17. There is an intellectual body, which all living beings possess in every place. It is known both by consciousness, as well as the feelings of our hearts.

18. It is by the divine will, that the intellect rises and sets by turns. At first it was produced in its natural, simple and intellectual form, and then being invested with a material body, it makes together an unity of the person out of the duality (of its material and immaterial essences).

19. Now you must know the triple vacuity, composed of the three airy substances—the spirit, mind and space, to be one and the same thing (all the three being equally all pervasive); but not so their receptacle (of the material body), which has no pervasion.

20. Know this intellectual body of beings, to be like the air, present with every thing and every where (over which it extends and which it grasps in itself); just as your desire of knowing extends over all things in all places, and presents them all to your knowledge.

21. It abides in the smallest particles, and reaches to the spheres of heavens (which it grasps within itself): it reposes in the cells of flowers, and delights in the leaves of trees. (i.e. It stretches over all these things in its knowledge of them).

22. It delights in hills and dales, and dances over the waves of the oceans; it rides over the clouds, and falls down in the showers of rain and hailstones of heaven.

23. It moves at pleasure in the vast firmament, and penetrates through the solid mountains. Its body bears no break in it, and is as minute as an atom.

24. Yet it becomes as big as a mountain lifting its head to heaven, and as large as the earth, which is the fixed and firm support of all things. It views the inside and outside of every thing, and bears the forests like hairs on its body.

25. It extends in the form of the sky, and contains millions of worlds in itself; it identifies itself with the ocean, and transforms its whirlpools to spots upon its person.

26. It is of the nature of an uninterrupted understanding, ever calm and serene in its aspect; it is possessed of its intellectual form, from before the creation of the visible world, and being all comprehensive as vacuity itself, it is conversant with the natures of all beings.

27. It is an unreality as the appearance of water in the mirage, but manifests itself as a reality to the understanding by its intelligence. Without this (intellection), the intellectual man is a nil as the son of a barren woman, and a blank as the figure of a body seen in a dream.

28. Ráma asked:—How is that mind to which you attribute so many powers, and what is that again which you say to be nothing? Why is it no reality, and as something distinct from all what we see?

29. Vasishtha replied:—All individual minds are indued with these faculties, except all such individualities, whose minds are engrossed with the error (of the reality) of the outer world.

30. All the worlds are either of a longer or shorter duration, and they appear and disappear at times; some of these vanish in a moment, and others endure to the end of a Kalpa. But it is not so with the mind, whose progress I will now relate to you.

31. There is an insensibility which overtakes every man before his death; this is the darkness of his dissolution (mahá-pralaya-yáminí).

32. After the shocks of delirium and death are over, the spiritual part of every man, is regenerated anew in a different form, as if it was roused from a state of trance, reverie or swoon; (the three states of insensibility—avidyá-trayam).

33. And as the spirit of God, assumes his triune form with the persons of Brahmá and Viráj, after the dissolution of the world for its recreation; so every person receives the triplicate form of his spiritual, intellectual and corporeal beings, after the termination of his life by death.

34. Ráma said:—As we believe ourselves to be reproduced after death by reason of our reminiscence; so must we understand the recreation of all bodies in the world by the same cause. Hence there is nothing uncaused in it (as it was said with regard to the unproduced Brahmá and others).

35. Vasishtha replied:—The gods Hari, Hara and others, having obtained their disembodied liberation or videha-mukti, (i.e. the final extinction of their bodies, their minds and spirit as in nirvána), at the universal dissolution, could not retain their reminiscence to cause their regeneration.

36. But human beings having both their spiritual and intellectual bodies entire at their death, do not lose their remembrance of the past, nor can they have their final liberation like Brahmá, unless they obtain their disembodied state, which is possible to all in this life or hereafter, by the edification of their souls, through yoga meditation alone.

37. The birth and death of all other beings like yourself, are caused by their reminiscence, and for want of their disembodied liberation or eternal salvation.

38. The living soul retains its consciousness within itself, after its pangs of death are over; but remains in its state of insensibility by virtue of its own nature (called pradhána).

39. The universal vacuum is called nature (prakriti). It is the reflexion of the invisible divine mind (chit prativimbam); and is the parent of all that is dull or moving (Jadá-Jada), which are so produced by cause of their reminiscence or its absence (sansmriti and asmriti); the former causing the regeneration of living beings, and the latter its cessation as in inert matter.

40. As the living principle or animal life begins to have its understanding (bodha), it is called mahat or an intelligent being, which is possessed of its consciousness (ahankára). It has then the organs of perception and conception, added to it from their elements (tanmátras) residing in the vacuous ether.

41. This minutely intelligent substance, is next joined with the five internal senses, which form its body, and which is otherwise called its spiritual body (átivahika or lingadeha).

42. This spiritual being by its long association with the external senses, comes to believe itself as a sensible being; and then by imagining to have the sensible form, it finds itself invested with a material body (ádhibhautika-deha) as beautiful as that of a lotus.

43. Then seated in the embryo, it reposes in a certain position for sometime, and inflated itself like the air, until it is fully expanded.

44. It then thinks itself to be fully developed in the womb, as a man dreams of a fairy form in his sleep, and believes this illusion as a reality.

45. He then views the outer world, where he is born to die, just as one visits a land where he is destined to meet his death; and there remains to relish its enjoyments, as prepared for him.

46. But the spiritual man soon perceives every thing as pure vacuum, and that his own body and this world are but illusions and vain vacuities.

47. He perceives the gods, and human habitations, the hills and the heavens resplendent with the sun and stars, to be no more than abodes of disease and debility, decay and ultimate death and destruction.

48. He sees nothing but a sad change in the natures of things, and all that is movable or immovable, great or small, together with the seas, hills and rivers and peoples of this earth and the days and nights, are all subject to decay sooner or later.

49. The knowledge that I am born here of this father, and that this is my mother, these my treasures, and such are my hopes and expectations, is as false as empty air.

50. That these are my merits and these my demerits, and these the desires that I had at heart; that I was a boy and am now young; are the airy thoughts of the hollow mind.

51. This world resembles a forest, where every being is like a detached arbor; the sable clouds are its leaves, and the stars its full blown flowers.

52. The walking men are as its restless deer, and the aerial gods and demons its birds of the air; the broad day light is the flying dust of its flowers, and the dark night the deep covert of its grove.

53. The seas are like its rills and fountains, and the eight boundary mountains as its artificial hills; the mind is the great tank in it, containing the weeds and shrubs of human thoughts in abundance.

54. Wherever a man dies, he is instantly changed to this state, and views the same things every where; and every one thus rises and falls incessantly, like the leaves of trees in this forest of the world.

55. Millions of Brahmás, Rudras, Indras, Maruts, Vishnus and Suns, together with unnumbered mountains and seas, continents and islands, have appeared and disappeared in the eternal course of the world.

56. Thus no one can count the numbers of beings that have passed away, are passing and shall have to pass hereafter, nor such as are in existence and have to become extinct in the unfathomable eternity of Brahma.

57. Hence it is impossible to comprehend the stupendous fabric of the universe any how except in the mind, which is as spacious as the infinite space itself, and as variable as the course of events in the world.

58. The mind is the vacuous sphere of the intellect, and the infinite sphere of the intellect, is the seat of the Supreme.

59. Now know the whirlpool and waves of the sea to be of the same element, as the sea in which they rise and fall, though they are not of the same durable nature as the sea water, by reason of their evanescence. So the phenomena are the same with the Noumena, though none of these is a reality.

60. The etherial sphere of heaven, is but a reflexion of the intellectual sphere of the Divine mind, and the bright orbs of the firmament, are as gems in the bosom of Brahma. Its concavity is the cave of the mind of the Eternal One.

61. The world according to the sense in which I take it, as the seat of God, is highly interesting, but not so in your sense of its being a sober reality. So the meaning of the words “I and thou,” refers according to me to the intellectual spirit, and according to you to the living soul and body.

62. Hence Lílá and Sarasvatí, being in their vacuous intellectual bodies, were led by the pure desire of their souls, to every place without any obstruction or interruption.

63. The intellectual spirit has the power, to present itself wherever it likes, on earth or in the sky, and before objects known or unknown and wished to be known by it. It was by this power that they could enter into the tent of the prince.

64. The intellect has its way to all places and things, over which it exercises its powers of observation, reflection and reasoning to their full extent. This is known as the spiritual and unconfined body (Átiváhika), whose course cannot be obstructed by any restriction whatever.

CHAPTER XLI.
Discrimination of Error.

Vasishtha said:—Upon the entrance of the ladies in the tent, it appeared as a bed of lotuses; and its white vault, seemed as graceful as the vault of heaven with two moons rising at once under it.

2. A pure and cooling fragrance spread about it, as if wafted by the breeze from the Mandara flowers; and lulled the prince to sleep, with every body lying in their camps.

3. It made the place as pleasant as the garden of Eden (Nandana), and healed all the pains and cares of the people there. It seemed as a vernal garden, filled with the fragrance of the fresh blown lotuses in the morning.

4. The cooling and moon-bright radiance of the ladies, roused the prince from his sleep, as if he was sprinkled over with the juice of ambrosia.

5. He beheld upon his rising the forms of two fairies (apsarás), seated on two stools, and appearing as two moons risen on two pinnacles of the mount Meru.

6. The prince beheld them with wonder, and after being composed in his mind, he rose up from his bed, as the god Vishnu rises from his bed of the serpent.

7. Then advancing respectfully to them, with long strings of flowers in his hands, he made offerings of them to the ladies, with handfuls of flowers flung at their feet.

8. Leaving his pillowed sofa in the midst of the hall, he sat with his folded legs on the ground; and lowly bending his head, he addressed them saying:—

9. Be victorious, O moon-bright goddesses! that drive away all the miseries and evils and pains and pangs of life, by your radiance, and dispellest all my inward and outward darkness by your sunlike beams.

10. Saying so he poured handfuls of flowers on their feet, as the trees on the bank of a lake, drop down their flowers on the lotuses growing in it.

11. Then the goddess desiring to unfold the pedigree of the prince, inspired his minister, who was lying by, to relate it to Lílá.

12. He upon waking, saw the nymphs manifest before him, and advancing lowly before them, threw handfuls of flowers upon their feet.

13. The goddess said:—Let us know, O prince! who you are and when and of whom you are born herein. Hearing these words of the goddess, the minister spake saying:—

14. It is by your favour, O gracious goddesses! that I am empowered to give a relation of my prince’s genealogy to your benign graces.

15. There was a sovereign, born of the imperial line of Ixaku, by name of Mukunda-ratha, who had subjugated the earth under his arms.

16. He had a moon-faced son by name of Bhadraratha; whose son Viswaratha was father to the renowned prince Brihadratha.

17. His son Sindhuratha was the father of Sailaratha, and his son Kámaratha was father of Maháratha.

18. His son Vishnuratha was father of Nabhoratha, who gave birth to this my lord of handsome appearance.

19. He is renowned as Vidúratha, and is born with the great virtues of his sire, as the moon was produced of the milky ocean, to shed his ambrosial beams over his people.

20. He was begotten by his mother Sumitrá, as the god Guha of Gauri; and was installed in the realm at the tenth year of his age, owing to his father’s betaking himself to asceticism.

21. He has been ruling the realm since that time with justice; and your appearance here to night, betokens the blossoming of his good fortune.

22. O goddesses! whose presence is hard to be had, even by the merit of long devotion, and a hundred austerities, you see here the lord of the earth-famed Vidúratha, present before you.

23. He is highly blessed to-day by your favour. After saying these words, the minister remained silent with the lord of the earth.

24. They were sitting on the ground with their folded legs (padmásana), and clasped hands (kritánjali), and downcast looks; when the goddess of wisdom told the prince, to remember his former births, by her inspiration.

25. So saying, she touched his head with her hand, and immediately the dark veil of illusion and oblivion was dispersed from over the lotus of his mind.

26. It opened as a blossom by the touch of the genius of intelligence, and became as bright as the clear firmament, with the rays of his former reminiscence.

27. He remembered by his intelligence his former kingdom, of which he had been the sole lord, and recollected all his past sports with Lílá.

28. He was led away by the thoughts of the events of his past lives, as one is carried away by the current of waves, and reflected in himself, this world to be a magic sea of illusion.

29. He said: I have come to know this by the favour of the goddesses, but how is it that so many events have occurred to me in course of one day after my death.

30. Here I have passed full seventy years of my lifetime, and recollect to have done many works, and remember also to have seen my grand-sire.

31. I recollect the bygone days of my boyhood and youth, and I remember well all the friends and relatives and all the apparels and suite, that I had before.

32. The goddess replied:—Know O king! that after the fit of insensibility attending on your death was over, your soul continued to remain in the vacuum of the same place, of which you are still a resident.

33. This royal pavilion, where you think yourself to abide, is situated in the vacuous space, within the house of the Bráhman in that hilly district.

34. It is inside that house that you see the appearances of your other abodes present before you: and it was in that Bráhmana’s house, that you devoted your life to my worship.

35. It is the shrine within the very house and on the same spot, that contains the whole world which you are seeing all about you.

36. This abode of yours is situated in the same place, and within the clear firmament of your mind.

37. It is a false notion of your mind, which you have gained by your habitual mode of thinking, that you are born in your present state, of the race of Ixáku.

38. It is mere imagination, which has made you to suppose yourself to be named so and so, and that such and such persons were your progenitors, and that you had been a boy of ten years.

39. That your father became an ascetic in the woods, and left you in the government of the realm. And that you have subjugated many countries under your dominion, and are now reigning as the lord paramount over them.

40. And that you are ruling on earth with these ministers and officers of yours, and are observant of the sacrificial rites, and a just ruler of your subjects.

41. You think that you have passed seventy years of your life, and that you are now beset by very formidable enemies.

42. And that having waged a furious battle, you have returned to this abode of yours, where you are now seated and intend to adore the goddesses, that have become your guests herein.

43. You are thinking that these goddesses will bless you with your desired object, because one of them has given you the power of recollecting the events of your former births.

44. That these goddesses have opened your understanding like the blossom of a lotus, and that you have the prospect of getting your riddance from all doubts.

45. That you are now at peace and rest, and enjoy the solace of your solity; and that your long continued error (of this world), is now removed for ever.

46. You remember the many acts and enjoyments of your past life, in the body of prince Padma, before you were snatched away by the hand of death.

47. You now perceive in your mind, that your present life is but a shadow of the former, as it is the same wave, that carries one onward, by its rise and fall.

48. The incessant current of the mind flows as the stream of a river, and leads a man, like a weed, from one whirlpool into another.

49. The course of life now runs singly as in dreaming, and now conjointly with the body as in the waking state, both of which leave their traces in the mind, at the hour of death.

50. The sun of the intellect being hid under the mist of ignorance, there arises this network of the erroneous world, which makes a moment appear as a period of hundred years.

51. Our lives and deaths are mere phantoms of imagination, as we imagine houses and towers in aerial castles and icebergs.

52. The world is an illusion, like the delusion of moving banks and trees to a passenger in a vessel on water, or a rapid vehicle on land; or as the trembling of a mountain or quaking of the earth, to one affected by a convulsive disease.

53. As one sees extraordinary things in his dream, such as the decapitation of his own head; so he views the illusions of the world, which can hardly be true.

54. In reality you were neither born nor dead at any time or place; but ever remain as pure intelligence in your own tranquility of soul.

55. You seem to see all things about you, but you see nothing real in them; it is your all seeing soul, that sees every thing in itself.

56. The soul shines as a brilliant gem by its own light, and nothing that appears beside it, as this earth or yourself or any thing else, is a reality.

57. These hills and cities, these people and things, and ourselves also, are all unreal and mere phantoms, appearing in the hollow vault of the Bráhmana of the hilly district.

58. The kingdom of Lílá’s husband, was but a picture of this earth, and his palace with all its grandeur, is contained in the sphere of the same hollow shrine.

59. The known world is contained in the vacuous sphere of that shrine, and it is in one corner of this mundane habitation, that all of us here, are situated.

60. The sphere of this vaulted shrine, is as clear as vacuity itself, which has no earth nor habitation in it.

61. It is without any forest, hill, sea or river, and yet all beings are found to rove about in this empty and homeless abode (i.e. in the Divine Mind).

62. Here there are no kings, nor their retinue, nor any thing that they have on earth. Vidúratha asked:—If it is so, then tell me goddess! how I happened to have these dependants here?

63. A man is rich in his own mind and spirit, and is it not so ordained by the Divine mind and spirit also? If not, then the world must appear as a mere dream, and all these men and things are but creatures of our dreams.

64. Tell me goddess, what things are spiritually true and false, and how are we to distinguish the one from the other.

65. Sarasvatí answered:—Know prince that, those who have known the only knowable one, and are assimilated to the nature of pure understanding, view nothing as real in the world, except the vacuous intellect within themselves.

66. The misconception of the serpent in a rope being removed, the fallacy of the rope is removed also; so the unreality of the world being known, the error of its existence, also ceases to exist.

67. Knowing the falsity of water in the mirage, no one thirsts after it any more, so knowing the falsehood of dreams, no one thinks himself dead as he had dreamt. The fear of dreaming death may overtake the dying, but it can never assail the living in his dream.

68. He whose soul is enlightened with the clear light of the autumnal moon of his pure intellect, is never misled to believe his own existence or that of others, by the false application of the terms I, thou, this &c.

69. As the sage was sermonizing in this manner, the day departed to its evening service with the setting sun. The assembly broke with mutual greetings to perform their ablutions, and it met again with the rising sun, after dispersion of the gloom of night.

CHAPTER XLII.
Philosophy of Dreaming. Swapnam or Somnum.

The man who is devoid of understanding, ignorant and unacquainted with the All-pervading principle, thinks the unreal world as real, and as compact as adamant.

2. As a child is not freed from his fear of ghosts until his death; so the ignorant man never gets rid of his fallacy of the reality of the unreal world, as long as he lives.

3. As the solar heat causes the error of water in the mirage to the deer and unwary people, so the unreal world appears as real to the ignorant part of mankind.

4. As the false dream of one’s death, appears to be true in the dreaming state, so the false world seems to be a field of action and gain to the deluded man.

5. As one not knowing what is gold, views a golden bracelet as a mere bracelet, and not as gold (i.e. who takes the form and not the substance for reality); so are the ignorant ever misled by formal appearances, without a knowledge of the causal element.

6. As the ignorant view a city, a house, a hill and an elephant, as they are presented before him; so the visibles are all taken only as they are seen, and not what they really are.

7. As strings of pearls are seen in the sunny sky, and various paints and taints in the plumage of the peacock; so the phenomenal world, presents its false appearances for sober realities.

8. Know life as a long sleep, and the world with myself and thyself, are the visions of its dream; we see many other persons in this sleepy dream, none of whom is real, as you will now learn from me.

9. There is but one All-pervading, quiet, and spiritually substantial reality. It is of the form of unintelligible intellect, and an immense outspreading vacuity.

10. It is omnipotent, and all in all by itself, and is of the form as it manifests itself everywhere.

11. Hence the citizens that you see in this visionary city, are but transient forms of men, presented in your dream by that Omnipotent Being.

12. The mind of the viewer, remains in its self-same state amidst the sphere of his dreams, and represents the images thought of by itself in that visionary sphere of mankind. (So the Divine Mind presents its various images to the sight of men in this visionary sphere of the world, which has nothing substantial in it).

13. The knowing mind has the same knowledge of things, both in its waking as well as dreaming states; and it is by an act of the percipient mind, that this knowledge is imprinted as true in the conscious souls of men.

14. Ráma said:—If the persons seen in the dream are unreal, then tell me sir, what is that fault in the embodied soul, which makes them appear as realities.

15. Vasishtha replied:—The cities and houses, which are seen in dreams are in reality nothing. It is only the illusion (máyá) of the embodied soul, which makes them appear as true like those seen in the waking state, in this visionary world.

16. I will tell you in proof of this, that in the beginning of creation the self-born Brahmá himself, had the notions of all created things, in the form of visionary appearances, as in a dream and their subsequent development, by the will of the creator; hence their creator is as unreal as their notions and appearances in the dream.

17. Learn then this truth of me, that this world is a dream, and that you and all other men have your sleeping dreams, contained in your waking dreams of this visionary world. (i.e. The one is a night dream and the other a day dream, and equally untrue in their substance).

18. If the scenes that are seen in your sleeping dream, have no reality in them, how then can you expect those in your day dreams to be real at all?

19. As you take me for a reality, so do I also take you and all other things for realities likewise, and such is the case with every body in this world of dreams.

20. As I appear an entity to you in this world of lengthened dreams; so you too appear an actual entity to me; and so it is with all in their protracted dreaming.

21. Ráma asked:—If both these states of dreaming are alike, then tell me, why the dreamer in sleep, does not upon his waking, think the visions in his dream, to be as real as those of his day dreaming state?

22. Vasishtha replied:—Yes, the day dreaming is of the same nature as night dreams, in which the dreamt objects appear to be real; but it is upon the waking from the one, as upon the death of the day dreamer, that both these visions are found to vanish in empty air.

23. As the objects of your night dreams do not subsist in time or place upon your waking, so also those of your day dream, can have no subsistence upon death.

24. Thus is every thing unreal, which appears real for the present, and it disappears into an airy nothing at last, though it might appear as charming as a fairy form in the dream.

25. There is one Intelligence that fills all space, and appears as every thing both within and without every body; It is only by our illusive conception of it, that we take it in different lights.

26. As one picks up a jewel he happens to meet with in a treasure house, so do we lay hold on any thing, with which the vast Intellect is filled according to our own liking. (Here we find the free agency of human will).

27. The goddess of intelligence, having thus caused the germ of true knowledge, to sprout forth in the mind of the prince, by sprinkling the ambrosial drops of her wisdom over it, thus spake to him in the end:—

28. I have told you all this for the sake of Lílá, and now, good prince, we shall take leave of you, and these illusory scenes of the world.

29. Vasishtha said:—The intelligent prince, being thus gently addressed by the goddess of wisdom, besought her in a submissive tone.

30. Vidúratha said:—Your visit, O most bounteous goddess, cannot go for nothing, when we poor mortals cannot withhold our bounty from our suppliant visitants.

31. I will quit this body to repair to another world, as one passes from one chain of dreams into another.

32. Look upon me, thy suppliant, with kindness, and deign to confer the favour I ask of thee; because the great never disdain to grant the prayers of their suppliants.

33. Ordain that this virgin daughter of my minister, may accompany me to the region, where I shall be led, that we may have spiritual joy in each other’s company hereafter.

34. Sarasvatí said:—Go now prince to the former palace of your past life, and there reign without fear, in the enjoyment of true pleasure. Know prince, that our visits never fail to fulfil the best wishes of our supplicants.

CHAPTER XLIII.
Burning of the City.

The goddess added:—Know further, O prince! that you are destined to fall in this great battle, and will have your former realm, presented to you in the same manner as before.

2. Your minister and his maiden daughter will accompany you to your former city, and you shall enter your lifeless corpse, lying in state in the palace.

3. We shall fly there as winds before you, and you will follow us accompanied by the minister and his virgin daughter as one returning to his native country.

4. Your courses thereto will be as slow or swift as those of horses, elephants, asses, or camels, but our course is quite different from any of these.

5. As the prince and the goddess were going on with this sweet conversation, there arrived a man on horse back before them in great hurry and confusion.

6. He said:—Lord! I come to tell that, there are showers of darts and disks, and swords and clubs, falling upon us as rain, from the hostile forces, and they have been forcing upon us as a flood on all sides.

7. They have been raining their heavy weapons upon us at pleasure, like fragments of rocks hurled down from the heads of high hills, by the impetuous gusts of a hurricane.

8. There they have set fire to our rock-like city, which like a wild fire, is raging on all sides. It is burning and ravaging with chat chat sounds, and hurling the houses with a hideous noise.

9. The smoke rising as heaving hills, have overspread the skies like diluvian clouds; and the flame of fire, ascending on high, resembles the phœnix flying in the sky.

10. Vasishtha said:—As the royal marshal was delivering with trepidation this unpleasant intelligence, there arose a loud cry without, filling the sky with its uproar (hallahalloo-kolá halam).

11. The twanging (tankára) of bow strings drawn to the ears, the rustling (sarsara) of flying arrows flung with full force; the loud roaring (bringhana) of furious elephants, and the shrieks (chitkára) of frightened ones.

12. The gorgeous elephants bursting in the city with a clattering (chatchata) sound; and the high halloos (halahala) of citizens, whose houses have been burnt down on the ground:—(Here dagdhadára Arabic daghdaghad-dár, means both a burnt house and also a burnt wife).

13. The falling and flying of burnt embers with a crackling noise (tankára); and the burning of raging fire with a hoarse sound (dhaghdhaga Arabic daghdagha, Bengali dhakdhak):—

14. All these were heard and seen by the goddesses and the prince and his minister, from an opening of the tent; and the city was found to be in a blaze in the darkness of the night.

15. It was as the conflagration or fiery ocean of the last day, and the city was covered by clouds of the hostile army, with their flashing weapons, waving on all sides.

16. The flame rose as high as the sky, melted down big edifices like hills by the all dissolving fire of destruction.

17. Bodies of thick clouds roared on high, and threatened the people, like the clamour (kala-kala) of the gangs of stout robbers, that were gathered on the ground for plunder and booty.

18. The heavens were hidden under clouds of smoke, rolling as the shades of Pushkara and Ávarta, and the flames of fire, were flashing, like the golden peaks of Meru.

19. Burning cinders and sparks of fire, were glittering like meteors and stars in the sky; and the blazing houses and towers glared as burning mountains in the midst.

20. The relics of the forces were beset by the spreading flames of clouds of fire, and the half burnt citizens (with their bitter cries), were kept from flight, for fear of the threatening enemy abroad.

21. Sleets of arrowy sparks flying in the air on all sides, and showers of weapons falling in every way, burnt and pierced the citizens in large numbers.

22. The greatest and most expert champions, were crashed under the feet of elephants in fighting; and the roads were heaped with treasures, wrested from the robbers in their retreat.

23. There were wailings of men and women at the falling of fire-brands upon them; and the splitting of splinters and the slitting of timbers emitted a phat-phat noise all around.

24. Big blocks of burning wood were blown up, blazing as burning suns in the air; and heaps of embers filled the face of the earth with living fire.

25. The cracking of combustible woods and the bursting of burning bamboos, the cries of the parched brutes and the howling of the soldiers, re-echoed in the air.

26. The flaming fire was quenched after consuming the royalty to ashes, and the devouring flame ceased after it had reduced everything to cinders.

27. The sudden outbreak of the fire was as the outburst of house breaking robbers upon the sleeping inhabitants; and it made its prey of everything (whether living or lifeless), that fell in its way.

28. At this moment the prince Vidúratha heard a voice, proceeding from his soldiers, at the sight of their wives flying from the scorching flames.

29. Oh! the high winds, that have blown the flames to the tops of our household trees, with their rustling sound (kharakhara) and hindered our taking shelter under their cooling umbrage.

30. Woe for the burning of our wives, who were as cold as frost to our bodies before (by their assuaging the smart of every pain); and whose ashes now rest in our breasts, like the lime of shells, i.e. in the sublimated state of spiritual bodies (súkshma-dehas).

31. Oh! the mighty power of fire, that has set to flame the forelocks of our fair damsels, and is burning the braids of their hair, like blades of grass or straws.

32. The curling smoke is ascending on high, like a whirling and long meandering river in the air, and the black and white fumes of fire, resemble the dark stream of Yamuná in one place, and the milky path of the etherial Gangá in another.

33. Streams of smoke bearing the brands of fire on high, dazzled the sight of the charioteers of heaven by their bubbling sparks.

34. There are our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, relations and suckling babes, all burnt alive in the livid flames; and here are we burning in grief for them in these houses, which have been spared by the devouring fire.

35. Lo! there the howling fire is fast stretching to these abodes, and here the cinders are falling as thick as the frost of Meru.

36. Behold the direful darts and missiles dropping down as the driving rain, and penetrating the windows, like bodies of gnats in the shade of evening.

37. The flashing spears and flaming fire, flaring above the watery ocean of the sky, resemble the submarine fire ascending to heaven.

38. The smoke is rising in clouds, and the flames are tapering in the form of towers, and all that was humid and verdant, is sucked and dried up, as the hearts of the dispassionate.

39. The trees are broken down by the raging element, like posts of enraged elephants; and they are falling with a cracking noise (kata-kata), as if they were screaking at their fall.

40. The trees in the orchards, now flourishing in their luxuriance of fruits and flowers, are left bare by the burning fire, like householders bereft of their properties.

41. Boys abandoned by their parents in the darkness of the night, were either pierced by flying arrows or crushed under the falling houses, in their flight through the streets.

42. The elephants posted at the front of the army, got frightened at the flying embers driven by the winds, and fled with loud screaming at the fall of the burning houses upon them.

43. Oh! the pain of being put to the sword, is not more grievous, than that of being burnt by the fire, or smashed under the stones of the thundering engine.

44. The streets are filled with domestic animals and cattle of all kinds, that are let loose from their folds and stalls, to raise their commingled cries like the confused noise of battle in the blocked up paths.

45. The weeping women were passing as lotus flowers on land, with their lotus like faces and feet and palms, and drops of tears fell like fluttering bees from their lotiform eyes and wet apparel upon the ground.

46. The red taints and spots of alakávali, blazed as asoka flowers upon their foreheads and cheeks.

47. Alack for pity! that the furious flame of fire, should singe the black bee-like eyelids of our deer-eyed fairies; like the ruthless victor, that delights in his acts of inhumanity.

48. O the bond of connubial love! that the faithful wife never fails to follow her burning lord, and cremates herself in the same flame with him (this shows the practice of concremation to be older than the days of Válmíki and Viswámitra).

49. The elephant being burnt in his trunk, in breaking the burning post to which he was tied by the leg, ran with violence to a lake of lotuses, in which he fell dead. (Here is a play upon the homonymous word “pushkara,” in its triple sense of a lake, a lotus and the proboscis of an elephant).

50. The flames of fire flashing like flitting lightnings amidst the clouds of smoke in the air, were darting the darts of burning coals like bolts of thunder in showers.

51. Lord! the sparks of fire sparkling amidst the dusky clouds, appear as glittering gems in the bosom of the airy ocean, and seem by their twirling to gird the crown of heaven with the girdle of Pleiades.

52. The sky was reddened by the light of the flaming fires, and appeared as the courtyard of Death dyed with purple hues in joy for reception of the souls of the dead.

53. Alas! the day and want of manners! that the royal dames are carried away by these armed ruffians by force. (O tempores O mores).

54. Behold them dragged in the streets from their stately edifices, and strewing their paths with wreaths of flowers torn from their necks; while their half burnt locks are hanging loosely upon their bare breasts and bosoms.

55. Lo! their loose raiments uncovering their backs and loins, and the jewels dropt down, from their wrists, have strewn the ground with gems.

56. Their necklaces are torn and their pearls are scattered about; their bodies are bared of their bodices, and their breasts appear to view in their golden hue.

57. Their shrill cries and groans rising above the war cry, choked their breath and split their sides; and they fell insensible with their eyes dimmed by ceaseless floods of tears.

58. They fell in a body with their arms twisted about the necks of one another, and the ends of their cloths tied to each other’s; and in this way they were dragged by force of the ruffians, with their bodies mangled in blood.

59. “Ah! who will save them from this state,” cried the royal soldiers, with their piteous looks on the sad plight of the females and shedding big drops of their tears like lotuses.

60. The bright face of the sky turned black at the horrible sight, and it looked with its blue lotus-like eyes of the clouds, on the fair lotus-like damsels thus scattered on the ground.

61. Thus was the goddess of royal prosperity, decorated as she was with her waving and pendant locks, her flowing garments, flowery chaplets and gemming ornaments brought to her end like these ladies, after her enjoyment of the pleasures of royalty and gratification of all her desires.

CHAPTER XLIV.
Spiritual Interpretation of the Vision.

Vasishtha said:—At this instant the great queen, who was in the bloom of youthful beauty, entered the camp of Vidúratha, as the goddess of grace pops upon the lotus flower.

2. She was decorated with pendant wreaths of flowers and necklaces, and accompanied by a train of her youthful companions and handmaids, all terrified with fear.

3. With her face as bright as the moon and her form as fair as the lily, she appeared as a luminary of heaven, with her teeth shining as sets of stars, and her bosom throbbing with fear.

4. Then the king was informed by one of her companions about the fate of the warfare, which resembled the onset of demons upon the Apsará tribe.

5. Lord! this lady, said she, has fled with us from her seraglio, to take refuge under thy arms, as a tender creeper seeks the shelter of a tree, from a rude gust of wind.

6. Behold! the ravishers ravishing the wives of the citizens with their uplifted arms, like the swelling waves of the sea carrying away the arbours of the bank in their rapid current.

7. The guards of the royal harem are all crushed to death by the haughty marauders, as the sturdy trees of the forest are broken down by the furious tornado.

8. Our armies frightened by the enemy from afar, dare not approach the falling city, as nobody ventures to rescue the lotus beds from a flood, under the threatening thunders of a rainy night.

9. The hostile force have poured upon the city in terrible numbers, and having set it on fire, are shouting loudly under the clouds of smoke, with their weapons brandishing on all sides.

10. The handsome ladies are dragged by the hair from amidst their families, in the manner of screaming cranes, caught and carried away by the cruel fowlers and fishermen.

11. Now we have brought this exuberant tender creeper to thee, that thou mayst save her from similar fate by thy might.

12. Hearing this, he looked at the goddesses and said, now will I go to the war from here, and leave this my lady as an humble bee at your lotus feet.

13. Saying so, the king rose in a rage from his seat and sprang like the enraged lion from the den, when pierced and pressed by the tusk of a furious elephant.

14. The widowed Lílá beheld the queen Lílá to be exactly of her form and features, and took her for a true inflexion of herself in a mirror.

15. Then said the enlightened Lílá to Sarasvatí:—Tell me, O goddess! how this lady here is exactly as myself, she is what I have been before, and how she came to be as myself.

16. I see this prime minister with all these soldiers and citizens, these forces and vehicles, to be the same as mine, and situated in the same place and manner as before.

17. How is it then, O goddess! that they came to be placed in this place. I see them as Images situated within and without the mirror of my mind, and know not whether these be living beings (or the false chimeras of my imagination).

18. Sarasvatí replied:—All our external perceptions of things, are the immediate effects of our internal conceptions of them. The intellect has the knowledge of all the intelligibles in it, as the mind has the impressions of mental objects in itself. (Or in other words:—the intellect is possessed of all intelligence, like the mind of its thoughts, as they present themselves in dreams. Gloss).

19. The external world appears in an instant in the same form and manner to one, as he has its notion and impression in his intellect and mind; and no distance of time or place, nor any intermediate cause can create any difference in them.

20. The inward world is seen on the outside, as the internal impressions of our minds, appear to be seen without us in our dreams. Whatever is within us, the same appears without us, as in our dreams and desires, and in all our imaginations and fancies of objects.

21. It is the constant habitude of your mind, that presented these things as realities to your sight, and you saw your husband in the same state in which you thought him to be, when he died in that city of yours.

22. It is the same place wherein he exists at present, and is presented with the same objects of his thought at present as he had at that moment. Any thing that appears to be different in this state, proceeds from the turn of his mind of thinking it so before.

23. All that appears real to him, is as unreal as his dream or desire, and the creation of his fancy; for every thing appears to be the same as it is thought of in the mind. (All external objects are representations of their prototypes in the mind).

24. Say therefore what truth can there be in these visionary objects, which are altogether unsubstantial as dreams, and vanish in the end into airy nothing.

25. Know then every thing to be no better than nothing; and as a dream proves to be nothing upon waking, so is waking also a dream and equally nothing at death.

26. Death in life time is a nullity, and life in death becomes null and extinct; and these extinctions of life and death, proceed from the fluctuating nature of our notions of them.

27. So there is neither any entity nor nonentity either, but both appear to us as fallacies by turns. For what neither was before, nor will be, after a Kalpa = creation or dissolution, the same cannot exist to-day or in any Yuga = age, whether gone before or coming afterwards.

28. That which is never inexistent, is the ever existent Brahma, and the same is the world. It is in him that we see everything to rise and fall by our fallacy, and what we falsely term as the creation or the created.

29. As phantoms appearing in the vacuum, are all vacant and void, and as the waves of the sea, are no other than its water; so do these created things exist and appear in Brahma only.

30. As the minutiæ appearing in the air, vanish in the air; and as the dust driven by the winds, are lost in the winds; so the false notions of yourself and myself, are lost in that Supreme self, in which all things rise and fall like waves of the ocean.

31. What reliance can there be in this dust of creation, which is no more than the water of the mirage? The knowledge of individualities is mere fallacy, when every thing is united in that sole unity.

32. We see apparitions in the dark, though the darkness itself is no apparition; so our lives and deaths are the false notions of our error, and the whole existence is equally the production of gross error (máyá).

33. All this is Himself, for He is the great Kalpa or will which produces every thing; it is He that exists when all things are extinct in Him; and therefore these appearances, are neither real nor unreal of themselves.

34. But to say both (the real and unreal) to be Brahma, is a contradiction; therefore it is He, who fills the infinity of space, and abides equally in all things and their minutest particles.

35. Wherever the spirit of Brahma abides, and even in the minute animalcule, it views the whole world in itself; like one thinking on the heat and cold of fire and frost, has the same sensation within himself at that moment. (Vide Hume).

36. So doth the pure intellect perceive the Holy Spirit of God within itself, just as one sees the particles of light flying in his closet at sunrise.

37. So do these multitudes of worlds, move about as particles in the infinite space of the Divine mind, as the particles of odoriferous substances oscillate in the empty air.

38. In this manner does this world abide in its incorporeal state in the mind of God, with all its modifications of existence and inexistence, emanation and absorption, of its condensation and subtilization and its mobility and rest.

39. But you must know all these modes and these conditions of being to belong to material bodies only and not to the spirit, which is unconditioned and indivisible (i.e. without attributes and parts).

40. And as there is no change or division of one’s own soul, so there is no partition or variation of the Supreme Spirit. It is according to the ideas in our minds, that we view things in their different aspects before us.

41. Yet the word world—visva—all, is not a meaningless term; it means the all as contained in Brahma (who is to pan). Therefore it is both real and unreal at the same time like the fallacy of a snake in a rope.

42. It is the false notion (of the snake), that makes the true (rope) to appear as the untrue snake to us, which we are apt to take for the true snake itself, so we take the Divine Intellect, which is the prime cause of all, as a living soul (like ours), by mistake.

43. It is this notion (of the living soul), that makes us to think ourselves as living beings, which whether it be false or true, is like the appearance of the world in empty air.

44. Thus these little animals delight themselves with their own misconceived idea of being living beings, while there are others who think themselves so, by their preconceived notions as such.

45. Some there are that have no preconceived notions, and others that retain the same as or somewhat different notions of themselves than before. Somewhere the inborn notions are predominant, and sometimes they are entirely lost.

46. Our preconceived notions of ourselves, represent unrealities as realities to our minds, and present the thoughts of our former family and birth, and the same occupations and professions before us (as also the enjoyments we had before and no more existent at present).

47. Such are the representations of your former ministers and citizens, imprinted as realities in your soul, together with the exact time and place and manner of their functions, as before.

48. And as the intelligence of all things, is present in the omniscient spirit of God, so is the idea of royalty inherent in the soul of the prince (i.e. like the ex-king Lear, he thinks himself every inch a king).

49. This notion of his goes before him as his shadow in the air, with the same stature and features, and the same acts and movements as he had before.

50. In this manner, Lílá! Know this world to be but a shadowy reflexion of the eternal ideas of God; and this reflection is caught by or refracted in the consciousness of all animal souls as in a prismatic mirror.

51. Everything shows itself in every place in the form in which it is; so whatever there is in the living soul, casts out a reflexion of itself, and a shadow of it is caught by the intellect, which is situated without it. (The mind is a mirror of the images in the soul).

52. Here is the sky containing the world, which contains this earth, wherein you and myself and this prince are situated, as reflexions of the One Ego only. Know all these to be contained within the vacuous womb of the Intellect, and to remain as tranquil and transparent as vacuity itself.

CHAPTER XLV.
Theism Consisting in True Knowledge.

Sarasvatí continued:—Know Lílá! this Vidúratha, thy husband, will lose his life in this battle-field; and his soul will repair to the sepulchre in the inner apartment, where it will resume its former state.

2. Upon hearing these words of the goddess, the second Lílá, who was standing by, bent herself lowly before the goddess, and addressed her with her folded palms.

3. The second Lílá’s speech. Goddess! the genius of intelligence is ever adored by me, and she gives me her visits in my nightly dreams.

4. I find thee here exactly of her likeness; therefore give me thy blessing, thou goddess with the beauteous face.

5. Vasishtha said:—The goddess being thus addressed by the lady, remembered her faith and reliance in her, and then spake with complacence to the lady standing suppliant before her.

6. The goddess said:—I am pleased my child, with thy unfailing and unslakened adoration of me all thy lifetime; now say what thou askest of me.

7. The second Lílá said:—Ordain O goddess, that I may accompany my husband with this body of mine to whatever place he is destined to go, after his death in the war.

8. The goddess replied:—Be it so my child; that hast worshipped me with all diligence and without fail, with flowers, incense and offerings.

9. Vasishtha said:—The second Lílá being gladdened by this blessing of the goddess, the first Lílá, was much puzzled in her mind at the difference of their states.

10. The first Lílá said:—Those who are desirous of truth, and they whose desires lean towards godliness, have all their wishes fulfilled without delay and fail.

11. Then tell me, goddess! why could I not keep company with my Bráhmana husband with my body of the Bráhmaní, but had to be taken to him in the hilly mansion after my death, (and reproduction in the present form).

12. The goddess answered saying:—Know O excellent lady! that I have no power to do anything; but every thing happens to pass according to the desire of the living being.

13. Know me only as the presiding divinity of wisdom, and I reveal everything according to my knowledge of it. It is by virtue of the intellectual powers as exhibited in every being, that it attains its particular end.

14. It is according to the development of the mental powers of living beings in every state, that it obtains its object in the manner and in the same state as it aims at.

15. You had attained the powers of your understanding by your devotedness to my service, and have always desired of me for being liberated from flesh.

16. I have accordingly awakened your understanding in that way, whereby you have been able to arrive at your present state of purity.

17. It was by cause of your constant desire of liberation, that you have gained the same state, by enlargement (of the powers) of your intellect.

18. Whoever exerts his bodily powers according to the dictates of his understanding, is sure to succeed in gaining his object sooner or later.

19. Performance of austerities and adoration of gods, are as vain without cultivation of the intellect, as to expect the falling of fruits from the sky.

20. Without cultivation of the intellect and exertion of manly powers, there is no way to success; do therefore as you may choose for yourself.

21. It is verily the state of one’s mind, that leads his internal soul to that state which it thinks upon, and to that prosperity which it attempts to obtain. 22. Now distinguish between what is desirable or disagreeable to you, and choose that which is holy and perfect, and you will certainly arrive to it.

CHAPTER XLVI.
Onslaught of Vidúratha.

Ráma said:—Relate to me the acts of Vidúratha, after he went out enraged from the camp, and left the ladies and the goddess talking in that manner.

2. Vasishtha said:—Vidúratha left his camp in company with a large body of his companions like the bright moon beset by a host of stars.

3. He was in armour and girt by laces and girdles, and thus attired in his martial habit, he went forth amidst the loud war cry of vae victis, like the god Indra going to battle.

4. He gave orders to the soldiers and was informed of the battle array; and having given directions to his captains, he mounted his chariot.

5. It was adorned with mountings resembling the pinnacles of mountains and beset by five flags fringed with strings of pearls and gems, resembling a celestial car.

6. The iron hoops of its wheels flashed with their golden pegs, and the long and beautiful shaft of the car, rang with the tinkling of pearls which were suspended to it.

7. It was drawn by long necked, swift and slender horses of the best breed and auspicious marks; that seemed to fly in the air by their swiftness and bearing aloft a heavenly car with some god in it.

8. Being impatient of the swiftness of the winds, they spurred them with their hinder heels and left them behind, and sped the forepart of their bodies as if to devour the air, impeding their course.

9. The car was drawn by eight coursers with their manes hanging down their necks like flappers, and white spots or circlets resembling the disks of moon on their foreheads, and filling the eight sides around with their hoarse neighing. 10. At this time there rose a loud noise of the elephants, resounding like drums from the hollows of the distant hills.

11. Loud clamours (kala-kalas) were raised by the infuriate soldiers, and the tinkling of their belted trinkets (kinkini), and clashing of their weapons, rang afar in the open air.

12. The crackling (chatachata) of the bows, and the wheezing (shitkara) of the arrows, joined with the jangle (jhanjhana) of armours, by their clashing against one another, raised a confused hubbub all around.

13. The sparkling (kanatkara) of blazing fire, and the mutual challenge of the champions; the painful shrieks of the wounded and the piteous cry of captives, were seen and heard on all sides.

14. The mingled sounds thickened in the air, and filled its cavity and its sides as with solid stones and capable of being clutched in the hands.

15. Clouds of dust flew as fast and thick into the air, that they seemed to be the crust or strata of the earth, rising upward to block the path of the sun in the sky.

16. The great city was hid in the dark womb of the overspreading dust (rajas), as the ignorant state of man is covered in darkness by the rising passion (rajas) of juvenescence.

17. The burning lights became as dim, as the fading stars of heaven by day light, and the darkness of night became as thick, as the devils of darkness gather their strength at night.

18. The two Lílás saw the great battle with the virgin daughter of the minister from the tent; and they had their eyes enlightened with farsightedness by favour of the goddess.

19. Now there was an end of the flashing and clashing of the hostile arms in the city, as the flash and crash of submarine fires were put to an end by the all-submerging floods of the universal deluge.

20. Vidúratha collected his forces and without considering the superiority of the hostile power pressed himself forward amidst them, as the great Meru rushed into the waters of the great deluge.

21. Now the twanging of the bow strings emitted a clattering (Chatachata) sound; and the forces of the enemy advanced in battle array, like bodies of clouds with rainbows amidst them.

22. Many kinds of missiles flew as falcons in the air; and the black steel waved with a dark glare owing to the massacres they made.

23. The clashing swords flashed with living flames of fire by their striking against one another; and showers of arrows whistled like hissing rainfalls in the air.

24. Two edged saws pierced the bodies of the warriors; and the flinging weapons hurtled in the air by their clashing at and crashing of each other.

25. The darkness of the night was put to flight by the blaze of the weapons; and the whole army was pierced by arrows, sticking as the hairs on their bodies.

26. Headless trunks moved about as players in the horrid solemnity of the god of death (Yama); and the furies fled about at the dint of war, like the raving lasses at Bacchanal revelries.

27. Elephants fighting with their tusks, sent a clattering noise in the air; and the stones flung from the slings, flew as a flowing stream in the sky.

28. Bodies of men were falling dead on the ground, like the dried leaves of forests blown away by blasts; and streams of blood were running in the field of battle, as if the heights of war were pouring down the floods of death below.

29. The dust of the earth was set down by the floods of blood, and the darkness was dispelled by the blaze of weapons; all clamour ceased in intense fighting, and the fear for life, was lost under the stern resolution of death.

30. The fighting was stern without a cry or noise, like the pouring of rain in the breezeless sky, and with the glitter of swords in the darkened air, like the flashes of forky lightnings amidst the murky clouds.

31. The darts were flying about with a hissing noise (khad-khada); and the crow-bars hit one another with a harsh (taktaka) sound; large weapons were struck upon one another with a jarring noise (jhanjhana), and the dreadful war raged direfully in the dim darkness (timitimi) of the night.

CHAPTER XLVII.
Encounter of Sindhu and Vidúratha.

Vasishtha said:—As the war was waging thus furiously between the two armies, the two Lílás addressed the goddess of knowledge and said:—

2. “Tell us, O goddess! what unknown cause prevents our husband to gain the victory in this war, notwithstanding your good grace to him, and his repelling the hostile elephants in the combat”.

3. Sarasvatí replied:—Know ye daughters, that I was ever solicited by Vidúratha’s enemy to confer him victory in battle, which your husband never craved of me.

4. He lives and enjoys his life as it was desired by him, while his antagonist gains the conquest according to his aim and object.

5. Knowledge is contained in the consciousness of every living being, and rewards every one according to the desire to which it is directed.

6. My nature like that of all things is as unchangeable as the heat of fire (which never changes to cold). So the nature of Vidúratha’s knowledge of truth, and his desire of liberation lead him to the like result (and not to victory).

7. The intelligent Lílá also will be liberated with him, and not the unintelligent one, who by her nature is yet unprepared for that highest state of bliss.

8. This enemy of Vidúratha, the king of Sinde, has long worshipped me for his victory in war; whereby the bodies of Vidúratha and his wife must fall into his hands.

9. Thou girl wilt also have thy liberation like hers in course of time; but ere that, this enemy of yours,—the king of Sinde, will reign victorious in this earth.

10. Vasishtha said:—As the goddess was speaking in this manner, the sun appeared on his rising hill to behold the wondrous sight of the forces in fighting.

11. The thick mists of night disappeared like the hosts of the enemy (Sinde); and left the forces of Vidúratha to glitter as stars at the approach of night.

12. The hills and dales and the land and water gradually appeared to sight, and the world seemed to reappear to view from amidst the dark ocean of the (deluge).

13. The bright rays of the rising sun radiated on all sides like the streams of liquid gold, and made the hills appear as the bodies of warriors besmeared with (blood).

14. The sky seemed as an immense field of battle, stretched over by the radiant rays of the sun (Karas), likening the shining arms (Karas) of the warriors, shaking in their serpentine mood.

15. The helmets on their heads raised their lotus-like tops on high, and the rings about their ears blazed with their gemming glare below.

16. The pointed weapons were as fixed as the snouts of unicorns, and the flying darts fled about as butterflies in the air. The bloody field presented a picture of the ruddy dawn and dusk, and the dead bodies on the ground, represented the figures of motionless saints in their Yoga.

17. Necklaces like snakes overhung their breasts, and the armours like sloughs of serpents covered their bodies. The flags were flying like crests of creepers on high, and the legs of the warriors stood as pillars in the field.

18. Their long arms were as branches of trees, and the arrows formed a bush of reeds; the flash of weapons spread as a verdant meadow all around, while their blades blazed with the lustre of the long-leaved ketaka flowers.

19. The long lines of weapons formed as rows of bamboos and bushes of brambles, and their mutual clashing emitted sparks of fire like clusters of the red asoka flowers.

20. The bands of Siddhas were flying away with their leaders from the air, to avert the weapons which were blazing there with the radiance of the rising sun, and forming as it were, a city of gold on high.

21. The sky re-echoed to the clashing of darts and discuses, of swords and spears and of mallets and clubs in the field; and the ground was overflown by streams of blood, bearing away the dead bodies of the slain.

22. The land was strewn with crowbars, lances and spears, and with tridents and stones on all sides; and headless bodies were falling hideously, pierced by poles and pikes and other instruments of death.

23. The ghosts and goblins of death were making horrible noise above, and the shining cars of Sindhu and Vidúratha, moved with a loud rumbling below.

24. They appeared as the two luminaries of the sun and moon in heaven, and equipped with their various weapons of disks and rods, of crowbars and spears, and other missiles besides.

25. They were both surrounded by thousands of soldiers, and turned about as thy liked, with loud shouts of their retinues.

26. Crushed under heavy disks, many fell dead and wounded with loud cries; and big elephants were floating lightly on the currents of blood.

27. The hairs on the heads of dead bodies, floated like weeds in the stream of blood, and the floating discuses glided like the disks of the moon, reflected in the purple streamlet.

28. The jingling (jhanat) of gemming ornaments, and the tinkling (ranat) bells of war carriages, with the flapping (patat) of flags by the wind, filled the field with a confused noise.

29. Numbers of valiant as well as dastardly soldiers followed their respective princes, some bleeding under the spears of Kuntas and others pierced by the arrows of bowyers.

30. Then the two princes turned round their chariots in circling rings over the ground, and amidst phalanxes armed with all sorts of destructive weapons.

31. Each confronted the other with his arms, and having met one another face to face, commenced showering forth his arrows with the pattering sound of hailstones.

32. They both threatened one another with the roaring of loud surges and clouds, and the two lions among men, darted their arrows upon one another in their rage.

33. They flung their missiles in the air in the form of stones and malls, and some faced like swords, and others headed as mallets.

34. Some were as sharp edged disks, and some as curved as battle axes; some were as pointed as pikes and spears, and others as bars and rods in their forms, and some were of the shape of tridents, and others as bulky as blocks of stones.

35. These missives were falling as fully and as fast as blocks of stones, which are hurled down from high and huge rocks, by gusts of blustering hurricanes. And the meeting of the two armigerent powers, was as the confluence of the Indus and the sea, with tremendous roaring, and mutual collision and clashing.

CHAPTER XLVIII.
Description of Daivástras or Supernatural Weapons.[23]

Vasishtha said:—Rájá Vidúratha, finding the high shouldered Sindhu-rája before him, was enraged like the raging sun, in his mid-day fury.

2. The twanging of his bow resounded in the air on all sides, and growled as loudly as the howling of winds in the caverns of mountains.

3. He drew his arrows from the dark quiver, and darted them like the rays of the sun rising from the womb of night.

4. Each arrow flung from the bowstring, flew as thousands in the air, and fell as millions on the ground. (The arrow or bána is a name given to bombs which burst out into unnumbered shells).

5. The king Sindhu was equally expert in his bowmanship, as both of these bowyers owed their skill in archery to the favour of Vishnu.

6. Some of these darts were called bolts, which blocked the aerial passages as with bolts at their doors, and fell down on the ground with the loud roar of thunderbolts.

7. Others begirt with gold, flew hissing as if blown by the winds in the air, and after shining as stars in the sky, fell as blazing meteors on the ground.

8. Showers of shafts poured forth incessantly from the hands of Vidúratha, like the ceaseless torrents of rivers or billows of the sea, and the endless radiation of solar rays.

9. Shells and bullets were flying about as sparks of fire struck out of the balls of red-hot iron, and falling as flowers of forests, blown away by gusts of wind.

10. They fell as showers of rainwater, and as the rush of water-falls; and as plentifully as the sparks of fire which flew from the burning city of Vidúratha.

11. The jarring sound (chatchat) of their bowstrings, hushed the clamour of the two armies, as a calm quiets the roaring of the raging sea.

12. The course of the arrows, was as the stream of Ganges (the milky path) in heaven, running towards the king Sindhu, as the river runs to meet the sea (Sindhu).

13. The shower of arrows flying from the golden bow of the king, was as the flood of rain falling under the variegated rainbow in the sky.

14. Then Lílá the native of that city, saw from the window the darts of her husband, rushing like the currents of Ganges, against the forces of Sindhu resembling a sea.

15. She understood the flight of those darts to promise victory to her lord, and then spoke gladly to Sarasvatí, with her lotus like face (Lit.—by opening her lotus like mouth).

16. Be victorious O goddess! and behold victory waiting on the side of my lord, whose darts are piercing the rocks, and breaking them to pieces.

17. As she was uttering these words full of affection (to her lord), the goddesses eyed her askance, and smiled at her womanish tenderness of heart.

18. The flaming (Agastian) fire of Sindhu swallowed the raging sea of Vidúratha’s arrows, as the submarine fire consumes the water, and as Jahnu drank the stream of Ganges.

19. The missive weapons of Sindhu, thwarted the thickening arrows of his adversary, and drove them back broken and flying as dust in the empty air.

20. As an extinguished lamp loses its light in the air, so the flashes of the fire arms disappeared in the sky, and nobody knew where they fled.

21. Having thus dispelled the shower of arrows, he sent a thick cloud of his weapons, appearing as hundreds of dead bodies flying in the air.

22. Vidúratha repelled them quickly by means of his better bolts, as a hurricane disperses the frightening clouds in the air.

23. Both the kings being thus baffled in their aims by the opposing arms, which were indiscriminately let loose against one another, laid hold on more potent missiles (which they had got as gifts of their gods to them).

24. Sindhu then let fly his magic missile the gift of a Gandharva to him, which kept his hostile army all spell-bound except Vidúratha’s self.

25. Struck with this weapon, the soldiers became as mute as moonstruck, staring in their looks, and appearing as dead bodies or as pictures in a painting.

26. As the soldiers of Vidúratha remained exorcised in their files, the king employed his instruments of a counter-charm to remove the spell.

27. This awakened the senses of Vidúratha’s men as the morning twilight discloses the bed of lotuses, and the rising sun opens their closed petals to light; while Sindhu like the raging sun darted his rage upon them.

28. He flung his serpentine weapons upon them, which bound them as fast as a band all about their bodies, and encircled the battle ground and air, like snakes twining round the craigs and rocks.

29. The ground was filled with snakes as the lake with the spreading stalks of lotuses, and the bodies of gigantic warriors were begirt by them, like hills by huge and horrible hydras.

30. Everything was overpowered by the poignant power of the poison, and the inhabitants of the hills and forests were benumbed by the venomous infection.

31. The smart poison spread a fiery heat all around, and the frozen snows like fire-brands sent forth their burning particles which were wafted by the hot winds in the air.

32. The armigerous Vidúratha who was equally skilled in arms, had then recourse to his Garuda or serpivorous weapons, which fled like mountainous eagles to all sides.

33. Their golden pinions spread in the sky on all sides, and embroidered the air with purple gold; and the flapping of their wings wheezed like a breeze, which blew away the poisonous effluvia afar in the air.

34. It made the snakes breathe out of their nostrils with a hissing, resembling the gurgling (ghurghur) of waters in a whirlpool in the sea.

35. The flying Garuda weapons devoured the creeping terrene serpents with a whistling noise (salsala), like that of the rising waters (water-spouts), in the act of their suction by Agastya—the sun.

36. The face of the ground delivered from its covering of these reptiles, again appeared to view, as the surface of the earth re-appeared to light, after its deliverance from the waters of the deluge.

37. The army of Garudas disappeared afterwards from sight, like a line of lamps put out by the wind, and the assemblage of clouds vanishing in autumn.

38. They fled like flying mountains for fear of the bolts of the thundering Indra; and vanished like the evanescent world seen in a dream, or as an aerial castle built by fancy.

39. Then king Sindhu shot his shots of darkness (smoke), which darkened the scene like the dark cave under the ground.

40. It hid the face of the earth and sky, like the diluvian waters reaching to the welkin’s face; making the army appear as a shoal of fishes, and the stars as gems shining in the deep.

41. The overspreading darkness appeared as a sea of ink or dark quagmire, or as the particles of Anjanagiri (Inky mountain) wafted by the breeze over the face of nature.

42. All beings seemed to be immersed in the sea or darkness, and to lose their energies as in the deep gloom of midnight.

43. Vidúratha the best of the most skilful in ballistics, shot his sun-bright shot which like the sun illumined the vault of the sky.

44. It rose high amidst the overspreading darkness like the sun (Agastya) with his effulgent beams, and dispelled the shades of darkness, as autumn does the rainy clouds.

45. The sky being cleared of its veil of darkness, manifested itself with its reddish clouds, resembling the blowzy bodices of damsels before the king. (Here is a pun upon the word payodhara which means both a cloud and the breast of a woman).

46. Now the landscape appeared in full view, like the understanding (good sense) of men coming in full play after the extinction of their avarice.

47. The enraged Sindhu then laid hold on his dreadful Rákshasa weapon, which he instantly flung on his foe with its bedeviled darts.

48. These horrid and destructive darts flew on all sides in the air, and roared as the roaring sea and elephantine clouds (dighastis) of heaven.

49. They were as the flames of lambent fire, with their long licking tongues and ash-coloured and smoky curls, rising as hoary hairs on the head, and making a chat-chat sound like that of moist fuel set up on fire.

50. They wheeled round in circles through the air, with a horrible tangtang noise, now flaming as fire and now fuming as smoke, and then flying about as sparks of fire.

51. With mouths beset by rows of sprouting teeth like lotus stalks, and faces defaced by dirty and fusty eyes, their hairy bodies were as stagnate pools full of moss and weeds.

52. They flew about and flashed and roared aloud as some dark clouds, while the locks of hairs on their heads glared as lightnings in the midway sky.

53. At this instant Vidúratha the spouse of Lílá, sent forth his Náráyana weapon, having the power of suppressing wicked spirits and demons.

54. The appearance of this magic weapon, made the bodies of the Rákshasas, disappear as darkness at sun rise.

55. The whole army of these fiends was lost in the air, as the sable clouds of the rainy season, vanish into nothing at the approach of autumn.

56. Then Sindhu discharged his fire arms which set fire to the sky, and began to burn down every thing, as by the all destroying conflagration of the last day.

57. They filled all the sides of air with clouds of smoke, which seemed to hide the face of heaven under the darkness of hell.

58. They set fire to the woods in the hills, which burned like mountains of gold; while the trees appeared to bloom with yellow champaka flowers all around.

59. All the sides of the sky above, and the hills, woods and groves below, were enveloped in the flames, as if they were covered under the red powder of huli, with which Yama was sporting over the plain.

60. The heaven-spreading flame burnt down the legions in one heap of ashes, as the submarine fire consumes whole bodies of the fleet and navy in the sea.

61. As Sindhu continued to dart his firearms against his vanquished adversary, Vidúratha let off his watery arms with reverential regard.

62. These filled with water, flew forward as the shades of darkness from their hidden cells; and spread up and down and on all sides, like a melted mountain gushing in a hundred cataracts.

63. They stretched as mountainous clouds or as a sea in the air, and fell in showers of watery arrows and stones on the ground.

64. They flew up like large tamála trees, and being gathered in groups like the shades of night, appeared as the thick gloom beyond the lokáloka or polar mountains.

65. They gave the sky the appearance of subterraneous caves, emitting a gurgling sound (ghurghura) like the loud roaring of elephants.

66. These waters soon drank (cooled) the spreading furious fire, as the shades of the dark night swallow (efface) the surrounding red tints of the evening.

67. Having swallowed the fires above, the waters overflooded the ground and filled it with a humidity which served to enervate all bodies, as the power of sleep numbs every body in death-like torpidity.

68. In this manner both the kings were throwing their enchanted weapons against each other, and found them equally quelling and repelling one another in their course.

69. The heavy armed soldiers of Sindhu and the captains of his regiments were swept away by the flood, together with the warcars which floated upon it.

70. At this moment, Sindhu thought upon his anhydrous weapons (soshanástre—thermal arms), which possessed the miraculous power of preserving his people from the water, and hurled them in the air.

71. These absorbed the waters as the sun sucks up the moisture of the night, and dried up the land and revived the soldiers, except those that were already dead and gone.

72. Their heat chased the coldness as the rage of the illiterate enrages the learned, and made the moist ground as dry, as when the sultry winds strew the forest land with dried leaves.

73. It decorated the face of the ground with a golden hue, as when the royal dames adorn their persons with a yellow paint or ointment.

74. It put the soldiers on the opposite side to a state of feverish (or blood heated) fainting, as when the tender leaves of trees are scorched by the warmth of a wild fire in summer heat.

75. Vidúratha in his rage of warfare laid hold on his bow (kodanda), and having bent it to a curve, let fly his cloudy arms on his antagonist.

76. They sent forth columns of clouds as thick as the sable shades of night, which flying upward as a forest of dark tamála trees, spread an umbrage heavy with water on high.

77. They lowered under the weight of their water, and stood still by their massive thickness; and roared aloud in their circles all over the sky.

78. Then blew the winds dropping the dewdrops of the icy store they bore on their pinions; and showers of rain fell fast from the collections of the clouds on high.

79. Then flashed the fiery lightnings from them like golden serpents in their serpentine course or rather like the aslant glances of the eyes of heavenly nymphs.

80. The roarings of the clouds rebounded in the mountainous caverns of the sky, and the quarters of heaven re-echoed to the same with the hoarse noise of elephants and the roaring of lions and growling of tigers and bears.

81. Showers of rain fell in floods with drops as big as musalas—malls or mallets, and with flashes of lightnings threatening as the stern glancings of the god of death.

82. Huge mists rising at first in the form of vapours of the earth, and then borne aloft by the heated air into the sky, seemed like titans to rise from the infernal regions (and then invade heaven with their gloomy armament).

83. The mirage of the warfare ceased after a while; as the worldly desires subside to rest upon tasting the sweet joys attending on divine knowledge.

84. The ground became full of mud and mire and was impassable in every part of it; and the forces of Sindhu were overflown by the watery deluge, like the river Sinde or the sea.

85. He then hurled his airy weapon which filled the vault of heaven with winds, and raged in all their fury like the Bhairava-Furies on the last day of resurrection.

86. The winds blew on all sides of the sky, with darts falling as thunder bolts, and hailstones now piercing and then crushing all bodies as by the last blast of nature on the dooms-day.

CHAPTER XLIX.
Description of Other Kinds of Weapons.

Then blew the icy winds of winter, blasting the beauty of the foliage of forest trees, and shaking and breaking the beautiful arbors, and covering them with gusts of dust.

2. Then rose the gale whirling the trees like birds flying in the air, dashing and smashing the soldiers on the ground, and hurling and breaking the edifices to dust.

3. This fearful squall blew away Vidúratha and his force, as a rapid current carries away the broken and rotten fragments of wood.

4. Then Vidúratha who was skilled in ballistics hurled his huge and heavy arrows, which stretched themselves to the sky, and withstood the force of the winds and rain.

5. Opposed by these rock-like barriers, the airy weapons were at a stand still, as the animal spirits are checked by the firm stoicity of the soul.

6. The trees which had been blown up by the winds and floating in the breezy air, now came down and fell upon the dead bodies, like flocks of crows upon putrid carcasses.

7. The shouting (shitkára) of the city, the distant hum (dátkára) of the village, the howling (bhánkára) of forests, and the rustling (utkára) of the trees, ceased on all sides like the vain verbiology of men.

8. Sindhu saw burning rocks (rockets?) falling from above like leaves of trees, and flying about as the winged Mainákas or moving rocks of the sea or Sinde (sindhu).

9. He then hurled his thundering weapons, falling as flaming thunderbolts from heaven, which burnt the rocks away as the flaming fire destroys the darkness.

10. These falling bolts broke the stones with their pointed ends, and hewed down the heads (tops) of the hills, like a hurricane scattering the fruits of trees on the ground.

11. Vidúratha then darted his Brahmá weapon to quell the thunderbolts, which jostling against one another, disappeared in their mutual conflict.

12. Sindhu then cast his demoniac weapons (Pisáchástras) as black as darkness, which fled as lines of horrid Pisácha demons on all sides.

13. They filled the firmament with the darkness of their bodies, and made the daylight turn to the shade of night, as if it were for fear of them.

14. They were as stalwart in their figures as huge columns of smoke, and as dark in their complexion as the blackest pitch, and tangible by the hand.

15. They were as lean skeletons with erect hairs on their heads and bearded faces, with looks as pale as those of beggars, and bodies as black as those of the aerial and nocturnal fiends.

16. They were terrific and like idiots in their looks, and moved about with bones and skulls in their hands. They were as meagre as churls, but more cruel than either the sword or thunderbolt.

17. The Pisáchas lurk about the woods, bogs and highways, and pry into empty and open door houses. They hunt about as ghosts in their dark forms, and fly away as fast as the fleeting lightning.

18. They ran and attacked with fury the remaining forces of the enemy, that stood weaponless in the field, with their broken and sorrowful hearts.

19. Frightened to death they stood motionless, and dropped down their arms and armours, and stood petrified as if they were demon-struck, with staring eyes, open mouths, and unmoving hands and feet.

20. They let fall both their lower and upper garments, loosened their bowels and slakened their bodies through fear, and kept shaking as fixed trees by the winds.

21. The line of the Pisáchas then advanced to frighten Vidúratha out of his wits, but he had the good sense to understand them as the mere Mumbo-jumbos of magic.

22. He knew the counter charm to fight out the Pisáchas from the field, and employed his charmed weapons against the Pisácha army of his enemy.

23. He darted in his ire the Rúpiká weapon, which gave comfort to his own army, and deluded the Pisácha force of his adversary.

24. These Rúpikás flew in the air with erect hairs on their heads; their terrific eyes were sunk in their sockets, and their waists and breasts moved as trees with bunches of fruit.

25. They had past their youth and become old; and their bodies were bulky and worn out with age; they had deformed backs and hips, and protuberant navels and naves.

26. They had dark dusky bodies, and held human skulls in their hands all besmeared with blood. They had bits of half devoured flesh in their mouths, and pouring out fresh blood from their sides.

27. They had a variety of gestures, motions and contortions of their bodies, which were as hard as stone, with wry faces, crooked backs and twisted legs and limbs.

28. Some had their faces like those of dogs, crows, and owls, with broad mouths and flat cheek-bones and bellies, and held human skulls and entrails in their hands.

29. They laid hold of the Pisáchas as men catch little boys, and joined with them in one body as their consorts. (i.e. The Rúpiká witches bewitching the demoniac Pisáchas, got the better of them).

30. They joined together in dancing and singing with outstretched arms and mouths and eyes, now joining hand in hand and now pursuing one another in their merry sport.

31. They stretched their long tongues from their horrid mouths, and licked away the blood exuding from the wounds of the dead bodies.

32. They plunged in the pool of blood with as much delight, as if they dived in a pond of ghee, and scrabbled in the bloody puddle with outstretched arms and feet, and uplifted ears and nose.

33. They rolled and jostled with one another in the puddle of carrion and blood, and made it swell like the milky ocean when churned by the Mandara mountain.

34. As Vidúratha employed his magic weapon against the magic of Sindhu, so he had recourse to others from a sense of his inferiority.

35. He darted his Vetála weapon, which made the dead bodies, whether with or without their heads, to rise up in a body in their ghastly shapes.

36. The joint forces of the Vetálas, Pisáchas and Rúpikás presented a dreadful appearance as that of the Kavandhas, and seemed as they were ready to destroy the earth.

37. The other monarch was not slow to show his magical skill, by hurling his Rákshasa weapon, which threatened to grasp and devour the three worlds.

38. These with their gigantic bodies rose as high as mountains, and seemed as hellish fiends appearing from the infernal regions in their ghostly forms.

39. The ferocious body of the roaring Rákshasas, terrified both the gods and demigods (surásuras), by their loud martial music and war dance of their headless trunks (Kavandhas).

40. The giddy Vetálas, Yakshas and Kushmándas, devoured the fat and flesh of dead bodies as their toast, and drank the gory blood as their lurid wines in the coarse of their war dance.

41. The hopping and jumping of the Kushmándas, in their war dance in streams of blood, scattered its crimson particles in the air, which assembled in the form of a bridge of red evening clouds over the sparkling sea.

CHAPTER L.
Death of Vidúratha.

Vasishtha said:—As the tide of war was rolling violently with a general massacre on both sides, the belligerent monarchs thought on the means of saving their own forces from the impending ruin.

2. The magnanimous Sindhurája, who was armed with patience, called to his mind the Vaishnava weapon, which was the greatest of arms and as powerful as Siva (Jove) himself.

3. No sooner was the Vaishnava weapon hurled by him with his best judgment (mantra), than it emitted a thousand sparks of fire from its flaming blade on all sides.

4. These sparks enlarged into balls, as big and bright as to shine like hundreds of suns in the sky, and others flew as the lengthy shafts of cudgels in the air.

5. Some of them filled the wide field of the firmament with thunderbolts as thick as the blades of grass, and others overspread the lake of heaven, with battle axes as a bed of lotuses.

6. These poured forth showers of pointed arrows spreading as a net-work in the sky, and darted the sable blades of swords, scattered as the leaves of trees in the air.

7. At this time, the rival king Vidúratha, sent forth another Vaishnava weapon for repelling the former, and removing the reliance of his foe in his foible.

8. It sent forth a stream of weapons counteracting those of the other, and overflowing in currents of arrows and pikes, clubs and axes and missiles of various kinds.

9. These weapons struggled with and justled against one another. They split the vault of heaven with their clattering, and cracked like loud thunder claps cleaving the mountain cliffs.

10. The arrows pierced the rods and swords, and the swords hewed down the axes and lances to pieces. The malls and mallets drove the missiles, and the pikes broke the spears (saktis).

11. The mallets like Mandara rocks, broke and drove away the rushing arrows as waves of the sea, and the resistless swords broke to pieces by striking at the maces.

12. The lances revolved like the halo of the moon, repelling the black sword-blades as darkness, and the swift missiles flashed as the destructive fires of Yama.

13. The whirling disks were destroying all other weapons; they stunned the world by their noise, and broke the mountains by their strokes.

14. The clashing weapons were breaking one another in numbers, and Vidúratha defeated the arms of Sindhu, as the steadfast mountain defies the thunders of Indra.

15. The truncheons (Sankus) were blowing away the falchions (asis); and the spontoons (súlas) were warding off the stones of the slings. The crow bars (bhusundis) broke down the pointed heads of the pikes (bhindhipálas).

16. The iron rods of the enemy (parasúlas) were broken by tridents (trisúlas) of Siva, and the hostile arms were falling down by their crushing one another to pieces.

17. The clattering shots stopped the course of the heavenly stream, and the combustion of powder filled the air with smoke.

18. The clashing of dashing weapons lightened the sky like lightnings, their clattering cracked the worlds like thunderclaps, and their shock split and broke the mountains like thunderbolts.

19. Thus were the warring weapons breaking one another by their concussion, and protracting the engagement by their mutual overthrow.

20. As Sindhu was standing still in defiance of the prowess of his adversary, Vidúratha lifted his own fire-arm, and fired it with a thundering sound.

21. It set the war chariot of Sindhu on fire like a heap of hay on the plain, while the Vaishnava weapons filled the etherial sphere with their meteoric blaze.

22. The two Kings were thus engaged in fierce fighting with each other, the one darting his weapons like drops of raging rain, and the other hurling his arms like currents of a deluging river.

23. The two Kings were thus harassing each other like two brave champions in their contest, when the chariot of Sindhu was reduced to ashes by its flame.

24. He then fled to the woods like a lion from its cavern in the mountain, and repelled the fire that pursued him by his aqueous weapons.

25. After losing his car and alighting on the ground, he brandished his sword and cut off the hoofs and heels of the horses of his enemy’s chariot in the twinkling of an eye.

26. He hacked every thing that came before him like the lean stalks of lotuses; when Vidúratha also left his chariot with his asi (ensis) in hand.

27. Both equally brave and compeers to one another in their skill in warfare, turned about in their rounds, and scraped their swords into saws by mutual strokes on one another.

28. With their denticulated weapons, they tore the bodies of their enemies like fishes crushed under the teeth, when Vidúratha dropt down his broken sword, and darted his javelin against his adversary.

29. It fell with a rattling noise on the bosom of Sindhu (the king), as a flaming meteor falls rumbling in the breast of the sea (Sindhu).

30. But the weapon fell back by hitting upon his breast plate, as a damsel flies back from the embrace of a lover deemed an unfit match for her.

31. Its shock made Sindhu throw out a flood of blood from his lungs, resembling the water spout let out from the trunk of an elephant.

32. Seeing this, the native Lílá cried with joy to her sister Lílá: see here the demon Sindhu killed by our lion-like husband.

33. Sindhu is slain by the javelin of our lion-like lord, like the wicked demon by the nails of the lion-god Nrisinha, and he is spouting forth his blood like the stream of water, thrown out by the trunk of an elephant from a pool.

34. But alas! this Sindhu is trying to mount on another car, although bleeding so profusely from his mouth and nostrils, as to raise a wheezing (chulchulu) sound.

35. Lo there! our lord Vidúratha breaking down the golden mountings of his car with the blows of his mallet, as the thundering clouds—Pushkara and Ávarta break down the gold peaks of Sumeru.

36. See this Sindhu now mounting on another carriage, which is now brought before him, and decorated as the splendid seat of a Gandharva.

37. Alack! our lord is now made the mark of Sindhu’s mallet darted as a thunder bolt against him; but lo! how he flies off and avoids the deadly blow of Sindhu.

38. Huzza! how nimbly he has got up upon his own car; but woe is to me! that Sindhu has overtaken him in his flight.

39. He mounts on his car as a hunter climbs on a tree, and pierces my husband, as a bird-catcher does a parrot hidden in its hollow, with his pointed arrow.

40. Behold his car is broken down and its flags flung aside; his horses are hurt and the driver is driven away. His bow is broken and his armour is shattered, and his whole body is full of wounds.

41. His strong breast-plate is broken also by slabs of stone and his big head is pierced by pointed arrows. Behold him thrown down on earth, all mangled in blood.

42. Look with what difficulty he is restored to his senses, and seated in his seat with his arm cut off and bleeding under Sindhu’s sword.

43. See him weltering in blood gushing out profusely from his body, like a rubicund stream issuing from a hill of rubies. Woe is me! and cursed be the sword of Sindhu that hath brought this misery on us.

44. It has severed his thighs as they dissever a tree with a saw, and has lopped off his legs like the stalks of trees.

45. Ah! it is I that am so struck and wounded and killed by the enemy. I am dead and gone and burnt away with my husband’s body.

46. Saying so, she began to shudder with fear at the woeful sight of her husband’s person, and fell insensible on the ground like a creeper cut off by an axe.

47. Vidúratha though thus mutilated and disabled, was rising to smite the enemy in his rage, when he fell down from his car like an uprooted tree, and was replaced there by his charioteer ready to make his retreat.

48. At this instant, the savage Sindhu struck a sabre on his neck, and pursued the car in which the dying monarch was borne back to his tent.

49. The body of Padma (alias Vidúratha), was placed like a lotus in the presence of Sarasvatí, shining with the splendour of the sun; but the elated Sindhu was kept from entering that abode, like a giddy fly from a flame.

50. The charioteer entered in the apartment, and placed the body in its death-bed, all mangled and besmeared with blood, exuding from the pores of the severed neck, in the presence of the goddess, from where the enemy returned to his camp.

(Gloss). Here Padma fighting in the person of Vidúratha, and falling bravely in the field, obtained his redemption by his death in the presence of the goddess; but the savage Sindhu, who slew his foiled foe in his retreat, proved a ruffian in his barbarous act, and could have no admittance into the presence of the goddess and to his future salvation.