9. It is as impossible as to confine an elephant in a mustard seed, and as the fighting of a gnat with a body of lions in a nut-shell.
10. It is as incredible as to believe a lotus seed containing a hill in it, and to be devoured by a little bee; or that the peacocks are dancing on hearing the roaring of clouds in a dream.
11. It is equally inconsistent to say, O great goddess of gods! that this earth with all its mountains and other things, are contained within the small space of a sleeping room.
12. Deign therefore, O goddess to explain this mystery clearly unto me; because it is by thy favour only that the learned are cleared of their doubts.
13. The goddess said:—Hear me fair lady! I do not tell thee a lie; because transgression of the law is a thing unknown to us. (The law is nánritam vadeta—never tell an untruth).
14. It is I that establish the law when others are about to break it; if then I should slight the same, who else is there who would observe it.
15. The living soul of the village Bráhman, saw within itself and in the very house, the image of this great kingdom, as his departed spirit now views the same in its empty vacuity. (Therefore both these states are equally ideal).
16. But you have lost the remembrance of the states of your former lives after death, as they lose the recollection of waking events in the dreaming state.
17. As the appearance of the three worlds in dream, and their formation in the imagination; or as the description of a warfare in an epic poem and water in the mirage of a maru or sandy desert (are all false):
18. So were the hills and habitations which were seen in the empty space of the Bráhman’s house, which was no other than the capacity of his own mind to form the images of its fancy, and receive the external impressions like a reflecting mirror (all mere ideal).