11. The two ladies then became as quiet as inert nature herself, and as still as firmament before the luminous bodies rolled about in its ample sphere.
12. They then began to move with their own bodies, the goddess of wisdom in her form of intelligence, and the queen in her intellectual and meditative mood.
13. With their new bodies they rose as high as one span above the ground, then taking the forms of the empty intellect, they began to mount in the sky.
14. The two ladies then with their playful open eyes, ascended to the higher region of the sky, by their nature of intellectual knowledge.
15. Then they flew higher and higher by force of their intellect, and arrived at a region stretching millions of leagues in length.
16. Here the pair in their etherial forms, looked about according to their nature in search of some visible objects; but finding no other figure except their own, they became much more attached to each other by their mutual affection.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Aerial Journey.
Vasishtha continued:—
Thus ascending higher and higher and reaching by degrees the highest station, they went on viewing the heavens, with their hands clasped in each other’s.
2. They saw a vast expanse as that of the wide extended universal ocean, deep and translucent within; but soft with etherial mildness, and a cooling breeze infusing heavenly delight.