Argument. Ardour of Súchí’s austerities and Indra’s Inquiry of it.
Vasishtha continued:—Afterwards Súchí became silent and motionless, and thought of resuming her austerities for the sake of regaining her long lost body.
2. With this intention she returned to the Himálayas; and there abstaining from her desire of human gore, she sat reiterating her castigations.
3. She saw in her mind her form of the needle, entering into her heart with her breathings.
4. Thus meditating on her mental form of the needle, she was wafted by her vital breath to the top of the hill, and alighted on it like a vulture from high.
5. There she remained alone and apart from all living beings, and sat amidst burning fires, with her form of an ash-coloured stone (i.e. besmeared by ashes like a yogi).
6. She sat there as a sprout of grass, springing in that dry and grassless spot; but soon faded away, to a blade of withered hay in the sandy desert.
7. She remained standing on tip-toe of her only one foot, and continued in the castigation of her own self. (Standing of the one legged needle, represented the posture of devotees standing on one leg).
8. She lightly touched the ground with her tiptoe stature, and avoiding all sidelong looks, gazed on the upper sky with her upraised face and uplifted eyes.
9. The acute point of the black iron needle, firmly preserved its standing posture by penetrating the ground; while it fed itself upon the air, which it inhaled by its uplifted mouth.