10. The goddess is still worshipped by dying and ailing people with offerings, for remedy of their illness and securing her blessings; and she in her turn distributes her rewards among them, that worship her either in her statue or picture. (Raxá Kálí is worshipped in statue, but Mongla Chandí is worshipped in a ghata or potful of water).
11. She is the bestower of all blessings to young babes, and weak calves and cows; while she kills the hardy and proud that deserve their death. She is the goddess of intelligence and favours the intelligent, and presides for ever in the realm of the Kiráta people. (Vasishtha being a theist, reviles like a Vaishnava, the black goddess as a Rákshasí, which a Kaula cannot countenance).
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
Development of the Germ of the Mind.
Argument. Reason of the application of the name Karkatí, and its simile to a crooked crab.
Vasishtha said:—I have thus related to you Ráma, the unblamable legend of Karkatí, the Rákshasí of Imaus, from its beginning to end in ipso facto. (Imaus and Imodus are ranges of the Himálayas. The Gloss interprets Imaus as a synonym of Himálayas, by apocope of the latter member of the compound word, and by a grammatical rule, that the curtailing of a part of a proper name, does not affect the full meaning of the name. So for the omissions of agnomens and cognomens).
2. Ráma rejoined:—But how could one born in a cave of Himavatas (Imodus), become a black Rákshasí, and why was she called Karkatí? These I want to be clearly explained to me. (Ráma’s demand was reasonable, as the people of the Himálayas, are always of fair complexions, and the Rákshasas were the Negroes of Southern India).
3. Vasishtha replied:—The Rakshas (cannibals), are originally of many races, some of whom are of dark and others of fair complexions, while many have a yellowish appearance and some of a greenish shade. (We know the red Rákshasas of America, but it is impossible for us to account for the green or blue Rákshasas in the text).
4. As for Karkatí, you must know that there was a Rákshasa by name of Karkata, from his exact resemblance to a cancer. (Here is a reversion of Sycorax the Negro parent, and her crooked son caliban Kálibán—the black Negro, having long arms and legs, with feet and hands furnished with claws and long nails like those of beasts).
5. The reason of my relating to you the narrative of Karkatí, was only for her queries which I recollected and thought, would serve well to explain the omniform God, in our disquisition into spiritual knowledge. (Gloss. Vasishtha adduces a contradiction in the spiritual knowledge of God, by calling him a spirit and yet as all forms of things. But this seeming contrariety will disappear upon reflecting that, the phenomenal is contained in the noumenal, and the forms are viewed only in the spirit as visions in dreams).
6. It is evident that the pure and perfect unity, is the source of the impure and imperfect duality of the phenomena, and this finite world has sprung from its Supreme cause, who is without beginning and end. (The One is the cause of many, and the Infinite is the source of the finite. Ahamsarvasyám. Anádirádi sarvasya).