34. Approach to me, O god of gods, luminous sun! I welcome thee to me! Having accosted him thus, I said:—
35. Tell me what thou art and how this world with all its bright orbs came to being; if thou knowest aught of these, then please reveal it to me.
36. Being thus addressed, he looked upon me, and then having recognized me, he made his salutation, and uttered in graceful words and speech.
37. The sun replied:—Thou lord! art the eternal cause of these false phenomena, how is it then that thou knowest it not, but askest me about the cause thereof?
38. But shouldst thou, all knowing as thou art, take a delight in hearing my speech, I will tell thee of my unasked and unthought of production, which I beg thee to attend to.
39. O great Spirit! this world being composed of reality and unreality in its twofold view, beguiles the understanding to take it sometimes for a real and at others for an unreal thing. It is the great mind of the Divine Soul, that is thus employed in these incessant and unceasingly endless creations for its diversion. (The soul is the animating power, and the mind is the principle of action. Metaphysically, the soul is an individual name; the mind is a generic term or genus. The soul is opposed to body, the mind to matter. The soul is the principle of animation, the mind of volition. The soul is the mind of a certain being, the mind is the soul without its personality).
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
Story of Indu and His Sons.
Argument. The Sun’s Narrative of Indu and his Devotion.
The Sun continued:—It was, my lord! only the other day of one of thy by gone kalpas, and at the foot of a mount, beside the table-land of mount Kailasa standing in a corner of the continent of Jambudvípa:—(A kalpa is one day of Brahmá, and occupies the whole duration of a creation from its beginning to the end, which is called the Kalpánta or night of the god. This agrees with the seven days of creation in the book of Genesis, which are supposed to embrace so many long ages of creation).
2. That there lived a man by name of Suvarnajatá together with all his sons and their progeny, who had rendered that spot a beautiful and pleasant habitation. (The gloss says they were the patriarchs of mankind, settled first on the table-land and at the foot of the Himalayas).