52. The sight of things present, and the thoughts of the absent past and unseen future, are all but acts of the mind, as the making and unmaking of pots, are both of them the doings of the pot maker.
53. Whatever notions there are in the minds of men from their youth to age are alike to the phantoms of their dream or the deliriums of their ebriety or some (mental) disease.
54. The settled desires of the mind present a thousand appearances before its sight, as the rooted plants on earth, abound with fruits and flowers of various kinds, on the surface of the ground.
55. But the plants being rooted out of the ground, there remains no vestige of a fruit or flower or leaf upon earth: so the desires being driven out of the mind, there is no more any trace of anything left behind them; nor is there any probability of future transmigrations, when the reminiscence of the past is utterly obliterated from the soul.
56. It is no wonder for the shifting stage of the mind, to present you the single scene of the Chandála, when it has in store, and can with equal ease show you an infinity of appearances at its pleasure. (The drama of life exhibits but a partial scene at a time).
57. It was the impression (eidolon) in thy mind, that made thee think thyself as the Chandála, in the manner of the many phantoms, that rise before the mind in the delirium of a sickly person.
58. It was the same phrenzy that made thee see the advent of thy Bráhman guest, and entertain him with board and bed; and all thy conversation with him, was no other than the phantasies of thy mind.
59. Then the thoughts of thy departure from home, and arrival at the district of the Bhootas, thy sight of the Bhotias and their villages and habitations, were but aberrations of thy mind.
60. Next thy sight of the ruins of the former abode of Katanjala, and the account that thou didst get of him from the mouths of the people, were all the fumes of thy fancy.
61. Afterwards thy visit to the city of the Kirs, and the tale told thee of the Chandála’s reign by the people, were the excogitations of thy own mind.