4. Knowing the truth of my sayings, and pondering on the deep sense of these sayings of mine, you will get a delight in your inmost soul, as the serpent killing peacock, is ravished at the deep roaring of raining clouds.
5. Do you, like the sage Uddálaka, shake off your knowledge of quintuple materiality as the cause of all creation, and accustom yourself to think deeper, and on the prime cause of causes by your patient inquiry and reasoning.
6. Ráma requested:—Tell me sir, in what way the sagely Uddálaka got rid of his thoughts of the quintessential creation, and penetrated deeper into the original cause of all, by the force and process of his reasoning.
7. Vasishtha replied:—Learn Ráma, how the sage Uddálaka of old, rose higher from his investigation of quintuple matter to his inquiry into their cause, and the manner in which that transcendent light dawned upon his mind.
8. It was in some spacious corner of the old mansion of this world, and on the northwest side of this land, a spot of rugged hills and overtopping it as a shed.
9. Among these stood the high hill of Gandhamádana with a table-land on it, which was full of camphor arbours, that shed the odours of their flowers and pistils continually on the ground.
10. This spot was frequented by birds of variegated hues, and filled with plants of various kinds. Its banks were beset by wild beasts, and fraught with flowers shining smilingly over the woodland scene.
11. There were the bright swelling gems in some part of it, and the blooming and full blown lotuses on another; some parts of it were veiled by tufts of snow, and crystal streams gliding as glassy mirrors on others.
12. Here on the elevated top a big cliff of this hill, which was studded with sarala trees, and strewn over with flowers up to the heels, and shaded by the cooling umbrage of lofty trees:—
13. There lived the silent sage by name of Uddálaka, a youth of a great mind, and with high sense of his honour. He had not yet attained his maturity, ere he betook himself to the course of his rigorous austerity.