53. How flourishing is the arbour of this delusion, which is fraught with the endless objects of our erroneous imagination; and hath stretched out these innumerable worlds from our ignorance of them.
54. How flourishing is the kalpa tree or all fruitful arbour of delusion; which is ever fraught with endless objects of our imaginary desire, and stretches out the infinite worlds to our erroneous conception as its leaves.
55. Here our prurient minds like birds of variegated colours, rest and remain and sit and sport, in and all about this arbour.
56. Our acts are the roots of our repeated births as the stem of the tree is of its shoots; our prosperity and properties are the flowers of this arbor, and our virtues and vices are as its fruits of good and evil.
57. Our wives are as the tender plants, that thrive best under the moon-light of delusion; and are the most beautiful things to behold in this desert land of the earth.
58. As the darkness of ignorance prevails over the mind, soon after the setting of the sun light of reason; there rises the full moon of errors in the empty mind, with all her changing phases of repeated births. (This refers to the dark ages of Puránic or mythological fictions, and also to the Dárshanic or philosophical systems which succeeded the age of Vedántic light, and were full of changeable doctrines, like the phases of the moon; whence she is styled dwija or mistress of digits. There is another figure of equivocation in the word doshah, meaning the night as well as the defect of ignorance).
59. It is under the influence of the cooling moon-light of ignorance; that our minds foster the fond desire of worldly enjoyments; and like the chakora birds of night, drink their fill of delight as ambrosial moon-beams. (The ignorant are fond of pleasures, and where ignorance is bliss, it is foolish to be wise).
60. It is under this delusion, that men view their beloved ones as buds of roses and lotuses, and their loose glancing eyes, as the black bees fluttering at random; they see the sable clouds in the braids and locks of their hair, and a glistening fire in their glowing bosoms and breasts.
61. It is delusion, O Ráma! that depicts the fairies with the beams of fair moon-light nights; though they are viewed by the wise, in their true light of being as foul as the darkest midnight.
62. Know Ráma, the pleasures of the world, to be as the pernicious fruits of ignorance; which are pleasant to taste at first, but prove to be full of bitter gall at last. It is therefore better to destroy this baneful arbour, than to lose the life and soul by the mortal taste of its fruits. (It is the fruit of the tree of ignorance rather than that of knowledge, which brought death into the world and all our woe. Milton).