VASISHTHA continued. Hear me now relate to you Ráma, how this poisonous tree of ignorance has come to grow in this forest of the world, and to be situated by the side of the intellect, and how and when it came to blossom and bloom. (The Divine intellect is the stupendous rock, and the creation is the forest about it, in which there grew the plant of error also).
2. This plant encompasses all the three worlds, and has the whole creation for its rind, and the mountains for its joints (Here is a play of the word parva and parvata which are paronymous terms, signifying a joint and mountain; Hence every mountain is reckoned as the joint or land-mark of a country dividing it from another tract of land).
3. It is fraught with its leaves and roots, and its flowers and fruits, by the continuous births and lives and pleasures and pains and the knowledge and error of mankind. (All these are the productions of human ignorance).
4. Prosperity gives rise to our ignorance of desiring to be more prosperous in this or in our next lives (by means of our performance of ceremonial rites), which are productive of future welfare also. So doth adversity lead us to greater error of practising many malpractices to get rid of it; but which on the contrary expose us to greater misfortunes. (Hence it is folly to make choice of either, which is equally pernicious).
5. One birth gives rise to another and that leads to others without end; hence it is foolishness in us to wish to be reborn again. (All births are subject to misery; it is ignorance therefore to desire a higher or lower one, by performance of páratrika acts for future lives).
6. Ignorance produces greater ignorance, and brings on unconsciousness as its effect: so knowledge leads on to higher knowledge, and produces self-consciousness as its result. (Good tends to best, and bad to the worst. Better tends to best, and worse to the worst).
7. The creeping plant of ignorance, has the passion for its leaves, and the desires for its odours; and it is continually shaking and shuffling with the leafy garment on its body.
8. This plant falls sometimes in its course, on the way of the elephant of Reason; it then shakes with fear, and the dust which covers its body, is all blown away by the breath of the elephant's trunk; but yet the creeper continues to creep on by the byways according to its wont.
9. The days are its blossoms, and the nights are the swarms of black bees, that overshadow its flowers; and the continued shaking of its boughs, darts down the dust of living bodies from it, both by day and night. (i.e., Men that live upon their desires and hopes, are daily dying away).
10. It is overgrown with its leaves of relatives, and overloaded with the shooting buds of its offspring; it bears the blossoms of all seasons, and yields the fruits of all kinds of flowers.