[CHAPTER LXXVIII.]
Beatification of Chúdálá.
Argument:—The distaste and indifference of the happy pair to worldly enjoyments.
VASISHTHA continued:—In this manner did this happy pair, revel for many years in the pleasures of their youth, and tasted with greater zest, every new delight that came on their way day by day.
2. Years repeated their reiterated revolutions over their protracted revelries till by and by their youth began to give way to the decay of age; as the broken pitcher gives way to its waters out (or rather as the leaky vessel gives way to the waters in).
3. They then thought that their bodies are as frail as the breakers on the sea; and as liable to fall as the ripened fruits of trees, and that death is not to be averted by any body.
4. As the arrowy snows rend the lotus leaves, so is our old age ready to batter and shatter our frames; and the cup of our life is drizzling away day by day, as the water held in the palm falls away by sliding drops.
5. While our avarice is increasing on our hand, like the gourd plant in the rainy weather, so doth our youth glide away as soon as the torrent falls from the mountain cliffs to the ground.
6. Our life is as false as a magic play, and the body a heap of rotting things; our pleasures are few and painful, and as fleeting as the flying arrows from the archers bow.
7. Afflictions pounce upon our hearts, as vultures and kites dart upon fish and flesh; and these our bodies are as momentary as the bursting bubbles of dropping rains (or of rain drops).