23. All these appeared to me as the mirage in a desert, and I beheld them as phantasms in my mind; and this scene of the world was situated in the womb of vacuum, and I beheld these sceneries, O bright eyed Ráma, all these sceneries seem to resemble the appearances of a phantasmagoria to me.

24. I then beheld the glorious sun above, stretching his golden rays to all the ten sides of the universe, and himself flying as the phoenix in the sky; and I saw also this speck of the earth, resembling a villa beset by the walls of its mountains.

25. The sun turned about and lent his beams to the moon, and to the submarine fire beneath the dark blue ocean; and stood himself as the great lamp of the world on the stand of the meridian, to give the light of the day.

26. I saw the moon rising as the face of the sky, with a lake of cooling and sweet nectar in it; the moonlight appearing as the soft and sweet smile of the sable goddess of night, and as the glow of the nightly stars.

27. The moon is the comparison of all beautiful objects in the world, and is the most beloved object at night, of females, and of the blue lotus, and companion of the vesper or evening star.

28. I beheld the twinkling stars likening to the clusters of flowers in the arbour of the skies, and delighting the eyes and faces (of their spectator); and they appeared to me as flocks of butterflies, flying in the fair field of the firmament.

29. I saw many shining gems washed away by the waters, and tossed about by the waving arms of the ocean;[[3]]and I saw many jewels also in the hands of jewellers, and balanced by them in their scales.

30. I looked into the submarine fire lying latent in the sea, and the eddies whirling the silvery shrimps in the whirlpools, I saw the golden rays of the sun, shining as filaments of flowers upon the waters, and I saw also the lightnings flashing in the midst of clouds. (There is a play upon the words abdhi and abda which mean the sea, the eddy, the marine fire, the cloud &c.).

31. I witnessed the auspicious sacrificial fire, blazing with ineffable light; and marked its burning flame, splitting and cracking the sacred wood, with a crackling and clattering noise.

32. I saw the lustre of gold and other metals and minerals, and I found also how they are reduced to ashes by the act of calcination, like learned men overpowered by the clownish ignorant.