CHAPTER LXXXV
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
79. Please now to refresh thy fair and fatigued frame, with wearing these flowery chaplet from the head to foot; as the vest of a hoary cloud, invests a mountain from its top to bottom.
80. I see thy face as beautiful, as the stainless moon; and thy limbs as delicate, as tender petals of flowers; and I find them now waning and fading under the solar gleams.
81. Know pretty youth that it was for the service of the gods, that I had wreathed the flowers together; and now I offer and bequeath them to thee, that art no less a God to me.
82. My life is crowned today with its best luck by its service of a guest like thyself, for it is said by the wise that attendance on guests is meritorious than the merit of attending on the Gods. (Hence the law of Hospitality is not less binding on the Hindu than it is with the Bedouin Arabs).
83. Now deign O moon faced deva (deity) to reveal unto me what God thou art, and the progeny of what deity that dost deign to dignify me with thy visit; please tell me all this and remove the doubts that disturb my breast.
84. The Bráhman boy replied:—Hear me, prince, relate to thee all that thou requirest to know of me; for who is there so uncivil, that will deceive and not comply to the request of his humble suppliant.
85. There lives in this world, the well known, the holy saint Nárada by name; who is the snowy spot of pure camphor, on the face of those that are famed for the purity of their lives.
86. It was at one time that this Godly saint sat in his devotion in a cavern of the golden mountain; where the holy river of Gangá, fast flows with her running current and huge billows dashing against the shore.
87. The saint stepped out once to the beach of the river, to see how it glided on in its course; like a necklace of gems torn down from the mountain on high.
88. He heard there at once the tinkling sound of trinkets and bracelets, and a mixed murmur of vocal voice; and felt the curiosity to know what it was and whence it came.
89. He lightly looked towards the sacred stream and observed there an assemblage of young ladies, who equalled the celestial nymphs Rambhá and Tilottamá in the beauty of their persons; who had come out to sport by and bathe in the clear waters of the holy river.
90. They plunged and played in the waters removed from the sight of men, and were all naked with their uncovered breasts; blooming as the buds of golden lotuses in the lake.
91. These were jogging to and fro and dashing against one another like the ripened fruits of trees, and seemed to be filled with flavoured liquor for the giddiness of their observers.
92. Their swollen bosoms formed the sanctuary of the God of love, and were washed by the pure waters of the sacred river.
93. Their fullness with luscious liquor, put to blush the sweet waters of the sacred river of Gangá; they were as mound in the garden of paradise, and as the wheels of the car for the God Káma to ride upon.
94. Their buttocks were as pillars of the bridge in water, obstructing and dividing the free passage of the waters of the Ganges; and their upper part of the body, gives a lustre of world's beauty.
95. The shadow of one another's body was clearly visible to the naked eye, on the limpid waters of the Gangá; like a Kalpa tree in rainy season, with all its branches.
96. The thick verdure of the verdant season, had put to shade the light of the day; and the flying dust of flowers, had filled the forest air with fragrance.
97. Water-fowls of various kinds were sporting on the banks, as they do by the sea side and about the watering places round the trees; while the budding breasts of these dames, had put to blush the blooming buds of lotuses.
98. They held up their faces, which were as beautiful as a bud of lotuses; while their loosened hairs hung by them, like swarms of bees; and the loose glances of their eye-balls, were playing as the fluttering black-bees.
99. Their swollen breasts resembling the aureate lotuses, which were used by the Gods as golden cups to hide their ambrosial nectar; therein for fear of its being ravished by the demons and demi-Gods.
100. They were now seen to be hiding themselves in the secret bowers and caverns of the mountain, like lotuses hidden under foliage; and now hastening to the cooling beach of the river, to leave their lovely limbs in its limpid stream.
101. The saint saw the bevy of the young ladies, resembling the body of the full moon complete with all its digits; and his mind was ravished with their beauty (as the minds of men are turned to the delirium of lunacy by looking at the moon-light).
102. He lost the balance of his reason, and became elated with giddiness; and his breath of his life throbbed in his heart, by impulse of the delight that raged and boiled in his breast.
103. At last the excess of his rapture, gave effusion of his passion; as the fullness of a cloud in summer, breaks out in water in the rainy weather.
104. The saint turned as wan as a waning moon, and as the pale moon-light in frost; and like a fading plant, torn from its supporting tree.
105. He faded as the stalk of a creeper parted in two, and withered away as a sapling after it has lost its juicy sap.
106. Sikhidhwaja asked:—How is it that the pure and peerless saint, who is liberated in his life time and acquainted with all knowledge; who is void of desires and devoid of passions, and who is as pure as the clear air both in the inside as well as outside of his body?
107. How is it that even he the holy Nárada himself, could lose his patience and countenance who leads his life of celibacy all along?
108. Chúdálá replied:—Know, O princely sage! that all living beings in the three worlds not excepting even the Gods; have their bodies composed of both ingredients (of good and evil) by their very nature.
109. Some remain in ignorance, and others in knowledge to the end of their lives; and some remaining in happiness, and others in misery to the end of their days.
110. Some thrive in happiness with their virtue of contentment and the like, and are enlightened in their minds like a room by the light of the lamps; and as the bosom of the sea by the light of the luminaries of heaven.
111. Some are tormented by their hunger and poverty, and are involved in misery like the face of nature under the darkness of clouds.
112. The true and pure reality of the soul (divine spirit), being once lost to one's sight (the visible or phenomenal world): makes its appearance before him, like a dark and thick cloud of rainy weather.
113. Though one may be employed in his continuous investigation into spirituality, yet a moment's neglect of his spiritualism is sure to darken his spiritual light; as the apparition of the world appears to sight.
114. As the succession of light and darkness makes the course of the day and night, so the return of the pain and pleasure indicates the progress of life. (This variety kills the monotony of life).
115. Thus the two states of pleasure and pain, are known to accompany over lives from birth to death; as the results of our prior acts (of merit and demerit).
116. This impression of past life marks the lives of the ignorant entirely, as the red colouring sticks for ever in a cloth; but it is not so with the intelligent, whose knowledge of truth wipes off the stigma of their pristine acts.
117. As the eternal hue of a gem, whether it be good or bad, is exhibited on the outside of it; and also as a crystal stone, however clear it may be, takes the colour of the outward object in it (so the ignorant exhibit their inherent nature in their outward conduct, and partake also the qualities of their surroundings).
118. But it is not so with the intelligent knower of truth (tatwajna), whose soul is free from all inward and outward impressions in his life time; and whose mind is never tinged like that of the ignorant, by the reflexion of anything about him. (Knowledge of truth is vitiated by nothing).