CHAPTER CXIX. Illustration of the Gold-ring.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
39. After all, it can have no real entity, being like the picture of a city and not as the city itself. It is as false as the appearance of limpid water in the desert mirage, and that of the double moon in the sky.
40. As it is the practice of magicians, to show magic cities in the air, by sprinkling handfuls of dust before our eyes; so doth our erroneous consciousness represent the unreal world, as a reality unto us.
41. Unless our inborn ignorance (error) like an arbour of noxious plants, is burnt down to the very root by the flame of right reasoning, it will not cease to spread out its branches, and grow the rankest weeds of our imaginary pleasures and sorrows.