CHAPTER XVI. RESUSCITATION OF SUKRA.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Argument. Sukra’s Revival at the word of Yama, and his becoming the preceptor of Daityas.
Vasishtha continued:—Then the god Yama, interrupted the long lamentation of Sukra, and addressed him in words, sounding as deep as the roaring of a cloud.
2. Yama said:—Now, O Sukra! cast off thy body of the Samangá devotee, and enter this dead body in the manner of a prince entering his palace.
3. Thou shalt perform austere devotion with this thy first born body, and obtain by virtue of that, the preceptorship of the Daitya tribe.
4. Then at the end of the great kalpa, thou shalt have to shuffle off thy mortal coil for ever, as one casts off a faded flower.
5. Having attained the state of living liberation, by merit of thy prior acts; thou shalt continue in the preceptorship of the leader of the great Asuras for ever.
6. Fare you well, we shall now depart to our desired habitation; know for certain that there is nothing desirable to the mind, which it cannot accomplish (by perseverance).
7. Saying so, the god vanished from before the weeping father and son, and moved amidst the burning sky, like the dispenser of light (sun).
8. After the god had gone to the place of his destination, and gained his destined state among the gods, the Bhrigus remained to ruminate on the inexplicable and unalterable course of destiny (or divine ordinance).
9. Sukra entered into his withered corpse, as the season of spring enters into a faded plant, in order to adorn it again with its vernal bloom, and its re-springing blossoms.
10. His Bráhmanical body fell down immediately on the ground, staggering as when a tree is felled or falls down with its uprooted trunk; and it became disfigured in a moment in its face and limbs.
11. The old sage Bhrigu finding the revivification of the dead body of his son, sanctified it with propitiatory mantras and sprinkling of water, from his sacerdotal water pot (kamandalu).
12. The veins and arteries and all the cells and cavities of the dead body, were again supplied with their circulating blood; as the dry beds of rivers, are filled again with floods of water in the rainy weather.
13. The body being filled with blood, gave the limbs to bloom; like the growth of lotuses in rainy lakes, and the bursting of new shoots and buds in vernal plants.
14. Sukra then rose up from the ground, breathing the breath of life, like the cloud ascending to the sky by force of the winds.
15. He bowed down to his father, standing in his holy figure before him; as the rising cloud clings to, and kisses the foot of the lofty mountain.
16. The father then embraced the revived body of his son, and shed a flood of his affectionate tears upon him; as the high risen cloud washes the mountain top with showers.
17. Bhrigu looked with affection on the new risen old body of his son; and smiled to see the resuscitation of the body that was begotten by him.
18. He was pleased to know him as the son born of himself; and to find his features engrafted in him.
19. Thus the son and sire graced each other by their company, as the sun and lotus-lake rejoice to see one another, after the shade of night.
20. They rejoiced at their reunion, like the loving pair of swans at the end of the night of their separation; and as the joyous couple of peacocks, at the approach of the rainy clouds.
21. The worthy sire and son, sat awhile on the spot, to halt after all their toils and troubles were at an end, and then they rose up to discharge the duties that were then at hand.
22. They then set fire to the body of the Samangá Bráhman, and reduced it to ashes; for who is there among the earth-born mortals, that ought to set at naught aught of the customary usages of his country?
23. Afterwards the two devotees Bhrigu and Bhárgava, continued to dwell in that forest, like the two luminaries—the sun and moon, in the region of the sky.
24. They both continued as the living liberated guides of men, by their knowledge of all that was to be known; and preserving the equanimity of their minds, and the steadiness of their dispositions, amidst all the vicissitudes of time and place (and the changes of their fortune and circumstances).
25. In course of time Sukra obtained the preceptorship of the demons, and Bhrigu remained in his patriarchal rank and authority among the sons of men (mánavas).
26. Thus the son of Bhrigu, who was born as Sukra at first, was gradually led away from his holy state by his thought of the heavenly nymph, and subjected to various states of life to which he was prone (by the bent of his mind and inward proclivities).