CHAPTER XXVII. Past Lives of Lílá.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
41. Here I was initiated in the formularies for removing the curse of womanhood, and became as a male being in the person of the handsome prince of Suráshtra (Surat), where I reigned for a hundred years (or for a whole century).
42. I was then denounced to become a weasel, and covered with leprosy, in the lowlands of Táli, on account of my misconduct in the government.
43. I remember, O goddess! how I became a bullock at Surat, and was goaded by thoughtless cowherd boys, in their merry sport for full eight years.
44. I bear in mind when I was transformed to a bird, and with what difficulty I broke the net, that was laid by birdcatchers for my destruction. It was in the same manner as we release ourselves from the snares of sinful desires.
45. I remember with pleasure when as a bee, I lighted lightly on the leaflets of blossoms, sipped the honey of the blooming buds, dined on the pistils, and slept in the cups of lotus flowers.
46. I wandered about in pleasant wood-lands and lawns, with my exalted and branching horns and beautiful eyes, in the form of an antelope, till I was killed by the dart of a huntsman in my mortal part.
47. I have been in the form of a fish, and was lifted up by the waves of the sea above the surface of the water. I saw how a tortoise was killed by the blow of a club on the neck, when it failed to break its back-bone.
48. I was a Chandála huntsman once, roving by the side of Charmanvatí (the river Chenab), when I used to quench my thirst with cocoa water, as I was tired with roaming.
49. I became a stork also, delighting in lakes with my mate, and filling the air with our sweet cries.
50. In another birth, I rambled about in groves of palm and tamála trees, and fixed my eyes with amorous looks and glances upon my lover.
51. I had next been a fairy Apsará, with a form as bright as melted gold, and features as beautiful as those of the lotus and lily, in which the celestials like bees and butterflies, used to take delight.
52. I remember to have decked myself in gold and pearls, and in gems and rubies upon earth, and to have sported with my youthful consorts in pleasure gardens and groves, and on hills and mountains.
53. And I remember also to have lived long as a tortoise on the borders of a river, and to have been carried away by the waves, sometimes under an arbour of creepers, over-hung with clusters of beautiful flowers; and at others to some wild cave washed by the waves.
54. I see how I acted the part of a goose with my covering of feathers, swimming on the high heaving waves on the surface of a lake.
55. Then seeing a poor gnat hanging on the moving leaf of a Sálmali branch, I became its associate and as contemptible a thing like itself.
56. I became an aquatic crane also, skimming playfully over the waters gushing from the hills, and slightly kissing the crests of the waves rising over the rapid torrent.
57. I remember also how I slighted the loves of amorous youths, and spurned off from me the Vidyádhara boys on the Gandha Mádana and Mandara hills.
58. I remember likewise the pangs of a lovelorn lass, when I lay pining in my bed, strewn over with the fragrance of camphor, and how I was decaying like the disk of the waning moon.
59. Thus I passed through many births, in the wombs of higher and lower animals, and found them all to be full of pain. And my soul has run over the billows of the irresistible current of life, like the fleet antelope, pacing its speed with the swiftness of the wind (Vátapramí).