CHAPTER CLVIX. Wandering of Vipaschit.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Argument:—The god of fire, after directing Vipaschit to wander over the world according to his desire, disappeared from his sight.
The god of fire added:—Go now O sapient Vipaschit, to your wished for abodes, and with the steadiness of your mind, conduct with propriety every where on earth.
2. Indra the lord of the assemblage of creatures, has been performing his hundred fold sacrifices in his celestial abode; and there I am invited to attend by an invocation of him.
3. Bhása said:—Saying so, the lord Agni disappeared from that place; and passed through the transparent ether like the electric fire of lightning.
4. I was then led by my predestination to roam about in the air; and direct my mind into the investigation of my allotted acts, and the termination of my ignorance.
5. I beheld again an innumerable host of heavenly bodies, roving about in the air; holding their positions at different stations of the firmament, and containing inhabitants of different natures and customs.
6. Some of these were of one and same form, resembling floating umbrellas in the sky; and attracting the hearts of men, by their shining appearance and slow motion. (The great velocity of heavenly bodies, appear to be slow when they are seen by the naked eyes of men from this distant earth).
7. Some of them are of earthy substance, but shining and moving onward like mountains in motion.
8. Some were of woody appearance, and others of stony substance; but they are all lightsome bodies, and all moving onward in their uninterrupted course.
9. I beheld also some figures like carved statues of stone, standing in the open space of my mind, and talking together all their live-long days.
10. In this manner I beheld for a long while, many such figures like images in my dream, and was quite bewildered in my utter ignorance of them.
11. I then intended to perform my austere devotion, in order to obtain my liberation; when the god Indra appeared unto me and said: “no Vipaschit, you are doomed to become a stag again, and not entitled to your liberation now.”
12. You are propelled by your previous predilection to prefer the pleasures of heaven; therefore I must direct you to dwell in my paradise, and wander there amidst my gardens of mandara trees.
13. Being thus bid by him, I rejoined and said to him: I am weary, O lord, with the troubles of the world, and want to get my release from them; ordain therefore my immediate emancipation from them.
14. The god listened to my prayer and said: emancipation attends on the pure soul, which is purged from all its desires; and this had been already expounded to you by the god of fire (in his narrative of the sage and hunter); ask therefore some other boon, said he, and I begged him to tell me of my next and future state.
15. Indra replied and said:—I find you to be fated to be changed to the state of a deer hereafter, from the fond desire of your heart, to wander about and feed freely in the fields.
16. By becoming a deer, you will have to enter the holy assembly (of Dasaratha); where another deer like you, has obtained his liberation before, by listening to the spiritual instructions formerly delivered there by me.
17. Therefore be born as a deer in some forest on earth with your pensive soul; and you will then come to recollect your past life from its relation by Vasishtha (in the court of king Dasaratha).
18. You will learn there, that all this existence is but the delusion of a dream, and the creation of imagination; and the account of your future life depicted in its true colour.
19. After being released from the body of the deer, you shall regain your human form, and perceive the rays of holy light shining in your inward spirit.
20. This light will then dispel the long prevailing gloom of ignorance from your mind, and then you shall attain your nirvána supineness, as the calm and breathless wind.
21. After the god had said so, I had the presentiment of being a deer in this forest, and entirely forgot my human nature, under my firm conviction of having become a beast.
22. I have been ever since residing in the recess of these woods, under the impression of my being changed to a stag; and feeding ever since upon the grass and herbs growing on the mountain top.
23. Here I saw once a body of troopers coming to a hunting excursion; and being then affrighted at the sight, I betook myself to flight.
24. They then laid hold of me, and took me to their place; where they kept me for some days for their pleasure, and at last brought me hither before Ráma.
25. I have thus related to you all the incidents of my life; and the magical scenes of the world, too full of marvelous events.
26. It is the production of our ignorance, which pervades over all things, and branches out into innumerable forms in everything that presents itself to our view; and there is nothing whatever to dispel this darkness, except by the light of spiritual knowledge.
27. Válmíki relates:—Then as Vipaschit had held his silence after speaking in this manner; he was accosted by the well minded Ráma with the following words.
28. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, how a person without any desire of his own, sees the object of another’s desire in himself; and could the deer thought of by yourself, come to the sight of others in Indra’s Paradise?
29. Vipaschit replied:—Let me tell you that the earth where upon the huge carcass had fallen, was once before trodden upon by Indra, with the pride of his performance of a hundred sacrifices.
30. There strutting along in his haughty strides, he met the anchorite Durvásas sitting still in his meditative mood; and believing him to be a dead body lying on his way, he knocked it down with his feet.
31. At this the angry anchorite threatened the proud god with saying:—O Indra! as you have dashed me with your feet by thinking me a lifeless corpse, so will a huge carcass shortly fall upon this ground and slash it to pieces and reduce it to dust.
32. And as you have spurned me as a dead body, so art thou accursed to be crushed under the falling carcass on earth.
33. He transformed into a deer, as he was king of kings before, and remained in his appearance according to his ideas.
34. In truth neither is the actual world a reality, nor the imaginary one an unreality; it is in fact the one and same thing, whether we conceive it as the one or other (i.e. either as the real or unreal).
35. Listen now, O Ráma, to another reason, which appertains to this subject, and clearly settles the point in question. (That God being Almighty and all in all, it makes no difference whatever, whether the world is viewed as his creation or as a pantheon).
36. He in whom all things reside, and from whom everything proceeds; who is all in all; and who is every where in all must be the One that you may call all, and beside whom there ＜is＞ none at all.
37. It is equally possible to him, to bring forth whatever he wills to produce; as also not to produce, whatever he does not wish to bring to existence.
38. Whatever is desired in earnest by any body, must eventually come to pass to him in reality (as the desired doership of Vipaschit); and this is as true as the instance of light, being ever accompanied by its shade.
39. If it is impossible for the desire and its act, which are opposite in their nature, to meet together in fact; then it would be impossible for the omnifarious God to be all things both in being and not being; therefore the objects of our desire and thought, are equally present with us as the real ones.