CHAPTER CXXXI. Bhása’s Account of the Worlds and his Journeys throughout.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Argument:—There is no substantive world, separate from the thoughts in the Eternal mind.
Dasaratha said:—I understand that Vipaschit has acted unwisely, in taking so much pains in his wanderings for a knowledge of the spheres; because it is all in vain to inquire into unrealities and useless matters, and it was his ignorance or avidyá alone, that led him to the search.
2. Válmíki related:—At this moment the sage Viswámitra, who was sitting beside the king; oped his mouth and said on the subject now under consideration.
3. Viswámitra said:—O king, there are many such men, who without a good understanding, and for want of best knowledge; are apt to think that all things are possible to be known by them.
4. Hence it is that the sons of king Vatadhána, have been wandering in this manner, and for very many years, in search of true knowledge, all over this earth, and without ever being able to arrive at it.
5. It is for exploring the limits of this earth, that they have been employed with ceaseless toil and unwearied labour, as a river runs in its incessant course for ever.
6. This great world (the earth), is situated as an orb in the air, like an imaginary tree of boys growing in the sky, or as a toy ball of fanciful Brahmá, rolling about in empty air.
7. As creeping emmets move about a sugar ball, without falling off from it; so do all living bodies move about their support of this earth, which is sustained in the empty air.
8. Those that are situated on the lower surface of this globe, are moving thereabouts as erectly, as those that are on its upper side (and though this earth is turning up and down yet no one sides away from it).
9. The sun, moon and planets, together with the starry frame and the heavenly stream (the milky way); are attracted to turn round it incessantly, without ever coming in contact with it.
10. The sky girds and surrounds it on all sides, though the firmament appears to be above our heads, and the earth below our feet.
11. The living beings below the earth, are both moving downward or flying upward, as the beasts and birds on the upper side of it; and the region to which they fly is called the upper sky (whether it be in this or that side of it).
12. There is on some part of this earth, a warrior race by name of Vatadhánas; and there were born three princes of this royal family, in days of yore (and are said to be living still).
13. They were firmly intent like Vipaschit, to know the limits of the visible world; and set out in their journey to explore the same, with a firm and unfailing resolution.
14. They passed from the land to water, and the waters to other lands again; and thus they passed many lives and ages, in their repeated inquiries with their resuscitated bodies in reiterated births (because the steady pursuit of one, follows him in his successive births).
15. Thus wandering for ever all about the earth, they like ants moving on a sweet cake, found no end of it, nor reached to any other spot, beyond the same even in their thought of another one.
16. They are still turning around it in the air, like busy emmets about a roll; and they are yet in the same search without being tired of it. (Alexander said, “Earth is this thy end?” but these princes found no end of it).
17. Because whoever stands on any part of the globe, thinks it as the uppermost, and all other places on every side of it, to be lower than it; and so the antipodes below think themselves as upmost.
18. They then said among themselves that, if they could not find the end of the earth all their toil, they must give up the pursuit and remove themselves elsewhere.
19. So it is with this world, O king! which is no more than display of the thoughts of Brahmá; it is a work or creation of the mind only, and a delusion as that of a protracted dream.
20. The mind is the Supreme Brahma, and Brahma is self-same with his very mind; they are both of the form of the intellect, and there is no ＜more＞difference between them, than that of open air and the sky.
21. The intellect operates in itself, like the running waters in whirlpools; and as the eddies and their swelling bubbles, are no other than the very water, so the operations of the mind, are modifications of the mind itself.
22. The sky which is but vacuum, and was a void in the beginning; shows itself in the form of the world; which is neither created nor ever destroyed.
23. Whatever the intellect suggests (from its preconceptions and predilections); the mind (which is the active principle), obeys the same and is inclined in the same way; and continues to view the outer world, as it has ever existed in thought.
24. The visible world is of the same form, and equally imperishable as the intellectual; it is the eternal God that manifests himself in this manner, which is otherwise nothing of itself.
25. There is an atom of the divine Intellect, an infinity of minuter atoms in the shape of ideas, just as there are innumerable stones in the body of a rock; they reside in the spirit of God, and are as translucent as the divine spirit.
26. They abide in their own natures in the unexpanded spirit of God; but they do not live independent of themselves, as there ＜is＞ nothing that is separate from the supreme spirit.
27. Therefore this world is said to be the manifestation of the Divine Mind; and this conclusion ＜is＞ arrived at by the learned, by means of their logical consideration of the antecedent and subsequent (i.e. by both their a priori as well as a posteriori arguments).
28. It is strange therefore that the human soul, should sorrow for its degradation and think itself as a different thing, though it is inseparable from the one universal soul.
29. Now let the so called prince Bhása, who is otherwise known as the mighty monarch Vipaschit by his former appellation; what other strange things, he remembers to have seen, in all his wanderings through worlds.
30. Bhása replied:—I have seen many sights, and wandered untired through many regions; and remember also to have felt various vicissitudes in my life.
31. Hear O king, how much I have known and felt, in my course through remote regions in the spacious firmament on high; and know the joys and griefs, which I have enjoyed and suffered, in my transmigrations in different bodies and distant worlds, from a long long time out of mind.
32. It was by favour of the god of fire, and by the good and bad turns of fate; that I have seen a great many scenes, in my course in various forms and lives, like the revolving waters in a whirlpool, with a calm and constant and resolute mind.
33. Actuated by past reminiscence and misled by mistaken view of visibles; I was impelled by my firm zeal to inquire into all worldly things, in the different forms and changes of my body.
34. I had been an arbour for a thousand years, having my senses undeveloped in me, and feeling the rigours of all climates and seasons within myself. I had no mind nor mental action, save those of drawing the sap of the earth by my roots, and expanding myself into fruits and flowers.
35. I had been a mountain stag for a hundred years, with my skin of golden hue, and my ears as flat as leaves of trees; I fed on blades of grass, was charmed with all kinds of music, and being the weakest of all animals of the forest, I could do no injury to any one.
36. I lived for half a century as a Sarabha, a wild animal with eight legs; I dwelt in the caves of Krancha mountain, and brought on my death by falling down from a craig, in attempting to fight with the raining clouds on high. (The Sarabha is a fabulous beast that dies by jumping down the hill).
37. I had also been born once as Vidyádhara, and had lived upon the table land of Malaya mountains, and amidst the happy bowers of Mandara, redolent with the sweet scent of sandal woods and kadamba flowers. Here I have breathed the sweet air perfumed by gum agallochum, and enjoyed the company of Vidyádharí-fairies.
38. I was born as a cygnet of the swan of Brahmá, and tasted the honey of aureate lotuses for more than a century, and sported on the banks of the heavenly stream of Mandakiní, on the celestial mount of Meru.
39. For a hundred years, I remained by the side of milky ocean, feeling the cooling breezes wafting the moisture of its waves, and the fragrance of the forests and listening to the songs of the songsters of springs, which join to vanish the infirmities and sorrows of life.