Chapter XIV - Sukra’s reminiscence of his metempsychosis

Argument. Bhrigu and Yama's Expostulation with Sukra, and desiring him to return to his former state.

Vasishtha said:—

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Now as Yama and Bhrigu departed from the cavern of the Mandara mountain, and proceeded towards the bank of Samanga river:—

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They beheld upon their descending from the mountain, a great light below; proceeding from the bodies of the celestials, sleeping in the arbours of aureate creepers.

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The birds were sporting in their sprays, formed by the cradling creepers under the canopy of heaven; and the lovely antelopes looking face to face, with their eyes resembling the blue lotuses.

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They beheld the Siddhas, sitting on their stony seats upon the elevated rocks; with their bodies full of vigour, and their eyes looking on the spheres with defiance.

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They saw the lords of the elephantine tribe, with their big trunks as large as the palm trees, and plunging in the lakes covered with flowers, falling incessantly from the beachening boughs, and branches of flowering trees.

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They saw the mountain bulls (Bos guavus) dozing in their giddiness, and sitting as ebriety in person; while their bodies were reddened by the red dust of flowers, and their tails flushed with the crimson farina blown by the breeze.

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There were the brisk and beautiful chowry deer serving as flappers of the mountain king, and dousing in the pools filled with falling flowers.

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They saw the Kinnara lads sitting on the tops of straight and stately date trees, and sporting with pelting the date fruits upon one another, which stuck to the reeds below as their fruits.

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They beheld big monkeys, jumping about with their hideous reddish cheeks, and hiding themselves in the coverts of widespreading creepers.

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They saw the Siddhas, to be hit by the celestial damsels with blossoms of mandara flowers, and clad with vests of the tawny clouds by which they were shrouded.

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The uninhabited skirts of the mountain, were as the solitary walks of Buddhist vagrants; and the rivulets at its foot, were gliding with their currents covered under the kunda and mandara flowers, as if they were running to meet the sea, mantled in their yellow vests of the spring season. (It is well known that the vernal vesture of damsels, is of the yellow colour of the farina of flowers, and the rivulets are poetically figured as females hastening towards their lord the sea (saritam-pathih)).

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The trees decorated with wreaths of flowers, and shaken by the breeze, seemed as bacchanals giddy with the honey of the flowers, and rolling their dizzy eyes formed of the fluttering bees.

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They walked about here and there, and looked at and admired the grandeur of the mountain, till at last they alighted on the nether earth, decorated with its cities and human habitations.

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They arrived in a moment at the bank of Samanga, flowing with the loosened flowers of all kinds, as if it were a bed of flowers by itself.

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Bhrigu beheld his son on one of its banks, with his body changed to another form, and his features quite altered from his former state.

16. His limbs were stiff, and his sense at a stand still, as he sat with his mind fixed on steady meditation. He seemed to be long at rest, in order to get his rest from the turmoils of the world.

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He thought upon the course of the currents of the world, which are continually gliding with successive joy and sorrow to man, who gets rid of them after his long trial.

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He became motionless as a wheel, after its long-winded motion; and found his rest after his prolonged whirling, in the whirlpool of the ocean of the world.

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He sat retired as a lover, solely reclined on the thought of his beloved object in his retirement; and his mind was at rest, after its long wanderings.

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He sat in a state of uniform meditation, without a shadow of duplicity in it; and was smiling with a cold apathy at all the pursuits of mankind.

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Liberated from all concerns, and released from the enjoyments of life, and disenthralled from the snare of desires and fancies, he rested in the supreme bliss of the soul.

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His soul was at rest, in the everlasting rest of God; as the pure crystal catches the colour of the gem, which is contiguous to it.

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Bhrigu beheld his son in the calmly composed and awakened state of his mind, and freed alike both from his thoughts of what was desirable, as also from his hatred against what was disgusting. (God is said to be eternally at rest the six days creation, but an act of his Mind, Will, Word, Fiat, Logos or Brahma).

24. [Sanskrit available]
Yama seeing the son of Bhrigu, said to the father in a voice, hoarse as the sounding sea. 'Lo there thy son.'

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"Awake, said he to Bhargava, which startled him from his meditation, as the roaring of a cloud, rouses the slumbering peacock from his summer sleep.

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Upon opening and lifting up his eyes, he beheld the god standing with his father on one side, who being pleased at his sight, glowed in their countenances like the disks of the sun and moon.

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He rose from his seat of Kadamba leaves, and made his obeisance to them, who appeared to have come to him like the gods Hari and Hara in the disguise of a couple of Brahmans.

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After their mutual salutations, they were seated on a slab of stone, and appeared as the venerable gods Vishnu and Siva, were seated on the pinnacle of Meru.

29. [Sanskrit available]
The Brahman boy, having ended the muttering of his mantras on the bank of Samanga, accosted them with a voice distilling as the sweet nectarine juice of ambrosia amrita or water of life (aqua-vitae or abi haiyat).

30. [Sanskrit available]
"I am emancipated, my lords, at your sight this day (from all earthly cares), as you have blessed me by your sights, resembling those of the sun and moon, appearing together to view. (Lit. as the orbs of the cooling and dazzling beams. (himansu and ushnansu)).

31. [Sanskrit available]
The darkness, which reigned in my mind, and which no light of the sastras or spiritual or temporal knowledge, nor even my austerities could remove, is dispelled today by the light of your presence.

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A kind look of the great, gives as much joy to the mind, as draughts of pure ambrosia, serve to satisfy the heart.

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Tell me who are you, whose feet have sanctified this place;as the glorious orbs of the day and night, enlighten the firmament.

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Being addressed in this manner, Bhrigu desired him to remember his prior births, which he could well do, by his enlightened understanding.

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Bhrigu made him acquainted with the state of his former birth, and he remembered it instantly by the clairvoyance of his inward sight.

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He was struck with wonder at the remembrance of his former state, and smiled with a joyous face and gladsome heart, to ponder on what he had been; and then uttered as follows.

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Blessed is the law of the Supreme Being, which is without its beginning or end, and is known as destiny here below; and by whose power the world is revolving as a curricle.

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I see my countless and unknown births, and the innumerable accidents to which they were subject, for the period of a whole kalpa or duration of the world from first to last. (The Soul being immortal, has to pass into infinite births under various shapes and forms of bodies. If it were to lie dormant in the grave for ever what is the good of its being made or created to be immortal?)

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I have undergone great hardships, and known prosperity also with the toil of earning; have had my wanderings also in different lives, and remember to have roamed for a long time, over the mountainous regions of Meru.

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I drank the water reddened with the pollen of mandara flowers, and roved along the bank of the heavenly stream of Mandakini filled with lotuses.

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I wandered about the Mandara groves, filled with flowering creepers like gold, and under the shade of the kalpa arbors of Meru, and in the flowery plains above and about it.

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There is naught of good or evil, which I have not tasted or felt or done myself; nor is there anything, which I have not seen and felt and known in my past lives.

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I have now known the knowable (that is to be known), and seen the imperishable one in whom I have my repose. I have now rested after my toils were over, and have passed beyond the domain of error and darkness.

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Now rise, O father! and let us go to see that body, lying on the Mandara mount, and which is now dried as a withered plant.

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I have no desire to remain in this place, nor go anywhere of my own will; it is only to see the works of fate, that we wander all about.

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I will follow you, with my firm belief in the one adored Deity of the learned. Let that be the desirable object of my mind, and I will act exactly in conformity with my belief.