Chapter CXXXV - Disappearance of the carcass

Summary: Disappearance of the carcass, and the reappearance of the earth.

Argument:—The corpse was eaten up by the ghosts, and its blood sucked up by the goddess.

Vasishtha resumed and said:—

1. [Sanskrit available]
After the corpse had been partly devoured by the demons, the gods who had been sitting on the polar mount, with Vasava or Indra at their head spoke to one another in the following manner.

2. [Sanskrit available]
Lo! the voracious goblins have not yet wholly devoured the corpse; but flung its fat and flesh into the air to prove the paths of vehicles of Vidyadharas; and these being wafted away and scattered about by the winds, appear as huge masses of clouds overspreading the skies.

3. [Sanskrit available]
See them also throwing away the relics of their food and drink, over the seven continents and oceans of the earth, and making it again to reappear to view (in the forms of its mud and waters).

4. [Sanskrit available]
Alas! that the once delightsome earth, is now polluted by the impure carrion and blood; and covered under the garniture of its forests, as the sky is overshadowed by clouds.

5. [Sanskrit available]
The big bones of its bulky body, form the mountains of this earth;and what is this high Himalaya, but the huge back bone of [the] gigantic skeleton.

Vasishtha said:—

6. [Sanskrit available]
As the gods were speaking in this manner, the demons were employed in the meantime to construct the earth anew with the materials of the carcass, after which they flew in the air, and kept on dancing and flouncing there.

7. [Sanskrit available]
As the ghosts were disporting in their giddy dance in the air, the god commanded the liquid portion of the dead body, to be collected together in one great basin of the ocean the abodes of whales and sharks.

8. [Sanskrit available]
And as this ocean was from the pleasure (gaudium) of the gods, it is thenceforth styled the ocean of wine (or merriment of the deities; in distinctions from the oceans of milk and other beverages).

9. [Sanskrit available]
The demons having done their dancing in the pandemonium in air, come down to drink their full draughts of that Stygian pool; after which they repair to their aerial abysm to dance again.

10. [Sanskrit available]
The demoniac orgies are still wont, to indulge themselves in drinking of that bloody pool; and to dance in their airy circles, in company with their co-partners. (It refers to strong drink and drunken sots).

11. [Sanskrit available]
And because the earth was besmeared, with the fat and flesh (medhas) of the corpse, it is thenceforward termed the medini or corpus. (The earth is said to have been formed of the flesh of the dead body of the demon Madhu, killed by Hari in the beginning of creation).

12. [Sanskrit available]
At [the] last disappearance of the dead body of the demon, there appeared again the succession of day and night; and the lord of creatures having formed all things anew, restored the earth to its former shape. (This is event of the war between the gods and titans of yore).