The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, vol. 3 (of 4) part 2 (of 2)-28

59. Nature being nothing in reality, but the states and

powers of things; and these are seen some times to differ from

one another, as the autumnal fruits are found to grow in the

spring at Assam (these varieties also called their nature).

60. Vasishtha replied:—All this universe is one Brahma or

the immensity of God, and all its variety is the unity of the[Pg 450]

same. (i.e. the various modalities of the unvaried one); these

different existences and appearances, are only our verbal distinctions

for ordinary purposes, and proceeding from our ignorance

of the true nature of Brahmá. We know not why these

words concerning divine nature, which are irrelevant to the

main subject, are introduced in this place.

61. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, how our bodies are thinned

as well as thickened, in order to enter into very narrow

passages as also to feel and occupy large spaces (by means of

the anima and garima yogas, of minimizing the body to an

atomic spright and of magnifying it to a stalwart giant).

62. Vasishtha replied:—As the attrition of the wood and

saw, causes a split in the midst; and as the friction of two things

(as of a flint and stone) produces a fire between them, in the

same manner doth the confrication of the inhaling and exhaling

breath, divide the two prána and apána gases, and produce the

jatharágni in the abdomen. (The prána air is explained elsewhere

as passing from the heart through the mouth and nostrils,

and the apána as that which passes from the region of the navel

to the great toe. The jatharágni is rendered some where as gastric fire).

63. There is a muscle in the abdominal part of these ugly

machine of the internal body, which extends as a pair of bellows

both above and below the navel, with their mouths joined together

and shaking to and fro like a willow moved by the water and air.

64. It is under this bladder that the kundaliní artery rest

in her quiescent state; and ties as a string of pears in a casket

of the yellow padmariya james. (This place under the navel

is called the múládhára, whence the aorta strength upwards

and downwards).

65. Here the kundaliní string turns and twirls round like

a string beads counted about the finger; and coils also with its

reflected head and a hissing sound like the hood of a snake

stricken by a stick (it requires too much anatomy to show these

operations of the arteries).

66. It thrills in the string of the lotus like heart, as a bee

flutters over the honey cup of the lotus flower; and it kindles

our knowledge in the body like the luminous sun amidst the[Pg 451]

earth and sky. (It gives action to the heart string, which

arises its cognitive faculties).

67. It is then that the action of the heart, moves all the blood

vessels in the body to their several functions; as the breeze of

the outer air, shakes the leaves of trees.

68. As the high winds rage in the sky and break down the

weaker leaves of the branches of trees, so do the vital airs coil

in the body and crush the soft food, that has been taken in the

stomach.

69. As the winds of the air batter the lotus leaves, and at

last dissolve them into the native element; so the internal

winds break down the food like the leaves of trees, and convert

the food ingested in the stomach into chyle, blood, flesh, skin,

fat, marrow and bones one after another.

70. The internal airs clash against one another the produce

of the gastric fire, as the bamboos in the wood produce the living

fire by their friction.

71. The body which is naturally cold and cold-blooded, becomes

heated in all its parts by this internal heat, as every part

of the world becomes warmed by the warmth of the sun.

72. This internal fire which pervades throughout the frame

and flutters like golden bees over the loti-form heart, is meditated

upon as twinkling stars in the minds of the ascetic yogis.

73. Reflections of these lights are attended with the full

blaze of intellectual light, whereby the meditative yogi sees in

his heart objects, which are situated at the distance of millions

of miles from him. (This is called the consummation of clairvoyance

or divyadrishti).

74. This culinary fire being continually fed by the fuel of

food, continues to burn in the lake of the lotus-like muscle of

the heart, as the submarine fire burns latent in the waters of

the seas.

75. But the clear and cold light which is the soul of the

body, bears the name of the serene moon; and because it is the

product of the other fire of the body, thence called the sumágni

or the residence of the moon and fire (its two presiding divinities).

[Pg 452]

76. All hotter lights in the world are known by the names

of suns (as the planetary and cometary bodies); and all colder

lights are designated as moons (as the stars and satellites) and

as these two lights cherish the world, it is named as the suryágni

and somágni also.

77. Know after all the world to be a manifestation of the

combination of intelligence and ignorance (i.e. of the intellect

and soul matter), as also of an admixture of reality and unreality

among who has made it as such in himself manifest in this form.

78. The learned call the light of intelligence, by the terms

knowledge, sun and fire, and designate the unrealities of ignorance,

by the names of dullness and darkness, ignorance and the

coldness of the moon. (i.e. There are antithetical words expressive

of Intelligence and ignorance; the former designated

as the light of knowledge and reason, the daylight and the light

of lamp &c., and the latter as the darkness of night, and the

coldness of frost &c.).

79. Ráma said:—I well understand that the product of the

air of breath &c. (by their friction as said before); and that the

air proceeds from the moon, but tell me sir, whence comes

the moon into existence?

80. Vasishtha replied:—The fire and moon are the mutual

causes and effects of one another, as they are mutually productive

as well as destructive of each other by turns.

81. Their production is by alternation as that of the seed

and its sprout (of which no body knows is the cause or effect

of the other). Their reiteration is as the return of day and night,

(of which we know not which precedes the other). They last

awhile and are lost instantly like the succession of light and

shade (the one producing as also destroying the other).

82. When these opposites come to take place at the one and

same time, you see them stand side by side as in the case of the

light and shade occurring into the daytime, but when they occur

at different times, you then see the one only at a time without

any trace of the other, as in the occurrence of the daylight and

nocturnal gloom by turns. (These two are instances of the

simultaneous and separate occurrence of the opposites. Gloss).

[Pg 453]

83. I have also told you of two kinds of causality; namely,

the one in which the cause is co-existent with its effect, and

the other wherein the effect comes to appearance after disappearance

of its cause or the antecedent.

84. It is called the synchronous causation which is coeval

with its effect, as the seed is coexistent with its germ, and the

tree is contemporaneous with the produced seed.

85. The other is named the antecedent or preterite cause,

which disappears before the appearance of its consequent effect;

as the disappearance of the day is the cause of its subsequent

night; and the preteriteness of the night, causes the retardation

of the following day. (In plain words it is the concurrence

and distance of the cause and effect, called the [Sanskrit: samaváyo] and

[Sanskrit: amasáváyo kárana] or the united or separate causality in Nyáya-terminology).

86. The former kind of the united cause and effect (called

the [Sanskrit: sadrúpa parináma] i.e. the presence of both causality and its

effectuality); is exemplified in the instance of the doer and the

earthen pot, both of which are in existence; and this being

evident to sight, requires no example to elucidate it.

87. The kind of the disunited cause and effect (called the

[Sanskrit: binásharúpa parináma]) in which the effect is unassociated with its

(cause); the succession of day and night to one another, is

a sufficient proof of the absence of its antecedent causality.

(This serves as an instance of an unknown cause, and hence

we infer the existence of a pristine darkness, prior to the

birth of day-light [Sanskrit: tame ásít] teomerant).

88. The rationalists that deny the causality of an unevident

cause, are to be disregarded as fools for ignoring their own convictions,

and must be spurned with contempt. (They deny the

causality of the day and night to bring one another by their

rotation which no sensible being (can ignore). They say [Sanskrit: dinasá

rátri nirmmasa katritamsti])

89. Know Ráma, that an unknown and absent cause is as

evident as any present and palpable cause, which is perceptible

to the senses; for who can deny the fact, that it is the absence[Pg 454]

of fire that produces the cold, and which is quite evident

to every living body.

90. See Ráma, how the fire ascends upward in the air in

form of fumes, which take the shape of clouds in the azure sky,

which being transformed afterwards into fire (electricity);

becomes the immediate cause of the moon (by its presence

[Sanskrit: ájnát kárana]).

91. Again the fire being extinguished by cold, sends its

watery particles upwards, and this moisture produces the moon,

as the absent or remote cause of the same. ([Sanskrit: mauna kárana]).

92. The submarine fire likewise that falls into the feeding

on the foulness of the seven oceans, and swallows their briny

waters, disgorges their gases and fumes in the open air, and

these flying to the upper sky in the form of clouds, drop down

their purified waters in the form of sweet milky fluids in the

milky ocean (which gives birth to the milk white moon).

(It is said that there is an apparatus in the bosom of the clouds,

for purifying the impure waters rising in vapours in the atmosphere

from the earth and seas below).

93. The hot sun also devours the frigid ball of the moon or

(the moon beams), in the conjunction at the dark fortnight

(amávasya), and then ejects her out in their opposition in the

bright half of every month, as the stork throws off the tender

stalk of the lotus which it has taken. (The sun is represented to

feed on, and let out the moon beams by turns in every month).

94. Again the winds that suck up the heat and moisture

of the earth in the vernal and hot weather, drop them down as

rain water in the rainy season, which serves to renovate the body

of exhausted nature. (This passage is explained in many ways

from the homonymous word some of which it is composed;

and which severally means the moon, the handsome, the soma

plant and its juice).

95. The earthly water being carried up by the sun beams,

which are called his karas or hands, are converted into the

solar rays, which are the immediate cause of fire. (Here the

water which is by its nature opposed to fire, becomes the cause

of that element also).

[Pg 455]

96. Here the water becomes fire both by privation of its

fluidity and frigidity, which is the remote cause of its formation

as also by its acquirement of aridity or dryness and calidity or

warmth; which is the immediate of its transformation to the

igneous element. (This is an instance of the double or mixed

causality of water in the production of fire. Gloss).

97. The fire being absent, there remains the presence of the

moon; and the absence of the moon, presents the presence of fire.

98. Again the fire being destroyed, the moon takes its

place; in the same manner, as the departure of the day introduces

the night in lieu of it.

99. Now in the interval of day and night, and in the

interim of daylight and darkness, and in the midst of shade

and light, there is a midmost point and a certain figure in it,

which is unknown to the learned. (This point which is

neither this nor that, nor this thing or any other, is the state

of the inscrutable Brahma).

100. That point is no nullity nor an empty vacuity (because

it is neither the one or the other). Nor it is a positive

entity and the real pivot and connecting link of both sides.

It never changes its central place between both extremes of this

and that, or the two states of being and not being.

101. It is by means of the two opposite principles of the

intelligent soul and inert matter, that all things exist in the

universe; in the same manner, as the two contraries of light

and darkness bring on the day and night in regular succession.

(so the self moving and self shining sun is followed by the

dull and dark moon, which moves and shines with her borrowed

force and light).

102. As the course of the world commenced with the

union of mind and matter, or the mover and the moved from

the beginning; so the body of the moon, came to be formed

by an admixture of aqueous and nectarious particles in the air.

(The body of the moon formed of the frozen waters, were early

impregnated with the ambrosial beams of the sun). (This

bespeaks of the creation of the solar orb prior to the formation

of the satellite of the earth).

[Pg 456]

103. Know Ráma, the beams of the sun to be composed of

fire or igneous particles, and the solar light to be the effulgence

of the intellect; and the body of the moon to be but a mass of

dull darkness (unless it is lighted by its borrowed light from

the sun). (The sun is said to shine with intellectual light,

because it disperses the outer gloom of the world, as the other

removes the darkness of the mind. Gloss).

104. The sight of the outward sun in the sky, destroys the

out spreading darkness of night; but the appearance of the

intellectual luminary, dispels the overspreading gloom of the

world from the mind.

105. But if you behold your intellect in the form of the

cooling moon, it becomes as dull and cold as that satellite

itself; just as if you look at a lotus at night, you will not find

it to be as blooming as at sunshine (but may be at the danger

of contracting lunacy or stupefaction of the intellect by

looking long at the cold luminary).

106. Fire in the form of sun light enlightens the moon,

in the same manner as the light of the intellect illumes the

inner body (lingadeha); our consciousness is as the moonlight

of the inner soul, and is the product of the sun beams of our

intellect. (So says the Bharata:—As the sun illumes the

worlds so doth the intellect enlighten the soul).

107. The intellect has no action, it is therefore without

attribute or appellation; it is like light on the lamp of the soul,

and is known as any common light from the lantern which

shows it to the sight.

108. The avidity of this intellectual after the knowledge

of the intelligibles, brings it to the intelligence of the sensible

world; but its thirst after the unintelligible one, is attended

with the precious gain of its Kaivalya or oneness with the

self same one. (Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for spiritual

knowledge, for they shall verily be satisfied therewith).

109. The two powers of the fire and moon (agni-soma),

are to be known as united with one another in the form of the

body and its soul, and their union is expressed in the scriptures

as the contact of the light and lighted room with one another,[Pg 457]

as the reflexion of the sunshine on the wall. (The two powers

of igneous and lunar lights are represented in the conjoined

bodies of the Agni soma deities).

110. They are also known to be separately of themselves, in

different bodies and at different times; such as bodies addicted

to dullness, are said to be actuated by the lunar influence; and

persons advancing in their spirituality, are said to be led on

by force of the solar power.

111. The rising breath (prána) which of its nature hot and

warm, is said to be Agni's or igneous; and setting breath of

apána which is cold and slow is termed the soma or lunar, they

abide as the light and shade in every body, the one rising upward

and passing by the mouth, and the other going down by

the anus.

112. The apána being cooled gives rise to the fiery hot

breath of prána, which remains in the body like the reflexion

of something in a mirror.

113. The light of the intellect produces the brightness of

consciousness, and the sun-beams reflect themselves as lunar

orbs; in the dew drops on lotus leaves at early dawn.

114. There was a certain consciousness in the beginning of

creation, which with its properties of heat and cold as those of

agni and soma; came to be combined together in the formation

of human body and mind.

115. Strive Ráma, to settle yourself at that position

of the distance of out side the mouth apána, where the sun

and moon of the body (i.e. the prána and apána breaths)

meet in conjunction—amávasya.

[Pg 458]

CHAPTER LXXXII.

Yoga instructions for Acquirement of the supernatural

Powers of Anima-Minuteness &c.

Argument:—Means of acquiring the Quadruple Capacities of Anima

minima, Mahima-maxima, Laghima-lightness and Garima-heaviness, together

with the power of entering into the bodies of others.

VASISHTHA continued:—Hear me now tell you, how the

bodies of yogis are capable of expansion and contraction

at will; as to be multum in parvo; and parvum in multo.

2. There is above the lotus-like diaphragm of the heart,

a blazing fire emitting its sparks, like gold coloured butterflies

flirting about it, and flaring as flashes of lightning in the

evening clouds. (This is the jatharágni or culinary fire).

3. It is fanned and roused by the enkindling animal

spirit, which blows over it as with the breath of the wind; it

pervades the whole body without burning it, and shines as

brightly as the sun in the form of our consciousness.

4. Being then kindled into a blaze in an instant, like

the early raise of the rising sun gleaming upon the morning

clouds; it melts down the whole body (to its toes and nails),

as the burning furnace dissolves the gold in the crucible. (It

is impossible to make out anything of this allegory).

5. Being unextinguishable by water, it burns the whole

outer body down to the feet; and then it coils inside the body,

and remains in the form of the mind in the ativáhika or

spiritual body of man. (It is hard to find out the hidden

sense of this passage also).

6. Having then reduced the inner body likewise, it becomes

lifeless of itself; and becomes extinct as the frost at the

blowing of winds (or blast of a tempest).

7. The force of the Kundaliní or intestinal canal, being put

out to the fundamental artery of the rectum; remains in the

vacuity of the spiritual body, like a shadow of the smoke of fire.

[Pg 459]

8. This smoky shade parades over the heart like a swarthy

maiden, and encloses in her bosom the subtile body composed

of its mind and understanding, the living principle and its

egoism.

9. It has the power to enter into the porous fibres of

lotuses to penetrate the rocks, to stretch over the grass, to

pop into houses and stones, to pry in the sky and ply in the

ground, and remain and move about everywhere in the manner

it likes of its own will. (This power is called sakti or energy

which is omnipotent).

10. This power produces consciousness and sensibility, by

the sap and serum which it supplies to the whole body; and

is itself filled with juice, like a leather bag that is dipped into

a well or water.

11. This great artery of Kundaliní being filled with gastric

juice, forms the body in any shape it likes; as an artist draws

the lines of a picture in any form, as it is pictured in his mind.

(Hence it depends on the gastric artery to extend and sketch

out the body according to its own plan).

12. It supplies the embryonic seed placed in the foetus

of the mother, with the power of its evolution into the fleshy

and bony parts of its future body; as the tender sprout of the

vegetative seed, waxes in time to a hard woody tree. (The

act of evolution is attributed in the text to the triple causality

of the physical nutrition in the stomach, the metaphysical

cause of the intensity of thought in the growing mind, and

the psychological tendency of the soul, produced from the

fourth and prime cause of its prior propensity, which is inbred

in grain and essential nature of every being, the intense

thought is called [Sanskrit: hridaya bhávná]).

13. Know Ráma, this certain truth which is acknowledged

by the wise, that the living principles acquire its desired

state and stature, be it that of a mountain or bit of straw.

(This passage supports the free agency of man to go in either

way in opposition to the doctrine of blind fatalism, and the

arbitrary power of the Divine will).

[Pg 460]

14. You have heard, O Ráma! of certain powers as of diminishing

and increasing the bulk and stature of the body, attainable

by the practice of yoga; you will now hear me give you

an interesting lecture, regarding the attainment of these capacities

by means of knowledge or jnána. (This is the theory

or theoretical part of the practice or practical art of yoga).

15. Know for certain that there is but only one intelligent

principle of the Intellect, which is inscrutable, pure and most

charming; which is minuter than the minutest, perfectly

tranquil and is nothing of the mundane world or any of its

actions or properties.

16. The same chit—intellect being collected in itself into

an individuality (by its power of chayana integration) from the

undivided whole, and assuming the power of will or volition—sankalpa

itself, becomes the living soul by transformation of

its pure nature to an impure one. (This power of integration

is said to be a fallacy adhyása or misconception—adhyáropa of

human mind, which attributes a certain quality to a thing by

mistake or áropa as [Sanskrit: paratra parábabhásah]: or mistaking a thing for

another e. g. [Sanskrit: shuktau ratrátávadábhásah]: i.e. taking the shell for silver

from its outward appearance.)

17. The will is a fallacy, and the body is a mistake;

(because there is no mutation of volition or personality of the

infinite intellect); and the ignorant alone distinguish the living

soul from the universal spirit, as the ignorant boy sees the

demon in a shadow. (All these are false attributes of the true

one).

18. When the lamp of knowledge brings the mind to the

full light of truth, then the error of volition is removed from

the living soul, as the cloud of the rainy weather are dissipated

in Autumn.

19. The body has its rest, after the wishes have subsided in

the mind; just as the lamp is extinguished after its oil is

exhausted. (Mental anxieties cause the restlessness of the body).

20. The soul that sees the truth, has no more the knowledge

of his body; as the man awakened from his sleep, has no

longer the apparitions of his dream appearing before him.

[Pg 461]

21. It is the mistaking of the unreal for the real or what

is the same, the ascribing of reality to the unreality that

gives the colour of reality to false material bodies; but the

knowledge of the truth removes the error of the corporal body,

and restore the soul to its wonted splendour and true felicity.

22. But the error of taking the material body for the immaterial

soul, is so deep rooted in the mind; that it is as difficult

to remove, as it is for the strongest sun beams to perceive the

mental gloom of men.

23. This impervious darkness of the mind, is only to be

perceived by the sun-shine of knowledge; that our soul is the

seat of immaculate and all pervading spirit of God, and that

I myself am no other than the pure intellect which is in me.

(The anal Huq of Mansur).

24. Those that have known the supreme soul meditate on

it in this manner in their own souls, until they find themselves

to be assimilated to the same by their extensive thought of it.

(Here we have the curious doctrine of strong thought drirha-bhávaná

of Vasishtha again which inculcates the possibility of

one's being whatever he strongly thinks himself to be. It is

allied to the doctrine of the strength of belief—faith and bhakti

of others).

25. It is hence, O Ráma! that some men convert the deadly

poison to sweet ambrosial food, and change the delicious nectar

to bitter gall. (Thus Siva the God and yogi converts the

snake poison to his food and the sweets offered to his topmost

mouth to the bitterest bane).

26. So whatever is thought upon with intensity in any manner

and on any occasion, the same comes to take place as it is

seen in many instances.

27. The body when seen in the light of a reality, is found to

be a real existence; but being looked upon as an unreality, it

vanishes into nothing (or it mixes in the vacuity of Brahma).

28. You have thus heard from me, o righteous Ráma! the

theoretical mode (jnána-yukti) of attaining the capacities of

magnifying and minimizing one's person at will; I will now[Pg 462]

tell you of another method of gaining these powers, to which

you shall have now to attend.

29. You can practice by exhalation of your rechaka breath,

to extract your vital power (life) from the cell of your Kundaliní

artery, and infuse it into another body; as the winds of the air,

carry the fragrance of flowers into the nostrils. (This is the

mode of ones forsaking its own body in order to enliven

another).

30. The former body is left lifeless like a log of wood or

block of stone, and such is the relation between the body and

life; as that of a bucket and its water, which is powered out to

enliven the plants.

31. Thus is the life infused in all movable and immovable

things, in order to enjoy the pleasures of their particular states

at its pleasure.

32. The living soul having relished the bliss of its consummate

state, returns to its former body if it is still in existence,

or it goes and settles some where else, as it may best suit its

taste.

33. The yogis thus pass into all bodies and live with their

conscious souls, and fill the world also by magnifying their

spirits over all space.

34. The yogi who is lord of himself by his enlightened

understanding, and his knowledge of all things beside their

accompanying evils; obtains in an instant whatever he wants to

have, and which is present before the effulgence of divine

light (anávarana Brahma jyoti).

[Pg 463]

CHAPTER LXXXIII.

Story of the miserly Kiráta.

Argument:—Perfection of Chúdálá and the imbecility of the Prince;

efficacy of instruction and its elucidation in the tale of niggardly Kiráta.

VASISHTHA continued:—Thus the royal dame was possest

of the qualities of contracting and expanding herself to

any form, and became so expert in these by their continued

practice of them;

2. That she made her aerial journey and navigated at

pleasure over the expanse of waters; she moved on the surface

of the earth, as the river Ganges glides on in her silent course.

3. She dwelt in the bosom of her lord, as the goddess of

prosperity abides in the heart of Hari, and travelled in a

moment with her mind over every city and country over the

earth.

4. This fairy lady fled in the air, and flashed like the

lightning with the flashes of her twinkling eyes; she passed as

a shadow over the earth, as a body of clouds passes over a range

of mountains.

5. She passed without any hazard through the grass and

wood, stones and clods of earth, and through fire and water and

air and vacuum, as a thread passes through hole of a heart.

(Milton says:—That with no middle flight, to the heaven

of heavens I have presented through an earthly quest).

6. She lightly skimmed over the mountain peaks, and pryed

through the regions of the regents of all the sides of heaven;

she penetrated into the cavities of the empty womb of vacuity,

and have a pleasant trip whatever she directed in her flight.

(All this is brain action and no reality at all).

7. She conversed freely with all living beings, whether they

move or prone on the ground as the beast of earth, or crawl

upon it as the snakes and insects. She talked with the savage

Pisácha tribes and communicated with men and the immortal[Pg 464]

Gods and demi-gods also. (The clever princess like the far-seeing

seer saw every thing with her mind's eye, and held her

converse (vyavahára) with all).

8. She tried much to communicate her knowledge to her

ignorant husband, but he was no way capable of receiving her

spiritual instruction. (Átmajnána means also her intuitive or self

taught knowledge).

9. He understood her as no other than his young princess

and the mistress of his house, and skilled only in the arts of

coquetry and house wifery (and quite ignorant of higher things

because the ladies of India were barred from spiritual knowledge).

10. Until this time the prince had been ignorant of the

qualifications of the princess Chúdálá, and knew not that she

had made her progress in the spiritual science, as a young

student makes his proficiency in the different branches of learning.

11. She also was as reserved to show her consummate learning

to her unenlightened husband; as a Brahman declines to

show his secret rites to a vile sudra.

12. Ráma said:—If it was impossible, sir, for the seeress

of consummate wisdom to communicate her knowledge to her

husband Sikhidhwaja, with all her endeavours to enlighten him

on the subject; how can it be possible for others, to be conversant

in spiritual knowledge in any other means.

13. Vasishtha answered:—Ráma, it is obedience to the rule

of attending to the precepts of the preceptor, joined with the

intelligence of the pupil, which is the only means of gaining

instruction.

14. The hearing of sermon nor the observance of any

religious rite, is of any efficacy towards the knowledge of the

soul; unless one will employ his own soul, to have the light of

the supreme soul shine upon it. It is the spirit alone that can

know the spirit, as it is the serpent only that can trace out the

path of another serpent.

15. Ráma rejoined:—If such is the course of the world,

that we can learn nothing without the instruction of our preceptors;[Pg 465]

then tell me, O sage! how the precepts of the wise lead

to our spiritual knowledge also.

16. Vasishtha replied:—Hear me Ráma, relate to you a tale

to this effect. There lived an old Kiráta of yore, who was

miserly in his conduct as he was rich in his possessions of

wealth and grains. He dwelt with his family by the side of

the Vindhyan woods, as a poor Brahman lives apart from his kith

and kin.

17. He happened to pass by his native forest at one time,

and slip a single couri from his purse, which fell in a grassy

furze and was lost under the grass.

18. He ran on every side, and beat at the bush for three

days to find out his lost couri, and impelled by his niggardliness

to leave no fallen leaf unturned over the ground.

19. As he searched and turned about, he ran and turned it

ever in his mind, saying:—Ah! this single couri would make

four by its commerce, and that would bring me eight in time,

and this would make a hundred and a thousand, and more and

more by repetition, so I have lost a treasure in this.

20. Thus he counted over and over, over the gains he would

gain, and sighed as often at the loss he did sustain; and took

into no account of the rustic peasantry on his foolish penury.

21. At the end of the third day he came across a rich jewel,

as brilliant as the bright moon in the same forest; which compensated

for the loss of his paltry couri by a thousand fold.