The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, vol. 3 (of 4) part 2 (of 2)-38

8. He said, tell me, O father, that knowest all righteousness,

how the animal spirit that is bound to the body by means of[Pg 619]

the too thin thread of life, is released from the bondage of it

in this temporary world.

9. Brihaspati replied:—The soul, my son, is well able to fly

away easily and swiftly over the perilous ocean of the world,

by means of its abandonment of concerns with it.

10. Vasishtha added:—Kacha hearing this holy dictum of

his father, abandoned all his earthly properties and expectations,

and left his house and went to the forest where he took his shelter.

11. Brihaspati was filled with sorrow at his departure;

because it is the nature of good hearted men, to feel equal anxiety

both at the union as well as the separation of their friends

and inmates.

12. After the sinless Kacha had passed three and five years

in his solitude, he came to meet unawares his reverent father,

seeking for him in the wood.

13. The son rose and did homage to his venerable father,

who embraced him in his arms and to his breast; and then

bespoke to his father—the lord of speech, in words that flowed

like honey from his lips.

14. Kacha said:—You see father, that I have for these

full eight years, forsaken every thing and betaken myself to this

solitary retreat, and still why is it, that I do not enjoy the lovely

and lasting peace of mind which I have been seeking so long?

15. Vasishtha related—Upon hearing these sorrowful words

of Kacha, the lord of speech for Brihaspati told him again to

abandon his all, and then left him and made his way to the

upper sky.

16. After his father's departure, Kacha cast off his mantle

made of the bark and leaves of trees; when his frail body

appeared out of it like the clear autumnal sky, after the setting

of the sun and the stars of heaven.

17. He then removed to another forest, where he took

shelter in the cave of a rock, that defended him from rains and

rainy clouds, as the autumnal sky protects the landscape from

the floods of rain.

18. He lived afterwards all apart on one side of a wood,

with his naked body and tranquil and vacant mind, and[Pg 620]

breathed only the breath of his life; and as he was afflicted on

one occasion in this state of his body and mind, he happened

to see his father standing before him.

19. The pious son rose from his seat, and did reverence to

his sire with all the marks of filial piety; being then clasped in

his close embrace, he asked him in his faltering words as

follows:—

20. Kacha said:—Behold my father how I have forsaken

every thing, and have even cast away my ragged wrapper

and my shelter of reeds and weeds; and yet why is that I do

not find my rest in my god, and what must I yet do to attain

to that state.

21. Brihaspati said:—I told you my son, to forsake your all,

and this all means the mind, which comprehends all things in it;

it is by forsaking your mind that you can gain your perfect felicity,

because the learned know the mind to be all in all, on account

of its being the container of every thing in itself, and there

being nothing, besides the ideas of them in our minds.

22. Vasishtha related:—Saying so, the lord of speech—Brihaspati

flew hastily into the sky; and his son Kacha, strove

henceforth to relinquish the thoughts and operations of his

mind.

23. But as found it impossible to subdue his mind, as also

to suppress its action and motion; he then recalled his father

to his mind, and thought in himself to be got into his presence.

24. He considered in himself, the mind to be no part of his

body, nor anything among the known categories in nature; It

is quite aloof and apart from all, and therefore perfectly guiltless

in itself, why should I then abandon so innocent and constant

a companion of mine.

25. I shall therefore have recourse to my father, to learn

how and why the mind is accounted as the greatest enemy of

men. Learning this fully from him, I will forthwith forsake

it from me, and purchase my felicity thereby.

26. Vasishtha related:—Having thought so, Kacha went

upward to the upper sky, and meeting the lord of speech there,[Pg 621]

he bowed down to him, and did his homage with filial love and

affection.

27. He then called him aside, and asked him to tell him the

true nature and form of the mind, so that he could be enabled

to detect it thereby, and forsake it accordingly from him.

28. Brihaspati answered:—The mind is known as the egoism

of a man, by men acquainted with the mental science or

psychology; the inward feeling of one's egoism, takes the name

of his mind and no more.

29. Kacha rejoined and said:—O sire of unlimited understanding,

that art the preceptor of thirty-three millions of

gods; explain to me this intricate point of identity of the mind

or intellect or egoism.

30. I see the difficulty both of forsaking his mind, as also

of his forgetting his egoism or self-personality; and own also

the impossibility of one's consummation, without his relinquishing

both of these; tell me now, O thou greatest of yogi thinkers,

how is it possible to get rid of them in any wise.

31. Brihaspati answered:—Why my son, the demolition of

our egoism is as easy as the twinkling of our eyelids, and easier

far than the crushing of flowers; and there is not the least

pain in your rejecting this feeling.

32. Now hear my boy tell you how this is to be done in a

trice, and how it is to be removed like long standing bias of

ignorance, by the true knowledge of the nature of a thing.

33. There is no such thing in reality my son, as what you

call your egoism or personality; it is an unreality appearing as

reality, and a false chimera like the ghost of little boys. (Men

fear death as children fear to go in the dark, thinking there

are ghost and goblins lurking therein of Bacon's Essays).

34. Like the fallacy of water in the mirage, and the mistake

of a serpent in the rope; and alike all other errors appearing as

truths, the misconception of egoism is a mere delusion of the

understanding.

35. As it is the delusion of our vision, that represents a

couple of moons in the sky, and shows many things as their[Pg 622]

doubles; so it is the error of our understanding that presents to

us our false egoism, instead of the one real and everlasting ego.

36. There is one real Ego alone, which is without beginning

and end, and quite pellucid in itself; it is more transparent than

the clear atmosphere, and an Intelligence that knows all things.

(Pure omniscience).

37. He is always every where, as the light of all things and

the life of all living beings; It is his essence only that spreads

throughout all nature and shines in all her phenomena, as the

same essence of water, displays itself in all the rolling surges

and waves and moving bubbles in the sea.

38. Such being the case, tell me what is this special egoism

of ours, and how and whence could a separate personality come

to exist; where can you find dust to raise from water, or behold

water to spring from fire. (Things of the same kind spring

from the same source, and the product is never different from

the original).

39. Shun my son your false belief of the difference of this

one and that another, and thyself a quite another person (a tertium

quid); and abstain to think thyself as a mean and contemptible

being confined within the limits of space and time. (i.e.

Know thyself as identic with the boundless and everlasting

spirit and no other).

40. Know thyself (soul) as unbounded by space and time,

and ever overspread all over in thy essential transparency,

which is always the same in all seeming varieties, the one invariable,

pure and simple Intellect.

41. Thyself (soul) is situated, in the fruits, flowers and

leaves of all the trees on every side of thee; and abides in

every thing like the pith and marrow for its subsistence, and

as moisture for its growth. The pure intellect eternally inheres

in every thing as its soul and essence, tell me then O

Kacha, whence you derive the belief of your egoism and personal

existence (as an embodied person).

[Pg 623]

CHAPTER CXII.

A fanciful Being and his Occupation of Air drawn and

Air built Abodes.

Argument:—Man likened to a fantastic being, his egoism a mere

phantasm, and his repeated births and bodies compared to aerial castles.

VASISHTHA related:—Kacha the son of the divine preceptor

Brihaspati, being thus advised by his venerable

sire in the best kind of yoga meditation; began to muse in

himself as one liberated from his personal entity, and lost and

absorbed in essence of the sole and self-existent Deity. So

says the sufi Sadi:—"Dui rachum badar kardam Eke binan Eke

danam. &c." When I kept the duality of my personality out of

my sight, I saw before me all blending in one, ineffable blaze

of light.

2. Kacha remained quite freed from his egoism and meism,

with the tranquillity of his mind, and cut off from all the ties of

nature, and all apart from the bonds of worldly life. So I

advise you, Ráma, to remain unchanged and unmoved amidst

all the changes and movements of earthly bodies and vicissitudes

of a mortal life.

3. Know all egoistic personality to total nihility, and never

hesitate to remove yourself from this asylum of unreality,

whose essence is as nothing at all as the horns of a hare

whether you lay hold on it or lose your grasp of it (and as

inextricable and inexplicable as the horns of a dilemma).

4. If it is impossible for your egoism to be a reality, why

then talk of your birth and demise or your existence and

inexistence; which is as it were planting a tree in the sky, of

which you can neither reap the fruits or flowers.

5. After annihilation of your egoism there remains the sole

ego, which is of the form of intellect only and not that of

fickle mind; It is tranquil and without any desire, and

extends through all existence; it is minuter and more subtile[Pg 624]

than the smallest atom, and is only the power of intellection

and understanding. (i.e. the omniscience).

6. As the waves are raised upon the waters and the ornaments

are made of gold; so our egoism springing from the

original ego appears to be something different from it.

7. It is our ignorance or imperfect knowledge only that

represents the visible world as a magic show, but the light

of right knowledge, brings us to see the one and self-same

Brahma in all forms of things.

8. Avoid your dubiety of the unity and duality (i.e. of

the singleness of the prime cause, and variety of its products);

but remain firm in your belief of that state, which lasts after

the loss of both (i.e. the one and all the same). Be happy

with this belief, and never trouble yourself with thinking any

thing otherwise like the false man in the tale.

9. There is an inexplicable magic enveloping the whole,

and this world is an impervious mass of theurgy or sorcery,

which enwraps as thickly, as the autumnal mists obscure the

firmament, and which is scattered by the light of good understanding.

10. Ráma said:—Sir, your learned lectures, like draughts

of nectar, have given me entire satisfaction; and I am as

refreshed by your cooling speeches, as the parching swallow

is refrigerated by a shower of rain water.

11. I feel as cold within myself, as if I were anointed with

heavenly ambrosia; and I think myself raised above all beings,

in my possession of unequalled riches and greatness, by the

grace of God.

12. I am never satiated to the fullness of my heart, at hearing

the orations of thy mouth; and am like chakora or swallow

that is never satiate with swallowing dewy moon-beams by

night.

13. I confess to thee that I am never surfeited by drinking

the sweet of thy speech, and the more I hearken to thee, the more

am I disposed to learn from and listen to thee; for who is there

so cloyed with the ambrosial honey, that he declines to taste the

nectarine juice again?

[Pg 625]

14. Tell me sir, what do you mean by the false men of the

tale; who thought the real entity as a nonentity, and look at the

unreal world as a solar and solid reality.

15. Vasishtha related:—Now attend to me, Ráma, to

relate unto you the story of the false and fanciful man; which

is pleasant to hear, and quite ludicrous and laughable from first

to last.

16. There lived once a man, like a magical machine somewhere;

who lived like an idiot with the imbecility of his

infantine simplicity, and was full of gross ignorance as a fool

or block-head.

17. He was born somewhere in some remote region of the

sky, and was doomed to wander in his etherial sphere, like a

false apparition in the air, or a mirage in the sandy desert.

(as a phantom or phantasmagoria).

18. There was no other person beside himself, and whatever

else there was in that place, it was but his self or an exact

likeness of itself. He saw naught but himself, and aught that

he saw he thought to be but his self.

19. As he grew up to manhood in this lonely retreat, he

pondered in himself saying: I am airy and belong to the

aerial sphere; the air is my province, and I will therefore rule

over this region as mine.

20. The air is my proprietory right, and therefore I must

preserve it with all diligence, then with this thought he built

an aerial house for his abode, in order to protect and rule his

etherial dominion.

21. He placed his reliance inside that aerial castle, from

where he could manage to rule his aerial domain, and lived quite

content amidst the sphere of his airy habitation for a long

time.

22. But in course of time his air built castle came to be

dilapidated, and to be utterly destroyed at last; as the clouds

of heaven are driven and blown away in autumn, and the

waves of the sea are dispersed by the breeze, and sunken down

in a calm.

[Pg 626]

23. He then cried out in sorrow, saying; O my air built

mansion, why art thou broken down and blown away so soon;

and, O my air drawn habitation, where art thou withdrawn

from me. In this manner, he wailed in his excessive grief and

said; Ah, now I see, that an aerial something must be reduced

to an aerial nothing.

24. After lamenting in this manner for a long time, this

simpleton dug a cave in the vacuity of the atmosphere; and

continued to dwell in that hollow cavity, in order to look up

to his aerial realm from below. Thus he remained quite content

in the closed air of the cave for a long period of time.

25. In process of time his cell was wasted and washed away,

and he became immerged in deep sorrow upon the immersion

of his empty cave.

26. He then constructed a hollow pot, and took his residence

in its open bowel, and adapted his living to its narrow

limits.

27. Know that his brittle earthen pot also, was broken

down in course of a short time; and he came to know the

frailty of all his habitations, as an unfortunate man finds the

fickleness of all the hopes and helps, which he fondly lays

hold upon.

28. After the breaking of his pot, he got a tub for his residence

(like the tub of Diogenes); and from there he surveyed

the heavenly sphere; as any one beholds it from his particular

habitation.

29. His tub also was broken down in course of time, by some

wild animal; and thus he lost all his stays, as the darkness

and the dews of night, are dispelled and sucked up by the solar

light and heat.

30. After he had sorrowed in vain for the loss of his tub,

he took his asylum in an enclosed cottage, with an open space

in the midst, for his view of the upper skies.

31. The all devouring time, destroyed also that habitation

of his; and scattered it all about, as the winds of heaven dispersed

the dried leaves of trees, and left him to bewail the loss

of his last retreat and flitting shelter.

[Pg 627]

32. He then built a hut in the form of a barn house in the

field, and thence watched over his estate of the air, as farmers

keep watch and take care of their granaries in the farms.

33. But the driving winds of the air, drove away and dispersed

his hovel, as they do the gathering clouds of heaven;

and the roofless man had once more to deplore at the loss of

his last refuge.

34. Having thus lost all his abodes, in the pool and pot,

in the cottage and hut; the aerial man was left to bemoan

over his losses, in his empty abode of the air.

35. Being thus situated in his helpless state, the aerial man

reflected upon the narrow confines of the abodes, which he had

chosen for himself of his own accord; and thought on the

multifarious pains and troubles, that he had repeatedly to

undergo, in the erection and destruction of all his aerial castles

by his own ignorance only.

[Pg 628]

CHAPTER CXIII.

The Parable of the Vain Man Continued.

Argument.—Interpretation of the parable of the Aerial man.

RÁMA said:—Please sir, give me the interpretation of your

parable of the false man, and tell me the allusion it bears

to the fanciful man, whose business it was to watch the air or

sky (and to make his new posts for that purpose).

2. Vasishtha replied:—Hear me, Ráma, now expound to

you the meaning of my parable of the false man, and the allusion

which it bears to every fanciful man in this world.

3. The man that I have represented to you, as a magical

engine (máyá yantra), means the egoistic man, who is led by

the magic of his egoism, to look upon the empty air of his personality

as a real entity (and whose sole care it is to preserve

its vital air as its only property).

4. The vault of the sky, which contains all these orbs of

worlds; is but an infinite space of empty void, as it was ere

this creation came into existence, and before it becomes manifest

to view.

5. There is the spirit of the inscrutable and impersonal

Brahma, immanent in this vacuity and becomes apparent in the

personality of Brahmá, in the manner of the audible sound

issuing out of the empty air, which is its receptacle and support.

6. It is from this also that there rises the subtle individual

soul with the sense of its egoism, as the vibration of current

winds springs from the motionless air; and then as it grows up

in time in the same element, it comes to believe its having an

individual soul and a personality of its own.

7. Thus the impersonal soul being imbibed with the idea of

its personality, tries to preserve its egoism for ever; it enters

into many bodies of different kinds, and creates new ones for its

abode upon the loss of the former ones.

8. This egoistic soul, is called the false and magical man;[Pg 629]

because it is a false creation of unreality, and a production of

vain ignorance and imagination.

9. The pit and the pot, and the cottage and the hut, represent

the different bodies, the empty vacuity of which, supplies

the egoistic soul with a temporary abode.

10. Now listen to me to relate to you the different names,

under which our ignorant spirit passes in this world, and begins

itself under one or other of these appellations.

11. It takes the various names of the living soul, the understanding,

mind, the heart, and ignorance and nature also; and is

known among men, by the words imagination, fancy and time,

which are also applied to it.

12. In these and a thousand other names and forms, doth

this vain egoism appear to us in this world; but all these powers

and faculties are mere attributives of the true ego which is imperceptible

to us.

13. The world is verily known to rest without its basis, in the

extended and vacuous womb of the visible firmament; and the

imaginary soul of the egoist is supposed to dwell in it, and feel

all its pain and pleasure in vain. (But the sense of the unreality

of the world, as also of one's personality, exempts from the

sensations of pleasure and pain).

14. Therefore O Ráma, do not like the imaginary man in

the fable, place any reliance in your false personality; nor subject

yourself like the egoistic man, to the fancied pleasure and

misery of this world.

15. Do not trouble yourself, like the erroneous man, with

the vain care of preserving your vacuous soul; nor suffer like

him the pain of your confinement in the hollow of the pit, pot

and others.

16. How is it possible for any body, to preserve or confine

the vacuous spirit in the narrow limit of a pot and the like;

when it is more extended than the boundless sky, and more subtile

and purer than the all pervading air.

17. The soul is supposed to dwell in the cavity of the human

heart, and is thought to perish with the decay and destruction

of the body; hence people are seen to lament at the loss[Pg 630]

of their frail bodies, as if it entailed the destruction of their

indestructible soul.

18. As the destruction of the pot or any other hollow vessel,

does not destroy the subtile air, which is contained in the same;

so the dissolution of the body, does not dissolve the embodied

and intangible soul.

19. Know Ráma, the nature of the soul, to be as that of the

pure intellect; it is more subtile than the circumambient air,

and minuter far than the minutest atom; it is a particle of our

consciousness only, and indestructible as the all pervasive air,

which is never to be nullified.

20. The soul is never born, nor does it die as any other thing

at any place or time; it extends over the whole universe, as the

universal soul of Brahma, which encompasses and comprehends

all space, and manifests itself in all things.

21. Know this spirit as one entire unit, and the only real

entity; it is always calm and quiet, and without its beginning,

middle and end. Know it as beyond the positive and negative,

and be happy with thy knowledge of its transcendental nature.

22. Now extricate your mind from the false cogitation of

your egoism, which is the abode of all evils and dangers, and is

an unstable thing depending on the life of a man; it is full of

ignorance and vanity, and its own destruction and final perdition

(in hell fire). Therefore get rid of your egoistic feeling, and rely

only on the ultimate and optimum state of the one everlasting

Deity.

[Pg 631]

CHAPTER CXIV.

Sermon on Divine and Holy Knowledge.

Argument:—Consideration of the Real and unreal, and of good and evil;

Exhortation to the former and Dehortation from the latter.

VASISHTHA said:—The mind sprang at first from the supreme

spirit of Brahma, and being possest of its power

of thinking, it was situated in the Divine soul, and was styled

as the Divine mind or intellect.

2. The fickle mind resides in the spirit of God as the feeling

of fragrance abides in the cup of a flower; and as the fluctuating

waves roll about in a river. Know, Ráma! the mind to radiate

from its central point in Brahma, as the rays of the sun extend

to the circumference of creation.

3. Men forget the reality of the invisible spirit of God, and

view the unreal world as a reality; as deluded persons are apt to

believe a serpent in a rope (as they do in magic play).

4. He who beholds the solar beams, without seeing the sun

whence they proceed; views them in a different light than the

light of the sun. (Whoso sees the world without its God, is an

ungodly man, and sees a Godless world).

5. He who looks at the jewel without looking into the gold

whereof it is made, is deluded by the finery of the jewellery,

without knowing the value of the precious metal of which it is

made.

6. He who looks at the sun together with his glory, or sees

the sun-beams as not without the sun whence they proceed,

verily beholds the unity of the sun with his light, and not his

duality by viewing them separately. (The monotheism of vedánta

comprises everything in the unity of the Divinity).

7. He who looks on the waves without seeing the sea, wherein

they rise and fall, has only the knowledge of the turbulent

billows disturbing his mind; and no idea of the calm waters

underlying them (like the tranquil spirit of Brahma).

[Pg 632]

8. But who looks on the waves, without exception of the

water of which they are composed; he sees the same water to be in

common in all its swellings, and has the knowledge of its unity

and commonalty in all its varieties.

9. In this manner, seeing the same gold in its transformation

into sundry sorts of jewels; we have the knowledge of the

common essence of gold in all of them, notwithstanding their

formal distinctions to sight.

10. He who sees the flames only, and is unmindful of the fire

which emits the flashes; is said to be ignorant of the material

element, and conversant with its transient and evanescent flash

only.

11. The phenomenal world presents its aspect in various

forms and colours, as the multiform and variegated clouds in the

sky; and whoso places his faith and reliance on their reality

and stability, has his mind always busied with those changeful

appearances.

12. He who views the flame as the same with its fire,

has the knowledge of the fire only in his mind, and does not

know the duality of the flame, as a thing distinct from its

unity.

13. He who is freed from his knowledge of dualities, has his

mind restricted to the one and sole unity; he has a great soul

that has obtained the obtainable one, and is released from

the trouble of diving into the depth of the duality and plurality

of all visible objects.

14. Get rid of thy thoughts of the endless multiplicities and

varieties of things, and keep thy mind fixed steadily within the

cavity of thy pure intellect, and there employ it in the meditation

of the supreme Intellect, in privation of the thoughts of all

sensible objects. (This is the Buddhistic meditation of the soul

only, by abstraction of the mind from all objects of sense).

15. When the silent soul forms in itself its effort of volition,

then there rises in it the power of its versatile desires, like the

force of the fluctuating winds rising from the bosom of the

quiet air.

[Pg 633]

16. Then there rises the wilful mind from it, as a distinct

and independent thing of itself, and thinks in itself as the undivided

and universal Mind of the mundane world.

17. Whatever the volitive mind wills to do in this world,

the same comes to take place immediately, agreeably to the type

formed in its volition.

18. This mind passes under the various names of the living

principle, the understanding, the egoism, the heart &c.; and becomes

as minute as an animalcule and an aquatic mollusc, and

as big as a mountain and fleeter than the swiftest winds.

19. It forms and sustains the world at its own will, and

becomes the unity and plurality at its own option; it extends

itself to infinity, and shows itself in the endless diversity of

objects which fill its ample space.

20. The whole scenery of the universe, is nothing otherwise

than a display of the eternal and infinite mind; it is neither a

positive reality nor a negative unreality of itself, but appears

to our view like the visionary appearance in a dream.

21. The phenomenal world is a display of the realm of the

divine mind, in the same manner as the Utopia and Elysium,

display the imaginary dominions formed in the minds of

men; and as every man builds the airy castle of his mind.

22. As our knowledge of the existence of the world in the

divine mind alone, serves to remove our fallacy of the entity of

the visible world; so if we look into the phenomenal in its true

light, it speedily vanishes into nothing.

23. When we do not consider the visibles in their true colour,

but take them in their false colour as they present themselves to

view; we find them to ramify themselves into a thousand shapes,

as we see the same sea-water in its diversities of the various

forms of foam and froth, of bubbles and billows, of waves and

surges, and of tides and whirlpools.

24. As the sea bears its body of waters, so doth the mind

show itself in the shape of its various faculties (which are in

constant motion like the waves of water); the mental powers are

always busy with their manifold functions under the influence[Pg 634]

of the supreme intellect, without affecting its tranquillity. (The

movements of the mental powers, can never move the quiet

intellect to action).

25. Yet the mind doth nothing otherwise of itself and apart

from the dictates of the intellect, whether in its state of sleeping

or waking, or in its bodily or mental actions.

26. Know that there is nothing anew, in whatever thou dost

or seest or thinkest upon; all of which proceed from the inherent

intellect which is displayed in all things, and in all the

actions and thoughts of men.

27. Know all these to be contained in the immensity of

Brahma, and besides whom there is nothing in existence; He

abides in all things and categories, and remains as the essence of

the inward consciousness of all.

28. It is the divine consciousness that exhibits the whole of

the imaginary world, and it is the evolution of the consciousness,

that takes the name of the universe with all its myriads of

worlds.

29. Say how and whence rises your supposition of the difference

of things from one another, and wherefore you take this

thing as distinct from the other; when you will know that it is

your consciousness alone that assumes these various forms, and

represents itself to you under the various shapes and colours.

(If therefore there is no other object of which you are

conscious besides our consciousness itself (i.e. if there be nothing

objective beside the subjective itself); then you have

nothing to fear about the bondage of your soul to any object

whatsoever; nor anything to care for your liberation from

such bondage).

30. Ráma, relinquish at once the vanity of your egotism,

together with all its concomitants of pride, self-esteem and

others, and give up altogether your thoughts of bondage and

liberation (proceeding from the belief of your objectivity and

subjectivity); and remain quiet and self subdued in the continued

discharge of your duties, like the holy Mahátmás of elevated

souls and minds.

[Pg 635]

CHAPTER CXV.

Description of the Triple Conduct of Men.

Argument.—Siva's interpretations of the three duties of action, Enjoyment

and charity to his suppliant Bhringi.

VASISHTHA said:—Take my advise, Ráma, and strive to

be an example or the greatest man in thy deeds, enjoyments,

and bounty; and rely in thy unshaken endurance, by

bidding defiance to all thy cares and fears. (i.e. Remain as a

rock against all accidents of life).

2. Ráma asked:—Tell me sir, what is the deed that makes

the greatest actor, and what is that thing which constitutes the

highest enjoyments; tell me also what is the great bounty,

which you advise me to practice.