August 22, 2026
sphurati ca ghanaṁ smṛtvā smṛtvā na cā ‘pi vipadyate
guṇavati jane baddhāśānāṁ śramo ‘pi sukhāvahaḥ (118/26)
THE MINISTERS AND OTHERS continued:
(The next few chapters are also full of highly poetic and artistic descriptions of natural phenomena, the flora and the fauna with interesting spiritual parallels, from which the following two are but samples. – S.V.)
O lord, behold the crane. How diligent and efficient it is in capturing and consuming the fish. Wicked people see in the natural behaviour of the crane the justification for their own vicious doctrine that even so one should destroy others for the attainment of one’s own selfish ends.
Look at the peacock. It quenches its thirst from the purest rainwater. It does not drink of the polluted waters of the drains and the canals. However, it continuously remembers the clouds and the rain that falls from them and derives satisfaction. When one’s heart is fixed in devotion to the holy ones, even unpleasant experiences become pleasant.
O king, behold that young couple talking to each other and refreshing themselves over there. The young man, smitten with love for his beloved, met her just now after a very long separation. This is what he said to her:
“Beloved, listen to what happened to me one day during our separation. I looked at the cloud and prayed to the cloud to convey a message to you. I was so greatly overcome by longing for you that I fainted. My breathing stopped. My memory failed. My body became cold and rigid like a log of wood. Who can ever describe adequately the unhappiness caused by separation from a beloved one?”
“Travellers who witnessed this thought I was dead and made preparations for the cremation of the destitute body. I was taken to the crematorium. They laid me on the pyre and set it alight. In a few moments I experienced all kinds of strange feelings and sensations and visions. I felt that I was falling into a hole in the ground. I was protected by the armour of your love and of contemplation of your form. I enjoyed your company in my own heart. I remember even now the smallest detail of the amorous dalliance in which we self-forgetfully enjoyed each other. In the meantime I saw flames around me.”(Hearing this, the girl swooned but the lover revived her and continued the narrative.)
“At once I shouted ‘Fire, fire’ and woke up from the swoon. The people around the funeral pyre thought that I had returned from the dead and they were thrilled. They sang and danced. We all returned home.”
VASIṢṬHA continued:
After listening to all this, the fourfold Vipaścit worshipped the fire. The fire-god appeared to them. They prayed to him: “We wish to behold the universe composed of the five elements in its totality. Grant that we may do so and that we may not die till we have seen all – as much as possible with the physical body and beyond that through the mind.” The fire-god granted this boon and vanished.