August 27, 2026
ātivāhikasaṁvitteste ‘vyomni vyomatātmakāḥ
ādhibhautikadehatvabhāvān dadṛśuragrataḥ (12)
VASIṢṬHA continued:
Now, listen to what happened to the four Vipaścits. One of them was killed by an elephant. The second was taken away by some celestials (yakṣas) who dropped him into blazing fire, and he perished. The third one was taken up to heaven by the celestials known as vidyādhara; there, that Vipaścit did not bow to the king (Indra) who cursed him and reduced him to ashes. The fourth was killed by a crocodile.
Remaining in their subtle bodies, these four saw their own previous history in their own minds where they had created subtle impressions. In the space of their own consciousness they saw the whole universe with all its oceans and mountains, towns and cities, the sun and the moon, the stars and the clouds. They even saw their own bodies as before. Endowed with the subtle (ātivāhika) bodies, they saw in the space before them their own physical bodies. On account of their past-life impressions or memories, they saw themselves as being clothed in physical bodies in order to witness the magnitude of the world. In order to see the actual extent of the earth, they roamed other realms.
The western Vipaścit crossed seven continents and seven seas and had the good fortune to meet lord Viṣṇu. From him Vipaścit received the highest wisdom and remained immersed in samādhi for five years. After that he abandoned the physical body and attained nirvāṇa.
The oriental Vipaścit remained close to the rays of the moon and he contemplated the moon constantly; hence he attained the realm of the moon.
The southern Vipaścit destroyed all his enemies and even now he rules the country because he did not lose his memory nor his convictions.
The northern Vipaścit was eaten by a crocodile in whose body he lived for a thousand and one years. When that crocodile died, he emerged from its body, as another crocodile. Then he crossed oceans and ice-packs of unimaginable distance and reached the lake of the gods known as Suvarṇa. There he died. Because he died in that realm of the gods, this Vipaścit became a god, even as a piece of wood lying in the midst of coals of fire instantly becomes fire.
This last Vipaścit reached the boundaries of the earth-plane known as the Lokāloka mountains which he remembered from his past-birth experiences. These mountains are several thousand miles in height; one of its sides is illumined whereas the other is not. From there he saw the earth, etc., as if they were distant stars. Then he went to that side of these mountains which was forever shrouded in darkness. Beyond that is the great void in which there is no earth, no beings and nothing mobile nor immobile. In it even the potentiality of creation does not exist.