Philosophy and Religion / Yoga Vāsistha / Yoga-Vāsistha (6.2): Nirvāna-Prakarana

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 183 - Description of the Seven Continents

Kundadanta rejoined: I then asked the hermit of Gourī's asylum, whose head was hoary with age, and whose hair resembled the dried blades of withered grass.

There are but seven continents only, that composed this earth; how then could every one of the eight brothers, become the sole lord of earth at one and the same time.

Again how could a person, that had no egress from his house, conquer the seven continents abroad, or govern them himself; ¹.

How could they that had the boon on one hand, and its contrary curse on the other; could go in either way which are opposed to one another, as the cool-shade of trees and the heat of sunshine.

How can opposite qualities reside together at the same time, which is as impossible as the container and contained to become the same thing. ²

The Hermit of the asylum returned: Attend, O holy man, to my relation of the equal of their tale; and you will come to see the sequence of their contrary fates. As for you two you will reach to your home, after eight days from this place; and their meet with your relatives, with whom you will live happily for some time.

These eight brothers also, having joined with their families at home: will breathe their last in course of time; and have their bodies burnt by their friends and relations.

Then their conscious souls, will remain separately in air for a little while; and there continue in a state of torpidity, as in the insensibility of sleep.

All this interval their acts will appear, in the vacuous space of their minds, for the sake of receiving their retributive justice; and also the blessing of gods and the curse of the sage, will wait on them at this time.

The acts will appear in the shapes of the persons to whom they were done and the blessings and imprecation like wise; will assume their particular forms, in order to make their appearance before them.

The blessings will assume the forms of fair moon-bright bodies, having four arms on each, and holding a lotus bud, a club and other weapons in each of them.

The curse will take the forms of Śiva with his three eyes, and holding the lance and mace in his either hand; and having a dark terrific body, with a surly grim and frowning countenance.

The Blessings will dauntingly say: A vaunt you accursed curse! it is now our time to work; as it is with the seasons to act their parts at their proper times.

The curse will say in his turn: Be afar from here; ye blessed blessings, and do not intrude upon my time; it will take effect as any one of the seasons, nor is there anybody capable of counteracting its wonted course.

The blessing will rejoin and say; You cured curse, art but a creature of an human sage; but we are messengers of the God of day; now as preference is given to the first born God of light, over a human being ³; it is proper that we should have our precedence here ⁴.

Upon the blessings saying so, the personified curse of the sage got enraged, and returned in reply saying, I am no less the creator of a God than you are since we are born of the God Rudra by his consort Rudrānī-the Fury.

Rudra is the greatest of gods, and the sage was born with a portion of Rudra's prowess; saying so the accursed curse lifted up its head, as high as the exalted summit of a mountain.

On seeing the haughtily high-headedness of the personation of curse; the personified image of the boon smiled scornfully at him; and then made his reply in his speech of well weighed words.

O you miscreant curse, leave your wickedness and think on the end of this affair; as also about what is to be done, after termination of all this altercation of ours.

We must have recourse to the father of the gods, for his favourable decision of the case, is it not therefore better for us to do even now what must come to be finally determined by him.

The curse on hearing these words of the personified boon replied, well, I agree to what you say; because a fool even cannot decline to accept the reasonable proposal of a person.

Then the curse agreed to resort to the abode of Brahma; in company with the divine Blessing; because the great minded gods are always resorted to by the wise, for the dissipation of their doubts.

They banded down before Brahma, and related all that had occurred between them; and the god on hearing the whole on both sides, replied to them in the following manner.

Brahmā said: Hearken unto me, ye master of blessing and curse, and let him have the precedence of the either, that is possessed of intrinsic merit and essence.

Upon hearing this from the month of the Great god, they both entered in their turn into the heart of one another, in order to sound their understandings, and descry their respective parts.

They then having searched into the eternal essentialities of one another, and having known their respective characters; came out in presence of the God, and besought him by turns.

The curse said: I am overcome, O Lord of creatures, by this my adversary, in my having no internal merit in myself, and finding the curses of my foe, to be as sound and solid as the hard rock and the strong thunderbolt.

But both ourselves and the blessings, being always but intellectual beings, we have no material body whatever to boast of at anytime.

The Blessing replied: the intellectual blessing, which its giver ⁵, has given to its askers the Brāhmanas, is here present before you; and this is entrusted to my charge ⁶.

The body of every one is the evolution of one's intelligence, and it is this body which enjoys the consequence of the curse or blessing that is passed on one according to his knowledge of it; whether it is in his eating or drinking or in his feeling of the same, in all his wandering at all times and places. ⁷

The blessing received from its donor, is strengthened in the mind of the done in time; and this acting forcibly with-in one's self, overcomes at last the power or effect of the curse. ⁸

The donors bestowal of a blessing, to his supplicants for it; became strong and effectual only, when it is deeply rooted and duly fostered in ones self. ⁹

It is by means of the continued culture of our­conscious goodness, and by the constant habit of thinking of our desert, that these become perfected in one's self, and convert their possessor to their form. ¹⁰

The pure and contrite conscience alone, consummates one's consciousness in time; but the impure conscience of the evil minded, never finds its peace and tranquility. Hence the Brāhmanas' thoughts of the blessing, had taken the possession of their minds, and not that of the curse: because the earlier one, has the priority over the latter, though it be that of a minute only; ¹¹; and there is no rule:-

Nor force of pride to counteract this law. ¹²

But where both sides are of equal force, there both of them have their joint effect upon the same thing; so the curse and blessing being conjoined together, must remain as the commingling of milk with water.

The equal force of the blessing and curse, must produce a double or divided effect on the mind of man; as a person dreaming of the fairy city in his sleep, thinks himself as turned to one of its citizens ¹³.

Now pardon me, O Lord for my repetition of the same truths before you that I have learnt from you, and permit me now to take leave of you, and depart to my place.

Upon his saying so, the curse felt ashamed in itself, an fled away from the presence of the god; as the ghosts and goblings fly away from the air, at the dispersion of darkness from the sky.

Then the other blessing, ¹⁴, concerning the restriction of their departed ghosts, to the confines of their house, came forward and presented itself before Brahma in lieu of the curse, and began to plead his curse, as a substitute does for his constituent.

He said: I know not, O Lord of Gods, how human souls can fly over the seven continents of the earth, after their separation from their dead bodies; ¹⁵.

I am the same blessing of the goddess, that promised unto them their dominion over the seven continents in their own house; and also their conquest of the whole earth within its confines.

Now tell me, O Lord of Gods, how am I to restrain their spirits to the narrow limits of their own abodes; and at the same time confer the domain of the septuple earth, to each and every one of them, ¹⁶.

Brahma responded: Hear me, O you blessing of coffering the realms of the seven continents on each of them; and you the born of detaining their departed spirits within the confines of these mansions; that both of you are successful in executing your respective purposes on them.

Now do you retire from this place with full assurance in yourselves, that the delivered ghosts of these brothers; will never quit nor ever depart from their present abodes after their demise; but continue to reside there forever more; with the belief of their being the Lords of the seven regions of this earth. ¹⁷

Their souls will remain at proper distances from each other, after the loss and extinction of their frail bodies; and will deem themselves as lords of the seven regions of earth, though dwelling in the empty air of their own abodes.

How could there be the eight regions and seven continents of the earth, when to all appearance the surface of the earth, presents but a flat level everywhere.

Tell us Lord! where are these different divisions of the earth situated, and in what part of their body petty abode; and is it not as impossible for the small place of their house to contain this wide earth in it, as it is for the little cell of a lotus bud to hide an elephant in its pericarp.

Brahma replied: It being quite evident to you as to ourselves also, that the universe is composed of an infinite vacuity only; it is not impossible for its being contained within the hollow of the human heart, as in the minute particle of the vacuous mind, which contains all things in it in the manner of its dreams.

If it were possible for the minute granule of their vacuous minds, to contain the figures of their houses and their domestic circles within itself, why should it be thought impossible for them, to compress the greater and lesser circle of this earth also, within their ample space.

After the demise of a person, the world exhibits itself in the same form as it is, in the minute atom of his mind; and this is but a vacuous mass of the visible and material world, in its invisible and imaginary figure.

It is in this invisible particle of the mind, that the world is seen in its abstract form, within the precints of the body and abode of everybody; and this earth appears to be drawn in it as in a map, with all its sevenfold continents and the contents thereof.

Whatever is manifest in the mind, is a mere mental conception and inborn in the mind, and there is no such thing as an extraneous or material world in reality. It is the vacant mind that presents these vagaries of the world and all other visible before its vision, as the vacuous firmament shows the variety of atmospherial appearances to our sight.

The personified benediction, having learnt this abstract truth, from the mouth of the divine Brahma, who had conferred this boon to the Brahmanical brothers, abandoned his erroneous conception of the material world, and repaired to the abode of the desceased bretheren, that had been released from the mistake of their mortal bodies.

The personated blessing bow down to the bounteous Brahma, and departing from his presence with speed, enter into the parlour of the eight brother kings, in his eight-fold spiritual personality ¹⁸.

They beheld the brothers there in their respective residences, each sitting as the Lord of the earth with its septuple continents, and all of them employed in the performance of their sacrifices and enjoyment of their blessings, like the eight Lordly Manus for the whole period of a day of Brahma.

They were all friendly to each other, though unacquainted with the respective provinces of one another; each of them was employed in his concern with the world, without clashing with the authority of another over it.

One of them who was handsome in the bloom of his youth; held his happy reign over the great city of Ujjain, which was situated in the precincts of his own house, or rather in the environs of his own mind.

Another one of them had his domain over the country of scythia (śāka), where he settled himself for his conquest of the Nagas; he cruises as a corsair in the wide outlandish seas, for his victory on every side.

Another reigns secure in his capital of Kuśadvīpa, and confers perfect security to his subjects from all alarm; and like a hero who has quelled his enemies, he rests in peace on the bosom of his beloved, after all his conquest.

Some one of them indulges himself to sport, in company with the celestial Nymphs of Vidyādhara; in skimming over the waters of the lakes on mountain tops, and in the gushing water falls on their side.

Another one is engaged these eight days in conducting his horse sacrifice in his royal abode at Krauñcadvīpa, which he has greatly aggrandised with his accumulated gold, from the other continents.

Another one is employed in waging a battle in the Śālmali continents, where his war elephants have assembled, and have been uprooting the boundary mountain from their basis with robust tusks.

The Monarch of the Gomedha continent, who had been the eight and last of the Brāhmana brothers, was smitten with love for the princess of the Puskaradvīpa; upon which he mustered a large armament from ravishing her in warfare.

The monarch of the Puskara continent, who was also the master of the Mountainous regions of Lokāloka; set out with his deputy to inspect the land of the gold mines.

Thus every one of these brothers, thought himself to be the Lord of his respective province, as his imagination portrayed unto him in the region of his mind.

The Blessing then, having relinquished there several forms and personalities, became united and one with the consciousness of the Brāhmanas, and felt and saw whatever passed in them, as if they were passing in themselves likewise. ¹⁹

So these brothers became and found in themselves, what they had long been longing, after, in their respective lordship over the seven regions of the earth, which they continued to enjoy ever since to their heart's content.

It was in this manner that these men of enlarged understanding, obtained what they sought in their minds, by means of their austere devotion and firm devotedness to their purpose. So it is with the learned that they find everything beside them, whatever they are intent upon in their minds, by means of their acting upon the same principle, and using the proper means conducing to that end.

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