The Yoga-Vasishtha-Maharamayana of Valmiki · 101 of 665

Book III: Utpatti Prakarana (Origin of the World): Chapter L: Death of Vidúratha

Vasishtha said:—As the tide of war was rolling violently with a general massacre on both sides, the belligerent monarchs thought on the means of saving their own forces from the impending ruin.

2. The magnanimous Sindhurája, who was armed with patience, called to his mind the Vaishnava weapon, which was the greatest of arms and as powerful as Siva (Jove) himself.

3. No sooner was the Vaishnava weapon hurled by him with his best judgment (mantra), than it emitted a thousand sparks of fire from its flaming blade on all sides.

4. These sparks enlarged into balls, as big and bright as to shine like hundreds of suns in the sky, and others flew as the lengthy shafts of cudgels in the air.

5. Some of them filled the wide field of the firmament with thunderbolts as thick as the blades of grass, and others overspread the lake of heaven, with battle axes as a bed of lotuses.

6. These poured forth showers of pointed arrows spreading as a net-work in the sky, and darted the sable blades of swords, scattered as the leaves of trees in the air.

7. At this time, the rival king Vidúratha, sent forth another Vaishnava weapon for repelling the former, and removing the reliance of his foe in his foible.

8. It sent forth a stream of weapons counteracting those of the other, and overflowing in currents of arrows and pikes, clubs and axes and missiles of various kinds.

9. These weapons struggled with and justled against one another. They split the vault of heaven with their clattering, and cracked like loud thunder claps cleaving the mountain cliffs.

10. The arrows pierced the rods and swords, and the swords hewed down the axes and lances to pieces. The malls and mallets drove the missiles, and the pikes broke the spears (saktis).

11. The mallets like Mandara rocks, broke and drove away the rushing arrows as waves of the sea, and the resistless swords broke to pieces by striking at the maces.

12. The lances revolved like the halo of the moon, repelling the black sword-blades as darkness, and the swift missiles flashed as the destructive fires of Yama.

13. The whirling disks were destroying all other weapons; they stunned the world by their noise, and broke the mountains by their strokes.

14. The clashing weapons were breaking one another in numbers, and Vidúratha defeated the arms of Sindhu, as the steadfast mountain defies the thunders of Indra.

15. The truncheons (Sankus) were blowing away the falchions (asis); and the spontoons (súlas) were warding off the stones of the slings. The crow bars (bhusundis) broke down the pointed heads of the pikes (bhindhipálas).

16. The iron rods of the enemy (parasúlas) were broken by tridents (trisúlas) of Siva, and the hostile arms were falling down by their crushing one another to pieces.

17. The clattering shots stopped the course of the heavenly stream, and the combustion of powder filled the air with smoke.

18. The clashing of dashing weapons lightened the sky like lightnings, their clattering cracked the worlds like thunderclaps, and their shock split and broke the mountains like thunderbolts.

19. Thus were the warring weapons breaking one another by their concussion, and protracting the engagement by their mutual overthrow.

20. As Sindhu was standing still in defiance of the prowess of his adversary, Vidúratha lifted his own fire-arm, and fired it with a thundering sound.

21. It set the war chariot of Sindhu on fire like a heap of hay on the plain, while the Vaishnava weapons filled the etherial sphere with their meteoric blaze.

22. The two Kings were thus engaged in fierce fighting with each other, the one darting his weapons like drops of raging rain, and the other hurling his arms like currents of a deluging river.

23. The two Kings were thus harassing each other like two brave champions in their contest, when the chariot of Sindhu was reduced to ashes by its flame.

24. He then fled to the woods like a lion from its cavern in the mountain, and repelled the fire that pursued him by his aqueous weapons.

25. After losing his car and alighting on the ground, he brandished his sword and cut off the hoofs and heels of the horses of his enemy’s chariot in the twinkling of an eye.

26. He hacked every thing that came before him like the lean stalks of lotuses; when Vidúratha also left his chariot with his asi (ensis) in hand.

27. Both equally brave and compeers to one another in their skill in warfare, turned about in their rounds, and scraped their swords into saws by mutual strokes on one another.

28. With their denticulated weapons, they tore the bodies of their enemies like fishes crushed under the teeth, when Vidúratha dropt down his broken sword, and darted his javelin against his adversary.

29. It fell with a rattling noise on the bosom of Sindhu (the king), as a flaming meteor falls rumbling in the breast of the sea (Sindhu).

30. But the weapon fell back by hitting upon his breast plate, as a damsel flies back from the embrace of a lover deemed an unfit match for her.

31. Its shock made Sindhu throw out a flood of blood from his lungs, resembling the water spout let out from the trunk of an elephant.

32. Seeing this, the native Lílá cried with joy to her sister Lílá: see here the demon Sindhu killed by our lion-like husband.

33. Sindhu is slain by the javelin of our lion-like lord, like the wicked demon by the nails of the lion-god Nrisinha, and he is spouting forth his blood like the stream of water, thrown out by the trunk of an elephant from a pool.

34. But alas! this Sindhu is trying to mount on another car, although bleeding so profusely from his mouth and nostrils, as to raise a wheezing (chulchulu) sound.

35. Lo there! our lord Vidúratha breaking down the golden mountings of his car with the blows of his mallet, as the thundering clouds—Pushkara and Ávarta break down the gold peaks of Sumeru.

36. See this Sindhu now mounting on another carriage, which is now brought before him, and decorated as the splendid seat of a Gandharva.

37. Alack! our lord is now made the mark of Sindhu’s mallet darted as a thunder bolt against him; but lo! how he flies off and avoids the deadly blow of Sindhu.

38. Huzza! how nimbly he has got up upon his own car; but woe is to me! that Sindhu has overtaken him in his flight.

39. He mounts on his car as a hunter climbs on a tree, and pierces my husband, as a bird-catcher does a parrot hidden in its hollow, with his pointed arrow.

40. Behold his car is broken down and its flags flung aside; his horses are hurt and the driver is driven away. His bow is broken and his armour is shattered, and his whole body is full of wounds.

41. His strong breast-plate is broken also by slabs of stone and his big head is pierced by pointed arrows. Behold him thrown down on earth, all mangled in blood.

42. Look with what difficulty he is restored to his senses, and seated in his seat with his arm cut off and bleeding under Sindhu’s sword.

43. See him weltering in blood gushing out profusely from his body, like a rubicund stream issuing from a hill of rubies. Woe is me! and cursed be the sword of Sindhu that hath brought this misery on us.

44. It has severed his thighs as they dissever a tree with a saw, and has lopped off his legs like the stalks of trees.

45. Ah! it is I that am so struck and wounded and killed by the enemy. I am dead and gone and burnt away with my husband’s body.

46. Saying so, she began to shudder with fear at the woeful sight of her husband’s person, and fell insensible on the ground like a creeper cut off by an axe.

47. Vidúratha though thus mutilated and disabled, was rising to smite the enemy in his rage, when he fell down from his car like an uprooted tree, and was replaced there by his charioteer ready to make his retreat.

48. At this instant, the savage Sindhu struck a sabre on his neck, and pursued the car in which the dying monarch was borne back to his tent.

49. The body of Padma (alias Vidúratha), was placed like a lotus in the presence of Sarasvatí, shining with the splendour of the sun; but the elated Sindhu was kept from entering that abode, like a giddy fly from a flame.

50. The charioteer entered in the apartment, and placed the body in its death-bed, all mangled and besmeared with blood, exuding from the pores of the severed neck, in the presence of the goddess, from where the enemy returned to his camp.

(Gloss). Here Padma fighting in the person of Vidúratha, and falling bravely in the field, obtained his redemption by his death in the presence of the goddess; but the savage Sindhu, who slew his foiled foe in his retreat, proved a ruffian in his barbarous act, and could have no admittance into the presence of the goddess and to his future salvation.

CONCLUSION.

The whole vision of Lílá, like that of Mirza, shows the state of human life, with its various incidents and phases to its last termination by death. It is not so compact and allegorical as that of the western essayist; but as idle effusions of those ideal reveries or loose vagaries which are characteristic of the wild imagination of eastern rhapsodists. The discontented Bráhmana longs for royal dignity, imagines to himself all its enjoyments in the person of Padma, and sees at last all its evils in the character of Vidúratha; which serves as a lesson to aspirants from aiming at high worldly honours which end in their destruction.

Lílá by her wisdom sees in her silent meditation, the whole course and vicissitudes of the world, and the rise and fall of human glory in the aspirations of her husband. These parables serve to show the nature of Yoga philosophy to be no other, than an absolute idealism or mental abstraction, consisting in the abstract knowledge of all things appertaining to our temporal as well as Spiritual concerns.

The knowledge is derived either by intuition as that of the Bráhmana and Padma, or by inspiration like that of the genius of wisdom to her votary Lílá. It may also be had by means of communication with others, as in the discourse of Ráma and his preceptor; as also from the attentive perusal of such works as the present one, treating both of temporal and spiritual subjects, and reviewing them with the eye of the mind.

The Yogi is said to know all things through the medium of his intellectual eye (jnána chakshu), apart from his connection with every thing in the world called nihsanga, as it is expressed by the Persian sophist;—“amokhteh Oniamekhteh az harche hast”.—“Knowing and not mixing with all that is.”

From this view of Yoga, it will appear that, all kinds of knowledge, whether as it existed among the ancients, or is in the course of its improvement in modern times, forms a subject of the Yoga or meditative philosophy, which embraces and comprehends in itself a knowledge of all practical arts and sciences, as the military art and other things treated of in this work. Hence it is evident, that a large fund of learning forms the greatest Yoga, and the most learned among men, were the greatest thinkers or Yogis amongst mankind in all ages. No rational being therefore can either refrain from thinking, or employing his mind to the acquisition of knowledge, both of which are termed Yoga in Indian philosophy.

But the yogi is commonly believed to be an inspired sage or seer, viewing all things appearing before him in his dream and vision. These are sometimes retrospective, and resultants of the vibrations of waking feelings and imagination, as in the case of the Bráhmana’s anticipation of royalty as a coming reality.

In many instances they are believed as prospective and prophetic of future events, as in Padma’s dread of his future life and fate. In Lílá’s case however they were “no dreams but visions strange” of supernatural sights, and prophetical of the future state of her husband, as it was revealed to her by the goddess.

But as there are few that rely any faith “in the baseless fabric of a vision”, they require to be told that the books of revelation in all religions are based upon these dreams and visions, which are believed to be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into the souls of saints, in the sacred records of all nations.

The holy scriptures furnish us with many texts on the divine origin of dreams and visions as the following.

“But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God. I shall pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

“And on my servants and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy;

“And I will shew wonders, in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire and vapour of smoke:

“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood &c.”

The Book of Acts, Chap II. v. 16-20.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

GENEALOGY

I. Kálí Mitra.[24] II. Srídhara Mitra. III. Sukti Mitra. IV. Sauveri Mitra. V. Hari Mitra. VI. Soma Mitra. VII. Kesava Mitra. VIII. Mrityunjaya Mitra. IX. Dhui Mitra.[25] X. Nísápati Mitra. XI. Lambodara Mitra Alias Kuvera. XII. Parameswara Mitra.[26] XIII. Dánapati Mitra. XIV. Jayadeva Mitra. XV. Shashthivara Mitra. XVI. Sríkánta Mitra. XVII. Sivaráma Mitra. XVIII. Krishnaráma Mitra. XIX. Sítáráma Mitra.[27] XX. Gocula Chandra Mitra. XXI. Jagamohana Mitra. XXII. Rasika Lála Mitra XXIII. Vihári Lála Mitra.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cicero “De senectute.”

[2] Kant says:—‘The pure Ego is the condition of all consciousness, the condition of the sum total of experience, consequently the Ego is the source from which the universe is to be deduced.’ Again: “The thing per se underlying all phenomena, is one and the same substance with Ego. We know not wherein the Ego is different from it. This identity of both is only an affirmation of Monism, not of Idealism.” Lewis: Hist.-Phil. Vol. II. pp. 356-7. Fichte says:—The Non-Ego is a product of the Ego. It is the Ego which thus creates the necessity for a Non-Ego and the Non-Ego wanted. Ibid. p. 358.

[3] Because the visible and destructible bodies could not proceed from the invisible and indestructible essence of God, nor the invisible and indestructible souls of persons, which are utpanna or produced from the essence of the eternal and infinite spirit, can have their extinction except in their main source, when they become instinct in and identic with the supreme spirit.

[4] The khecarí or aerial mode of meditation is said to confer liberation from sickness and acts and the grasp of death. Thus;

Napídyate rogena nacha lipyate karmaná, Bádhyate sa na kalena, yo mudrám-vetti khecarím.

The mode of conducting it is described as follows.

Kapála kuhare jihvá, pravesitá viparítagá, Bhruvorantargatá drishtir, mudrá-bhavati khecarí.

[5] This passage contradicts the belief of his rising and sleeping by turns at the end of each kalpa of the creation and dissolution of the world, as well as the popular faith of Hari’s, sayana and Utthána at the opposite tropics.

[6] The pre-existent substratum is the Noumenon underlying all phenomena. It is the support of qualities, and something in which all accidents inhere. Berkeley.

[7] It contradicts the well known axiom of Locke, that, “it is impossible for the same thing to be and not be at the same time.”

[8] The unknown substance is the known cause, a spiritual substance—God. Berkeley.

[9] The venerable Vasishtha would not raise question “where is the shadow of a shadow?” (prativimbasya prativambam kutak), had he known the discoveries of the modern science of Optics, and the achievements of photography and phonography, the refractions of prismatic lens and the vibrations of musical wires.

[10] The gods Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Sun, Indra and all others, are assimilated into the Supreme Spirit in their state of rest. He is beyond all attribute and out of the sphere of the universe, and is of the form of an immutable Intellect.

[11] The living soul is the creative spirit of God, represented by the divine hypostasis of Hiranyagarbha or Demiurgus, which is dependent on the Supreme spirit.

[12] Tanmátra or tat-mátra might be rendered from its affinity as “that matter,” but the idealistic theory of vedánta being opposed to that of the materialistic, it expresses only the idea and not the matter.

[13] The conceptualism of Europe, is a doctrine between Realism and Nominalism and betwixt Idealism and Relationism. The realist says, universal genera are real and independent existences; but the nominalist (like the Pratyaksávádi) says that, things only exist and universals are Flatus venti-pralápa.

[14] Note. It is the mind that lengthens time by the quick succession of its thoughts, and shortens it by its quiescence.

[15] This means the demons to have first peopled the borders and skirts of the earth. See Hesiod. Works and Days. Book I. v. 200.

[16] That the Meru or Altain chain in Scythia, was the great hive of human race is an undisputed truth in history. So Moses speaks of the giant race in Genesis chapter VI. v. 2 and 4. “And there were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that. And when the sons of God saw the daughters of men fair, they took them to wives, of all which they chose.”

And again: “when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown”.

[17] The whole of this chapter abounds in onomatopoeian alliterations, and is more a play upon words than display of sense. It is interesting however, for these jingling words in the language, as also for the names of the warlike weapons in use among the ancients.

[18] Notwithstanding the reward of heavenly abodes promised to the slayer and slain in war, in the Sástra and Koran, the Asiatics are far backward now-a-days, both to kill and to be killed than the Europeans, who are forbidden by the Holy writ, to slay and shed human blood. Thus there is a laxity of the injunction and prohibition on both sides.

[19] P. mujosi S. Yátudhána, H. Jádugar = juggler.

[20] The battle ground is compared firstly with the sky, then with the sea, next with a forest, and lastly with the last dooms-day.

[21] It was easy for the lively Lílá, to learn about these peoples and their native lands in her lonely Yoga meditation, by the help of the goddess of learning; but it is hard for us to identify them without subjecting ourselves to a long labour of love, which is a sort of Yoga also, called vidya Yoga, or intense application and self devotion to learning.

[22] Note. It is not easy to say, whether this continuation and lengthy description of the warfare, is Vasishtha’s or Válmíki’s own making; both of them being well acquainted with military tactics: the former having been the general of King Sudása against the Persians, and the latter the epic poet of Ráma’s wars with Rávana in the celebrated Ramáyana.

These descriptions are left out in the vernacular translations of this work as entirely useless in Yoga philosophy, without minding, that they formed the preliminary step to Ráma’s military education, which he was soon after called to complete under the guidance of Viswámitra in the hermitage.

[23] I have always thought the Daivástras or superhuman arms, described in the Ramáyana and Mahábhárata epics, as a display of pyrotechnic contrivances much in use in early warfare. Or they may have been some kinds of electric, hydraulic, pneumatic and steam engines emitting gusts of fire, water, wind and smoke in the field of war. Halhead in his Gentoo Laws, tells them to be shot from a kind of cross-bow used by the Crusadiers of old.

[24] He was formerly an inhabitatnt of Kánya Kubjya, North Western Provinces, India. He being invited on an occasion of a ceremony (yajna) by Ádisura, Rájá of Gour Bengal, paid a visit at his court on Thursday 12th Kartick (October-November) Sakábda 994 (Tenth-Eleventh Century A.D.), and on his request he settled there and became the founder of Gour Mitra Family, at Maldah in Bengal.

[25] Barisá, Twenty four Pargannahs, District Alipur, Bengal.

[26] Báli. Boro Pargunah, District Hugli.

[27] Bágbázar, Calcutta.