Sunday, March 5, 2023

Yoga Vasishta - Post 28

Leela & Saraswati enter King Viduratha’s Tent; He Remembers His Past Lives; Everything Is within the Temple of the Mountain Brahmin; Discrimination of Error

 

Vasishta said:—When the ladies entered the tent, it appeared like a bed of lotuses. Its white ceiling seemed as graceful as the vault of heaven with two moons rising at once under it. 

 

The cooling and moon-bright radiance of the ladies roused the king from his sleep as if he had been sprinkled with the juice of ambrosia. He saw the forms of two apsaras sitting on two stools, appearing like two moons risen on two peaks of Mount Meru.  

 

The king saw them with wonder and after composing his mind, he rose up from his bed like God Vishnu rises from his bed of the serpent.  Then advancing respectfully to them, with long strings of flowers in his hands, he made offerings of them to the ladies with handfuls of flowers flung at their feet.

 

Leaving his pillowed sofa in the midst of the hall, he sat with folded legs on the ground. Lowly bending his head, he addressed them saying, “Be victorious, O moon-bright goddesses who by your radiance drive away all the miseries and evils and pains and pangs of life, and who by your sun-like beams dispel all my inward and outward darkness.” 

 

Then the goddess, desiring to reveal the ancestry of the king, inspired his minister, who was lying nearby, to relate it to Leela.  Upon waking, the minister saw the nymphs manifested before him, and advancing humbly before them, threw handfuls of flowers upon their feet. The goddess said, “Let us know, O king, who you are and when and of whom you are born.”

 

Hearing these words of the goddess, the minister spoke saying, “It is by your favor, O gracious goddesses, that I am empowered to relate of my king’s ancestry to your kind graces.”

 

“There was a sovereign born of the imperial line of Ikshvaku named Mukundaratha, who had subjugated the earth under his arms.  He had a moon-faced son by name of Bhadraratha, whose son Viswaratha was father to the renowned prince Brihadratha.  His son Sindhuratha was the father of Sailaratha, and his son Kamaratha was father of Maharatha.  His son Vishnuratha was father of Nabhoratha, who gave birth to this my lord of handsome appearance.”

 

“He is renowned as Viduratha and is born with the great virtues of his sire, as the moon was produced of the Milky Ocean to shed his ambrosial beams over his people. He was begotten by his mother Sumitra like the god Guha of Gauri. He was installed king of the realm in the tenth year of his age, owing to his father taking himself to asceticism. He has been ruling the realm with justice since that time, and your appearance here tonight indicates the blossoming of his good fortune.”

 

“O goddesses, whose presence is hard to be had, even by the merit of long devotion and a hundred austerities, you see here present before you the lord of the earth, famed Viduratha. After saying these words, the minister remained silent with the lord of the earth.

 

They were sitting on the ground with folded legs, clasped hands and downcast looks when the goddess of wisdom, by her inspiration, told the king to remember his former births. So saying, she touched his head with her hand and immediately the dark veil of illusion and oblivion was dispersed from over the lotus of his mind.  It opened like a blossom by the touch of the genius of consciousness and it became bright as the clear sky with the rays of his former memories. 

 

By his intelligence, he remembered his former kingdom, of which he had been the sole lord, and recollected all his past play with Leela.  He was carried away by the thoughts of the events of his past lives, as one is carried away by the current of waves, and reflected in himself that this world is a magic sea of illusion.

 

He said, “I have come to know this by the favor of the goddesses, but how is it that so many events have occurred to me in course of one day after my death? Here I have passed a lifetime full of seventy years and remember having done many works and having seen my grandson. I recollect the bygone days of my boyhood and youth, and I remember well all the friends and relatives and all the clothes and attendants that I had before.”

 

Love






 


No comments:

Post a Comment