QUERY Should one say, a principle of life acts in us; there is no doubt of it; consequently the one is learned, the other ignorant; the one is happy, the other distressed. How can that be mere imagination, and appearance? THE ANSWER they give to it is――If not in a dream, thou wouldst not see thyself a king issuing mandates, a servant, submissive, imprisoned, free, a slave, a master, sick, healthy, distressed, merry, melancholy, and so on. How often in a dream didst thou not feel pleasure and happiness, or wast overwhelmed by fear, and terror, and anguish? there is no doubt but all this is mere illusion and empty appearance, although the dreamer holds it all to be real truth. Rayi-Rup, who is reckoned among the learned Rajahs, asked the author of this book: “After having dreamt to have received any wound whatsoever upon my body, if, as soon as I rise from sleep, I do not find the least mark of it, I know that it was an illusion; but if in a dream I converse with a woman, at my waking, I may perhaps not be able to deny the visible effect of it: why should this happen in the second case?” To this question the following answer was given: “What thou thinkest the state of being awake, this, in the opinion of the enlightened, is also dreaming; and as it often happens that, thinking in a dream to be awake, I perceive whatever appears as if I were really awake, whilst I see it in a dream: in like manner, the usual state of being awake is held by the wise to be nothing else but a dream. Hast thou not heard what Kámyáb Samrádí has said in the Samrád námeh? A man had seven noble sons, each of whom felt the ambition to command in the six parts of the world. With such a desire, they addressed their devotion to God. One day they laid their head upon the pillow of repose, and each had a bright dream. It appeared to each, that he had left his body, and was born again in a king’s house; after the death of the father, each placed the crown upon his head, and bore dominion from east to west; in the seven regions there was no king equal to him, and the reign of each lasted one hundred thousand years; at the time of his passing to the other world, he delivered the empire to his son, and, leaving the body, took his flight to heaven. When they awoke, the dinner which they had been preparing was not yet ready. Afterwards, each of them related what happened to him; each of them pretended to have possessed the seven regions during one hundred thousand years, and each named such and such a town as the capital of his empire. Although awake, they resolved then to go each to his kingdom, and to see that capital, whether true or not. They went first to the town which was the residence of the eldest brother; there they found his son king, and the father knew his palace; in this manner they visited the kingdoms of the other brothers, and saw their sons. Afterwards, the seven returned to their native-place, and said to each other: