12. It is as false as an earthquake in a fit of delirium, as a hobgoblin that is shown to terrify children, as a string of pearls in the clear firmament, and as the moving trees on the bank to a passenger in the boat. 13. It is an illusion as the phantom of a city in a dream, and as untrue as the imagination of a flower growing in the air. The unreality of the world best appears to one at the point of and after his death. 14. But this knowledge of (the unreality of the world) becomes darkened upon one’s being reborn on earth, when the shadow of this world falls again on the mirror of his sentient soul. 15. Thus there is a struggle for repeated births and deaths here, and a fancy for the next world after one’s death. 16. After one’s shuffling off his body, he assumes another and then another form, and thus the world is as unstable as a stool made of plantain leaves and its coatings. 17. The dead have no sensation of the earth and other elementary bodies, nor of the course of the world; but they fall again to these errors upon their being reborn here. 18. There is an interminable ignorance resembling an immense river enveloping the face of creation, and breaking into streamlets of unfordable ignorance. 19. The Divinity like a sea shoots forth in the various waves of creation, which rise incessantly and plentifully one after the other. 20. All beings here are but the waves of this sea, of which some are alike to one another in their minds and natures, while others are half alike, and some quite different from the rest. <21.> I reckon yonder sagely Vyása as one of the thirty two of these waves, on account of his vast knowledge, and good looking appearance. 22. There were twelve of them possessed of a lesser understanding, they were the patriarchs of men, and endued with equal energy. Ten of them were men of subdued spirits, and the rest were adepts in their family duties. 23. There will be born again other Vyásas and Válmíkis, and likewise some other Bhrigus and Angirás, as well as other Pulastyas and others in different forms. 24. All other men, Asuras and gods with all their hosts are repeatedly born and destroyed either in their former or different shapes. 25. Like this there are seventy two Tretá cycles in a Kalpa age of Brahmá, some of which have passed by and others to follow. Thus will there be other people like those that have gone by, and as I understand, another Ráma and Vasishtha like ourselves (by the eternal rotation of ideas in the Divine mind). 26. There have been ten successive incarnations of this Vyása, who has done such wondrous acts, and is famed for his vast knowledge. 27. Myself and Válmíki have been contemporaries many a time, as also born in different ages and very many times. 28. We have been many times, and there were others also like myself, and so was I born also in many forms (in many ages).