The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 1 (of 4)Valmiki
Religion
The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 1 (of 4)
Valmiki
Hinduism -- Doctrines -- Early works to 1800; Religious life -- Hinduism -- Early works to 1800
14. Sound is the seed (or root) of words, which were afterwards
diversified in the forms of names or nouns and significant terms; and
the assemblage of words, as shoots of trees, is varied in _padas_ or
inflected words, _vákyas_ or sentences, and the collections of Vedas
and Sástras.
15. It is from this Supreme spirit, that all these worlds derived their
beauty afterwards; and the multitude of words (which sprang from the
sounds), and were full of meaning, became widely spread at last.
16. The Intellect having such a family as its offspring, is expressed
by the word _jíva_ (_zoa_) or the living soul, which became afterwards
the arbor (or source) of all forms of beings, known under a variety of
expressions and their significations. (_i.e._ The living god Brahmá
became the cause of the formal world, from the _tanmátra_ elements
produced by Brahma).
17. The fourteen kinds of living beings, which fill the cells in the
bowels of all worlds, sprang afterwards from this living soul. (These
include all vegetable and animal life and all such as increase in bulk
and growth).
18. It was then, that the Intellect by a motion and inflation of
itself, and at an instantaneous thought, became the element _tanmátra_
of touch and feeling (the air), which was yet without its name and
action. (The Spirit breathed breathless. _Sruti_). This breath caused
air, which expanded itself and filled all bodies, which are objects of
touch and feeling.
19. The air, which is the seed (root) of the tree of tangibles, then
developed itself into branches, composed of the (49) various kinds of
winds, that are the causes of the breathings and motions of all beings.
20. Then the Intellect produced at pleasure and from its idea of
light, the elemental essence of lustre, which received afterwards its
different names (from the light of the sun and moon and the stars, as
also from those of fire and lightning).
21. Then the sun, fire, lightning and others, which are the seeds (or
roots) of the tree of light, caused the various colours of bodies that
filled the world. (That light is the cause of colour, was known to the
ancient Rishi).
22. It reflected on the want of fluidity, and produced the liquid body
of waters, whose taste constitutes the element (_tanmátra_) of flavour.
23. The desire of the soul for different flavours (_rasas_), is the
seed of the tree of taste, and it is by the relish of a variety of
tastes, that the world is to go on in its course.
24. Then the self-willed Brahmá, wishing to produce the visible earth,
caused the property of smell to appertain to it from his own element of
it.
25. He made his elementary solidity, the seed or source of the tree
of forms (morphology); as he made his own element of rotundity the
substratum of the spherical world.
26. Those elements being all evolved from the Intellect, are again
involved of themselves in it, as the bubbles of water rise and subside
in itself.
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