48. I then went and explained my mission to the royal hermit, took him to the sage Válmíki (who had grown amidst the ant-hills), and to whom I delivered great Indrá’s charge for the king’s practice (of the means) for his final liberation. 49. Then the sage (named after the ant-hill in which he had grown), welcomed the King with gentle inquiries regarding his welfare. 50. The prince replied:— “Oh great _seer_, that art informed in all the truths of religion, and art the greatest of them that know the knowable, thy very sight has given me all that I desired, and therein is all my welfare. 51. “Great sire, I wish to learn from thee how I may escape the miseries which arise from one’s connection with this world, and which (I hope) thou wilt reveal to me without reserve.” 52. Válmíki said:— Hear me Oh king! I will relate to you the entire Rámáyana, by the hearing and understanding of which you will be saved even while in this life. SECTION VI. HISTORY OF RÁMA. 53. Hear me Oh great and intelligent king, repeat to you the sacred conversation which took place between Ráma and Vasishtha relating the way to liberation, and which I well know from my knowledge (of human nature). 54. The prince said:— “O thou best of sages, tell me precisely who and what this Ráma was, what was his bondage and how he got freed from it.” 55. Válmíki said:— Hari was proscribed under an imprecation to take upon himself the form of a prince, with an assumed ignorance as that of a man of little understanding. 56. The prince said: “Tell me who was the author of that imprecation, and how it could befal on Ráma, who was the personification of consciousness and felicity, and the very image of wisdom.” 57. Válmíki replied: Sanat-kumára, who was devoid of desires, had been residing at the abode of Brahmá, to which Vishnu, the Lord of the three worlds, was a visitor from Vaikuntha. 58. The Lord God was welcomed by all the inhabitants of the _Brahmaloka_ as well as by Brahmá himself, except by Sanat-kumára who was thus beheld and addressed to by the god. 59. “Sanat-kumár, it is ignorance that makes thee forsake thy desires for fear of regeneration (on earth), therefore must thou be born under the name of _Sara-janmá_ to be troubled with desires.” 60. Sanat-kumára in return denounced Vishnu by saying:—“Even all discerning as thou art, thou shalt have to sacrifice thine omniscience for some time, and pass as an ignorant mortal (on earth).” 61. There was another anathema pronounced upon Vishnu by the sage Bhrigu, who seeing his wife killed (by him), became incensed with anger and said: “Vishnu thou shalt have also to be bereft of thy wife.” 62. He was again cursed by _Vrindá_ to be deprived of his wife, on account of his beguiling her (in the form of her husband). 63. Again when the pregnant wife of Deva-datta was killed (with fear) on seeing the man-lion figure of Vishnu;