37. O my eyes! that used to dispel the darkness of the darkest night, and kindle the dry fuel with your glaring fire; why do ye cease to lighten the air with your effulgence? 38. O my shoulder blades! are ye broken down and levelled with the earth? or are ye crushed and smashed or mouldered and worn out by age? 39. O my moonbright face! why dost thou not shine over me with thy bright beams; resembling the everlasting light of the orb of the moon, now at an end for ever? 40. O my hands! where is your strength fled today? See ye not, how I am transformed to an ignoble needle, that is moved about by the touch of the foot of a fly? 41. Alas! the cavity of my navel, which was as deep as a well, and beset by hairs resembling rows of beautiful plants about it; and my protuberant posteriors, which likened to the bottom of the Vindhyá hills. 42. Where is that towering stature reaching to the sky, and what is this new earned contemptible form of the needle; where is that mouth, hollow as the vault of the sky, and what is this hole of the needle? Where is that heap of my flesh meat, and what is this drop of watery food? Ah! how lean have I grown, but who is to be blamed for an act of my own doing? CHAPTER LXXII. FERVOUR OF SÚCHÍ’S DEVOTION. Argument. Ardour of Súchí’s austerities and Indra’s Inquiry of it. Vasishtha continued:—Afterwards Súchí became silent and motionless, and thought of resuming her austerities for the sake of regaining her long lost body. 2. With this intention she returned to the Himálayas; and there abstaining from her desire of human gore, she sat reiterating her castigations. 3. She saw in her mind her form of the needle, entering into her heart with her breathings. 4. Thus meditating on her mental form of the needle, she was wafted by her vital breath to the top of the hill, and alighted on it like a vulture from high. 5. There she remained alone and apart from all living beings, and sat amidst burning fires, with her form of an ash-coloured stone (_i.e._ besmeared by ashes like a _yogi_). 6. She sat there as a sprout of grass, springing in that dry and grassless spot; but soon faded away, to a blade of withered hay in the sandy desert. 7. She remained standing on tip-toe of her only one foot, and continued in the castigation of her own self. (Standing of the one legged needle, represented the posture of devotees standing on one leg). 8. She lightly touched the ground with her tiptoe stature, and avoiding all sidelong looks, gazed on the upper sky with her upraised face and uplifted eyes. 9. The acute point of the black iron needle, firmly preserved its standing posture by penetrating the ground; while it fed itself upon the air, which it inhaled by its uplifted mouth. 10. The scarcity of food in the forest, made it look up as in quest of some prey coming from a distance; while its lower part shaking with the wind, enticed the unwary to approach towards it.