27. She continued for many thousand years in her austere devotion, to the great astonishment of seven times seven worlds, that got affrighted at her austerities. (The cause of their fright was, lest she should take possession of their happy states, by the merit of her devotion). 28. The great mountain was set in a blaze, by the fervour of her devotion; and that flame spread to all the worlds, like the blaze of a portentous meteor. 29. This made Indra the god of heaven, to ask Nárada respecting the cause of this intense devotion; saying “Who is it that engrosses to her the fruition of worlds, by her austere devotion”? To whom Nárada thus replied: 30. “It is Súchí, who by her continued devotion of thousands of years, has attained her highest state of enlightenment; and it is that light that now enflames all the worlds.” 31. It is Súchí’s devotion, O lord of gods, that makes the Nágás to sigh and the hills to tremble. It causes the celestials to fall down, and the sea to overflow on earth. It dries up all things, and casts to shade the bright orb of the sun itself. CHAPTER LXXIII. NÁRADA’S RELATION OF SÚCHÍ’S DEVOTION. Argument. Description of Súchí’s _austerities_, and Indra’s Inquiry about them. Vasishtha related:—Indra having learnt about the austere devotion of Karkatí, had the curiosity to know more of her through Nárada, whom he asked about the matter. 2. Indra said:—I know Súchí to have acquired her fiendish practice (of blood sucking), by means of her devotion; but who is this apish Karkatí that is so greedy of her gain (of flesh and bones). 3. Nárada replied:—It is Karkatí the malevolent fiend, that became _Jíva Súchí_ or colic pain of the living, and assumed the shape of an iron needle as its support or fulcrum. 4. Having afterwards forsaken that prop, it entered into the human body as its landing place; and then it flew up to the heart on the vehicle of vital breath, and is seated in the car of the current air in atmosphere. (The resting place _locus standi, point d’appui or powsto_ of the diseases of life). 5. This colic of life—_Jíva Súchí_, having entered into the bodies of vicious lives, passes through the canals of their entrails and the pores of their flesh, fat and blood, and then nestles as a bird in the interior part. 6. It enters the intestines with the breath of the air, and there settles in the form of flatulent colic; afterwards being seated at the end of the _nyagrodha_ artery, it forms the plethoric colic with fulness of blood and inflammation. 7. It also enters the body through other parts and organs, and receives different names according to its situation; and then feeds itself upon their flesh and marrow (as the best food for living beings).