3. Mind! how great was the leadership of Sambara’s army, (once held by Dáma and his colleagues), and whereby they defeated the hosts of the immortal deities, and reflect on the change of their state to contemptible fishes in a dry and dirty quagmire. 4. Mind their former fortitude, which put to flight the legions of the immortals; and think on their base servility as hunters, under the chief of Kirátas afterwards. 5. See their unselfishness of mind and great patience at first, and then see their vain desires and assumption of the vanity of egotism at last. 6. Selfish egotism is the root of the wide extended branches of misery in the forest of the world, which produces and bears the poisonous blossoms of desire. 7. Therefore, O Ráma! be diligent to wipe off from thy heart the sense of thy egoism, and try to be happy by thinking always of the nullity of thyself. 8. The error of egoism like a dark cloud, hidst the bright disk of the moon of truth under its gloom, and causes its cooling beams to disappear from sight. 9. The three Daityas Dáma, Vyála and Kata, being under the demoniac influence of Egoism, believed their nonentity as positive entity by the excess of their illusion. 10. They are now living as fishes in the muddy pool of a lake, among the forest lands of Kashmira, where they are content at present with feeding with _zest_ upon the moss and weeds growing in it. (The watery land of Kashmir is well-known to abound in fishes feeding on aquatic herbs and moss). 11. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, how they came to existence when they were nonexistent before; for neither can a _nil_ be an _ens_, nor an entity become a nonentity at any time. 12. Vasishtha replied:—So it is, O strong armed Ráma! that nothing can ever be something, or anything can ever be nothing. But it is possible for a little thing to be great, as for a great one to be reduced to minuteness. (As it is the case in the evolution and involutions of beings). 13. Say what nonentity has come to being, or what entity has been lasting for ever. All these I will explain to you by their best proofs and examples. 14. Ráma answered:—Why sir, all that is existent is ever present before us as our own bodies, and all things beside ourselves; but you are speaking of Dáma and the demons, as mere nullities and yet to be in existence. 15. Yes Ráma, it was in the same way, that the non-existent and unreal Dáma and others seemed to be in existence by mere illusion, as the mirage appears to us to be full of water by our optical delusion (or deception of vision). 16. It is in like manner that ourselves, these gods and demigods, and all things besides, are unrealities in fact, and yet we seem to turn about and speak and act as real persons. 17. My existence is as unreal as thine, and yet it appears as real as we dream our death in sleep. (So we dream of our existence while we are awake).