Ráma said:--Venerable sir, that knowest the substance of all truths; I understand the parable of bel fruit which you have just related to me to bear relation to the essence of the compact intellect, which is the only unit and identic with itself. 2. The whole plenitude of existence together with the personalities of I, thou, this and that form the plenum (or substance), of the intellect; and there is not the least difference between them, as this is one thing and that another. (All this is but one undivided whole, whose body nature is and God the soul. Pope). 3. Vasishtha answered--As this mundane egg or universe is likened to a gourd fruit, containing the mountains and all other things as its inner substance; so doth the intellect resemble the bel fruit or the grand substratum, that contains even the universe as the kernel inside it. 4. But though the world has no other receptacle beside the Divine intellect, yet it is not literally the kernel inside that crust (_i.e._ the substance of that substratum in its literal sense). Because the world has its decay, decline and dissolution also in time, but none of these belong to the nature of the everlasting mind of God. 5. The intellect resembles the hard coating of the pepper seed, containing the soft substance of its pith inside it, and is likened also to block of stone, bearing the sculptured figures peacefully sleeping in it. (All things are engraven in the divine mind). 6. Here me relate to you, O moon faced Ráma! another pleasant story in this place which will appear equally charming as well as wondrous to you. (It is the story of stone like Brahma). 7. There is a huge block of stone somewhere, which is as big as it is thick and solid; it is bright and glossy, and cold and smooth to touch; it never wastes or wears out, nor becomes dark and dim. 8. There are many full blown lotuses, and unnumbered buds of water lilies, growing amidst the limpid lake of water, contained within the bosom of this wondrous stone. (It means that the mind of God has all these images of things engraved in it as in a stone). 9. There are many other plants growing also in that lake, some with their long and broad caves and others with their alternate and joint foliums likewise. 10. There are many flowers with their up lifted and down cast heads, and others with their petals hanging before them; some having a combined or common footstalk, and others growing separate and apart from one another; some are concealed and others manifest to view. 11. Some have their roots formed of the fibres of the pericarp, and some have their pericarps growing upon the roots (as orchids), some have their roots on the tops and others at the foot of trees, while there are many without their roots at all: (as the parasite plants). 12. There are a great many conch shells about these, and unnumbered diseases also strewn all about.