31. Why don't you discuss about the natures of bondage and liberation in the company of the learned, and pay your homage at their venerable feet? 32. Do you want, O prince to pass your life in the discharge of your painful austerities, as some insects finish their days in perforating the stones in which they live? 33. You can easily obtain the delight you seek, if you will but betake yourself to the service of holy man; and keep company with the tolerant and wise souls, arguing with them on spiritual subjects. 34. Or you may continue to remain in your grotto, in this forest living on the simple food of holy men; and by forsaking the evil propensities of your mind, abide here as an insect in a hole under the ground. 35. Vasishtha related:--Being thus awakened to sense by his wife--the Divine boy--Sikhidhwaja, melted into tears; and with his face bathed in water, spoke to the lad as follows:-- 36. Sikhidhwaja said:--O Divine child! it is after a long time, that I am awakened by thee to my senses; and I perceive now that it was my weak-headedness, which drove me from the society of respectable to this lonely forest. 37. Ah! I find now that my mind is purged to-day of its endless sins, which has brought thee to my presence here, and remonstrate with me on my past misconduct. 38. O beauteous boy! I deem thee henceforward as my monitor and father and my best friend forever, and acknowledge myself as thy pupil; wherefore I bow down at thy feet and pray thee to take piety on me. 39. Please admonish me now on the subject of Divine knowledge, as you are best acquainted with it; and whereby I may be freed from all my sorrows, and be settled with perfect peace and bliss of my mind. 40. You said at first, that knowledge is the supreme bliss or summum bonum of mankind; now tell me, which is that knowledge which saves us from misery; whether it is the knowledge of particulars which lead us to the acquaintance of specials, or that of the general which brings us to the transcendental. (The former is the inductive knowledge of ascending from particulars to the universal, and the latter is deductive knowledge of deducing everything from the primitive one). 41. Chúdálá replied:--I will tell thee prince as far as I know about it, and what may be best acceptable to thee; and not throw away my words in vain, like crowing ravens about a headless trunk. 42. Because the words that are uttered to the impertinent questions of a person and not heeded by him, are thrown in vain; and become as useless to him, as her eye sight in the dark. 43. Sikhidhwaja said:--Sir, your words are as acceptable to me as the ordinances of veda (gospel truth); and though you utter them without previous meditation (extempore), yet I have full faith in them. 44. Chúdálá replied:--As a boy obeys the words of his father, knowing it to be pronounced for his certain good; so must you receive my words (knowing them to tend to your best welfare).