Argument:—Description of the perfection and personality of Siva as an undivided whole. Ráma rejoined:—Who is this goddess, sir, that is dancing thus in her act of destruction, and why is it that she bears on her body the pots and fruits as her wreaths of flowers? 2. Say, whether the worlds are wholly destroyed at the end, or they become extinct in the goddess Káli, and reside in her person, and when doth her dance come to an end. 3. Vasishtha replied:—Neither is he a male, nor is she a female; nor was there a dancing of the one, or a duality of the two (in their spirit); such being the case (of their unity), and such the nature of their action (of destruction); neither of them any form, or figure of their own (except that they are personified as such). 4. That which is without its beginning or end, is the divine Intellect alone; which in the manner of infinite vacuity, is the cause of all causes. (In the beginning all was void, which caused all things). 5. It is the increate and endless light, that exists from eternity, and extends over all space. This calm and quiet state of the etherial space is known as Siva or tranquil, and its change to confusion at the end, is denominated Bhairava or the dreadful. (_i.e._ the Lord acting his dreadful part in the theatre of the universe). 6. It is impossible for the pure and formless intellect, to remain alone and aloof from its association with plastic nature; as it is not likely to find any gold to exist without some form or other. (So the sruti:—The creation and absorption of the world, require a formal agent and recipient also). 7. Say ye who know, how the intellect may subsist without its intelligence, and where a pepper may be had without its pungency? (There is nothing without its necessary property, nor the formal world without a formal cause). 8. Consider how can there be any gold, without its form of a bracelet or any other; and how doth a substance exist without its substantial property or nature? 9. Say what is the extract of the sugar-cane, unless it is possessed of its sweetness; you can not call it the juice of sugar-cane, unless you find the saccharine flavour in the same. 10. When the intellect is devoid of its intellection, you can not call it as the intellect any more; nor is the vacuous form of the intellect, ever liable to any change or annihilation. (A void is devoid of all accidents). 11. Vacuity admits of no variety, besides its retaining the identity of its inanity; and in order to assume a diversity, the void must remain a void as ever. (Or else it becomes a solid, which is no more itself). 12. Therefore the unchanged and unagitated essence, which is essential to it, must be without beginning and unlimited, and full of all potency in itself (since vacuum is the medium both of creation as well as of annihilation also).