24. I will pluck this head of mine, and make an offering of it to the Fire-god (as a fit fruit to <the> shrine; and say:--O Igneous god, I make here an offering of my head to thee). 25. I give this offering, as I have ever before given my oblations to fire; therefore accept of this also, O god, if thou art pleased with my former offerings. 26. Let the four urns of thy fiery furnace, yield four forms of mine, with brilliant and strong bodies, like that of Náráyana, with his mighty arms. 27. Thus will I be enabled, with those four bodies of mine, to meet my enemies on all the four sides; and be invulnerable like thyself, by keeping my thought and sight, ever fixed in thee. 28. Vasishtha replied:--So saying, the king took hold of a dagger in his hand; and separated the head from his body with one blow of it, as boys tear off a lotus bud from the stalk with their nails. (In many instances, the head is mentioned to be torn off by the nails). 29. As the head became an oblation, to the fire of dusky fumes; the headless trunk of the self-immolated sovereign, sprang and flew also upon the burning furnace. 30. The sacred fire, being fed with the fat and flesh of the royal carcass; yielded forth with four such living bodies, from amidst its burning flames; as it is the nature of the good and great, to make an instantaneous of fourfold, of what they receive in earnest. 31. The king sprang from amidst the fire, in his fourfold forms of his kingly appearance, and these were as luminous with their effulgence, as the radiant body of Náráyana, when it rose at first from the formless deep. (The spirit of god rising over the surface of the deep). 32. These four bodies of the king, shone forth with their resplendent lustre; and were adorned with their inborn decorations of the royal crown and other ornaments and weapons. (The fire born form allude to the Agniculas or fiery races of men). 33. They had their armours and coronets on, together with helmets, bracelets and fittings for all and every part of the body; and necklaces and ear-rings hung upon them as they moved along. 34. All the four princes were of equal forms, and of similar shapes and sizes in all the member of their bodies; and were all seated on horse back, like so many Indras riding on their _Uchai-srava_ horses (having their ears pricked up, as in the plight of their heavenward flight). 35. They had their long and capacious quivers, full with arrows of golden shafts; and their ponderous bows and bowstrings, were equally long and strong with the god of war. 36. They rode also on elephants and steeds, and mounted on their war-cars and other vehicles in their warfare; and were alike impregnable by the arms of the enemy, both themselves as well as the vehicles they rode upon. 37. They sprang from the bosom of the sacred fire, as the flames of the submarine fire, rise from amidst the ocean, by being nourished with the oblations that were offered upon it.