53. Some were weltering in blood, and rolling in pools of dirt, rotten flesh and disgusting pus; and others were crushed under stones and weapons, and beneath the feet of horses and elephants. 54. Hungry vultures and owls, were picking up and tearing the dead bodies, out of caves and places; and their limbs and members, were mangled and scattered all over the ground. 55. It is thus that men are prepossessed, with these thoughts of the punishment of their guilt, from the sacred writings; and thereby come to suffer the same, both in their bodies and minds, from their inward impressions of them. 56. Whatever form or figure, ever appears in the vacuum of the Intellect; or whatsoever is dreamt or thought of at anytime; the same holds fast the imagination, and presents itself before the mirror of the mind of its own accord. CHAPTER CLXI. EXPLANATION OF NIRVÁNA. Argument:--Manifestations of the self-existent Intellect. Its light guiding to Divine knowledge, and ignorance thereof leading to darkness. Ráma said:--Tell me sir, whether these various events incidental to the lives of the hermit and hunter, were owing to any cause, or of their own spontaneity (_i.e._ whether they were the effects of any cause, or of their spontaneous occurrence as mere dreams and phantasies). 2. Vasishtha replied:--These occurrences are as the appearance of eddies, in the vast ocean of the unknown soul (or mind); and are known to be in their continual rotation in the vortex of the soul, of their own accord and in their airy forms. 3. As the oscillating particles of air, are ever in motion in the air; so the current of thoughts is continually in action, in the vast vacuity of intellect (or mind). 4. Whatever issues from its source in any shape, retains its original form unless it is converted to and restrained in any other form; so the aerial thoughts of the vacuous mind are always aerial, unless they are drawn in painting or exhibited in another form. (Just so a clod of earth is always the earth, till it is moulded to the form of a pot or any other thing). 5. It is the vacuous essence of the Divine Intellect, that inheres in every form that is exhibited by and derived from it; so it is the substance of the body, that permits through out all its members and limbs; as it is the woody substance of the tree, that is diffused through all the leaves and branches, that shoot forth from it. (Gloss. The difference consists in the permanence of the permeating principle, and the temporiety of the pervaded growth). 6. Brahma appears to remain permanent in some existences, as in the four elemental forms of earth etc.; while he seems to be transcient and evanescent in others, as in the frail bodies of mortal bodies, all of which abide in their aerial state in the vacuous spirit.