2. The Prince Arishtanemi replied:--O Venerable sir, your kind look is enough to extricate us from bondage in this world; and it is hence that I am not only brought to light, but saved from the ocean of this world by your favour. 3. The Heavenly Messenger said:--After saying so, the said prince seemed to look amazed in his look; and then he began to speak these words to me with a graceful voice. 4. The Prince said:--I bow down to thee, O Messenger divine, and wish all safety to attend on thee; it is said that the friendship of the good is attended with seven benefits, all which hast thou conferred upon me. 5. Now return in safety to your seat in the heaven of Indra, and well know that, I am both gladdened as well as grown _insouciant_ of worldly concerns, by hearing this discourse of thine. 6. I shall continue to remain here for ever more, and without feeling any anxiety, to think well and ponder deeply into the sense of all that I have heard from thee. Now I tell thee, O Lady! that I was quite surprised (to see so much civility on the part of a prince). 7. He said:--I have never heard before, such words and fraught with so much knowledge, as I have come now to hear from thee; It has filled my inward spirit with as much joy, as if I have drunk my fill of an ambrosial draught just now. 8. I then repaired to thee, O thou sinless fairy, at the bidding of Válmíki; in order to relate unto thee all that thou hast asked of me. And now I shall bend my course, towards the celestial city of Sakra. 9. The fairy said:--I must thank thee now, O thou very fortunate emissary of the gods! for all that thou hast related to me; and my knowledge whereof, has entirely composed my spirit, by its benign influence. 10. I am now quite satisfied in myself, and will ever remain from sorrow and all the sickening cares of life; and you may now to your destination at Indras, with all speed attending on your journey thither. 11. So saying Suruchi--the best of fairies, continued to keep her seat on the slope of the Himálayas, and contiguous to the Gandhamádana mount of fragrance, and reflect on the sense of what she had heard (of divine knowledge). 12. Now as you have fully heard, my son, all the precepts of Vasishtha, you are at liberty to do as you like, by your weighing well their purport. (For the effecting of your liberation which is the main object of man, both in this life as well as in the next). 13. Kárunya said:--The remembrance of the past, the sight of the present, and the talk of future events, together with the existence of the world; are all as false as the sights in our dreams or of water in mirage, or as the birth of a boy of a barren woman. 14. I gain nothing from my deeds, nor lose aught by what is left undone; I live to do as it happens, or at the impulse of the occasion and without any assiduity on my part.