A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s9.84

v1.c8.s9.84

"A king named Bṛhadratha, after having installed his eldest son on the throne, thinking that his body is non-eternal, turned to renunciation and went forth into the forest. There he gave himself up to the severest mortification, standing with arms stretched upwards and gazing into the sun. After one thousand days had elapsed there approached him........... the Ātman-knowing, venerable Śākāyanya. 'Stand up, stand up and choose a wish!' thus spake he to the king. He made his obeisance to him and said: 'O venerable one! I am not cognizant of the Ātman. Thou knowest his nature, as we have heard; mayest thou explain this to us!' (The Brahman desires to dissuade him from this wish and invites him to wish for something else. Then the king bursts forth into the words:) 'O venerable one! In this evil-smelling, pithless body, composed of bones, skin, sinews, marrow, flesh, seed, blood, mucus, tears, gum of the eyes, faeces, urine, bile and phlegm,—how can one possibly enjoy pleasure! In this body burdened with passion, anger, desire, delusion, fear, cowardice, envy, separation from that which is beloved, attachment to that which is not beloved, hunger, thirst, age, death, disease, trouble and such like,—how can one possibly enjoy pleasure! We see also that this whole world is transitory, just like these flies, mosquitoes, and such like, these herbs and trees, which rise and again decay.' (There then follows an enumeration of ancient kings and heroes who had to perish, also gods and demigods, who all fall victims to annihilation.) 'But what of these! There are yet other things,—drying-up of great seas, falling down of the mountains, swaying of the Pole Star,...... sinking of the earth, the fall of the gods from their place,—in the course of a world in which such things happen, how indeed can one enjoy pleasure! When even he who is satiated with it, must return again and again! Therefore rescue me! For I feel in this world-cycle like the frog in a waterless well. Thou, O venerable one, art our refuge,"