Sri Vasista

1. -5 O Rāma, thus proceeded the terrible battle between ‘devas’ and ‘asuras’.  Blood flowed from the large and wide bodies of the men like rivers of the heavens.  Dārma encircled the ‘devas’ while ‘Vyāla pounded all the residences and buildings with his long-reaching hands.  Kata killed the soldiers in fierce battle.  The heavenly elephant of giant body ‘Irāvata’ lost his speed and started fleeing away from the field.  ‘Devas’ fled like warriors released by damburst.

6. -8 For a long time the three warriors searched for the hiding ‘devas’.  In spite of their effort they could not locate ‘devas’.  It was like a lion unable to locate the deer hiding behind dense creepers.  The three were pleased that they vanquished the ‘devas’.  They went to the netherworlds to deliver the glad tidings to their lord and creator, Sambara.

9. -10 Feeling respite, devas summoned courage and came out of their hiding places.  They decided to take counsel from Brahma.  (Listening to their prayers) Brahma materialised in their midst like moon in the waters of sea.

11. -12. ‘Devas’ prostrated before Brahma and narrated to him the calamity in which they were placed along with the story of Dāma, Vyāla and Kata.  Brahma listened to them with compassion and spoke these words of courage and solace.

Sri Brahma

13. O Devas. Sambara will be killed by Hari after hundred thousand years.  You will have to wait till that time.

14. O you the immortals, now retreat doing a take battle with Dāma, Vyāla and Kata.  Go out of their sight.

15. Since they are by now accustomed to battle, they have need to continue if Ego (which they do not have) will develop in them like a reflection in a minor.

16. They will acquire vāsanas (because of ego).  They will then be easy prey to you like a bird caught in a net.

17. Now they do not have vāsanas.  They are free from feelings of happiness and sorrow.  Thus they destroy enemy with courage and are invisible.

18. Once they come into the grip of vāsanas they are bound by ropes of greed and desire.  They will become like birds caught in a net.  They will slide into the bondage of the world.

19. It is difficult to vanquish great souls who are free from vāsanas, whose mind is not hung up with any attractions, and who neither delight nor become angry.

20. Even a child can defeat a person, even if wise, if he is bound by the ropes of vāsanas.

21. ‘I am this body’ and such imaginations and thoughts will lead one to calamities.  It will be like waters (naturally) flowing into sea.

22. Even a wise, all knowing person will come to miserable grief by severing himself from the great soul and consider himself to be only the body.\

23. One who identifies the soul – infinite immeasurable one – as his body or himself as an individual loses his self.

24. If there is anything in the three worlds that is in opposition to self, that becomes bound by vāsanas due to objective limitation.

25. To believe in such objective limitation is the cause of unending sorrow.  This is known to the wise people.  They also know that not to believe in such limitation is full of happiness.

26. As long as the triad of Dāma, Vyāla and Kata stay without belief in their limitation, they remain invincible. Mosquitoes cannot fight fire.

27. People become miserable and are led to grief by vasānas.  Such people are vincible. (Without vasānas) even a mosque is like a Meru Hill.  It cannot be shaken.

28. Where vāsana is manifest, there it increases to be big.  Qualities are possessed by one who can have qualities.  Then duality is seen – Not when things do not exist.

29. ‘I am this body’ – one who thinks like that will acquire vasanas.  He will be one with vasanas.  Devise a way by which the three, Dama and others, think as if having vāsanas

30. The states of existence an the calamities of the people will be sweet or pungent according to their levels of desire and greed.  They are like the soft and thorny parts of a ‘Karanja’ flower.

31. Those who are bound by vāsanas will whirl around with intense sorrow being cut off from all happiness.

32. May they be courageous people, of multifaceted knowledge, born of high lineage, may be great-even so when bound by intense desire, they are like lions fettered in a cage.

33. Desire is like a net cast (to catch) the eagle of mind entering the heart – nest located on the tree of body.

34. Those who are distressed by vāsanas are pulled away by yama, the lord of death like an unconscious bird being led by a child with his rope.

35. O Indra, now there is no use with volumes of weapons and engaging in battle.  Try to drive the enemy into the error of ‘vāsana’ by some deception and trick.

36. O Lord of the immortals, an enemy who is not agitated inside (courageous) cannot be one by weapons or miracle arrows – not even by some war-games.

37. Dāma, Vyāla and Katā are now used to engaging in battle.  They are now intoxicated with personal victories and hence by sense of ego.  This ego has made a deep impression on them.  And so it is now a ‘vāsana’ for them.

38. When these ignorant people (without vāsanas) created (as typal beings) by Sambara, take up this ‘vāsana’, they become vulnerable and vincible.

39. So, devatas, engage in a mock battle till these three become impressed with the vāsana of battle.

40. Once they come into the grip of ‘vāsana’ they become bound by it.  Desire weaves into them.  Those who are not bound can never be weak.

41. This world is rough, rugged and painful because of the self-inflicted vāsanas.  And so it has lost its balance.  It is like a wavy ocean.  This has to be cured.