1-2. After hearing the account of Dharanivrata from sage Durvasas, Satyatapas went to a slope of the Himalaya mountain where the river there was Pushpabhadra (beautiful with flowers), the stone Citrasila (beautifully shaped) and the banyan tree Bhadravata (particularly attractive), and building a hermitage there, spent the rest of his life in contemplation.
Earth said:
3. Thousands of aeons have elapsed since I performed this vrata, and now I have forgotten all about it.
4-5. By your blessings I now begin to get a recollection of all that. I am, therefore, anxious to know more.
6. Therefore, kindly tell me what Agastya did after returning to the residence of Bhadrasva.
Varaha said;
7. When the sage returned, Bhadrasva asked him about Moksha-dharma.
Bhadrasva said:
8. Oh sage! By what means is the bondage of worldly existence snapped, and by what means the sorrows in life can be got over?
Agastya said:
9. Oh king! Listen well to this story relating to what is distant and what is near, and based on the division into the seen and the unseen.
10. At the time when there was no day, no night, no direction, no heaven, no gods and no sun, a king named Pasupala was looking after numerous beasts.
11. He once went to see the eastern ocean, and there, on that shore of that limitless expanse of water, saw a forest full of snakes.
12. There were eight trees and a freely flowing river. Five important persons were there moving horizontally and upwards. One of them was holding an effulgent woman.
13. The woman was holding on her chest a person having the splendour of a thousand suns, and with three colours and three divisions.
14. Seeing the king, all of them became silent and still; and as soon as the king entered the forest, they became combined into a single being.
15. The king was then encircled by the serpents, and he began to think about how he could kill them and escape.
16. When he was thus thinking, another person having the three colours, white, red and yellow, came out of his body.
17. He asked by gesticulation where he should go. Just then there arose Mahat.
18. The king was covered by that and asked to be alert in mind. He was then confronted by the woman (who was really Maya).
19. He was thus engulfed by Maya. Then the Lord of all beings caught him in his possession.
20. Then five other persons came there and surrounded him.
21. All these hid themselves within the king’s person when the serpents came united to attack.
22. The king then appeared highly resplendent and all his sins disappeared.
23. In him were unified earth, water, fire, air and ether and all their qualities.
24. Thus Pasupala unified all these that stood around him.
25. Seeing the king then, the tri-coloured person said to him:
26-27. ‘Oh king! I am your son; please command me to do what you wish. We decided to bind you, but were defeated and bound by you, and we now remain hidden in your body. When I have become your son, everything else will arise of its own’.
28. Told thus, the king spoke to the man.
29. ‘You (say you) are my son, and, as a result, other things arise. But I don’t desire to have attachment to any of the pleasures men may have’.
30. So saying he released the son, and with him others also. And freed from them, he stood alone.
Chapter Two
Agastya said:
1. The king made himself into a tri-coloured being and produced a tri-coloured son named Aham (ego).
2. The son got a daughter Avabodha (consciousness) and she got a son Vijnana (knowledge).
3. He got five sons comprehending all comprehensible objects, and named Aksa and the rest (eye etc).
4. These (sense-organs) were the Dasyus (hostile aborigines) who were subjugated by the king.
5. In their abstract form, they made an abode for themselves (in the king’s person), a city consisting of nine outlets, a single pillar, four pathways, and numerous rivulets and ponds.
6. All the nine entered the city together and soon Pasupala became the concrete Purusa.
7. Established in that city, the king brought the Vedas there by contemplating on them.
8. The king also arranged there for all the Vratas, rules and sacrifices laid down in them.
9. The king once felt distressed and evoked the karmakanda (ritualism), and then the Supreme Lord, remaining in yogic slumber, got forth a son with four faces, four hands and four feet, embodying the four Vedas.
10. From then onwards, every object of sense came to be under the king’s perfect control.
11. He found the sea and the forest, the grass and the elephant, etc alike, as a result of his invocation of the karmakanda.
