September 5, 2026
baddhvā khaṭvāṅgaśṛṅge kapilamurujaṭāmaṇḍalaṁ padmayoneḥ
kṛtvā daityottamāṅgaiḥ srajamurasi śiraḥśekharaṁ tārkṣyapakṣaiḥ
yā devī bhukttaviśvā pibati jagadidaṁ sādribhūpīṭhabhūtaṁ
sā devī niṣkalaṅkā kalitatanulatā pātu naḥ pālanīyān (30)
VIPAŚCIT (BHĀSA) continued:
I shall now relate to you another great wonder which I saw in another world. There is a shining world in the great space, which is beyond your reach. That world is as different from this as the dream-world is different from the world of the waking state experience. While I was roaming that world in order to find the extent of the objective universe, I noticed a gigantic shadow enveloping the whole of that earth. As I lifted my eyes to the sky in order to find out what the cause of that shadow might be, I saw an enormous thing looking like a person falling in space and descending upon the world I was in. It even hid the sun so effectively that the world was totally enveloped in darkness.
It fell on the earth, even as I was thus gazing at it with awe and wonder. I felt that my end was near and overcome by fear I quickly entered into fire. I had worshipped the fire-god in very many incarnations; hence, the fire- god reassured me with the words “Do not be afraid”. I, too, prayed to the fire-god for his protection. The fire-god commanded me to ascend his own vehicle and said, “Let us both go to the world of fire”. The fire-god then made a small hole in that huge body that had fallen on the earth and both of us escaped into the outer space.
It was only from there that we could realise the colossal nature of that body which had fallen on the earth. By its fall it had agitated all the oceans and destroyed all the cities, towns and forests. It had stopped the flow of the rivers. There was weeping and wailing everywhere. The earth itself was groaning under its weight. Gale-force winds and torrential rains reminded one of the cosmic dissolution. The peaks of the Himālayas had descended into the nether world. The sun fell on the earth. The entire earth had been shattered. The celestials who were coursing the heavens saw this enormous body and thought that it was another newly-created earth or another half of the universe or perhaps a portion of space which had fallen from its place!
But when I saw it with great attention, I saw that it was made of flesh and that the entire earth could not even cover a limb in that body. Having seen this, I turned to my tutelary deity, the fire-god, and asked him “Lord, what is this?”
The fire-god replied: “Child, wait till the disturbances caused by the fall of this corpse subside. I shall then tell you all about it.”
Then the space around the earth was filled with sages, siddhas and celestials, the manes and the gods, all of whom had etheric bodies. They bowed their heads and offered a prayer to the divine mother Kālarātri: “May the divine mother who is endowed with a black body, who consumes the entire universe, who holds the head of Brahmā at the tip of her sword and who wears the garland of the heads of the demons and who is yet absolutely pure, protect us.”