September 7, 2026
brahmādīnāṁ tṛṇāntānāṁ dvidhā bhavati saṁbhavaḥ
eko brahmamayo ‘nyastu bhrāntijastāvimau śṛuṇu (136/22)
VASIṢṬHA (or BHĀSA) continued:
The gods continued to say thus among themselves: “The goblins have now eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of this corpse; hence one can see the earth again. The very bones of that body form the new mountains.” As the gods were saying so, the satisfied goblins began to dance in space. The gods saw that there was some blood left on the earth; they filled the oceans with it and willed that it should become liquor. The goblins drank of this liquor and continued to dance: even now they do so. This earth was made out of the flesh (meda) of the corpse and hence it is known as “medinī” (earth). Thus the earth and its inhabitants were brought again into being, with its night and day, etc. The Creator created a new mankind.
(BHĀSA said:) Then I asked the fire-god: Who was this person before he died?
The FIRE-GOD narrated to me the following story:
Listen, there is infinite space which is full of pure consciousness. In it are countless worlds floating like so many atoms. In that there arose a cosmic person endowed with self-awareness. That person experiences its own light as you see an object in a dream. From those experiences arise the various senses and their respective organs which together form the body.
These senses perceive their own respective objects which become the world. In that world there arose a person named Asura (demon). He was proud of his might. Once he destroyed the hermitage of a sage who cursed him thus: “You have done this because you are proud of your gigantic body. You will die and become a mosquito. “The fire of that curse burnt Asura to ashes. He became a disembodied personality, just like the mind of an unconscious person. It became one with the physical space. It then became united with the wind in that space. This wind is the life-force (prāṇa). The Asura now awoke as a living being and acquired energy, water, etc. Once again endowed with the five elements (the tanmātras) and a particle of the infinite consciousness, he began to vibrate as an individual. There arose in him self-awareness just as a seed sprouts in favourable conditions. In that self-awareness lay the sage’s curse and therefore the notion of a mosquito. Therefore he became a mosquito.
(In answer to Rāma’s question, Vasiṣṭha said: Right from Brahmā down to the blade of grass all beings are subject to two forms of birth: the first is Brahmā’s creation and the other is illusory creation. The creation that arises spontaneously in the mind of the Creator which he had not experienced before is the creation of Brahmā, not “birth through the womb”. That which arises on account of latent delusion is the illusory birth, born of subject-object relationship.)
The mosquito dwelt happily on a blade of grass with its partner. This grass was eaten by a deer. Because he died looking at the deer, he became a deer. The deer was killed by a hunter: hence the deer was born as a hunter in the next birth. While the hunter was roaming the forest, he had the good fortune to meet a holy sage who awakened him: “Why do you engage yourself in this cruel life of a hunter? Abandon this sinful life and seek to attain nirvāṇa.”