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Tale 36 · The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas

Kumbha's Birth from the Pot

Nirvāṇa · first half · Mitra VI.1.86–87 (prelude VI.1.85.44–148) · 3,125 words

The healer borrows a form so that the truth can be heard.

Bhūmikā 2 · Vicāraṇā (inquiry)LightYour ally · Sacred Trickery

The essence

Queen Cūḍālā, already awakened, finds her husband King Śikhidhvaja wasted by eighteen years and more of forest austerities, and knows he will never take wisdom from the woman he "treats always as his young and silly wife". So she becomes a radiant brahmin boy and, asked who he is, tells a birth story: the sage Nārada, overcome at the sight of bathing nymphs, spilt his seed, sealed it in a crystal pot of milk made by his will, and in a month a child formed whom Brahmā named Kumbha, "the Pot". The fiction wins the king's trust. Then Kumbha turns the mirror: the king's rites are kuśa grass that flowers and never fruits; his pots and staffs are "false playings of fools"; the real work is to ask what he is. The king weeps and becomes a disciple. The tale shows the healer choosing a form and a story the sufferer can receive, and states the law beneath both: everyone meets what he holds in his mind.

What it teaches

  1. 01

    A truth refused from a familiar voice can be accepted from an unfamiliar one: Cūḍālā changes the messenger, not the message, because the king hears only "his young and silly wife" in her (VI.1.85.54–55).

  2. 02

    Expectation shapes both perception and symptom: the boy who holds the idea of a ghost sees one, and the man who fears a malady is "soon attacked by it" (VI.1.87.22).

  3. 03

    Rigorous effort without inquiry is kuśa grass: discipline can flower for decades and bear no fruit if it never asks who is practising (VI.1.87.21–23, 87.30).

  4. 04

    Confrontation works here only after hospitality and trust: the king melts into tears when the challenge comes from someone he has already honoured as a god's son (VI.1.85.66–83, 87.35).

  5. 05

    The listening that receives a teaching is not argument but absorption: "as you hear music without inquiring into their reason or rhyme" (VI.1.87.45).

The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas

This tale’s coordinates

The wound and its virtue

Śikhidhvaja's Pride guards the Shame wound: he cannot hear wisdom from the woman he “treats me always as his young and silly wife” (VI.1.85.54), and he props his worth on rites, “these pots and staffs” (VI.1.87.29). Cūḍālā answers with Humour in its sacred form, a playful birth story from a pot of milk, and then turns the mirror so that the king identifies his own pattern, weeps, and becomes a disciple (VI.1.87.35–38).

What it trains

Kumbha asks why the king does not inquire “what thou art” (VI.1.87.30), loosening the fixed self-image of the virtuous ascetic, while the tale's law that everyone meets what he holds in his mind (VI.1.87.22) shows how that rigidity decides what can be heard.

In other yogas

  • Bhagavad Gītā · BG 2.42–44

    The Gītā warns against the flowery speech that promises heaven through ritual and leaves the mind unsettled. Kumbha's image of rites as kuśa grass that flowers and never fruits makes the same diagnosis of the king's hut.

  • Buddhist absorption · Lotus Sūtra

    In the Lotus Sūtra's parable of the burning house a father lures his children out with a promise shaped to their wishes, and skilful means (upāya) is defended as compassion. Cūḍālā's invented birth from a pot is a benevolent fiction of that kind, a Mahāyāna parallel.

  • Patañjali · Yoga Sūtra · YS 2.1

    Patañjali's yoga of action joins austerity (tapas) to svādhyāya, study turned towards the self, and to surrender to the Lord. Kumbha keeps the king's discipline but redirects it from pots and staffs to the question of what he is.

IEAF: Integrative Emotional Alchemy Framework (Gallardo, Frontiers in Psychology, 2026). FP20: the Fundamental Peace Scale. ITM: the Integrative Transformation Model. Parallels in other yogas are contemplative correspondences, not claims of influence.

The tale

Queen Cūḍālā has reached self-knowledge and the yogic powers; her husband, King Śikhidhvaja, has slipped out of the palace at midnight to become a forest hermit. She governs in his place for eighteen years and more. When she judges that age has cooled his passions, she flies by night to Mount Mandara, enters the grove unseen like the wind, and finds him in a leafy hut, once gold-bright and now lean, dark and dry as a withered leaf, sitting on the bare ground and stringing flowers into his matted hair. She grieves, and reasons: he will never listen to me, because he "treats me always as his young and silly wife". She must come nearer, "in the figure of a devotee". Reflecting briefly on the Agni-soma mantra, she changes form "as the water turns to a wave" and alights as a brahmin boy: body like molten gold, sacred thread, water-pot and staff, a rosary trailing to the ground.

The king rises, takes him for the son of a god, offers water, flowers and the garland he had strung for the gods, and remarks that the boy resembles his beloved queen. Asked who he is, the boy tells a story. The sage Nārada, meditating in a cave by the Gaṅgā, heard the tinkle of ornaments and saw celestial women bathing naked in the river. His reason failed, his breath throbbed in his heart, and his seed was spilt. When the king objects that a liberated sage could not be so moved, the boy answers that every being, gods included, is made of both natures, and that "the whole body obeys the dictate of the mind".

Nārada then bridled "the infuriate elephant of his beastly mind", gathered the seed into the crystal water-pot beside him, set the pot in a cavern on Meru and filled it with milk produced by his will. Neglecting his rites, he brooded over it like a bird on its egg. In a month a child formed, complete in every limb, like the full moon rising from the milky ocean. Nārada initiated him and poured his knowledge into him "as one pours out the contents of one vessel into another". When he brought the boy to Brahmā, the grandsire set him on his lap and named him Kumbha, "the Pot". "Know the Goddess Sarasvatí to be my mother, and the Gáyatrí hymn as my maternal aunt," says Kumbha. He roams the world for joy alone, walking without touching the earth, and has come today to see the king's hermitage.

Next morning Kumbha cuts short the king's praise and asks for the plain truth about him. Śikhidhvaja confesses. He fled his kingdom from fear of the world's trapdoors and of rebirth; he keeps every rite without fail, gives himself no rest, and still falls "from one sorrow into a sea of sorrows"; he pines "like a withered tree perforated by worms".

Kumbha replies with what Brahmā once told him: knowledge is the supreme good, but action is the duty of those who have not reached it; an action without its object comes to nothing; kuśa grass flowers and never fruits. "As the boy possest the idea of a ghost in his mind, sees the apparition of a devil before him; and as a sick man having hypochondria of his malady, is soon attacked by it": everyone meets what is in his mind. When the king protests that desire is itself delusion, Kumbha presses harder: you know knowledge is the highest good, so why stay in ignorance? "What mean these pots and staffs, these wooden stools and those seats of kusa-grass?" Why not ask what you are, how this world arose and how it ends? Why spend your life like insects boring into stone?

The king melts into tears. He says he has been awakened after a long time, takes the boy as monitor, father and friend, and asks for the knowledge that ends sorrow. Kumbha sets one condition: receive my words as a son receives his father's, and hear them "as you hear music without inquiring into their reason or rhyme". Then he announces the story of a man whose conduct resembled the king's in every way.

The text speaks

Passages from Mitra’s translation (1891–99), cited by book, chapter and verse.

“O I have after long discovered the way to my object, and it is by infusing my very thoughts into the mind of thy husband.”
VI.1.85.42Cūḍālā names her method before she acts: the transfer of her own thought into another mind, the oldest formulation of what suggestion does.
“I must advance nearer to him to instil understanding in his mind, or else my words will make no effect in him; who treats me always as his young and silly wife.”
VI.1.85.54The rationale for the disguise: the same words fail or succeed according to the listener's frame of the speaker.
“The animal soul being exited (by the existent sight of women), excites the living breath of prána to motion; and the whole body obeys the dictate of the mind, as the body of soldier obeys the command of their commander.”
VI.1.85.141A mind–breath–body chain in which an image moves the physiology; the ideodynamic premise of hypnotic work.
“As the boy possest the idea of a ghost in his mind, sees the apparition of a devil before him; and as a sick man having hypochondria of his malady, is soon attacked by it (so everyone meets with what he has in his mind).”
VI.1.87.22Expectation producing a percept and a symptom: a pre-modern statement of response expectancy and the nocebo effect.
“What mean these pots and staffs, these wooden stools and those seats of kusa-grass; and why is it, O royal prince! that you delight in these false playings of fools?”
VI.1.87.29The reframe that turns the king's austerity into a child's game of props, spoken by the 'pot-born' boy.
“Think my advices to be all good for you, after you hear them with proper attention; and hear unto my words, as you hear music without inquiring into their reason or rhyme.”
VI.1.87.45The teacher sets a receptive, non-critical listening state before the parables begin.

What the trance sees

RAP

Rapport, pacing and leading; entering the other's world

VI.1.85.53–57; VI.1.87.6

In the textCūḍālā judges that her words "will make no effect in him; who treats me always as his young and silly wife", so she takes a form he reveres; after telling her story she asks him to "give me an account of yourself as I have given mine to you".

In the clinicPrestige and frame in suggestion: responsiveness depends on how the subject construes the operator, and Ericksonian pacing (meeting the client inside his own world-view, here a hermit's reverence for divine visitors) precedes leading; reciprocal self-disclosure opens the client's account.

HAL

Positive or negative hallucination

VI.1.87.22

In the text"As the boy possest the idea of a ghost in his mind, sees the apparition of a devil before him; and as a sick man having hypochondria of his malady, is soon attacked by it"

In the clinicExpectancy-generated positive hallucination and symptom production: response expectancy theory (Kirsch 1985) and the nocebo effect, in which an anticipated experience is produced by the anticipation itself.

MET

Therapeutic metaphor / reframe

VI.1.87.19–23, 87.29–34

In the textBrahmā's kuśa grass, which "presents the fair flowers to view, without ever bearing their fruits", is turned on the king's rites; his pots, staffs and stools become "false playings of fools" and his penance the life of insects "perforating the stones in which they live".

In the clinicReframing (Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch 1974): the meaning of the behaviour is changed (devotion becomes futile play) while the facts stay the same, which loosens the client's investment in the symptom-maintaining solution.

Read upward — stage 1 at the bottom, stage 7 at the top

  6. Integration zone
    Self-inquiry joined to guided suggestion — narrative reframing and Socratic dialogue inside a gently focused state.

A note on what this map claims. The alignment between stages of knowledge and trance depths is a clinical map — a heuristic correspondence proposed for research, not a claim of identity between contemplative attainment and hypnotic depth.

Bhūmikā 2 · Vicāraṇā

Śikhidhvaja has śubhecchā in abundance (he keeps every rite "without any fail", VI.1.87.12–14); Kumbha's whole move is to turn him to vicāraṇā: "Why is it that you do not employ your mind to inquire into the questions as to what thou art" (VI.1.87.30).

Zone · Light

Eyes-open dialogue in which the only marked shift is tears and a vow of discipleship (VI.1.87.35–38); the tale ends by installing the receptive set ("as you hear music", VI.1.87.45) that precedes deeper work.

In the therapy room

Indications

  • Clients who reject help from spouse or family but accept the same counsel from an outsider (the teacher changes register, not content).
  • Burnout or despair in rigorous practitioners whose discipline has hardened into self-punishment ("I observe strictly all my sacred rites ... and yet I fall from one sorrow into a sea of sorrows", VI.1.87.14).
  • Health anxiety and nocebo patterns, using VI.1.87.22 as psychoeducation on how expectation produces symptoms.
  • Training therapists in self-presentation, prestige and pacing before confrontation.

Cautions

  • Cūḍālā's disguise is a narrative device; in clinical practice deception about identity breaches informed consent. Translate it as choice of register and frame, never as false identity.
  • The challenge ("false playings of fools") presupposes established trust; used early it shames, especially with devout clients.
  • Nārada's erotic episode (VI.1.85.89–105) may need care with clients for whom sexual guilt is the presenting issue.
From the bookThe full clinical note

Indications. Clients who refuse counsel from spouse or family and accept the same words from a stranger; the tale normalises this and suggests changing the register, not the message. Burnout in rigorous practitioners, religious or professional, whose discipline has hardened into self-punishment: "I observe strictly all my sacred rites ... and yet I fall from one sorrow into a sea of sorrows" (87.14). Health anxiety, where 87.22 makes a gentle piece of psychoeducation on how expectation produces symptoms. And training: the chapter is a manual for clinicians on self-presentation, pacing and the timing of confrontation.

How to use it. Tell the birth story lightly, then the confession and the kuśa grass, and ask which of the client's efforts flowers every season and never fruits. Use the contract of 87.45 as a model for the frame of a hypnotic session: you need not analyse; listen as you would to music.

Cautions. Cūḍālā's disguise is a narrative device. In practice, deception about identity breaches informed consent; translate the disguise as a choice of register, tone and frame, never as a false self. The challenge of 87.29 presupposes trust; used early, especially with devout clients, it shames, and a client's rituals deserve respect even when their function is examined. Nārada's episode (85.89–105) needs care with clients for whom sexual guilt is the presenting issue. Where a client's austerities include restricted eating or sleep, assess before working with the story.

The practice

The Guest at the Hermitage

  1. Settle the breath and let attention rest, as in a quiet clearing on a mountainside.
  2. Recall the place you withdrew to in order to escape pain (a routine, a discipline, a withdrawal) and notice its "pots and staffs": the props you rely on.
  3. Allow a visitor to arrive in an unexpected form, young and luminous, someone you would not normally listen to, and receive them with courtesy, as the king offered flowers.
  4. Tell the visitor plainly how long you have been here and what it has cost you.
  5. Ask the kuśa-grass question: which of my efforts flowers every season and never bears fruit, and what aim is it missing?
  6. Hear the visitor's one sentence of counsel "as you hear music", without arguing; let any tears come.
  7. Ask the question Kumbha set, "What am I?", and notice what answers without fixing it.
  8. Thank the visitor, set down one prop you no longer need, then count up from one to five, feel the body and the room, and open the eyes alert and refreshed.

Practise with a qualified professional if you have a history of dissociation, trauma or psychosis.

From the book · to be read aloudThe full guided script

The Guest at the Hermitage

Read slowly, aloud, with a breath between lines; ten to twelve minutes.

Before you begin. This is a light, eyes-closed reflection. It is safe for most adults. If you are in acute crisis, or have a history of psychosis or dissociative disorder, use it only with a clinician. Do not practise while driving or operating anything. Sit upright.

How to return at any moment. Open your eyes, feel your feet, and look around the room; nothing in the practice requires you to stay.

Sit down, and let the breath settle by itself.

Imagine a clearing on a mountainside, quiet, a small hut of leaves at one edge. This is the place you went to escape the pain. It may be a routine, a discipline, a way of holding yourself apart. Look around it.

Notice its pots and staffs: the props you rely on. Name two of them silently.

Now someone comes into the clearing. Let them come in a form you would not expect: young, perhaps, and full of light, someone you would not ordinarily take advice from. Let them come.

Rise to meet them. Offer them a seat, as the king offered leaves and flowers. Courtesy first.

The guest says: tell me the bare truth about yourself.

So tell them, plainly, inside: how long you have been here, and what it has cost.

Breathe out.

Now ask the question of the kuśa grass: which of my efforts flowers every season and never bears fruit? What is it missing?

Let the guest answer in one sentence. Do not argue with it. Hear it as you hear music, without asking for its reason or its rhyme. If tears come, let them come.

Now the guest asks you the one question Kumbha asked: what am I? Notice what answers. Do not fix it.

Thank your guest. Choose one prop you no longer need, and set it down in the clearing. You can leave it there.

Now come back. Feel the seat under you, and the floor.

One: the breath deepens. Two: the hands and feet are your own. Three: the sounds of the room return. Four: a full breath in, the shoulders move. Five: eyes open, alert, rested.

Say your name, the day and the place, and name three things you can see. Sit a moment before you stand.

Meta Pets World · Your ally · Meta Pet 26

Kumbha's pot and the healer who is never seen

Sacred Trickery card
26Sacred TrickeryI embrace sacred play and divine mischief.

The king's Pride will not hear wisdom from his ‘young and silly wife’, and his pride in his rites keeps him stringing flowers in a hut. Cūḍālā answers with Artfulness, a borrowed form and a birth story from a pot, and she heals him in Invisibility, never claiming the credit: this tale is sacred trickery from beginning to end.

  1. Shadow · what you avoidPride

    Pride is the wall Cūḍālā sees at once: “my words will make no effect in him; who treats me always as his young and silly wife” (VI.1.85.54); and it lives on in his props, “these pots and staffs” (VI.1.87.29).

  2. Gift · what is hidden in itArtfulness

    Artfulness is her decision to come nearer in another figure, “infusing my very thoughts into the mind of thy husband” (VI.1.85.42), as the luminous boy Kumbha with a birth story he can honour, who asks only to be heard “as you hear music” (VI.1.87.45).

  3. Essence · what you embodyInvisibility

    Invisibility is the healing that does not sign its name: the king melts into tears and takes the boy as monitor, father and friend (VI.1.87.35–38), never knowing it is his wife who speaks.

Here is Sacred Trickery: a queen who becomes a boy born from a pot, so her husband can finally hear her. Sometimes love changes its costume, never its message.

— Felicia
Today’s contemplation

If the trick was only a change of voice so that the truth could land, which truth are you refusing because of who says it, and which of yours needs another voice?

To close the night

Tonight, write one honest sentence about a truth you have refused because of who was saying it.

The Ally Journey · about 15 minutes

Light trance, eyes open if you prefer. For the full, deeper script, see “The practice” above and its cautions.

  1. Threshold: three slow breaths, as if arriving in a quiet clearing on a mountainside. Let your gaze rest softly on the floor in front of you.
  2. The tale in one line: Cūḍālā, ignored by her husband, appears to him as the radiant boy Kumbha, born from Nārada's pot, and he weeps and asks to be taught (VI.1.85.44–87).
  3. Meet the card: look at the art of Sacred Trickery and notice where the playfulness is. Read the affirmation aloud: “I embrace sacred play and divine mischief.”
  4. Shadow: where did Pride close your ears this week? Recall one piece of good advice you dismissed because of who gave it: a partner, a child, a junior colleague.
  5. Gift: imagine that same advice arriving from an unexpected visitor, young and luminous. Receive it with courtesy, as the king offered flowers, and hear it once like music, without arguing.
  6. Essence: rest for three breaths in Invisibility, the good that needs no credit. On each out-breath say: “I embrace sacred play and divine mischief.”
  7. Return: feel your feet and hands, move your shoulders, open your eyes fully and look around the room. Write tonight's honest sentence.
Open the card in Meta Pets World Alchemical Journey in the app Begin a 30-day Bond The card on this siteVisit Soledad All sixty-four allies →

The 30-day Bond

The trickster is sacred: today, what was the trick that let a truth be heard?

The Sister · Soledad

Andalusian Romani · Sevilla, Spain · Lā ilāha illa Allāh

Visit Soledad, the Andalusian Romani cantaora of Seville, whose song carries the listener while the singer seems to vanish into it, much as Cūḍālā vanishes into Kumbha.

Guided Meditation

#26 · Sacred Trickery

Voice & guidance: Prof. Luis Miguel GallardoWatch on YouTube (ES also available)
For facilitatorsA session with “Kumbha's Birth from the Pot” and Sacred Trickery

Aim. To help the client see how pride decides which voices they can hear, and to practise receiving counsel by its content rather than by its messenger.

ITM 3 Gift Discovery. The tale is a lesson in discovering the Gift: Cūḍālā changes the messenger, not the message (VI.1.85.54–55), and the client can learn the same artful, honest shift of register.

The session (60–75 min)

  1. Arrival and Umbral: three breaths; ask the client whose advice they find hardest to take (8 min).
  2. Telling the tale: a five-minute version from the flight to Mandara to the king's tears, with the birth from the pot told lightly; point to the tale page for the full text (5 min).
  3. The card: show Sacred Trickery, read Shadow → Gift → Essence and the affirmation; ask where the client needs credit and where they could do without it (7 min).
  4. Shadow inquiry: list the client's own ‘pots and staffs’, the routines and disciplines they are proud of, and ask the kuśa-grass question: which of them flowers every season and never bears fruit? (12 min)
  5. Trance practice: “The Guest at the Hermitage”, the full guided script on the tale page, at light depth; let any tears come and keep the visitor's counsel to one sentence (18 min).
  6. Gift and Essence integration: name one person whose truth the client will now listen to, and one good they can do this week without being seen (12 min).
  7. Closing and Bond: re-alert by counting up, say the affirmation and set the 30-day Bond (8 min).

Integration questions

  • What form did the visitor take, and why could you hear it from them?
  • Which of your props could you set down, now that you have named it?
  • Where could you offer help this week in a voice the other person can receive, without needing them to know it came from you?

In a circle

In a circle of 8–20, tell the tale with some theatre and invite one or two volunteers to read Kumbha's lines. Then pairs play ‘the guest’: one person names a piece of advice they have resisted, and the partner restates it in a completely different voice, playful, formal or tender, until something lands; then swap. Guide “The Guest at the Hermitage” at light depth for the whole group, keeping it brief. Close with each person writing, unseen, one anonymous kindness they will do this week, and put the cards in a bowl that no one reads.

Cautions

  • Cūḍālā's disguise is a narrative device; in practice, deception about identity breaches informed consent. Translate it as choice of register and frame, never as false identity.
  • The challenge to the king's rites presupposes trust; used early, it shames, especially with devout clients.
  • Nārada's erotic episode may need care with clients whose presenting issue is sexual guilt.

Training and certification in the Meta Pets Method: metapetsworld.org/facilitators ↗

The correspondence between tales and Meta Pets is contemplative: the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha does not contain the Meta Pets; each tale enacts its ally’s arc. Felicia is an artificial-intelligence companion; her words are contemplative reflections, not clinical advice.

The song

From the cycle The Sixty-Four Tales

Born of a Pot

Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ / tat savitur vareṇyaṃ / bhargo devasya dhīmahi / dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt

Title: Born of a Pot Título: Nacido de un cántaro

Figure: Queen Cūḍālā in the form of the brahmin boy Kumbha, and King Śikhidhvaja in his hut on Mandara

Where in the text: Book VI (first half, Nirvāṇa-prakaraṇa), Mitra chapters 85 (vv. 44–148), 86–87

Hypnotic phenomenon the song enacts: RAP and HAL: the song paces before it leads, singing the king the bright birth-tale he can believe (he sees a god's son, as "everyone meets with what he has in his mind"), then slowing the same melody, note for note, until the boast has become the question what are you?

Mantra: Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ / tat savitur vareṇyaṃ / bhargo devasya dhīmahi / dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt (ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः । तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि । धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥) Source: the Gāyatrī (Sāvitrī) mantra, Ṛg Veda 3.62.10, with the vyāhṛtis bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ as prefixed in the Śukla Yajurveda (Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā 36.3). Kumbha names it in the text: "the Gáyatrí hymn as my maternal aunt" (VI.1.86.24). Meaning: "We hold in mind the bright radiance of the divine Sun; may it awaken our understanding."

Lyrics (English)

Performance: Kumbha (bright alto, quick, smiling) sings verses 1–2 and both choruses; the king (low baritone, slow) sings verse 3. The second chorus keeps the tune of the first at half the speed. The outro ends on the chorus tune hummed, without words.

Verse 1 — Kumbha I flew by night through Mandara's grove like the wind in the leaves. My king sat dry as a withered leaf, stringing flowers into his matted hair. He'd never heed his young and silly wife, so I turned, as water turns to a wave.

Verse 2 — Kumbha He poured me flowers: "Whose son are you?" So I told him: Nārada heard bracelets ring by the Gaṅgā, saw women bathing; his breath ran wild; he sealed what fell in a crystal pot, in milk he made by willing, and brooded a month, like a bird on its egg.

Chorus — Kumbha Born of a pot like the moon from the milky sea, Brahmā took me on his lap, named me Pot; Sarasvatī's my mother, the Gāyatrī's my aunt: a son of a god, if that's what you see.

Verse 3 — the king, slow I fled my kingdom, afraid of the world's trapdoors; I keep my vigils like a miser his little stock, and fall from one sorrow into a sea of sorrows, a withered tree with worms in the wood.

Chorus — Kumbha, half speed What are these pots, these staffs, these stools, these seats of grass? Kuśa grass flowers and never fruits; the boy with a ghost in his mind sees a ghost. Ask: what are you?

Bridge — the Gāyatrī, over tanpura Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ tat savitur vareṇyaṃ bhargo devasya dhīmahi dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt (May the sun's bright light wake our minds)

Outro He melted into tears. "At last I'm awake. Be my father, my friend." "Then hear me as you hear music," said the boy, "not for its reason or rhyme." (the chorus tune, hummed) He bowed, lifted his face, and listened.

Letra (castellano cantable)

Interpretación: Kumbha (alto brillante, rápida, sonriente) canta los versos 1–2 y los dos estribillos; el rey (barítono grave, lento) canta el verso 3. El segundo estribillo conserva la melodía del primero a la mitad de velocidad. El final termina con la melodía del estribillo tarareada, sin palabras.

Verso 1 — Kumbha Volé de noche por la arboleda del Mandara como el viento en las hojas. Mi rey estaba seco como hoja marchita, trenzando flores en su pelo enmarañado. Nunca escucharía a su joven y simple esposa, así que cambié, como el agua se vuelve ola.

Verso 2 — Kumbha Me ofreció flores: "¿De quién eres hijo?" Y le conté: Nārada oyó pulseras junto al Ganges, vio mujeres bañándose; se le desbocó el aliento; guardó lo caído en un cántaro de cristal, en leche hecha con su voluntad, y lo empolló un mes, como el ave su huevo.

Estribillo — Kumbha Nacido de un cántaro, como la luna del mar de leche, Brahmā me sentó en su regazo y me llamó Cántaro; Sarasvatī es mi madre, la Gāyatrī mi tía: hijo de un dios, si eso es lo que ves.

Verso 3 — el rey, lento Huí de mi reino, temiendo las trampas del mundo; guardo mis vigilias como un avaro su poco caudal, y caigo de una pena a un mar de penas, un árbol seco con gusanos en la madera.

Estribillo — Kumbha, a media velocidad ¿Qué son estos cántaros, estos bastones, estos taburetes, estos asientos de hierba? La hierba kuśa florece y nunca da fruto; el niño con un fantasma en la mente ve un fantasma. Pregunta: ¿qué eres tú?

Puente — la Gāyatrī, sobre tanpura Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ tat savitur vareṇyaṃ bhargo devasya dhīmahi dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt (Que la luz del sol despierte nuestra mente)

Final Se deshizo en lágrimas. "Por fin despierto. Sé mi padre, mi amigo." "Entonces escúchame como escuchas la música", dijo el muchacho, "sin buscarle razón ni rima." (la melodía del estribillo, tarareada) Se inclinó, alzó la cara, y escuchó.

One line to carry

EN: Hear it like music. Then ask: what am I? ES: Escúchalo como música. Luego pregúntate: ¿qué soy?

Libreto note

Cūḍālā finds her husband dry as a withered leaf, stringing flowers into his matted hair, and knows he will never take wisdom from his "young and silly wife". So she turns, as water turns to a wave, and comes as a golden boy with a birth-tale too wonderful to doubt: born of a crystal pot of milk, named Pot by Brahmā. The healer meets the sufferer inside his world before leading him out; the king sees a god's son because that is what he carries in mind. The bright tune of the boast slows into a question; the Gāyatrī, the boy's aunt, asks the sun to wake the mind. The king weeps, and listens as one listens to music.

Source check

Source check (Mitra, Book VI first half)

  1. Cūḍālā enters the grove on Mandara "as the air … known by the shaking of the leaves"; the king, once gold-bright, now "as dark and dry, as a withered and dried leaf", sits on the barren ground "stringing the flowers to his braided hairs"; "my words will make no effect in him; who treats me always as his young and silly wife"; she "changed her form as the water turns to a wave" — ch. 85, vv. 44–57.
  2. The king rises, takes the guest for "the son of some God", and pours a handful of flowers into his hands — ch. 85, vv. 65–67. Nārada by the Gaṅgā hears "the tinkling sound of trinkets and bracelets", sees the women bathing, and "his breath of his life throbbed in his heart" — ch. 85, vv. 86–102.
  3. The seed placed in "a water-pot of crystal stone", filled with milk "which he produced by his will"; Nārada "brooded over the pot, as a bird hatches over its egg"; the child "as the full moon rises from the milky ocean"; Brahmā sets him on his lap and names him Kumbha; "the Goddess Sarasvatí to be my mother, and the Gáyatrí hymn as my maternal aunt"; "I walk over the earth without touching it with my feet" — ch. 86, vv. 9–26.
  4. The king's confession: "my fear of the trap-doors of the world"; "I give no rest to myself, but keep my vigils like a miser over his little stock"; "a withered tree perforated by worms"; "I fall from one sorrow into a sea of sorrows" — ch. 87, vv. 10–14.
  5. Kuśa grass that flowers and never fruits; "the boy possest the idea of a ghost in his mind, sees the apparition of a devil"; "What mean these pots and staffs, these wooden stools and those seats of kusa-grass"; "inquire … as to what thou art"; the king "melted into tears … his face bathed in water", "after a long time … I am awakened", "my monitor and father and my best friend", "I bow down at thy feet"; "hear unto my words, as you hear music without inquiring into their reason or rhyme" — ch. 87, vv. 21–23, 29–30, 35–38, 45.

Read the full text

Source: Vihari-Lala Mitra, The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki (1891–99), public domain.

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luismiguel@shooliniuniversity.comThe FP20 scaleWorld Happiness FoundationORCID 0009-0005-3222-6092

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