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Yoga Vashishtha 3.107.25~48
(These verses deepen the picture of the King’s total immersion in a savage, forest existence)
राजोवाच।
रौरवापतितेनेव तत्कालस्निग्धतां गतः।
विन्ध्यकन्दरगुल्मानां बन्धुत्वमिव गच्छता ॥ २५॥
पुलिन्दवपुषा यत्र युक्तयोगैः समर्पिताः।
तर्पिता लगुडाघातजितकौलेयरंहसा ॥ २६॥
पुत्रदाराः कदन्नेन ग्रामकान्धोचितेन च।
धारासाररणत्पत्रशुष्कतालतले निशाः ॥ २७॥
नीता रणितदन्तेन सार्धं विपिनवानरैः।
रोमभिः कोटिमुद्रोद्यैः शीतेनाध्युषितस्य मे ॥ २८॥
वर्षासु मुक्ताकणवद्धृता वानलविन्दवः।
अजाजीमूतखण्डार्थं क्षुत्क्षुण्णक्षीणकुक्षिणा ॥ २९॥
कलत्रेण सहाटव्यां कृतः कलह आकुलः।
वने रणितदन्तेन शीतकेकरचक्षुषा ॥ ३०॥
(३.१०७.३१–४४)
ग्रीष्मे सोढा चलद्भूता वराहेण यथोर्वरा।
बहुशोऽहं वनोत्थाग्निनिर्दग्धप्राणिमण्डलः ॥ ४५॥
कल्पाग्निभुक्तजगतः कालस्यानुगतिं गतः ।
लोभिलिङ्गो यथा रोगमनर्थानिव दुर्ग्रहः।
प्रसूतास्तत्र मे दारा दुःखान्यथ सुखान्यपि ॥ ४६॥
नृपालपुत्रकेनैकतनयेन तदा मया।
नीता नीरन्ध्रदोषेण षष्टिः कल्पसमाः समाः ॥ ४७॥
आक्रुष्टमुद्धुरतरं रुदितं विपत्सु भुक्तं कदन्नमुषितं हतपक्कणेषु।
कालान्तरं बहु मयोपहतेन तत्र दुर्वासनानिगडबन्धगतेन सभ्याः ॥ ४८॥
The King continued:
3.107.25–30
> As if fallen into the Raurava hell, I then became sticky and unclean, growing almost into a relative of the thickets in the Vindhya caves.
> There, with the body of a forest tribesman, offerings were made according to tribal rites, and hunger was satisfied by the force of club-blows that overcame the speed of dogs.
> Sons and wife lived on coarse food fit only for blind village folk; nights were spent under dry palm trees whose leaves rattled in the pouring rain.
> Those nights passed with chattering teeth in the company of forest monkeys, while cold made the hairs of my body stand on end in countless pores.
> In the rainy season, water-drops were held like pearls; for the sake of a mere scrap of food I, whose belly was crushed and thin with hunger, wandered on.
> In the forest I quarrelled in confusion with my wife, teeth chattering and eyes rolling from the cold.
3.107.31–44
> In these intervening verses the King continues to describe the endless hardships of his tribal life: further struggles for food, exposure to every kind of weather, deepening family discord, the gradual loss of all remaining softness of heart, and the complete acceptance of a brutal, animal-like existence in the wilds.
3.107.45–48
> In the summer I endured the trembling Earth as a boar endures the fertile field; many times the circle of living beings around me was burnt by forest fires.
> I followed the path of Time that has already consumed the World in the fire of Cosmic dissolution. Like a greedy mark or an evil planet that brings misfortunes as diseases, my wives there gave birth both to sorrows and to fleeting pleasures.
> I, who was once the single son of a King’s son, spent sixty years that felt equal to Cosmic ages, filled with unbroken faults.
> I cried out loudly, wept in calamities, ate coarse food, and slept in ruined outcaste settlements. For a long time, O noble ones, I remained there, ruined and bound in the iron chains of evil tendencies.
Detailed Summary of the Teachings:
These verses deepen the picture of the king’s total immersion in a savage, forest existence. Living like a relative of the Vindhya thickets, eating what is obtained by club and force, and spending nights under rattling palm leaves, he shows how completely the royal identity has been erased. The teaching is that once the mind accepts degradation, even the most brutal surroundings become the only reality it knows.
Family life continues, yet it brings no comfort. Coarse food, constant cold, chattering teeth, and confused quarrels with the wife turn every day into a struggle. The verses illustrate that attachment to wife and children, when rooted in delusion, multiplies suffering instead of relieving it. What should have been sources of support become additional sources of friction and pain.
Exposure to every season—rain, cold, and the scorching summer that sets the forest ablaze—reveals the body’s complete subjection to nature’s harshness. The King endures the trembling Earth like a boar and watches living beings perish in fire. This shows how the loss of discrimination leaves a person defenceless against both outer elements and inner impulses.
The comparison of his life to the path of Time that has already burned the world, and of his own nature to an evil planet bringing disease, teaches that prolonged evil tendencies act like a chronic illness. Even the birth of children is described as the birth of both sorrow and fleeting pleasure, underscoring that nothing arising from a deluded state can bring lasting good.
Finally, the King confesses that sixty years felt like Cosmic ages spent in unbroken fault, bound by the iron chains of wrong tendencies. The passage as a whole warns that a single fall, if not arrested, hardens into a complete way of life. Only the recovery of true discrimination can break those chains; otherwise the soul remains imprisoned in the very existence it has created for itself.
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