Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/387

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Thus spoke the Lord; thereafter he, the Sugata, the Master, added:

7. The organ of hearing of such a person becomes (or, is) cleared and perfect, though as yet it be natural; by it he perceives the various sounds, without any exception, in this world.

8. He perceives the sounds of elephants, horses, cars, cows, goats, and sheep ; of noisy kettle-drums, tabours, lutes, flutes, Vallakî-lutes.

9. He can hear singing, lovely and sweet, and, at the same time, is constant enough not to allow himself to be beguiled by it; he perceives the sounds of kotis of men, whatever and wherever they are speaking.

10. He, moreover, always hears the voice of gods and Nâgas; he hears the tunes, sweet and affecting, of song, as well as the voices of men and women, boys and girls.

11. He hears the cries of the denizens of mountains and glens; the tender notes^[1] of Kalaviṅkas, cuckoos^[2], peafowls^[3], pheasants, and other birds.

12. He also (hears) the heart-rending cries of those who are suffering pains in the hells, and the yells uttered by the Spirits, vexed as they are by the difficulty to get food;

13. Likewise the different cries produced by the demons and the inhabitants of the ocean. All these

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1. Valgusabda.
2. Here we see that kalaviṅkas are distinguished from kokilas, cuckoos.
3. The voice of the peafowl is proverbially unharmonious, but that is no reason why the poet should have omitted this item from his enumeration; such peculiarities give a relish to this kind of spiritual poetry.

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