11. Vasishtha said:--Say, O venerable father! how you remained unmolested by the deluvian tempest, which outstripped the winds in its velocity, and bore the great bodies of the sun and moon and stars as jewels hanging about its neck.
12. (The deluvian tempest is called _tufani nuh_ or hurricane of Noah in the Koran. The Khandapralaya is a partial deluge of the earth, but the mahápralaya is the aggregate of all the cosmic revolutions of the whole world).
12a. Say, O primeval seer! how you escaped unscorched by the burning flame of solar rays, which melted down the uprising mountains, and consumed there the woods in one all devouring conflagration. (The burning sun on the day of the last dissolution, is said in the Koran, to come down and stand at a lance's distance above the heads of men).
13. Say, O senile sire, how you remained unfrozen under the cold moon beams, that froze the limpid waters to hard stone; and how you fled unhurt from the showers of hail, which were poured in profusion by the deluvian clouds.
14. Say, O ancient bird! why you were not crushed under the snows, which fell from the deluvian clouds as thickly as huge trees, when they are felled by axes from the tops of high hills.
15. Say, why this _kalpa tree_ which rises higher than all other forests, was not broken down, when all other arbors on earth, were levelled to the ground by the universal tornado.
16. Bhusunda replied:--Our station, O Bráhman! in the open and empty air, is quite supportless and without any solid or fixed support. It is either unnoticed or looked upon with disregard and contempt by all, and our living and livelihood is the most despicable among all living beings. (All this is meant of the soul, which is here personified as a bird--a dark crow, and named as the _amara_ Bhusunda, a contemptuous word often applied to senile people).
17. Thus has the Lord of beings appointed these aerial beings, to remain free from disease and death in these forests, or fly about in the empty air in their aerial course. (The forests mean the living bodies, and the empty air is the field for the rambles of disembodied spirits).
18. How then, O venerable sir, can any sorrow or sickness betide us here, where we are born to be immortal, and rove freely in open air; and are free from those pains and sorrows, which betake those birds that are bound in snares of their desires, and are subject to their hopes and fears.