Opening Remarks
Savitri, following the trail of Satyavan being taken by Death, enters the realms where heavenly light falls from the peaks of Mind. These are realms through which the human soul passes after Death depending upon deeds and breathes heaven’s air for a while.
Vague fields and pastures
Vague fields were there, vague pastures gleamed, vague trees,
Vague scenes dim-hearted in a drifting haze;
Vague cattle white roamed glimmering through the mist;
Vague spirits wandered with a bodiless cry,
Vague melodies touched the soul and fled pursued
Into harmonious distances unseized;
Forms subtly elusive and half-luminous powers
Wishing no goal for their unearthly course
Strayed happily through vague ideal lands,
Or floated without footing or their walk
Left steps of reverie on sweet memory’s ground;
Or they paced to the mighty measure of their thoughts
Led by a low far chanting of the gods.
This was a vague and indistinct field but with gleaming pastures and trees and cattle that vaguely moved in a misty light. Amidst these vague scenes, vague spirits wandered with boundless cry even as vague melodies touched the soul and fled to be pursued in harmonious distances. The subtle forms and powers of this place were somewhat elusive and half-luminous and wandered without a goal in this unearthly field. They strayed happily through vague ideal lands or floated roaming in a reverie and leaving vague steps on sweet memory’s grounds. Or they paced according to the stature of their mighty thoughts led by a low far chanting of the gods.
Hidden in mist
A ripple of gleaming wings crossed the far sky;
Birds like pale-bosomed imaginations flew
With low disturbing voices of desire,
And half-heard lowings drew the listening ear,
As if the Sun-god’s brilliant kine were there
Hidden in mist and passing towards the sun.
Birds with gleaming wings and pale-bosom like imaginations flew across the far sky with cries of desire. There was heard lowings of cattle as if the brilliant kine of the Sun-god passed through these misty fields towards the solar home.
Natural inhabitants
These fugitive beings, these elusive shapes
Were all that claimed the eye and met the soul,
The natural inhabitants of that world.
These fugitive beings and elusive shapes were all that one saw or felt by the soul as if they were the natural inhabitants of that world.
Nothing stayed for long
But nothing there was fixed or stayed for long;
No mortal feet could rest upon that soil,
No breath of life lingered embodied there.
But nothing was fixed or stayed there for long. The mortal feet or breath of life could not rest or linger long in that realm.
Closing Remarks
It is this realm that we generally call as the Heaven where the souls of the departed linger for a while before returning to the earth in new bodies.
