Chapter 135 — The Carcass Disappears and Used to Recreate the World

¹ Vasishta resumed and said:—

After the corpse had been partly devoured by the demons, the gods who had been sitting on Lokaloka Mountain with Indra at their head spoke to one another in the following manner. ² “Lo, the voracious demons have not yet wholly devoured the corpse. They have thrown its fat and flesh into the air to test the paths of vehicles of vidyadharas which, being blown away and scattered about by the winds, appear like huge masses of clouds spreading over the skies. ³ See the demons also throwing away traces of their food and drink over the seven continents and oceans of the earth, making it reappear to view. ⁴ Alas, that the once delightful earth is now polluted by impure carrion and blood and covered under blankets of its forests, just as the sky is overshadowed by clouds. ⁵ The big bones of its bulky body form the mountains of this earth. What is this high Himalaya but the huge backbone of the gigantic skeleton?”

⁶ Vasishta said:—

As the gods were speaking in this manner, the demons were employed constructing the earth anew with the materials of the carcass. After this they flew in the air and kept on dancing and moving wildly there. ⁷ As the ghosts were playing in their giddy dance in the air, the god commanded the liquid portion of the dead body to be collected together in one great basin of the ocean which was the home of whales and sharks. ⁸ As this ocean was made from the pleasure of the gods, it is thereafter called the ocean of wine.

⁹ The demons, having danced in wild uproar in the air, came down to drink full draughts of that dark bloody pool. After that they returned to their aerial home to dance again. ¹⁰ Demonic elemental beings are still accustomed to indulge themselves drinking from that bloody pool and to dance in their airy circles in company with their attendants. ¹¹ Because the earth was smeared with the fat and flesh of the corpse, it is thereafter called Medini or corpus.

¹² At last after the disappearance of the dead body of the demon, the succession of day and night appeared again. Then Prajapati, the lord of creatures, having formed all things anew, restored the earth to its former shape.