With reverence, the king bowed to Brihaspati and to Vasava, offering them salutations before turning to the humble duties assigned to him. Thus resolved, he began the sorrowful work of the outcaste, tending to the cremation ground. In this dismal place, as he went about collecting fees for the burning of corpses, his mind again fell into a fog of forgetfulness. His appearance had become wretched: his body filthy, hair tangled into matted locks, his skin darkened by hardship, and a staff in his hand. The king, once so regal, now wandered in confusion, his memory lost. No thought of wife or son stirred in his heart. The loss of his kingdom had crushed all enthusiasm within him, and so he dwelled among the ashes and the dead, a shadow of his former self. One day, his wife arrived, her eyes swollen with weeping, carrying the lifeless body of their son—her only child, the king’s beloved boy—who had been bitten by a snake. Again and again, she wailed, “Alas, child! Alas, son! O little one!” Her body was emaciated, her face pale and drawn with grief, her hair wild and dust-covered in her distress. Through her sobs, the queen cried out: “Alas, king! Today, look upon your child, Soma, lying here on the earth. Once you saw him playing, but now he lies dead, struck down by the bite of a wicked serpent.” Hearing the voice of lamentation, the king hurried to the spot, ready to perform his grim duty as the one who covers the dead. Yet, in his bewildered state, he did not recognize his own wife, who was now thin and scorched by long separation, as if she were a stranger to him. She, too, gazed upon the king—his once-beautiful hair now tangled and matted—and did not recognize the man she had once called husband, nor the king’s son, who now resembled a dried-up tree. The king looked upon the child, shrouded in a dark cloth, his body marked by the venom of the serpent, yet still bearing the signs of royalty. The sight plunged him into deep thought: “Alas, how terrible! In whose family was this child born, now snatched away by Death? That cruel destroyer has dashed some family’s hope with his evil nature.” As he watched the boy lying in his mother’s lap, memories of his own son, Rohitashva, with lotus-like eyes, came flooding back. “He, too, must be of this same age and condition, unless he, by some fate, has not yet been claimed by dreadful Death.” The queen’s voice rose once more: “Alas, child! By whose sinful thoughts has such a great and terrible sorrow come upon us—a sorrow with no end in sight? Alas, lord! O king! Console me, who am so distressed; in this state, how can anyone find the confidence to remain anywhere?” She continued, “Loss of kingdom, abandonment by friends, the sale of wife and son—O fate, what have you not done to Harishchandra, the royal sage?” Hearing her words, realization dawned upon the king. He fell from where he stood, recognizing at last his beloved wife and their son, now lost to them. “Alas, this is Shaivya, and this is my boy,” he cried, tormented by grief. He wept bitterly and then fainted away. Shaivya, too, now recognized her husband in his pitiable state. Overcome by anguish, she collapsed, unconscious and motionless on the ground. When they regained their senses, king and queen, overwhelmed by the weight of their sorrow, wept together in deep anguish. The king, his heart shattered, spoke: “Alas, my son! Your tender face, your beautiful eyes, brows, nose, and dark hair—how is it that my heart does not break as I gaze upon your stricken countenance? My child! My child! When you would sweetly call out and run to me, whom shall I now embrace and call ‘My son! My son!’ with affection?” He lamented, “Whose knees, dusted with the earth’s yellow soil, will now soil my upper garment and limbs as you once did? Born from my own body, delight of my heart and mind—alas, my son! In my anger, I sold you as if you were a mere object. Having lost my entire kingdom, with all its wealth and resources, now my son has been struck down by the cruel serpent of fate. As I look upon the lotus-face of my son, bitten by the serpent of destiny, I am blinded by its dreadful poison.” With trembling hands, the king lifted the boy—his only pearl—and, his voice choked with tears, embraced him. Overcome by grief, he fainted and fell motionless to the ground. The queen looked upon him and said, “This is indeed that tiger among men—by his very voice he is recognized. He is Harishchandra, the moon among the wise—there is no doubt. His nose is high and prominent, his teeth like buds—such are the marks of that great-souled one, famed for his renown. But why has this lord of men come to the cremation ground today?” For a moment, she set aside her grief for her son as she gazed upon her fallen husband. Overwhelmed and astonished by the suffering of her husband and son, her eyes fell upon her husband’s staff, and she recoiled in revulsion. Her wide eyes, clouded by confusion and fit for one cast out by society, slowly cleared as she regained her senses. In a choked voice, she spoke: “Shame on you, O merciless, lawless, and contemptible fate! By you, this king—equal to the immortals—has been reduced to the state of an outcaste. After causing us to lose the kingdom, abandon friends, and sell wife and son, you have made this king into a despised outcaste. Alas, O King! Afflicted as I am, why does no one today lift me up from the ground and seat me upon the couch, as before?” She looked around in despair: “Today, I do not see your royal umbrella, nor the fly-whisk, nor even the yak-tail fan; what is this reversal of fate? Before you, as you walked, even other kings became your attendants, sweeping the dust from the earth with their upper garments. Now, with a skull fastened to his neck, with a string of broken pots, with hair matted with the remains of the dead, he is truly dreadful. Adorned with a patch of earth dried by oozing fat, terrifying with half-burnt bones, ashes, and marrow clinging together. Tormented by the cries of vultures and jackals, with small birds gone, and the horizon darkened by the smoke of the funeral pyre.” Thus, in the midst of sorrow and ruin, the king and queen mourned together, surrounded by the desolation of the cremation ground and the relentless turning of fate.