Alas, what a dreadful sight! Who can imagine the family into which this poor child was born, now snatched away by the merciless hand of Death, who destroys hope itself with his cruel nature? As I gazed upon the child lying lifeless in his mother’s lap, my heart was pierced with the memory of my own son, Rohitashva, whose eyes were as lovely as lotus petals. My thoughts ran to him—he too must have reached this same tender age and condition, unless, by the workings of fate, the dreadful Death has not already claimed him as well. The queen’s voice trembled with anguish as she cried, “Alas, my child! By whose sinful thoughts has this immense and unfathomable sorrow descended upon us?” Her grief overflowed as she pleaded, “Alas, my lord! O king! Console me, for I am overwhelmed by distress. In such a state, how can anyone find peace or security anywhere?” She lamented the relentless blows of fate: “The loss of our kingdom, the abandonment of friends, the sale of wife and son—O cruel destiny, what torment has not been inflicted upon Harishchandra, the royal sage, by your hand?” Hearing her words, the king was struck by recognition and fell from his place, realizing that before him lay his beloved wife and son, both claimed by misfortune. In his anguish, he cried, “Alas, this is Shaivya, and this is my boy!” Tormented by grief, he wept bitterly and then, overcome by sorrow, fainted. The queen too, recognizing her husband in such a state, collapsed, unconscious and motionless upon the ground. When consciousness returned to both, the king and queen, crushed by the weight of their sorrow, wept together in deep anguish. The king’s voice was choked with emotion as he mourned, “Alas, my son! Your tender face, with your beautiful eyes, brows, nose, and dark hair—why does my heart not shatter as I gaze upon your stricken countenance?” “My child! My child!” he lamented, “When you would sweetly call out and come to me, whom shall I now embrace and lovingly call, ‘My son! My son!’? Whose knees, covered with the earth’s yellow dust, will now soil my upper garment and limbs as you once did?” He wept for his child, born of his own body, the delight of his heart and mind. “Alas, my son! In anger, I sold you as if you were nothing but an object.” He continued, “Having lost my entire kingdom, with all its great wealth and resources, my son has now been struck down by the cruel serpent of fate. As I look upon his lotus-like face, bitten by destiny’s venom, I am blinded by its dreadful poison.” Grief overwhelming him, the king took up his son—the only pearl he possessed—embraced him, and, choked with tears, fell motionless again. The queen, recognizing her husband by his very voice, cried out, “This is indeed that tiger among men—Harishchandra, the moon among the wise—there can be no doubt.” She recognized the noble features: his high, prominent nose and teeth like buds, the marks of that great-souled one, famed for his renown. But confusion and sorrow mingled in her heart: “Why has this lord of men come to the cremation ground today?” Setting aside her grief for her son, she looked upon her fallen husband. Overwhelmed and astonished by the suffering of both her husband and son, her gaze fell upon her husband’s staff, now filling her with revulsion. Her wide eyes clouded with confusion, as if she too had become an outcaste, and slowly regaining her senses, she spoke in a choked voice: “Shame on you, O merciless, lawless, and contemptible fate! By your doing, this king, once equal to the immortals, has been reduced to the state of an outcaste. After making us lose our kingdom, abandon friends, and sell wife and son, you have made this king into a despised outcaste.” She cried, “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? 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, as you walked, even other kings became your attendants, sweeping the dust from your path with their upper garments.” Now, she beheld him: “With a skull fastened to his neck, a string of broken pots, 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. Delighting the night-wanderers by tasting corpses, the king, afflicted by sorrow, now roams in the impure cremation ground.” Having spoken thus, the king’s daughter embraced his neck and, overwhelmed by a hundred streams of grief, wailed in a voice full of pain. The queen, her mind bewildered, cried, “O King! Is this a dream, or is it reality? Please tell me, O blessed one, for I am lost in confusion. If this is so, O knower of dharma, then there is no support in righteousness, nor in the worship and protection of Brahmins, gods, and the earth. There is no righteousness, nor truth, nor honesty, nor compassion, when you, devoted to dharma, have been cast down from your own kingdom.” Hearing her words, the king sighed deeply, and with a faltering voice, told his slender wife how he had come to dwell among outcastes. She too, after weeping for a long time and sighing in distress, fearfully recounted the death of her son as it had happened. The king spoke: “Beloved, I do not wish to endure suffering for a long time; my fate is not in my own hands, slender one—see my misfortune. If I enter the fire without the permission of the outcaste, I will become a slave to the outcaste again in another birth. In hell I will suffer, eaten by worms, in the Vaitarani river, thick with pus, blood, fat, and slippery with sinews.” Thus, amidst the ashes of sorrow and the darkness of fate, the king and queen poured out their grief, bound by the relentless trials that destiny had wrought upon them.