In ancient times, the settlements of people were carefully arranged and distinguished by their features. Villages were organized with cattle-pens and separate dwellings within them, their boundaries marked by raised embankments and surrounded on all sides by moats. Cities, grander in scale, were designed with a diameter of half a yojana, their width one-eighth of their length, sloping gently toward the east or north, and their exits made of pure bamboo. Smaller fortified towns were half the size of cities, while hamlets were a quarter of that, and the smallest settlements, shaped like mortars, were measured by their narrow end portions. Some cities and hamlets lacked walls and moats; these were called kharvaṭas. There were also branch-towns, inhabited by ministers, vassals, and landholders. Villages, on the other hand, were mostly inhabited by prosperous Śūdras, skilled in agriculture and situated amid fertile fields. Any other settlement created for a specific purpose, apart from cities and the like, was simply known as a residence by men. There were also hamlets, often lawless and without fields, occupied by powerful men on foreign lands. These served as refuges for those favored by the king. A ghoṣa was a place where cowherds dwelt, their goods loaded on carts, living without a marketplace and moving with their herds wherever they pleased. Thus, people established cities and other dwellings for themselves, and built homes for pairs of families to live together. As before, their houses were constructed near trees, and remembering this tradition, they continued to build their dwellings accordingly. The branches of trees grew in various directions—some downward, some upward—and so too did the branches of their homes, echoing the nature of the wish-fulfilling trees that once sustained them. These branches became the timber for their houses. After suffering mutual destruction, the people pondered new means of livelihood, for when the honey was lost, the wish-fulfilling trees vanished entirely. Distressed and overwhelmed by sorrow, afflicted by thirst and hunger, they struggled. But at the beginning of the Treta age, fortune smiled upon them. When other means of livelihood failed, abundant rain came, filling low places with water. Rain blocked the streams, forming channels in the lowlands, and small amounts of water reached the earth’s surface. From the union of earth and water, plants arose—fourteen kinds, both cultivated and wild, grew without being sown or plowed. Trees and shrubs bearing flowers and fruits appeared according to the seasons, and medicinal plants emerged for the first time in the Treta age. People survived by means of these medicinal plants, but soon, desire and greed arose among them. They began to claim rivers, fields, mountains, trees, shrubs, and medicinal plants for themselves, each according to their strength and means. Because of this fault, the medicinal plants did not thrive; many were lost at once. When these plants were destroyed again, the people, confused and afflicted by hunger, sought refuge in Brahma, the supreme lord. Understanding their plight and seeing the earth depleted, Brahma made Mount Sumeru the calf and milked the earth. Grains appeared upon the surface—seeds, both cultivated and wild, were produced anew. Seventeen groups of medicinal plants ripening with fruit were said to have appeared: rice, barley, wheat, millet, sesame, priyangu, udara, koradusha, chinaka, masha, mudga, masura, nishpava, kulattha, adhaka, chanaka—these were the ancient cultivated varieties. Fourteen kinds of medicinal plants, both cultivated and wild, were produced: rice, barley, wheat, millet, sesame, priyangu, kulattha, shyamaka, nivara, yava, tila, gavedhuka, kuruvinda, markataka, and venu-yava. Yet, when these plants, though sown, did not sprout again, Brahma devised the means of agriculture for their growth. The self-born Lord established the accomplishment of work by hand, and from that time cultivated plants began to be produced. When agriculture was perfected, the Lord established proper boundaries for the fields, according to justice and their qualities. He also established the duties of the classes and stages of life for all worlds and all classes, so that dharma and wealth might be rightly upheld. The place of Brahmanas engaged in rites was remembered as Prajapatya; for Kshatriyas who stood firm in battle, it was Indra’s; for Vaishyas who performed their duties, it was Maruta; for Shudras engaged in service, it was Gandharva. The place remembered for the eighty-eight thousand ascetic sages was the same as that of those who dwelled with their teachers. The place for the seven seers was that of the forest-dwellers; Prajapatya for householders, the abode of Brahman for renunciants, and the immortal place for yogis—thus was the arrangement of places. Then, Kraustuki, full of curiosity, addressed the sage: “O Lord, you have told me in detail about the origin of the cosmic egg and the birth of Brahma, the great soul, within it. Now I wish to hear from you, O descendant of Bhrigu: at the end of the dissolution, when everything is withdrawn, does the creation of beings exist or not?