Time, as ordained in the ancient wisdom, is measured in subtle divisions. Each moment is composed of thirty parts, and within a single day, there are fifteen such moments. The day waxes and wanes in its portions, ever shifting as is the nature of time itself. During the twilight moments, this increase and decrease continues, except for the rays of the Sun. When the Sun has passed three moments, then morning is said to begin. Five portions are assigned to this morning period, and from its start, the next three moments are known as the forenoon. After the forenoon, three moments are given to midday, and after this, the time is called afternoon. The wise count this afternoon as three muhūrtas. When the afternoon has passed, that time is known as evening. Thus, the day is made up of fifteen muhūrtas. At the equinox, the day is exactly fifteen muhūrtas in length. As the Sun moves north or south from this point, the day grows longer or shorter, consuming the night, while the night in turn consumes the day. The equinox stands as the midpoint between autumn and spring, and the world is said to end at the limit of light; beyond this boundary lies darkness. Between this world and the darkness, the guardians of the worlds stand watch. These four great souls—Sudhāmā, Vairāja, Kardama the lord of creatures, Hiraṇyaromā, Parjanya, Ketumān, and Rājasa—remain there until the dissolution of all beings. These guardians, established at the four directions where the world meets darkness, are free from duality, pride, fatigue, and possessions. To the north, beyond the path of Vaiśvānara, lies the northern peak of Agastya, revered by divine sages as the path of the ancestors. There dwell those sages who desire offspring and perform the Agnihotra sacrifice; they sustain the world, abiding on the ancestral path. Those who seek worldly beginnings and blessings undertake actions along the southern path. Whenever righteousness declines, these wise beings restore it in every age, through intense austerities, established boundaries, and sacred knowledge. Those born earlier are reborn in the houses of the later ones, and the later ones are born in the houses of the earlier, at the time of death in this world. Thus, the cycle continues, revolving endlessly until the dissolution of all beings—a cycle that includes eighty-four thousand householding sages. Having taken the Sun’s southern path, these householders reach the dissolution of beings. This is the path for those who performed rites and entered the cremation grounds. For the sake of worldly dealings, the initiation of beings, desire and aversion, and sexual union, as well as actions driven by desire and enjoyment of sense objects, they entered the cremation grounds here. Yet in the Dvāpara Yuga, the seven sages known as Prajauṣaṇi were born here. They shunned procreation and thus conquered death. Of these celibate sages, numbering eighty-four thousand, the path of water does not reach its end, even up to the dissolution of beings. Through their union—by abstaining from sexual intercourse, ceasing envy and hatred, and refraining from harming living beings—they attained immortality. By recognizing the faults of union with others, with sound and the like, and through these pure causes, they indeed became immortal. The immortality of those who remain until the dissolution of beings is thus to be understood. The duration of the three worlds does not belong to those who take the path of death. The results of their actions, whether sinful or meritorious, as grave as abortion or as great as the horse sacrifice, are exhausted at the end of dissolution for those whose seed flows upward. Above them dwell the sages near the steadfast Dhruva; this is the divine, radiant third realm of Viṣṇu in the sky. Having reached that highest abode of Viṣṇu, they do not grieve. But those who desire the world remain fixed in the realm of Dhruva through righteousness. Having heard this divine account, I asked Lomaharṣaṇa about the courses of the Sun, Moon, and all the planets. How do these luminaries move within the solar orb, each in order and without confusion? Who causes them to revolve, or do they move by themselves? We wished to know, so I asked him to reveal this mystery. Lomaharṣaṇa replied, “Understand the bewilderment of beings as I explain it; even what is seen directly can confound people. He who stands firm among the fourteen stars as the Dolphin, the son of Uttānapāda—Dhruva—remains fixed in the sky. He, by his revolution, causes the Sun and Moon to revolve, as well as the planets; the stars follow his movement, turning like a wheel. The host of luminaries moves by the mind of Dhruva, bound to him by cords of wind, and so proceeds. Their separations and conjunctions, the determination of time, risings and settings, portents, and the southern and northern solstices, the equinox, the colors of the planets—all these are caused by Dhruva. The clouds called Jīmūtas are the source of living beings. The inviting wind is the second; those clouds take refuge in it, and at a distance of a yojana and a half, they are divided. The creation of rain among them is a continuous downpour. The clouds called Puṣkarāvartakas arise from the wings. By the might of Indra, the wings of these abundant, wish-fulfilling, and powerful clouds were cut off with great force, as they sought the destruction of beings.” Thus, the cycles of time, the guardians of the world, the paths of the ancestors and the sages, and the movement of the heavens are all woven together by the will of the divine and the wisdom of the ancient seers.