As the grief-stricken wife of Mukunda spoke, she declared to Nārada that, if things continued as they were, she would give up her life at his side. Having uttered these words, she fainted with sorrow. Gently, she placed her husband’s head in her lap and began to lament, addressing the ocean by invoking its name: “Listen to my words, O ocean. If you are angry, tell me openly in my presence. Never before, O noble one, have you kept such silence. Has some younger brother insulted you in some way?” Her sorrow extended to the creatures her husband loved. She spoke of his parrot, kept in a cage, which would not eat without him, and urged that it be fed well-cooked rice, along with the sweet-voiced mynah bird. She pleaded that these two clever birds be taught the string of holy names: “Rāma, Rāma, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu.” She beseeched Mukunda to arise and recite these names to them. In her anguish, she wondered what offense she might have committed to deserve his silence, affirming that she had faithfully guarded the wealth he entrusted to her. She spoke of the brilliance Mukunda had placed within her womb, vowing that when the time of birth came, she would not neglect it and would follow him. Despite her lamenting, Nārada observed that Mukunda’s beloved did not weep, for her mind was set on following her husband. At that moment, Mukunda’s guru, Vedāyana, a wandering renunciant, arrived at the house. He inquired, “Where has Mukunda gone, and his wise mother and wife? They are not to be seen.” The maidservant replied, explaining that her master had been killed at night by a thief, who had taken the ornaments of the daughter-in-law and all the fine garments. She described how Mukunda lay dead, fallen on the upper floor of the mansion, with his mother, wife, and brothers gathered beside him, all plunged in a great ocean of grief. Hearing these words, Nārada recounted that Vedāyana ascended the mansion and saw the dead householder, surrounded by his weeping relatives. Wishing to lift them from their sorrow, the wise Vedāyana spoke: “This grief you feel is for the self, thinking of the body. Mother, tell me truly: it does not apply to either. This body is a collection of elements, brought about by past actions. When those elements are exhausted, their separation arises; their coming together by actions is what is called birth for people. When that dissolves, their separation is what is called death. The union and separation of elements is thus explained by the wise.” He continued, “Therefore, one should not grieve for the body, which is inert and subject to others. Due to beginningless ignorance, the living being perceives birth and death. By the thought ‘I am this body,’ one mistakes the body for the self, but that is not your true nature. When that ceases, one attains Brahman, which is pure and formless—self-luminous, the cause of the world, beyond cause, endowed with qualities; eternal, knowledge, bliss, illuminating the world by its own light. The tongue does not taste it, the eye does not see it, nor does the ear hear it; the ear does not smell it, nor does the nose, nor does the skin ever touch it. It is beyond the senses, self-revealing, the seer of the self; not an object, beyond the mind, not within the grasp of the intellect. Its incarnations are the pure-natured deities; they serve it, but do not know its form, which is beyond both existence and non-existence. Thus, who with a misguided mind would become angry, aiming at that true self, whose origin and destruction do not exist?” Thus ends the two hundred and ninth chapter in the section on the greatness of the Kālindī, in the Uttara-khaṇḍa of the glorious Padma Mahāpurāṇa. Nārada continued: After Vedāyana had instructed them all with words of ultimate truth, that swan-like sage guided them to perform rites connected to the self. Mukunda’s wife, pregnant, wished to follow her husband in death, but the wise Vedāyana restrained her. Together with the renunciant and her brother, she gathered Mukunda’s bones, and they set out to cast them into the sacred waters of the Gaṅgā. After a few days, the brāhmaṇa and the renunciant, by the will of fate, arrived at the holy place of Indraprastha. There, near Indraprastha, flowed the Kośalā river. On the ground by the bank of the Yamunā, the two slept at night, placing the bundle of bones between themselves. Weary from their journey, they fell into deep sleep. At midnight, when all the travelers were asleep, a certain dog came, searching for cooked food. He wandered throughout the camp, sniffing the cooking pots and licking the vessels, enduring blows to his head in some places. When struck on the head, the dog silently fled, unable to retaliate, much like a man subdued by his own wife. Yet, driven by hunger, he returned to the places where he had been beaten, seeking food and vessels. Wandering about in search of enjoyment, as a destitute man seeks affection from a courtesan, the dog roamed until he found the two sleeping. He took the bundle of cloth from between them and, carrying it in his teeth, went some distance. Tearing open the bundle and finding bones devoid of flesh, the dog cast them into the river’s water. As soon as those bones touched the water, Mukunda arrived there, riding a divine aerial chariot.