O King, by the strength of your own meritorious deeds, you too are destined for heaven. The king, eager to understand, asked, “What is the special virtue or merit of mine? Please tell me that auspicious thing.” The reply came: “O mighty-armed one, in that most excellent, great Kāla forest, you performed a deed whose merit is beyond measure. Its full extent cannot be comprehended. Let all these inhabitants of hell exhaust the results of their own actions, but if, in my presence, their elevation does not arise, then whatever greater good deed there is, let a portion of its merit be given to these souls here.” By the power of your merit, the first of these suffering ones will be released from hell. Then, the king of Dharma, together with Indra, spoke to Nimi: “Behold these inhabitants of hell, freed from their sinful deeds.” Placing Nimi in a celestial chariot, Hari led him to the heavenly world. By the power of that god, they too have ascended to heaven, O beloved. Praised by all the hosts of gods, he is known as the deliverer from hell. Whoever sees, every day, the god who is Lord of Hell—O daughter of the mountain—even the gods rejoice at the sight of that god. A man, along with ten thousand generations of his lineage, both past and future, on the fourteenth day joined with the yoga of Shiva, when it is Krishna Chaturdashi, those men who worship the god, the Lord of Hell, on that day—whatever sin has been accumulated by deed, mind, or speech—O goddess, this power of his, which destroys sin, has been revealed to you. Indeed, by merely seeing him, a person becomes liberated. Long ago, in the Rāthaṃtara kalpa, there lived a king named Vīradhanvan. Once, he ventured into the forest, O beautiful-faced one, in pursuit of deer. There, he came upon the place where his five virtuous brothers were. On one occasion, those five brothers, seeing some young deer in the forest, each seized one. The deer died, and the brothers were greatly distressed at their actions. Desiring atonement, they approached the sage Saṃvarta, who was surrounded by his disciples. They pleaded, “O lord, five newborn deer have been killed by us.” Saṃvarta replied, “Purity is attained when atonement is performed; the one who does penance becomes purified, and the sin passes to the giver.” The twice-born, armed with the sword of the Veda and established in the law of righteousness, explained: “A flaw in chastity, a flaw in recitation, or a flaw in the performance of sacrifice—when the earth deities declare, ‘It is flawless,’ then it is so.” When the best among the twice-born spoke thus to the eminent one, the brothers narrated to him, in detail, the matter concerning their actions. They also spoke of the Dharma-śāstras, as they had been properly prescribed. Whether one is eighty years old or a boy not yet sixteen, one must carefully consider the place, time, age, capacity, and the nature of the sin. Having donned deer skins and undertaken vows, they began their penance. When a year had passed, King Vīradhanvan and his brothers lived at the foot of a certain tree, subsisting according to the way of deer, fulfilling their atonement and seeking purity of soul.