In the vast and shadowy depths of the great forest, I found myself locked in a bitter quarrel with my wife, her belly shrunken by hunger, as we argued desperately over a meager piece of ginger or ajwain root. The hardships of forest life had left me gaunt and wild-eyed; my teeth chattered against the biting cold, my limbs were stained with soot, and in that state, I appeared more a goblin than a man to my own kin. Driven by need, I wandered along the riverbanks, clutching a fishing hook, searching for fish with the relentless determination of Death himself, who roams the worlds with his noose, seeking the living. After enduring many fasts, I drank the warm, freshly drawn blood of a slain animal, swallowing it as naturally as an infant takes its mother’s milk. Others like me, intoxicated and blood-stained, wrapped in palāś leaves and dwelling in cremation grounds, would flee in terror when the fierce goddess drove them, scattering like forest ghouls. In those desperate days, we spread nets in the forest to snare beasts and birds, just as hope is cast wide through children, wives, and family, seeking some promise of growth or comfort. Yet, through my actions, I brought ruin upon worlds woven of illusion, birds tangled in threads, and nets themselves, and even disrupted the directions of those who led virtuous lives. In that place, my mind, unrestrained, rushed toward evil deeds, and hope stretched out endlessly, swelling like a river in the rainy season. Compassion, once close, was cast from me in shame, as a snake sheds its skin and leaves it behind. In its place, I took up cruelty, loud anger, and unleashed showers of arrows, darkening the sky of my life like storm clouds at summer’s end. People avoided those like me—those who thrived unbroken—just as one would shun long-carried misfortune hidden in a chasm. In corners crowded with dogs and crows, amid fields of human suffering, I sowed handfuls of evil deeds, watered by the rains of delusion. Like a merciless hunter casting his net in a mountain cave, I moved among the animals as Death moves among living beings. Often, my weary head would rest against the mud walls of peasants’ huts, and I slept in ignorance, much like the serpent reposes on the limbs of the sleeping god Vishnu. My body, clad in fluttering leaves and smoky with the gleam of arrows, dwelled in the cold caves along the slopes of the Vindhya mountains. For long years, I wore a tattered black garment thick with filth over my shoulder, bearing it as the earth endures the wild boar’s weight in the heat of summer. Many times, I became like the fire at the end of an age, burning up the creatures of the forest, imitating Time itself as it consumes the world. In that place, my wives and even my children were born to me, yet they were as difficult to manage as iron fetters or misfortunes, bringing only suffering. With only one child—a little boy—I spent sixty brief years there, plagued by incurable faults. Bound by the chains of bad habits, I endured much: being shouted at, harsh words, weeping in misfortune, eating poor food, and sleeping in ruined huts. Such was my fate, O noble ones. Then, as time passed, my life wore away with age. My hair turned white as frost, my body became frail like dew-laden grass. My actions, tossed about by the winds of karma, moved through clear and turbid waters, while my days fell away like clusters of dried leaves. Pleasures and pains, like arrows on a battlefield, came ceaselessly—conflicts and duties arriving and departing in their turn. My mind, caught in the whirlpool of the world’s illusion, spun restlessly, like the churning ocean waves. My thoughts, built from worries, turned on the wheel of confusion, tossed about like a blade of grass in the ocean of time. Weakened in this gathering, I felt like an insect festering in a wound on the Vindhya mountain, or a two-legged donkey, or one who has only a single village for refuge. My kingship forgotten, I was as an outcaste, like a corpse in a great fever, or a bird with broken wings stranded on a mountain. I became like the world at the end of an age, like a forest consumed by wildfire, a dry tree struck by lightning, or a wave crashing on the shore. Then, the Vindhya region itself became a desolate expanse, encircled by a fierce, unbroken ring of death, devoid of food, grass, leaves, or water. No rain fell from the massed clouds; they vanished and did not return. The wind carried only ashes mixed with glowing embers. In the forests, the leaves were shriveled and rustling, scorched by wildfire, and the groves stood empty, as if abandoned long ago. A dreadful, uncontrollable blaze arose without warning, drying up every thicket and leaving behind only ashes and remnants of grass. All bodies were covered in dust, and every person was hungry. The land, lacking food, grass, and water, was encircled by wildfire. Buffaloes, lost in mirages and sand, sank as the wind raised heaps of dust and clouds covered the sky. Crowds of people, longing only to hear the sound of water, suffered under the intense heat that dried up all life. Driven mad by hunger, some lost their lives in a frenzy to devour their own children; others, in desperation, gnawed at their own limbs, their teeth sunk deep as they writhed. The ground was strewn with fragments of meat, bones, and sharp splinters of khadira wood, with embers scattered and stones gnawed by famished frogs. There, mothers, sons, and fathers, all mingled together, were swiftly seized by one another. Forest mynas were swallowed whole by vultures with roaring bellies. The ground was soaked with blood from the severed limbs of creatures attacking each other, while maddened elephants, agitated by the frenzy of lions, were fiercely devoured. It was a terrifying scene: lions wandered, swallowing deer in a single gulp, and people engaged in mutual slaughter, like wrestlers locked in deadly combat. Such was the suffering and desolation that overtook the land and all who dwelled within it.