As time passed in this world, my life gradually wore away under the weight of old age. My hair turned white as winter frost, and my body grew frail and delicate, like grass heavy with morning dew. The actions of my days, tossed and turned by the unpredictable winds of karma, drifted through moments both clear and clouded, while the days themselves fell away, scattering like clusters of dried leaves in autumn. Pleasures and pains gathered around me ceaselessly, just as arrows collect upon a battlefield. Conflicts and duties arrived and departed in endless succession, never allowing rest. My mind, caught in the whirlpool of worldly illusion, spun restlessly, like the ocean forever churning with waves. Thoughts, built from countless worries, whirled in confusion, and I felt myself tossed about like a blade of grass caught in the powerful eddies of time’s ocean. In this gathering, I felt as helpless as an insect trapped in a wound on the Vindhya mountain, as powerless as a donkey with only two legs, or as isolated as one who has but a single village for refuge. My kingship and former glory forgotten, I was like a corpse burning with fever, cast out and alone, like a bird with broken wings stranded upon a mountain. It was as though the world itself had reached the end of an age, like a forest consumed by wildfire, like a dry tree struck by lightning, or a wave crashing and dissolving on the shore. The Vindhya region became a desolate wasteland—a fierce, unbroken ring of death encircled it, and there was no food, no grass, no leaves, nor even water to be found. The rainclouds vanished from the sky and did not return; no rain fell, and the wind carried only ashes mixed with glowing embers. In the forests, the leaves shriveled and rustled, scorched by wildfire, and the groves stood empty, as if abandoned since ancient times. Without warning, a dreadful, uncontrollable blaze arose, drying up every thicket and leaving behind only ashes and a few remnants of grass. Dust covered all bodies, and hunger gnawed at every person; the land, stripped of sustenance, was encircled by wildfire. Buffaloes wandered, sinking into mirages and sand, while winds raised swirling heaps of dust and clouds covered the sky. Crowds of people, tormented by thirst, longed only to hear the sound of water, but the relentless heat dried up all life. Driven to madness by hunger, some people perished in a frenzy, devouring their own children; others, in desperation, gnawed at their own limbs, their teeth sinking deep as they writhed in agony. The ground was strewn with fragments of meat, bones, and sharp splinters of khadira wood, with embers scattered about and even stones gnawed by starving frogs. There, mothers, sons, and fathers mingled in a desperate struggle, seizing one another in their torment. Forest mynas were swallowed whole by vultures whose bellies roared with hunger. The earth was soaked with blood from severed limbs, as creatures attacked each other, while maddened elephants, agitated by the frenzy of lions, were fiercely devoured. It was a terrifying scene: lions prowled about, swallowing deer in a single gulp, while people engaged in mutual slaughter, like wrestlers locked in deadly combat. The trees stood stripped of leaves, their trunks blackened and scorched, the air thick with ashes, and the ground smeared with remains licked clean by blood-drinking wild cats. The forest winds carried the tumult of dense, blazing flames; everywhere, the jungle glowed yellow with leaping clusters of fire that stumbled and flared. From the burned dens of serpents, columns of smoky, fleshy clumps arose, and the sky was streaked with clouds colored by the wind-driven tongues of flame. The air was filled with whirling pillars of ash, tossed about by wild winds, while the cries of children with teeth bitten off echoed amidst the wailing of men. A great corpse, its teeth torn out in the chaos, had its flesh devoured swiftly by packs of blood-soaked hands. Its complexion was darkened by smoke, yellowed by the sound of rustling leaves and creepers, as fierce vultures circled and devoured its flesh, while meteors streaked across the sky. Limbs were torn apart in the panic, the ground thrown into confusion, and hearts and bellies split open by the crackling of blazing fire. The forest fire roared with the sound of rushing wind, leaping about as trees fell like burning coals at the hiss of frightened serpents. The region, now hollow and dry, had reached utter ruin, resembling a world scorched by the fire of twelve suns. The forest, with its blazing, flame-haired trees and winds sweeping all before them, looked like the burning pleasure-houses of the sun’s own children. In that place, at that time, under such harsh and calamitous conditions—at the end of a terrible age—the heat was relentless. Some people, with their wives and friends, departed for other lands, like clouds dispersing from the sky in autumn. Some, bound together with their bodies and limbs, sons, wives, and closest kin, perished there, like trees cut down in a forest. Some were devoured by wild beasts as they left their homes, like fledgling birds snatched by hawks when leaving their nests. Some entered the blazing fire like moths, and some fell into chasms like rocks tumbling from mountains. But I, abandoning my relatives—my in-laws, my own people—departed from that land with only my wife, and with great difficulty. Evading fires, winds, guards, and even wild beasts, I escaped the terrors of death, departing with my wife. Having reached the border of that land, beneath a palm tree, I set down my children from my shoulders, as though laying aside a heavy burden of misfortune. Exhausted from long toil, I rested there, as one freed from hell, scorched by the summer forest fire, like a lotus deprived of water in the burning heat. Then, as the daughter of a caṇḍāla rested beneath the tree, sleeping in the cool shade, two children embraced her, seeking comfort and respite from the devastation all around.