Listen, Raghava, to the profound teaching on creation and its dissolution. Creation is nothing but a designation for the highest reality; this is the ultimate conclusion. It is neither truly absent nor present within, just as space exists within space itself. Through the activity of the mind, creation arises, and when the mind is absent, creation dissolves. In the supreme, utterly tranquil state, the illusion of creation is like a bracelet imagined in gold—nothing separate from its essence. Though creation appears to exist, it becomes non-creation when the sense of ownership is relinquished. The unreal attains reality when self-awareness arises from itself. Awareness brings forth the sense of ‘I’ and the confusion of creation; know that non-awareness is the supreme peace—not inertness, but profound tranquility. By this understanding, creation is not manifold, nor is this manifoldness real; the knower is one, of the nature of auspiciousness—like an army made of clay, shaped by craftsmen in a book or by their hands. This reality is complete, without beginning, infinite, and without arising; in the complete, completeness stands established from the very beginning, even as other completions appear to flow in. Whatever is perceived as creation is Brahman, abiding in Brahman, just as space rests in space, peace in peace, auspiciousness in auspiciousness. As a city reflected in a mirror appears within the mirror to those who look, so too, in the Lord, nearness and distance, this and not-this, are all established. The universe arises from the unreal, and even when it appears real, it is always merely an appearance; because it is only a semblance, it is essentially unreal. In this creation, which resembles a city reflected in a mirror, the shimmer of water in a mirage, or the illusion of seeing two moons, where is any true reality? Just as the scattering of magical powder creates the illusion of a city in the sky, so too, within consciousness, the essence and non-essence of samsara appear. As long as ignorance, with its dense branches and thickets, is not completely burned away at the root by the fire of inquiry, it continues to produce various forests of pleasure and pain. Now, listen to how the dissolution of ignorance, woven like a wave of gold and yet false, takes place, and how the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ fades away. King Lavana, having witnessed such confusion, set out on the second day to enter that great forest. He remembered the suffering he had seen in that wilderness; sometimes it appeared in the mirror of his mind, and sometimes it was experienced directly. Resolving thus with his ministers, he went southward and, for the sake of conquest, reached the Vindhya mountains. Driven by curiosity, he wandered over the entire land along the shores of the great ocean to the east, south, and west, like the path of the sun across the sky. Then, in one place, he saw that wild forest ahead of him, as if it were a wall, like the realm of the next world. Roaming everywhere, he saw and observed all those various events, and, having understood them, he was amazed. He also recognized those hunters, the outcaste Pukkasas, standing before him, and with a mind overwhelmed by wonder, he wandered on, bewildered. Eventually, he reached the edge of the great forest, gray with smoke and dust, arriving at the very village where he had once been a thriving Pukkasa. There he saw those people, those women, those little huts, those gardens, streams, and stretches of land. He saw the sudden ruin, the trees, the herds of cattle, and those very places marked by the events that had occurred there. Elsewhere, among the old women with tearful eyes, afflicted by sorrow, one friend described to another the countless griefs of losing loved ones untimely in the forest. Aged and greatly afflicted, her eyes bright with tears, her throat choked, her breasts dried, her body emaciated, she wailed in the midst of the place scorched by the fierce fire of grief. She cried out, “Alas, my son! My body, covered with wounds and weakened by three days without food, is worn out. How, where, did your life depart from your mutilated, decaying body? I remember the garland of gunja berries, the sweet laughter with your wife, the ripe fruit held between your moist teeth, and the playful swinging from the palm tree. In the groves of kadamba, jambira, clove, and gunja, where wild beasts roam, when will I again see my son’s leaps and plunges into those terrifying places? Those charming marks are not found on the lips of women who delight in chewing betel; they were on the blue cheek of my son, left by the meat he had eaten. My daughter too was taken away by her husband, and will go to Yama, the lord of death, just as the Yamuna river joins the Yamuna, like a forest wanderer with a cluster of flowers carried by the breeze. Alas, my daughter, with a gunja berry necklace and full, rounded breasts, wearing a garment of leaves, blue as the water stirred by the wind, untroubled by dust at the edge of the clouds. Alas, prince, radiant as the moon, you abandoned those pure, graceful women and sought pleasure with my own daughter; yet she did not attain lasting happiness with you. In the river of worldly existence, with its own waves breaking and playful activities mocking, what trivial thing has not been done by that king, who was joined to the daughter of a pukkasa? She, whose eyes resembled those of a frightened deer, and he, whose strength matched that of a satisfied lion—both departed together in a single step into destruction, just as hope and wealth vanish, like gold. I am the wife of a dead lord, my children have faded away, I have traveled to a foreign land, I am destitute, born into a low lineage, afflicted by great misfortune, and I myself am the witness to my own downfall. Women, the sole refuge for those humiliated by contempt, weakened by hunger, burdened by family, and overwhelmed by unstoppable grief, are left without support except for their own bodies. For one afflicted by fate, separated from relatives, confused and deeply rooted in suffering, living is the same as dying; great misfortune makes death life’s highest blessing. For one deprived of people, living in a foreign land, endless sorrows arise, crowded together like thousands of branches and blades of grass on a mountain during the rains.” After comforting the woman, aged with her own family, with the help of maidservants, the king asked her, “What has happened here? Who are you? Who is your daughter? And who is your husband?” With tearful eyes she replied, “This village is called Pukkasa settlement. Here, my husband was a pukkasa; he had one daughter, radiant like the moon.