Having journeyed long, the king at last reached the edge of the great forest, whose air was thick with smoke and dust. Before him lay the very village where, in days past, he had lived and prospered as a Pukkasa. As he entered, his eyes took in the familiar faces of its people—the women, the children, the humble huts, the gardens, the streams, and the fields stretching out beyond. But now, all was changed. He beheld the sudden ruin that had befallen the place: the trees stood silent witness, the herds of cattle wandered aimlessly, and the very spots where past events had unfolded seemed haunted by loss. Among the village’s aged women, their eyes red with weeping, sorrow pressed heavily. One friend, her voice trembling, spoke to another of the countless pains that had come from losing loved ones so suddenly in the forest. One woman, old and deeply afflicted, sat with tears shining in her eyes. Her voice was choked, her body frail from grief and hunger, her breasts dried, her frame emaciated. In the midst of that place, scorched by the fierce fire of sorrow, she wailed aloud, “Alas, my son! My body, wounded and weakened by three days without food, is spent. How, where, did your life depart from your mutilated, decaying body?” She remembered with aching heart the garland of gunja berries he once wore, his sweet laughter with his wife, the ripe fruit he would hold between his moist teeth, and his playful swinging from the palm tree. She longed to see him again, leaping and plunging through the groves of kadamba, jambira, clove, and gunja—places where wild beasts roamed, and where once his youthful spirit danced fearlessly. She recalled how his lips bore marks not found on the women who delighted in chewing betel, but on his blue cheek—left by the meat he had eaten. Her sorrow was doubled by her daughter’s fate: “My daughter too was taken by her husband, and she will go to Yama, lord of death, just as the Yamuna river merges into itself, like a forest wanderer with a cluster of flowers carried away by the breeze.” She lamented, “Alas, my daughter, adorned with gunja berries, full-breasted, clothed in leaves, blue as wind-stirred water, 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 daughter, yet even with you, she did not find lasting happiness.” She pondered the ways of the world, where the river of existence, with its waves and playful illusions, mocks all effort. “What trivial thing has not been done by that king, who was joined to the daughter of a Pukkasa?” she sighed. “She, whose eyes were like those of a frightened deer, and he, lion-strong and satisfied, both departed together in a single step into destruction, just as hope and wealth vanish, like gold.” Her grief was total. “I am the wife of a dead lord, my children have faded away, I am a stranger in a foreign land, destitute, of low lineage, crushed by misfortune, and I alone am witness to my own downfall. Women, the only refuge for those shamed and weakened by hunger, burdened by family, and overwhelmed by grief, are left with nothing but their own bodies for support.” She spoke of the pain of fate: “For one separated from kin, confused and 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 crowd together, like the thousands of branches and blades of grass on a mountain during the rains.” Moved by compassion, the king, with the help of maidservants, comforted the grieving woman and her family. Then he gently asked, “What has happened here? Who are you? Who is your daughter? And who is your husband?” With tears in her eyes, she replied, “This is the Pukkasa settlement. My husband was a Pukkasa here, and we had one daughter, radiant as the moon. By the will of fate, she gained a husband equal to the moon—a king who arrived here by destiny. Like a poor female elephant who finds only an empty, broken honey-jar in the forest, she came to him alone.” “She enjoyed happiness with him for a long time and gave birth to a daughter and sons. She grew old in this forest hollow, like a gourd vine sheltered by a tree. But then, O lord of people, a terrible drought struck our village, breaking the spirit of its people. Because of this great suffering, all the villagers left and went far away, where they met their end. Now, O lord, we who remain are left to share in this suffering. We are pitiable, we weep, our eyes full of tears.” Hearing these words, the king was filled with wonder. He looked at his ministers, as if struck by a vision painted before his eyes. Again and again, he reflected on this extraordinary event, questioning the women repeatedly, his astonishment only growing. Moved by compassion, and seeing the world in all its facets, the king honored the women and relieved their suffering as best he could. After remaining there for some time, reflecting on the workings of fate, he returned to his city. The people honored him as he entered within. The next morning, in the assembly hall, the king—still astonished—called me before him. “O sage,” he asked, “how has this dream appeared as if it were real?” I explained to him, according to the true nature of things and with proper reasoning, and his doubts were dispelled from his heart, like clouds driven away by the wind. Thus, O Raghava, this great ignorance causes delusion; it quickly makes the unreal seem real, and the real seem unreal. The king pressed me further, “How is it, O Brahman, that a dream has attained reality? This matter, like a heavy burden of confusion, does not settle in my mind.” I replied, “All this, O Raghava, arises from ignorance—just as one might see cloth in pots, or become confused by dreams and the like. That which is far appears near, like a mountain reflected in a mirror; what is long seems brief, as a night does to a youth in love. The impossible becomes possible in dreams, even one’s own death; and the unreal appears real, like flying in the sky while dreaming. That which is steady seems to move in delusion, like the earth appears to turn; the weak seems strong, like a mind intoxicated. Whatever the mind, colored by its impressions, intensely imagines, that it quickly experiences; it is neither truly real nor unreal.” “When ignorance—consisting of ego and similar notions—arises, then at that very moment, the beginningless, endless delusion appears as infinite. By the force of appearance alone, everything is transformed—a moment becomes an aeon, and an aeon becomes a moment.” In this way, I revealed the mystery, and the king understood, his heart freed from confusion.