O Lord, even the greatest among beings are not spared for a moment; for time, having consumed the endless universe, has become its very soul. Time manifests itself in forms known as ages, years, and aeons, yet its true essence remains unmanifest, pervading all and abiding everywhere, unseen but ever present. No matter how delightful or auspicious one may be, even those as weighty as the mighty Mount Sumeru are swallowed by time, just as serpents are crushed by a young elephant. Time is pitiless, harsh, cruel, relentless, wretched, and base—there is nothing, even today, that it does not consume. Its sole intent is to devour, eating even mountains; though it enjoys endless streams of pleasures, this voracious one is never satisfied. It takes away, destroys, creates, eats, and kills; time, in the dance of worldly existence, acts in various forms, like an actor assuming many roles. Ceaselessly, it breaks apart the seeds of beings, standing in division, just as a parrot splits pomegranates with its unreal beak. It plucks the tender shoots of people with the horns of auspicious and inauspicious fate, shining forth as the mighty elephant among the herds of living beings. Within the vast forest of Brahma, the great tree bearing the fruit of the universe stands, enveloped by the supreme serpent, and remains there, unshaken. This tree is filled with the bees of night, weaving garlands of daylight, and the vines of the seasons and ages, yet it never grows weary. It is not broken though struck, nor burned though scorched; it is seen, yet never fully visible—truly, it is the crown jewel of tricksters. In the blink of an eye, time easily raises something up and destroys something else, spreading out like a kingdom of imagination. With its difficult and robust play, indulging in harsh pleasures, it stirs people as a cook stirs soup with a ladle. Whether grass or dust, the great Indra, Mount Sumeru, a leaf, or the ocean, time is ready to absorb everything into itself by its own expansion. Here alone is cruelty sufficient, greed established, all misfortune present, and restlessness found in abundance. Playfully moving the sun and moon in the sky, time sports here as if a child in its own courtyard, tossing its toys. At the end of the aeon, time, imagined as the creator of all imaginings, shines forth, its form wrapped in garlands made from the bones of all beings. As the aeon ends and time dances wildly, Meru mountain quivers in the sky, shaken by the limbs cast off in its fierce dance, just as birch bark is stirred by the wind. Time becomes Rudra, then Mahendra, then the Grandfather; it is Shukra, it is Vaishravana, and then again, it is nothing at all. Within itself, it bears countless creations—brilliant and destroyed, rising ceaselessly, each distinct yet inseparable, like waves in the ocean. Standing amidst the trees named after great aeons, it shakes down the ripe fruits—gods and demons—gathered in clusters. It strides with vast feet among swarms of universes, buzzing like restless gnats and falling, tossed about. With the lotus of pure existence blossoming under the radiance of consciousness, time delights in its own form, accompanied by its beloved actions. Time establishes its own form, boundless from beginning to end, set high like a great mountain, and remains steadfast. At times, it appears dark as a shadow, at times, it shines with radiance; yet, by turns, it remains empty of both, abiding in its own nature. Merged with the essence of countless worlds through the reality of its own self, time stands fixed, as if bound by a great and weighty mass. It does not suffer, nor does it die; it neither comes nor goes; it neither sets nor rises, even through hundreds of great aeons. Only for the play of beginning the world, with effortless ease, it passes time within itself, having attained a state free from ego. Time remains, projecting the night’s muddy darkness and the day’s lotus array—the bee of action—upon the lake of its own self. Seizing the dreadful black night, the worn-out sweeper, it brings forth the golden dust of light all around the earth. With the finger of action, it moves the lamp of the sun into the corners; out of compassion, it observes what and where things are in the house of the world. Beholding the days ripen in a moment with the sun’s eye, it consumes the fruits of the world-guardians, like one who devours the produce of an ancient forest. Death, like a fierce chest, gradually deposits the jewels of worlds—the worn-out huts of the universe—into its dreadful cavity. The string of world-gems, thoroughly filled with qualities, time adorns upon itself as if for decoration, and then again cuts it off. With the garland of night-lotuses following the swan of day, the fickle one ever encircles the sky with the rays of stars as filaments. The wine-seller of life, who stirs the mountain, river, cloud, and world, daily drinks up, after sprinkling, even the red drops of stars. There is nothing—no youth, no lotus, no moon, no lion’s mane of life—that this thief of the trivial and the great does not seize. With the sport of the world-cycle, crushing and casting down creatures, time delights in its own self, with the smile of arising and subsiding. He is the doer, the enjoyer, the destroyer, the rememberer, who has reached every state; he does all this, yet does nothing at all. The power of time, shining among people, at once reveals and conceals the entire form—bearing both auspicious and inauspicious shapes, and marked by all divisions of time.