Scorched by the relentless heat, she stood exposed to the pounding weight of rain, her form drenched and shrouded in dust lifted by the restless wind, as though her very being bore the stains of misdeeds. Swaying unsteadily like a brittle, dry branch, she rattled with each fall, battered by the onset of heavy clouds and the downpour they brought. Flooded by the torrents of monsoon streams that cascaded down the mountain’s riverbank, she remained unmoving, like a stone in the forest, chilled to the bone by the piercing, sharp winds. Her figure was crooked, her dried entrails stretched like strings across her frame—pure in essence, yet producing only a hollow, rattling sound. She resembled the veena of the goddess of the forest, her belly fashioned from empty, shriveled hide. Yet, that sacred hermitage, sanctified by its freedom from attachment and aversion and by the great austerity of Bhrigu, remained untouched by the ravages of beasts or birds. Bhrigu himself, his body worn thin by rigorous self-restraint and discipline, let his mind wander deeply in austerity. The wind had drawn out his blood, leaving his body lying for a long time upon the great rocks, drained and still. As Bhrigu searched, he did not see his son before him, whose face had always been bowed in humility. Instead, he beheld only the very boundary of virtue itself, as if virtue had taken physical form and stood before him. He saw not his beloved child, but the very presence of Time: a vast, skeletal figure, misfortune embodied, as if poverty itself had assumed a body. What he saw was a body dried and withered by heat, its skin torn, joints grotesquely protruding, and in the shadow of its hollow, desiccated belly, a parched frog rested. In the hollows of its eyes, forest insects slept, while a swarm of silk-producing worms had woven themselves into the cage of flies. The place which had once been an abode of enjoyment, yielding fruits both sweet and bitter, was now swept clean by streaming waters, leaving behind only a dry heap of bones that seemed to laugh in the emptiness. The skull, pure and radiant like the moon, mocked the glory of a Shiva-linga head anointed with camphor. The neck, straight and ashen, bore only the faintest remnant of flesh, stretched along the line of the self, as if elongating the very form. Its pale, clay-colored neck, the flesh washed away by flowing waters, left the face marked only by the nasal bone, a mere boundary of its former shape. The neck was long, the face turned upward, as if watching the departing breaths vanish into the emptiness of the sky. The shins, knees, and arms were doubled in length, as if measuring the endless expanse, worn thin by the exhaustion and fear of a journey that never ended. The belly was deeply sunken, the remaining skin shriveled and tight, as if to display to the ignorant the utter emptiness of the heart. Seeing this dried skeleton, reminiscent of the frame of an elephant, Bhrigu rose, his mind empty of any memory of past or future contact. In that moment, as he gazed, a thought occurred to him: "Is this my son, whose life departed so long ago?" This realization struck him in an instant. He could think only of his son's lost youth, and immediately, a fierce and terrible anger flared up within him—anger directed at Time itself for having stolen his son before his time. Overcome with grief and rage, the sage began to utter a curse upon Time, determined to strike back at the force that had taken his child. At that very moment, Time—subtle in form and the devourer of all creatures—assumed a physical body and approached the sage. He appeared splendid and awe-inspiring, bearing a sword and a noose, adorned with earrings and armor, six-armed and six-faced, surrounded by a great host of attendants. From his body leapt a network of flames, illuminating the sky with the fiery glory of a blossoming kimshuka tree on a mountain. Circles of fire radiated from the tips of the trident he held, shining in all directions like golden earrings rising in the heavens. The peaks of the earth, bound by the breath of his noose, swayed and spun as if they were mounted on a swing. The sun itself appeared darkened, its orb dimmed by the radiance of his sword, as though enveloped by the smoke of a world consumed at the end of an age. This mighty-armed being approached the agitated sage—Bhrigu, whose anger was as deep and tumultuous as the ocean at the end of time—and spoke first, seeking to pacify him with gentle words: “O sage, those who have truly understood the ways of the world, who have seen both the higher and lower realities, do not become deluded even by the greatest causes—how much less so, then, would the best among them, without any cause at all! You are a brahmin of boundless austerity, and we are the guardians of destiny. For this reason, O worthy one, you are to be honored—such honor is not given out of mere personal preference. Do not exhaust yourself with fierce austerities, like the great fires at the end of an age; if I myself have not been burned by those, how could you hope to burn me with a curse? The coils of worldly existence have consumed countless Rudras, and multitudes of Vishnus have been devoured; by whom, O sage, have we ever been cursed? Truly, O brahmin, we are the enjoyers, and beings like you are the food; this is the course of destiny itself—neither of us is the true agent here. Fire rises upward by its own nature, water flows downward on its own, food goes to the eater, and creation moves inexorably toward its own end—all by their own nature. In this way, O sage, this is the very nature of the Supreme Self: the Self alone manifests itself within itself, by itself. When seen with a pure vision, there is neither doer nor enjoyer; but when seen with an impure vision, there appear to be many doers. O Brahman, the notions of doership and non-doership are merely imagined; they arise from incorrect perception, not from true understanding. Flowers appear on trees and beings come into existence in the world by themselves; here, the idea of causation is only imagined as the work of fate. Just as the movement of the reflected moon involves doership and non-doership—though it is neither truly one nor the other—so it is with the creations of time. The mind, through false delusion, constructs in the world the notion of doership and non-doership, just as one mistakes a rope for a snake.” Thus, Time revealed the deeper truth to Bhrigu, guiding him beyond grief and anger, toward the understanding that all is the play of the Supreme Self, and that the notions of agency and fate are but passing shadows upon its eternal light.