With the finger of action, the Lord moves the lamp of the sun into every corner of creation, his compassion turning his gaze to observe what and where all things dwell in the house of this world. With the sun’s eye, he witnesses the days ripen in a single moment, consuming the fruits of the world-guardians, just as one might devour the produce of an ancient forest. Death, fierce as a locked chest, gradually gathers the jewels of the worlds—those worn-out huts of the universe—and deposits them into its dreadful cavity. The string of world-gems, filled with manifold qualities, he adorns upon himself as an ornament, only to cut it off again when the time comes. The garland of night-lotuses follows the swan of day, as this ever-fickle one encircles the sky with the rays of stars, weaving their filaments through the heavens. The wine-seller of life stirs the mountains, rivers, clouds, and the world itself, daily drinking up, after sprinkling, even the red drops of the stars. There is nothing—no youth, no lotus, no moon, no lion’s mane of life—that this thief of both the trivial and the great does not seize. In the sport of the world-cycle, he crushes and casts down all creatures, delighting in his own self, with a smile that plays upon the rising and falling of all things. He is the doer, the enjoyer, the destroyer, the rememberer, who has reached every state; he does all this, yet remains untouched, as if doing nothing at all. The power of time, shining among people, at once reveals and conceals the entire form of existence, bearing both auspicious and inauspicious shapes, and marked by all the divisions of time. Yet all the steps of this grand play remain far removed from the prince of the world, whose strength has not been measured by time. As he acts, amidst herds of bewildered and miserable creatures, the world, worn out by the ages, becomes a hunting ground in the thicket of existence. In one place, a beautiful lotus of submarine fire arises—a delightful lake of play, the great ocean of the age of dissolution. The course of time is filled with beings aged in the sour, bitter, and salty seas of existence. The fierce one, moving in all directions, accompanied by the hosts of mothers, is like a she-wolf in the forest of existence, drawing the deer of men ever closer. The earth rests upon her palm, a drinking vessel filled with flavors, adorned with nets of swaying lotuses, water-lilies, and garlands of flowers. Roaring and striking fiercely, the man-lion in the cage of arms, with a broad and muscular mane, is the beloved playful bird of the world. Sweet as the music of a gourd-vina, with the pure radiance of the autumn sky, the god—Mahakala—appears as the playful young cuckoo, his form ever resounding. Casting away the arrows of suffering, wielding the bow named 'non-conception,' he vibrates everywhere. Empowered by the supreme play of vibration, wandering, seizing, whirling, and tearing apart, this aged, world-worn, restless monkey—time itself—makes its body pulse through all things. Amid these difficult pleasures, another jewel appears; the world calls it fate and time, believing it to be the actor behind all events. Yet, apart from mere activity, nothing else is perceived of karma, whose nature is only its own vibration; no intended form is found. Through this, the entire succession of beings remains ever frail, driven into distress like snow under the heat of the sun. Whatever is seen here—the sphere of the world’s enjoyment—is his dance hall. Here, he dances. The third, bearing the dreadful name 'Death,' with a skull-bearing body, intoxicated, fate dances in the world. For as Death dances ceaselessly, always with his beloved Lady Destiny, the supreme lover, the remainder—pure as a crescent moon and the Ganga-bearing one—shine as the sacred thread upon the chest of worldly existence, radiant with both the thread and the threadless. The orbs of the moon and sun are golden bracelets at the bases of his hands; the playful lotus rests in his hand, and the divine lotus-heart of the cosmic egg adorns him. Adorned with stars and drops, with the trembling petals of a whirling lotus, and washed by the waters of the single, all-encompassing ocean—there is but one sky. Before such a form, Destiny, ever desirous, dances with unceasing passion, her beginnings never ceasing. Within the pavilion of the world, she delights in dancing, her form unrestrained, ever flickering with the coming and going of events. The beautiful ornaments upon her limbs are rows of other worlds; her vast hair-circlet hangs from the sky down to the nethermost underworld. The anklet-garland of hell, resounding with jingling sounds, is strung on the thread of evil deeds, trembling upon her netherworldly foot. The musk-mark upon her brow is fashioned by the friend of ritual acts, painted by Citragupta on her forehead’s band during the night. Assuming the form of Kali, bustling with activity at the end of the aeons, this goddess dances again, her thunderous cries echoing from the peaks of the mountains. Behind her, wild and swinging, are youthful chariots adorned with peacock feathers, and her three eyes glare fiercely, terrifying with their vast and dreadful gaze. Her hair, loose and flowing like the autumn moonlight, is scattered across her head; she waves beautiful white mandara flowers and the pale yak-tail fans of Gauri. She brandishes drums shaped like the belly of Bhairava, echoing the wild dance; she rattles skull bowls taken from Indra’s body, each with a thousand holes. The sky is filled with the dry, broken fragments of bodies and clubs; she herself appears, even to herself, as black as dense clouds. Adorned with garlands of lotus flowers and wheels made from the heads of all beings, she shines forth, whirling in her dance during the great aeons, the eternal play of time and destiny manifest in all their glory.