Then, as the battle raged, the army of demons was struck with terror and fled in every direction, scattering like a net of stars swept away by the wind at the end of an age. Their flight carried them far and wide: into the hidden valleys of the gods, across the peaks and crags of mountains, along the ocean shores, and among the drifting layers of cloud. Some were swept into the sea’s whirlpools, others tumbled into deep chasms and rivers, wandered through scorching deserts, or vanished at the edges of the world, even into forests ablaze with wildfires. They fell upon emptied battlefields where treasures lay abandoned, into villages and cities, into haunted woods stalked by fierce yakṣas, and across burning deserts. Some tumbled to the very edge of the Lokāloka mountain, some landed on remote summits or sank into lakes, while others found themselves in distant cities—Andhra, Drāmiḍa, Kashmir, and Persia. Among the surging waves of many oceans, within the sacred water-pots of the Ganges, on far-off islands, and in groves of Jambū trees, the enemies of the gods fell, their bodies crashing down like mountains, their limbs and feet shattered, their arms and hands broken apart. The carnage was terrible: entrails tangled in branches, streams of blood flowing freely, bodies and heads scattered far and wide, and eyes glaring with wrath even as life departed. Their armor, once proud, was smashed by the force of their own weapons. Torn garments drifted down, scattered from afar. Helmets clung to their throats, making a harsh, terrifying clatter; fragments of their bodies hung impaled on sharp rocks. Breastplates were caught and pierced upon the sturdy spikes of silk-cotton trees, and their heads, split in a hundred ways, struck hard against stone slabs. All the demon chiefs, no matter how well-armed, perished instantly as they fell; their very dust vanished in all directions, like water absorbed by the ocean. Yet Shambara, the mighty asura, burned with wrath like the fire that consumes the world at the end of an age. He turned fiercely against the Dāmavyālakaṭa demons, and, fearing his fury, these demons abandoned their kin and fled to the seventh subterranean realm, where they remained hidden. There, at the very threshold of hell, stood the Kukuhā, the dreadful servants of Yama, guardians capable of frightening even ghouls. In that gloomy realm, like worries gathering as dense clouds, the Dāmavyālakaṭa demons gradually gave away their daughters in marriage. Joined with the Kukuhā executioners, they spent their days there, their minds seized by relentless and destructive tendencies, for a span of ten thousand years. Bound by false attachments and delusions—“This beautiful woman is mine, she belongs to me, I am her master”—they passed their time, entangled in possessive affection. Then, at some point, the Lord of Dharma himself arrived there by chance, seeking to investigate matters concerning the great hells. But the three asuras did not recognize him; they failed to bow, mistaking him for an ordinary servant, and so brought about their own ruin. By the command of Vaivasvata, they were cast onto blazing, fiery ground, their brows set in grim determination. There, together with their dear friends, wives, and relatives, they wailed in anguish, burning like trees with leafy branches consumed by a forest fire. Because of their own cruel tendencies, they were reborn again in similar forms—executioners, hunters, and royal servants. Abandoning those births, they became crows among the Suhmas, then vultures, and afterward herons. Their minds, still crooked, led them to be born as corpses among the Trigartas, as sheep among the Barbaras, and as insects among the Magadhas. Thus, in this bewildering succession of births, some now exist as fish in the marshes and forests of Kashmir, scorched by forest fires, trapped in shallow, muddy filth. There, neither dying nor truly living, they are worn out and decayed like rotting moss. Having undergone countless births, they arise and vanish again and again, like waves upon the ocean. Driven endlessly by the winds of their own tendencies, they wander in the ocean of existence, their bodies tossed about like blades of grass. Even now, O Rama, they have not found peace—such is the immense and dreadful power of persistent tendencies. Because of the pursuit of non-discrimination, the mind, by its own play, embraces such calamity, leading to endless suffering. Where is that lordship which once destroyed the hosts of gods and demons, and where is this pitiable state—being a fish, battered and decayed by burning heat and filth? Where is the courage that once drove away the armies of the gods, and where is this condition of being a mere servant, a tribal chief, or a minor king? Where indeed is the steadfastness of consciousness free from ego, and where is the false imagination of ego, arising from the influence of delusive tendencies? The dense creeper of worldly existence, with its spreading branches, arises solely from the sprout of ego and extends everywhere. Therefore, O Rama, diligently remove the ego within; erase the notion “I am someone,” and become truly happy. The orb of the moon of ultimate reality, cool and full of nectar, is concealed by the cloud of ego and has become invisible. The three demons—greed, anger, and delusion—are devoured by the goblin of ego; though not real, they appear to exist through the power of illusion. Even today, O Rama, on the marshy banks of the great lotus lake in Kashmir, those fish remain, delighting in the tender shoots of water plants. There is no existence for the unreal, nor is there non-existence for the real. How, then, can that which is unreal become real and established? Indeed, mighty-armed one, the unreal never comes into being anywhere. Sometimes it appears as something large or subtle, but it never truly exists.