“Sakra said, ’Formerly, attended by a train consisting of thousands of vehicles and kinsmen, thou usedst to make thy progresses, scorching all the worlds with thy splendour and regarding us as nought.  Thou art now, however, deserted by both kinsmen and friends.  Beholding this miserable plight that has overtaken thee, dost thou or dost thou not indulge in grief?  Formerly, all the worlds were under thy sway and great was thy joy.  I ask, dost thou or dost thou not indulge in grief now, for this fall of thine in respect of external splendour?’

“Vali said, ’Considering all this to be transitory,—­due, indeed, to the course of time,—­I do not, O Sakra, indulge in grief.  These things have an end.  These bodies that creatures have, O chief of celestials, are all transitory.  For that reason, O Sakra, I do not grieve (for this asinine form of mine).  Nor is this form due to any fault of mine.  The animating principle and the body come into existence together, in consequence of their own nature.  They grow together, and meet with destruction together.  Having obtained this form of existence I have not been permanently enslaved by it.  Since I know this, I have no cause for sorrow in consequence of that knowledge.  As the final resting-place of all rivers is the ocean, even so the end of all embodied creatures is death.  Those persons that know this well are never stupefied, O wielder of the thunderbolt!  They, however, who are overwhelmed with Passion and loss of judgment, do not know this, they whose understanding is lost, sink under the weight of misfortune.  A person who acquires a keen understanding succeeds in destroying all his sins.  A sinless person acquires the attribute of Goodness, and having acquired it becomes cheerful.  They, however, that deviate from the attribute of Goodness, and obtain repeated rebirths, are obliged to indulge in sorrow and grief, led on by desire and the objects of the senses.  Success or the reverse, in respect of the attainment of all objects of desire, life or death, the fruits of action that are represented by pleasure or pain, I neither dislike nor like.  When one slays another, one slays only that other’s body.  That man, who thinks that it is he who slays another, is himself slain.  Indeed, both of them are ignorant of the truth, viz., he who slays and he who is slain.[838] That person, O Maghavat, who having killed or vanquished any one brags of his manliness, should know that he is not the actor but the act (of which he boasts) has been accomplished by a real agent (who is different).  When the question comes as to who is it that causes the creation and the destruction of things in the world, it is generally regarded that some person (who has himself been caused or created) has caused the act (of creation or destruction).  Know, however, that the person who is so regarded has (as already said) a creator.  Earth, light or heat, space, water, and wind constituting the fifth—­from these do all creatures spring. (When this is known