become successful in life behaves sinfully in consequence of one’s mind being filled with arrogance, one’s acts under such circumstances can never pass for authority.  It is heard in the Puranas that formerly mankind were self-restrained; that they held righteousness in great esteem; that the practices they followed for livelihood were all consistent with propriety and the injunctions laid down in the scriptures:  and that the only punishment that was required for chastising them when they went wrong was the crying of fie on them.[1525] At the time of which we speak, O king, Righteousness, and nothing else, was much applauded among men.  Having achieved great progress in righteousness, men in those days worshipped only all good qualities that they saw.  The Asuras, however, O child, could not bear that righteousness which prevailed in the world.  Multiplying (in both number and energy), the Asuras (in the form of Lust and Wrath) entered the bodies of men.  Then was pride generated in men that is so destructive of righteousness.  From pride arose arrogance, and from arrogance arose wrath.  When men thus became overwhelmed with wrath, conduct implying modesty and shame disappeared from them, and then they were overcome by heedlessness.  Afflicted by heedlessness, they could no longer see as before, and as the consequence thereof they began to oppress one another and thereby acquire wealth without any compunction.  When men became such, the punishment of only crying fie on offenders failed to be of any effect.  Men, showing no reverence for either the gods or Brahmanas, began to indulge their senses to their fill.[1526] At that time the deities repaired to that foremost of gods, viz., Siva, possessed of patience, of multiform aspect, and endued with the foremost of attributes, and sought his protection.  The deities imparted unto him their conjoined energy, and thereupon the great god, with a single shaft, felled on the earth those three Asuras, viz., Desire, Wrath, and Cupidity, who were staying in the firmament, along with their very habitations.[1527] The fierce chief of those Asuras possessed of fierce, prowess, who had struck the Devas with terror, was also slain by Mahadeva armed with the lance.[1528] When this chief of the Asuras was slain, men once more obtained their proper natures, and once more began to study the Vedas and the other scriptures as was in former times.  Then the seven ancient Rishis came forward and installed Vasava as the chief of the gods and the ruler of heaven.  And they took upon themselves the task of holding the rod of chastisement over mankind.  After the seven Rishis came king Viprithu (to rule mankind), and many other kings, all belonging to the Kshatriya order for separately ruling separate groups of human beings. (When Mahadeva dispelled all evil passions from the minds of creatures) there were, in those ancient times, certain elderly men from whose minds all wicked feelings did not fly away.  Hence, in consequence