course.  No other cause can be traced.  Air, space, fire, moon, sun, day, night, the luminous bodies (in the firmament), rivers, and mountains,—­who makes them and who supports them?  Cold, and heat, and rain, come one after another in consequence of Time’s course.  It is even so, O bull among men, with the happiness and the misery of mankind.  Neither medicines, nor incantations, can rescue the man assailed by decrepitude or overtaken by death.  As two logs of wood floating on the great ocean, come together and are again (when the time comes) separated, even so creatures come together and are again (when the time comes) separated.  Time acts equally towards those men that (are in affluent circumstances and that) enjoy the pleasures of song and dance in the company of women and those helpless men that live upon the food that others supply.  In this world a thousand kinds of relationship are contracted, such as mother and father and son and wife.  In reality, however, whose are they and whose are we?  No one can become anyone’s own, nor can anyone become anybody else’s own.  Our union herewith wives and kinsfolk and well-wishers is like that of travellers at a road-side inn.  Where am I?  Where shall go?  Who am I?  How come I here!  What for and whom I grieve?  Reflecting on these questions one obtains tranquillity.  Life and its environments are constantly revolving like a wheel, and the companionship of those that are dear is transitory.  The union with brother, mother, father, and friend is like that of travellers in an inn.  Men of knowledge behold, as if with corporeal eyes, the next world that is unseen.  Without disregarding the scriptures, one desirous of knowledge should have faith.  One possessed of knowledge should perform the rites laid down in respect of the Pitris and the gods, practise all religious duties, perform sacrifices, judiciously pursue virtue, profit, and pleasure.  Alas, no one understands that the world is sinking on the ocean of Time that is so very deep and that is infested with those huge crocodiles called decrepitude and death.  Many physicians may be seen afflicted with all the members of their families, although they have carefully studied the science of Medicine.[82] Taking bitters and diverse kinds of oily drugs, these succeed not in escaping death, like ocean in transcending its continents.  Men well-versed in chemistry, notwithstanding chemical compounds applied judiciously, are seen to be broken down by decrepitude like trees broken down by elephants.  Similarly, persons possessed of ascetic merit, devoted to study of the Vedas, practising charity, and frequently performing sacrifices, succeed not in escaping decrepitude and death.  As regards all creatures that have taken birth, neither years, nor months, nor fortnights, nor days, nor nights, that have once passed, do ever return.  Man, whose existence is so transitory, is forced, in course of Time, whether he will or not, to come upon this inevitable and broad path that has to be trodden by every creature.[83]