It is for this reason, O Vasava, that thou art able to stand before me!
Those thousand (celestial years), that are the measure of thy sway, will
surely come to an end. Thou shalt then fall and thy limbs will become as
miserable as mine now even though I am possessed of mighty energy. I have
fallen away from the high place that is occupied by the sovereign of the
three worlds. Thou art now the actual Indra in heaven. In this delightful
world of living beings, thou art now, in consequence of Time's course, an
object of universal adoration. Canst thou say what is that by having done
which thou hast become Indra today and what also is that by having done
which we have fallen off from the position we had? Time is the one
creator and destroyer. Nothing else is cause (in the universe for the
production of any effect). Decline, fall, sovereignty, happiness, misery,
birth and death,--a learned person by encountering any of these neither
rejoices nor indulges in sorrow. Thou, O Indra, knowest us. We also, O
Vasava, know thee. Why then dost thou brag in this fashion before me,
forgetting, O shameless one, that it is Time that hath made thee what
thou art? Thou didst thyself witness what my prowess was in those days.
The energy and might I used to display in all my battles, furnish
sufficient evidence. The Adityas, the Rudras, the Sadhyas, the Vasus, and
the Maruts, O lord of Sachi, were all vanquished by me. Thou knowest it
well thyself, O Sakra, that in the great encounter between the gods and
the Asuras, the assembled deities were quickly routed by me by the fury
of my attack. Mountains with their forests and the denizens that lived in
those forests, were repeatedly hurled by us. Many were the mountain
summits with craggy edges that I broke on thy head. What, however, can I
do now? Time is incapable of being resisted. If it were not so, do not
think that I would not have ventured to kill thee with that thunderbolt
of thine with even a blow of my fist. The present, however, is not the
hour with me for the display of prowess. The hour that hath come is such
that I should adopt tranquillity now and tolerate everything. It is for
this reason, O Sakra, that I put up with all this insolence of thine.
Know, however, that I am less able to bear insolence than even thou. Thou
braggest before one who, upon his time having matured, is surrounded on
all sides by Time's conflagration and bound strongly in Time's cords.
Yonder stands that dark