individual who is incapable of being resisted by
the world. Of fierce form, he stands there, having bound me like an
inferior animal bound with cords. Gain and loss, happiness and misery,
lust and wrath, birth and death, captivity and release,--these all one
encounters in Time's course. I am not the actor. Thou art not the actor.
He is the actor who, indeed, is omnipotent. That Time ripens me (for
throwing me down) like a fruit that has appeared on a tree. There are
certain acts by doing which one person obtains happiness in Time's
course. By doing those very acts another obtains misery in the course of
Time. Versed as I am with the virtues of Time, it behoves me not to
indulge in grief when it is Time that has assailed me. It is for this
reason, O Sakra, that I do not grieve. Grief cannot do us any good. The
grief of one that indulges in grief never dispels one's calamity. On the
other hand, grief destroys one's power. It is for this that I do not
indulge in grief.'
"'"Thus addressed by the chief of the Daityas, he of a hundred sacrifices,
viz., the puissant and thousand-eyed chastiser of Paka, restrained his
wrath and said these words.
"'"Sakra said, 'Beholding this upraised arm of mine, equipped with the
thunderbolt, and those nooses of Varuna, who is there whose understanding
would not be agitated, including the very Destroyer himself that
compasses the death of all beings? Thy understanding, however, so firm
and so endued with vision of the truth, hath not been agitated. O thou of
invincible prowess, verily, thou art unmoved today in consequence of thy
fortitude. Beholding all things in this universe to be fleeting, who is
there in it, endued with body, that would venture to repose confidence on
either his body or all the objects of his desire? Like thyself I also
know that this universe is not eternal, and that it has been thrown into
Time's conflagration that is dreadful though hidden from the view, that
is continuously burning, and that is truly endless. Every one is assailed
here by Time. Nothing among beings that are subtile or gross enjoys an
immunity from Time's sway. All things are being cooked in Time's
cauldron. Time has no master. Time is ever heedful. Time is always
cooking all things within itself. No one who has once entered the domain
of Time which is ceaselessly going on, can escape therefrom. All embodied
beings may be heedless of Time, but Time is heedful and is broad awake
behind them. No one
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