Another story, of like character, is told in the same book, on pages 372-374, only with the difference that it points out a lesson for woman that she must cleave to her husband because she possesses no independent existence by herself. (The same, however, in the Indian story is not true of man.) This is the explanation the faithful wife Wanawallari gives to the Brahman who tempts her to leave her husband. She says: “Once there was a time when there were neither men nor women, but the universe existed alone. And then one day, when the Creator was meditating with a view to further creation, he said to himself: ‘Something is wanting to complete the creation which I have created. It is blind, and unconscious of its own curious beauty and excellence.’ Thereupon he created a man. And instantly the creation became an object of wonder and beauty, being reflected like a picture in the mirror of the mind of the man. Then the man roamed alone in the world, wondering at the flowers and the trees and the animals, and at last he came to a pool. And he looked in and saw himself. Then full of astonishment, he exclaimed: ‘This is the most beautiful creature of all.’ And he hunted incessantly through the whole world to find it, not knowing that he was looking for himself. But when he found that in spite of all his endeavors he could never do more than see it on the surface of pools, he became sad and ceased to care about anything. Then the Creator, perceiving it, said to himself: ‘Ha! this is a difficulty which I never foresaw, arising naturally from the beauty of my work. But now, what is to be done? For here is this man, whom I made to be a mirror for my world, snared in the mirror of his own beauty. So I must somehow or other cure this evil. But I cannot make another man, for there would be two centers to the circle of the universe. Neither can I add anything to the circumference of nature, for it is perfect in itself. There is necessary, therefore, some third thing: not real, for then it would disturb the balance of the universe; nor unreal, for then it would be nothing: but poised on the border between reality and nonentity.’ So he collected the reflections on the surface of the pools, and made of them a woman. But she, as soon as she was made, began to cry. And she said: ‘Alas! alas! I am, and I am not.’ Then said the Creator: ‘Thou foolish intermediate creature, thou art a nonentity only when thou standest alone. But when thou art united to the man, thou art real in participation with his substance.’ And thus, O Brahman, apart from her husband a woman is a nonentity and a shadow without a substance: being nothing but the mirror of himself, reflected on the mirror of illusion.” * * * * *