30. After the end of the world, he ceases to dance, and creates anew all things from the lowest animal that lives in the earth, to the highest Brahmá and Siva (when he resumes his dance). 31. Destiny as an actress, acts by turns her parts of creation and destruction, diversified by scenes of old age, sorrow and misery. 32. Time repeatedly creates the worlds and their woods, with the different abodes and localities teeming with population. He forms the moveable and immovable substances, establishes customs and again dissolves them, as boys make their dolls of clay and break them soon afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. THE ACTS OF DESTINY. Ráma said:—Such being the all destructive conduct of time and others (as already described), what confidence, O great sage, can men like me, have upon them? 2. We all remain here, O sage! as slaves sold to Fate and Destiny, and are deceived by their allurements as beasts of the forest. 3. This Fate whose conduct is so very inhuman, is always up to devour all beings, and is incessantly throwing men into the sea of troubles. 4. He is led by his malicious attempts to inflame the mind with inordinary desires, as the fire raises its flames to burn down a habitation. 5. Destiny the faithful and obedient wife of Fate, is naturally fickle on account of her being a female, and is always bent on mischief and disturbing the patience (even of the wisest of men). 6. As the heinous serpent feeds upon the air, so does cruel Death ever swallow the living. He ripens the body with old age to create his zest, and then devours all animals warm with life. 7. Death is called a relentless tyrant, having no pity even for the sick and weak; nor any regard for any one in any state of life. 8. Every one in this world is fond of affluence and pleasures, not knowing that these are only calculated to lead him to his ruin. 9. Life is very unsteady. Death is very cruel. Youth is very frail and fickle, and boyhood is full of dullness and insensibility. 10. Man is defiled by his worldliness, his friends are ties to the world, his enjoyments are the greatest of his diseases in life, and his avarice and ambition are the mirage that always allures him (to ruin). 11. Our very senses are our enemies, before which even truth appears as falsehood; the mind is the enemy of the mind and self is the enemy of self. (_i.e._ They are all deceptive). 12. Self-esteem is stained (with the name of selfishness), intelligence is blamed for its fallaciousness, our actions are attended with bad results, and our pleasures tend only to effeminacy. 13. All our desires are directed to enjoyments; our love of truth is lost; our women are the ensigns of vice, and all that were once so sweet, have become tasteless and vapid. 14. Things that are not real, are believed as real, and have become the cause of our pride, by hardening us in untruth, and keeping us from the light of truth.