Vasishtha continued:—I will now set before you an example on the subject (of the distinction of friend and foe), in the instance of two brothers, who were born of a sage on the banks of Ganges, going in three directions of _tripatha_ or _trisrot_ as _trivia_. 2. Hear then this holy and wonderful tale of antiquity, which now occurs to my mind on the subject of friends and enemies, which I have been relating to you. 3. There is in this continent of Jambudvípa (Asia), a mountainous region beset by groves and forests, with the high mount of Mahendra rising above the rest. 4. It touched the sky with its lofty peaks, and the arbour of its kalpa trees; spread its shadow over the hermits and kinnaras that resorted under its bower. 5. It resounded with the carol of the sages, who chaunted the Sámaveda hymns on it, in their passage from its caverns and peaks to the region of Indra (the god of the vault of heaven). 6. The fleecy clouds which incessantly drizzled with rain water from its thousand peaks; and washed the plants and flowers below, appeared as tufts of hair hanging down from heaven to earth. 7. The mountain re-echoed to the loud roars of the impetuous octopede Sarabhas, with the thunder claps of kalpa clouds from the hollow mouths of its dark and deep clouds. (So Himálaya is said to warble to the tunes of Kinnaras from its cavern mounts).[7] 8. The thundering noise of its cascades falling into its caverns from precipice to precipice, has put to blush the loud roar of the Surges of the sea. 9. There on tableland upon the craggy top of the mountain, flowed the sacred stream of the heavenly Ganges, for the ablution and beverage of the hermits. 10. There on the banks of the trivious river—tripatha—Gangá, was a gemming mountain, sparkling as bright gold, and decorated with blossoming trees. 11. There lived a sage by name of Dirghatapas, who was a personification of devotion, and a man of enlightened understanding; he had a noble mind, and was inured in austerities of devotion. 12. This sage was blessed with two boys as beautiful as the full moon, and named Punya and Pávana (the meritorious and holy), who were as intelligent as the sons of Brihaspati, known by the names of the two Kachas. 13. He lived there on the bank of the river, and amidst a grove of fruit trees, with his wife and the two sons born of them. 14. In course of time the two boys arrived to their age of discretion, and the elder of them named Punya or meritorious, was superior to the other in all his merits. 15. The younger boy named Pávana or the holy, was half awakened in his intellect, like the half blown lotus at the dawn of the day; and his want of intelligence kept him from the knowledge of truth, and in the uncertainty of his faith. 16. Then in the course of the all destroying time, the sage came to complete a century of years, and his tall body and long life, were reduced in their strength by his age and infirmity.