7. How long is it that you have passed in this forester's life of yours, and what is your main object in view. Tell me the bare truth, because it is beyond the probity of an ascetic, to utter anything but the plain truth. (The ascetics are names of _satyavrata_ or vowed to truth). 8. Sikhidhwaja replied:--Lord as you are the offspring of a God, everything must be well known to you; and as the Gods are full well acquainted with the secrets and circumstances of all people, I have very little to relate to you about me. 9. It is from my fear of the world (and its temptations), that I have abandoned it and taken my abode amidst this forest; and this though you well know, will I now briefly state unto you. 10. I am Sikhidhwaja the ruler of a country, which I have long relinquished for a seat in the forest; and know, O knower of all truths, that it is my fear of the trap-doors of the world and future transmigration in it, that has driven me to this retired wilderness. 11. It is no more than the reiteration of pain and pleasure, and of life and death in this accursed world; and it is to evade all these, that I have betaken myself to my austerities in these solitary woods. 12. I wander about on all sides, and perform my rigorous austerities without any respite; and I give no rest to myself, but keep my vigils like a miser over his little stock. 13. I am without any effort or attempt, and so without any fruit and fruition also; I am lonely, and so helpless likewise; I am poor and therefore friendless also, and know me Divine personage! to be pining in this forest like a withered tree perforated by worms. 14. I observe strictly all my sacred rites without any fail or failure, and yet I fall from one sorrow into a sea of sorrows; and have grown too pensive, that even the ambrosial draught is unpleasant to me. 15. Chúdálá said:--It was once on a time that I had my great progenitor (Brahmá) to tell me which of the two, the observance of duties or their non-observance for the sake of knowledge (_i.e._ whether practice or theoretical knowledge); is the more useful to and preferable by mankind. 16. Brahmá replied:--Knowledge is no doubt the supreme Good, as it leads to ones acquaintance with the unity of the Deity and the oneness of himself; but action is inculcated to man at the duty of his life, both for the pleasure and passing of his life time. 17. Let them that have not acquired their intellectual light and the sight of the soul, be employed in their duties by their offsprings and fellow creatures; for who that is devoid of a silken robe, will go about naked and not wrap himself with a blanket or coarse cloth. 18. The ignorant that are actuated by their desires and live upon their hopes, meet with their objects as the reward of their action; but the knowing and speculative theorist, having neither any desire in his mind nor action of his body, meets with no reward of either.