7. The prince hailed and adored me with offerings of flowers and presents, made me sit by him with due reverence; then in the course of my conversation with him, he fondly asked me as follows. 8. Tell me sir, said he, what becomes of the world after the destruction of all things; and when the causalities of recreation are all extinct and annihilated, in the undefinable vacuum of desolation. 9. What then becomes the prime cause of the causation of things, at the recreation of the world; and what are accompanying elements for the reproduction of objects, and how and whence they take their rise. 10. What is the world and what was the beginning of its creation; what was the primeval chaos, and whence is this earth? What is the air the support of the seas, and what is hell, which is filled by worms and insects? (_i.e._ Whence are these varieties from the one source of Brahma?) 11. What be the creatures contained in the womb of air (_i.e._ the celestials), and what are they that are contained in <the> bosom of the mountains (_i.e._ the demons); what are the elementary bodies and their productions, and how the understanding and its faculties have come to existence? 12. Who is the maker of all these, and who is their witness; what is the support of the universe, and what are these that are contained therein? I am quite certain, that the world can never have its ultimate destruction. 13. All the Vedas and sástras are opposed to one another, in their different views and interpretations; and every one of them has made a supposition, according to its particular view. 14. From our knowledge of the world, we know not whether it is indestructible or an unreality in itself. (_i.e._ If it is an ideal unreality, it needs have no cause nor is it destructible at all; but should it be a reality and destructible thing, then what must be the cause of the production and destruction thereof? Gloss). 15. Again tell me, O thou chief of sages, what is the form and cause of those bodies that are doomed to dwell in hell; after the demise of men on earth, and cremation and destruction of their bodies here. 16. What are the accompanying causes of the regeneration of bodies, after their destruction on death? The virtues and vices of departed souls, being both of them formless things, cannot be their accompanying causes, towards the formation of their corporeal frames. 17. It is quite an absurd reasoning, that want of matter could possibly produce a material body; just as it is impossible to believe, that there should be an offspring, without the seminal cause of its parents. 18. Tell me sir, what else should be the cause, of the production of material bodies (after death); and for want of any such cause, it is improper also, to deny the existence of a future state.