Time is represented as an actor that plays the dual roles of creation and destruction through the cycles of birth and death. Destiny and Fate control the actions of living beings, trapping them in the endless cycle of worldly pleasures and repeated rebirths. The chapter describes Time and Death personified as dancers accompanied by Destiny, with the world as their stage. Mortals are bound to the cycles of samsara through attachments to mundane enjoyments, unable to stop the relentless motion of Time and Fate that governs birth and death.

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
Rama continued:
1Time stands the foremost of all deceitful players
in this world. He acts the double parts of creation
and destruction, and of action and fate.
2The existence of time is known to us only
through action and motion, which bind all beings
(in the succession of thoughts and acts).
3Fate is that which frustrates the acts of all created
beings, like the heat of the sun serves to dissolve a
snow pack.
4This wide world is the stage on which the giddy mob
dances about (in their appointed times).
5Time has a third name of a terrifying nature known as
Kritantah (Fate), who in the form of a Kapalika (one
holding human skulls in his hand), dances about in the
world.
6This dancing and loving Kritantah (Fate), is
accompanied by his consort called Destiny to whom he
is greatly attached.
7Time (as Shiva) wears on his bosom of the world, the
triple white and holy thread composed of the serpent

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
named Ananta (Infinite) and the Ganges River, and on
his forehead the digit of the moon ( i.e., the zodiacal
belt; the milky way, and the lunar astrological
divisions, phases).
8The sun and the moon are the golden armlets of time,
who holds the mundane world in his palm like the
paltry plaything of a flower bouquet.
9The sky with its stars appears like a garment with
coloured spots. The clouds called Pushkara and Avarta
are like the skirts of that garment, washed by time in
the waters of the universal deluge.
10Before him his beloved Destiny with all her arts
forever dances to beguile the living who are fond of
worldly enjoyments.
11People hurry up and down to witness the dance
of Destiny, whose unrestrained motion keeps
them at work, and causes their repeated births and
deaths.
12People of all worlds are studded like ornaments about
her person, and the sky stretching from the heaven of
gods to the infernal regions serves for the veil on her
head.
13Her feet are planted in the infernal regions, and the
hell-pits ring at her feet like trinkets, tied by the string
of evil deeds and sins.

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
14The god Chitragupta has painted her from head to foot
with ornamental marks prepared by her attendants, and
perfumed with the essence of those deeds.
15She dances and reels at the nod of her husband
at the end of the kalpas, and makes the mountains
crack and crash at her foot-falls.
16Behind her dance the peacocks of the god Kumara
(Subramaniya) and Kala, the god of death, staring with
his three wide open eyes, utters his hideous cries (of
destruction).
17Death dances about in the form of the five-headed
Hara (the “Destroyer”, Shiva), with the loosened braids
of hair upon him, while Destiny in the form of
Gauri (Shiva’s consort), her locks adorned with
Mandara flowers, keeps her pace with him.
18In her war-dance, this Destiny bears a large
gourd representing her big belly, and her body is
adorned with hundreds of hollow human skulls
jingling like the alms-pots of Kapali mendicants.
19She has filled the sky with the emaciated skeleton of
her body and her terrible, destructive figure.
20The various shapes of skulls of the dead adorn her
body like a beautiful garland of lotuses. They sway to
and fro during her dance at the end of a kalpa age.

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
21The horrible roaring of the giddy clouds Pushkara and
Avarta at the end of the kalpa serves to represent the
beating of her damaru drum, and puts to flight the
heavenly choir of Tumburu.
22As death dances along, the moon appears like his
earring, and the moonbeams and stars appear like his
crest made of peacocks’ feathers.
23The snow-capped Himalayas appear like a crown of
bones in the upper loop of his right ear, and Mount
Meru as a golden ring in his left.
24Under their lobes are suspended the moon and the
sun, like pendant earrings glittering over his cheeks.
The mountain ranges called the Lokaloka are fastened
like chains around his waist.
25Lightning bolts are the bracelets and armlets of
Destiny, which move to and fro as she dances along.
The clouds are her dressing gown that fly about her in
the air.
26Death is furnished with many weapons, like clubs,
axes, missiles, spears, shovels, mallets and sharp
swords, all of which are sure weapons of destruction.
27Mundane enjoyments are no other than long
ropes dropped down by the hand of death that
keep all mankind fast bound to the world. He

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Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
wears the great thread of infinity (Ananta) as his
wreath of flowers.
28Death wears the seven oceans as bracelet-belts
bracelets resplendent with the living sea-animals
and the bright gems contained in their depths.
29The great vortices of customs, the successions of
joy and grief, the excess of pride and the darkness
of passions, form the streaks of hair on his body.
30After 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
Brahma and Shiva.
31By turns, Destiny as an actress acts her parts of
creation and destruction, diversified by scenes of
old age, sorrow and misery.
32Time 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 children make their
dolls of clay and break them soon afterwards.
*******

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
Recap
[Rama’s observations herein above are a lesson for all
seekers of Truth. “Time stands the foremost of all
deceitful players in this world. He acts the double
parts of creation and destruction, and of action
and fate.”
“People hurry up and down to witness the dance
of Destiny, whose unrestrained motion keeps
them at work, and causes their repeated births and
deaths.”
“Mundane enjoyments are no other than long
ropes dropped down by the hand of death that
keep all mankind fast bound to the world…”
“The great vortices of customs, the successions of
joy and grief, the excess of pride and the darkness
of passions, form the streaks of hair on his body.”
Wheel of Time spares none and continues to rotate.
Rama is seeking help of two great sages of his time.
Time does not spare gods, demigods and even the three
principal gods (creator, preserver and destroyer) then
where do we stand as human being of limited intellect.
It is high time that we pause and reflect on this issue.
On our own we cannot stop the Wheel of Time. Imagine

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Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
the momentum the Time has in pushing us ‘down and
out’ to fulfil our desires.
We are always keen to repeat pleasurable experiences
and Time makes us do and undo the same thing over
and over again. This has been going on for aeons and
since we do not stop desiring, we are unable to stop the
Wheel of Time.
We shall have to seek the help of realized persons now,
of our time, who have been successful in doing so.]
*******
Meaning
[Fate: It's out of our control; the preordained course of
our life that will occur because of or in spite of our
actions.
“Fate is represented by the three sisters, or Moirae, in
Greek mythology. Clotho spun the thread of your life,
Lachesis measured its length, and Atropos cut it when
you were to die. Variations of these supernatural sisters
are seen in Roman and Norse mythology as well. Fate
was seen as something supernaturally dictated and
beyond the control of mortals.”
Destiny: It's what you are meant to do; a set of
predetermined events within your life that you take an
active course in shaping.

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Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
“It implies an outcome predetermined by a set of events
which, once put into motion, move inexorably forward.
With this concept, humans have a hand in events, but
only to get the ball rolling.”
Kritantah: Another name for god of death.
Kapalika: The "skull-men," so called because they
carried a skull-topped staff and cranium begging bowl.
“The Kapalika ascetic imitated his ferocious deity, and
covered himself in the ashes from the cremation
ground, and propitiated his gods with the impure
substances of blood, meat, alcohol, and sexual fluids
from intercourse. The Kapalikas thus flaunted impurity
rules and went against Vedic injunctions. The aim was
power through evoking deities, especially goddesses.”
Pushkara and Avarta: The invisible clouds Pushkara
(cloud of death) and Avarta (cloud without water,
nirjala) that cover the earth at the time of dissolution,
deluge, pralaya to destroy the humanity.
Chitragupta: He is a Hindu god assigned with the task
of keeping complete records of actions of human beings
on the earth.
As he was first conceived in Brahma’s mind, or chitra,
and then made whole in secrecy, or gupta, away from
the other gods, he was named Chitragupta. He is known
as being incredibly meticulous, and with his pen and
paper he tracks every action of every sentient life form,

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Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
building up a record of them over the course of their life
so that when they die the fate of their soul can be easily
determined.
These perfect and complete documents are referred to
in mystical traditions as the Akashic records, and as
they contain the actions of each person from birth to
death, they can be said to contain every action taken in
the universe.
Kumara: Karthikeya also known as Murugan, Skanda,
Kumaran, Kumara Swami and Subramaniya, is the
Hindu god of war. He is the Commander-in-Chief of
the army of gods (devas) and the son of Shiva and
Parvathi.
Tumburu: In Hindu mythology, Tumburu is the best
among Gandharvas or celestial musician and is
sometimes described as the best of singers. He is
described to perform in the courts of gods Kubera and
Indra as well as sing praises of god Vishnu. He leads the
Gandharvas in their singing.
Mount Meru: Mount Meru is a sacred mountain with
five peaks in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist cosmology and
is considered to be the centre of all the physical,
metaphysical and spiritual universes.
Lokaloka: The Mountain known as Lokaloka has been
installed as the outer border of the three worlds --

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Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
Bhuloka, Bhuvaloka and Svargaloka -- to control the
rays of the sun throughout the universe.
All the luminaries, from the sun up to Dhruvaloka,
distribute their rays throughout the three worlds, but
only within the boundary formed by this mountain.
Because it is extremely high, extending even higher
than Dhruvaloka, it blocks the rays of the luminaries,
which therefore can never extend beyond it.
Kalpa: (In Hindu cosmology) a period in which the
universe experiences a cycle of creation and
destruction.
A kalpa (4.32 billion years) is a day (12 hours) of
Brahma, and one day of Brahma consists of a thousand
cycles of four yugas, or ages: Satya, Treta, Dwapar and
Kali.
By another calculation, each kalpa is divided into 14
manvantara periods, each lasting 71 Yuga cycles
(306,720,000 years). Preceding the first and following
each manvantara period is a juncture (Sandhya) the
length of a Satya-yuga (1,728,000) years.
[Kalpa: 14 x 71 x 4,320,000 + 15 x 1,728,000 = 4.32 x 109]
Two kalpas constitute a day and night of Brahma. A
"month of Brahma" is supposed to contain thirty such
days (including nights), or 259.2 billion years.
According to the Mahabharata, 12 months of Brahma

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Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
(=360 days) constitute his year, and 100 such years the
life of Brahma. (50 years of Brahma = 1 Parardha).
Life of Brahma in Earth Years
2 x (4.32x109) x 30 x 12 x 100 = 311,040,000,000,000
The universe is created, destroyed, and re-created in an
eternally repetitive series of cycles. In Hindu
cosmology, a universe endures for about 4,320,000,000
years (one day of Brahma, the creator or one kalpa) and
is then destroyed by fire or water elements. At this
point, Brahma rests for one night, just as long as the
day. This process, named pralaya or dissolution repeats
for 100 Brahma years (311 Trillion, 40 Billion Human
Years) that represents Brahma's lifespan.
By these calculations the life of Brahma seems fantastic
and interminable, but from the viewpoint of eternity it
is as brief as a lightning flash. In the Causal Ocean there
are innumerable Brahmas rising and disappearing like
bubbles in the Atlantic. Brahma and his creation are all
part of the material universe, and therefore they are in
constant flux.
Three Types of Dissolutions: There are three kinds
of dissolution (pralaya): the first induced (naimittka);
the second natural (prakrita); the third immediate
(atyantika).
Induced destruction (which concerns all living beings
on earth) takes place at the end of each Kalpa. Natural
destruction is that which concerns the whole universe.
It takes place when the divine dream which is the world

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Book I, Chapter 25
The Play of Death
ends. Matter, space, and time then cease to exist. It takes
place at the end of time (Parardha).
The third destruction, called immediate, refers to the
liberation (moksha) of the individual for whom the
visible world ceases to exist.
Immediate destruction therefore concerns the
individual, induced destruction all living species on
earth, and natural destruction the end of the universe.
We should aim for immediate destruction i.e. liberation
(moksha) from the Wheel of Time if we want to end our
troubles forever and this is possible only while living.
There are no guarantees after death.
In our Objective World no one gives us B.A.; M.A. or
Ph.D. degrees without going to schools, colleges and
universities and seeking help of our teachers.
How can someone guarantee us liberation which is the
most difficult task and for which we have made no
effort to even know the subject throughout our lifetime,
leave aside the company of realized persons?
How the avatars or the Masters of the past can be of any
use to us now? Only a living being can guide a living
being. Liberation is only possible by following a
liberated not otherwise. That is why Rama is
addressing his problems to the two realized sages of his
time.
*******