feeling; with feeling, came thought; with thought, the speech for its utterance.
And he spoke.
"Vasitthi, dost thou also see it? What is happening to the hundred-thousandfold Brahma?"
After a hundred thousand years, Vasitthi answered—
"What is happening to the hundred-thousandfold Brahma is that his brightness is diminishing."
"It seems so to me also," said Kamanita, after the passage of a like period of time. "True, that can be but a passing phenomenon. And yet I must confess that I am astonished at the possibility of any change whatever in the hundred-thousandfold Brahma."
After a considerable time—after several millions of years—Kamanita spoke again—
"I do not know that I am not perhaps dazzled by the light. Dost thou, Vasitthi, notice that the brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma is again increasing?"
After five hundred thousand years, Vasitthi answered—
"The brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma does not increase, but steadily decreases."
As a piece of iron that, taken white-hot from the smithy fire, very soon after becomes red-hot, so the brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma had now taken on a red shimmer.
"I wonder what that may signify," said Kamanita.
"That signifies, my friend, that the brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma is in process of being extinguished."
"Impossible, Vasitthi, impossible! What would then become of all the brightness and the splendour of this whole Brahma-world?"