Long ago, before the river Saraswati had carved its path, a young rishi named Markandeya wandered the edge of the world and could not understand where everything came from.

He climbed to the hut of an old sage who lived where the mountains met the clouds. "Teacher," he asked, "people are born and people die. Forests grow and forests burn. But what happens to *everything* — all of it together? Has the world always simply been here?"

The old sage smiled and pointed to the night sky. "Watch the stars," he said. "They turn through the whole night. Then dawn comes, and they all vanish into the brightening sky. They are not gone. They are only resting in the light. When night returns, they pour back out again, every one of them, in its proper place."

Markandeya nodded slowly.

"The whole world is like that," the sage went on. "There comes a time, after ages upon ages, when the rivers run dry and the winds grow still and even the mountains soften. This is called the close of a kalpa — the end of one great world-age. And in that moment, all beings, every creature and every star, fold quietly back into the source from which they came. They go home to rest, the way you draw your breath back into your chest."

"And then?" whispered Markandeya.

"And then the source breathes out once more. A new age begins. And out come the beings again — the same ones, ready to live and learn — like seeds that slept all winter under the snow and burst green into spring."

Markandeya looked at the sleeping valley below, mist curled in its hollows.

"So nothing is ever truly lost," he said.

"Nothing," said the sage. "The Lord gathers all things in when the age ends, and lets all things out when the age begins. He is the great in-breath and out-breath of the whole universe. Rest in that, child, and you will never be afraid of endings again."

And far below, the first birds of morning began to sing, as if the world were being sent forth all over again.