“However, I shall do your work; for the Vedas say benevolence is the highest virtue. The saints ever praise him who lays down his life in the service of others.” So saying, the god of love bowed his head to all and departed with his associates, the bow of flowers in hand. While leaving, Love thought within himself that hostility to Ýiva would mean sure death to him. He then exhibited his power and brought the whole world under his sway. When the god of love (who bears a fish for his emblem) betrayed his anger, all the barriers imposed by the Vedas were swept away in a moment. The whole army of Viveka (discriminating knowledge)—continence, religious vows, self-restraint of many kinds, fortitude, piety, spiritual wisdom and the knowledge of qualified divinity both with form and without form, morality, muttering of prayers, Yoga (contemplative union with God), dispassion and so on, fled in panic. (1—4)