Then Uttanka bowed to his teacher. The teacher answered him: "Child Uttanka, welcome; why have you delayed so long?" Uttanka answered his teacher: "Sir, Takshaka, king of serpents, caused an obstruction in this matter, and I was carried off to the world of serpents. There I saw two women weaving cloth upon a loom; in that loom were threads black and white — what is that? I saw there also a wheel with twelve spokes, turned by six youths — what is that? I saw too a man, and a horse of immense size. And walking along the road, I saw a bull, with a man mounted upon it; he said to me kindly, 'Uttanka, eat the dung of this bull, for your teacher too has eaten it' — and at his word I ate the dung of that bull. Tell me, then, what all this means." Thus questioned, the teacher answered him: "Those two women are Dhata and Vidhata (the Ordainer and the Disposer of destinies); the black and white threads are night and day. The wheel with twelve spokes, turned by the six youths, is the six seasons, and the wheel itself is the year. That man is Parjanya (the giver of rain), and the horse is Agni. The bull you saw on the road is Airavata, king of serpents, and the one mounted upon it is Indra; and what you ate, the dung of that bull, was amrita, the nectar of immortality. That is why you did not perish there, in the abode of serpents. And Indra is my friend; by his grace you have returned, having recovered the earrings. Go now, dear one; I give you leave; you shall attain well-being."