A long time ago, all living creatures had perished. The world was no more than a sea – a gray, misty, icy swamp. One old man remained, all alone, spared from the devastation. His name was Markandeya.
He walked and walked in the stale water, exhausted, finding no shelter anywhere, no trace of life. He was in despair, his throat taut with inexpressible sorrow. Suddenly, not knowing why, he turned and saw behind him a tree rising out of the marsh, a fig tree, and at the foot of the tree a very beautiful, smiling child. Markandeya stopped, breathless, reeling, unable to understand why the child was there.
And the child said to him: “I see you need to rest. Come into my body.”
The old man suddenly experienced utter disdain for long life. The child opened his mouth, a great wind rose up, an irresistible gust swept Markandeya towards the mouth. Despite himself he went in, just as he was, and dropped down into the child’s belly. There, looking round, he saw a stream, trees, herds of cattle. He saw women carrying water, a city, streets, crowds, rivers.
Yes, in the belly of the child he saw the entire earth, calm, beautiful, he saw the ocean, he saw the limitless sky. He walked for a long while, for more than a hundred years, without reaching the end of the body. Then the wind rose up again, he felt himself drawn upward; he came out through the same mouth and found the child under the fig tree.
The child looked at him with a smile and said, “I hope you have had a good rest.”
-Jean-Claude Carrière, The Mahabharata
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