B247 <=> B249 [BTG XXI First visit to India, p. 248]

“If only it had all continued like that, it would have been very good; but here as well, just as in the country Maralpleicie, they soon began, as is proper to them, to wiseacre and to manifest all kinds of comical aspects of their Havatvernoni.

“For instance, only a quarter of their year after the commencement of my preaching, you could see when strolling down the street of the city Kaimon, almost at every step, beings there walking on what are called ‘stilts.’

“And they walked on stilts in order not to risk crushing some insect or other, a ‘little being,’ as they thought, just like themselves.

“Many of them were afraid to drink water that had not been freshly taken from a spring or stream, because they thought that if the water had been a long time out of the spring or stream, ‘little-beings’ might have got into the water, and without seeing them, they might suddenly swallow these ‘poor-little-creatures-like-themselves.’

“Many of them took the precaution to wear what are called ‘veils,’ lest poor-little-beings-like-themselves in the air, might chance to enter mouths or noses, and so on and so forth.

“From that time on various societies began to arise there in Pearl-land, in the city of Kaimon and its outskirts, whose aim was to protect ‘defenseless’ beings of various forms, both those existing among them and those they called ‘wild.’

“Rules existed in all such societies prohibiting not only their destruction for Sacrificial-Offerings, but also the use of their planetary bodies for the ‘first-being-food.’

“E-h-h-h-hkh . . . my boy.