‘So, this means . . .’ Prithvi didn’t need to finish. It was clear to all that they only had hours to find the Madhu. It could be in any ditch, any slope, inside any of the large trees or in a cave. Any ordinary corner of the valley could be concealing this valuable liquid.

‘Aditya has almost departed for the day,’ Idhika barked at them and quickly seated herself in the middle, readying for Atmayog. ‘We need to divide up! Each of you, find a fly and carry yourself to a unique section of the valley. Drift into the right companion and chart your journey accordingly . . . Prithvi, identify exactly where you spotted the Preserver earlier this year in Aranyala. Go back there. Aman—accompany her—Atmayog to a squirrel and check the labyrinth of burrows around the spot. Maybe Sanaka is hiding it in an underground holding pit . . . Ujal, Atmayog into a sparrow and check the caves up in Rohini. And Fayza, why don’t you take the lower canopies of Kalanag?’ As for Idhika, she already knew where she was going.

Ujal unrolled the cottage’s tapestry and sat down last. He closed his eyes. So did Prithvi, and then Aman. Fayza as well. Finally, Idhika also shut her eyes.

At that moment, not more than a ten-minute walk away, Sanaka too closed his eyes. Sitting in his hut, he popped a few sorrel leaves into his mouth and urged his mind to settle down. Today’s Atmayog, he knew, would require even the best of him, one of the four divine Kumars. The task was one he rarely undertook, usually only a day before the Sabha and Samiti, the official gathering that inaugurated the Mahayatra. But despite its challenge, it had to be done: Madhu was vital to what he had set out to achieve.

It was known to all of Vanyasa that Sanaka and his three brothers were born four thousand years ago from the mind of Brahma. They wrote the Vedas at an early age, even before they had a chance to grow tall. To aid their pursuit of knowledge, the gods made sure that the Kumars remained children and never saw their curiosity wane. Ever since, they had been wandering the spiritual and material universes with the desire to learn and record the ways of the gods.

The four of them were tasked with assisting the goddess of Aranyala in safeguarding the tree churned from the Ocean of Milk. Sanaka was the only one who decided to stick by the Kalpavriksha. He represented his brothers at the Founding of Vanyasa as they left for the Himalayas. They would play their part in securing the knowledge that eventually birthed the oldest religion in the world: Hinduism.

So it was not surprising when, thousands of years later, Sanaka was given another task towards the same end. In the seventeenth century, at a time when many other religions had come into existence, Sanaka was urged to Atmayog into a group he was unlikely to be familiar with at all. He would be in an envoy representing Indian knowledge and texts at a European conclave organized by the Western world in what came to be known as Germany. There, the committee was to evaluate the New World’s sources of knowledge in a contemporary globalized setting.