One day, as Kacchayana was approaching a river, he heard weeping. He stopped and, parting the tall grasses, saw an old woman crouching on the riverbank. He asked her in the gentlest possible voice, "What unhappiness makes you weep this way?" At first, she stiffened in fear. But the man's kind eyes gazing down on her eased her alarm, and haltingly she told her story.