In plain words
On the bank of that river there lived a great ṛṣi called Agastya. He set out to build a temple to God. Women and men came forward with great earnestness and took their share in building the temple. When evening came, as the fruit of their labour, he would give them a little sand from the river. In that sand they would find exactly as much gold as they had toiled that day. It did not come to more than that. Only the fruit of what they toiled would be found. That is how the river came to be called the ‘Suvarṇamukhī’. In those days, Dharma, justice and duty were sacred in that way. That is why all the people lived their lives in plenty and in great welfare. In those days there was no famine. You do not know about this; you are small children. Nobody believes that those old times will come back. In those days, if you gave four rupees, you would get a sack of rice. In villages and in towns, when summer came, people would open their doors and sleep on the roofs. There was no fear of any kind. Women would set out on journeys at night. When there were weddings, they would wear all their jewellery in plenty and travel at night. There was no fear of thieves at all, then. Now it is not like that. Even if you put things in a Godrej, they carry them off. How sacred a time, and how unholy it has become! There is no trusting anybody. Whoever you trust, there is the fear of what he will do! They come as friends; if you set out with them, he kills you on the way. Money is turning into the root cause of so many evil qualities. When did this begin? It began only in the Dvāpara Yuga. Before that, all through, they said ‘Dharmamūlam idaṃ jagat’. They said, Dharma itself is this world. But by the time the Dvāpara Yuga came, ‘I want this property, I want that property’: so the Pāṇḍavas and the Kauravas went on fighting for property. In the end this very thing turned into one great war. From then on it became ‘Dhanamūlam idaṃ jagat’. Money is the root cause of all today's quarrels. Money is the root cause of all injustice, wrongdoing and untruth. Money is the root cause of envy, Ahaṅkāra and ostentation.