The Kādambarī of Bāṇa

‘The place is also darkened in many a spot by green parrots and by plantain groves, and is girt by the river Godāverī, which, like a dutiful wife, followed the path of the ocean when drunk by Agastya.

‘There, too, Rāma, when he gave up his kingdom to keep his father’s promise, dwelt happily for some time at Pañcavaṭī with Sītā, following the great ascetic Agastya, living in a pleasant hut made by Lakshmaṇa, even Rāma, the vexer of the triumphs of Rāvaṇa’s glory.[96 - Or perhaps, ‘not caring for the fascination of the beauty of Rāvaṇa,’ i. e. his sister. He was loved by Rāvaṇa’s sister.]

‘There, even now, the trees, though the hermitage has long been empty, show, as it were, in the lines of white doves softly nestling in the boughs, the hermits’ pure lines of sacrificial smoke clinging to them; and there a glow bursts forth on the shoots of creepers, as if it had passed to them from Sītā’s hand as she offered flowers of oblation; (45) there the water of ocean drunk and sent forth by the ascetic seems to have been wholly distributed among the great lakes round the hermitage; there the wood, with its fresh foliage, shines as if its roots had been watered with the blood of countless hosts of demons struck down by Rāma’s many keen shafts, and as if now its palaāças were stained with their crimson hue; there, even yet, the old deer nurtured by Sītā, when they hear the deep roar of fresh clouds in the rainy season, think on the twang of Rāma’s bow penetrating all the hollows of the universe, and refuse their mouthfuls of fresh grass, while their eyes are dimmed by ceaseless tears, as they see a deserted world, and their own horns crumbling from age; there, too, the golden deer, as if it had been incited by the rest of the forest deer slain in the ceaseless chase, deceived Sītā, and led the son of Raghu far astray; there, too, in their grief for the bitter loss of Sītā, Rāma and Lakshmaṇa seized by Kabandha, like an eclipse of sun and moon heralding the death of Rāvaṇa, filled the universe with a mighty dread; (46) there, too, the arm of Yojanabāhu, struck off by Rāma’s arrow, caused fear in the saints as it lay on the ground, lest it should be the serpent form of Nahusha, brought back by Agastya’s curse; there, even now, foresters behold Sītā painted inside the hut by her husband to solace his bereavement, as if she were again rising from the ground in her longing to see her husband’s home.

‘Not far from that hermitage of Agastya, of which the ancient history is yet clearly to be seen, is a lotus lake called Pampā. It stands near that hermitage, as if it were a second ocean made by the Creator in rivalry with Agastya, at the prompting of Varuṇa, wrathful at the drinking of ocean; it is like the sky fallen on earth to bind together the fragments of the eight quarters when severed in the day of doom.[97 - Does this refer to the reflection of the sky in its clear water?] (48) It is, indeed, a peerless home of waters, and its depth and extent none can tell. There, even now, the wanderer may see pairs of cakravākas, with their wings turned to blue by the gleam of the blossoming lotuses, as if they were swallowed up by the impersonate curse of Rāma.

‘On the left bank of that lake, and near a clump of palms broken by Rāma’s arrows, was a large old çālmalī tree.[98 - Çālmalī = silk cotton-tree.] It shows as though it were enclosed in a large trench, because its roots are always encircled by an old snake, like the trunk of the elephants of the quarters; (49) it seems to be mantled with the slough of serpents, which hangs on its lofty trunk and waves in the wind; it strives to compass the measurement of the circle of space by its many boughs spreading through the firmament, and so to imitate Çiva, whose thousand arms are outstretched in his wild dance at the day of doom, and who wears the moon on his crest. Through its weight of years, it clings for support even to the shoulder of the wind; it is girt with creepers that cover its whole trunk, and stand out like the thick veins of old age. Thorns have gathered on its surface like the moles of old age; not even the thick clouds by which its foliage is bedewed can behold its top, when, after drinking the waters of ocean, they return from all sides to the sky, and pause for a moment, weary with their load of water, like birds amongst its boughs. From its great height, it seems to be on tiptoe to look[99 - Lit., ‘striving upwards to see.’] at the glory of the Nandana[100 - Indra’s wood.] Wood; its topmost branches are whitened by cotton, which men might mistake for foam dropped from the corners of their mouths by the sun’s steeds as, beset with weariness of their path through the sky, they come near it in their course overhead; (50) it has a root that will last for an aeon, for, with the garland of drunken bees sticking to the ichor which clings to it where the cheeks of woodland elephants are rubbed against it, it seems to be held motionless by iron chains; it seems alive with swarms of bees, flashing in and out of its hollow trunk. It beholds the alighting of the wings of birds, as Duryodhana receives proofs of Çakuni’s[101 - Çakuni = (a) bird; (b) name of Duryodhana’s supporter.] partizanship; like Kṛishṇa, it is encircled by a woodland chaplet;[102 - Or, ‘by Vanamālā,’ Kṛishṇa’s chaplet.] like a mass of fresh clouds its rising is seen in the sky. It is a temple whence woodland goddesses can look out upon the whole world. It is the king of the Daṇḍaka Wood, the leader of the lordly trees, the friend of the Vindhya Mountains, and it seems to embrace with the arms of its boughs the whole Vindhya Forest. There, on the edge of the boughs, in the centre of the crevices, amongst the twigs, in the joints of the trunks, in the holes of the rotten bark, flocks of parrots have taken their abode. From its spaciousness, they have confidently built in it their thousand nests; from its steepness, they have come to it fearlessly from every quarter. Though its leaves are thin with age, this lord of the forest still looks green with dense foliage, as they rest upon it day and night. (51) In it they spend the nights in their own nests, and daily, as they rise, they form lines in the sky; they show in heaven like Yamunā with her wide streams scattered by the tossing of Bala’s ploughshare in his passion; they suggest a lotus-bed of the heavenly Ganges flowing away, uprooted by the elephant of heaven; they show forth a sky streaked, as it were, with the brightness of the steeds of the sun’s chariot; they wear the semblance of a moving floor of emerald; they stretch out in the lake of heaven like long twines of Vallisneria; they fan the faces of the quarters wearied with the mass of the sun’s keen rays, with their wings spread against the sky like plantain leaves; they form a grassy path stretching through the heaven, and as they roam they grace the firmament with a rainbow. After their meal they return to the young birds which stay in the nest, and give them, from beaks pink as tiger’s claws reddened with the blood of slain deer, the juice of fruits and many a dainty morsel of rice-clusters, for by their deep love to their children all their other likings are subdued; (52) then they spend the night in this same tree with their young under their wings.

‘Now my father, who by reason of his great age barely dragged on his life, dwelt with my mother in a certain old hollow, and to him I was, by the decree of Fate, born as his only son. My mother, overcome by the pains of child-birth when I was born, went to another world, and, in spite of his grief for the death of his loved wife, my father, from love to his child, checked the keen onrush of his sorrow, and devoted himself in his loneliness wholly to my nurture. From his great age, the wide wings he raised had lost their power of flight, and hung loose from his shoulders, so that when he shook them he seemed to be trying to shake off the painful old age that clung to his body, while his few remaining tail feathers were broken like a tatter of kuça grass; and yet, though he was unable to wander far, he gathered up bits of fruit torn down by parrots and fallen at the foot of the tree, and picked up grains of rice from rice-stalks that had fallen from other nests, with a beak the point of which was broken and the edge worn away and rubbed by breaking rice-clusters, and pink as the stalk of the sephālikā flower when still hard, and he daily made his own meal on what I left.

(53) ‘But one day I heard a sound of the tumult of the chase. The moon, reddened by the glow of dawn, was descending to the shore of the Western Ocean, from the island of the heavenly Ganges, like an old haṃsa with its wings reddened by the honey of the heavenly lotus-bed; the circle of space was widening, and was white as the hair of a ranku deer; the throng of stars, like flowers strewn on the pavement of heaven, were being cast away by the sun’s long rays, as if they were brooms of rubies, for they were red as a lion’s mane dyed in elephant’s blood, or pink as sticks of burning lac; the cluster of the Seven Sages was, as it were, descending the bank of the Mānasa Lake, and rested on the northern quarter to worship the dawn; the Western Ocean was lifting a mass of pearls, scattered from open shells on its shore, as though the stars, melted by the sun’s rays, had fallen on it, whitening the surface of its alluvial islands. The wood was dropping dew; its peacocks were awake; its lions were yawning; (54) its wild elephants were wakened by herds of she-elephants, and it, with its boughs raised like reverential hands, sent up towards the sun, as he rested on the peak of the Eastern Mountain, a mass of flowers, the filaments of which were heavy with the night dews. The lines of sacrificial smoke from the hermitages, gray as the hair of an ass, were gleaming like banners of holiness, and rested like doves on the tree-tops whereon the wood-nymphs dwelt. The morning breeze was blowing, and roamed softly, for it was weary at the end of night; it gladdened swarms of bees by the flowers’ perfume; it rained showers of honey dew from the opened lotuses; it was eager to teach the dancing creepers with their waving boughs; it carried drops of foam from the rumination of woodland buffaloes; it removed the perspiration of the weary mountaineers; it shook the lotuses, and bore with it the dewdrops. The bees, who ought to be the drums on the elephant’s frontal-bones to recite auspicious songs for the wakening of the day lotus-groves, now sent up their hum from the hearts of the night-lotuses, as their wings were clogged in the closing petals; (55) the deer of the wood had the markings on their breast, gray with resting on the salt ground, and slowly opened eyes, the pupils of which were still squinting with the remains of sleep, and were caught by the cool morning breeze as if their eyelashes were held together by heated lac; foresters were hastening hither and thither; the din of the kalahaṃsas on the Pampā Lake, sweet to the ear, was now beginning; the pleasant flapping of the wild elephant’s ears breaking forth caused the peacocks to dance; in time the sun himself slowly arose, and wandered among the tree-tops round the Pampā Lake, and haunted the mountain peaks, with rays of madder, like a mass of cowries bending downwards from the sun’s elephant as he plunges into the sky; the fresh light sprung from the sun banished the stars, falling on the wood like the monkey king who had again lost Tārā;[103 - Tārā = (a) wife of Sugrīva, the monkey king; (b) star.] the morning twilight became visible quickly, occupying the eighth part of the day, and the sun’s light became clear.

‘The troops of parrots had all started to the places they desired; that tree seemed empty by reason of the great stillness, though it had all the young parrots resting quietly in their nests. (56) My father was still in his own nest, and I, as from my youth my wings were hardly fledged and had no strength, was close to him in the hollow, when I suddenly heard in that forest the sound of the tumult of the chase. It terrified every woodland creature; it was drawn out by a sound of birds’ wings flying hastily up; it was mingled with cries from the frightened young elephants; it was increased by the hum of drunken bees, disturbed on the shaken creepers; it was loud with the noise of wild boars roaming with raised snouts; it was swollen by the roar of lions wakened from their sleep in mountain caves; it seemed to shake the trees, and was great as the noise of the torrents of Ganges, when brought down by Bhagīratha; and the woodland nymphs listened to it in terror.

‘When I heard this strange sound I began to tremble in my childishness; the cavity of my ear was almost broken; I shook for fear, and thinking that my father, who was close by, could help me, I crept within his wings, loosened as they were by age.

‘Straightway I heard an outcry of “Hence comes the scent of the lotus beds the leaders of the elephants have trampled! Hence the perfume of rushes the boars have chewed! Hence the keen fragrance of gum-olibanum the young elephants have divided! Hence the rustling of dry leaves shaken down! (57) Hence the dust of antheaps that the horns of wild buffaloes have cleft like thunderbolts! Hence came a herd of deer! Hence a troop of wild elephants! Hence a band of wild boars! Hence a multitude of wild buffaloes! Hence the shriek of a circle of peacocks! Hence the murmur of partridges! Hence the cry of ospreys! Hence the groan of elephants with their frontal bones torn by lion’s claws! This is a boar’s path stained with fresh mud! This a mass of foam from the rumination of deer, darkened by the juice of mouthfuls of grass just eaten! This the hum of bees garrulous as they cling to the scent left by the rubbing of elephants’ foreheads with ichor flowing! That the path of the ruru deer pink with withered leaves bedewed with blood that has been shed. That is a mass of shoots on the trees crushed by the feet of elephants! Those are the gambols of rhinoceroses; that is the lion’s track jagged with pieces of the elephant’s pearls, pink with blood, and engraved with a monstrous device by their claws; that is the earth crimsoned with the blood of the newly born offspring of the does; that is the path, like a widow’s braid, darkened with the ichor of the lord of the herd wandering at his will! Follow this row of yaks straight before us! Quickly occupy this part of the wood where the dung of the deer is dried! (58) Climb the tree-top! Look out in this direction! Listen to this sound! Take the bow! Stand in your places! Let slip the hounds!” The wood trembled at the tumult of the hosts of men intent on the chase shouting to each other and concealed in the hollows of the trees.

‘Then that wood was soon shaken on all sides by the roar of lions struck by the Çabaras’ arrows, deepened by its echo rebounding from the hollows of the mountains, and strong as the sound of a drum newly oiled; by the roar from the throats of the elephants that led the herd, like the growl of thunder, and mixed with the ceaseless lashing of their trunks, as they came on alone, separated from the frightened herd; by the piteous cry of the deer, with their tremulous, terrified eyes, when the hounds suddenly tore their limbs; by the yell of she-elephants lengthening in grief for the death of their lord and leader, as they wandered every way with ears raised, ever pausing to listen to the din, bereft of their slain leaders and followed by their young; (59) by the bellowing of she-rhinoceroses seeking with outstretched necks their young, only born a few days before, and now lost in the panic; by the outcry of birds flying from the tree-tops, and wandering in confusion; by the tramp of herds of deer with all the haste of limbs made for speed, seeming to make the earth quake as it was struck simultaneously by their hurrying feet; by the twang of bows drawn to the ear, mingled, as they rained their arrows, with the cry from the throats of the loving she-ospreys; by the clash of swords with their blades whizzing against the wind and falling on the strong shoulders of buffaloes; and by the baying of the hounds which, as it was suddenly sent forth, penetrated all the recesses of the wood.

‘When soon afterwards the noise of the chase was stilled and the wood had become quiet, like the ocean when its water was stilled by the ceasing of the churning, or like a mass of clouds silent after the rainy season, I felt less of fear and became curious, and so, moving a little from my father’s embrace, (60) I stood in the hollow, stretched out my neck, and with eyes that, from my childishness, were yet tremulous with fear, in my eagerness to see what this thing was, I cast my glance in that direction.

‘Before me I saw the Çabara[104 - Mountaineer.] army come out from the wood like the stream of Narmadā tossed by Arjuna’s[105 - Arjuna, or Kārttavīrya, was captured by Rāvaṇa when sporting in the Nerbuddha, and was killed by Paraçurāma. V. Vishṇu Purāṇa, Bk. iv., ch. 11.] thousand arms; like a wood of tamālas stirred by the wind; like all the nights of the dark fortnight rolled into one; like a solid pillar of antimony shaken by an earthquake; like a grove of darkness disturbed by sunbeams; like the followers of death roaming; like the demon world that had burst open hell and risen up; like a crowd of evil deeds come together; like a caravan of curses of the many hermits dwelling in the Daṇḍaka Forest; like all the hosts of Dūshaṇa[106 - Dūshaṇa was one of Rāvaṇa’s generals; Khara was Rāvaṇa’s brother, and was slain by Rāma.] and Khara struck by Rāma as he rained his ceaseless shafts, and they turned into demons for their hatred to him; like the whole confraternity of the Iron Age come together; like a band of buffaloes prepared for a plunge into the water; like a mass of black clouds broken by a blow from a lion’s paw as he stands on the mountain peak;[107 - Cf. Uttararāmacarita, Act V.] like a throng of meteors risen for the destruction of all form; it darkened the wood; it numbered many thousands; it inspired great dread; it was like a multitude of demons portending disasters.

(61) ‘And in the midst of that great host of Çabaras I beheld the Çabara leader, Mātanga by name. He was yet in early youth; from his great hardness he seemed made of iron; he was like Ekalavya[108 - Ekalavya, king of the Nishādas, killed by Kṛishṇa. Mbh., I., 132.] in another birth; from his growing beard, he was like a young royal elephant with its temples encircled by its first line of ichor; he filled the wood with beauty that streamed from him sombre as dark lotuses, like the waters of Yamunā; he had thick locks curled at the ends and hanging on his shoulders, like a lion with its mane stained by elephant’s ichor; his brow was broad; his nose was stern and aquiline; his left side shone reddened by the faint pink rays of a jewelled snake’s hood that was made the ornament for one of his ears, like the glow of shoots that had clung to him from his resting on a leafy couch; he was perfumed with fragrant ichor, bearing the scent of saptacchada blossoms torn from the cheeks of an elephant freshly slain, like a stain of black aloes; (62) he had the heat warded off by a swarm of bees, like a peacock-feather parasol, flying about blinded by the scent, as if they were a branch of tamāla; he was marked with lines of perspiration on his cheek rubbed by his hand, as if Vindhya Forest, being conquered by his strong arm, were timidly offering homage under the guise of its slender waving twigs, and he seemed to tinge space by his eye somewhat pink, as if it were bloodshot, and shedding a twilight of the night of doom for the deer; he had mighty arms reaching to his knees, as if the measure of an elephant’s trunk had been taken in making them, and his shoulders were rough with scars from keen weapons often used to make an offering of blood to Kālī; the space round his eyes was bright and broad as the Vindhya Mountain, and with the drops of dried deer’s blood clinging on it, and the marking of drops of perspiration, as if they were adorned by large pearls from an elephant’s frontal bone mixed with guñja fruit; his chest was scarred by constant and ceaseless fatigue; he was clad in a silk dress red with cochineal, and with his strong legs he mocked a pair of elephants’ posts stained with elephants’ ichor; he seemed from his causeless fierceness to have been marked on his dread brow by a frown that formed three banners, as if Durgā, propitiated by his great devotion, had marked him with a trident to denote that he was her servant. (63) He was accompanied by hounds of every colour, which were his familiar friends; they showed their weariness by tongues that, dry as they were, seemed by their natural pinkness to drip deer’s blood, and which hung down far from tiredness; as their mouths were open they raised the corners of their lips and showed their flashing teeth clearly, like a lion’s mane caught between the teeth; their throats were covered with strings of cowries, and they were hacked by blows from the large boars’ tusks; though but small, from their great strength they were like lions’ cubs with their manes ungrown; they were skilled in initiating the does in widowhood; with them came their wives, very large, like lionesses coming to beg an amnesty for the lions. He was surrounded by troops of Çabaras of all kinds: some had seized elephants’ tusks and the long hair of yaks; some had vessels for honey made of leaves closely bound; some, like lions, had hands filled with many a pearl from the frontal bones of elephants; some, like demons, had pieces of raw flesh; some, like goblins, were carrying the skins of lions; some, like Jain ascetics, held peacocks’ tails; some, like children, wore crows’ feathers;[109 - Or, curls.] some represented Kṛishṇa’s[110 - V. Harivaṃça, 83.] exploits by bearing the elephants’ tusks they had torn out; (64) some, like the days of the rainy season, had garments dark as clouds.[111 - Or, with clouds.] He had his sword-sheath, as a wood its rhinoceroses;[112 - She-rhinoceros.] like a fresh cloud, he held a bow[113 - Or, rainbows.] bright as peacocks’ tails; like the demon Vaka,[114 - Ekacakra = (a) a city possessed by Vaka; (b) one army, or one quoit.] he possessed a peerless army; like Garuḍa, he had torn out the teeth of many large nāgas;[115 - Nāga = (a) elephant; (b) snake.] he was hostile to peacocks, as Bhīshma to Çikhaṇḍī;[116 - Or, Çikhaṇḍi, a son of Drupada, a friend of the Pāṇḍavas.] like a summer day, he always showed a thirst for deer;[117 - Or, mirage.] like a heavenly genius, he was impetuous in pride;[118 - Or, eager for the Mānasa lake. The Vidyādhara was a good or evil genius attending the gods. V. Kullūka on Manu, xii., 47.] as Vyāsa followed Yojanagandhā,[119 - Yojanagandhā, mother of Vyāsa.] so did he follow the musk deer; like Ghaṭotkaca, he was dreadful in form;[120 - Or, ‘bearing the form of Bhīma.’ He was Bhīma’s son. V. Mbh., I., 155.] as the locks of Umā were decked with Çiva’s moon, so was he adorned with the eyes in the peacocks’ tails;[121 - (a) Crescent moon of Çiva; (b) eyes of peacocks’ tails.] as the demon Hiraṇyakaçipu[122 - Hiraṇyakaçipu. V. Harivaṃça, 225.] by Mahāvarāha, so he had his breast torn by the teeth of a great boar; (65) like an ambitious man,[123 - Or, an ambitious man surrounded by bards (to sing his praises).] he had a train of captives around him; like a demon, he loved[124 - Or, loving blood.] the hunters; like the gamut of song, he was closed in by Nishādas;[125 - Nishādas = (a) mountaineers; (b) the highest note of the scale.] like the trident of Durga, he was wet with the blood of buffaloes; though quite young, he had seen many lives pass;[126 - (a) Had passed many ages; (b) had killed many birds.] though he had many hounds,[127 - Or, great wealth.] he lived on roots and fruits; though of Kṛishṇa’s hue,[128 - Black.] he was not good to look on; though he wandered at will, his mountain fort[129 - Or, Durgā.] was his only refuge; though he always lived at the foot of a lord of earth,[130 - Or, mountain.] he was unskilled in the service of a king.

‘He was as the child of the Vindhya Mountains, the partial avatar of death; the born brother of wickedness, the essence of the Iron Age; horrible as he was, he yet inspired awe by reason of his natural greatness,[131 - (a) Magnanimity; (b) great strength.] and his form could not be surpassed.[132 - Anabhibhavanīyā°.] His name I afterwards learnt. In my mind was this thought: “Ah, the life of these men is full of folly, and their career is blamed by the good. (66) For their one religion is offering human flesh to Durgā; their meat, mead, and so forth, is a meal loathed by the good; their exercise is the chase; their çastra[133 - (a) Awakening cry; (b) moral law.] is the cry of the jackal; their teachers of good and evil are owls;[134 - Owls are supposed to be descendants of the sage Viçvāmitra.] their knowledge is skill in birds;[135 - As omens.] their bosom friends are dogs; their kingdom is in deserted woods; their feast is a drinking bout; their friends are the bows that work their cruel deeds, and arrows, with their heads smeared, like snakes, with poison, are their helpers; their song is what draws on bewildered deer; their wives are the wives of others taken captive; their dwelling is with savage tigers; their worship of the gods is with the blood of beasts, their sacrifice with flesh, their livelihood by theft; the snakes’ hood is their ornament; their cosmetic, elephants’ ichor; and the very wood wherein they may dwell is utterly destroyed root and branch.”

‘As I was thus thinking, the Çabara leader, desiring to rest after his wandering through the forest, approached, and, laying his bow in the shade beneath that very cotton-tree, sat down on a seat of twigs gathered hastily by his suite. (67) Another youthful Çabara, coming down hastily, brought to him from the lake, when he had stirred its waters with his hand, some water aromatic with lotus-pollen, and freshly-plucked bright lotus-fibres with their mud washed off; the water was like liquid lapis lazuli, or showed as if it were painted with a piece of sky fallen from the heat of the sun’s rays in the day of doom, or had dropped from the moon’s orb, or were a mass of melted pearl, or as if in its great purity it was frozen into ice, and could only be distinguished from it by touch. After drinking it, the Çabara in turn devoured the lotus-fibres, as Rāhu does the moon’s digits; when he was rested he rose, and, followed by all his host, who had satisfied their thirst, he went slowly to his desired goal. But one old Çabara from that barbarous troop had got no deer’s flesh, and, with a demoniac[136 - Piçitāçna, a demon, or, according to the commentary here, a tiger.] expression coming into his face in his desire for meat, he lingered a short time by that tree. (68) As soon as the Çabara leader had vanished, that old Çabara, with eyes pink as drops of blood and terrible with their overhanging tawny brows, drank in, as it were, our lives; he seemed to reckon up the number in the parrots’ nests like a falcon eager to taste bird’s flesh, and looked up the tree from its foot, wishing to climb it. The parrots seemed to have drawn their last breath at that very moment in their terror at the sight of him. For what is hard for the pitiless? So he climbed the tree easily and without effort, as if by ladders, though it was as high as many palms, and the tops of its boughs swept the clouds, and plucked the young parrots from among its boughs one by one, as if they were its fruit, for some were not yet strong for flight; some were only a few days old, and were pink with the down of their birth, so that they might almost be taken for cotton-flowers;[137 - Lit., ‘creating a doubt of.’] some, with their wings just sprouting, were like fresh lotus-leaves; some were like the Asclepias fruit; some, with their beaks growing red, had the grace of lotus-buds with their heads rising pink from slowly unfolding leaves; while some, under the guise of the ceaseless motion of their heads, seemed to try to forbid him, though they could not stop him, for he slew them and cast them on the ground.

(69) ‘But my father, seeing on a sudden this great, destructive, remediless, overwhelming calamity that had come on us, trembled doubly, and, with pupils quivering and wandering from fear of death, cast all round a glance that grief had made vacant and tears had dimmed; his palate was dry, and he could not help himself, but he covered me with his wing, though its joints were relaxed by fear, and bethought himself of what help could avail at such a moment. Swayed wholly by love, bewildered how to save me, and puzzled what to do, he stood, holding me to his breast. That miscreant, however, wandering among the boughs, came to the entrance of the hollow, and stretched out his left arm, dreadful as the body of an old black snake, with its hand redolent of the raw fat of many boars, and its forearm marked with weals from ceaseless drawing of the bowstrings, like the wand of death; and though my father gave many a blow with his beak, and moaned piteously, that murderous wretch dragged him down and slew him. (70) Me, however, he somehow did not notice, though I was within the wings, from my being small and curled into a ball from fear, and from my not having lived my fated life, but he wrung my father’s neck and threw him dead upon the ground. Meanwhile I, with my neck between my father’s feet, clinging quietly to his breast, fell with him, and, from my having some fated life yet to live, I found that I had fallen on a large mass of dry leaves, heaped together by the wind, so that my limbs were not broken. While the Çabara was getting down from the tree-top, I left my father, like a heartless wretch, though I should have died with him; but, from my extreme youth, I knew not the love that belongs to a later age, and was wholly swayed by the fear that dwells in us from birth; I could hardly be seen from the likeness of my colour to the fallen leaves; I tottered along with the help of my wings, which were just beginning to grow, thinking that I had escaped from the jaws of death, and came to the foot of a very large tamāla tree close by. Its shoots were fitted to be the earrings of Çabara women, as if it mocked the beauty of Vishṇu’s body by the colour of Balarāma’s dark-blue robe, (71) or as if it were clad in pure strips of the water of Yamunā; its twigs were watered by the ichor of wild elephants; it bore the beauty of the tresses of the Vindhya Forest; the space between its boughs was dark even by day;[138 - Cf. Emerson’s Essay on Experience: ‘Sleep lingers all our life-time about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir-tree.’] the ground round its root was hollow, and unpierced by the sun’s rays; and I entered it as if it were the bosom of my noble father. Then the Çabara came down and gathered up the tiny parrots scattered on the ground; he bound them hastily in a basket of leaves with a coil of creepers, and going off with hasty steps by the path trodden by his leader, he made for that region. I meanwhile had begun to hope for life, but my heart was dried up with grief for my father’s recent death; my body was in pain from my long fall, and I was possessed by a violent thirst, caused by fright, which tortured all my limbs. Then I thought, “The villain has now gone some way,” so I lifted my head a little and gazed around with eyes tremulous with fear, thinking even when a blade of grass moved that the wretch was coming back. I watched him go step by step, and then, leaving the root of the tamāla tree, I made a great effort to creep near the water. (72) My steps were feeble, because my wings were not yet grown, and again and again I fell on my face; I supported myself on one wing; I was weak with the weariness[139 - Read, Çramā.] of creeping along the ground, and from my want of practice; after each step I always lifted my head and panted hard, and as I crept along I became gray with dust. “Truly even in the hardest trials,” I reflected, “living creatures never become careless of life. Nothing in this world is dearer to all created beings than life, seeing that when my honoured father, of well-chosen name, is dead, I still live with senses unimpaired! Shame on me that I should be so pitiless, cruel, and ungrateful! For my life goes on shamefully in that the grief of my father’s death is so easily borne. I regard no kindness; truly my heart is vile! I have even forgotten how, when my mother died, my father restrained his bitter grief, and from the day of my birth, old as he was, reckoned lightly in his deep love the great toil of bringing me up with every care. And yet in a moment I have forgotten how I was watched over by him! (73) Most vile is this breath of mine which goes not straightway forth to follow my father on his path, my father, that was so good to me! Surely there is none that thirst of life does not harden, if the longing for water can make me take trouble in my present plight. Methinks this idea of drinking water is purely hardness of heart, because I think lightly of the grief of my father’s death. Even now the lake is still far off. For the cry of the kalahaṃsas, like the anklets of a water-nymph, is still far away; the cranes’ notes are yet dim; the scent of the lotus-bed comes rarely through the space it creeps through, because the distance is great; noontide is hard to bear, for the sun is in the midst of heaven, and scatters with his rays a blazing heat, unceasing, like fiery dust, and makes my thirst worse; the earth with its hot thick dust is hard to tread; my limbs are unable to go even a little way, for they are weary with excessive thirst; I am not master of myself; (74) my heart sinks; my eyes are darkened. O that pitiless fate would now bring that death which yet I desire not!” Thus I thought; but a great ascetic named Jābāli dwelt in a hermitage not far from the lake, and his son Hārīta, a youthful hermit, was coming down to the lotus-lake to bathe. He, like the son of Brahmā, had a mind purified with all knowledge; he was coming by the very path where I was with many holy youths of his own age; like a second sun, his form was hard to see from its great brightness; he seemed to have dropped[140 - Lit., ‘To have been an extract from.’] from the rising sun, and to have limbs fashioned from lightning and a shape painted with molten gold; he showed the beauty of a wood on fire, or of day with its early sunlight, by reason of the clear tawny splendour of his form flashing out; he had thick matted locks hanging on his shoulders red as heated iron, and pure with sprinkling from many a sacred pool; his top-knot was bound as if he were Agni in the false guise of a young Brahman in his desire to burn the Khāṇḍava Wood;[141 - Sacred to Indra, and burnt by Agni with the help of Arjuna and Kṛishṇa.] he carried a bright crystal rosary hanging from his right ear, like the anklets of the goddesses of the hermitage, and resembling the circle of Dharma’s commandments, made to turn aside all earthly joys; (75) he adorned his brow with a tripuṇḍraka[142 - Three horizontal lines.] mark in ashes, as if with threefold truth;[143 - Truth in thought, word, and deed.] he laid his left hand on a crystal pitcher with its neck held ever upwards as if to look at the path to heaven, like a crane gazing upwards to the sky; he was covered by a black antelope skin hanging from his shoulders, like thick smoke that was coming out again after being swallowed[144 - Read, Nishpatatā.] in thirst for penance, with pale-blue[145 - Nīlapānḍu, mottled blue and white. The Hindu penance is to be between five fires: four on earth and the sun above. V. Manu, vi. 23.] lustre; he wore on his left shoulder a sacrificial thread, which seemed from its lightness to be fashioned from very young lotus-fibres, and wavered in the wind as if counting the framework of his fleshless ribs; he held in his right hand an āshāḍha[146 - The sign of a vow.] staff, having on its top a leafy basket full of creeper-blossoms gathered for the worship of Çiva; he was followed by a deer from the hermitage, still bearing the clay of the bathing-place dug up by its horns, quite at home with the hermits, fed on mouthfuls of rice, and letting its eyes wander on all sides to the kuça grass flowers and creepers. Like a tree, he was covered with soft bark;[147 - (a) Bark garment; (b) bark of trees.] like a mountain, he was surrounded by a girdle;[148 - (a) Girdle. V. Manu, ii. 42; (b) mountain slope.] like Rāhu, he had often tasted Soma;[149 - Or, the moon.] like a day lotus-bed, he drank the sun’s rays; (76) like a tree by the river’s side, his tangled locks were pure with ceaseless washing; like a young elephant, his teeth were white as[150 - Or, with.] pieces of moon-lotus petals; like Drauṇi, he had Kṛipa[151 - (a) Kṛipā = compassion; (b) Kṛipa was the teacher of Açvatthāma, or Drauṇi.] ever with him; like the zodiac, he was adorned by having the hide[152 - Or, Virgo, Cervus, the Pleiads and Draco.] of the dappled deer; like a summer day, he was free from darkness;[153 - (a) Having twilight drunk up; (b) having many faults eradicated.] like the rainy season, he had allayed the blinding dust of passion;[154 - Rajas = (a) dust; (b) passion.] like Varuṇa, he dwelt on the waters;[155 - In performance of a vow. V. Manu, vi. 23.] like Kṛishṇa, he had banished the fear of hell;[156 - Or, ‘of the demon Naraka,’ slain by Kṛishṇa. Harivaṃça, 122.] like the beginning of twilight, he had eyes tawny as the glow of dawn;[157 - Or, had stars tawny at the junction of night and day.] like early morn, he was gilded with fresh sunlight; like the chariot of the sun, he was controlled in his course;[158 - Lit., (a) Holding all his passions in firm restraint; (b) having the axle of its wheels firm.] like a good king, he brought to nought the secret guiles of the foe;[159 - Lit., (a) He had a body wasted by secret performance of penance; (b) he brought to nought the enemies’ plans of battle by secret counsel and by his army.] (77) like the ocean, his temples were cavernous with meditation;[160 - Or, having caves with whirlpools and the circles of shells oblique.] like Bhagīratha, he had often beheld the descent of Ganges;[161 - Or, quays.] like a bee, he had often tasted life in a water-engirt wood;[162 - (a) Perhaps Pushkara, the place of pilgrimage in Ajmere; (b) lotus-grove.] though a woodsman, he yet entered a great home;[163 - (a) Having entrance into great halls; (b) being absorbed in Brahma.] though unrestrained, he longed for release;[164 - Or, salvation.] though intent on works of peace, he bore the rod;[165 - Or, inflicted punishment; or, though intent on the Sāma veda, he was yet a daṇḍi; i. e., an ascetic who despises ritual.] though asleep, he was yet awake;[166 - Having beautiful matted locks.] though with two well-placed eyes, he had his sinister eye abolished.[167 - (a) Having no left eye; (b) having no crooked glances.] Such was he who approached the lotus-lake to bathe.

‘Now the mind of the good is ever wont to be compassionate and kind instinctively. Wherefore he, seeing my plight, was filled with pity, and said to another young ascetic standing near: (78) “This little half-fledged parrot has somehow fallen from the top of that tree, or perhaps from a hawk’s mouth. For, owing to his long fall, he has hardly any life left; his eyes are closed, and he ever falls on his face and pants violently, and opens his beak, nor can he hold up his neck. Come, then, take him before his breath deserts him. Carry him to the water.” So saying, he had me taken to the edge of the lake; and, coming there, he laid down his staff and pitcher near the water, and, taking me himself, just when I had given up all effort, he lifted up my head, and with his finger made me drink a few drops of water; and when I had been sprinkled with water and had gained fresh breath, he placed me in the cool wet shade of a fresh lotus-leaf growing on the bank, and went through the wonted rites of bathing. After that, he purified himself by often holding his breath, and murmuring the cleansing aghamarshaṇa[168 - R. V., x. 190.], and then he arose and, with upraised face, made an offering to the sun with freshly-plucked red lotuses in a cup of lotus-leaves. Having taken a pure white robe, so that he was like the glow of evening sunlight accompanied by the moon’s radiance, he rubbed his hair with his hands till it shone, and, (79) followed by the band of ascetic youths, with their hair yet wet from recent bathing, he took me and went slowly towards the penance grove.

‘And after going but a short way, I beheld the penance grove, hidden in thick woods rich in flowers and fruit.

(80) ‘Its precincts were filled by munis entering on all sides, followed by pupils murmuring the Vedas, and bearing fuel, kuça grass, flowers, and earth. There the sound of the filling of the pitchers was eagerly heard by the peacocks; there appeared, as it were, a bridge to heaven under the guise of smoke waving to exalt to the gods the muni race while yet in the body by fires satisfied with the ceaseless offering of ghee; all round were tanks with their waves traversed by lines of sunbeams stainless as though from contact with the hermits they rested upon, plunged into by the circle of the Seven Ṛishis who had come to see their penance, and lifting by night an open moon-lotus-bed, like a cluster of constellations descending to honour the ṛishis; the hermitage received homage from woodland creepers with their tops bent by the wind, and from trees with their ever-falling blossoms, and was worshipped by trees with the añjali of interlaced boughs; parched grain was scattered in the yards round the huts, and the fruit of the myrobalan, lavalī, jujube, banana, bread-tree, mango, panasa,[169 - Another kind of bread-tree.] and palm pressed on each other; (81) the young Brahmans were eloquent in reciting the Vedas; the parrot-race was garrulous with the prayer of oblation that they learnt by hearing it incessantly; the subrahmaṇyā[170 - The Commentary explains it as ‘Veda.’] was recited by many a maina; the balls of rice offered to the deities were devoured by the cocks of the forest, and the offering of wild rice was eaten by the young kalahaṃsas of the tanks close by. The eating-places of the sages were protected from pollution by ashes cast round them. (82) The fire for the munis’ homa sacrifice was fanned by the tails of their friends the peacocks; the sweet scent of the oblation prepared with nectar, the fragrance of the half-cooked sacrificial cake was spread around; the crackling of flames in the offering of a stream of unbroken libations made the place resonant; a host of guests was waited upon; the Pitṛis were honoured; Vishṇu, Çiva, and Brahmā were worshipped. The performance of çrāddha rites was taught; the science of sacrifice explained; the çāstras of right conduct examined; good books of every kind recited; and the meaning of the çāstras pondered. Leafy huts were being begun; courts smeared with paste, and the inside of the huts scrubbed. Meditation was being firmly grasped, mantras duly carried out, yoga practised, and offerings made to woodland deities. Brahmanical girdles of muñja grass were being made, bark garments washed, fuel brought, deer-skins decked, grass gathered, lotus-seed dried, rosaries strung, and bamboos laid in order for future need.[171 - The tridaṇḍaka or three staves of the mendicant Brahman who has resigned the world.] Wandering ascetics received hospitality, and pitchers were filled.

(84) ‘There defilement is found in the smoke of the oblations, not in evil conduct; redness of face in parrots, not in angry men; sharpness in blades of grass, not in dispositions; wavering in plantain-leaves, not in minds; red eyes[172 - Or, impassioned glances.] in cuckoos alone; clasping of necks with pitchers only; binding of girdles in vows, not in quarrels; pakshapāta[173 - (a) Moulting; (b) partisanship.] in cocks, not in scientific discussions; wandering in making the sunwise turn round the soma fire, but not error in the çāstras; mention of the Vasus in legends, but not longing for wealth; counting of beads for Rudra, but no account made of the body; loss of locks by the saints in the practice of sacrifice, but not loss of their children[174 - Bāla = (a) hair; (b) children.] by death; propitiation of Rāma by reciting the Rāmāyaṇa, not of women[175 - Rāmā, woman.] by youth; wrinkles brought on by old age, not by pride of riches; the death of a Çakuni[176 - Çakuni = (a) a bird; (b) Duryodhana’s uncle.] in the Mahābhārata only; only in the Purāṇa windy talk;[177 - Vāyu = (a) wind; (b) breath.] in old age only loss of teeth;[178 - (a) Teeth; (b) Brahmans.] coldness only in the park sandal-trees;[179 - Or, dullness.] (85) in fires only turning to ashes;[180 - Or, seeking prosperity.] only deer love to hear song; only peacocks care for dancing; only snakes wear hoods;[181 - Or, seek enjoyment.] only monkeys desire fruit;[182 - Or good fortune.] only roots have a downward tendency.

(85–89, condensed) ‘There, beneath the shade of a red açoka-tree, beauteous with new oblations of flowers, purified with ointment of fresh gomaya, garlanded with kuça grass and strips of bark tied on by the hermitage maidens, I saw the holy Jābāli surrounded by most ascetic sages, like time by æons, the last day by suns, the sacrifice by bearers of the three fires,[183 - The Gārhapatya, Dakshiṇa, and Āhavanīya fires.] the golden mountain by the noble hills, or the earth by the oceans.

(89) ‘And as I looked on him I thought: “Ah! how great is the power of penance! His form, calm as it is, yet pure as molten gold, overpowers, like lightning, the brightness of the eye with its brilliance. Though ever tranquil, it inspires fear at first approach by its inherent majesty. The splendour of even those ascetics who have practised but little asceticism is wont to be easily provoked, like fire swiftly falling on dry reeds, kāça grass, or flowers. (90) How much more, then, that of holy men like these, whose feet are honoured by the whole world, whose stains are worn away by penance, who look with divine insight on the whole earth as if it were a myrobalan[184 - Proverbial phrase for clearness.] in the hand, and who purge away all sin. For even the mention of a great sage has its reward; much more, then, the sight of him! Happy is the hermitage where dwells this king of Brahmans! Nay, rather, happy is the whole world in being trodden by him who is the very Brahmā of earth! Truly these sages enjoy the reward of their good deeds in that they attend him day and night with no other duty, hearing holy stories and ever fixing on him their steady gaze, as if he were another Brahmā. Happy is Sarasvatī, who, encircled by his shining teeth, and ever enjoying the nearness of his lotus-mouth, dwells in his serene mind, with its unfathomable depths and its full stream of tenderness, like a haṃsa on the Mānasa lake. The four Vedas, that have long dwelt in the four lotus-mouths of Brahmā, find here their best and most fitting home. (91) All the sciences, which became turbid in the rainy season of the Iron Age, become pure when they reach him, as rivers coming to autumn. Of a surety, holy Dharma, having taken up his abode here after quelling the riot of the Iron Age, no longer cares to recall the Golden Age. Heaven, seeing earth trodden by him, no longer takes pride in being dwelt in by the Seven Ṛishis. How bold is old age, which fears not to fall on his thick matted locks, moonbeam-pale as they are, and hard to gaze on as the rays of the sun of doom.[185 - Vishṇu Purāṇa, vi., ch. 3, ‘The seven solar rays dilate to seven suns, and set the three worlds on fire.’] For it falls on him as Ganges, white with flecks of foam, on Çiva, or as an offering of milk on Agni. Even the sun’s rays keep far from the penance-grove, as if terrified by the greatness of the saint whose hermitage is darkened by the thick smoke of many an oblation. These fires, too, for love of him, receive oblations purified by hymns, for their flames are pressed together by the wind, like hands reverently raised. (92) The wind itself approaches him timidly, just stirring the linen and bark dresses, fragrant with the sweet creeper blossoms of the hermitage, and gentle in motion. Yet the glorious might of the elements is wont to be beyond our resistance! But this man towers above[186 - Lit., ‘is leader of.’] the mightiest! The earth shines as if with two suns, being trodden by this noble man. In his support the world stands firm. He is the stream of sympathy, the bridge over the ocean of transient existence, and the home of the waters of patience; the axe for the glades of the creepers of desire, the ocean of the nectar of content, the guide in the path of perfection, the mountain behind which sets the planet of ill,[187 - Or, caprice.] the root of the tree of endurance, the nave of the wheel of wisdom, the staff of the banner of righteousness, the holy place for the descent of all knowledge, the submarine fire of the ocean of craving, the touch-stone of the jewels of the çāstras, the consuming flame of the buds of passion, the charm against the snake of wrath, the sun to dispel the darkness of delusion, the binder of the bolts of hell’s gates, the native home of noble deeds, the temple of propitious rites, the forbidden ground for the degradation of passion, the sign-post to the paths of good, the birthplace of holiness, the felly of the wheel of effort, the abode of strength, the foe of the Iron Age, the treasury of penance, the friend of truth, the native soil of sincerity, the source of the heaping up of merit, the closed gate for envy, the foe of calamity. (93) Truly he is one in whom disrespect can find no place; for he is averse from pride, unclaimed by meanness, unenslaved by wrath, and unattracted by pleasure. Purely by the grace of this holy man the hermitage is free from envy and calm from enmity. Great is the power of a noble soul. Here, ceasing their constant feud, the very animals are quiet, and learn the joy of a hermitage life. For here a snake, wearied by the sun, fearlessly enters, as if into fresh grass, into the peacock’s tail, like an interwoven grove of open lotuses, with its hundred beauteous eyes, changing in hue as the eyes of a deer. Here a young antelope, leaving his mother, makes friends with the lion-cubs whose manes are not yet grown, and drinks at the bounteous breast of the lioness. Here a lion closes his eyes, and is pleased to have his moon-white mane pulled by the young elephants that mistake it for lotus-fibres. Here the monkey-tribe loses its capriciousness and brings fruit to the young munis after their bath. There the elephants, too, though excited, are tender-hearted, and do not drive away by their flapping the bees that dwell round their frontal bones, and stay motionless to drink their ichor. (94) But what need of more? There even the senseless trees, with roots and fruits, clad in bark, and adorned with outer garments of black antelope skin perpetually made for them by the upward creeping lines of sacrificial smoke, seem like fellow ascetics of this holy man. How much more, then, living beings, endowed with sense!”

‘And while I was thus thinking, Hārīta placed me somewhere in the shade of the açoka tree, and embracing his father’s feet and saluting him, sat down not far from him on a seat of kuça grass.

‘But the hermits, looking on me, asked him as he rested: “Whence was this little parrot brought?” “When I went hence to bathe,” replied he, “I found this little parrot fallen from its nest in a tree on the bank of the lotus-lake, faint with the heat, lying in hot dust, and shaken by the fall, with little life left in him. And as I could not replace him in his nest (for that tree was too hard for an ascetic to climb), I brought him hither in pity. So, while his wings are not grown, and he cannot fly into the sky, let him live in the hollow of some hermitage tree, (95) fed on the juice of fruits and on handfuls of rice brought to him by us and by the young hermits. For it is the law of our order to protect the weak. But when his wings are grown, and he can fly into the sky, he shall go where he likes. Or perhaps, when he knows us well, he will stay here.” The holy Jābāli, hearing this and other remarks about me, with some curiosity bent his head slightly, and, with a very calm glance that seemed to purify me with holy waters, he gazed long upon me, and then, looking again and again as if he were beginning to recognise me, said: “He is reaping the fruit of his own ill-conduct.” For by the potency of penance the saint with divine insight beholds the past, present, and future, and sees the whole world as though placed on the palm of his hand. He knows past births. He tells things yet to come. He declares the length of days of beings within his sight.

‘At these words the whole assemblage of hermits, aware of his power, became curious to know what was my crime, and why committed, and where, and who I was in a former birth; and implored the saint, saying: (96) “Vouchsafe, sir, to tell us of what kind of misconduct he is reaping the fruits. Who was he in a former birth, and how was he born in the form of a bird? How is he named? Do thou satisfy our curiosity, for thou art the fountain-head of all marvels.”

‘Thus urged by the assemblage, the great saint replied: “The story of this wonder is very long, the day is almost spent, our bathing-time is near, while the hour for worshipping the gods is passing. Arise, therefore; let each perform his duties as is meet. In the afternoon, after your meal of roots and fruits, when you are resting quietly, I will tell you the whole story from beginning to end – who he is, what he did in another birth, and how he was born in this world. Meanwhile, let him be refreshed with food. He will certainly recall, as it were, the vision of a dream when I tell the whole story of his former birth.” So saying, he arose, and with the hermits bathed and performed their other daily duties.

(97) ‘The day was now drawing to a close. When the hermits rose from their bathing, and were offering a sacrifice, the sun in the sky seemed to bear upwards before our eyes the offering cast on the ground, with its unguent of red sandal-wood. Then his glow faded and vanished; the effluence of his glory was drunk by the Ushmāpas[188 - Vishṇu Purāṇa, i., 123.] with faces raised and eyes fixed on his orb, as if they were ascetics; and he glided from the sky pink as a dove’s foot, drawing in his rays as though to avoid touching the Seven Ṛishis as they rose. His orb, with its network of crimson rays reflected on the Western Ocean, was like the lotus of Vishṇu on his couch of waters pouring forth nectar; his beams, forsaking the sky and deserting the lotus-groves, lingered at eve like birds on the crest of hill and tree; the splashes of crimson light seemed for a moment to deck the trees with the red bark garments hung up by the ascetics. And when the thousand-rayed sun had gone to rest, twilight sprang up like rosy coral from the Western Ocean. (98) Then the hermitage became the home of quiet thought, as the pleasant sound of milking the sacred cows arose in one quarter, and the fresh kuça grass was scattered on the altar of Agni, and the rice and oblations to the goddesses of space were tossed hither and thither by the hermitage maidens. And red-starred eve seemed to the hermits as the red-eyed cow of the hermitage roaming about, tawny in the fall of day. And when the sun had vanished, the lotus-bed, in the grief of bereavement, seemed to perform a vow in the hopes of rejoining the lord of day, for she lifted the goblets of her buds, and wore the fine white vesture of her haṃsas, and was girt with the sacrificial thread of white filaments, and bore a circle of bees as her rosary. And the starry host leapt up and filled the sky, like a splash of spray when the sun fell into the Western Ocean; and for a brief space the star-bespangled sky shone as though inlaid with flowers offered by the daughters of the Siddhas[189 - Semi-divine beings dwelling between the earth and the sun.] in honour of twilight; but in a moment the whole glory of the gloaming vanished as though washed away by the libations which the hermits, with faces upraised, cast towards the sky; (99) and at its departure, night, as sorrowing for its loss, wore a deeper darkness, like a black antelope’s skin – a blackness which darkened all save the hearts of the hermits.

‘Learning that the sun had gone to rest, the lord of rays ambrosial, in pure severity of light, arrayed in the whiteness of clear gossamer, dwelling in the palace of his wives with Tārā,[190 - Tārā = (a) stars; (b) wife of Bṛihaspati, carried away by the moon.] mounted the sky which, in that it was outlined with the darkness of tamāla-trees, presided over by the circle of Seven Ṛishis, purified by the wanderings of Arundhatī,[191 - (a) “Wife of the sage Vaçishṭha; (b) the morning star.] surrounded by Āshāḍha,[192 - (a) Constellation; (b) staff borne during a vow.] showing its Mūla[193 - (a) Constellation; (b) roots for the hermits’ food.] with its soft-eyed white deer,[194 - Or, constellation.] was a very hermitage of heaven. White as a haṃsa, moonlight fell on the earth, filling the seas; falling, as Ganges from the head of Çiva, from the sky which was decked with the moon, and inlaid with the shattered potsherds of the stars. (100) And in the moon-lake, white as an opening lotus, was seen the motionless deer, which went down in eagerness to drink the water of the moonbeams, and was caught, as it were, in the mud of ambrosia. The lakes of the night-lotus were fondly visited by the moonbeams, like haṃsas, falling on the ocean white as sinduvāra flowers in their fresh purity after the rains. At that moment the globe of the moon lost all the glow of its rising, like the frontal bone of the elephant Airāvata when its red lead is washed away by plunging into the heavenly stream; and his highness the cold-shedder had gradually risen high in the sky, and by his light had whitened the earth as with lime-dust; the breezes of early night were blowing, slackened in their course by the cold dew, aromatic with the scent of opening moon-lotuses, (101) and gladly welcomed by the deer, who, with eyes weighed down by the approach of sleep, and eyelashes clinging together, were beginning to ruminate and rest in quiet.

‘Only half a watch of the night was spent, when Hārīta took me after my meal and went with the other holy hermits to his father, who, in a moonlit spot of the hermitage, was sitting on a bamboo stool, gently fanned by a pupil named Jālapāda, who held a fan of antelope skin white as dharba grass, and he spake, saying: “Father, the whole assemblage of hermits is in a circle round thee, with hearts eager to hear this wonder; the little bird, too, has rested. Tell us, therefore, what he has done, who was he, and who will he be in another birth?” Thus addressed, the great saint, looking at me, and seeing the hermits before him intently listening, slowly spake: “Let the tale be told, if ye care to hear it.

‘“(102) There is a city named Ujjayinī, the proudest gem of earth, the very home of the golden age, created by Mahākāla,[195 - Çiva.] creator, preserver, and destroyer of the three worlds, and lord of Pramathas, as a habitation meet for himself, as it were a second earth. There the sun is daily seen paying homage to Mahākāla, for his steeds vail their heads at the charm of the sweet chant of the women singing in concert in the lofty white palace, and his pennon droops before him.

(109) ‘“There darkness never falls, and the nights bring no separation to the pairs of cakravākas; nor need they any lamps, for they pass golden as with morning sunshine, from the bright jewels of women, as though the world were on fire with the flame of love. (110) There the only unending life is in jewelled lamps, the only wavering in pearl necklaces, the only variations in the sound of drum and song, the only disunion of pairs in cakravākas, the only testing of colour[196 - Caste.] in gold pieces, the only unsteadiness in banners, the only hatred of the sun[197 - Friends.] in night-lotuses, the only concealment of metal in the sheathing of the sword. (111) Why should I say more? For he whose bright feet are kissed by the rays of the jewelled crests of gods and demons, who hath the river of heaven wandering lost in his locks tawny with a wreath of flame for the burning of the world; he the foe of Andhaka; he the holy one; he who hath given up his love for his home on Kailāsa; even he whose name is Mahākāla hath there made a habitation for himself. And in this city was a king named Tārāpīḍa. He was like unto the great kings Nala, Nahusha, Yayāti, Dundhumāra, Bharata, Bhagīratha, and Daçaratha; by the might of his arm he conquered the whole world; he reaped the fruits of the three powers;[198 - I.e., king, minister, and energy.] wise and resolute, with an intellect unwearied in political science, and a deep study of the law books, he made in light and glory a third with the sun and moon. (112) His form was purified by many a sacrifice; by him the calamities of the whole world were set at rest; to him Lakshmī openly clung, deserting her lotus-woods and despising the happiness of her home in the breast of Nārāyaṇa, she the lotus-handed, who ever joys in the contest of heroes. He was the source of truth, ever honoured by the race of saints, as the foot of Vishṇu was of the stream of the heavenly Ganges.

‘“From him arose glory, as from the ocean of the moon, for his brightness, free from heat, consumed his foes; constant, ever roamed; stainless, darkened the brightness of the lotus-faced widows of his foes; white, made all things gay. (113) He was the incarnation of justice, the very representative of Vishṇu and the destroyer of all the sorrows of his people.

(115) ‘“When he approached the throne that blossomed with the rays of many gems and was hung with clusters of pearls, like the elephant of space approaching the tree of desire, all the wide quarters of space, like creepers weighed down by bees, bowed down before his majesty; and of him, I think, even Indra was envious. From him, too, proceeded a host of virtues, like a flock of haṃsas from Mount Krauñca, brightening the earth’s surface, and gladdening the hearts of all mankind. His fame wandered, so that the world echoed with it throughout the ten regions, making fair the world of gods and demons, like a streak of foam of the stream of milk tossed by Mandara, ambrosial sweet. His royal glory never for a moment laid aside the shade of her umbrella, as though scorched by the heat of a splendour hard to bear. (116) His achievements were heard by the people like news of good fortune, were received like the teaching of a guru, were valued like a good omen, were murmured like a hymn, and were remembered like a sacred text. And while he was king, though the flight of the mountains was stayed, the flight of thought was free; suffixes alone were dependent, and the people feared no foe; nought dared to face him but his mirror; the pressure of Durgā[199 - Or, misfortune.] was given to Çiva’s image alone; the bow was only borne by the clouds; there was no uprising save of banners, no bending save of bows, no shaft sped home save the bee’s on the bamboo, no enforced wandering save of the images of gods in a procession, no imprisonment save of flowers in their calyx, no restraint save of the senses; wild elephants entered the pale, but none paled before the water-ordeal; the only sharpness was in the edge of the sword; the only endurance of the flame[200 - An ordeal.] was by ascetics; the only passing the Balance[201 - An ordeal.] was by the stars; the only clearing of baneful[202 - (a) Clearing of the waters after the rainy season; (b) ordeal of poison.] waters was in the rising of Agastya; the only cutting short was of hair and nails; the only stained garb was of the sky on stormy days; the only laying bare was of gems, and not of secret counsels; the only mysteries[203 - (a) Magic; (b) practice of Yoga.] were those of religion; (117) none ceased to behold the light save slaughtered Tāraka[204 - (a) Lit., ‘tearing out of eyes;’ (b) slaughter of the demon Tāraka by Kārtikeya.] in the praises of Kumāra; none dreaded eclipse save the sun; none passed over the First-born[205 - A star in the Scorpion’s tail.] save the moon; none heard of the Disobedient save in the Mahābhārata; none grasped the rod[206 - Seizing of tribute.] save in the decline of life; none clung to a sinister object save the sword-sheath; no stream of liberality was interrupted save the elephant’s ichor; no squares were deserted save those on the dice-board.

‘“That king had a minister, by name Çukanāsa, a Brahman, whose intelligence was fixed on all the affairs of the kingdom, whose mind had plunged deeply into the arts and çāstras, and whose strong affection for the king had grown up in him from childhood. Skilled in the precepts of political science, pilot of the world’s government, unshaken in resolve by the greatest difficulties, he was the castle of constancy, the station of steadfastness, the bridge of bright truth, the guide to all goodness, the conductor in conduct, the ordainer of all ordered life. Like the serpent Çesha, enduring the weight of the world; like the ocean, full of life; like Jarāsandha, shaping war and peace;[207 - Or, having his body united. V. Dowson, ‘Classical Dictionary.’] (118) like Çiva, at home with Dūrgā[208 - Having fortresses subdued.]; like Yuddhishṭhira, a dayspring of Dharma, he knew all the Vedas and Vedāngas, and was the essence of the kingdom’s prosperity. He was like Bṛihaspati[209 - These are teachers of the gods and heroes.] to Sunāsīra; like Çukra to Vṛishaparvan; like Vaçishṭha to Daçaratha; like Viçvāmitra to Rāma; like Dhaumya to Ajātaçatru; like Damanaka to Nala. He, by the force of his knowledge, thought that Lakshmī was not hard to win, resting though she were on the breast of Nārāyaṇa, terrible with the scars of the weapons of the demons of hell, and a strong shoulder hardened by the pitiless pressure of Mount Mandara as it moved to and fro. Near him knowledge spread wide, thick with many a tendril, and showed the fruits gained from conquered realms like a creeper near a tree. (119) To him throughout the earth’s surface, measured by the circumference of the four oceans, and filled with the goings to and fro of many thousands of spies, every whisper of the kings was known as though uttered in his own palace.

‘“Now, Tārāpīḍa while yet a child had conquered the whole earth ringed by the seven Dvīpas by the might of his arm, thick as the trunk of Indra’s elephant, and he devolved the weight of the empire on that councillor named Çukanāsa, and having made his subjects perfectly contented, he searched for anything else that remained to be done.

‘“And as he had crushed his enemies and had lost all cause for fear, and as the strain of the world’s affairs had become a little relaxed, for the most part he began to pursue the ordinary pleasures of youth.

(124) ‘“And some time passed while the king pursued the pleasures of youth, and entrusted the affairs of state to his minister; and after a time he came to the end of all the other pleasures of life, and the only one he did not get was the sight of a son born to him; so that his zenana was like reeds showing only flowers without fruit; and as youth went by there arose in him a regret produced by childlessness, and his mind was turned away from the desire of the pleasures of sense, and he felt himself alone, though surrounded by a thousand princes; blind, though possessed of sight; without support, though supporting the world.

(125) ‘“But the fairest ornament of this king was his queen Vilāsavatī; as the moon’s digit to the braided hair of Çiva, as the splendour of the Kaustubha gem to the breast of the foe[210 - Vishṇu.] of Kaiṭabha, as the woodland garland to Balarāma, as the shore to the ocean, as the creeper to the tree, as the outburst of flowers to the spring, as the moonlight to the moon, as the lotus-bed to the lake, as the array of stars to the sky, as the circling of haṃsas to Lake Mānasa, as the line of sandal-woods to Mount Malaya, as the jewelled crest to Çesha, so was she to her lord; she reigned peerless in the zenana, and created wonder in the three worlds, as though she were the very source of all womanly grace.

‘“And it chanced once that, going to her dwelling, he beheld her seated on a stately[211 - Lit., ‘firm.’] couch, weeping bitterly, surrounded by her household mute in grief, their glances fixed in meditation, and attended by her chamberlains, who waited afar with eyes motionless in anxious thought, while the old women of the zenana were trying to console her. Her silken robes were wet with ceaseless tears; her ornaments were laid aside; her lotus-face rested on her left hand; and her tresses were unbound and in disorder. As she arose to welcome him, the king placed her on the couch again, and sitting there himself, ignorant of the cause of her weeping, and in great alarm, wiped away with his hand the tears from her cheeks, saying: (126) ‘My queen, what means this weeping, voiceless and low with the weight of the heavy sorrow concealed in thy heart? For these eyelashes of thine are stringing, as it were, a network of pearls of dropping tears. Why, slender one, art thou unadorned? and why has not the stream of lac fallen on thy feet like early sunlight on rosy lotus-buds? And why are thy jewelled anklets, with their murmur like teals on the lake of love, not graced with the touch of thy lotus-feet? And why is this waist of thine bereft of the music of the girdle thou hast laid aside? And why is there no device painted on thy breast like the deer on the moon? and why is that slender neck of thine, fair-limbed queen, not adorned with a rope of pearls as the crescent on Çiva’s brow by the heavenly stream? And why dost thou, erst so gay, wear in vain a face whose adornment is washed away with flowing tears? And why is this hand, with its petal-like cluster of soft fingers, exalted into an ear-jewel, as though it were a rosy lotus? (127) And why, froward lady, dost thou raise thy straight brow undecked with the mark of yellow pigment, and surrounded by the mass of thine unbound tresses? For these flowing locks of thine, bereft of flowers, grieve my eyes, like the loss of the moon in the dark fortnight, clouded in masses of thickest gloom. Be kind, and tell me, my queen, the cause of thy grief. For this storm of sighs with which the robe on thy breast is quivering bows my loving heart like a ruddy tendril. Has any wrong been done by me, or by any in thy service? Closely as I examine myself, I can truly see no failure of mine towards thee. For my life and my kingdom are wholly thine. Let the cause of thy woe, fair queen, be told.’ But Vilāsavatī, thus addressed, made no reply, and turning to her attendants, he asked the cause of her exceeding grief. Then her betel-nut bearer, Makarikā, who was always near her, said to the king: ‘My lord, how could any fault, however slight, be committed by thee? (128) And how in thy presence could any of thy followers, or anyone else, offend? The sorrow of the queen is that her union with the king is fruitless, as though she were seized by Rāhu, and for a long time she has been suffering. For at first our lady was like one in heavy grief, was only occupied with difficulty by the persuasion of her attendants in the ordinary duties of the day, however fitting they might be, such as sleeping, bathing, eating, putting on of ornaments, and the like, and, like a Lakshmī of the lower world, ceaselessly upbraided divine love.[212 - (a) The gods; (b) love.] But in her longing to take away the grief of my lord’s heart, she did not show her sad change. Now, however, as it was the fourteenth day of the month, she went to worship holy Mahākāla, and heard in a recitation of the Mahābhārata, “No bright abodes await the childless, for a son is he who delivers from the sunless shades”; and when she heard this, she returned to her palace, and now, though reverently entreated thereto by her attendants, she takes no pleasure in food, nor does she busy herself in putting on her jewels, nor does she vouchsafe to answer us; (129) she only weeps, and her face is clouded with a storm of ever-flowing tears. My lord has heard, and must judge.’ So saying, she ceased; and, with a long and passionate sigh, the king spoke thus:

‘“‘My queen, what can be done in a matter decreed by fate? Enough of this weeping beyond measure! For it is not on us that the gods are wont to bestow their favours. In truth, our heart is not destined to hold the bliss of that ambrosial draught, the embrace of a child of our own. In a former life no glorious deed was done; for a deed done in a former life brings forth fruit in man’s life on earth; even the wisest man cannot change destiny. Let all be done that may be done in this mortal life. Do more honour to the gurus; redouble thy worship of the gods; let thy good works be seen in thy reverence to the ṛishis; for the ṛishis are a powerful deity, and if we serve them with all our might, they will give boons that fulfil our heart’s desire, hard though it be to gain. (130) For the tale is an old one how King Bṛihadratha in Magadha won by the power of Caṇḍakauçika a son Jarāsandha, victor of Vishṇu, peerless in prowess, fatal to his foes. Daçaratha, too, when very old, received by the favour of Ṛishyaçṛinga, son of the great saint Vibhāṇḍaka, four sons, unconquerable as the arms of Nārāyaṇa, and unshaken as the depths of the oceans.[213 - Four was the number of the oceans and of the arms of Nārāyaṇa.] And many other royal sages, having conciliated ascetics, have enjoyed the happiness of tasting the ambrosia of the sight of a son. For the honour paid to saints is never without its reward.

‘“‘And for me, when shall I behold my queen ready to bear a child, pale as the fourteenth night when the rising of the full moon is at hand; and when will her attendants, hardly able to bear the joy of the great festival of the birth of my son, carry the full basket of gifts? When will my queen gladden me wearing yellow robes, and holding a son in her arms, like the sky with the newly-risen sun and the early sunlight; and when will a son give me joy of heart, with his curly hair yellow with many a plant, a few ashes mixed with mustard-seed on his palate, which has a drop of ghī on it as a talisman, (131) and a thread bright with yellow dye round his neck, as he lies on his back and smiles with a little toothless mouth; when will this baby destroy all the darkness of sorrow in my eyes like an auspicious lamp welcomed by all the people, handed from one to another by the zenana attendants, shining tawny with yellow dye; and when will he adorn the courtyard, as he toddles round it, followed by my heart and my eyes, and gray with the dust of the court; and when will he walk from one place to another and the power of motion be formed in his knees, so that, like a young lion, he may try to catch the young tame deer screened behind the crystal walls? And when, running about at will in the courtyard, will he run after the tame geese, accompanied by the tinkling of the anklets of the zenana, and weary his nurse, who will hasten after him, following the sound of the bells of his golden girdle; (132) and when will he imitate the antics of a wild elephant, and have his cheeks adorned with a line of ichor painted in black aloe, full of joy at the sound of the bell held in his mouth, gray with the dust of sandal-wood scattered by his uplifted hand, shaking his head at the beckoning of the hooked finger; and when will he disguise the faces of the old chamberlains with the juice of handfuls of lac left after being used to colour his mother’s feet; and when, with eyes restless in curiosity, will he bend his glance on the inlaid floors, and with tottering steps pursue his own shadow; and when will he creep about during the audience in front of me as I stand in my audience-hall, with his eyes wandering bewildered by the rays of the gems, and have his coming welcomed by the outstretched arms of a thousand kings? Thinking on a hundred such desires, I pass my nights in suffering. Me, too, the grief arising from our want of children burns like a fire day and night. The world seems empty; I look on my kingdom as without fruit. But what can I do towards Brahmā, from whom there is no appeal? Therefore, my queen, cease thy continual grief. Let thy heart be devoted to endurance and to duty. For increase of blessings is ever nigh at hand for those who set their thoughts on duty.’ (133) Thus saying, with a hand like a fresh tendril, he took water and wiped her tear-stained face, which showed as an opening lotus; and having comforted her again and again with many a speech sweet with a hundred endearments, skilled to drive away grief, and full of instruction about duty, he at last left her. And when he was gone, Vilāsavatī’s sorrow was a little soothed, and she went about her usual daily duties, such as putting on of her adornments. And from that time forth she was more and more devoted to propitiating the gods, honouring Brahmans, and paying reverence to all holy persons; whatever recommendation she heard from any source she practised in her longing for a child, nor did she count the fatigue, however great; she slept within the temples of Durgā, dark with smoke of bdellium ceaselessly burnt, on a bed of clubs covered with green grass, fasting, her pure form clothed in white raiment; (134) she bathed under cows endued with auspicious marks, adorned for the occasion by the wives of the old cowherds in the herd-stations, with golden pitchers laden with all sorts of jewels, decorated with branches of the pipal, decked with divers fruits and flowers and filled with holy water; every day she would rise and give to Brahmans golden mustard-leaves adorned with every gem; she stood in the midst of a circle drawn by the king himself, in a place where four roads meet, on the fourteenth night of the dark fortnight, and performed auspicious rites of bathing, in which the gods of the quarters were gladdened by the various oblations offered; she honoured the shrines of the siddhas and sought the houses of neighbouring Mātṛikās,[214 - The divine mothers, or personified energies of the chief deities.] in which faith was displayed by the people; she bathed in all the celebrated snake-ponds; with a sun-wise turn, she worshipped the pipal and other trees to which honour was wont to be shown; after bathing, with hands circled by swaying bracelets, she herself gave to the birds an offering of curds and boiled rice placed in a silver cup; she offered daily to the goddess Durgā a sacrifice consisting of parched grain of oblation, boiled rice, sesamum sweetmeats, cakes, unguents, incense, and flowers, in abundance; (135) she besought, with a mind prostrate in adoration, the naked wandering ascetics, bearing the name of siddhas, and carrying their begging-bowls filled by her; she greatly honoured the directions of fortune-tellers; she frequented all the soothsayers learned in signs; she showed all respect to those who understood the omens of birds; she accepted all the secrets handed down in the tradition of a succession of venerable sages; in her longing for the sight of a son, she made the Brahmans who came into her presence chant the Veda; she heard sacred stories incessantly repeated; she carried about little caskets of mantras filled with birch-leaves written over in yellow letters; she tied strings of medicinal plants as amulets; even her attendants went out to hear passing sounds and grasped the omens arising from them; she daily threw out lumps of flesh in the evening for the jackals; she told the pandits the wonders of her dreams, and at the cross-roads she offered oblation to Çiva.

‘“And as time went on, it chanced once that near the end of night, when the sky was gray as an old pigeon’s wing, and but few stars were left, the king saw in a dream the full moon entering the mouth of Vilāsavatī, as she rested on the roof of her white palace, like a ball of lotus-fibres into the mouth of an elephant. (136) Thereupon he woke, and arising, shedding brightness through his dwelling by the joyous dilation of his eyes, he straightway called Çukanāsa and told him the dream; whereto the latter, filled with sudden joy, replied: ‘Sire, our wishes and those of thy subjects are at length fulfilled. After a few days my lord will doubtless experience the happiness of beholding the lotus-face of a son; for I, too, this night in a dream saw a white-robed Brahman, of godlike bearing and calm aspect, place in Manoramā’s[215 - Wife of Çukanāsa.] lap a lotus that rained drops of honey, with a hundred outspread white petals, like the moon’s digits, and a thousand quivering stamens forming its matted locks. Now, all auspicious omens which come to us foretell the near approach of joy; and what other cause of joy can there be than this? for dreams seen at the close of night are wont to bear fruit in truth. (137) Certainly ere long the queen shall bear a son that, like Māndhātṛi, shall be a leader among all royal sages, and a cause of joy to all the world; and he shall gladden thy heart, O king, as the lotus-pool in autumn with its burst of fresh lotuses gladdens the royal elephant; by him thy kingly line shall become strong to bear the weight of the world, and shall be unbroken in its succession as the stream of a wild elephant’s ichor.’ As he thus spoke, the king, taking him by the hand, entered the inner apartments and gladdened the queen, with both their dreams. And after some days, by the grace of the gods, the hope of a child came to Vilāsavatī, like the moon’s image on a lake, and she became thereby yet more glorious, like the line of the Nandana wood with the tree of Paradise, or the breast of Vishṇu with the Kaustubha gem.

(138) ‘“On one memorable day the king had gone at evening to an inner pavilion, where, encircled by a thousand lamps, burning bright with abundance of scented oil, he was like the full moon in the midst of stars, or like Nārāyaṇa seated among the thousand jewelled hoods of the king of snakes; he was surrounded only by a few great kings who had received the sprinkling of coronation; his own attendants stood at some distance; close by Çukanāsa was sitting on a high stool, clad in white silk, with little adornment, a statesman profound as the depths of ocean; and with him the king was holding a conversation on many topics, full of the confidence that had grown with their growth, when he was approached by the handmaiden Kulavardhanā, the queen’s chief attendant, always skilled in the ways of a court, well trained by nearness to royalty, and versed in all auspicious ceremonies, who whispered in his ear the news about Vilāsavatī. (139) At her words, so fresh to his ears, the king’s limbs were bedewed as if with ambrosia, a thrill passed through his whole body, and he was bewildered with the draught of joy; his cheeks burst into a smile; under the guise of the bright flash of his teeth he scattered abroad the happiness that overflowed his heart, and his eye, with its pupil quivering, and its lashes wet with tears of gladness, fell on the face of Çukanāsa. And when Çukanāsa saw the king’s exceeding joy, such as he had never seen before, and beheld the approach of Kulavardhanā with a radiant smile on her face, though he had not heard the tidings, yet, from constantly revolving the matter in his mind, he saw no other cause befitting the time of this excess of gladness; (140) he saw all, and bringing his seat closer to the king, said in a low voice: ‘My lord, there is some truth in that dream; for Kulavardhanā has her eyes radiant, and thy twin eyes announce a cause of great joy, for they are dilated, their pupils are tremulous, and they are bathed in tears of joy, and as they seem to creep to the lobes of thy ears in their eagerness to hear the good tidings, they produce, as it were, the beauty of an ear-pendant of blue lotuses. My longing heart yearns to hear the festival that has sprung up for it. Therefore let my lord tell me what is this news.’ When he had thus said, the king replied with a smile: ‘If it is true as she says, then all our dream is true; but I cannot believe it. How should so great a happiness fall to our lot? For we are no fitting vessel for the bearing of such good tidings. Kulavardhanā is always truthful, and yet when I consider how unworthy I am of such joy, I look upon her as having changed her nature. Rise, therefore; I myself will go and ask the queen if it is true, and then I shall know.’ (141) So saying, he dismissed all the kings, and taking off his ornaments, gave them to Kulavardhanā, and when, on his gracious dismissal of her with gifts, he received her homage paid with a deep reverence as she touched the earth with her straight brow, he rose with Çukanāsa and went to the inner apartments, hurried on by a mind filled with exceeding happiness, and gladdened by the throbbing of his right eye, which seemed to mimic the play of a blue lotus-petal stirred by the wind. He was followed by a scanty retinue, as befitted so late a visit, and had the thick darkness of the courtyard dispelled by the brightness of the lamps of the women who went before him, though their steady flame flickered in the wind.”’

[Bāṇa then describes the birth of Tārāpīḍa’s son, who is named Candrāpīḍa, from the king’s dream about the moon, and also that of Çukanāsa’s son Vaiçampāyana.[216 - Summary of pp. 141–155.]]

(155) ‘“And as Candrāpīḍa underwent in due course all the circle of ceremonies, beginning with the tying of his top-knot, his childhood passed away; and to prevent distraction, Tārāpīḍa had built for him a palace of learning outside the city, stretching half a league along the Siprā river, surrounded by a wall of white bricks like the circle of peaks of a snow-mountain, girt with a great moat running along the walls, guarded by very strong gates, having one door kept open for ingress, with stables for horses and palanquins close by, and a gymnasium constructed beneath – a fit palace for the immortals. He took infinite pains in gathering there teachers of every science, and having placed the boy there, like a young lion in a cage, forbidding all egress, surrounding him with a suite composed mainly of the sons of his teachers, removing every allurement to the sports of boyhood, and keeping his mind free from distraction, on an auspicious day (156) he entrusted him, together with Vaiçampāyana, to masters, that they might acquire all knowledge. Every day when he rose, the king, with Vilāsavatī and a small retinue, went to watch him, and Candrāpīḍa, undisturbed in mind and kept to his work by the king, quickly grasped all the sciences taught him by teachers, whose efforts were quickened by his great powers, as they brought to light his natural abilities; the whole range of arts assembled in his mind as in a pure jewelled mirror. He gained the highest skill in word, sentence, proof, law, and royal policy; in gymnastics; in all kinds of weapons, such as the bow, quoit, shield, scimitar, dart, mace, battle-axe, and club; in driving and elephant-riding; in musical instruments, such as the lute, fife, drum, cymbal, and pipe; in the laws of dancing laid down by Bharata and others, and the science of music, such as that of Nārada; in the management of elephants, the knowledge of a horse’s age, and the marks of men; in painting, leaf-cutting, the use of books, and writing; in all the arts of gambling, knowledge of the cries of birds, and astronomy; in testing of jewels, (157) carpentry, the working of ivory; in architecture, physic, mechanics, antidotes, mining, crossing of rivers, leaping and jumping, and sleight of hand; in stories, dramas, romances, poems; in the Mahābhārata, the Purāṇas, the Itihāsas, and the Rāmāyaṇa; in all kinds of writing, all foreign languages, all technicalities, all mechanical arts; in metre, and in every other art. And while he ceaselessly studied, even in his childhood an inborn vigour like that of Bhīma shone forth in him and stirred the world to wonder. For when he was but in play the young elephants, who had attacked him as if he were a lion’s whelp, had their limbs bowed down by his grasp on their ears, and could not move; with one stroke of his scimitar he cut down palm-trees as if they were lotus-stalks; his shafts, like those of Paraçurāma when he blazed to consume the forest of earth’s royal stems, cleft only the loftiest peaks; he exercised himself with an iron club which ten men were needed to lift; and, except in bodily strength, he was followed close in all his accomplishments by Vaiçampāyana, (158) who, by reason of the honour Candrāpīḍa felt for his deep learning, and of his reverence due to Çukanāsa, and because they had played in the dust and grown up together, was the prince’s chief friend, and, as it were, his second heart, and the home of all his confidences. He would not be without Vaiçampāyana for a moment, while Vaiçampāyana never for an instant ceased to follow him, any more than the day would cease to follow the sun.

‘“And while Candrāpīḍa was thus pursuing his acquaintance with all knowledge, the spring of youth, loved of the three worlds as the amṛita draught of the ocean, gladdening the hearts of men as moonrise gladdens the gloaming; transient in change of iridescent glow, like the full arch of Indra’s bow to the rainy season; weapon of love, like the outburst of flowers to the tree of desire; beautiful in ever freshly revealed glow, like sunrise to the lotus-grove; ready for all play of graceful motion, like the plumes of the peacock, became manifest and brought to flower in him, fair as he was, a double beauty; love, lord of the hour, stood ever nigh, as if to do his bidding; his chest expanded like his beauty; his limbs won fulness, like the wishes of his friends; his waist became slender, like the host of his foes; (159) his form broadened, like his liberality; his majesty grew, like his hair; his arms hung down more and more, like the plaits of his enemies’ wives; his eyes became brighter, like his conduct; his shoulders broad, like his knowledge; and his heart deep, like his voice.

‘“And so in due course the king, learning that Candrāpīḍa had grown to youth, and had completed his knowledge of all the arts, studied all the sciences, and won great praise from his teachers, summoned Balāhaka, a mighty warrior, and, with a large escort of cavalry and infantry, sent him on a very auspicious day to fetch the prince. And Balāhaka, going to the palace of learning, entered, announced by the porters, and bending his head till its crest-jewels rested on the ground, sat down, by the prince’s permission, on a seat befitting his office, as reverently as though in the king’s presence; after a short pause he approached Candrāpīḍa and respectfully gave the king’s message: ‘Prince, the king bids me say: “Our desires are fulfilled; the çāstras have been studied; all the arts have been learnt; thou hast gained the highest skill in all the martial sciences. (160) All thy teachers give thee permission to leave the house of learning. Let the people see that thou hast received thy training, like a young royal elephant come out from the enclosure, having in thy mind the whole orb of the arts, like the full moon newly risen. Let the eyes of the world, long eager to behold thee, fulfil their true function; for all the zenanas are yearning for thy sight. This is now the tenth year of thine abode in the school, and thou didst enter it having reached the experience of thy sixth year. This year, then, so reckoned, is the sixteenth of thy life. Now, therefore, when thou hast come forth and shown thyself to all the mothers longing to see thee, and hast saluted those who deserve thy honour, do thou lay aside thy early discipline, and experience at thy will the pleasures of the court and the delights of fresh youth. Pay thy respects to the chiefs; honour the Brahmans; protect thy people; gladden thy kinsfolk. There stands at the door, sent by the king, this horse, named Indrāyudha, swift as Garuḍa or as the wind, the chief jewel of the three worlds; (161) for in truth the monarch of Persia, who esteemed him the wonder of the universe, sent him with this message: ‘This noble steed, sprung straight from the waters of ocean, was found by me, and is worthy for thee, O king, to mount;’ and when he was shown to those skilled in a horse’s points, they said: ‘He has all the marks of which men tell us as belonging to Uccaiḥçravas; there never has been nor will be a steed like him.’ Therefore let him be honoured by thy mounting him. These thousand princes, all sons of anointed kings, highly-trained, heroic, wise, and accomplished, and of long descent, sent for thine escort, wait on horseback, all eager to salute thee.”’ Having thus said, Balāhaka paused, and Candrāpīḍa, laying his father’s command on his head, in a voice deep as a new cloud gave the order, ‘Let Indrāyudha be brought,’ for he desired to mount him.

‘“Immediately on his command Indrāyudha was brought, and he beheld that wondrous steed, led by two men on each side grasping the circle of the bit, and using all their efforts to curb him. He was very large, his back being just within reach of a man’s uplifted hand; he seemed to drink the sky, which was on a level with his mouth; with a neigh which shook the cavity of his belly, and filled the hollows of the three worlds, he, as it were, upbraided Garuḍa for his vain trust in his fabled speed; (162) with a nostril snorting in wrath at any hindrance to his course, he, in his pride, examined the three worlds, that he might leap over them; his body was variegated with streaks of black, yellow, green, and pink, like Indra’s bow; he was like a young elephant, with a many-hued rug spread over him; like Çiva’s bull, pink with metallic dust from butting at Kailāsa’s peaks; like Pārvatī’s lion, with his mane crimsoned with the red streak of the demon’s clotted blood; and like the very incarnation of all energy, with a sound emitted from his ever-quivering nostrils, he seemed to pour forth the wind inhaled in his swift course; he scattered the foam-flakes that frothed from his lips from the champing of the points of the bit which rattled as he rolled it in his mouth, as if they were mouthfuls of ambrosia drunk in his ocean home. (164) And, beholding this steed, whose like was never before seen, in form fit for the gods, meet for the kingdom of the whole universe, (165) possessed of all the favourable marks, the perfection of a horse’s shape, the heart of Candrāpīḍa, though of a nature not easily moved, was touched with amazement, and the thought arose in his mind: ‘What jewel, if not this wondrous horse, was brought up by the Suras and Asuras when they churned the waters of ocean and whirled round Mount Mandara with the serpent Vāsuki revolving in ceaseless gyration? And what has Indra gained by his lordship of the three worlds if he did not mount this back, broad as Mount Meru? Surely Indra was cheated by the ocean when his heart was gladdened by Uccaiḥçravas! And I think that so far he has not crossed the sight of holy Nārāyaṇa, who even now does not give up his infatuation for riding Garuḍa. My father’s royal glory surpasses the riches of the kingdom of heaven, in that treasures such as this, which can hardly be gained in the whole universe, come here into servitude. From its magnificence and energy, this form of his seems the shrine of a god, and the truth of this makes me fear to mount him. For forms like this, fit for the gods and the wonder of the universe, belong to no common horse. Even deities, subject to a muni’s curse, have been known to leave their own bodies and inhabit other bodies brought to them by the terms of the curse. (166) For there is a story of old how Sthūlaçiras, a muni of great austerity, cursed an Apsaras named Rambhā, the ornament of the three worlds; and she, leaving heaven, entered the heart of a horse, and thus, as the story goes, dwelt for a long time on earth as a mare, in the service of King Çatadhanvan, at Mṛittikāvatī; and many other great-souled beings, having had their glory destroyed by the curse of munis, have roamed the world in various forms. Surely this must be some noble being subject to a curse! My heart declares his divinity.’ Thus thinking, he rose, wishing to mount; and in mind only approaching the steed, he prayed thus: ‘Noble charger, thou art that thou art! All hail to thee! Yet let my audacity in mounting thee be forgiven! for even deities whose presence is unknown taste of a contumely all unmeet for them.’

‘“As if knowing his thought, Indrāyudha looked at him with eye askance, the pupil turned and partly closed by the lashing of his tossing mane, (167) and repeatedly struck the ground with his right hoof, till the hair on his chest was gray with the dust it cast up, as though summoning the prince to mount, with a pleasant whinnying long drawn out into a gentle soft murmur blent with the snorting of his quivering nostrils. Whereupon Candrāpīḍa mounted Indrāyudha, as though invited thereunto by his pleasant neighing; and, having mounted, he passed out, thinking the whole universe but a span long, and beheld a cavalcade of which the furthest limits could not be seen; it deafened the hollows of the three worlds with the clatter of hoofs breaking up the earth, fierce as a shower of stones let fall from the clouds, and with a neighing sounding the fiercer from nostrils choked with dust; it decked the sky with a forest of lances all horrent, whose shafts gleamed bright when touched by the sun, like a lake half hidden in a grove of blue lotus-buds upborne on their stalks; from its darkening the eight quarters with its thousand umbrellas all raised, it was like a mass of clouds iridescent with the full arch of Indra’s bow shining on them; (168) while from the horses’ mouths being white with foam-flakes cast abroad, and from the undulating line of their ceaseless curvetting, it rose to sight like a mass of ocean billows in the flood of final destruction; all the horses were in motion at Candrāpīḍa’s approach, as the waves of ocean at the moon’s rising; and the princes, each wishing to be first in their eagerness to pay their homage, having their heads unprotected by the hasty removal of their umbrellas, and weary with trying to curb their horses, which were wild with trampling on each other, drew around the prince. As Balāhaka presented each by name, they bowed, bending low their heads, which showed the glow of loyalty under the guise of the rays uprising from the rubies in their waving crests, and which, from their having buds held up in adoration, were like lotuses resting on the water in the pitchers of coronation. Having saluted them, Candrāpīḍa, accompanied by Vaiçampāyana, also mounted, straightway set out for the city. (169) He was shaded by a very large umbrella with a gold stick, borne above him, formed like the lotus on which royal glory might dwell, like the moon’s orb to the moon-lotus grove of royal races, like an island being formed by the flow of the cavalcade, in hue like the circle of Vāsuki’s hood whitened by the sea of milk, garlanded with many a rope of pearls, bearing the device of a lion designed above. The flowers in his ears were set dancing by the wind of the cowries waved on either side, and his praises were sung by many thousands of retainers running before him, young, for the most part, and brave, and by the bards, who ceaselessly recited aloud auspicious verses, with a soft cry of ‘Long life and victory.’