“If it only depends upon that, belovèd Vāsitthī,
how could I fail to find you anywhere?” I said, “but let us
hope that it will be in this world.”
“Here everything is uncertain and even the moment
in which we now speak is not ours, but it will be
otherwise in Paradise.”
“Vāsitthī,” I sighed, “is there a Paradise? Where
does it lie?”
“Where the sun sets,” she replied with complete
conviction, “lies the Paradise of Infinite Light; and, for all
who have the courage to renounce the worldly, and to fix
their thoughts upon that place of bliss, there waits a pure
birth from the heart of a lotus flower. The first longing for
that Paradise causes a bud to appear in the holy waters of
the crystal pools; every pure thought, every good deed,
causes it to grow and develop; while all unwholesome‐
ness committed in thought, word and deed gnaws like a
worm within it and brings it nearer to withering away.”
Her eyes shone like temple lights as she spoke
thus in a voice which sounded like sweetest music. Then
she raised her hand and pointed over the dark tops of the
Simsapā trees to where the Milky Way, with a soft radiance
upon it as of glowing alabaster, lay along the dark purple
star‐sown field of heaven.
“Look there, Kāmanīta,” she whispered, “the
Heavenly Gangā! Let us swear by its silver waters, which
feed the lotus‐pools of the Fields of the Blessèd, to fix our
hearts wholly upon the preparing of an eternal home for
our love there.”
Strangely moved, completely carried out of myself
and agitated to the very depths of my being, I raised my
hand to hers and our hearts thrilled as one at the divine
thought that, at that instant in the endless immensities of
space, high above the storm of this earthly existence, a
double bud of the life of eternal love had come into being.
59
Vāsitthī sank into my arms s though, with the
effort, all her strength was exhausted. Then, having
pressed yet another lingerin
ell kiss upon my lips,
she rested on my breast to a
arance lifeless.
horse
a
g farew
ll appe
I put her softly onto Medinī’s arms, mounted my
and rode away without once looking back.
60
~ 9 ~
U
NDER THE CONSTELLATION OF
THE ROBBERS
W
HEN I AGAIN REACHED the village in which
my followers had taken up their quarters for the night,
I did not hesitate to waken them; and at least a couple
of hours before sunrise the caravan was on its way.
*
*
*
On the twelfth day, about the hour of noon, we
reached a charming valley in the wooded region of the
Vedisas. A small river, clear as crystal, wound slowly
through the green meadows; the gentle slopes were tim‐
bered with blossoming underwood which spread a lovely
fragrance all around. Somewhere about the middle of the
e, so a
alt was made. The tired oxen waded out into the stream
s, enabling them to
njoy the tender grasses on the banks all the better. The
en r
extended valley bottom and not far from the little river,
there stood a Nigrodha banyan tree, whose impenetrable
leafy dome cast a black shadow on the emerald grasses
beneath, and which, supported by its thousand secondary
trunks, formed a grove wherein ten caravans like mine
could easily have found shelter.
I remembered the spot perfectly from our journey out
and had already decided on it as a camping‐plac
h
and drank greedily of the cooling water
e
m
efreshed themselves with a bath and, collecting
63
some withered branches, proceeded to light a fire on
which to cook their rice; meanwhile I, also reanimated by
a bath, flung myself down full length where the shadows
lay deepest, with a root of the chief trunk as head‐rest, in
order to think of Vāsitthī and soon, as it turned out, to
eir
be drawn up into a circle round the tree, and
ad b
in
I
es;
is is
re killed except one, an
dream of her. Led by the hand of my belovèd, I floated
away through the fields of Paradise.
*
*
*
A great outcry brought me abruptly back to rude
reality. As though an evil magician had caused them to
grow up out of the soil, armed men swarmed about us,
and the neighbouring thickets added constantly to th
numbers. They were already at the wagons, which I had
ordered to
h
egun to fight with my people, who were practised
the handling of arms and defended themselves bravely.
was soon in the thick of the fight.
Several robbers fell by my hand. Suddenly I saw
before me a tall, bearded man of terrifying appearance:
the upper part of his body was naked and about his neck
he wore a triple garland of human fingers. Like a flash the
knowledge came to me: “This is Angulimāla, the cruel,
bloodthirsty bandit‐chief, who turns villages into heaps of
blackened timbers, reduces towns to smoking ruins and
devastates the wide lands, leaving them as desert wast
th
the one who does away with innocent people and
hangs their fingers about his neck.” And I believed my last
hour had come. As a matter of fact this ogre‐like being at
once struck my sword out of my hand — a feat which I
would have credited no creature of flesh and blood with
the ability to perform.
Soon I lay on the ground, fettered hand and foot.
Round about me all my people we
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