about me. Impossible as it may seem, I had thus remained
blind to the fact that not only the battlements of the gate,
but also the coping of the walls to either side, were hid‐
eously decorated with impaled human heads.
There was no room for doubt — these were the
heads of the executed robbers from Angulimāla’s band.
*
*
*
For the first time since I had seen Vāsitthī’s face
under the baldachin, another feeling than that of grief
possessed me, and I gazed with unspeakable horror upon
nce left
ered with
ill
imperiously
rew
a doubt, Angulimāla’s had been put up
those heads, of which the vultures had long si
nothing but the bones with, at the very most, the pigtails
and here and there a beard, whose wild tangle had pro‐
tected the place on which it grew. All of them would thus
have been unrecognisable had not the savage red beard
of one betrayed him and another by the pigtail wound
around on the top of his head in the manner of the
ascetic plait‐wearers. These two, and without doubt many
of the others, had often nodded to me in comrade‐like
fashion from the camp‐circle at night; and I rememb
ghastly distinctness how that russet beard, flaring in the
moonlight, had wagged with merriment on the occasion
of the lecture upon “The Stupidity of Night‐watchmen.”
Yes, so realistic was it all that I could almost imagine I st
heard the raucous laughter from that lipless mouth.
But in the middle of the battlements over the gate,
and somewhat raised above the rest, a powerful skull
shone forth in the rays of the rising sun and
d
all my attention to itself. How could I have not
recognized those lines again? It was he who that day
forced us all to laugh, without himself moving a muscle of
his brahmin face. Vājashravas’ head dominated here,
while, without
91
over the eastern gate. And a curious sensation stole over
e as I thought of the profundity with which that man had
tho
us
y
t
a, which is as we know, the fruit of all our deeds
pe
l
ne day.”
er
My appointed career as a robber, (ac‐
ordi
e
e — and not merely in pleasant but even in seductive
colours.
Robber chief! What could be more alluring to me in
my misery? For I did not doubt for a moment that, with my
many talents and accomplishments, and particularly with
those that I owed to the teaching of Vājashravas, I should
at once take the position of leader. And what position
could mean as much to me as that of robber chief? Why,
even that of a king would be of little count beside. For
could it give me vengeance on Sātāgira? Could it bring
Vāsitthī to my arms? I saw myself fighting Sātāgira in the
midst of a forest, splitting his skull with a powerful stroke
m
in
se past days expounded the mysteries of the vario
modes of capital punishment — quartering, rending b
dogs, impalement, decapitation — and with what grea
care he thereupon sought to prove that the robber should
not let himself be caught; but if unfortunately caught, how
he must seek by all possible means to escape. Of what
help had his science been to him? So little may we avoid
our karm
—
rhaps in this or perhaps in some former life.
To me it seemed as though he stared with great
earnestness from the hollows of his empty eyes, and his
half‐open mouth called to me: “Kāmanīta! Kāmanīta! Look
closely upon me, consider well what you see. For you
also, my son, were born under a Robber Star, you also wil
tread the nightly paths of Kālī and, just as I have ended
here, so too you will also end o
Yet, strangely enough, this fantasy filled me neith
with fear nor horror, even though it was as vivid as any
sense perception.
c
ng to this supposition) to which I had up to this tim
never given any serious thought, suddenly stood before
m
92
of my sword; and again I saw myself as I bore the fainting
Vāsitthī out of a burning palace, which rang with the
voices of my robber band.
For the first time since that rrowful sight of my
lost Vāsitthī had met my eyes, my heart beat with courage
and hope, and I began to think of
future; for the first
time I wished for myself not death, but life.
Full of such pictures, I had
gone 1,000
paces when I saw before me a caravan which, evidently
coming from the opposite direction, had halted while its
leader offered up a sacrifice beside a little hillock close to
the highway.
I went up to him with a polite greeting and asked
what deity he was worshipping here.
“In this grave,” he replied, “rests the holy Vāja‐
shravas, to whose protection I owe it that, passing though
a dangerous neighbourhood, I am still able to reach home
safely and without damage to life or property. And I
advise you earnestly not to neglect to offer up a suitable
sacrifice here. For if, when you enter the wooded region,
you were to hire a hundred forest guardians, their help
would be as nothing to you compared with the protection
of this holy man.”
“My dear friend,” I replied, “this mound seems to
be only a few months old, and if a Vājashravas lies buried
beneath it, it certainly will not be any saint but the robber
of that name.”
The merchant quietly nodded assent.
“The same… certainly… I saw him impaled at this
spot. And his head is still up over the city gate. But since
he has suffered the punishment imposed by the King he
has, purged thereby from his sins, entered heaven without
spot or stain and his spirit now protects the traveller from
robbers. Over and above this, however, people say that
even during his robber life‐time he was an exceedingly
so
the
scarcely
93
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