“It depends, father, on who e proposal proves to
be most acceptable. I know that Nimi wants to propose
spraying with water.”
“I don’t know it,” said my father.
“No — Nimi learnt it
outh, where it is all
the fashion. The players fil
canes with water and
spray one anoth
d whoever becomes wettest has lost.
It is very amusin
sting
mba.”
layers
e another,
olden blossoms, serve as magnificent weapons. The
st of the blossoms, so
at t
y
‐
e
re
e it, as it is an evidence of your senti‐
p
t
s over, so
at t
s
in the
l bamboo
S
er, an
g. But Koliyā thinks of sugge
Kada
My father shook his head: “I don’t know that
either.”
“Oh! that is much in favour at present. The p
first divide into two parties. These then attack on
and the branches of the Kadamba shrub, with its great
g
wounds are recognisable from the du
th
he umpires are able to decide without difficult
which party has won. The game is bracing, and has some
thing dainty about it. I myself, however, intend to propos
the wedding game.”
“That is a good old game,” said my father, with a
decided smirk, “and I am greatly delighted that you a
minded to propos
ments. From play to the real thing...” he paused, “the ste
is not an excessively long one.”
As he said this he again smirked, with such eviden
satisfaction that it made my very flesh creep.
“Yes, son,” he went on, “talking of that leads me
straight to what brought me to you today. You have, on
your many business journeys, by your capacity and good
fortune multiplied our possessions many time
th
he prosperity of our business has become proverbial
in Ujjenī. On the other hand, however, you have also
quaffed the delights of youth’s freedom in unstinted
draughts. As a result of the former, you are well able to
105
provide for a household of your own. And from the latter,
foll
ink
ke
e,
e,
stem of the young Pisang, while her full
ips l
e
her many and so poetically extolled charms left
e ut
s
illingly than before and in the
f solely with business matters.
it
ows that it is also time for you to do so, and to th
of spinning the thread of our race farther. In order to ma
things very easy for you, dear son, I have sought out a
bride for you in advance. She is Sītā, the eldest daughter of
our neighbour Sañjaya, the great merchant, and has just
recently reached marriageable age. As you can perceiv
she comes from a family of like standing with our own,
respected and very rich, and she has a large number of
relatives both on her father’s and mother’s side. Her body
is faultless; her hair, of the blackness of the bee; her fac
like the moon in its beauty; eyes, like a young gazelle’s; a
nose like a blossom of the sesame; teeth like pearls; and
Bimba lips, from which there comes the voice of the
Kokila, so rarely sweet is it. And her limbs delight the
heart as does the
h
end to her carriage the easy majesty of the royal
elephant. It is not possible, therefore, that you could hav
anything to object to in her.”
I had indeed nothing to find fault with, save per‐
haps that
m
terly cold. And I admit that among the details of the
wedding ceremony, in the prescribed three nights of
renunciation — during which I had to eat no seasoned
food, sleep on the floor and keep the hearth‐fire alight —
preserving the strictest celibacy in the company of my
young wife was, amongst all the others, the least irksome
to me.
*
*
*
An unloved wife, brother, does not make one’
home dear, nor its four walls attractive, so I took myself
on journeys almost more w
intervals concerned mysel
106
A
s I — to give the truth its due — did not deal too
nd a
k
I
y native town.
tly
in the
e
ose
thin these fair domains I now gave fabulous
,
nt
g in
scrupulously in these, but without much hesitation too
what was to my own advantage on every occasion, my
riches increased to such an extent that, after a few years,
found myself near to the goal of my ambition and was one
of the richest citizens of m
With that happy state of things, as master of a
house and father of a family (Sītā had in the meantime
borne us two beautiful daughters: Ambā and Tambā) there
came the desire to taste the sweets of my riches abundan
and especially to make a display of them before my fellow‐
citizens. To that end I purchased a large tract of land
suburbs and laid out a magnificent pleasure‐garden, in th
midst of which I built a spacious mansion with halls wh
ceilings were borne aloft on marble pillars. This property
was reckoned among the marvels of Ujjenī and even the
King came to see it.
Wi
garden parties and the most luxurious of banquets, for I
had now begun to devote myself more and more to the
pleasures of the table. The most luscious morsels which
were to be had for money were always served, even at
ordinary meals. At that time I was not as you see me now
lean and weathered by lone wanderings, by life in the
woods and ascetic practices; rather I was of a full endowme
of body — indeed, even inclined to be somewhat portly.
And it became, O stranger, a proverbial sayin
Ujjenī: “His table is like the merchant Kāmanīta’s.”
107
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