to every succeeding sentence as if to deepen its meaning
and to make clear what the words could not convey — at
these words wove a strangely mystical sound‐picture. And
d‐
won‐
o
e,
it appeared to the listening Kāmanīta as if in his mind en
less depths revealed themselves, in whose shadows dim
memories stirred without being able to awaken.
“The greatest wonder?” said he, after a pause. “I
imagined that of all wonderful things here the most
derful was that splendid stream which empties itself int
our lake.”
“The Heavenly Gangā,” nodded the blue.
“The Heavenly Gangā,” repeated Kāmanīta dream‐
ily and again there came over him, only in added degre
that feeling of something which he ought to know and yet
was not able to know; which the mysterious music
seemed to seek, in the profoundest depths of his own
being, as if for the sources of that stream.
184
~ 23 ~
T
HE ROUNDELAY OF THE BLESSÈD
W
ITH A GASP OF astonishment Kāmanīta now
noticed that a white figure, throned not far from him
on her lotus flower, suddenly seemed to grow upward.
The mantle, with its piled‐up mass of folds and corners,
unrolled itself until it flowed down in straight lines
from her shoulders to the golden border. And even
this no longer touched the petals of the flower — the
figure swept away untrammelled over the pond, up the
bank and disappeared between the trees and shrubbery.
*
*
*
“How glorious that must be,” thought Kāmanīta.
“But that is, I imagine, a very difficult accomplishment,
although it looks as if it were nothing. I wonder whether I
shall ever be able to learn it.”
“You are able now; all you
to do is desire it,”
answered his neighbour in blue, to whom the last question
was addressed.
Instantly Kāmanīta had the feeling that something
was lifting his body upward. He was already floating away
across the pond towards the bank and soon he was in the
midst of the greenery. Whithersoever his glance was
directed, there his flight followed, soon as the wish was
formed, and as quickly or slowly a he desired. He now
saw other lotus pools equally splendid as the one he had
have
as
s
187
just left. He wandered on through
arming groves where
birds of bright colours sprang from branch to branch, their
melodious songs blending with the soft rustling of the
tree‐tops. He floated over flower‐strewn valleys where
graceful antelopes trotted and played without fearing him
in the least, and finally he let himself down on the gentle
slope of a hill. Between the trunks of trees and flowering
shrubs he saw the corner of a lake where the water
sparkled round large lotus blossoms, several of whose
flower‐thrones bore blissful figures, while several others,
even of the perfectly opened ones, were empty.
It was plainly a moment of communal festivity. As
on a warm summer evening fire‐flies circle hither and
thither under the trees and round about the shrubbery in
noiseless, luminous movement, so here these radiant
forms swayed singly and in pairs, in large groups of
chains, through the groves and around the rocks. At the
same time it was possible to see from their glances and
gestures that they were conversing animatedly with one
another, and one could easily divine the invisible threads
of the exchanges which were being carried on between
the noiseless passers‐by.
In a state of sweet and dreamy shyness Kāmanīta
enjoyed this charming spectacle, until gradually there
grew in him a desire to converse with these happy ones.
Immediately he was surrounded by a whole com‐
pany who greeted him kindly as the newly arrived, the
just‐awakened one.
Kāmanīta wondered much, and inquired how it
was that the news of his coming had already been spread
abroad all over Sukhavatī.
“Oh! when a lotus opens itself all the other lotus
flowers in the lakes of Paradise are moved, and every
being is conscious that another has somewhere among us
awakened into bliss.”
ch
188
“But how could you know that I happened to be
the newcomer?”
The figures floating around im smiled charmingly.
“You are not yet fully awake. You look at us as
though you are seeing dream‐figures and are afraid that
we might suddenly disapp
that rude reality will
once again surro
you.”
Kāmanīta s
“I don’t qu
eam‐figures?”
“You forget,” said one white‐robed figure, “that he
eard of it. My neighbour on the lake mentioned it; the
nd us
e. What is there
bout it?”
nd round about the foot of the hill and so,
y ea
d.
h
ear, and
und
hook his head.
ite understand. What are dr
has not yet been to the Coral Tree.”
“No, I have not yet been there. But I have already
h
tree is said to be such a wo
ro
on
a
But they all smiled mysteriously, looking at one
another and shaking their heads.
“I would like so much to go there at once. Will no
one show me the way?”
“You will find the way yourself when the time
comes.”
Kāmanīta drew his hand over his forehead.
“There is yet another wonderful thing here of
which he spoke... yes, the Heavenly Gangā... by it our
lake is fed. Is that so with yours also?”
The white‐robed figure pointed to the clear little
river that wou
b
sy turnings, onward to the pool.
“That is our Source. Countless such arteries inter‐
sect these fields, and that which you have seen is a similar
one, even if somewhat larger. But the Heavenly Gangā
itself surrounds the whole of Sukhavatī.”
“Have you also seen it?”
The white‐robed one shook her hea
“Is it not possible to go there, then?”
189
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