reminded me that my parents had only decided to send
me on such a distant journey because they knew I would
ss
.
s in vividly gloomy colours, but all that he
aid w
s
ed
our next meeting. The moonlight seemed to
e to
e
ere else in the world.
perform it in his company and under his protection.
But he could have put forward no argument le
suited to his purpose. For I at once realised that then I
should have to wait until another embassy went to
Kosambī before I could return to my Vāsitthī. No, I would
show my father that I was well able to conduct a caravan
alone through all the hardships and dangers of the road
It is true that the ambassador now painted all of
these danger
s
as spoken to the winds. Finally, in a great rage, he
left me:— He was not to blame, he barked, and I must
smart for my own folly.
To me it seemed as if I were relieved from an
insufferable burden; I had now surrendered myself com‐
pletely to my love. In this sweet realisation I fell asleep
and did not wake until it was time for us to take ourselve
to the terrace where our loved ones awaited us.
*
*
*
Night after night we came together there, and on
each occasion Vāsitthī and I discovered new treasures in
our mutual affection and bore away with us an increas
longing for
m
be more silvery, the marble cooler, the scent of th
double‐jasmines more intoxicating, the call of the Kokila
bird more languishing, the rustling of the palms more
dreamy, and the restless whispering of the Asokas more
full of mysterious promise than they could possibly have
been anywh
Oh! How distinctly can I still recall the splendid
Asoka trees which stood along the whole length of the
terrace and underneath which we so often wandered,
42
holding each other in close embrace. ‘The Terrace of the
ywhere
lse. T
,
the
ed
r
the
ple
‐
third river — for by this
ow
ng her hand, pointed to where it shone far
bove
g
p
by
se
Sorrowless’ it was called, from those trees which the poets
name The Sorrowless Tree, and sometimes Heartsease. I
have never seen such magnificent specimens an
e
he spear‐shaped sleepless leaves gleamed in the
rays of the moon and whispered in the gentle night‐wind
and in‐between them glowed the golden, orange and
scarlet flowers, although we were as yet only at the begin‐
ning of the Vasanta season. But then, brother, how should
these trees not have stood in all their glory, seeing that
Asoka opens its blossoms at once if its roots are touch
by the foot of a beautiful maiden.
One wonderful night, when the moon was at its
full, I stood beneath them with the belovèd cause of thei
early bloom, my sweet Vāsitthī. Beyond the deep shadow
of the ravine we gazed far out into the land. We saw the
two rivers before us wind like silver ribbons away over
vast plain and unite at that most sacred spot, which peo
call the Triple Union, because they believe that the Heav
enly Gangā joins them there as a
beautiful name they call the wonderful heavenly gl
which we in the South know as the Milky Way — and
Vāsitthī, raisi
a
the tree‐tops.
Then we spoke of the mighty Himalayas in the
north, whence the blessèd Gangā flows down; the
Himalayas, whose snow‐covered peaks are the dwellin
places of the gods and whose immense forests and dee
chasms have given shelter to the great ascetics. But it was
with even greater pleasure that I followed the course of
the Yamunā to where it takes its rise.
“Oh,” I called out, “if I only had a fairy ship of
mother‐of‐pearl, with my wishes for sails and steered
my will — it would carry us on the swell of that silver
stream upwards to its source. Then Hastinapura would ri
43
again from its ruins and the towering palaces would ring
up th
eat Bhīshma in his silver
armo
ed
locks,
his lofty chariot and
rain h
he valiant Phaga‐
datta
‐drunk
bull e
sweep with the
four w
est tumult
of the
his belonging
to the
s
r.
I
m a match for any man.”
e sweet aroma of the Asoka
st the
es,
with the banqueting of the revellers and the strife of the
dice‐players. Then the sands of Kurukshetra would yield
eir dead. There the gr
ur, over which would float his long white braid
would tower above the field on
is polished arrows upon the foe; t
would come dashing, mounted on his battle
lephant; the agile Krishna would
hite warrior‐steeds of Arjuna into the fierc
fight.
“Oh! How I envied the ambassador
warrior caste, when he told me that his ancestor
also had taken part in that never‐to‐be‐forgotten encounte
But that was foolish. For not only by descent do we
possess ancestors; we are our own ancestors. Where had
been then? Probably also there among the combatants. For
although I am a merchant’s son, the practice of arms has
always been my greatest delight; and it is not too much to
say that, sword in hand, I a
Vāsitthī embraced me rapturously and said:— I
must certainly have been one of the heroes who still live
on in song; which one of them of course we could not
know, as the perfume of the Coral Tree could scarcely
penetrate to us through th
blossoms.
I asked her to tell me something of the nature of
that perfume of which, to tell the truth, I had never heard,
for indeed I found that fantasy, like all other things,
blossomed far more luxuriously here in the valley of the
Gangā than it did with us more arid folk up among
mountains.
So she related to me how once, on his journeying
through Indra’s world, Krishna had, at the martial gam
won the celestial Coral Tree and had planted it in his
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