Part 13: Meeting with Sanatkumāra

So a year passed while Mahendrasiṃha wandered over the forest in the search for Sanatkumāra. One day, after he had gone some distance in the forest, he stopped and looked at the sky, his face upturned like an astrologer. Then unconfused, he heard at once the noise of birds, ducks, curlews, haṃsas, and cranes. Revived by a wind carrying the fragrance of lotuses, he inferred, “There is a pool here.” Thinking to meet his friend, he ran like a rājahaṃsa to the pool with tears of joy. As he ran forward, he heard a song beautiful with the gāndhāragrāma,^[1] the sweet noise of flutes, and the delightful sound of lutes. He saw his friend, Sanatkumāra, pleasing to the sight, in the midst of young women with brilliant garments and ornaments.

“Is that my dear friend? Or is it some one’s trickery? Or is it magic? Or has he come from my heart?” As he was thinking this, he heard this elixir for the ears recited by a bard: “O Sanatkumāra, haṃsa to the pool of the Kuru race, moon to the ocean of Aśvasena, Manobhava to good fortune, long live! O tree, supporting creepers of the arms of Vidyādhara-women, becoming rich by the wealth from victory over the two rows of Vaitāḍhya, long live!”

After hearing that, he advanced into Sanatkumāra’s range of vision, like an elephant, burned by the heat, into the ocean. Falling at his lotus-feet simultaneously with a flood of tears from joy, he was embraced by Sanatkumāra who had risen and raised him up. Both shed tears of joy, like clouds in the rainy season, astonished at their unexpected meeting with each other. With hair erect from joy, they sat down on costly seats watched by the Vidyādhara-princes with astonishment. Their eyes and minds were on each other and nothing else, like yogis engaged in the position of meditation on the form of the Tīrthaṅkaras.^[2] Then Mahendrasiṃha’s weariness was destroyed by union with Prince Sanatkumāra, like disease by a divine healing herb. Wiping tears of joy from his eyes, Sanatkumāra said to Mahendrasiṃha in a voice with a flood of nectar:

“How have you come here? And why are you alone? And how did you know I was here? And how have you spent the time? And how did my honored father live on separation from me? And why did my parents send you alone into this inaccessible place?”

Questioned thus by the prince, Mahendrasiṃha, his voice choked with tears, related his past adventures just as they happened. Then Sanatkumāra had him fed, bathed, et cetera, by skilful Vidyādhara-women. After that, Mahendrasiṃha, his eyes wide open with astonishment, his hands folded respectfully, said to Sanatkumāra: “Please tell me how far you were carried away by the horse then; and what else happened to you during separation from me, beginning with that; and whence this magnificence, if this is not a secret of yours which must be concealed from me.”

At these words Sanatkumāra reflected in his mind: “Nothing at all must be concealed from this friend who is like myself. Noble men are embarrassed at their experiences being related even by others, though truthfully; how can I tell my own adventures? Let it be thus.” With these reflections Aśvasena’s son instructed his wife seated at his left side, “My dear Bakulamatikā, knowing (all) there is to be known by means of a magic art, tell my true story to Mahendrasiṃha. Now sleep is making buds of my lotus-eyes.”

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

See I, n. 79.

[2]:

See I, n. 409.