Part 9: Reincarnation of Pūraṇa (third of Malli’s six former friends)

Now Pūraṇa’s soul fell from Vaijayanta and became a king, named Rukmin, in Śrāvastī. By his wife Dhāraṇī he had a daughter Subāhu, endowed with remarkable beauty like a serpent-maiden. Because of the king’s affection, he had a special bathing ceremony^[1] made carefully by her attendants in the four months’ (rainy season). One day when she had been bathed especially by her attendants and had put on divine ornaments, she went to pay her respects to her father. Her father seated her on his lap and said to the eunuch, “Has such a bathing-ceremony of a girl been seen anywhere?” He replied: “When I went at your command to Mithilā, I saw a better one on the birthday of Malli, the daughter of Kumbha. Her beauty, my lord, whose equal has not been seen, is incomprehensible even when described, but my word must be taken for it. After I have seen this jewel of a woman, never seen before, my tongue has taken a vow of silence in describing other women. Compared with her, other women are faded like left-over flowers. What value have mango-shoots compared with the shoot of a wishing-tree?”

After hearing this, because of affection that was created, King Rukmin at once sent a messenger to Kumbha to seek Malli.