Part 10: Reincarnation of Vasu (fourth of Malli’s six former friends)

Now Vasu’s jīva fell from Vaijayanta and became King Śaṅkha in Vārāṇasī. One day Malli’s pair of divine earrings was broken and his goldsmiths were ordered by the king to mend it. “Your Majesty, we cannot mend this divine article,” they said, and the king in a rage expelled them from the city. They went to Vārāṇasī and told King Śaṅkha the whole story as the cause of their exile. They described to the king Malli’s marvelous beauty, which was connected with the business of the earrings, which they had seen entirely uninjured. The moon became a subject of comparison with her face, the bimba with her lips, the conch with her neck, the lotus-stalk with her arm, the middle part of a thunderbolt with her waist, an elephant’s trunk with her thigh, a river’s whirlpool with her navel, a mirror with her hip, a deer’s leg with her leg, a lotus with her hand and foot—(all of) which had been the objects of comparison^[1] in the case of others. As a result of the bond of former affection and the hearing of her beauty, Śaṅkha sent a messenger to seek Mallī from Kumbha.