Part 6: Vasudeva leaves home

Dismissed by Jarāsandha after entertaining him, King Samudravijaya went to his city, attended by his brothers. The women of the city always followed Vasudeva when he went around Śauryapura, as if powerfully drawn by a charm, bewildered by his beauty. Samudravijaya’s younger brother spent some time going here and there for amusement, his beauty like magic for women.

One day the leading men of the town went to the king and told him confidentially: “The women have become out of bounds from Vasudeva’s beauty. Any woman who sees Vasudeva even once becomes quite helpless, to say nothing of those who see him constantly as he goes about.” Saying, “We shall do what you wish,” the king dismissed them. “You must not tell (his to Vasudeva,” he said to his retinue.

The next day Samudravijaya took Vasudeva on his lap, when he came to pay his respects, and said: “You have become thin from roaming about for amusement. So you must not go out in the daytime. You must stay in my house, nowhere else. Learn new arts; refresh the ones learned earlier. You will have recreation from the circle of artists, son.” Vasudeva said: “Very well,” courteously and stayed at home in that way. He passed the days with amusements, singing, dancing, et cetera.

One day he saw a hunchbacked girl who happened to come there bringing perfume. He asked, “For whom is this perfume?” and she replied, “Prince, this perfume has been ordered now by Queen Śivā herself for Śrīmat Samudravijaya.” Saying, “This is useful to me,” Prince Vasudeva took the perfume for a joke. Angry, she said, “Because of just such behavior, you are kept here.” He said, “How is that?” Very much frightened, she told him the incident of the townsmen from the beginning. Truly, a secret is not fixed long in the heart of a woman.

“The king thinks me to be such a person, ‘Vasudeva roams about to ingratiate himself with women of the town.’ Enough of my living here.” With these thoughts he dismissed the slave-girl. In the evening he assumed another appearance by means of a pill and left the city. He went outside, built a funeral pyre from wood near the cemetery and had an unclaimed corpse burnt on it. Vasudeva wrote a note with his own hand, to ask forgiveness of his parents, and hung it on a post.^[1]

“Since virtues are reported by the people to the parents as a fault, Vasudeva, considering himself dead though alive, entered the fire. Then may you all, parents and townspeople, pardon completely my fault, whether it exists or not, conjectured by yourselves.”

A woman in a chariot, going to her father’s house, saw Vasudeva dressed like a Brahman, after he had done this and had wandered off the road, going on the right road, and said to her nurse, “Take this tired Brahman into the chariot.” After doing this, she reached the village.

After bathing and eating there, Vasudeva went in the evening to a Yakṣa’s temple. “The Yādavas have learned that Vasudeva has entered the fire. They and their attendants performed funeral rites with lamentations.” After hearing that news, Vasudeva, free from anxiety, went to the city Vijayakheṭa.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Dr. Sandesara (Cultural Data in the Vasudeva-Hiṇḍi, JOI X, p. 15) thinks the pillar in the cremation-ground was probably there to help strangers identify the place.