Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 4

SR No.: 001004
Original Sutra Author: Hemchandracharya
Author: Helen M Johnson
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra
Publication Year: 1954
Total Pages: 449
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Mythology, & Story
File Size: 9 MB

Page 276

THE KIDNAPING OF SITÄ
241
a
As Saumitri was wandering here and there for amusement, he came there and saw the sword, Suryahāsa, like mass of rays of the sun. He took the sword and drew it from its scabbard. For warriors are curious at sight of a new weapon. To test its sharpness Lakṣmaṇa immediately cut the bamboo-thicket which was near, cutting off a stalk. He saw the lotus-head of Sambuka, who had been within the bamboo-thicket, fall, severed, to the ground in front of him. When Saumitri entered the bamboo-thicket before him he saw the corpse hanging from a branch of the banyan.
"I have killed a man who was not fighting, unarmed. Shame on me for that act," he reproached himself. He went and told the whole story to Ramabhadra and showed him the sword. Rāma said, "This sword is Suryahāsa You have killed its worshipper. Some assistant worshipper of it is certainly to be conjectured."
Just then Daśagrīva's sister, Candraṇakhā, thinking, "Today Suryahāsa will yield to my son," hastily took food and drink for a pūjā and went there, delighted. She saw her son's head cut off, with dangling earrings. Crying, "Where are you, child! Oh! Sambúka, Sambuka," she saw the pleasing foot-prints of Lakṣmaṇa. "That is the track of the man who killed my son," and Candraṇakhă followed the foot-prints quickly. When she had gone a short distance, she saw Rāma with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa, very delightful to the eye, standing under a tree. She was infatuated with Rama as soon as she had seen him. There is a certain intentness on love in passionate women even in superabundant sorrow, alas!
After creating the form of a maiden which resembled a Naga-maiden, wounded by love, she approached Kakutstha, trembling. Ramabhadra said to her, "Fair lady, whence have you come here to this cruel Daṇḍakāranya, the sole abode of Kṛtānta?" She said: "I am the daughter of the king of Avanti. During the night while I was asleep on top of the palace, I was kidnaped by a Khecara. When