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 62

SRI ARANATHACARITRA
27
long separation from me, are very unhappy, I shall go and comfort them. You stay here, fair lady. I shall return quickly. I cannot endure to stay any place else without you.'
Turning pale, she said: "That is well-said by you, at the mere hearing of which my life wishes to depart. It is evident that you are hard-hearted, since you are able to say that. If I were like you, I would be able to hear it.' At this reply Virabhadra said, 'Do not be angry, dear. I have thought of this means of taking you along.'
Then Virabhadra asked the king persistently for permission to go to his own country with Anaǹgasundarī. Reluctantly the king allowed Virabhadra to leave with his wife. For whom is separation from a daughter and sonin-law generally not hard to bear? Then they set out by water, embarked on a ship. Travel by land- or sea-routes is the same for the bold. The boat started, propelled by a favorable wind, like an arrow shot from the bow, like a bird started from the nest. When the ship had covered a certain distance, a great wind blew, like the wind at the end of the world. The sea rose as if at the end of the world, very terrifying, and lifted the boat, like an elephant lifting a bundle of straw. After being lifted up repeatedly and tossing about for three days, it split on a rock, like a crushed bird's-egg. At the time the ship split, Anangasundari reached one of its planks. There is no death of one whose life-period is unbroken. Tossed up and down by the waves like a hansi, after five nights Anangasundari reached a shore covered with woods. Because of separation from her relatives and going to a foreign country, because of separation from her husband, the destruction of the ship, the loss of money, the pounding by waves, miserable from hunger and thirst, like a water-animal out of water, she had fallen as if unconscious and was seen by a young ascetic compassionate by nature with a sympathetic eye.
He lifted her up and led her like a sister to the hermitage. 'Stay here without fear, daughter,' the abbot said