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1 SIDDHASENA DĪVĀKARA
this his learned preceptor in a wonderfully loud voice repeated the following verse : -
अणफुल्लो फुल्ल म तोडहु मन-आरामा मा मोडहु । मणकुसुमेहिं अच्चि निरंजणु हिंडह काई वणेण वणु ।। ६२ ।।
Siddhasena tried his best to interpret this verse composed in Apabraṁsa language but could not interpret it satisfactorily. He replied in an elusive way and asked his preceptor to ask another difficulty, but the preceptor maintained his ground and asked him to give an interpretation of the same verse. At last, Siddhasena, with an air of indifference, tried to make some irrelevant meaning out of it, which was not at all satisfactory. The preceptor did not accept the interpreta-, tion whereupon Siddhasena asked him whether he could interpret the verse himself: : Then, the preceptor asked him to be attentive and explained the meaning of the verse as follows:
“Human life is a pretty little lotus ; please do not cut the lotus by the strokes of royal favours and the pride consequent upon these favours. Manage the garden in the form of your mind. Please do not render the garden in the form of the control of your mind desolate or make it a wilderness by enjoyments; worship the eternal god with the flowers of your virtues ; already you are in the wilderness of life, why do you enter: into another wilderness more dangerous than the first, in the form of the temptations of royal favours."
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