________________
5. Young Vardhaman
and the Cobra
N
y
visit to Kundagram was really proving to be a boon. Ajja
Sarika told me about Queen Trishla's wonderful dreams and about Bhagwan Mahavir's birth. I wanted Maharaja Nandivardhan to tell me more but he was busy talking to someone else. Many people had gathered around us while Ajja Sarika was narrating the story. Some of them were old enough to have personally known the prince. I asked if anyone had known Mahavir as a child.
"Do you mean Prince Vardhaman?" said one of them. "We used to play with him in the palace gardens, and sometimes in nearby forests. Our Prince was always charming and fair, never treating us as commoners. He showered us with friendship and love."
“I remember the day when Vardhaman boldly handled a vicious cobra and treated it with compassion and kindness.” said another person. "We were playing under a giant Banyan tree when we suddenly noticed a huge black cobra. Perhaps we had unknowingly disturbed it, as it was in the attack position with its hood raised. One of us sounded the alarm and we all started running away, frightened and screaming. Some of us picked up stones and tried to throw these at the cobra from a safe distance. We screamed, 'Run!..., kill it, kill it!"
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