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JAIN JOURNAL
Vol XXIX
No.1 July
1994
JOURNEY TO THE HOME IN THE LOTUS
Leona Smith Kremser (Jaina tradition has nothing but fragments from the life of the bride of the twenty-second Wayshower, Aristanemi,circa 1500 BC. She was abandoned on her wedding day yet she refused a second husband. She became a solitary, wandering nun, she encountered an errant monk. At disunion, she took a hushed liberation from rebirth on Mt. Girnar in northwest India. Journey is a biographical recreation, her lifestory as it might have been. For errors, in fact and in vision, the poet begs to be excused.)
Tears, the Times of Empty Hands.
Old Dwarka-city was on a sun-bright holiday. The king's banners fluttered on the bluish seabreeze, The common folk were merry in their tinsel streets, And in a roadside pen bided food-animals for a feast. It was the wedding day of the veiled jewel of the palace.
Rajimati looked down from a high palace window. What she saw was the wedding procession, coming on : Drums, high-stepping flutes, vassals strewing roses For the sinew of the ruling warrior clan, the Yadavas, The princes of the blood on round-hipped war horses, Fiery Bhil tribesmen and marching squares of bowmen. But the bows were unstrung, the princes were outriders For the great ceremonial chariot, a rolling sun Where, hidden under the dome, rode the stranger.
Cousin-brother to Krishna, the king had told her. Mere lad, yet heavy-in-shoulder, with the Yadava jaw, A fit husband to fulfill her destiny as wife and mother. "In obedience to tradition," King Ugrasen had said, "You will follow your husband to his home."
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