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The Wheel of Joy and Sorrow
293
suffer injustice. An innocent life should not wither away in the bud. Therefore you must... reconsider your attitude towards her. This is your duty. It is your moral duty to re-examine the whole matter".
Pavananjay was silent. He did not show any reaction to the words spoken by Prahasit. Prahasit gave up all hopes of a reconciliation between Pavananjay and Anjana; and stopped speaking. He too began making preparations for the war.
The news of Pavananjay's preparations for the war spread throughout the city. When Anjana heard about it, she sat like a stone-image still and motionless. The creeper of her life was sure to wither away, caught in the coils of the pangs of separation from her husband. It could grow green and put forth tender sprouts only if it was watered with the love of her husband, Pavananjay but she now knew the fundamental doctrines of Karma and Dharma. Therefore, even after a lapse of twentytwo years, she kept her love for her husband glowing like a sacred light in her heart.
How careful and cautious was Anjana! How sensible and sagacious she was! She kept her mind and heart under her control. This is an excellence even in great men. We may develop love and affection for a person but when we come to know that, that beloved person has no love or affection for us we too stop loving that person, though our love for the person may be worldly or ideal. This is the way of the world but the way of great people is different from this. Their love is imperishable. They may come to know that a certain person who loved them and they loved has ceased to love them but they do not find fa with that person. They say, “Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth”. They think that it is on account of their own sinful Karmas that they are deprived of the love of that person. They think. “We have become worthy of contempt b own sinful actions. Even if that person does not love us, we will continue to love that person”. But some people think thus, "If that person loves us we too shall love him; otherwise not”. This is the way of ignoble persons. This is a kind of business or bargain but Anjana did not belong to this class of women.
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