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LIFE OF MAHÁVÍRA.
77
strung together, and with the garlands falling down in the form of a necklace. Take then black aloe-wood, and other kinds of sweet-smelling incense, and light them, so as to produce wreaths of delightful perfumes, filling the whole place with sweet odours. Order dancers, and pole dancers, wrestlers, boxers, jesters, story-tellers, reciters of poetry, ballad singers, players on cymbals, on tambourines, and on wind and stringed instruments, along with those who toss up poles, and double balls, all to be present, and aid in the rejoicings.” Having received the King's commands, the royal messengers*, glad and rejoicing, and making suitable obeisance, went through the city executing the King's orders, and then returned to report that they had fulfilled all his commands. This morning King Siddhartha went to the gymnasium, exercised himself, bathed, and dressed as above narrated. Then, arrayed in his royal robes, accompanied by his guards, and players on all kinds of musical instruments, he stepped into his palanquin of state, and ordered proclamations to be made, as he went through the city, hy sound of conchs, drums, tabours, cymbals, and tambourines, that there should be a release of all presents
* These are the Kadambiya we before met with, and who at the commencement of this paragraph are in the original mentioned by words that mean as translated--Messengers-at-Arms.
