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Life and Stories of Pārçvanātha
profesied that Padmā would be the wife of the Cakravartin Suvarnabāhu,carried there by a run-away horse. The king, recognizing the hand of destiny, asked to see the Sage. The maiden (whose name turned out to be Nandā) told him that the Sage had gone to pay his respects to another Muni, but would return on that day. Then an old nun told Nandā to go with Padmā to greet the Sage. Nandā reported to the Sage the king's arrival, whereupon he extoled the profet who had predicted it. Together with the ladies he went to do honor to the king, who received him with distinction. The Sage told him of the profesy, and the pair were wedded by the Gandharva rite of marriage (69).
Padmā's stepbrother, Padmottara, a Vidyādhara king, arrived, paid his respects to Suvarnabāhu, and bade him follow him to the mountain of Vāitādhya, there to assume lordship over the Vidyādharas. The king consented. With Padmā he mounted the heaven-going chariot of the Vidyādhara. Padmā mourned her separation from her mother, the hermitage maidens, the gazelles, and the flowers she had been tending (80). Pointing out her glorious destiny, Ratnāvali consoled her, bidding her live as an exemplar of wifely devotion. They arrived at the mountain of Vāitādhya, where Suvarnabāhu was consecrated king of the Vidyādharas. After staying there for some time he returned to his own city (96). He acquired the fourteen great jewels,10 celebrated the great festival (mahotsava) of eighteen days, and dispatched the wheel of sovereignty from his armory into the easterly direc
Predestined marriages, a cliché of Hindu fiction, recur in this text, 5. 168; 8. 168.
10 In Buddhist texts (Mahảvastu, p. 108 of Senart's edition); Mahasudassana Sutta (Sacred Books of the East, xi. 251 ff.) seven jewels' of the Cakravartin are mentioned. So also Kathăn. 101. 23.
