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22
One fine morning the king heard his bard describe the glory of the rising Sun in the following manner : "Indeed with the purpose of seducing (lit. make favourable) the Night, the Moon's consort, here approaches the Dawn, the messenger of the Sun. If it not be so, why, then, after waiting (for a while), does she scatter to her the pearls, under the pretext of the stars, for the sake of a fine neckless ?" The king took a clue from this and sent a Buddhist nun with a massage. The nun arrived at the palace of Madanarekha, who received her with due respect. The nun immediately began to preach the uselessness of religious faith and sexual fidelity and advocated the desirability of making the best use of youthful life by seeking personal enjoyments from wherever they were available. Finally she delivered the message of the king by means of a couplet comprising a series of questions, the answers to which conveyed the king's desire for enjoyments with Madanarekbā. The nun further entreated her to seize the opportunity afforded to her in the form of the rare favour from the king who had fallen in love with her. Madanarekba, however saw through the hollowness of her arguments, and stoutly defended the pbilosophy of abstinence and practical purity of personal character and got the nun dismissed from the palace immediately thereafter.
THIRD UCCHVĀSA :
The nun realized that blinded as he was by uncontrollable passion, the king would not be cured to normal perspective and see the impropriety in, and futility of, coveting a younger brother's wife. Yet she adviced the king to give up the idea as impossible.
The king, however, sent the nun away and, setting aside all norms of gentlemanly conduct, himself set out for the palace of Yugabahu, after the latter was sent abroad for a long time under a pretext of some political mission. Madanarekha was very much frightened at the dreadful prospects and sat with him on the same bedstead. The king congratulated her for her cleverness in dismissing the nun so as not to expose herslf. At this Madanarekhā realised the Inwardness of the king's real intentions, but she kept mum. The king took it as her undeclared consent and openly entreated her to submit to him and accept his love. Inspite of the knowledge of the king's wicked mentality, Madanrekha tries to pursuade bim to give up the attempt and reminded him of his nobie birth, and impossibility of the fulfillment of his yearnings on her part due to her vow of fidelity. The king reminded her in turn that although Yugabahu ran the affairs of the kingdom, it was he to whom everybody owned allegiance, and consequently it was her duty to accept him too as almost her husband, forgetting the trivial difference of age ! Madanarekha told him that his persistence was
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