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liked to clean it, may be a seat for studying or may be a bed. The Gopalikā nuns reminded her that it is not proper for the members of their order to be given so much to bodily decoration, and they objected to her over-attachment to body. They suggested that she should make a confession and undergo some expiatory rites. But Sukumarikä did not take them seriously and the nuns started ridiculing her and even insulting her. She too in her own way had lost patience with them. She clearly saw that the nuns did not have any respect for her ever since she came to live amongst them. Their attitude was distinctly different when she was the mistress of herself and lived with her father. She quickly left them and went to live elsewhere where she led the life of a nun for many years without any discipline. She led a bad life. She was getting more and more fond of thinking and dreaming of sexual pleasures in her thoughts and feelings and when she died, she did not even confess the sin nor did she undergo any penance for it. Her next birth was as a celestial courtesan in one of the Vimanas of the I sana-Kalpa. She lived there for nine Palyopamas.
When her term there ended, she was sent into this world as a daughter of king Drupada of Kampilyapura in the Pañcala country and his queen Culani. On the twelfth day after her birth she was given the name of Draupadi. She grew happily and comfortably, reared by five nurses like a campaka creeper sheltered in a mountain cave, safe from storms and bad weather. She developed an excellent figure. Her beauty was extraordinary and her father always worried over the young man to whom she should be given as a wife. Once he said to her that if he were to marry her to any prince of his own choice, he would not be quite sure about her happiness with that man, it might even cause her life-long heart burning. Therefore, he would very much like to give her the liberty to choose her own husband. Her parents would gladly accept her choice as final. Accordingly, in order that his beloved daughter should be able to exercise her own right to choose her own husband, the king decided to hold a svayamvara for her to which he invited all the young and eligible men from lands far and near. King Drupada called the first set of messengers and instructed
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