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EMANCIPATION OF AJITA SVĀMIN AND SAGARA 187
After these reflections, the King questioned the ministers, etc., 'What is it?' and they told the story of Jvalanaprabha. Struck by that news like an axe, the King fell to the ground in a swoon, shaking the earth. The mothers of the princes fell swooning to the ground. For the grief of fathers and mothers at the loss of sons is equal. A great cry arose from the people in the palace like that of animals inside the caves of the ocean-bank. The ministers, etc., wept distressingly, blaming themselves excessively as witnesses of the death of the master's sons. As if unable to look at such a state of the master, the door-keepers sobbed, their faces covered with their hands. Abandoning their weapons though dearer than life, the body-guard rolled on the ground, lamenting, like trees blown down by the wind. The chamberlains wept violently, bursting their jackets like partridges that had fallen into a forest-fire. Beating their breasts like an enemy that had been found after a long time, the men and women servants wailed, saying, 'We are killed.'
By fanning and sprinkling with water they restored consciousness, which drives in the arrow of pain, to the King fallen on the ground. Their clothes soiled by collyrium and tears, their cheeks and eyes covered by creepers of disarranged hair, their necklaces broken by blows on their breasts, the pearls of their bracelets crushed from rolling on the ground violently, sending out breath just like smoke from the fire of pain, the King's wives wept with parching throats and lips. The King, abandoning firmness, shame, and discernment all at one time, like the queens, lamented:
“O princes, where are you? Return from your wandering. Now is the suitable time for you to take sovereignty and for Sagara to take the vow. Why does no one speak? The Brāhman spoke the truth. I have been robbed by a god like a thief knowing tricks, alas ! O miserable god, where are you? Where are you, Jvalanaprabha ? Where have you gone, after doing this thing unsuitable for
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