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178
CHAPTER SEVEN looked at the sky, his face upturned like an astrologer. Then unconfused, he heard at once the noise of birds, ducks, curlews, hansas, and cranes. Revived by a wind carrying the fragrance of lotuses, he inferred, “There is a pool here." Thinking to meet his friend, he ran like a rājahansa to the pool with tears of joy. As he ran forward, he heard a song beautiful with the gāndhāragrāma,237 the sweet noise of flutes, and the delightful sound of lutes. He saw his friend, Sanatkumāra, pleasing to the sight, in the midst of young women with brilliant garments and ornaments.
"Is that my dear friend? Or is it some one's trickery? Or is it magic? Or has he come from my heart?” As he was thinking this, he heard this elixir for the ears recited by a bard: “O Sanatkumāra, hansa to the pool of the Kuru race, moon to the ocean of Aśvasena, Manobhava to good fortune, long live! O tree, supporting creepers of the arms of Vidyadhara-women, becoming rich by the wealth from victory over the two rows of Vaitādhya, long live!"
After hearing that, he advanced into Sanatkumāra's range of vision, like an elephant, burned by the heat, into the ocean. Falling at his lotus-feet simultaneously with a flood of tears from joy, he was embraced by Sanatkumāra who had risen and raised him up. Both shed tears of joy, like clouds in the rainy season, astonished at their unexpected meeting with each other. With hair erect from joy, they sat down on costly seats watched by the Vidyadharaprinces with astonishment. Their eyes and minds were on each other and nothing else, like yogis engaged in the position of meditation on the form of the Tirthankaras.238 Then Mahendrasinha's weariness was destroyed by union with Prince Sanatkumāra, like disease by a divine healing herb. Wiping tears of joy from his eyes, Sanatkumāra said to Mahendrasinha in a voice with a flood of nectar:
"How have you come here? And why are you alone? And how did you know I was here? And how have you
287 152. See I, n. 79. 288 162. See I, n. 409.
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