Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 3

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Helen M Johnson
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

Page 50

ŚREYĀNSANĀTHACARITRA
21
messenger traveled with excellent charioteers and horsemen to Potanapura in a few days, like his master's splendor embodied. There King Prajāpati, adorned with all his ornaments, accompanied by Acala and Triprstha and many vassals; surrounded by distinguished persons, generals, ministers, priests, et cetera, like Päsabhột (Varuņa) by seamonsters; magnificent like a god, was staging unconcernedly a concert with dancers engaged in various dancesteps, postures, 34 gestures, 85 and leaps, with the hollow of the sky resounding with the noise of sounding drums, with flutes that had become like restorers of life by the flood of beautiful, clear song, with notes of wide-spread grāmarāgas made on lutes, with songs commenced with harmonious time.
Candavega suddenly entered the assembly, his course unhindered by the door-keepers, just like a flash of lightning. When Prajāpati with his vassals had noticed that he had come unexpectedly, he rose hastily to greet the master's messenger like the master. With great respect the king seated him on a seat and asked all the news about the master. The concert was interrupted suddenly by his arrival, like the study of the scriptures merely by the sight of lightning. All the concert-performers went to their respective homes. For there is no favorable opportunity for artists when the master's mind is engaged elsewhere.
When Triprstha saw that he had stopped the show, he was very angry and asked some bystander: “Look ! who is this man who does not know the suitable time, an animal in the form of a man, that enters my father's assembly, without announcing his arrival ? Why did my father rise in haste to greet him when he saw him? Why was he not restrained by the door-keeper when he entered?” The man replied to Triprstha: “He is certainly
34 283. See Nātyaśāstra 4. 61 ff. 36 283. There are 32 of these. Abhi. 2. 196; Nātyaśāstra 4. 176 ff.