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CHAPTER THREE
"Friend, what have you done, bringing disgrace on both families, that you are pregnant when your husband is in a foreign country, wretch! My son's fault through ignorance in his contempt for you I knew, but for so long a time I did not know that you were licentious."
Abused in this way by her mother-in-law, Añjanasundari tearfully showed the ring as a token of her husband's visit. Her face bent from shame, she was reviled again by her mother-in-law:
"How would there be any meeting with him who has not spoken your name? How can you deceive us by a mere ring? Licentious women know many kinds of deceit. Leave my house now, harlot! Go to your father's house. Do not stay here. This is not such a place."
170
Blaming Añjana in this way like a pitiless Rākṣasī, she instructed guards to take her to her father's house. They put her in a conveyance with Vasantatilakā, took her near the town Mahendra and, weeping, set her free. After bowing to her like a mother and begging forgiveness, they went away. For servants have the same conduct for the master's child as the master. Then the sun set, as if pained by her pain. For the noble can not endure seeing a calamity of the noble. She passed the night miserably, awake, her ears burst, as it were, by the terrible hootings of owls, by the calls of female jackals, by the howls of packs of wolves, by the many noises of porcupines, and by the sounds of ichneumons, like concerts of Rākṣasas. At dawn she got up, wretched, and went slowly from shame, like a modest woman, to the door of her father's house, unattended like a mendicant nun." 136 After the door-keeper had seen her and questioned her respectfully, he told the king her condition as described by her friend. His face dark and bowed from shame, the king thought: 'The conduct of women is as unpredictable as the results of destiny. Añjana, unchaste, has come to the house to But Vasantatilaka accompanied her. Bhiksuki would not They never went alone.
186 136. be a Jain nun.
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