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CHAPTER THREE bound by a tiara;129 but then Nala bound her feet by tearing up his own garment. Nala fanned Bhima's daughter, who sat exhausted under a tree, with a fan made from the end of his garment. Nala made quickly a cup from leaves of the palāśa and gave a drink of water to her, like a thirsty maina in a cage.
Bhima's daughter asked him: 'How big, now, is this forest? My heart trembles as if to break in two here.' Nala replied: This forest lasts for a hundred yojanas, dear. We have covered just five yojanas. Take courage.' While they were proceeding in the forest, talking to this effect, the sun set, as if emphasizing the impermanence of prosperity.
Nala gathered aśoka blossoms, stripped them of stalks and, intelligent, made a couch for Davadanti. He said to his wife: 'Lie down and adorn the couch. Give a chance to sleep. It is a friend for forgetting pain.' Bhaimi said: 'King, I think there is a village not far from here to the west. Listen to the lowing of the cows. Going on a little, we shall go to this village and pass the night comfortably asleep there.' Nala said: 'Timid lady, that is a hermitage of ascetics. They, wrong-believers, are always associated with unfavorable consequences. For right belief is spoiled just by meeting (Brāhman) ascetics, like good milk by vinegar, slenderwaisted lady. Sleep comfortably here. Do not think of them. I shall be your guard like the chamberlain himself.'
Remembering his wife's cotton covering, Nala threw half of his upper garment on the couch of blossoms. After homage to the god, the Arhat, and recalling the formula to the five, 130 Vaidarbhi lay there like a hansi on the bank of the Gangā. When Vaidarbhi's eyes were sealed in sleep, Kośalā's lord felt anxiety like a whirlpool in the ocean of calamity.
129 502. With a double meaning of pațțabandha as tiara' and a bandage of cloth.'
130 516. The 5 Parameşthins. See I, n. 71. It is usually called simply * namaskāra.
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