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THE EPISODE OF SAGARACANDRA
245 Nārada went and told Sāgara about her love. Seeing that Sāgara had fallen into the ocean of separation from her, his mother and other princes became very distressed.
Then Sāmba came there and, standing behind Sāgaracandra in such a state of mind, covered his eyes with his hands. Sāgara said, “ Are you Kamalāmelā here?” Sāmba replied, “I am Kamalāmela."233 Naişadhi said: “You alone will cause Kamalā to meet me. Enough of thinking about other devices." Sāmba did not agree to this proposition, but was made to agree by all the princelings who made him drink much wine and tricked him. When he had become sober, Šāmba thought: “Why did I promise this wicked thing! Nevertheless, this must be carried out.”
Then, after recalling Prajñapti, śāmba went with the other princes to a garden on the day of Nabhaḥsena's marriage. He had Kamalāmelā brought there from the house by the goddess (Prajñapti) and married her, infatuated, to Sāgaracandra properly. When the partisans of her father and father-in-law did not see her in the house, searching here and there, they went to the garden. When they saw Kamalāmelā in the midst of the Yadus who had assumed the forms of Khecaras, they told Vişnu. Angered, Krşņa approached Kamalāmelā’s abductors and attacked, wishing to kill them. For he was not tolerant of bad conduct.
Assuming his own form, Samba took Sāgaracandra with Kamalāmelā and fell at Krşņa's feet. Embarrassed, Kršņa said: “What is this you have done, wretch, that Nabhaḥsena, a refugee, has been so deceived, alas! What is to be done for him now?” Keśava informed Nabhaḥsena and gave Kamalāmelā to Sāgara, no one else. Nabhaḥsena, unable to do an injury (to them), from that time always watched for a weak point in Sāgaracandra.
233 62. This is one of those double meanings impossible to translate. Kamalāmelā, the girl's name, means 'a meeting with Kamalā.' It needs only a change of quantity in the final vowel to make it a man's name, of course.
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