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ARIŞTANEMI’S SPORT, INITIATION, OMNISCIENCE 261 came there, bowed to Nemi and said, “ Lord, found a congregation.” The Blessed One began to give gifts for a year with money supplied by the Jşmbhaka-gods at Vāsava's command.
When she had seen Nemi turned back and had heard him longing for the vow, Rūjimati fell to the ground, like a creeper whose tree has been taken away. Her friends, terrified, sprinkled her with fragrant cool water and fanned her with fans made from plantain-leaves. When she had regained consciousness and had got up, her hair fallen on her cheeks, her bodice wet from a stream of tears, she lamented:
“ There was no desire on my part that Nemi should be my husband. By whom were you asked, Fate, that Nemi was made my husband? Why did you make a reversal suddenly, like a blow with a staff? You alone are a deceiver and a destroyer of confidence. However, this was known before by me from lack of confidence in my own good fortune. On the one hand, Nemi as husband, the best in three worlds; on the other hand, I. If I was known to be unsuitable for you, Nemi, why by agreeing to the marriage did you create the wish in me ? And having created it, master, why was the wish broken? For the promise of the great is firm as long as life. If you depart from your promise, lord, the oceans will surely cross their boundaries. However, it was not your fault, but the fault of my karma, that I attained taking your hand only verbally. The beautiful shrine of the divine mothers, 240 the divine pavilion, the jeweled altar, and everything else for our marriage became useless. What was sung in auspicious songs—all that was not true. Such is the truth: you were hymned in the beginning as my husband, but you did not become my husband. What separation of husband and wife did I make in a former birth that I did not attain the happiness of touching the hand of a husband?”
With such lamentations, she beat her breast with her lotus-hands, broke her necklace, and struck together her
240 220. Mātřgsha. See I, p. 141 and n. 183.
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