Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 5

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

Page 35

CHAPTER ONE wonderful figure. You are skilful; you are discerning.” With these words Kamalini started to go on and Dhanavati also with difficulty, absent-minded from that time. Looking backward, her face like a lotus with a twisted stalk, stumbling at every step, Dhanavati went home.
Then Dhanavati, overcome by Dhana's figure in the picture, did not take pleasure in anything, like a marāli 9 in the desert. Emaciated, she knew neither hunger nor thirst. Even at night she did not rest, like a cow-elephant brought from the forest. Recalling constantly Dhana's figure, the painted one and the described one, she frequently shook her head, twisted her fingers, and raised her eye-brows. Absorbed in meditation on Dhana, whatever she did, she did not remember it even at the time, like something done in a former birth. Massage, baths, ointment, and ornaments were abandoned. She thought of Dhana day and night, like a devotée thinking of a favorite deity.
One day Kamalini asked her, “ Lotus-eyed maiden, from what anxiety or ailment do you suffer that you are like this?” Pretending to be angry, Dhanavatī said to her: “Why do you ask just like a stranger? Do you not know? You are my second heart, or my life. You are not merely a friend. I am embarrassed by your questions.”
Kamalini said: “I have been properly rebuked, proud lady. I know your strong desire, the arrow in your heart. You are surely in love with Dhana from seeing his picture. I asked, as if I did not know that, just for fun. Knowing your infatuation on the spot, anxious from that time, I asked an astrologer whether my friend would have the husband she desired. Always showing confidence, he replied, 'She will have.' So be of good courage. Your desire will certainly be quickly accomplished.”
Consoled by her with this speech, Dhanavati became composed then. Wearing divine ornaments, she went to pay her respects to her father. After dismissing her, her father thought,
9 43. A water-fowl. Marālas are included among the harsas. Abhi. p. 534, line 2