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CHAPTER TWO Kuliśabāhu, resembling Indra (Kuliśabhrt), was king there, his command borne like a wreath by hundreds of kings. His chief-queen was Sudarsanā, fair in form, the recipient of extreme affection. He experienced pleasures of the senses, sporting with her like the earth embodied, without doing injury to the other objects of existence.
His life completed, in course of time the god Vajranābha fell from Graiveyaka and descended into her womb. At dawn, lying on her couch, Queen Sudarśanā saw the fourteen great dreams indicating the birth of a cakrabhịt. Delighted by the dreams as explained by her husband, she passed the time. At the right time she bore a son, like the east bearing the sun. .
After holding the birth-festival, the king gave him the name, Suvarnabāhu, with a great festival again. Being passed from lap to lap by nurses and kings, he crossed childhood slowly, like a traveler a river. He learned all the arts easily from the impression on his mind from previous births and he reached fresh youth, the abode of Love. Suvarnabāhu was without a counterpart in the world in beauty, invincible in courage, and gentle with a wealth of good-breeding. The king, depressed by existence, knew that his son was competent and, after importuning him, installed him on the throne, but became a mendicant himself. With his command unbroken on earth he (Suvarnabāhu), like Indra in Saudharma, continued to enjoy pleasures, immersed in the nectar of happiness.
One day he went out for sport, attended by thousands of kings, mounted on a new horse that was like an eighth horse of the Sun's horses.327 Wishing to test the horse's speed, the king struck him with a whip and he ran away very fast like a deer, a mount of Marut.328 The more the king pulled on the bridle, the faster he ran because of inverted training. Like Garuda on foot, like the wind embodied, the horse outdistanced
327 211. The sun has seven horses. 328 212. God of wind.
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