Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 6

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

Page 156

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CHAPTER FOUR delight to the sheth like the night of a full moon to the ocean. When Mūlā saw Candanā naturally beautiful and especially so from youth, jealous, she thought:
“Even though he received her as a daughter, if, infatuated with her beauty, he should marry her, I would be dead, even though alive, alas!” From then on, Malā, evil-minded, continued to suffer day and night from vanity which has easy access to women.
One day the sheth, suffering from summer-heat, went to the house from the shop and by chance there was no servant to wash his feet at that time. Candanā got up respectfully and, though opposed by the sheth, began to wash his feet from devotion to her father. Then the abundant, glossy, dark, soft, loosened hair of her, weak, fell on the ground muddy from the water. Thinking, “The child's hair must not get muddy from the ground,” the sheth lifted it with his pleasure-stick and fastened it carefully. Mūlā, standing in the window, saw that and thought: “ The conjecture that I made before agrees (with this). The binding of her hair itself is the first link in being a wife of the sheth. Indeed, such an act is not that of a father. She must be dug up from the root like a disease that has arisen.” After making this resolution, evil-minded Mülā stood like a witch. The sheth, after resting for a moment, went out again. Mūlā summoned a barber and had Candanā's head shaved. Mūlā put chains on her feet and had Candanā, like a creeper, beaten very hard. A barren woman is subject to the Raksas of anger. Mūlā put Candanā in a distant part of the house, shut the door, and said to the servants: “ This is to be told by no one to the sheth, when he asks. If any one tells, he shall be a burnt-offering in the fire of my anger.”
After restraining them in this way, Mūlā went to the main house. The sheth came in the evening and asked, “Where is Candanā?” From fear of Mūlā no one told him and the sheth had the idea, “ My child is playing somewhere or is on the top of the house.”
At night he asked the same question and likewise no