Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 6

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

Page 191

ŚREŅIKA, MEGHAKUMĀRA AND NANDIŞEŅA 151 because she could not answer, her mouth sealed, as it were, and made monkey-faces, et cetera. The harem slave-girls excited by the victory of their mistress, making a loud tumult, took her by the neck and threw her out.
The ascetic had gone to receive and had been obliged, as it were, to give. She had come for a pūjā and, on the contrary, she obtained a reverse. Going away, the ascetic thought, “I shall make her, conceited because of her cleverness, the receptacle of pain among many co-wives.” Having fixed Sujyeșthā's figure in her mind, clever in all the arts she painted it on canvas with facility and thought combined. The cruel ascetic went in haste to Rājagsha and showed the painted figure to King Sreņika. When he had seen the painting of her, the sole snare for the deer of the eye, the king, lord of Rājagpha, had her described from love:
“The tails of peacocks become slaves to her hair; her face with beautiful eyes is like a lotus to which bees are clinging; the shoot of the neck gives support to the leaf of the three lines, 154 her chest is adorned with breasts like a pond with ruddy geese playing; her wide hips are like a country suitable for the archer Love; her things, gradually round, resemble an elephant-post; her lower legs, straight and soft, are copies of lotus-stalks; her feet with straight legs are like lotuses with upraised stalks. Oh! the peerless beauty! the dazzling grace! Oh! the charming whole of the doe-eyed girl, which is unrivaled ! ”
He asked, “ Good lady, is this paragon of a woman painted by your skill or from a sight of her person?”
The ascetic replied: “That figure was painted from life to the best of my ability. If it should appear in a mirror, it would be like this, king.”
The king, looking at her even in a picture, confused by love, felt like embracing her or kissing her. He said:
“In what family155 did she, like a necklace of pearls,
154 209. Three lines in the neck, indicative of good fortune.
155 216. With a play on vansa as family' and 'bamboo' which is considered a source of pearls. See I, n. 314.