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ŚREŅIKA, MEGHAKUMĀRA AND NANDIŞEŅA 155 taneously at the abduction of his daughter and the slaughter of the charioteers. Sujyeșthā thought, “ Shame, shame on greediness for sense-objects, since such disappointments are experienced by those seeking pleasure.” Having become disgusted with existence thus, Suivesthā herself took leave of Cetaka and became a mendicant under Aryā Candanā.
Śreņika spoke to Cillaņā, calling her“ Sujyeșthā, Sujyesthā,” not knowing that it was Cillaņā who was there. Cillaņā explained to him, “Sujyeșthā did not come. I am Cillaņā, Sujyeșthā's younger sister.” Sreņika asserted, “ My effort was not useless. Fair lady, you indeed are most excellent.159 Certainly you are not inferior to her.” Cillaņā was inflamed with joy and sorrow to a high degree at the same time at the acquisition of a husband and the cheating of her sister. Śreņika quickly arrived in his own city with a chariot of insuperable speed like the wind, and Abhaya also after him.
After he had married Cillaņā with a gāndharva-marriage, the king told Nāga and Sulasā that their sons were dead. When the husband and wife heard from the king the inauspicious news about their sons, they wept at the top of their voices, and lamented:
“O Kștānta, why have you caused the death of our sons at the same time? Did they come to have a single chain of yours at some time? Of birds, too, there are many offspring, but these perish gradually, not all at once at some place like this. Moreover, sons, you died at one time because of being united from affection. Are we known to be lacking in affection, defrauded of death at the same time?'
While they were lamenting aloud in this way, Abhaya, who had come with Sreņika, enlightened them, like a teacher knowing the truth. “Death is the normal nature of living things; life is the abnormal. Then why should there be regret for an object that has fulfilled its own nature, O ye with discernment?” Śreņika made some suitable remarks to the husband and
159 269. With a play on her name.
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