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CHAPTER SEVEN
of good family. His wife was Dhanavati. Bandhumati's jiva fell and was born as their daughter, named Srimati, beautiful, the crest-jewel of beautiful women. Cherished by nurses like a garland of jasmines, she gradually reached an age suitable for playing in sand.
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One day Śrīmati together with girls of the town went to that temple to play at the game of husband and wife. All the little girls said, Choose your husband," and husbands were chosen by all-some one by each girl as she liked. Śrīmati said, "Friends, I choose that holy man." "Well chosen ! Well chosen !" a goddess said and, producing thunder, the goddess rained jewels. Terrified by the thunder, Śrimati clung to the muni's feet. He thought in a moment: "This favorable attack, a strong wind for the tree of the vow, took place on me because I have stayed here.' With this thought he went elsewhere. Great sages generally do not remain in one place, to say nothing of places with unfavorable occurences.
The king came to take the shower of jewels. It has been decided: Property without an owner belongs to the king. The king's agents, wishing to take the treasure, saw the place filled with Nāgas like the entrance to Nāgaloka (the abode of Nāgas). The goddess said to them, "I gave her the money for her wedding." When the king heard that, he went away embarrassed.
Śrimati's father took all the wealth and then all went to their respective homes like birds in the evening. Many suitors came to marry Srimati and, told by her father, Choose a husband," Śrīmati said:
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father.
The sage whom I chose, he only shall be my husband, The temple-goddess gave me the wealth at the choosing of him. While the sage was chosen as a husband by me of my own accord, it was approved by you, too, when you took the money. So you are under obligation to arrange to give me to him and to no one else. Have you not heard, father? Even the children say: 'Kings speak once for all;
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