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The Unknown Pilgrims
The Story of Candanā
In the lively, prosperous market-town of Campă in the kingdom of Anga (in the East) there came to birth the princess Vasumati, daughter of King Dadhivāhana and Queen Dhāriņi. Dadhivāhana was a just and kindly ruler, having the well-being of his subjects much at heart. Dhāriņi combined exceptional strength of character with great openness of spirit. These characteristics were inherited by Vasumati from her parents; she grew up in a cultured atmosphere and in fidelity to the dharma and was instructed in all the arts appropriate to her condition of life. Dhāriņi, impelled by an intuition which was later amply vindicated and by her own observation of her daughter's disposition, directed her education, not towards marriage and the easy and sumptuous life of the palace, but towards a mission to be fulfilled among the women of her day. Vasumati readily allowed herself to be oriented in this direction, eagerly absorbing its deepest levels, and told her father without hesitation, when there came up the question of marriage, that she desired to remain a virgin and to consecrate herself to the spiritual and intellectual uplift of her feminine contemporaries, suppressed as they were by the men of her day. A short while after this, she had a dream in which she saw the beautiful city of Campā put to fire and sword, but saved by herself, Vasumati. Events confirmed her dream, for soon this first carefree stage of her palace life was abruptly terminated.
King Śatānika of Kaušāmbi, capital city of a neighbouring kingdom, decided to attack and annex Campā. Kind Dadhivāhana possessed only a small army, for he lived on good terms with the other princes and loved peace. He refused to defend himself by force, because of the violence that would entail, knowing also that in any case he would be vanquished. He chose rather to hand over his kingdom to Satānika and then withdraw into the jungle. His ministers, however, proud kșatriyas as they were, disapproved of his departure and decided to fight against Satānika, upon which a bloody battle ensued in which Campā was pillaged and annexed by enemy forces. Dhāriņi and Vasumati were carried off by one of Satānika's soldiers, a charioteer, and there, in the jungle, Dhāriņi, having fortified Vasumati in unshakeable faith in the dharma, chose to end her life rather than yield to the advances of her abductor. Vasumati, finding herself
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