The sprite said, “O king! there is a city named Bishalpur, the king of
which was named Bipuleshwar. In his city lived a merchant whose name was
Arthdatt, and his daughter’s name was Anaug-manjari. He had married her
to a merchant of Kanwalpur, named Munni. Some days after, the merchant
crossed the ocean on a mercantile venture; and when she attained to
womanhood here (at home), she was standing one day in the pavilion, and
observing what was going on in the road, when at that moment a Brahman’s
son named Kamalãkar was coming along. The eyes of the pair met, and they
became enamoured of each other at first sight. Again, after a quarter
of an hour or so, recovering self-possession, the Brahman’s son, in the
restlessness consequent on separation from his beloved, proceeded to the
house of his friend; and here she, too, was in extreme distress through
the pain of separation from him, when, in the meantime, a female
companion came and took her up; she had, however, no self-consciousness
remaining. Then she (the companion) sprinkled rose-water (over her) and
made her smell perfumes, and while so doing, her senses returned, and
she said, ‘O Cupid! Mahãdeva burnt thee to ashes, * and yet thou wilt
not desist from thy knavish tricks, but comest and inflictest pain on
innocent, feeble women.’”
* Mahãdeva, or hiva, was once engaged in religious
meditation, when Kamdeva, or Cupid, excited amorous desires
within his breast; whereupon the angry god reduced him to
ashes by a fiery glance. The curious reader will find a
detailed account of the circumstance in the fifty-sixth
Chapter of the Prem Sagar.
“She was uttering these words, when evening came on, and the moon
appeared. Then she said, while gazing at the moonlight, ‘O moon! I used
to be told that the water of life is in you, and that you shed it in
your beams; to-day, however, even you have begun to pour down venom.’
She then said to her companion, ‘Take me up, and lead me away from this
place, for I am being burnt to death by the moonlight.’ Thereupon she
raised her and took her to the pavilion, and said, ‘Dost thou feel no
shame at uttering such words?’ Then she said, ‘O friend! I am fully
aware of all; but Cupid has wounded me, and rendered me void of shame;
and I make great efforts to be patient, but the more I continue to be
consumed with the fire of separation, the more venom-like does home
appear to me.’ The companion said, ‘Keep thy mind at ease; I will
relieve thee of all thy suffering.’”
“Having said thus much, the companion went home, and she (the love-lorn)
determined in her mind that she would quit this body for his sake, and,
being born again, enjoy life well with him. With this longing in her
mind, she threw a noose on her neck, and was about drawing it tight,
when the companion arrived, and instantly taking the rope off her neck,
said, ‘Everything can be attained by living, not by dying.’ She replied,
‘Better is it to die than suffer such pain.’ The companion said, ‘Repose
awhile, and I will go and bring him.’”
“Having said this, she went to the place where Kamalãkar was, and taking
a secret look at him, perceived that he also was much disturbed by the
separation from his beloved, while his friend was rubbing down sandal
in rose water and applying it to his body, and fanning him with tender
leaves of the plantain-tree; despite which, he was crying out all aflame
(with passion) and saying to his friend, ‘Bring me poison, I will
sacrifice my life and be released from this suffering. Observing
this state of his, she said to herself, ‘However courageous, learned,
sagacious, discreet, and patient a man may be, Cupid reduces him to a
state of distraction all the same.’ These thoughts having passed through
her mind, the companion said to him, ‘O Kamalãkar! Anangmanjari has sent
word to thee to come and bestow life on her.’ He replied, ‘She, indeed,
has given life to me.’”
“After saying this, he rose up, and the companion went to her (the
love-sick maiden), taking him along with her. When he got there, lo!
she was lying dead! Thereupon he also uttered a cry of anguish, and
therewith his spirit fled. And when it became morning, her household
took both of them to the burning-ground, and arranging the pile, placed
them thereon and set fire to it, when, in the meantime, her husband also
arrived at the burning-ground, on his return from abroad. Then, hearing
the sound of the people’s weeping, he went there, and what does
he behold but his wife burning with a strange man! He, also, being
distracted with love, burnt himself ta death in the same fire. The
people of the city, hearing this intelligence, began saying one to
another, ‘Neither has eye seen, nor ear heard of so wonderful an
event!’”
After relating so much of the story, the sprite said, “O king! whose
love, of these three, was greatest?” The king said, “Her husband was the
deepest lover.”
“Why?” said the sprite. The king replied, “He, who, on seeing his wife
dead for another’s sake, put aside anger, and cheerfully laid down
his life through love for her--he is the deepest lover.” Hearing these
words, the sprite went again and hung on to that tree. The king, too,
went there, bound him, placed him on his shoulder, and carried him off.