(Salutation to Ganesa the Lord of Wisdom, and to Saraswate the Lady of
Sweet Speech!)
This story was composed by the Brahmin Visravas, that dweller on the
banks of holy Kashi; and though the events it records are long past, yet
it is absolutely and immutably true because, by the power of his yoga,
he summoned up every scene before him, and beheld the persons moving
and speaking as in life. Thus he had naught to do but to set down what
befell.
What follows, that hath he seen.
I
Wide was the plain, the morning sun shining full upon it, drinking up
the dew as the Divine drinks up the spirit of man. Far it stretched,
resembling the ocean, and riding upon it like a stately ship was the
league-long Rock of Chitor. It is certainly by the favour of the Gods
that this great fortress of the Rajput Kings thus rises from the plain,
leagues in length, noble in height; and very strange it is to see the
flat earth fall away from it like waters from the bows of a boat, as it
soars into the sky with its burden of palaces and towers.
Here dwelt the Queen Padmini and her husband Bhimsi, the Rana of the
Rajputs.
The sight of the holy ascetic Visravas pierced even the secrets of the
Rani’s bower, where, in the inmost chamber of marble, carved until it
appeared like lace of the foam of the sea, she was seated upon cushions
of blue Bokhariot silk, like the lotus whose name she bore floating upon
the blue depths of the lake. She had just risen from the shallow bath of
marble at her feet.
Most beautiful was this Queen, a haughty beauty such as should be a
Rajput lady; for the name “Rajput” signifies Son of a King, and this
lady was assuredly the daughter of Kings and of no lesser persons. And
since that beauty is long since ashes (all things being transitory),
it is permitted to describe the mellowed ivory of her body, the smooth
curves of her hips, and the defiance of her glimmering bosom, half
veiled by the long silken tresses of sandal-scented hair which a maiden
on either side, bowing toward her, knotted upon her head. But even
he who with his eyes has seen it can scarce tell the beauty of her
face--the slender arched nose, the great eyes like lakes of darkness
in the reeds of her curled lashes, the mouth of roses, the glance,
deer-like but proud, that courted and repelled admiration. This cannot
be told, nor could the hand of man paint it. Scarcely could that fair
wife of the Pandava Prince, Draupadi the Beautiful (who bore upon her
perfect form every auspicious mark) excel this lady.
(Ashes--ashes! May Maheshwara have mercy upon her rebirths!)
Throughout India had run the fame of this beauty. In the bazaar of
Kashmir they told of it. It was recorded in the palaces of Travancore,
and all the lands that lay between; and in an evil hour--may the Gods
curse the mother that bore him!--it reached the ears of Allah-u-Din, the
Moslem dog, a very great fighting man who sat in Middle India, looting
and spoiling.
(Ahi! for the beauty that is as a burning flame!)
In the gardens beneath the windows of the Queen, the peacocks, those
maharajas of the birds, were spreading the bronze and emerald of their
tails. The sun shone on them as on heaps of jewels, so that they dazzled
the eyes. They stood about the feet of the ancient Brahmin sage, he
who had tutored the Queen in her childhood and given her wisdom as the
crest-jeweled of her loveliness. He, the Twice-born sat under the shade
of a neem tree, hearing the gurgle of the sacred waters from the Cow’s
Mouth, where the great tank shone under the custard-apple boughs; and,
at peace with all the world, he read in the Scripture which affirms the
transience of all things drifting across the thought of the Supreme like
clouds upon the surface of the Ocean.
(Ahi! that loveliness is also illusion!)
Her women placed about the Queen--that Lotus of Women--a robe of silk
of which none could say that it was green or blue, the noble colours so
mingled into each other under the latticed gold work of Kashi. They set
the jewels on her head, and wide thin rings of gold heavy with great
pearls in her ears. Upon the swell of her bosom they clasped the
necklace of table emeralds, large, deep, and full of green lights, which
is the token of the Chitor queens. Upon her slender ankles they placed
the chooris of pure soft gold, set also with grass-green emeralds, and
the delicate souls of her feet they reddened with lac. Nor were her arms
forgotten, but loaded with bangles so free from alloy that they could be
bent between the hands of a child. Then with fine paste they painted the
Symbol between her dark brows, and, rising, she shone divine as a nymph
of heaven who should cause the righteous to stumble in his austerities
and arrest even the glances of Gods.
(Ahi! that the Transient should be so fair!)