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Author's Note

This story is intended to be both a partner to the novel ‘The Pilgrim Kamanita,’ written by Karl Gjellerup in 1906, and a tale that stands on its own. There is no need to have read the earlier book in order to make sense of this one, however, should you wish to go to the source from which many of the characters and scenes of this tale have sprung, an English version of it is to be found on this same web-site at www.abhayagiri.org/main/book/366/.

This book is being published here as a ‘serial novel,’ which is to say that it that it will appear one chapter at a time, on the first day of every month, over the next couple of years. The plan is that, after the entire twenty-six chapters of the story have been released, a pdf file of the complete book will be posted, and available for free download.

Finally, gentle reader, please note that the original author (Karl Gjellerup) switched freely between using Sanskrit (the language of the Northern Buddhist and Hindu scriptures) and Pali (the language of the Southern Buddhist scriptures) during the course of his tale. In our efforts to be true to his original style we have maintained this mixture of usage.

Amaro Bhikkhu
Abhayagiri Monastery
December 2008

* * * * * * * * * * * *

o sooner had Dusaka left the compound than Savitri started to babble nervously and critically about him being a madman and disgusting, and how such wayfarers were a scourge upon society.

Krishna pointed out that he must have been someone special since he seemed to know all about them and to have inside knowledge about their possible futures.

“How could he be a rogue if he knew all those things about what might happen to me? And he knew Amba and Tamba too, Mum. How can you say he’s mad and bad?”

“We’re one of the leading families in Page 2 of 21

Ujjeni, everyone knows us! He would only have had to ask a few people at the market place – or at one of those toddy-shacks where the drunken disreputables gather – and he could have found out everything he needed to know in order to try to impress us,“ she countered.

Krishna was far from convinced, “What about his dog, Mum? It was pretty clever with that tray of cola cordial – how do you explain that? He must be magical to be able to teach a dog to do something like that.”

“You’ve seen conjurors in the park doing much better tricks than that! Don’t be silly – he’s just some charlatan like all the rest of them, a vagabond who’s up to some mischief or other. Such ‘holy men’ are all false and greedy; I don’t know exactly what he’s after but you can be sure he just wants to dupe us in some way, to get something out of us. He’s got no more magical powers than I have or our steward Kolita. Now, what would you like for lunch?”

Refusing to be side-tracked, and with the inexorable persistence of a self-assured seven-year-old, Krishna, carried on, “So, what’s a ‘mangala’ Mum? He made a lot of that, didn’t he?” Savitri now set off walking briskly out of the loggia where they had been sitting, while the dark and shiny boy padded behind her down the corridor.

“What is it, Mum?”

“It’s just a lucky charm, an amulet of some sort.” She strode along as if trying to leave the whole discussion behind in her wake. “What he’ll want to do – you’ll see – is getting us convinced that there’s some special sacred lucky charm that he has for sale, and that if we buy it we’ll be safe and happy forever. It will be some grotty little scrap of cloth, some dried up animal part, a complicated formula to recite backwards, or some bizarre procedure we have to follow – and it will only cost us the price of this palace and Page 3 of 21

three-quarters of your father’s fortune.

“One man I heard of swore that he was protected from all harm as long as, each day, he saw a red fish, heard the words ‘full grown,’ touched fresh cow-dung, and carryied around the foot of a dead rabbit. Do you know what happened to him? He leaned too far over the river-bank trying to see his daily red fish swimming there and he fell in and drowned. Not that auspicious and lucky, if you ask me.”

Savitri felt she’d finally settled the issue as they carried on through the halls and corridors for a while in silence, but when they reached the kitchen area for her to sort out lunch, a quiet voice behind her rose to her ear.

“Mum, can I have a dog?”

* * *

The ancient city of Ujjeni straddled the River Carmanvati. Just beyond the northern perimeter of Kamanita’s palace there was a bend in the river which was a popular place with the towns-people for doing their laundry.

One of Krishna’s favourite pastimes was to sneak out of the palace grounds and to accompany Gopali, the housekeeper, and her daughters Khamba and Khina, down to the ghat with their oversized bundles of all the family’s washing. His excuse was that he liked to ‘help’ them but it was, more than anything, an opportunity to get out of the confining walls of the palace and to chatter with Gopali and the others as they pounded the cloth on the beating stones, and rinsed their laundry in the chill river waters.

As he was usually the only boy there – the male dhobi-wallahs had their patch a little further down-stream – he also enjoyed showing off and doing his best to charm all the womenfolk who were gathered on the steps with their wash. In between carrying occasional bundles over to Gopali at her scrubbing slab, and collecting freshly laundered items from her – and liberally splashing and teasing his friends the twins – he kept up an incessant flow Page 4 of 21

of questions and conversation. One of the local sports was to reckon, unbeknownst to him:–– Would he ever pause for as much as a count of ten during the entire time that he spent there in the mornings?

His mother was well-aware of these supposedly secret trips out of bounds but she trusted Gopali as a guardian since, even though she was young, she was reliable and a watchful sort. And the boy needed to find some outlets for his energy.

Not long after the visit of Dusaka he brought the subject up, when they were all by the riverside. Khamba and Khina were busy spreading out the long strips of cloth that comprised the sarongs and dhotis to dry in the morning sun, so it was Gopali whom he was grilling on the question.

“Why does my mother hate the wanderers and monks so much? I think they’re really interesting. What’s she got against them? This monk came to see us the other day and she was so upset about him. I liked him even though he was very odd. You remember – the one with the clever little dog and the big earrings.”

“How could I forget? Your mother,” said Gopali, folding an embroidered sarong in her hands and twisting the two ends in opposite directions, “she’s never liked that sort of fellow at all. She’s okay with the brahmin priests, they get married and have children just like ordinary people, but monks like that character who came last month – she’s never thought much of them.

“They’re not family types, see, and so they don’t have children – don’t even have girlfriends on the sly, at least the proper ones don’t” – she winked at Krishna mock-conspiratorially. “The nuns are the same – no husbands, or boyfriends for that matter – all that lot prefers to live outside the usual way of living with others. They prefer to keep it simple – not like us lot.” She smiled and looked over at her daughters, busy at their tasks on the bank at the Page 5 of 21

end of the steps.

“What are you doing Khamba?” She called out, seeing the girl carefully draping some cloth at a particularly unsuitable spot. “It’ll tear if you put it on that thorn bush and the wind picks it up – take it up the slope to that grassy patch – that’s it, good girl.”

“So, why do they want to live like that? Surely that’s not much fun – I thought everyone got married,” Krishna carried on, insistently.

“Not everyone, by no means,” Gopali replied, as she wrung another length of dhoti-cloth, “but it’s the ones that deliberately chose to live a life like that, that treat everyone as sisters and brothers, they’re the ones that rile Madame Savitri. It’s like they’re going against everything she sees as real and precious – being a mother, having and raising children – to her that’s the spirit of life itself so she looks at those monks and nuns as nature-haters, life-deniers.”

Krishna took all this in thoughtfully, which is to say he paused for a few seconds before he fired back, “But that doesn’t make sense. Dusaka – the monk who visited – he seemed really happy. He didn’t look like he hated anything.” Khamba and Khina had rejoined them in the shallows of the river and Krishna absent-mindedly squirted them with water, using a technique he learned recently from Hari and Govinda, two of his classmates studying with the pandit and the bookkeeper. They deftly splashed him back, with a synchronized two-pronged blast, and left him dripping.

“Another reason,” and again Gopali eyed him slyly sideways, “is that it was a visit by such a one about five Rains ago, that caused your father to take off, and to become one of them into the bargain. It’s what we grown-ups call ‘a sore point.’

“Your dad was sure it was Angulimala in disguise but why on earth that should have made him want to walk away from you and your mother, and the rest of his family and all his wealth, is anybody’s guess, young Page 6 of 21

Sir. Now, how about you test your strength and see if you can bring me over another couple of armloads of those grimies.”

* * *

The hours of the day that Krishna was obligated to spend at his studies – of letters and recitation with the brahmin, and calculations with the bookkeeper – were now greatly enlivened by the arrival of a kshatriyan warrior. Savitri had him hired to teach Krishna and his companions, other sons of wealthy merchant families of Ujjeni, the arts of weaponry and combat.

Before this old soldier, Ajjuna, had arrived on the scene the only sparring that Krishna had been able to engage in was some random wrestling bouts with Hari and Govinda, Rama and Sahadeva, and the verbal tussles he had had with his scriptural teacher, Maha-pandita Saccaka.

Krishna had been asking about what a ‘mangala’ was from whatever people he encountered, and he had received a great variety of answers on the subject: some said it was a kind of omen; some that it was the astrological auspices, the pattern of events predicted for a day; some said a lucky charm; some a protective mantra; some a kind of blessing; some a magical amulet… He had tried to get his teacher Saccaka to give him a definitive answer as to which of these things a mangala actually was – especially such a one as could defeat Death itself – but all the pandit had offered him was:

“I don’t say a mangala is a lucky charm, and I don’t say it’s something else. I don’t say it’s otherwise…hmm… I also don’t say it’s not a lucky charm and, of course, I don’t say that it’s not not one either.”

“So, should we believe in mangalas, Sir? Even if we don’t know what they are.”

“What do you mean, boy, you ‘don’t know what they are’? Don’t you listen? I just explained it to you. Of course you should believe in them.”

“But Sir, if I say I believe in a mangala Page 7 of 21

although I don’t even know what it is or how it works – wouldn’t I be lying? So what is it better to do; say ‘I believe’ and tell a lie, or to say ‘I don’t know but I want to find out’?”

“Don’t be cheeky, boy. Write me out ‘All brahmins are wise and holy’ a thousand times, and your handwriting had better be good.”

* * *
Krishna’s world became an easy tumble of days; his friends would arrive at the palace mid-morning and there would be a couple of hours of classes, up until noon when they would break for lunch and play or, if it was in the heat of the year, take a siesta in the coolest regions of the compound.

He and Hari, Govinda and Rama, together with the gardener’s son Bhijjaka and Sahadeva formed an inseparable gang. Hours would fly by each afternoon as they climbed the trees of the garden, explored hidden recesses of the many palace buildings, occasionally set booby-traps to surprise Bhumija the gardener or Vishva who looked after the maintenance of the buildings, or (if they were feeling highly courageous) to provoke Kuvera the custodian.

Predictably, however, the most regular of their victims were the girls of the house – the twins Khamba and Khina, and Madhu and her little sister Padma, who were the daughters of Kuvera. If nothing else they were teased and heckled from afar, even if no more practical mischief was possible.

Whenever any prank had been pulled there was little if no doubt as to whom was to blame, and the process of being hauled before his mother, eyes dutifully if not shamefully downcast, while the air was turned purple with her wrath, became a familiar procedure to Krishna. In the most extreme of cases she would threaten him with retribution from Kuvera – or, somewhat more daunting, a disciplining by Ajjuna –for both of these men were seasoned former soldiers.

Yet, somehow, the whipping until the flesh hung off his bones remained only in the Page 8 of 21

verbal realms and, once suitably contrite and avowing eternal commitment to good behaviour, Krishna would be released from the wrathful Maternal Presence. With penance having thus been exercised, and having taken the rap once more for his friends, the gang was again free to launch into business as usual.

* * *

Within a short time after Ajjuna had been first employed, Krishna forgot all else when in his presence and eagerly applied his copious energy to the arts of swordplay, weapon-care, archery and javelin. It was bliss, and the whole gang of nine-and-ten-year old boys soon came to worship their burly and battle-scarred instructor.

One of their great joys, especially when they were all sweat-stained from their exercises, was to slump in the shade of the great banyan at the edge of their improvised ‘training ground,’ that is the back lawn, and to ask him where his particular scars had come from. The warrior would then be drawn into the account of the war and the battle in question that had supplied each gouge, impalation and gash. The boys were enraptured.

* * *

The group of them grew together with deep bonds of comradeship between them. Krishna knew these were the best friends anyone could have and he felt an endless delight in their company.

He fell into the role of leadership without any difficulty and, as he accompanied his mother to public events from time to time, she seemed profoundly proud that her dark little boy was turning into a tall and handsome man. By the time he was twelve Rains he was several finger-breadths taller than she and she glowed visibly when they met the other prominent families of Ujjeni. Without fail they would remark on how handsome he was, just like his father, and what a fine figure her son now cut: “He has the eyes of the kunala bird!” “You must be very happy; your son looks like the head of the family already.”

Long-forgotten were the whispers of doubt about his parentage and the aspersions that Page 9 of 21

had been cast upon his mother; these were so long-forgotten, in fact, that there had arisen almost the opposite effect. The people of Ujjeni had come to so admire this charming and talented boy – who had now been adding the arts of music and painting to his other skills and achievements – that his mysterious and intense darkness had become a sign taken to be indicative of great blessings.

At that time, in the Ujjeni area, the usual social prejudices against darker skin, regarding it as being ugly and indicating a lower status, faded away. Krishna was so fine-looking, and almost divinely gifted and lovable, that there was a leveling of the social order in that region; somehow the usual biases and judgments lost their foundation and a greater tolerance and openness prevailed.

Savitri was glad indeed that others delighted in his qualities and she was relieved that all her efforts now seemed to be paying off. She had worked hard to steer him toward excellence in worldly skills and it seemed that his heart was committed solely to that dimension. He asked less spiritual questions than he had when he was younger, and as he had especially done after the visit of that weird sanyasin with the dog.

She had been concerned that, like his errant father, he would get the spiritual bug so she had exerted great efforts in manoeuvering him away from such pursuits. With the passing of years she felt she’d succeeded well.

* * *
The pranks and adventures still came thick and fast amongst Krishna and his knot of friends. As they all grew taller they continued to vie with each other as to who could out-run, out-climb or brave more risky feats than the rest.

In the multitude of escapades they had engaged with over time, where they taunted the men of the household and had teased the young girls around the place, they had tended to leave the adult women alone and to give them a wide and respectful berth.

This respect came after Page 10 of 21

realizing that the men’s wrath was mostly noise and bluster, but when they upset the women, or spoiled their work, the retribution was immediate and painful. There was also no regard whatsoever for rank – it was no matter that they were the sons of the wealthy – Gopali the housekeeper or Bhojani the cook, and even Nana the old ayah, would round on them and belt them up and down with a broom or a bamboo switch, or even the long staff that was kept for dissuading monkey troupes from raiding the kitchen stores – there was no weak and sloppy nonsense about ‘boys will be boys.’

The lady of the house, Madame Savitri was almost alone in never having raised her hand to them. Thus a healthy respect and caution had been built up, and the women’s territory had so far been avoided.

It was Govinda who had challenged him, when the day finally came.

“I’ll bet you wouldn’t dare to go and sneak a look at them all bathing. Krishna the God did it when he was young – he hid in the bushes by the river while all the gopis were in the water – he even stole their clothing so they had nothing to put on when they came out.

“I bet you’d never dare.”

“How much?” Krishna riposted, a light flaring in his eye. “How about that new sword your parents gave you last birthday?”

“And what’ll you bet?” asked Hari, “Are you going to risk something if you don’t go through with it?”

“Sure,” Krishna was finding himself eager to rise to the challenge, “how about my bow and quiver – which I’ve had for a year, it’s true – but I’ll stake my new vina as well. If I get cold feet, they’re all yours, if I succeed in watching ‘the gopis’ bathing then your sword is mine – agreed?”

“Agreed!” Govinda was delighted as he felt sure not even the foolhardy Krishna would really risk the disgrace that would fall upon Page 11 of 21

him and the scolding, nay the pounding he would receive if he were discovered.

“And what if you’re found out?” Sahadeva was grinning.

“Well, I’ll definitely need Govinda’s sword then, won’t I?”

* * *
Everyone in the household would bathe, customarily, in the hour before sundown. The women’s pool and bathing jars – huge urns of water that one scooped from with a small dish and then doused oneself with – was set on the south-western corner of the palace, adjacent to the kitchen stores. It was open to the sky but it had a high wall all around it.

The roof of the kitchen store-room was arranged in such a way that water that rained upon it would drain through a number of slices, down into the bathing area below. During the monsoon this was an easy way to fill the main central pool and the three large jars around the room. There was a drain in the floor of the bathroom through which all the waste-water was able flow away.

Krishna had surmised this much from his forays, clambering onto the upper portions of the main palace buildings. He could see that the only viable viewing spot would be if he could get onto the roof of the food-store and then look through one of the sluices that were set along the edge, above the bathers. He had carefully waited until the weather had heated up and he could safely assume that – by mid-afternoon, during that deepest of lulls in energy that was universally experienced at that hour of the day – everyone in the vicinity would be dozing in the coolest spots they could find.

This was the moment he chose to move, like a flickering shadow in the fierce heat of the day, and to sidle around to the yard-side of the complex of buildings. He then produced a notched bamboo pole, about two-and-a-half arm-spans long, that he had carefully secreted by the kitchen area weeks before. He propped it against the wall scurried up barefoot with Page 12 of 21

his feet gripping the sides of the pole and, in a few seconds, he was on top and had pulled up the pole behind him. He listened, looked, primed all his senses to check if he’d been detected but all was still. He crawled along below the rim of the parapet, which stood about a forearm’s height up from the flat roof, and positioned himself on his belly at the end of the slope where the four sluices opened.

He wiggled from one end to the other, trying the view from each one, and decided that, given the expected angle of light from the setting sun and the positioning of the pool, his best bet was the opening furthest to the left.

* * *

Up to this point, through the weeks of planning and excited preparations, he had only looked upon this jaunt a big dare. Now as he lay there, waiting for the sun go down and for the key players in his plan to arrive, he was suddenly struck by an unexpected wave of feeling.

He was used to this mixture of intense fear and excitement – that was the essence of any adventure; the thrill of springing a trap, the success of a sudden attack, the fear of discovery, of failure, of punishment – but this was very different.

“What the hell am I doing?” he thought, “this is a horrible invasion of privacy; they should be angry and shocked if they knew I was here.” It had all been just a game, a test so far but something suddenly made him see his actions from the point of view of the women and girls of the household.

“What have I come to see here anyway,” he thought. “I’m just trying to show off by copying my namesake.” And he realized that, so far, he’d only ever related to the women in his world as providers of food, as people to charm and amuse, while the girls were simply annoying creatures who whispered to each other and snickered and Page 13 of 21

giggled and who were to be teased or provoked at all opportunities…

“Why on earth do I want to see them with all their clothes off anyway? Just because they wouldn’t want that?...?”

These were strange and unbidden thoughts that ran through his twelve-year-old mind. He was now moved by a sudden sense of honour and responsibility. He decided that his bow and quiver and the vina were a small price to pay to preserve the dignity of the women who had fed and nursed and played with him all his life.

He was just turning, to work his way back across the flat roof and to try to make his escape before anyone arrived below, when he heard the sound of voices along the path that led to the bathing area’s door – right at the spot where he had scaled the wall.

He froze and clamped his eyes tight shut. The group began to enter the chamber below him, and more voices followed soon after. He recognized them all: Bhojani, Gopali and the twins, Madhu and Padma, Lata and Ruki the maids, and Nana the ayah as well.

The sound of their conversations and the vigorous splashing of water reached his ears. He was deep in the shadow of the parapet and, with his skin so dark, there was no chance at all he would be seen. He realized, with a sinking feeling, that no force on earth could stop him from opening his eyes.

This he did.

“Oh my…”

* * *

The lads, predictably, soon noticed that a change had come over the former captain of their devilries. He’d won the sword fare and square, that was obvious, but he also seemed to lose something else. They would be in the middle of archery practice when the twins would cross the yard behind them, with some baskets of flowers or an armload of grass-mats, and Krishna’s head would swivel like a weather-vane, with the bow and arrow still fixed in place.

When any suggestion of an Page 14 of 21

insult or a jibe at little Padma or her sister, or especially at Khamba or Khina was made, Krishna’s face would mutate into a concerned pout and he’d mutter something like, “That’s not very gallant,” or “Can’t you be less vulgar?” And his friends would wag their heads in dismay.

Krishna, for his own part, was still as keen as ever on his studies of arms and combat, but he was drawn more and more to strumming on his vina and composing what he felt were eloquent verses, songs of pure affection and love.

He frequently tried to put all that aside, to be his old self, to carry on in the artless, jokey way he had always done with his gang, but it was often forced or out of step with the rest of the group. He tried hard to be the reckless prankster but something in him had changed.

It didn’t help much when, during their ‘spontaneous verse exercises,’ Rama had plucked some soulful, rapturous chords and sung:

“Khina… I wrote you awful songs
upon my vina…
Since I fell for you my teeth
have been much cleaner…

Oh Khina…!
For a while you’ve been a…
… whole lot meaner.
But I’ve seen a
change, and now
I have grown leaner…
wasting away
as my love for you grows keener
Oh Khina… for yooooou…!”

“Very good…” opined the music teacher, “for an early attempt… could do with a little polishing up of the scansion, but good work – was it inspired by anyone you know?...”

The room erupted at this point, with Krishna’s blue-black features blushing to purple in their inimitable way. The slightly gormless and disshevelled music master darted his eyes this way and that in search of the cause for the joke, like a daftly tufted bird watching for some grub moving in the grass around it.

* * *
Equally predictably, it was not long before others of the band began to notice that the local girls were possessed of qualities Page 15 of 21

other than teasability or the capacity to be frightened or disgusted by some many-legged or loathsome slimy creature. They had all begun to experience that bizarre tying of the tongue that happened when they had occasion to talk to someone they had known for years but, now that they found them attractive, the mouth dried up, the throat solidified and all that they could reply to an innocuous friendly greeting was “Guhh…”

By the time Krishna had reached fourteen Rains he and Khina had indeed become inseparable companions, and all of his friends had had various liaisons and romances of shorter or longer periods. Bhijjaka, the gardener’s son, was the only other one, however, who had settled into a steady partnership; he and Khamba now kept each other company all possible hours of the day.

Krishna felt he was basking in a warm radiance of pure love; it was a feeling that filled him most of every day now and it seemed that it was both wholly untainted as well as truly good. What greater happiness in life could there be than to spend each waking hour catching precious moments to share your thoughts with your beloved, to hear her concerns and dreams, to plan and fantasize your life together?

To be sure, they were very young, he and she only fourteen and fifteen Rains, but didn’t everyone say how strong and manly he was, how mature and noble in his bearing? In truth he felt practically full-grown already, the responsible head of his household and master of his world.

“Truly, happiness and joy are born from those who are dear to us.”

“That’s so true,” replied Khina, her fingers interlacing with Krishna’s as they sat together in their favorite, secret bower, a glade at the far eastern end of the garden in a spot between the outer wall and the trunk of an ancient mango tree. “This is perfect happiness, isn’t it? The two of us, like these hands of ours, bound together, fused as a single knot – an eternal knot.” Khina wove Page 16 of 21

her fingers through Krishna’s to form an intricate pattern – the tawny gleam of her skin in the falling evening light interlaced with the ink-tones of Krishna’s own and their palms of even colour.

“Look at this pattern – it is the image of the single love that we are.” Krishna adored the sound of that and admired even more deeply the wisdom of his beloved. “Don’t the stories say” Khina mused:

“Great is the joy of sweet desire:
No greater joy than love.
Who follows this
attains the bliss
of paradise above.”

“We are blessed,” he reflected, we are truly blessed.”

Yet that was the moment that the axe fell and the knot was severed.


* * *

They had heard Khina’s name being called by her father Vishva. They scuttled out of the shrubbery – for some reason feeling that they should emerge in different places although everyone in the entire palace, except perhaps Savitri, was well aware of their on-going trysts.

“Khina! Ah, there you are.” Her father came up to her and told her that all their family was meeting in a short while, up in her grandfather’s chambers. Khina had little time to think about what this summons might concern. It couldn’t be a roasting for carrying on a romance with Krishna as, if it had been, her father would not have been so matter-of-fact about seeing them both appearing from the bushes. He and her mother had seemed to be quite happy for her and the young Master to have a fling together.

Within the space of the evening the truth, more awful than any scolding, had come to light; it boded worse than ill for Khina and the nascent devotion that she and Krishna now shared.

The hard facts were that, back at the family’s home village – far off in upper Koliya, beyond the great kingdoms of Magadha and Kosala – Vishva’s brother was tending their estate. They had just acquired a further tract of land, Page 17 of 21

fertile fields of the Terai, hard up against the foothills of the Himalayan mountains, and with three young children to take care of and another on the way they had requested that the twins return to Koliya and help look after the family of their aunt and uncle.

The sisters had both wept and pleaded, begging not to be forced to go but soon Khamba was persuaded when Gopali – who was conscious not only of Khina’s liaison with Krishna but also of her other daughter’s devotion to Bhijjaka – suggested that the gardener’s boy might go with them to help protect them on the journey and, more to the point, since he was a strapping lad of sixteen now and Khamba at fifteen Rains, there was no obstruction to the two of them marrying first and then setting off as a couple to help work on the estate.

Khamba thus abruptly erupted from the well of despair that she had been occupying and burst forth into a fountain of enthusiasms.

“It’s really a great idea! Don’t you think Khi? Come on, you’re always saying you don’t want to be stuck here the rest of your life – well, here’s your chance.” Khina was thoroughly unconvinced and balked and protested until, after long hours of tears, the cold bitter taste of reality had at last won through – she realized she truly had no choice. Family duty came first and, although she felt somewhat betrayed by her sister’s sudden shift in resolution, she also could not imagine life away from her. They had never been apart for so much as a day since they were formed in their mother’s womb together.

Kolita, as the elder of the clan, as well as Vishva and Gopali, felt sure that Bhumija the gardener would be happy with his son marrying into their family, since, although they all worked as equals on the household staff here, Vishva’s family were of some status in their home territory and of considerable wealth and property. They wasted no time in suggesting the match Page 18 of 21

to Bhumija, and it fell out just as they had suspected. He was more than happy to agree as, in addition to the attraction of some valuable land, he knew the girl and his son were in love and were indeed well-matched. It was also a great comfort to him as he knew that the marriage would help to continue his line, since his wife had died long ago when Bhijjaka had been born.

* * *

In no long time the wedding was arranged and Bhijjaka and Khamba were married. Khina and Krishna stole every hour they could together as the day of parting inexorably approached. These times were sweet and tear-stained. The strength of their love only made the tearing apart more agonizing but, of course, the dreaded day eventually came. On this occasion Savitri really did have to employ Ajjuna and Kuvera to hold Krishna down as the wagon bearing his beloved pulled out of the palace gates.

For months afterwards he proudly bore the marks on his arms where each of the old soldiers had gripped him and forced him back inside the building. They had held him to the ground while he wailed, cried and grieved the gross injustice. Ajjuna was sympathetic to his young charge’s loss – he too had had his true love wrenched rudely from him – but, when he judged the moment right, he gave Krishna’s shoulder a jerk and said, “Come on, you know how to be strong – let go.”

Krishna saw such understanding and such power in that weather-worn face, battered by dozens of campaigns both in love and in battle, that Ajjuna’s look reached right into this heart and, to his surprise, he found strength and solace there.

“When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go,” the warrior said, “to the one that knows how to yield. It’s you against The Way Things Are, lad – what are you gonna do?” He raised an eyebrow; Krishna lay quite still now, struggling no longer.

“Let go… I suppose.”

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“That would indeed be wise.”

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Notes and References:

Chapter 13

1. Page 166 — what’s a ‘mangala’ Mum?... It’s just a lucky charm, an amulet of some sort … This is indeed one meaning of the word ‘mangala.’ Such amulets are very popular still throughout the Buddhist world and elsewhere.
It can also mean ‘a blessing’ (either mundane or spiritual), a magical charm of some kind, or a protective spell. Various other aspects of its meaning will become apparent as our tale unfolds.

2. Page 166 — three-quarters of your father’s fortune… This is not a huge exaggeration; in Thailand a ‘Somdet Dtoh’ amulet was sold in 2008 for about $3 million, US.

3. Page 166 — a red fish… the words ‘full grown’… touching fresh cow-dung… These three are all mentioned as mangalas in the introduction to Jat. §453, the PTS version of which translates the term as ‘omen’; the lucky rabbit’s foot is a European superstition.

4. Page 166 — Ujjeni straddled the River Carmanvati… Today the River Carmanvatī is called the River Chambal.

5. Page 169 — this old soldier, Ajjuna… His name has come from one of the husbands of Queen Kālī in Jat. §536. As mentioned at Ch. 12 note §2, there is an obvious parallel here to the great warrior Arjuna of the Pandava brothers in the Mahābharata.
In the great battle of that epic story, the god Krishna famously takes on the role of charioteer for Arjuna. The Bhagavad Gīta recounts the dialogue between the two of them just before the fighting commences.

6. Page 169 — I don’t say a mangala is a lucky charm… This evasive and non-commital form of response is called amarā-vikheppikā in Pali, ‘eel-wriggling.’ A good example of it is found in D 1.2.23-28; note §58 in the Wisdom Publications edition of ‘The Long Discourses of the Buddha,’ p. 541, explains more about the name.

7. Page 170 — Vishva who looked after the maintenance of the buildings… ‘Vishva’ is short for Vishvakarman, the architect Page 20 of 21

of the Vedic gods.

8. Page 171 — He has the eyes of the kunala bird… This kind of bird, with its eyes of legendary beauty, is mentioned in Jat. §536.

9. Page 171 — She had been concerned that… he would get the spiritual bug… Just as the Buddha’s father, King Suddhodana, had when his son was the young Prince Siddhartha.

10. Page 172 — go and sneak a look at them all bathing … This is indeed another famous incident in the life of Lord Krishna. The ‘gopis’ were milk-maids or female cow-herds; they feature very prominently in the Krishna stories of Hindu legend. This tale can be found in the Bhagavata Purana, Skanda X, Ch. 22.

11. Page 176 — spontaneous verse exercises… This was a skill much practised and admired in ancient times. The Buddha was highly gifted at this art; for example, the Dhammapada and the Sutta Nipāta are two long poetic collections of teachings which were all spontaneously composed by him.

12. Page 177 — happiness and joy are born from those who are dear to us... This statement of Krishna’s is a quotation from a character who sets in motion a string of dialogues, and offers the occasion for the Buddha to give a number of useful teachings. It is found at M 87.3.

13. Page 178 — Great is the joy of sweet desire… These verses were originally uttered by Princess Yashodhara, (the Buddha’s former wife and later a nun and an arahant) in a former existence, when she was with the Bodhisattva. The verse appears in Jat. §459, in ‘The Jātaka, Vol. IV’ p. 74.

14. Page 179 — the strength of their love only made the tearing apart more agonizing… The Buddha outlined this equation in a few places, for example at M 87.3, at Ud 8.8 & Dhp. 212-3.
This principle is also a major theme of ‘The Pilgrim Kāmanīta,’ indeed the simple contemplation that the Buddha gives to the heroine Vāsitthī, once she has become a nun Page 21 of 21

– “Where there is love, there is also suffering” – is a lynchpin of the story. See ‘The Pilgrim Kamanita,’ Ch. 41.

15. Page 179 — he too had had his true love wrenched rudely from him … As in the Mahābharata; after Draupadi, the wife of Arjuna and the other four Pandava brothers, has been lost in the dice game, the disreputable Dushassana drags off by her hair and the anguished husbands can only sit and watch.

16. Page 180 — When two great forces oppose each other… This is a quotation from the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 69, Stephen Mitchell trans.