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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

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

edroll on shoulder, Krishna sheltered below the wall, waiting for the squall to pass. It was one of those blasts of rain that came like a last hurrah just when you thought that the monsoon season was over and done with. It was still well before dawn so there was no need for him to hurry; he could be patient.

* * *
Safe in his dark cocoon under the bushes his mind wandered back over the last momentous months.

Every year, before the monsoon proper, the air would get tense and dense, everyone would be short-tempered and irritable Page 2 of 21

for a few days and then there would come a brief thunderstorm, lightning would blast and frazzle the land around Ujjeni – even right overhead sometimes – and, when the rain passed, all would be calmer once again.

This cycle of tension and release in the weather had been a close match for the fights he’d been having with his mother. Krishna had not been slow to notice that their worst arguments were always just before a storm.

Over these last few days he had been feeling very content – since he had made his decision to leave – but before the rainy season he had been a tangled knot of frustration and bitter ire, relieved only when a storm briefly cleared the air.

* * *

“But what’s the point!?”

“The point of what, dear?” Savitri’s brow was furrowed in her customary expression of plaintive concern mixed with mystification, she felt out of her depth and wanted desperately to set her son’s heart at ease.

“You know, of anything… of everything! It all seems to be a senseless joke and not a very funny one either, at least as far as I can tell.”

“I can’t see, for the life of me, what it is that’s bothering you,” his mother was sincerely perplexed, “you have a beautiful home, you’ve had a fine education, good friends, soon you’ll be coming of age and all this property will be yours. What a wonderful situation for you to raise a family in – I can’t see how things could be better for you…” She pleaded her usual case, blanking out from her consciousness, as she customarily did, the glaringly obvious fact that her own husband had become similarly discontent and had walked away from this splendour of his own free will. Above all things she dreaded a similar urge being awakened in her son’s heart, hence her efforts to immerse him, throughout his childhood and adolescence, in all that was sweet and fine in life, and in what was distracting to his senses.

“There you Page 3 of 21

go again, Mum, ‘the sacred cause of human propagation’ – do you really think that life can only be fulfilled by having babies? What about people who live honourable lives but don’t have children? Or the women who love other women, and the men who love other men – and don’t give me that ‘How-can-you-even-know-of-such-things’ look either. I‘m not a child anymore! I know how the world works.” Krishna was, too, warming to his favourite theme.

“What I mean is, what’s the point of just becoming another fat merchant, covered in jewels and mired in dubious business deals, just so that I can die and leave a pile of money and a big house to some children who will throw it all away; or at least will grow up conceited and complacent, like I did. Inherited privilege and wealth just makes us lazy and stupid, Mum.”

Savitri was stirred with feelings of anger and helplessness – that he could be so ungrateful for all that had been done for him and that nothing she said seemed to get through. A tear ran from her eye and she wiped it hurriedly with the fine muslin wrap that was draped around her.

“But Mudi, what else can we do but fulfill our dharma – our path in life designated by our karma, our birth? You are a vaisha, a merchant, that’s your dharma, your duty, your inheritance; what could be wrong with honouring the gods by living according to their will, according to the proper ordering of the universe?” Again, she was truly at a loss to see what could be so wide of the mark or unacceptable about doing what everyone in the world recognized as being one’s role, being part of the human family.

He’d wanted to explain, in a way she could understand, how he felt an overwhelming need to know what was truly important in life and to find out what anyone could do that would really make a difference. They had been over this so many times already that he knew, if he Page 4 of 21

said it was about spirituality, she would just suggest going to more pujas and visiting the local shrines – and that just did not cut the mustard.

“You’ll never understand, Mum,” he grumbled, “forget it. I’m sorry I got upset with you. Please don’t cry…” His mood was melting away now and he felt bad that he’d brought her to tears again. “What’s for lunch today?”

She looked up and was won over by the genuine affection in her son’s beautiful eyes; her distress faded too. A weak smile rose to her face and she felt his reassuring hand round her shoulders.

A crack of purple lighting burst nearby and thunder boomed.

* * *

The biggest concern for all at the palace this season was not so much the friction between Savitri and Krishna but rather the advancing sickness of the steward Kolita. He had been the stalwart of the household for decades now and a much loved father and grandfather to many of the residents. Now his body was slowly wasting and his breath was becoming more and more strained. The days when he could rise from his palliasse became rare, and the stream of doctors and healers through his rooms seemed to bring little improvement.

Krishna was with Dusaka one afternoon, watching the rain through the doorway of the gardener’s little shed that also doubled as his ‘nest’ as he called it.

“Couldn’t we do something to heal him?” Krishna asked, “I mean, you must have lots of powers like that. You can do all kinds of things. Is there some way we could use this mangala to prevent Death from taking him?” Krishna tugged on the amulet that now hung on a sturdy golden chain around his neck.

“Different things work in different ways,” offered Dusaka, not very helpfully. “It’s yours now so, if you think there’s a way it can save Kolita’s life, then it’s up to you to apply it.” He turned his attention back to binding some waxed cord around the handle of a garden Page 5 of 21

tool.

“You also want to make sure you don’t go around hating and resenting Death. Do you think bringing in more negativity usually helps a situation?”

Krishna’s silence answered his teacher’s last query but his interest was piqued by what Dusaka had said first.

“What d’you mean that we shouldn’t hate or resent Death? I though Death was the enemy and to be defeated.”

“He’s only doing his job, in some ways, isn’t he?

“There’s a story of a village, far off to the west of here. As a favour to them, for what reason I can’t recall, one of the high gods granted them a wish. They asked that Death would never visit their village again and the brahma god happily arranged this.

“During that year, as happens in any place, a young man fell from a high tree while he was picking fruit and broke his neck – but he didn’t die; an old lady grew sick and weak, she could no longer eat or drink – but she couldn’t die either; two young men got into a fight and wounded each other grievously, they had been stabbed repeatedly and their limbs were hacked to pieces – but they didn’t die, despite their dreadful injuries; and a young girl who had cut her leg suffered a poisoning of the wound that could not be healed but, although her whole body was rotted with infection and gangrene, she could not die – instead she writhed in unrelenting pain.”

Krishna was looking at the floor of the hut with great intensity, watching a line of ants moving their eggs, probably to avoid being flooded in their former home. Dusaka’s story was troubling and confusing to him.

“So, after one year, the villagers all came to the elders and begged for them to ask the great brahma to rescind the favour that had been granted. To their great delight and relief this was done and Death was able to visit the village once more.”

Dusaka paused as his story came to its Page 6 of 21

end and the two of them listened to the rain. For once Krishna was silent and groped vainly for a question.

“D’you get it?” Dusaka asked, now putting the newly repaired trowel up on the wall-rack.

“Not really,” Krishna hated to admit. “I thought the aim of all this spiritual stuff was to defeat Death.”

“In a way that’s true, but do we have to hate something to defeat it? Do we have to destroy it? Is there some other way that might be the path?”

“A woman has a dream,” Dusaka began, launching into his teaching-story mode once more, “she dreams that she wakes up in her own bedroom but, instead of her husband, she notices that there’s a skeleton beside her instead – y’know, scythe over the shoulder, hourglass by the bedside, the whole collection – she shrieks, reasonably, I’d say, and leaps out of bed.

“She can’t get out of the door, or into a cupboard, so she ends up cowering in a corner, quaking with terror but there’s nowhere to go, no protection.

“After a while she hears a strange, sniffling, sobbing sound, it almost seems to be that there’s someone crying nearby. She looks up, with some concern, for she half-dreaded that the cowled skeletal demon would be looming over her, ready to dispatch her with a swipe of his ugly blade.

“She sees the figure in the bed is hunched over and, mustering all her will, she goes over to its side.

“‘It’s always the same,’ sobs the grim shape in the bed, ‘everywhere I go people take one look then – eeek! – and they run and hide. Do they think it’s fun doing this job? How would they like it if they were feared and hated everywhere they went?’

“To her surprise a great wave of compassion welled up in her chest and taking a deep breath, saying ‘There, there, not everybody hates you,’ she reached forward to embrace Death itself.

“Now that was a brave act, but it was also Page 7 of 21

somewhat forbidding, so as she stretched out her arms she also closed her eyes – fearing to feel the chill bony presence of Death’s body on her skin. To her surprise, as she closed her embrace, instead of the sharp ridges of bone she expected to feel, she was shocked to meet with… nothing.

“She opened her eyes again and the room, which had been dim and murky, was now filled with light, a spring breeze and early sunlight was pouring in the window, billowing the curtains – the bed was absolutely empty.”

Once again Dusaka inquired, “D’you get it? The killing goes with the job so, for Mara, evil is his ‘good’; that‘s the curse of being born into that form. Do you think that’s a reason to hate him? Do you think something has to be destroyed before you can be sure you are not under its control?”

“Well, wiping something out makes it more certain that you’ll be free of it… doesn’t it?” Krishna had a suspicion that this was heading down the wrong track but the logic seemed watertight to him, nonetheless.

“Then what if, in the effort to destroy or punish something, you end up creating more trouble for yourself. Is it worth it?”

“You have to take the rough with the smooth, don’t you?” The ground he was on was feeling ever more treacherous, yet he couldn’t see what Dusaka might be about to come up with to prove him mistaken.

“And what if,” Dusaka was speaking carefully now and even Tingri was giving Krishna the eye, “what if, by your very effort to destroy something, you ended up making it stronger?”

“That would be,” Krishna hunted for the right words, “errr… most unfortunate.”

Instead of his teacher blasting him for being wrongheaded again, or even cracking a joke with Tingri as he often did at such points, the sound of Krishna’s last words was allowed to hang undisturbed in the stuffy air of the hut. He turned his attention back to the army of worker-ants, Page 8 of 21

conscientiously carrying their pale eggs to safety.

* * *

Just as the clear skies, interspersed with brief thunder showers, became superseded by the ever-present grey blanket of the monsoon, so too Krishna’s sporadic spats with his mother mutated into an ongoing blanket of resentment and irritating grudge – like damp rough wool against his skin, that was too hot and itchy for comfort yet which he was somehow unable to shrug off.

“I’ve got to leave!” He was venting his almost-sixteen-year-old spleen to Dusaka once again.

“It’ll break your mother’s heart, especially if you’re thinking not to say goodbye…” he lowered his eyes. Krishna could not see if there was any recrimination there. He also wondered how Dusaka had guessed that he was indeed planning a secret departure one night.

“Tough! She’s kept me cooped up here like a kunala bird in a jeweled cage, trying to make me stupid and useless – another puffed up and overfed merchant for the glory of Ujjeni. All the rich clothes and ornaments, good food and pretty maids, and then paying them to visit my room at night. That was just a cheap trick to make me forget Khina, who I really loved….”

“You don’t seem too disappointed with the company of Nanda,” Dusaka leveled his gaze at his Krishna for a moment, giving him his don’t-be-a-hypocrite look. “And word has it that Khina’s very happily married to a Koliyan merchant and the mother of a little boy – who she didn’t call ‘Krishna,’ by the way.”

“I know, he’s ‘Little Kolita.’ But anyway, I really don’t care if it does upset my mother – she’s made my life hell, she deserves to suffer!”

At this Dusaka’s scabby eyebrow was raised half a finger-breadth, as if to say, “Really – is that so?”

“…a bit…” Krishna continued.

“And that will be sweet?” Now the cocked eyebrow was augmented with a sideways tilt of the chin.

Krishna felt a fierce flush of relish run through him at the thought of getting Page 9 of 21

his mother back for all the wrongs she’d done him. “Right!” he answered with a flash of his eyes and with a vehemence that surprised even him.

Mara saw that it was good. Tingri snorted with disgust.

* * *

A few days after this exchange there had been a break in the weather. Krishna had expected to find Dusaka busy in the grounds taking care of what tasks he could while the rain held off – his friend was somewhat immune to discomfort, it seemed, but the work was always more pleasant when not having to wear a soaking sarong or with the garden debris doubled in weight by water.

He hunted around the usual corners but, not finding Dusaka anywhere, he headed back indoors. To his surprise as he passed the little shed in the kitchen yard where Dusaka lived, he saw that he was busy with something in there.

“What are you doing?” Krishna saw that the place was strangely tidy and that Dusaka’s ragged blanket was rolled up neatly on the low platform that formed his bed. A water gourd sat by it and a couple of cloth-wrapped packages as well.

“What does it look like?” He answered.

“Like you’re packing up.”

“Cracked it in one!” The monk fired a big grin at him, “You’re improving.”

“Where are you going?”

“‘Where’? Where is anywhere?”

Krishna hated it and loved it when Dusaka got cryptic like this.

“And as for ‘going’…” he grinned again. “Just to Suchness; you know…”

Krishna didn’t know, but he guessed that this was going to be the nearest thing to a straight answer he was likely to get out of him.

“What are you going to do?” He asked, really just to fill the silence as he stood there by the door feeling gormless as Dusaka bustled about, putting odds and ends away in the little room.

“I should ask you the same question, perhaps.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking, actually,” Krishna was now glad to Page 10 of 21

have the chance to air the ideas he’d been nursing for a while. “There’s this war that’s brewing, you know, between the asuras and the devas. I’ve had this feeling that the mangala you gave me might be a very useful thing in the struggle. I’d be on the devas side of course – I’ve made a lot of friends here, the visitors who came from Kosambi, Alambusa the tree-spirit, then there’s the royal nagas in the lake, Virupakkha and Samuddaja – do you think it’s my destiny to help with the coming war? Should I be using the mangala to defeat the asuras?”

“The amulet I gave you is guaranteed to protect the owner form all physical harm. Death cannot destroy your body while you own it; if you think that’s a good enough weapon then maybe you can help the devas win.“

“I knew it!” Krishna was excited beyond even his usual enthusiasms. “I’ve been trying to see what purpose, if any, there might be to life, to everything. At least here is something I can really do – you know – that will make a real difference. This is great!”

“Sometimes,” Dusaka tossed a bone that he’d been saving for Tingri down to the dog for her chew on the dirt floor of his hut, “we do have to leave the world we know in order to find out what’s worth seeking. That’s true.”

Krishna wasn’t quite sure if Dusaka was agreeing with him, he knew you always had to listen closely or you could leap to the wrong conclusions. “So, are you telling me that I should run away from home?”

“What do you think?” Dusaka smiled warmly and continued packing.

“If I set out on this quest, would you help me? Can I go with you right now?”

“I always travel alone – at least, that is, with respect to humans,” he smiled at Tingri who was giving the bone all the attention it deserved. “So you can’t travel with me, but I’ll be turning up from time Page 11 of 21

to time, I expect; I usually do, here and there.”

Krishna knew it was a mistake to ask Dusaka if he had any predictions for the future, even though he had once said that Krishna’s business with his sisters was not done. Apart from that, questions about what might happen often gave rise to even more elusive and mysterious answers than his friend gave normally. He decided to try anyway.

“So, do you think I might be, you know, successful? Helping the devas and so on? And if the mangala does defeat Death, will that be the fulfillment of my spiritual journey? Don’t they say that defeating Death is the same as enlightenment?”

“There are different ways of defeating, or evading Death,” Dusaka rubbed the side of his neck and clicked a joint or two back into place, as if by way of a hint. “If you want to know about ending the journey then you should seek out the teaching of the Buddhas and the noble ones.” He settled on his low bench and his voice moved into a different register. The old monk began to recite:

“When one sees with perfect wisdom
The Truths of the noble ones –
Dissatisfaction, (the disease),
It’s origin, (the cause),
Its overcoming, (the state of health),
And the Noble Eightfold Path, (the cure),
That leads to dissatisfaction’s end –
Then that person, having wandered on
For seven more lives at most,
Makes a total end to suffering;
All the fetters are destroyed.”

As usual, Krishna was not quite sure what Dusaka was driving at but the resonant verses sank in and, as best he could, he took them to heart: “Once you really understand things, then, no more than seven more lifetimes – OK! Then enlightenment and eternal bliss.…”

“One more thing,” Dusaka was now shouldering his bundle and had draped a cloth bag with a long strap across his chest. He picked up his staff and looked Krishna in the eye, the lad was now a good few finger-breadths taller than him. “The secret of the Page 12 of 21

mangala, and how to use it and all its powers, is something that you’ll learn from a red-haired woman. Don’t forget. Bye bye.”

* * *

Down by the lake, now filled with blossoming lotus flowers, there was a small pavilion where Krishna liked to sit. Even if it was pouring with rain he would sometimes dash out there as he knew its isolation would grant him some solitude. It was also a place where he could chat freely with his naga friend, Queen Samuddaja, and what with his family and the house becoming an oppressive presence in his life he was drawn to spend more and more time with the celestials, as he had come to call them.

He hurtled into the shelter of the pavilion one evening during a downpour. Safely under the eaves, he leaned back and briskly shook the gouts of water out of his hair. Once settled on the bench that surrounded the interior of the space, he crossed his legs, focused his mind and sent forth the message, “Noble Queen, Krishna has come to visit, are you free to speak?” He waited and, before long, a luminescent serpentine form emerged from the waters and glided delicately across the floor-boards towards him.

It rose up and spread its sparkling scaled hood, Krishna bowed forward and the ethereal being’s head and his own brow gently touched. When he opened his eyes she had assumed a human form as she knew it was much easier to communicate through spoken words this way.

The naga queen’s skin glistened with a shimmering, jewel-like array of colours and her body was draped with intricate strings of pearl and leaf-thin emerald. Her face was of an exquisite beauty, however Krishna was always slightly disconcerted by the slitted pupils of her eyes and her unblinking stare. He had met her husband, King Virupakkha, a few times but he was a naga of greatest significance, it seemed, and often spent time away from this pool, which they seemed to relate to as if it were some kind Page 13 of 21

of rural retreat for them. Samuddaja often said how much she preferred to be here rather than in the royal court of Bhogavati, the naga capital under the Himalayas.

Krishna talked with her for some time and told her of his plans to depart the palace once he had reached his sixteenth birthday. When he had become an adult he would officially donate the palace and all his wealth to his mother and then go forth to help the devas in their impending war with the asuras.

“Dusaka, the gardener,” he explained, and noticed that the naga placed her palms reverentially together when he mentioned the eccentric monk’s name, “also told me that I’d learn how to use the mangala from a woman with red hair. He didn’t say anything about it before he left but, years ago when I was small and when he first came here, he mentioned that I shouldn’t forget my sisters. Well, it seems to me, Your Highness – and he, Dusaka, had one of those odd I’ve-got-a-message-for-you looks as he said it – that maybe it’s Tamba he was talking about. She had reddish hair, that’s how she got the name, and a coppery kind of tint to her skin. Of course I was very small, so I might not remember perfectly, but everyone who knew her says the same.” He was excited and wanted her to know his ideas and, hopefully, for her to be as optimistic as he was about the whole adventure – even better, to pass on some inside knowledge on this whole affair, if she happened to have any.

“But, Krissshna,” Samuddaja spoke in a musical sibilant tone, “wasn’t it said that your sissster had died on the way to Kosssambi?”

“That’s what people think, but the kinnaris never actually saw her body. I think maybe she found a way to survive; maybe a pack of wolves adopted her, or a hunter found her and raised her, or maybe the nagas discovered her and decided to look after her and now she has become an enlightened Page 14 of 21

sage...”

“It’s true that her hair was thusss,” Samuddaja reflected, “I remember when she used to swim in this very lake as a little girl, she’d go underwater and, when the sun shone from above her head it would be like a grand spray of auburn and copper huesss billowing round her in the water. Sssometimes I’d look up from below her and sssee her little body framed against the bright light, there would be a thousand red and russset beams shooting through the pool, amongst the lotussses.”

These were fond recollections of many years before, but Samuddaja had to admit that she had not heard of anything since then that would suggest that Tamba was still alive, let alone where she might be. She told Krishna that she shared his hope, however, and she agreed it was possible that Dusaka had been referring to Tamba as the red-haired woman. She fixed her friend’s eyes with a keen and sincere gaze.

“The venerable monk is a mysteriousss man, Krissshna; he’s very wise and has much to impart but he seesss that we learn bessst through our own discoveries. He also chooses his words very carefully. It’s always good to think twice before you asssume you are following the advice he gives. Mossst importantly he often reminds us that we usually learn better through our mistakesss than our successsesss.” The naga queen’s last words dissolved into a soft extended hiss and a quizzical smile creased her flawless features, as if she were remembering some precious, bitter-sweet and illumined moment.

Suddenly the two were alerted to the world around them by the sound of a crashing movement among the trees on the bank and some loud thumping noises behind them.

Out of the deep darkness of the woods around the lake two huge burly figures appeared. Krishna was at once alarmed, fearing they were about to be attacked by some demonic entities but to his surprise he saw that the naga was smiling sweetly.

The massive creatures – humanoid in form but blessed with long Page 15 of 21

snaggly teeth, a bristly coating of hair, a slightly acrid reek and eyes of a dangerous scarlet – strode forward and, as gently as possible, came into the shelter of the pavilion.

“Excuse us Your ’ighness,” said the first, “my name’s Gumbiya and this here’s Hemaka. We just came from your sister; she and the Gen’ral wanted you to know that there’s been more serious trouble and they asked us to tell you, ‘Please don’t go out ‘n’ about without an escort.’”

Krishna was amazed at this exchange but could plainly see that the Queen was not bothered in the slightest. She, in turn, could see he was bewildered by the visitors.

“Thessse good yakkhas must be soldiersss under my brother-in-law General Punnaka; is that correct?” She looked over to the two new arrivals.

They nodded, the one who had spoken adding, “Strictly speaking, Your ’ighness, I was retired but, what with the aggro that’s been happening and the rumours of war again, me and a few others got called back into action.”

“Ssso, pray tell usss, what has now happened that the good General should feel the need to warn usss?” The serpentine queen remained seated casually, leaning on her straightened arm and directing her piercing eyes onto the huge ungainly pair. Part of her was ready to shrug off her brother-in-law’s concerns as overly fussy caution, another part tensed in dread of more news of escalating harm.

“Up in Kosambi, Ma’am, you know north-east of here. Outside of town there’s a forest with an old Krishna temple. Well, seems like there was a raid and a bunch of kinnaris got killed. Some rukkha-devas had their trees smashed down and they got done in too.

“One of the girls there I know pretty well – called Mahapa... -something…” – the forbidding, brawny message-carrier seemed genuinely upset as he groped through his memory, failing to find his friend’s proper name – “…but goes by ’Bee’ – both her parents got the chop and it looks like her little sister’s got Page 16 of 21

kidnapped. All the elder kinnaris who didn’t get killed resisting, and a whole lot of youngsters, got taken prisoner and hived off who knows where.”

This was all unsettling news and they sat silently together for some time as the naga queen and Krishna digested it:–– So it wasn’t just up in the heavenly realms that conflict was brewing, it was having its effect here on earth as well. It was very troubling too, to hear that Bee’s family had been so brutalized.

Samuddaja then thought of something, “How isss it that you, a warrior-yakkha, should be ssso friendly with any kinnaris? I’m surprisssed that you would even know each other...”

Gumbiya, with a little embarrassment, recounted the events that had occurred on the road between Kosambi and Ujjeni. They were still reasonably fresh in his memory for, like kinnaris, time ran more slowly for yakkhas than it did in the human world. For him it had happened not that long before.

As he described the scene, and related how the woman had died, and that she had had a young daughter with her, and how there was supposed to have been another girl as well whom he never saw, Krishna was hit by a burst of insight.

“What was her name?”

“I can’t remember! Those kinnaris are terrible for long and fancy monikers. The tall one who was the tough nut, she was ‘Mahapaduma-…’ and one of the others was something like ‘Jambusyrup…’”

“No, the girl! What was the girl’s name?”

“The little girl? – ‘Amba’ that one’s easy too remember – she’s a friendly character. I even felt sorry I’d had the idea of… you know… well, I was hungry!”

“So you were there when the three kinnari met my sister. That’s great! Even though you did have it in mind to eat her. Did you hear that she’s become Queen of Vamsa?”

As he had been back on military duties for a little while, and in close touch with the three kinnari friends, they had Page 17 of 21

brought him up to date on the changes is Amba’s life so her new role was now well known to him.

The news that Bee had lost both her parents and her little sister was very tragic. She was indeed a tough nut but such a loss would be hard to bear, even for her, moreover, she would not be the only one who had lost loved ones. Krishna and Samuddaja pressed the yakkhas for more details.

“Sorry Your ’ighness but there isn’t a lot more to tell. Miss Bee, she told me that when she went to check on the Simsapa forest, you know, after the news of the raid, both her parents were dead near their nest and properly messed up into the bargain. When she went to hunt for her little sister, Minti, there was just a few strands of her hair tangled in the bushes, far across on the east side of the forest, as if she tried to make a run for it but had got caught. There were some splashes of blood as well.

“She’s just a young hatchling, only ten or twenty sun-turnings old… I must say Ma’am” – the yakkha’s already fearsome visage now twisted into an angry tangle of deep lines around his eyes while he ground together the spray of teeth that bristled from his mouth – “I’d like to get my hands on them that did this. Miss Bee’s a brave soul, she stood up to the likes of me without a flicker, so I’ve been real upset seeing her so grieved.”

“How did she know the hair and the blood were her sister’s?” Krishna asked, more just to have something to say than because it might tell him anything new, also to help dispel the image of his friend being so distraught, and the pain that the dead and injured had all suffered.

“Well, those kinnaris are like flowers aren’t they? Each one’s got their own special scent. Their blood smells just like a rose or a hyacinth or jasmine, depending on Page 18 of 21

which kind of flower they belong to, and they can easily tell you whose is which; just like a yakkha can tell whose war-club is whose from a good bow-shot away.

“So, even though it was way off from their nest, they knew right away it was Minti’s. And her hair’s perfickly white, like a sala-tree flower, like ice, so that was it, wasn’t it, Your ’ighness. She was definitely a gonner. They took others too, but it was only adults that died there.”

* * *
As if this news hadn’t depressed Krishna enough, as the rainy season progressed and he tried to use his amulet to heal Kolita, it was plain that he was an abject failure at this. The dear old man became weaker day by day until he could eat or speak no more. Just before the full moon of the Katthika month he breathed his last and his son Vishva was officially installed as steward of the palace.

Krishna’s resolve was now made firm. He knew that, if he had learned how to use the mangala properly, he would have been able to help Kolita – it had been a long agonizing trial for him and everyone, to be so helpless in the face of sickness and Death. He had to do something about this – he had the opportunity to learn the secrets of life and death – he knew this amulet had highly miraculous powers and so he really had no choice but to set forth and learn for himself what it could do, and just how it worked.

His sixteenth birthday had now passed, with the Komudi full moon and, with great pomp and ceremony, he had officially been made master of the house. Savitri was overjoyed that her son now seemed more settled in himself. She had no clue that his newfound ease had come from his firm but as-yet-unspoken decision to leave her and this whole life behind.

He had waited until the dark of the new moon and had packed up a few essentials, as Page 19 of 21

he had seen Dusaka do. Now he sat below the garden wall, beyond the glade where he had had such precious times with Khina. Once he perceived that the shower had passed, he scooted up the notched bamboo pole he had secreted there in advance and hopped nimbly over the garden wall.

* * *

A smile began to creep across the face of the Hunter, like a patch of advancing sunlight melting the ice during the Eight Days of Frost. He watched the prey approaching the jaws of the trap but he carefully did not allow even a flicker of gratification to be exuded. For, even in utter stillness, the faintest scent of a flush of anticipation can cause the victim to balk before the snare is sprung.

As the gates of Ujjeni were opened with the dawn, and Krishna stepped out into the world, the Hunter permitted his grin to widen to its full and gruesome span. He knew the bait had now irrevocably been swallowed.

“Living beings,” he mused, “are so gullible.”



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Notes and References:

Chapter 16

1. Page 223 — she dreaded a similar urge being awakened… As it was in the life of the Buddha; this is described, for example at A 3.38.

2. Page 224 — You are a vaisha,… that’s your dharma… this fixity of roles was, apparently, a little less formalized in the Buddha’s time but was made more concrete with the Laws of Manu, a set of social codes that were compiled by the Manavans, about 500 years later. The Sanskrit name for these laws is ‘Mānava-Dharmaśāstra’ or ‘Manu-smriti.’

3. Page 226 — A woman has a dream… This is an accurate rendering of a dream recounted by a young mother in England, in the early ‘80s. It occurred shortly after the two-year-old child of a close friend died when the car she was in exploded.

4. Page 227 — for Mara, evil is his ‘good’… In Paradise Lost the recently fallen Lucifer reflects: “So Page 20 of 21

farewell Hope, and with Hope farewell Fear, farewell Remorse; all Good to me is lost; Evil be thou my Good…” (Bk. IV, ll. 108-110)

5. Page 227 — by your very effort to destroy something, you end up making it stronger… At S 11.22 the Buddha tells a story of just how such a thing happens when an ‘anger-eating demon’ comes to visit Lord Indra’s palace:
The celestial monarch happens to be away when an ugly little sprite wanders in and sits itself down on the throne. All the attempts of the courtiers to get rid of it only cause it to swell in size and increase in power and beauty.
When Indra returns from his travels and discerns what’s going on, he greets the occupant of his throne politely and engages in friendly conversation. As he does so the demon shrinks and soon spontaneously disappears.

6. Page 229 — the place was strangely tidy… Buddhist monastics are obligated to tidy their dwelling places before leaving; indeed, you are supposed to leave the living-space in better shape than you found it.

7. Page 230 — the royal nagas in the lake, Virupakkha and Samuddaja… In traditional Buddhist cosmology Virūpakkha is one of the four Guardians of the World (Lokapālas) and he rules the Western Quarter, the realm of nāgas – see Ch. 8 note §1.
Not wishing to confuse matters, it might also be mentioned that one Dhatarattha is named as a king of nāgas, and he and Samuddajā are mentioned as a couple, in Jat. §543 (‘The Jātaka, Vol. VI,’ pp. 84 ff.).

8. Page 231 — When one sees with perfect wisdom… These verses come from S 15.10; it is the second part of the verses about Vepulla Mountain that were quoted above, Ch. 14, p. 190.

9. Page 237 — the Katthika month… This is the roughly equivalent to the month of November in the Western calendar.

10. Page 237 — the face of the Hunter… As in M 25.7, ‘The Discourse on The Bait’: “‘Deer-trapper’ is a Page 21 of 21

term for Māra, the Evil One.” Interestingly, the verb ‘to kill’ or ‘to strike’ in Pali is ‘hanati’ and ‘hantar’ in Pali means ‘The Killer.’ Another term for this is ‘māretā’ or ‘māretar’ from the verb ‘māreti,’ ‘to kill,’ as used at S 23.1: “Rādha, see form as Māra, see it as the killer…”

11. Page 237 — during the Eight Days of Frost… The coldest part of the Indian mid-winter was known by this name in the Buddha’s time.

12. Page 238 — “Living beings,” he mused, “are so gullible.” Apparently this English word comes from the Latin ‘gula,’ derived originally from the Pali/Sanskrit ‘gala’ = swallow + ‘bāla’ = fool; the compound ‘galabāliso’ thus means ‘foolish swallowing’ or ‘taking the bait.’