The Kādambarī of Bāṇa. Bhūṣaṇabhaṭṭa

the four lotus-mouths of Brahmā, find here their best and most fitting home. (91) All the sciences, which became turbid in the rainy season of the Iron Age, become pure when they reach him, as rivers coming to autumn. Of a surety, holy Dharma, having taken up his abode here after quelling the riot of the Iron Age, no longer cares to recall the Golden Age. Heaven, seeing earth trodden by him, no longer takes pride in being dwelt in by the Seven Ṛishis. How bold is old age, which fears not to fall on his thick matted locks, moonbeam-pale as they are, and hard to gaze on as the rays of the sun of doom.185 For it falls on him as Ganges, white with flecks of foam, on Çiva, or as an offering of milk on Agni. Even the sun’s rays keep far from the penance-grove, as if terrified by the greatness of the saint whose hermitage is darkened by the thick smoke of many an oblation. These fires, too, for love of him, receive oblations purified by hymns, for their flames are pressed together by the wind, like hands reverently raised. (92) The wind itself approaches him timidly, just stirring the linen and bark dresses, fragrant with the sweet creeper blossoms of the hermitage, and gentle in motion. Yet the glorious might of the elements is wont to be beyond our resistance! But this man towers above186 the mightiest! The earth shines as if with two suns, being trodden by this noble man. In his support the world stands firm. He is the stream of sympathy, the bridge over the ocean of transient existence, and the home of the waters of patience; the axe for the glades of the creepers of desire, the ocean of the nectar of content, the guide in the path of perfection, the mountain behind which sets the planet of ill,187 the root of the tree of endurance, the nave of the wheel of wisdom, the staff of the banner of righteousness, the holy place for the descent of all knowledge, the submarine fire of the ocean of craving, the touch-stone of the jewels of the çāstras, the consuming flame of the buds of passion, the charm against the snake of wrath, the sun to dispel the darkness of delusion, the binder of the bolts of hell’s gates, the native home of noble deeds, the temple of propitious rites, the forbidden ground for the degradation of passion, the sign-post to the paths of good, the birthplace of holiness, the felly of the wheel of effort, the abode of strength, the foe of the Iron Age, the treasury of penance, the friend of truth, the native soil of sincerity, the source of the heaping up of merit, the closed gate for envy, the foe of calamity. (93) Truly he is one in whom disrespect can find no place; for he is averse from pride, unclaimed by meanness, unenslaved by wrath, and unattracted by pleasure. Purely by the grace of this holy man the hermitage is free from envy and calm from enmity. Great is the power of a noble soul. Here, ceasing their constant feud, the very animals are quiet, and learn the joy of a hermitage life. For here a snake, wearied by the sun, fearlessly enters, as if into fresh grass, into the peacock’s tail, like an interwoven grove of open lotuses, with its hundred beauteous eyes, changing in hue as the eyes of a deer. Here a young antelope, leaving his mother, makes friends with the lion-cubs whose manes are not yet grown, and drinks at the bounteous breast of the lioness. Here a lion closes his eyes, and is pleased to have his moon-white mane pulled by the young elephants that mistake it for lotus-fibres. Here the monkey-tribe loses its capriciousness and brings fruit to the young munis after their bath. There the elephants, too, though excited, are tender-hearted, and do not drive away by their flapping the bees that dwell round their frontal bones, and stay motionless to drink their ichor. (94) But what need of more? There even the senseless trees, with roots and fruits, clad in bark, and adorned with outer garments of black antelope skin perpetually made for them by the upward creeping lines of sacrificial smoke, seem like fellow ascetics of this holy man. How much more, then, living beings, endowed with sense!”

      ‘And while I was thus thinking, Hārīta placed me somewhere in the shade of the açoka tree, and embracing his father’s feet and saluting him, sat down not far from him on a seat of kuça grass.

      ‘But the hermits, looking on me, asked him as he rested: “Whence was this little parrot brought?” “When I went hence to bathe,” replied he, “I found this little parrot fallen from its nest in a tree on the bank of the lotus-lake, faint with the heat, lying in hot dust, and shaken by the fall, with little life left in him. And as I could not replace him in his nest (for that tree was too hard for an ascetic to climb), I brought him hither in pity. So, while his wings are not grown, and he cannot fly into the sky, let him live in the hollow of some hermitage tree, (95) fed on the juice of fruits and on handfuls of rice brought to him by us and by the young hermits. For it is the law of our order to protect the weak. But when his wings are grown, and he can fly into the sky, he shall go where he likes. Or perhaps, when he knows us well, he will stay here.” The holy Jābāli, hearing this and other remarks about me, with some curiosity bent his head slightly, and, with a very calm glance that seemed to purify me with holy waters, he gazed long upon me, and then, looking again and again as if he were beginning to recognise me, said: “He is reaping the fruit of his own ill-conduct.” For by the potency of penance the saint with divine insight beholds the past, present, and future, and sees the whole world as though placed on the palm of his hand. He knows past births. He tells things yet to come. He declares the length of days of beings within his sight.

      ‘At these words the whole assemblage of hermits, aware of his power, became curious to know what was my crime, and why committed, and where, and who I was in a former birth; and implored the saint, saying: (96) “Vouchsafe, sir, to tell us of what kind of misconduct he is reaping the fruits. Who was he in a former birth, and how was he born in the form of a bird? How is he named? Do thou satisfy our curiosity, for thou art the fountain-head of all marvels.”

      ‘Thus urged by the assemblage, the great saint replied: “The story of this wonder is very long, the day is almost spent, our bathing-time is near, while the hour for worshipping the gods is passing. Arise, therefore; let each perform his duties as is meet. In the afternoon, after your meal of roots and fruits, when you are resting quietly, I will tell you the whole story from beginning to end – who he is, what he did in another birth, and how he was born in this world. Meanwhile, let him be refreshed with food. He will certainly recall, as it were, the vision of a dream when I tell the whole story of his former birth.” So saying, he arose, and with the hermits bathed and performed their other daily duties.

      (97) ‘The day was now drawing to a close. When the hermits rose from their bathing, and were offering a sacrifice, the sun in the sky seemed to bear upwards before our eyes the offering cast on the ground, with its unguent of red sandal-wood. Then his glow faded and vanished; the effluence of his glory was drunk by the Ushmāpas188 with faces raised and eyes fixed on his orb, as if they were ascetics; and he glided from the sky pink as a dove’s foot, drawing in his rays as though to avoid touching the Seven Ṛishis as they rose. His orb, with its network of crimson rays reflected on the Western Ocean, was like the lotus of Vishṇu on his couch of waters pouring forth nectar; his beams, forsaking the sky and deserting the lotus-groves, lingered at eve like birds on the crest of hill and tree; the splashes of crimson light seemed for a moment to deck the trees with the red bark garments hung up by the ascetics. And when the thousand-rayed sun had gone to rest, twilight sprang up like rosy coral from the Western Ocean. (98) Then the hermitage became the home of quiet thought, as the pleasant sound of milking the sacred cows arose in one quarter, and the fresh kuça grass was scattered on the altar of Agni, and the rice and oblations to the goddesses of space were tossed hither and thither by the hermitage maidens. And red-starred eve seemed to the hermits as the red-eyed cow of the hermitage roaming about, tawny in the fall of day. And when the sun had vanished, the lotus-bed, in the grief of bereavement, seemed to perform a vow in the hopes of rejoining the lord of day, for she lifted the goblets of her buds, and wore the fine white vesture of her haṃsas, and was girt with the sacrificial thread of white filaments, and bore a circle of bees as her rosary. And the starry host leapt up and filled the sky, like a splash of spray when the sun fell into the Western Ocean; and for a brief space the star-bespangled sky shone as though inlaid with flowers offered by the daughters of the Siddhas189 in honour of twilight; but in a moment the whole glory of the gloaming vanished as though washed away by the libations which the hermits, with faces upraised, cast towards the sky; (99) and at its departure, night, as sorrowing for its loss, wore a deeper darkness, like a black antelope’s skin – a blackness which darkened all save the hearts of the hermits.

      ‘Learning