Story of Malayamálin.
Of old time there dwelt in the Carnatic a rich merchant, named Vijayamálin, and he had a son named Malayamálin. One day Malayamálin, when he was grown up, went with his father to the king’s court, and there he saw the daughter of the king Indukeśarin, Induyaśas by name. That maiden, like a bewildering creeper of love,[13] entered the heart of the young merchant, as soon as he saw her. Then he returned home, and remained in a state of pallor, sleepless at night, and during the day cowering with contracted limbs, having taken upon himself the kumuda-vow.[14] And thinking continually of her, he was averse to food and all other things of the kind, and even when questioned by his relations, he gave no more answer than if he had been dumb.
Then, one day, the king’s painter, whose name was Mantharaka, an intimate friend of his, said to him in private, when in this state owing to the sorrow of separation: “Friend, why do you remain leaning against the wall like a man in a picture? Like a lifeless image, you neither eat, nor hear, nor see.” When his friend the painter asked him this question persistently, the merchant’s son at last told him his desire. The painter said to him; “It is not fitting that you, a merchant’s son, should fall in love with a princess. Let the swan desire the beautiful face of the lotuses of all ordinary lakes, but what has he to do with the delight of enjoying the lotus of that lake, which is the navel of Vishṇu?” Still the painter could not prevent him from nursing his passion; so he painted the princess on a piece of canvas, and gave her picture to him to solace his longing, and to enable him to while away the time. And the young merchant spent his time in gazing on, coaxing, and touching, and adorning her picture, and he fancied that it was the real princess Induyaśas, and gradually became absorbed in her, and did all that he did under that belief.[15] And in course of time he was so engrossed by that fancy, that he seemed to see her, though she was only a painted figure, talking to him and kissing him. Then he was happy, because he had obtained in imagination union with his beloved, and he was contented, because the whole world was for him contained in that piece of painted canvas.
One night, when the moon was rising, he took the picture and went out of his house with it to a garden, to amuse himself with his beloved. And there he put down the picture at the foot of a tree, and went to a distance, to pick flowers for his darling. At that moment he was seen by a hermit, named Vinayajyoti, who came down from heaven out of compassion, to rescue him from his delusion. He by his supernatural power painted in one part of the picture a live black cobra, and stood near invisible. In the meanwhile Malayamálin returned there, after gathering those flowers, and seeing the black serpent on the canvas, he reflected, “Where does this serpent come from now? Has it been created by fate to protect this fair one, the treasure-house of beauty.” Thus reflecting, he adorned with flowers the fair one on the canvas, and fancying that she surrendered herself to him, he embraced her, and asked her the above question, and at that very moment the hermit threw an illusion over him, which made him see her bitten by the black snake and unconscious. Then he forgot that it was only canvas, and exclaiming, alas! alas! he fell distracted on the earth, like a Vidyádhara brought down by the canvas acting as a talisman. But soon he recovered consciousness, and rose up weeping and determined on suicide, and climbed up a lofty tree, and threw himself from its top. But, as he was falling, the great hermit appeared to him, and bore him up in his hands, and consoled him, and said to him, “Foolish boy, do you not know that the real princess is in her palace, and that this princess on the canvas is a painted figure devoid of life? So who is it that you embrace, or who has been bitten by the serpent? Or what is this delusion of attributing reality to the creation of your own desire, that has taken possession of your passionate heart? Why do you not investigate the truth with equal intensity of contemplation, in order that you may not again become the victim of such sorrows?”
When the hermit had said this to the young merchant, the night of his delusion was dispersed, and he recovered his senses, and, bowing before the hermit, he said to him; “Holy one, by your favour I have been rescued from this calamity; do me the favour of rescuing me also from this changeful world.” When Malayamálin made this request to the hermit, who was a Bodhisattva, he instructed him in his own knowledge and disappeared. Then Malayamálin went to the forest, and by the power of his asceticism he came to know the real truth about that which is to be rejected and that which is to be chosen, with the reasons, and attained the rank of an Arhat. And the compassionate man returned, and by teaching them knowledge, he made king Indukeśarin and his citizens obtain salvation.
“So even untruth, in the ease of those mighty in contemplation, becomes true. I have now explained the perfection of contemplation; listen to the perfection of wisdom.”