The lovesick prince no sooner heard this welcome intelligence than he introduced himself to the confidante, talked with her for twenty-four hours, (much too long, one would think) and then went with her to Kusumapura.
Here he found the lovely Vasavadattâ in a garden-house of ivory. On seeing each other they faint for joy, and afterwards rehearse their past sufferings.
The confidante speaks for the princess, and says that ‘if the heavens were a tablet, the sea an inkstand, the longevous Brahma an amanuensis, and the king of serpents the narrator, only a trifling part of those agonies could be told.’
They next resolve on what we should call a ‘runaway match;’ and this they effect by mounting a magic steed which carries them to the Vindhya forests in the twinkling of an eye. They sleep soundly in a bower of flowery creepers, but when the sun is at meridian height the prince awakes, and finds Vasavadattâ missing. He bitterly laments and wonders what can have caused so dreadful an affliction. Poor Vasavadattâ having been the first to awaken, and seeing her bridegroom looking pale and emaciated, for the sickness of love had greatly reduced him, hastened away to gather fruits and food to restore him. In the midst of this loving occupation she was surprised by huntsmen and so frightened that eventually she lost her way, and found herself unable to return to her sorrowing bridegroom. After many dangers and difficulties were gone through the prince at length discovers her; she is conducted back to his father’s palace, and they live in the greatest love and happiness ever after.
Carved upon the oak panels that lined the walls of Dayanand Swami’s ‘room of contemplation’ were Sanskrit texts taken from The Rig Veda, the ancient Hindu Scriptures;
The portions selected had reference chiefly to the sun; the light of day being considered typical of the light of learning. The following are the English rendering of these short quotations from four thousand years old poems.
‘His coursers bear on high the divine, all-knowing Sun that he may be seen by all worlds.’
‘At the approach of the all illuminating Sun the constellations depart with the night, like thieves.’
‘His illuminating rays behold men in succession like blazing fires.’
‘Thou outstrippest all in speed; thou art visible to all; thou art the source of light; thou shinest throughout the entire firmament.’