Chapter XCV.
(Vetála 21.)
Then king Trivikramasena again went and took the Vetála from the aśoka-tree, and carried him along on his shoulder. And as he was going along, the Vetála again said to the king, “Listen, king, I will tell you a story of violent attachment.”
Story of Anangamanjarí, her husband Maṇivarman, and the Bráhman Kamalákara.
There is a city called Viśálá, which is like a second city of Indra, made by the Creator on earth, for the sake of virtuous people who have fallen from heaven. In it there lived a fortunate king, named Padmanábha, who was a source of joy to good men, and excelled king Bali. In the reign of that king there lived in that city a great merchant, named Arthadatta, who surpassed in opulence the god of wealth. And to him there was born a daughter named Anangamanjarí, who was exhibited on earth by the Creator as a likeness of a heavenly nymph. And that merchant gave her to the son of a distinguished merchant, dwelling in Támraliptí, and named Maṇivarman. But as he was very fond of his daughter Anangamanjarí, because she was his only child, he would not let her leave his house, but kept her there with her husband. But Anangamanjarí’s husband Maṇivarman was as distasteful to her, as a biting bitter medicine to a sick man. But that lovely one was dearer than life to her husband, as wealth hardly won and long hoarded is to a miser.
Now once on a time that Maṇivarman, longing to see his parents, went to his home in Támraliptí to visit them. After some days had passed, the hot season descended upon the land, impeding the journey of men absent from home with the sharp shafts of the sun’s rays. The winds blew laden with the fragrance of the jasmine and trumpet-flower, and seemed like the hot[1] sighs of the cardinal points on account of the departure of spring. Lines of dust raised by the wind flew up to heaven, like messengers sent by the heated earth to hasten the approach of the clouds. The days passed slowly, like travellers exhausted by the severe heat, and longing for the shade of the trees. The nights, pale-gleaming with moonbeams, became exceedingly[2] reduced owing to the loss of the spring with all its happy meetings.
One day in that season, that merchant’s daughter Anangamanjarí was sitting with her intimate friend in a lofty window of her house, white with sandal-wood ointment, and elegantly dressed in a thin garment of silk. While there, she saw a young Bráhman, named Kamalákara, the son of the king’s chaplain, passing by, and he looked like the god of Love, risen from his ashes, going to find Rati. And when Kamalákara saw that lovely one overhead, like the orb of the moon,[3] he was full of joy, and became like a cluster of kumuda-flowers. The sight of those two young persons became to one another, by the mighty command of Cupid, a priceless[4] fascination of the mind. And the two were overcome by passion, which rooted up their modesty and carried away by a storm of love-frenzy, which flung their minds to a distance. And Kamalákara’s companion, as soon as he saw that his friend was love-smitten, dragged him off, though with difficulty, to his own house.
As for Anangamanjarí, she enquired what his name was, and having no will of her own, slowly entered the house with that confidante of hers. There she was grievously afflicted with the fever of love, and thinking on her beloved, she rolled on the bed, and neither saw nor heard anything. After two or three days had passed, being ashamed and afraid, unable to bear the misery of separation, thin and pale, and despairing of union with her beloved, which seemed a thing impossible, she determined on suicide. So, one night, when her attendants were asleep, she went out, drawn as it were, by the moon, which sent its rays through the window, like fingers, and made for a tank at the foot of a tree in her own garden. There she approached an image of the goddess Chaṇḍí, her family deity, that had been set up with much magnificence by her father, and she bowed before the goddess, and praised her, and said, “Though I have not obtained Kamalákara for a husband in this life, let him be my husband in a future birth!” When the impassioned woman had uttered these words in front of the goddess, she made a noose with her upper garment, and fastened it to an aśoka-tree.
In the meanwhile it happened that her confidante, who was sleeping in the same room, woke up, and not seeing her there, went to the garden to look for her. And seeing her there engaged in fastening a noose round her neck, she cried out, “Stop! stop!” and running up, she cut that noose which she had made. Anangamanjarí, when she saw that her confidante had come and cut the noose, fell on the ground in a state of great affliction. Her confidante comforted her, and asked her the cause of her grief, and she at once told her, and went on to say to her, “So you see, friend Málatiká, as I am under the authority of my parents and so on, and have little chance of being united to my beloved, death is my highest happiness.” While Anangamanjarí was saying these words, she was exceedingly tortured with the fire of Love’s arrows, and being overpowered with despair, she fainted away.