A Digit of the Moon: A Hindoo Love Story

by F. W. Bain

DAY 18.

Then the King said to Rasakósha: My friend, now in very truth am I eating the fruit of my own crimes in a former birth, since four days only remain; and well did you say that I am suspended by the heels over an unfathomable abyss, with ice at my heart. For only too well do I see that the Princess will stand the test, seeing that the sharp arrows of your cunning questions rebound from her as if, instead of a jewelled bodice, she was clad in a coat of mail. And the nectar of the portrait has become a poison, which will certainly put an end to me before morning. So the King passed the night in a state of despondency, with his back to the portrait. And when the sun rose, he rose also, and hardly contrived to pass the day by the help of Rasakósha and the garden. Then when the sun set, they went again to the hall of audience. And there they saw the Princess, clad in a robe of Indian red[[1]], and a bodice studded with sea-gems, and her crown and other ornaments, sitting on her throne. And she looked at the King, and drooped her head like a flower, and the King sank upon a couch, speechless and fascinated, under the spell of her beauty. Then Rasakósha came forward and stood before her, and began again:

Lady, a certain lover was bewailing the death of his mistress, and he exclaimed: O Death, thou art strong; but O Love, thou art stronger. And it happened that Yama[[2]] heard him. So he said to the god who has a row of bees for a bowstring[[3]]: Hear what nonsense that foolish fellow is prattling. But Kamadéwa replied: It is not nonsense, but the truth. I am the stronger. So a dispute arose between them, as to which of them was the stronger. And after a while, Kamadéwa said: What is the use of talking? Let us put the matter to the test, and make trial of our power. And Yama said: So be it. And they chose for the subjects of their experiments three things: a hero, a nyagródha[[4]] tree, and the heart of a sage.

Then Yama went first to the tree, and smote its roots with death. But as fast as they died, the branches, inspired by Káma, let down roots from above, and they struck into the earth, and became new trunks, and grew up and produced new branches, which did the same continually. So after a while Yama was tired and stopped, and there was the tree as strong as ever.

Then Kámadéwa said: See, I have conquered. But Yama said: Wait and see. And he went to the hero, and struck him down when he was fighting in the front of the battle, and he died. But Smara[[5]] inspired the people of that country; and they mourned for that hero, and built him a splendid pillar; and poets sang his glorious deeds, and mothers called their children by his name, and they worshipped him as an incarnation of deity in the temples.

Then Kámadéwa said: See, again I have conquered. Acknowledge that I am the stronger. But Yama said: Wait and see. And he went to the sage, as he was practising terrible austerities in the forest, and struck his heart and killed it. But even as he did so, Desire sprang up in it[[6]] again ever anew, and ever fresh attachments to the objects of sense, and so the battle went on continually in the heart of that sage, as it alternately became dead to the world, and then again alive, and subject to the influence of the pleasures of mundane existence.

Then Kámadéwa said: See, once more I am proved to be the strongest. The victory is mine. Confess that you are beaten. But Yama said: For all that I am the stronger, and that lover was a babbler. And Kámadéwa laughed at him and mocked him.

So now tell me, Princess, which is the stronger? And Rasakósha ceased. Then the Princess turned very pale[[7]], and said in a low voice: Kámadéwa is cunning, and like a dishonest gambler, loaded his dice to win. For in particular instances and limited times, he appears to be the stronger. And therefore it was that he challenged Yama, knowing very well that all instances must of necessity be limited to a place and time. But nevertheless Yama is stronger than he. For he is unlimited, being Time itself without beginning or end[[8]], and that power, whose nature it is to be unsusceptible of bounds, can no more be exhibited by particular instances than the ceaseless flow of Ganges can be contained in a single jar.

And when the Princess had spoken, she rose up and went out, looking at the King with eyes of sorrow, and the King's heart went with her. But the King and Rasakósha returned to their own apartments.

[[1]] Lóhita. The sea-gem is perhaps some kind of pearl.