“Your son,” replied the maid, “whom I exposed at the east gate is now your husband. Your daughter, whom I exposed at the west gate, is now your fellow-wife.”
Thereupon Utpalavarṇā reflected that formerly she [[215]]had been mother and fellow-wife, and her daughter had been her fellow-wife, and that her son was now her husband, wherefore, she must at any rate depart. So she veiled her head, and left the house.
As a caravan was just setting out for Rājagṛiha, she attached herself to it, and travelled along with it to Rājagṛiha, where she lived as before as a courtesan. An association of five hundred youths, who were going to a park one day, invited the Gandhāra woman to go there with them, on the payment of five hundred kārshāpaṇas. There they ate and drank and enjoyed themselves with her.
Now Āyushmant Maudgalyāyana knew that the time for Utpalavarṇā to be converted was at hand, and he wandered up and down at a little distance from those young men. Then said the young men, “This worthy Maudgalyāyana is freed from the bonds of sin, but we are sunk in the slough of passion.”
“In Vaiśālī,” said Utpalavarṇā, “I beguiled the young grocer Anishṭaprāpta.”
“Will you beguile this man also?” asked the youths.
She asked how much they would pay her in case she beguiled him. They promised her five hundred kārshāpaṇas. And in return she bound herself to become the concubine of one of the members of the association if she failed. All this was agreed to. Then Utpalavarṇā betook herself to the spot where Mahāmaudgalyāyana was, and employed all kinds of feminine tricks and artifices. But Mahāmaudgalyāyana’s senses remained unbeguiled. Then she reflected that a woman’s touch is of the nature of poison, so she determined to embrace him, and thereby to bring him into her power. But when she tried to do so, Mahāmaudgalyāyana soared aloft with outstretched wings like a flamingo-king. And by the words which he spoke was Utpalavarṇā so affected that she besought him to instruct her in the doctrine. He did so, and she recognised the four truths. [[216]]