After they had thus spoken, and had paid reverence to their father, and three times encompassed him, they went forth from the hermitage, ever looking back with tearful eyes, keeping in their hearts those things which they had to say to their superior. The Bodisat consoled them with compassionate words, and then, desiring to attain to the highest insight, he betook himself to a hut made of leaves in the forest of penance.
Scarcely had the children gone away when the system of the three thousand worlds quaked six times. Many thousands of gods filled the air with sounds of shouting and rejoicing, and cried, “Oh the great deed of surrender! Truly is he worthy of being wondered at, whose mind remains constant even after the surrender of both his children.”
Meanwhile Madrī had set off for the hermitage, carrying roots and fruits, and when the earth shook, she hurried on all the faster towards the hermitage. A certain deity, who perceived that she might hinder the surrender [[266]]which the Bodisat proposed to make for the salvation of the world, assumed the form of a lioness, and barred her way. Then Madrī said to this wife of the King of the Beasts, “O wife of the King of the Beasts, full of wantonness, wherefore do you bar my way? In order that I may remain truly irreproachable, make way for me that I may pass swiftly on. Moreover, you are the wife of the King of the Beasts, and I am the spouse of the Lion of Princes, so that we are of similar rank. Therefore, O Queen of the Beasts, leave the road clear for me.”
When Madrī had thus spoken, the deity, who had assumed the form of the lioness, turned aside from the way. Madrī reflected for a moment, recognising inauspicious omens, for the air resounded with wailing notes, and the beings inhabiting the forest gave forth sorrowful sounds, and she came to the conclusion that some disaster had certainly taken place in the hermitage, and said, “As my eye twitches, as the birds utter cries, as fear comes upon me, both my children have certainly been given away; as the earth quakes, as my heart trembles, as my body grows weak, my two children have certainly been given away.”
With a hundred thousand similar thoughts of woe she hastened towards the hermitage. Entering therein she looked mournfully around, and, not seeing the children, she sadly with trembling heart followed the traces left on the ground of the hermitage. “Here the boy Kṛishṇa and his sister were wont to play with the young gazelles; here is the house which they twain made out of earth; these are the playthings of the two children. As they are not to be seen, it is possible that they may have gone unseen by me into the hut of foliage and may be sleeping there.” Thus thinking and hoping to see the children, she laid aside the roots and fruits, and with tearful eyes embraced her husband’s feet, asking, “O lord, whither have the boy and girl gone?” Viśvaṇtara replied, “A Brahman came to me full of hope. To him have I given [[267]]the two children. Thereat rejoice.” When he had spoken these words, Madrī fell to the ground like a gazelle pierced by a poisoned arrow, and struggled like a fish taken out of the water. Like a crane robbed of her young ones she uttered sad cries. Like a cow, whose calf has died, she gave forth many a sound of wailing. Then she said, “Shaped like young lotuses, with hands whose flesh is as tender as a young lotus leaf,[4] my two children are suffering, are undergoing pain, wherever they have gone. Slender as young gazelles, gazelle-eyed, delighting in the lairs of the gazelles, what sufferings are my children now undergoing in the power of strangers? With tearful eyes and sad sobbing, enduring cruel sufferings, now that they are no longer seen by me, they live downtrodden among needy men. They who were nourished at my breast, who used to eat roots, flowers, and fruits, they who, experiencing indulgence, were ever wont to enjoy themselves to the full, those two children of mine now undergo great sufferings. Severed from their mother and their family, deserted by the cruelty of their relatives, thrown together with sinful men, my two children are now undergoing great suffering. Constantly tormented by hunger and thirst, made slaves by those into whose power they have fallen, they will doubtless experience the pangs of despair. Surely I have committed some terrible sin in a previous existence, in severing hundreds of beings from their dearest ones. Therefore do I now lament like a cow which has lost its calf. If there exists any exorcism, by which I can gain over all beings, so shall my two children, after having been made slaves, be by it rendered free.”
Then Madrī, looking upon the thick-foliaged trees which the children had planted and tended, embraced them tenderly, and said, “The children fetched water in small pitchers, and dropped water on the leaves. You, O trees, did the children suckle, as though ye had been possessed [[268]]of souls.” Further on, when she saw the young gazelles with which the children used to play, standing in the hermitage, she sadly said, gently wailing, “With the desire of seeing their playfellows do the young gazelles visit the spot, searching among the plants, offering companionship with my never-ending woe.” Afterwards, when the footprints on the road along which the children had gone became interrupted, and she saw that their footprints did not lie in a straight line, but in all sorts of directions, she was seized by bitter anguish, and cried, “As the footprints point to dragging along and some of them to swiftness of pace, you must surely have driven them on with blows, O most merciless Brahman. How have my children fared with tender feet, their throats breathing with difficulty, their voices reduced to weakness, their pretty lower lips trembling, like gazelles timidly looking around?”
Observing how she bore herself and uttered complaints, the Bodisat exerted himself to exhort his wife with a series of such and such words about instability, and said: “Not for the sake of renown, nor out of anger, have I given away your two children; for the salvation of all beings have I given the children, whom it was hard to give. By giving up the objects which it is hardest to give up, children and wife, may one, like the great souls, attain to the completest insight. O Madrī, as I cling closely to giving, I have given for the redemption of the world the children whom it was hard to give. My purpose is to sacrifice all things, to give myself, my wife, my children, and my treasures.”
When after a time Madrī had recovered her strength of mind, she said to the Bodisat: “I will in nothing be a hindrance to you. Let your mind be constant. If you wish to give me too, give me without hesitation. As soon as, O courageous one, you have attained to that, for the sake of which you give up that which is connected with difficulty, save all beings from revolution.” [[269]]
When the King of the Gods, Śakra, perceived this marvellous endurance on the part of the Bodisat, and the striving of Madrī, and their deeds very hard to be accomplished, he descended from heaven, surrounded by the company of the thirty-three gods, into the hermitage and lighted it up with great brilliance. Remaining in the air, he said to the Bodisat: “Inasmuch as after this fashion, O mighty one, in the foolish world, the mind of which is bound fast by knots of ignorance, in the world which is fettered by the bonds of a mind which pays homage to enjoyment, you alone, superior to passion, have given up the children in whom you delighted, you have certainly attained to this degree through stainless and joyless tranquillity.”
After gratifying the Bodisat with these words, the King of the Gods, Śakra, said to himself: “As this man, when alone and without support, might be driven into a corner, I will ask him for Madrī.” So he took the form of a Brahman, came to the Bodisat, and said to him: “Give me as a slave this lovely sister, fair in all her limbs, unblamed by her husband, prized by her race.” Then in anger spake Madrī to the Brahman: “O shameless and full of craving, do you long after her who is not lustful like you, O refuse of Brahmans, but takes her delight according to the upright law.” Then the Bodisat, Viśvaṇtara, began to look upon her with compassionate heart, and Madrī said to him: “I have no anxiety on my own account, I have no care for myself; my only anxiety is as to how you are to exist when remaining alone.” Then said the Bodisat to Madrī: “As I seek after the height which surmounts endless anguish, no complaint must be uttered by me, O Madrī, upon this earth. Do you, therefore, follow after this Brahman without complaining. I will remain in the hermitage, living after the manner of the gazelles.”