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she. And I said to her, " Fair one, you are fitted to dwell in a palace, how comes it that you are here in the forest y" But she gave me no answer. Then, through fear of being cursed by a hermit, I stood concealed by a bower of creepers, looking at her with an eye that could not have enough. And after she had performed her worship, she went slowly away from the spot, as if thinking over something, and frequently turned round to look at me with loving eye. When she had gone out of sight, the whole horizon seemed to be obscured with darkness as I looked at it, and I was in a strange state of perturbation like the Brahmany drake at night.
And immediately I beheld the daughter of the hermit Mátanga, who appeared unexpectedly. She was in brightness like the sun, subject to a vow of chastity from her earliest youth, with body emaciated by penance, she possessed divine insight, and was of auspicious countenance like Resignation incarnate. She said to me, " Chandrasára, call up all your patience and listen. There is a great merchant in another island named Śikhara. When a lovely girl was born to him, he was told by a mendicant, his friend, who possessed supernatural insight, and whose name was Jinarakshita,*[1] ' You must not give away this maiden yourself, for she has another mother. You would commit a crime in giving her away yourself, such is the righteous prescription of the law.' Since the mendicant bad told him this, the merchant wished to give his daughter, when she was of marriageable age, and you asked her hand, to you, by the agency of her maternal grandfather. Then she was sent off on a voyage to her maternal grandfather in the island of Ceylon, but the vessel was wrecked, and she fell into the sea. And as she was fated not to die, a great wave brought her here like destiny, and flung her up upon the shore. Just at that time my father, the hermit Mátanga, came to the sea to bathe with his disciples, and saw her almost dead. He, being of compassionate nature, brought her round, and took her to his hermitage, and entrusted her to me saying— ' Yamuna, you must cherish this girl.' And because he found her on the shore (vela) of the sea, he called the girl, who was beloved by all the hermits. Vela. And though I have renounced the world by a vow of perpetual chastity, it still impedes my soul, on account of my affection for her, in the form of love and tenderness for offspring. And my mind is grieved, Chandrasara, as often as I look upon her, unmarried, though in the bloom of youth and beauty. Moreover she was your wife in a former life. So knowing, my son, by the power of my meditation that you had come here, I have come to meet you. Now follow me and marry that Velá,
s. V. Salisatores quotes from Isidor. VIII, 9. Salisatores vocati sunt, qui dum eis membrorum quæcunque partes salierint, aliquid sibi exiude prosperum, scu triste significare prædicunt.
- ↑ * I. e., under the protection of a Buddha.
