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“ Now, as fate would have it, this was the very pool, at which Umra-Singh had met with Ulupí, the daughter of the Daitya. And in course of the night, Ulupí came herself to the pool, to dance and sport according to her wont. And when she arrived, she saw Shrí, lying asleep by the pool. So she came and stood over her, and marvelled at the beauty of her limbs, even though her eyes were shut. And at last, out of curiosity, she touched her on the bosom with her finger, saying to herself: Is this an illusion, or is it a real woman, and is she dead or alive? ”

“ Surely thou art some divinity, and no mere mortal maiden. Tell me thy name, that I may know whom to adore. Then said Shrí: Sir, I am no divinity, but a king's daughter; and I am seeking for my husband. Carry me, of your kindness, over the sea, for I must find my way to Indirálayá. But hearing this, that merchant was overjoyed; for he thought: Indirálayá is in another quarter of the world, and I will be her husband. For he was drowned in the ocean of her eyes. So he said to her: O thou true daughter of a King, my ship is thine and all that it contains. ”

“ So taking down his sword from the wall, and holding it in his hand, he went out of his wretched lodging, saying to himself: Death is better than dishonour and insignificance, hunger and the loathing of life: for what is death but the beginning of another life, which cannot be worse than this one, be it what it may? And who knows but that I may meet her in the next life whom I dream of in this? For she who is but a dream now, may be a reality in another birth, and I may discover that lotus pool, waiting for me in another life. ”

“ Beauty, lovely at night is the heaven with its stars, but lovelier still the dark blue sea, in which they are reflected, for it contains all their beauty, and adds another of its own.
Then Ulupí was very angry, and she stood with flashing eyes, swelling with rage. And suddenly she stooped, and gathered up her hair in her arm, and came up to Umra-Singh, and flung it round him like a noose, and whispered in his ear, with lips that caressed it as they moved: O foolish bee [7] , I am but a lotus of the night: yet why despise me, in comparison with the absent lotus of the day? ”

“ Now she is going to be married, and I have attained the fruit of my birth. But the astrologers looked at each other in dismay, for they knew that she was about to die. So as they gazed, suddenly she drooped and fell, and lay before them on the floor, like a lotus smitten by the frost.
Then the astrologers said, gloomily: She has abandoned the body, and gone somewhere else. And the King, seeing her fall, and hearing them speak, lost his senses, and fell down beside her in a swoon. But Umra-Singh turned, and left the palace, and went out into the street. ”

“ And like a child she smiled at her father [9] with parted lips and half-shut eyes, casting before her through the net of their lashes the magical charm of the colour of a wet lotus: and her girdle jingled as if with joy, while the flashing jewels with which she was covered all over changed colour, as if with envy at being outshone by the play [10] of her eyes. And the old King looked at her with pride and wonder and delight: and he laughed to himself, and said: Wonderful is the cunning of the Creator, and incomprehensible the mystery of a woman's beauty! ”

“ And he went on, sword in hand, along a silver path, among trees that resembled Rákshasas, for they let in through the hair of their branches the light of the moon, which peered down at him as if out of curiosity, and lit him on his way as if in admiration of his courage. And as he went, gradually the trees grew rarer, and at length he looked before him, and saw in a clear space a dark blue forest pool, studded with moon-lotuses, as if created to mock the expanse of heaven bespangled with its stars, a mirror formed by Wedasa [1] to reproduce another world below. ”

“ For her clothes were torn, and her hair was dishevelled, and her great eyes filled with tears resembled the petals of a blue lotus sparkling with drops of water cast upon them by the sporting of swans in a pool. So those wild Bhillas wondered when they saw her, and said to each other: What is this marvel of a dancing girl, so ragged and so beautiful, weeping alone in the wood? And then they went up to her and stood round her in a ring. And she looked in the midst of those black barbarians like a digit of the moon in the jaws of Ráhu. ”

“ Brave heart, and didst thou dare to go alone to that distant Lotus Land? Thou art indeed my own husband, in this life as in the last. And now, after long separation, I have found thee for an instant, and thou hast me. Only seek as well again, and we shall meet once more, and taste yet another drop of the nectar of mutual enjoyment, before we die: for so it is decreed. ”

“ And she tore her clothes to pieces in the bushes, and pierced her feet with their thorns, leaving where she passed on the grass drops of blood, like rubies, mingled with the pearls of her tears that fell beside them, as often as she thought of her absent husband. And the deeper she went into the wood, the more her spirit sank, and the more her soul longed for the nectar of her husband's arms. Alas! the courage of women is but a pale and lunar image in the mirror of that of men, and vanishes in their absence. ”

“ Then he went round the edge of the pool, and found her on the other side. And she beckoned to him as he drew near with a bangled hand, and moving lips, and eyes that shone in the moonlight like the eyes of a snake. And she came and stood before him, and put her hand on his shoulder with a touch like a leaf, and looked up into his face with a smile, and said: I am Ulupí, a Daitya's [3] daughter, and here I live in the forest alone, with none to whom to compare myself, save my own image in the water. Tell me, for thou hast seen other women, hast thou ever met with eyes more beautiful than mine? ”

“ And in his dreams Shrí stood beside him, and revived his parched soul with the nectar of her kindly glance, as a hermit's daughter refreshes with water the plants of the hermitage committed to her charge.
And after drinking deep draughts from those two fountains of pity and love, he awoke, and found that it was now night, and again he was alone at the moonlit tank. And he said to himself: Alas! alas! I found my bride, and lost her again at the same instant, through the terrible operation of sins committed in a former birth. ”

“ And as he wandered up and down, he came at last to a great palace, whose doors stood wide open, as much as to say: Come in. So he went in, and passed along, wondering, with echoing steps, from room to room. Then on a sudden he entered a door, and found himself in a vast hall, whose walls were pierced with tall windows, through which the moonlight fell, cold as camphor, on moon-stones that hung in clusters from the roof. And from them the nectar fell slowly, drop by drop, upon the floor. And at the far end of the room, on a golden couch, he saw lying a dead body, covered with a white pall. ”

“ But Kamalamitra rushed forward, and caught her in his arms. Then as they stood together, the old ascetic spoke and cursed them, saying slowly: Irreverent lovers, now shall that beauty which occasioned this insolence meet with its appropriate reward. Descend now, ye guilty ones, into mortal wombs, and suffer in the lower world the pangs of separation, till ye have purged away your guilt in the fire of human sorrow.
Then hearing the doom of separation, wild with grief they fell at his feet, and implored him, saying: Fix at least a term to the curse, and a period to our pain. ”

“ Certainly that old muni is no longer alive, for otherwise she would have reached his soul through the door of his eyes, were it down in the lower world.
So as they stood there, waiting, gradually that old sage came to himself: for he felt that his meditations were being disturbed by something or other. And he looked, and saw Anushayiní standing before him like the new moon at the close of day, a pure form of exquisite beauty [21] , a crystal without a flaw, tinged with the colour of heaven. ”

“ And like a vessel filled to the brim and running over, he was so overflowing with delight in her beauty, and the pride of having so unique a specimen of womankind all to himself, that he could not contain his emotion, but sought relief in going about everywhere talking about her, and trying to get everybody to acknowledge, what he thought himself, that all other women in the world were absolutely nothing in comparison with his own wife. ”

“ And all about it flitted fireflies, looking like swarms of bees that had returned with torches, unable to endure separation at night from the lotus flowers which they loved all day.
And as he gazed into the water, he saw in its smooth mirror the image of a woman, dancing. And as she danced, her robes of the colour of grass fluttered in the wind produced by her own movement over the curves of her limbs ”

“ And like oxen, we are goaded, by the biting sting of one woman's evil, and like elephants, we are tamed, by the subtle spell of another's purity; and like birds, we are decoyed, by the lure of the bower of one girl's arms, and like bees, we hover and sip, around the honey of another's lips, and like snakes, we wind and coil [12] round the slender stem of one girl's waist, and like weary travellers, we long to sleep on the living pillow of another's bosom. Then Kamalamitra broke in impatiently: Away with the fascinations, of all the women in the three worlds, past, present, or to come! ”

“ Now in the meanwhile it happened that Maheshwara, as he roamed through the sky with Párwati on his breast, looked down to earth, and caught sight of Umra-Singh wandering in the forest, uttering lamentations, and exclaiming: O Shrí, where art thou hiding? Hast thou, like the desert, no pity for the antelope that is dying of thirst for the water of thine eyes [1] ? And immediately he remembered his boon to Kamalamitra, and grasped the whole story from beginning to end. ”

“ So day by day the proclamation sounded in the streets: and all day long the city was full of the din of shouting criers and beaten drums, and all night long sleep fled from the eyes of the citizens, as if in disgust at the noise that they made by day. But all was in vain: for not a man could they find, nor did anyone come forward to say: I have seen that Lotus Country: give me the reward. ”

“ Let thy absent husband save thee if he can. And she vanished with a peal of laughter, leaving Shrí fainting by the pool.
But Ulupí flew through the wood, and found Nightwalker, the old Wairágí, and told him all, and begged of him a boon, saying: Torment this miserable mortal woman, and deceive her with illusions for she has done me deadly injury. And Nightwalker rejoiced at the opportunity, for he remembered how Umra-Singh had defied him, and cut off his tongue in the wood. ”

“ And nations, like the characters in our story, cling desperately, in periods of degradation and eclipse, to all that reminds them of a former state of ideal prosperity, which lingers in their literature and echoes in their souls, like dim recollections of a forgotten paradise, or faint reminiscences of a former birth. ”

“ And suddenly those lashes rose like a curtain, and there came from beneath them a flood of blue colour, which pervaded the room like the odour of camphor and sandal-wood made visible to the eye, and overcame the senses of all that stood by, till they were within a little of swooning away. And like men lying on their backs and gazing into the depths of the sky, they felt as it were enveloped in the colour of heaven, and lost their perception of mundane affairs. For though they knew it not, they were looking at the reflection of the glory of the moon-crested god. ”

“ Ha! it is the truth: this man has really seen the Land of the Lotus of the Sun. And suddenly, the veil of oblivion was drawn for an instant, and she caught a glimpse of her former birth, and knew her husband again. ”

“ But Maheshwara, from his seat on Kailàs, saw them go. And perceiving all, by the power of his mystical intuition, he said to himself: There are those two foolish lovers rejoicing to have awoken from a dream; not knowing that it was but a dream within a dream, and that they are still asleep. And he laughed aloud: and the thunder of the shout of his laughter rolled and reverberated, and rattled in the blue hollows of Himálaya, like the sound of a drum. ”

“ O glorious and infinite Spirit of Peace, Lord of Ascetics, who whirling round in thy wild dance dost lend as it were its colour to the sky, in whose mirror are seen reflected the blueness of thy throat and the silver digit of the moon in the matted tufts of thy tawny hair: thee we adore. And we worship the ever victorious trunk of the Elephant of Elephants, whose fierce glare consumes the innumerable hosts of opposing obstacles, as a forest fire shrivels the blades of dry grass [1] . ”

“ And my subjects shall beset thee with illusions, like the sins of thy former birth in visible form; and there wait for thee the Night-walkers, Ulupí, and the Cow-killer, and the Hairy Grabber, and the Icy Chiller, and the Flap-eared Buzzer, and the awful Watcher in his pits of sand, and others without number [7] : and even shouldst thou escape them all, and reach the Lotus Land, thou hast still to return. And he vanished with a shout of laughter, and Umra-Singh was left alone.
[1] This term denotes one who has turned his back on the world, and become free from passion. ”