"My lord and master now has left his father's house, his
kinsfolk and myself," he cried; "he now has clothed himself in hermit's
garb, and entered the painful forest." Raising his hands he called on
Heaven, o'erpowered with grief he could not move; till holding by the
white steed's neck, he tottered forward on the homeward road, turning
again and often looking back, his body going on, his heart
back-hastening; now lost in thought and self-forgetful, now looking down
to earth, then raising up his drooping eye to heaven, falling at times
and then rising again, thus weeping as he went, he pursued his way
homewards.
Entering the Place of Austerities
The prince having dismissed Kandaka, as he entered the Rishis' abode,
his graceful body brightly shining, lit up on every side the forest
"place of suffering"; himself gifted with every excellence, according to
his gifts, so were they reflected. As the lion, the king of beasts, when
he enters among the herd of beasts, drives from their minds all thoughts
of common things, as now they watch the true form of their kind, so
those Rishi masters assembled there, suddenly perceiving the miraculous
portent, were struck with awe and fearful gladness, as they gazed with
earnest eyes and hands conjoined. The men and women, engaged in various
occupations, beholding him, with unchanged attitudes, gazed as the gods
look on King Sakra, with constant look and eyes unmoved; so the Rishis,
with their feet fixed fast, looked at him even thus; whatever in their
hands they held, without releasing it, they stopped and looked; even as
the ox when yoked to the wain, his body bound, his mind also restrained;
so also the followers of the holy Rishis, each called the other to
behold the miracle.
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