Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.762

c8.762

Several years passed after that and nothing happened. One day the brahmin as usual went to bathe in a pond. When he took a dip in the waters he forgot all his prayers and mantras. There was a change of mind. He felt he was lying dead in his house. Relatives were sitting around weeping. His wife was in tears and was holding his legs. In an atmosphere of mourning, his own people weeping bitterly carried his body to a frightening burial ground and put it on a funeral pyre. It was burnt to ashes. He then felt himself in the womb af a Caṇḍāla woman living in a village near Hūṇamaṇḍala. The foetus developed and a black boy was born. The boy grew passing the stages of infancy, childhood and boyhood and became a man, black and stout. He started enjoying sexual life with a beautiful caṇḍāla girl. The amorous plays were done on leaf-beds, in creeper-huts, bushes and in caves and soon many evil-natured sons were born to him. Gradually his health faded and he constructed a hermitage and lived there as a hermit. His children grew up and he became old and then all on a sudden all his children and wife and other members of his family died and he was left alone. He then left the place and travelling much reached the capital city of Kiramaṇḍala. The city gates were decorated and inside people stood in groups. The road to the palace from the gate had been beautified and as he reached the palace gates he saw an elephant as big and black as mountain standing there well caparisoned. It was customary in those days to post an elephant well bedecked before the palace gates when a King died. The elephant he saw was one who had been let loose to select a new King in the place of the one who had just died. The elephant on seeing him took him by its trunk and placed him on its back. The people when they saw it shouted “The King”, “The King”. Drums were beaten and people shouted with joy. He was taken to the palace where he was received by young and beautiful girls. He was dressed in royal robes and he took over the administration of the state. Gradually he accepted as his wives the wives of the former King and lived there accepting the name of Gālava. He ruled the state to the satisfaction of all for eight years. One day the King went out for a stroll dressed as an ordinary man. Just outside the gate of the palace a set of Caṇḍālas were sitting singing songs to the accompaniment of a violin. As soon as they saw Gālava one of the Caṇḍālas, a red-eyed old man, got up from the group and addressing the King as “Hi, Kalañju” shouted loudly, “Friend, where had you been all this time? It is a long time since we saw you. It is our luck we saw you at least now”. The King of Kira did not like the words of the Caṇḍāla and he rebuked the old man. The queens and others standing on the terrace of the palace could see this scene. They were shocked. They regretted they had all along being serving a Caṇḍāla. The news spread like wild fire in the state. The King had to live in the palace without the help and co-operation of anybody inside or outside the palace.