March 6, 2026
uvāca cā ‘‘tmanaivā ‘ho yāvajjīvaṁ śarīriṇāṁ
na svabhāvaḥ śamaṁ yāti mamā ‘pyutkaṇṭhitaṁ manaḥ (29)
VASIṢṬHA continued:
Cūḍālā awoke with a fright when she discovered that her husband had left the palace. She felt unhappy and decided that her place was by her husband’s side. Quickly she also got out of the palace, through a small window and flew in the sky, looking for her husband. Soon she found him wandering in the forest. But, before alighting near him, she considered future events through her psychic vision. She saw everything as it was destined to happen, to the smallest detail. Bowing to the inevitable, she returned to the palace by the same aerial route she had taken.
Cūḍālā announced that the king had left the palace on an important mission. From then on, she herself conducted the affairs of the state. For eighteen years she dwelt in the palace and he in the forest, without their seeing each other. He had begun to show signs of old age.
At that time, Cūḍālā “saw” that her husband’s mind had ripened considerably and that it was time for her to help him attain enlightenment. Having thus determined, she left the palace at night and flew to where he was. She beheld the celestials and the perfected sages in the heavens. She flew through clouds, inhaling the heavenly perfume and looking forward with great eagerness to her reunion with her husband. She was excited and her mind was agitated. Becoming aware of this mental state, she said to herself: “Ah, surely as long as there is life in the body, one’s nature does not cease to be active. Even my mind is agitated so much! Or, perhaps, O mind, you are seeking your own consort. On the other hand my husband has surely forgotten all about his kingdom and me, after all these years of asceticism. In that case it is futile on your part, O mind, to get excited at the prospect of meeting him once again…..I shall restore equilibrium to the heart of my husband in such a way that he will return to the kingdom where we shall dwell together happily for a long time. That delight which is had in a state of utter equilibrium is superior to all other happiness.”
Thinking thus, Cūḍālā reached the Mandara mountain. Still remaining in the sky, she saw her husband as if he were another person, for the king who was always clothed in royal robes now appeared as an emaciated ascetic. Cūḍālā was depressed at this heart-breaking sight of her husband clad in coarse garment, with matted locks, quiet and lonely, with his colour darkened considerably as if he had had a bath in a river of ink. For a moment she thought: “Alas, the fruit of foolishness! For only the foolish reach such a condition as the king has reached. Surely, it is on account of his own delusion that he has thus secluded himself in this hermitage. Here and now, I shall enable him to attain enlightenment. I shall approach him in a disguise.”