The Boy from the Sky

When many years had passed, Cūḍālā saw that her husband, living in a hollow on the great mountain's slope, now overtaken by age, had ripened within. Now is my time to go to him, she thought. By night she left the palace and flew towards Mandara.

On the way she saw the lightning that never leaves its cloud, and longing rose in her. When shall I see my beloved again? she thought. Foolish mind, why are you thrashing about in vain? My husband must be old by now, withered like a dry tree, and his desires burnt out. I will awaken his understanding by yoga and join myself to my husband again. I will set him to rule the kingdom once more, and we two will live together happily for a long time. There is a joy in union with one whose mind is like one's own.

She came to the forest on Mandara unseen, known to be there only by the stirring of the trees and creepers, and found him in a hut of leaves. He who had once worn necklaces and armlets and earrings, splendid as Meru, was thin now and dark as a withered leaf, in bark garments and matted hair, sitting alone on the ground, stringing flowers.

Ah, how perilous is folly, she thought. This is the king who was my beloved husband. If I go to him as myself, he will think, This is my wife, a mere girl, and will not do what I say. So I will go in the form of an ascetic and awaken him in a moment. And with the slightest meditation, in an instant, like a ripple on water, she became a young brahmin boy, and came down into the forest.

The boy was like austerity in bodily form, with limbs like molten gold, a pearl necklace and a white sacred thread, two white garments and a water pot, a rosary over his arm, locks of hair on his head and a mandāra flower in them, and a mark of white ash on his brow. His feet did not touch the ground; he stood a cubit above it.

Śikhidhvaja rose, cast off his sandals, and took the boy for a son of the gods. Homage to you, son of the gods, he said. Sit on this seat. And he gave the boy a seat of leaves, flowers, water of welcome, water for his feet and garlands; and so, without knowing it, he gave them to his own beloved. Homage to you, royal sage, said the boy, and praised his hospitality and his hard vow of leaving a kingdom for the forest.

I have a beloved wife, said Śikhidhvaja, who guards my kingdom now. Your limbs, lovely one, are just as hers looked to me. Who are you, and whose son?

The boy told him a story: how the sage Nārada, a son of Brahmā, on a slope of Meru, had seen the apsaras, the women of heaven, bathing in the Gaṅgā, and his seed had fallen; how Nārada had placed it in a crystal pot filled with milk, and a child had grown there and been born; how Nārada had taken him to Brahmā, who made him all-knowing by a blessing. I am that Kumbha, the boy said, the grandson of Brahmā and son of the sage Nārada, born of a pot. I live in Brahmā's world with my father; the four Vedas are my playmates, the goddess Gāyatrī is my mother's sister and the goddess Sarasvatī my mother. When I come down to the earth my feet do not touch the ground, and dust does not touch me. Today, passing through the sky, I saw you, and came down.