The Return

What do you wish now? she asked him. I know nothing to refuse and nothing to long for, he said. Do as you wish. Then let us live out this present time with the kingdom, she said, and at some time go into the bodiless state. We are kings at the beginning, the middle and the end; with delusion set aside, let us be those kings again. Be the king in your own city on your own throne, and I will be your queen.

He smiled. Why not enjoy the pleasures of the siddhas in heaven? he said. They are ours to command. I have no longing for pleasures or for heaven, she said, nor for kingship, nor for action. I stay just as things come. Well said, he answered. What is there in kingship, to take it or to leave it? Let us stay as we are placed.

At dawn, in the golden cave, Cūḍālā brought into being by her will a jewelled pot full of the waters of the seven oceans, and anointed her husband, facing east, into his own kingship. Leave this silence now, my lord, she said, and bear the radiance of the guardians of the world. So I will, he said. And he anointed her as his queen. Then by her will she brought into being an army of horses and elephants, banners and trumpets, and the two of them mounted a great elephant and set out from Mahendra, past mountains and rivers and villages, while he told his beloved the whole story of what he had done. In a short time they reached his city. His vassals came out crying Victory, the women of the city showered them with parched grain and flowers, and he entered the palace, and there was a festival for seven days. Then he took up the work of a king again.

For ten thousand years he ruled the earth together with Cūḍālā, both of them free while living. And then, like a lamp whose oil is spent, he cast off the body and went to nirvāṇa, never to be born again.