Note 13 — Chapter CXXIII

I am the son of a merchant in Ujjayiní, and my name is Dhanadatta. Once on a time I went to sleep with my wife on the top of my palace. In the morning I woke up and looked about me, and lo! my wife was not in the palace, nor in the garden attached to it, nor anywhere about it. I said to myself, “She has not lost her heart to another man; of that I am convinced by the fact that the garland which she gave me, telling me that as long as she remained chaste, it would certainly not fade, is still as fresh as ever.13 So I cannot think where she has gone, whether she has been carried off by a demon or some other evil being, or what has happened to her.” With these thoughts in my mind, I remained looking for her, crying out, lamenting, and weeping; consumed by the fire of separation from her; taking no food. Then my relations succeeded at last in consoling me to a certain extent, and I took food, and I made my abode in a temple, and remained there plunged in grief, feasting Bráhmans.