The Reunion with Bhamandala

The rains ended and autumn came, with clear skies, blooming lotuses and the sun in Libra, but Bhamandala, consumed by thoughts of Sita, found no joy in it, and one day, casting off shame, he reproached his dear friend Vasantadhvaja in front of his father for leaving him to drown in an ocean of longing. The whole court fell silent with grief, Bhamandala hung his head, and a Vidyadhara named Brihatketu said there was no point in hiding things any longer and that the prince should be told everything.

They told him how they had brought the maiden's father to Rathanupura and asked for her, how he insisted she was promised to Rama, and how it was agreed that Rama must string Vajravarta or Sita would be brought for Bhamandala; Rama had strung it and Sita had garlanded him, and the brothers had strung both Vajravarta and Sagaravarta, no ordinary bows of this age but attended by divine jewels such as the mace and plough and served by many gods. Rama had married that beauty of the three worlds and taken her to Ayodhya, where not even gods could seize her, and they could not have taken her before the wedding either, since Janaka was a friend of Madhu, Ravana's son-in-law, so Bhamandala should accept what fate had decreed.

Ashamed and furious, Bhamandala thought his Vidyadhara birth worthless, taunted the court for fearing earth-dwellers and vowed to conquer them himself, bring back Sita and punish those who had handed over the bows; he took up arms and set off through the sky in a vimana (aerial car). Passing over villages, rivers and forests, his eye fell on Vidagdhapura among the mountains, and with the thought ‘I have seen this city before’ he gained jatismarana (memory of a past life) and fainted, and his ministers brought him back to his father and revived him with sandal and other cooling remedies.

The palace women scolded him for behaving shamelessly before his parents and urged him to marry one of the Vidyadhara princesses, lovelier than goddesses, but Bhamandala, head bowed, cursed himself, saying that even a chandala would not do what he had contemplated, for he and Sita had been born from the same mother's womb. Chandragati took him in his lap, kissed his face and asked what he meant.

Bhamandala told his story: he had been Kundalamandita, king of Vidagdhapura in Bharata Kshetra, who deceitfully stole a Brahmin's wife and harassed King Anaranya's land until Anaranya's general Balachandra captured him and seized all he had; freed from prison, he wandered, heard monks preach, put his faith in the omniscient Lord, the scriptures and the guru, gave up liquor, meat and honey and kept the eight mulagunas (basic householder's vows), and by these few vows escaped a bad birth and was born with Sita to Queen Videha. The wronged Brahmin, now a god, snatched him at birth as a vulture snatches meat, meant to kill him but in pity put earrings on him and let him down by the Parnalaghvi vidya, and Chandragati caught him in the night and gave him to his queen, under whose loving care he grew up and mastered many vidyas.

Awakened by this account, Chandragati gave up sensual pleasures, handed his kingdom to Bhamandala and hastened to the renowned sage Sarvabhutahita in the Mahendrodaya garden, where he worshipped him and asked for Jina diksha (initiation as a Jain monk), and the sage bade him take up the monk's vows that carry one across the ocean of rebirth. Bhamandala's coronation was celebrated with music and song, bards loudly proclaimed ‘Victory to the son of King Janaka!’, and the cheering in the garden woke the people of Ayodhya.

Hearing ‘Victory to the son of King Janaka!’ again and again, Sita thrilled as if showered with nectar, her left eye throbbed, and wondering whether this might be her brother, stolen at birth, she wept aloud; Rama gently told her that if it was her brother news would soon come, and that the wise do not grieve over what is dead, stolen, gone or lost. Just then messengers arrived with joyful news, and Dasharatha gave many gifts and went with his sons and household to the garden, marvelling at the Vidyadhara army camped around the city in a walled camp raised in an instant like a city of Indra; there he bowed to the sage, witnessed Chandragati's renunciation and worshipped the guru together with the Vidyadharas.

With Dasharatha's family seated on one side and Bhamandala, grieving at his father's renunciation, on the other with the Vidyadharas, Sarvabhutahita, in a voice like thunder, preached the dharma of monks and householders: the monk's path belongs to heroes, is the source of deep peace and bliss, frightens cowards, and alone leads to the Siddha abode at the summit of the universe. Some listeners became monks, some householders with vows and some gained right faith, and then Dasharatha asked why Chandragati had renounced, and Sita longed to hear her brother's story.

The sage retold the whole story, adding Pingala's lament on finding his hut empty, ‘O lotus-eyed one, you left your father Chakradhvaja, your mother Prabhavati and all their wealth to come abroad with me, and for my sake ate tasteless food and wore torn clothes’, and how the god Pingala had wondered whether his wife had been reborn an animal for lack of right faith, a human for her simple heart, or a goddess through devotion to the Jina. When Bhamandala, remembering his past life, told Chandragati that Sita was his sister, Videha his birth mother and Pushpavati the mother who raised him, Chandragati gave him the kingdom, urged him to gladden the eyes of his grieving birth parents, and took diksha.

When Bhamandala asked why Chandragati and Pushpavati loved him so, the sage revealed that they had been his parents before: in the village of Daru lived the Brahmin Vimuchi, his wife Anukosha and their son Atibhuti, whose wife was Sarasa, and when a foreign Brahmin named Kayana, who had come there with his mother Urya, ran off with Sarasa and the family's wealth, Atibhuti wandered the earth searching for her. Vimuchi, who had gone abroad to collect dakshina (priestly fees), returned to find the house empty and Anukosha destitute and consoled her, and he told the ashamed Urya that she was not to blame.

Setting out to find his son, Vimuchi heard people praising a monk with avadhi jnana (clairvoyance) in a forest near the city of Sarvari, saw his power of austerity and became a monk, while Anukosha and Urya took the vows of aryikas (nuns) under the aryika Kamalakanta, and all three, free of worldly desire, went to heaven. Atibhuti, given to violence and reviling the restrained, and Kayana both died into bad births; Sarasa became a doe at the foot of Mount Balaha that strayed from the herd in fear of a tiger and perished in a forest fire, and after some births became Chittotsava, while Kayana, after many births, became a camel and then Pingala, son of Dhumrakesha.

Atibhuti was later born as a swan by the Rakshasa lake; wounded by a hawk, it fell near a Jina temple where a guru was teaching a disciple a hymn to the Lord, and having heard it, the swan died and became a Kinnara god on Mount Nagottama with a lifespan of ten thousand years, and from there was born as Kundalamandita, king of Vidagdhapura. Vimuchi, falling from heaven, became Chandragati and Anukosha became Pushpavati; Kayana, as Pingala, became a monk and then the god who stole Bhamandala at birth; and Urya, falling from heaven, became Queen Videha.

Hearing all this, Dasharatha embraced Bhamandala with tears, the whole assembly wept with emotion, Sita embraced her brother, crying, ‘Brother, I am seeing you for the first time,’ and Rama and Lakshmana rose to embrace him too. After consulting Bhamandala, Dasharatha sent Vidyadharas with vimanas to fetch Janaka, gave Bhamandala a delightful palace with step-wells, lakes and gardens, and celebrated his coming with lavish gifts to supplicants.

Reading the letters of Dasharatha and Bhamandala, the thrilled Janaka asked the messengers whether this was a dream or real, embraced them as joyfully as if they were his son, gave them all his garments and ornaments and had them tell the story again and again, then flew with his whole family to Ayodhya in a vimana in the blink of an eye. He embraced his son and fainted for a moment, and Queen Videha also fainted, then held him and wept so that even animals felt pity: enemies had stolen him at birth, the fire of longing had burned her, and blessed was Pushpavati, who had seen his childhood play; milk flowed from her breasts and she was drowned in joy.

After a month in Ayodhya, Bhamandala told Rama that Janaki had no refuge but him and was blessed in such a husband, and embraced his sister, while Videha, embracing Sita, told her to serve her parents-in-law devotedly and act so that the whole family would praise her. Bhamandala then gave the kingdom of Mithila to Kanaka, Janaka's younger brother, and took Janaka and Videha to his own realm; Gautama told Shrenika that such is the power of dharma, which gave Rama a wife like Sita, a brother-in-law like Bhamandala, lord of the Vidyadharas, the god-guarded bows and a devoted brother like Lakshmana, and that reading or hearing this story fulfils one's wishes and brings health.