Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/256

 Gunga—flows into our lake, its water just as starlike in its purity and just as plentiful as ever, and all because it comes from the world of stars. One who should succeed in entering into existence again among the gods of the stars, would be raised above the sphere of mortality."

"Why should we not be able to succeed in that?" asked Vasitthi. "For I have certainly heard of monks who fixed heart and mind upon returning to existence in the kingdom of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma. And even now it cannot be too late, if the ancient words of that song of the Sublime One be true—

"Vasitthi? thou givest me that more than human courage! Come then, let us turn our whole thoughts to the entering, into existence again in the kingdom of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma."

Scarcely had they come to this decision when a violent hurricane swept through the groves and over the lakes. Blossoms and leaves were whirled away in heaps; the beings throned on the lotus flowers cowered before the storm, and, moaning, drew their robes closer about their trembling limbs.

But like one who, all but suffocated in the close and perfume-laden atmosphere of a room, breathes deep and feels himself a new man when the fresh sea-breezes, salt-laden from the floods of the ocean, blow in through the open window, so it was with Kamanita and Vasitthi when a breath of that absolute purity came streaming towards them which they had once inhaled on the shores of the heavenly Gunga.