Almost immediately the wonderful nature of that perfume began to show itself.
As Kamanita inhaled it here, in the dense form in which it filled the whole basin, his consciousness became suddenly quickened. It overflowed and broke through the barriers which had been raised about him from the time of his awakening in the pond till the present.
His past life lay open before him.
He saw the hall of the potter where he had sat in conversation with that foolish Buddhistic monk; he saw the little lane in Rajagriha through which he had hurried and the cow tearing towards him—then the horrified faces round about and the yellow-clad monks. And he saw the forests and the country roads of his pilgrimage, his palace, and his two wives, the courtesans of Ujjeni, the robbers, the grove of Krishna, and the Terrace of the Sorrowless with Vasitthi, his father’s house, and the children’s room.
And behind that he saw another life, and yet another, and still another, and ever others, as one sees the line of trees on a country road till the trees become points and the points blend into one strip of shadow.
At this, his brain began to reel.
And at once he found himself in the cleft again like a leaf that is driven by the wind. For, the first time, no one can bear the perfume of the Coral Tree for long, and the instinct of self-preservation bears everyone thence at the first sign of dizziness.
As he, by and by, moved more quietly through the open valley, Kamanita pondered: “Now I understand why the white robe said she imagined I had not yet been to the Coral Tree. For I certainly could not imagine then what they meant by ‘dream-pictures’; but now I know, for in that other life I have seen such. And I also know now why I am here. I wanted to visit the Buddha in the Mango Grove beside Rajagriha. Of course that intention was frustrated by my sudden and violent death, but my good intentions have been looked on favourably, and so I have reached this place of bliss as though I had sat at his feet and had died in his blessed doctrine. So my pilgrimage has not been in vain.”
Very soon Kamanita reached the pond again, where he let himself down upon his red lotus flower like a bird that returns to its nest.
XXV
The Bud of the Lotus Opens
It suddenly seemed to Kamanita as though something living were moving in the depths of the pond. In the crystal deeps he became dimly aware of a rising shadow. The waters bubbled and seethed, and a large lotus bud, with red apex, shot like a fish above the surface on which it then lay swimming and rocking. The waters themselves rose and sank in ever-extending rings, and, for a long time afterwards, trembled and glittered, shivered, as it seemed, into fragments and radiating light, as if the pond were filled with liquid diamonds, while the reflection of the watery coruscations flickered up like miniature flames over the lotus leaves, the robes, and the faces and forms of the Blest.
Kamanita’s own being trembled, and radiated all its hidden colours, and over his heart also there seemed to dance, as if in happy play, a reflection of joyous emotion.
“What may that have been?” his glance asked of his blue neighbour.
“Deep down, among far-distant worlds on the gloomy earth, a human soul has this instant centred its heart’s desire upon entering again into existence here in Sukhavati. Now let us also see whether the bud will develop well, and finally blossom. For many a soul fixes its desire on this pure home of bliss and is not able to live up to its longing, but, on the contrary, entangles itself again in a maze of unholy passions, succumbs to the lust of the flesh, and remains bound to the impurities of earth. Then the bud pines away and at last disappears entirely. This time, as thou seest, it is a man’s soul. Such a one, in the checkered life of earth, fails more easily from the path to Paradise, for which reason thou wilt also notice that even if the red and white are about equal in number, among the blue the lighter in colour, the females, are by far the more numerous.”
At this communication the heart of Kamanita quivered strangely as if, all at once, joy blent with pain and sorrow, bearing a promise of future happiness, had set it vibrating, and his gaze rested, as though seeking the solution to some riddle, upon a closed lotus flower which, white as the breast of a swan, rocked gracefully quite near to him in the still gently moving water.
“Canst thou remember seeing the bud of my lotus rise from the depths?” he asked of his experienced neighbour.
“Surely, for it came up together with that white flower thou art now gazing upon. And I have always watched the pair, at times not without anxiety. For fairly soon thy bud began perceptibly to shrivel up, and it had almost sunk beneath the surface of the water when all at once it raised itself again, became fuller and brighter, and then developed magnificently till it opened. The white, however, grew slowly, but gradually and evenly towards the day when it should open—when suddenly it was attacked as if by some sickness. It recovered, however, very quickly, and became the magnificent flower thou now seest before thee.”
At these words there arose in Kamanita such a feeling of joy that it really seemed to him as if he had hitherto been but a sad guest in a sad place—to such a degree did everything now appear to glow, to smell sweet, and to breathe music.
And as though his gaze, which had rested unwaveringly on the white lotus, had been a
