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When little Daniel heard this proposal, it seemed foolishness to him, and at a favourable opening in the conversation he said to his relation, "The goddess Lakshmi has blessed you with wealth, but she has left us in poverty; when she gives us prosperity we will worship her, but not till then."
Lakshmî, Sarasvatî and Sîtâ are benevolent, but they hold no great position in popular esteem, and the being who attracts millions of worshippers under such names as Kâlî, Durgâ, or Mahâdevî, though she has many forms and aspects, is most commonly represented as a terrible goddess who demands offerings of blood.
Then Indra, Yama, Varuna, and Kuvera, the spirits presiding over the four cardinal points, or the four elements, water, fire, earth, and air, pour forth atoms, whence springs the serpent "Ananta." The monster swims to the surface of the waves and, bending its swanlike neck, forms a couch on which Vishnu reclines with the Goddess of Beauty, his wife Lakshmi, at his feet. "Swatha! Swatha!
If O best of serpents, his proposal be acceptable to thee, quickly make up thy mind, O Aryaka, to take his daughter in gift for thy grandson. As Lakshmi in Vishnu's house, or Swaha in that of Agni so let the slender-waisted Gunakesi be a wife in thy race. Let Gunakesi, therefore be accepted by thee for thy grandson, like Sachi for Vasava who deserveth her.
I want this wretch Durga Ram spread out on an ant hill . . ." And then, without apparent reason, he began to call for Lakshmi, the beautiful Lakshmi, the wife of his youth. He ordered preparations for an elephant fight; rambled, talked as though he were but twenty; his eyes dim, his lips loose and pendulent. And in this condition he might live ten or twenty years. Ramabai was sore at heart.
The king approves the advice and acts up to it. Vasantaka congratulates the king on his unprecedented fortune. The king replies, "You say rightly she is the very deity Lakshmi herself. Her hand is the new shoot of the Parijata tree, else whence distil these dewdrops of ambrosia?"
"Lakshmi!" he murmured at last; and, as though the one word had broken a charm which held them both paralyzed, she smiled, and the smile lit up the Madonna face and made it as human as it had seemed divine. "Forgive me," she began, speaking in English, "I am afraid I have disturbed you, but " She paused, apparently confused by the directness of his gaze. The faint pink upon her cheek deepened.
And the vanquisher of Vala then said to Skanda, 'O foremost of gods, this lady was, even before thy birth, destined to be thy bride by that Self-existent Being. And Vrihaspati learned in hymns performed the necessary prayers and oblations. She who is called Shashthi, Lakshmi, Asa, Sukhaprada, Sinivali, Kuhu, Saivritti, and Aparajita, is known among men as Devasena, the wife of Skanda.
And close by them, behold, standeth Krishna, beautiful as gold, like unto the very embodiment of light, possessing the complexion of the blue lotus, like unto a celestial damsel, and resembling the living embodiment of Lakshmi herself."
The earliest references to the acted drama are to be found in the Mahabhashya, which mentions representations of the Kansabadha and the Balibadha, episodes in the history of Krishna. Indian tradition describes Bharat as having caused to be acted before the gods a play representing the Svayamvara of Lakshmi.
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