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15. Těnāli Rāmakrsna

Mid–sixteenth century

An outstanding figure in the literary world of the sixteenth century, Těnāli Rāmakrsna was the son of a śaiva priest, Gārlapāti Rāmayya, who served in the temple of Rāmalingeśvarasvāmi in Těnāli. The son was named after this deity. His earliest work was probably the Udbhatârādhya-caritramu, where he calls himself Těnāli Rāmalinga; the book is dedicated to Ūra Decayya, an employee of Nādělla Gopamantri, the commander of the Kôndavīdu fort under the Vijayanagara kings (and a nephew of the famous Timmarasu, the minister of Krsnadevarāya). The Ghatikĉcala-māhātmyamu narrates the stories of the śaiva shrine at Ghatikâcala (Sholinagar in Maharashtra); the Pānduranga-māhātmyamu offers a Telugu version of the tradition centered on Vitthala-Visnu at PandharpŪr (also in Maharashtra). In both the latter works, the poet names himself Rāmakrsna. It is possible that this change in name reflects a conversion from śaivism to Vaisnavism, as is also suggested by the shift from a śaiva to a Vaisnava cultic focus in the poet's works. śiva, however, remains an internal narrator of the Pānduranga-māhātmyamu, as we see in the story translated below.

The Pānduranga-māhātmyamu is dedicated to VirŪri Vedâdri-mantri, a small official (rāyasam, a scribe) working for the local ruler Sangarāju in Pôttapi-nādu near Kālahasti in the second half of the sixteenth century.

[1] There is some debate about this date, and literary legend connects this poet to the famous circle of poets under Krsnadevarāya. We have approximate dates for the poet's guru, Battaru Cikkâcāryulu (mentioned in Pāndurannga-māhātmyamu 1.17), supporting the later dating. Těnāali Rāmakrsna refers obliquely both to āmukta-māhātmyamu 1.17) supporting the later datlating himself to an existing cannon.

The scope and prominence of this text reflects the rise of the Vitthala-Vithoba cult in Andhra during the first half of this century; there is a famous

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Vittleśvara temple at Hampi, perhaps begun under the Sāluva dynasty but completed by the Tuluva kings.

[2] See George Michell, Architecture and Art of Southern India: Vijayanagara and the Successor States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 13, 39.46–48.

Although Těnāli Rāmakrsna does not mention this temple, he does give an elaborate version of the Vitthala mythology, including elements apparently unique to this Telugu vision of the cult. He claims to be following the story of Krsna as told in the Skandapurāna—no doubt a Sankrit māhātmya text on PandharpŪr—but his stories on Nigama-śarma and the brothers Ayuta and Niyuta seem to have no antecedents. These are masterpieces of narrative poetry, rich in humorous touches and moments of deep lyricism, such as in the hymn of praise (stotra) to Narasimha toward the end of the section we have translated.

Stray verses from two further works by this poet—Kandarpa-ketu vilāsamu and Hari-līlā-vilāsamu—are quoted by Pedapāti Jagganna in his Prabandha-ratnâkaramu; neither work is extant.

There is an arid debate among Telugu scholars about the identity of this poet as Těnāli Rāmalingadu, the famous court jester associated by the popular cātu tradition with Krsnadevarāya. This identification has nothing to recommend it.

ON BECOMING A FROG

[3] Těnāli Rāmakrsna, Pānduranga-māhātmyamu (Madras: Vavilla Ramasvamisastrulu and Sons, 1968), 5.166–73, 178–93, 195–213, 215—19, 223–26, 228–33, 236, 239, 245–53, 255–56, 258, 260–62, 275, 277–280, 283, 285–86, 288–91, 295–97, 301–3, 309, 311, 313–14, 316.

[śiva narrates the following story to Nārada in response to a question about how various householders achieved release:]

	If the wife you married doesn't nag,
	and your son doesn't talk back,
	and your brothers get along well with you,
	and your daughter-in-law doesn't grumble,
	and your daughter doesn't compromise her character,
	and you are not burdened by debts,
	and you don't lose pride by serving others,
	and you don't suffer scandal,
	and you can get rich honestly,
	and you are gracious to guests,
	and there is respect for the gods in your home,
	there's nothing better than a householder's life.
― 203 ―
	There is a story that effectively proves this point.
	Just listen.

	Before that time when the Vindhya Mountain
	decided to rise above the stars, [4] The ambition of the Vindhya Mountain is a decisive event in the life of the sage Agastya, who, on his journey to the south of India, manages to bring the towering mountain back down to size. The story narrated here is placed before this sequence.
	Agastya, born from a pot, [5] Agastya was born when Mitra and Varun. a ejaculated into a pot upon glimpsing the divinely beautiful Ūrvaśi. was living in Kāśi [6] Varanasi/Benares.
	in a simple hut.

He had thousands of disciples, their hearts always open to serve him. Among them were the two sons of the sage Prayuta, named Ayuta and Niyuta, who were particularly beloved of Agastya. One day he was thinking about them:

	"Among my disciples, these two
	are rich in wisdom, elegant, and infallible
	with discrimination and eloquence, patience and serenity.
	They love me. I should take care of them,
	and get them married.

	They pay no heed to clothing, hunger, or thirst.
	They don't worry if their hair is unkempt, or their bodies weary.
	More important, they will sit from morning until evening,
	and from night to dawn, reciting chants,
	never slipping toward sleep.

	You can't find women suited to them
	anywhere on earth, but Brahmā has two
	unmarried daughters. Let me bring them."

So he went to the world of Brahmā [and woke up the god with a song of praise.]

	When Brahmā learned the reason for his coming
	from his lucid speech, he said: "You don't even have to ask.
	This is nothing very big." And he gave the sage his two daughters,
	Gāyatri and Sāvitri, whom he had created in his mind
	as the pinnacle of feminine beauty. Agastya took them home
	and informed Ayuta and Niyuta of his plan. But Ayuta
	refused to marry, so Niyuta got them both.
― 204 ―
	Agastya was very angry that Ayuta would not take
	the girl and that he disobeyed his command,
	so he threw him out of his house with terrible words.

	Niyuta loved both his wives in equal measure.
	Though their curls were black as night, their thoughts were clear as moonlight.
	Their lips were red with passion, but their hearts were wise with dispassion.
	Their breasts swelled with pride, yet their wishes were humble.
	They moved with languor, but inside they were swift and lucid.
	And while their stunning eyes were quick with movement, their minds remained still.

	Meanwhile, Ayuta, hurt by his teacher's rejection,
	went off in the direction of the Himâlayas, and he was thinking:

	"Parrots, gentle breezes, moonlight, bees—
	these weapons of Desire are forged to fury
	only by women. Without taking them on,
	some foolish sages think
	they are free.

	What we have is matted hair. What we wear
	is the antelope's skin. Our upper cloth
	is dyed red. How can a sage who lives through hardship
	in the wilderness be together with
	a woman who seeks pleasure?

	If he asked me to jump off a mountain, I would do it.
	I just won't climb over a woman's breasts.
	I could bear the pain of pointed arrows, if he asked me.
	What I cannot bear is a woman's glance.
	I don't mind if he drowns me in a whirlpool,
	but he can't ask me to lose myself in a woman's deep navel.
	I can lay my hands on a vicious black snake, if he tells me to;
	what I won't touch is a woman's pubic hair.
	Is there anything the guru asks that I wouldn't do?
	My very limbs are his property. Still, he shouldn't make me
	have a woman, like a fanatic who forces you
	to bear the sign of his god. [7] Literally, like a jangama— a śaiva ascetic—who forces someone to wear the linga, śiva's sign. Recall that the Pānduranga-māhātmyamu is a Vaisnava text.

---

	My brother Niyuta is cut out for this work, but for me
	there's nothing worse than being married. I refuse to hang myself
	just to please my teacher." And Ayuta took a vow to be celibate.

	He rid himself of inner jealousy and longing.
	True being shone through his mind, as if reflected in a polished mirror.
	With the tenacity of a tiger, he disciplined his heart,
	and his body, like an untouched flower, blazed with fire.

	Soon the whole world was on fire with fear
	of this Brahmin, whose courage knew no limit.

	The sun started blinking, and the earth shivered.
	Oceans overflowed, and the heavens showered sparks.

	Like someone who walks on fire,
	or who was bitten by a scorpion,
	or who has swallowed too much mustard,
	Indra, king of heaven, was in agony
	because of this young man's vow.
	So he took the form of an old Brahmin
	and came down to earth to put a stop to it.

	One disciple carried his pŪjā box and texts wrapped in old antelope skins.
	Another bore his blanket, mat, stool, ocher clothes, and water pot.
	A third brought tamarind, barley, rice, and lentils.
	Yet another was in charge of firewood, bamboo containers of ghee,
	darbha grass, and ladles for the fire-offering.
	They were also dragging an old cow by a halter, followed by a calf,
	as they entered Ayuta's domain, as guests.

	And there was an old woman with them, with grey hair, her head shaking,
	as if Indra's body could not fully contain Old Age and had let it out in this form
	that followed him, barely hanging on.

Indra, dressed as a pilgrim traveling with his fire, a skilled actor, rested a bit on the porch of a hut in that hermitage, which was full of Ayuta's burning power. He performed the midday rituals and the sacrifice of breaths.

[8] The prānâgnihotra.

He let the cow rest, too, along with his disciples. Toward

---

evening, as the heat of the sun diminished, he got ready to go out to the riverbank for the evening prayers. By this time Ayuta had emerged from his deep meditation, and Indra went to see him. Ayuta honored him as a guest, offered him a seat, and inquired about the reason for his visit. The false pilgrim said:

"Our home is where the gods live. Flowing with beauty,

[9] There is a pun here: viśadâpsaramun, "with lovely dancing girls" or "filled with clean water."

it is shaded by pārijāta trees and others, endlessly fruitful, on the slopes of the Himâlaya. Only passion, greed, and anger fail to grow there.

	Of all paths, family life is definitely the best.
	With that in mind, and much patience,
	I am making my way through all the holy places
	on earth, since this body
	doesn't last, does it,
	you who stand fast in your discipline?

	I have been to Kāñci, śesagiri, [10] Tirupati, where the snake ādiśesa became the mountain range. śrīrangam,
	Prayāga, Gaya, Simhâcalam, and PŪri with its wooden god.

	Traveling around, I heard about the single god
	who grants all wishes, the dice-player
	with an extra eye, [11] Ěccukantivāni, but in standard iconography Vitthala does not seem to have a third eye. This phrase is obscure. the Butter-Thief
	who is father to Desire,
	Vitthala of Pānduranga.

I am on my way, together with my disciples, to serve that god. And who, may I ask, are you? What do you seek, that makes you burn up the world with such fearsome practice? You child of ascetics, your heart, which has driven you to the point of torturing your body, must be hard and dry. I am sorry to say this: my mouth blisters with the words. Please tell me exactly how it is."

Ayuta replied:

	"My father is Prayuta, and my name
	is Ayuta. Niyuta is my younger brother.
	I am a disciple of Agastya, of amazing power.

	He cared for us with cool compassion
	among all his disciples, magnificent as mountains.
― 207 ―
	Then, one day, this guru of ours—
	who is also our patron, our god, our mother and father,
	who filled us with incomparable knowledge—
	showed us two girls, daughters of Brahmā,
	with faces smiling like flowers, like arrows of Love.

	He told us he had brought them for the two of us,
	and that we should marry them, the eldest first.

	But I turned my face away, because I know
	that all women are bad news.

	I said a few things, talked back to him,
	and he was angry: his topknot came undone,
	his eyes were smoking, he was breathing hard,
	and his heart wilted like a flower.

	Shivering and sweating, he was about to curse me,
	but he held back, like a snake that is about to bite
	but suddenly stops. A Brahmin's anger lasts
	only as long as his topknot stays tied.

	He threw me out and married my brother
	to both those girls, bodies
	glistening like gold.

	As for me, I touched my head
	to be sure it wasn't scalded by my teacher's fury,
	bubbling like water boiled to cook rice,
	and, terribly afraid, I left home at once.

	Now I have cooled all poisonous passions
	and devoted myself to the discipline of celibacy
	to reach the true goal of freedom."

	The old man laughed, and a mercurial smile [12] Dara-hāsa-rasamunan, with a pun on rasa: "feeling" and "mercury," the alchemical elixir of youth.
	made his aged face look young as he gently
	shook his head and said, with cunning:

	"I know your father: he's my friend.
	Everyone admires his strength and lineage.
	It's a joy to my eyes to see his elder son,
	but the odd things you have said are needles in my ears.

---

	You have abandoned family tradition,
	made your teacher angry, and left your friends and brothers
	and your own native place. Do you want to hang out here
	all alone, like a bag hung from the ceiling?
	It's impossible, you know, to keep the butter of wisdom
	from melting, once desire ignites.

	The Love God has melted down
	the hearts of sages dead as rock.
	Do you think he'll have a problem
	softening a young heart like yours,
	that overflows at a touch of moonlight?

	Look at Janaka [13] The king who appears in Upanisadic texts as an enlightened sage. and other masters:
	they enjoyed their palaces, decked themselves with jewels,
	were adored by loving women, dressed in fancy clothes,
	ate good food, perfumed themselves, lived love to its limit,
	and still they found that joy you seek.

	The best poets have sung over and over
	of women's beauty, but have never found its end.
	Your mind is dead set
	against it. How will you ever know
	the joy that body gives to body
	when you fully wake to love?

	When milk comes to you from the cowpen,
	and the crops are ripening in the fields,
	and there are weddings and other happy times,
	when you can help those who come in need,
	and your servants do their work, and relatives come and go,
	and the whole village grows through your goodness,
	and you are honored to bear true witness
	as you celebrate the moments each day brings,
	and your wife feeds you what has first been offered
	to the god—this is freedom.
	Freedom is not like sleeping or like dying
	into rock."

	Ayuta refused to let these words enter his heart.
	Stubbornly, he replied:

	"You're the type who would correct the Creator himself,
	who has the Goddess of Learning on his tongue. And if you
― 209 ―
	go wrong, who can correct you? When a river in spate
	takes a wrong turn, who can make it straight?

	But why blame me and not the man who threw me out
	for no good reason? Can't you see that he's the one
	whose heart has gone dry?

	You spoke with no sympathy for freedom, the sage's wealth.
	You keep on celebrating family life, pale as a fleck of ash.
	Can an insect become a lion? Is glass a precious stone?
	Can poison berries make you happy
	like the wish-fulfilling tree? Why keep insisting?

	Family life is fine—if you have money.
	And the only way to have money is by good karma
	from a former birth. And once you have the money,
	it makes you crazy, no matter how wise you are.
	Don't kill me, and don't throw dust in my eyes
	with these charming, lethal tales.

	With phrases like "arrows of Desire,"
	"lithe as lightning," "honeyed streams,"
	"golden vines," and so on,
	educated people damn women
	with praise. These full-lipped ladies can give you
	no more than the shadow of pleasure, never
	the light of joy.

	In your eyes, their hair is always dark as blue sapphire,
	their breasts taut as mountain peaks,
	the light in their face like the full moon.
	Some ascetic you are!
	What happens when they get old,
	white, sagging, and wrinkled?"

In this way, for every argument of the sage, Ayuta gave ten in reply; and for every ten, he offered a hundred. Pleased with his firmness but also angry, the god in disguise gave way:

	"Nothing I say has any effect: it's like teaching a coward to fight,
	or a miser to be generous, or a hunter to feel kindness, or a eunuch
	to be aroused. I give up. Can you beat knowledge into a fool?
	Who can turn back a stream pouring down a mountain?
	Anyone who can swallow a whole temple
	can easily chew up the doors. You disobeyed Agastya himself
	and reached for the skies when you were but a boy, so what use
	are my words?

---

	You want to beat the ancient sages: you've swallowed a sharp razor,
	you're stretching your neck toward a fruit you cannot reach.
	You think you can translate yourself to heaven, body and all.
	I've had enough." And he went away in a huff.

	He still intended to achieve his goal
	with the help of his cow. He made his plans.
	When ascetics are too determined,
	Indra always gets a headache.

	So Ayuta noticed this cow, near his hut.
	She exhausted her energy every time she tried to stand up.
	She was chewing grass and waving her tail quickly
	to drive away the crows that were hurting her back.
	Flies were hovering over her. When she lay down,
	her dewlap fell loosely like a blanket, and her eyes were scared.
	The bones of her thighs and legs stuck out because she rested on one side,
	and her eyes were wet with tears. Her calf pulled hard at her empty teats
	when he was hungry. There was a thick rope around her neck.

	He saw her, and thought: "This looks like the cow
	of that sage who was here the other day. How did she
	become so sick in just a couple of days?"

	He began to massage her feet, smoothing the wrinkles
	on her skin and driving off the flies. He combed through her dewlap
	with his fingernails, applied dust to her wounds, still oozing blood,
	cleaned out the grass stuck in her mouth, and very gently
	helped her walk again. He kept her tied to a pole in front of his hut.

	In a thousand ways he cared for her until her weakness
	and pain were healed and she grew fat and unbridled,
	like friendship insincere. [14] Friendship with bad people is said to grow quickly, ending in disaster. Friendship with good people grows slowly and yields solid rewards. She roamed the forest
	like a poor man who turns into a bandit.

[The cow became pregnant and gave birth to calves, and Ayuta became absorbed in caring for her, to the neglect of his yogic exercises. At last, disgusted with her, he decided to drive her out of the forest.]

	The calf was moaning as he tied it to the mother,
	struck her hard, hung a heavy stick around her neck
― 211 ―
	to slow her walk, and with the halter in his hand,
	drove her away, as one expels the smallpox goddess. [15] Māri, or Māriyamma.

	Angered by all this hurt, the cow ran into the hermitage
	of a sage called VādhŪla, a man awakened to reality.

	Like a bush where a tiger lurks, or a lake infested by crocodiles,
	or an anthill inhabited by a cobra, that place was unapproachable,
	even by a god.

	But the cow stampeded through it, and on her way
	she trampled VādhŪla himself, the long-lived, clear-eyed yogi
	sunk in meditation, who was covered up by an anthill
	tall as the tallest mountain.

	He stood up, the anthill crumbling around him.
	Birds resting in his ears flapped their wings
	and flew away, and families of snakes sleeping coiled
	in his long hair were rudely awakened.

	Dry grass shone on his body like a forest blaze.
	That mountain of a man, his beard shaking in rage,
	turned his gaze on Ayuta, who was standing nearby
	after driving off the cow.

	"You wretch!" he screamed. "You crazy lout!
	This hermitage is off-limits to anyone
	who wants to go on living. But you came in
	and ruined my deep and terrible concentration,
	which even Indra could not disturb
	if he were to attack a hundred times.

	Because you did this to me—an old, weak man,
	lost in meditation, you will lose the youthful beauty
	of this human form and become
	a frog."

	Ayuta fell at his feet, begging:
	"Hold back your anger—for when you are enraged,
	mountains fall, oceans dry up, the earth shatters,
	and the sky collapses. I am nothing.
	Burn me with your curse, but first hear me out.

	I wanted to get rid of that cow, who gave me no peace,
	like a snake bound with a rope. Nothing more.
― 212 ―
	Your mind is a peaceful lake of deep kindness.
	Don't make it play with fire."

And he told him the whole story, from the moment the cow arrived until it was driven out.

	VādhŪla was appeased. He looked with sympathy
	at the young boy. A Brahmin's anger is like a drop of water
	at the tip of a blade of grass.

	"Don't be sad," he said. "Don't grieve over what has come
	through fate. The only way to rid yourself of karma
	is to live through its results. Just keep your mind on God,
	the father of the world, who saved the elephant. [16] Visnu saved Gajendra from death when the elephant was trapped by a crocodile. See pp. 143–46.
	No one who comes to Visnu will ever come to harm.

	You despised family life, and that was not right.
	It is the blue cloud that gives beauty to women, lithe as lightning.
	It is an ocean that generates children, precious as pearls.
	It is the great tree that gives shelter to hungry Brahmins
	and the ladder that brings our helpless ancestors up to heaven.
	Even a mild breeze from the top of the palm trees [17] Reading tālla pai for rālla pai.
	hurts people who stubbornly reject what is good.
	That is why this has happened to you.

	No one should think he's so big
	he can make things go his way. It just won't work—
	not for human beings, not even for the gods."

[VādhŪla then sent Ayuta to worship the god Narasimha on the bank ofthe Bhīmarathi River, promising him that he would find a female frog who would bear his children and in this way remove his debt to his ancestors. Ayuta made his way to the Pānduranga shrine at PandharpŪr, worshiped Krsna in the form of Vitthala there, and found Narasimha to the north in a fig tree. When he saw the god, VādhŪla's curse took effect, and Ayuta felt a change slowly come over him: he began to think like a frog.]

	He wanted to sleep in crab-holes at the water's edge.
	He wanted food mixed with earth. He felt like croaking
	and jumping, and he was suddenly afraid of snakes,
	even when they were far away, and wanted to hide himself
― 213 ―
	in crevices. The future frog was taking over
	as his human mind grew weak.

	Still, though the curse was taking hold,
	he found the strength to praise the Man-Lion:

	"You came out of an iron pillar in that royal palace
	and disemboweled the demon king with laughable ease.
	After that, why did you want to be reborn? [18] In Visnu's other avatāra s, including Vitthala at PandharpŪr.
	Who can understand you, Man and Beast combined?

	How amazing it is that your claws, hard as diamond,
	should have turned soft—when they touched Laksmi's breasts.
	Perhaps sharpness just doesn't work
	on women.

	Some say it's because of anger. Others think
	it's intense compassion for the whole community.
	Yet others think you are distressed that you had to become a cruel animal. This way or that,
	they praise you, seeing the redness in your eyes."

	The Earth [19] Dark wife of the god. bears your claw-mark, a crescent
	you left on her breast
	when, as the Boar, [20] A previous avatar of the god who, as Varāha, a boar with sharp tusks, raised up the goddess Earth [from the Netherworld] after she had been kidnapped by the demon Hiranyâksa. you lifted her high.
	Laksmi, [21] The god's "high," official wife, often said to be jealous of the Earth—here because Laksmi observes what look like love-scars on the breast of the Earth. jealous, mocks her
	until you, both man and lion,
	confound this mighty goddess with two marks,
	one per breast."

	Meanwhile, his tranquility, his intellect, his purity and power,
	his proficiency in chants—all this was lost
	as he became a frog. Such is fate.

	All pilgrims to that shrine were filled with wonder:
	"Pearls, coral, and gold have come together
	in this rare form," they said, for the frog
	was multicolored, a king of frogs.

---

	Each day before sunrise, he would go to bathe quickly where the rivers meet.
	Until late in the morning, he would listen as the Brahmins chanted Veda
	on the sandy bank. At midday he would eat a few bites from the offerings.
	From dusk to midnight he stood before the god in worship.
	And when the Man-Lion lay down to rest on his serpent bed,
	the frog would sit in a small hole beside his feet, fully awake,
	his mind filled with Him.

	People called him Hari-dāsa, "Visnu's Slave."
	In this way, the kingly frog
	spent many years, still aware
	of his former life, but hoping now
	for release.

	After some years, one day the lovely daughter
	of the king of Kanyākubja came there
	with her friends for the festival of the god.

	Like the darts of Love that pierce the hearts of the lonely,
	they got down from their chariot and set up camp
	near the Man-Lion shrine on the bank of the Bhīmarathi.

	Exhausted by the journey, they went to bathe in the river
	and, naturally, stirred up the water—for even a single ray
	of beauty from their warm breasts would be enough
	to disturb all worlds.

	Even gods worship Kāla-Bhairava,
	the angry god, from a distance,
	waiting for the proper moment.
	But these young women simply touched him
	as if he were a toy.

	In the little cubicles off the porches of the monasteries,
	yogis sitting in prayer were distracted
	by the breeze fragrant with musk from the breasts of those girls,
	and their patience shattered like the shell of the silk-cotton fruit
	that explodes upon ripening.

	The girls hung swings from fig trees to play on in abandon,
	joking with clever double meanings and giving their hearts
	to the Love God. Drunk on wine, they gave no thought
	to what was wrong or right, and they were happy.

---

	Then they caught sight of the frog, with its brightly spotted body,
	coming out of the Man-Lion shrine, like an idiot indifferent to the world. [22] Literally, like Jada-bharata, the village idiot who was sent to the palace to call out the watches of the night; at each watch he sang a verse cautioning against sorrow, and by the end of the night the king, hearing his words, became a sannyāsin.

	"Where did he come from?" they wondered. "From a golden river, [23] Reading kanakaput'ero.
	or a mountain of precious stones, or the ocean of milk,
	or the place where the rainbow rises?" And they cast a net
	of long glances around that noble frog.

	Though he wasn't a ball, or a pet parrot, or a musical instrument, or a
	mirror—the sort of things women carry—still they tried to catch him,
	one by one. Women are anyway unstable.

	"Watch me," cried the princess. "I'll make you a bet
	I can get him." And she smiled, mocking
	her friends, as she made a trap out of her waistband
	and quickly caught him.

	She started playing with him, as one plays a while
	with a bird or a ring or a doll. She was laughing,
	her cheeks gleaming, and still tipsy when she threw him
	without warning at an old Brahmin
	who was scared of frogs. He cursed her and her friends
	to become frogs—and that is how
	they became wives for our frog.
	They were suited to him in looks and character and feeling,
	so now he swam through the endless ocean of family life, as before he swam through water.

	That tough young man, Ayuta, who had refused to marry
	when Indra begged him to do so before he lost his charming youth
	now spent all his time appeasing his various wives
	when they were angry or upset.

	And he was subject to desire, melting in love: for VādhŪla's curse
	proved more effective than the Love God's burning arrows.

	To the princess and the son of the sage, a boy was born.
	This ended the darkness of the curse. Wisdom dawned,
	like the rising moon, and they could now see the god's home.