Tripura Rahasya

Sage Parasurama

I am anxious to hear how Hemachuda was further guided by her. Please tell me, Thou Lord of Mercy!

Thus requested, Dattatreya said to Parasurama:

Listen, O Bhargava, I shall now continue the holy narrative.

Hemachuda said,

• What you said on the last occasion has barred all means of pleasure for me, so that I can now find nothing to make me happy.
• Just as a man is forced by royal command to do something in spite of himself, so also must I engage in old ways by force of habit. Now I ask you, dear, tell me how I can gain happiness.

Hemalekha said,

• Listen Prince to the story of my own past.
• Formerly, my mother gave me a lady-in-waiting who was good by nature, but later associated with an undesirable friend.
• This friend was clever in creating new and wonderful things. I also without my mother's knowledge associated with her.
• Always loving my friend, I quickly became part of herself. She for her part was all the time close to her friend, a wicked strumpet, who was ever generating new and fascinating things.
• In secret that woman introduced her son to my friend. That son was an ignorant fool with eyes bloodshot with drink. And my friend went on enjoying him in my presence. But she, though completely overpowered by him and being enjoyed by him day after day, never left me, and I, too, did not abandon her. And out of that union was born a fool, of the same type as his father.

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Excerpts from Chapter 5, Tripura Rahasya