The hunter then addressed the prince, “Although I ill can spare this garment, which I use as a disguise among the deer, that alluring them within reach I may kill them, notwithstanding, as it so pleases you, I am now willing to bestow it in exchange for yours.”  The hunter having received the sumptuous dress, took again his heavenly body.

The prince and Kandaka, the coachman, seeing this, thought deeply thus:  “This garment is of no common character, it is not what a worldly man has worn”—­and in the prince’s heart great joy arose, as he regarded the coat with double reverence, and forthwith giving all the other things to Kandaka, he himself was clad in it, of Kashaya color; then like the dark and lowering cloud, that surrounds the disc of the sun or moon, he for a moment gazed, scanning his steps, then entered on the hermit’s grot; Kandaka following him with wistful eyes, his body disappeared, nor was it seen again.  “My lord and master now has left his father’s house, his kinsfolk and myself,” he cried; “he now has clothed himself in hermit’s garb, and entered the painful forest.”  Raising his hands he called on Heaven, o’erpowered with grief he could not move; till holding by the white steed’s neck, he tottered forward on the homeward road, turning again and often looking back, his body going on, his heart back-hastening; now lost in thought and self-forgetful, now looking down to earth, then raising up his drooping eye to heaven, falling at times and then rising again, thus weeping as he went, he pursued his way homewards.

Entering the Place of Austerities

The prince having dismissed Kandaka, as he entered the Rishis’ abode, his graceful body brightly shining, lit up on every side the forest “place of suffering”; himself gifted with every excellence, according to his gifts, so were they reflected.  As the lion, the king of beasts, when he enters among the herd of beasts, drives from their minds all thoughts of common things, as now they watch the true form of their kind, so those Rishi masters assembled there, suddenly perceiving the miraculous portent, were struck with awe and fearful gladness, as they gazed with earnest eyes and hands conjoined.  The men and women, engaged in various occupations, beholding him, with unchanged attitudes, gazed as the gods look on King Sakra, with constant look and eyes unmoved; so the Rishis, with their feet fixed fast, looked at him even thus; whatever in their hands they held, without releasing it, they stopped and looked; even as the ox when yoked to the wain, his body bound, his mind also restrained; so also the followers of the holy Rishis, each called the other to behold the miracle.  The peacocks and the other birds with cries commingled flapped their wings; the Brahmakarins holding the rules of deer, following the deer wandering through mountain glades, as the deer coarse of nature, with flashing eyes, regard the prince with fixed gaze; so following the deer, those Brahmakarins intently