Laghu YOGA VASISHTHA - HolyBooks.com

LAGHU YOGA VASISTHA
conclave in which they came to the following
conclusion „We have contaminated ourselves with
grave sins through association with this Neecha,
our king. No amount of penances will expiate this
stain of ours. Therefore we shall all purify
ourselves by entering into fire.‟ With this
resolution, all the subjects from the eldest down to
babies flocked together, and fell into a large fire-pit
reared up for the occasion, like swarms of flies
buzzing in a Champaka flower. Thereupon the
king became afflicted in heart and with a collected
mind soliloquised within himself thus:
„Through contact with me an outcaste, all my
countrymen became degraded and therefore
perished in the flames. It is perfectly useless on my
part to outlive them. I shall follow the same
course‟. With this purpose of giving up his life, he
allowed himself to be devoured by the flames.
While the body of Katanja was being burnt by fire,
like tender leaf exposed to the flames, the body of
Gadhi that had taken its plunge into the waters of
the tank began to palpitate and quiver. In four
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