Srimad Bhagvata Mahapurana Book 5 Chapter 8:15-25

Book 5: Chapter 8

Srimad Bhagvata Mahapurana: Book 5: Chapter 8: Verses 15-25 Bharata conceives an infatuation for a fawn and is reborn as a deer At other times (whenever he failed to see it) he would feel extremely perturbed like a miser who had lost his fortune and, sorrowing for it alone with a heart full of agony and overwhelmed with grief at his separation from that young deer, and actually infatuated by an inordinate longing to see it, pitifully exclaimed, it is said, as follows:- "Oh, will that poor young deer, the offspring of a deceased mother, return (to this spot), reposing confidence by virtue of its own credulity in me--a wicked and unlucky soul, deceitful as a cheat and hard-hearted like a hunter-and overlooking like a saint my wicked nature ? Shall I see it (once more) grazing in safety tender blades of grass in the grove of this hermitage, protected by Providence ? May it not be that a wolf or a dog or any other (carnivorous) beast roaming all alone (such as the tiger) or going about in herds (as for instance the boar) will devour it ? Lo the Lord (the sun-god) who has the three Vedas for His body and who rises for the welfare of the whole world is going down; but the pledge of the doe is not yet returning to me. Will that prince of a deer (ever) come back and delight me-an unlucky soul relieving the sorrow of its kith and kin by its manifold, delightful and charming fawn-like sports? When I closed my eyes in jest putting up a false show of meditation, it would approach me greatly agitated and, feeling indignant through love, would strike me with the end of its horns, soft as a drop of water. When, on the Kua grass-with the offering for the sacred fire placed on it-being polluted (by it through the impure touch of its mouth), it was scolded by me, it got much frightened and instantly abandoning (its) playfulness, would sit (motionless) like a young hermit with all its senses fully controlled. "Oh, what austerities have been performed by this fortunate Earth, who by the series of impressions imprinted (on her bosom) by the feet of that docile young of a black antelope with their tiny, lovely, most propitious and soft hoofs not only reveals the tracks of my fortune to my wretched self, robbed of his wealth and therefore miserable, but at the same time adorns her own person on all sides and turns it into a sacrificial ground for the twice born seeking after heaven or final beatitude. (Observing the dark spot in the moon, which is likened by poetic fancy to the figure of a deer, and imagining it to be his own pet deer) May it be that the glorious moon-god (the lord of the stars), who is (so) kind to the afflicted, is protecting (has taken under his own fostering care) that young deer, whose mother died from fear of a lion, and that has strayed from its abode ? (Deriving solace from this idea as well as from the cool and refreshing moonbeams) Or is it that he is soothing-by the cool and placid slobber, in the form of nectarean rays flowing copiously from his mouth through love-me, the lotus of whose heart has been burning with the flames of wild fire, in the form of agony caused by separation from my pet (that was like a son to me), and who had followed (in search of) that young of a deer."