Thus did Nala sorrow in his secret heart over Damayantí during his long sojourn at Ayodhya, while he served the renowned Rajah Rituparna. Meanwhile King Bhima was causing search to be made for his lost daughter and her royal husband. Abundant rewards were offered to Bráhmans, who went through every kingdom and every city in quest of the missing pair. It chanced that a Brahman, named Sudeva, entered Chedi when a royal holiday was being celebrated, and he beheld Damayantí standing beside the Princess Sunanda and the queen mother at the royal palace. Sudeva perceived that her loveliness had been dimmed by sorrow, and to himself he said as he gazed upon her: “Ah! the lady with lotus eyes is like to the moon, darkly beautiful; her splendour hath shrunken like the crescent moon veiled in cloud—she who aforetime was beheld in the full moonlight of her glory. Pining for her lost husband, she is like to a darksome night when the moon is swallowed; her sorrow hath stricken her like to a river which has become dry, like to a shrunken pool in which lotus blooms shrivel and fade; she is, indeed, like to withered lotus.... Doth Nala live now without the bride who thus mourns for him?... When, oh when shall Damayantí be restored once again unto her lord as the moon bride is restored unto the peerless moon?[314] ... Methinks I will speak....” [314] The moon is masculine, and the marriage occurs at a certain phase. In Egypt the moon is male, but was identified with imported female deities. In Norse mythology Mani is moon god; there was, however, an earlier moon goddess, Nana. In Ireland and Scotland the moon was not individualized—that is, not in the Gaelic language. The words for moon in A. Saxon and German are masculine; in Gaelic they are feminine. The Brahman then approached Damayantí and said: “I am Sudeva. Thy royal sire and thy mother and thy children are well.... A hundred Brahmans have been sent forth throughout the world to search for thee, O noble lady.” Damayantí heard him and wept. The Princess Sunanda spoke to her queen mother, saying: “Lo! our handmaid weeps because that the Brahman hath spoken unto her.... Who she is we shall speedily know now.” Then the queen mother conducted the holy man to her chambers and spoke to him, saying: “Who is she—this mysterious and noble stranger, O holy man?” Sudeva spoke in answer: “Her name is Damayantí, and her sire is King Bhima, lord of Vidarbha. Her husband is Nala.... From birth she has had a dark beauty spot like to a lotus between her fair eyebrows. Although it is covered with dust, I perceived it, and so I knew her. By Brahma was this spot made as the sign of his beauty-creating power.” The queen mother bade Sudeva to remove the dust from the beauty spot of Bhima's daughter. When this was done, it came forth like to the unclouded moon in heaven, and the royal lady and her daughter wept together and embraced the fair Damayantí[315].