Upagoopta hearing of it, said to himself: When she was arrayed in fine clothes and no jewels were rare and costly enough to adorn her body, it was a counsel of wisdom for those who aspire to liberation from the bondage of sin to avoid her; with her beauty, however, she has certainly lost her pride and lustfulness, and this is the hour. Accordingly, Upagoopta went up to the cemetery where the executioner had left Vasavadatta maimed and disfigured. The maid, having remained faithful, saw him approach and informed her mistress who, in a last effort at coquetterie, told her to cover the hideous wounds with a piece of cloth. Then, bowing her head before her visitor, Vasavadatta spoke: --My master, when my body was sweet as a flower, clothed in rich garments and decked with pearls and rubies; when I was goodly to behold, you made me unhappy by refusing to meet me. Why do you come now to look at one from whom all charm and pleasure has fled, a frightful wreck, soiled with blood and filth? --My sister, answered Upagoopta, the attraction of your charms and the love of the pleasures they held out, could not move me; but the delights of this world having revealed their hollowness, here I am to bring the consolation of the lotus of the law. So the son of the merchant comforted the courtesan doing penance for her transgressions, and she died in a confession of faith to the word of the Buddha, hopeful of rebirth on a plane of chastened existence. [170] _Sawahs_ are ricefields, terraced and diked for the purpose of copious irrigation, in contradistinction to _ladangs_ (Jav. _gagas_, Soond. _humas_) without artificial water-supply. BIBLIOGRAPHY