"Time passes on, night after night goes by,
Youth's beauties one by one must fade and die:
Now know that I will walk the world alone,
Each bond thrown off, nor passion's power I own."

[488] In these stanzas she declared the Law to the great crowd; then summoning the courtier's wives said to them, "And what will you do?" "Madam," say they, "what will you?"--"I will embrace the religious life."--"Then so will we do." So the queen set open the doors of all the storehouses of gold in the palace, and she caused to be engraved on a golden plate, "In such a place is a great treasure hidden"; any one who chose might have it. This gold plate she fastened to a pillar upon the great dais, and sent the drum beating the proclamation about the city. Then leaving all her magnificence she departed from the city. Then was the whole city in a garboil: the cry was, "Our king and queen have left the city to join the religious; what are we to do now?" Thereupon the people all left their houses, and all that was in them, and went out, taking their sons by the hand; all the shops stood open, but no one so much as turned to look at them: the whole city was empty.

And the queen with an attendant train of three leagues in length went to the same place as the others. To this company also Hatthipala declared the Law, poised in the air above them; and then with the whole train a dozen leagues long he set out for Himalaya.

All Kasi was in an uproar, crying how young Hatthipala had emptied the city of Benares, twelve leagues in extent, and how with a huge company he is off to Himalaya to embrace the religious life; "surely then," said they, "much more should we do it!" In the end this company grew so that it covered thirty leagues; [489] and he with this great company went to Himalaya.