Mandapala reunites with Jarita and his sons after the fire
After the forest fire passes, Mandapala goes to his first wife Jarita and their sons, expecting reunion. Instead, he is met with a wall of silence. When he breaks it, Jarita's rebuke is swift: go back to your other wife.
When Mandapala arrived at the place where Jarita and his sons were gathered, he found no welcome. None of his sons displayed any signs of greeting. He spoke to each one of them, and to Jarita, again and again. In return, he received only silence — not a single word, good or bad.
Mandapala broke the quiet with questions that revealed his own hurt and confusion. “Which one of you is my eldest son and who is the one born after that? Who is the one in the middle and who is the youngest? I am speaking to you in misery. Why aren’t you replying to me?” He gave voice to the guilt that had driven his earlier anxiety. “I left you to the fire, but I did not find any peace.”
Jarita’s silence shattered into a cold, precise rebuke. “What do you have to do with the eldest one or with the one who came after him? What do you have to do with the one in the middle or with the youngest who is an ascetic?” She dismissed his paternal claims with a wave of words. “You had left me miserable in every way and gone away. Go back to the young Lapita, the one with the beautiful smile.”
Faced with this rejection, Mandapala did not plead. He lectured. He turned Jarita’s anger into an example of a universal flaw. “Other than a different man, there is nothing in this world that is more fatal to women than a co-wife.” To prove his point, he cited a story from the heavens. “Even the fortunate Arundhati, renowned in all the worlds and devoted to her vows, was distrustful of the supreme rishi Vasishtha. He was pure of heart and always devoted to her welfare. But she was ill disposed towards that saptarshi (one of the seven great sages) and because of that insult, she is now a tiny star that is like fire covered with smoke. She is sometimes visible and sometimes invisible and is seen as an evil omen.”
He applied the lesson directly to her. “You yourself had a connection with me to obtain offspring. Now it has come to this that you give up what you once desired and have become like her.” His conclusion was a grim generalization born of the moment. “A man should never commit the act of trusting a woman, even if she happens to be a wife. Once a woman has obtained sons, she no longer pays attention to her duties.”
His words, harsh as they were, broke the stalemate. At this, all his sons came forward and paid homage to him. And Mandapala, the father whose anxiety had never ceased, provided reassurances to his sons, restoring the bond that silence and anger had strained.