Sudeva Identifies Damayanti by Her Birthmark

Sudeva had been searching the earth for Damayanti. He had travelled through kingdoms and forests, through cities and hermitages, asking after a woman whose beauty was unlike any other — the daughter of King Bhima of Vidarbha, the wife of Nala, lost somewhere in the world after her husband gambled away his kingdom and vanished with her into exile. He found her in the house of Sunanda and Virabahu. She was alive. But she was not as he remembered her. The woman who stood before him was covered in dirt, her face smudged, her clothes plain. She looked like a servant, not a queen. And yet, even through the grime, something shone through — like gold that has not been washed but still catches the light. Sudeva spoke to Sunanda. He told her who this woman was: the daughter of King Bhima of Vidarbha, a king whose dharma was in his soul and whose valour was terrible. He told her the woman's name — Damayanti — and the name of her husband, Nala, son of Virasena, a king known as Punyashloka, "the one of holy fame." He explained how Nala had been robbed of his kingdom by his brother in a game of dice, and how he had left with Damayanti without anyone knowing where they had gone. Then Sudeva pointed to Damayanti's face. "Between the eyebrows of this dark one," he said, "there is a natural mark. It is shaped like a lotus. I have seen it before. But it has disappeared now — covered in dirt, like the moon covered by white clouds. This mark of prosperity was given to her by the creator. It can be faintly seen now, like the covered sliver of a moon on the first day of the lunar fortnight." He told Sunanda that he had identified Damayanti from her body and from that mark — "like a hidden fire can be detected from its heat." Sunanda looked at the woman before her with new eyes.