that and after a while when he opened them, he saw that the forest floor around him covered with a profusion of mushrooms. Then the old man said, “You can never return home now. I will not allow it.” He added, threateningly, “If you lay your eyes on your mother or your brother again, they will surely die.”
Buddhi Kumar continues, “I was shivering all over. I cried.” Then he saw his friends came over to him and pinch him, but he did not feel anything. “I did not know whether I was in a trance or awake. I thought that I was going to die. I fled deeper into the forest, but a voice pursued me repeating that I could not return home now. For two days I roamed around the jungle and then I crept into a foxhole. I stayed there for two more days.” On the fourth day, a cowherd came upon him, half in and half out of the foxhole. He started to make a hue and cry, but Buddhi Kumar, fearing that others might see him, pleaded with him to stop. “Then I went to the Chandewswari Temple nearby. She was a Ban Devi (Forest Goddess). I spent the night at her feet.” The goddess asked him, “What do you want to do? Live or die?” Buddhi Kumar cried, “I am very scared. I have suffered too much.” Then the Ban Devi held his hand and lifted him to his feet. “She told me that she had taken pity on me and then she blessed me. The goddess also promised to give me knowledge.” Buddhi Kumar’s eyes widen as he exclaims, “Then she took the top half of my skull and placed in on my hand.” “This is your atma (soul),” said the goddess. Now Buddhi Kumar saw himself being carried to a pyre and his body being put in flames. “I saw all this happening. Then the Ban Devi asked me, ‘Did it burn? Were you hurt?'” Buddhi Kumar was quick to say, “No, it didn’t.”
“After this, I was