PLATE TWO

Once, when the four sons of Lord Brahma named Sanaka, Sanandana,
Sanatana and Sanat-kumara were wandering throughout the three
worlds, by dint of mystic yoga they came to Visnuloka. Although these
four great sages were older than Brahma’s other sons, they appeared like
small naked children only five or six years old. After passing through the
six entrances of Vaikuntha Puri, the Lord’s residence, they saw at the
seventh gate two shining beings, armed with maces and adorned with
most valuable jewelry, earrings and diamonds. The two gatekeepers were
garlanded with fresh flowers which attracted intoxicated bees and which
were placed around their necks and between their four blue arms. When
the gatekeepers, Jaya and Vijaya, saw the sages trying to enter
Vaikunthaloka, they thought them ordinary children and forbade them
to enter. Thus Sanandana and the other great sages, who were by far the
fittest persons, having realized the truth of the self, very angrily cursed
Jaya and Vijaya. “You two foolish doorkeepers,” they said. “Being agi-
tated by the material qualities of passion and ignorance, you are unfit to
live at the shelter of the Lord’s lotus feet, which are free from such
modes. It would be better for you to go immediately to the material world
and take birth in a family of most sinful asuras.” (pp. 45-52)
