Scene 5

(The Asura brothers are in the seventh heaven of enjoyment. Lower vital music and vulgar dancing are all around. Enter Tilottama. Immediately Sunda and Upasunda are swayed by tenebrous passion.)

SUNDA: Who are you? Your body’s beauty is torturing every limb of mine.

UPASUNDA: Do you need money? Do you need jewels? Do you need name and fame? I shall give you immediately anything you want. Stand beside me, please. Stay with me, please. My heart needs you badly.

TILOTTAMA: Please let me think over the matter. After all, it is quite serious.

SUNDA: O paragon of beauty, my heart can brook no delay. I love you. You are mine. You are absolutely mine.

UPASUNDA: Stop, Sunda! I can clearly see that she loves me infinitely more than she loves you. Such being the case, it is I who deserve her, and not you.

SUNDA: I am not sure. Granted, she loves you more than she loves me. But I love her infinitely more than you love her.

UPASUNDA: O beauty unparalleled, how do you declare your life on earth?

TILOTTAMA: My name is Tilottama.

SUNDA: Like your beauty, your very name is torturing my heart and soul. You make me dream, and I make the world tremble. You are in all my thoughts. I must have you. I must tell you that I love you only, and I love nobody else on earth.

UPASUNDA: Tilottama, my darling, Sunda is a stranger to truth and I am a stranger to falsehood. I love you only. I am all yours. You are all mine. The moment I saw you my heart came close to breaking with stupendous ecstasy, my darling.

SUNDA: Upasunda, not once but twice, you dare to call her your darling! She is all mine. I am all hers. You rightly deserve most severe punishment from me for your unpardonable audacity.

UPASUNDA: Who punishes whom? You fool, you rogue, you brute!

(Upasunda severely strikes Sunda with his naked sword. Sunda immediately crosses his own sword with Upasunda’s. A terrible fight starts between the two. The fight is unbelievably fierce. In a few minutes the two brothers kill each other. Enter Brahma and Indra. Tilottama bows down to Brahma.)

TILOTTAMA: O my Creator, O my Source, I was a mere instrument of yours. You have blessed the world with your divine victory supreme. Once again this world of ours shall be flooded with light and delight.

BRAHMA: Tilottama, you are my greatest joy and highest pride.

INDRA: Tilottama, you have saved me. You have saved my divine pride. You have saved my Kingdom’s life. My heart’s garland of gratitude to you I offer.

(Indra garlands Tilottama.)