. The god is ironically a monogamist who only had one wife and that is Shakti, the formless one. She is pure energy that manifests as the divine feminine. All the women in the temple are aspects of her, all women in the world are. Therefore, men that seek union with the Devdasis are meant to do so with the attitude of seeking the divine feminine in order to express the divine masculine within them. Basically, what that means is that whoever is having sex in the temple is not themselves, but the god and goddess in their multitude. The tantra of sex that men and women participate in is a form of prayer.
Vajra even kindly explained to Kush as he was being bothered by all the Devdasis. 'There are two primary dualities in the world, namely Solitude and Multitude as well as the Known and Unknown. Solitude alone creates the world's primary culture namely ascetism, while the reaction of multitude with the second primary duality 'known and unknown' creates the remaining eight of them. In solitude, namely, when considered singularly, these two deities of the temple of Manas are both ascetics! That is why their true form is set in stone. It is unchanging and pure which is what ascetism is all about. On the other hand, in multitude these two deities exist in a purely dynamic state. Ever changing and impossible to capture in form, encapsulating all other forms of culture and man's basic sense of identity. This is why they say the devdasis here are no different than the god images on the walls. Because god exists here both in his solitude and multitude. In union with the devdasis, men can realize that.'
With Vajra's little speech, all the brahmins converged around him, filling him with praises and asking questions. Even the devdasis grouped around him like lovestruck fools who were enlightened by a god!
One witty devdasi even asked him with big wondrous eyes, 'Then how do women realize it?'
'Well, they say women are smarter than men. Their minds are already connected to god, so they do it through intuition.'
'Wah…well said! Well said!' the women fluttered and exclaimed, tipping on their little toes to get a better look at the handsome foreign king.
The bastard grew even taller during the past years. He almost resembled a grown man now. On the other hand, Kush who was the true man among the two with a hundred victories under his belt, still looked like a child next to him! He truly hated it when Vajra opened his bottle of charm and attracted all the bees towards him. Even more than when the women were crowding around Kush, teasing him this way and that.
Irritated, he left the pavilion and picked a random direction to explore the temple. The temple was built on a wide expanse along the rocky ridge of a mountainous region. It was not a single building, but several hundreds of shrines that were interlinked through unique architectural arrangements. Every shrine offered a splendid view at the city below or the mist covered valley on the other side. Beautiful sculptures decorated the stone pillars. They often captured an apsara in her dance pose, portraying several different dance forms. It was also true what they said about the temple of Manas. The farther he went along the ridge, the more serene it became, the spacing of the shrines too became sparser, though they were even more elegant and pristine here. But wherever he went, somewhere along his line of sight, he could still spot a Devdasi practicing her dance or playing music instruments on a temple platform. As the elevation became higher and clouds of mist covered most of the shrines, it appeared as though they were dancing on the clouds. Just like the apsarases in heaven.
Kush was taken in by the beautiful sight several times and his heart would thaw. But just then another group of ladies would appear and they would have the same idea to tease him as the ones he met in the main temple. It was all still okay if nothing happened in the main temple, but now Kush felt that it was all fake. That the moment Vajra appears and opens his golden mouth, these girls would flock to him instead! He just felt used and annoyed, so he brushed them off and ran away even farther, choosing the most difficult mountain path so that even if there are shrines ahead, these delicate girls wouldn't follow him.
'That handsome kid over there, that path is restricted!' a girl yelled from behind him.
Kush leaped towards the path like it like he was injected in chicken blood. If it is restricted, that just means there would be no annoying girls ahead!
It soon became dark. Kush found himself in front of some lake. He didn't expect a lake to appear this high in the mountains, but he gladly dunked into the waters to take a bath. The waters were freezing! Kush nearly drowned because he did not expect the lake to be so deep and the water so cold. After climbing out with difficulty, he shivered while he wiped himself with his dhoti, but even after he was dry, he still felt that the temperature was freezing. Luckily, he found a big warm stone nearly. It was also very smooth and gentle to touch. In the darkness, he couldn't see what it was, so he assumed it was a boulder which was originally underwater and that's why it was so smooth. Kush climbed the big stone and found out that there was a comfortable nook in the middle attached to a pillar sort of a thing with strange indentations. Kush got comfortable in the nook and hugged the pillar to get warmer. Very soon, his head felt heavy and his eyelids of closed on themselves.
At the first light of dawn, when the brahmanas came to perform their morning ablutions in the sacred lake. The lake was called the Manas Sarovar or the Lake of Manas. The lake's waters were pure and pristine, they weren't allowed to take a dip in it. They could merely take some water from it and sprinkle it over their heads. When they did just that and turned to pray to the statues of the god and goddess nearby, they saw a naked child in the god's lap, with his feet stretched over all the way into the goddess's lap. He was hugging the god's straight torso, while the goddess's divine hand which was holding a beautiful lotus was lovingly stroking the boy's feet.
The child's skin was elastic and smooth, his muscles were toned to perfection. His body was very robust. There were a couple of scars on his body but they didn't in any way mar his perfection. His face looked innocent and peaceful when he slept, as though he had not a care in the world. If there was anything at all that is incongruous in this situation, it was the ugly and old looking sword that the child was hugging to sleep. One could even see the blood that had dried on its hilt and scabbard, leaving it tainted. It looked fearsome and awe-inducing, quite the contrast with the cutely sleeping young boy.
The brahmins were no fools. The temple kingdom was after all, also a kingdom. As the highest administrative body of the kingdom, the temple knows who all are coming and going in its lands. So they also knew about the fearsome child general who razed cities to dust and even subdued the Asuras in the Belly of Chandasura.