Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/355

Rh Vardhana entered Penugonda, his head would fall severed from his neck. Finally, she invoked Brahma not to create thenceforth beautiful girls in the caste in which she was born, and prayed that in future they should be short of stature, with gaping mouth, disproportionate legs, broad ears, crooked hands, red hair, sunken eyes, dilated eye-balls, insane looks, broad noses and wide nostrils, hairy body, black skin, and protruding teeth. She then jumped into her pit, and immediately afterwards the heads of the 102 gōtras, with their wives, fell into their respective pits, and were reduced to ashes. On the morrow, Vishnu Vardhana started on his journey from Rājamundry to Penugonda. Brāhmans portended evil, and a voice from heaven said that he would lose his life. An evil spirit obstructed him, and it rained blood. Lightning struck men, and numerous other signs of impending evil occurred. Arrived at Penugonda, Vishnu Vardhana was informed that the castemen and Vāsavāmbika had been burnt in the fire-pits. Stunned by the news, he fell from his elephant, and his head was severed from his body, and broke into a thousand pieces. His broken head and body were carried by his followers to Rajamundry, and cremated by his son Rāja Rāja Narēndra. Then the latter pacified the citizens of Penugonda, and appointed Virupāksha, the son of Kusuma Srēshti, Pedda Setti of the towns. The 102 families performed funeral rites for their dead parents, visited Kāsi and Rāmēsvaram, and built a temple in honour of Vāsavāmbika at Penugonda, in which they placed an image in her name, and worshipped it ever afterwards. Popular versions of the story here related from the Purāna are told all over Southern India, where Kōmatis live. One of the most singular of these is narrated by