Page:Cradle Tales of Hinduism .djvu/68



Sati was born again on earth as the Princess Uma. In the divine regions, long periods of our time pass like a single day, and the years that were spent in becoming a baby and growing up into a woman seemed to Uma a very little thing. She knew well who she was, and remembered that she had come into the world only that she might win Siva once more for her own, and be with Him forever.

This time she had chosen as her father one who loved Mahadeva, and would feel deeply honoured by having Him for his son-in-law, Himalaya, the Mountain-king. Uma was extraordinary from her earliest years for her goodness. It was not only that every duty was faithfully performed, and those rites of purification that Siva loves carried out to the last letter, but such long hours were spent in worship and in fasts of terrible rigour, that her mother often implored her to stop, fearing that she would lose health, or even life itself. But the Princess persisted, for she knew that beautiful as she was, her great difficulty in this life would be to make