Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/449

 peoples.

In Sanskrit, it is told of Gunâdhya, in connexion with the Sibylline books story. The poet Gunadhya, an incarnation of Mâljavân, writes with his own blood, in the forest, a mighty book of tales, in seven hundred thousand slokas. He then sends the book by his two pupils, Gunadeva and Nandideva, to king Sâtavâhana, but he rejects it as being composed in the Pisâcha dialect. Gunâdhya then ascends a mountain, and lights a great pile of firewood. He reads aloud his tales, and as he finishes each page, he casts it into the flames. Thus perish one hundred thousand slokas. Whilst the poet reads, stags, deer, bears, buffaloes, and roebucks, in short all the beasts of the forest, assemble and weep tears of delight at the beauty of the tales. In the mean time, the king falls ill, and the doctors order him game. But game is not to be found in the forest, for every living creature of the woods is listening to Gunâdhya. The huntsmen report this to the king, and the monarch hastens to the scene, and offers to buy the wondrous book. But, alas! by this time only one of the seven hundred thousand slokas remains.

But this is not the ancient form of the Indian myth. The poet Gunâdhya is the heavenly Mâljavân