Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/117

 out of his mouth a couch and a lady. Then he lay down on the couch beside that wife of his, and went to sleep, and the moment she saw it, she went and embraced the traveller. And he asked her who they were, and she answered; " This is a snake-god, and I am his wife, a daughter of the snake race. Do not fear, I have had ninety-nine lovers among travellers, and you make the hundredth." But, while she was saying this, it happened that the snake-god woke up, and saw them. And he discharged fire from his mouth, and reduced them both to ashes. When the snake-god had gone, the three friends said to one another, " If it is impossible to guard one's wife by enclosing her in one's own body, what chance is there of keeping her safe in a house? Out on them all !" So they spent the night in contentment, and next morning went on to the forest. There they became completely chastened in mind, with hearts quieted by practising the four meditations,* which were not interfered with by their friendship, and they became gentle to all creatures, and attained perfection in contemplation, which produces unequalled absolute beatification; and all three in due course destroyed the inborn darkness of their souls, and became liberated from the necessity of future births. But their wicked wives fell into a miserable state by the ripening of their own sin, and were soon ruined, losing both this and the next world.

" So attachment to women, the result of infatuation, produces misery to all men. But indifference to them produces in the discerning emancipation from the bonds of existence."

"When the prince, who was longing for union with Śaktiyaśas, had patiently listened to this diverting tale, told by his minister Gomukha, he again went to sleep.

The portion of the story of " the Shifty lad," which so nearly resembles the story of Ghata and Karpara, runs as follows : The shifty lad remarks to his master the Wright, that he might get plenty from the king's store-house which was near at hand if only he would break into it. The two eventually rob it together. " But the king's people missed the butter and cheese and the other things that had been taken out of the store-house, and they told the king how it had happened. The king took the advice of the Seanagal about the best way of catching the thieves, and the counsel that he gave them was, that they should set a hogshead of soft pitch under the hole where they were coming in. That was done, and the next day the shifty lad and his master went to break into the king's store-house."