Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/133

 a mortal, and he gratified him with heavenly enjoyments and sent him back again to earth, and long enjoyed his prosperity with Mrigánkalekhá.

" So you see that the destiny fixed for any creature in this world, by works in a former birth, falls as it were before his feet, and he attains it with ease, though apparently unattainable." When Naraváhanadatta heard this tale of Gomukha's, he was enabled to sleep that night, though pining for Śaktiyaśas.

The next night Gomukha told the following story to Naraváhanadatta to amuse him.

In the holy place of Śiva, called Dhaneśvara, there lived long ago a great hermit, who was waited upon by many pupils. He once said to his pupils, " If any one of you has seen or heard in his life a strange occurrence of any kind, let him relate it. When the hermit said this, a pupil said to him, " Listen, I will tell a strange story which I once heard."

Story of the mendicant who travelled from Kaśmíra to Páțaliputra.:—There is in Kaśmíra a famous holy place, sacred to Śiva, called Vijaya. In it there lived a certain mendicant, who was proud of his knowledge. He worshipped Śiva, and prayed— " May I be always victorious in controversy,"— and thereupon he set out for Páțaliputra to exhibit his skill in dispute. And on the way he passed forests, rivers, and mountains, and having reached a certain forest, he became tired, and rested under a tree. And immediately he saw, as he was refreshing himself in the cool breeze of the tank, a student of religion, who had come there dusty with a long journey, with his staff and water-pot in his hand. "When he sat down, the wandering mendicant asked him whence he came and whither he was going. The student of religion answered, " I come from that seat of learning Páțaliputra, and I am going to Kaśmíra to conquer the Pandits there in discussion. When the mendicant heard this speech of the religious student's, he thought, " If I cannot conquer this one man who has left Páțaliputra, how shall I manage to go and overcome the many who remain there?"

So reflecting, he began to reproach that religious student, " Tell me, religious student, what is the meaning of this inconsistent conduct on your part? How comes it that you are at the same time a religious student, eager for liberation, and a man afflicted with the madness of disputatious-