Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/141

 Then my father gave me a kick, and said, ' Why do you go to sleep?' And I was so angry at that that I left his house and became a mendicant." Then Hemaprabhá was so delighted with the female mendicant, on account of the resemblance of her character to her own, that she made her share her forest life. And one morning she said to that friend; " My friend, I remember that I crossed in my dreams a broad river, then I mounted a white elephant, after that I ascended a mountain, and there I saw in a hermitage the holy god Śiva. And having obtained a lyre, I sang and played on it before him, and then I saw a man of celestial appearance approach. When I saw him, I flew up into the sky with you, and when I had seen so much, I awoke, and lo ! the night was at an end." When the friend heard this, she said to Hemaprabhá, " Undoubtedly, auspicious girl, you must be some heavenly being born on earth in consequence of a curse; and this dream means that your curse is nearly at an end." When the princess heard this speech of her friend's, she received it with joy.

And when the sun, the lamp of the world, had mounted high in the heaven, there came there a certain prince on horseback. When he saw Hemaprabhá dressed as an ascetic, he dismounted from his horse, and conceiving admiration for her, he went and saluted her respectfully. She, for her part, entertained him, and made him take a seat, and feeling love for him, said, " Who are you, noble sir?" Then the prince said, " Noble lady, there is a king of auspicious name, called Pratápasena. He was once going through a course of asceticism to propitiate Śiva, with the view of obtaining a son. And that merciful god appeared to him, and said, " Thou shalt obtain one son, who shall he an incarnation of a Vidyádhara, and he, when his curse is at an end, shall return to his own world. And thou shalt have a second son, who shall continue thy race and uphold thy realm.' When Śiva said this to him, he rose up in high spirits, and took food. Then he had one son born to him, named Lakshmísena, and in course of time a second, named Śúrasena. Know, lovely one, that I am that same Lakshmísena, and that to-day when I went out to hunt, my horse, swift as the wind, ran away with me and brought me here." Then he asked her history, and she told it him, and thereupon she remembered her former birth, and was very much elated, and said to him, " Now that I have seen you, I have remembered my birth and the sciences which I knew as a Vidyádharí,* for I and this friend of mine here are both Vidyádharís, that have been sent down to earth by a curse. And you were my husband, and your minister was the husband of this friend of mine. And now that curse of me and of my friend has lost its power. We shall all meet again in the world of Vidyádharas." Then she and her friend assumed divine forms and flew up to