Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/189

 throat. When I saw that, I also, on account of my grief at being separated from you, determined to propitiate the goddess by the sacrifice of myself. So I run and seized his sword. But at that moment some compassionate female ascetic, after forbidding me from a distance by a prohibitive shake of the head, came up to me, and dissuaded me from death, and after asking me my story said to me; " Do not act so, the re-union even of the dead has been seen in this world, much more of the living. Hear tins story in illustration of it."

Story of king Vinitamati who became a holy man.:—There is a celebrated city on the earth, of the name of Ahichchhatra,* in it there dwelt of old time a mighty king, of the name of Udayatunga. And he had a noble warder named Kamalamati. This warder had a matchless son named Vinítamati. The lotus, in spite of its threads, and the bow, in spite of its string, could not be compared to that youth who possessed a string of good qualities, for the first was hollow and the second crooked. One day, as he was on a platform on the top of a palace white with plaster, he saw the moon rising in the beginning of the night, like a splendid ear-ornament on the darkness of the eastern quarter, made of a slioot from the wishing-tree of love. And Vinítamati, seeing the world gradually illuminated with its numerous rays, felt his heart leap within him, and said to himself, " Ha ! the ways are seen to be lighted up by the moonlight, as if whitened with plaster, so why should I not go there and roam about? Accordingly he went out with his bow and arrows, and roamed about, and after he had gone only a cos, he suddenly heard a noise of weeping. He went in the direction of the sound and saw a certain maiden of heavenly appearance weeping, as she reclined at the foot of a tree. And he said to her, " Fair one, who are you? And why do you make the moon of your countenance like the moon when flecked with spots, by staining it with tears?" When he said this to her, she answered, " Great-souled one, I am the daughter of a king of the snakes named Gandhamálin, and my name is Vijayavatí. Once on a time my father fled from battle, and was thus cursed by Vasuki ' Wicked one, you shall be conquered and become the slave of your enemy.' In consequence of that curse, my father was conquered by his enemy, a Yaksha named Kálajihva, and made his servant, and forced to carry a load of flowers for him. Grieved thereat, I tried for his sake to propitiate Gaurí wit asceticism, and the holy goddess appeared to me in visible form, and said this to me, ' Listen, my child; there is in the Mánasa lake a great and heavenly lotus of crystal expanded into a thousand leaves. Its rays are scattered abroad when it is touched by the sun-beams, and it gleams like the many-crested head of