Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/204

 seeing the black serpent on the canvass, he reflected, " Where does this serpent come from now? Has it been created by fate to protect this fair one, the treasure-house of beauty." Thus reflecting, ho adorned with flowers the fair one on the canvass, and fancying that she surrendered herself to him, he embraced her, and asked her the above question, and at that very moment the hermit threw an illusion over him, which made him see her bitten by the black snake and unconscious. Then he forgot that it was only canvass, and exclaiming, alas ! alas ! he fell distracted on the earth, like a Vidyádhara brought down by the canvass acting as a talisman. But soon he recovered consciousness, and rose up weeping and determined on suicide, and climbed up a lofty tree, and threw himself from its top. But, as he was falling, the great hermit appeared to him, and bore him up in his hands, and consoled him, and said to him, " Foolish boy, do you not know that the real princess is in her palace, and that this princess on the canvass is a painted figure devoid of life? So who is it that you embrace, or who has been bitten by the serpent? Or what is this delusion of attributing reality to the creation of your own desire, that has taken possession of your passionate heart? Why do you not investigate the truth with equal intensity of contemplation, in order that you may not again become the victim of such sorrows?"

When the hermit had said this to the young merchant, the night o his delusion was dispersed, and he recovered his senses, and, bowing before the hermit, he said to him; " Holy one, by your favour I have been rescued from this calamity; do me the favour of rescuing me also from this changeful world." When Malayamálin made this request to the hermit, who was a Bodhisattva, he instructed him in his own knowledge and disappeared. Then Malayamálin went to the forest, and by the power of his asceticism he came to know the real truth about that which is to be rejected and that which is to be chosen, with the reasons, and attained the rank of an Arhat. And the compassionate man returned, and by teaching them knowledge, he made king Indukeśarin and his citizens obtain salvation. " So even untruth, in the case of those mighty in contemplation, becomes true. I have now explained the perfection of contemplation; listen to the perfection of wisdom."

Story of the robber who won over Yama's secretary.:— Long ago there lived in Sinhaladvípa a robber, of the name of Sinhavikrama, who since his birth had nourished his body with other men's wealth stolen from every quarter. In time he grew old, and desisting from his occupation, he reflected; " What resources have I in the other world? Whom shall I betake myself to for protection there? If I betake myself to Śiva or Vishnu, what value will they attach to me, when they have