Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/275

 his wife braver, who, though a mother, endured to witness with her own eyes the offering up of her son as a victim? And was not his son Sattvavara braver, who, though a mere child, displayed such preëminent courage? So why do you say that king Śúdraka was more heroic than these?"

When the Vetála said this, the king answered him, " Do not say so ! Víravara was a man of high birth, one in whose family it was a tradition that life, son, and wife must be sacrificed to protect the sovereign. And his wife also was of good birth, chaste, worshipping her husband only, and her chief duty was to follow the path traced out for her by her husband. And Sattvavara was like them, being their son; assuredly, such as are the threads, such is the web produced from them. But Śúdraka excelled them all, because he was ready to lay down his life for those servants, by the sacrifice of whose lives kings are wont to save their own.

" When the Vetála heard that speech from that king, he at once left his shoulder, and returned invisibly to his former place by his supernatural power, but the king resolutely set out on his former path in that cemetery at night to bring him back again.

For the story of Víravara, see Vol. I, pp. 253 and 519. Oesterley refers us to Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 414, where it is shown to be based upon the Asadŗiśa Játaka of Buddha. The story is found in the Persian Tutinámah, No 21, (in Iken, p. 89,) in a form resembling that in the Hitopadeśa. But there is another form which is No. 2 in the same work of Kaderi and found in the older Tútínámah, (p. 17 in Iken,) which seems to be based on the Vetála Panchavinśati. This is also found in the Turkish Tútínámah. Jánbáz saves the life of a king by the mere determination to sacrifice himself and his whole family. ( Oesterley's Baitál Pachísí, pp. 185-187.) Benfey refers us to No. 39 in Basile's Pentamerone, [Liebrecht's German translation, Vol. II, pp. 116-134,] and to No. 6 in Grimm's Kinder-Märchen.

Then king Trivikramasena went back again to that aśoka-tree, and saw the Vetála in the corpse again hanging on it as before, and took him down, and after showing much displeasure with him, set out again rapidly towards his goal. And as he was returning along his way, in silence as before, through the great cemetery by night, the Vetála on his shoulder said