Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/319



Then king Trivikramasena again went back to the aśoka-tree and took the Vetála from it, and set out with him once more; and as the king was going along, the Vetála, perched on his shoulder, said to him; " Listen, king, I will tell you another story."

Story of the magic globule.:— There was in the kingdom of Nepála a city named Śivapura, and in it there lived of old time a king rightly named Yaśahketu. He devolved upon his minister, named Prajnáságara, the harden of his kingdom, and enjoyed himself in the society of his queen Chandraprabhá. And in course of time that king had born to him, by that queen, a daughter named Śaśiprábha, bright as the moon, the eye of the world. Now in course of time she grew up to womanhood, and one day, in the month of spring, she went to a garden, with her attendants, to witness a festive procession. And in a certain part of that garden a Bráhman, of the name of Manahsvámin, the son of a rich man, who had come to see the procession, beheld her engaged in gathering flowers, raising her lithe arm, and displaying her graceful shape; and she looked charming when the grasp of her thumb and forefinger on the stalks of the flowers relaxed. When the young man Manahsvámin saw her, she at once robbed him of his heart, and he was bewildered by love and no longer master of his feelings.* He said to himself, " Can this be Rati come in person to gather the flowers accumulated by spring, in order to make arrows for the god of love? Or is it the presiding goddess of the wood, come to worship the spring?" While he was making these surmises, the princess caught sight of him. And as soon as she saw him, looking like a second god of love created with a body, she forgot her flowers, and her limbs, and her own personal identity.

While those two were thus overpowered by the passion of mutual love at first sight, a loud shout of alarm was raised, and they both looked with uplifted heads to see what it could mean. Then there came that way an elephant, rushing along with its elephant-hook hanging down, that driven furious by perceiving the smell of anotherelephant,† had broken its fastenings, and rushed out in a state of frenzy, breaking down the trees in its path, and had thrown its driver. The princess's attendants dispersed in