Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/337

 and which was inaccessible to the demon Kali. In it there was a king rightly named Yaśodhana, who, like a rocky coast, protected the earth against the sea of calamity. When Destiny framed him, she seemed to blend together the moon and the sun, for, though he delighted the world, the heat of his valour was scorching, and the circle of his territory never waned. This king was unskilled* in slandering his neighbour, but skilled in the meaning of the Śastras, ho shewed poverty in crime, not in treasure and military force. His subjects sang of him as one afraid only of sin, covetous only of glory, averse to the wives of others, all compact of valour, generosity, and love.

In that capital of that sovereign there was a great merchant, and he Lad an unmarried daughter, named Unmadiní. Whoever there beheld her, was at once driven mad by the wealth of her beauty, which was enough to bewilder even the god of love himself. And when she attained womanhood, her politic father, the merchant, went to king Yaśodhana, and said to him, " King, I have a daughter to give in marriage, who is the pearl of the three worlds; I dare not give her away to any one else, without informing your Majesty. For to your Majesty belong all the jewels on the whole earth, so do me the favour of accepting or rejecting her."

When the king heard this report from the merchant, he sent off, with due politeness, his own Bráhmans, to see whether she had auspicious marks or not. The Bráhmans went and saw that matchless beauty of the three worlds, and were at once troubled and amazed, but when they had recovered their self-control, they reflected; " If the king gets hold of this maiden the kingdom is ruined, for his mind will be thrown off its balance by her, and he will not regard his kingdom, so we must not tell the king that she possesses auspicious marks." When they had deliberated to this effect, † they went to the king, and said falsely to him, "She has inauspicious marks." Accordingly the king declined to take that merchant's daughter as his wife.

Then, by the king's orders, the merchant, the father of the maiden Unmádiní, gave her in marriage to the commander of the king's forces, named Baladhara. And she lived happily with her husband in his house, but she thought that she had been dishonoured by the king's abandoning her on account of her supposed inauspicious marks. And as time went on, the lion of spring came to that place, slaying the elephant of winter, that, with flowering jasmine-creepers for tusks, had ravaged the thick-clustering lotuses. And it sported in the wood, with luxuriant clusters of flowers for mane, and with mango-buds for claws. At that season king Yaśodhana, mounted on an elephant, went out to see the