Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/344

 not good men do for the sake of those that implore their aid? Then tho Páśupata ascetic wont to the bank of tho river, and said to him, " My son, when, in repeating this charm, you behold that illusion, I will recall you to consciousness by my magic power, and you must enter the Ore which you will see in your illusion. For I shall remain here all the time on tho bank of the river to help you. When that prince of ascetics had said this, being himself pure, he duly communicated that charm to Chandrasvámin, who was purified and had rinsed his mouth with water. Then Chandrasvámin bowed low before his teacher, and plunged boldly into the river, while he remained on the bank. And while he was repeating over that charm in the water, he was at once bewildered by its deluding power, and cheated into forgetting the whole of that birth. And he imagined himself to be born in his own person in another town, as the son of a certain Bráhman, and he slowly grew up. And in his fancy he was invested with the Bráhmanical thread, and studied the prescribed sciences, and married a wife, and was absorbed in the joys and sorrows of married life, and in course of time had a son born to him, and he remained in that town engaged in various pursuits, enslaved by love for his son, devoted to his wife, with his parents and relations.

While be was thus living through in his fancy a life other than bis real one, the hermit his teacher employed tho charm, whose office it was to rouse him at the proper season. He was suddenly awakened from his reverie by tho employment of that charm, and recollected himself and that hermit, and became aware that all that ho was apparently going through was magic illusion, and he became eager to enter the fire, in order to gain the fruit, which was to be attained by the charm; but he was surrounded by his elders, friends, superiors and relations, who all tried to prevent him. Still, though they used all kinds of arguments to dissuade him, being desirous of heavenly enjoyment, he went with his relations to the bank of the river, on which a pyre was prepared. There he saw his aged parents and his wife ready to die with grief, and his young children crying; and in his bewilderment he said to himself; " Alas ! my relations will all die, if I enter the fire, and I do not know if that promise of my teacher's is true or not. So shall I enter the fire? Or shall I not enter it? After all, how can that promise of my teacher's be false, as it is so precisely in accordance with all that has taken place? So, I will gladly enter the fire." When the Bráhman Chandrasvámin had gone through these reflections, he entered the fire. And to his astonishment the fire felt as cool to him as snow. Then he rose up from the water of the river, tho delusion having come to an end, and went to the bank. There he saw his teacher on the bank, and he prostrated himself at bis feet, and when bis teacher questioned him, he told