Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/427

 Then his father, king Amaradatta, prolongued for seven days the great feast, in which the king's highway was decorated, and the subject kings honoured according to their worth. And on the eighth day he went out of the city with his wife, and after turning back Mŗigánkadatta and the citizens, who followed him with tearful faces, he went with his minis- ters to Váránasi. There the king remained with his body steeped in Ganges water, worshipping iva three times a day, performing penance, like a hermit, by living on roots and fruits ; and his wife shared all his devotions and privations. But Mrigankadatta, for his part, having obtained that kingdom broad and pure as the sky, which the sun takes as his domain, and having over- whelmed the kings with imposition of numerous tributes, as the sun does the mountains with showers of rays, began to blaze forth with increasing heat of valour. And associated with his lieutenants Mayavatu and Kar- masena and the others, and with his own ministers headed by S'rutadhi, he conquered this circle of the earth, with all its continents, as far as the four cardinal points, and ruled it under one umbrella. And while he was king, such calamities as famine, and the dread of robbers and of foreign invaders were heard of only in tales ; and the world was ever joyous and happy, and enjoyed unparalleled felicity, so that it seemed as if the gentle reign of Kama the good were renewed. And so the monarch establislied himself in that city of Ayodhya with his ministers, and kings came from various quarters to worship the lotus of bis foot, and he long enjoyed with his be- loved S'asankavati pleasures the joy of which no enemy marred,*

When the hermit Pisangajata had told this story in the wood on the Malaya mountain to Naravalianadatta, who was separated from his beloved, he went on to say to him, " So, my son, as Mrigankadatta in old time gained S'asankavati after enduring afliiction, you also will regain your Madanamanchuka." When Naravahanadatta had beard this nectarous utterance of the mighty hermit Pisangajata, he conceived in his heart the hope of regaining Madanamanchuka. And with his mind fixed on her, he took leave of that good hermit, and roamed about on the Malaya mountain, looking for Lalitalochana, whom he had lost, the fair one that originally brought him there. This is the conclusion of the story of Mŗigánkadatta, which begins on page 138.