Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/433

 about at will, and the processional entry oi the bridegroom's friends drew nigh, heralded by the sound of drums.

When I saw that, I considered that my miserable life had lost all its zest, and came to the conclusion that death was to be preferred to separation; so I went outside the city, and climbed up a banyan-tree, and fastened a noose to it, and I let myself drop from the tree suspended by that noose, and let go at the same time my chimerical hope of obtaining my beloved. And a moment afterwards I found myself, having recovered the consciousness which I had lost, lying in the lap of a young man who had cut the noose; and perceiving that he had without doubt saved my life, I said to him, " Noble sir, you have today shewn your compassionate nature; but I am tortured by separation from my beloved and I prefer death to life. The moon is like fire to me, food is poison, songs pierce my ear like needles, a garden is a prison, a wreath of flowers is a series of envenomed shafts, and anointing with sandal-wood ointment and other unguents is a rain of burning coals. Tell me, friend, what pleasure can wretched bereaved ones, like myself, to whom everything in the world is turned upside down, find in life?"

When I had said this, that friend in misfortune asked me my history, and I told him the whole of my love affair with Madirávatí. Then that good man said to me, " Why, though wise, are you bewildered? What is the use of surrendering life, for the sake of which we acquire all other things?" Apropos of this, hear my story, which I now proceed to relate to you.

The second Brahman's story.:— There is in the bosom of the Himálayas a country named Nishada, which is the only refuge of virtue banished from the earth by Kali, and the native land of truth, and the home of the Krita age. The inhabitants of that land are insatiable of learning, but not of money-getting; they are satisfied with their own wives, but with benefiting others never. I am the son of a Bráhman of that country who was rich in virtue and wealth. I left my home, my friend, out of a curiosity which impelled me to see other countries, and wandering about, visiting teachers, I reached in course of time the city of Śankhapura not far from here, where there is a great purifying lake of clear water, sacred to Sánkhapála king of the Nágas, and called Śankhahrada. While I was living there in the house of my spiritual preceptor, I went one holy bathing festival to visit the lake Śankhahrada. Its banks were crowded, and its waters troubled on every side by people who had come from all countries, like the sea when the gods and Asuras churned it. I beheld that great lake, which seemed to make the women look more lovely,