Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/459

 that court came to an end, and Váyupatha went home again accompanied by the other Vidyádharas his friends. But Mánasavega, making Madanamanchuká, who was distracted with joy and grief, precede him, went despondent to Aśhádhapura his own dwelling.

I think, a hero's prosperity must be unequal; Fate again and again severely tests firmness by the ordeals of happiness and misery: this explains why the fickle goddess kept uniting Naraváhanadatta to wife after wife, when he was alone in those remote regions, and then separated him from them.

Then, while he was residing on the mountain Rishyamúka, his beloved Prabhávatí came up to him, and said, " It was owing to the misfortune of my not being present that Mánasavega carried you off on that occasion to the court, with the intention of doing you an injury. When I heard of it, I at once went there, and by means of my magic power I produced the delusion of an appearance of the god, and brought you here. For, though the Vidyádharas are mighty, their influence does not extend over this mountain, for this is the domain of the Siddhas.* Indeed even my science is of no avail here for that reason, and that grieves me, for how will you subsist on the products of the forest as your only food?" When she had said this, Naraváhanadatta remained with her there, longing for the time of deliverance, thinking on Madanamanchuká. And on the banks of the sanctifying Pampá-lake near that mountain, he ate fruits and roots of heavenly flavour, and he drank the holy water of the lake which was rendered delicious and fragrant by the fruits dropped from trees on its bank, as a relish to his meal of deer's flesh. † And he lived at the foot of trees and in the interior of caverns, and so he imitated the conduct of Ráma who once lived in the forests of that region. And Prabhávatí, beholding there various hermitages once occupied by Ráma, told him the story of Ráma for his amusement.