Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/477

 the daughter of Mandara; and this fourth is Padmaprabhá the daughter of Mahádanshțra; and I am the fifth; all we live, when we saw you per- forming asceticism in the domain of the Siddhas, were bewildered with love, and we made the following mutual agreement, ' We will all five* at the same time take this prince as our dear husband, and no one of us must surrender herself to him alone; if any one of us marries him separately, the others shall enter the fire to bring down vengeance on her who has been guilty of such treachery to friends.' It was out of respect for this agreement that I did not wish to marry you separately; indeed I did not even to-day give myself to you; you, my husband, and the guardians of the world can bear testimony as to whether even now I have broken this agreement willingly. So now, my husband, marry also those friends of mine; and you, my friends, must not let any other lot befall you." †

When she said this, those maidens, who had escaped from death, rejoiced and embraced one another; and the king was delighted in his heart. And the fathers of the ladies, hearing what had taken place, came there immediately, and bestowed their daughters on Naraváhanadatta. And those chiefs of the Vidyádharas, headed by the lord of Kálakúța, ‡ agreed to accept the sovereignty of their son-in-law. Thus Naraváhanadatta obtained at one stroke the daughters of five great Vidyádharas, and gained great importance thereby. And the prince remained there some days with those wives, and then his Commander-in-Chief Hariśikha said, " Why, my liege, though you are versed in the approved treatises on the subject, do you act contrary to policy? What means this devotion on your part to the pleasures of love, when it is time to fight? This raising of an expedition to conquer Mandaradeva, and this your dallying for so many days with your wive., are things wholly incompatible." When Hariśikha said this, the great king answered him, " Your reproof is just, but I am not acting for my own pleasure in all this; this allying of myself with wives involves the acquisition of friends; and is so the most efficacious method at present of crushing the foe; this is why I have had recourse to it. So let these my troops now advance to the conquest of the enemy !"

When the king had given this order, his father-in-law Mandara said to him, " King, that Mandaradeva lives in a distant and difficult country, and he will be hard for you to overcome until you have achieved all the