Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/493

 and wives, and the king received him with appropriate courtesy. And the Vidyádhara prince sat down and asked the king about his health, and said to him, while all present looked at him with curiosity, " Your son Naraváhanadatta, having propitiated Śiva, and beheld him face to face, and having obtained from him sciences difficult for his enemies to conquer, has slain Mánasavega and Gaurímunda in the southern division of the Vidyádhara territory, and conquered Mandaradeva who was lord in the northern division, and has obtained* the high dignity of emperor over all the kings of the Vidyádharas in both divisions, who acknowledge his authority; and has now gone through his solemn coronation on the Rishabha mountain, and is thinking, king, with eager yearning of you and your queens and ministers. And I have been sent by him, so come at once; for fortunate are those who live to see their offspring elevate their race."

When the king of Vatsa heard Váyupatha say this, being full of longing for his son, he seemed like a peacock that rejoices when it hears the roaring of the rain- clouds. So he accepted Váyupatha's invitation, and immediately mounted a palanquin with him, and by the might of his sciences travelled through the air, accompanied by his wives and ministers, and reached that great heavenly mountain called Rishabha. And there he saw his son on a heavenly throne, in the midst of the Vidyádhara kings, accompanied by many wives; resembling the moon reclining on the top of the eastern mountain, surrounded by the planetary host, and attended by a company of many stars. To the king the sight of his son in all this splendour was a shower of nectar, and when he was bedewed with it, his heart swelled with joy, and he closely resembled the sea when the moon rises.

Naraváhanadatta, for his part, beholding that father of his after a long separation, rose up hurriedly and eager, and went to meet him with his train. And then his father embraced him, and folded him to his bosom, and he went through a second sprinkling, † being bathed in a flood of his father's tears of joy. And the queen Vásavadattá long embraced her son, and bathed him with the milk that flowed from her breasts at beholding him, so that he remembered his childhood. And Padmávatí, and Yaugandharáyana, and the rest of his father's ministers, and his uncle Gopálaka, beholding him after a long interval, drank in with thirsty eyes his ambrosial frame, like partridges; while the king treated them with the honour which they deserved. And Kalingasená, beholding her son-in-law and also her daughter, felt as if the whole world was too narrow for her,