Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/506

 that some one would slay him.* Then the Daitya said to her, "Why, who can slay me who am of adamantine frame? the only vulnerable and vital point I have is in my left hand, and that the how protects." This speech of his was heard by the king, who was at the time concealed near.

Then the Daitya bathed and proceeded to worship Śiva. At that moment the king appeared with his bow strung, and challenged to mortal combat the Daitya, who was observing religious silence. The Daitya lifted up his left hand, his right hand being engaged, and made a sign to the king to wait a little. That very moment the king smote him in that hand, which was his vital point, with a well-aimed arrow, and the Daitya fell on the earth. And just before he expired, he said, " If that man who has thus slain me when thirsty, does not every year offer water to my manes, his five ministers shall perish." The Daitya being thus slain, the king took his daughter Angáravatí, and returned to this city of Ujjayiní.

"And after that king, your father, had married that queen, he used every year to have an offering of water made to the manes of Angáraka ; and all here celebrate the feast called the giving of water; and today it has come round; so do, king, what your father did before you."

Story of prince Avantivardhana and the daughter of the Mátanga who turned out to be a Vidyádharí.:— "When king Pálaka heard this speech of his subjects', he proceeded to set going in that city the festival of the giving of water. When the festival had begun, and the people had their attention occupied by it, and were engaged in shouting, suddenly an infuriated elephant, that had broken its fastenings, rushed in among them. That elephant, having got the better of its driving-hook, and shaken off" its driver, roamed about in the city, and killed very many men in a short time. Though the elephant-keepers ran forward, accompanied by professional elephant-drivers, and the citizens also, no man among them was able to control that elephant. At last, in the course of its wanderings, the elephant reached the quarter of the Chandalas, and there came out from it a Chandála maiden. She illuminated the ground with the beauty of the lotus that seemed to cling to her feet, delighted because she surpassed with the loveliness of her face the moon its enemy. † She looked like the night that gives re.><t to the eyes of the world, because its attention is diverted from other objects, and so it remains motionless at that time. ‡