Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/527

 their faces. And when the goddess saw them smiling, she was angry in her heart, and she cast her eyes hither and thither, to see what they were laughing at in this unseemly manner. And then she saw that Chandralekhá and Manipushpeśvara were looking lovingly in one another's faces.

Then the goddess, who was quite distracted with the sorrow of separation, was angry, and said, " These young people have done well to look lovingly* at one another in the absence of the god, and these two mirthful people have done well to laugh when they saw their glances: so let this lover and maiden, who are blinded with passion, fall into a human birth; and there the disrespectful pair shall be man and wife; but these unseasonable laughers shall endure many miseries on the earth; they shall be first poor Bráhmans, and then † Bráhman-Rákshasas, and then Piśáchas, and after that Chandálas, and then robbers, and then bob-tailed dogs, and then they shall be various kinds of birds,— shall these Ganas who offended by laughing; for their minds were unclouded, when they were guilty of this disrespectful conduct. When the goddess had uttered this command, a Gana of the name of Dhúrjața said, " Goddess, this is very unjust; these excellent Ganas do not deserve so severe a curse, for a very small offence." When the goddess heard that, she said in her wrath to Dhúrjața also, " Fall thou also, great sir, that knowest not thy place, into a mortal womb." When the goddess had inflicted these tremendous curses, the female warder Jayá, the mother of Chandralekhá, clung to her feet, and addressed this petition to her, " Withdraw thy anger, goddess; appoint an end to the curse of this daughter of mine, and of these thy own servants, that have through ignorance committed sin." When Párvatí had been thus entreated by her warder Jayá, she said, " When all these, owing to their having obtained insight, shall in course of time meet together, they shall, after visiting Śiva the lord of magic powers, in the place ‡ where Brahmá and the other gods performed asceticism, return to our court, having been freed from their curse. And this Chandralekhá, and her beloved, and that Dhúrjața shall, all three of them, be happy in their life as mortals, but these two shall be miserable."

When the goddess had said this, she ceased; and at that very moment the Asura Andhaka came there, having heard of the absence of Śiva. The presumptuous Asura hoped to win the goddess, but having been reproached by her attendants he departed, but he was slain on that account by the god,