Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/532

 When those* birds heard this, they began to relate the story of Muktáphalaketu as follows. Story of Muktaphalaketu and Padmávatí.:— Once on a time there was a king of the Daityas named Vidyutprabha, hard for gods to conquer. He, desiring a son, went to the bank of the Ganges, and with his wife performed asceticism for a hundred years to propitiate Brahmá. And by the favour of Brahmá, who was pleased with his asceticism, that enemy of the gods obtained a son named Vidyuddhvaja, who was invulnerable at their hands.

That son of the king of the Daityas, even when a child, was of great valour; and one day seeing that their town was guarded on all sides by troops, he said to one of his companions, " Tell me, my friend, what have we to be afraid of, that this town is thus guarded on all sides by troops?" Then his companion said to him, " We have an adversary in Indra the king of the gods; and it is on his account that this system of guarding the town is kept up. Ten hundred thousand elephants, and fourteen hundred thousand chariots, and thirty hundred thousand horsemen, and a hundred millions of footmen guard the city in turn for one watch of the night, and the turn of guarding comes round for every division in seven years."

When Vidyuddhvaja heard this, he said, " Out on such a throne, that is guarded by the arms of others, and not by its own might ! However, I will perform such severe asceticism, as will enable me to conquer my enemy with my own arm, and put an end to all this insolence of his." When Vidyuddhvaja had said this, he put aside that companion of his, who tried to prevent him, and without telling his parents, went to the forest to perform penance.

But his parents heard of it, and in their affection for their child, they followed him, and said to him, " Do not act rashly, son; severe asceticism ill befits a child like you. Our throne has been victorious over its enemies; is there one more powerful in the whole world? What do you desire to get by withering yourself in vain? Why do you afflict us?" When Vidyuddhvaja's parents said this to him, he answered them, " I will acquire, even in my childhood, heavenly arms by the force of asceticism; as for our empire over the world being unopposed by enemies, do I not know so much from the fact that our city is guarded by troops ever ready in their harness? "

When the Asura Vidyuddhvaja, firm in his resolution, had said so much to his parents, and had sent them away, he performed asceticism to win over Brahmá. He continued for a period of three hundred years living