Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/550

 "What would not I do for your sake? Tell me, my friend, what that step is."

When the princess heard this, she said with difficulty, as if ashamed, " Go, my dear friend, and bring my beloved here quickly; for in no other way can my suffering be allayed, and my father will not be angry; on the contrary, as soon as ho comes here, he will give me to him." When her friend heard that, she said to her in a tone of decision, " If it be so, recover your self-command. This is but a little matter. Here am I, my friend, setting out for Chandrapura the famous and splendid city of Chandraketu the king of the Vidyádharas, the father of your beloved, to bring your beloved to you. Be comforted ! What is the use of grief?"

When the princess had been thus comforted by Manoháriká, she said, "Then rise up, my friend, may your journey be prosperous ! Go at once! And you must say courteously from me to that heroic lord of my life, who delivered the three worlds, ' When you delivered me so triumphantly in that temple of Gaurí from the danger of the Rákshasís, how is that you do not deliver me now, when I am being slain by the god Cupid, the destroyer of women? Tell me, my lord, what kind of virtue is this in persons like yourself able to deliver the worlds to neglect in calamity one whom you formerly saved, though she is devoted to you.'* This is what you must say, auspicious one, or something to this effect as your own wisdom may direct." When Padmávatí had said this, she sent that friend on her errand. And she mounted a bird which her magic knowledge brought to her, to carry her, and set out for that city of the Vidyádharas. And then Padmávatí, having to a certain extant recovered her spirits by hope, took the painting-tablet, and entered the palace of her father. There she went into her own apartment surrounded by her servants, and bathed and worshipped Śiva with intense devotion, and thus prayed to him, " Holy one, without thy favouring consent no wish, great or small, is fulfilled for any one in these three worlds. So if thou wilt not give me for a husband that noble son of the emperor of the Vidyádharas, on whom I have set my heart, I will abandon my body in front of thy image."

When she addressed this prayer to Śiva, her attendants were filled with grief and astonishment, and said to her, " Why do you speak thus, princess, regardless of your body's weal? Is there anything in these three worlds difficult for you to obtain? Even Buddha would forget his self- restraint, if loved by you. So he must be a man of exceptional merit, whom you thus love." When the princess heard this, carried away by the thought of his virtues, she said, " How can I help loving him, who is the only refuge of Indra and the rest of the gods, who alone destroyed the