Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/558

 When the king of the gods saw that, knowing what was in his heart, he said to him, " King, I know what thy grief is; dismiss it from thy mind. One son shall be born to thee, who shall be called Muktáphaladhvaja, and shall be a portion of Śiva, and a second named Malayadhvaja, who shall be an incarnation of a Gana. Muktáphaladhvaja and his younger brother shall obtain from the hermit Tapodhana the sciences and all weapons and a creature to ride on, that shall possess the power of assuming any shape. And that invincible warrior shall again obtain the great weapon of Paśupati, and shall slay the Asuras, and get into his power the earth and Pátála. And receive from me these two air-going elephants Kánchanagiri and Kánchanaśekhara, together with mighty weapons." When Indra had said this to Merudhvaja, he gave him the arms and the elephants, and dismissed him, and he went delighted to his own city on the earth. But those Asuras, who had managed by their treachery to cast discredit upon the king, escaped being caught by him, even when mounted on the sky-going elephant, for they took refuge in Pátála.

Then the king, desiring a son, went, on his heavenly elephant, to the hermitage of that hermit Tapodhana, of whom Indra had told him. There he approached that hermit, and told him that command of Indra, and said to him, " Reverend Sir, quickly tell me what course I ought to take to gain my end." And the hermit recommended that the king and his wife should immediately take upon them a vow for the propitiation of Śiva, in order that they might attain their end. The king then proceeded to propitiate Śiva with that vow, and then that god, being pleased, said to the king in a dream, " Rise up, king, thou shalt soon* obtain one after another two invincible sons for the destruction of the Asuras." When the king had heard this, he told it to the hermit when he woke up in the morning, and after he and his wife had broken their fast, he returned to his own city. Then that august and beautiful lady, the queen of Merudhvaja, became pregnant within a few days. And Muktáphalaketu was in some mysterious way conceived in her, having been compelled by the curse to abandon his Vidyádhara body. And that body of his remained in his own city of Chandrapura, guarded by his relations, kept by magic from corrupting. So the queen of king Merudhvaja, in the city of Devasabha, delighted her husband by becoming pregnant. And the more the queen was oppressed by her condition, the more sprightly was her husband the king. And when the time came, she gave birth to a boy resembling the sun, who,