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 as yet, been released from his imprisonment. So lot us even consume these unlucky bodies in the fire, before we also are imprisoned, or experience some other insult at the bands of our enemy."

When Svayamprabhá's daughters said this to her, she answered them, " Wait a while, my daughters, we shall regain our former glory. For I know that, while I was engaged in austerities, the god Śiva said to me in a dream, My child, be of good courage; thy husband shall recover bis kingdom, and the princes Muktáphaladhvaja and Malayadhvaja shall be the husbands of thy two daughters. And do not suppose that they are men; for one of them is a noble Vidyádhara, and the other is a Gana of mine.' When I had received this revelation from Śiva, I woke up at the close of night; and supported by this hope I have borne great suffering. So I will inform the king your father of this matter, and with his consent, I will endeavour to bring about your marriage."

When the queen Svayamprabhá had in these words comforted her daughters, she said to Indumatí, an old woman of the harem, " Go to my husband in the cave of Śvetaśaila, and fall at his feet, and say to him from me, ' My husband, the Creator has formed me of such strange wood, that, though the fire of separation from you burns fiercely, I have not yet been consumed by it. But it is because I entertain a hope of seeing you again that I have not abandoned life.' When you have said this, tell him the revelation that Śiva made to me in a dream, then ask him about the marriage of our daughters, and come back, and tell me what he says; I will then act accordingly."

When she had said this, she sent off Indumatí; and she left Pátála and reached the well-guarded entrance of that mountain-cave. She entreated the guards and entered, and seeing Trailokyamálin there a prisoner, she burst into tears, and embraced his feet; and when he asked her how she was, she slowly told him all his wife's message; then that king said, " As for what Śiva says about my restoration to ray kingdom, may that turn out as the god announced, but the idea of my giving my daughters to the sons of Merudhvaja is preposterous. I would rather perish here than give my daughters as a present to enemies and men too, while myself a prisoner,"

When Indumatí had been sent away by the king with this message, she went and delivered it to his wife Svayamprabhá, And when Trailokyaprabhá and Tribhuvanaprabhá the daughters of the Daitya sovereign heard it, they said to their mother Svayamprabhá, " Anxiety lest our youthful purity should be outraged makes the fire seem our only place of safety, so we will enter it, mother, on the fourteenth day, that is now approaching." When they had thus resolved, their mother and her suite also made up their minds to die. And when the fourteenth day arrived,