Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/565

 they all worshipped Háțakeśvara, and made pyres in a holy bathing-place called Páparipu. Now it happened that on that very day king Merudhvaja, with his son, and his wife, was coining there to worship Háțakeśvara. And as he was going to the holy water of Páparipu, with his suite, to bathe, be saw smoke rising from the midst of a grove on its bank. And when the king asked, " How comes smoke to be rising here?" those governors he had set over Pátála, Sangrámasinha and the others, said to him, " Great king, Svayamprabhá, the wife of Trailokyamálin, is engaged in austerities here with her daughters the princesses. Without doubt they are now performing here some sacrificial rite in honour of the tire, or possibly they are wearied out with excessive asceticism, and are immolating themselves by entering it."

When the king heard that, he went to see what was going on, with his sons, and his wife, and those governors of Pátála, ordering the rest of his suite to remain behind. And concealing himself there, he beheld those Daitya maidens, with their mother, worshipping the fire of the pyres, which was burning brightly.* They seemed with the effulgence of the great beauty of their faces which shone out in all directions, to be creating in the lower world a hundred discs of the moon: and to be installing the god of love as king after the conquest of the three worlds, with their swiftly- moving necklaces that looked like liquid streams poured down from the golden pitchers of their breasts. Their broad hips, surrounded with the girdles which they wore, looked like the head of the elephant of love adorned with a girdle of constellations. The long wavy masses of hair which they bore, seemed like snakes made by the Creator to guard the treasure of their beauty. When the king saw them, he was astonished, and he said, " The creation of the Maker of All is surprising for the novelty that is ever being manifested in it: † for neither Rambha, nor Urvaśi, nor Tilottamá is equal in beauty to these two daughters of the Asura king." While the king was making these reflections to himself, Trailokyaprabhá, the elder of the two Daitya maidens, after worshipping the god present in the Fire, addressed this prayer to him, " Since, from the time that my mother told me of the revelation of Śiva received by her in a dream, my mind has been fixed upon prince Muktáphaladhvaja, that treasure-house of virtue, as my chosen husband, I pray, holy one, that he may be my husband in a future birth,inasmuch as, though in this birth my mother