Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/576

 said, " How will that hermit's pupil, who has been made your vehicle by a curse, submit to me? When the prince's friend said this, he replied, " Then wait a little, my friend; let us see what will happen here."

When Padmávatí heard this conversation of theirs, she said to her ladies-in-waiting, " I know that this is my former lover by all the notes tallying, but he is degraded by the curse, being enclosed in a human body, and I too am thus afflicted with a curse, because I laughed at the Siddhamaiden." While she was saying this, the moon rose, red in hue, the fire that devours the forest of separated lovers. And gradually the moonlight filled the world on every side, and the flame of love's fire filled the heart of Muktáphaladhvaja. Then the prince began to lament like a chakraváka at the approach of night; and Padmávatí, who was concealed, being despondent, said to him, " Prince, though you are my former lover, still, as you are now in another body, you are to me a strange man, and I am to you as the wife of another; so why do you lament again and again? Surely some means will be provided, if that speech of the hermit's was true."

When Muktáphaladhvaja heard this speech of hers, and could not see bar, he fell into a state which was painful from the contending emotions of joy and despondency; and he said to her, " Princess, my former birth has returned to my recollection, and so I recognised you, as soon as I saw you, for you still wear your old body, but as you saw me when I was dwelling in my Vidyádhara* body, how can you recognise me, now that I am in a mortal body? So I must certainly abandon this accursed frame." When he had said this, he remained silent, and his beloved continued in concealment. Then, the night being almost gone, and his friend Mahábuddhi, who was formerly Samyataka, having gone to sleep out of weariness, prince Muktáphaladhvaja, thinking that he could never obtain Padmávatí, as long as he continued in that body, collected wood,† and lighted a fire; and worshipped Śiva embodied in the linga, uttering this prayer, " Holy one, may I by thy favour return to my former body, and soon obtain my beloved Padmávatí ! " And having said this, he consumed his body in that blazing fire.

And in the meanwhile Mahábuddhi woke up, and not being able, in spite of careful search, to find Muktáphaladhvaja, and seeing the fire blazing up, he came to the conclusion that his friend, distracted with separation,