Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/609

 monastery. When the bard had carefully scanned the city delineated there, he was astonished, and said, " I wonder who can have drawn this city? For I alone have seen it, I am certain, and no other; and here it is drawn by some second person." When the inhabitants of the monastery heard that, they told Bhadráyudha; then he came in person, and took that bard to the king. The king said to Śanvarasiddhi, " Have you really seen that city?" Then Śanvarasiddhi gave him the following answer. " When I was wandering about the world, I crossed the sea that separates the dvípas, and beheld that great city Malayapura. In that city there dwells a king of the name of Malayasinha, and he has a matchless daughter, named Malayavatí, who used to abhor males. But one night she somehow or other saw in a dream a great hero in a convent.* The moment she saw him, that evil spirit of detestation of the male sex fled from her mind, as if terrified. Then she took him to her palace, and in her dream married him, and entered with him the bridal chamber. And at that moment the night came to an end, and an attendant in her room woke her up. Then she banished that servant in her anger, and thinking upon that dear one, whom she had seen in her dream, seeing no way of escape owing to the blazing fire of separation, utterly overpowered by love, she never rose from her couch except to fall back upon it again with relaxed limbs. She was dumb, as if possessed by a demon, as if stunned by a blow, † for when her attendants questioned her, she gave them no answer.

" Then her father and mother came to hear of it, and questioned her; and at last she was, with exceeding difficulty, persuaded to tell them what happened to her in the dream, by the mouth of a confidential female friend. Then her father comforted her, but she made a solemn vow that, if she did not obtain her beloved in six months, she would enter the fire. And already five months are past; who knows what will become of her? This is the story that I heard about her in that city."

When Śanvarasiddhi had told this story, which tallied so well with the king's own dream, the king was pleased at knowing the certainty of the matter, and Bhadráyudha said to him, " The business is as good as effected, for that king and his country own your paramount supremacy. So let us go there before the sixth month has passed away." When the warder had said this, king Vikramáditya made him inform Śanvarasiddhi of all the circumstances connected with the matter, and honoured him with a present of much wealth, and bade him shew him the way, and then he