Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/619

 in the palace, nor in the garden attached to it, nor anywhere about it. I said to myself, " She has not lost her heart to another man; of that I am convinced by the fact that the garland which she gave me, telling me that as long as she remained chaste, it would certainly not fade, is still as fresh as ever.* So I cannot think where she has gone, whether she has been carried off by a demon or some other evil being, or what has happened to her." With these thoughts in my mind, I remained looking for her, crying out, lamenting, and weeping; consumed by the fire of separation from her; taking no food. Then my relations succeeded at last in consoling me to a certain extent, and I took food, and I made my abode in a temple, and remained there plunged in grief, feasting Bráhmans. Once when I was quite broken down, this Bráhman came to me there, and I refreshed him with a bath and food, and after he had eaten, I asked him whence he came, and he said, " I am from a village near Váránasí." My servants told him my cause of woe, and he said, " Why have you, like an unenterprising man, allowed your spirits to sink? The energetic man obtains even that which it is hard to attain; so rise up my friend, and let us look for your wife; I will help you."

I said, " How are we to look for her, when we do not even know in what direction she has gone? " When I said this, he answered me kindly, " Do not say this; did not Keśața long ago recover his wife, when it seemed hopeless that he should ever be reunited with her? Hear his story in proof of it." Story of Keśața and Kandarpa.:—There lived in the city of Páțaliputra a wealthy young Bráhman, the son of a Bráhman; his name was Keśața, and he was in beauty like a second god of love. He wished to obtain a wife like himself, and so he went forth secretly † from his parents house, and wandered through various lands on the pretext of visiting holy bathing-places. And in the course of his wanderings he came once on a time to the bank of the Narmadá, and he saw a numerous procession of bridegroom's friends coming that way. And a distinguished old Bráhman, belonging to that company, when he saw Keśața in the distance, left his companions, and coming up to him accosted him, and respectfully said to him in private, " I have a certain favour to ask of you, and it is one which you can easily do for me, but the benefit conferred on me will be a very great one; so, if you will do it, I will proceed to say what it is." When Keśața heard this, plain stambhotkirna too as wie aus einem Pfosten geschnitten, wie eine Statue von Holz. But could not the figures be cut in stone, as-the Bharhut sculptures are?