Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/346

 dust of flowers, removing fatigue by her loveliness,* like the goddess of the garden appearing in a visible shape suited to her deity. And the prince approached the heavenly maiden, who bowed before him, and welcomed her, for his eyes were ravished with her beauty. Then his minister Gomukha, after all had sat down, asked her, " Who are you, auspicious one, and for what reason have you come here?" "When she heard that, she laid aside her modesty in obedience to the irresistible decree of Love, and frequently stealing sidelong glances at the lotus of Naraváhanadatta's face with an eye that shed matchless affection, she began thus at length to relate her own history.

Story of Ratnaprabhá.:— There is a mountain-chain called Himavat, famous in the three worlds; it has many peaks, but one of its peaks is the mount of Śiva which is garlanded with the brightness of glittering jewels, and flashes with gleaming snow, and like the expanse of the heaven, cannot be measured. Its plateaux are the home of magic powers and of magic herbs, which dispel old age, death, and fear, and are to be obtained by the favour of Siva. With its peaks yellow with the brightness of the bodies of many Vidyádharas, it transcends the glory of the peaks of Sumeru itself, the mighty hill of the immortals.

On it there is a golden city called Kánchanaśringa, which gleams refulgent with brightness, like the palace of the Sun. It extends many yojanas, and in it there lives a king of the Vidyádharas named Hemaprabha, who is a firm votary of the husband of Umá. And though he has many wives, he has only one queen, whom he loves dearly, named Alankáraprabhá, as dear to him as Rohiní to the moon. With her the virtuous king used to rise up in the morning and bathe, and worship duly Śiva and his wife Gaurí, and then he would descend to the world of men, and give to poor Bráhmans every day a thousand gold-pieces mixed with jewels. And then he returned from earth and attended to his kingly duties justly, and then he ate and drank, abiding by his vow like a hermit. While days elapsed in this way, melancholy arose once in the bosom of the king, caused by his childlessness, but suggested by a passing occasion. And his beloved queen Alankáraprabhá, seeing that he was in very low spirits, asked him the cause of his sadness. Then the king said to her— " I have all prosperity, but the one grief of childlessness afflicts me, O queen. And this melancholy has arisen in my breast on the occasion of calling to mind a tale, which I heard long ago, of a virtuous man who had no son." Then the queen said to him, " Of what nature was that tale?" When asked this question, the king told her the tale briefly in the following words;