Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/355

 myself command him to do so in a dream. Thus thou shalt conquer the whole earth, and all zenanas, and thou shalt obtain eighty thousand princesses." When Vishnu had said this, he disappeared, and the king broke his fast, and the next day he beheld that elephant, which had coma to him through the air. And when the elephant had thus placed himself at the king's disposal, he mounted him, as he had been bidden to do by Vishnu, and in this manner he conquered the earth, and carried off the daughters of kings. And then the king dwelt there in Ratnakúta with those wives, eighty thousand in number, amusing himself as he pleased. And in order to propitiate Śvetaraśmi, that celestial elephant, he fed every day five hundred Bráhmans.

Now once on a time the king Ratnádhipati mounted that elephant, and, after roaming through the other islands, returned to his own island. And as he was descending from the sky, it came to pass that a bird of the race of Garuda struck that excellent elephant with his beak. And the bird fled, when the king struck him with the sharp elephant-hook, but the elephant fell on the ground stunned by the blow of the bird's beak. The king got off his back, but the elephant, though he recovered his senses, was not able to rise up in spite of the efforts made to raise him, and ceased eating. For five days the elephant remained in the same place, where it had fallen, and the king was grieved and took no food, and prayed as follows: " Oh guardians of the world, teach me some remedy in this difficulty; otherwise I will cut off my own head and offer it to you." When he had said this, he drew his sword and was preparing to cut off his head, when immediately a bodiless voice thus addressed him from the sky— " king do nothing rash; if some chaste woman touches this elephant with her hand, it will rise up, but not otherwise." When the king heard that, he was glad, and summoned his own carefully guarded chief queen, Amritalatá. When the elephant did not rise up, though she touched it with her hand, the king had all his other wives summoned. But though they all touched the elephant in succession, he did not rise up; the fact was, not one among them was chaste. Then the king, having beheld all those eighty thousand wives openly humiliated in the presence of men, being himself abashed, summoned all the women of his capital, and made them touch the elephant one after another. And when in spite of it the elephant did not rise up, the king was ashamed, because there was not a single chaste woman in his city.

And in the meanwhile a merchant named Harshagupta, who had arrived from Támraliptí,* having heard of that event, came there full of