Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/375

 the minister Buddhivara heard this, he said to the king; " If this be so, give her some of those priceless jewels which the mendicant Prapanchabuddhi gave you." When the king heard that, he answered him, " If I were to give them all to her, I should not have made her a recompense worth speaking of; but I can free myself from obligation in another way, which is connected also with the story of that mendicant." When the minister heard this, he said— " King, why did that mendicant court you? Tell me his story." When his minister Buddhivara preferred this request, the king said, "Listen: I will tell you his story."

Story of king Vikramáditya and the treacherous mendicant.:— Long, ago a mendicant named Prapanchabuddhi used to enter my hall of audience in Pátaliputra every day and give me a box. For a whole year I gave these boxes, just as they were, unopened into the hand of my treasurer. One day, one of those boxes presented by the mendicant by chance fell from my hand on to the ground, and burst open. And a great jewel fell out of it, glittering like fire, and it appeared as if it were the mendicant's heart which I had not discerned before, revealed by him. When I saw that, I took it, and I had those other boxes brought which he had presented to me, and opened them, and took a jewel out of every one of them. Then in astonishment I asked Prapanchabuddhi " Why do you court me with such splendid jewels?" Then that mendicant took me aside, and said to me " On the fourteenth day of the black fortnight now approaching I have to perform a certain incantation at night-fall, in a cemetery outside this town. I desire you, my hero, to come and take part in that enterprise, for success is easily obtained, when the obstacles to it are swept away by the aid of a hero." When the mendicant said this to me, I agreed. So he went off delighted, and in a few days the fourteenth night of the black fortnight came, and I remembered the speech of that ascetic.* Then I performed my daily observances, and waited for the night, and after I had recited the evening prayer, it happened that I rapidly fell asleep. Then the adorable Hari, who is compassionate to his votaries, appeared to me in a dream, mounted on Garuda, with his breast marked with a lotus, and thus commanded me— " My son, this Prapanchabuddhi † is rightly named, for he will inveigle you into the cemetery to take part in the incantation of the circle, ‡ and will offer you up as a victim. So do not do what he