Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/51

 he again said to me, " I am pleased with you, henceforth you are my friend, and I will appear to you when you call me to mind." Thus he spoke and disappeared, and I returned by the way that I came. Thus the Rákshasa has become my friend, and my ally in trouble. When I had said this, Śakatála made a second request to me, and I shewed him the goddess of the Ganges in human form who came when I thought of her. And that goddess disappeared when she had been gratified by me with hymns of praise. But Śakatála became from thenceforth my obedient ally.

Now once on a time that minister said to me when my state of concealment weighed upon my spirits; " why do you, although you know all things, abandon yourself to despondency? Do you not know that the minds of kings are most undiscerning, and in a short time you will be cleared from all imputations;* in proof of which listen to the following tale:—

There reigned here long ago a king named Ádityavarman, and he had a very wise minister, named Śivavarman. Now it came to pass that one of that king's queens became pregnant, and when he found it out, the king said to the guards of the harem, " It is now two years since I entered this place, then how has this queen become pregnant? Tell me." Then they said, " No man except your minister Śivavarman is allowed to enter here, but he enters without any restriction." When he heard that, the king thought,— " Surely he is guilty of treason against me, and yet if I put him to death publicly, I shall incur reproach,"— thus reflecting, that king sent that Śivavarman on some pretext to Bhogavarman a neighbouring chief, † who was an ally of his, and immediately afterwards the king secretly sent off a messenger to the same chief, bearing a letter by which he was ordered to put the minister to death. When a week had elapsed after the minister's departure, that queen tried to escape out of fear, and was taken by the guards with a man in woman's attire, then Ádityavarman when he heard of it was tilled with remorse, and asked himself why he had causelessly brought about the death of so excellent a minister. In the meanwhile Śivavarman reached the Court of Bhogavarman, and that messenger came bringing the letter; and fate would have it so that after Bhogavarman had read the letter he told to Śivavarman in secret the order he had received to put him to death.

The excellent minister Śivavarman in his turn said to that chief,— Yodhisthira is questioned by a Yaksha. Benfey compares Mahábhárata XIII (IV, 206) 5883-5918 where a Bráhman seized by a Rákshasa escaped in the same way.