Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/533

 ones, be born, all of you, as human beings.' Then you asked the hermit that the curse might end, and he said— ' When the princess Anangarati shall be demanded in marriage by you, and shall go to the Vidyádhara world, then three of you shall be released from your curse. But when she has become a Vidyádharí, then thou, Vikatavadana, shalt gain her, and lose her again, and then thou shalt suffer great sorrow. But after propitiating the goddess Durgá for a long time, thou shalt be released from this curse. This will happen to thee, because thou didst touch the hand of this Chápalekhá, and also because thou hast much guilt attaching to thee, on account of having carried off the wives of others.' You four ganas of mine, whom that hermit thus cursed, became four heroes in the Dekhan, Panchaphuttika, and Bháshájna, and Khadgadhara, these three friends, and you the fourth Jívadatta. Now the first three, when Anangarati returned to her own place, came here, and by my favour were freed from their curse. And thou hast propitiated me now, therefore thy curse is at an end. So take this fiery meditation, and abandon this body; and consume at once the guilt, which it would take eight births to exhaust." When the goddess Durgá had said this, she gave him the meditation, and disappeared. And with that meditation he burned up his wicked mortal body, and at last was freed from the curse, and became once more an excellent gana. When even gods have to endure so much suffering by associating with the wives of others, what must be the result of it to inferior beings?

In the meanwhile Anangaprabhá became head-queen in Harivara, the city of the king Harivara. And the king remained day and night with his mind fixed on her, and entrusted the great burden of his kingdom to his minister named Sumantra. And once on a time there came to that king from Madhyadeśa,* a fresh teacher of dancing, named Labdhavara. The king, having seen his skill in music and dancing, honoured him, and made him the instructor in dancing of the ladies of the harem. He brought Anangaprabhá to such excellence in dancing, that she was an object of admiration even to her rival wives. And from associating with the professor of dancing, and from the delight she took in his teaching, she fell in love with him. And the professor of dancing, attracted by her youth and beauty, gradually learnt a new strange † dance, thanks to the god of Love. And once she approached the professor of dancing secretly in the dancing-hall, and being desperately in love with him, said to him " I shall not be able to live for a moment without you, and the king Harivara, when he hears of it, will not tolerate it, so come, let us depart elsewhere, where the king will not find us out. You have wealth in. the