Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/535

 before the eyes of Anangaprabhá, soon stripped the teacher of dancing of all his wealth. Then Anangaprabhá deserted her husband, who was stripped of all his fortune, as if in anger on that account, and threw herself into the arms of Sudarśana. Then the teacher of dancing, having lost his wife and his wealth, having no refuge, in disgust with the world, matted his hair in a knot, and went to the banks of the Ganges to practise mortification of the flesh. But Anangaprabhá, who was ever taking new paramours, remained with that gambler. But one night, her lord Sudarśana was robbed of all that he had by some robbers, who entered his house in the darkness. Then Sudarśana, seeing that Anangaprabhá was uncomfortable and unhappy on account of their poverty, said to her: " Come and let us borrow something from a rich friend of mine, named Hiranyagupta, a distinguished merchant." After saying this, he, being deprived of his senses by destiny, went with his wife, and asked that great merchant Hiranyagupta to lend him some money. And the merchant, when he saw her, immediately felt in love with her, and she also with him, the moment that she beheld him. And the merchant said politely to Sudarśana— " To-morrow I will give you gold, but dine here to-day." When Sudarśana heard this, beholding the altered bearing of those two, he said— " I did not come here to-day to dine." Then the great merchant said— " If this be the case, at any rate let your wife dine here, my friend, for this is the first time that she has visited my house." When Sudarśana was thus addressed by him, he remained silent in spite of his cunning, and that merchant went into his house with Anangaprabhá. There lie indulged in drinking and other pastimes with that fair one, unexpectedly thrown in his way, who was merry with all the wantonness of wine. But Sudarśana, who was standing outside, waiting for her to come out, had the following message brought to him by the merchant's servants, in accordance with their master's orders: " Your wife has dined and gone home: you must have failed to see her going out. So what are you doing here so long ? Go home." He answered— " She is within the house, she has not come out, and I will not depart." Thereupon the merchant's servants drove him away from the house with kicks. Then Sudarśana went off, and sorrowfully reflected with himself: " What ! has this merchant, though my friend, robbed me of my wife? Or rather, in this very birth the fruit of my sin has in such a form fallen to my lot. For what I did to one, another has done to me. Why should ,1 then be angry with another, when my own deeds merit anger ? So I will sever the chain of works, so that I may not be again humiliated." Thus reflecting, the gambler abandoned his anger, and going to the hermitage of Badariká,* he proceeded to perform such austerities as would cut the bonds of mundane existence.