Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/585

 There I dwelt with the first Asura lady who was surrounded by her attendants, and he dwelt with the second. One day when I was stupified with drinking, the ascetic treacherously took away from my side the sword, and grasped it in his own hand. When he had it in his grasp, he possessed great power, and with his hand he seized me and flung me out of the cavern. Then I searched for him for twelve years at the mouths of caverns, hoping that some time I might find him outside. And this very day the scoundrel has presented himself to my eyes, sporting with that very Asura lady who belongs to me.

While the king Tribhuvana was relating this to me, O queen, that ascetic, stupefied with drink, went to sleep. And while he was asleep, the king went and took the sword from his side, and by its operation he recovered celestial might. Then the hero woke up that ascetic with a kick, and reproached the unfortunate man. but did not kill him. And then he entered the palace with the Asura lady and her attendants, recovered again like his own magic power. But the ascetic was much grieved at having lost his magic power. For the ungrateful, though long successful, are sure to fail at last.

" Having seen this with my own eyes, I have now arrived here in the course of my wanderings; so be assured, queen, that you shall eventually be reunited to your beloved, like Tribhuvana, for the righteous does not sink." When Bandhumatí heard that from the Bráhman, she was highly delighted, and made him successful by giving him much wealth.

And the next day a distinguished Bráhman came there from a distant land, and Bandhumatí eagerly asked him for tidings of her husband, telling his name and the tokens by which he might be recognized. Then that Brahman said to her: " Queen, I have not seen your husband anywhere, but I, who have to-day come to your house, am named not without reason, the Bráhman Sumanas,* so you will quickly have your wishes satisfied, thus my heart tells me. And reunions do take place, even of the long separated. In proof of thus I will tell you the following tale; listen, queen."

Story of Nala and Damayantí.:— Of old time there lived a king named Nala, whose beauty, I fancy, so surpassed that of the god of Love, that in disgust he offered his body as a burnt-offering in the fire of the eye of the enraged Śiva. He had no wife, and when he made enquiries, he heard that Damayantí, the daughter of Bhíma the king of Vidarbha, would make him a suitable wife. And Bhíma, searching through the world, found that there was no king except Kala fit to marry his daughter.

In the meanwhile Damayantí went down into a tank in her own city, to amuse herself in the water. There the girl saw a swan that had fed on