Page:Vikram and the vampire; or, Tales of Hindu devilry (IA vikramvampireort00burtrich).pdf/23

Rh from the East, rhymes and romance, lutes and drums, alchemy and knight-errantry. Many of the 'Novelle' are, as Orientalists well know, to this day sung and recited almost textually by the wandering tale-tellers, bards, and rhapsodists of Persia and Central Asia.

The great kshatriya (soldier) king Vikramaditya, or Vikramarka, meaning the 'Sun of Heroism,' plays in India the part of King Arthur, and of Harun al-Rashid further West. He is a semi-historical personage. The son of Gandharba-Sena the donkey and the daughter of the King of Dhara, he was promised by his father the strength of a thousand male elephants. When his sire died, his grandfather, the deity Indra, resolved that the babe should not be born, upon which his mother stabbed herself. But the tragic event duly happening during the ninth month, Vikram came into the world by himself, and was carried to Indra, who pitied and adopted him, and gave him a good education.

The circumstances of his accession to the throne, as will presently appear, are differently told. Once, however, made King of Malaya, the modern Malwa, a province of Western Upper India, he so distin-