The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
friend, "I have not found her here; let us go back to that temple of
Siva; if I cannot find her there, I will enter the fire."
When that friend heard it, he said, "Good luck will befall you! The
word of the hermit and Siva's promise in your dream cannot be
falsified." With those words did Muktáphaladhvaja's friend try to
comfort him; and then Muktáphaladhvaja ascended the chariot, and went
with him to Siddhísvara.
When Padmávatí saw him arrive, she still remained there invisible,
and she said to her ladies-in-waiting, "Look! he has come to this very
place." He too entered, and seeing that offerings had been recently
placed in front of the god, prince Muktáphaladhvaja said to that
companion of his, "Look, my friend, some one has been quite recently
worshipping this symbol of the god; surely, that beloved of mine
must be somewhere here, and she must have done this worship." When
he had said this, he looked for her, but could not find her; and
then in the anguish of separation he cried out again and again,
"Ah! my beloved Padmávatí!"
Then, thinking that the cry of the cuckoo was her voice, and that the
tail of the peacock was her hair, and that the lotus was her face,
the prince ran wildly about, overpowered with an attack of the fever
of love, and with difficulty did his friend console him; and coaxing
him, he said to him, "What is this that you have taken up, being weak
with much fasting? Why do you disregard your own welfare, though you
have conquered the earth and Pátála? Your father Merudhvaja, and king
Trailokyamálin, the king of the Dánavas, your future father-in-law,
and his daughter Trailokyaprabhá, who wishes to marry you, and your
mother Vinayavatí, and your younger brother Malayadhvaja will, if
you do not go to them, suspect that some misfortune has happened,
and fasting as they are, will give up their breath. So come along! Let
us go and save their lives, for the day is at an end."
When Muktáphaladhvaja's friend said this to him, he answered him,
"Then go yourself in my chariot and comfort them." Then his friend
said, "How will that hermit's pupil, who has been made your vehicle by
a curse, submit to me?" When the prince's friend said this, he replied,
"Then wait a little, my friend; let us see what will happen here."
When Padmávatí heard this conversation of theirs, she said to her
ladies-in-waiting, "I know that this is my former lover by all the
notes tallying, but he is degraded by the curse, being enclosed in
a human body, and I too am thus afflicted with a curse, because I
laughed at the Siddha-maiden." While she was saying this, the moon
rose, red in hue, the fire that devours the forest of separated
lovers. And gradually the moonlight filled the world on every side,
and the flame of love's fire filled the heart of Muktáphaladhvaja.
Then the prince began to lament like a chakraváka at the approach of
night; and Padmávatí, who was concealed, being despondent, said to
him, "Prince, though you are my former lover, still, as you are now
in another body, you are to me a strange man, and I am to you as the
wife of another; so why do you lament again and again? Surely some
means will be provided, if that speech of the hermit's was true."
When Muktáphaladhvaja heard this speech of hers, and could not see her,
he fell into a state which was painful from the contending emotions of
joy and despondency; and he said to her, "Princess, my former birth
has returned to my recollection, and so I recognised you, as soon as
I saw you, for you still wear your old body, but as you saw me when I
was dwelling in my Vidyádhara [726] body, how can you recognise me,
now that I am in a mortal body? So I must certainly abandon this
accursed frame." When he had said this, he remained silent, and his
beloved continued in concealment.
Then, the night being almost gone, and his friend Mahábuddhi, who
was formerly Samyataka, having gone to sleep out of weariness, prince
Muktáphaladhvaja, thinking that he could never obtain Padmávatí, as
long as he continued in that body, collected wood, [727] and lighted a
fire; and worshipped Siva embodied in the linga, uttering this prayer,
"Holy one, may I by thy favour return to my former body, and soon
obtain my beloved Padmávatí!" And having said this, he consumed his
body in that blazing fire.
And in the meanwhile Mahábuddhi woke up, and not being able, in spite
of careful search, to find Muktáphaladhvaja, and seeing the fire
blazing up, he came to the conclusion that his friend, distracted
with separation, had burnt himself, and out of regret for his loss,
he flung himself into that same fire.
When Padmávatí saw that, she was tortured with grief, and she said to
her ladies-in-waiting, "Alas! Fie! the female heart is harder than
the thunderbolt, otherwise my breath must have left me beholding
this horror. So, how long am I to retain this wretched life? Even
now, owing to my demerits, there is no end to my woe; moreover, the
promise of that hermit has been falsified; so it is better that I
should die. But it is not fitting that I should enter this fire and be
mixed up with strange men, so in this difficult conjuncture hanging,
which gives no trouble, is my best resource." When the princess had
said this, she went in front of Siva, and proceeded to make a noose
by means of a creeper, which she fastened to an asoka-tree.
And while her ladies-in-waiting were trying to prevent her by
encouraging speeches, that hermit Tapodhana came there. He said,
"My daughter, do not act rashly, that promise of mine will not be
falsified. Be of good courage, you shall see that husband of yours
come here in a moment. His curse has been just now cancelled by virtue
of your penance; so why do you now distrust the power of your own
austerities? And why do you shew this despondency when your marriage
is at hand? I have come here because I learnt all this by my power of
meditation." When Padmávatí saw the hermit approaching uttering these
words, she bowed before him, and was for a moment, as it were, swung
to and fro by perplexity. Then her beloved Muktáphalaketu, having by
the burning of his mortal body entered his own Vidyádhara body, came
there with his friend. And Padmávatí, seeing that son of the king of
the Vidyádharas coming through the air, as a female chátaka beholds
a fresh rain-cloud, or a kumudvatí the full moon newly risen, felt
indescribable joy in her heart. And Muktáphalaketu, when he saw her,
rejoiced, and so to speak, drank her in with his eyes, as a traveller,
wearied with long wandering in a desert, rejoices, when he beholds
a river. And those two, reunited like a couple of chakravákas by the
termination of the night of their curse, took their fill of falling at
the feet of that hermit of glowing brilliancy. [728] Then that great
hermit welcomed them in the following words, "My heart has been fully
gratified to-day by seeing you reunited, happy at having come to the
end of your curse."
And when the night had passed, king Merudhvaja came there in search
of them, mounted on the elephant of Indra, accompanied by his wife
and his youngest son, and also Trailokyamálin the sovereign of the
Daityas, with his daughter Trailokyaprabhá, mounted on a chariot,
attended by his harem and his suite. Then the hermit pointed out
Muktáphalaketu to those two kings and described what had taken place,
how he had become a man by a curse, in order to do a service to the
gods, and how he had been delivered from his human condition. And
when Merudhvaja and the others heard that, though they were before
eager to throw themselves into the fire, they bathed in Siddhodaka and
worshipped Siva, by the hermit's direction, and were at once delivered
from their sorrow. Then that Trailokyaprabhá suddenly called to mind
her birth and said to herself "Truly I am that same Devaprabhá, the
daughter of the king of the Siddhas, who, when undergoing austerities
[729] in order that the emperor of all the Vidyádharas might be my
husband, was ridiculed by Padmávatí, and entered the fire to gain
the fulfilment of my desire. And now I have been born in this Daitya
race, and here is this very prince with whom I was in love, who has
recovered his Vidyádhara body. But it is not fitting that, now that
his body is changed, he should be united to this body of mine, so I
will consume my Asura body also in the fire, in order to obtain him."
Having gone through these reflections in her mind, and having
communicated her intention to her parents, she entered [730] the fire
which had consumed Muktáphaladhvaja; and then the god of fire himself
appeared with her, on whom out of pity he had bestowed her former body,
and said to Muktáphaladhvaja, "Muktáphaladhvaja, this lady Devaprabhá,
the daughter of the king of the Siddhas, for thy sake abandoned her
body in me; so receive her as thy wife." When the god of fire had
said this, he disappeared; and Brahmá came there with Indra and the
rest of the gods, and Padmasekhara the king of the Gandharvas, with
Chandraketu, the sovereign of the Vidyádharas. Then that prosperous
king of the Gandharvas [731] gave his daughter Padmávatí, with due
rites and much activity on the part of his followers, as wife to
Muktáphalaketu, who bowed before him, congratulated by all. And then
that prince of the Vidyádharas, having obtained that beloved, whom
he had so long desired, considered that he had gathered the fruit
of the tree of his birth, and married also that Siddha-maiden. And
prince Malayadhvaja was united to that Daitya princess, his beloved
Tribhuvanaprabhá, whom her father bestowed on him with due rites. Then
Merudhvaja, having, on account of his son Malayadhvaja's complete
success, anointed him to be sole ruler of a kingdom extending over
the earth with all its islands, went with his wife to the forest to
perform austerities. And Trailokyamálin, the king of the Daityas, went
with his wife to his own region, and Indra gave to Muktáphalaketu the
splendid kingdom of Vidyuddhvaja. And this voice came from heaven,
"Let this Muktáphalaketu enjoy the sovereignty over the Vidyádharas
and Asuras, and let the gods go to their own abodes!" When they heard
that voice, Brahmá and Indra and the other gods went away delighted,
and the hermit Tapodhana went with his pupil, who was released from
his curse, and Chandraketu went to his own Vidyádhara home, with his
son Muktáphalaketu who was graced by two wives. And there the king,
together with his son, long enjoyed the dignity of emperor over the
Vidyádharas, but at last he threw on him the burden of his kingdom,
and, disgusted with the world and its pleasures, went with the queen to
an ascetic grove of hermits. And Muktáphalaketu, having before obtained
from Indra the rule over the Asuras, and again from his father the
empire over the Vidyádharas, enjoyed, in the society of Padmávatí,
who seemed like an incarnation of happiness, for ten kalpas, the good
fortune of all the pleasures which the sway of those two wealthy realms
could yield, and thus obtained the highest success. But he saw that
passions are in their end distasteful, and at last he entered a wood
of mighty hermits, and by the eminence of his asceticism obtained
the highest glory, and became a companion of the lord Siva.
Thus king Brahmadatta and his wife and his minister heard this
romantic tale from the couple of swans, and gained knowledge from their
teaching, and obtained the power of flying through the air like gods;
and then they went accompanied by those two birds to Siddhísvara,
[732] and there they all laid aside the bodies they had entered in
consequence of the curse, and were reinstated in their former position
as attendants upon Siva. [733]
Hearing this story from Gomukha in the absence of Madanamanchuká,
for a moment only, hermits, I cheered my heart with hope.