The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
foot." When the king heard that, he said, "I will find that wealth and
give it back to you, or I will give it you from my own treasury, do
not commit suicide, Bráhman." After saying this, and so diverting the
Bráhman from his intention of committing suicide, the king entrusted
him to the care of the merchant, and retired to his palace. There
he pretended to have a headache, and sending out the door-keeper, he
summoned all the physicians in the city by proclamation with beat of
drum. And he took aside every single one of them and questioned him
privately in the following words: "What patients have you here, and
how many, and what medicine have you prescribed for each?" And they
thereupon, one by one, answered all the king's questions. Then one
among the physicians, when his turn came to be questioned, said this,
"The merchant Mátridatta has been out of sorts, O king, and this is
the second day, that I have prescribed for him nágabalá. [498] When
the king heard that, he sent for the merchant, and said to him--"Tell
me, who fetched you the nágabalá?" The merchant said--"My servant,
your highness." When the king got this answer from the merchant, he
quickly summoned the servant and said to him--"Give up that treasure
belonging to a Bráhman, consisting of a store of dínárs, which you
found when you were digging at the foot of a tree for nágabalá." When
the king said this to him, the servant was frightened and confessed
immediately, and bringing those dínárs left them there. So the king
for his part summoned the Bráhman and gave him, who had been fasting
in the meanwhile, his dínárs, lost and found again, like a second
soul external to his body.
"Thus that king by his wisdom recovered for the Bráhman his wealth,
which had been taken away from the root of the tree, knowing that
that simple grew in such spots. So true is it, that intellect
always obtains the supremacy, triumphing over valour, indeed in
such cases what could courage accomplish? Accordingly, Yogesvara,
you ought to bring it to pass by your wisdom, that some peccadillo be
discovered in Kalingasená. And it is true that the gods and Asuras
are in love with her. This explains your hearing at night the sound
of some being in the air. And if we could only obtain some pretext,
calamity would fall upon her, not on us; the king would not marry
her, and yet we should not have dealt unrighteously with her." When
the Bráhman-Rákshasa Yogesvara heard all this from the sagacious
Yaugandharáyana, he was delighted and said to him--"Who except the
god Vrihaspati can match thee in policy? This counsel of thine waters
with ambrosia the tree of empire. I, even I, will investigate with
wisdom and might the proceedings of Kalingasená." Having said this,
Yogesvara departed thence.
And at this time Kalingasená, while in her palace, was continually
afflicted by beholding the king of Vatsa roaming about in his palace
and its grounds. Thinking on him, she was inflamed with love, and
though she wore a bracelet and necklace of lotus fibres, she never
obtained relief thereby, nor from sandal-ointment, or other remedies.
In the meanwhile the king of the Vidyádharas, named Madanavega, who had
seen her before, remained wounded by the arrow of ardent love. Though
he had performed a vow to obtain her, and had been granted a boon by
Siva, still she was not easy to gain, because she was living in the
land of another, and attached to another, so the Vidyádhara prince
was wandering about at night in the air over her palace, in order to
obtain an opportunity. But, remembering the order of Siva pleased
with his asceticism, he assumed one night by his skill the form of
the king of Vatsa. And in his shape he entered her palace, saluted
with praises by the door-keepers, who said--"Unable to bear delay,
the king has come here without the knowledge of his ministers." And
Kalingasená, on beholding him, rose up bewildered with agitation,
though she was, so to speak, warned by her ornaments which jingled
out the sounds--"This is not the man." Then she by degrees gained
confidence in him, and Madanavega, wearing the form of the king
of Vatsa, made her his wife by the Gándharva rite. At that moment
Yogesvara entered, invisible by his magic, and, beholding the incident,
was cast down, supposing that he saw the king of Vatsa before him. He
went and told Yaugandharáyana, who, on receiving his report, saw by
his skill that the king was in the society of Vásavadattá. So by the
order of the prime minister he returned delighted, to observe the shape
of that secret paramour of Kalingasená, when asleep. And so he went
and beheld that Madanavega asleep in his own form on the bed of the
sleeping Kalingasená, a heavenly being, the dustless lotus of whose
foot was marked with the umbrella and the banner; and who had lost
his power of changing his form, because his science was suspended
during sleep. Then Yogesvara, full of delight, went and told what
he had seen in a joyful mood to Yaugandharáyana. He said--"One like
me knows nothing, you know everything by the eye of policy; by your
counsel this difficult result has been attained for your king. What
is the sky without the sun? What is a tank without water? What is a
realm without counsel? What is speech without truth?" When Yogesvara
said this, Yaugandharáyana took leave of him, much pleased, and went
in the morning to visit the king of Vatsa. He approached him with
the usual reverence, and in course of conversation said to the king,
who asked him what was to be done about Kalingasená--"She is unchaste,
O king, and does not deserve to touch your hand. For she went of her
own accord to visit Prasenajit. When she saw that he was old, she was
disgusted, and came to visit you out of desire for your beauty, and now
she even enjoys at her pleasure the society of another person." When
the king heard this, he said--"How could a lady of birth and rank do
such a deed? Or who has power to enter my harem?" When the king said
this, the wise Yaugandharáyana answered him, "I will prove it to you
by ocular testimony this very night, my sovereign. For the divine
Siddhas and other beings of the kind are in love with her. What can
a man do against them? And who here can interfere with the movements
of gods? So come and see it with your own eyes." When the minister
said this, the king determined to go there with him at night.
Then Yaugandharáyana came to the queen, and said--"To-day, O queen,
I have carried out what I promised, that the king should marry no
other wife except queen Padmávatí, and thereupon he told her the whole
story of Kalingasená. And the queen Vásavadattá congratulated him,
bowing low and saying--"This is the fruit which I have reaped from
following your instructions."
Then, at night, when folk were asleep, the king of Vatsa went with
Yaugandharáyana to the palace of Kalingasená. And entering unperceived,
he beheld Madanavega in his proper form, sleeping by the side of
the sleeping Kalingasená. And when the king was minded to slay that
audacious one, the Vidyádhara prince was roused by his own magic
knowledge, and when awake, he went out, and immediately flew up into
the heaven. And then Kalingasená awoke immediately. And seeing the bed
empty, she said, "How is this, that the king of Vatsa wakes up before
me, and departs, leaving me asleep?" When Yaugandharáyana heard that,
he said to the king of Vatsa--"Listen, she has been beguiled by that
Vidyádhara wearing your form. He was found out by me by means of my
magic power, and now I have exhibited him before your eyes, but you
cannot kill him on account of his heavenly might." After saying this,
he and the king approached her, and Kalingasená, for her part, seeing
them, stood in a respectful attitude. But when she began to say to the
king--"Where, O king, did you go only a moment ago, so as to return
with your minister?"--Yaugandharáyana said to her--"Kalingasená,
you have been married by some being, who beguiled you by assuming
the shape of the king of Vatsa, and not by this lord of mine."
When Kalingasená heard this, she was bewildered, and as if pierced
through the heart by an arrow, she said to the king of Vatsa with
tear-streaming eyes,--"Have you forgotten me, O king, after marrying
me by the Gándharva rite, as Sakuntalá long ago was forgotten by
Dushyanta?" [499] When the king was thus addressed by her, he said
with downcast face, "In truth you were not married by me, for I never
came here till this moment." When the king of Vatsa had said this,
the minister said to him--"Come along"--and conducted him at will to
the palace.
When the king had departed thence with his minister, that lady
Kalingasená, sojourning in a foreign country, like a doe that
had strayed from the herd, having deserted her relations, with
her face robbed of its painting by kissing, as a lotus is robbed
of its leaves by cropping, having her braided tresses disordered,
even as a bed of lotuses trampled by an elephant has its cluster
of black bees dispersed; now that her maidenhood was gone for ever,
not knowing what expedient to adopt or what course to pursue, looked
up to heaven and spake as follows--"Whoever that was that assumed
the shape of the king of Vatsa and married me, let him appear,
for he is the husband of my youth." When invoked in these words,
that king of the Vidyádharas descended from heaven, of divine shape,
adorned with necklace and bracelet. And when she asked him who he
was, he answered her;--"I, fair one, am a prince of the Vidyádharas,
named Madanavega. And long ago I beheld you in your father's house,
and by performing penance obtained a boon from Siva, which conferred
on me the attainment of you. So, as you were in love with the king
of Vatsa, I assumed his form, and quickly married you by stealth,
before your contract with him had been celebrated." By the nectar of
this speech of his, entering her ears, the lotus of her heart was a
little revived. Then Madanavega comforted that fair one, and made her
recover her composure, and bestowed on her a heap of gold, and when
she had conceived in her heart affection for her excellent husband,
as being well suited to her, he flew up into the heaven to return
again. And Kalingasená, after obtaining permission from Madanavega,
consented to dwell patiently where she was, reflecting that the
heavenly home, the abode of her husband, could not be approached by
a mortal, and that through passion she had left her father's house.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Then the king of Vatsa, thinking on the peerless beauty of
Kalingasená, was one night seized with love, so he rose up and went
sword in hand, and entered her palace alone; and she welcomed him and
received him politely. Then the king asked her to become his wife,
but she rejected his addresses, saying, "You should regard me as the
wife of another." Whereupon he answered--"Since you are unchaste as
having resorted to three men, I shall not by approaching you incur
the guilt of adultery." When the king said this to Kalingasená, she
answered him, "I came to marry you, O king, but I was married by the
Vidyádhara Madanavega at his will, for he assumed your shape. And
he is my only husband, so why am I unchaste? But such are the
misfortunes even of ordinary women who desert their relations,
having their minds bewildered with the love of lawless roaming,
much more of princesses? And this is the fruit of my own folly in
sending a messenger to you, though I had been warned not to do so by
my friend, who had seen an evil omen. So if you touch me by force,
I will abandon life, for what woman of good family will injure her
husband? And to prove this I will tell you a tale--listen O king."
The story of king Indradatta.
There lived in old time in the land of Chedi a great king called