539
And while he was worshipping Śiva, he heard a voice issue from the
inner cell of his temple, " Fear not, for thou shalt not have to endure misery while dwelling in the womb, and thou shalt not have to suffer during thy life as a mortal, nor shalt thou long remain in that condition.*[1] Thou shalt be born as a strong and valorous prince. Thou shalt obtain from the hermit Tapodhana the control of all weapons, and my Gana named Kinkara shall be thy younger brother. With his help thou shalt conquer thy enemies, and accomplish the required service for the gods, and thou shalt be reunited with Padmávatí and rule the Vidyádharas." When that prince had heard this voice, he conceived hope, and remained waiting for the ripening, so to speak, of the fruit of the curse pronounced upon him.
At this point of my story there was a city in the eastern region named Devasabha, that surpassed in splendour the court of the gods. In it there lived a universal monarch named Merudhvaja, the comrade of Indra when war arose between the gods and Asuras. That great-hearted prince was greedy of glory, not of the goods of others; his sword was sharp, but not his punishments; he feared sin, but not his enemy. His brows were sometimes curved in anger, but there was no crookedness in his heart. His arm was hard, where it was marked with the horny thickening produced by the bowstring, but there was no hardness in his speech. He spared his helpless enemies in battle, but he did not exhibit any mean parsimony with regard to his treasure †[2]if and he took pleasure in virtuous deeds and not in women.
That king had always two anxieties in his heart, the first was that not even one son was as yet born to him, the second was that the Asuras, who escaped from the slaughter in the great fight long ago between the gods and Asuras, and fled to Pátála, kept continually sallying out to a distance from it, and treacherously destroying holy places, temples, and hermitages in his laud, and then retiring into Pátála again; and the king could not catch them, as they could move through the air as well as through Pátála; that afflicted the brave monarch, though he had no rivals upon earth.
It happened that once, when he was afflicted with these anxieties, he went to the assembly of the gods, on the day of the full moon in the month Chaitra, in Indra's splendid chariot, which he sent to fetch him; for Indra always held a general assembly in the early part of that day, and king Merudhvaja always went to it in his chariot. But on that occasion the king kept sighing, though he was amused with the dances and songs of the heavenly nymphs, and honoured by Indra.
