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had a devoted wife, named Vasumati, and by her he begot a handsome son, named Vámadatta. Vámadatta, the darling of his father, was instructed in all the sciences, and soon married a wife, of the name of Śaśiprabhá. In course of time his father went to heaven, and his wife followed him,*[1] and the son undertook with his wife the duties of a householder. But without his knowledge his wife was addicted to following her lusts, and by some chance or other she became a witch possessed of magical powers, †[2]
One day, when the Bráhman was in the king's camp, engaged in his service, his paternal uncle came and said to him in secret, " Nephew, our family is disgraced, for I have seen your wife in the company of your cowherd. When Vámadatta heard this, he left his uncle in the camp in his stead, and went, with his sword for his only companion, back to his own house. He went into the flower-garden and remained there in concealment, and in the night the cowherd came there. And immediately his wife came eagerly to meet her paramour, with all kinds of food in her hand. After he had eaten, she went off to bed with him, and then Vámadatta rushed upon them with uplifted sword, exclaiming, " Wretches, where are you going?" When he said that, his wife rose up and said, " Away fool," and threw some dust in his face. Then Vámadatta was immediately changed from aman into a buffalo, but in his new condition he still retained his memory. Then his wicked wife put him among the buffaloes, and made the herdsman beat him with sticks.; ‡[3]
And the cruel woman immediately sold him in his helpless bestial condition to a trader, who required a buffalo. The trader put a load upon the man, who found his transformation to a buffalo a sore trial, and took him to a village near the Ganges. He reflected, " A wife of very bad character that enters unsuspected the house of a confiding man, is never likely to bring him prosperity, any more than a snake which gets into the female apartments." While full of these thoughts, he was sorrowful, with tears gushing from his eyes, moreover he was reduced to skin and bone by the fatigue of carrying burdens, and in this state he was beheld by a certain white witch. She knew by her magic power the whole transaction, and sprinkling him with some charmed water, she released him from his buffalo condition. And when he had returned to 'human form, she took him to her own house, and gave him her virgin daughter named Kántimatí. And she
- ↑ * This probably means that she was burnt with his corpse.
- ↑ † Bőhtlingk and Roth read sákinsiddhisatnvará.
- ↑ ‡ We have had many transformations of this kind and shall have many more. A very amusing story of a transformation is found in Campbell's Highland Tales, Vol. II, p. 60 which may be compared with this. The biter is bit as in our text, and in the story of Sidi Noman in the Arabian Nights, which closely resembles this.
