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aspiring to any lofty rank, so have mercy upon me.' When Nadakúvara
heard this sorrowful speech of his, he ascertained by meditation that the case was so, and said to him by way of fixing an end for the curse, ' You shall become a man, and beget on that Yakshiní, with whom you are in love, your younger brother Díptaśikha by way of son,*[1] and so you shall be
delivered from your curse, and obtain your own rank once more, together with your wife, and this brother of yours shall be born as your son, and after he has reigned on earth, he shall be released from his curse.' When the son of the god of wealth had said this, Attahása disappeared somewhere or other by virtue of the curse. And when I saw that, my friend, I came here to you grieved." When my friend said this to me, I was reduced to a terrible state by grief, and after I had bewailed my lot, I went and told it to my parents, and I spent that time in hope of a re-union with my beloved.
" You are Attahása born again as a Bráhman, and I am that Yakshiní, and we have been thus united here, so we shall soon have a son born to us. When the Bráhman Pavitradhara's wise wife Saudáminí said this to him, he conceived the hope that he would have a son, and was much delighted. And in course of time a son was born to him by that Yakshiní, whose birth cheered up their house and his mind. And when Pavitradhara saw the face of that son, he immediately assumed a celestial shape and became again the Yaksha Attahása. And he said to that Yakshiní, " My dear, our curse is at an end. I have become Attahása as before, come let us return to our own place."
When he said this, his wife said to him, " Think what is to become of the child your brother, who through a curse has been born as your son." When Attahása heard that, he saw what was to be done by means of his powers of contemplation, and said to her; " My dear, there is in this town a Bráhman of the name of Devadarśana. He is poor in children and in wealth, and, though he keeps up five fires, hunger makes two others burn more fiercely, namely, the fire of digestion in his own stomach and in that of his wife. And one day, as he was engaged in asceticism to obtain wealth and a son, the holy god of fire, whom he was pro-
- ↑ * The notion which Lucretius ridicules in his famous lines, (Book III, 776 and/;) Deniqtte conubia ad Veneris partusque ferarum Ease animas prcesto deridiculum esse videtttr, Expeetare immortales mortalia membra &c. would, it is clear, present no difficulty to the mind of a Hindu. Nor would he be much influenced by the argument in lines 670-674 of the same book, Prceterea si immortalis natura animai Constat, et in corpus nascetilibus insinuetur, Cur super anteactam atatem meminisse neqttimtu, Nee vestigia getlarum reruin uila tenemus f
