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ing words; " Śridarsana, your mother, the wife of Devadarśana, buried in her house some jewels. Take those, and do not omit to go with them to Málava, for there is a magnificent prince there of the name of Śrísena. And since he was much afflicted in his youth by miseries arising from gambling, he has made a large and glorious asylum for gamblers. There gamblers live, and are fed with whatever food they desire. So go there, darling, and you shall be prosperous."
When Śrídarsana heard this speech from heaven, he went back to his house with his friend, and found those ornaments in it, in a hole in the ground. Then he set out delighted for Málava, with his friend, thinking that the gods had shewn him favour. So in that night and the succeeding day he went a long distance, and the next evening he reached with his friend a village named Bahusasya. And being weary, he sat down with his friend on the bank of a translucent lake, not far from that village. While he remained for a brief period on the bank of that lake, after washing his feet and drinking water, there came there a certain maiden, matchless in beauty, to fetch water. Her body resembled a blue lotus in colour, and she seemed like Rati left alone, and blackened by the smoke from the body of the god of Love, when he had just been consumed by Śiva. Śrídarsana was delighted to behold her, and she went up to him, and looked at him with an eye full of love, and said to him and his friend, " Worthy sirs, why have you come hither to your death? Why, through ignorance, have you fallen like moths into burning fire?" When Mukharaka heard this, he said to the maiden, without the least trepidation, " Who are you? And what is the meaning of what you say? Tell us." Then she said, " Listen both of you ! I will tell you the whole story in few words.
" There is a large and famous royal grant to Bráhmans, named Sughosha. In it there dwelt a Bráhman named Padmagarbha, who possessed a thorough knowledge of the Vedas. He had a wife of very good family, named Śasikala. And the Brahman had two children by that wife, a son of the name of Mukharakha, and myself a daughter of the name of Padmishthá. My brother Mukharaka was ruined by the vice of gambling in early youth, and left his home and went off to some other country. My mother died of grief on that account, and my father, afflicted with two sorrows, abandoned the state of a householder. And he roamed about from place to place, with no other companion than myself, to look for that son, and, as it happened, he reached this village. Now in this village there lives a great bandit, the chief of a gang of robbers, called Vasubhúti, a Bráhman only by name. When my father arrived here, that ruffian, with the help of his servants, killed him, and took away the gold that he had about his person. And he made me a prisoner and carried me off to his house, and he has made arrangements to five me in marriage to his son Subhúti. But
