Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/279

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version, which seems to be the one above referred to in Sagas from the Far East. The 22nd story in the Persian Tútínámah (Iken, p. 93,) which is found with little variation in the Turkish Tútínámah (Rosen, II, p. 165,) closely resembles the story in our text. The only difference is that a magic horse does duty for a magic chariot, and the lady is carried away by fairies. There is a story in the Tútínámah which seems to be made up of No. 2, No. 5 and No. 21 in this collection. [No. 22, in Somadeva.] It is No. 4 in the Persian Tútínámah, (Iken, p. 37,) and is also found in the Turkish version, (Rosen I, p. 151.)The lady is the work of four companions. A carpenter hews a figure out of wood, a goldsmith adorns it with gems, a tailor clothes it, and a monk animates it with life. They quarrel about her, and lay the matter before a Dervish. He avows that he is her husband. Th head of the police does the same, and the Kazi, to whom it is then referred, takes the same line. At last the matter is referred to a divinity, and the lady is again reduced to wood. This form is the exaggeration of a story in Ardschi Bordschi translated by Benfey in Ausland, 1858, p. 845, (cp. Göttinger gel. Anz. 1858, p. 1517, Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 490 and ff.) A shepherd boy hews a female figure out of wood, a second paints her, a third improves her [by giving her wit and understanding, according to Sagas from the Far East,] a fourth gives her life. Naran Dákiní awards her to the last. (Oesterley's Baitál Pachísí, pp. 192-194). The story in Ardschi Bordschi will be found in Sagas from the Far East, pp. 298-303.


CHAPTER LXXX.


(Vetála 6.)

Then king Trivikramasena again went to the aśoka-tree, and carried off from it that Vetála on his shoulder, as before, and began to return with him swiftly in silence. And on the way the Vetála again said to him, " King, you are wise and brave, therefore I love you, so I will tell you an amusing tale, and mark well my question."

Story of the lady who caused her brother and husband to change heads.:— There was a king famous on the earth by the name of Yaśahketu, and his capital was a city of the name of Śobhávatí. And in that city there was a splendid temple of Gaurí,*[1] and to the south of it there was a lake, called Gaurítírtha. And every year, during a feast on the fourteenth day of the white fortnight of the month Áshádha, large crowds came there to bathe from every part of the world.†[2]

And once there came there to bathe, on that day, a young washerman of the name of Dhavala, from a village called Brahmasthala. He saw there

  1. * The wife of Śiva, called also Párvatí and Durgá.
  2. † The word śukláyám which is found in the Sanskirit College MS., is omitted by Professor Brockhaus.