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the virgin daughter of a man named Śuddhapata, a girl called Mudanasundari, who had come to bathe in the sacred water.*[1] His heart was captivated by that girl who eclipsed the beauty of the moon, and after he had enquired her name and family, he went home love-smitten. There he remained fasting and restless without her, but when his mother asked him the cause, he told her the truth about his desire.†[2] She went and told her husband Vimala, and when he came, and saw his son in that state, he said to him, " Why are you so despondent, my son, about an object so easily attained? Śuddhapața will give you his daughter, if I ask him. For we are equal to him in family, wealth, and occupation; I know him and he knows me; so this is not a difficult matter for me to arrange " With these words Vimala comforted his son, and induced him to take food, and other refreshments, and the next day he went with him to the house of Śuddhapața. And there he asked his daughter in marriage for his son Dhavala, and Śuddhapața courteously promised to give her. And so, after ascertaining the auspicious moment, he gave his daughter Madanasundarí, who was of equal birth with Dhavala, in marriage to him the next day. And after Dhavala had been married, he returned a happy man to his father's house, together with his wife, who had fallen in love with him at first sight.
And one day, while he was living there in happiness, his father-in-law's son, the brother of Madanasundarí, came there. All received him courteously,‡[3] and his sister embraced him and welcomed him, and his connections asked him how he was, and at last, after he had rested, he said to them, " I have been sent here by my father, to invite Madanasundarí and his son-in- law, since we are engaged in a festival in honour of the goddess Durgá." And all his connections and their family approved his speech, and entertained him that day with appropriate meats and drinks.
Early the next day Dhavala set out for his father-in-law's house, with Madanasundarí and his brother-in-law. And he reached with his two companions the city of Śobhávatí, and he saw the great temple of Durgá, when he arrived near it; and then he said to his wife and brother-in-law, in a fit of pious devotion, " Come and let us visit the shrine of this awful
- ↑ * So in the Hero and Leander of Musneus the two lovers meet in the temple of Venus at Sestos, and in tho Aethiopica of Heliodorus Theagenes meets Chariclea at a festival at Delphi. Petrarch met Laura for tho first time in the chapel of St. Clara at Avignon, and Boccacio fell in love with Maria, the daughter of Robert of Naples, in the Church of the bare-footed friars in Naples. (Dunlop's History of Fiction, translated by Liubrecht, p. 9.) Rohde remarks that in Greek romances the hero and heroine usually meet in this way. Indeed it was scarcely possible for two young people belonging to the upper classes of Greek society to meet in any other way, (Der Griechische Roman, p. 146 and note). See also pp. 385 and 486.
- ↑ † For tayá in śl. 10. b, the Sanskrit College MS. reads tathá.
- ↑ ‡ Praśnayah in Professor Brockhaus's text should be praśrayah.
