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goddess." When the brother-in-law heard this, he said to him, in order to dissuade him, " How can so many of us approach the goddess empty-handed?" Then Dhavala said, " Let me go alone, and you can wait outside." When he had said this, he went off to pay his respects to the goddess.
When he had entered her temple, and had worshipped, and had meditated upon that goddess, who with her eighteen mighty arms had smitten terrible Dánavas, and who had flung under the lotus of her foot and trampled to pieces the Asura Mahisha, a train of pious reflection was produced in his mind by the impulse of Destiny, and he said to himself, " People worship this goddess with various sacrifices of living creatures, so why should not I, to obtain salvation, appease her with the sacrifice of myself?" After he had said this to himself, he took from her inner shrine, which was empty of worshippers, a sword which had been long ago offered to her by some pilgrims, and, after fastening his own head by his hair to the chain of the bell, he cut it off with the sword, and when cut off, it fell on the ground.
And his brother-in-law, after waiting a long time, without his having returned, went into that very temple of the goddess to look for him. But when he saw his sister's husband lying there decapitated, he also was bewildered, and he cut off his head in the same way with that very same sword.
And when he too did not return, Madanasundarí was distracted in mind, and then she too entered the temple of the goddess. And when she had gone in, and seen her husband and her brother in such a state, she fell on the ground, exclaiming, " Alas ! what is the meaning of this? I am ruined." And soon she rose up, and lamented those two that had been so unexpectedly slain, and said to herself, " Of what use is this life of mine to me now?" and being eager to abandon the body, she said to that goddess, " O thou that art the chief divinity presiding over blessedness, chastity, and holy rule, though occupying half the body of thy husband Śiva,*[1] thou that art the fitting refuge of all women, that takest away grief, why hast thou robbed me at once of my brother and my husband ? This is not titting on thy part towards me, for I have ever been a faithful votary of thine. So hear one piteous appeal from me who fly to thee for protection. I am now about to abandon this body which is afflicted with calamity, but grant that in all my future births, whatever they may be, these two men may be my husband and brother."
In these words she praised and supplicated the goddess, and bowed be- fore her again, and then she made a noose of a creeper and fastened it to an aśoka-tree. And while she was stretching out her neck, and putting it into the noose, the following words resounded from the expanse of air:
- ↑ * An allusion to the Ardhanáríśa, (i.e. half male half female,) representation of Śiva.
