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which had raised a fit of devotion in him. he throw off his clothes in the desire to wash himself, according to the custom of tho Muhummadana, before he said his prayers.
After his first plunge into tho sea, he no sooner raised his head above the water, than he found himself standing by the side of the tub, with the great men of his court about him, and tho holy man at his side. He immediately upbraided his teacher for having sent him on such a course of adventures, and betrayed him into so long a state of misery and servitude; but was wonderfully surprised when ho heard that the state he talked of was only a dream and a delusion; that he had not stirred from the place where he then stood; and that he had only dipped his head into the water, and taken it out again. Oesterley compares the story of Devadatta in the 26th Taranga of this work.
CHAPTER XCIII.
(Vetála 19.)
Then king Trivikramasena again went and took the Vetála from the aśoka-tree, and putting him on his shoulder, set out with him; and as he was returning from the tree, the Vetála once more said to him, " Listen, king, I will tell you a delightful tale."
Story of the Thief's Son.:— There is a city named Vakrolaka, equal to the city of the gods; in it there dwelt a king named Súryaprabha, equal to Indra. He, like Vishnu, rescued this earth, and bore it long time on his arm, gladdening all men by his frame ever ready to bear their burdens.*[1] In the realm of that king tears were produced only by contact with smoke, there was no talk of death except in the case of the living death of starved lovers, and the only fines were the fine gold sticks in the hands of his warders. He was rich in all manner of wealth, and he had only one source of grief, namely, that, though he had many wives, no son was born to him.
Now, at this point of the story, there was a merchant, of the name of Dhanapála, in the great city of Tamraliptí, the wealthiest of the wealthy. And he had born to him one daughter only, and her name was Dhanavatí, who was shewn by her beauty to be a Vidyádharí fallen by a curse. When she grew up to womanhood, the merchant died; and his relations seized his property, as the king did not interfere to protect it. Then the wife of that merchant, who was named Hiranyavatí, took her own jewels and ornaments, which she had carefully concealed, and left her house secretly at the beginning of night, with her daughter Dhanavatí, and fled, to escape
- ↑ * It also means, in the case of Vishnu, " by his incarnation in the form of a boar."
