366
CHAPTER CI.
Then Mŗigánkadatta, refreshed by breaking his fast, sat down with those ministers of his on the bank of that lake. Then he courteously asked those four ministers, whom he had recovered that day, for an account of their adventures during the time that he was separated from them. There-upon that one of them, who was called Vyághrasena, said to him, " Listen, prince, I now proceed to relate our adventures. When I was carried to a distance from you by the curse of the Nága Párávatáksha, I lost my senses, and in that state I wandered through the forest by night. At last I recovered consciousness, but the darkness, which enveloped me, prevented me from seeing where the cardinal points lay, and what path I ought to take. At last the night, that grief made long,*[1] came to an end; and in course of time the sun arose, that mighty god, and revealed all the quarters of the heaven. Then I said to myself ' Alas ! Where can that master of mine be gone? And how will he manage to exist here alone separated from us ? And how am I to recover him ? Where shall I look for him? What course shall I adopt? I had better go to Ujjayiní; for I may perhaps find him there; for he must go there, to find Śaśánkavatí.' With such hopes I set out slowly for Ujjayiní, threading that difficult forest that resembled calamity, scorched by the rays of the sun, that resembled showers of fiery powder.
" And at last, somehow or other, I reached a lake, with full-blown lotuses for expanded eyes, that seemed to hold converse with me by means of the sweet cries of its swans and other water-birds; it stretched forth its ripples like hands; its surface was calm and broad;†[2] the very sight of it took away all grief; and so in all points it resembled a good man. I bathed in it, and ate lotus-fibres, and drank water; and while I was lingering on its bank, I saw these three arrive there, Dridhamushți, and Sthúlabáhu, and Meghabala. And when we met, we asked one another for tidings of you. And as none of us knew anything about you, and we suspected the worst, we made up our minds to abandon the body, being unable to endure separation from you.
" And at that moment a hermit-boy came to bathe in that lake; his name was Mahátapas, and he was the son of Dírghatapas. He had matted hair, he diffused a brightness of his own, and he seemed like the god of Fire, blazing with mighty flame, having become incarnate in the body of
