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have undertaken. "When the Creator made you here, he infused into your
composition qualities borrowed from your surroundings, the firmness of the Vindhya hills, the courage of the tigers, and the warm attachment to friends of the forest*[1] lotuses. So deliberate and do what is fitting." While Mŗigánkadatta was saying this, the sun retired to rest on the summit of the mountain of setting. Then they also rested that night in the royal camp, as was meet, sleeping in booths made by the workmen.
And the next morning Mŗigánkadatta sent off Gunákara to bring his friend Śaktirakshita, the king of the Kirátas. He went and communicated the state of affairs to that sovereign; and in a very few days the king of the Kirátas returned with him, bringing a very large force. Ten hundred thousand footmen, and two hundred thousand horse, and a myriad of furious elephants on which heroes were mounted, and eighty-eight thousand chariots followed that king, who darkened the heaven with his banners and his umbrella. And Mŗigánkadatta, with his friends and ministers, went to meet him in high spirits and honoured him and conducted him into the camp. And in the meanwhile other friends and relations of the king of the Mátangas, and all those of king Máyávațu, having been summoned by messengers, came in. †[2] And the camp swelled like the ocean, giving joy to the heart of Mŗigánkadatta: with shouts rising up like the roar of the waves, and hundreds of battalions pouring in like rivers. And Durgapiśácha honoured ‡[3] those assembled kings with musk, and garments, and pieces of flesh, and spirits distilled from fruits. And Máyávațu the king of the Śavaras gave them all splendid baths, unguents, food, drink, and beds. And Mŗigánkadatta sat down to eat with all those kings who were seated in their proper places. §[4] He even went so far as to make the king of the Mátangas eat in his presence though at a little distance from him: the fact is, it is necessity and place and time that take precedence, not one man of another.
And the next day, when the newly arrived force of Kirátas and others had rested, Mŗigánkadatta, sitting on a throne of ivory in the assembly of the kings, where he had been duly honoured, after he had had the place cleared of attendants, said to his friends, the king of the Mátangas, and
- ↑ * Vana might mean " water."
- ↑ † Two of the India office MSS. read cha te datta-dútáh, the other reads cha taddattadútáh. I think these readings give a better sense. The king of the Mátangas is here Durgapiśácha.
- ↑ ‡ I read samamánayat the conjecture of Dr. Kern. I find it in MS. No. 1882 and in 2166.
- ↑ § Being a man of high caste, he ate with men who had none, or next to none. Dr. Kern wishes to read kárye, but all the MSS. have káryam.
