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of tears, but they agreed to their proposal. Then they took the cattle
to the forest every day, and looked after them there, and at evening they returned home with them, wearied out.
Then, as they went on looking after the cattle, owing to their falling asleep in the day, some animals were stolen, and others were eaten by tigers. That made their uncles very unhappy: and one day a cow and goat intended for sacrifice, belonging to their uncles, both disappeared some-where or other. Terrified at that, they took the other animals home before the right time, and running off in search of the two that were missing, they entered a distant forest. There they saw their goat half eaten by a tiger, and after lamenting, being quite despondent, they said, " Our uncles were keeping this goat for a sacrifice, and now that it is destroyed, their anger will be something tremendous. So let us dress its flesh with fire, and eat enough of it to put an end to our hunger, and then let us take the rest, and go off somewhere and support ourselves by begging."
After these reflections they proceeded to roast the goat, and while they were so engaged, their two uncles arrived, who had been running after them, and saw them cooking the goat. "When they saw their uncles in the distance, they were terrified, and they rose up in great trepidation, and fled from the spot. And those two uncles in their wrath pronounced*[1] on them the following curse, " Since, in your longing for flesh, you have done a deed worthy of Rákshasas, you shall become flesh-eating Bráhman-Rákshasas." And immediately those two young Bráhmans became Bráhman- Rákshasas, having mouths formidable with tusks, flaming hair, and insatiable hunger; and they wandered about in the forest catching animals and eating them.
But one day they rushed upon an ascetic, who possessed supernatural power, to slay him, and he in self-defence cursed them, and they became Piśáchas. And in their condition as Piśáchas, they were carrying off the cow of a Bráhman, to kill it, but they were overpowered by his spells, and reduced by his curse to the condition of Chandálas.
One day, as they were roaming about in their condition as Chandálas, bow in hand, tormented with hunger, they reached, in their search for food, a village of bandits. The warders of the village, supposing them to be thieves, arrested them both, as soon as they saw them, and cut off their ears and noses. And they bound them, and beat them with sticks, and brought them in this condition before the chiefs of the bandits. There they were questioned by the chiefs, and being bewildered with fear, and tormented with hunger and pain, †[2] they related their history to them.
