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CHAPTER CXXI.
When Anangadeva had told this to king Vikramáditya in his hall of audience, he continued as follows:—
Then, after I had taken food, that lady, sitting in the midst of her attendants, said to me, " Listen, Anangadeva, I will now tell you all,"
Story of Madanamanjari.:— I am Madanamanjarí, the daughter of Dundubhi the king of the Yakshas, and the wife of Manibhadra the brother of Kuvera. I used always to roam about happily with my husband on the banks of rivers, on hills, and in charming groves.
And one day I went with my beloved to a garden in Ujjayiní called Makaranda to amuse myself. There it happened that in the dawn a low hypocritical scoundrel of a kápálika*[1] saw me, when I had just woke up from a sleep brought on by the fatigue of roaming about. That rascal, being overcome with love, went into a cemetery, and proceeded to try and procure me for his wife by means of a spell, and a burnt-offering. But I by my power found out what he was about, and informed my husband; and he told his elder brother Kuvera. And Kuvera went and complained to Brahmá, and the holy Brahma, after meditating, said to him, " It is true that kápálika intends to rob your brother of his wife, for such is the power of those spells for mastering Yakshas, which he possesses. But when she feels herself being drawn along by the spell, she must invoke the protection of king Vikramáditya; he will save her from him." Thea Kuvera came and told this answer of Brahma's to my husband, and my husband told it to me, whose mind was troubled by that wicked spell.
And in the meanwhile that hypocritical kápálika, offering a burnt-offering in the cemetery, began to draw me to him by means of a spell, duly muttered in a circle. And I, being drawn by that spell, reached in an agony of terror that awful cemetery, full of bones and skulls, haunted by demons. And then I saw there that wicked kápálika: he had made an offering to the fire, and he had in a circle a corpse lying on its back, which he had been worshipping. And that kápálika, when he saw that I had arrived, was beside himself with pride, and with difficulty tore himself away to rinse his mouth in a river, which happened to be near.
At that moment I called to mind what Brahmá had said, and I thought,
- ↑ * B. and R. explain the word khandakápálika as— " ein Stück von einem Kápálika ein Quasi-kápálika." A kápálika is, according to Monier Williams s. v., a worshipper of Siva of the left-hand order, characterised by carrying skulls of men as ornaments, and by eating and drinking from them.
