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are reunited with their dear ones, despising even terrible sufferings, and taking no account of their interminable duration. So rise up quickly my friend, let us go; you also will find your wife, if you search for her; who knows the way of Destiny? I myself regained my wife alive after she had died.
"Telling me this tale my friend encouraged me; and himself accompanied me; and so roaming about with him, I reached this land, and here I saw a mighty elephant and a wild boar. And, (wonderful to say!) I saw that elephant bring my helpless wife out of his mouth, and swallow her again; and I followed that elephant, which appeared for a moment and then disappeared for a long time, and in my search for it I have now, thanks to my merits, beheld your Majesty here."
When the young merchant had said this, Vikramáditya sent for his wife, whom he had rescued by killing the elephant, and handed her over to him. And then the couple, delighted at their marvellous reunion, recounted their adventures to one another, and their mouths were loud in praise of the glorious king Vishamaśila.
CHAPTER CXXIV.
Then King Vikramáditya put this question to the friend of the young merchant, who came with him, "You said that you recovered your wife alive after she was dead; how could that be? Tell us, good sir, the whole story at length." When the king said this to the friend of the young merchant, the latter answered, "Listen, king, if you have any curiosity about it; I proceed to tell the story."
Story of Chandrasvámin who recovered his wife alive after her death.:— I am a young Bráhman of the name of Chandrasvámin, living on that magnificent grant to Bráhmans, called Brahmasthala, and I have a beautiful wife in my house. One day I had gone to the village for some object, by my father's orders, and a kápálika, who had come to beg, cast eyes on that wife of mine. She caught a fever from the moment he looked at her, and in the evening she died. Then my relations took her, and put her on the pyre during the night. And when the pyre was in full blaze, I returned there from the village; and I heard what had happened from my family who wept before me.
Then I went near the pyre, and the kápálika came there with the magic staff dancing[1] on his shoulder, and the booming drum in his hand.
- ↑ The khațvánga, a club shaped like the foot of a bedstead, i. e., a staff with a skull at the top, considered as the weapon of Śiva and carried by ascetics and Yogis.
