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the excellent Bráhman gave a charm to Guhachanclra, and instructed him in the artifice, and then vanished in the dawn. Guhachandra for his part wrote it up over the door of his wife's apartment, and in the evening had recourse to the following stratagem calculated to excite her affection. He dressed himself splendidly and went and conversed with a certain hetœrabefore her eyes. When she saw this, the heavenly maiden being jealous, called to him with voice set free by the charm, and asked him who that woman was? He answered her falsely; " She is a hetœra who has taken a fancy to me, and I shall go and pay her a visit to-day." Then she looked at him askance with wrinkled brows, and lifting up her veil with her left hand, said to him, "Ah ! I see: this is why you are dressed so grandly, do not go to her, what have you to do with her? Visit me, for I am your wife." "When he had been thus implored by her, agitated with excitement, as if she were possessed, though that evil demon which held her had been expelled by the charm, he was in a state of ecstatic joy, and he immediately entered into her chamber with her, and enjoyed, though a mortal, celestial happiness not conceived of in imagination. Having thus obtained her as a loving wife, conciliated by the magic power of the charm, who abandoned for him her celestial rank, Guhachandra lived happily ever after.
" Thus heavenly nymphs, who have been cast down by some curse, live as wives in the houses of righteous men, as a reward for their good deeds, such as acts of devotion and charity. For the honouring of gods and Brahmans is considered the wishing-cow*[1] of the good. For what is not obtained by that? All the other politic expedients, known as conciliation and so on, are mere adjuncts. †[2] But evil actions are the chief cause of even heavenly beings, born in a very lofty station, falling from their high estate; as a hurricane is the cause of the falling of blossoms." When he had said this to the princess, Vasantaka continued; " Hear moreover what happened to Ahalyá."
Story of Ahalyá.:— Once upon a time there was a great hermit named Gautama, who knew the past, the present, and the future. And he had a wife named Ahalyá, who in beauty surpassed the nymphs of heaven. One day Indra, in love with her beauty, tempted her in secret, for the mind of rulers, blinded with power, runs towards unlawful objects.
And she in her folly encouraged that husband of Śachí, being the slave of her passions; but the hermit Gautama found out the intrigue by his superhuman power, and arrived upon the scene. And Indra immediately
