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fear of his exceeding valour, with the loss of one arm, never again to return. When the princess awoke, she saw the severed arm lying there, and she was terrified, delighted and astonished at the same time. And in the morning the king Devasena saw the arm of the Rákshasa, which had fallen down after it was cut off, lying at the door of his daughter's apartments; in this way Vidúshaka, as if to say ' Henceforth no other men must enter here" fastened the door as it were with a long bar.*[1] Accordingly the delighted king gave to Vidúshaka, who possessed this divine power, his daughter and much wealth; and Vidúshaka dwelt there some days with this fair one, as if with prosperity incarnate in bodily form. But one day he left the princess while asleep, and set out at night in haste to find his Bhadrá. And the princess in the morning was afflicted at not seeing him, but she was comforted by her father with the hope of his return. Vidúshaka journeying on day by day, at last reached the city of Támraliptá not far from the eastern sea. There he joined himself to a certain merchant, named 'Skandhadása who desired to cross the sea. In his company, embarking on a ship laden with much wealth belonging to the merchant, he set out on the ocean path. Then that ship was stopped suddenly when it had reached the middle of the ocean, as if it were held by something. And when it did not move, though the sea was propitiated with jewels, that merchant Skandhadása being grieved, said this: " Whosoever releases this ship of mine which is detained, to him I will give half of my own wealth and my daughter." The resolute-souled Vidúshaka, when he heard that, said, " I will descend into the water of the sea and search it, and I will set free in a moment this ship of yours which is stopped: but you must support me by ropes fastened round my body. And the moment the ship is set free, you must draw me up out of the midst of the sea by the supporting ropes." The merchant welcomed his speech with a promise to do what he asked, and the steersmen bound ropes under his armpits. Supported in that way Vidúshaka descended in the sea; a brave man never desponds when the moment for action has arrived. So taking in his hand the sword of the Fire-god, that came to him with a thought, the hero descended into the midst of the sea under the ship. And there he saw a giant asleep, and he saw that the ship was stopped by his leg. So he immediately cut off his leg with his sword, and at once the ship moved on freed from its impediment. When the wicked merchant saw that, he cut the ropes, by which Vidúshaka was supported, through desire to save the wealth he had promised him; and went, swiftly to the other shore of the ocean vast as his own avarice, in the ship which had thus been set free. Vidúshaka for his part, being in the midst of the sea with the supporting ropes cut, rose to the
- ↑ * I read iva; the arm was the long bar, and the whole passage is an instance of the rhetorical figure called utpreksháthá
