206
city of Vardhamána, and I have undertaken to go to the Golden City in accordance with a vow. But I do not know where that city lies; tell me venerable sir, if you know." The hermit answered, " My son, I have lived eight hundred years in this hermitage, and I have never even heard of that city." Śaktideva when he heard this from the hermit, was cast down, and said again " Then my wanderings through the earth will end by my dying here." Then that hermit, having gradually elicited the whole story said to him, " If you are firmly resolved, then do what I tell you. Three yojanas from here there is a country named Kámpilya, and in it is a mountain named Uttara, and on it there is a hermitage. There dwells my noble elder brother named Dírghatapas;*[1] go to him, he being old may perhaps know of that city." When Śaktideva heard that, hope arose in his breast, and having spent the night there he quickly set out in the morning from that place. And wearied with the laborious journey through difficult forest country, he at last reached that region of Kámpilya and ascended that mountain Uttara; and there he beheld that hermit Dírghatapas in a hermitage, and he was delighted and approached him with a bow: and the hermit received him hospitably: and Śaktideva said to him, " I am on my way to the City of Gold spoken of by the king's daughter: but I do not know, venerable sir, where that city is. However I am bound to find it, so I have been sent to you by the sage Súryatapas in order that I may discover where it lies." When he had said this, the hermit answered him, " Though I am so old, my son, I have never heard of that city till to-day; I have made acquaintance with various travellers from foreign lands, and I have never heard any one speak of it; much less have I seen it. But I am sure it must be in some distant foreign island, and I can tell you an expedient to help you in this matter; there is in the midst of the ocean an island named Utsthala, and in it there is a rich king of the Nishádas †[2] named Satyavrata. He goes to and fro among all the other islands, and he may have seen or heard of that city. Therefore first go to the city named Vitankapura situated on the border of the sea. And from that place go with some merchant in a ship to the island where that Nisháda dwells, in order that may attain your object." When Śaktideva heard this from the hermit, he immediately followed his advice, and taking leave of him set out from the her-
- ↑ * In the story of the Beautiful Palace East of the Sun and North of the Earth, (Thorpe, Yule-tide Stories, p. 158) an old woman sends the youth, who is in quest of the palace, to her old sister, who again refers him to an older sister dwelling in a small ruinous cottage on a mountain. In Signora von Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen, p. 86, the prince is sent by one " Einsiedler " to his brother, and this brother sends him to an older brother and he again to an older still, who is described as " Steinalt" see also p. 162. Compare also the story of Hasan of EI Basra in Lane's Arabian Nights.
- ↑ † Wild aboriginal tribes not belonging to the Aryan race.
