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to the world of men, my father bestowed on me this city, and in his grief went to the forest, but while I was dwelling here, the goddess Durgá informed me in a dream that a mortal should become my husband. For this reason, though my father has recommended to me many Vidyádhara suitors, I have rejected them all and remained unmarried up to this day. But now I am subdued by your wonderful arrival and by your handsome form, and I give myself to you; so I will go on the approaching fourteenth day of the lunar fortnight to the great mountain called Rishabha to entreat my father for your sake, for all the most excellent Vidyádharas assemble there from all quarters on that day to worship the god Śiva, and my father comes there too, and after I have obtained his permission, I will return here quickly ; then marry me. Now rise up."
Having said this, Chandraprabhá supplied Śaktideva with various kinds of luxuries suited to Vidyádharas, and while he remained there, he was as much refreshed, as one heated by a forest conflagration would be by bathing in a lake of nectar. And when the fourteenth day had arrived, Chandraprabhá said to him: " To-day I go to entreat my father's permission to marry you, and all my attendants will go with me. But you must not be grieved at being left alone for two days, moreover, while you remain alone in this palace, you must by no means ascend the middle terrace." When Chandraprabhá had said this to that young Bráhman, she set out on her journey leaving her heart with him, and escorted on her way by his. And Śaktideva, remaining there alone, wandered from one magnificent part of the palace to another, to delight his mind; and then he felt a curiosity to know why that daughter of the Vidyádhara had forbidden him to ascend the roof of the palace, and so he ascended that middle terrace of the palace, for men are generally inclined to do that which is forbidden: and when he had ascended it, he saw three concealed pavilions, and he entered one of them, the door of which was open, and when he had entered it he saw a certain woman lying on a magnificently jewelled sofa, on which there was a mattress placed, whose body was hidden by a sheet. But when he lifted up the sheet and looked, he beheld lying dead in that guise that beautiful maiden, the daughter of king Paropakárin; and when he saw her there, he thought, " What is this great wonder? Is she sleeping a sleep from which there is no awaking, or is it a complete delusion on my part? That woman, for whose sake I have travelled to this foreign land, is lying here without breath, though she is alive in my own country, and she still retains her beauty unimpaired, so I may be certain that this is all a magic show, which the Creator for some reason or other exhibits to beguile me." Thinking thus, he proceeded to enter in succession those other two pavilions, and ho beheld within them in the same way two other maidens; then he went in his astonishment out of the palace, and sitting down he
