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remained looking at a very beautiful lake below it, and on its bank he beheld a horse with a jewelled saddle; so he descended immediately from where he was, and out of curiosity approached its side; and seeing that it had no rider on it, he tried to. mount it, and that horse struck him with its heel and flung him into the lake. And after he had sunk beneath the surface of the. lake,;he quickly rose up to his astonishment from the middle of a garden-lake in his own city of Vardhamána; and he saw himself suddenly standing in the water of a lake in his own native city, like the kumuda plants, miserable without the light of the moon.*[1] He reflected " How different is this city of Vardhamána from that city of the Vidyádharas ! Alas ! what is this great display of marvellous delusion? Alas ! I, ill-fated wretch, am wonderfully deceived by some strange power; or rather, who on this earth knows what is the nature of destiny?" Thus reflecting Śaktideva rose from the midst of the lake, and went in a state of wonder to his own father's house. There he made a false representation, giving as an excuse for his absence that he had been himself going about with a drum, and being gladly welcomed by his father he remained with his delighted relations; and on the second day he went outside his house, and heard again these words being proclaimed in the city by beat of drum, " Let whoever, being a Bráhman or a Kshatriya, has really seen the Golden City, say so: the king will give him his daughter, and make him crown-prince." Then Śaktideva hearing that, having successfully accomplished the task, again went and said to those who were proclaiming this by beat of drum, " I have seen that city." And they took him before that king, and the king recognising him, supposed that he was again saying what was untrue, as he had done before. But he said " If I say what is false, and if I have not really seen that city, I desire now to be punished with death; let the princess herself examine me." When he said this, the king went and had his daughter summoned by his servants. She, when she saw that Bráhman, whom she had seen before, again said to the king ; " My father, he will tell us some falsehood again." Then Śaktideva said to her, " Princess, whether I speak truly or falsely, be pleased to explain this point which excites my curiosity. How is it that I saw you lying
- ↑ * Or Chandraprabhá, whose name means " light of the moon." The forbidden chamber will at once remind the reader of Porrault's La Barbe Bleue. The lake incident is exactly similar to one in Chapter 81 of this work and to that of Kandarpaketu in the Hitopadeśa. See Ralston's Russian Folk-tales page 99. He refers to this story and compares it with that of tho Third Royal Mendicant, Lane I, 160-173, and gives many European equivalents. See also Veekenstedt's Wendische Sagen p. 214. Many parallels will be found in the notes to Grimm's Marchen, Nos.3 and 46; to which Ralston refers in his exhaustive note.
