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after a long absence. My father, when he saw me, recognised me, and embracing me asked my story with tears, and I told it him as follows— 'My father, you bad been away for a long time and had not returned, and so I set about trading myself, thinking it was my proper employment; then on my way to a distant island my ship was wrecked, and I was plunged in the sea, and you have found me and rescued me.' When I had said this to him, my father asked me reproachfully— 'Why do you run such risks? For I possess wealth, my son, and I am engaged in acquiring it, see, I have brought you back this ship full of gold.' Thus spoke my father to me, and comforting me took me home in that very ship to my own dwelling in Vitankapura." When Śaktideva had hoard this account from the merchant, and had rested that night, he said to him on the next day— " Great merchant, I must once more go to the island of Utsthala, so tell me how I can get there now." The merchant said to him— " Some agents of mine are preparing to go there to-day, so go on board the ship, and set out with them." Thereupon the Bráhman set out with the merchant's agents to go to that island of Utsthala, and by chance the sons of the king of the fishermen saw him there, and when they were near him, they recognised him and said,— " Bráhman, you went with our father to search here and there for the Golden City, and how is it that you have come back here to-day alone " Then Śaktideva said, "Your father, when out at sea, fell into the mouth of the submarine fire, his ship having been dragged down by the current." When those sons of the fisher-king heard that, they were angry and said to their servants— " Bind this wicked man, for he has murdered our father. Otherwise how could it have happened that, when two men were in the same ship, one should have fallen into the mouth of the submarine fire, and the other escaped it. So we must to-morrow morning sacrifice our father's murderer in front of the goddess Durgá, treating him as a victim." Having said this to their servants, those sons of the fisher-king bound Śaktideva, and took him off to the awful temple of Durgá, the belly of which was enlarged, as if it continually swallowed many lives, and which was like the mouth of death devouring tamála with projecting teeth. There Śaktideva remained bound during the night in fear for his life, and he thus prayed to the goddess Durgá,— " Adorable one, grantor of boons, thou didst deliver the world with thy form which was like the orb of the rising sun, appearing as if it had drunk its fill of the blood gushing freely from the throat of the giant Ruru;*[1] therefore deliver me, thy constant votary, who have come a long distance out of desire to obtain my beloved, but am now fallen without cause into the power of my enemies." Thus he prayed to
- ↑ * The Dánavas are a class of demons or giants. Ruru was a Dánava slain by Durgá.
