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the goddess, and with difficulty went off to sleep, and in the night he saw a woman come out of the inner cell of the temple; that woman of heavenly beauty came up to him, and said with a compassionate manner, " Do not fear. Śaktideva, no harm shall happen to you. The sons of that fisher-king have a sister named Vindumatí, that maiden shall see you in the morning and claim you for a husband, and you must agree to that, she will bring about your deliverance: and she is not of the fisher-caste: for she is a celestial female degraded in consequence of a curse." When he heard this, he woke up, and in the morning that fisher-maiden came to the temple, a shower of nectar to his eyes. And announcing herself, she came up to him and said in her eagerness, " I will have you released from this prison, therefore do what I desire. For I have refused all these suitors approved of by my brothers, but the moment I saw you, love arose in my soul, therefore marry me." When Vindumatí, the daughter of the fisher-king, said this to him, Śaktideva remembering his dream, accepted her proposal gladly; she procured his release, and he married that fair one, whose wish was gratified by her brothers receiving the command to do so from Durgá, in a dream. And he lived there with that heavenly creature that had assumed a human form, obtained solely by his merits in a former life, as if with happy success. And one day, as he was standing upon the roof of his palace, he saw a Chandála coming along with a load of cow's flesh, and he said to his beloved " Look, slender one ! how can this evildoer eat the flesh of cows, those animals that are the object of veneration to the three worlds ?" Then Vindumatí, hearing that, said to her husband ; " The wickedness of this act is inconceivable, what can we say in palliation of it. I have been born in this race of fishermen for a very small offence owing to the might of cows, but what can atone for this man's sin?" When she said this, Śaktideva said to her; " That is wonderful: tell me, my beloved, who you are, and how you came to be born in a family of fishermen." When he asked this with much importunity, she said to him, " I will tell you, though it is a secret, if you promise to do what I ask you." He affirmed with an oath; " Yes, 1 will do what you ask me."
She then told him first what she desired him to do; " In this island you will soon marry another wife, and she, my husband, will soon became pregnant, and in the eighth month of her pregnancy you must cut her open andtake out the child, and you must feel no compunction about it." Thus she said, and he was astonished, exclaiming, " What can this mean?" and he was full of horror, but that daughter of the fisher-king went on to say, " This request of mine you must perform for a certain reason; now hear who I am, and how I came to be born in a family of fishermen. Long ago in a former birth I was a certain Vidyádharí, and now 1 have fallen into the
