Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/449

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

423

reliance upon Vishnu do?" The Dánavas heard and approved this speech of Śukra's, and taking leave of Bali and Prahláda, went to their own homes. Then Prahláda went to the fourth under-world, his habitation, and king Bali, rising up from the assembly, retired within. And Maya and Sunítha and the others, Súryaprabha and all, bowed before Bali, and went to their own habitations. After they had eaten and drunk there sufficiently, Lílávatí, the mother of Sunítha, came to him and said, " My son, you know that these wives of yours are the daughters of mighty ones, Tejasvatí being the daughter of the god of wealth, Mangalávatí of Tumburu; and as for Kírtimatí, that wife that you married in your existence as Chandraprabha, her you know to be the daughter of the Vasu Prabháva, so you must look upon these three with an equal eye, my son." After saying this, she commended to him his three principal wives. Then, that night, Sunítha entered his sleeping apartment with the eldest, Tejasvatí.

But Súryaprabha, in another chamber, with his ministers, reclined on a couch without any of his wives that night. And the goddess of sleep did not come to him, who remained continually alone, saying to herself, " What is the use of this unloving man, who leaves his wives outside?" And she would not approach Prahasta out of jealousy, as he was so exclusively in love with the cares of his official duties, but the other ministers around Súryaprabha went to sleep comfortably. In the meanwhile Súryaprabha and Prahasta beheld an incomparable maiden entering, accompanied by a female friend. She was so beautiful that Providence seemed, after creating her, to have placed her in the lower regions in order that the nymphs of heaven, also his creation, might not be eclipsed by her. And while Súryaprabha was debating who she might be, she approached each of his friends, one by one, and looked at them; and as they did not possess the distinguishing marks of emperors, she left them, and seeing that Súryaprabha possessed them, she approached him, who was lying in the midst of them; and she said to her friend " Here he is, my friend; so touch him on the feet, wake him up with those hands of yours cool as water." When her friend heard that, she did so, and Súryaprabha ceased to feign sleep, and opened his eyes, and beholding those maidens, he said " Who are you, and why do you come here?" When the friend of the lady heard that, she said to him " Listen, king, in the second under-world there is a victorious king named Amila, a chieftain of the Daityas, the son of Hiranyáksha; this is his daughter Kalávatí whom he loves more than life. Her father came back to-day from the court of Bali, and said ' I am fortunate in that I have to-day beheld Sunítha once more restored to life; and I have also seen the young man Súryaprabha, an incarnation of Sumundíka, who has been brought into the world by Śiva as the future emperor of the Vidyádharas. So I will now of congratulatory tribute to Sunítha, 1 will give my daughter Kalávatí to