510
And Anangaprabhá, having obtained that exceedingly handsome merchant for a dear husband, was as pleased as a bee that has lighted on a flower. And in course of time she attained undisputed control over the wealth, as well as over the heart of that opulent merchant, who was deeply in love with her. But the king Vírabáhu, though he heard of the matchless beauty residing there, did not carry her off, but remained strictly within, the limits of virtue. And in course of time, the wealth of the merchant began to diminish, on account of the expenditure of Anangaprabhá; for, in a house presided over by an unchaste woman, Fortune pines as well as virtuous women. Then the merchant Hiranyagupta got together wares, and went off to an island named Suvarnabhúmi to trade, and he took that Anangaprabhá with him, out of fear of being separated from her, and journeying on his way, he at last reached the city of Ságarapura. There he fell in with a chief of fishermen, a native of that place, Ságaravíra by name, whom he found in that city near the sea. He went with that sea-faring man to the shore of the sea, and with his beloved embarked on a ship which he provided. And after the merchant had travelled in anxiety for some days over the sea, in that ship, accompanied by Ságaravíra, one day a terrible black cloud of doom appeared, with flashing eyes of lightning, filling them with fear of destruction. Then that ship, smitten by a mighty wind, with a violent shower of rain, began to sink in the waves. That merchant Hiranyagupta, when the crew raised a cry of lamentation, and the ship began to break up like his own hopes, fastened his cloak round his loins, and looking at the face of Anangaprabhá, exclaimed " Ah ! my beloved, where art thou," and threw himself into the sea. And he oared himself along with his arms, and, as luck would have it, he reached a merchant-ship, and he caught hold of it, and climbed up into it.
But that Ságaravíra tied together some planks with a cord, and quickly placed Anangaprabhá upon them. And he himself climbed up upon them, and comforted that terrified woman, and went paddling along in the sea, throwing aside the water with his arms. And as soon as the ship had been broken to pieces, the clouds disappeared from the heaven, and the sea was calm, like a good man whose wrath is appeased. But the merchant Hiranyagupta, after climbing up into the ship, which was impelled by the wind, as fate would have it, reached in five days the shore of the
peaks, in British Gurwhal, form a group of six summits, from 22,000 to 23,400 feet above the sea. The town of Badarinátha is 55 miles north-east of Śrínagar, on the right bank of the Vishnuganga, a feeder of the Alakananda. The temple is situated in the highest part of the town, and below it a tank, supplied by a sulphureous thermal spring, is frequented by thousands of pilgrims. The temple is 10,294 feet above the sea. (Akbar, an Eastern Romance, by Dr. Van Limburg-Brouwer, with an introduction by Clements Markham, p. 1, note.)
