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Once, as I was roaming about at leisure on the banks of the Godávari out of curiosity, I beheld a garden called Devikriti, and seeing that it was an exceedingly pleasant garden, like an earthly Nandana,*[1] I asked the
gardener how it came there, and he said to me, " My lord, according to the story which we hear from old people, long ago there came here a certain Bráhman who observed a vow of silence and abstained from food, he made this heavenly garden with a temple; then all the Bráhmans assembled here out of curiosity, and that Bráhman being persistently asked by them told his history. There is in this land a province called Vakakachchha on the banks of the Narmadá, in that district I was born as a Bráhman, and in former times no one gave me alms, as I was lazy as well as poor; then in a fit of annoyance I quitted my house being disgusted with life, and wandering round the holy places, I came to visit the shrine of Durgá the
dweller in the Vindhya hills, and having beheld that goddess, I reflected, ' People propitiate with animal offerings this giver of boons, but I will slay myself here, stupid beast that I am.' Having formed this resolve, I took in hand a sword to cut off my head. Immediately that goddess being propitious, herself said to me, 'Son, thou art perfected, do not slay thy-self, remain near me;' thus I obtained a boon from the goddess and attained
divine nature; from that day forth my hunger and thirst disappeared; then once on a time, as I was remaining there, that goddess herself said to me, ' Go, my son, and plant in Pratishthána a glorious garden;' thus speaking, she gave me, with her own hands, heavenly seed; thereupon I came here and made this beautiful garden by means of her power; and this garden you must keep in good order. Having said this, he disappeared. In this way this garden was made by the goddess long ago, my lord." When I had heard from the gardener this signal manifestation of the favour of the goddess, I went home penetrated with wonder.
The story of Sátaváhana:- When Gunádhya had said this, Kánabhúti asked, " Why, my lord, as the king called Sátaváhana ?" Then Gunádhya said, Listen, I will tell you the reason. There was a king of great power named Dvipikarni. He had a wife named Śaktimati, whom he valued more than life, and once upon a time a snake bit her as she was sleeping in the garden. Thereupon she died, and that king thinking only of her, though he had no son, took a vow of perpetual chastity. Then once upon a time the god of the moony crest said to him in a dream — " While wandering in the forest thou shalt behold a boy mounted on a lion, take him and go home, he shall he thy son." Then the king woke up, and rejoiced remembering that dream, and one day in his passion for the chase he went to a distant wood; there in the middle of the day that king beheld on the bank of a lotus-lake a boy
- ↑ * Indra'a pleasure-ground or Elysium.
