Story of king Chaṇḍamahásena.
There is in this land a city named Ujjayiní, the ornament of the earth, that, so to speak, laughs to scorn with its palaces of enamelled whiteness[6] Amarávatí, the city of the gods. In that city dwells Śiva himself, the lord of existence, under the form of Mahákála,[7] when he desists from the kingly vice of absenting himself on the heights of mount Kailása. In that city lived a king named Mahendravarman, best of monarchs, and he had a son like himself, named Jayasena. Then to that Jayasena was born a son named Mahásena, matchless in strength of arm, an elephant among monarchs. And that king, while cherishing his realm, reflected, “I have not a sword worthy of me,[8] nor a wife of good family.” Thus reflecting that monarch went to the temple of Durgá, and there he remained without food, propitiating for a long time the goddess. Then he cut off pieces of his own flesh, and offered a burnt-offering with them, whereupon the goddess Durgá being pleased appeared in visible shape and said to him, “I am pleased with thee, receive from me this excellent sword, by means of its magic power thou shalt be invincible to all thy enemies. Moreover thou shalt soon obtain as a wife Angáravatí, the daughter of the Asura Angáraka, the most beautiful maiden in the three worlds. And since thou didst here perform this very cruel penance, therefore thy name shall be Chaṇḍamahásena.” Having said this and given him the sword, the goddess disappeared. But in the king there appeared joy at the fulfilment of his desire. He now possessed, O king, two jewels, his sword and a furious elephant named Naḍágiri, which were to him what the thunderbolt and Airávaṇa are to Indra. Then that king, delighting in the power of these two, one day went to a great forest to hunt; and there he beheld an enormous and terrible wild boar; like the darkness of the night suddenly condensed into a solid mass in the day time. That boar was not wounded by the king’s arrows, in spite of their sharpness, but after breaking the king’s chariot[9] fled and entered a cavern. The king, leaving that car of his, in revengeful pursuit of the boar, entered into that cavern with only his bow to aid him. And after he had gone a long distance, he beheld a great and splendid capital, and astonished he sat down inside the city on the bank of a lake. While there, he beheld a maiden moving along, surrounded by hundreds of women, like the arrow of love that cleaves the armour of self-restraint. She slowly approached the king, bathing him, so to speak, again and again in a look, that rained in showers the nectar of love.[10] She said, “who art thou, illustrious sir, and for what reason hast thou entered our home on this occasion?” The king, being thus questioned by her, told her the whole truth; hearing which, she let fall from her eyes a passionate flood of tears, and from her heart all self-control. The king said, “Who art thou, and why dost thou weep?” When he asked her this question, she, being a prisoner to love at his will, answered him, “The boar that entered here is the Daitya Angáraka by name. And I am his daughter, O king, and my name is Angáravatí. And he is of adamantine frame, and has carried off these hundred princesses from the palaces of kings and appointed them to attend on me. Moreover this great Asura has become a Rákshasa owing to a curse, but to-day as he was exhausted with thirst and fatigue, even when he found you, he spared you. At present he has put off the form of a boar and is resting in his own proper shape, but when he wakes up from his sleep, he will without fail do you an injury. It is for this reason that I see no hope of a happy issue for you, and so these tear-drops fall from my eyes like my vital spirits boiled with the fire of grief.” When he heard this speech of Angáravatí’s the king said to her,—“If you love me, do this which I ask you. When your father awakes, go and weep in front of him, and then he will certainly ask you the cause of your agitation; then you must say—If some one were to slay thee, what would become of me?[11] This is the cause of my grief. If you do this, there will be a happy issue both for you and me.” When the king said this to her, she promised him that she would do what he wished. And that Asura maiden, apprehending misfortune, placed the king in concealment, and went near her sleeping father. Then the Daitya woke up, and she began to weep. And then he said to her, “Why do you weep, my daughter?” She with affected grief said to him, “If some one were to slay thee, what would become of me?” Then he burst out laughing and said;—“Who could possibly slay me, my daughter, for I am cased in adamant all over, only in my left hand is there an unguarded place, but that is protected by the bow.” In these words the Daitya consoled his daughter, and all this was heard by the king in his concealment. Immediately afterwards the Dánava rose up and took his bath, and proceeded in devout silence to worship the god Śiva; at that moment the king appeared with his bow bent, and rushing up impetuously towards the Daitya, challenged him to fight. He, without interrupting his devout silence, lifted his left hand towards the king and made a sign that he must wait for a moment. The king for his part, being very quick of hand, immediately smote him with an arrow in that hand which was his vital part. And that great Asura Angáraka, being pierced in a vital spot, immediately uttered a terrible cry and fell on the ground, and exclaimed, as his life departed,—“If that man, who has slain me when thirsty, does not offer water to my manes every year, then his five ministers shall perish.” After he had said this, that Daitya died, and the king, taking his daughter Angáravatí as a prize, returned to Ujjayiní. There the king Chaṇḍamahásena married that Daitya maiden, and two sons were born to him, the first named Gopálaka, and the second Pálaka; and when they were born, he held a feast in honour of Indra on their account. Then Indra, being pleased, said to that king in a dream, “By my favour thou shalt obtain a matchless daughter.” Then in course of time a graceful daughter was born to that king, like a second and more wonderful shape of the moon made by the Creator. And on that occasion a voice was heard from heaven;—“She shall give birth to a son, who shall be a very incarnation of the god of love, and king of the Vidyádharas.” Then the king gave that daughter the name of Vásavadattá, because she was given by Indra being pleased with him. And that maiden still remains unmarried in the house of her father, like the goddess of prosperity in the hollow cavity of the ocean before it was churned. That king Chaṇḍamahásena cannot indeed be conquered by you, O king, in the first place because he is so powerful, and in the next place because his realm is situated in a difficult country. Moreover he is ever longing to give you that daughter of his in marriage, but being a proud monarch, he desires the triumph of himself and his adherents. But, I think, you must certainly marry that Vásavadattá. When he heard this, that king of Vatsa immediately lost his heart to Vásavadattá.
[1] Not Vásuki, but his eldest brother.
[2] Chháyá means “colour;” he drank their colour, i. e., made them pale. It also means “reflection in the wine.”
[3] i. e., given by Buddha.
[4] The four Upáyas or means of success are sáman, negotiation, which his pride would render futile, dána, giving, which appeals to avarice, bheda, sowing dissension, which would be useless where a king is beloved by his subjects, and daṇḍa, open force, of no use in the case of a powerful king like Udayana.
[5] The chief vices of kings denounced by Hindu writers on statecraft are: Hunting, gambling, sleeping in the day, calumny, addiction to women, drinking spirits, dancing, singing, and instrumental music, idle roaming, these proceed from the love of pleasure, others proceed from anger, viz., tale-bearing, violence, insidious injury, envy, detraction, unjust seizure of property, abuse, assault. See Monier Williams s. v. vyasana.
[6] Sudhádhauta may mean “white as plaster,” but more probably here “whitened with plaster” like the houses in the European quarter of the “City of palaces.”
[7] A linga of Śiva in Ujjayiní. Śiva is here compared to an earthly monarch subject to the vyasana of roaming. I take it, the poet means, Ujjayiní is a better place than Kailása.
[8] Cp. the way in which Kandar goes in search of a sword in Prym and Socin’s Syrische Märchen, p. 205.
[9] Dr. Brockhaus translates it—Stürzte den Wagen des Königs um. Can Syandana mean horses, like magni currus Achilli? If so, áhatya would mean, having killed.
[10] Rasa means nectar, and indeed any liquid, and also emotion, passion. The pun is of course most intentional in the original.
[11] Cp. the story of Ohimé in the “Sicilianische Märchen” collected by Laura von Gonzenbach where Maruzza asks Ohimé how it would be possible to kill him. So in Indian Fairy Tales, collected by Miss Stokes, Hiralál Básá persuades Sonahrí Rání to ask his father where he kept his soul. Some interesting remarks on this subject will be found in the notes to this tale (Indian Fairy Tales, p. 260.) See also No. I, in Campbell’s Tales of the Western Highlands, and Dr. Reinhold Köhler’s remarks in Orient and Occident, Vol. II, p. 100. Cp. also Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, pp. 80, 81 and 136. Cp. also Veckenstedt’s Wendische Sagen, p. 72. In the Gehörnte Siegfried (Simrock’s Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. III, pp. 368 and 416), the hero is made invulnerable everywhere but between the shoulders, by being smeared with the melted fat of a dragon. Cp. also the story of Achilles. For the transformation of Chaṇḍamahásena into a boar see Bartsch’s Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg, Vol. II, pp. 144, 145, and Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 14. See also Schöppner’s Geschichte der Bayerischen Lande, Vol. I, p. 258.