Story of Śaktimatí.
In our country, within the city, there is the shrine of a powerful Yaksha named Maṇibhadra, established by our ancestors. The people there come and make petitions at this shrine, offering various gifts, in order to obtain various blessings. Whenever a man is found at night with another man’s wife, he is placed with her within the inner chamber of the Yaksha’s temple. And in the morning he is taken away from thence with the woman to the king’s court, and his behaviour being made known, he is punished; such is the custom. Once on a time in that city a merchant, of the name of Samudradatta, was found by a city-guard in the company of another man’s wife. So he took him and placed him with the woman in that temple of the Yaksha, fastening the door firmly. And immediately the wise and devoted wife of that merchant, whose name was Śaktimatí, came to hear of the occurrence; then that resolute woman, disguising herself, went confidently at night to the temple of the Yaksha, accompanied by her friends, taking with her offerings for the god. When she arrived there, the priest whose business it was to eat the offerings, through desire for a fee, opened the door and let her enter, informing the magistrate of what he had done. And she, when she got inside, saw her husband looking sheepish, with a woman, and she made the woman put on her own dress, and told her to go out. So that woman went out in her dress by night, and got off, but Śaktimatí remained in the temple with her husband. And when the king’s officers came in the morning to examine the merchant, he was seen by all to be in the company of his own wife.[10] When he heard that, the king dismissed the merchant from the temple of the Yaksha, as it were from the mouth of death, and punished the chief magistrate. So Śaktimatí in old time delivered her husband by her wisdom, and in the same way I will go and save my husband by my discretion.
So the wise Devasmitá said in secret to her mother-in-law, and, in company with her maids, she put on the dress of a merchant. Then she embarked on a ship, on the pretence of a mercantile expedition, and came to the country of Kaṭáha where her husband was. And when she arrived there, she saw that husband of hers, Guhasena, in the midst of a circle of merchants, like consolation in external bodily form. He seeing her afar off in the dress of a man,[11] as it were, drank her in with his eyes, and thought to himself, “Who may this merchant be that looks so like my beloved wife”? So Devasmitá went and represented to the king that she had a petition to make, and asked him to assemble all his subjects. Then the king full of curiosity assembled all the citizens, and said to that lady disguised as a merchant, “What is your petition?” Then Devasmitá said—There are residing here in your midst four slaves of mine who have escaped, let the king make them over to me. Then the king said to her, “All the citizens are present here, so look at every one in order to recognise him, and take those slaves of yours.” Then she seized upon the four young merchants, whom she had before treated in such a humiliating way in her house, and who had wrappers bound round their heads. Then the merchants, who were there, flew in a passion, and said to her, “These are the sons of distinguished merchants, how then can they be your slaves?” Then she answered them, “If you do not believe what I say, examine their foreheads which I marked with a dog’s foot.” They consented, and removing the head-wrappers of these four, they all beheld the dog’s foot on their foreheads. Then all the merchants were abashed, and the king, being astonished, himself asked Devasmitá what all this meant. She told the whole story, and all the people burst out laughing, and the king said to the lady,—“They are your slaves by the best of titles.” Then the other merchants paid a large sum of money to that chaste wife, to redeem those four from slavery, and a fine to the king’s treasury. Devasmitá received that money, and recovered her husband, and being honoured by all good men, returned then to her own city Támraliptá, and she was never afterwards separated from her beloved.
“Thus, O queen, women of good family ever worship their husbands with chaste and resolute behaviour,[12] and never think of any other man, for to virtuous wives the husband is the highest deity.” When Vásavadattá on the journey heard this noble story from the mouth of Vasantaka, she got over the feeling of shame at having recently left her father’s house, and her mind, which was previously attached by strong affection to her husband, became so fixed upon him as to be entirely devoted to his service.