Story of the treacherous Páśupata ascetic.

As I was wandering round all the holy places, I came to the Mánasa lake on the Himálayas, and in it I saw, as in a mirror,[11] a house composed of jewels, and from that building there came out suddenly a man with a sword in his hand, and he ascended the bank of the lake, accompanied by a troop of celestial females. There he amused himself with the females in a garden in the recreation of drinking, and I was looking on from a distance unobserved, full of interest in the spectacle. In the meanwhile a man of prepossessing appearance came there from somewhere or other. And when he met me, I told him what I had seen. And with much interest I pointed out to him that man from a distance, and when he beheld him he told me his own story in the following words: