[21] Night is compared to a female goblin, (Rákshasí). Those creatures have fiery mouths.
[22] Cp. Sicilianische Märchen collected by Laura von Gonzenbach, Vol. I, p. 160.
[23] Magical sciences, in virtue of which they were Vidyádharas or science-holders.
[24] A son or pupil of Viśvámitra.
Chapter XXVI.
The next morning, while Śaktideva was dwelling in the monastery in the island of Utsthala, Satyavrata, the king of the fishermen, came to him, and said to him in accordance with the promise which he had made before, “Bráhman, I have thought of a device for accomplishing your wish; there is a fair isle in the middle of the sea named Ratnakúṭa, and in it there is a temple of the adorable Vishṇu founded by the Ocean, and on the twelfth day of the white fortnight of Ásháḍha there is a festival there with a procession, and people come there diligently from all the islands to offer worship. It is possible that some one there might know about the Golden City, so come let us go there, for that day is near.” When Satyavrata made this proposal, Śaktideva consented gladly, and took with him the provisions for the journey furnished by Vishṇudatta. Then he went on board the ship brought by Satyavrata, and quickly set out with him on the ocean-path, and as he was going with Satyavrata on the home of marvels[1] in which the monsters resembled islands, he asked the king, who was steering the ship, “What is this enormous object which is seen in the sea far off in this direction, looking like a huge mountain equipped with wings rising at will out of the sea?” Then Satyavrata said: “Bráhman, this is a banyan-tree,[2] underneath it they say that there is a gigantic whirlpool, the mouth of the submarine fire. And we must take care in passing this way to avoid that spot, for those who once enter that whirlpool never return again.” While Satyavrata was thus speaking, the ship began to be carried in that very direction by the force of the wind;[3] when Satyavrata saw this, he again said to Śaktideva: “Bráhman, it is clear that the time of our destruction has now arrived, for see, this ship suddenly drifts[4] in that direction. And now I cannot anyhow prevent it, so we are certain to be cast into that deep whirlpool, as into the mouth of death, by the sea which draws us on as if it were mighty fate, the result of our deeds. And it grieves me not for myself, for whose body is continuing? But it grieves me to think that your desire has not been accomplished in spite of all your toils, so while I keep back this ship for a moment, quickly climb on to the boughs of this banyan-tree, perhaps some expedient may present itself for saving the life of one of such noble form, for who can calculate the caprices of fate or the waves of the sea?” While the heroic Satyavrata was saying this, the ship drew near the tree; at that moment Śaktideva made a leap in his terror, and caught a broad branch of that marine banyan-tree,[5] but Satyavrata’s body and ship, which he offered for another, were swept down into the whirlpool, and he entered the mouth of the submarine fire. But Śaktideva, though he had escaped to the bough of that tree, which filled the regions with its branches, was full of despair and reflected—“I have not beheld that Golden City, and I am perishing in an uninhabited place, moreover I have also brought about the death of that king of the fishermen. Or rather who can resist the awful goddess of Destiny, that ever places her foot upon the heads of all men?”[6] While the Bráhman youth was thus revolving thoughts suited to the occasion on the trunk of the tree, the day came to an end. And in the evening he saw many enormous birds, of the nature of vultures, coming into that banyan-tree from all quarters, filling the sides of heaven with their cries, and the waves of the sea, that was lashed by the wind of their broad wings, appeared as if running to meet them out of affection produced by long acquaintance.
Then he, concealed by the dense leaves, overheard the conversation of those birds perched on the branches, which was carried on in human language. One described some distant island, another a mountain, another a distant region as the place where he had gone to roam during the day, but an old bird among them said, “I went to-day to the Golden City to disport myself, and to-morrow morning I shall go there again to feed at my ease, for what is the use of my taking a long and fatiguing journey?” Śaktideva’s sorrow was removed by that speech of the bird’s, which resembled a sudden shower of nectar, and he thought to himself, “Bravo! that city does exist, and now I have an instrument for reaching it, this gigantic bird given me as a means of conveyance.” Thinking thus, Śaktideva slowly advanced and hid himself among the back-feathers of that bird while it was asleep, and next morning, when the other birds went off in different directions, that vulture exhibiting a strange partiality to the Bráhman like destiny,[7] carrying Śaktideva unseen on his back where he had climbed up, went immediately to the Golden City to feed again.[8] Then the bird alighted in a garden, and Śaktideva got down from its back unobserved and left it, but while he was roaming about there, he saw two women engaged in gathering flowers; he approached them slowly, who were astonished at his appearance, and he asked them, “What place is this, good ladies, and who are you?” And they said to him: “Friend, this is a city called the Golden City, a seat of the Vidyádharas, and in it there dwells a Vidyádharí, named Chandraprabhá, and know that we are the gardeners in her garden, and we are gathering these flowers for her.” Then the Bráhman said; “Obtain for me an interview with your mistress here.” When they heard this, they consented, and the two women conducted the young man to the palace in their city. When he reached it, he saw that it was glittering with pillars of precious stones, and had walls of gold,[9] as it were the very rendezvous of prosperity. And all the attendants, when they saw him arrived there, went and told Chandraprabhá the marvellous tidings of the arrival of a mortal; then she gave a command to the warder, and immediately had the Bráhman brought into the palace and conducted into her presence; when he entered, he beheld her there giving a feast to his eyes, like the Creator’s ability to create marvels, represented in bodily form. And she rose from her jewelled couch, while he was still far off, and honoured him with a welcome herself, overpowered by beholding him. And when he had taken a seat, she asked him, “Auspicious sir, who are you, that have come here in such guise, and how did you reach this land inaccessible to men?” When Chandraprabhá in her curiosity asked him this question, Śaktideva told her his country and his birth and his name, and he related to her how he had come in order to obtain the princess Kanakarekhá as the reward of beholding the Golden City. When Chandraprabhá heard that, she thought a little and heaved a deep sigh, and said to Śaktideva in private; “Listen, I am now about to tell you something, fortunate sir. There is in this land a king of the Vidyádharas named Śaśikhaṇḍa, and we four daughters were born to him in due course; I am the eldest Chandraprabhá, and the next is Chandrarekhá, and the third is Śaśirekhá and the fourth Śaśiprabhá. We gradually grew up to womanhood in our father’s house, and once upon a time those three sisters of mine went together to the shore of the Ganges to bathe, while I was detained at home by illness; then they began to play in the water, and in the insolence of youth they sprinkled with water a hermit named Agryatapas, while he was in the stream. That hermit in his wrath cursed those girls, who had carried their merriment too far, saying:—“You wicked maidens, be born all of you in the world of mortals.” When our father heard that, he went and pacified the great hermit, and the hermit told how the curse of each of them severally should end, and appointed to each of them in her mortal condition the power of remembering her former existence, supplemented with divine insight. Then, they having left their bodies and gone to the world of men, my father bestowed on me this city, and in his grief went to the forest, but while I was dwelling here, the goddess Durgá informed me in a dream that a mortal should become my husband. For this reason, though my father has recommended to me many Vidyádhara suitors, I have rejected them all and remained unmarried up to this day. But now I am subdued by your wonderful arrival and by your handsome form, and I give myself to you; so I will go on the approaching fourteenth day of the lunar fortnight to the great mountain called Ṛishabha to entreat my father for your sake, for all the most excellent Vidyádharas assemble there from all quarters on that day to worship the god Śiva, and my father comes there too, and after I have obtained his permission, I will return here quickly; then marry me. Now rise up.”
Having said this, Chandraprabhá supplied Śaktideva with various kinds of luxuries suited to Vidyádharas, and while he remained there, he was as much refreshed, as one heated by a forest conflagration would be by bathing in a lake of nectar. And when the fourteenth day had arrived, Chandraprabhá said to him: “To-day I go to entreat my father’s permission to marry you, and all my attendants will go with me. But you must not be grieved at being left alone for two days, moreover, while you remain alone in this palace, you must by no means ascend the middle terrace.” When Chandraprabhá had said this to that young Bráhman, she set out on her journey leaving her heart with him, and escorted on her way by his. And Śaktideva, remaining there alone, wandered from one magnificent part of the palace to another, to delight his mind; and then he felt a curiosity to know why that daughter of the Vidyádhara had forbidden him to ascend the roof of the palace, and so he ascended that middle terrace of the palace, for men are generally inclined to do that which is forbidden: and when he had ascended it, he saw three concealed pavilions, and he entered one of them, the door of which was open, and when he had entered it he saw a certain woman lying on a magnificently jewelled sofa, on which there was a mattress placed, whose body was hidden by a sheet. But when he lifted up the sheet and looked, he beheld lying dead in that guise that beautiful maiden, the daughter of king Paropakárin; and when he saw her there, he thought, “What is this great wonder? Is she sleeping a sleep from which there is no awaking, or is it a complete delusion on my part? That woman, for whose sake I have travelled to this foreign land, is lying here without breath, though she is alive in my own country, and she still retains her beauty unimpaired, so I may be certain that this is all a magic show, which the Creator for some reason or other exhibits to beguile me.” Thinking thus, he proceeded to enter in succession those other two pavilions, and he beheld within them in the same way two other maidens; then he went in his astonishment out of the palace, and sitting down he remained looking at a very beautiful lake below it, and on its bank he beheld a horse with a jewelled saddle; so he descended immediately from where he was, and out of curiosity approached its side; and seeing that it had no rider on it, he tried to mount it, and that horse struck him with its heel and flung him into the lake. And after he had sunk beneath the surface of the lake, he quickly rose up to his astonishment from the middle of a garden-lake in his own city of Vardhamána; and he saw himself suddenly standing in the water of a lake in his own native city, like the kumuda plants, miserable without the light of the moon.[10] He reflected “How different is this city of Vardhamána from that city of the Vidyádharas! Alas! what is this great display of marvellous delusion? Alas! I, ill-fated wretch, am wonderfully deceived by some strange power; or rather, who on this earth knows what is the nature of destiny?” Thus reflecting Śaktideva rose from the midst of the lake, and went in a state of wonder to his own father’s house. There he made a false representation, giving as an excuse for his absence that he had been himself going about with a drum, and being gladly welcomed by his father he remained with his delighted relations; and on the second day he went outside his house, and heard again these words being proclaimed in the city by beat of drum,—“Let whoever, being a Bráhman or a Kshatriya, has really seen the Golden City, say so: the king will give him his daughter, and make him crown-prince.” Then Śaktideva hearing that, having successfully accomplished the task, again went and said to those who were proclaiming this by beat of drum,—“I have seen that city.” And they took him before that king, and the king recognising him, supposed that he was again saying what was untrue, as he had done before. But he said—“If I say what is false, and if I have not really seen that city, I desire now to be punished with death; let the princess herself examine me.” When he said this, the king went and had his daughter summoned by his servants. She, when she saw that Bráhman, whom she had seen before, again said to the king; “My father, he will tell us some falsehood again.” Then Śaktideva said to her,—“Princess, whether I speak truly or falsely, be pleased to explain this point which excites my curiosity. How is it that I saw you lying dead on a sofa in the golden city, and yet see you here alive?” When the princess Kanakarekhá had been asked this question by Śaktideva, and furnished with this token of his truth, she said in the presence of her father: “It is true that this great-hearted one has seen that city, and in a short time he will be my husband, when I return to dwell there. And there he will marry my other three sisters; and he will govern as king the Vidyádharas in that city. But I must to-day enter my own body and that city, for I have been born here in your house owing to the curse of a hermit, who moreover appointed that my curse should end in the following way, ‘When you shall be wearing a human form, and a man, having beheld your body in the Golden City, shall reveal the truth, then you shall be freed from your curse, and that man shall become your husband.’ And though I am in a human body I remember my origin, and I possess supernatural knowledge, so I will now depart to my own Vidyádhara home, to a happy fortune.” Saying this the princess left her body, and vanished, and a confused cry arose in the palace. And Śaktideva, who had now lost both the maidens, thinking over the two beloved ones whom he had gained by various difficult toils, and who yet were not gained, and not only grieved but blaming himself, with his desires not accomplished, left the king’s palace and in a moment went through the following train of thought: “Kanakarekhá said that I should attain my desire; so why do I despond, for success depends upon courage? I will again go to the Golden City by the same path, and destiny will without doubt again provide me with a means of getting there.” Thus reflecting Śaktideva set out from that city, for resolute men who have once undertaken a project do not turn back without accomplishing their object. And journeying on, he again reached after a long time that city named Viṭankapura, situated on the shore of the sea. And there he saw the merchant coming to meet him, with whom he originally went to sea, and whose ship was wrecked there. He thought, “Can this be Samudradatta, and how can he have escaped after falling into the sea? But how can it be otherwise? I myself am a strange illustration of its possibility.” While he approached the merchant thinking thus, the merchant recognised him, and embraced him in his delight, and he took him to his own house and after entertaining him, asked him—“When the ship foundered, how did you escape from the sea?” Śaktideva then told him his whole history, how, after being swallowed by a fish, he first reached the island of Utsthala, and then he asked the good merchant in his turn: “Tell me also how you escaped from the sea.” Then the merchant said, “After I fell into the sea that time, I remained floating for three days supported on a plank. Then a ship suddenly came that way, and I, crying out, was descried by those in her, and taken on board her. And when I got on board, I saw my own father who had gone to a distant island long before, and was now returning after a long absence. My father, when he saw me, recognised me, and embracing me asked my story with tears, and I told it him as follows—‘My father, you had been away for a long time and had not returned, and so I set about trading myself, thinking it was my proper employment; then on my way to a distant island my ship was wrecked, and I was plunged in the sea, and you have found me and rescued me.’ When I had said this to him, my father asked me reproachfully—‘Why do you run such risks? For I possess wealth, my son, and I am engaged in acquiring it, see, I have brought you back this ship full of gold.’ Thus spoke my father to me, and comforting me took me home in that very ship to my own dwelling in Viṭankapura.” When Śaktideva had heard this account from the merchant, and had rested that night, he said to him on the next day—“Great merchant, I must once more go to the island of Utsthala, so tell me how I can get there now.” The merchant said to him—“Some agents of mine are preparing to go there to-day, so go on board the ship, and set out with them.” Thereupon the Bráhman set out with the merchant’s agents to go to that island of Utsthala, and by chance the sons of the king of the fishermen saw him there, and when they were near him, they recognised him and said,—“Bráhman, you went with our father to search here and there for the Golden City, and how is it that you have come back here to-day alone?” Then Śaktideva said, “Your father, when out at sea, fell into the mouth of the submarine fire, his ship having been dragged down by the current.” When those sons of the fisher-king heard that, they were angry and said to their servants—“Bind this wicked man, for he has murdered our father. Otherwise how could it have happened that, when two men were in the same ship, one should have fallen into the mouth of the submarine fire, and the other escaped it. So we must to-morrow morning sacrifice our father’s murderer in front of the goddess Durgá, treating him as a victim.” Having said this to their servants, those sons of the fisher-king bound Śaktideva, and took him off to the awful temple of Durgá, the belly of which was enlarged, as if it continually swallowed many lives, and which was like the mouth of death devouring tamála with projecting teeth. There Śaktideva remained bound during the night in fear for his life, and he thus prayed to the goddess Durgá,—“Adorable one, granter of boons, thou didst deliver the world with thy form which was like the orb of the rising sun, appearing as if it had drunk its fill of the blood gushing freely from the throat of the giant Ruru;[11] therefore deliver me, thy constant votary, who have come a long distance out of desire to obtain my beloved, but am now fallen without cause into the power of my enemies.” Thus he prayed to the goddess, and with difficulty went off to sleep, and in the night he saw a woman come out of the inner cell of the temple; that woman of heavenly beauty came up to him, and said with a compassionate manner, “Do not fear, Śaktideva, no harm shall happen to you. The sons of that fisher-king have a sister named Vindumatí, that maiden shall see you in the morning and claim you for a husband, and you must agree to that, she will bring about your deliverance: and she is not of the fisher-caste: for she is a celestial female degraded in consequence of a curse.” When he heard this, he woke up, and in the morning that fisher-maiden came to the temple, a shower of nectar to his eyes. And announcing herself, she came up to him and said in her eagerness, “I will have you released from this prison, therefore do what I desire. For I have refused all these suitors approved of by my brothers, but the moment I saw you, love arose in my soul, therefore marry me.” When Vindumatí, the daughter of the fisher-king, said this to him, Śaktideva remembering his dream, accepted her proposal gladly; she procured his release, and he married that fair one, whose wish was gratified by her brothers receiving the command to do so from Durgá in a dream. And he lived there with that heavenly creature that had assumed a human form, obtained solely by his merits in a former life, as if with happy success. And one day, as he was standing upon the roof of his palace, he saw a Chaṇḍála coming along with a load of cow’s flesh, and he said to his beloved—“Look, slender one! how can this evildoer eat the flesh of cows, those animals that are the object of veneration to the three worlds?” Then Vindumatí, hearing that, said to her husband; “The wickedness of this act is inconceivable, what can we say in palliation of it. I have been born in this race of fishermen for a very small offence owing to the might of cows, but what can atone for this man’s sin?” When she said this, Śaktideva said to her;—“That is wonderful: tell me, my beloved, who you are, and how you came to be born in a family of fishermen.” When he asked this with much importunity, she said to him, “I will tell you, though it is a secret, if you promise to do what I ask you.” He affirmed with an oath; “Yes, I will do what you ask me.”
She then told him first what she desired him to do; “In this island you will soon marry another wife, and she, my husband, will soon became pregnant, and in the eighth month of her pregnancy you must cut her open and take out the child, and you must feel no compunction about it.” Thus she said, and he was astonished, exclaiming, “What can this mean?” and he was full of horror, but that daughter of the fisher-king went on to say, “This request of mine you must perform for a certain reason; now hear who I am, and how I came to be born in a family of fishermen. Long ago in a former birth I was a certain Vidyádharí, and now I have fallen into the world of men in consequence of a curse. For when I was a Vidyádharí, I bit asunder some strings with my teeth and fastened them to lyres, and it is owing to that that I have been born here in the house of a fisherman. So, if such a degradation is brought about by touching the mouth with the dry sinew of a cow, much more terrible must be the result of eating cow’s flesh!” While she was saying this, one of her brothers rushed in in a state of perturbation, and said to Śaktideva, “Rise up, an enormous boar has appeared from somewhere or other, and after slaying innumerable persons is coming this way in its pride, towards us.” When Śaktideva heard that, he descended from his palace, and mounting a horse, spear in hand,[12] he galloped to meet the boar, and struck it the moment he saw it, but when the hero attacked him the boar fled, and managed, though wounded, to enter a cavern: and Śaktideva entered there in pursuit of him, and immediately beheld a great garden-shrubbery with a house. And when he was there, he beheld a maiden of very wonderful beauty, coming in a state of agitation to meet him, as if it were the goddess of the wood advancing to receive him out of love.