And the king, after spending those days in feasting, said to his son Samudravarman in the presence of the ministers—“I have accomplished, my son, what I had to accomplish in this birth; I have enjoyed the pleasures of rule, I have not experienced defeat from my enemies, and I have seen you in possession of sovereignty, what else does there remain for me to obtain? So I will retire to a holy bathing-place, while my body retains strength. For see, old age whispers at the root of my ear—‘Since this body is perishable, why do you still remain in your house?’” Having said this, the king Ságaravarman, all whose ends were attained, went, though his son was opposed to it, to Prayága with his beloved. And Samudravarman escorted his father there, and, after returning to his own city, ruled it in accordance with the law.
And the king Ságaravarman, accompanied by his wife Anangaprabhá, propitiated the god Śiva in Prayága with asceticism. And at the end of the night, the god said to him in a dream—“I am pleased with this penance of yourself and your wife, so hear this—This Anangaprabhá and you, my son, are both of the Vidyádhara race, and to-morrow the curse will expire, and you will go to your own world.” When the king heard that, he woke up, and Anangaprabhá too, who had seen a similar dream, and they told their dreams to one another. And then Anangaprabhá, delighted, said to the king—“My husband, I have now remembered all the history of my former birth; I am the daughter of Samara, a prince of the Vidyádharas, in the city of Vírapura, and my name has always been Anangaprabhá. And I came here owing to the curse of my father, having become a human being by the loss of my science, and I forgot my Vidyádharí nature. But now I have recovered consciousness of it.” While she was saying this, her father Samara descended from heaven; and after he had been respectfully welcomed by the king Ságaravarman, he said to that daughter Anangaprabhá, who fell at his feet, “Come, daughter, receive these sciences, your curse is at an end. For you have endured in one birth the sorrows of eight births.”[16] Saying this, he took her on his lap, and gave her back the sciences; then he said to the king Ságaravarman—“You are a prince of the Vidyádharas, named Madanaprabha, and I am by name Samara, and Anangaprabhá is my daughter. And long ago, when she ought to have been given in marriage, her hand was demanded by several suitors, but being intoxicated by her beauty, she did not desire any husband. Then she was asked in marriage by you, who were equal in merit, and very eager to marry her, but as fate would have it, she would not then accept even you. For that reason I cursed her, that she might go to the world of mortals. And you, being passionately in love with her, fixed your heart on Śiva the giver of boons, and wished intently that she might be your wife in the world of mortals, and then you abandoned your Vidyádhara body by magic art. Then you became a man and she became your wife. Now return to your own world linked together.” When Samara said this to Ságaravarman, he, remembering his birth, abandoned his body in the water of Prayága,[17] and immediately became Madanaprabha. And Anangaprabhá was rekindled with the brightness of her recovered science, and immediately becoming a Vidyádharí, gleamed with that very body, which underwent a heavenly change. And then Madanaprabha, being delighted, and Anangaprabhá also, feeling great passion stir in both their hearts at the sight of one another’s heavenly bodies, and the auspicious Samara, king of the sky-goers, all flew up into the air, and went together to that city of the Vidyádharas, Vírapura. And there Samara immediately gave, with due rites, his daughter Anangaprabhá to the Vidyádhara king, Madanaprabha. And Madanaprabha went with that beloved, whose curse had been cancelled, to his own city, and there he dwelt at ease.
“Thus divine beings fall by virtue of a curse, and owing to the consequences of their own wickedness, are incarnate in the world of men, and after reaping the fruit appropriate to their bad conduct, they again go to their own home on account of previously acquired merit.”
When Naraváhandadatta heard this tale from his minister Gomukha, he and Alankáravatí were delighted, and then he performed the duties of the day.
[1] Dim traditions of this mountain seem to have penetrated to Greece and Rome. Aristophanes (Acharnians v. 82) speaks of the king of Persia as engaged for 8 months ἐπὶ χρυσῶν ὀρῶν. Clark tells us that Bergler quotes Plautus, Stichus 24, Neque ille mereat Persarum sibi montes qui esse perhibentur aurei. (Philological Journal, VIII. p. 192.) See also Ter. Phormio I, 2, 18, Pers. III, 65. Naraváhanadatta’s journey through the air may remind the reader of the air-voyage of Alexander in the Pseudo-Callisthenes, II, 41. He sees a serpent below him, and a ἅλως in the middle of it. A divine being, whom he meets, tells him, that these objects are the earth and the sea.
[2] I. e. Śiva.
[4] i. e. city of heroes. See Cunningham’s Ancient Geography of India, p. 99.
[5] Cp. the properties of the magic ring given to Canace in the Squire’s tale, and Grimm’s story of “Die drei Sprachen,” (No. 33, Kindermärchen). See also Tylor’s Primitive Culture, Vol. I, pp. 18, 423. In the Edda, Sigurd learns to understand the language of birds by tasting the blood of Fafner. For other parallels see Liebrecht’s Dunlop, p. 184, and note 248.