Then the merchant Ratnadatta was delighted, and astonished at the same time; and with his daughter Ratnavatí and the bandit his son-in-law, and his delighted relations, he entered his own palace, and as he had obtained from the god the promise of sons, he held a feast suitable to his own joy on the occasion. And when king Víraketu heard what had taken place, he was pleased, and he immediately summoned that heroic thief, and made him commander of his army. And thereupon the heroic thief gave up his dishonest life, and married the merchant’s daughter, and led a respectable life, honoured by the king.
When the Vetála, seated on the shoulder of king Trivikramasena, had told him this tale, he asked him the following question, menacing him with the before-mentioned curse; “Tell me, king, why that thief, when impaled, first wept and then laughed, when he saw the merchant’s daughter come with her father.” Then the king said; “He wept for sorrow that he had not been able to repay the merchant for his gratuitous kindness to him; and he laughed out of astonishment, as he said to himself, ‘What! has this maiden, after rejecting kings who asked for her hand, fallen in love with me? In truth a woman’s heart is an intricate labyrinth.’” When the king had said this, the mighty Vetála, by means of the magic power which he possessed, again left the king’s shoulder and returned to his station on the tree, and the king once more went to fetch him.
[1] I prefer the reading of the Sanskrit College MS. túryakulaiḥ.
[2] See note on page 13. Rohde, (Der Griechische Roman, p. 111,) points out that there are traces of this practice in the mythology of Ancient Greece. Evadne is said to have burnt herself with the body of her husband Capaneus. So Œnone, according to one account, leapt into the pyre on which the body of Paris was burning. See also Zimmer, Alt-Indisches Leben, pp. 329–331. So Brynhild burns herself with the body of Sigurd, (Hagen’s Helden-Sagen, Vol. III, p. 166).
[3] Cp. Mahábhárata, Vanaparvan, Adhyáya 297, śl. 39.
Chapter LXXXIX.
(Vetála 15.)
Then king Trivikramasena again went back to the aśoka-tree and took the Vetála from it, and set out with him once more; and as the king was going along, the Vetála, perched on his shoulder, said to him; “Listen, king, I will tell you another story.”