[7] The 10 stages are thus given by Śivadása: (1) Love of the eyes; (2) attachment of the mind (manas); (3) the production of desire; (4) sleeplessness; (5) emaciation; (6) indifference to objects of sense; (7) loss of shame; (8) distraction; (9) fainting; (10) death. (Dr. Zachariæ’s Sixteenth Tale of the Vetálapanchavinśati, in Bezzenberger’s Beiträge).
[8] Here the MS. in the Sanskrit College has mantrináśe múlanáśád rakshyá dharmakshatir dhruvam̱, which means, “we should certainly try to prevent virtue from perishing by the destruction of its root in the destruction of the minister.”
Chapter XC.
(Vetála 16.)
Then king Trivikramasena went back to the aśoka-tree, and again took the Vetála from it, and set out with him on his shoulder; and as he was returning from the tree, the Vetála once more said to him, “Listen, king, I will tell you a noble story.”
Story of Jímútaváhana.[1]
There is in this earth a great mountain named Himavat, where all jewels are found, which is the origin of both Gaurí and Gangá, the two goddesses dear to Śiva. Even heroes cannot reach its top;[2] it towers proudly above all other mountains; and as such its praises are sung in strains of sooth in the three worlds. On the ridge of that Himavat there is that city rightly named the Golden City, which gleams like a mass of the sun’s rays deposited by him on earth.
Of old there lived in that splendid city a fortunate lord of the Vidyádharas, named Jímútaketu, who dwelt there like Indra on Meru. In his palace-garden there was a wishing-tree, which was an heirloom in his family, which was well known as the Granter of Desires, and not named so without reason. The king supplicated that divine tree, and obtained by its favour a son, who remembered his former birth, and was the incarnation of a portion of a Bodhisattva. He was a hero in munificence, of great courage, compassionate to all creatures, attentive to the instructions of his spiritual adviser, and his name was Jímútaváhana. And when he grew up to manhood, his father, the king, made him crown-prince, being impelled thereto by his excellent qualities, and the advice of the ministers.