[1] Guṇa means virtue and also string; kara finger and tribute; the kaliyuga, or age of vice, is the last and worst. Vaikṛitam̱ in śl. 2, may perhaps mean “anger,” as in 79. śl. 2.: see B. and R. s. v.
[2] Oesterley (p. 221,) tells us that a similar incident is found in the Thousand and One Nights, Breslau, Vol. I, p. 62.
Chapter XCVIII.
(Vetála 24.)
Then the brave king Trivikramasena, disregarding the awful night, which in that terrible cemetery assumed the appearance of a Rákshasí, being black with darkness, and having the flames of the funeral pyres for fiery eyes, again went to the aśoka-tree, and took from it the Vetála, and put him on his shoulder.
And while he was going along with him, as before, the Vetála again said to that king, “O king, I am tired out with going backwards and forwards, though you are not: so I will put to you one difficult question, and mind you listen to me.”