[10] I delete the stop at the end of the 100th śloka. All the India Office MSS. read kṛitáśvásá, and so does the Sanskrit College MS., but kṛitáśá sá makes sense.
[11] A single braid of hair worn by a woman as a mark of mourning for an absent husband. Monier Williams s. v. ekaveṇi.
[12] MSS. Nos. 1882 and 2166 read na cha for mayi; “and did not practise cruelties;” No. 3003 has mayí. The Sanskrit College MS. has mama krauryánnyavartatá (sic).
[13] I read tatrásya tatpradhánágre dosham̱ śirasi pátaya. The three India Office MSS. give tatrásya; No. 1882 has prasádágre and dháraya; No. 3003 pradhánágre and dháraya; No. 2166 pradhánágre and pátaya. The Sanskrit College MS. agrees with Brockhaus’s text.
[14] Dr. Kern would read na cha for vata. Righteous kings and judges see no difference between a feeble and powerful person, between a stranger and a kinsman. But the three India Office MSS. read vata. So does the MS. which the Principal of the Sanskrit College, Paṇḍit Maheśa Chandra Nyáyaratna, has kindly lent me.
[15] The Petersburg lexicographers are of opinion that riśad should be ṭaśad or ṭasad. Two of the India Office MSS. seem to read ṭasad.
Chapter CVII.
I think, a hero’s prosperity must be unequal; Fate again and again severely tests firmness by the ordeals of happiness and misery: this explains why the fickle goddess kept uniting Naraváhanadatta to wife after wife, when he was alone in those remote regions, and then separated him from them.
Then, while he was residing on the mountain Ṛishyamúka, his beloved Prabhávatí came up to him, and said, “It was owing to the misfortune of my not being present that Mánasavega carried you off on that occasion to the court, with the intention of doing you an injury. When I heard of it, I at once went there, and by means of my magic power I produced the delusion of an appearance of the god, and brought you here. For, though the Vidyádharas are mighty, their influence does not extend over this mountain, for this is the domain of the Siddhas.[1] Indeed even my science is of no avail here for that reason, and that grieves me, for how will you subsist on the products of the forest as your only food?” When she had said this, Naraváhanadatta remained with her there, longing for the time of deliverance, thinking on Madanamanchuká. And on the banks of the sanctifying Pampá-lake near that mountain, he ate fruits and roots of heavenly flavour, and he drank the holy water of the lake which was rendered delicious and fragrant by the fruits dropped from trees on its bank, as a relish to his meal of deer’s flesh.[2] And he lived at the foot of trees and in the interior of caverns, and so he imitated the conduct of Ráma who once lived in the forests of that region. And Prabhávatí, beholding there various hermitages once occupied by Ráma, told him the story of Ráma for his amusement.