When Padmávatí saw that, she was tortured with grief, and she said to her ladies-in-waiting, “Alas! Fie! the female heart is harder than the thunderbolt, otherwise my breath must have left me beholding this horror. So, how long am I to retain this wretched life? Even now, owing to my demerits, there is no end to my woe; moreover, the promise of that hermit has been falsified; so it is better that I should die. But it is not fitting that I should enter this fire and be mixed up with strange men, so in this difficult conjuncture hanging, which gives no trouble, is my best resource.” When the princess had said this, she went in front of Śiva, and proceeded to make a noose by means of a creeper, which she fastened to an aśoka-tree.
And while her ladies-in-waiting were trying to prevent her by encouraging speeches, that hermit Tapodhana came there. He said, “My daughter, do not act rashly, that promise of mine will not be falsified. Be of good courage, you shall see that husband of yours come here in a moment. His curse has been just now cancelled by virtue of your penance; so why do you now distrust the power of your own austerities? And why do you shew this despondency when your marriage is at hand? I have come here because I learnt all this by my power of meditation.” When Padmávatí saw the hermit approaching uttering these words, she bowed before him, and was for a moment, as it were, swung to and fro by perplexity. Then her beloved Muktáphalaketu, having by the burning of his mortal body entered his own Vidyádhara body, came there with his friend. And Padmávatí, seeing that son of the king of the Vidyádharas coming through the air, as a female chátaka beholds a fresh rain-cloud, or a kumudvatí the full moon newly risen, felt indescribable joy in her heart. And Muktáphalaketu, when he saw her, rejoiced, and so to speak, drank her in with his eyes, as a traveller, wearied with long wandering in a desert, rejoices, when he beholds a river. And those two, reunited like a couple of chakravákas by the termination of the night of their curse, took their fill of falling at the feet of that hermit of glowing brilliancy.[7] Then that great hermit welcomed them in the following words, “My heart has been fully gratified to-day by seeing you reunited, happy at having come to the end of your curse.”
And when the night had passed, king Merudhvaja came there in search of them, mounted on the elephant of Indra, accompanied by his wife and his youngest son, and also Trailokyamálin the sovereign of the Daityas, with his daughter Trailokyaprabhá, mounted on a chariot, attended by his harem and his suite. Then the hermit pointed out Muktáphalaketu to those two kings and described what had taken place, how he had become a man by a curse, in order to do a service to the gods, and how he had been delivered from his human condition. And when Merudhvaja and the others heard that, though they were before eager to throw themselves into the fire, they bathed in Siddhodaka and worshipped Śiva, by the hermit’s direction, and were at once delivered from their sorrow. Then that Trailokyaprabhá suddenly called to mind her birth and said to herself “Truly I am that same Devaprabhá, the daughter of the king of the Siddhas, who, when undergoing austerities[8] in order that the emperor of all the Vidyádharas might be my husband, was ridiculed by Padmávatí, and entered the fire to gain the fulfilment of my desire. And now I have been born in this Daitya race, and here is this very prince with whom I was in love, who has recovered his Vidyádhara body. But it is not fitting that, now that his body is changed, he should be united to this body of mine, so I will consume my Asura body also in the fire, in order to obtain him.”
Having gone through these reflections in her mind, and having communicated her intention to her parents, she entered[9] the fire which had consumed Muktáphaladhvaja; and then the god of fire himself appeared with her, on whom out of pity he had bestowed her former body, and said to Muktáphaladhvaja, “Muktáphaladhvaja, this lady Devaprabhá, the daughter of the king of the Siddhas, for thy sake abandoned her body in me; so receive her as thy wife.” When the god of fire had said this, he disappeared; and Brahmá came there with Indra and the rest of the gods, and Padmaśekhara the king of the Gandharvas, with Chandraketu, the sovereign of the Vidyádharas. Then that prosperous king of the Gandharvas[10] gave his daughter Padmávatí, with due rites and much activity on the part of his followers, as wife to Muktáphalaketu, who bowed before him, congratulated by all. And then that prince of the Vidyádharas, having obtained that beloved, whom he had so long desired, considered that he had gathered the fruit of the tree of his birth, and married also that Siddha-maiden. And prince Malayadhvaja was united to that Daitya princess, his beloved Tribhuvanaprabhá, whom her father bestowed on him with due rites. Then Merudhvaja, having, on account of his son Malayadhvaja’s complete success, anointed him to be sole ruler of a kingdom extending over the earth with all its islands, went with his wife to the forest to perform austerities. And Trailokyamálin, the king of the Daityas, went with his wife to his own region, and Indra gave to Muktáphalaketu the splendid kingdom of Vidyuddhvaja. And this voice came from heaven, “Let this Muktáphalaketu enjoy the sovereignty over the Vidyádharas and Asuras, and let the gods go to their own abodes!” When they heard that voice, Brahmá and Indra and the other gods went away delighted, and the hermit Tapodhana went with his pupil, who was released from his curse, and Chandraketu went to his own Vidyádhara home, with his son Muktáphalaketu who was graced by two wives. And there the king, together with his son, long enjoyed the dignity of emperor over the Vidyádharas, but at last he threw on him the burden of his kingdom, and, disgusted with the world and its pleasures, went with the queen to an ascetic grove of hermits. And Muktáphalaketu, having before obtained from Indra the rule over the Asuras, and again from his father the empire over the Vidyádharas, enjoyed, in the society of Padmávatí, who seemed like an incarnation of happiness, for ten kalpas, the good fortune of all the pleasures which the sway of those two wealthy realms could yield, and thus obtained the highest success. But he saw that passions are in their end distasteful, and at last he entered a wood of mighty hermits, and by the eminence of his asceticism obtained the highest glory, and became a companion of the lord Śiva.
Thus king Brahmadatta and his wife and his minister heard this romantic tale from the couple of swans, and gained knowledge from their teaching, and obtained the power of flying through the air like gods; and then they went accompanied by those two birds to Siddhíśvara,[11] and there they all laid aside the bodies they had entered in consequence of the curse, and were reinstated in their former position as attendants upon Śiva.[12]
Hearing this story from Gomukha in the absence of Madanamanchuká, for a moment only, hermits, I cheered my heart with hope.
When the emperor Naraváhanadatta had told this story, those hermits in the hermitage of Kaśyapa, accompanied by Gopálaka, rejoiced exceedingly.
[1] I read muchyate with the three India Office MSS. and the Sanskrit College MS.
[2] The κακῶν καὶ γήραος ἄλκαρ of Empedocles. Sir Thomas Browne in his Vulgar Errors, Book II. Ch. V, Sec. 11, makes mention of the supposed magic virtues of gems. He will not deny that bezoar is antidotal, but will not believe that a “sapphire is preservative against enchantments.”