The Bráhman’s daughter, not seeing me next morning, when she woke up, but seeing a ring on her finger marked with my name, said to herself, “So he has deserted me, and gone off; well, he has been as good as his word; and I must keep mine too, dismissing all regrets. And I see by this ring that his name is Múladeva; so no doubt he is that very Múladeva, who is so renowned for cunning. And people say that his permanent home is Ujjayiní; so I must go there, and accomplish my object by an artifice.” When she had made up her mind to this, she went and made this false statement to her father, “My father, my husband has deserted me immediately after marriage; and how can I live here happily without him; so I will go on a pilgrimage to holy waters, and will so mortify this accursed body.”
Having said this, and having wrung a permission from her unwilling father, she started off from her house with her wealth and her attendants. She procured a splendid dress suitable to a hetæra, and travelling along she reached Ujjayiní, and entered it as the chief beauty of the world. And having arranged with her attendants every detail of her scheme, that young Bráhman lady assumed the name of Sumangalá. And her servants proclaimed everywhere, “A hetæra named Sumangalá has come from Kámarúpa, and her goodwill is only to be procured by the most lavish expenditure.”
Then a distinguished hetæra of Ujjayiní, named Devadattá, came to her, and gave her her own palace worthy of a king, to dwell in by herself. And when she was established there, my friend Śaśin first sent a message to her by a servant, saying, “Accept a present from me which is won by your great reputation.” But Sumangalá sent back this message by the servant, “The lover who obeys my commands may enter here: I do not care for a present, nor for other beast-like men.” Śaśin accepted the terms, and repaired at night-fall to her palace.
And when he came to the first door of the palace, and had himself announced, the door-keeper said to him, “Obey our lady’s commands. Even though you may have bathed, you must bathe again here; otherwise you cannot be admitted.” When Śaśin heard this, he agreed to bathe again as he was bid. Then he was bathed and anointed all over by her female slaves, in private, and while this was going on, the first watch of the night passed away. When he arrived, having bathed, at the second door, the door-keeper said to him, “You have bathed; now adorn yourself appropriately.” He consented, and thereupon the lady’s female slaves adorned him, and meanwhile the second watch of the night came to an end. Then he reached the door of the third zone, and there the guards said to him, “Take a meal, and then enter.” He said “Very well,” and then the female slaves managed to delay him with various dishes until the third watch passed away. Then he reached at last the fourth door, that of the lady’s private apartments, but there the door-keeper reproached him in the following words, “Away, boorish suitor, lest you draw upon yourself misfortune. Is the last watch of the night a proper time for paying the first visit to a lady?” When Śaśin had been turned away in this contemptuous style by the warder, who seemed like an incarnation of untimeliness, he went away home with countenance sadly fallen.
In the same way that Bráhman’s daughter, who had assumed the name of Sumangalá, disappointed many other visitors. When I heard of it, I was moved with curiosity, and after sending a messenger to and fro I went at night splendidly adorned to her house. There I propitiated the warders at every door with magnificent presents, and I reached without delay the private apartments of that lady. And as I had arrived in time I was allowed by the door-keepers to pass the door, and I entered and saw my wife, whom I did not recognise, owing to her being disguised as a hetæra. But she knew me again, and she advanced towards me, and paid me all the usual civilities, made me sit down on a couch, and treated me with the attentions of a cunning hetæra. Then I passed the night with that wife of mine, who was the most beautiful woman of the world, and I became so attached to her, that I could not leave the house in which she was staying.
She too was devoted to me, and never left my side, until, after some days, the blackness of the tips of her breasts shewed that she was pregnant. Then the clever woman forged a letter, and shewed it to me, saying, “The king my sovereign has sent me a letter: read it.” Then I opened the letter and read as follows, “The august sovereign of the fortunate Kámarúpa, Mánasinha, sends thence this order to Sumangalá, ‘Why do you remain so long absent? Return quickly, dismissing your desire of seeing foreign countries.’”
When I had read this letter, she said to me with affected grief, “I must depart; do not be angry with me; I am subject to the will of others.” Having made this false excuse, she returned to her own city Páṭaliputra: but I did not follow her, though deeply in love with her, as I supposed that she was not her own mistress.
And when she was in Páṭaliputra, she gave birth in due time to a son. And that boy grew up and learned all the accomplishments. And when he was twelve years old, that boy in a childish freak happened to strike with a creeper a fisherman’s son of the same age. When the fisherman’s son was beaten, he flew in a passion and said, “You beat me, though nobody knows who your father is; for your mother roamed about in foreign lands, and you were born to her by some husband or other.”[13]
When this was said to the boy, he was put to shame; so he went and said to his mother, “Mother, who and where is my father? Tell me!” Then his mother, the daughter of the Bráhman, reflected a moment, and said to him, “Your father’s name is Múladeva: he deserted me, and went to Ujjayiní.” After she had said this, she told him her whole story from the beginning. Then the boy said to her, “Mother, then I will go and bring my father back a captive; I will make your promise good.”
Having said this to his mother, and having been told by her how to recognise me, the boy set out thence, and reached this city of Ujjayiní. And he came and saw me playing dice in the gambling-hall, making certain of my identity from the description his mother had given him, and he conquered in play all who were there. And he astonished every one there by shewing such remarkable cunning, though he was a mere child. Then he gave away to the needy all the money he had won at play. And at night he artfully came and stole my bedstead from under me, letting me gently down on a heap of cotton, while I was asleep. So when I woke up, and saw myself on a heap of cotton, without a bedstead, I was at once filled with mixed feelings of shame, amusement and astonishment.