Then, king, I went at my leisure to the market-place, and roaming about, I saw that boy there selling the bedstead. So I went up to him and said, “For what price will you give me this bedstead?” Then the boy said to me, “You cannot get the bedstead for money, crest-jewel of cunning ones; but you may get it by telling some strange and wonderful story.” When I heard that, I said to him, “Then I will tell you a marvellous tale. And if you understand it and admit that it is really true, you may keep the bedstead; but if you say that it is not true and that you do not believe it,[14] you will be illegitimate, and I shall get back the bedstead. On this condition I agree to tell you a marvel; and now listen!—Formerly there was a famine in the kingdom of a certain king; that king himself cultivated the back of the beloved of the boar with great loads of spray from the chariots of the snakes. Enriched with the grain thus produced the king put a stop to the famine among his subjects, and gained the esteem of men.”
When I said this, the boy laughed and said, “The chariots of the snakes are clouds; the beloved of the boar is the earth, for she is said to have been most dear to Vishṇu in his Boar incarnation; and what is there to be astonished at in the fact that rain from the clouds made grain to spring on the earth?”
When the cunning boy had said this, he went on to say to me, who was astonished at his cleverness, “Now I will tell you a strange tale. If you understand it, and admit that it is really true, I will give you back this bedstead, otherwise you shall be my slave.”
I answered “Agreed;” and then the cunning boy said this, “Prince of knowing ones, there was born long ago on this earth a wonderful boy, who, as soon as he was born, made the earth tremble with the weight of his feet, and when he grew bigger, stepped into another world.”
When the boy said this, I, not knowing what he meant, answered him, “It is false; there is not a word of truth in it.” Then the boy said to me, “Did not Vishṇu, as soon as he was born, stride across the earth, in the form of a dwarf, and make it tremble? And did he not, on that same occasion, grow bigger, and step into heaven? So you have been conquered by me, and reduced to slavery. And these people present in the market are witnesses to our agreement. So, wherever I go, you must come along with me.” When the resolute boy had said this, he laid hold of my arm with his hand; and all the people there testified to the justice of his claim.
Then, having made me his prisoner, bound by my own agreement, he, accompanied by his attendants, took me to his mother in the city of Páṭaliputra. And then his mother looked at him, and said to me, “My husband, my promise has to-day been made good, I have had you brought here by a son of mine begotten by you.” When she had said this, she related the whole story in the presence of all.
Then all her relations respectfully congratulated her on having accomplished her object by her wisdom, and on having had her disgrace wiped out by her son. And I, having been thus fortunate, lived there for a long time with that wife, and that son, and then returned to this city of Ujjayiní.
“So you see, king, honourable matrons are devoted to their husbands, and it is not the case that all women are always bad.” When king Vikramáditya had heard this speech from the mouth of Múladeva, he rejoiced with his ministers. Thus hearing, and seeing, and doing wonders, that king Vikramáditya[15] conquered and enjoyed all the divisions of the earth.
“When the hermit Kanva had told during the night this story of Vishamaśíla, dealing with separations and reunions, he went on to say to me who was cut off from the society of Madanamanchuká; ‘Thus do unexpected separations and reunions of beings take place, and so you, Naraváhanadatta, shall soon be reunited to your beloved. Have recourse to patience, and you shall enjoy for a long time, son of the king of Vatsa, surrounded by your wives and ministers, the position of a beloved emperor of the Vidyádharas.’ This admonition of the hermit Kanva enabled me to recover patience; and so I got through my time of separation, and I gradually obtained wives, magic, science, and the sovereignty over the Vidyádharas. And I told you before, great hermits, how I obtained all these by the favour of Śiva, the giver of boons.”
By telling this his tale, in the hermitage of Kaśyapa, Naraváhanadatta delighted his mother’s brother Gopálaka and all the hermits. And after he had passed there the days of the rainy season, he took leave of his uncle and the hermits in the grove of asceticism, and mounting his chariot, departed thence with his wives and his ministers, filling the air with the hosts of his Vidyádharas. And in course of time he reached the mountain of Ṛishabha his dwelling-place; and he remained there delighting in the enjoyments of empire, in the midst of the kings of the Vidyádharas, with queen Madanamanchuká, and Ratnaprabhá and his other wives; and his life lasted for a kalpa.