‘“‘What can we expect of those kings whose standard is a law of deceit, pitiless in the cruelty of its maxims; whose gurus are family priests, with natures made merciless by magic rites; whose teachers are councillors skilled to deceive others; whose hearts are set on a power that hundreds of kings before them have gained and lost; whose skill in weapons is only to inflict death; whose brothers, tender as their hearts may be with natural affection, are only to be slaughtered.
‘“‘Therefore, my Prince, in this post of empire which is terrible in the hundreds of evil and perverse impulses which attend it, and in this season of youth which leads to utter infatuation, thou must strive earnestly not to be scorned by thy people, nor blamed by the good, nor cursed by thy gurus, nor reproached by thy friends, nor grieved over by the wise. Strive, too, that thou be not exposed by knaves, (220) deceived by sharpers, preyed upon by villains, torn to pieces by wolvish courtiers, misled by rascals, deluded by women, cheated by fortune, led a wild dance by pride, maddened by desire, assailed by the things of sense, dragged headlong by passion, carried away by pleasure.
‘“‘Granted that by nature thou art steadfast, and that by thy father’s care thou art trained in goodness, and moreover, that wealth only intoxicates the light of nature, and the thoughtless, yet my very delight in thy virtues makes me speak thus at length.
‘“‘Let this saying be ever ringing in thine ears: There is none so wise, so prudent, so magnanimous, so gracious, so steadfast, and so earnest, that the shameless wretch Fortune cannot grind him to powder. Yet now mayest thou enjoy the consecration of thy youth to kinghood by thy father under happy auspices. Bear the yoke handed down to thee that thy forefathers have borne. Bow the heads of thy foes; raise the host of thy friends; after thy coronation wander round the world for conquest; and bring under thy sway the earth with its seven continents subdued of yore by thy father.
‘“‘This is the time to crown thyself with glory. (221) A glorious king has his commands fulfilled as swiftly as a great ascetic.’
‘“Having said thus much, he was silent, and by his words Candrāpīḍa was, as it were, washed, wakened, purified, brightened, bedewed, anointed, adorned, cleansed, and made radiant, and with glad heart he returned after a short time to his own palace.
‘“Some days later, on an auspicious day, the king, surrounded by a thousand chiefs, raised aloft, with Çukanāsa’s help, the vessel of consecration, and himself anointed his son, while the rest of the rites were performed by the family priest. The water of consecration was brought from every sacred pool, river and ocean, encircled by every plant, fruit, earth, and gem, mingled with tears of joy, and purified by mantras. At that very moment, while the prince was yet wet with the water of consecration, royal glory passed on to him without leaving Tārāpīḍa, as a creeper still clasping its own tree passes to another. (222) Straightway he was anointed from head to foot by Vilāsavatī, attended by all the zenana, and full of tender love, with sweet sandal white as moonbeams. He was garlanded with fresh white flowers; decked[209] with lines of gorocanā; adorned with an earring of dūrvā grass; clad in two new silken robes with long fringes, white as the moon; bound with an amulet round his hand, tied by the family priest; and had his breast encircled by a pearl-necklace, like the circle of the Seven Ṛishis come down to see his coronation, strung on filaments from the lotus-pool of the royal fortune of young royalty.
‘“From the complete concealment of his body by wreaths of white flowers interwoven and hanging to his knees, soft as moonbeams, and from his wearing snowy robes he was like Narasiṃha, shaking his thick mane,[210] or like Kailāsa, with its flowing streams, or Airāvata, rough with the tangled lotus-fibres of the heavenly Ganges, or the Milky Ocean, all covered with flakes of bright foam.
(223) ‘“Then his father himself for that time took the chamberlain’s wand to make way for him, and he went to the hall of assembly and mounted the royal throne, like the moon on Meru’s peak. Then, when he had received due homage from the kings, after a short pause the great drum that heralded his setting out on his triumphal course resounded deeply, under the stroke of golden drum-sticks. Its sound was as the noise of clouds gathering at the day of doom; or the ocean struck by Mandara; or the foundations of earth by the earthquakes that close an aeon; or a portent-cloud, with its flashes of lightning; or the hollow of hell by the blows of the snout of the Great Boar. And by its sound the spaces of the world were inflated, opened, separated, outspread, filled, turned sunwise, and deepened, and the bonds that held the sky were unloosed. The echo of it wandered through the three worlds; for it was embraced in the lower world by Çesha, with his thousand hoods raised and bristling in fear; it was challenged in space by the elephants of the quarters tossing their tusks in opposition; it was honoured with sunwise turns in the sky by the sun’s steeds, tossing[211] their heads in their snort of terror; (224) it was wondrously answered on Kailāsa’s peak by Çiva’s bull, with a roar of joy in the belief that it was his master’s loudest laugh; it was met in Meru by Airāvata, with deep trumpeting; it was reverenced in the hall of the gods by Yama’s bull, with his curved horns turned sideways in wrath at so strange a sound; and it was heard in terror by the guardian gods of the world.
‘“Then, at the roar of the drum, followed by an outcry of ‘All hail!’ from all sides, Candrāpīḍa came down from the throne, and with him went the glory of his foes. He left the hall of assembly, followed by a thousand chiefs, who rose hastily around him, strewing on all sides the large pearls that fell from the strings of their necklaces as they struck against each other, like rice sportively thrown as a good omen for their setting off to conquer the world. He showed like the coral-tree amid the white buds of the kalpa-trees;[212] or Airāvata amid the elephants of the quarters bedewing him with water from their trunks; or heaven, with the firmament showering stars; or the rainy season with clouds ever pouring heavy drops.