“But you have not looked upon her without her clothing?”
“No!”
“How then did you manage?”
When Jīvaka had described what he had contrived, the [[107]]king marvelled greatly, and gave orders to the ministers to install Jīvaka a second time as king of the physicians.
But the man with the swelling of the glands, to whom Jīvaka had said that it would be difficult to find a remedy for his ailment, asked the king whether he had ordered Jīvaka to be installed as king of the physicians out of love for his son or on account of that son’s knowledge of things. The king replied, “On account of his knowledge.”
“However this may be, he has not cured me.”
“O man,” said Jīvaka, “I did not undertake your case. I merely said that it would be difficult to find you a remedy.”
“What is the remedy in my case?” asked the man.
“If on the fourteenth day of the waxing moon,” replied Jīvaka, “a fair-haired man dies and is burnt at the cemetery; and if at that time an ichneumon and a lizard are fighting with one another and fall into the fire; and if you eat both of them, and then drink of the water of the rain poured down by Mahesvara on the cemetery; and if you afterwards partake of kodrava porridge and curdled milk mixed with butter, in that case you will recover. It was because I thought of all this that I told you that the remedy would be a difficult one to find.”
Then the man said, “Your knowledge is excellent, for these are the very things of which I have partaken.” And he joyfully exclaimed, “O king, as Jīvaka deserves to be king of the physicians, let him be appointed to that office.”