Then each of the seven said, “The Princess is for me, for me.”
Afterwards the Princess said, “You seven persons shoot your arrows together. I will marry the one whose arrow is picked up in front of the others.”
After that, they all seven having at one discharge shot their arrows, while the seven persons were running to pick up the arrows the Princess went off, making the horse bound along. Those seven persons having run and run for a great distance, returned again because they could not come up to her.
The Prince having awoke, when he looked the two horses were not there, and the Princess was not there. So he walked away weeping and weeping.
Then, while the Princess was going near yet another city, putting on Brāhmaṇa clothes she went to the school at that city, and there having begged from a child a slate[1] and slate pencil,[1] she wrote a name in Brāhmaṇa letters (Dēvanāgari).
When she had given it to the children who were at the school, nobody, including also the teacher, was able to read it. Then the teacher took it to the King of that country, and showed him it. The King also could not read it. So the King appointed her as a teacher, saying, “From to-day the Brāhmaṇa must teach letters at the school.”
Now, when the Brāhmaṇa had been teaching letters for a long time, men told the King tales about her: “That is a woman indeed; no Brāhmaṇa.”
Then the King having said, “Hā. It is good,” told the servants, “Inviting that Brāhmaṇa, go to my flower garden. If it be a woman, she will pick many flowers and come away after putting them in her waist pocket. If it be a Brāhmaṇa, he will pick one flower, and come away turning it round and round near his eye.”
That Brāhmaṇa had reared a parrot. The parrot heard from the roof of the palace the words said by the King, and having gone to the school said to the Brāhmaṇa, “The King says thus.”
Next day, the Ministers having come to the school said, “Let us go to the flower garden,” and inviting the Brāhmaṇa, went there. Keeping in mind the words said by the parrot, the Brāhmaṇa broke off one flower, and holding it near the eye came away turning it round and round. The King looking on said, “From to-day no one must say again that it is a woman.”