Finished.
In The Story of Madana Kāma Rāja (Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 141, a tortoise (turtle) Prince went to the Sun in search of divine Pārijāta flowers; see vol. i, p. 71. The Queen bore the turtle and the Minister’s wife the girl. The Minister refused to agree to their marriage, but the girl told him that she had vowed to marry whoever brought the divine flowers. The Apsaras who gave him the flowers also presented him with a vīnā, or lute, playing on which would summon her. From the first sage who showed him the way and who opened his eyes at each watch he got a magic cudgel in exchange for it, from the second sage who opened his eyes after two watches a purse which supplied everything required, from the third sage who opened his eyes after three watches he received magic sandals which would transport their wearer wherever desired. After exchanging the lute for each of these articles he recovered it each time by the aid of the cudgel. Afterwards he left the articles with the Apsaras, returned as a turtle with the flowers, and was married to the Minister’s daughter. After his marriage the husbands of his sisters-in-law went hunting, the turtle followed tied on the back of a horse, got his club from a banyan tree where he had hidden it, went to the hunt on the magic sandals, and got from his brothers-in-law (who thought him Śiva) the tips of their little fingers and their rings. On regaining his Prince’s form he produced these, but the brothers-in-law were not punished. His wife broke the turtle shell when he was bathing, and in the end he succeeded to the throne.
In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iv, p. 54, in a Bengal story by Mr. G. H. Damant, a Prince went in search of a beautiful woman seen in a dream by his father. An ascetic told him of five heavenly nymphs who came to bathe in a pool at the full moon, and instructed him to take their clothes and remain concealed. After being cursed and turned to ashes he was revived by the ascetic, again carried off their clothes, and sat in Śiva’s temple. They cursed him ineffectively and then agreed that he should marry one of them. He selected the ugliest, who was the disguised beauty; she gave him a flute by means of which he could summon her at any time. The rest of the story is unlike the Sinhalese one.
In Mr. Thornhill’s Indian Fairy Tales, p. 15, a Prince went in search of his wife, an Apsaras who had left him, to a sage who slept six months at a time, and after attending on him for three months was accompanied by him to the pool in which the Apsarases bathed on the full moon night. After being once turned to ashes and revived by the sage, he again stole his wife’s shawl and escaped with it to the sage’s hut, where he was safe. The Apsarases then agreed to give up his wife if he could select her. He picked out the ugliest, and Indra afterwards turned her into a mortal.
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 343, a Prince secreted the feather dress of one of four fairies who, in the form of white doves, came to bathe at a pool in a palace garden. She was then unable to fly away, and he married her.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 452, a person who was in search of his master, a Prince, was advised by a hermit to carry off the clothes of one of the heavenly nymphs who came to bathe in a river. He did so, was followed by her, and the hermit agreed to return her garments on her giving information of the Prince’s whereabouts; she afterwards became the ascetic’s wife. She is termed a Vidyādharī.
In the same work, vol. ii, p. 576, a gambler by order of the God Mahākāla (Bhairava) similarly obtained a daughter of Alambushā, the Apsaras, as his wife.
In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 54, by the advice of a sage a hunter threw a magic unerring chain received from Nāgas, over a Kinnara Princess when she bathed at a pool at the full moon; and she was unable to escape. She could fly only when wearing a head-jewel.