[CHAPTER CIII.]
Return of Kumbha to the Hermitage of Sikhidhwaja.
Argument.—Chúdálá's return after three days, and her rousing the Prince from his trance.
VASISHTHA said:—Now hear me relate to you about Sikhidhwaja, sitting a block of wood on one side, and the reappearance of Chúdálá to him from the other.
2. After Chúdálá had hypnotized her husband Sikhidhwaja, in her guise of the sagely Kumbha; she disappeared from her, and traversed into the regions of air.
3. She forsook her form of the son of the Divine sage in the empty sky, and which she had took upon her by her magic spell. The enchanted form melted away in the air, and she appeared in her female form of beauteous fair.
4. She bent her airy course to her palace in the city, where she showed herself as their queen, before her assembled attendants and courtiers, and discharged the royal duties of her absent lord.
5. After three days she took again to her aerial journey, retook her enchanted form of Kumbha, and advanced to the hermitage of Sikhidhwaja in the forest.
6. She saw there the prince in his woodland retreat, and sitting in his posture of deep meditation and resembling a figure carved in wood.
7. Seeing him thus, she exclaimed repeatedly in herself; O heyday! that he is reposing here in his own soul, and is sitting quiet and tranquil in himself.