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a wishing- tree in favour of the needy? For this reason every region of the earth*[1] became devoted to Jímútaváhana, and his stainless fame was spread on high.
Then the relations of Jímútaketu, seeing that his throne was firmly established by the glory of his son, were envious, and became hostile to him. And they thought it would be easy to conquer that place, which possessed the excellent wishing-tree that was employed for bestowing gifts, on account of its not being strong: then they assembled and determined on war, and thereupon the self-denying Jímútaváhana said to his father, "As this body of ours is like a bubble in the water, for the sake of what do we desire prosperity, which flickers like a candle exposed to the wind? And what wise man desires to attain prosperity by the slaughter of others? Accordingly, my father, I ought not to fight with my relations. But I must leave my kingdom and go to some forest or other; let these miserable wretches be, let us not slay the members of our own family." When Jímútaváhana had said this, his father Jímutaketu formed a resolution and said to him; " I too must go, my son, for what desire for rule can I, who am old, have, when you, though young, out of compassion abandon your realm as if it were so much grass ?" In these words his father expressed his acquiescence in the project of Jímútaváhana, who then, with his father and his father's wife, went to the Malaya mountain. There he remained in a hermitage, the dwelling of the Siddhas, where the brooks were hidden by the sandal-wood trees, and devoted himself to taking care of his father. There he struck up a friendship with the self-denying son of Viśvávasu, the chief prince of the Siddhas, whose name was Mitrávasu. And once on a time the all-knowing Jímútaváhana beheld in a lonely place Mitrávasu's maiden sister, who had been his beloved in a former birth. And the mutual gaze of those two young people was like the catching in a frail net of the deer of the mind. †[2]
Then one day Mitrávasu came up suddenly to Jímútaváhana, who deserved the respect of the three worlds, with a pleased expression, and said to him, " I have a younger sister, the maiden called Malayavatí; I give her to you, do not refuse to gratify my wish." When Jímútaváhana heard that, he said to him, "O prince, she was my wife in a former birth, and in that life you became my friend, and were like a second heart to me. I am one who remembers the former state of existence, I recollect all that happened in my previous birth." When he said this, Mitrávasu said to him, " then tell me this story of your former birth, for I feel curiosity about it." When he heard this from Mitrávasu, the benevolent Jímútaváhana told him the tale of his former birth as follows:
