334
the following termination of the curse; " Though a mortal thou shalt become, by the favour of Vishnu, the lord of an island, and shalt obtain as thy servant this thy younger brother, who will have become an elephant, a beast of burden fit for gods. Thou shalt obtain eighty thousand wives, and thou shalt come to learn the unchastity of them all in the presence of men. Then thou shalt marry this thy present wife, who will have become a woman, and shalt see her with thy own eyes embracing another. Then thou shalt become sick in thy heart of the world, and shalt bestow thy realm on a Brahman, but when after doing this thou shalt set out to go to a forest of ascetics, thy younger brother shall first be released from his elephant nature, and thou also with thy wife shalt be delivered from thy curse.' This was the termination of the curse appointed for us by the Siddha, and we were accordingly born with different lots, on account of the difference of our actions in that previous state, and lo! the end of our curse has now arrived." When Somaprabha had said this, that king Ratnádhipati remembered his former birth, and said— " True ! I am that very Devaprabha; and this Rájadattá, is my former wife Rájavatí." Having said this, he, together with his wife, abandoned the body. In a moment they all became Gandharvas, and, in the sight of men, flew up into the air, and went to their own home, the Malaya mountain. Śilavatí too, through the nobleness of her character, obtained prosperity, and going to the city of Támralipti, remained in the practice of virtue.
"So true is it, that in no case can any one guard a woman by force in this world, but the young woman of good family is ever protected by the pure restraint of her own chastity. And thus the passion of jealousy is merely a purposeless cause of suffering, annoying others, and so far from being a protection to women, it rather excites in them excessive longing." When Naraváhanadatta had heard this tale full of good sense related by his wife, he and his ministers were highly pleased.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Then Naraváhanadatta's minister Gomukha said to him, by way of capping the tale, which had been told by Ratnaprabhá: " It is true that chaste women are few and far between, but unchaste women are never to be trusted; in illustration of this, hear the following story."
Story of Niśchayadatta.:—There is in this land a town of the name of Ujjayiní, famous throughout the world: in it there lived of old time a merchant's son, named
