On the seventeenth Monday Kartakswami suddenly appeared, and both of them were reconciled. Later on, Kartakswami asked Parwati how she had brought him back, and Parwati told him. Now Kartakswami had a Brahman friend who had gone into a far-off country, and Kartakswami met him by accident shortly afterwards. He told the Brahman how the priest had cured himself of leprosy, and how he and Parwati had become reconciled. So the Brahman also practised the same rites for seventeen Mondays. He then set out for a distant country. As he travelled he came to a town. Now it happened that in that town arrangements were being made for the marriage of the king's daughter. Several princes had come from far-off countries to compete for her hand, and the king had erected a splendid pavilion for the royal betrothal. But he would not himself choose a prince to be his daughter's husband. He ordered that a garland should be placed on a she-elephant's trunk, and that the prince round whose neck the she-elephant threw the garland should be chosen to marry the king's daughter. But the she-elephant passed by all the princes in turn, until she came
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