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laid " Receive, my husband, this maiden, who chooses you for her own." And when she said that, he married her by the Gándharva form of marriage.
But next morning he said to her, by way of an artifice to discover her lineage, about which he felt curious; " Listen, my dear, I will tell you a wonderful story."
Story of the jackal that was turned into an elephant.:— There lived in a certain wood of ascetics a hermit, named Bráhmasiddhi, who possessed by meditation supernatural power, and near his hermitage there was an old female jackal dwelling in a cave. One day it was going out to find food, having been unable to find any for some time on account of bad weather, when a male elephant, furious on account of its separation from its female, rushed towards it to kill it. When the hermit saw that, being compassionate as well as endowed with magical power, he turned the female jackal into a female elephant, by way of a kindness, to please both. Then the male elephant, beholding a female, ceased to be furious, and became attached to her, and so she escaped death. Then, as he was roaming about with the jackal transformed into a female elephant, he entered a tank full of the mud produced by the autumn rains, to crop a lotus. He sank in the mud there, and could not move, but remained motionless, like a mountain that has fallen owing to its wings having been cut off by the thunderbolt. When the female elephant, that was before a jackal, saw the male in this distress, she went off that moment and followed another male elephant. Then it happened that the elephant's own mate, that he had lost, came that way in search of her spouse. The noble creature, seeing her husband sinking in the mud, entered the mud of the tank in order to join him. At that moment the hermit Brahmasiddhi came that way with his disciples, and was moved with pity when he saw that pair. And he bestowed by his power great strength on his disciples, and made them extricate the male and female from the mud. Then the hermit went away, and that couple of elephants, having been delivered both from separation and death, roamed where they would.
" So you see, my dear, that even animals, if they are of a noble strain, do not desert a lord or friend in calamity, but rescue him from it. But as for those which are of low origin, they are of fickle nature, and their hearts are never moved by noble feelings or affection." When the prince of Vatsa said this, the heavenly maiden said to him— " It is so, there can be no doubt about this. But I know what your real object is in telling me this tale; so in return, my husband, hear this tale from me."
Story of Vámadatta and hit wicked wife.:—There was an excellent Bráhman in Kányakubja, named Śuradatta, possessor of a hundred villages, respected by the king Báhuśakti. And he
