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gave him some charmed mustard-seeds, and said to him; " Sprinkle your wicked former wife with these, and turn her into a mare." Then Vámadatta, taking with him his new wife, went with the charmed mustard-seeds to his own house. Then he killed the herdsman, and with the mustard-seeds he turned*[1] his former wife into a mare, and tied her up in the stable. And in order to revenge himself, he made it a rule to give her every day seven blows with a stick, before he took any food. †[2]
One day, while he was living there in this way with Kántimatí, a guest came to his house. The guest had just sat down to his meal, when suddenly Vámadatta got up and rushed quickly out of the room without eating anything, because he recollected that he had not beaten his wicked wife with a stick that day. And after he had given his wife, in the form of a mare, the appointed number of blows, he came in with his mind easy, and took his food. Then the guest, being astonished, asked him, out of curiosity, where he had gone in such a hurry, leaving his food. Thereupon Vámadatta told him his whole story from the beginning, and his guest said to him, " What is the use of this persistent revenge? Petition that mother-in-law of yours, who first released you from your animal condition, and gain some advantage for yourself." When the guest gave this advice to Vámadatta, he approved it, and the next morning dismissed him with the usual attentions.
Then that witch, his mother-in-law, suddenly paid him a visit, and he supplicated her persistently to grant him a boon. The powerful witch instructed him and his wife in the method of gaining the life-prolonging charm, with the proper initiatory rites. ‡[3] So he went to the mountain of Śrí and set about obtaining that charm, and the charm, when obtained, appeared to him in visible shape, and gave him a splendid sword. And when the successful Vámadatta had obtained the sword, he and his wile Kántimatí became glorious Vidyádharas. Then he built by his magic power a splendid city on a peak of the Malaya mountain, named Rajatakúța. There, in time, that prince among the Vidyádharas had born to him by his queen an auspicious daughter, named Lalitalochaná. And the moment she was born, she was declared by a voice, that came from heaven, to be destined to be the wife of the future emperor of the Vidyádharas.
- ↑ * I read kŗitvá for kírtvá.
- ↑ † Cp. the story of the Porter and the Ladies of Baghdad in the Arabian Nights. (Lane's translation. Vol. I, page 129.) The bitches are solemnly beaten in the same way as the mare in our story. They are the sisters of the lady who beats them.
- ↑ ‡ Professor Cowel informs me that there is a passage in the Śankara Dig Vijaya which explains this. A seer by means of this vidyá gains a life equivalent to 11 years of Brahmá. It seems to be a life-prolonging charm.
