198
mony of averting evil spirits from all quarters by waving the hand
round the head,*[1] and other ceremonies. And then the great ascetic, triumphing by the favour of the boon of Siva, revealed the opening by scattering mustard-seeds in the prescribed manner, and the king entered with him and his pupils, and marched along the road to Pátála for five days and five nights. †[2] And on the sixth day they all crossed the Gangá of the lower regions, and they beheld a heavenly grove on a silver plain. It had splendid coral, camphor, sandal, and aloes trees, and was perfumed with the fragrance of large full-blown golden lotuses. And in the middle of it they saw a lofty temple of Śiva. It was of vast extent, adorned with stairs of jewels; its walls were of gold, it glittered with many pillars of precious stone; and the spacious translucent body of the edifice was built of blocks of the moon-gem.
Then king Bhúnandana and the pupils of that ascetic, who possessed supernatural insight, were cheered, and he said to them, " This is the dwelling of the god Śiva, who inhabits the lower regions in the form of Hátakeśvara, and whose praises are sung in the three worlds, so worship him." Then they all bathed in the Ganges of the lower regions, and worshipped Śiva with various flowers, the growth of Pátála. And after the brief refreshment of worshipping Śiva, they went on and reached a splendid lofty jambu-tree, the fruits of which were ripe and falling on the ground. And when the ascetic saw it, he said to them; " You must not eat the fruits of this tree, for, if eaten, they will impede the success of what you have in hand." In spite of his prohibition one of his pupils, impelled by hunger, ate a fruit of the tree, and, as soon as he bad eaten it, he became rigid and motionless. †[3]
Then the other pupils, seeing that, were terrified, and no longer felt any desire to eat the fruit; and that ascetic, accompanied by them and king Bhúnandana, went on only a cos further, and beheld a lofty golden wall rising before them, with a gate composed of a precious gem. On the two sides of the gate they saw two rams with bodies of iron, ready to strike with their horns, put there to prevent any one from entering. But the ascetic suddenly struck them a blow on their heads with a charmed wand, and drove them off somewhere, as if they had been struck by a thunderbolt. Then he and his pupils and that king entered by that gate, and beheld splendid palace of
- ↑ * My native friends tell me that the hand is waved round the head, and the fingers are snapped four or ten times.
- ↑ † Possibly this story is the same as that of Tannhäuser, for which see Baring- Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 196-208. He remarks that the story of Tannhäuser is a very ancient myth christianized.
- ↑ ‡ For the consequences entailed in European Stories by eating fruit in the under- world, see Kuhn, Westfalische Múrchen, Vol. I, p. 127; Grimm, Irische Múrchen, p. ciii.
