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contracted by looking at others. And that girl, named Kumudiní, who was being praised by the songs of female attendants, *[1] felt indescribable joy when she saw the prince. She rose up, and took him by the hand and said to him, " I have caused you much suffering," and then with all politeness she conducted him to a seat. And after he had rested a little while, he bathed, and the Asura maiden had him adorned with robes and jewels, and led him out to
the garden to drink. Then she sat down with him on the brink of a tank
filled with wine, and with the blood and fat of corpses, that hung from trees on its banks, and she offered that king a goblet, full of that fat and wine, to drink, but he would not accept the loathsome compound. And she kept earnestly saying to the king; " You will not prosper if you reject my beverage." But he answered, " I certainly will not drink that undrinkable compound, whatever may happen." Then she emptied the goblet on his head and departed; and the king's eyes and mouth were suddenly closed, and her maids took him and flung him into the water of another tank.
And the moment he was thrown into the water, he found himself once more in the grove of ascetics, near the holy bathing-place of Kramasaras, where he was before.†[2] And when he saw the mountain there, as it were, laughing at him with its snows, ‡[3] the disappointed king, despon- dent, astonished, and bewildered, reflected as follows; " What a differ- ence there is between the garden of the Daitya maiden and this mountain of Kramasaras." Ah ! what is this strange event? Is it an illusion or a wandering of the mind? But what other explanation can there be than this, that undoubtedly this has befallen me, because, though I heard the warning of the ascetic, I disobeyed the injunction of that fair one. And after all the beverage was not loathsome; she was only making trial of me; for the liquor, which fell upon my head, has bestowed on it heavenly fragrance. So it is indubitable that, in the case of the unfortunate, even great hardships endured bring no reward, for Destiny is opposed to them." While king Bhúnandana was engaged in these reflections, bees came and surrounded him on account of the fragrant perfume of his body, that had been sprinkled with the liquor offered by the Asura maiden. When those bees stung the king, he thought to himself, " Alas ! so far from my toils having produced the desired fruit, they have produced disagreeable results, as the raising of a Vetála does to a man of little courage."§[4] Then he became so distracted that he resolved on suicide.
- ↑ * Kumudiní means an assemblage of white waterlilies: female attendants may also mean bees, as the Sandhi will admit of ali or áli: rajendram should probably be rájendum, moon of kings, as the kumudiní loves the moon.
- ↑ † Cp. the story of Śaktideva in Chapter 26.
- ↑ ‡ By the laws of Hindu rhetoric a smile is regarded as white.
- ↑ § We have an instance of this a little further on.
