Kathakoca or Treasury of Stories

SR No.: 016059
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: C H Tawney
Publisher: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation New Delhi
Publication Year: 1975
Total Pages: 288
Language: English
Classification: Dictionary & Dictionary
File Size: 15 MB

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with that newly-married wife went to practise asceticism. Both the king and the queen went to the hermitage of the abbot Viçvabhúti, and there engaged in asceticism. Then, while the Queen Prítimatí was practising asceticism, a pregnancy which was previously caused declared itself in the fifth month. When the ascetics saw her in such a state they were all shocked. Then King Harishena said : “Queen, what is the meaning of this ?” She answered : “This is a pregnancy previously caused, but I did not tell you of it when I ought to have done so, because I was afraid that it would interfere with my practising asceticism." Then all the ascetics who had previously occupied that hermitage left it, and went elsewhere. But Harishena and his wife remained there. Those two passed four months in a state of extreme sorrow, blaming their own action. When the ninth month was completed Queen Prítimatí brought forth a daughter. Because she was born in the hermitage of the rishis, her parents called her Rishidattá. Then, as fate would have it, her mother Prítimatí died from the consequences of childbirth, and after performing Prítimati's funeral the father tended and brought up the child till she attained the age of eight years. Then her father thought: “ The beings that roam in the forest will see that my child is beautiful, and will carry her off.” So he prepared a collyrium for her. The secret of this collyrium that makes invisible* was long ago communicated to him by the abbot Viçvabhúti. For that reason that daughter of his became invisible to those that roam in the forest.
Know, 0 prince of auspicious aspect, that I am that Harishena, and that this is my daughter.'
The prince looked at the maiden with such a loving glance, and she looked at him with such a loving glance, that they were both in either's powers.'t The hermit, * Compare 'Katha Sarit Ságara,' vol. ii., p. 221.
+ I take these words from Shakespeare's Tempest.' I may, perhaps, draw attention to the fact that there is a certain similarity between the two stories.