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Ixiv
PARISISTAPARVAN
Kalpaka He grew up a very learned and very pious man, who refusing offers of marriage, led the single life of a scholar and gained the esteem of all citizens (14-23) In a street where Kalpaka used to pass on his daily walks, lived a beautiful Brahman girl However, as she was afflicted with dropsy, nobody would marry her Her father, therefore, resolved to cheat somebody into marriage with her, and fixed on Kalpaka as the man most likely to be taken in and to keep his word Having sunk a well near his house, he placed the girl in it, and when Kalpaka passed the place, he cried for help, promising to marry his daughter to him who should save her Not heeding the second part of the Brahman's cry, Kalpaka rescued the girl But then the father forced him to accept her as bride, as he had silently agreed to this proposition in rescuing her Kalpaka, in the simplicity of his mind, thought himself bound by honour to marry the girl quite against his will, and did so after having cured her of her disease (24-39)
Nanda, hearing of Kalpaka's wisdom, wanted to make him his minister, but could not induce him to accept his offer He then closely watched Kalpaka, hopmg by some casual trespass of the man he would get him in his power Kalpaka's life, however, continuing unreproachable, the king resolved by artifice to involve him in difficulties He therefore ordered his washerman, a neighbour of Kalpaka's, never to return the clothes which Kalpaka should give him to wash Once Kalpaka's wife wanted her best clothes to be washed for a festival by the king's washerman, and her husband, though unwilling at first to risk his things with the fashionable washerman, ended by letting her have her way Of course he could not get her clothes back, though he constantly called at the washerman's for two years His patience being worn out at last, he swore to dye the clothes in the cheat's blood One night he furiously entered the washerman's house and frightened him so much that the clothes were at once given to him, however true to his word, he ripped open the poor man's belly and dipped the clothes in his blood The wife of the washerman pleaded in
