Note 9 — Chapter V

“Hear what happened to Nanda after you had left him. Śakatála after waiting for it a long time, found that he had now obtained an opportunity of injuring him. While thinking how he might by some device get Yogananda killed, he happened to see a Bráhman named Cháṇakya digging up the earth in his path; he said to him, “Why are you digging up the earth?” The Bráhman, whom he had asked, said, I am rooting up a plant of darbha grass here, because it has pricked my foot.9 When he heard that, the minister thought that Bráhman who formed such stern resolves out of anger, would be the best instrument to destroy Nanda with. After asking his name he said to him, “Bráhman, I assign to you the duty of presiding at a śráddha on the thirteenth day of the lunar fortnight, in the house of king Nanda; you shall have one hundred thousand gold pieces by way of fee, and you shall sit at the board above all others; in the meanwhile come to my house.” Saying this, Śakatála took that Bráhman to his house, and on the day of the śráddha he showed the Bráhman to the king, and he approved of him. Then Cháṇakya went and sat at the head of the table during the śráddha, but a Bráhman named Subandhu desired that post of honour for himself. Then Śakatála went and referred the matter to king Nanda, who answered, “Let Subandhu sit at the head of the table, no one else deserves the place.” Then Śakatála went, and, humbly bowing through fear, communicated that order of the king’s to Cháṇakya, adding, “it is not my fault.” Then that Cháṇakya, being, as it were, inflamed all over with wrath, undoing the lock of hair on the crown of his head, made this solemn vow, “Surely this Nanda must be destroyed by me within seven days, and then my anger being appeased I will bind up my lock.” When he had said this, Yogananda was enraged; so Cháṇakya escaped unobserved, and Śakatála gave him refuge in his house. Then being supplied by Śakatála with the necessary instruments, that Bráhman Cháṇakya went somewhere and performed a magic rite; in consequence of this rite Yogananda caught a burning fever, and died when the seventh day arrived; and Śakatála, having slain Nanda’s son Hiraṇyagupta, bestowed the royal dignity upon Chandragupta a son of the previous Nanda. And after he had requested Cháṇakya, equal in ability to Bṛihaspati,10 to be Chandragupta’s prime-minister, and established him in the office, that minister, considering that all his objects had been accomplished, as he had wreaked his vengeance on Yogananda, despondent through sorrow for the death of his sons, retired to the forest.”11