Note 6 — Chapter LXVII

Speaking thus, the saintly woman refreshed me with her voice as with cloudless rain, and then she took me to the hermitage of her father, the great hermit Mátanga. And at her request the hermit bestowed on me that Velá, like the happiness of the kingdom of the imagination incarnate in bodily form. But one day, as I was living happily with Velá, I commenced a splashing match with her in the water of a tank. And I and Velá, not seeing the hermit Mátanga, who had come there to bathe, sprinkled him inopportunely with some of the water which we threw. That annoyed him, and he denounced a curse on me and my wife, saying, “You shall be separated, you wicked couple.” Then Velá clung to his knees, and asked him with plaintive voice to appoint a period for the duration of our curse, and he, after thinking, fixed its end as follows, “When thou shalt behold at a distance Naraváhanadatta the future mighty emperor of the Vidyádharas, who shall beat with a swift elephant a pair of fleet horses, then thy curse shall be at an end, and thou shalt be re-united with thy wife.” When the ṛishi Mátanga had said this, he performed the ceremony of bathing and other ceremonies, and went to Śvetadvípa through the air, to visit the shrine of Vishṇu. And Yamuná said to me and my wife—“I give you now that shoe covered with valuable jewels, which a Vidyádhara long ago obtained, when it had slipped off from Śiva’s foot, and which I seized in childish sport.” Thereupon Yamuná also went to Śvetadvípa. Then I having obtained my beloved, and being disgusted with dwelling in the forest, through fear of being separated from my wife, felt a desire to return to my own country. And setting out for my native land, I reached the shore of the sea; and finding a trading vessel, I put my wife on board, and was preparing to go on board myself, when the wind, conspiring with the hermit’s curse, carried off that ship to a distance. When the ship carried off my wife before my eyes, my whole nature was stunned by the shock, and distraction seemed to have found an opening in me, and broke into me and robbed me of consciousness. Then an ascetic came that way, and seeing me insensible, he compassionately brought me round and took me to his hermitage. There he asked me the whole story, and when he found out that it was the consequence of a curse, and that the curse was to end, he animated me with resolution to bear up. Then I found an excellent friend, a merchant, who had escaped from his ship that had foundered in the sea, and I set out with him in search of my beloved. And supported by the hope of the termination of the curse, I wandered through many lands and lasted out many days, until I finally reached this city of Vaiśákha, and heard that you, the jewel of the noble family of the king of Vatsa, had come here. Then I saw you from a distance beat that pair of swift horses with the female elephant, and the weight of the curse fell from me, and I felt my heart lightened.6 And immediately I saw that dear Velá coming to meet me, whom the good merchants had brought in their ship. Then I was re-united with my wife, who had with her the jewels bestowed by Yamuná, and having by your favour crossed the ocean of separation, I came here, prince of Vatsa, to pay you my respects, and I will now set out cheerfully for my native land with my wife.