Note 5 — Chapter LXX

There was an excellent Bráhman in Ayodhyá named Dámadhi. I am his son, and my name is Śrutadhi. And once in a time of famine he was wandering about with me, and he reached this place almost dead. Here he got five fruits which some one gave him, and though he was exhausted with hunger, he gave three to me, and set aside two for himself. Then he went into the water of the lake to bathe, and in the meanwhile I ate all the five fruits, and pretended to be asleep. He returned after bathing, and beholding me cunningly lying here as motionless as a log, he cursed me, saving, “Become a dry tree here on the bank of the lake. And on moonlight nights flowers and fruit shall spring from you, and when once on a time you shall have refreshed guests with fruits, you shall be delivered from your curse.”5 As soon as my father had pronounced this curse on me, I became a dry tree, but now that you have tasted my fruit, I have been delivered from the curse, after enduring it for a long time.