Note 5 — Chapter LXXXVI · (Vetála 12)

But when king Yaśaḥketu plunged into the sea, he suddenly beheld to his astonishment a splendid city. It gleamed with palaces that had bright pillars of precious stone, walls flashing with gold, and latticed windows of pearl. It was adorned with gardens in which were tanks with flights of steps composed of slabs of every kind of gem, and wishing-trees that granted every desire. He entered house after house in that city, which, though opulent, was uninhabited, but he could not find his beloved anywhere. Then, as he was looking about, he beheld a lofty jewelled palace, and going up to it he opened the door and went in. And when he had entered it, he beheld a solitary human form stretched out upon a gem-bestudded couch, with its whole length covered with a shawl. Wondering whether it could be that very lady, he uncovered its face with eager expectation, and saw his lady-love. Her beautiful moon-like countenance smiled, when the black robe fell from it like darkness; and she seemed like a night, illumined with moonlight, gone to visit Pátála in the day. At sight of her the king was in a state of ecstasy, like that which a man, travelling through a desert in the season of heat, experiences on beholding a river. She, for her part, opened her eyes, and when she saw that hero of auspicious form and bodily marks thus suddenly arrived, sprang from her couch in a state of excitement. She welcomed him, and with downcast countenance, seemed to honour him by flinging on his feet the full-blown lotuses of her wide-expanded eyes; and then she slowly said to him, “Who are you, and why have you come to this inaccessible lower region? And why, though your body is marked with the signs of royalty, have you undertaken the vow of an ascetic? Condescend to tell me this, distinguished Sir, if I have found favour in your sight.” When the king had heard this speech of hers, he gave her this answer; “Fair one, I am the king of Anga, by name Yaśaḥketu, and I heard from a friend on whom I can rely, that you were to be seen here every day in the sea. So I assumed this disguise, and abandoned my kingdom for your sake, and I have come here and followed you down through the sea. So tell me who you are.” When he said this, she answered him with mixed feelings of shame, affection, and joy; “There is a fortunate king of the Vidyádharas named Mṛigánkasena; know that I am his daughter, Mṛigánkavatí by name. That father of mine, for some reason unknown to me, has left me alone in this city of his, and has gone somewhere or other with his subjects. So I, feeling melancholy in my solitary abode, rise up out of the sea on a moveable5 wishing-tree, and sing of the decrees of Fate.” When she had said this, the brave king, remembering the speech of the hermit, courted her so assiduously with speeches tender with love, that she was overpowered with affection, and promised to become his wife at once, but insisted on the following condition; “My husband, for four days in every month, the fourteenth and eighth of the white and black fortnights, I am not my own mistress;6 and whithersoever I may go on those days, you must not question me on the subject nor forbid me, for there is a reason for it.”7 When the heavenly maiden had stated in these words the only condition on which she would consent to marry the king, he agreed to it, and married her by the Gándharva form of marriage.