Note 9 — Chapter LXXXVI · (Vetála 12)

“And one fourteenth day I came here and worshipped Gaurí for a long time; and, as fate would have it, so ardent was my devotion that the day came to an end before my worship was finished. That day my father ate nothing and drank nothing, though he was hungry and thirsty, as he waited for me, but he was very angry with me. And when I returned in the evening with downcast countenance, conscious of my fault, his love for me was so completely overpowered by the force of Destiny, that he cursed me in the following words; ‘As owing to your arrogance I was devoured to-day by hunger, so on the eighth and fourteenth days of the two fortnights of every month, and on those days only, a Rákshasa named Kṛitántasantrása shall swallow you, when you go to that place outside the city to worship Śiva; and on every occasion you shall make your way through his heart and come out alive. But you shall not remember the curse, nor the pain of being swallowed; and you shall remain alone here.’9 When my father had uttered this curse, I managed gradually to propitiate him, and after thinking a little he appointed this termination to my curse; ‘When a king named Yaśaḥketu, lord of the land of Anga, shall become your husband, and shall see you swallowed by the Rákshasa, and shall slay him, then you shall issue from his heart, and shall be delivered from your curse, and you shall call to mind your curse and the other circumstances, and all your supernatural sciences.’