Note 4 — Chapter XCIII · (Vetála 19.)

And that pious king Chandraprabha, hearing of the death of his father, lamented for him, and performed the usual ceremonies, and then said to his ministers, “How can I ever pay my debt to my father? However I will make one recompense to him with my own hand. I will take his bones and duly fling them into the Ganges, and I will go to Gayá, and offer an obsequial cake to all the ancestors, and I will diligently perform a pilgrimage to all sacred waters, as far as the eastern sea.” When the king said this, his ministers said to him, “Your majesty, kings ought never to do these things, for sovereignty has many weak points, and cannot subsist a moment without being upheld. So you must pay this debt to your father by the instrumentality of another. What visiting of holy waters, other than the doing of your duty, is incumbent upon you? Kings, who are ever carefully guarded, have nothing to do with pilgrimage, which is exposed to many dangers.” When king Chandraprabha heard this speech of his ministers’, he answered them, “Away with doubts and hesitations! I must certainly go for my father’s sake; and I must visit the sacred waters, while I am young and strong enough. Who knows what will take place hereafter, for the body perishes in a moment? And you must guard my kingdom until my return.” When the ministers heard this resolve of the king’s, they remained silent. So the king got ready all the requisites for the journey. Then, on an auspicious day, the king bathed, made offerings to the fire, gave complimentary presents to Bráhmans, and ascended a chariot to which the horses were yoked, subdued in spirit and wearing the dress of an ascetic,4 and started on his pilgrimage. With difficulty did he induce the feudal chiefs, the Rájpúts, the citizens, and the country people, who followed him as far as the frontier, to return, much against their will; and so, throwing the burden of his realm upon his ministers, king Chandraprabha set out in the company of his private chaplain, attended by Bráhmans in chariots. He was diverted by beholding various garbs, and hearing various languages, and by the other distractions of travel, and so seeing on his way all kinds of countries, in course of time he reached the Ganges. And he gazed upon that river, which seemed with the ridges of its waves to be making a ladder for mortals to ascend into heaven by; and which might be said to imitate Ambiká, since it sprang from the mountain Himavat, and playfully pulled in its course the hair of Śiva, and was worshipped by the divine Ṛishis and the Gaṇas. So he descended from his chariot, and bathed in that river, and threw into it in accordance with pious custom the bones of king Súryaprabha.