← Table of contents
The Kathá Sarit Ságara

Note 4 — Chapter XCVIII · (Vetála 24.)

C. H. (Charles Henry) Tawney translation

With these words the mendicant, thinking he had gained his end, took the corpse down from the shoulder of that king. And he bathed it, and anointed it, and threw a garland round it, and placed it within that circle. And he smeared his limbs with ashes, and put on a sacrificial thread of hair, and clothed himself in the garments of the dead, and thus equipped he continued for a time in meditation. Then the mendicant summoned that mighty Vetála by the power of spells, and made him enter the corpse; and proceeded to worship him. He offered to him an argha of white human teeth in a skull by way of an argha-vessel; and he presented to him flowers and fragrant unguents; and he gratified him with the savoury reek of human eyes,4 and made an offering to him of human flesh. And when he had finished his worship, he said to the king, who was at his side, “King, fall on the ground, and do obeisance with all your eight limbs to this high sovereign of spells who has appeared here, in order that this bestower of boons may grant you the accomplishment of your heart’s desire.”

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings