Note 6 — Chapter CXII

“When king Pálaka heard this speech of his subjects’, he proceeded to set going in that city the festival of the giving of water. When the festival had begun, and the people had their attention occupied by it, and were engaged in shouting, suddenly an infuriated elephant, that had broken its fastenings, rushed in among them. That elephant, having got the better of its driving-hook, and shaken off its driver, roamed about in the city, and killed very many men in a short time. Though the elephant-keepers ran forward, accompanied by professional elephant-drivers, and the citizens also, no man among them was able to control that elephant. At last, in the course of its wanderings, the elephant reached the quarter of the Chaṇḍálas, and there came out from it a Chaṇḍála maiden. She illuminated the ground with the beauty of the lotus that seemed to cling to her feet, delighted because she surpassed with the loveliness of her face the moon its enemy.6 She looked like the night that gives rest to the eyes of the world, because its attention is diverted from other objects, and so it remains motionless at that time.7