Note 6 — Chapter XXXI

The wise Yaugandharáyaṇa, for his part, immediately left the king’s court, went to his own house, and reflected—“Often procrastination serves to avert an inauspicious measure. For long ago, when Indra had fled on account of having caused the death of a Bráhman, and Nahusha obtained the sovereignty over the gods, he fell in love with Śachí,6 and she was saved by the preceptor of the gods7, to whom she had fled for refuge. For in order to gain time, he kept saying—‘She will come to you to-day or to-morrow,’—until Nahusha was destroyed by the curse of a Bráhman, uttered with an angry roar, and Indra regained the sovereignty of the gods. In the same way I must keep putting off my master.” Having thus reflected, the minister secretly made an arrangement with the astrologers that they were to fix a distant date.