Note 1 — Chapter XXXI

The Asura Báṇa had a daughter, famous under the name of Ushá. And she propitiated Gaurí, who granted her a boon in order that she might obtain a husband, saying to her, “He to whom you shall be united in a dream, shall be your husband.” Then she saw in a dream a certain man looking like a divine prince. She was married by him according to the Gándharva form of marriage, and after obtaining the joy of union with him, she woke up at the close of night. When she did not see the husband she had seen in her dream, but beheld the traces of his presence, she remembered the boon of Gaurí, and was full of disquietude, fear, and astonishment. And being miserable without the husband whom she had seen in her dream, she confessed all to her friend Chitralekhá, who questioned her. And Chitralekhá, being acquainted with magic, thus addressed that Ushá, who knew not the name of her lover nor any sign whereby to recognise him,—“My friend, this is the result of the boon of the goddess Gaurí, what doubt can we allege in this matter? But how are you to search for your lover as he is not to be recognised by any token? I will sketch for you the whole world, gods, Asuras, and men, in case you may be able to recognise him;1 and point him out to me among them, in order that I may bring him.” Thus spoke Chitralekhá, and when Ushá answered “By all means!” she painted for her with coloured pencils the whole world in order. Thereupon Ushá exclaimed joyfully, “There he is,” and pointed out with trembling finger Aniruddha in Dváravatí of the race of Yadu. Then Chitralekhá said—“My friend, you are fortunate, in that you have obtained for a husband Aniruddha the grandson of the adorable Vishṇu. But he lives sixty thousand yojanas from here.” When Ushá heard that, she said to her, overpowered by excessive longing, “Friend, if I cannot to-day repair to his bosom cool as sandal wood, know that I am already dead, being burnt up with the uncontrollable fire of love.” When Chitralekhá heard this, she consoled her dear friend, and immediately flew up and went through the air to the city of Dváravatí; and she beheld it in the middle of the sea, producing with its vast and lofty palaces an appearance as if the peaks of the churning mountain2 had again been flung into the ocean. She found Aniruddha asleep in that city at night, and woke him up, and told him that Ushá had fallen in love with him on account of having seen him in a dream. And she took the prince, who was eager for the interview, looking exactly as he had before appeared in Ushá’s dream, and returned from Dváravatí in a moment by the might of her magic. And flying with him through the air, she introduced that lover secretly into the private apartments of Ushá, who was awaiting him. When Ushá beheld that Aniruddha arrived in bodily form, resembling the moon, there was a movement in her limbs resembling the tide of the sea.3 Then she remained there with that sweet-heart who had been given her by her friend, in perfect happiness, as if with Life embodied in visible form. But her father Báṇa, when he heard it, was angry; however Aniruddha conquered him by his own valour and the might of his grandfather. Then Ushá and Aniruddha returned to Dváravatí and became inseparable like Śiva and Párvatí.4