Volume 2 / Book 17 — Chapter CXVI.

And Indra said to Chandraketu the king of the Vidyádharas, “Why has Muktáphalaketu not yet come?” Then Chandraketu humbly made answer, “When I was marching out I was in such a hurry that I forgot to tell him; but he is sure to hear of it, and will certainly follow me quickly.” When the king of the gods heard this, he quickly sent the dexterous charioteer of the Wind-god to bring the noble Muktáphalaketu. And his father Chandraketu sent with Indra’s messenger his own warder, with a force and a chariot, to summon him.

Now it happened that, at that very time, Padmávatí the daughter of Padmaśekhara the king of the Gandharvas, who had now grown up, had taken leave of her mother, who was engaged in austerities to bring good fortune to her husband who had gone to war, and had come, with her attendant ladies, in a chariot, from the world of Indra, to that temple of Gaurí, with the intention of performing asceticism in order to ensure success to her father in battle, and to the bridegroom on whom she had set her heart.

When the princess said this, her attendant lady answered her, “Then this exertion on your part, though directed towards an object still in the future, is right and proper; may your desire be accomplished!” Just as her friend was saying this to her, the princess reached a large and beautiful lake in the neighbourhood of the temple of Gaurí. It was covered all over with bright full-blown golden lotuses, and they seemed as if they were suffused with the beauty flowing forth from the lotus of her face. The Gandharva maiden went down into that lake, and gathered lotuses with which to worship Ambiká, and was preparing to bathe, when two Rákshasís came that way, as all the Rákshasas were rushing to the battle between the gods and Asuras, eager for flesh. They had up-standing hair, yellow as the flames vomited forth from their mouths terrible with tusks, gigantic bodies black as smoke, and pendulous breasts and bellies. The moment that those wanderers of the night saw that Gandharva princess, they swooped down upon her, and seized her, and carried her up towards the heaven.

But the deity, that presided over her chariot, impeded the flight of those Rákshasís, and her grieving retinue cried for help; and while this was going on, Muktáphalaketu issued from the temple of the goddess, having performed his worship; and hearing the lamentation, he came in that direction. When the great hero beheld Padmávatí gleaming bright in the grasp of that pair of Rákshasís, looking like a flash of lightning in the midst of a bank of black clouds, he ran forward and delivered her, hurling the Rákshasís senseless to earth by a blow from the flat of his hand. And he looked on that torrent river of the elixir of beauty, adorned with a waist charming with three wave-like wrinkles, who seemed to have been composed by the Creator of the essence of all beauty, when he was full of the wonderful skill he had acquired by forming the nymphs of heaven. And the moment he looked on her, his senses were benumbed by love’s opiate, though he was strong of will; and he remained for a moment motionless, as if painted in a picture.

And Padmávatí too, now that the alarm caused by the Rákshasís was at an end, at once recovered her spirits, and looked on the prince, who possessed a form that was a feast to the eyes of the world, and who was one fitted to madden womankind, and seemed to have been created by Fate by a blending together in one body of the moon and the god of Love. Then, her face being cast down with shame, she said of her own accord to her friend, “May good luck befall him! I will depart hence, from the presence of a strange man.”

When he addressed this question to the princess’s companion, she answered him, “Fair sir, this my friend is the maiden named Padmávatí, the daughter of Padmaśekhara the king of the Gandharvas, and Śiva has ordained that her husband is to be Muktáphalaketu, the son of Chandraketu, the darling of the world, the ally of Indra, the destined slayer of Vidyuddhvaja. Because she desires the victory for that future husband of hers and for her father in the battle now at hand, she has come to this temple of Gaurí to perform asceticism.”

And Padmávatí followed with her eyes, as long as he was in sight, that hero, who with one blow from the flat of his hand had slain the two Rákshasís, and with him ever in her thoughts, she bathed and worshipped Śiva and Párvatí, and from that time forth kept performing asceticism in that very place, to ensure his success.

And Muktáphalaketu, still thinking on his sight of her, which was auspicious and portended victory, reached the place where the battle was going on between the gods and Asuras. And when they saw that hero arrive well-armed and accompanied by a force, all the great Asuras rushed to attack him. But the hero cut their heads to pieces with a rain of arrows, and made with them an offering to the gods of the cardinal points, by way of inaugurating the feast of battle.

But Vidyuddhvaja, seeing his army being slain by that Muktáphalaketu, himself rushed in wrath to attack him. And when he smote with arrows that Daitya, as he came on, the whole army of the Asuras rushed upon him from every quarter. When Indra saw that, he at once attacked the army of the Daityas, with the Siddhas, Gandharvas, Vidyádharas, and gods at his back.

And at the end of the twenty-fifth day a series of single combats was taking place between the principal warriors of both armies along the greater part of the line of fight. And then a duel began between the noble Muktáphalaketu, and Vidyuddhvaja, the former in a chariot, the latter on an elephant. Muktáphalaketu repelled the weapon of darkness with the weapon of the sun, the weapon of cold with the weapon of heat, the rock-weapon with the thunderbolt-weapon, the serpent-weapon with the weapon of Garuḍa, and then he slew the elephant-driver of that Asura with one arrow, and his elephant with another. Then Vidyuddhvaja mounted a chariot, and Muktáphalaketu killed the charioteer and the horses. Then Vidyuddhvaja took refuge in magic. He ascended into the sky invisible with his whole army, and rained stones and weapons on all sides of the army of the gods. And as for the impenetrable net of arrows which Muktáphalaketu threw around it, that Daitya consumed it with showers of fire.