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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
pounding Râma's praises, and though himself the all-wise and passionless Lord God, yet saddened by the sadness of a bereaved disciple. In this way many ages passed, while his love for Rama daily increased. Then the generous and merciful god, full of grace and benignity, seeing his steadfastness and affection, and the unchangeable stamp of devotion on his soul, became manifest in all his glory and lauded him highly, for none other had ever accomplished such a vow. In divers ways he instructed him, telling him of Pârvati's birth and of her virtuous deeds, all at full length, in his infinite compassion. Dohd 86.
"Now, Śiva, if you have any love for me, listen to my request: go and marry the mountainmaid and do as I ask you."
Chaupai.
Said Siva, "Though it is scarcely seemly, yet when a master speaks he is not to be gainsaid. I must needs bow to your order, for obedience is the highest duty. If a man would , prosper, he must do, without thinking, as he is told by his parents, or his confessor, or his superior: you are in every way my benefactor, and I bow to your commands." The lord was pleased when he heard Sankara's reply so full of faith, knowledge, and religious feeling, and said, "Hara, your vow stands good; take to heart what I have told you." So saying he vanished, but the vision remained impressed in Sankara's soul, Then came the seven Rishis to visit him, and he addressed them thus in pleasant wise: Doha 87.
"Go to Pârvati and make trial of her love, and then send her father to fetch her home and remove all his doubts."
Chaupai
When the Rishis saw Gauri; she seemed to them like Penance personified, and they cried, "Hear, O daughter of the mountain! why prac
f It was by Narada's advice that the sons of Daksha were dissuaded from multiplying their race, and scattered themselves all over the world in the hope of acquiring knowledge. Not one of them ever returned, and the unhappy father, thus deserted by all his children, denounced as a curse upon Narada that he, too, should always be a homeless wanderer on the face of the earth.
King Chitraketa was childless, though he had a thousand wives. At last, by the blessing of a saint, one of them bore him a son; but when it was a year old they all conspired together and poisoned it. The king was weeping sorely with the dead child in his arms, when Narada came and after much persuasion consented to restore it to life. It at once sat up and began to speak, saying that in a former state of existence it had been a king, who had retired from the world into a hermitage. There one day a woman in charity gave him a cake of fuel, which he put on the fire without
[JULY, 1876.
tise such grievous self-mortification? What has been the sin, or what is the aim? Tell us the whole secret truly." When Bhavânî heard their speech she replied in strangely moving terms:-"I greatly shrink from telling my secret, for you will smile at my folly when you hear it; but my soul is obstinately set and refuses to hear instruction, though I am like one building a house upon the water, or as one who would fly without wings, relying only on the truth of Nårada's prophecy. See, O saints, the extent of my madness. I long for the unchangeable Sankara as my husband."
Doha 88.
The Rishis smiled on hearing her speech, and said "You are moulded like the parent rock; but tell me who has ever listened to Nârada's advice and had a home?
Chaupai.
"Did he not advise Daksha's sons? and they never saw their father's house again. It was he, too, who ruined Chitraketu's family, and also Hiranya Kasipu's. Whoever listens to Nârada's advice, be it man or woman, is certain to become a houseless beggar. Seemingly pious, bat deceitfal at heart, he would make every one like himself. And now you are led away by his words, and are longing to marry a very outcast, a worthless, shameless, tattered wretch, with a necklace of serpents and skulls, and without either family, or house, or even clothes. Tell me, now, what pleasure is to be had from such a bridegroom as this? Better forget the ravings of the impostor. For he married Sati only because other people suggested it, and soon abandoned her and left her to die.
Doha 89.
"And now he never gives her a thought, but goes about begging, and eats and sleeps at his ease. What respectable woman could ever stay with such a confirmed solitary?
perceiving that there were in it a thousand little ante. These innocent creatures all perished in the flames, but were born again in a more exalted position as Chitraketu's wives; while the woman who gave the fuel, and the hermit who used it, became the mother and the child, whom inexorable fate had thus punished for their former sinful inadvertence. After finishing this explanation, the child again fell back dead; and Chitraketu, giving up all hope of an heir, abandoned the throne and began a course of penance.
When Kayadhu, the wife of the demon-king Hiranya-Ka. sipu, was about to bring forth, she received instruction from the sage N&rada, whose words reached even to the ears of the child in her womb. Accordingly, from the moment he was born he devoted himself to the service of Vishnu, and thus provoked his impious father to the acts of persecution which resulted in his own destruction and the extinction of his royal line.
