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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(DECEMBER, 1886.
everything they could desire, and, excepting about the sixth ghafiká. The hanting prothe time they were obliged to spend in cooking ceeded as usual till about the eighteenth ghaand eating, spent their days in study and music.
spent their days in study and music. fiká, when the prince was seen to run to a Their evenings they invariably spent most corner of the hunting ground, to disappear for happily in playing the sitar, and thus forget- a time, and then to emerge again from his ting their sorrows. In this way they lived place of concealment. The hunters, thinking a life of innocent enjoyment, in the expectation that it was his pleasure, left him to himself, and that the goddess Varalakshmi would soon engaged themselves in a different portion of relieve them of their troubles by sending
the forest. Thâņuji now found it a good them a suitable husband.
opportunity to escape, and changing his borse At a distance of a hundred kis from where for a fresh one, galloped towards the East and the princesses' mansion had been loeated by the vanished from the sight of his vast army of will of Varalakshmi, was a kingdom named hunters. Just about this time the hunt was Sivapuri. In it reigned a most just king named brought to a close.“ Where is the prince? Have Isabhajt. He had an only son named Thanuji, you seen His Highness ? ” were the questions who was twenty years old,-an age which fitted which the hunters put to each other. But the hinn for taking the reins of the kingdom into his prince was nowhere to be found! They own hands. His royal father wished, there- searched for him in the wood till darkness over. fore, to have his marriage celebrated. The came them, and at last returned to Sivapuri, bride chosen was the daughter of Isabhaji's late at night, without him! own sister, and therefore Thåņuji's first cousin. The old king was waiting the return of the All liked the proposed marriage, except the prince with a sumptuous dinner; and when prince; for thongh the bride was as beautiful as the hunters informed him of his disappearance the moon, she was blind of one eye!
he fell down in a swoon, as it were a tree cat "A one-eyed wife I will never marry!" was at the roots! His sister and other relatives his reply to the several representations his flew to his side to console him, and he was relatives made to him.
slowly brought back to his senses. It now Isabhaji was already very old, and his sole became more than plain to him that he was object in life was to see his son married, and to himself the cause of the prince's flight, by dandle a grand-child before his death. He had having tried to force him to marry Kurndi tried his best previously, on several occasions, against his will. He cursed Kurudi and her to choose a young lady of noble family as a bride mother, he cursed himself, and he cursed for his son, but Thanuji would have none of every one involved in the proposed marriage ! them. However, the king's sister, having He at once sent for the palace soothsayer yreat influence with him, compelled her brother to consult him as to the safety of his son, and to fix on an auspicious day for the marriage of as to the probable date of his return. The his son to her one-eyed daughter Kurudi. soothsayer made his appearance and took his Finding it hopeless to convince his father of his sent before the king with a palm-leaf book on his disinclination to marry a lady who was defective left and square dice of sandal-wood on his by nature, Tháŋují outwardly consented, and the right. When His Majesty explained to him the preparations for the celebration of the marriage disappearance of the prince, and wished to know were commenced on an enormous scale.
all about him, the soothsayer contemplated Two days before the time appointed for the Gaņeśa, cast the sandal-wood dice thrice, and marriage the prince desired to go out hunting turned up a leaf of his palm-book, guided to in a neighbouring forest. His object was not the particular page by the number thrown by really to hunt, but to disappear in the thick the dioe. He then proclaimed: wilderness, and to run away in order to evade Sukra' now reigns supreme; and Sukra's the marriage. The hunting expedition started course is a happy course! A marriage will in the early morning and reached the forest by be gained in the East ! Be cheerful, my son, for
.. (This is a notable incident, as giving a rational ex. planation of the common disappearance of a prince on hunting expedition in Oriental folktales. It usually
takes place in a miraculous manner. -Ed.)
The planet Venus, which is male in India.
