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SEPTEMBER, 1891.)
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA; No. 37.
329
On the second day the old woman's anxiety increased, but what could she do ? All her search proved useless.
Now, after thus conferring the boon upon the princess, Mahesvara returned to his place in the heavens, and the sage Narada came to visit him. On meeting the god, he asked him as to what the news was. Mahéśa told of the boon he had granted to the princess.
"Her husband is Atirupa, who has died at Prayaga this morning. We fixed his life at eighteen years, and his term was over this morning. How will he return to the princess P" said the sage.
Then the great god saw the mistake he had committed, but, as he had power to alter things, he said : -
“Our word to the princess shall never prove untrue. Her austerities, also, must never remain unrewarded. If Atirupa is already dead, let him remain so for three days only. Let him regain his life on the fourth day, and let this mystery be unknown oven to himself."
Thus said Mahesa, and cleared himself from a world of confusion!!
Jast as the great god had said, Atirûpa came back to life on the fourth day after his death. He did not know what day it was, and rose up as one rising from a deep slumber. His clothes were all miry, and his body dirty, with the accumulated dirt of several days. He did not know what could have occurred to him. He only had a hazy recollection that the fatal day had come and passed away, and that he had fallen down in the struggles of death. Everything was an enigma. He rose up, went again to the river, bathed and dried his clothes, and, like a madman, returned slowly to his house without understanding what had happened. The good woman, as she welcomed him, said :
“Where have you been to, my good boy, for the last three days P We all missed you, and all my search after you was in vain !"
It now became perfectly clear to Atirûpa that he must have been asleep on the path for three days; or was it a three days' death P The fatal day had anyhow come and passed away, and whether it was sleep or death that had come to him he did not care to puzzle his head about. He invented an excuse for the occasion, and lived under that good dame's kind roof for a few days more, being now of one thing perfectly certain, that the fatal day had passed away, and that he was to live for many more years in the world.
The main object that now stood before him, was the misery which his poor old parents must be in. He had spent nearly two years from them. He had had good reason to fly from them, and now, he thought, he had equally good reason to return.
" Are they likely to be still living ? Shall I ever have the happiness of meeting them again ? If once I can rejoin them, never more will I quit my happy home. I will go and beg a thousand pardons from my father, who, I am sure, will readily grant them."
With his mind thus made up, he spoke to the kind old lady about his intended departure. Though exceedingly sorry to lose him, she allowed him his wish to return to his home, and gave back to him all that he had given her, saying that she had been already rewarded by his good acts and kindness towards her. Our hero received his money back, as he would much need it on his journey, and requested the old lady to come to him, as soon as she heard from him. He would have taken her along with him, but he wanted to know first whether his parents were alive. Hiding the money in his rags, like a true pilgrim from Banaras, he now took the road, and, with the sacred water of the holy Ganges on his shoulders, went his way homewards.
Now every step that he took on his way homewards, oonduoted him unawares to his wife. At the very first rest-house an officer of the princess entertained him sumptuously, and when he was about to resume his journey, pat e palm-leaf mazusoript in his hand, and asked
