________________
306
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1896.
sensation set in. As soon as he reached the budu physicians were called in. The most celebrated physicians brought drugs and prepared medicines, and applied them to the wound. But the burning sensation increased. Then the Ballal said to the physicians :-"Your medicine is useless. It has increased my pain. If I use it, I shall die." Then another medicine-man was called in. His medicine was also given a fair trial and proved a failure. So one medicine-man after another was called in, and yet the swelling increased and the burning also became unbearable. He did not find any relief. No one dared to go to give any medicine to the Ballal. Whilst he was in this miserable condition, one " his friends said:"I have heard that Deyi Beidyadi, the wife of Sayana Beidza, nephew of Sama Alwa, is a very wise woman. She knows many medicines, and has cured many diseases."
A man was at once sent to Sama Alwa's house to fetch Deyi Beidyadi. He went to Sama Alwa's house and gave his message. Then Sayana Beidya said to his uncle" O uncle, the Ballil has sent for my wife that she may go and give him medicine for his swollen leg. He has been treated by many able physicians, and yet is not cured. How will my wife succeed in curing him? Besides, she is pregnant and about to be delivered."
Then Sama Alwa told his nephew to call his wife. So he called her, and she came before him, and he told her the Balla's message. To this she said:"I have not learned many medicines. After he has been treated by so many able physicians without any success, what can I do? Besides, I am not able to walk as far as the Ball's budu. It is true the Balla is a great man, and I am worth only three cash. But yet what can I do? If I do not go, it will highly displease him. Still I cannot go, for my time to be delivered is very near."
Then Sayana Beidya told the man who had come from the Balla! what his wife's state was, and that she could not go to the budu. The man returned to the Ballil and told him these things. The Ballal at once ordered his bearers to take his own palanquín to Sayana Beidya's house, and bring the woman in the palanquin to his palace. So the bearers took the palanquin and went to Sama Alwa's house. Sama Alwa, seeing the bearers and the palanquin, asked them:-"Whence are you come?"
"The Ballal of Parmale has sent us," replied they, "to take Deyi Beidyadi to the palace, The Ballal is suffering extremely, and therefore there must be no delay. Let Deyi Beidyadi come and sit in the palanquin. We will take her to the palace."
To this, Sama Alwa replied:-" She is in pain herself; she is moaning. I do not know how she can go to the budu."
The bearers replied:-" We will not stir from this place unless she comes and sits in the palanquin. Our orders are striet. We must take her, and we cannot go without her.'
Deyi Beidyadi came out, and seeing the beautiful palanquin, she said :-"O Râma, what can I do now? I am a poor Billavar woman. How can I sit in the Ballal's palanquin? He is equal to a god. How can I sit in the palanquin? And yet there is no help for it."
Then she told her husband to bring a young red cocoannt, and the roots and leaves of a plant called nekki, and also the tendrils and roots of sixty-four kinds of medicinal herbs. He went and brought them. She gave some presents to the bearers, and having taken her meal she put on her sári and said:"O God, I am not much learned in medicines. I am a very ignorant woman. O God, prosper me, that I may not be put to shame!"
So saying, she started. Then the bearers brought the palanquin before her and requested her to sit in it. But she declined, saying: "I will never sit in the Ballal's palanquin. I am a poor Billavar woman. The Ballil's palanquin is not meant for such as I am."
Though the bearers constrained her, she repeatedly refused to sit in the palanquin; but determined to walk as far as the Ballal's buḍu. So she kept the necessary medicines in the palanquin, and walked behind the palanquin, her husband Sayana Beidya accompanying her.
