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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(SEPTEMBER, 1905.
his ministrations, but he refused and said he must return at once to his ásana or sacred seat, and left at once for his own home some three days distant.
As soon as he reached home, the Guru purchased a mansion and stocked it with gold and silver, and pearls and corals and the worthiest and finest of the fabries that the strijdta (womankind) delights in, and called his 360 disciples and said :
"My children, go and search the ocean and let whoever finds on it a large box floating, bring it here, and in no case come to me again until I summon you. Do this and I will increase your merit one degree."
So they all scattered to do as they had been bidden.
Now the king of another place had gone hunting on the sea-shore and had brokon the leg of & bear. After his hunt he sat idly watching the sea, while his steed grazed and the wounded bear limped about and gave vent to short savage grunts. He watched the billows rise and fall, and in a short time espied a box floating on their crests, as if it carried a weight in it. He was quite a young man, and, being an expert swimmer, he soon brought the box to shore. Great was his joy to find that it contained so beautiful a girl adorned as a bride.
He put the lame bear into the box and set it afloat once again and returned home post-haste with his prize. There was held a swayamvara for the maiden, who chose the deliverer for husband and great was the wedding that followed.
Meanwhile one of the 360 disciples saw the box on the sea and duly fetched it to the Guru, and at once disappeared as he had been bidden. Greatly delighted was the Guru, and preparing sweets and fruits and flowers and scent, he securely closed all the doors of his chamber and opened the box in an ecstasy. But out jumped the bear, savage and hungry and at war with all human beings from the treatment he had received. Straightway he seized the Gurt by the throat and sucked out his life-blood. Foeling his life going, the Guru dipped his finger in his own blood and wroto on a pillar in the room the following Sanskrit kloka :
ममो इच्छा समो नास्ति देव इच्छा प्रवर्तते राज कन्या-राजद्वारे
विमं भालु भक्षत “Man's desires are not fulfilled. The god's desires prevail. The king's daughter is in the king's palace.
The bear has eaten the priest." It was soon noised abroad that the much-sought-for box had been duly delivered to the Guru, but still no summons reached the disciples. So they proceeded at last together to his house, where on bursting open bis chamber-door, they found his decomposing body. No trace of the murderer could however be found, until the king, who had been sent for, found the Sanskrit verses on the piller and had them translated for him by the pandits.
Thus was the mystery of the priest's death solved, and in due course the minister proved that the bear could have escaped through a drain that was found in the building.
Now it bappened that the princess's father was related to her husband and went to visit him. During his visit he remarked that the queen was remarkably like the daughter he had set afloat in
box. Thereupon they fell on each other's necks, as soon as the father had heard the rest of the story. Thus was the wickedness of the Gurd finally avenged.
