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Prakrit and Apabhraíša Studies
to follow her, but the hero refuses to drink and accompanies her on a magic underground journey. He possesses the power of making himself invisible and is able to observe her when she dances with the supernatural being whom she visits every night. By means of tokens which he has brought from his subterranean realm, he is able to prove his story and to claim his reward.
This tale . . . seems to be Central European with most frequent appearance in the area from Serbia north of Finland. It does not, so for as is now known, go east of Russia and is represented but once in France and Portugal. A single version is found in Central Africa, and it has not thus far been reported in any other continents. Within its rather narrow geographical range it seems to be fairly popular, since somewhat more than a hundred variants are known.
The heroine in 'The Danced-out Shoes', does not seem to be anxious to be rescued from her otherworld lover.4
These observations of Thompson's about the original source, form and area of currency of the Danced-out shoes shall have to be now basically revised in the light of the Prakrit and early vernacular literary versions of the story known from India.
In Silārka's Caupannamahāpurisa-cariya (879 A.D.)) we find under the account of Svayambhū Vāsudeva and Bhadra Baladeva, the story of Gunavarman and Kanakavati. Its outline is as follows:
Princess Kanakavatı while choosing prince Guņavarman as her husband had made it known to him beforehand that because she was bound by a certain pledge, she would live separately till she becomes free from the binding. After many days of separate life, the prince acquired the power to become invisible in lieu of the services he rendered to a Kāpālika, and in virtue of that power he managed to smuggle himself into the magic aerial car that one night he found carrying the princess and her two maids secretly to the divine Nandana garden. She was to give a dance performance there in the temple of Rşabhadeva along with three
