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from the arches of the gateways. Wandering from house to house in the city, Sumitra at last reached the palace; there also he did not behold a single human being. Then he went up to the seventh story of the palace. There he saw a couple of female camels with their bodies streaked with saffron colour, with their heads whitened with abundance of camphor, with their slender necks adorned with garlands of sweet-smelling flowers, and their two feet fettered with iron gyves. Sumitra said to himself: "This is strange! How did these female camels get into this deserted city? Moreover, how did they ascend to this seventh story ?" While he was thinking over this, he saw in a window two vessels; in one vessel was white collyrium, in the other black.* He also saw in the same place a collyrium pencil for the eyes. Sumitra thought: "Surely this is collyrium that possesses some wonderful magical properties. Someone has touched with the white collyrium the eyes of the camels, and from being women, they have become by its application female camels."+ Thereupon Sumitra touched their eyes with the black collyrium, and by virtue of the collyrium they became two girls of unexampled loveliness. Those girls said to Sumitra: "How have you come to this deserted town?" Sumitra said: 'My good fortune was in the ascendant. But I have great wonder in my heart: how did you, wearing the form of women, arrive in this town?" They proceeded to tell their story as follows:
""
"In this very land of Bharata, in the northern quarter, on the bank of the Ganges, is а town named Subhadra. In it there lived
a merchant named Gangáditya, and he had a wife named
STORY OF THE HYPOCRITICAL ASCETIC AND THE Two MAIDENS.
* In the second story of the Panchadandachattraprabandha' we find a cat and black ointment. When anointed with this, she turns into a lovely princess. When first discovered in her feline form, her eyes were seen to be smeared with white ointment (anjana).
† See the index at the end of my translation of the Katha Sarit Ságara,' under the head 'Animal Transformation.'
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