Kathakoca or Treasury of Stories

Author(s): C H Tawney
Publisher: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation New Delhi

Page 77

51
can be no doubt; if you do not believe it, in this mountainthicket there is a hermit, who possesses absolute knowledge, now performing austerities in the statuesque posture; go and ask him.' When the two monkeys had finished this conversation, they disappeared. Thereupon the Vidyadhara prince, accompanied by his mother, went into the mountainthicket, and said to the hermit that possessed absolute knowledge: Revered sir, is the thing asserted by the monkey true?' The hermit replied: 'It is indeed true; but I will not relate the facts, for fear that it may impede my meditation. There a man possessing absolute knowledge in the city of Hemapura, who will tell you the whole story.' When the Vidyadhara prince heard this, he humbly bowed before the hermit and went to his own city. He left his first mother in a solitary place, and went to his second mother, and said to her: Mother, who is my real mother, and who is my father?' Then the Vidyadharí said: 'My son, I am your mother, and this Vidyadhara is your father.' The prince said: 'No doubt, mother, this is true, but I have a special reason for asking.' Then the Vidyadharí said: 'Your father knows the real truth about it.' Then he questioned the Vidyadhara, and he told the story of the frame, and continued: Consequently, I do not really know who your parents are.' Then the prince said : The monkey and the hermit possessing absolute knowledge said that the woman I have brought here is my mother; so I will go to the hermit possessing absolute knowledge in the city of Hemapura and so remove my doubt.' When he had said this, he went with his mother to Hemapura, and there put a question to the possessor of absolute knowledge, while Jayasundarí took a seat in the midst of a crowd of women. At this moment King Hemaprabha, accompanied by his attendants, was receiving religious instruction from the mouth of his spiritual preceptor. Then the king, seizing a favourable opportunity, said to the possessor of absolute knowledge: Revered sir, who carried off that wife of mine, Jayasundarí ?' The possessor of absolute knowledge answered: 'King, she was
6