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King Hariçcandra's courageous endurance
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khara of Vārāṇasi, and ask for the money. Hariscandra refused to beg money from an enemy: he would rather work as a Caņdāla, and pay from his earnings. Opportunely an old Nişāda, Kāladanda by name, dressed in a loin-cloth, a staff in his hand, came along, and hired him as a watchman in a cemetery of which he had charge. He was to rifle the corpses of their garments, and save the half-burned faggots of the funeral-pyres. His pay was to be half-shares. The king agreed, stipulating that his share was to be paid to the Sage. The latter, hearing this arrangement, broke out in praise of the king's courage and faith. The king and Kāladaņda went to their cemetery (828).
Now a pestilence suddenly broke out in that city of Vārāṇasī, which took off people by the thousand. The king called his minister Satyavasu in consultation. On the way to the king, he was addressed by a certain man, Kalahansa, carrying a parrot in a cage. On inquiry, Kalahansa said that he was bringing the parrot to king Candraçekhara, because the parrot was versed in all the Çāstras.38 When the two were in the presence of the king, he complained of the pestilence, inexplicable, because both himself and his people were leading exemplary lives. He bade the minister find out its cause. Just then arrived a bawd (kuțțini) 89 who had lost her daughter' by the pestilence. Beating her breast, she arraigned the king's character, as being the cause of the pestilence, and the death of her charming daughter, Anañgasundari. The king, outraged by her cruel and false accusation, consulted the minister, who suggested the intervention of a mighty sorcerer that had come from Ujjayinī. The magi
» See my paper, 'On Talking Birds in Hindu Fiction,' Festgrugs an Ernst Windisch, pp. 349 ff.; and above, p. 77.
* See for this stock figure of fiction, the author in Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. vol. lii, p. 631.
