________________
Story of Vanarāja
159
away from the city. The boy asked Bhima: Father, where are you taking me to?' Bhima's heart softened, and he said: 'I shall take you where you shall have a good time.' 31 Thereupon he took him to a wild forest, where stood a temple with an image of a Yakşa, Sundara by name, left the boy in his charge, and went off. The boy said to the image: 'Give me sweetmeats (modaka), I am hungry,' and touched the belly of the Yakşa. The Yakşa, tho of stone, gave him sweetmeats 32 (642). Then a merchant arrived, Keçava by name, who lay worrying by night, because his bulls had been lost. The Yakşa told him in a dream not to worry: his bulls would return in the morning. Furthermore he bade him, seeing that he was childless, to accept Vanarāja as a son. To this the merchant agreed. In the morning his cattle came back; he returned home to the city of Suçarma; made over the boy to his wife; and educated him until he was sixteen years of age. It happened that the merchant traveled to the city of the king (who desired Vanarāja's death), and appeared before him. Bidden to sit down, he did so, but when Vanarāja saw the king, he remained standing erect (653). The Purohita, beholding the boy, divine in appearance, again split a nail, and repeated his prediction that the king would lose his kingdom thru him. The king, unable to understand how the boy had managed to survive, since he had commissioned a trusty servant to kill him, wondered if he were an Asura, Vyantara, or Vidyādhara. He asked the merchant whether he really was his son, and when he affirmed the relation, got him to leave the boy with him for some time. Reluctantly he did so, consoled by Vanarāja himself (666). The king,
#sundara, pun on the name Sundara in the sequel.
*Cf. 3. 131: Even stone idols, to whom devotion is paid with intent mind, straightway show delight.'
