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p. 360-378.]
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the senior of the Tāpasas he had obtained news about me and had started on a search for me. Thus we had met at last. 368, 15. I was confident that I now could acquire the spell. The preparatory operations required six months. The last night brought on the crisis, as is usually the case in sorcery of this kind. While I repeated 100000 times the mantra, frightful apparitions came towards me; but I was not torrified. And when the goddess Ajitabalā herself came forth, 1 did not leave off reciting the mantra, nor did I salute her before the recitation was complete. 371. 19. Then the army of the Vidyadharas arriv. od, and the goddess said that I should be anointed their king. I agreed on the condition that the anointing should take place in the presence of Vilānavati and Vasubhūti. But they were nowhere to be found. Being now able to fly through the air, I went in quest of them, and discovered Vasubhūti in a grove. But mistaking me for a hostile Vidyadhara who had carried off Vilānavati, he attacked me till he found out his mistake. I questioned him about my wife, and he related that in the last night a host of Vidyadharas had arrived which he had believed to be an apparition to frighten him and Vilānavati. But he had then heard the queen crying for help, and he had long followed the Virhāna in which sho was carried away through the air till he had lost sight of it.-At that moment the goddess of my spell arrived afu sent Pavanagati with him Vidyadharan in search of my wife. We remained where we were. 374,5. After three days Patanagati returned and reported that in Rathanūpura-cakravalapura on mount Vaitadhya ho had learnt from the discontented Vidyadharay of that town that their king Anangarati had carried off Vilasavati and intended to tako possession of her even by violence, notwithstanding the warning of the deity of his spell which Mahakali had given him. He had seen Vilasavati who was kept prisouer in a garden. 376, 3. I proposed to send a messłnger to Anangarati who should demand the delivery of Vilásavatl, and though the prin. cipal Vidyadhåras were against my plan, I entrusted Pavanagati with the task of persuading Anangarati. But that king spurned my advice, calling me contemptuously' a 'walker of the earth.'. His answer put the Vidyadharas in a great rage; they
