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TRANSLATION
37
When addressed thus, she (VIŞAMAŚĪLA) said, "Child, now hear how by discernment, hidden treasure can be found out and how a man of Haridrā rāga can be won over",
THUS ENDS THE THIRD TALE OF MADHAVA IN THE SRNGARAMANJARIKATHA COMPOSED BY MAHARAJADHIRAJAPARAMESVARA ŚRĪBHOJADEVA.
(THE FOURTH TALE OF SURADHARMAN) Here on the banks of the Ganges, is a town of the brāhmanas called Hastigrāma. There lived a brāhmaṇa called SŪRADHARMAN. He was extremely poor as were also his father and grandfather. He did not obtain sufficient food ... (31) and he became a young man by the time his father died. He saw the wealth of the other persons of the town and felt miserable, and wondered by what means he would obtain such wealth. 'Riches help to gain more riches, but I have nothing. I would serve a king, but I do not know how. Now what should I do? Be it so, I shall worship the Lord of the Sea'.
Resolving thus, wandering he came to the shores and saw the sea. (The sea) which was embracing as it were his beloved, the Glory of the sky with plump breasts, by waves scraping the sky, surpassing the mountains by their heights, adorned with various precious jewels and whitened by balls of foam as white as sandalpaste; whose water was drunk by the submarine-fire which assumed many bodies, being unable to drink it all with one, under the guise of the flashing creepers of corals.
To such a god of the sea he started paying homage. Every morning wearing a short leather petticoat and taking a staff in his hands he would go and offer a handful of flowers to the sea, and bowing down he would move forward and backward with the tide and the ebb. Spending the whole day thus, in the evening after paying his salutations to the sea he would return. He spent many years thus, sustaining himself on alms.
Now once, taking pity on him, the sea, assuming the form of a small boy said to him: "Oh! Brahmaņa, why do you trouble yourself day and night by coming and going?” Being thus spoken to, he said: (32) "Young man, why do you worry about it? Go your own way". But when the boy persistently asked him he said: "I am much afflicted by poverty which has come down to me from generations together with my family traditions. Therefore I am worshipping the sea". Seeing his firm resolve, the boy said: "I am the
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