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Tales from Indian Mythology
to address himself to the gods. After all, the old man, his prime minister, was right. "What is penance?" Samvarana asked himself. “Does it not consist in one's concentration on the god one believes in. Where is the need for ritual?" Being proud and young, he had an answer for every problem and that was the only answer he would recognise. Beneath his seeming arrogance and assertiveness, however, lay a charming simplicity, common sense and a readiness to compromise. He knew that his prayer to the Sun God was destined to end as a cry in the wilderness. Was it not really silly and pretentious? Supposing the Sun God revealed himself, what would Samvarana say to him? "I love your daughter and she loves me, too. We have decided to marry, and therefore, O Sun God, please do not stand in our way! Please, please clear out.” What more would occur to Samvarana's secular mind? And what would be the Sun God's reply? Would he care to reply at all? Yes, not in words, but in deeds, and dreadful ones at that. Which girl's father would not punish a fool who proposed to his daughter so crudely and clumsily? Perhaps Tapati was not serious when she suggested that Samvarana should invoke her father through penance. Was she pulling the credulous Samvarana's leg? One should never trust the goddesses and the nymphs. After all, why should they accept mortals, their inferiors, as their husbands? Should Samvarana then forget all about Tapati and go back to his own dreamland?
He thus mused and mused, till, feeling exhausted, he fell asleep.
Samvarana's austerities continued for twelve days. But there was no prospect of his inarticulate, imperfect prayers to the Sun God being answered. One morning, as he was about
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