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43. ABHAYAKUMĀRA RETRIEVES A
RING FROM A WELL
In the city of Rājagrha, there ruled king Prasenajit who had subjugated all his enemies. He had many sons but he considered Srenika alone was accomplished with all royal qualities. But he did not show his favours openly to him because he was afraid that his other sons might become jealous of their brother and even conspire to kill him. Nevertheless deep down in his mind he had decided that Srenika should succeed him. Srenika however, who could not have judged the king's motives, felt unhappy with the father and left home. During his wanderings, he reached the town of Vennā-tata and chose a shop of a merchant as a place to rest for a little while. This merchant had latterly fallen into a decline.
The night before Srenika came to his shop, the merchant had a dream in which he felt that Ratnākara, the God of Sea, himself had married his daughter. Soon after Sreņika arrived at his shop, the merchant concluded a deal of selling out many of his goods that had remained unsold over a long period and the deal brought him a lot of profit in the course of the same morning, he managed to purchase from some tribal persons priceless jewels almost for a pittance. So he was right in thinking that all the wealth that he earned on that day could be only on account of the auspicious presence of the stranger that had come to rest there, namely Srenika. He was even willing to identify him with Ratnākara whom he had seen in his dream the previous night and Srenika was handsome enough to justify this belief. Very politely the merchant asked Srenika to whose house he had come in the city as a guest.
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