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CHAPTER SEVEN
pool; her hips like a beach in the river of loveliness; her thighs like pillars of plantain; her feet like lotuses; and all the rest of her--whose mind would it not steal ? Because his mind was confused by old age, she was bestowed by the Creator unsuitably on some unfit person, like a Sakrapillar 227 in a cemetery. I shall take her away and place her in my own household. Let the blame for placing her unsuitably pass away from the Creator."
With these reflections Vikramayaśas, distracted by Kandarpa, took her and disgraced his glory. The king put her in his household and, very attentive, always pleased her with varied love-sports. The merchant was distracted by separation from her, as if he were possessed by a demon, as if he had eaten dhattūra,228 as if he had caught a disease, as if he had drunk wine, as if he had been smelled by a serpent, as if he had experienced a derangement of the three humors. Time passed, bringing pain and pleasure to the merchant separated from her and to the king united with her.
Because the king constantly delighted in Vişņuśrī, the women of the household, angered by jealousy, used sorcery (against her). Because of the sorcery she withered away moment by moment, like a creeper from an ant at its root, and died. The king was dead, as it were, though alive, from her death; lamenting and wailing, he became like Nāgadatta. He did not permit Vişnusri's corpse to be thrown into the fire, saying repeatedly, “My wife is pretending silence." The ministers took counsel and deceived the king. They took Vişņusri's body and threw it into the forest. “Just now you were here. Why, beloved, are you not visible? Enough of this game of disappearing, the
827 14. A decorated wooden pillar used in the festival to Indra, now obsolete. See I, 343.
228 18. The Datura, the seeds of which are one of the most common and deadly poisons of India. Watt, p. 488, says that the seeds "enter into the composition of certain alcoholic beverages and render the consumers of these literally mad."
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