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made of sapphire, with eyes shining like blue lotuses, throwing off gold, as it were, from the extremely yellow color of its body, adorning the sky with its leaps and the ground with its footprints, she said to her husband, "O master, bring the deer here. It might be a playmate for me." The king, so told by his wife, ran after the deer that was like a loose horse, equal to the wind in speed. The deer, sometimes crooked, sometimes straight, like a riverstream, never stumbling, led the king far away. Sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, sometimes on the earth, sometimes in the air, it could not be caught, like an illusory divinity.
FIVE PREVIOUS INCARNATIONS
When Śrīvijaya had gone far away, Asanighoṣa gradually approached and seized the queen like a solitary goddess of the forest. Then the vidya, Pratāraṇī, commanded by the villain, assumed the form of Sutara and cried out, "I have been bitten by a kurkuṭāhi."276 When he heard that, the king abandoned the deer and returned. On the part of the wise there is exertion for acquisition when there is security (of what they already have). 277 When he saw her fallen on the ground, her body powerless, the king treated her with the best amulets, charms, and herbs. All the medicine, et cetera, though seen to be reliable before, were useless for her, like benefits to a base person. Her lotus-eyes closed, the color of her face pallid, her thighs trembling, her breasts quivering, the ligaments, bones, and joints of her body and limbs relaxed, she soon died, while the king looked on.
When he saw her lifeless, the best of kings fell to the ground in a swoon, unconscious as if dead. Sprinkled
276 252. A legendary serpent with the tail of a serpent and the head of a cock. The vehicle of the śāsanadevi of Pārsvanatha is usually portrayed as a kurkuṭāhi. There is an illustration in the Śricaturvinśatijinānandastutayaḥ, facing p. 161. The Int. to the Dravyasangraha (p. xxix) says: 'dragons having the body of a fowl and the head and neck of a snake.'
277 253. I.e., he abandoned following the deer to save the queen.
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