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74
CHAPTER TWO both offered fruit. The king asked, “Where did such fruit come from?' They told the story from the beginning of the kalpa-tree brought at the originating of the Hari-line. 80
At that time Kāmapatākikā, dancing with a knife, stole the minds of Prince Cārucandra and of the sage Kausika. When the sacrifice was ended, the prince made her his quickly; but the ascetic Kausika asked the king for her. The king said:
She has been taken by the prince. Moreover she is a laywoman and, one husband having been acknowledged, she would not take a second.' Thus restrained by the king, Kausika pronounced a curse in a rage: ' If you enjoy a woman, you shall die at that very moment.' The king gave his kingdom to his son, Cārucandra, became an ascetic and, nobleminded, lived in the forest. His queen went to the forest with him, not knowing that she was pregnant. In the course of time, to destroy doubt she told her husband about the embryo that had appeared. One day a daughter was borne by her, named Rșidattā. She (the queen) became eventually a laywoman under a flying-ascetic. She (the daughter) grew up; and her mother and nurse died.
One day King Silāyudha came there to hunt. Infatuated at the sight of her, he obtained hospitality from her, led her to a secluded place, and enjoyed her in divers ways. She said: 'I have had a purifying bath. If by chance there should be conception, tell me, what is the proper course for me, a maiden of good family?' He said: “I am Silāyudha, of the. Ikşvāku-line, king in Śrāvasti, son of King Satāyudha. If you should bear a son, you must bring him to me in Srāvasti. Then he, and no one else, must be made king by me.' His soldiers came and he, taking leave of her, went away. She told her father this and in time she bore a son.
Rșidattā died in child-birth and became the chief-queen of Jvalanaprabha, the Nāga. Her father, Amogharetas, taking the boy by the hand, wept very much from grief–he,
80 528. See IV, pp. 77 f.
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