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VASUDEVA'S MARRIAGE WITH KANAKAVATI 145 At that very time King Dadhiparņa arrived at the citygate and a man, Mangala by name, announced to Bhīma that he had come. Bhima approached Dadhiparņa and embraced him like a friend. After showing him hospitality by giving him a house et cetera, he said:
Your cook, the hunchback, knows the sun-cooked pudding. Have him show it to me as I wish to see it. Enough of other conversation.'
Dadhiparņa gave the hunchback orders about the pudding. He demonstrated it at once, like a wishing-tree. Bhima and his attendants ate the pudding at Dadhiparna's insistence to taste its flavour. Davadanti had a dish of the pudding brought and ate it. She knew from its flavor that the hunchback was Nala.
Bhaimi said: 'Formerly an omniscient sūri told me that the sun-cooked pudding belonged to Nala alone here in Bhārata. Whether this man is a hunchback; whether he is a dwarf; or whatever he may be, there is some reason for that. He is Nala without a doubt. The pudding is one test of Nala; there is another. If I am touched by Nala's finger, my hair will stand up from joy, certainly. Let the hunchback touch me with his finger, as if making a tilaka, (to see) by another sign whether he is Nala.'
Asked, “Are you Nala?’ the hunchback said: 'You are completely mistaken. On the one hand, Nala with divine beauty; on the other hand, I, unfit even to be seen.' Because of extreme insistence, the hunchback touched her breast very lightly, like a cleaner of wet letters touching a page. By the mere touch of his finger producing unique joy, Bhaimi's body had erect hair like the karkoțaka.159
“At that time you deserted me while I was asleep. Where are you going now? You are seen after a long time, lord of my life,' Bhima's daughter said again and again. The hunchback, taken inside the house by her, inviting him, drew clothes and ornaments from the bel and jewel-case. He put
159 1033. The Momordica mixta. Its flowers are downy. Roxb, 19 N
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