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BRAHMADATTACAKRICARITA
343 seeing a cloud.” Then Brahmadatta said: “How long shall we, like eunuchs, stay without manly action?” Just then the festival of spring, which had Makaradhvaja (Kāmadeva) attained as sovereign, the intoxicator of young men like wine, took place.
At that time a rutting elephant of the king broke his post, threw off his chain, and went away, like the younger brother of Death, all the people being terrified. The elephant seized with his trunk a girl burdened with the weight of hips, with a stumbling gait, after pulling her up like a lotus. With the miserable-eyed girl begging for protection, weeping, the cry “Ha! Ha!”, like the first syllable of universal grief, arose. “Oh, miserable elephant! you are an outcaste. Are you not ashamed, seizing a woman?” So addressed by the prince, he abandoned her and approached him. Jumping up, setting his foot on the stair of his tusk, the prince mounted him easily and seated himself on his withers. Then the prince quickly tamed him by means of voice, foot, and goad, 319 like a yogi himself with good yoga.
Hailed by the people, “Well done! Well done! Long live! Long live!” the prince led the elephant, like a cowelephant, to the post and tied him. Then the king came there and was astonished, when he saw him. To whom do not his appearance and strength cause surprise? “Who is he? Where from? Is he Sürya or Väsava incognito?”. At these words of the king, Ratnavati's uncle described him. Then the king, considering him to have merit, held a festival and gave maidens to Brahmadatta, like Dakşa (his daughters) to the moon.320 After he had married them and was staying there comfortably, he was told one day by an old woman, who had come and twitched the border of his garment:
“There is a rich man here, named Vaiśravaņa, like another
319 416. With a play on yoga meaning 'a means of control of an elephant' and 'self-concentration. See II, p. 71 and note 132.
320 420. Dakşa gave 27 daughters as wives to the Moon,
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