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CHAPTER SIX
wife enlightened by Abhaya with these words and went to his house. Then the Lord of Magadha enjoyed delights with Queen Cillaņā without hindrance, like Purandara with Paulomi.
After he had passed through a birth as a Vyantara, the ascetic with the uștrikā-vow descended into Cillanā's womb as a son. Through the fault of the embryo, Cillaņā had an evil pregnancy-whim--one which not even a Rākşasi would have --for eating her husband's flesh. Devoted to her husband, Cillaņā did not tell any one her pregnancy-whim and because the pregnancy-whim was not fulfilled, she waned like the moon by day. The embryo did not fall, though Queen Cillaņā, disgusted with the evil pregnancy-whim, tried to make it fall, having recognized that it was evil.
The king observed her with her body dried up like a creeper without water and asked her the reason in a voice tender with love.
“ Have I aggrieved you? Is any order of yours disobeyed ? Have you seen bad dreams? Is any wish of yours frustrated, dear?”
Questioned thus persistently by the king, with difficulty she told such a thing with stumbling words, as if she had drunk poison. The king consoled his wife, “ I shall have your whim fulfilled.” “How can this pregnancy-whim be fulfilled ?” he instructed Abhaya. Abhaya put the flesh of a hare with its skin removed on Śreņika's stomach and had him lie down on his back. Then at Śreņika's command, Cillaņā ate the flesh eagerly in secret, like a goddess of the Rakşases. Just while she was eating the flesh thus, the king fainted several times, like one skilled in the art of acting. One moment when she thought of her husband, her heart trembled; but another moment, when she thought of her embryo, it rejoiced. So, Celaņā, whose pregnancy-whim had been fulfilled by the use of wit, fainted at the thought, “Oh! I have killed my husband. I am wicked.” At that time the king showed himself uninjured to the queen and she rejoiced at the sight of him, like a daylotus at the sight of the sun.
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