ORIENTAL SERIES.

NALA. 215
Nasatya, He was taught the art of training and managing
horses by Drcma, and when he entered the service of the king
of Virata he was master of the horse. He had a son named
Nir-amitra hy his wife Karewi-mati, a princess
of Chedi. See
Maha-hharata.
NALA i. King of Nishadha and husband of Damayantl.
The story of Nala and Damayantl is one of the episodes of the
Maha-bharata, and is well known from having been translated
into Latin by Bopp and into English verse by Dean Milman.
Damayantl was the only daughter of Bhima, king
of Yidarbha
(Birar), and was very lovely and accomplished. Nala was brave
and handsome, virtuous, and learned in the Yedas, skilled in
arms and in the management of horses, but addicted to the vice
of gambling. They loved each other upon the mere fame of their
respective virtues and beauty, and Damayantl pined
presence
for the
of her unknown lover. Bhima determined that his
daughter should hold a swayam-vara. Kajas
flocked to it in
crowds, and among them Nala. Tour gods, Indra, Agni,
Yaruwa, and Yama, also attended. Nala met them on the
way, and reverently promised to do their will They bade him
enter the palace and inform Damayantl that they would present
themselves among the candidates, and that she must choose
one of them. Nala reluctantly performed his task, but his
presence perfected his conquest, and the maiden announced her
resolve to pay due homage to the gods, but to choose him for
her lord. Each of the four gods assumed the form of Nala,
but the lover's eye distinguished the real one, and she made her
choice. They married and lived for some time in great happi-
ness, a son and a daughter, named Indrasena and Indrasena,
being born to them. Kali, a personification
of the Kali or iron
age, arrived too late for the swayam-vara. He resolved to be
revenged, and he employed his peculiar powers
to ruin Nala
through his love of gambling. At his instigation, Pushkara,
Nala's younger brother, proposed a game of dice. Kali charmed
the dice, and Nala went on losing ; but he was infatuated ; the
entreaties of friends and ministers, wife and children, wete of
no avail ; he went on till he had lost his all, even to his clothes.
His rival Pushkara became king, and proclaimed that no one
was to give food or shelter to Nala, so the ruined monarch
wandered forth into the forest with his wife, and suffered great