The ocean of story, being C.H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's ...

112 THE OCEAN OF STORY
companions :
" Do you know whose daughter that maiden is,
and what her name is ? " When his friends heard that, they
"
said to him : There is a certain Matanga, 1 in the quarter of
the Chandalas, named Utpalahasta, and she is his daughter,
Suratamanjari by name. Her lovely form can give pleasure
2
to the good only by being looked at, like that of a pictured
beauty, but cannot be touched without pollution." When
the prince heard that from his friends, he said to them :
"
I do not think she can be the daughter of a Matanga, she
is certainly some heavenly maiden; for a Chandala maiden
would never possess such a beautiful form. Lovely as she is,
if she does not become my wife, what is the profit of my life ? 5
So the prince continued to say, and his ministers could not
check him, but he was exceedingly afflicted with the fire of
separation from her.
Then Queen Avantivati and King Palaka, his parents,
having heard that, were for a long time quite bewildered.
The queen said :
" How comes it that our son, though born
in a royal family, has fallen in love with a girl of the lowest 3
Palaka said :
" Since the heart of our
caste ? " Then King
son is thus inclined, it is clear that she is really a girl of
another caste, who, for some reason or other, has fallen
among the Matangas. The minds of the good tell them by
inclination or aversion what to do and what to avoid. In
illustration of this, Queen, listen to the following tale, if you
have not already heard it.
168b. The Young Chandala who married the Daughter of
King Pra^enajit 4
Long ago King Prasenajit, in a city named Supratishthita,
had a very beautiful daughter named Kurangi. One day she
1 The Petersburg lexicographers explain this as a Chandala, a man of the
lowest rank, a kind of Kirata. See Thurston, op. cit. y vol. ii, p.
15. n.m.p.
2 The word "good" is used in a sense approximating to that in which it
is used by Theognis and the patricians in Coriolanus (i, I, 16).
3 I read antyajam, which I find in two of the India Office MSS. and the
Sanskrit College MS. In No. 3003 there is apparently a lacuna.
4
Cf. the Sigala Jataka, No. 142, Cambridge Edition, vol. i, pp. 304-305.
A barber's son dies of love for a Lichchhavi maiden. The Buddha then tells
the story of a jackal whose love for a lioness cost him his life.