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

140 THE OCEAN OF STORY
other. Terrified at that, they took the other animals home
before the right time, and, running off in search of the two
that were missing, they entered a distant forest. There they
saw their goat half eaten by a tiger, and after lamenting,
"
being quite despondent, they said : Our uncles were keeping
this goat for a sacrifice, and now that it is destroyed
their anger will be something tremendous. So let us dress
its flesh with fire, and eat enough of it to put an end of our
hunger, and then let us take the rest, and go off somewhere
and support ourselves by begging."
After these reflections they proceeded to roast the goat,
and while they were so engaged their two uncles arrived,
who had been running after them, and saw them cooking
*^e
TheMeta-
goat. When they saw their uncles in the
morphoses of distance they were terrified, and they rose up in
Pingesvara and great trepidation, and fled from the spot. And
Guhehara .-% . i . ,, .
, -,
-, 1x
those two uncles m their wrath pronounced on
them the following curse :
"
Since, in your longing for flesh,
you have done a deed worthy of Rakshasas, you shall become
flesh-eating Brahman-Rakshasas." And immediately those
two young Brahmans became Brahman-Rakshasas, having
mouths formidable with tusks, flaming hair and insatiable
hunger ; and they wandered about in the forest, catching
animals and eating them.
But one day they rushed upon an ascetic, who possessed
supernatural power, to slay him, and he in self-defence cursed
them, and they became Pisachas. And in their condition as
Pisachas they were carrying off the cow of a Brahman, to
kill it, but they were overpowered by his spells, and reduced
by
his curse to the condition of Chandalas.
One day, as they were roaming about in their condition
as Chandalas, bow in hand, tormented with hunger, they
reached, in their search for food, a village of bandits. The
warders of the village, supposing them to be thieves, arrested
them both, as soon as they saw them, and cut off their ears
and noses. And they bound them, and beat them with
sticks, and brought them in this condition before the chiefs
of the bandits. There they were questioned by the chiefs,
1 The three India Office MSS. have viteratuh.