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

180 THE OCEAN OF STORY
gave him the arms and the elephants, and dismissed him,
and he went delighted to his own city on the earth. But
those Asuras, who had managed by their treachery to cast
discredit upon the king, escaped being caught by him, even
when mounted on the sky-going elephant, for they took
refuge
in Patala.
Then the king, desiring a son, went, on his heavenly
elephant, to the hermitage of that hermit Tapodhana, of
whom Indra had told him. There he approached that hermit
and told him that command of Indra, and said to him :
" Reverend sir, quickly tell me what course I ought to take
to gain my end." And the hermit recommended that the
king and his wife should immediately take upon them a
vow for the propitiation of Siva, in order that they might
attain their end. The king then proceeded to propitiate
Siva with that vow, and then that god, being pleased, said
to the king in a dream :
" Rise up, King ! Thou shalt soon *
obtain one after another two invincible sons for the destruction
of the Asuras." When the king had heard this, he
told it to the hermit when he woke up in the morning, and
after he and his wife had broken their fast he returned to
his own city.
Then that august and beautiful lady, the queen of Merudhvaja,
became pregnant within a few days. And Muktaphalaketu
was in some mysterious way conceived in her,
having been compelled by the curse to abandon his Vidyadhara
body. And that body of his remained in his own city
of Chandrapura, guarded by his relations, kept by magic
from corrupting.
So the queen of Merudhvaja, in the city of Devasabha,
delighted her husband by becoming pregnant. And the
more the queen was oppressed by her condition, the more
sprightly was her husband, the king. And when the time
came, she gave birth to a boy resembling the sun, who,
though an infant, was of great might, even as Parvati
gave birth to the God of War. And then not only did
1 Of course we must read avilambitani, which is found in two out of the
three India Office MSS., and in the Sanskrit College MS. No. 1882 has
vilambitam.