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

206 THE OCEAN OF STORY
female heart is harder than the thunderbolt, otherwise my
breath must have left me, beholding this horror. So, how
long am I to retain this wretched life ? Even now, owing
to my demerits, there is no end to my woe. Moreover, the
promise of that hermit has been falsified ; so it is better that
I should die. But it is not fitting that I should enter this
fire and be mixed up with strange men, so in this difficult
conjuncture hanging, which gives no trouble, is my best
resource." When the princess had said this, she went in
front of Siva, and proceeded to make a noose by means of
a creeper, which she fastened to an asoka tree.
And while her ladies-in-waiting were trying to prevent
her by encouraging speeches, that hermit Tapodhana came
there. He said :
" My daughter, do not act rashly ! That
promise of mine will not be falsified. Be of good courage !
You shall see that husband of yours come here in a moment.
His curse has been just now cancelled by virtue of your
so why do you now distrust the power of your own
penance ;
austerities ? And why do you show this despondency when
your marriage
learned all this by my power of meditation."
When Padmavati saw the hermit approaching, uttering
these words, she bowed before him, and was for a moment,
as it were, swung to and fro by perplexity. Then her beloved
Muktaphalaketu, having by the burning of his mortal
body entered his own Vidyadhara body, came there with his
friend. And Padmavati, seeing that son of the king of the
is at hand? I have come here because I
Vidyadharas coming through the air, as a female chdtaka
beholds a fresh rain- cloud, or a kumudvati the full moon
newly risen, felt indescribable joy in her heart. And Muktaphalaketu,
when he saw her, rejoiced, and, so to speak, drank
her in with his eyes, as a traveller, wearied with long wander-
ing in a desert, rejoices when he beholds a river. And those
two, reunited like a couple of chakravdkas by the termination
of the night of their curse, 1 took their fill of falling at the feet
of that hermit of glowing brilliancy. 2 Then that great hermit
1 See Vol. VI, p. 7 In 3 . n.m.p.
2
his rays.
Probably the passage also means that they
sunned themselves in