INDIA. PART III Alarm of the HISTORY OF but unmixed good: By the efficacy of my prayers the rains have fallen in their proper season, and by my mantras your wounds have been healed after the battle: In return you have twice carried away the young man Kanju, who came to me for instruction, and now my daughter has been grossly insulted by your daughter, and thrown into a well: After this I will remain with you no longer." Then the Raja was alarmed, and he tried to pacify the Bráhman, saying:"Why do you hold such language to us? Have we not always treated you with respect ? If the children have quarrelled amongst themselves, that is no reason why you should be offended with us; and if you forsake us, we must fly to the islands of the ocean, for without your aid we shall never be able to withstand the Devatás." Sukra replied that the Raja and his tribe might do what they liked, but that he was determined to leave a country in which his daughter had been so grievously insulted. The Raja and the whole of the Council were then greatly alarmed, and humbled themselves very much before the Bráhman; and the Raja laid his head at the feet of Sukra, and began to weep, and to implore the priest to pardon him. Sukra replied that if the Raja would pacify his daughter Devayání then he would remain, but unless she were reconciled he must go away to another country. Humiliation of the Raja and all his Council be fore the Bráhman. The Raja promises that Sar servant to Devayání. Then the Raja of the Daityas, accompanied by all his mishtha shall be Council, went out of the city to seek Devayání, and having found her, the Raja spoke to her as follows:-" We are all the slaves of your father, and if my daughter has behaved with incivility towards you, I will do with her according to your command." Devayání replied:-" I shall be satisfied upon one condition, that whensoever my father shall give me to a husband, your. daughter, who has thrown me into a well, shall be given to me as my servant." The Raja said:"This is a light thing for me, who am ready to sacrifice my own life to appease Sukra: Why, then, should I hesitate to give you my daughter?" So he sent a messenger to the palace to tell Sarmishthá that she was to enter the service of Devayání. And Sarmishthá replied: Sarmishthá obeys. INDIA. PART III. Whatever my father commands I will obey, for I have no HISTORY OF remedy." The Raja's daughter then set out with her slave girls to present herself to her father; and he immediately made her over, together with her maids, to the service of the daughter of the Brahman. Devayání then proceeded with great joy into the city, accompanied by her father; and henceforth Sarmishthá presented herself every day to Devayání to receive her commands and do what she was ordered, and then returned to her own apartments. 4. Marriage of Devayání and Yayáti. with Sarmish maidens to the Raja Yayati. One day Devayání went out of the city, attended by Devayání goes Sarmishtha and her maids, and they came to the place where tha and her Sarmishtha had pushed Devayání into the well. In this well. pleasant spot, where the trees were loaded with delicious fruits, and the verdure was enlivened by running streams, Devayání sat down upon the grass; and some of her companions sat by her, whilst others stood round about them in groups conversing. At that moment Raja Yayáti was Approach of hunting in the forest, and whilst in hot pursuit of a stag, he suddenly burst in upon the damsels. The sight of so much loveliness almost deprived Yayáti of his senses, for they were all in the prime of beauty; though Devayání and Sarmishtha were incomparably more lovely than the others, whilst in dignity and grace Sarmishtha was superior to Devayání. The Raja immediately alighted from his horse and begged the damsels to tell him who they were; and Devayání answered him and said :-"I am the daughter of Sukra, the preceptor of the Daityas, and this is Sarmishthá, the daughter of the Raja of the Daityas, and wherever I go, she always attends me." Raja Yayáti replied:-"Sarmish- Yayati inquires thá is the daughter of a great Raja, and excels you in elegance: How then is it that she has become your slave? Devayání said that it was by the will of God, and desired him not to ask any more such questions, but to answer her inquiries and tell her who it was that had come amongst them arrayed in royal vestments and with a resplendent counten how Sarmishthá has become the servant of Devayání.. HISTORY OF ance. INDIA. PART III. Devayání requests Yayati to espouse her. himself. The Raja replied that his name was Yayáti, that he was descended from a long line of Rajas, and that he had come into the forest to hunt deer, in like manner as she had come to gather the flowers; and he likewise said that whatsoever she commanded him to do, he would perform. So Devayání said :-" All these damsels are my slaves, and this lady also, who is the daughter of a great Raja, is my slave; and my request to you is that you espouse me in due form.” Yayati excuses Yayáti replied:-"I am a Kshatriya and you are a Bráhman: How then can I take you for my wife?" Devayání said: -"All the Kshatriyas were begotten by the Brahmans, and you yourself are descended from a Rishi." Yayáti replied that this was true, but that the rule of life had changed, and that it was not proper for him now to marry the Devayani urges daughter of a Bráhman. But Devayání rejoined that the her when he de- mode of espousal among the Kshatriyas was for the man to take the woman by the hand, and this he had already done with her; and she reminded him of his having delivered her from the well, when he had taken her by the hand and lifted her out; and she said :-" Since you have given me your hand and taken mine, I will never give my hand to any other Yayati's reply. husband." So the Raja was afraid of her, and said :"If your father will give you to me I will espouse you, but I cannot take you without the consent of your father." that he espoused livered her from the well. Yayati's interview with Sukra. : Then Raja Yayáti went his way to the house of Sukra, and respectfully saluted him. At that moment Devayání returned also from the forest, and entered the house, and said to her father:-"This is the Raja who gave me his hand to deliver me from the well, and since he has given me his hand, I will never give mine to any other man." Then Sukra said :-"O Raja, since you have first given your hand to my daughter, I now give my daughter to you: You are a mighty Raja, and I have an unbounded affection for my daughter, and I therefore pray you to use her kindly." Yayáti replied:"I too am very desirous for this marriage, but I am afraid lest I commit a crime in marrying a Bráhman." Sukra said:"Take no concern: I will absolve you from any yati and Deva- guilt in this respect, and pray the Almighty that true es Marriage of Ya yání. INDIA. PART III. teem and affection may subsist between my daughter and HISTORY OF you." Sukra then chose a fortunate moment, and performed the rites of marriage between Raja Yayáti and his daughter Devayání. to his own city. After many days Raja Yayáti took his leave of Sukra, Yayati departs with Devayání and departed with his wife Devayání for his own city; and Sarmishtha and Devayání took Sarmishthá with her. In due course they reached the city of Yayáti, which was as resplendent as the city of Indra; and there the Raja placed Devayání in a splendid palace, according to her rank, and appointed a house for Sarmishthá in the garden. Then Raja Yayáti lived for a long while in great happiness with his wife Devayání, and she gave birth to two sons, Yadu and Turvasu. 5. Sarmishtha's revenge. between Yayati At length it so happened that one day Raja Yayáti went Love passage to walk in the garden wherein was the house of Sarmishthá, and Sarmishtha. and as he passed by she came out and made him a reverence. And the Raja was enamoured with her beauty and elegance, and he entered her apartment and sat down, and said to her:-"You are the daughter of a great Raja, and I am very desirous to espouse you, but when Sukra sent you along with Devayání to accompany me hither, he bade me take every care of you, but never to make you my wife, and I pledged myself to obey, and now I do not know how to escape from my promise." Sarmishthá replied:-"A friend is a friend's second self; Devayání and I are such friends: Therefore when you married her, you at the same time married me." Yayáti then said:-"It is my rule of conduct never to refuse a request which any one may please to make; and therefore whatever you may ask of me I will assuredly grant." So Sarmishthá asked that she might become the mother of a son. gives birth to a son. Some months after this it was told to Devayání that Sarmishthá Sarmishtha had given birth to a son; and she was greatly afflicted, and went to Sarmishthá, and said :-"So you could Wrath of Devanot persevere any longer in the preservation of your chast yání. PART III. Sarmishtha's ex cuse. HISTORY OF ity: Who is the father of this child?" Sarmishthá replied: INDIA. -"A Rishi of the most holy life and conduct came to me, and I desired him to espouse me: He did espouse me, and this son is the fruit of our union: I have committed no crime in this!" Devayání said:"If this be true you are innocent but do you not know who that Rishi was?" Sarmishthá replied :-" The light of that Bráhman was like that of the sun, and from the greatness of my awe I could not ask him his name." Devayání said:-" As this is the case you have done right, and I have not suffered by your wrong doing." So she returned to her own palace. Devayání dis covers that Ya of Sarmishtha's children. After some years Raja Yayáti was walking in the garyati is the father den with Devayání, when they came to the house occupied by Sarmishthá; and Devayání saw three boys at play, who appeared to be the most beautiful children in the world. She accordingly asked the Raja whose children they were, for their countenances greatly resembled his own. The Raja gave her no answer; so Devayání called the boys and asked them whose sons they were. The boys immediately pointed with their fingers to the Raja, and said :—“We are his sons;" and then pointing to Sarmishthá, they said :"That is our mother." They then ran to the Raja, and tried to put their arms round his neck; but he, in order to dissemble with Devayání, and keep her in good humour, thrust the children away, and they went crying to their mother. Devayání then turned to Sarmishthá, and said:-" It is all a lie you told me about a Rishi coming to you: It is all my own fault, for not keeping you day and night in constant attendance upon me: But you are the daughter of a Daitya, Sarmishtha's de- and a lie is no offence in your eyes." Sarmishthá replied :— "I told you no lie at all, for the Raja is a Rishi, inasmuch as he follows the same form of worship as the Rishis: Besides, I am no purchased slave that I may not look out for a husband without your leave." Devayání then told the father's house. Raja that she would never more enter his house to have a slave treat her as an equal in his presence. So she immediately went away to the house of her father.1 fence. Devayání returns to her Here the story virtually ends. Devayání declared that she would live no |