North Indian Inscriptions

LITERATURE

site mattavāraṇaka. They then asked the poet about the book on his bed. The poet also felt curious as this surprising incident, and said, “I shall tell you about it; but first tell me who you are.” Then one of them replied, “This noble companion of mine is Tilaka and I am Tālaka. Being always in the company of Saravatī, we have obtained poetic talent. But tell us what your book is about.” The poet then said, “This is my own kāvya. It will remain tied like this until I find a good poet willing to listen to it.” On this they both pressed him to read it out to them. The poet then took the book out of the bundle and began to read it aloud.

.. That work was the Udayasundarīkathā. Its story is very complicated like that of Bāṇa’s Kādambarī. It cannot be given here in detail,[1] but it may be summarised as follows:

The Story of Udayasundari

.. “In the magnificent city of Pratishṭhāna on the bank of the Godāvarī in the country of Kuntala there reigned a great king named Malayavāhana. One day, as he was sitting in his sabhā, there came his gardener Vasantaśīla with a parrot having a wonderful tuft of hair on his head and, therefore, appropriately called Chitraśikha. He was really a prince of Mathurā named Kumārakēsarī, but was transformed into a parrot by the curse of a female hermit (tāpasī) when he accidentlly stepped on her ruby-shell used in worship in Pātāla, and broke it to pieces. Being entreated by him, the Tāpasī relented and said, “Even as a parrot, you will be able to lead the life of a human being, and when your beak will be broken in a temple of Śiva, you will be restored to your original human form.” After some days the king went ahunting taking the bird with him. In the course of hunting he came to a beautiful temple decorated with jewelled statues of females. Just then the parrot Chitraśikha broke open the coral door of his cage, flew out and then began to peck at the pomegranate in the hand of a female statue in the maṇḍapa. In doing so his beak broke, and lo! he was restored to his

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human form. The tuft of hair on the parrot’s head was just then transformed into the portrait of a lovely damsel. The king fell in love with the young lady whose portrait it was, and roamed about in search of her. Once in a moonlit night he noticed a Rākshasa molesting a young hermit girl in a lonely temple of Chaṇḍikā. He fought with him and rescued her. She told him that she was Tārāvalī, a dear friend of Udayasundarī, the daughter of a Nāga king named Śikhaṇḍatilaka ruling in Pātāla. Once upon a time Udayasundarī saw the portrait of king Malayavāhana which had been brought there by a Kinnara couple, fell in love with him, and began to pine for him. Tārāvalī then got another portrait of Udayasundarī painted. At her mother’s bidding, Udayasundarī once went to the temple of Hāṭakēśvara (Śiva) for his darśana, where Kumārakesarī also had come. As stated before, he accidentally stepped on a ruby-shell and was cursed by the female hermit of the temple to become a parrot. The portrait of Udayasundarī was transformed into its śikhā. Having heard her story, the king Malayavāhana asked her to say in a maṭha of his capital for some time.

.. In the meanwhile Udayasundarī, who had been sleeping on the terrace of her palace, was abducted by a Vidyādhara who had gone to Pātāla for the darśana of Hāṭakēśvara. As he was flying with her in his aeroplane, he struck a hermit who was practising penance, and was cursed by the latter and turned into a monkey. He kept Udayasundarī in imprisonment in a mansion inside a hill. King Malayavāhana once saw a wonderful mare, which brought him to the place where Udayasundarī was imprisoned. The king saw the monkey and slapped him. Then the latter regained his original form of a Vidyādhara. The mare was none other than Tārāvalī, who had been transformed when she drank the water of a magic kuṇḍa. She was also restored to her original form.
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[1] For a more detailed summary of the contents of this work, see our Literary and Historical Studies in Indology, pp. 75 f.

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