The Girl on the Golden Couch

A woman hurried past him. He called out to her, but she did not answer, and she went up into one of the palaces. He tied his horse and followed her without fear.

On a broad golden couch inside sat a girl as lovely as Rati, the wife of Love, the god of desire. He took her for the goddess of the underworld. She looked at him, his dark curling hair, his strong shoulders and arms, and took him for Love himself. She rose in confusion and wondered what he was: a god, a yakṣa, a gandharva, a nāga, a vidyādhara, or some fortunate man? Then she sighed, sank down to the ground and fainted.

Love had struck him too. Do not be afraid, he said. The first woman fanned the girl until she came round. When the prince asked what was wrong, the girl in her shyness told her friend, and the friend turned and told the prince everything.

In heaven there is a famous king of the gandharvas, Viśvāvasu, she said. This is his daughter. Her name is Madālasā. Pātālaketu, the son of Vajraketu, a fierce dānava who lives in this underworld, made a darkness by magic and carried her off from a garden while I was away from her. On the thirteenth day of this fortnight he means to marry her. He has no more right to her, lovely as she is, than a śūdra has to hear the Veda.

Yesterday she was about to take her own life. Surabhi, the mother of cows, came to her and said: This wicked dānava will never have you. Whoever pierces him with arrows when he goes up to the world of mortals will soon be your husband.

I am her friend. My name is Kuṇḍalā. I am the daughter of Vindhyavat and the wife of the hero Puṣkaramālin. Since Śumbha killed my husband I have been going from one holy place to another by the paths of the sky, thinking only of the next world. Now I hear that Pātālaketu, in the body of a boar, has been wounded by someone's arrow, shot to protect the sages. I have looked into it, and it is true.

She fainted because she loved you the moment she saw you. Yet she is promised to the man who wounded the dānava, and Surabhi does not lie, so she thinks she must be unhappy all her life. I came here out of love for her. If she gets the husband she wants, I will go to my austerities with a quiet mind. But who are you? No man ever comes here, and no man has a form like yours.

The prince answered: I am the son of King Śatrujit. My father sent me to Gālava's hermitage to protect the sages. A dānava came in the form of a boar to trouble them, and I struck him with a crescent arrow. He fled, I followed on horseback, my horse fell into a pit, and I wandered alone in the dark until I came into the light and saw you. I asked, no one answered, and I followed you into this palace. I am no god, no dānava, no nāga, gandharva or kinnara. I am a man. Have no fear.

Madālasā was filled with joy. She looked shyly at her friend and said nothing.