tion, and shall do till the
true law has died away.

Then the royal prince thought thus, "My adornments now are gone forever,
there only now remain these silken garments, which are not in keeping
with a hermit's life."

Then the Deva of the Pure abode, knowing the heart-ponderings of the
prince, transformed himself into a hunter's likeness, holding his bow,
his arrows in his girdle, his body girded with a Kashaya-colored robe,
thus he advanced in front of the prince. The prince considering this
garment of his, the color of the ground, a fitting pure attire, becoming
to the utmost the person of a Rishi, not fit for a hunter's dress,
forthwith called to the hunter, as he stood before him, in accents soft,
and thus addressed him: "That dress of thine belikes me much, as if it
were not foul, and this my dress I'll give thee in exchange, so please
thee."

The hunter then addressed the prince, "Although I ill can spare this
garment, which I use as a disguise among the deer, that alluring them
within reach I may kill them, notwithstanding, as it so pleases you, I
am now willing to bestow it in exchange for yours." The hunter having
received the sumptuous dress, took again his heavenly body.

The prince and Kandaka, the coachman, seeing this, thought deeply thus:
"This garment is of no common character, it is not what a worldly man
has worn"--and in the prince's heart great joy arose, as he regarded the
coat with double reverence, and forthwith giving all the other things to
Kandaka, he himself was clad in it, of Kashaya color; then like the dark
and lowering cloud, that surrounds the disc of the sun or moon, he for a
moment gazed, scanning his steps, then entered on the hermit's grot;
Kandaka following him with wistful eyes, his body disappeared, nor was
it seen again. "My lord and master now has left his father's house, his
kinsfolk and myself," he cried; "he now has clothed himself in hermit's
garb, and entered the painful forest." Raising his hands he called on
Heaven, o'erpowered with grief he could not move; till holding by the
white steed's neck, he tottered forward on the homeward road, turning
again and often looking back, his body going on, his heart
back-hastening; now lost in thought and self-forgetful, now looking down
to earth, then raising up his drooping eye to heaven, falling at times
and then rising again, thus weeping as he went, he pursued his way
homewards.

Entering the Place of Austerities

The pr