disappeared, and the
priest followed their instructions and became quite well. Some time
afterwards Shiva and Parwati came again to the temple. Parwati saw
the priest cured of his leprosy and asked him how he had got rid of
it. He told her exactly what he had done. She was very much surprised,
and thought that if she did the same she might win back her son
Kartakswami, [19] who had quarrelled with her and had run off in a
rage. On the seventeenth Monday Kartakswami suddenly appeared, and
both of them were reconciled. Later on, Kartakswami asked Parwati how
she had brought him back, and Parwati told him. Now Kartakswami had a
Brahman friend who had gone into a far-off country, and Kartakswami
met him by accident shortly afterwards. He told the Brahman how the
priest had cured himself of leprosy, and how he and Parwati had become
reconciled. So the Brahman also practised the same rites for seventeen
Mondays. He then set out for a distant country. As he travelled he
came to a town. Now it happened that in that town arrangements were
being made for the marriage of the king's daughter. Several princes
had come from far-off countries to compete for her hand, and the king
had erected a splendid pavilion for the royal betrothal. But he would
not himself choose a prince to be his daughter's husband. He ordered
that a garland should be placed on a she-elephant's trunk, and that
the prince round whose neck the she-elephant threw the garland should
be chosen to marry the king's daughter. But the she-elephant passed
by all the princes in turn, until she came to where the Brahman
stood. For he had come with the crowds of people to see the royal
betrothal. Then the she-elephant stopped and put the garland round
the Brahman's neck. The king ordered the Brahman to step forward, and
he married him to his daughter. Some years later when the princess
grew up, and she and the Brahman began to live together, she asked
her husband by what merit he had succeeded in winning her for his
wife, and he told her. And she in turn practised the same rites for
seventeen Mondays. Nine months later a beautiful baby boy was born to
her; and when he in turn grew up she told him the rites which she had
practised to obtain him. And he in turn began to perform them. On the
sixteenth Monday he set out for a journey. As he travelled in a distant
country he came to a town over which ruled a king who had no son and
only one daughter. The king had for a long time