Mârkandeya Purâna, books 7, 8 | Page 5

silent! Further time
Than
the remaining fourth part of to-day

I grant thee not." Enraged, he
turned away,
Departing with the money. And the king,
Immersed in
grief and fear, with face cast down,
Cried out: "If there be any one of
you
Who wants a slave, let him make haste and speak
While day
remains." Then Dharma, putting on
The form of a Cha.n.dâla, hastily

Came forward, taking pity on the king.
His countenance was
fearful,--black, with tusks
Projecting; savage in his words; his smell

Was foul and horrible; a crowd of dogs
Came after him. "Tell me

thy price," he said;
"Be quick; and whether it be large or small
I
care not, so I have thee as my slave:"
The king, beholding such a
loathsome form,
Of mien revolting--"What art thou?" he said.
"Men
call me a Cha.n.dâla," he replied.
I dwell in this same city--in a part

Of evil fame. As of a murderer
Condemned to death, such is my
infamy.
My calling is a robber of the dead."
"I will not be a slave,"
exclaimed the king,
"To thee, a base Cha.n.dâla. Better far
That I
should perish by the fiery curse."
The words were scarcely uttered,
when the saint
Returned, his countenance with rage
Distorted; and
he thus addressed the king:
"The sum is fair; why dost thou not accept

The offer? Then indeed thou mightest pay
The gift thou owest for
the sacrifice."
"O son of Kušika!" replied the king,
"Consider this, I
pray!--my noble race!
Truly am I descended from the sun!
How can
I then become, though sore in want,
Lowest of creatures--a
Cha.n.dâla's slave?"
"Delay no more," the Brâhman said, "but pay

The gift at once, and sell thyself a slave
To the Cha.n.dâla--or
assuredly
I curse thee." "Saintly priest, be merciful!"
The king
entreated; and, immersed in care,
He seized the Brâhman's feet,
exclaiming thus:
"What am I but a slave, o'erwhelmed with grief!

Fear holds me! Saintly priest, be merciful!
Protect me, mighty saint!
Save me, I pray,
From this most horrible Cha.n.dâla. Sir!
Most
noble saint! hereafter shall thy will
Be all the object of my life! To
serve
Thy lightest wish shall be my highest joy!
Thus will I make
the offering--I will be
Thy _slave_!" Replied the Brahman: "If thou
art
My slave, then will I sell thee as a slave

To the Cha.n.dâla."
Then, filled with delight,
Paying the money, the Švapâka bound
His
lately-purchased slave, and striking him,
Led hill away. Parted from
all his friends;
In utmost grief; in the Cha.n.dâla's house

Abiding--morning, noon, and eventide,
And night, the king thus made
lament:
"Alas! my tender wife, overwhelmed with pain,
Looking
upon her son in misery,
Bewails her lot. But yet she says: 'The king

Will surely ransom us, for he has gained
By now more money than
the Brâhman paid
For us;' and all the time she little knows
My

fate--worse than her own. For I have passed
From woe to
woe--kingdom and friends--my wife,
My son, have passed from me,
and now the state
Of a Cha.n.dâla holds me." While he dwelt
A
slave in the Cha.n.dâla's house, the forms
Of those he loved were still
before his eyes--
Were ever in his mind. Meanwhile the king,

Obedient to his master's will, became
A robber of the dead; and night
and day
He watched for plunder. "One part of the spoil
Is for the
king, three for thy master, two
For thee. Go to the city's southern part,

Where is the dwelling of the dead, there wait."
Obeying the
Cha.n.dâla, to the place
Of burial he went;--an awful place,
Filled
full of fearful sounds and loathsome sights--
Of evil smells, and
smoke, and locks of hair
Fallen from the dead; while troops of fiends
and ghouls,
Vampires and demons, wandered to and fro.
Vultures
and jackals prowled, and spirit forms'
Of evil hovered o'er. The
ground was strewn
With heaps of bones; and wailing, sharp and shrill,

Re-echoed from the mourners of the dead.
The bodies on the
funeral piles, half burnt,
Crackled and hissed; showing their shining
teeth,
They grinned, as if in sport; while all the time
The howl of
demons and the wail of fiends
Were mingled with the roar of
flames--a sound
Of fearful import, such as ushers in
The day of
doom. The sights, and sounds, and smells--
The heaps of ashes, and
the piles of bones,
Blackened with filth--the smoke, the shouts,
The
yells--struck fear on fear into the heart.
The burial-place resembled
nought but hell.
Such was the place appointed for the king.
"Priests!
Brâhmans! Counsellors! how have I fallen
From all my royal state!
Alas! my queen!
Alas! my son! Oh! miserable fate!
We have been
torn asunder by the power

Of Višvâmitra." Thoughts like these
possessed
His inmost mind; while foul, unshorn, unwashed,
He
served his master. Running here and there,
Armed with a jagged club,
he sought the dead,
From whom he gained his wages. So he lived,

Degraded from his caste. Old knotted rags
Served as his dress; his
face and arms and feet
With dust and ashes from the funeral piles

Begrimed; his hands defiled with putrid flesh
From contact with the

bodies of the dead.
So neither day nor night he ceased from toil.

And twelve months passed--twelve weary months, which seemed To
his grief-stricken mind a hundred years;
And then at last, worn out,
the best of kings
Lay down to rest; and as upon his couch
All