622 BLOOMFIELD— CHARACTER AND [April i8, 



practices, but also in wise saws pertaining to love. In Kathasaritsa- 

 gara 98 (VetalapancaviiiQati 24) a son encourages his widowed 

 father to marry again, by means of a stanza composed by Mirla- 

 deva : " Who, that is not a fool, enters that house in which there 

 is no shapely love eagerly awaiting his return, which tho called a 

 house, is really a prison without chains ? " A scholiast to the Sap- 

 tagataka of Hala^* cites a hemistich by Muladeva of quite similar 

 import: "It's no use anointing yourself with fragrant unguents, if 

 you haven't a light-o'-love." In the 30th Story of the Parrot (Cuka- 

 saptati) two demons (pigacas) quarrel over the beauty of their 

 respective wives. They catch hold of Muladeva, who is to decide. 

 He, thinking in his soul that both their she-devils are passing ugly, 

 wriggles out with the verse : " To every lover in the world she alone 

 seems charming that is his love ; no other." The same riddle in 

 Mahabharata, Kathasaritsagara, and in the story of Oedipus ; see 

 Tawney's note to his Translation of Kathasaritsagara, i. 26. 



Muladeva is, however, not merely the theoretic academician of 

 love. Tradition has him the practical promoter of love: wherever 

 there be some beauty to conquer, either on his own account, or on 

 the account of others, he pushes himself forward. More especially, 

 in love-affairs of the shady sort, Muladeva is the standard resort. 

 Or, he plays the part of a mischievous devil in connection with 

 illicit loves. Thus, as regards the last point, in the " Tales of the 

 Parrot," 22, a farmer's wife who is in the habit of carrying him his 

 dinner amuses herself with her paramour on the way. She deposits 

 the dinner-kettle on the road, and Miiladeva puts in camel's meat. 

 When her husband inquires suspiciously she, quick as a flash, an- 

 swers : " Sir, I dreamt that you would be eaten by a camel, and have 

 played this prank to nullify the omen." Another time, in an un- 

 savory little story told in the Jain Avacyaka Niryukti, Muladeva is 

 on the road with a boon companion, a sort of fidus Achates, who is 

 here named Kandarika. They come across another traveler with 

 his wife. When Kandarika is smitten with the charms of the 

 woman, Muladeva tricks the husband. 



Muladeva climbs to the pinnacle of tricky mischief, as " lord of 



1^ Cf. Weber, Das Saptagatakam des Hala, p. xxv. 



