1913] ADVENTURES OF MULADEVA 641 



ing water right there on the couch, so that Muladeva, who lay un- 

 derneath, was drenched with it. Then Ayala's men entered, armed, 

 and the mother gave the signal. Ayala seized Muladeva by the hair, 

 and said to him: "Ho there! see now if you find any one to protect 

 you ! " Muladeva looked about him, and perceived that he was sur- 

 rounded by men with sharp swords in their hands. Then he re- 

 flected : " I cannot get away from them, but I must live to retaliate 

 for their enmity. Now I am unarmed, so this is not the time for 

 heroic deeds." Then he said to Ayala: "Do what you please! " 



Ayala observed that Muladeva by his very carriage showed him- 

 self to be a person of distinction, and reflected that great men in 

 the course of the revolving cycle of existences easily get into mis- 

 fortune. As the poet says : 



" Who in this world is always lucky, who can rely upon Fortune's 

 favors ? Who does not on occasion take a fall, aye, who is not 

 crushed by fate? " 



Then he said to Muladeva: " Tho you have come to such a 

 pass, do you now go free, and, if ever, by the might of fate, I should 

 come to grief, treat me just as I have treated you! " 



Then Muladeva went from the city disspirited and sad, brooding: 

 " See how I have been tricked by this man." He first bathed in a 

 clear pond, and then decided to travel to a distant land, there to 

 devise some scheme of retaliation.^*' He set out toward Bennayada. 

 After passing many villages and towns he came to the edge of a 

 forest twelve leagues in length. It occurred to him that if he could 

 meet some other person traveling in the same direction, so that he 

 might at least have some one to talk to, then the journey through 

 might be quite pleasant. After a while there approached a Dhakka- 

 Brahman" of distinguished appearance, equipped with a sack of 



5s A sort of " Live to fight another day." See the proverbial statement 

 to that effect, Parigistaparvan 8. 256. 



5'^ The words dhakka, thakka, takka, taka, Mahratti thaka, are Hindu 

 terms for a despised people, tribe, caste, or guild; see Kern, " Indische 

 Studien," XIV. 396; Meyer, to the present passage, p. 205, note. According 

 to Pischel, " Grammatik der Prakrit-Sprachen," § 25, a dialect called Dhakkl 

 is spoken by gamblers in the second act of the Mrcchakatika. Sanskrit 

 sthaga, " cunning, sly, fraudulent, dishonest," reported by the lexicographers, 

 is probably the same word ; cf. Sthagika, the name of a thieving courtezan, 



