58 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
could this chaff and banter of Narad’s do but rouse the green- 
eyed monster? The virulence of the jealousy of his fair listeners was 
boundless. They determined to try Anusaydé and to test her sense 
of hospitality, and so they packed off their husbands to the dwelling- 
house of this holy and humble pair. Leagues away they went, Brahma 
from his Satyaloka, Vishnu from Vaikunth, and Shiva from Kailis, 
influenced by the entreaties of their wives. They stood as beggars 
at the door of Atri, asking alms, but imposing an absurd condition 
that the alms should be given by the lady of the house, Anusaya, in 
a state of perfect nudity. This is palpably a prohibitive condition 
imposed with the sole object of putting to the severest test the 
hospitality of the host, under the strong presumption that it will not 
be fulfilled, the rules of hospitality will thereby be broken and the 
object of the trinity eventually gained. The story reminds one of 
Lady Godiva, the noble wife of the “grim Harl” of Coventry, who 
was called upon to ride uncovered through the town, if she wanted 
her hard-hearted husband to repeal an oppressive law, and thus 
save hor subjects from heavy taxation. To return to our legend, 
then, The Hindoo trinity thus stood at the Rishi’s door united in an 
ach of self-immolation—for indeed self-immolation it was—as they 
were demanding more than was their due as beggars or as guests, 
and though they were supreme gods incognito, their act. was one 
which no mind, human or divine, could ever look upon with appro- 
bation or with complacency, under any circumstance—far less would 
such a request be considered becoming on the part of guests and 
beggars. But beggars have sometimes strange ways of demanding 
alms. A woman’s true dowry is modesty. To venture to attack 
that under the garb of hospitality, to make one’s own demand as a 
guest, forgetting the commonest and plainest rules of hospitality, is 
too much to bear for even a saint. Yet the husband of Anusaya 
was up to the occasion. Hmbarrassed, yet serene and unmoved, 
‘sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn,’’ Anusaya, the 
faithful wife and woman, says,to the three guests “your will be 
done!” ‘To send them away unsatisfied would be a life-long 
reproach. It would entail the loss of merit of former hospitalities. 
It would mean a life of moral extinction. Her husband in the 
meanwhile placed a potful of charmed water before his devoted wife, 
dignified in what to others would have been perturbation, but 
determined as a true woman always is, to do her duty to the last. 
The lady sprinkled a little of this charmed water prepared by her 
