Simhasanadvatrimshika 8.p4

8.p4

While Vikrama was ruling thus, spies who had wandered over the earth once came into the king's presence, and upon being questioned by the king, they said: 'O King, in the land of Kashmir there is a merchant endowed with great wealth. That merchant dug a tank five leagues wide; in its center he had a temple built to Nārāyaṇa reclining upon the water; but no water gathers [in it]. Again, for the sake of making water flow, that merchant had the four kinds of oblations, lustrations, and other rites performed by brahmins addressed to Varuṇa. Even so, no water gathers. Then, dejected, that merchant sat upon the bank of the tank and sighed day after day: "Alas, by no means does water gather; my toil has proved in vain!" One day, while he was sitting upon the bank of the tank, a non-human voice arose in the sky: "Why, O son of a merchant, for what reason do you sigh? When the tank is sprinkled with the throat-blood of a man possessed of the thirty-two marks, only then will there be pure water, and not otherwise." Having heard this, that merchant set up a great soup kitchen upon the bank of the tank; all the people dwelling in his land came to that soup kitchen to eat; the officials stationed there said in front of those inhabitants of the land: "To whoever sprinkles the tank with his throat-blood, one hundred bhāras of gold will be given." Everyone heard their words, but no one undertook that rash deed. Such a great marvel was seen.'