Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c4.940

c4.940

The woman instantly took the water and got on the back of Aśokadatta who had stooped down for her to climb on his back. After a while he felt drops of blood falling on his back and looking up he saw her cutting flesh from the body of the man on the scaffold and eating it. He got wild with anger and catching hold of her legs he was about to strike her on the ground, when she shook her legs free and ran away and disappeared. Because she dragged away her legs with force one bangle came off from her leg and was left with Aśokadatta. Her behaviour aroused in him at first compassion, detestation in the middle stage and fear in the final stage, and when she had disappeared from his sight he looked at the bangle she had left behind with astonishment. He reached home it was dawn. After his morning ablution he went to the palace. “Did you give him water yesternight?” asked the King and he replied “Yes”, and placed the bangle before the King. “Where did you get this from?” the King asked and in reply he said everything that had happened in the night. The King thought that Aśokadatta was an extraordinary man and calling his queen showed her the ornament and told her everything. She was filled with joy and wonder. She praised Aśokadatta a good deal. The King said, “Dear queen! This Aśokadatta is a young man of greatness, learning, bravery, truth and of good birth. He is handsome too. If he would become the husband of our daughter what a good thing it will be? I have a desire to give him our daughter Madanalekhā”.