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Doubt never arose in his mind as to whose shadow it was that moved behind the screen, and whose anklets they were that sang to the time of his beating heart. Manjari, the maid of the princess, passed by the poet's house on her way to the river, and she never missed a day to have a few words with him on the sly.
An analogue to this drollery is found in an Indian story-book, entitled Katha Manjari: One day a thief climbed up a cocoa-nut tree in a garden to steal the fruit. The gardener heard the noise, and while he was running from his house, giving the alarm, the thief hastily descended from the tree. "Why were you up that tree?" asked the gardener.
We read of another silly son, in the Kathá Manjari, whose father said to him one day, "My boy, you are now grown big, yet you don't seem to have much sense. You must, however, do something for your living. Go, therefore, to the tank, and catch fish and bring them home."
We have an amusing commentary on the maxim that "distress is sure to come from being in the company of fools" in the following, from the Canarese story-book entitled Kathé Manjari: A foolish fellow travelled with a shopkeeper. When it became dark, the fool lay down in the road to sleep, but the shopkeeper took shelter in a hollow tree.
A king of this name, and a great patron of learned men, reigned over Kashmir; he was the reputed author of several works, being, however, only the patron, the compositions bearing his name being written by Dhavaka and other authors. Raja Sekhar is the author of Prachanda Pandava, Biddhasalvanjika, and Karpura Manjari. Murari composed Anargha Raghava.
And they all laughed in the king's hall. And it was rumoured that the Princess Akita also laughed at her maid's accepting the poet's name for her, and Manjari felt glad in her heart. Thus truth and falsehood mingle in life and to what God builds man adds his own decoration. Only those were pure truths which were sung by the poet.
To this last may be added a story in the Kathá Manjari, a Canarese collection, of the stupid fellow and the Rámáyana, one of the two great Hindú epics: One day a man was reading the Rámáyana in the bazaar, and a woman, thinking her husband might be instructed by hearing it, sent him there.
The poet recited, the king listened, the hearers applauded, Manjari passed and repassed by the poet's room on her way to the river the shadow flitted behind the screened balcony, and the tiny golden bells tinkled from afar. Just then set forth from his home in the south a poet on his path of conquest. He came to King Narayan, in the kingdom of Amarapur.
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