United States or Liechtenstein ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This only made the king more angry, and he began calling Putraka all manner of names and asking him how he dared to enter the room of his daughter. Putraka answered quietly that he loved Patala and wished to marry her. He was himself a king, and would give her all she had been used to. But it was all no good, for it only made the king more angry.
By the banks of the sacred stream the lovers rested, and with the aid of his magic bowl Putraka soon had a good and delicious meal ready, which they both enjoyed very much. As they ate, they consulted together what they had better do now, and Patala, who was as clever as she was beautiful, said: "Would it not be a good thing to build a new city in this lovely place?
And then she sat by herself and prayed to the god Shiva. The following Monday she once more ran out of the palace and out of the town and into the woods as fast as her fat little legs would carry her. There she met again the serpent-maidens of Patâla and the bevy of wood-nymphs and went with them to the temple of Shiva in the distant heart of the forest.
After a long talk, Patala begged him to leave her for fear her attendants should discover him and tell her father about him. "My father would never let me marry you," she declared, "unless you were to come with many followers as a king to ask my hand; and how can you do that when you are only a wandering exile?"
Following the directions therein contained, they went on in darkness, groping their way through long passages, till at last they saw light before them and arrived at the subterranean country of Pâtâla. After walking some distance further, they came to a small lake, surrounded by trees, with a city in view.
When he read it to two pundits from Nuddea, he told Fuller in his journal of that month they seemed much pleased with the account of the creation, but they objected to the omission of patala, their imaginary place beneath the earth, which they thought should have been mentioned.
The king was amazed when he heard the noise, and roared out, "Who is coming with such pomp and splendour? Is it the serpent-maidens of Patâla or is it the wood-nymphs who live in the heart of the forest?" The sepoys said, "O King, it is neither the serpent-maidens of Patâla nor is it the wood-nymphs who live in the heart of the forest.
And he told her all that he had seen the serpent-maidens of Patâla do, and he also told her on the eighth day of the month of Ashwin to tie on her wrist a thread with sixteen strands in it, and to wear it continually for the rest of the month.
The author of the Periplus informs us, that raw as well as manufactured silk were conveyed by land through Bactria, to Baraguza or Guzerat, and by the Ganges to Limurike; according to this first route, the silks of China must have come the whole length of Tartary, from the great wall, into Bactria; from Bactria, they passed the mountains to the sources of the Indus, and by that river they were brought down to Patala, or Barbarike, in Scindi, and thence to Guzerat: the line must have been nearly the same when silk was brought to the sources of the Ganges; at the mouth of this river, it was embarked for Limurike in Canara.
A portion of these, when Alexander reached the Hydaspes and determined to sail down the course of the Indus to the sea, were drafted into the vessels which he caused to be built, descended the river, and accompanied Nearchus in his voyage from Patala to the Persian Gulf.
Word Of The Day