tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">3]? But then, what is to be done? For unless we share in our due proportions, all the cows are to go to the King, and our father's curse will fall upon us. And yet what can have been the meaning of our father in placing us in so terrible a dilemma? Thus they disputed among themselves, and the day passed away, but not the difficulty, and night found them still arguing without any solution of the matter.

Now, Princess, tell me, how is this to be settled, so as to satisfy equally the father, the three brothers, and the King? And Rasakósha ceased. But the Princess bent down her head, and remained a moment in meditation, while the King's soul almost quitted his body. Then after a while, raising her head, she replied: Let the brothers borrow another cow. Then of the twenty cows, let the eldest take half, or ten cows; the next, a quarter, or five cows; and the youngest, a fifth, or four cows. Then let them return the borrowed cow. Thus the nineteen cows will be exhausted without leaving a remainder, and the father satisfied: each brother will receive more than under their own division; and finally, the King will be pleased. For he was a just King: and what could displease such a king more than that, in his dominions, Brahmans should kill and eat cows, or disregard their father's orders[4]. Rather would he lose, not nineteen cows, but ten millions[5].

And when the Princess had said this, she rose up and went out, casting a glance, as she went, at the King, whose heart went with her. But the King and Rasakósha returned to their own apartments.

[1] Just as the clothes of the Princess change colour every day, so does the state of the King's mind, which goes through a regular series of transitory emotions (wyabhichári).

[2] i.e. 'seat of justice.' The meaning is important, as the sequel shows. It does the Princess credit that she notes and remembers it.

[3] To kill, let alone to eat, a cow, would be of course one of the most deadly sins of which a Brahman could be guilty.

[4] See Manu II., 227, sqq.

[5] I remember to have heard a very inferior version of this story from an old Pundit with whom I read Maráthi.