of Siva, and, enlarging on Parvati's beauty, excited him to attack her husband that he might win her. With this object he sent Rahu as an ambassador, to summon the god to submission. On his arrival at the court the envoy delivered his master's message to Siva, in the form of Panchanana, who did not deign to speak; but the snake Vasuki, falling to the ground from his hair, began to eat Ganesa's rat. Seeing this, Kartikeya's peacock made such an awful noise that the snake disgorged the rat and returned to his proper place.

Lakshmi then entered the assembly with a vessel of amrita, with which she resuscitated Brahma's fifth head that was in Siva's hand; the head rolling on the ground uttered most boastful language, until myriads of hideous forms from Siva's locks quieted it. Rahu, seeing all this, asked Siva to forsake his wife and children, and live a mendicant's life. At a sign from Siva, Nandi, the bull, showed him the door; this was the answer vouchsafed to the illustrious master's demand.

War being determined on, Jalandhara marched first to Kailasa; but finding that Siva had forsaken it and taken up a position on a mountain near Lake Manasa, he surrounded the mountain with his troops. Nandi marched against them, and spread destruction "like the waters of the deluge;" reserves, however, being brought up, the army of the gods suffers loss. Parvati, hearing that her sons, Ganesa and Kartikeya, are hardly pressed, urged her husband to go in person and put forth his energy, though not to expose himself unnecessarily. Before leaving home, Siva carefully warned Parvati to be on her guard during his absence, as it was possible the daitya in some disguise might visit her; after this, accompanied by Virabhadra and Manibhadra, two forms

of his anger, he went to the field of battle. When the conflict between the daityas and the attendants of Siva had continued for some time, Jalandhara devised a plan by which he hoped to succeed more easily than by fighting. Giving his own form and the command of his troops to a chief, the daitya king assumed the form of Siva, changed Durwarana into Nandi, and, taking the heads of Ganesa and Kartikeya under his arms, hastened to Siva's abode. Seeing this, Parvati was overwhelmed with grief; but having some doubt of his being the real Siva, she hid herself and would not listen to his overtures of love. To make certain of his identity, she caused one of her attendants to assume her form and visit the daitya, who, returning with the information that he was not the true Siva, Parvati hid herself in a lotus, and her companions were changed into bees which hovered around her.