On one occasion he went to the Mahanadi 3, for the purpose of ablution: he bathed there, and performed the ceremonies usual after bathing, Whilst thus occupied, there came to the same place a doe big with young, who had come out of the forest to drink of the stream. Whilst quenching her thirst, there was heard on a sudden the loud and fearful roaring of a lion; on which the doe, being excessively alarmed, jumped out of the water upon the bank. In consequence of this great leap, her fawn was suddenly brought forth, and fell into the river; and the king, seeing it carried away by the current, caught hold of the young animal, and saved it from being drowned. The injury received by the deer, by her violent exertion, proved fatal, and she lay down, and died; which being observed by the royal ascetic, he took the fawn in his arms, and returned with it to his hermitage: there he fed it and tended it every day, and it throve and grew up under his care. It frolicked about the cell, and grazed upon the grass in its vicinity; and whenever it strayed to a distance, and was alarmed at a wild beast, it ran back thither for safety. Every morning it sallied forth from home, and every evening returned to the thatched shelter of the leafy bower of Bharata.

Whilst the deer was thus the inmate of his hermitage, the mind of the king was ever anxious about the animal, now wandering away, and now returning to his side, and he was unable to think of anything else. He had relinquished his kingdom, his children, all his friends, and now indulged in selfish affection for a fawn. When absent for a longer time than ordinary, he would fancy that it had been carried off by wolves, devoured by a tiger, or slain by a lion. "The earth," he would exclaim, "is embrowned by the impressions of its hoofs. What has become of the young deer, that was born for my delight? How happy I should be

if he had returned from the thicket, and I felt his budding antlers rubbing against my arm. These tufts of sacred grass, of which the heads have been nibbled by his new teeth, look like pious lads chanting the Sáma-veda 4." Thus the Muni meditated whenever the deer was long absent from him; and contemplated him with a countenance animated with pleasure as he stood by his side. His abstraction was interrupted, the spirit of the king being engrossed by the fawn, even though he had abandoned family, wealth, and dominion. The firmness of the prince's mind became unsteady, and wandered with the wanderings of the young deer. In the course of time the king became subject to its influence. He died, watched by the deer, with tears in its eyes, like a son mourning for his father; and he himself, as he expired, cast his eyes upon the animal, and thought of nothing else, being wholly occupied with one idea.