Upon receiving this answer, Keśidhwaja said, "I will go, then, and pay a visit to my foe: if he kill me, no matter, for then I shall obtain the reward that attends being killed in a holy cause: if, on the contrary, he tell me what penance to perform, then my sacrifice will be unimpaired in efficacy." Accordingly he ascended his car, having clothed himself in the deer skin (of the religious student), and went to the forest where the wise Kháńd́ikya resided. When Kháńd́ikya beheld him approach, his eyes reddened with rage, and he took up his bow, and said to him, "You have armed yourself with the deer skin to accomplish my

destruction, imagining that in such an attire you will be safe from me; but, fool, the deer, upon whose backs this skin is seen, are slain by you and me with sharp arrows: so will I slay you; you shall not go free whilst I am living. You are an unprincipled felon, who have robbed me of my kingdom, and are deserving of death." To this Keśidhwaja answered, "I have come hither, Kháńd́ikya, to ask you to solve my doubts, and not with any hostile intention: lay aside therefore both your arrow and your anger." Thus spoken to, Kháńd́ikya retired a while with his counsellors and his priest, and consulted with them what course to pursue. They strongly urged him to slay Keśidhwaja, who was now in his power, and by whose death he would again become the monarch of the whole earth. Kháńd́ikya replied to them, "It is no doubt true that by such an act I should become the monarch of the whole earth: he, however, would thereby conquer the world to come; whilst the earth would be mine. Now if I do not kill him, I shall subdue the next world, and leave him this earth. It seems to me that this world is not of more value than the next; for the subjugation of the next world endures for ever; the conquest over this is but for a brief season. I will therefore not kill him, but tell him what he wishes to know."