long ago, there was a King, who had innumerable wives, and
fifty sons, of whom this very Chandana was one. Now all these sons lived
in anxiety, saying to themselves: Which of us all will be the heir to
the throne, and succeed our father when he dies? So they remained,
rivals, and each had his eyes fixed upon the others, fearing to be
supplanted. So Chandana's case was worse than thine, O Bruin, since thou
art without a rival. And then, after a while, that old King, out of all
his fifty sons, chose this very Chandana for his heir; and appointed him
_yuwaraja_,[31] with all the proper ceremonies. So when they were
completed, that overjoyed _yuwaraja_ ran, fresh from the installation,
to the _awarodha_,[32] to tell his mother of his triumph, and increase
it by her praises. But he found her, to his amazement, all in tears,
and as dismal as if he had come only to tell her of his death. So he
said: Mother, what is the reason of such misery, on such a day of
exultation? Should the gloom continue, while the sun is rising? But his
mother looked sourly at him, and she said: Fool! thy rising sun is
setting: thou art out, in thy quarters, and mistakest west for east: and
soon enough, it will be night for thee. And Chandana said: I do not
understand thee. Then said his mother: The King thy father discovered,
long ago, the elixir of life: and even now he has been living for
fifteen hundred years. And this is a jest that he plays, now and then,
for his own amusement, making one of his innumerable sons his heir. For
all his heirs die before him, as thou wilt also, never even reaching so
much as the very first step of that throne that lures them on and hangs
always just before them, like a bundle of _hariali_ grass held by a
crafty rider on a stick before the nose of the deluded beast of burden
that carries him along. Thine is only the phantom of a sun that will
presently go down and disappear, leaving the true sun, thy father, still
in the very blaze of noon.

[Footnote 31: _i.e._ "little king," Prince of Wales or Dauphin. The
story is a piece of old folklore, and one version may be found in
Somadewa.]

[Footnote 32: The women's apartments, or _gynaeceum_.]

So as he listened, the face of that unhappy Chandana fell. And he went
away, and sank, just as his mother told him, into the night of
melancholy; and abandoning his royal condition, he became a pilgrim, and
died after many years at a very holy bathing-place, at last. But his
fa