and homas, and sacrifices performed with the desire for having an offspring.  One day the king heard that the high-souled Chanda-kausika, the son of Kakshivat of the illustrious Gautama race, having desisted from ascetic penances had come in course of his wanderings to his capital and had taken his seat under the shade of a mango tree.  The king went unto that Muni accompanied by his two wives, and worshipping him with jewels and valuable presents gratified him highly.  That best of Rishis truthful in speech and firmly attached to truth, then told the king,—­O king of kings, I have been pleased with thee.  O thou of excellent vows, solicit thou a boon.  King Vrihadratha then, with his wives, bending low unto that Rishi, spoke these words choked with tears in consequence of his despair of obtaining a child.—­’O holy one forsaking my kingdom I am about to go into the woods to practise ascetic penances.  I am very unfortunate for I have no son.  What shall I do, therefore, with my kingdom or with a boon?’

Krishna continued,—­“Hearing these words (of the king), the Muni controlling his outer senses entered into meditation, sitting in the shade of that very mango tree where he was.  And there fell upon the lap of the seated Muni a mango that was juicy and untouched by the beak of a parrot or any other bird.  That best of Munis, taking up the fruit and mentally pronouncing certain mantras over it, gave it unto the king as the means of his obtaining an incomparable offspring.  And the great Muni, possessed also of extraordinary wisdom, addressing the monarch, said,—­“Return, O king, thy wish is fulfilled.  Desist, O king, from going (into the woods)".—­Hearing these words of the Muni and worshipping his feet, the monarch possessed of great wisdom, returned to his own abode.  And recollecting his former promise (unto them) the king gave, O bull of the Bharata race, unto his two wives that one fruit.  His beautiful queens, dividing that single fruit into two parts, ate it up.  In consequence of the certainty of the realisation of the Muni’s words and his truthfulness, both of them conceived, as an effect of their having eaten that fruit.  And the king beholding them in that state became filled with great joy.  Then, O wise monarch, some time after, when the time came, each of the queens brought forth a fragmentary body.  And each fragment had one eye, one arm, one leg, half a stomach, half a face, and half an anus.  Beholding the fragmentary bodies, both the mothers trembled much.  The helpless sisters then anxiously consulted each other, and sorrowfully abandoned those fragments endued with life.  The two midwives (that waited upon the queens) then carefully wrapping up the still-born (?) fragments went out of the inner apartments (of the palace) by the back door and throwing away the bodies, returned in haste.  A little while after, O tiger among men, a Rakshasa woman of the name of Jara living upon flesh and blood, took up the fragments that lay on a crossing.  And impelled by force