22. How wonderful are the captivating powers of spells, which they have derived from the Lord, and whose influence had overpowered on the strongest sense of my mind. 23. What are these bodies of men, that are subject to death and disease and what are our minds that are so susceptible of errors, and lead us to continued dangers. 24. The mind residing in the body, may be fraught with the highest knowledge, and yet the minds of the wisest of men, are liable to errors and illusion. (_Hominis est errare._ To err is human). 25. Hear ye courtiers! the wonderful tale of the adventures, which I passed through under this sorcery, from the moment that I had met this magician at first. 26. I have seen so many passing scenes in one single moment under this wizard, as had been shown of old by Brahma in his destruction of the theurgy of Indra. (The mighty Sakra spread his Indrajála or the web of his sorcery, in order to frustrate the attempts of the valiant Bali against him, and was at last foiled himself by the Brahma vidyá of Brahmá). 27. Having said so, the king began to relate smilingly to his courtiers, the strange wonders which he had beheld in his state of hallucination. 28. The king said:—I beheld a region full with objects of various kinds, such as rivers and lakes, cities and mountains, with many boundary hills, and the ocean girding the earth around. CHAPTER CVI. THE TALISMAN OF THE KING’S MARRIAGE WITH A CHANDÁLA MAIDEN. (_An Allegory of Human Depravity_). Argument. The king borne on horse-back to the habitation of a huntsman and was there married to his maiden daughter. (This adventure resembles that of Tajul Maluk in Gule Bákavli.) The king related:—This land of mine abounding in forests and rivulets, and appearing as the miniature of this orb of the earth. Literally:—as the younger twin sister of the earth:— 2. This land appearing as the paradise of Indra, of which I am the king, and where I am now sitting in my court-hall, amidst my courtiers and all these citizens. 3. There appeared here yonder sorcerer from a distant country, like a demon rising from the infernal region on the surface of the ground. 4. He turned round his magic-wand emitting its radiance around, as the tempest rends and scatters the rainbow of Indra in fragments in the air. 5. I was looking intently at the whirling wand, and the horse standing before me, and then mounted on the back of the steed in the dizziness of my mind. 6. I sat on the back of this unmoving horse and seemed to ride on a fleet steed, with the swiftness of the Pushkara and Ávartaka clouds, riding over the tops of immovable rocks. 7. I then went to a chase in full speed, a pass over an ownerless desert, howling as the surges of the boundless ocean.