60. He then deserted his native land and went over to the city of the Kirs, of which he became the king; and reigned there for the space of twice four years. 61. The citizens coming to know his mean birth afterwards, drove him from there at last; as they remove a noxious and poisonous tree from the garden. 62. Gádhi seeing the people immolating themselves on funeral piles entered into a burning pyre, which he had prepared for himself; and was thus purified with others by the sacred fire _pávaka_. 63. But tell us, O Bráhman, why you are so curiously inquisitive about the chandála, and as to whether he was any friend of yours, or you had contracted any friendship with him. 64. Being accosted in this manner, Gádhi made many more inquiries of them concerning the chandála, and passed a whole month in their several houses on his inquiry. 65. He also told the village people, all that he knew of the chandála in his dream; and they heard him attentively relating the whole story from first to last. 66. Gádhi being informed of all the particulars regarding the chandála, both from the hearsay of the people as well as from his personal observations; returned equally ashamed and astonished to his abode, with the disgraceful reflection of his past vileness, which was stamped like the black spot of the moon upon the tablet of his mind. CHAPTER XLVIII. ON THE WONDROUS POWER OF ILLUSION. Argument. Devotion of Gádhi after his return, and Vishnu’s exhibition of the extraordinary power of delusion to him Vasishtha continued:—Gádhi was bewildered in his mind, at all that he heard and observed about the Chandála and his residence, and felt uneasy to learn more about them. 2. He went back to the place, and observed the abodes that lay scattered upon the plain; as when the lotus-born Brahmá looks over the ruins, made by the great deluge at the end of a kalpa age. 3. He said to himself, those bones lying scattered about the ruined huts in this forest, look like little imps (pisáchas), gathered round the trees standing on the burial ground. 4. These posts and pegs of elephant’s tusks, that are fastened to and upon the walls of the ruined houses; look like the craigs of mount Meru, drowned under the waters of the kalpa deluge. 5. Here the Chandála feasted on his meat food of monkey’s flesh, and dressed with the sprouts of young bamboos; and there he caroused on his country grog, in company with his drunken friends. 6. Here he slept in the embrace of his murky spouse, on his bed of the lion’s skin; being drunk with the better liquor mixed with the ichor, exuding from the frontal proboscis of the elephant. 7. There was a pack of hounds, tied to the trunk of the withered _Bharaeda_ tree, and fed with the rotten flesh of the putrid carcasses.