Kuntala presented the rag-attired Madana with the marriagegarland. Although everybody in the assembly was highly mortified on seeing the extremely humiliating selection made by the princess, she was ultimately married to Madana.

(4) While Madana and his newly-married bride were asleep in the bridal-chamber, he dreamt a dream that the saint Satya Pir had become angry with him. Thereupon he wrote down on a piece of paper the whole of his life-history, kept it upon the bed and without waking up his bride, he climbed up the magic-tree and travelled through the air by means of it and returned home. But nobody came to know anything about this.

(5) Next morning, when she did not find her newly-married husband princess Kuntala began to weep bitterly for him. Seeing his daughter's sorrow-stricken condition, her father the Rājā began to search for him. When the Rājā arrived in Madana's own country and, not being able to trace out the latter's whereabouts, was about to depart therefrom, Madana presented himself before the king and narrated to him the whole of his own life-history. Thereupon, the Rājā was extremely delighted and presented his son-in-law with numerous valuable presents and brought about a meeting between him and his daughter, the princess. Thereafter Madana returned home with his own wife.

(6) Afterwards, Sumati and Kumati came to hear of these events and suspecting that Madana was aware of the fact that they were adepts in witchcraft, became highly apprehensive about their own safety and therefore made up their minds to slay him by giving him poison. When the saint Satya Pir became aware of this intention, which the two ladies harboured in their minds, he forbade all the shopkeepers to sell poison to anybody. When not being able to buy poison in the market, the two ladies were returning home downhearted they met the saint on the way and informed him of all that had happened in the meantime. Thereupon the saint told them : My good ladies, I can supply you with a kind of poison, which, if taken by any person, would

metamorphose him into a falcon." Accordingly they took the

poison from his saintship, returned home, and having mixed it up with some cooked-rice offered it to Madana to eat. The latter unsuspectingly partook of it and was immediately changed into a falcon. The saint, thereupon, assumed the shape of a big hawk and chased the falcon and seized the latter.

(7) In the meantime the saint Satya Pir appeared to Raja Varnnesvara in a dream, and ordered him to release the two merchant-brothers Sadananda and Binoda from imprisonment; which he accordingly did.

(8) After they had been released from the prison, the two merchant brothers set out to return home. On their way homewards they purchased various presents for their respective family members. At the time of purchasing the same, they remembered that their youngest brother, Madanakumāra, had requested them to purchase a falcon for him. They therefore sent messengers in all directions to purchase for them one of these birds. Just at that moment the saint Satya Pir appeared before the two brothers with the falcon in his hand, the bird. being no other than Madanakumāra metamorphosed into an avian form. His saintship told them : "If you present me with an offering of sweet-stuff weighing (14) one one-fourth seer, I shall make a free gift of this falcon to you." This they accordingly did and taking the falcon from the Pir, returned home and began to search for their youngest brother Madanakumāra. Thereupon their wives Sumati and Kumati wept aloud and said: "Oh Lords! we bad married Madanakumāra to princess Kuntala, who was an ogress in human form. On the very night of the marriage, she killed her husband and ate him up." On hearing this the two brothers were much stricken with sorrow and sent the falcon to their deceased brother's widow, the princess. She very gladly took the bird as it had been much coveted by her husband.

(9) Shortly after this, the saint Satya Pir, assuming the guise of a mendicant, went to the princess and begged for alms from her. Having nothing else by her at that time, she offered him 1 (one one-fourth) handful of rice, which he gladly

accepted and went away. Under the influence of the Pir's blessing, all the rice in the store-room of the princess was changed into pearls. At this she was highly delighted and, for the welfare of her husband, made up her mind to offer, as previously, the prescribed quantity of sweet-stuff or shinni to the Pir; she distributed the shinni to everybody present and even fed the falcon with a portion of it. Iminediately on partaking of the food-offering, the falcon was metamorphosed into Madana. Thereafter the three brothers and their family members were reunited and lived happily ever afterwards.

There is current in Bengal another variant of the foregoing legend, the incidents of which are very similar to those of the preceding one, as will appear from the undermentioned abstract :

(1) At Chandan-nagar there lived a merchant named Jayadhara, who died leaving three sons. The two elder of these sons were named Madana and Kamadeva, whose respective wives were named Sumati and Kumati. While the name of the youngest son was Sundara, who was unmarried.

(2) Sumati and Kumati were really witches in human form and had their home in Kaynur in Assam. They were in the habit of climbing upon a tree every night and by means of their magical spells, of travelling on this vehicle through the air to Kaynur.

(8) Shortly afterwards the two brothers Madan and Kamadeva set out on a trading expedition. Before starting they made over their youngest brother Sundara to the care of their respective wives. At the same time the latter requested his brothers to bring for him a bird called Suka from the foreign parts they would visit.

(4) During their husbands' absence Sumati and Kumati used to leave their home and visit Kaynur riding on their tree vehicle. Sundara came to know of this as also of the fact that his two sisters-in-law were witches.

(5) When Samati and Kumati came to know that their youngest brother-in-law had discovered their real character,

they with the assistance of the Goddess Kali, slew him on two occasions. But on both these occasions the saint Satya Pir, by his miraculous power, restored Sundara to life.

(6) When the princess of Kaynur was about to perform a Svayamvara ceremony for the selection of her husband, Sundara concealed himself among the foliage of his sisters-inlaws' magical trip-vehicle and without their knowing of it, accompanied them to Kaynur and appeared in the marriage assembly. After his arrival there he took his seat among the assembled princes. At Satya Pir's behest the princess presented Sundara with the marriage-garland and they were married in due form. During the marriage night Sundara fearing that he would be left alone there by his sisters-in-law, again concealed himself in the tree-vehicle and returned with them to Chandannagore Before leaving her, he wrote on his wife's apron an account of his own life and telling her at the same time to seek for him at Chandannagore.

(7) After their reurn while Sundara was sleeping one night, the two sisters-in-law tied a charm to his neck whereupon he was immediately metamorphosed into a Suka bird, which they let fly in the forest. This bird was captured by a fowler, who took it for sale to the seaside. At this time the two brothers, Madan and Kamadeva, were returning from their trading expedition and seeing the Suka bird purchased it from the fowler as a present for their youngest brother.

(8) In the meantime the princess of Kaynur had come to Chandannagore in search of her missing husband and took up her residence in the latter's house. Shortly afterwards the two brothers Madan and Kamadeva returned home and were given to understand by their wives that their youngest brother Sundara had become addicted to vicious habits during their absence, had left home and that his whereabouts could not be traced out by them On hearing this they became very much stricken with grief and presented the Suka bird to Madan's widow, the princess, telling her to cherish it carefully.

(9) One day, while the princess was caressing the Suka bird, she found a charm tied to its neck As soon as she untied the charm from its neck, Sundara reassumed his human shape and stood before her but, for the purpose of preparing a pleasant surprise for her two elder brothers-in-law, Madana and Kāmadeva, she again changed Sundara into his avian form.

(10) One day she invited Madana and Kāmadeva to a feast. While they were seated and partaking of the meal, she had kept a third seat vacant for her husband. She requested her brothers-in-law to call out aloud for her husband by his name, which they did accordingly. As soon as they had done this, she untied the spell from the Suka bird's neck, whereupon Sundara reassumed his human shape, seated himself by his brothers' side and partook of the meal. Thereafter he told them that his two sisters-in-law Sumati and Kumati were witches and had tried to kill him on two occasions and had spread false report about his disappearance. On hearing this Madana and Kamadeva became greatly enraged with their wives and punished them by burying them alive in a pit. Very curiously enough, the incidents of the aforementioned two Satya Pir legends1 are to be found in the undermentioned folktale, which is current among the Santals, who belong to a pre-dravidian race which live in the Santal Parganas and is in a low plane of culture :

Once upon a time there were seven brothers, of whom the six elder were married and used to spend a good deal of their time in hunting, while the youngest brother was unmarried and locked after the cattle. While the six elder brothers were away from home a-hunting, their wives, who were all witches, used to ride upon a Pipal tree and go to distant countries and to eat men and do all other kinds of devilry. One day the youngest brother hid himself in a hollow of the Pipal tree. Then his six sisters-in-law rode upon the tree and were carried

1 For a fuller version of these variant, vide Dr. Diush Chandra Sen's The Folk Literature of Bengal published by the University of Calcutta, 1920, pp. 103-113.