Now, a celestial magician named Madana·vega had fallen in love with Kalinga·sena; he used his magic to come to her room in the form of the king and seduce her. The demon found the magician in his own form, asleep on the bed of the sleeping Kalinga·sena; for he was a divine man and had lost his false form because his magic power to take such a form vanished when he was asleep. The demon called the prime minister, who brought the king to Kalinga·sena’s ________
room; he saw her asleep and the magician asleep beside her in his own form. The king wanted to kill him, but just then the magician was awakened by his magic and he went out and flew away to the sky. In a moment, Kalinga·sena woke up too; she said to the king, “Why did you go away a moment ago and come back with your minister?” The minister explained to her, “Someone who took the form of the king magically deluded you and married you; it wasn’t the king.” And they left. The minister told everything to Vasava·datta, who thanked him.
Udayana kept thinking about Kalinga·sena’s beauty, and one night when he was full of lust he went to her room alone, with a sword in his hand, and asked her to become his wife. But she rejected him, saying, “You should regard me as another man’s wife.” The king withdrew and eventually forgot about her. But the magician, who had overheard the conversation, praised his wife and continued to visit her, though he added, “Even though you are a virtuous woman, you have gotten the reputation of a whore” (‘Ocean of the Rivers of Stories’ 31–34 [6.5–8]).
The magician is revealed in his post-coital repose, the sleep that both allows possession and reveals it. For the Hindus believe that a god or demon who masquerades as someone else in bed is compelled to take his own true form when he loses mental control and hence inadvertently turns off the current from the magic projector in his mind; this happens when he sleeps, gets drunk, dies, gets angry—or makes love, when sexual passion strips away the final illusion, the curse or disguise, and reveals the true identity (Doniger 2000). But in this case the unmasking takes place ________
after the damage has been done, and Kalinga·sena is punished, and calumniated, for not seeing through the trick sooner. Vasava·datta plays no active role; the prime minister, assisted by the demon and, inadvertently, the magician, intervenes to get rid of the feared co-wife—who must, even at the end, still defend herself from the lustful Udayana.
But Vasava·datta plays an active role in other episodes in the cycle about Udayana, which begin with the same premise as the story of Kalinga·sena: for political reasons, Udayana must take a second wife (or wives). Before the encounter with Kalinga·sena, Udayana had become involved with:
Padmavati, the Lady with the Lotus
King Udayana, King of Vatsa, married to Vasava·datta, daughter of the king of Avanti, was so in love with her that he neglected his royal duties. His ministers decided to save him from himself by getting the King of Magadha, their enemy, to give his daughter Padmavati (“the Lady with the Lotus”) to the king and to make the king believe that Vasava· datta was dead. The ministers gave the queen a charm that enabled her to change her shape, and she disguised herself as a Brahmin woman, under the name of Avantika (“The Woman from the City of Avanti,” Vasava·datta’s kingdom), and went to serve Padmavati at the court of Magadha.
When the king of Magadha offered Padmavati to Udayana, he accepted her. Vasava·datta made garlands for Padmavati, using a special technique that the king had taught her. The bridal couple returned to Vatsa, and Vasava·datta followed in the rear. The king asked Padmavati where she ________
had gotten the garlands; she said she had gotten them from Avantika, and then the king knew that Avantika must be Vasava·datta. The minister told the king all, and the king and his two wives were reconciled (‘Ocean of the Rivers of Stories’ 15–16 [3.1–2]).
Udayana recognizes Vasava·datta by recognizing himself in her—through the art of making garlands that he had taught her.
But before Padmavati (and, therefore, before Kalinga·se- na), there had been:
Virachita and the Slip of the Tongue
King Udayana married Vasava·datta, but after a while, Udayana became unfaithful and made love with a woman in the harem named Virachita, with whom he had had an affair before. One day he called the queen by the wrong name, Virachita, and had to appease her by falling at her feet. Later, a beautiful princess named Bandhumati was sent as a present to the queen. The queen concealed her under the name of Manjulika, but the king saw her and secretly seduced her. Vasava·datta, who was hidden, witnessed this act; furious at first, she eventually relented and accepted Bandhumati, for she had a tender heart (‘Ocean of the Rivers of Stories’ 14 [2.60].64–75).
The king mistakes one woman for another, mistaking not the person but the name; when the queen conceals first the rival and then herself, the king finds the secret woman and the queen watches the secret act. In the end, all is revealed and all is accepted.
The Story in Bhasa’s ‘Vasava·datta in a Dream’
and Subandhu’s ‘Vasava·datta’
Bhasa’s ‘The Drama of Vasava·datta [who meets her husband] in a Dream’ (Svapna/vasavadatta), was composed early in the fourth century ce. This play shares with the first text from the ‘Ocean of the Rivers of Story’ the revealing sleep/dream; with the second, much of the plot and the name of the co-wife, Padmavati; and, with the third, more of the plot and the slip of the tongue:
Vasava·datta in a Dream
King Udayana was married to Vasava·datta and loved her too much to take a second wife, but there was a prediction that for the good of the kingdom he should marry Padmavati, the sister of Darshaka, the king of Magadha. To gain Darshaka as an ally when Udayana’s throne had been usurped, the king’s minister, Yaugandharayana, spread the rumor that Vasava·datta had perished in a fire at Lavanaka, but secretly he put Vasava·datta in the care of Padmavati, giving her the name of Avantika. Udayana married Padmavati, and Vasava·datta made a garland for her husband’s bride.
Padmavati was stricken with a headache and lay down in a room different from her own room. The king and the jester went to her own room to conciliate her, but the jester, seeing the garland that Vasava·datta had made, mistook it for a cobra and fled. The king, finding that Padmavati was not in fact there, fell asleep in Padmavati’s bed. Vasava·datta came in and, thinking that Padmavati was in the bed, sat on it and said, “I wonder why my heart rejoices so as I sit ________
beside her. And by lying on one side of the bed she seems to invite me to embrace her. I will lie down there.” And she lay down.
Then the king, dreaming, called out, “O Vasava·datta,” and the queen stood up and said, “It’s the king, not Padmavati! Has he seen me?” Again the king called out, “O, princess of Avanti!” and she realized, “Good, the king is just talking in his sleep. There’s no one here, so I will stay here for a moment and satisfy my eyes and my heart.” Udayana (continuing in his sleep): “My darling, answer me. Are you angry with me?”
V: “No, no, but I am unhappy.”
U: “Is it because you are remembering Virachika [sic]?”
V (angrily): “Go away; is Virachika here too?”
U: “Then let me