IN a certain country there is a Prince, it is said. The Prince, saying that women are faithless, does not marry. The God Śakra having ascertained this, came in the appearance of a man, and asked at the hand of the Prince whether if he created a Princess out of his own very body, and gave her to him, he would be willing to take her in marriage. The Prince said, “It is good.” Afterwards the God Śakra created a Princess from the Prince’s body, and gave her to him. When the Prince and Princess, having got married, had been living together for a very long time, the Princess associated with a Nāgayā.1 When they had been thus for a long time, the Princess and the Nāgayā spoke together as to how to kill the Princess’s Prince. Then the Nāgayā said, “Ask at the hand of the Prince where the Prince’s death is. After you have got to know the place where his death is, I will bite 2 him there.” After that, the Princess asked at the hand of the Prince, “Where is your death ?” The Prince did not tell her. Every day the Princess was asking it. On a certain day the Prince said, “To-day my death is in my thumb.” Then the Princess told the Nāgayā, “He said that his death is in his thumb.” So the Nāgayā went [in his snake form, as a.cobra], and stopped on the path on which the Prince was going for his bath, in order to bite2 him. [Page 158] Afterwards, the Prince’s people went first; the Prince went in the middle. Then the people who went first saw the Nāgayā, and killed it.. Afterwards, the people and the Prince having returned from bathing, the Prince told at the hand of the Princess, “As we were going to bathe to-day a cobra was on the path ; my people killed it.” The Princess, clasping her hands with grief, asked, “Where was it ?” The Prince told her of the place where the cobra was staying, and she knew that it was the Nāgayā. Afterwards the Princess having given gold to the goldsmith, and having got a waist-chain made, told him to make a case for it. The goldsmith made it, and gave it. Then the Princess went to the place where the cobra was, and cut off its hood ; and placing the cobra in ‘the case of the golden waist-chain, the Princess put it. round her waist. Having it there, when they had eaten and drunk in the evening, and lighted the lamp in the house, both of them went into the house. Then the Princess said to the Prince, “I will ask you a riddle. Should you be unable to explain it, I will kill you. Should you explain it, you shall kill me.” The Prince said “Hā,” and both of them swore it. The Princess saying, The Nāga belt Nāga paṭiya (Is) the golden waist-chain. Ran hawaḍiya. Explain (it), friend. Tōra, sakiya. told the Prince to solve it. For fifteen pāēyas (six hours), without extinguishing the lamp, he tried and tried to explain it. He could not. So she was to kill the Prince next day. A Dēvatāwā (godling) who drank the smoke of the lamp of that house, was there looking on [invisibly] until the lamp was extinguished