विक्रम चरित (उज्जैन सम्राट् विक्रमादित्य - पराक्रम, न्याय एवं ३२ पुतलियों की कथा सटीक)

266 different countries, as well as to the remotest corners of his own dominions, to gain precise information, if possible, as to the birth of such a person. On the south of the river Godavery was situated the city of Prathestan, where reigned a king named Somekaunt, who to a handsome exterior added every virtue which can adorn the human mind. He devoted as much of his time as he could spare from the duties of his state to acts of charity towards his poorer subjects. He was liberal and kind, and studied all the varied wants of his people with the object of relieving them; by which means he not only helped to improve the condition of his people, and with it to increase the prosperity of his country, but he also planted in the hearts of his subjects a lasting sentiment of love and gratitude towards himself, which was manifested by their constant invocations and prayers that blessings might be showered upon his head. There was a poor brahmin, named Soolochun, in this city, who had an only daughter, a most lovely child, called Soometra. She had been deprived of her mother, by the cruel hand of death, at the age of four years. The brah- min felt this stroke of affliction to his heart's inmost core; and having no other near relative who could undertake the management of his unhappy child, and give her the nourish- ment needed at her years, he was thrown into a most uncontrollable fit of grief, from which he rose at times only to fall into a more distressing one, by recalling to his mind with renewed force the forlorn condition of his infant daughter. He carried her in his arms whilst following the usual avocations of his calling, and it was most pitiable to behold the care-worn and haggard looks of the father, and to hear the piercing cries of the infant for its usual sustenance. Thus the father went on from day to day, feeding his child as best he could, until it began to speak. When she could express herself in an intelligible manner, he was agreeably surprised to hear with what good sense her observations were characterised.