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

CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE King Vickramadetea—His military talents, intellectual accom- plishments, and love of justice—The wisdom and integrity of his Prime Minister—Precautions taken to avert the effects of an adverse prediction made at Vickramadetea's birth—The hermit Soodow—The king obtains from him a practical know- ledge of the science of transmigration—A sentinel, by following the king, also becomes possessed of the secret ... 1 CHAPTER II. King Vickramadetea sets out upon a journey, attended by the sentinel who had acquired the knowledge of transmigration— The king, anxious to test the efficacy of the hermit's instruc- tions, causes his own soul to reanimate the body of a dead serpent—The sentinel enters into the king's body, mounts his horse, and returns to Oujein, the capital of Vickramadetea's dominions—He personates the king, and assumes the reins of government, but departing from his master's policy, he be- comes as much hated as Vickram had formerly been loved—The king discovers the duplicity of his servant, and fearing to con- tinue in the shape of a serpent, assumes that of a parrot, and proceeds to the Fort of Sendoornuggry—He falls in with a troop of Bahooroopees—The strange metamorphoses which the king enables them to effect, and their extraordinary conse- quences ... ... ... ... 8 CHAPTER III. The same subject continued—Tale of the Alligator and the Travel- ler—The chief of the Bahooroopees disposes of the parrot to a wealthy merchant—A dancing-girl endeavours to extort money from the merchant by a false accusation, which is frus- trated by the ingenuity of the parrot—The dancing-girl pre- vails upon the merchant to make her a present of the parrot— In revenge, she orders her slave to put him to death; but Vey- tal, the king of the demons, saves his life, and enables him to escape—The parrot flies to the temple of the goddess Kallika. 19