Once upon a time there was a town called Atpat.  In it there was a temple to the god Shiva.  One day when Shiva and his wife Parwati were walking about they happened to come to this temple.  They sat down there and began to play saripat. [17] After some time Parwati seeing a priest close by asked him who had won, she or Shiva.  “Shiva,” the priest replied.  Parwati became very angry and cursed him, so that he became a leper, and the pains which overtook him were absolutely unendurable.  One day a band of Apsaras [18] came down from heaven to the temple.  They saw that the priest who lived in it was a leper, and they asked him the reason.  He told them how Parwati had cursed him.  They replied, “Do not be afraid; do as we tell you and you will get rid of your leprosy.  Fast all next Monday, bathe that evening, worship the god Shiva, and then get half a pound of flour and mix it with treacle and ghee and eat it for dinner.  But whatever you do, eat no salt all day.  Do this for sixteen Mondays in succession, and on the seventeenth Monday get five pounds of flour, mix with it ghee and treacle, and offer it to Shiva inside this temple.  Then divide it into three parts; leave one for the god, distribute a second among the Brahmans or give it to your cows, and take the third home to be eaten by you and your family.”  The Apsaras disappeared, and the priest followed their instructions and became quite well.  Some time afterwards Shiva and Parwati came again to the temple.  Parwati saw the priest cured of his leprosy and asked him how he had got rid of it.  He told her exactly what he had done.  She was very much surprised, and thought that if she did the same she might win back her son Kartakswami, [19] who had quarrelled with her and had run off in a rage.  On the seventeenth Monday Kartakswami suddenly appeared, and both of them were reconciled.  Later on, Kartakswami asked Parwati how she had brought him back, and Parwati told him.  Now Kartakswami had a Brahman friend who had gone into a far-off country, and Kartakswami met him by accident shortly afterwards.  He told the Brahman how the priest had cured himself of leprosy, and how he and Parwati had become reconciled.  So the Brahman also practised the same rites for seventeen Mondays.  He then set out for a distant country.  As he travelled he came to a town.  Now it happened that in that town arrangements were being made for the marriage of the king’s daughter.  Several princes had come from far-off countries to compete for her hand, and the king had erected a splendid pavilion for the royal betrothal.  But he would not himself choose a prince to be his daughter’s husband.  He ordered that a garland should be placed on a she-elephant’s trunk, and that the prince round whose neck the she-elephant threw the garland should be chosen to marry the king’s daughter.  But the she-elephant passed by all the princes in turn, until she came to where the Brahman stood.  For he had come with the crowds of people