Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources: Translated from the Tibetan of the Kah-Gyur

KING MANDHATAR}

In olden days, when the life of man was of nnlimited duration, lived King Utposhadha. On the crown of his head grew a very soft tumour, somewhat resembling a cushion of cotton or wool, without doing him any harm. When it had become quite ripe and had broken, there came forth from it a boy, shapely and handsome and gracious, perfect in every limb and joint, with a skin the colour of gold, a head like a canopy, long arms, a broad forehead, interlacing eyebrows, and a body provided with the thirty - two signs of a Mahapurusha. Immediately after his birth he was taken into the apartments of the women; and when King Utposhadha’s eighty thousand wives saw him, milk began to flow from their breasts, and each of the women cried out, “Let him suck me! let him suck me 1” Wherefore he received the name of Mandhatar. Some of them thought that, as he came into life out of the crown of a head, he ought to receive the name o£ Murdhaja (crown-born); consequently the name Mandhatar is known to some, and that of Murdhaja to others.