But when his relatives wanted to burn
the body, she forbade them and told them to go away. For she said,
"My fortune is still to come, whatever it may be." They all got round
her and tried to persuade her that there was no use in her staying by
the corpse, but she would not mind what they said. At last they were
quite tired out and went home, leaving her in the burning-ground. When
they had gone she took her husband's corpse on to her lap. Then she
prayed to the god Shiva and said:
"My parents disown me. O why was I born
Both as orphan and widow to live all forlorn?"
As she prayed, she put the pulse which her mother had put into her
lap grain by grain in the dead man's mouth. Then she sat there crying
until midnight. Now it happened that on that very night Shiva and
Parwati were in their chariot driving through the air over that very
place. Parwati said suddenly to her husband, "I hear a woman crying,
let us go and see what it is." The god Shiva drove his chariot down to
earth. He and Parwati got out and saw the Brahman's youngest daughter
crying.
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