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

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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.