He is rescued by a passing vessel of Yavanas who want to hold him as a slave. However, at the same time, their ship is attacked by Bhimadhanva's party. Mitragupta helps the Yavanas in repelling the attack and wins their favour. The ship drifts off to an island and Mitragupta lands on the shore. There he meets a Rakshasa who threatens to eat him unless he answers the following four questions: 1. What is cruel by nature? 2. What ensures the happiness of a householder? 3. What is love? and 4. What is the best means of achieving difficult things? He answers 1. The heart of a woman, 2. The virtues of a wife, 3. Imagination and 4. Ability. He illustrates his answers by four stories (told in full in the text). The Rakshasa is appeased by these answers. Just then, another Rakshasa is seen forcibly carrying the princess Kandukavati through the air. She is rescued and then married to Mitragupta. VII Mantragupta relates his adventures, in a speech which is entire niroshthya (निरोष्ठ्य, i.e., without labial consonants). One night he sees that a Siddha (sorcerer) is about to sacrifice the princess Kanakalekha of Kalinga in order to obtain miraculous powers. He kills the sorcerer and rescues the princess who falls in love with him. The sorcerer's slave (a ghost) is overjoyed to be freed from his master and clandestinely carries Mantragupta into the palace, where he lives with the princess in the ladies chambers. One day, as the king of Kalinga (and the princess), is away on a hunting expedition, their entire retinue is surprised and made captive by the rival king Jayasimha. The latter wishes to possess the princess, who resists his advances. In order to rescue her, Mantragupta dresses in the rags and severed hair of the sorcerer and presents himself as an ascetic possessing magical powers. He convinces Jayasimha to bathe in a presumably enchanted lake which would frighten away the Yaksha who has presumably possessed the princess. Mantragupta hides himself in a cavity along the bank of the lake and drowns Jayasimha when the latter enters. He issues forth as the King (who has acquired a new lustrous body), frees the old king and marries the princess. VIII Vishruta begins to relate his adventures. While wandering through the Vindhya forest, he comes across a young boy accompanied by an old servant. The boy is the