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After Govindaraja, Balhana succeeded to the throne, Balhana had two sons - Prahlada, the elder, and Vagbhata, the younger. Being brought up and educated together, there was between them very great brotherly affection. When they came of age, their father, who had grown old and feeble placed his older son. Prahlada, upon the gadi and appointed the younger, Vagbhata, to the post of prime minister. The old king did not long survive this arrangement. Prahlada, was a just king and as he ruled mildly, his subjects were contented.
One day, however, as fate would have it, he went out to the forest to hunt. The hunting party was a grand one. There
were many dogs with them, and the party was dressed in blue clothes. Merrily they went that day over hill and dale, and the pray was unusually heavy. Many a mighty lion was made to bite the dust, While the party was thus engaged, the king saw a big lion lying at his cage in a patch of tall reed grass, and, being dexterous with his bow, aimed an arrow at the lion and killed him. The attendants of the king raised a shout of joy
at this feat of royal archery, which had the effect of rousing from his slumbers another lion that was hard by, but of whose presence they were not aware. In an instant the brute rushed on the king with the swiftness of lightning, and ...oixing one of the king's arms in his mouth tore it from the body. This sad incident put stop to the sport, and the party bore the wounded monarch home, where the effects of the poison of the animal's bite terminated his life.
The death-bed of the king was an affecting scene, He placed on the gâdi his son Viranarayana, and called to his presence
Vagbhata, his brother and minister, and said to him that the three qualities of bravery, penetration, and circumspection were the main stays of a monarch; but that these were acquisitions to which people attained in their majority. Rarely were they
