The very next day, Mantragupta and a few trusted people from the kingdom of Magadha left for Varanasi.
In the kingdom of Varanasi, Mantragupta made himself look like a Pasupata ascetic. The people with him spread the news that the Pasupata ascetic had supernatural powers.
Mantragupta and his group travelled all over Varanasi with one particular purpose - they had to find the elephant trainer of Bhadradanta.
Mantragupta was patient and soon he was able to find where the elephant trainer lived.
Keeping up pretences of being an ascetic, Mantragupta studied the elephant trainer and to look at the patterns of the elephant trainer and his family.
Soon the minister knew when the elephant trainer left his wife and went out and when he came back home.
One time, when he saw a group of four armed men come into the house of the elephant trainer and the four men led the scared wife of the elephant trainer out of the house.
Mantragupta and his ‘disciples’ saw that the elephant trainer’s wife went into a particular house in the city.
After that, Mantragupta went back to his own place and did nothing else.
The very next day, Mantragupta saw the worried Elephant trainer not go to work, but worriedly look around the house, apparently for his wife who was missing from the place.
Mantragupta through his disciples called the elephant-trainer to his house.
Adapted from the Katha Sarith Sagara
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