The Katha Sarit Sagara or Ocean of the Streams of Story Part 40

The golden-crested bird's story.

There is on the Himalayas a king of the Vidyadharas, named Vajradanshtra. His queen gave birth to five daughters in succession. And then the king propitiated Siva with austerities and obtained a son, named Rajatadanshtra, whom he valued more than life. His father, out of affection, bestowed the knowledge of the sciences upon him when he was still a child, and he grew up, a feast to the eyes of his relations.

One day he saw his eldest sister, by name Somaprabha, playing upon a pinjara. In his childishness he kept begging for the pinjara, saying, "Give it me, I too want to play on it." And when she would not give it him, in his flightiness he seized the pinjara, and flew up to heaven with it in the form of a bird. Then his sister cursed him, saying;--"Since you have taken my pinjara from me by force, and flown away with it, you shall become a bird with a golden crest." When Rajatadanshtra heard this, he fell at his sister's feet, and entreated her to fix a time for his curse to end, and she said, "When, foolish boy, you fall, in your bird-form, into a blind well, and a certain merciful person draws you out, and you do him a service in return, then you shall be released from this curse." When she had said this to her brother, he was born as a bird with a golden crest.

"I am that same golden-crested bird, that fell into this pit in the night, and have now been drawn out by you, so now I will depart. Remember me when you fall into calamity, for by doing you a service in return I shall be released from my curse." When the bird had said this, he departed. Then the snake, being questioned by that Bodhisattva, told his story to that great-souled one.

The snake's story.

Formerly I was the son of a hermit in the hermitage of Kasyapa. And I had a companion there who was also the son of a hermit. And one day my friend went down into the lake to bathe, and I remained on the bank. And while I was there, I saw a serpent come with three heads. And, in order to terrify that friend of mine in fun, I fixed the serpent immoveable on the bank, opposite to where he was, by the power of a spell. My friend got through his bathing in a moment, and came to the bank, and unexpectedly seeing that great serpent there, he was terrified and fainted. After some time I brought my friend round again, but he, finding out by meditation that I had terrified him in this way, became angry, and cursed me, saying, "Go and become a similar great snake with three crests." Then I entreated him to fix an end to my curse, and he said,--"When, in your serpent condition, you fall into a well, and at a critical moment do a service to the man who pulls you out, then you shall be freed from your curse."

"After he had said this, he departed, and I became a serpent, and now you have drawn me out of the well; so now I will depart. And when you think of me I will come; and by doing you a service I shall be released from my curse."

When the snake had said this, he departed, and the woman told her story.

The woman's story.

I am the wife of a young Kshatriya in the king's employ, a man in the bloom of youth, brave, generous, handsome, and high-minded. Nevertheless I was wicked enough to enter into an intrigue with another man. When my husband found it out, he determined to punish me. And I heard of this from my confidante, and that moment I fled, and entered this wood at night, and fell into this well, and was dragged out by you.

"And thanks to your kindness I will now go and maintain myself somewhere. May a day come when I shall be able to requite your goodness."

When the sinful woman had said this to the Bodhisattva, she went to the town of a king named Gotravardhana. She obtained an interview, with him, and remained among his attendants, in the capacity of maid to the king's princ.i.p.al queen. But because that Bodhisattva talked with that woman, he lost his power, and could not procure fruits and roots and things of that kind. Then, being exhausted with hunger and thirst, he first thought of the lion. And, when he thought of him, he came and fed him with the flesh of deer, [137] and in a short time he restored him to his former health with their flesh; and then the lion said, "My curse is at an end, I will depart." When he had said this, the Bodhisattva gave him leave to depart, and the lion became a Vidyadhara and went to his own place.

Then that incarnation of a portion of a Bodhisattva, being again exhausted by want of food, thought upon that golden-crested bird, and he came, when thought of by him. And when he told the bird of his sufferings, the bird went and brought a casket full of jewels [138] and gave it him, and said, "This wealth will support you for ever, and so my curse has come to an end, now I depart; may you enjoy happiness!" When he had said this, he became a young Vidyadhara prince, and went through the air to his own world, and received the kingdom from his father. And the Bodhisattva, as he was wandering about to sell the jewels, reached that city, where the woman was living whom he had rescued from the well. And he deposited those jewels in an out-of-the-way house belonging to an old Brahman woman, and went to the market, and on the way he saw coming towards him the very woman whom he had saved from the well, and the woman saw him. And the two fell into a conversation, and in the course of it the woman told him of her position about the person of the queen. And she asked him about his own adventures: so the confiding man told her how the golden-crested bird had given him the jewels. And he took her and shewed her the jewels in the house of the old woman, and the wicked woman went and told her mistress the queen of it. Now it happened that the golden-crested bird had managed artfully to steal this casket of jewels from the interior of the queen's palace, before her eyes. And when the queen heard from the mouth of that woman, who knew the facts, that the casket had arrived in the city, she informed the king. And the king had the Bodhisattva pointed out by that wicked woman, and brought by his servants as a prisoner from that house with the ornaments. And after he had asked him the circ.u.mstances, though he believed his account, he not only took the ornaments from him, but he put him in prison.

Then the Bodhisattva, terrified at being put in prison, thought upon the snake, who was an incarnation of the hermit's son, and the snake came to him. And when the snake had seen him, and enquired what his need was, he said to the good man, "I will go and coil round the king from his head to his feet. [139] And I will not let him go until I am told to do so by you. And you must say here, in the prison, 'I will deliver the king from the serpent.' And when you come and give me the order, I will let the king go. And when I let him go, he will give you half his kingdom." After he had said this, the snake went and coiled round the king, and placed his three hoods on his head. And the people began to cry out, "Alas! the king is bitten by a snake." Then the Bodhisattva said, "I will deliver the king from this snake." And the king's servants, having heard this, informed him. Thereupon the king, who was in the grasp of the snake, had the Bodhisattva summoned, and said to him, "If you deliver me from this snake, I will give you half my kingdom, and these my ministers are your guarantees that I will keep my promise." When his ministers heard this, they said,--"Certainly," and then the Bodhisattva said to that snake, "Let the king go at once." Then the snake let the king go, and the king gave half his kingdom to that Bodhisattva, and thus he became prosperous in a moment. And the serpent, as its curse was at an end, became a young hermit, and he told his story in the presence of the court and went back to his hermitage.

"Thus you see that good fortune certainly befalls those of good dispositions. And transgression brings suffering even upon the great. And the mind of women cannot be relied upon, it is not touched even by such a service as rescue from death; so what other benefit can move them?" When Gomukha had told this tale, he said to the king of Vatsa, "Listen, I will tell you some more stories of fools."

Story of the Buddhist monk who was bitten by a dog.

There was in a certain Buddhist monastery a Buddhist monk of dull intellect. One day, as he was walking in the high road, he was bitten by a dog on the knee. And when he had been thus bitten, he returned to his monastery, and thus reflected,--"Every body, one after another, will ask me, 'What has happened to your knee?' And what a time it will take me to inform them all one by one! So I will make use of an artifice to let them all know at once." Having thus reflected, he quickly went to the top of the monastery, and taking the stick with which the gong was struck, he sounded the gong. And the mendicant monks, hearing it, came together in astonishment, and said to him, "Why do you without cause sound the gong at the wrong time?" He answered the mendicants, at the same time shewing them his knee, "The fact is, a dog has bitten my knee, so I called you together, thinking that it would take a long time for me to tell each of you separately such a long story: so hear it all of you now, and look at my knee." Then all the mendicants laughed till their sides ached, and said, "What a great fuss he has made about a very small matter!"

"You have heard of the foolish Buddhist monk, now hear of the foolish Takka."

Story of the man who submitted to be burnt alive sooner than share his food with a guest.

There lived somewhere a rich but foolish Takka, [140] who was a miser. And he and his wife were always eating barley-meal without salt. And he never learned to know the taste of any other food. Once Providence instigated him to say to his wife, "I have conceived a desire for a milk-pudding: cook me one to-day." His wife said, "I will," and set about cooking the pudding, and the Takka remained in doors concealed, taking to his bed, for fear some one should see him and drop in on him as a guest.

In the meanwhile a friend of his, a Takka who was fond of mischief, came there, and asked his wife where her husband was. And she, without giving an answer, went in to her husband, and told him of the arrival of his friend. And he, lying on the bed, said to her; "Sit down here, and remain weeping and clinging to my feet, and say to my friend, 'My husband is dead.' [141] When he is gone, we will eat this pudding happily together." When he gave her this order, she began to weep, and the friend came in, and said to her, "What is the matter?" She said to him "Look, my husband is dead." But he reflected, "I saw her a moment ago happy enough cooking a pudding. How comes it that her husband is now dead, though he has had no illness? The two things are incompatible. No doubt the two have invented this fiction because they saw I had come as a guest. So I will not go." Thereupon the mischievous fellow sat down, and began crying out, "Alas my friend! Alas, my friend!" Then his relations, hearing the lamentation, came in and prepared to take that silly Takka to the burning-place, for he still continued to counterfeit death. But his wife came to him and whispered in his ear, "Jump up, before these relations take you off to the pyre and burn you." But the foolish man answered his wife in a whisper, "No! that will never do, for this cunning Takka wishes to eat my pudding. I cannot get up, for it was on his arrival that I died. For to people like me the contemplation of one's possessions is dearer than life." Then that wicked friend and his relations carried him out, but he remained immoveable, even while he was being burned, and kept silence till he died. So the foolish man sacrificed his life but saved his pudding, and others enjoyed at ease the wealth he had acquired with much toil.

"You have heard the story of the miser, now hear the story of the foolish pupils and the cat."

Story of the foolish teacher, the foolish pupils, and the cat.

In Ujjayini there lived in a convent a foolish teacher. And he could not sleep, because mice troubled him at night. And wearied with this infliction, he told the whole story to a friend. The friend, who was a Brahman, said to that teacher, "You must set up a cat, it will eat the mice." The teacher said, "What sort of creature is a cat? Where can one be found? I never came across one." When the teacher said this, the friend replied, "Its eyes are like gla.s.s, its colour is a brownish grey, it has a hairy skin on its back, and it wanders about in roads. So, my friend, you must quickly discover a cat by these signs and have one brought." After his friend had said this, he went home. Then that foolish teacher said to his pupils, "You have been present and heard all the distinguis.h.i.+ng marks of a cat. So look about for a cat, such as you have heard described, in the roads here." Accordingly the pupils went and searched hither and thither, but they did not find a cat anywhere.

Then at last they saw a Brahman boy coming from the opening of a road, his eyes were like gla.s.s, his colour brownish grey, and he wore on his back a hairy antelope-skin. And when they saw him they said, "Here we have got the cat according to the description." So they seized him, and took him to their teacher. Their teacher also observed that he had got the characteristics mentioned by his friend; so he placed him in the convent at night. And the silly boy himself believed that he was a cat, when he heard the description that those fools gave of the animal. Now it happened that the silly boy was a pupil of that Brahman, who out of friends.h.i.+p gave that teacher the description of the cat. And that Brahman came in the morning, and, seeing the boy in the convent, said to those fools, "Who brought this fellow here?" The teacher and his foolish pupils answered, "We brought him here as a cat, according to the description which we heard from you." Then the Brahman laughed and said, "There is considerable difference between a stupid human being, and a cat, which is an animal with four feet and a tail." When the foolish fellows heard this, they let the boy go and said, "So let us go and search again for a cat such as has been now described to us." And the people laughed at those fools.

"Ignorance makes every one ridiculous. You have heard of the fools and their cat, now hear the story of another set of fools."

Story of the fools and the bull of Siva.

There was in a certain convent, full of fools, a man who was the greatest fool of the lot. He once heard in a treatise on law, which was being read out, that a man, who has a tank made, gains a great reward in the next world. Then, as he had a large fortune, he had made a large tank full of water, at no great distance from his own convent. One day this prince of fools went to take a look at that tank of his, and perceived that the sand had been scratched up by some creature. The next day too he came, and saw that the bank had been torn up in another part of that tank, and being quite astonished, he said to himself, "I will watch here to-morrow the whole day, beginning in the early morning, and I will find out what creature it is that does this." After he had formed this resolution, he came there early next morning, and watched, until at last he saw a bull descend from heaven and plough up the bank with its horns. He thought, "This is a heavenly bull, so why should I not go to heaven with it?" And he went up to the bull, and with both his hands laid hold of the tail behind. Then the holy bull lifted up with the utmost force the foolish man, who was clinging to its tail, and carried him in a moment to its home in Kailasa. There the foolish man lived for some time in great comfort, feasting on heavenly dainties, sweetmeats, and other things which he obtained. And seeing that the bull kept going and returning, that king of fools, bewildered by destiny, thought, "I will go down clinging to the tail of the bull and see my friends, and after I have told them this wonderful tale, I will return in the same way." Having formed this resolution, the fool went and clung to the tail of the bull one day when it was setting out, and so returned to the surface of the earth.

When he returned to the convent, the other blockheads, who were there, embraced him, and asked him where he had been, and he told them. Then all those foolish men, having heard the tale of his adventures, made this pet.i.tion to him; "Be kind and take us also there, enable us also to feast on sweetmeats." He consented, and told them his plan for doing it, and the next day he led them to the border of the tank and the bull came there. And the princ.i.p.al fool seized the tail of the bull with his two hands, and another took hold of his feet, and a third in turn took hold of his. So, when they had formed a chain by clinging on to one another's feet, the bull flew rapidly up into the air. And while the bull was going along, with all the fools clinging to his tail, it happened that one of the fools said to the princ.i.p.al fool; "Tell us now, to satisfy our curiosity; how large were those sweetmeats which you ate, of which a never-failing supply can be obtained in heaven?" Then the leader had his attention diverted from the business in hand, and quickly joined his hands together like the cup of a lotus, and exclaimed in answer, "So big." But in so doing he let go the tail of the bull. And accordingly he and all those others fell from heaven, and were killed, and the bull returned to Kailasa; but the people, who saw it, were much amused. [142]

"Fools do themselves an injury by asking questions and giving answers without reflection. You have heard about the fools who flew through the air; hear about this other fool."

Story of the fool who asked his way to the village.

A certain fool, while going to another village, forgot the way. And when he asked his way, the people said to him; "Take the path that goes up by the tree on the bank of the river."

Then the fool went and got on the trunk of that tree, and said to himself, "The men told me that my way lay up the trunk of this tree." And as he went on climbing up it, the bough at the end bent with his weight, and it was all he could do to avoid falling by clinging to it.

While he was clinging to it, there came that way an elephant, that had been drinking water, with his driver on his back. When the fool, who was clinging to the tree, saw him, he said with humble voice to that elephant-driver, "Great Sir, take me down." And the elephant-driver let go the elephant-hook, and laid hold of the man by the feet with both his hands, to take him down from the tree. In the meanwhile the elephant went on, and the elephant-driver found himself clinging to the feet of that fool, who was clinging to the end of the tree. Then the fool said urgently to the elephant-driver, "Sing something quickly, if you know anything, in order that the people may hear, and come here at once to take us down. Otherwise we shall fall, and the river will carry us away." When the elephant-driver had been thus appealed to by him, he sang so sweetly that the fool was much pleased. And in his desire to applaud him properly, he forgot what he was about, and let go his hold of the tree, and prepared to clap him with both his hands. Immediately he and the elephant-driver fell into the river and were drowned, for a.s.sociation with fools brings prosperity to no man.

After Gomukha had told this story, he went on to tell that of Hiranyaksha.

Story of Hiranyaksha and Mrigankalekha.

There is in the lap of the Himalayas a country called Kasmira, which is the very crest-jewel of the earth, the home of sciences and virtue. In it there was a town, named Hiranyapura, and there reigned in it a king, named Kanakaksha. And there was born to that king, owing to his having propitiated Siva, a son, named Hiranyaksha, by his wife Ratnaprabha. The prince was one day playing at ball, and he purposely managed to strike with the ball a female ascetic who came that way. That female ascetic possessing supernatural powers, who had overcome the pa.s.sion of anger, laughed and said to Hiranyaksha, without altering the expression of her face, [143]

"If your youth and other qualities make you so insolent, what will you become if you obtain Mrigankalekha for a wife." [144] When the prince heard that, he propitiated the female ascetic and said to her; "Who is this Mrigankalekha? tell me, reverend madam." Then she said to him, "There is a glorious king of the Vidyadharas on the Himalayas, named Sasitejas. He has a beautiful daughter, named Mrigankalekha, whose loveliness keeps the princes of the Vidyadharas awake at night. And she will be a fitting wife for you, and you will be a suitable husband for her." When the female ascetic, who possessed supernatural power, said this to Hiranyaksha, he replied, "Tell me, reverend mother, how she is to be obtained." Thereupon she said, "I will go and find out how she is affected towards you, by talking about you. And then I will come and take you there. And you will find me to-morrow in the temple of the G.o.d here, named Amaresa, for I come here every day to wors.h.i.+p him." After the female ascetic had said this, she went through the air by her supernatural power to the Himalayas, to visit that Mrigankalekha. Then she praised to her so artfully the good qualities of Hiranyaksha, that the celestial maiden became very much in love with him, and said to her, "If, reverend mother, I cannot manage to obtain a husband of this kind, of what use to me is this my purposeless life?" So the emotion of love was produced in Mrigankalekha, and she spent the day in talking about him, and pa.s.sed the night with that female ascetic. In the meanwhile Hiranyaksha spent the day in thinking of her, and with difficulty slept at night, but towards the end of the night Parvati said to him in a dream, "Thou art a Vidyadhara, become a mortal by the curse of a hermit, and thou shalt be delivered from it by the touch of the hand of this female ascetic, and then thou shalt quickly marry this Mrigankalekha. Do not be anxious about it, for she was thy wife in a former state." Having said this, the G.o.ddess disappeared from his sight. And in the morning the prince woke and rose up, and performed the auspicious ceremonies of bathing and so on. Then he went and adored Amaresa and stood in his presence, since it was there that the female ascetic had appointed him a rendezvous.

In the meanwhile Mrigankalekha fell asleep with difficulty in her own palace, and Parvati said to her in a dream, "Do not grieve, the curse of Hiranyaksha is at an end, and he will again become a Vidyadhara by the touch of the hand of the female ascetic, and thou shalt have him once more for a husband." When the G.o.ddess had said this, she disappeared, and in the morning Mrigankalekha woke up and told the female ascetic her dream. And the holy ascetic returned to the earth, and said to Hiranyaksha, who was in the temenos of Amaresa, "Come to the world of Vidyadharas." When she said this, he bent before her, and she took him up in her arms, and flew up with him to heaven. Then Hiranyaksha's curse came to an end, and he became a prince of the Vidyadharas, and he remembered his former birth, and said to the female ascetic, "Know that I was a king of the Vidyadharas named Amritatejas in a city named Vajrakuta. And long ago I was cursed by a hermit, angry because I had treated him with neglect, and I was doomed to live in the world of mortals until touched by your hand. And my wife, who then abandoned the body because I had been cursed, has now been born again as Mrigankalekha, and so has before been loved by me. And now I will go with you and obtain her once more, for I have been purified by the touch of your hand, and my curse is at an end." So said Amritatejas, the Vidyadhara prince, as he travelled through the air with that female ascetic to the Himalayas. There he saw Mrigankalekha in a garden, and she saw him coming, as he had been described by the female ascetic. Wonderful to say, these lovers first entered one another's minds by the ears, and now they entered them by the eyes, without ever having gone out again.

Then that outspoken female ascetic said to Mrigankalekha, "Tell this to your father with a view to your marriage." She instantly went, with a face downcast from modesty, and informed her father of all through her confidante. And it happened that her father also had been told how to act by Parvati in a dream, so he received Amritatejas into his palace with all due honour. And he bestowed Mrigankalekha on him with the prescribed ceremonies, and after he was married, he went to the city of Vajrakuta. There he got back his kingdom as well as his wife, and he had his father Kanakaksha brought there, by means of the holy female ascetic, as he was a mortal, and he gratified him with heavenly enjoyments and sent him back again to earth, and long enjoyed his prosperity with Mrigankalekha.

"So you see that the destiny fixed for any creature in this world, by works in a former birth, falls as it were before his feet, and he attains it with ease, though apparently unattainable." When Naravahanadatta heard this tale of Gomukha's, he was enabled to sleep that night, though pining for Saktiyasas.