Tales of the Sun Part 21

In the charming tale of "Nala and Damayanti," which occurs in the third part ("Vana Parva") of the grand Indian epic "Mahabharata," the exiled king perceives a snake with a ray of jewels in its crest, writhing in a jungle fire, and lifting it out, carries it some distance, and is about to set it down, when the snake says to him, "Carry me ten steps farther, and count them aloud as you go." So Nala proceeds, counting the steps--one, two, three--and when he said "ten" (dasa, which means "ten" and also "bite") the snake took him at his word, and bit the king in the forehead, upon which he became black and deformed.

An abstract of a considerably modified form of our romance orally current among the people of Bengal may be given in conclusion: A king appoints his three sons to patrol in turn the streets of his capital during the night. It happens that the youngest Prince in going his rounds one night sees a beautiful woman issuing from the royal palace, and accosting her, asks her business at such an hour. She replies:--

"I am the guardian deity of this palace; the king will be killed this night, therefore I am going away."

The Prince persuades the G.o.ddess to return into the palace and await the event. As in our story, he enters his father's sleeping chamber and discovers a huge cobra near the royal couch. He cuts the serpent into many pieces, which he puts inside a bra.s.s vessel that is in the room. Then seeing that some drops of the serpent's blood had fallen on his step-mother's breast, he wraps a piece of cloth round his tongue to protect it from the poison, and licks off the blood. The lady awakes, and recognises him as he is leaving the room. She accuses him to the king of having used an unpardonable freedom with her. In the morning the king sends for his eldest son, and asks him: "If a trusted servant should prove faithless how should he be punished?"

Quoth the Prince: "Surely his head should be parted from his body; but before doing so you should ascertain whether the man is actually guilty."

And then he proceeds to relate the following story:--"Once upon a time there was a goldsmith who had a grown-up son, whose wife was acquainted with the language of animals, but she kept secret from her husband and all others the fact of her being endowed with such a rare gift. It happened one night she heard a jackal exclaim: 'There is a dead body floating on the river; would that some one might give me that body to eat, and for his pains take the diamond ring from the finger of the dead man.'

"The woman arose from her bed and went to the bank of the river, and her husband, who was not asleep, followed her un.o.bserved. She went into the water, drew the corpse to land, and unable to loosen the ring from the dead man's finger, which had swelled, she bit off the finger, and leaving the corpse on the bank, returned home, whither she had been preceded by her husband. Almost petrified with fear, the young goldsmith concluded from what he had seen that his wife was not a human being, but a ghoul (rakshasi), and early in the morning he hastened to his father and related the whole affair to him--how the woman had got up during the night and gone to the river, out of which she dragged a dead body to the land, and was busy devouring it when he ran home in horror.

"The old man was greatly shocked, and advised his son to take his wife on some pretext into the forest and leave her there to be destroyed by wild beasts. So the husband caused the woman to get herself ready to go on a visit to her father, and after a hasty breakfast they set out. In going through a dense jungle, where the goldsmith proposed abandoning his wife, she heard a serpent cry, 'O, pa.s.senger, I pray thee to seize and give me that croaking frog, and take for thy reward the gold and precious stones concealed in yonder hole.' The woman at once seized the frog and threw it towards the serpent, and then began digging into the ground with a stick. Her husband quaked with fear, thinking that his ghoul-wife was about to kill him, but she called to him, saying, 'My dear husband, gather up all this gold and precious gems.'

"Approaching the spot with hesitation he was surprised to perceive an immense treasure laid bare by his wife, who then explained to him how she had learned of it from the snake that lay coiled up near them, whose language she understood. Then he said to his wife--'It is now so late that we cannot reach your father's house before dark, and we might be slain by wild beasts. Let us therefore return home.' So they retraced their steps, and approaching the house the goldsmith said to his wife--'Do, you, my dear, go in by the back door, while I enter by the front and show my father all this treasure.'

The woman went in by the back door and was met by her father-in-law, who, on seeing her, concluded that she had killed and devoured his son, and striking her on the head with a hammer which he happened to have in his hand, she instantly expired. Just then the son came into the room, but it was too late."

"I have told your Majesty this story," adds the eldest Prince, "in order that before putting the man to death you should make sure that he is guilty."

The king next calls his second son and asks him the same question, to which he replies by relating a story to caution his father against rash actions.

"A king, separated from his attendants while engaged in the chase, saw what he conceived to be rain-water dropping from the top of a tree, and, being very thirst, held his drinking cup under it until it was nearly filled, and, just as he was about to put it to his lips, his horse purposely moved so as to cause the contents to be spilled on the ground, upon which the king in a rage drew his sword and killed the faithful animal; but afterwards discovering that what he had taken for rain-water was poison that dropped from a cobra in the tree, his grief knew no bounds."

Calling lastly his third son, the king asks him what should be done to the man who proved false to his trust. The Prince tells the story of the wonderful tree, the fruit of which bestowed on him who ate of it perennial youth, with unimportant variations from the version in our romance.

Then the Prince explained the occasion of his presence in the Royal bedchamber, and how he had saved the king and his consort from the cobra's deadly bite. And the king, overjoyed and full of grat.i.tude, strained his faithful son to his heart, and ever after cherished and loved him with all a father's love.

NOTES

[1] Soothsaying.

[2] An Indian hour equal to twenty-four minutes.

[3] It is the custom amongst widows to use betel leaves instead of plates.

[4] In English, Benares.

[5] The Deccan.

[6] A small vessel.

[7] Storey is here put for divisions in an Indian well. These divisions are little projecting ledges of stone made for natives to stand on so that they can get down close to the water if the well is not full. There are sometimes six or seven divisions, or ledges, of this sort.

[8] The first serpent--the king of serpents.

[9] Literally the stealer of gold--a practice very common in India among that cla.s.s. There is a proverb to the effect that even from the gold given by their mothers to be turned into jewels, they will pilfer a little.

[10] The distance of a kas being equal to 2000 Indian poles.

[11] Dungeon.

[12] A period of time equal to an hour and a half.

[13] King of tigers.

[14] A ghatika is equal to twenty-four minutes.

[15] Siva.

[16] The eldest son of Siva commonly known as the belly G.o.d.

[17] Another name of Ganapati.

[18] Worship.

[19] Attendants of Ganesa.

[20] Cla.s.sical name of Karur, a small, but very ancient, town in the Koyambatur District of the Madras Presidency.

[21] Naraka of Put--Naraka is h.e.l.l, and Put is a certain kind of h.e.l.l to which, according to Hindu mythology, son-less persons are hurled down.

[22] Putra-son, so-called as he protects the father from the h.e.l.l of Put.

[23] Ficus religiosa.

[24] The fair.

[25] Voluntary cremation of widows with the dead bodies of their husbands on the funeral pile.

[26] Karor is equal to ten lacs (lakhs); mohur is an old gold coin.

[27] Spring.

[28] The king's court.

[29] Council chamber.

[30] My darling prince.