The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
"I have not a son as yet, let him be born first." Then the king
heard from a reciter of the Rámáyana, who visited his palace, how
king Dasaratha endured hardship to obtain a son; and so there arose
in his mind anxiety about obtaining a son, and the mendicant having
departed, the king Kanakavarsha spent that day in despondency.
And at night, as he was lying alone and sleepless upon his bed,
he saw a woman enter without opening the door. She was modest and
gentle of appearance, and, when the king bowed before her, she gave
him her blessing and said to him: "Son, know that I am the daughter
of Vásuki the king of the snakes, and the elder sister of thy father,
Ratnaprabhá by name. I always dwell near thee, invisible, to protect
thee, but to-day, seeing thee despondent, I have displayed to thee
my real form. I cannot bear to behold thy sorrow, so tell me the
cause." When the king had been thus addressed by his father's sister,
he said to her: "I am fortunate, mother, in that you shew me such
condescension. But know that my anxiety is caused by the fact that no
son is born to me. How can people like myself help desiring that, which
even heroic saints of old days, like Dasaratha and others, desired for
the sake of obtaining svarga." When the Nágí [762] Ratnaprabhá heard
this speech of that king, she said to her brother's son; "My son, I
will tell thee an admirable expedient, carry it out. Go and propitiate
Kártikeya with a view to obtain a son. I will enter thy body, and by
my power thou shalt support the rain of Kártikeya falling on thy head
to impede thee, difficult to endure. And after thou hast overcome a
host of other impediments, thou shalt obtain thy wish." When the Nágí
had said this, she disappeared, and the king spent the night in bliss.
The next morning he committed his realm to the care of his ministers,
and went, desiring a son, to visit the sole of Kártikeya's foot. There
he performed a severe penance to propitiate that lord, having power
given him by the Nágí that entered his body. Then the rain of Kumára
[763] fell on his head like thunderbolts, and continued without
ceasing. But he endured it by means of the Nágí that had entered his
body. Then Kártikeya sent Ganesa to impede him still further. And
Ganesa created in that rain a very poisonous and exceedingly terrible
serpent, but the king did not fear it. Then Ganesa, invincible [764]
even by gods, came in visible form, and began to give him bites on
the breast. Then king Kanakavarsha, thinking that he was a foe hard
to subdue, proceeded, after he had endured that ordeal, to propitiate
Ganesa with praises.
"Honour to thee, O god of the projecting belly, adorned with the
elephant's ornament, whose body is like a swelling pitcher containing
success in all affairs! Victory to thee, O elephant-faced one, that
makest even Brahmá afraid, shaking the lotus, which is his throne,
with thy trunk flung up in sport! Even the gods, the Asuras, and
the chief hermits do not succeed, unless thou art pleased, the only
refuge of the world, O thou beloved of Siva! The chief of the gods
praise thee by thy sixty-eight sin-destroying names, calling thee the
pitcher-bellied, the basket-eared one, [765] the chief of the Ganas,
the furious mast elephant, Yama the noose-handed, the Sun, Vishnu, and
Siva. With these names to the number of sixty-eight, corresponding to
so many parts of the body, do they praise thee. And when one remembers
thee, and praises thee, O Lord, fear produced by the battle-field, by
the king's court, by gambling, by thieves, by fire, by wild beasts,
and other harms, departs." With these laudatory verses, and with
many others of the same kind, king Kanakavarsha honoured that king
of impediments. And the conqueror of impediments said, "I will not
throw an impediment in thy way, obtain a son," and disappeared then
and there from the eyes of that king.
Then Kártikeya said to that king, who had endured the rain;
"Resolute man, I am pleased with thee, so crave thy boon." Then the
king, delighted, said to the god, "Let a son be born to me by thy
favour." Then the god said, "Thou shalt have a son, the incarnation of
one of my Ganas, and his name shall be Hiranyavarsha on the earth." And
then the rider on the peacock summoned him to enter his inmost shrine,
in order to shew him special favour. [766] Thereupon the Nágí left his
body invisibly, for females do not enter the house of Kártikeya through
dread of a curse. Then king Kanakavarsha entered the sanctifying
temple of that god, armed only with his human excellence. When the
god saw that he was deprived of the excellence he formerly had,
because he was no longer inhabited by the Nágí, he reflected--"What
can this mean?" And Kártikeya, perceiving by his divine meditation,
that that king had performed a very difficult vow by the secret
help of the Nágí, thus cursed him in his wrath: "Since thou didst
make use of deceit, intractable man, thou shalt be separated from
thy son, as soon as he is born, and from thy queen. When the king
heard this curse, terrible as a thunderstroke, he was not amazed,
but being a mighty poet, praised that god with hymns. Then the
six-faced god, pleased with his well turned language, said to him;
"King, I am pleased with thy hymns; I appoint thee this end of thy
curse; thou shalt be separated from thy wife and son for one year,
but after thou hast been saved from three great dangers, thou shalt
come to an end of the separation." When the six-faced god had said
this, he ceased to speak, and the king, satisfied with the nectar of
his favour, bowed before him, and went to his own city.
Then, in course of time, he had a son born to him by queen
Madanasundarí, as the nectar-stream is born of the light of the
cold-rayed moon. When the king and queen saw the face of that son,
being filled with great delight, they were not able to contain
themselves. [767] And at that time the king made a feast, and showered
riches, and made his name of Kanakavarsha [768] a literal fact on
the earth.
When five nights had passed, while guard was being kept in the
lying-in-house, on the sixth night a cloud suddenly came there. It
swelled, and gradually covered the whole sky, as a neglected enemy
overruns the kingdom of a careless king. Then the mast elephant
of the wind began to rush, showering drops of rain like drops
of ichor, and rooting up trees. At that moment a terrible woman,
sword in hand, opened the door, though it was bolted, and entered
that lying-in-chamber. She took that babe from the queen as she
was nursing it, and ran out, having bewildered the attendants. And
then the queen, distracted, and exclaiming, "Alas! a Rákshasí has
carried off my child," pursued that woman, though it was dark. And
the woman rushed on and plunged into a tank with the child, and
the queen, pursuing her, plunged in also, eager to recover her
offspring. Immediately the cloud disappeared, and the night came
to an end, and the lamentation of the attendants was heard in the
lying-in-chamber. Then the king Kanakavarsha, hearing it, came to
the lying-in-chamber, and seeing it empty of his son and wife, was
distracted. After he had recovered consciousness, he began to lament,
"Alas, my queen! Alas, my infant son!" and then he called to mind
that the curse was to end in a year. And he exclaimed, "Holy Skanda,
how could you give to ill-starred me a boon joined with a curse,
like nectar mixed with poison? Alas! how shall I be able to pass
a year, long as a thousand years, without the queen Madanasundarí,
whom I value more than my life?" And the king, though exhorted by the
ministers, who knew the circumstances, did not recover his composure,
which had departed with his queen.
And in course of time he left his city, distracted with a paroxysm
of love, and wandered through the Vindhya forest in a state of
bewilderment. There, as he gazed on the eyes of the young does,
he remembered the beauty of the eyes of his beloved, and the bushy
tails of the chamarís reminded him of the loveliness of her luxuriant
hair, and when he marked the gait of the female elephant, he called
to mind the languid grace of her gait, so that the fire of his love
broke out into a fiercer flame. And wandering about exhausted with
thirst and heat, he reached the foot of the Vindhya mountains, and,
after drinking the water of a stream, he sat down at the foot of a
tree. In the meanwhile a long-maned lion came out of a cavern of the
Vindhya hills, uttering a roar which resembled a loud demoniac laugh,
and rushed towards him to slay him. At that very moment a certain
Vidyádhara descended rapidly from heaven, and cleft that lion in two
with a sword-stroke. And that sky-goer, coming near, said to the king,
"King Kanakavarsha, how have you come to this region?" When the king
heard it, he recovered his memory, and said to him, "How do you know
me, who am tossed with the wind of separation?" Then the Vidyádhara
said, "I, when in old time I was a religious mendicant, of the name
of Bandhumitra, dwelt in your city. Then you helped me in my rites,
when I respectfully asked you to do so, and so I obtained the rank of
a Vidyádhara, by making a goblin my servant. Thus I recognized you,
and being desirous to confer on you a benefit by way of recompense,
I have slain this lion which I saw on the point of killing you.
"And my name has now become Bandhuprabha." When the Vidyádhara said
this, the king conceived an affection for him, and said, "Ah! I
remember, and this friendship has been nobly acted up to by you,
so tell me when I shall be reunited with my wife and son." When the
Vidyádhara Bandhuprabha heard that, he perceived it by his divine
knowledge, and said to the king--"By a pilgrimage to the shrine of
Durgá, in the Vindhya hills, you will recover your wife and son,
so go you to prosperity, and I will return to my own world." When he
had said this, he departed, and king Kanakavarsha, having recovered
his self-command, went to visit that shrine of Durgá.
As he was going along, a great and furious wild elephant, stretching
out its trunk, and shaking its head, charged him in the path. When the
king saw that, he fled by a way full of holes, so that the elephant,
pursuing him, fell into a chasm and was killed. Then the king, fatigued
with toil and exertion, slowly going along, reached a great lake full
of lotuses with straight upstanding stalks. There the king bathed,
drank the water of the lake, and ate the fibres of the lotuses, and
lying tired at the foot of a tree, was for a moment overpowered by
sleep. And some Savaras, returning that way from hunting, saw that king
with auspicious marks lying asleep. And they immediately bound him,
and took him to their king Muktáphala, in order that he might serve
as a victim. The king of the Savaras, for his part, seeing that the
king was a suitable victim, took him to the temple of Durgá to offer
him up. And when the king saw the goddess, he bowed before her, and by
her mercy and the favour of Skanda his bonds fell off. When the king
of the Savaras saw that miracle, he knew that it was a mark of the
goddess's favour towards him, and he spared his life. So Kanakavarsha
escaped the third danger, and accomplished the year of his curse.
And in the meanwhile the Nágí, the aunt of the king, came there,
bringing the queen Madanasundarí with her son, and said to the king--"O
king, when I heard the curse of Kártikeya, I took these away by an
artifice to my own dwelling, and preserved them there. Therefore,
Kanakavarsha, receive here your wife and son, enjoy this empire of
the earth, for now your curse is at an end." When the Nágí had said
this to the king, who bowed before her, she disappeared, and the king
looked upon the arrival of his wife and child as a dream. Then the