The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
back. And so she took him at night into that cellar to his wife, who
was expecting her paramour the leper. Then Sasin made out for certain
that it was his wife, who was lamenting there in the darkness, by
feeling her limbs, and he became an ascetic on the spot. And when she
was asleep, he went out unobserved, and made his way to Dhanadeva and
Rudrasoma. And he told them his experiences, and said in his grief,
"Alas! women are like torrents that flow in a ravine, they are ever
tending downwards, capricious, beautiful at a distance, prone to
turbidness, and so they are as difficult to guard as such rivers are
to drink, and thus my wife, though kept in a cellar, has run after
a leper. So for me also the forest is the best thing. Out on family
life!" And so he spent the night in the company of the merchant and
the Bráhman, whose affliction was the same as his. And next morning
they all set out together for the forest, and at evening they reached
a tree by the roadside, with a tank at its foot. And after they had
eaten and drunk, they ascended the tree to sleep, and while they were
there, they saw a traveller come and lie down underneath the tree.
Story of the snake-god and his wife.
And soon they saw another man arise from the tank, and he brought
out of his mouth a couch and a lady. Then he lay down on the couch
beside that wife of his, and went to sleep, and the moment she saw it,
she went and embraced the traveller. And he asked her who they were,
and she answered; "This is a snake-god, and I am his wife, a daughter
of the snake race. Do not fear, I have had ninety-nine lovers among
travellers, and you make the hundredth." But, while she was saying
this, it happened that the snake-god woke up, and saw them. And he
discharged fire from his mouth, and reduced them both to ashes.
When the snake-god had gone, the three friends said to one another,
"If it is impossible to guard one's wife by enclosing her in one's
own body, what chance is there of keeping her safe in a house? Out on
them all!" So they spent the night in contentment, and next morning
went on to the forest. There they became completely chastened in
mind, with hearts quieted by practising the four meditations, [132]
which were not interfered with by their friendship, and they became
gentle to all creatures, and attained perfection in contemplation,
which produces unequalled absolute beatification; and all three in
due course destroyed the inborn darkness of their souls, and became
liberated from the necessity of future births. But their wicked
wives fell into a miserable state by the ripening of their own sin,
and were soon ruined, losing both this and the next world.
"So attachment to women, the result of infatuation, produces misery
to all men. But indifference to them produces in the discerning
emancipation from the bonds of existence."
When the prince, who was longing for union with Saktiyasas, had
patiently listened to this diverting tale, told by his minister
Gomukha, he again went to sleep.
NOTE ON THE STORY OF GHATA AND KARPARA.
The portion of the story of "the Shifty lad," which so nearly resembles
the story of Ghata and Karpara, runs as follows: The shifty lad
remarks to his master the wright, that he might get plenty from the
king's store-house which was near at hand, if only he would break into
it. The two eventually rob it together. "But the king's people missed
the butter and cheese and the other things that had been taken out
of the store-house, and they told the king how it had happened. The
king took the advice of the Seanagal about the best way of catching
the thieves, and the counsel that he gave them was, that they should
set a hogshead of soft pitch under the hole where they were coming
in. That was done, and the next day the shifty lad and his master
went to break into the king's store-house."
The consequence was that the wright was caught in the pitch. Thereupon
the shifty lad cut off his head, which he carried home and buried
in the garden. When the king's people came into the store-house,
they found a body, without a head and they could not make out whose
it was. By the advice of the Seanagal the king had the trunk carried
about from town to town by the soldiers on the points of spears. They
were directed to observe if any one cried out on seeing it. When they
were going past the house of the wright, the wright's wife made a
tortured scream, and swift the shifty lad cut himself with an adze,
and he kept saying to the wright's wife, "It is not as bad as thou
thinkest." He then tells the soldier that she is afraid of blood,
and therefore the soldier supposed that he was the wright and she his
wife. The king had the body hung up in an open place, and set soldiers
to watch if any should attempt to take it away, or show pity or grief
for it. The shifty lad drives a horse past with a keg of whisky on
each side, and pretends to be hiding it from the soldiers. They pursue
him, capture the whisky, get dead drunk, and the shifty lad carries
off and buries the wright's body. The king now lets loose a pig to
dig up the body. The soldiers follow the pig, but the wright's widow
entertains them. Meanwhile the shifty lad kills the pig and buries
it. The soldiers are then ordered to live at free quarters among the
people, and wherever they get pig's flesh, unless the people could
explain how they came by it, to make a report to the king. But the
shifty lad kills the soldiers who visit the widow, and persuades
the people to kill all the others in their sleep. The Seanagal next
advises the king to give a feast to all the people. Whoever dared
to dance with the king's daughter would be the culprit. The shifty
lad asks her to dance, she makes a black mark on him, but he puts
a similar black mark on twenty others. The king now proclaims that,
if the author of these clever tricks will reveal himself, he shall
marry his daughter. All the men with marks on them contend for
the honour. It is agreed that to whomsoever a child shall give an
apple, the king is to give his daughter. The shifty lad goes into
the room where they are all assembled, with a shaving and a drone,
and the child gives him the apple. He marries the princess, but is
killed by accident. Köhler (Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 303 and
ff.) compares the story of Dolopathos quoted in Loiseleur II, 123,
ed. Brunet, p. 183, a story of the Florentine Ser Giovanni, (Pecorone,
IX, 1,) an old Netherland story in Haupt's Zeitschrift für Deutsches
Alterthum 5, 385-404, called "The thief of Bruges," and a Tyrolese
story in Zingerle, Kinder- und Hausmärchen aus Süd-Deutschland, p. 300;
also a French Romance of chivalry entitled, "The knight Berinus and
his son Aigres of the Magnet mountain." There is also a story in the
Seven Wise Masters (Ellis, specimens of early English metrical romances
new ed. by Halliwell, London, 1848, p. 423) of a father and his son
breaking into the treasure-house of the emperor Octavianus. Köhler also
compares the story of Trophonius and his brother or father Agamedes
(Scholiast to Aristophanes, Nubes, 508; Pausanias, IX, 37, 3.) This
story will also be found in Simrock's Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. XII,
p. 148. The story appears in Melusine, 1878 p. 17 under the title of
"Le Voleur Avisé, Conte Breton." See also Ralston's Tibetan Tales,
Introduction, pp. xlvii and ff.
CHAPTER LXV.
The next evening Gomukha told Naraváhanadatta this story to amuse
him as before.
Story of the ungrateful Wife. [133]
In a certain city there lived the son of a rich merchant, who was an
incarnation of a portion of a Bodhisattva. His mother died, and his
father became attached to another wife, so he sent him away; and the
son went forth from his father's house with his wife to live in the
forest. His younger brother also was banished by his father, and went
with him, but as he was not of a chastened disposition, the elder
brother parted company with him, and went in another direction. And
as he was going along, he at last came to a great desert wilderness,
without water, grass, or tree, scorched by the fierce rays of the sun,
and his supplies were exhausted. And he travelled through it for seven
days, and kept his wife, who was exhausted with hunger and thirst,
alive, by giving her his own flesh and blood, and she drank the blood
and ate the flesh. And on the eighth day he reached a mountain forest,
resounding with the surging waters of a torrent, abounding in shady
trees laden with fruit, and in delightful turf. There he refreshed
his wife with water and fruits, and went down into the mountain-stream
that was wreathed with waves, to take a bath. And there he saw a man
with his two feet and his two hands cut off, being carried along by
the current, in need of assistance. Though exhausted with his long
fast, the brave man entered the river, and rescued this mutilated
person. And the compassionate man landed him on the bank, and said;
"Who did this to you, my brother?" Then the maimed man answered,
"My enemies cut off my hands and feet, and threw me into the river,
desiring to inflict on me a painful death. But you have saved me
from the water." When the maimed man told him this, he bandaged his
wounds, and gave him food, and then the noble fellow bathed and took
food himself. Then this merchant's son, who was an incarnation of
a Bodhisattva, remained in that wood with his wife, living on roots
and fruits, and engaged in austerities.
One day, when he was away in search of fruits and roots, his wife fell
in love with that maimed man, whose wounds were healed. And determining
to kill her husband, the wicked woman devised a plot for doing so in
concert with that mutilated man, and she pretended to be ill. And she
pointed out a plant growing in the ravine, where it was difficult
to descend, and the river hard to cross, and said to her husband;
"I may live if you bring me that sovereign plant, for I am sure that
the god indicated to me its position in a dream." He consented, and
descended into the ravine to get the plant, by the help of a rope
plaited of grass and fastened to a tree. But when he had got down,
she unfastened the rope; so he fell into the river, and was swept
away by it, as its current was strong. And he was carried an enormous
distance by the river, and flung up on the bank near a certain city,
for his merits preserved his life. Then he climbed up on to the firm
ground, and rested under a tree, as he was fatigued by his immersion
in the water, and thought over the wicked behaviour of his wife. Now
it happened that at that time the king of that city had just died,
and in that country there was an immemorial custom, that an auspicious
elephant was driven about by the citizens, and any man, that he took
up with his trunk and placed on his back, was anointed king. [134]
The elephant, wandering about, came near the merchant's son, and, as
if he were Providence pleased with his self-control, took him up, and
put him on his back. Then the merchant's son, who was an incarnation
of a portion of a Bodhisattva, was immediately taken to the city and
anointed king by the people. When he had obtained the crown, he did
not associate with charming women of coquettish behaviour, but held
converse with the virtues of compassion, cheerfulness and patience.
And his wife wandered about hither and thither, carrying that
maimed man, who was her paramour, on her back, [135] without fear
of her husband, whom she supposed to have been swept away by the
river. And she begged from village to village, and city to city,
saying, "This husband of mine has had his hands and feet cut off by
his enemies; I am a devoted wife and support him by begging, so give
me alms. At last she reached the town in which that husband of hers