The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
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 circumstances, 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 Ujjayiní 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 Bráhman, 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 glass,
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 distinguishing 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 Bráhman boy coming from the opening of a road,
his eyes were like glass, 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
Bráhman, who out of friendship gave that teacher the description of
the cat. And that Bráhman 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
Bráhman 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 Kailása. 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 petition 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 principal 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 principal
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 Kailása;
but the people, who saw it, were much amused. [142]