The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
"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 association with fools brings prosperity to no man.
After Gomukha had told this story, he went on to tell that of
Hiranyáksha.
Story of Hiranyáksha and Mrigánkalekhá.
There is in the lap of the Himálayas a country called Kasmíra,
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 Kanakáksha. And there was born to that king,
owing to his having propitiated Siva, a son, named Hiranyáksha,
by his wife Ratnaprabhá. 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 passion of anger, laughed and said
to Hiranyáksha, 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 Mrigánkalekhá for a wife." [144] When the
prince heard that, he propitiated the female ascetic and said to her;
"Who is this Mrigánkalekhá? tell me, reverend madam." Then she said to
him, "There is a glorious king of the Vidyádharas on the Himálayas,
named Sasitejas. He has a beautiful daughter, named Mrigánkalekhá,
whose loveliness keeps the princes of the Vidyádharas 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 Hiranyáksha, 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 god here, named Amaresa, for I come
here every day to worship him." After the female ascetic had said this,
she went through the air by her supernatural power to the Himálayas,
to visit that Mrigánkalekhá. Then she praised to her so artfully
the good qualities of Hiranyáksha, 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
Mrigánkalekhá, and she spent the day in talking about him, and passed
the night with that female ascetic. In the meanwhile Hiranyáksha spent
the day in thinking of her, and with difficulty slept at night, but
towards the end of the night Párvatí said to him in a dream, "Thou
art a Vidyádhara, 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 Mrigánkalekhá. Do not
be anxious about it, for she was thy wife in a former state." Having
said this, the goddess 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 Mrigánkalekhá fell asleep with difficulty in her
own palace, and Párvatí said to her in a dream, "Do not grieve,
the curse of Hiranyáksha is at an end, and he will again become a
Vidyádhara by the touch of the hand of the female ascetic, and thou
shalt have him once more for a husband." When the goddess had said
this, she disappeared, and in the morning Mrigánkalekhá woke up and
told the female ascetic her dream. And the holy ascetic returned
to the earth, and said to Hiranyáksha, who was in the temenos of
Amaresa, "Come to the world of Vidyádharas." When she said this,
he bent before her, and she took him up in her arms, and flew up
with him to heaven. Then Hiranyáksha's curse came to an end, and
he became a prince of the Vidyádharas, and he remembered his former
birth, and said to the female ascetic, "Know that I was a king of the
Vidyádharas named Amritatejas in a city named Vajrakúta. 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 Mrigánkalekhá, 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 Vidyádhara prince,
as he travelled through the air with that female ascetic to the
Himálayas. There he saw Mrigánkalekhá 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 Mrigánkalekhá, "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 Párvatí in a dream, so he received Amritatejas
into his palace with all due honour. And he bestowed Mrigánkalekhá
on him with the prescribed ceremonies, and after he was married, he
went to the city of Vajrakúta. There he got back his kingdom as well
as his wife, and he had his father Kanakáksha 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 Mrigánkalekhá.
"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
Naraváhanadatta heard this tale of Gomukha's, he was enabled to sleep
that night, though pining for Saktiyasas.
CHAPTER LXVI.
The next night Gomukha told the following story to Naraváhanadatta
to amuse him.
In the holy place of Siva, called Dhanesvara, there lived long ago
a great hermit, who was waited upon by many pupils. He once said
to his pupils, "If any one of you has seen or heard in his life a
strange occurrence of any kind, let him relate it." When the hermit
said this, a pupil said to him, "Listen, I will tell a strange story
which I once heard."
Story of the mendicant who travelled from Kasmíra to Pátaliputra.
There is in Kasmíra a famous holy place, sacred to Siva, called
Vijaya. In it there lived a certain mendicant, who was proud of his
knowledge. He worshipped Siva, and prayed--"May I be always victorious
in controversy,"--and thereupon he set out for Pátaliputra to exhibit
his skill in dispute. And on the way he passed forests, rivers,
and mountains, and having reached a certain forest, he became tired,
and rested under a tree. And immediately he saw, as he was refreshing
himself in the cool breeze of the tank, a student of religion, who had
come there dusty with a long journey, with his staff and water-pot
in his hand. When he sat down, the wandering mendicant asked him
whence he came and whither he was going. The student of religion
answered, "I come from that seat of learning Pátaliputra, and I am
going to Kasmíra to conquer the Pandits there in discussion. When the
mendicant heard this speech of the religious student's, he thought,
"If I cannot conquer this one man who has left Pátaliputra, how shall
I manage to go and overcome the many who remain there?"
So reflecting, he began to reproach that religious student, "Tell me,
religious student, what is the meaning of this inconsistent conduct
on your part? How comes it that you are at the same time a religious
student, eager for liberation, and a man afflicted with the madness of
disputatiousness? Do you seek to be delivered from the world by binding
yourself with the conceit of controversy? You are quenching heat with
fire, and removing the feeling of cold with snow; you are trying to
cross the sea on a boat of stone; you are striving to put out a fire
by fanning it. The virtue of Bráhmans is patience, that of Kshatriyas
is the rescue of the distressed; the characteristic quality of one who
desires liberation is quietism; disputatiousness is said to be the
characteristic of Rákshasas. Therefore a man who desires liberation
must be of a quiet temperament, putting away the pain arising from
alternations of opposites, fearing the hindrances of the world. So
cut down with the axe of quietism this tree of mundane existence,
and do not water it with the water of controversial conceit." When he
said this to the religious student, he was pleased, and bowed humbly
before him, and saying, "Be you my spiritual guide,"--he departed by
the way that he came. And the mendicant remained, laughing, where
he was, at the foot of the tree, and then he heard from within it
the conversation of a Yaksha, who was joking with his wife. [145]
And while the mendicant was listening, the Yaksha in sport struck
his wife with a garland of flowers, and she, like a cunning female,
pretended that she was dead, and immediately her attendants raised a
cry of grief. And after a long time she opened her eyes, as if her
life had returned to her. Then the Yaksha her husband said to her;
"What have you seen?" Then she told the following invented story;
"When you struck me with the garland, I saw a black man come, with
a noose in his hand, with flaming eyes, tall, with upstanding hair,
terrible, darkening the whole horizon with his shadow. The ruffian took
me to the abode of Yama, but his officers there turned him back, and
made him let me go." When the Yakshiní said this, the Yaksha laughed,
and said to her, "O dear! women cannot be free from deception in any
thing that they do. Who ever died from being struck with flowers? Who
ever returned from the house of Yama? You silly woman, you have