The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
hollow of a bamboo. Then the elephant-keeper went away, and while the
others were asleep, the minister introduced, by means of the bamboo,
the serpent into the ear of the elephant Bhadradanta, while it was
asleep, and he spent the night there, and in the morning went back
to Magadha his native land; but the elephant died from the bite of
the snake.
When the clever minister returned, having smitten down the elephant as
if it were the pride of that king Dharmagopa, the king Bhadrabáhu was
in ecstasies. Then he sent off an ambassador to Váránasí to ask for
the hand of Anangalílá. The king, who was helpless from the loss of
his elephant, gave her to him; for kings, who know times and seasons,
bend like canes, if it is expedient to do so.
"So, by the sagacity of that minister Mantragupta, the king Bhadrabáhu
obtained Anangalílá. And in the same way I must obtain that wife by
wisdom." When Mrigánkadatta said this, his minister Vichitrakatha
said to him--"You will succeed in all by the favour of Siva which was
promised you in a dream. What will not the effective favour of the
gods accomplish? Hear in proof of it the story I am now going to tell."
Story of Pushkaráksha and Vinayavatí.
There was in the city of Takshasilá a king of the name of
Bhadráksha. He, desiring a son, was worshipping Lakshmí every day
with one hundred and eight white lotuses upon a sword. One day, as
the king was worshipping her without breaking silence, he happened to
count the lotuses mentally, and found that there was one missing. He
then gave the goddess the lotus of his heart spitted on the sword, and
she was pleased and granted him a boon that would ensure his having
a son that would rule the whole earth. And she healed the wound of
the king and disappeared. Then there was born a son to the king by
his queen, and he possessed all the auspicious marks. And the king
called him Pushkaráksha, because he obtained him by the gift of the
lotus of his heart. And when the son, in course of time, grew up to
manhood, Bhadráksha anointed him king, as he possessed great virtues,
and himself repaired to the forest.
Pushkaráksha, for his part, having obtained the kingdom, kept
worshipping Siva every day, and one day at the end of his worship,
he asked him to bestow on him a wife. Then he heard a voice come from
heaven, saying, "My son, thou shalt obtain all thy desire." Then he
remained in a happy state, as he had now a good hope of success. And
it happened that one day he went to a wood inhabited by wild beasts,
to amuse himself with hunting. There he saw a camel about to eat two
snakes entwined together, and in his grief he killed the camel. The
camel immediately became a Vidyádhara, abandoning its camel body,
and being pleased said to Pushkaráksha "You have done me a benefit. So
hear what I have to tell you."
Story of the birth of Vinayavatí.
There is, king, a mighty Vidyádhara named Rankumálin. And a beautiful
maiden of the Vidyádhara race, named Tárávalí, who admired good looks,
saw him and fell in love with him, and chose him for her husband. And
then her father, angry because they had married without consulting
anything but their own inclination, laid on them a curse that would
separate them for some time. Then the couple, Tárávalí and Rankumálin,
sported, with ever-growing love, in various regions belonging to them.
But one day, in consequence of that curse, they lost sight of one
another in a wood, and were separated. Then Tárávalí, in her search
for her husband, at last reached a forest on the other side of the
western sea, inhabited by a hermit of supernatural powers. There
she saw a large jambu-tree in flower, which seemed compassionately
to console her with the sweet buzzing of its bees. And she took the
form of a bee, and sat down on it to rest, and began to drink the
honey of a flower. And immediately she saw her husband, from whom she
had been so long separated, come there, and she bedewed that flower
with a tear of joy. And she abandoned the body of a bee, and went
and united herself to her husband Rankumálin, who had come there in
search of her, as the moonlight is united to the moon.
Then she went with him to his home: but from the jambu-flower bedewed
with her tear a fruit was produced. [169] And in course of time a
maiden was produced inside the fruit. Now once on a time the hermit,
who was named Vijitásu, was wandering about in search of fruits
and roots, and came there, and that fruit, being ripe, fell from
the jambu-tree and broke, and a heavenly maiden came out of it, and
respectfully bowing, saluted the feet of that hermit. That hermit,
who possessed divine insight, when he beheld her, at once knew her
true history, and being astonished, took her to his hermitage, and
gave her the name of Vinayavatí. Then in course of time she grew up
to womanhood in his hermitage, and I, as I was roaming in the air,
saw her, and being infatuated by pride in my own good looks and by
love, I went to her, and tried to carry her off by force against
her will. At that moment the hermit Vijitásu, who heard her cries,
came in, and denounced this curse upon me, "O thou whose whole body
is full of pride in thy beauty, become an ugly camel. But when thou
shalt be slain by king Pushkaráksha, thou shalt be released from thy
curse. And he shall be the husband of this Vinayavatí."
"When cursed in these words by the hermit I became a camel on this
earth, and now, thanks to you, my curse is at an end; so go to that
forest on the other side of the western sea, named Surabhimáruta, and
obtain for a wife that heavenly creature, who would make Srí herself
lose all pride in her own beauty." When the heavenly Vidyádhara had
said this to Pushkaráksha, he flew up to the sky. Then Pushkaráksha
returned to his city, and entrusted his kingdom to his ministers, and
mounting his horse, went off alone at night. And at last he reached
the shore of the western sea, and there he reflected, "How shall I
cross over this sea?" Then he saw there an empty temple of Durgá,
and he entered it, and bathed, and worshipped the goddess. And he
found there a lyre, which had been deposited there by some one, and
he devoutly sang to it in honour of the goddess songs composed by
himself. And then he lay down to sleep there. And the goddess was so
pleased with his lyric worship, that in the night she had him conveyed
across the sea by her attendant demons, while he was asleep.
Then he woke up in the morning on the other side of the sea, and saw
himself no longer in the temple of Durgá, but in a wood. And he rose
up in astonishment, and wandered about, and beheld a hermitage, which
seemed to bow before him hospitably by means of its trees weighed down
with fruit, and to utter a welcome with the music of its birds. So
he entered it, and saw a hermit surrounded by his pupils. And the
king approached the hermit, and bowed at his feet. The hermit, who
possessed supernatural insight, received him hospitably and said to
him; "King Pushkaráksha, Vinayavatí, for whom you have come, has gone
out for a moment to fetch firewood, so wait a little: you shall to-day
marry her who was your wife in a former life." Then Pushkaráksha said
to himself--"Bravo! this is that very hermit Vijitásu, and this is
that very wood, no doubt the goddess has had me carried across the
ocean. But this that the hermit tells me is strange, that she was my
wife in a previous state of existence." Then he asked the hermit in
his joy the following question, "Tell me, reverend sir, how was she
my wife before?" Then the hermit said, "Listen, if you feel curious
on the point."
The adventures of Pushkaráksha and Vinayavatí in a former life.
There was in old time a merchant in Támraliptí, named Dharmasena,
and he had a beautiful wife named Vidyullekhá. As it happened, he
was robbed by bandits and wounded with weapons by them, and longing
for death, he went out with his wife to enter the fire. And the two
saw suddenly a beautiful couple of swans coming through the air. Then
they entered the fire, and died with their minds fixed on those swans,
and so the husband and wife were born in the next birth as swans.
Now, one day in the rains, as they were in their nest in a
date-palm-tree, a storm uprooted the tree and separated them. The next
day the storm was at an end, and the male swan went to look for his
female, but he could not find her in the lakes or in any quarter of
the sky. At last he went, distracted with love, to the Mánasa lake,
the proper place for swans at that season of the year, and another
female swan, that he met on the way, gave him hopes that he would
find her there. There he found his female, and he spent the rainy
season there, and then he went to a mountain-peak to enjoy himself
with her. There his female was shot by a fowler; when he saw that,
he flew away distracted with fear and grief. The fowler went off,
taking with him the dead female swan, and on the way he saw many armed
men at a distance, coming towards him, and he thought that they would
perhaps take the bird from him, so he cut some grass with his knife,
and covering up the bird with that, left her on the ground. After
the men had gone, the fowler returned to take the female swan. But
it happened that among the grass which he had cut was a herb, which
possessed the power of raising the dead to life. By means of the
juice of this herb the female swan was restored to life, [170] and
before his eyes she flung off the grass, and flew up into the sky,
and disappeared.
But in the meanwhile the male swan went and settled on the shore of
a lake among a flock of swans, distracted with grief at seeing his
mate in this state. [171] Immediately a certain fisherman threw a
net, and caught all those birds, and thereupon sat down to take his
food. Then the female swan came there in search of her husband, and
found him caught in the net, and in her grief she cast her eyes in
every direction. Then she saw on the bank of the lake a necklace of
gems, which a certain person, who had gone into the water to bathe,
had laid on top of his clothes. She went and carried off the necklace
without that person seeing her do it, and she flew gently through
the air past the fisherman, to shew him the necklace. The fisherman,
when he saw the female swan with the necklace in her beak, left the
net full of birds, and ran after her, stick in hand. But the female
swan deposited the necklace upon the top of a distant rock, and the
fisherman proceeded to climb up the rock to get the necklace. When the
female swan saw that, she went and struck in the eye with her beak a
monkey that was asleep on a tree, near where her husband lay caught
in the net. The monkey, being terrified by the blow, fell on the net
and tore it, and so all the swans escaped from it. Then the couple
of swans were re-united, and they told one another their adventures,
and in their joy amused themselves as they would. The fisherman,
after getting the necklace, came back to fetch the birds, and the man
whose necklace had been taken away, met him as he was looking for it,
and as the fact of the fisherman's being in possession of the necklace
was revealed by his fear, he recovered it from him and cut off his
right hand with his sword. And the two swans, sheltering themselves
under one lotus by way of umbrella, rose up in the middle of the day
from the lake and roamed in the sky.
And soon the two birds reached the bank of a river haunted by a
certain hermit, who was employed in worshipping Siva. Then the couple
of swans were shot through with one arrow by a fowler, as they were
flying along, and fell together to the earth. And the lotus, which
they had used as an umbrella, fell on the top of a linga of Siva,
while the hermit was engaged in worship. Then the fowler, seeing them,