The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
Madanasundarí, who had come to bathe in the sacred water. [302] His
heart was captivated by that girl who eclipsed the beauty of the
moon, and after he had enquired her name and family, he went home
love-smitten. There he remained fasting and restless without her,
but when his mother asked him the cause, he told her the truth about
his desire. [303] She went and told her husband Vimala, and when he
came, and saw his son in that state, he said to him, "Why are you so
despondent, my son, about an object so easily attained? Suddhapata
will give you his daughter, if I ask him. For we are equal to him
in family, wealth, and occupation; I know him and he knows me;
so this is not a difficult matter for me to arrange." With these
words Vimala comforted his son, and induced him to take food, and
other refreshments, and the next day he went with him to the house
of Suddhapata. And there he asked his daughter in marriage for his
son Dhavala, and Suddhapata courteously promised to give her. And
so, after ascertaining the auspicious moment, he gave his daughter
Madanasundarí, who was of equal birth with Dhavala, in marriage to
him the next day. And after Dhavala had been married, he returned
a happy man to his father's house, together with his wife, who had
fallen in love with him at first sight.
And one day, while he was living there in happiness, his
father-in-law's son, the brother of Madanasundarí, came there. All
received him courteously, [304] and his sister embraced him and
welcomed him, and his connections asked him how he was, and at last,
after he had rested, he said to them, "I have been sent here by my
father, to invite Madanasundarí and his son-in-law, since we are
engaged in a festival in honour of the goddess Durgá." And all his
connections and their family approved his speech, and entertained
him that day with appropriate meats and drinks.
Early the next day Dhavala set out for his father-in-law's house,
with Madanasundarí and his brother-in-law. And he reached with his
two companions the city of Sobhávatí, and he saw the great temple
of Durgá, when he arrived near it; and then he said to his wife
and brother-in-law, in a fit of pious devotion, "Come and let us
visit the shrine of this awful goddess." When the brother-in-law
heard this, he said to him, in order to dissuade him, "How can so
many of us approach the goddess empty-handed?" Then Dhavala said,
"Let me go alone, and you can wait outside." When he had said this,
he went off to pay his respects to the goddess.
When he had entered her temple, and had worshipped, and had meditated
upon that goddess, who with her eighteen mighty arms had smitten
terrible Dánavas, and who had flung under the lotus of her foot and
trampled to pieces the Asura Mahisha, a train of pious reflection
was produced in his mind by the impulse of Destiny, and he said to
himself, "People worship this goddess with various sacrifices of
living creatures, so why should not I, to obtain salvation, appease
her with the sacrifice of myself?" After he had said this to himself,
he took from her inner shrine, which was empty of worshippers, a
sword which had been long ago offered to her by some pilgrims, and,
after fastening his own head by his hair to the chain of the bell,
he cut it off with the sword, and when cut off, it fell on the ground.
And his brother-in-law, after waiting a long time, without his having
returned, went into that very temple of the goddess to look for
him. But when he saw his sister's husband lying there decapitated,
he also was bewildered, and he cut off his head in the same way with
that very same sword.
And when he too did not return, Madanasundarí was distracted in mind,
and then she too entered the temple of the goddess. And when she
had gone in, and seen her husband and her brother in such a state,
she fell on the ground, exclaiming, "Alas! what is the meaning of
this? I am ruined." And soon she rose up, and lamented those two
that had been so unexpectedly slain, and said to herself, "Of what
use is this life of mine to me now?" and being eager to abandon the
body, she said to that goddess, "O thou that art the chief divinity
presiding over blessedness, chastity, and holy rule, though occupying
half the body of thy husband Siva, [305] thou that art the fitting
refuge of all women, that takest away grief, why hast thou robbed
me at once of my brother and my husband? This is not fitting on thy
part towards me, for I have ever been a faithful votary of thine. So
hear one piteous appeal from me who fly to thee for protection. I
am now about to abandon this body which is afflicted with calamity,
but grant that in all my future births, whatever they may be, these
two men may be my husband and brother."
In these words she praised and supplicated the goddess, and bowed
before her again, and then she made a noose of a creeper and fastened
it to an asoka-tree. And while she was stretching out her neck, and
putting it into the noose, the following words resounded from the
expanse of air: "Do not act rashly, my daughter! I am pleased with
the exceeding courage which thou hast displayed, though a mere girl;
let this noose be, but join the heads of thy husband and thy brother
to their bodies, and by virtue of my favour they shall both rise up
alive." [306]
When the girl Madanasundarí heard this, she let the noose drop,
and went up to the corpses in great delight, but being confused, and
not seeing in her excessive eagerness what she was doing, she stuck,
as fate would have it, her husband's head on to her brother's trunk,
and her brother's head on to her husband's trunk, and then they both
rose up alive, with limbs free from wound, but from their heads having
been exchanged their bodies had become mixed together. [307]
Then they told one another what had befallen them, and were happy,
and after they had worshipped the goddess Durgá, the three continued
their journey. But Madanasundarí, as she was going along, saw that
she had changed their heads, and she was bewildered and puzzled as
to what course to take.
"So tell me, king, which of the two people, thus mixed together, was
her husband; and if you know and do not tell, the curse previously
denounced shall fall on you!" When king Trivikramasena heard this
tale and this question from the Vetála, he answered him as follows:
"That one of the two, on whom her husband's head was fixed, was her
husband, for the head is the chief of the limbs, and personal identity
depends upon it." When the king had said this, the Vetála again left
his shoulder unperceived, and the king again set out to fetch him.
NOTE.
Oesterley remarks that the Hindi version of this story has been
translated into French by Garcin de Tassy in the Journal des Savants,
1836, p. 415, and by Lancereau in the Journal Asiatique, Ser. 4,
Tom. 19, pp. 390-395. In the Tútínámah, (Persian, No. 24, in Iken,
No. 102; Turkish, Rosen, II, p. 169) the washerman is replaced by
an Indian prince, his friend by a priest, and the rest is the same
as in our text. That Goethe took that part of his Legende, which is
based on this tale, from Iken's translation, has been shewn by Benfey
in Orient und Occident, Vol. I, p. 719. (Oesterley's Baitál Pachísí,
pp. 195, 196.)
CHAPTER LXXXI.
Then king Trivikramasena went back to the asoka-tree, and again found
the Vetála there, and took him on his shoulder. As he was going along
with him, the Vetála said to him on the way, "King, listen to me,
I will tell you a story to make you forget your fatigue."
Story of the king who married his dependent to the Nereid.
There is a city on the shore of the eastern sea, named Támraliptí;
in that city there was a king of the name of Chandasinha; he turned
away his face from the wives of others, but not from battle-fields;
he carried off the fortune of his foes, but not the wealth of his
neighbours.
Once on a time a popular Rájpút of the Dekkan, named Sattvasíla, came
to the palace-gate of that king. And he announced himself, and then,
on account of his poverty, he and some other Rájpúts tore a ragged
garment in the presence of that king. Thus he became a dependent,
[308] and remained there for many years perpetually serving the king,
but he never received any reward from him. And he said to himself, "If
I have been born in a royal race, why am I so poor? And considering my
poverty is so great, why did the Creator make my ambition so vast? For
though I serve the king so diligently, and my followers are sorely
afflicted, and I have long been pining with hunger, he has never,
up to the present time, deigned to notice me."
While such were the reflections of the dependent, the king one day went
out to hunt. And he went, surrounded with horses and footmen, to the
forest of wild beasts, while his dependent ran in front of him bearing
a stick. And after he had hunted for some time, he followed up closely
a boar that had escaped, and soon he reached another distant wood. And
in that vast jungle, where the path was obscured with leaves and grass,
the king lost the boar, and he became exhausted, and was unable to find
his way. And the dependent was the only one that kept up with him,
running on foot, regardless of his own life, tortured with hunger
and thirst, though the king was mounted upon a horse swift as the
wind. And the king, when he saw that the dependent had followed him,
in spite of his being in such a condition, said to him in a kind voice,
"Do you know the way by which we came?" When the dependent heard that,
he put his hands together in an attitude of supplication, and said,
"I do know it, but let my lord rest here for some time. For the sun,
which is the centre-jewel of the girdle of the sky-bride, is now
burning fiercely with all its rays flickering forth." When the king
heard this, he said to him graciously, "Then see if you can find water
anywhere here." The dependent said, "I will," and he climbed up a
high tree, and saw a river, and then he came down again, and led the
king to it. And he took the saddle off his horse, and let him roll,
and gave him water and mouthfuls of grass, and so refreshed him. And
when the king had bathed, he brought out of a corner of his garment
delicious [309] ámalaka fruits, and washed them, and gave them to
him. And when the king asked where he got them, he said to him kneeling
with the ámalakas in his hand, "Ten years have now passed since I,
living continually on these fruits, have been performing, in order
to propitiate my sovereign, the vow of a hermit that does not dwell
in solitude." When the king heard that, he answered him, "It cannot
be denied that you are rightly named Sattvasíla." And being filled
with compassion and shame, he said to himself; "Fie on kings who do
not see who among their servants is comfortable or miserable, and fie
on their courtiers who do not inform them of such matters!" Such were
the king's thoughts, but he was at last induced by the importunity of
the dependent to take two ámalakas from him. And after eating them and
drinking water, he rested for a while in the company of the dependent,
having satiated his hunger and thirst on fruits and water.
Then his dependent got his horse ready, and he mounted it, and the
dependent went in front of him to shew him the way, but however
much the king entreated him, he would not get up on the horse behind
him, and so the king returned to his own city, meeting his army on
the way. There he proclaimed the devotion of the dependent, and he
loaded him with wealth and territories, and did not consider even
then that he had recompensed him as he deserved. Then Sattvasíla
became a prosperous man, and discarding the life of a dependent,
he remained henceforth about the person of king Chandasinha.