The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
in the presence of her father-in-law and mother-in-law, she shewed
it them with tears. And they, when they saw their son's crest-jewel,
were at once beside themselves to think what it could mean. Then king
Jímútaketu and queen Kanakavatí found out by their supernatural powers
of meditation the real state of the case, and proceeded to go quickly
with their daughter-in-law to the place where Garuda and Jímútaváhana
were. In the meanwhile Sankhachúda returned from worshipping Gokarna,
and saw, to his dismay, that that stone of sacrifice was wet with
blood. Then the worthy fellow exclaimed with tears, "Alas! I am undone,
guilty creature that I am! Undoubtedly that great-hearted one, in the
fulness of his compassion, has given himself to Garuda in my stead. So
I will find out to what place the enemy has carried him off in this
moment. If I find him alive, I shall escape sinking in the mire of
dishonour." While he said this, he went following up the track of the
drops of blood, that he saw lying close to one another on the ground.
In the meanwhile Garuda, who was engaged in devouring Jímútaváhana, saw
that he was pleased; so he immediately stopped, and said to himself;
"Strange! This must be some matchless hero; for the great-hearted
one rejoices even while I am devouring him, but does not lose his
life. And on so much of his body as is not lacerated, he has all
the hairs erect, as it were a coat of mail; and his look is lovingly
fixed on me, as if I were his benefactor. So he cannot be a snake;
he must be some saint; I will cease from devouring him, and question
him." While Garuda was thus musing, Jímútaváhana said to him; "King
of birds, why do you desist? There is flesh and blood in my body, and
you are not satisfied as yet, so go on eating it." When the king of
birds heard this, he asked him with much astonishment, "Great-souled
one, you are not a snake, so tell me who you are." But Jímútaváhana
answered Garuda, "In truth I am a Nága; what is the meaning of this
question of yours? Do your kind, for who, that is not foolish, would
act [359] contrary to the purpose he had undertaken?"
While he was giving this answer to Garuda, Sankhachúda came near, and
called out to Garuda from a distance, "Do not do a rash and criminal
deed, son of Vinatá. What delusion is this that possesses you? He is
not a snake; lo! I am the snake designed for you." When Sankhachúda
had said this, he came up quickly, and standing between those two, and
seeing Garuda bewildered, he went on to say; "Why are you perplexed; do
you not see that I have hoods and two tongues; and do you not observe
the charming appearance of this Vidyádhara?" While Sankhachúda was
saying this, the wife and parents of Jímútaváhana came there with
speed. And his parents, seeing him mangled, immediately cried out,
"Alas, son! Alas, Jímútaváhana! Alas, compassionate one who have given
your life for others! How could you, son of Vinatá, do this thoughtless
deed?" When Garuda heard this, he was grieved, and he said, "What! Have
I in my delusion eaten an incarnation of a Bodhisattva? This is that
very Jímútaváhana, who sacrifices his life for others, the renown of
whose glory pervades all these three worlds? So, now that he is dead,
the time has arrived for my wicked self to enter the fire. Does the
fruit of the poison-tree of unrighteousness ever ripen sweet?" While
Garuda was distracted with these reflections, Jímútaváhana, having
beheld his family, fell down in the agony of his wounds, and died.
Then his parents, tortured with sorrow, lamented, and Sankhachúda
again and again blamed his own negligence. But Jímútaváhana's wife,
Malayavatí, looked towards the heaven, and in accents choked with
tears thus reproached the goddess Ambiká, who before was pleased
with her, and granted her a boon, "At that time, O goddess Gaurí,
thou didst promise me that I should have for husband one destined to
be paramount sovereign over all the kings of the Vidyádharas, so how
comes it that thou hast now falsified thy promise to me?" When she
said this, Gaurí became visible, and saying "Daughter, my speech was
not false," she quickly sprinkled Jímútaváhana with nectar from her
pitcher. [360] That made the successful hero Jímútaváhana at once
rise up more splendid than before, with all his limbs free from wounds.
He rose up, and prostrated himself before the goddess, and then all
prostrated themselves, and the goddess said to him, "My son, I am
pleased with this sacrifice of thy body, so I now anoint thee with this
hand of mine emperor over the Vidyádharas, and thou shalt hold the
office for a kalpa." With these words Gaurí sprinkled Jímútaváhana
with water from her pitcher, and after she had been worshipped,
disappeared. And thereupon a heavenly rain of flowers fell on that
spot, and the drums of the gods sounded joyously in the sky.
Then Garuda, bending low, said to Jímútaváhana, "Emperor, I am pleased
with thee, as thou art an unparalleled hero, since thou, of soul
matchlessly generous, hast done this wonderful deed, that excites the
astonishment of the three worlds, and is inscribed on the walls of
the egg of Brahmá. So give me an order, and receive from me whatever
boon thou dost desire." When Garuda said this, the great-hearted hero
said to him, "Thou must repent, and never again devour the snakes;
and let these snakes, whom thou didst devour before, whose bones only
remain, return to life." Thereupon Garuda said, "So be it; from this
day forth I will never eat the snakes again; heaven forefend! As for
those that I ate on former occasions, let them return to life."
Then all the snakes, that he had eaten before, whose bones alone
remained, rose up unwounded, restored to life by the nectar of his
boon. Then the gods, the snakes, and the hermit bands assembled there
full of joy, and so the Malaya mountain earned the title of the three
worlds. And then all the kings of the Vidyádharas heard by the favour
of Gaurí the strange story of Jímútaváhana; and they immediately came
and bowed at his feet, and after he had dismissed Garuda, they took him
to the Himálayas, accompanied by his rejoicing relations and friends,
a noble emperor whose great inauguration ceremony had been performed
by Gaurí with her own hands. There Jímútaváhana, in the society of his
mother and father, and of Mitrávasu and Malayavatí, and of Sankhachúda,
who had gone to his own house, and returned again, long enjoyed the
dignity of emperor of the Vidyádharas, rich in jewels, which had been
gained by his marvellous and extraordinarily heroic action.
Having told this very noble and interesting tale, the Vetála proceeded
to put another question to king Trivikramasena, "So tell me, which of
those two was superior in fortitude, Sankhachúda or Jímútaváhana? And
the conditions are those which I mentioned before." When king
Trivikramasena heard this question of the Vetála's, he broke his
silence, through fear of a curse, and said with calm composure, "This
behaviour was nowise astonishing in Jímútaváhana, as he had acquired
this virtue in many births; but Sankhachúda really deserves praise,
for that, after he had escaped death, he ran after his enemy Garuda,
who had found another self-offered victim [361] and had gone a long
distance with him, and importunately offered him his body."
When that excellent Vetála had heard this speech of that king's,
he left his shoulder and again went to his own place, and the king
again pursued him as before.
NOTE.
Oesterley remarks that the substance of this story is told, in the
eleventh chapter of the Vikra macharitam, of king Vikramáditya. A
Rákshasa carried off so many persons from the city of Pala that
the inhabitants agreed to give him one human being every day. The
king takes the place of one of these victims, and the Rákshasa is
so much affected by it, that he promises not to demand any more
victims. A similar contest in generosity is found in the 2nd Tale
of the Siddhi-kür, Jülg, p. 60, but the end of the story is quite
different. (Oesterley's Baitál Pachísí, pp. 205-207.) The story in
the Siddhi-kür is probably the 5th Tale in Sagas from the Far East;
"How the Serpent-gods were propitiated."
CHAPTER XCI.
(Vetála 17.)
Then the brave king Trivikramasena went back once more to the
asoka-tree, and taking the Vetála from it, carried him off on his
shoulder. And when he had set out, the Vetála said to him from his
perch on his shoulder, "Listen, king; to cheer your toil, I will tell
you the following tale."
Story of Unmádiní. [362]
There was a city of the name [363] of Kanakapura situated on the bank
of the Ganges, in which the bounds of virtue were never transgressed,
and which was inaccessible to the demon Kali. In it there was a king
rightly named Yasodhana, who, like a rocky coast, protected the earth
against the sea of calamity. When Destiny framed him, she seemed to
blend together the moon and the sun, for, though he delighted the
world, the heat of his valour was scorching, and the circle of his
territory never waned. This king was unskilled [364] in slandering
his neighbour, but skilled in the meaning of the Sástras, he shewed
poverty in crime, not in treasure and military force. His subjects
sang of him as one afraid only of sin, covetous only of glory, averse
to the wives of others, all compact of valour, generosity, and love.
In that capital of that sovereign there was a great merchant, and he
had an unmarried daughter, named Unmádiní. Whoever there beheld her,
was at once driven mad by the wealth of her beauty, which was enough to
bewilder even the god of love himself. And when she attained womanhood,
her politic father, the merchant, went to king Yasodhana, and said to
him, "King, I have a daughter to give in marriage, who is the pearl of
the three worlds; I dare not give her away to any one else, without
informing your Majesty. For to your Majesty belong all the jewels of
the whole earth, so do me the favour of accepting or rejecting her."
When the king heard this report from the merchant, he sent off, with
due politeness, his own Bráhmans, to see whether she had auspicious
marks or not. The Bráhmans went and saw that matchless beauty of the
three worlds, and were at once troubled and amazed, but when they had
recovered their self-control, they reflected; "If the king gets hold
of this maiden the kingdom is ruined, for his mind will be thrown
off its balance by her, and he will not regard his kingdom, so we
must not tell the king that she possesses auspicious marks." When
they had deliberated to this effect, [365] they went to the king,
and said falsely to him, "She has inauspicious marks." Accordingly
the king declined to take that merchant's daughter as his wife.
Then, by the king's orders, the merchant, the father of the maiden
Unmádiní, gave her in marriage to the commander of the king's forces,
named Baladhara. And she lived happily with her husband in his house,
but she thought that she had been dishonoured by the king's abandoning
her on account of her supposed inauspicious marks.
And as time went on, the lion of spring came to that place, slaying the
elephant of winter, that, with flowering jasmine-creepers for tusks,
had ravaged the thick-clustering lotuses. And it sported in the wood,
with luxuriant clusters of flowers for mane, and with mango-buds for
claws. At that season king Yasodhana, mounted on an elephant, went
out to see the high festival of spring in that city of his. And then
a warning drum was beaten, to give notice to all matrons to retire, as
it was apprehended that the sight of his beauty might prove their ruin.
When Unmádiní heard that drum, she shewed herself to the king on
the roof of her palace, to revenge the insult he had offered her by