The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
refusing her. And when the king saw her, looking like a flame shooting
up from the fire of love, when fanned by spring and the winds from the
Malaya mountain, he was sorely troubled. And gazing on her beauty,
that pierced deep into his heart, like a victorious dart of Cupid,
he immediately swooned. His servants managed to bring him round, and
when he had entered his palace, he found out from them, by questioning
them, that this was the very beauty who had been formerly offered to
him, and whom he had rejected. Then the king banished from his realm
those who reported that she had inauspicious marks, and thought on her
with longing, night after night, saying to himself, "Ah! how dull of
soul and shameless is the moon, that he continues to rise, while her
spotless face is there, a feast to the eyes of the world!" Thinking
thus in his heart, the king, being slowly wasted by the smouldering
fires of love, pined away day by day. But through shame he concealed
the cause of his grief, and with difficulty was he induced to tell
it to his confidential servants, who were led by external signs to
question him. Then they said; "Why fret yourself? Why do you not
take her to yourself, as she is at your command?" But the righteous
sovereign would not consent to follow their advice.
Then Baladhara, the commander-in-chief, heard the tidings, and
being truly devoted to him, he came and flung himself at the feet
of his sovereign, and made the following petition to him, "King,
you should look upon this female slave as your slave-girl, not as
the wife of another; and I bestow her freely upon you, so deign to
accept my wife. Or I will abandon her in the temple here, then, king,
there will be no sin in your taking her to yourself, as there might
be, if she were a matron." When the commander-in-chief persistently
entreated the king to this effect, the king answered him with inward
wrath, "How could I, being a king, do such an unrighteous deed? If I
desert the path of right, who will remain loyal to his duty? And how
can you, though devoted to me, urge me to commit a crime, which will
bring momentary pleasure, [366] but cause great misery in the next
world? And if you desert your lawful wife, I shall not allow your
crime to go unpunished, for who in my position could tolerate such an
outrage on morality? So death is for me the best course." With these
words the king vetoed the proposal of the commander-in-chief, for men
of noble character lose their lives sooner than abandon the path of
virtue. And in the same way the resolute-minded monarch rejected the
petition of his citizens, and of the country-people, who assembled,
and entreated him to the same effect.
Accordingly, the king's body was gradually consumed by the fire of
the grievous fever of love, and only his name and fame remained. [367]
But the commander-in-chief could not bear the thought that the king's
death had been brought about in this way, so he entered the fire;
for the actions of devoted followers are inexplicable. [368]
When the Vetála, sitting on the shoulder of king Trivikramasena, had
told this wonderful tale, he again said to him, "So tell me, king,
which of these two was superior in loyalty, the general or the king;
and remember, the previous condition still holds." When the Vetála
said this, the king broke silence, and answered him, "Of these two the
king was superior in loyalty." When the Vetála heard this, he said
to him reproachfully, "Tell me, king, how can you make out that the
general was not his superior? For, though he knew the charm of his
wife's society by long familiarity, he offered such a fascinating
woman to the king out of love for him; and when the king was dead,
he burnt himself; but the king refused the offer of his wife without
knowing anything about her."
When the Vetála said this to the king, the latter laughed, and said,
"Admitting the truth of this, what is there astonishing in the fact,
that the commander-in-chief, a man of good family, acted thus for
his master's sake, out of regard for him? For servants are bound to
preserve their masters even by the sacrifice of their lives. But
kings are inflated with arrogance, uncontrollable as elephants,
and when bent on enjoyment, they snap asunder the chain of the moral
law. For their minds are overweening, and all discernment is washed
out of them, when the waters of inauguration are poured over them,
and is, as it were, swept away by the flood. And the breeze of the
waving chowries fans away the atoms of the sense of scripture taught
them by old men, as it fans away flies and mosquitoes. And the royal
umbrella keeps off from them the rays of truth, as well as the rays
of the sun; and their eyes, smitten by the gale of prosperity, do not
see the right path. And so even kings, that have conquered the world,
like Nahusha and others, have had their minds bewildered by Mára, and
have been brought into calamity. But this king, though his umbrella
was paramount in the earth, was not fascinated by Unmádiní, fickle
as the goddess of Fortune; indeed, sooner than set his foot on the
wrong path, he renounced life altogether; therefore him I consider
the more self-controlled of the two."
When the Vetála heard this speech of the king's, he again rapidly
quitted his shoulder by the might of his delusive power, and returned
to his own place; and the king followed him swiftly, as before,
to recover him: for how can great men leave off in the middle of an
enterprise, which they have begun, even though it be very difficult?
NOTE.
Oesterley states that this tale is No. 26, in the Persian Tútínámah,
in Iken, p. 109. The deliberations about carrying off the wife of
the commander-in-chief are, in this form of the story, carried on
in the presence of the counsellors only; and the king is the only
one that dies. From the Persian Tútínámah the story has passed in
a very similar form into the Turkish Tútínámah. Compare Malespíní,
1, No. 102, (Oesterley's Baitál Pachísí, pp. 207, 208.) The story,
as told by Sivadása, will be found in Bezzenberger's Beiträge zur
Kunde der Indo-germanischen Sprachen, Vol. IV, p. 360. Dr. Zachariæ,
the author of the paper, gives a reference to the Rajataranginí, IV,
17-37, which Professor Bühler pointed out to him. He tells us that
the story is the 14th in Jambhaladatta's recension. The story is
also found in the parables of Buddhaghosha; in a form based upon the
Ummadantíjátaka. Dr. Zachariæ gives the Pali text of this Játaka in
an Appendix, and the corresponding Sanskrit version of the tale from
the Játakamálá of Aryasúra. He also refers his readers to Upham's
Mahávanso, pp. 212-213; Beal, Texts from the Buddhist canon, commonly
known as Dhammapada, Section XXIII, Advantageous Service; Bigandet, The
life or legend of Gaudama, the Buddha of the Burmese, pp. 220-221; and
Mary Summer, Histoire du Bouddha Sákya-Mouni, (Paris, 1874,) p. 145.
In the Pali version the Bráhmans are so bewildered at the sight of
the girl that they cannot eat, but put their rice on their heads
&c. instead of putting it in their mouths; so she has them driven
out by her servants. Out of revenge they tell the king that she
is a kálakanni, which according to Childers means "a hag." In the
Játakamálá they are too much bewildered to stand, much less to eat;
but the report which they make is much the same as in our text,
and made from the same motives.
CHAPTER XCII.
(Vetála 18.)
Then in that cemetery, full of the flames of funeral pyres, as of
demons, flesh-devouring, with lolling tongues of fire, the undaunted
king Trivikramasena went back that same night to the asoka-tree.
And there he unexpectedly saw many corpses of similar appearance
hanging upon the tree, and they all seemed to be possessed by
Vetálas. The king said to himself, "Ah! what is the meaning of this? Is
this deluding Vetála doing this now in order to waste my time? For
I do not know which of these many corpses here I ought to take. If
this night shall pass away without my accomplishing my object, I will
enter the fire, I will not put up with disgrace." But the Vetála
discovered the king's intention, and pleased with his courage, he
withdrew that delusion. Then the king beheld only one Vetála on the
tree in the corpse of a man, and he took it down, and put it on his
shoulder, and once more started off with it. And as he trudged along,
the Vetála again said to him, "King, your fortitude is wonderful:
so listen to this my tale."
Story of the Bráhman's son who failed to acquire the magic power.
There is a city called Ujjayiní, inferior only to Bhogavatí and
Amarávatí, which Siva, who was won by the toilsome asceticism of Gaurí,
being in love with the matchless pre-eminence of its excellence,
himself selected as his habitation. It is full of various enjoyments,
to be attained only by distinguished well-doing; in that city stiffness
and hardness is seen only in the bosoms of the ladies, curvature only
in their eye-brows, [369] and fickleness only in their rolling eyes;
darkness only in the nights; crookedness only in the ambiguous phrases
of poets; madness only in elephants; and coldness only in pearls,
sandal-wood juice, and the moon.
In that city there was a learned Bráhman, named Devasvámin, who
had offered many sacrifices, and possessed great wealth, and who
was highly honoured by the king, whose name was Chandraprabha. In
time there was born to that Bráhman a son, named Chandrasvámin,
and he, though he had studied the sciences, was, when he grew up,
exclusively devoted to the vice of gambling. [370] Now once on a time
that Bráhman's son, Chandrasvámin, entered a great gambling-hall to
gamble. Calamities seemed to be continually watching that hall with
tumbling dice for rolling eyes, like the black antelope in colour,
and saying to themselves, "Whom shall we seize on here?" And the
hall, full of the noise of the altercations of gamblers, seemed to
utter this cry, "Who is there whose wealth I could not take away? I
could impoverish even Kuvera the lord of Alaká." Then he entered the
hall, and playing dice with gamblers, he lost his clothes and all,
and then he lost borrowed money in addition. And when he was called
upon to pay that impossible sum, he could not do it, so the keeper
of the gambling-hall seized him and beat him with sticks. [371]
And that Bráhman's son, when beaten with sticks all over his body,
made himself motionless as a stone, and to all appearance dead,
and remained in that state.
When he had remained there in that condition for two or three days,
the proprietor of the gambling establishment got angry, and said, in
the gambling-hall, to the gamblers, who frequented it; "This fellow has
begun to try on the petrifaction dodge, so take the spiritless wretch
and throw him into some blind well; but I will give you the money."
When the proprietor said this to the gamblers, they took up
Chandrasvámin, and carried him to a distant wood to look for a
well. There an old gambler said to the others, "This fellow is all
but dead; so what is the good of throwing him into a well now? So let
us leave him here, and say that we left him in a well." All approved
his speech, and agreed to do as he recommended.
Then the gamblers left Chandrasvámin there and went their ways, and he
rose up and entered an empty temple of Siva that stood near. There
he recovered his strength a little, and reflected in his grief,
"Alas! being over-confiding, I have been robbed by these gamblers
by downright cheating, so, where can I go in this condition, naked,
cudgelled, and begrimed with dust? What would my father, my relations,
or my friends say of me, if they saw me? So I will remain here for
the present, and at night I will go out, and see how I can make