The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
choose whichever you please of them." When Chandasinha said this, his
son Sinhaparákrama said to him, "I should like to have for a wife the
one that has these small feet, for I know that she will be young and
suited to me. But this one with large feet, being older than the other,
will just suit you. When Chandasinha heard this speech of his son's,
he said to him, "What is this that you say? Your mother has only
recently gone to heaven, and now that I have lost so good a wife,
how can I desire another?" When Chandasinha's son heard that, he
said to him, "Father, do not say so, for the home of a householder
is empty without a wife. Moreover, have you not heard the stanza
composed by Múladeva? 'Who, that is not a fool, enters that house in
which there is no shapely love eagerly awaiting his return, which,
though called a house, is really a prison without chains.' So, father,
my death will lie at your door, if you do not take as your wife that
companion of the lady whom I have chosen."
When Chandasinha heard this speech of his son's, he approved it,
and went on slowly with him, tracking up their footsteps. And he
reached that spot near the lake, and saw that dark queen Chandravatí,
adorned with many strings of pearls, sitting in the shade of a
tree. She looked like the midnight sky in the middle of the day,
and her daughter Lávanyavatí, like the pure white moonlight, seemed
to illumine her. And he and his son eagerly approached her, and she,
when she saw him, rose up terrified, thinking that he was a bandit.
But the queen's daughter said to her, "Mother, do not be afraid,
these are not bandits, these two gentle-looking well-dressed
persons are certainly some nobles come here to hunt." However the
queen still continued to hesitate; and then Chandasinha got down
from his horse and said to the two ladies, "Do not be alarmed; we
have come here to see you out of love; so take confidence [407] and
tell us fearlessly who you are, since you seem like Rati and Príti
fled to this wood in sorrow at Cupid's having been consumed by the
flames of Siva's fiery eye. And how did you two come to enter this
unpeopled wood? For these forms of yours are fitted to dwell in a
gem-adorned palace. And our minds are tortured to think how your feet,
that deserve to be supported by the lap of beautiful women, can have
traversed this ground full of thorns. And, strange to say, the dust
raised by the wind, falling on your faces, makes our faces lose their
brightness from despondency. [408] And the furious heat of the beams
of the fierce-rayed sun, as it plays on your flower-soft bodies,
burns us. So tell us your story; for our hearts are afflicted; we
cannot bear to see you thus abiding in a forest full of wild beasts."
When Chandasinha said this, the queen sighed, and full of shame and
grief, slowly told him her story. Then Chandasinha, seeing that she had
no protector, comforted her and her daughter, and coaxed them with kind
words into becoming members of his family. And he and his son put the
queen and her daughter on their horses, and conducted them to their
rich palace in Vittapapurí. And the queen, being helpless, submitted
to his will, as if she had been born again in a second life. What
is an unprotected woman, fallen into calamity in a foreign land,
to do? Then Sinhaparákrama, the son of Chandasinha, made Chandravatí
his wife, on account of the smallness of her feet. And Chandasinha
made her daughter, the princess Lávanyavatí, his wife, on account of
the largeness of her feet. For they made this agreement originally,
when they saw the two tracks of the small footsteps and the large
footsteps: and who ever swerves from his plighted word?
So, from the mistake about the feet, the daughter became the wife of
the father, and the mother the wife of the son, and so the daughter
became the mother-in-law of her own mother, and the mother became
the daughter-in-law of her own daughter. And in course of time,
both of them had by those husbands sons and daughters, and they
also had sons and daughters in due course of time. So Chandasinha
and Sinhaparákrama lived in their city, having obtained as wives
Lávanyavatí and Chandravatí.
When the Vetála had told this story on the way at night, he again put
a question to king Trivikramasena; "Now, king, about the children who
were in course of time born to the mother and daughter by the son
and the father in those two lines--what relationship did they bear
to one another? Tell me if you know. And the curse before threatened
will descend on you, if you know and do not tell."
When the king heard this question of the Vetála's, he turned the
matter over and over again in his mind, but he could not find out, so
he went on his way in silence. Then the Vetála in the dead man's body,
perched on the top of his shoulder, laughed to himself, and reflected;
"Ha! Ha! The king does not know how to answer this puzzling question,
so he is glad, and silently goes on his way with very nimble feet. Now
I cannot manage to deceive this treasure-house of valour any further;
[409] and this is not enough to make that mendicant stop playing tricks
with me. So I will now deceive that villain, and by an artifice bestow
the success, which he has earned, upon this king, whom a glorious
future awaits."
When the Vetála had gone through these reflections, he said to the
king, "King, though you have been worried with so many journeys to and
fro in this cemetery terrible with black night, you seem quite happy,
and you do not shew the least irresolution. I am pleased with this
wonderful courage that you shew. [410] So now carry off this body,
for I am going out of it; and listen to this advice which I give you
for your welfare, and act on it. That wicked mendicant, for whom you
have fetched this human corpse, will immediately summon me into it,
and honour me. And wishing to offer you up as a victim, the rascal
will say to you, 'King, prostrate yourself on the ground in such a way
that eight limbs will touch it.' Then, great king, you must say to that
ascetic, [411] 'Shew me first how to do it, and then I will do exactly
as you do.' Then he will fling himself on the ground, and shew you
how to perform the prostration, and that moment you must cut off his
head with the sword. Then you will obtain that prize which he desires,
the sovereignty of the Vidyádharas; enjoy this earth by sacrificing
him! But otherwise that mendicant will offer you up as a victim; it
was to prevent this that I threw obstacles in your way for such a long
time here. So depart; may you prosper!" When the Vetála had said this,
he went out of that human corpse, that was on the king's shoulder.
Then the king was led by the speech of the Vetála, who was pleased
with him, to look upon the ascetic Kshántisíla as his enemy, but he
went to him in high spirits, where he sat under that banyan-tree,
and took with him that human corpse.
CHAPTER XCIX.
(Vetála 25.)
Then king Trivikramasena came up to that mendicant Kshántisíla,
carrying that corpse on his shoulder. And he saw that ascetic, alone at
the foot of a tree, in the cemetery that was terrible with a night of
the black fortnight, eagerly awaiting his arrival. He was in a circle
made with the yellow powder of bones, the ground within which was
smeared with blood, and which had pitchers full of blood placed in the
direction of the cardinal points. [412] It was richly illuminated with
candles of human fat, [413] and near it was a fire fed with oblations,
it was full of all the necessary preparations for a sacrifice, and
in it the ascetic was engaged in worshipping his favourite deity.
So the king came up to him, and the mendicant, seeing that he had
brought the corpse, rose up delighted, and said, praising him; "Great
king, you have conferred on me a favour difficult to accomplish. To
think that one like you should undertake this enterprise in such a
place and at such a time! Indeed they say with truth that you are
the best of all noble kings, being a man of unbending courage, [414]
since you forward the interests of another with such utter disregard
of self. And wise men say that the greatness of great ones consists
in this very thing, that they swerve not from what they have engaged
to do, even though their lives are in danger."
With these words the mendicant, thinking he had gained his end, took
the corpse down from the shoulder of that king. And he bathed it, and
anointed it, and threw a garland round it, and placed it within that
circle. And he smeared his limbs with ashes, and put on a sacrificial
thread of hair, and clothed himself in the garments of the dead,
and thus equipped he continued for a time in meditation. Then the
mendicant summoned that mighty Vetála by the power of spells, and made
him enter the corpse; and proceeded to worship him. He offered to him
an argha of white human teeth in a skull by way of an argha-vessel;
and he presented to him flowers and fragrant unguents; and he gratified
him with the savoury reek of human eyes, [415] and made an offering
to him of human flesh. And when he had finished his worship, he said
to the king, who was at his side, "King, fall on the ground, and do
obeisance with all your eight limbs to this high sovereign of spells
who has appeared here, in order that this bestower of boons may grant
you the accomplishment of your heart's desire."
When the king heard that, he called to mind the words of the Vetála,
and said to the mendicant, "I do not know how to do it, reverend sir;
do you shew me first, and then I will do exactly as you." Then the
mendicant threw himself on the ground, to shew the king what he was to
do, and then the king cut off his head with a stroke of his sword. And
he tore and dragged [416] the lotus of his heart out of his inside,
and offered his heart and head as two lotuses to that Vetála.
Then the delighted hosts of goblins uttered shouts of applause on every
side, and the Vetála said to the king from inside the corpse, "King,
the sovereignty of the Vidyádharas, which this mendicant was aiming at,
shall fall to your lot after you have finished the enjoyment of your
earthly sway. Since I have given you much annoyance, choose whatever
boon you desire." When the Vetála said this, the king said to him,
"Since you are pleased with me, every boon that I could desire is
obtained; nevertheless, as your words cannot be uttered in vain, I
crave this boon of you:--may these first twenty-four questions and
answers, charming with their various tales, and this conclusion,
the twenty-fifth of the series, be all famous and honoured on the
earth!" When the king made this request to the Vetála, the latter
replied, "So be it! and now listen, king; I am going to mention a
peculiar excellence which it shall possess. This string of tales,
consisting of the twenty-four first, and this final concluding tale,
shall become, under the title of the Twenty-five Tales of a Vampire,
famous and honoured on the earth, as conducing to prosperity! Whosoever
shall read respectfully even a sloka of it, or whosoever shall hear it
read, even they two shall immediately be freed from their curse. And
Yakshas, and Vetálas, and Kushmándas, and witches, and Rákshasas, and
other creatures of the kind shall have no power where this shall be
recited." When the Vetála had said this, he left that human corpse, and
went by his supernatural deluding power to the habitation he desired.
Then Siva, being pleased, appeared, accompanied by all the gods, to
that king, visibly manifest, and said to him, as he bowed before him;
"Bravo! my son, for that thou hast to-day slain this hypocritical
ascetic, who was so ardently in love with the imperial sovereignty
over the Vidyádharas! I originally created thee out of a portion of