The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
when she got inside, saw her husband looking sheepish, with a woman,
and she made the woman put on her own dress, and told her to go
out. So that woman went out in her dress by night, and got off, but
Saktimatí remained in the temple with her husband. And when the king's
officers came in the morning to examine the merchant, he was seen by
all to be in the company of his own wife. [185] When he heard that,
the king dismissed the merchant from the temple of the Yaksha, as it
were from the mouth of death, and punished the chief magistrate. So
Saktimatí in old time delivered her husband by her wisdom, and in
the same way I will go and save my husband by my discretion.
So the wise Devasmitá said in secret to her mother-in-law, and,
in company with her maids, she put on the dress of a merchant. Then
she embarked on a ship, on the pretence of a mercantile expedition,
and came to the country of Katáha where her husband was. And when
she arrived there, she saw that husband of hers, Guhasena, in
the midst of a circle of merchants, like consolation in external
bodily form. He seeing her afar off in the dress of a man, [186]
as it were, drank her in with his eyes, and thought to himself,
"Who may this merchant be that looks so like my beloved wife"? So
Devasmitá went and represented to the king that she had a petition
to make, and asked him to assemble all his subjects. Then the king
full of curiosity assembled all the citizens, and said to that lady
disguised as a merchant, "What is your petition?" Then Devasmitá
said--There are residing here in your midst four slaves of mine who
have escaped, let the king make them over to me. Then the king said
to her, "All the citizens are present here, so look at every one in
order to recognise him, and take those slaves of yours." Then she
seized upon the four young merchants, whom she had before treated in
such a humiliating way in her house, and who had wrappers bound round
their heads. Then the merchants, who were there, flew in a passion,
and said to her, "These are the sons of distinguished merchants,
how then can they be your slaves?" Then she answered them, "If you do
not believe what I say, examine their foreheads which I marked with a
dog's foot." They consented, and removing the head-wrappers of these
four, they all beheld the dog's foot on their foreheads. Then all the
merchants were abashed, and the king, being astonished, himself asked
Devasmitá what all this meant. She told the whole story, and all the
people burst out laughing, and the king said to the lady,--"They are
your slaves by the best of titles." Then the other merchants paid
a large sum of money to that chaste wife, to redeem those four from
slavery, and a fine to the king's treasury. Devasmitá received that
money, and recovered her husband, and being honoured by all good men,
returned then to her own city Támraliptá, and she was never afterwards
separated from her beloved.
"Thus, O queen, women of good family ever worship their husbands with
chaste and resolute behaviour, [187] and never think of any other
man, for to virtuous wives the husband is the highest deity." When
Vásavadattá on the journey heard this noble story from the mouth of
Vasantaka, she got over the feeling of shame at having recently left
her father's house, and her mind, which was previously attached by
strong affection to her husband, became so fixed upon him as to be
entirely devoted to his service.
NOTE ON CHAPTER XIII.
With regard to the incident of the bitch and the pepper in the story
of Devasmitá see the note in the 1st volume of Wilson's Essays on
Sanskrit Literature. He says: "This incident with a very different and
much less moral dénouement is one of the stories in the Disciplina
Clericalis, a collection of stories professedly derived from the
Arabian fabulists and compiled by Petrus Alfonsus a converted Jew, who
flourished about 1106 and was godson to Alfonso I, king of Arragon. In
the Analysis prepared by Mr. Douce, this story is the 12th, and is
entitled "Stratagem of an old woman in favour of a young gallant." She
persuades his mistress who had rejected his addresses that her little
dog was formerly a woman, and so transformed in consequence of her
cruelty to her lover. (Ellis's Metrical Romances, I, 130.) This story
was introduced into Europe, therefore, much about the time at which
it was enrolled among the contents of the Vrihat Kathá in Cashmir. The
metempsychosis is so much more obvious an explanation of the change of
forms, that it renders it probable the story was originally Hindu. It
was soon copied in Europe, and occurs in Le Grand as La vieille
qui séduisit la jeune fille. III. 148 [ed. III. Vol. IV. 50]. The
parallel is very close and the old woman gives "une chienne à manger
des choses fortement saupoudrèes de senève qui lai picotait le palais
et les narines et l'animal larmoyait beaucoup." She then shows her
to the young woman and tells her the bitch was her daughter. "Son
malheur fut d'avoir le coeur dur; un jeune homme l'aimait, elle
le rebuta. Le malheureux après avoir tout tenté pour l' attendrir,
désespéré de sa dureté en prit tant de chagrin qu'il tomba malade et
mourut. Dieu l'a bien vengè; voyez en quel état pour la punir il a
reduit ma pauvre fille, et comment elle pleure sa faute." The lesson
was not thrown away. The story occurs also in the Gesta Romanorum as
"The Old Woman and her Dog" [in Bohn's edition it is Tale XXVIII],
and it also finds a place where we should little have expected to find
it, in the Promptuarium of John Herolt of Basil, an ample repository
of examples for composing sermons: the compiler a Dominican friar,
professing to imitate his patron saint, who always abundabat exemplis
in his discourses." [In Bohn's edition we are told that it appears
in an English garb amongst a translation of Æsop's Fables published
in 1658.] Dr. Rost refers us to Th. Wright, Latin Stories, London,
1842, p. 218. Loiseleur Deslongchamps Essai sur les Fables Indiennes,
Paris, 1838, p. 106 ff. F. H. Von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, 1850
I, cxii. ff and Grässe, I. 1, 374 ff. In Gonzenbach'a Sicilianische
Märchen, No. 55, Vol. I, p. 359, Epomata plays some young men much the
same trick as Devasmitá, and they try in much the same way to conceal
their disgrace. The story is the second in my copy of the Suka Saptati.
CHAPTER XIV.
Accordingly while the king of Vatsa was remaining in that Vindhya
forest, the warder of king Chandamahásena came to him. And when he
arrived, he did obeisance to the king and spoke as follows: The king
Chandamahásena sends you this message. You did rightly in carrying
off Vásavadattá yourself, for I had brought you to my court with this
very object; and the reason I did not myself give her to you, while
you were a prisoner, was, that I feared, if I did so, you might not
be well disposed towards me. Now, O king, I ask you to wait a little,
in order that the marriage of my daughter may not be performed without
due ceremonies. For my son Gopálaka will soon arrive in your court,
and he will celebrate with appropriate ceremonies the marriage of that
sister of his. This message the warder brought to the king of Vatsa,
and said various things to Vásavadattá. Then the king of Vatsa, being
pleased, determined on going to Kausámbí with Vásavadattá, who was
also in high spirits. He told his ally Pulindaka, and that warder in
the service of his father-in-law to await, where they were, the arrival
of Gopálaka, and then to come with him to Kausámbí. Then the great king
set out early the next day for his own city with the queen Vásavadattá,
followed by huge elephants raining streams of ichor, that seemed like
moving peaks of the Vindhya range accompanying him out of affection;
he was, as it were, praised by the earth, that outdid the compositions
of his minstrels, while it rang with the hoofs of his horses and the
tramplings of his soldiers; and by means of the towering clouds of
dust from his army, that ascended to heaven, he made Indra fear that
the mountains were sporting with unshorn wings. [188] Then the king
reached his country in two or three days, and rested one night in a
palace belonging to Rumanvat; and on the next day, accompanied by his
beloved, he enjoyed after a long absence the great delight of entering
Kausámbí, the people of which were eagerly looking with uplifted faces
for his approach. And then that city was resplendent as a wife, her
lord having returned after a long absence, beginning her adornment
and auspicious bathing vicariously by means of her women; and there
the citizens, their sorrow now at an end, beheld the king of Vatsa
accompanied by his bride, as peacocks behold a cloud accompanied by
lightning; [189] and the wives of the citizens standing on the tops
of the palaces, filled the heaven with their faces, that had the
appearance of golden lotuses blooming in the heavenly Ganges. Then
the king of Vatsa entered his royal palace with Vásavadattá, who
seemed like a second goddess of royal fortune; and that palace then
shone as if it had just awaked from sleep, full of kings who had
come to shew their devotion, festive with songs of minstrels. [190]
Not long after came Gopálaka the brother of Vásavadattá, bringing
with him the warder and Pulindaka; the king went to meet him, and
Vásavadattá received him with her eyes expanded with delight, as if
he were a second spirit of joy. While she was looking at this brother,
a tear dimmed her eyes lest she should be ashamed; and then she, being
encouraged by him with the words of her father's message, considered
that her object in life was attained, now that she was reunited to
her own relations. Then, on the next day, Gopálaka, with the utmost
eagerness, set about the high festival of her marriage with the king of
Vatsa, carefully observing all prescribed ceremonies. Then the king of
Vatsa received the hand of Vásavadattá, like a beautiful shoot lately
budded on the creeper of love. She too, with her eyes closed through
the great joy of touching her beloved's hand, having her limbs bathed
in perspiration accompanied with trembling, covered all over with
extreme horripilation, appeared at that moment as if struck by the god
of the flowery bow with the arrow of bewilderment, the weapon of wind,
and the water weapon in quick succession; [191] when she walked round
the fire keeping it to the right, her eyes being red with the smoke,
she had her first taste, so to speak, of the sweetness of wine and
honey. [192] Then by means of the jewels brought by Gopálaka, and
the gifts of the kings, the monarch of Vatsa became a real king of
kings. [193] That bride and bridegroom, after their marriage had been
celebrated, first exhibited themselves to the eyes of the people,
and then entered their private apartments. Then the king of Vatsa,
on the day so auspicious to himself invested Gopálaka and Pulindaka
with turbans of honour and other distinctions, and he commissioned
Yaugandharáyana and Rumanvat to confer appropriate distinctions
on the kings who had come to visit him, and on the citizens. Then
Yaugandharáyana said to Rumanvat; "The king has given us a difficult
commission, for men's feelings are hard to discover. And even a child
will certainly do mischief if not pleased; to illustrate this point
listen to the tale of the child Vinashtaka, my friend."
Story of the clever deformed child.
Once on a time there was a certain Bráhman named Rudrasarman, and he,
when he became a householder, had two wives, and one of his wives gave
birth to a son and died; and then the Bráhman entrusted that son to
the care of his step-mother; and when he grew to a tolerable stature,
she gave him coarse food; the consequence was, the boy became pale,
and got a swollen stomach. Then Rudrasarman said to that second wife,