The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
wife during the night. Then the executioners, believing the story,
represented it to the king by the mouth of the warder, and the king,
seeing the nose between the teeth of the thief, remitted the capital
sentence passed on Agnisarman, and sent him home; and punished that
wicked wife, and imposed a penalty on her relations [822] also.
"Such, king, is the character of women." When that minister had
said this, King Vikramáditya approved his saying, exclaiming,
"So it is." Then the cunning Múladeva, who was near the king, said,
"King, are there no good women, though some are bad? Are there no
mango-creepers, as well as poisonous creepers? In proof that there
are good women, hear what happened to me."
Story of Múladeva. [823]
I went once to Pátaliputra with Sasin, thinking that it was the home
of polished wits, and longing to make trial of their cleverness. In a
tank outside that city I saw a woman washing clothes, and I put this
question to her, "Where do travellers stay here?" The old woman gave
me an evasive answer, saying, "Here the Brahmany ducks stay on the
banks, the fish in the water, the bees in the lotuses, but I have
never seen any part where travellers stay." When I got this answer,
I was quite nonplussed, and I entered the city with Sasin.
There Sasin saw a boy crying at the door of a house, with a warm [824]
rice-pudding on a plate in front of him, and he said, "Dear me! this
is a foolish child not to eat the pudding in front of him, but to vex
himself with useless weeping." When the child heard this, he wiped his
eyes, and said laughing, "You fools do not know the advantages I get by
crying. The pudding gradually cools and so becomes nice, and another
good comes out of it; my phlegm is diminished thereby. These are the
advantages I derive from crying; I do not cry out of folly; but you
country bumpkins are fools because you do not see what I do it for."
When the boy said this, Sasin and I were quite abashed at our
stupidity, and we went away astonished to another part of the
town. There we saw a beautiful young lady on the trunk of a mango-tree,
gathering mangoes, while her attendants stood at its foot. We said
to the young lady, "Give us also some mangoes, fair one." And she
answered, "Would you like to eat your mangoes cold or hot?" When
I heard that, I said to her, wishing to penetrate the mystery, "We
should like, lovely one, to eat some warm ones first, and to have
the others afterwards." When she heard this, she flung down some
mango-fruits into the dust on the ground. We blew the dust off them
and then ate them. Then the young lady and her attendants laughed, and
she said to us, "I first gave you these warm mangoes, and you cooled
them by blowing on them, and then ate them; catch these cool ones,
which will not require blowing on, in your clothes." When she had
said this, she threw some more fruits into the flaps of our garments.
We took them, and left that place thoroughly ashamed of ourselves. Then
I said to Sasin and my other companions, "Upon my word I must
marry this clever girl, and pay her out for the way in which she
has made a fool of me; otherwise what becomes of my reputation for
sharpness?" When I said this to them, they found out her father's
house, and on a subsequent day we went there disguised so that we
could not be recognised.
And while we were reading the Veda there, her father the Bráhman
Yajnasvámin came up to us, and said, "Where do you come from?" We
said to that rich and noble Bráhman, "We have come here from the
city of Máyápurí to study;" thereupon he said to us, "Then stay the
next four months in my house; shew me this favour, as you have come
from a distant country." When we heard this, we said, "We will do
what you say, Bráhman, if you will give us, at the end of the four
months, whatever we may ask for." When we said this to Yajnasvámin,
he answered, "If you ask for anything that it is in my power to give,
I will certainly give it." When he made this promise, we remained
in his house. And when the four months were at an end, we said to
that Bráhman, "We are going away, so give us what we ask for, as
you long ago promised to do." He said, "What is that?" Then Sasin
pointed to me and said, "Give your daughter to this man, who is our
chief." Then the Bráhman Yajnasvámin, being bound by his promise,
thought, "These fellows have tricked me; never mind; there can be no
harm in it; he is a deserving youth." So he gave me his daughter with
the usual ceremonies.
And when night came, I said laughing to the bride in the bridal
chamber, "Do you remember those warm and those cool mangoes?" When she
heard this, she recognised me, and said with a smile, "Yes, country
bumpkins are tricked in this way by city wits." Then I said to her,
"Rest you fair, city wit; I vow that I the country bumpkin will desert
you and go far away." When she heard this, she also made a vow, saying,
"I too am resolved, for my part, that a son of mine by you shall bring
you back again." When we had made one another these promises, she went
to sleep with her face turned away, and I put my ring on her finger,
while she was asleep. Then I went out, and joining my companions,
started for my native city of Ujjayiní, wishing to make trial of
her cleverness.
The Bráhman's daughter, not seeing me next morning, when she woke up,
but seeing a ring on her finger marked with my name, said to herself,
"So he has deserted me, and gone off; well, he has been as good as
his word; and I must keep mine too, dismissing all regrets. And I
see by this ring that his name is Múladeva; so no doubt he is that
very Múladeva, who is so renowned for cunning. And people say that
his permanent home is Ujjayiní; so I must go there, and accomplish
my object by an artifice." When she had made up her mind to this,
she went and made this false statement to her father, "My father,
my husband has deserted me immediately after marriage; and how can I
live here happily without him; so I will go on a pilgrimage to holy
waters, and will so mortify this accursed body."
Having said this, and having wrung a permission from her unwilling
father, she started off from her house with her wealth and her
attendants. She procured a splendid dress suitable to a hetæra, and
travelling along she reached Ujjayiní, and entered it as the chief
beauty of the world. And having arranged with her attendants every
detail of her scheme, that young Bráhman lady assumed the name of
Sumangalá. And her servants proclaimed everywhere, "A hetæra named
Sumangalá has come from Kámarúpa, and her goodwill is only to be
procured by the most lavish expenditure."
Then a distinguished hetæra of Ujjayiní, named Devadattá, came to
her, and gave her her own palace worthy of a king, to dwell in by
herself. And when she was established there, my friend Sasin first
sent a message to her by a servant, saying, "Accept a present from me
which is won by your great reputation." But Sumangalá sent back this
message by the servant, "The lover who obeys my commands may enter
here: I do not care for a present, nor for other beast-like men." Sasin
accepted the terms, and repaired at night-fall to her palace.
And when he came to the first door of the palace, and had himself
announced, the door-keeper said to him, "Obey our lady's commands. Even
though you may have bathed, you must bathe again here; otherwise
you cannot be admitted." When Sasin heard this, he agreed to bathe
again as he was bid. Then he was bathed and anointed all over by her
female slaves, in private, and while this was going on, the first
watch of the night passed away. When he arrived, having bathed,
at the second door, the door-keeper said to him, "You have bathed;
now adorn yourself appropriately." He consented, and thereupon the
lady's female slaves adorned him, and meanwhile the second watch of the
night came to an end. Then he reached the door of the third zone, and
there the guards said to him, "Take a meal, and then enter." He said
"Very well," and then the female slaves managed to delay him with
various dishes until the third watch passed away. Then he reached
at last the fourth door, that of the lady's private apartments,
but there the door-keeper reproached him in the following words,
"Away, boorish suitor, lest you draw upon yourself misfortune. Is the
last watch of the night a proper time for paying the first visit to
a lady?" When Sasin had been turned away in this contemptuous style
by the warder, who seemed like an incarnation of untimeliness, he
went away home with countenance sadly fallen.
In the same way that Bráhman's daughter, who had assumed the name
of Sumangalá, disappointed many other visitors. When I heard of
it, I was moved with curiosity, and after sending a messenger to
and fro I went at night splendidly adorned to her house. There I
propitiated the warders at every door with magnificent presents,
and I reached without delay the private apartments of that lady. And
as I had arrived in time I was allowed by the door-keepers to pass
the door, and I entered and saw my wife, whom I did not recognise,
owing to her being disguised as a hetæra. But she knew me again,
and she advanced towards me, and paid me all the usual civilities,
made me sit down on a couch, and treated me with the attentions of a
cunning hetæra. Then I passed the night with that wife of mine, who
was the most beautiful woman of the world, and I became so attached
to her, that I could not leave the house in which she was staying.
She too was devoted to me, and never left my side, until, after some
days, the blackness of the tips of her breasts shewed that she was
pregnant. Then the clever woman forged a letter, and shewed it to me,
saying, "The king my sovereign has sent me a letter: read it." Then
I opened the letter and read as follows, "The august sovereign of the
fortunate Kámarúpa, Mánasinha, sends thence this order to Sumangalá,
'Why do you remain so long absent? Return quickly, dismissing your
desire of seeing foreign countries.'"
When I had read this letter, she said to me with affected grief,
"I must depart; do not be angry with me; I am subject to the will of
others." Having made this false excuse, she returned to her own city
Pátaliputra: but I did not follow her, though deeply in love with her,
as I supposed that she was not her own mistress.
And when she was in Pátaliputra, she gave birth in due time to a
son. And that boy grew up and learned all the accomplishments. And
when he was twelve years old, that boy in a childish freak happened
to strike with a creeper a fisherman's son of the same age. When the
fisherman's son was beaten, he flew in a passion and said, "You beat
me, though nobody knows who your father is; for your mother roamed
about in foreign lands, and you were born to her by some husband or
other." [825]
When this was said to the boy, he was put to shame; so he went and
said to his mother, "Mother, who and where is my father? Tell me!" Then
his mother, the daughter of the Bráhman, reflected a moment, and said
to him, "Your father's name is Múladeva: he deserted me, and went to
Ujjayiní." After she had said this, she told him her whole story from
the beginning. Then the boy said to her, "Mother, then I will go and
bring my father back a captive; I will make your promise good."
Having said this to his mother, and having been told by her how
to recognise me, the boy set out thence, and reached this city of
Ujjayiní. And he came and saw me playing dice in the gambling-hall,
making certain of my identity from the description his mother had given
him, and he conquered in play all who were there. And he astonished
every one there by shewing such remarkable cunning, though he was
a mere child. Then he gave away to the needy all the money he had