by Visnu Sarma
Counselled in this manner by her friend, the weaver’s wife left home to meet her lover. Moments later, the weaver, somewhat mollified, heaved himself up out of his drunken stupor and called out to his wife. ‘You there! You spitfire, will you promise that you will never again leave the house, or speak harshly to me? I’ll untie you.’
The barber’s wife remained silent, afraid that the difference in voice would give her away. The weaver’ repeated his offer; still the woman made no reply. Angered by her silence, the weaver got up, picked up a sharp knife, and cut off the woman’s nose, yelling, ‘All right, you wanton, you stay right there… and catch me trying again to be nice to you.’ Babbling on like this, he dropped off to sleep again.
After a while, the weaver’s wife, having enjoyed the delights of love to her heart’s content with Devadatta, returned, and enquired of her friend. ‘Hey! Friend, is everything all right with you? This wretch did not wake up while I was gone, I trust?’
‘O yes, everything is fine except my nose,’ exclaimed the barber’s wife. ‘Now, quick, untie me and let me go home before this man wakes up again. Who knows what he will do next; he may lop off my ears or some other part of me and mutilate me further.’
The weaver’s wife untied the bonds, set her friend free and took her own place as before. Standing there, she began crying aloud in an abusive tone, taunting her husband. ‘O, you great blockhead! Curse upon you! Do you think you can commit this sort of outrage on me… ? On one who is an example of a chaste wife… ? You think you can disfigure me… ? A model of faithfulness that I am? O, you guardians of the universe! Look down and hear:
(137) All you that see and judge Man’s moral life;
Sun and Moon, Air and Fire, Earth and Sky,
and Water, Death and the Human Will,
Day and Night and their twin meeting points.
‘If I am chaste, let these divinities restore my nose to what it was. If I am not, if ever I have entertained the shadow of desire for another man, let them burn me to ashes.’
Having delivered this peroration, the woman addressed her husband once more, ‘O, you vile wretch! Look. The power of my chastity is such that my severed nose has become whole again.’
The weaver picked up a firebrand and held it to her face. Lo and behold, he saw plainly that his wife’s nose was whole, while a great pool of blood was spreading on the floor. In utter amazement, he untied the knots, released her at once and put her into good humour with a hundred cajoleries.
Worshipful, who had been watching everything that had gone on, now said to himself in utter amazement:
(138) ‘Those texts on policy that Ṣukra knew
—Bṛhaspati knew them too—are I daresay
not a whit superior to Woman’s wit.
How do we protect ourselves from women?
(139) Falsehood and daring, folly and deceit,
uncleanness of body and spirit too,
excessive greed, and lack of compassion,
these vices are inborn in women.
(140) Never fall a prey to proud Woman’s charms;
never wish Woman’s power to grow and thrive;
let a man dote on her, straight she plays with him,
as she would, with a pet bird whose wings are clipt.
(141) Honey flows freely in her speech;
deadly poison lurks in her heart.
O taste the sweetness of her lower lip,
but beat her on the chest with your fists.
(142) This whirlpool of suspicion, this mansion of immodesty,
this city of audacity,
this sanctuary of errors, this home of a hundred deceits,
this field sown with doubts and distrust,
this creature hard to tame even by the best, bulls among men,
this casket entire of tricks—
Who created this contraption called Woman? This neitar-coated poison?
To set virtue and the Law at naught?
(143) Hard breasts, tremulous glances, heaven in her face,
sinuous tresses, generous loins,
low, hesitant tones, constant murmur of conversation,
a heart too easily alarmed,
displaying enchantments in love—these excellences!
Extolled! A legion of blemishes!
Let beasts of the wild fawn on these doe-eyed creatures.
(144) They laugh, they weep, to gain their own ends;
they win the trust of others; trust no one themselves.
Let them be shunned therefore like burial-urns,
by all men of good conduct and noble birth.
(145) The King of Beasts with tousled mane
and gaping fierce-toothed jaws;
tuskers glistening with streams of rut;
men of great intellect, heroes in battle—
all turn yellow in the female’s presence.
That’s not all:
(146) Pretty on the outside; poisonous within;
they resemble the Gunja’s bright berries;
Women! O God! Who did create them?’
Pondering over such thoughts, the ascetic passed the long night with the greatest difficulty.
In the meantime, the go-between whose nose had been chopped off, went home and began to worry. ‘What’s to be done now? How shall I cover up this great hole in my face?’
While she spent the night anguishing over the situation, her husband was in the palace performing his barber’s duties; he returned at dawn. Eager to start serving his customers among the townfolk, he stood in the doorway, and not wanting to waste any time, called out to his wife, ‘Dearest, hand me my razor-case quickly; I am going into the city straight away to serve my customers there.’
A brilliant idea flashed across the disfigured woman’s mind as she listened to her husband’s words. She took one razor out of the case and threw it towards him. The husband, seeing that she had not handed him the entire case with all the razors in it, got very annoyed and flung the razor back in her direction. Immediately, the wicked woman ran out of the house and set up such a hollering, flinging her hands up and sobbing bitterly. ‘Oh! Oh! Protect me; just see what this vile wretch has done to me, a respectable and virtuous woman. He has severed my nose; protect me….’
Presently, the king’s officers of law appeared on the scene. They overpowered the barber, bound him securely with strong ropes, and marched him along with his disfigured wife to the court of the city magistrates. The magistrates sternly demanded, ‘Fellow! Why have you done such violence to your wife?’
The poor man, utterly bewildered by this strange turn of events was thoroughly confused and could make no reply. At which, the jurors citing texts and following the injunctions laid down in the law, exclaimed:
(147) ‘Altered speech, changing complexion,
eyes darting from side to side in alarm,
drooping, broken in spirit: such a man
having committed a crime is afraid of his own act.
‘And mark this:
(148) The man who enters with faltering steps
and a face pale and drawn,
whose forehead is covered in sweat,
who greatly stutters and stammers,
(149) and stands trembling with eyes cast down…
scrutinizing with care these tell-tale signs,
those skilled and well-trained know him
to be guilty of wrongdoing.
‘On the other hand:
(150) The man who appears in open court
calm and cheerful, with smiling face, defiant eye,
and speaks in clear, firm tones with confident pride,
know him to be true and upright.
‘We conclude from all this that this man is an evil character. Because he has done violence to a woman, he deserves capital punishment. Let him be taken away and impaled.’
As the barber was being led to the place of execution Worshipful saw him and went straight to the magistrates.
‘O worthy sirs,’ he ex
claimed, ‘This miserable barber is being unjustly taken away for execution; he is a man of good conduct. Listen to what I have to tell:
(151) The jackal at the ram-fight,
we too, by Red Planet tricked,
the go-between who poked her nose
where it did not rightly belong,
we three cooked our goose ourselves.’
The magistrates, astonished, asked the ascetic, ‘Holiness! How did all this happen?’
Then Worshipful narrated the events of all three episodes in great detail. Having heard it all, wondering at the strange happenings, they set the barber free and delivered their judgement:
(152) ‘A Brāhmana, a child, a woman, a sick man
and an ascetic may not be put to death;
if the offence be serious, the law lays down
that disfigurement is proper punishment.
‘This woman had her nose cut off as a result of her own actions; now by order of the Court, she will have her ears cut off.’ The court’s judgement was carried out forthwith; and Worshipful reflecting on these two examples took heart and returned to the sanctuary.
And Wily concluded his tale saying, ‘Now, my good friend, you know why I quoted that verse to you, the verse that went like this: “The jackal at the ram-fight and we by Red Planet…” and so on.’
Wary then asked him, ‘My good friend, as matters stand at present, what do you think we should do?’
‘Well,’ answered Wily, ‘Even in these difficult times, some good idea is bound to come up in my mind by means of which I shall manage to embroil these two. Lively, the bull, and our royal lord. And mind you, there is something else; Lord Tawny has fallen into certain evils. For:
(153) Monarchs are bound to fall into evils,10
and all through their own folly;
they should then be resolutely restrained
by ministers versed in texts of polity.’
‘Evils?’ queried Wary. ‘What are these evils that you say our Lord Tawny has fallen into?’
‘Ah!’ answered Wily. ‘There are seven evils listed; they are as follows:
(154) Women, dice, hunting and drink,
abusive speech, that’s the fifth,
punishment severe beyond reason,
and rapine—that completes the seven.
‘In fact, there is but one single evil which may be named Addiction, possessing seven limbs.’
‘Is there only one evil then,’ enquired Wary, somewhat quizzically. ‘Are there not others, alas!’
Wily agreed and prepared to explain. ‘Oh yes, certainly; there are five fundamental evils.’
‘I see,’ responded Wary, ‘and what may their characteristics be?’
Wily proceeded to expound the matter. ‘The five evils are: absence or lack; unrest or rebellion; addiction; calamities; tactical inversions.
‘To start with the first: when a king lacks the six requisites, which are ministers, land and subjects, fortresses, treasury, allies and punitive power, understand that he has fallen into the evil of absence or lack. Even the lack of one of these constituents characterizes the evil called Absence.
‘When external elements such as subjects and ministers and internal elements such as one’s inner being and nature are in a state of unrest or rebellion, severally, one after the other, or altogether at the same time, consider that state to be the second of the evils listed.
‘The third evil I have already itemized for you, as women, dice, hunting, drink and the rest. Of these, note this; the first four, that is women, dice, hunting, drink, spring from desire and form a group—the desire-group; the other three, abusive speech and the rest, spring from anger and form the anger-group. Further, what has no immediate connection with desire may be perceived to operate in the anger-group. The characteristics of the desire-group are well-known. But the other, the anger-group, though threefold as we have seen, needs further elaboration.
‘Abusive speech is the ill-considered and insufferable retailing of faults by one bearing ill-will towards another.
‘The ruthless and unwarranted employment of torture of different kinds in putting a person to death is known as severity of punishment beyond all reason.
‘Relentlessly plundering greed is rapine. Thus, we have the sevenfold evil known as Addiction.
‘As for the evil described as calamity, it is eightfold: disasters that are acts of god; disasters caused by fire and water, by disease, plague and pestilence, by panic-flights, by famine and the very she-devil of a rain. The phrase ‘she-devil of a rain’ is used only for those cataclysmic, deluging rains. All these come under the heading of calamity.
‘Now I come to the last evil, tactical inversions: in the employment in reverse of political expedients; which are six in number: peace or alliance, war or expansion, advance or pursuit, halting and holding position, falling back or seeking shelter, and the use of deceiving tactics. For instance, when a king goes to war instead of forging an alliance; when he seeks to make peace instead of going to war; and similarly acting in contrary fashion with regard to the other expedients of policy; wrong policy in short.
‘Coming now to the specific case of our royal master, Tawny, the predominant evil besetting him, is the first on our list—Absence. So captivated is he by Lively that he takes no thought of the six constituents that support the state: ministers and the rest. He has further adopted the code and practice of a grass-eater. But why go on bewailing the situation at great length? It is imperative that Lord Tawny should be freed from the bull, Lively’s yoke. Where the lamp is absent, we have an absence of light.’
Wary observed somewhat drily, ‘Your Honour has no power; how then can Lord Tawny be freed from Lively’s yoke?’
But Wily was not to be put down. ‘What you observe is true, certainly, my good friend; but…
(155) Where sheer prowess cannot succeed
a clever ruse may accomplish the end;
the hen-crow by means of a golden chain
brought about the deadly black serpent’s death.’
‘O really?’ exclaimed Wary, ‘and how did that come about?’ Wary then began his tale, the tale of The Crow and the Serpent.
In a certain region there flourished a mighty banyan tree. A pair of crows built a comfortable nest in its branches and took up residence there. But no sooner had their eggs hatched than a deadly black serpent who had his home in a hollow in the tree trunk, crawled out and swallowed the chicks, even before they had a chance to grow their first feathers. Though he suffered untold grief from the injury perpetrated by that vicious serpent, the crow could not bring himself to abandon that banyan tree which for so long had provided him and his wife a home, and seek another tree. As the proverb says:
(156) Crows, cowards, deer, these three,
will ne’er abandon their home;
elephants, lions, and noble men, these three,
faced with dishonour will always leave home.
After sometime, the hen-crow fell at her husband’s feet one day, and wept, ‘O, my dear lord, so many of our children have been swallowed up by this wicked serpent; and I am indeed consumed by sorrow, losing all my children. I am dying to go elsewhere. Let us now seek refuge in some other tree. For, as we all know:
(157) There is no friend like good health;
there is no foe like sickness;
no joy equals that of children;
no pain equals that of hunger.
‘We also hear this:
(158) If one’s fields lie at the river’s edge;
if one’s wife sleeps with another man;
if one’s home is haunted by serpents:
how, O God! How can one find tranquillity!
‘In all truth, we are living here at the direst peril of our lives.’
With his whole body convulsed by boundless grief, the crow then replied, ‘My dearest, we have lived for a long time in this tree; how can we abandon it? You know the saying:
(159) A mouthful of grass, a pawful of water�
�
where can a deer not live well and happy!
But his native woods where, he has lived so long,
he’ll never leave, though driven by dishonour.
‘And what’s more, I tell you, I shall encompass the death of this evil-hearted and deadly enemy by some ruse or the other.’
The hen-crow then started expostulating with him, ‘O my lord, this is a deadly serpent, one with a double row of fangs. How can you possibly hurt him?’ To this the crow answered, ‘Don’t you worry, my dear. Although I am myself powerless to harm this wretch, I still have friends who are well-versed in the texts on political wisdom; they are skilled in devising strategies. Let me resort to them for advice. Then I can carry out whatever plan they suggest; and, in no time, this vicious creature will perish.’
Having spoken these words in burning indignation, the crow then flew off to another tree. At the base of that tree lived his best friend, the jackal. Hailing the jackal with great courtesy, the crow opened his heart to him and told him the whole sad story of his sorrow, concluding with these words, ‘Now, my good friend, what would you suggest as the proper course to follow in the present circumstances? Our children’s death is nothing but our own death warrant, you know.’
The jackal thought for a while and then spoke to his friend, the crow, ‘Well, I have thought over the matter very carefully. Distress yourself no further. By his wanton cruelty, this black serpent, miserable wretch that he is, has only contrived his own impending death. For, it is aptly said:
(160) Why need you think of ways and means
to do harm to evildoers,
when they are sure to fall on their own
like trees that grow by the river’s edge.
‘It is also well-known, how:
(161) Having devoured a horde of fishes,
the high, the low, and the in-between
a certain crane through excessive greed,
met his end in a crab’s stranglehold.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed the crow, ‘and how did that happen?’ And the jackal began the tale of The Crab and the Crane.
Once, there was a crane who lived on one side of a certain lake. Being very old and hoping to hit upon an easy way of living off the fish in the lake, he stationed himself at the edge of the lake, pretending to be weak and infirm, and refraining from catching even the fishes that swam quite close to him.