The Five and Twenty Tales of the Genie (Penguin Classics)
Page 14
Then Dharmadatta asked her: ‘Did you mention all the circumstances of our meeting to your wedded husband?
‘I told him everything,’ she answered.
Dharmadatta then said:
‘Adornment of the body unattired!
Eating a meal without melted butter!
Singing without sweetness of tone!
Making love without loving!
Oh! How absurd indeed!
‘She loves you passionately,
and takes your all!
She loves you not, she is cold,
but she plagues the life out of you!
Oh! Women! Impassioned or passionless,
they are a trial and a tribulation indeed,
are they not?
‘Any act that is audacious,
or unpredictable,
any act that is forbidden
or indecorous;
count on women to do just that:
where there are grounds to feel nervous,
how can you find pleasures amorous?
‘At heart she is all poison no doubt,
outwardly, her appearance and conduct
ravishes the heart.
I say this in all sincerity
that young women, by nature,
are akin to the gunja berry.99
‘They speak vivaciously with one man,
but look with amorous interest at another;
deep within the recesses of their heart, however,
they think upon and pine for yet another.
Who, in fact, is truly beloved
of any young woman?
‘What is within the mind does not reach the tongue;
what is on the tongue comes not into the open;
what is openly said, they do not act upon:
strange indeed are the ways of women.
The discerning and the intelligent,
the disciplined and the learned,
even the wise counsellor to kings—
like a puppeteer, women control these men,
make them act, the she-devils,
through continual practice perfecting their art.
‘At the Beginning, the Creator did form
four ways, four expedients;
no fifth way did he create,
the way that young women follow.
‘Oh, but why do I have to go on and on, at length? Suffice it to say this: “I shall not touch another man’s wife.”’
Madanasenā having heard his words, left quietly and on her way back stopped and related everything to the robber, who, commending her highly, let her go unmolested with all her jewels intact, to her husband’s side.
Madanasenā related everything that had happened, in detail, to her husband; and then embraced him tenderly. As it has been said:
‘Sweetness of tone is a koel’s100 true essence and beauty;101
Faithfulness is a woman’s true essence and beauty;
Learning is the true essence and beauty of those ill-favoured;
and forgiveness the true essence and beauty of ascetics.’
Having narrated this tale, the genie, said: ‘Tell me, O, king, which of these three men is the most noble?’
King Vikramasena answered promptly: ‘Why, the robber of course; he is the most noble.’
‘Why? For what reason?’ the genie questioned.
The king replied: ‘Listen, the husband let Madanasenā go freely under the impression that she had given her heart to another man; the other man let her go free, out of fear of the king’s justice; but the robber, what reason had he? None at all. Therefore, he is the noblest of the three men.’
Having heard the king’s answer, the genie rushed back to hang once again from the branches of the śinśipātree.
Thus ends the ninth tale in the Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie set down by śivadāsa.
TALE 10:
Of Three Very Delicate Queens
I bow to the Supreme
possessed of Infinite Powers,
The Ground of Creation wherein are upspringing
all the seeds of the universe,
That stands firm upholding the trident.102
Once again, the king went back to the same śinśipā tree, hauled the corpse down and placed it across his shoulders. As he walked along, the corpse began its storytelling. The genie began:
In the Gauda lands, there is a city named Punyavardhanam, ruled by King Gunaśekhara. In his palace lived the minister, Abhayachandra, a Buddhist votary. He initiated the king into the doctrines of Buddhism. All other beliefs and rituals and ceremonies such as the worship of śiva, of offerings to the Wishing Tree,103 gifts of land, gifts of gold, oblations to the ancestors, immersion of the bones of the dead in the river Gangā, and all other kinds of gifts and offerings whatsoever, were all completely dispensed with by the minister. The minister then addressed the king, thus: ‘Your Majesty:
‘Let the essence of the Teaching104 be heard;
And heard, let it be reflected upon;
Whatever is contrary to one’s well-being,
let that not be done to others.
The body is impermanent,
and greatness does not endure.
Death is forever present,
What the Teaching lays down ought to be done.
Brahmā-Visnu-Maheśvara105—the Trinity,
they are not passion-free,
nor are they All-knowing;
they act according to earthly instincts:
love and hate, pride and anger, greed and folly.
By the gift of sanctuary one becomes
invincible, gracious, gentle,
a giver, an experiencer,
a treasure-trove of glory,
unblemished and long-lived.
There is no happiness in this world
and never had been or ever will be
that equals the happiness felt instantly
in giving sanctuary to living beings.
Those by whom the days, blade by blade of grass, even leaf by leaf
are made to tremble, constantly in fear
and those too, by whom living things are tormented—
Who more pitiless than they!
Those who slay a beast even as it holds
the grass between its teeth, such villains as these
who indulge in acts of depravity,
are they any better than wild tigers?
The impious who nourish their own flesh
with the flesh of other creatures
shall eat of their own flesh and that alone
when they are fallen into the lowest hells.
Those who inflict pain on living beings
even as they watch these writhing
in pain unendurable in these three worlds,
will themselves suffer all that pain.
Birth after birth will he be born
deaf or blind, maimed, dwarfish, diseased,
or full of sores, or a eunuch;
or brief will his life be on earth.
If ancestral spirits are gratified
only by feeding Brāhmaṇas well,
then, one man could be well-nourished, could he not,
by melted butter ingested by another?
If giving gifts, or giving up a son,
frees a father of all his sins,
then, one man could gain Final Release, could he not,
through the good conduct of another?
If a dead man becomes happy for a long time
because his bag of bones reaches Gangā’s stream,
then, the tree burnt to ashes
should put forth green leaves if sprinkled with water.
Drink! It drives out shame and wealth,
ruins the family, deranges the mind,
razes virtue, plunges people down headlong,
induces negligence, impairs memory,
destroys skills and learning, drives out cleanliness;
drink has a thousand, crooked, evil ways;
Never has there been an evil
greater than taking to drink,
nor shall ever be;
Never has there been any good
better than giving up drink
nor shall ever be.
Flesh does not grow from the ground,
it does not grow on trees, nor in the grass;
Flesh grows out of the procreative force;
therefore, flesh should not be consumed.
He who creates, he who destroys,
he who slays creatures, he who eats,
he who teaches, he who is taught,
these six are entitled to an equal share.’
Why speak at length? By sententious sayings as these, was the king initiated into the Buddhist, teachings by the minister, Abhayachandra. Then, robbers and other evil men infested the kingdom, harassing the people. In the course of time the king went to his heavenly abode and his son, Dharmadhvaja became king. He soon drove the minister, Abhayachandra, with his whole family, out of the kingdom. The kingdom then became free of thorns.
On some occasion or the other, during the Spring Festival, the king emerged from the palace accompanied by the ladies of the inner apartments and resorted to the pleasure groves. A large lake came into view. As one of the maids in attendance plucked a lotus from the lake and presented it to the chief queen, the flower fell on the queen’s feet and bruised them. Moonbeams falling on the body of the junior queen caused her skin to come up in blisters. The junior most queen having heard the sound of a pestle pounding in a house in the distance, began to suffer pain in her hands.
Having narrated this tale, the genie said to the king: ‘Tell me, O king, of these three queens, which one is the most delicate?’
‘Why, the queen who suffered pains in her hands, of course,’ replied King Vikramasena.
Having heard the king’s answer, the genie went back to the same śinśipā tree to hang there.
Thus ends the tenth tale in the Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie, set down by Śivadāsa.
TALE 11:
Of King Janavallabha and His Fairy Bride
Having bowed to the Grandfather106
and the Great Lord,107 I tell a tale
most interesting and curious
never told before.
Once again the king went back to that same śinśipā tree, took the corpse down ad bearing it on his shoulders started on his way, when the corpse began its storytelling. The genie began:
There is a city named Gunapura, where King Janavallabha ruled. His minister was Prajnakośa who had a wife named Lakṣmī.
Once, the king began to reflect thus: ‘What is the use of ruling a kingdom when it leaves no time for enjoying the company of beautiful women?’ He, therefore, entrusted the burden of governing the kingdom to his minister, Prajnakośa, and spent his days without a care.
One day, when the minister had reached home after work, his wife observed: ‘Why lord, you look worn out these days.’
‘Night and day my time is taken up by the cares of government while the king spends his time in dalliance with beautiful women,’ replied the minister.
‘Why don’t you take leave of the king saying that you are going on a pilgrimage?’ suggested the wife.
The minister took his wife’s advice and taking leave of the king, set out on a pilgrimage. As he sat by the seashore after worshipping at the holy site of Rāmeśvaram, he saw a wondrous tree rising from the waves. It had roots of gold; its branches were studded with rubies and fully covered with coral-sprouts. On top of this tree was a lady radiantly lovely, seated on a divan with down-filled cushions and she held a lute in her hands. She was chanting a triplet of verses:
Whatever seed a man sows, good or bad,
in the Field of Action,
that will he always reap there itself,
as fixed by Fate.
The entire world with all its orders of creation,
gods, demons, mortals, is dependent on Fate;
so, with every effort that a man makes,
let this thought be constantly borne in mind.
Whatever men have earned in former lives
be it good or bad,
that alone is the cause of the spinning out
and drawing in of all creatures.108
Having chanted these verses, the lady disappeared with the tree in that very same spot into the waves. The minister marked this marvel. He then turned back and reached his own land. There he bowed to the king and then spoke deferentially:
‘What is inconceivable may not be told
unless one has seen it with one’s own eyes.
If a monkey can sing songs,
even the lower stone can grind.109
The monkey’s prowess lies
in leaping from bough to bough.
But should he leap across the great ocean,
he is surely the source of prowess itself.’
Then he narrated to the king the events of his recent wondrous experience. No sooner had the king heard it all than he entrusted the burden of governing the kingdom to the minister and set out all alone for the seashore to worship at holy Rāmeśvaram.
He reached Rāmeśvaram and having worshipped there he sat by the seashore. Soon, he saw the Wishing Tree rising out of the waves with the beautiful lady seated on it. The moment he saw the tree, the king hastened to climb it and descend into Pātāla,110 the underworld. The lady now asked him: ‘O, hero! Why have you come here?’
‘Tempted by your loveliness, I have come here to enjoy it,’ replied the king.
And the lady replied: ‘Well, then, if you undertake not to make love to me on the fourteenth day of the dark half of the month, you may marry me.’
‘I promise,’ said the king.
And with these words he made her his bride.
The fourteenth night of the dark half of the month now arrived, ‘Listen, king; tonight you should not come near me,’ warned the lady.
The king agreed. Then drawing his sword he stayed hidden in that same chamber. As the king was watching, he saw an orge coming towards the lady. The orge swallowed the lady. Seeing that, the king rushed out shouting: ‘Hey! You vile ogre! You Slayer of Women! Where do you think you are going? Come, come and do battle with me.’ For, is it not said?
We should be afraid so long as the thing
we fear is yet to come;
Once it is here and faces us
the thing to do is to strike undaunted.
Drawing his dagger the king dispatched the ogre and pulled out the celestial lady from the ogre’s stomach.
‘Well done, O, hero!’ exclaimed the lady. ‘You have rendered me invaluable assistance.’ As it has been said:
Emeralds are not had in every hill in sight;
pearls are not gained from every tusker111 in sight;
sandal wood does not grow in every other grove;
noble men are not found by every hedge.
The king asked: ‘Why is it that every fourteenth day of the dark half of the month an ogre comes and swallows you up?’
She replied: ‘My father is a Vidyādhara. I am his dearly beloved daughter, Sundarī by name. My father would never have his meal unless I was there. One day, I failed to be by his side during his mealtime and in a rage he cursed me with the words: “On the fourteenth day of the dark half of the month, an ogre shall swallow you whole.”
‘I pleaded with him saying: “Dear father, you have laid a curse on me; pray bestow your grace on me.”
‘My father relented and said: “When some mortal, a heroic warrior comes and kills the ogre, you shall be released from the curse.”
‘Today is the day of my deliverance and presently I shall go to my father and kneel at his feet.’
The king made a request. ‘If at all you value the help I gave you, then come with me first and after seeing my capital and my kingdom you may go to visit your father.’
‘Be it so,’ she
said and with these words she led the king into the waters of a pool through her magic powers and submerged in the pool they both arrived at the capital of the king’s realm.
The minister on seeing the king arranged for the city squares and markets to be festively decorated and held a great celebration.
With the full bodied sound of the five kinds of drums,
with minstrels singing songs of praise
and bards reciting ancient tales;
with the six different kinds of music
and the auspicious tones of Vedic chants,
all the citizens came to greet the king with auspicious tokens in their hands.112
After several days had passed the lady addressed the king, saying: ‘Listen, O king, I am going to my father’s place to pay my respects to him.’
And the king answered: ‘By all means, go there.’
The lady meditated upon the magic spells she knew, but could not remember them.
The king remarked: ‘What is the reason for your failure to call to mind the specific magic spells?’
And she replied: ‘Having been a divine woman, I have now fallen into the human condition with my thoughts centred on human concerns. For that reason my magic powers have failed me.’