by Sivadasa
who keep their vows, goes straight to the Bottomless Pit.’
The king listened attentively to the words of the sage and said: ‘Your Holiness, from this day any increase in wrongdoing shall not prevail.’
The sage was highly gratified by the king’s words; and that lord of sages said to the king: ‘O, king, ask for a boon; whatever your heart wishes; I shall grant you that.’
‘If you are pleased with me, Your Holiness, pray give your daughter to me in marriage,’ requested the king.
Then that great sage bestowed his daughter on the king who married her according to the Gandharva rites.
Placing his bride behind him on horseback, the king rode in the direction of the capital city of his own kingdom. When they were halfway, the sun set. Somewhere in the middle of the forest, the king dismounted, tied his horse to a tree and with his bride lay down to sleep under a great tree. At midnight, a certain Brāhmaṇa ogre140 arrived at that tree. He woke up the king:
‘O king, I am going to eat your wife,’ thundered the ogre.
‘Oh, no, please don’t do that; I shall provide you with some other victim for your meal; whatever you demand,’ exclaimed the king. As it is said:
In dire peril, one’s wealth ought to be protected;
at the cost of wealth, one’s wife ought to be protected;
one ought of protect one’s self at all times
even at the cost of wife and wealth as well.
‘Well then, listen to me; if you sever the head of a Brāhmana boy, seven years of age, with your own hand in my presence, I shall then let go of this lady,’ was the ogre’s response.
‘All right, I shall do so. But you have to come to my city on the seventh day,’ observed the king.
‘I promise’ replied the ogre and returned to his own dwelling.
At dawn, the king reached his capital. There was a great celebration in the city. The king summoned the Chief Minister and told him everything that had taken place and asked for his advice. ‘Honourable Minister, what shall we do now? On the seventh day the ogre will come here to claim his victim,’ said the king.
‘Pray, have no fear, Your Majesty; I shall do everything that needs to be done,’ replied the Chief Minister.
Then the Chief Minister had the figure of a man made of solid gold costing many lakhs,141 placed it in a cart and had it taken round on the four highways in the city to the beat of drums with the town crier proclaiming, ‘If any Brāhmaṇa in the city is willing to give his seven-year-old son to the king who will then sever the boy’s head, this solid gold figure worth lakhs will be given to him.’
In that city lived a decrepit and indigent Brāhmaṇa who had three sons. This Brāhmaṇa hearing the public proclamation said to the Brahmāṇi, his wife, ‘Beloved wife; let us give the king one of our three sons and receive this gift of a golden figure of enormous value.’
‘But I shall not give up my youngest,’ replied the Brahmāṇi.
‘And I shall not give up the eldest,’ rejoined the Brāhmaṇa. The middle son who was listening, said: ‘Well then, give me up to the king, dear father.’
The father said: ‘Good; give yourself up, my son.’ For it is said:
Greed is at the root of all sins;
bodily humours of disease;
fond affection of all sorrows;
Man is happy abandoning all three.
The middle son was therefore brought before the king by his father who was seized by greed. He accepted the golden figure and returned home. Then the Brāhmaṇa ogre arrived. The king honoured him, offering cooked rice, flowers, perfumes, incense, paan and supari, fruit, fine cloths; set other choice eatables before him; waved lights ritually as is done during the worship of divinities. Thus he duly worshipped the ogre and finally brought the young Brāhmaṇa boy as the victim before him. At the precise moment that the king lifted up his sword and severed the boy’s head, the Brāhmaṇa boy laughed. Having narrated this tale, the genie now addressed his question to the king: ‘Tell me, O king, why did the boy laugh at the moment of his death?’
And King Vikramasena replied: ‘Ah! Why did he laugh? I know the reason. The thought that passed through the mind of the boy as he was about to be sacrificed were these: “Aha! Look, look at the state of the world!
“In childhood the mother protects;
in boyhood the father cherishes;
but, in my case, alas! They destroy me,
who ought to be my preservers.
“Mother and father both offered me up,
a victim, gladly, willingly;
the king stands with uplifted sword in hand;
the divinity waits for the sacrifice;
who then has compassion for me?
“If a mother feeds her own child poison,
if a father sells his own son for gold,
if the king deprives me of all, my life,
What use is lamenting!”
‘Reflecting thus the boy laughed.’
The genie heard the answer and fled to that same spot to hang from a branch of the śinśipā tree.
Thus ends the nineteenth tale in the Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie set down by Śivadāsa.
TALE 20:
Of Star-Crossed Lovers
May Lord Viṣṇu who lost the crescent moon
to Lord Śiva, moon-crested, only to receive
rays of light multitudinous, streaming
from the full moon of Lakṣmī, His consort’s face:
may He who holds the marvellous conch,
Pānćajanya, preserve us all.
Once again the king returned to the same spot and having taken down the corpse from the śinśipā tree, placed it on his shoulders. As he set out on his way to meet the necromancer, Kṣāntiśīla, the corpse began its storytelling. The genie began: ‘Listen, O, king to the tale I shall tell.’
There is a great city named Viśāla.142 It was ruled by a king named Vipulaśekhara. In that city lived a merchant named Arthadatta, who had a daughter named Anangamanjarī. She was married to one Maninābha, a merchant belonging to the city of Alakā. Maṇinābha went over the seas to trade and he was away for a very long time. In the meantime, his bride remained in her father’s house and as the days passed by she grew into womanhood.
One evening, she stood on the terrace of the mansion watching the great royal highway. She happened to see a young Brāhmaṇa named Kamalākara passing on the highway. His eyes fell upon her. With the meeting of eyes mutual love sprung up in their hearts. They stood still as if painted in a picture with their eyes riveted upon each other. Kamalākara with his mind in turmoil went slowly back to his own house accompanied by his friend. When he reached home he was beside himself with the pain of separation from his beloved. Sorrowful, he began lamenting:
‘O, God of Love! Were you not burnt to ashes143
by the wrath of Śiva? O, fool!
Have you not suffered the pangs of separation
from Rati,144 your beloved?’
And Anangamanjarī was in her room, chiding the moon thus:
‘O, gracious moon! Born of the ocean’s cold depths;
known the world over as the abode of ambrosia;
your brilliant rays streaming with the artless glory of vines
rival the beauty of garlands145 of pearls.
The moonlight is your beloved consort;
your best friend is Love, of love all compact;
yet, indeed! Lord! What a blaze of sorrow
is here kindled! Why do you, O lord, burn me thus?’
Hearing Anangamanjarī bemoaning in this manner, her friend consoled her saying: ‘O, my dearest friend, do not speak such words. Shame upon you to talk, like this.’
Anangamanjarī’s reply was:
‘Across the waters on the other side of the pool
stays the Ćakravāka, pining, giving out
his plaintive, love-lorn calls to his mate;
and she lives. The lotus ceases to mourn
at t
he close of night and laughs.
But, for one whose beloved is far away,
whose sorrow is destined to have no end,who is overwhelmed having come within
the range of power of Love, the mind-born god,
how can such a person, a person such as myself live?
‘O, my friend, I am well aware of the proprieties. But Love, the Mind-Churner, has made me shameless.’
Her friend, Malayavatī, advised her earnestly, saying: ‘Be of courage; try to control your heart by your will, do not brush aside the modesty that keeps guard and prevents a woman from going astray; seek to hear your favourite stories. Be confident and composed, dearest friend.
‘Ah! How in the twinkling of an eye
you have become the target of Love, the Mind-Churner;
that hunter who draws his bow to its full extent
even up to his ear,
and discharges a swift stream of arrows!
And now you prate in this manner!’
Anangamanjarī answered:
‘Irresistible are Love’s five arrows:146
Far away is my best beloved,
and my heart is seized by intense longing;
deep and boundless is my love
and I am in the springtime of youth;
I draw my breath with intense pain.
The family is spotless,
but womanliness lays siege to fortitude.
Time is the bosom friend of Love,
Death waits in impatience.
All these many fires unendurable
raging now at the present time—
How can I bear them all, my dearest friend?’
Malayavatī now said: ‘My dearest friend, wait, I shall blow away your anguish.’ And consoling Anangamanajarī with these words, she went home.
Then Lady Anangamanjarī went ahead and having made a noose with one end of her upper garment, prepared to commit suicide. As she uttered these words: ‘May he be my husband in my next birth,’ and slipped the noose round her neck her friend, Malayavatī came rushing to her, crying out: ‘No, no, O, my dear friend; no, don’t attempt such a rash deed. If you die, what are you achieving? Nothing.’
Anangamanjarī answered: ‘My dear friend, listen to me; what you say is perfectly true. But now my life hangs by a thread.’
‘In that case, wait, wait for a short while while I run and fetch your beloved,’ pleaded Malayavatī and hastened to the home of Kamalākara.
Kamalākara was also in a pitiable state, his limbs burning with the fever of love. His friend was sprinkling his body with drops of water mixed with liquid sandal paste and fanning him with the cool leaves of the plantain.
Kamalākara was speaking in weak tones: ‘Listen, my friend, pray fetch me some poison so that I might drink it and die. For it is said:
‘Where shall eyes that would be indulged and spoilt
drinking the nectar of the beloved’s face, now rest?
What is worth hearing that ears far distant,
beyond reach of the music of her speech, to now hear?
How are these limbs that would encircle her
in passionate embrace, to be now supported?
Faced by cruel parting from her—Ah! Misery!
How desperate the state I find myself in now!’
Malayavatī went up to him and spoke anxiously. ‘Oh! Kamalākara, I have come from Anangamanjarī; she has sent me to you. She sends you this message through me; I speak for her: “O, listen, lord of my life; grant me life.”’
Kamalākara answered: ‘Is she in the same situation as me, or not? Tell me. Is her life hanging by a thread as mine is?’
Malayavatī replied:
‘She speaks of the moon as if it were the sun;
and the soft southern breeze as if it were the forest fire;
the lotus burns her life like a fiery brand;
the funeral pyre she counts as coolest snow.
Know this: to her such things are now like blazing fires
wreathing with flames her anguished mind and heart.
Alas! You have abandoned this gentle girl,
most unfortunate and miserable.
‘Get up, Kamalākara; go to her while she still lives. Once she is dead what can you do for her?’
Kamalākara heard Malayavatī’s words and trembling all over he rose with great difficulty from his couch. But when he reached Anangamanjarī’s mansion, she lay dead. Seeing her lying lifeless, he died grief-stricken. Both were laid on the same funeral pyre.
In the meantime, Anangamanjarī’s wedded husband arrived at his father-in-law’s mansion. He heard Malayavatī weeping and went inside to the room where his wife lay dead. Even though he saw his wife lying on the funeral pyre with the arms of another man round her neck, so infatuated with the passion of love was he that he laid himself down on the same pyre and breathed his last.
The whole city was seized with amazement. They talked among themselves: ‘Aho! Aho! Amazing! Amazing indeed! Nothing like this has ever been witnessed before! Nothing like this has ever been heard of before! That three persons should die for love! How strange indeed!’
Having narrated this tale the genie said: ‘Tell me, O, king; of these three which one is blinded by the passion of love?’
‘The husband, no doubt,’ answered King Vikramasena. ‘He is the one blinded by love. He saw his beloved wife dead for love of another man. Yet he felt no anger and gave up his life.’
The genie heard the king’s answer and straightaway fled to the same śinśipī tree to hang from its branches.
Thus ends the twentieth tale in the Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie set down by Śivadāsa.
TALE 21:
Of the Four Foolish Brāhmaṇas Who Revived the Dead Lion
To the Pillar in which is rooted the universe,
from which Pillar rises the triple-world.
To Śambhu, Giver of Bliss, I bow,
whose lofty head is kissed by the moon
set on it as a charming crest-jewel.
Once again the king returned to the same spot, took the corpse down from the śinśipā tree and settled it on his shoulders. As he started walking, the corpse began to tell a tale. ‘Listen, O king, and I shall tell you a story,’ said the genie.
There is a city named Jayasthala. It was ruled by a certain king named Vīramardana. A Brāhmaṇa named Viṣṇusvāmi lived in that city and he had four sons. One was a gambler, another a whoremonger; a third was an adulterer and the last son was an unbeliever. The father tried his best to instruct his sons.
‘The dice brings all things to naught;
a man of good conduct should give it up.
As life is consumed by poison
so is good conduct by dice.
Dejection and disputes and brawls,
anger, confusion and calumny,
greed and sorrow and exhaustion;
these are all the kinsmen of dice.
‘The ears and nose of gamblers are lopped off;147
knowing this, virtuous men do not play at dice,
a most deadly vice.
‘In no time, harlots infatuate those who go to them;
men who wear Virtue’s jewel with pride
give harlots a wide berth.
‘Kissing goodbye to truth and serenity,
to cleanliness, good conduct and moral imperatives;
to the observance of vows and religious rites,
voluptuaries freely enter the homes of harlots.
To him who holds a harlot dear,
no one else in the world is so dear;
mother, father, son or daughter,
brother, sister, none is quite so dear.
‘To unblushing paramours, good advice does not appeal,
nor reverence for parents and elders;
they love to lick the intoxicating slobber
off the faces of inebriate harlots.
‘The learned hold that worldly sorrows
are the flowers born of adultero
us love;
they fall into the Bottomless Pit
its bitter fruit.
‘A woman who hurts her loving husband
will certainly play cat and mouse
will she not, with her paramour?
Given that the cat devours her own kittens,
is she one to let go of a mouse?
The shame of riding upon an ass,
or serving as a sweeper in a potter’s home;
the loss of manhood, public condemnation,
wretchedness, ill-luck: these are the consequences
of sleeping with the wives of others.
‘Violating the wives of other men
is a horrendous crime, they say:
Shun a whore even at a distance,
terrible as a venomous serpent.
‘Proud of their youth and obsessed with sex,
men who fail to acquire learning in youth
suffer humiliation in their old age,
their limbs freeze—burnt like frost-struck lotuses.’
The four sons then paid heed to their father’s advice and discussed the matter among themselves. ‘Listen, a man who is unlettered is like one dead though living; so let us go to other lands and acquire learning.’