The Five and Twenty Tales of the Genie (Penguin Classics)
Page 21
Being of one mind each of the four brothers set out for a different country. With the passage of time having gained knowledge they arrived at the meeting place previously arranged. The eldest brother spoke first. ‘Dear brothers, let us now do something to demonstrate our learning.’
One of the brothers then went searching in the forest and found the bones of a dead lion. Using his specialized knowledge, he assembled the bones to form the lion’s skeleton while another brother employed his special expertise to clothe it with flesh, fat and body fluids, humours and the like. The third brother then furnished it with blood and skin and hair while the fourth breathed life into the assembled frame. The lion arose and killed all four and ate them up.
Having narrated this tale the genie said: ‘Tell me, O, king, which of the four brothers is the biggest fool?’
‘The one who gave it life,’ answered King Vikramasena. ‘For:
‘Native intelligence is the best of all;
mere learning is not;
far superior to book-learning is intelligence;
devoid of native intelligence,
people are utterly lost
like these lion-makers.’
Having got his answer, the genie went back to that same spot to hang from the branch of the ŚinŚipā tree.
Thus ends the twenty-first tale in the Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie, set down by Śivadāsa.
TALE 22:
Of the Yogī Who Went from One Body to Another
To the Lord of the Triple-World,
All-Pervading, Consort of Parvati,148
to the Supreme Donor of Knowledge,
I humbly bow my head.
Once again the king went back to that same spot and took the corpse down from the ŚinŚipā tree. Placing it over his shoulders he set out on his way to the burning grounds where KsāntiŚīla was waiting. The corpse began its storytelling; and the genie said: ‘Listen to me, O, king, while I tell you a story.’
There, is a city named ViŚvapuram where King Vidagdha ruled. In that city lived a Brāhmaṇa named Nārāyana. He had studied and mastered the art of entering into the body of another. Once he sat reflecting upon his life. ‘See how decrepit my body has become. Let me abandon this old body of mine and enter one youthful so that I can enjoy the pleasures of life.’
Then Nārāyana entered into a youthful body, stood before his family and said: ‘Look, I have become a yogī.’ And he began to sermonize as follows:
‘Dry up the waters of the pool of hopes
with the intense heat of penance;
nurture what lies at its centre;
with harsh severity cleanse the body of its defects;149
dissolve its foulness in the Transcendent.
‘The limbs droop; the hair turns grey;
the snout150 lacks its bite;
an old man, walking with a stick—
yet he does not lay down the baggage of Hope.
‘As long as he earns an income
the family pays him respect;
come old age and decrepitude;
no one in his home cares to speak to him.
‘Different paths, different gods and gurus;
different service, different dress,
different ways of salvation:
Maya151 alone unites all.
‘Night comes round; then again the day;
the year comes around; then the month again;
old again, a child again.
Time goes and comes repeatedly.
‘Who am I? Who are you? What is this world?
Who grieves? And for what does he grieve?
One comes; another goes.
Fitful is the understanding of all beings.
The shaven monk wears matted hair;152
the Brāhmaṇa turns Buddhist;
the Sānkhya brings in god;
agnostics grow in strength.
No one who dies can ever be born again;
even so, cruelty153 is the All-Slayer.‘A single self, many bodies;
a single truth, many follies;
knowledge is single, frauds many;
why have the learned fashioned
so many fallacies?
‘Who am I? Whence come I? And how?
Who is my mother? Who is my father?
Life in this world is imagined as such, and such.
It is all a matter of dreaming.’
In this manner, the Brāhmaṇa Nārāyaṇa held forth. Then he made this pronouncement: ‘Listen, all of you! I am setting out on a pilgrimage.’
His family rejoiced to hear this. Nārāyana, having entered a youthful body, first wept, then laughed.*
Having related this tale, the genie said: ‘O, king, now tell me; why did this man weep first, and then laugh?’
King Vikramasena declared: ‘Listen; as the yogī was on the point of abandoning his old, decrepit body, he reflected: “Ha! In childhood this body of mine was nourished with tenderness by my mother. In boyhood it was cherished and reared with pride by my father. In youth it was the means to enjoy sexual pleasures and other delights and comforts. Now it is being abandoned.” These thoughts made him weep. But a moment later he thought: “Ah! Now, I have a young man’s body.” And he laughed with joy. It is aptly said:
To any one unmotivated by one or other of the four imperatives in life, namely, the desire and the will to acquire virtue, wealth, love, final release, life itself is devoid of meaning and purpose, like teats dangling from a goat’s neck.’
Hearing the king’s answer, the genie was once again back at the same spot to hang from a branch of the śinśipā tree.
Thus ends the twenty-second tale in the Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie, set down by Śivadāsa.
TALE 23:
Of Three Rather Fastidious Brāhmanas
Mortals aspiring to compose great works
accomplish it by the grace of the Muse, Sarasvatī;
so let us adore her, the Goddess of Wisdom,
with unwavering contemplation.
Once again the king walked back to that same spot, took down the corpse from the śinśipā tree and as he set out on his way to meet the necromancer, Kṣāntiśīla in the burning grounds, the corpse began to speak.
‘Listen, O king, to the tale I am about to tell,’ began the genie.
There is a city named Dharmapuram. It was ruled by a certain king named Dharmadvaja. In that city lived a Brāhmaṇa named Govinda, a scholar well-versed in the four Vedas. Four sons were born to him, named, Haridatta, Somadatta, Yajnadatta and Brahmadatta respectively, all scholars in Vedic texts. In the course of time, the eldest son, Haridatta passed away. Grief-stricken by the loss of his son, Govinda prepared to die. When news of this reached the ears of the Royal Priest, Viṣṇu Śarma, he came at once to Govinda and exhorted him thus: ‘O, Govinda, listen to me:
‘Misery is born the moment Man commences
within a woman’s womb his sojourn on earth.
What untold misery for the babe in the womb,drinking the blend of fluids in a woman’s body
passed through the uncleanliness of the navel tube!
‘In youth what bitter misery parting from loved ones!
And then, old age, sapless! Tell me, O, man,
is even a scrap of happiness
to be found in this maze of existence?
‘Death, inevitable, strikes constantly:
within the womb and at the time of birth;
on the mother’s lap, or in bed;
in childhood, in old age, in youth,
in the mature years of one’s life;
and in battle as well;
it strikes the rich man and the poor.
‘On treetops, on mountain peaks,
in the clouds, on the ground,
in waters as well;
in a cage or a hollow; even if you enter the Deep, Death waits.
Death spares no one, whoever it is:
scholars learned in scared or secular knowledge;
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p; men possessed of wealth with treasures of gold;
warriors with strength of arms; or kings;
men possessed of serenity and self-control;
all those well, or ill; well-off or badly-off,
living in happiness, ease and comfort, or in misery;
like the forest fire, Death devours all.
‘A span of hundred years is measured out for Man:
of this half passes in sleep;
more than half of the remaining halfpasses in childhood and old age;
what little remains is spent in sorrow,
the sorrows of illness and bereavement;
the hardships of service and other necessities.
In the wayward flow of the river of existence,
where is happiness for any living thing?
‘Kṛrṣṇa, the Finder of Light,154 was his uncle;
his father, the great hero, Arjuna,
Conqueror of Treasures; yet, Abhimanyu lay dead.
Insurmountable indeed is Time!
‘His home is filled with possessions;
Kinsmen are present in the burning grounds;
the body now belongs to the piled wood:
his virtues and vices go with him;
not mother or father, not son, nor kinsmen either.
Having led him into the Hall of Judgement,
to Yama,155 his good deeds and bad leave him.
‘Dawn breaks again; the star-spangled Night returns;
the moon rises once more; the sun comes up again;
what is that to Time? Youth flies. Even so,
the world understands not the tale that’s told.
‘Gone is great Māndhātā,156 Lord of the Earth,
ornament of the Golden Age.
where is he157 who bridged the great Ocean
and slew ten-faced Rāvaṇa, demon king?
‘Gone are Yudhisthira158 and the others,
and so will His Honour, the king;
yet this earth, rich and bountiful
did not accompany a single king;
you think she may go with you!
‘Birds wander solitary in the skies, often in dire peril;
in the ocean’s unfathomable waters fishes are caught with hooks;
evil abounds in this world; why not goodness?
What good is it to be in the right place?
Even from a distance Time seizes all with
outstretched arm.
‘What are possessions?
They are as dust on the soles of one’s feet.
Youth rushes on, fleet
as streams down hills.
Man’s existence moves back and forth
like an elephant’s ears flapping.
Those who fail to follow Virtue with unwavering mind
that unlocks the gates to the World of Light,
are in ripe old age stricken with remorse,
and burn in the flames of anguish.
‘Think upon, Rāvaṇa:159 Trikūta,
his fortress city impregnable,
the great Ocean its moat,
the rāksasas his warriors, powerful demons;
hoards of treasures, his power;
Sanjīvanī, the magic art of restoring life
waiting, ready, on his lips:
that same Rāvaṇa lay dead.
‘Mother, father, kinsman; wife, siblings,
what are they to us?
We go whence we came; so, why lament?
‘No healing herb, no piety, no friend or kinsman,
can come to the aid of a man caught in the toils of Time.What was at dawn is not there at noon;
what was at noon is not there at night;
what was at night is no longer seen:
this world is a magician’s trick!’
Govinda listened attentively and took Viṣṇu Śarma’s advice to heart and, pondered over his words. He then decided to perform a sacrifice. As he began the rites he dispatched his sons to the edge of the ocean to bring back a turtle for the sacrifice. The three sons set out. At the shores of the ocean they met a fisherman.
‘Listen, fisherman,’ they said. ‘Cast your net in the middle of the ocean and catch us a turtle. We shall give you a hundred and one coins stamped with the royal seal.’
The fisherman cast his net, caught a turtle and brought it to the three Brāhmaṇas. The eldest looked at his middle brother and said: ‘Hey, brother, pick the turtle up and carry it.’
The middle brother now turned to his younger brother and said: ‘Hey, brother, you carry this turtle.’
The third brother exclaimed: ‘O, no, I shall not carry this turtle; it will make my hands stink. I am fastidious about food, you know.’
The middle brother said: ‘And I, I am very fastidious about women. I shall not touch this fishy thing.’
The other brother, the eldest now said: ‘I shall not touch this turtle. I am most fastidious about what I sleep on.’
The three brothers argued hotly amongst themselves as to who should carry the turtle. Continuing to argue they went to the palace and presented themselves before the king.
‘What is the cause of your dispute, worthy gentlemen?’ asked the king.
One brother spoke up: ‘Your Majesty, I am very sensitive in the matter of food; so how can I carry a turtle?’
The second brother said: ‘And I, Your Majesty, am really sensitive in the matter of women.’
The third brother swore saying: ‘I am truly most sensitive in the matter of beds, Your Majesty.’
The king came to a decision. ‘Well then, I have to first subject all three of you to a test,’ he said.
The king set a test for the Brāhmaṇa who was finicky over food, first. Whatever fine foods had been prepared in the royal kitchen were served to him on a platter. The connoisseur of food took a bit of rice in his hand and as he lifted it to his mouth he smelt a disagreeable odour. He rose without eating and went at once to the king.
The king asked courteously: ‘Well, Sir, did you enjoy your meal?’
‘O, Your Majesty, how could I eat that food? It had such a foul odour.’
‘O, really,’ queried the king. ‘Was that so? What kind of foul odour was it?’
‘The fields where the rice was grown must have been close to the burning grounds, because I smelt the fumes of the smoke from the funeral pyres in the cooked rice served me.’
Hearing this extraordinary complaint, the king immediately summoned the Keeper of Stores.
‘Sir, from which village did you purchase the rice for our kitchens?’ he enquired.
‘Your Majesty, this rice was sent by one of the royal tenants, and grown by him in his fields in the village lying on the outskirts of our capital,’ answered the Keeper of Stores.
The king then dispatched a messenger to fetch the particular tenant who had furnished the rice to the palace. The tenant came. ‘Sir, tenant-farmer, tell me, where exactly are the fields where you grew the rice that you sent to our royal stores?’ asked the king.
‘It is close by the city’s burning grounds, Your Majesty,’ replied the farmer.
The king was amazed by this piece of information.‘Indeed, O, Brāhmaṇa, you speak the truth. You really are fastidious about food.’
Next the middle brother was escorted to the house of a courtesan. Spies were then sent secretly by the king to observe what happened in the courtesan’s house.
The Brāhmaṇa was welcomed with all due courtesies and was offered paan and supari, liquid sandalwood paste, oils perfumed and medicated with camphor, turmeric and other healthful and pleasant herbs. He went up to the couch and as he kissed the courtesan’s mouth her breath exhaled the odour of a goat. Disgust crinkled his face and he turned his back to her and fell asleep. The spies concealed in the room watched everything.
Next morning the Brāhmaṇa went to the king who enquired: ‘Hey! Brāhmaṇa, did you have a good night?’
‘No; it was no pleasure,’ replied the Brāhmaṇa.
‘Oh! And why was that?’ asked the king.
‘Your Majesty, the woman’s mouth smelled like a goat; I simply couldn’t stand it,’ replied the Brāhmaṇa.
The king sent for the bawd and questioned her: ‘How did you get a daughter like this? Tell me the truth.’
‘O, Your Majesty, it was like this. My sister gave birth to this girl. But my sister died of puerperal fever soon after and so I brought the child up on goat’s milk.’
The king turned to the Brāhmaṇa and observed: ‘well, you speak the truth. You are indeed a connoisseur of women.’
Then the king had a mattress made of finest silk cotton for the third Brāhmaṇa to sleep on and directed him to the bedchamber.
The Brāhmaṇa went in and lay down on the bed. But he did not have a wink of sleep all night. He passed the long night with great difficulty. In the morning, the king sent for him and enquired: ‘Hey! Brāhmaṇa, did you sleep well?’
‘O, no, Your Majesty, there seems to have been a coarse hair embedded in the middle of the mattress in the seventh layer of cotton. That caused such pain in my back that I could not sleep,’ answered the Brāhmaṇa.
The king had the fine mattress ripped open and there it was, a coarse hair right in the middle of the seventh layer.