The Five and Twenty Tales of the Genie (Penguin Classics)

by Sivadasa

  79. Good works and virtuous conduct bring good fortune in a person’s current life and in succeeding lives.

  80. See Ganeśa, note 19.

  81. Modern Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. Ujjayinī was one of the great cities of ancient India with a continuous history of centuries as the capital of rich and powerful kingdoms such as few cities have ever possessed. It was the second capital of the great empires for several centuries. During most of its history it was a cultural and commercial centre, the emporium of its time, for the trade-routes passed through it on its way to Arabian sea ports and to Alexandria and Rome. The city was long a centre of learning and intellectual activity; an observatory had been built there quite early in its history and the prime meridian passed through it. Sanskrit drama probably had its origin in Ujjayinī and Kālidāsa most likely lived and wrote there. It is regarded as one of the five hierophannic centres in the country and the great antiquity and sanctity of the shrine of Mahākāla lent it unusual religious significance. Mahākāla is an epithet of Śiva, in his aspect of cosmic time or eternity. Literally, the term means ‘Great Time’.

  82. Daksināpatha—the land south of the Vindhyas.

  83. The mythic history of India divides time on earth into four ages: Krta, the golden age; Dvāpara and Treta, the silver and bronze ages, and Kali, our present, iron age. The Sanskrit names are taken from the game of dice, Kali being the name of the losing throw.

  84. See notes 32, 33 and 48.

  85. See notes 32, 33 and 48.

  86. Bali, a just and magnanimous ruler never turned away a suppliant. He was tricked by Viṣṇu who in the form of a dwarf asked for land covered by three small steps. When Bali agreed to give him the land, Viṣṇu assumed his cosmic form and covered earth and sky with the first two steps. Bali offered his own head for Viṣṇu to place his foot upon to take the third step and was pushed down into Pātāla, the underworld.

  87. Ćandikā is one of the many names of the Mother Goddess. The names of epithets are descriptive of the different aspects, powers and functions of godhead. Ćandikā is the epithet conveying the fierce aspect of godhead that punishes evil.

  88. Creator, Preserver, lord of heaven, as noted above (note 87); the One is signified by a word relating to a function.

  89. The four faces, facing the four cardinal points, symbolize omniscience; the word ‘four-faced’ is a metaphor for the idea of All-Seeing.

  90. Literally, self-choice.

  91. The phrase is rather obscure; perhaps it means settling and cultivating.

  92. The class of warriors and rulers.

  93. Goddess of the Arts; the Muse of Poetry.

  94. Sal, a lofty, timber tree.

  95. Myrobalan; a green berry that is crunchy and slightly tart; when green used to make pickles.

  96. A love marriage by mutual consent; it is legal and binding and carries all the rights and responsibilities of the Hindu sacramental marriage.

  97. A significant action; the bridegroom takes the bride’s right hand when he speaks the marriage vows.

  98. A jewelled pendant worn by women on the forehead; it is attached to the hair by a chain running along the middle parting.

  99. Tiny, poisonous red and black berries, used as the smallest weights by jewellers.

  100. The Indian nightingale.

  101. Rūpam, the word used means form, splendour.

  102. The trident with its three lines is symbolic; it is the weapon of Śiva.

  103. Worship of the Kalpaka tree, that grants wishes.

  104. Buddhist doctrine.

  105. The three aspects defining the three functions of the One.

  106. Brahmā, the Creator.

  107. Maheśvara, one of the epithets of Śiva; literally, the Great Ruler (of the universe, that is).

  108. The process of creation and dissolution of the cosmos.

  109. It is the upper of the two round stones that grinds flour.

  110. Pātāla, the nether regions; it is not hell but regions where the kingdoms of the nāgas, great snakes and other beings with wondrous powers, were situated.

  111. It was believed that tuskers had priceless pearls embedded in their foreheads.

  112. Flowers, grains of rice etc.

  113. In Śaiva mythology, the process of creation-dissolution-re-creation is conceived of in terms of a play; the dance (or dance-drama) is the dominant metaphor in Śaiva metaphysics.

  114. See note 19.

  115. Butter melted and clarified is ghee used in food and as oblations offered in the Sacred Fire.

  116. Lord Viṣṇu: three of the lord’s avatars or incarnations on earth are mentioned in this verse. As Vāmana, he defrauded King Bali (see note 86) of his great kingdom—Bali was a threat to the gods because he was a just ruler; as Lord Rāma, he had the bridge built across the waters to reach Lankā and rescue Sītā by killing Rāvaṇa who had abducted her. As Lord Kṛṣṇa he protected his father’s herds on the banks of the river Yamunā against the dangers of unprecedented rains by lifting up the hill nearby and holding it as a canopy over the herds.

  117. The Western Ghats with groves of sandalwood trees.

  118. Gaurī, the mother goddess, consort of Śiva; the word means The Bright Goddess’.

  119. It appears from the context that Jīūtavāhana was a Bodhisattva, an emanation of the Buddha.

  120. The Muse; goddess of wisdom and learning.

  121. Indian Poetics discusses nine rasas; rasas are modes with one or other of the primary emotions of love, laughter, wrath, fear, disgust (repulsion), valour, compassion and peace as the predominant mood that sets the tone of a piece of writing. The modes might be roughly listed as the following: the romantic, the comic, the awesome, the horrific, the grotesque, the heroic, the compassionate and the peace-bestowing.

  122. Spring creeper, a variety of jasmine; it bears white, fragrant flowers.

  123. Ruddy goose, also known as Brāhminy duck. These birds mate for life and are a paradigm in Sanskrit poetry for fidelity in love.

  124. Certain old texts discuss the thirty-two marks of perfect beauty in men and women, as well as auspicious marks that auger greatness, sovereignty etc.; for instance, the sign of a wheel in the palm is the sign of sovereignty.

  125. Temple dancers who sang and danced as part of the worship of a deity were often mistresses of princes and nobles and wealthy citizens. They were highly intelligent, learned and accomplished women. Being married to the deity these women did not or could not marry.

  126. Fortune personified.

  127. The Nātya Śāstra of Bharata enumerates the ten stages of love and describes how to depict the emotions on stage.

  128. Duty.

  129. The. Power referred to here is the Law of the Universe in its moral and physical aspects which establishes and maintains Order and in the absence of which there would be chaos. Everything in the universe in bound by this Law, even the gods.

  130. See note 24.

  131. Viṣṇu.

  132. An outcast.

  133. Milk, melted butter, curds, urine and dung; the cow is sacred.

  134. The ratiocinative part of the mind as different from the emotional.

  135. See note 96.

  136. See note 23.

  137. A guest who comes unbidden; the Sanskrit term for such a guest is a-tithi (without a date). Not to extend hospitality to such a guest is a grave offence.

  138. A-bhaya, without fear; the secondary meaning of the word is ‘giving sanctuary’.

  139. Any place of torment; Hell.

  140. A Brāhmana who leads an evil and depraved live is doomed to become an ogre.

  141. A lakh is one hundred thousand.

  142. Literally, ‘spacious,’ ‘expansive,’ one of the names of the city of Ujjayinī.

  143. The god of love, Kāma, tried to tempt Lord Śiva Himself, who was seated in single-minded meditation on Mt. Kailāsa in the Himālayas. The Lord opened His Third Eye (the eye of wisdom and of visioning) and a spark flew ou
t and burnt Kāma to ashes. From that time, Love was known as the Bodiless.

  144. Pleasure.

  145. Hāra, the word used here describes a necklace of sixty-four, or 108 strings of pearls.

  146. Love’s five arrows: the red lotus, the aśoka flower also a deep red, the mango blossom, the spring jasmine and the blue lily.

  147. A punishment for gamblers apparently, though I am unable to locate it in Manusmṛti. However the ethical texts do treat it as a terrible vice.

  148. Literally, ‘mountain-born’ the Mother Goddess is the daughter of the Himāyalas, in mythology.

  149. In yoga philosophy (one of the six systems of Indian philosophy) five blemishes or limitations of the personality are noted: ignorance, egoism, compelling desire, aversion, excessive attachment to mundane things and concerns.

  150. A contemptuous word for the mouth.

  151. Illusion, magic, sorcery.

  152. Things are at sixes and sevens: normally a Buddhist monk is clean-shaven; a Brāhmaṇa wears a topknot; Sānkhya (one of the six systems of Indian philosophy) is atheistic and does not posit a god, only matter and intelligence.

  153. Himsa, cruelty is of three kinds; physical, verbal, mental.

  154. Kṛṣṇa, an incarnation of Lord Viṣṇu who teaches the right path to Arjuna, in the Gita.

  155. Yama, god of death and the final judge of all creatures and their conduct on earth.

  156. Māndhātā, a mythical king born of his father without a mother and nursed by Indra, Lord of the Immortals, conquered the whole world and ruled from sea to sea.

  157. Rāma, hero of the epic, Rāmāyaṇa, lived in exile for many years during which his queen, Sītā was abducted by Rāvana, king of Lankā. Rāma had a bridge built across the seas to reach Lankā to rescue Sītā and killed Rāvaṇa in battle.

  158. The eldest of the five brothers, the Pāṇdavas, who fought their cousins for the sovereignty of India. Yudhiṣthira became the emperor.

  159. See note 157. Trikūta was his fortress palace on a hill.

  160. Ganeśa—see note 19.

  161. Earthly rulers possessed the essences or the gods.

  162. See note 71.

  163. Triple-City; three cities of gold, silver and iron respectively were built in the sky, air and earth for the Titans. Śiva destroyed them.

  164. Ćakravartī—Paramount Ruler, literally, ‘one who turned the wheel of empire.’

  Appendix

  Tales from the Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie

  as set down by Jambhaladatta

  1. Śiva the Absolute; the creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe. The word means ‘auspicious,’ beneficent.’ Śakti, is the power of Śiva, the kinetic aspect of pure Being. Śiva-Śakti, Being—Becoming is one; the two different aspects of the creative principle.

  2. The dance is the metaphor for creation-dissolution that symbolizes the rhythm, the eternal movement of the universe. The tremendous power of Cosmic Energy, Śakti, flows into time and space, shaped by the guiding principle, Śiva, into the patterns of dance that articulate the patterns of the life force, bringing the universe into existence.

  3. Śeṣa (the remainder) or Ananta (the endless), is the cosmic serpent that supports the universe on its manifold, expanded hoods. The serpent is a symbol of time in its eternal aspect. In mythology, Śeṣa is the king of serpents or Nāgas, living in Pātāla, the primeval space-ocean of undifferentiated potentialities of forms from which all creation emerges. At the end of time, the world-snake breathes out poison; the great deluge takes place; winds, waters, fire and poison destroy the creation which melts back into its primeval state into ‘the waters’ of the space-ocean. What remains is the creative principle, as well as the seeds of a new universe—śeṣa, the remainder.

  4. The moon is Śiva’s crest-jewel which he appropriated to himself when it rose among many other wondrous objects from the ocean that was churned at the dawn of time by the forces of light and darkness, the devas and dānavas (or asuras or daityas). Soma is one of the many names of the moon, soma being the sap of life extolled in the vedas. The moon is therefore a source of fertility. The sap of life is absorbed by plants from the moonbeams at night and enters other forms of life that eat plants and are in turn eaten by others.

  5. Rasa is primarily taste, flavour, essence: in aesthetics, the term is used as the signifier for emotional states, for sentiments and moods. A work possesses a dominant mood, one of eight (then nine) rasas, which sets the tone of the work, with one or more rasas being subordinate, enhancing and giving depth to the work. Love, valour, anger, laughter, disgust, compassion, terror and wonder, and the ninth, serenity added later are the Rasas; from these, the following modes, erotic, heroic, passionate, humorous, pathetic, awesome and marvellous, derive. The ninth Rasa produces the mode of aesthetic joy (śānta) in which all the elements in a work of art are balanced.

  6. The Sanskrit term is sāndhivigraha; the minister in charge of external affairs, or the Foreign Minister.

  7. See note 11 of Notes to the Introduction.

  8. The term used in the text is kāpālika, a skull-bearer. The kāpālikas were a sect of ascetics, devotees of Śiva, who carried a half skull as a bowl for food and drink. They were commonly regarded as a ‘left-hand sect’, that is, a heterodox sect.

  9. The fruit of the tree, Aegle Marmelos, commonly known as woodapple. The ripe fruit, the size of a large apple or grapefruit has a delicious honey taste with a touch of tartness. The green fruit has medicinal uses in Ayurveda. The leaves, grey-green in colour are sacred to Śiva and offered in his worship.

  10. Suprahuman powers, the eight siddhis: flying through the air; assuming shapes at will; power to become minute or enormous; light or heavy; controlling the minds and lives of others; not being controlled by others; becoming invisible.

  11. The second month of rains, mid-August to mid-September; the months in the Indian calendar begin and end on the 15th day of the month according to the western calendar.

  12. Literally the Gurgling River. Monier Williams identifies it with the Gogra, a tributary of the Gangā, and Apte with the Gangā itself. These identifications are perhaps incorrect, because the frame-story has as the protagonist the Emperor Vikramāditya (or Vikramakesarī) who ruled in Central India with his capital at Ujjayinī. The cycle of stories, therefore, might be presumed to be located in central India.

  13. Dalbergia Sissoo. Its leaves and berries are bitter and acrid and used for medicinal purposes.

  14. Myrobalan; Āmla in Hindi; a slightly tart and sweet fruit eaten raw or made into pickles.

  15. Lāvaṇyavatī, literally, a maiden with the beauty of lustrous pearls; here it is used thus as an adjective; perhaps also as a proper noun, her name.

  16. Originally divinities worshipped by the ancient peoples of India, the first nations, so to speak of the land, Yakṣas were regarded as beneficent spirits, givers of life and plenitude of all kinds. They are forces of nature, indwelling spirits of woods and waters, spirits that assumed different shapes to manifest themselves to people. Later, they were replaced by Vedic, Brāhmaṇic divinities and relegated to subordinate positions in the vast and complex pantheon of god and demigod. Kubera, the Lord of Wealth, was the Yakṣa overlord; his kingdom was located in the Himalayan-trans-Himalayan regions. The Yakṣas were guardians of his immeasurable treasures; considered later as a class of celestial beings like the Vidyādharas (see note 7), Yakṣas were associated with Śiva who is called Yaksarupa (with the form of a Yakṣa) and Kubera was regarded as a close friend of Śiva.

  In the medieval period to which both the texts in this volume belong, there seemed to have appeared a tendency to view Yakṣas as malevolent or mischievous, and grotesque in appearance, as satyrs and gnomes in European mythology were. In their original connotation, the words yakṣa and yakṣi (feminine) signified nature-spirits like the pre-christian divinities and ‘pagan’ spirits of Europe, e.g. the Celtic fairies; the fauns, dryads and nymphs of ancient Greece
.

  17. Ćakravāka-Ćakravākī are generally known as sheldrakes, ruddy geese or Brāhmaṇy ducks. They mate for life and serve as symbols of connubial love and constancy.

  18. Literally, The Wishgranting Vine. For lovers in desperate straits the go-between is the sole means of making their wishes come true.

  19. Arundhatī in the morning star. In mythology, she is the wife of Vasiṣṭha one of the seven sages—saptarsi—apotheosized into the constellation of the Great Bear. Arundhatī is the model of unwavering chastity.

  20. The sacred thread, worn over one shoulder crosswise, down to the waist, is first put on young boys at the rite of investiture. It is one of a number of ‘rites of passage’ in most societies in the ancient world; it signifies being born again, crossing over from childhood to youth. Performed around the age of seven (for Brāhmaṇas) and a couple of years later for others, it marks the commencement of education and/or professional training, apprenticeship to a trade etc.