Tales of Ancient India / Edition 1

by J. A. B. van Buitenen

Overview

"This admirably produced and well-translated volume of stories from the Sanskrit takes the Western reader into one of the Golden Ages of India. . . . The world in which the tales are set is one which placed a premium upon slickness and guile as aids to success. . . . Merchants, aristocrats, Brahmins, thieves and courtesans mingle with vampires, demi-gods and the hierarchy of heaven in a series of lively or passionate adventures. The sources of the individual stories are clearly indicated; the whole treatment is scholarly without being arid."—The Times Literary Supplement

"Fourteen tales from India, newly translated with a terse and vibrant effectiveness. These tales will appeal to any reader who enjoys action, suspense, characterization, and suspension of disbelief in the supernatural."—The Personalist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226846477
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	07/15/1969
Series:	Phoenix Books
Edition description:	Digital Reprint
Pages:	267
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.70(d)

Read an Excerpt

Tales of Ancient India

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By J. A. B. van Buitenen

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 1959 The University of Chicago
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-84647-7

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CHAPTER 1

The King and the Corpse

On the bank of the river Godavari lies the kingdom of Pratishana; and in that kingdom long ago there was a famous king named Trivikramasena, the son of Vikramasena and Indra's equal in might. Every day when the king held court in the audience hall, a wandering mendicant by the name of Ksantisila came to pay his respects and to give the king some fruit. And every day the king accepted the fruit and handed it to his treasurer who stood by his side.

So ten years went by, until one day when the mendicant had given the fruit to the king and left the audience hall, the king threw the fruit to a little house-monkey that had slipped away from its keepers. When the monkey began to eat, a priceless jewel fell out of the fruit. The king saw it and picked the gem up. Then he demanded of his treasurer, "Where have you kept the fruits which that mendicant has been giving to me and which I have handed over to you?"

"I have thrown them in the storeroom, through the window, without opening the door," said the frightened treasurer. "If you so command, Sire, I shall open the storeroom and look for them."

The king nodded, and the treasurer left the court. Soon he rejoined the king and reported, "I could not find the fruits in the storeroom; they must have rotted away. But I did find a glittering pile of precious stones."

When the king heard this, he was pleased with the honesty of his treasurer and gave him the stones.

The next day when the mendicant came as usual, the king interrogated him. "Sir, why do you come every day to pay your respects in such an expensive fashion? I shall not accept your fruit today if you fail to explain."

The mendicant took the king aside and said, "Sire, I want to perform a certain magic spell for which I need the assistance of a brave man. I implore you, most courageous of heroes, to lend me your help!"

"I will," promised the king, and the pleased mendicant continued, "Then come to the great burning ground on the fourteenth day of the coming dark moon and meet me at nightfall inside the burning ground. I shall be awaiting you under the vata tree.

"I shall certainly come," repeated the king, and the wandering mendicant went joyfully back to his home.

When the fourteenth day of the dark moon came, the faithful king remembered the promise he had made to the mendicant, and as night fell, he left the royal residence unobserved, wrapped in a dark blue cloak and wearing on his face the marks that ward off evil spirits; he kept his sword ready in his hand. He entered the burning ground, which was enveloped by ghastly fog and smoke-filled darkness. The frightening flames of funeral pyres leered like ghostly eyes about him, and frenzied Ghosts and Vampires horrifyingly closed in around him as he stepped over the piles of bones, skulls, and skeletons of the innumerable dead. Yet this utterly frightful burning ground, resounding with piercing screams of ghoulish malice, like an apparition of the Dread God himself, could not perturb the king, and he traversed it swiftly. He looked about him and found the mendicant at the foot of the vata tree where he was drawing a magic circle.

The king drew nearer and said, "I have come, Reverend Sir. Tell me what I can do for you."

The mendicant looked gratefully up to the king and replied, "Sire, since you have shown me your favor, pray go some distance to the south until you come upon a solitary sissoo tree. In that tree hangs the corpse of a man. Bring me that corpse: be gracious, bold king, and help me!"

"I will," said the king, who was always true to his word; and he turned south and departed. He walked in darkness, but his path was illumined by the flames of burning and smoldering pyres, and at length he found the sissoo tree. The dead body of a man hung down the trunk of the tree which, tanned by the smoke of the crematories and reeking of burnt flesh, seemed like a Stalker of the Night. The king climbed the tree, cut the rope, and dropped the body to the ground; the corpse struck the ground and screamed as if it had hurt itself. The king climbed down and touched the body gently, for he feared it was still alive. At his compassionate touch the corpse shook with ghastly laughter. The king now knew that the body was possessed by a Vampire.

"Why are you laughing?" he asked, unafraid. "Come on, let us go." But the instant he spoke, he found the body gone; it was hanging again from the tree. The king again climbed the tree and lowered the corpse — a brave man's heart is more adamant than diamond. Silently he lifted the body on his shoulder and started back to the mendicant.

And while he was going, the Vampire spoke in the body on his shoulder. "Your Majesty, I shall tell you a story to enliven the walk. Listen!"

The Faithful Suitors

On the bank of the Kalindi is a brahmin freehold called Brahmasthala; and there lived once a brahmin by the name of Agnisvamin who was a great scholar of the Veda. His wife bore him a girl so very beautiful that when the Creator had brought forth her fresh and precious loveliness he must have scorned his earlier creations of celestial maidens.

When this girl, who had been named Mandaravati, had reached the marriageable age, three young brahmins arrived from Kanyakubja, all of the same virtuous character. Each of them proposed to her father for the hand of Mandaravati, and each grudged her to the others to such an extent that he threatened to kill himself if she were to wed another. So, lest he cause the death of at least two brahmins, Agnisvamin did not marry her off at all; and the girl remained a virgin. Meanwhile the three suitors settled down there and gazed day and night upon her moonlike radiant face with the devotion of cakora birds.

Then suddenly Mandaravati, still unmarried, was carried off by the hot fever which struck without warning. Consumed by grief the three brahmins conducted the funeral rites, carried her to the burning ground, and cremated her. One of them erected a little hovel on the spot and bedded down on her ashes, living on the food he begged. The second gathered her bones and went to the Ganges. The third became a wandering mendicant and departed to roam in other lands.

This mendicant came in the course of his wanderings to a village called Vakrolaka and was invited into the house of a brahmin to be his guest. When he sat down to his meal after the honors had been done, one of the children in the house started to cry. The mother tried to calm the child, but when it would not stop screaming, she lifted it angrily by the arms and threw it in the blazing fire; and no sooner did the infant fall into the fire than its tender body was burned to ashes.

At this hair-raising spectacle, their guest cried: "Oh, horror! I have entered the house of a brahmin Ogre! I refuse to take any of this food, which is sin itself!"

But the father said, "Now behold the power of my spell, which as soon as it is spoken can resurrect the dead!"

He took a small manuscript which contained the spell, recited the charm over some dust, and threw the dust over the ashes. And the little boy rose up alive with his former body. Relieved, the mendicant returned to his meal. His host hung the book on a peg in the wall, had his meal and at nightfall shared his bed with his guest.

As soon as the household was asleep, the mendicant got up stealthily and took down the book. Immediately he departed thence and walking day and night came at last at the burning ground where Mandaravati had been cremated. There he saw the second of the brahmins, who had returned simultaneously from the Ganges where he had gone to commit her bones to the sacred waters. Together they joined the third brahmin, who had stayed in the burning ground, building himself a hut and sleeping on the girl's ashes.

The mendicant said, "We must tear down this hut so that I can resurrect my beloved from the ashes with the charm of a spell."

He insisted until he had put the others to work, and when the hut was torn down, he opened the little book and recited the spell over some dust; then he threw the charmed dust on the ashes. And instantly Mandaravati stood up alive; and the body she bore now had gained in splendor, surpassing even its unmatched beauty of yore now that it had been purified in the fire — it was as though it had been fashioned out of gold.

At the first sight of the girl who was reborn so beautiful, the three brahmins were smitten with love and, longing to take her, began to quarrel over her.

One said, "She is my wife, for I have won her through the power of my spell."

"She is reborn through the power of the holy Ganges," said the second, "and therefore she is mine!"

"No, she is mine, for I have guarded her ashes and revived her through my mortifications!" said the third.

"Now tell me, Sire," resumed the Vetala, "how should their quarrel be decided: to whom does the girl properly belong as wife? Your head will burst asunder if you know it and fail to speak!"

And the king replied: "The one who brought her to life with his magic spell after considerable efforts is her father rather than her husband, for the part he took was a father's part. The one who committed her bones to the Ganges may pass as her son. But the third one who mortified himself on the burning ground out of his love for her and slept on her ashes — he, I say, is truly her husband."

When the Vetala had heard King Trivikramasena's reply, he vanished from the king's shoulder and returned to his own haunt. And the king, who kept only the mendicant's end in view, decided to catch him once again. For a man of great character refuses to break his promise, even at the peril of his life.

Thus King Trivikramasena returned to the sissoo tree, again took the Vampire out of the tree, lifted him on his shoulder, and started back in silence. And while the king hurried on, the Vampire spoke.

"Sire, you are a wise and mettlesome man, which pleases me. Therefore I shall tell you a diverting story. Listen to this riddle."

The Transposed Heads

Long ago there was a king on earth who was known as Yasahketu, Banner-of-Fame. His royal residence was the city of Sobhavati. In this city stood a beautiful temple dedicated to the White Goddess. South of the temple site was the temple pond, which was known simply as the Goddess' Pond. Every year, on the fourteenth day of the light moon in the month Asadha, a large procession of pilgrims came to this pond from all parts of the country to take a purifying bath.

One year on that day a young washerman, Dhavala, came on a pilgrimage from his village Brahmasthala to take the holy bath, and at the pond he saw a young girl who had likewise come to bathe, Madanasundari, the daughter of a washerman called Suddhapata. His heart was stolen by the girl, who robbed the moon of its splendor, and after he had found out what her name was and her caste, he went home, passionately in love.

At home he suffered from separation; he behaved abnormally, did not touch his food, and so on. Anxiously his mother questioned him, and he told her that he was in love. She went at once to tell her husband Vimala, who, when he joined them and saw the condition of his son, said: "Why are you so downcast, my son, when it is not at all difficult to get what you want? If I ask Suddhapata, he will certainly give you the hand of his daughter. We are not inferior to him, in caste or income or profession. I know him, and he knows me; so it will be quite easy for me to arrange it."

After these reassurances he pressed his son to eat his meals, and the next day father Vimala went with Dhavala to Suddhapata's house in the city of Sobhavati. He asked Suddhapata to give his daughter in marriage to his son Dhavala, and Suddhapata agreed with all proper formalities. An auspicious hour was fixed for the next day, and Suddhapata gave Dhavala the hand of Madanasundari, who was of the same caste. When the wedding was over, Dhavala returned contentedly with his bride, who had fallen in love with him at first sight, to his father's house in Brahmasthala.

After they were living happily together, it so happened that a son of Dhavala's father-in-law, brother to Madanasundari, come one day to visit them. He was hospitably received, and everybody embraced him in welcome. He inquired how his relatives were doing, and, after he had rested, he said: "I have been sent by father to invite Madanasundari and her husband over, for we are going to have a special celebration for the Goddess." They gladly accepted the invitation, and the rest of the day his sister and all the other members of the household served him with choice food and drink.

The next morning Dhavala departed with Madanasundari and his brother-in-law to their father's place. Arriving in Sobhavati the third of the company, Dhavala happened to pass the great temple of the White Goddess. When he saw the temple, he was moved with piety, and he said to his sister and her brother, "Come, let us visit Our Lady the Great Goddess here!"

But his brother-in-law tried to stop him, saying, "We cannot all of us visit the Goddess empty-handed."

"Then I go alone. Wait for me here."

So Dhavala went off to visit the Goddess. He entered the temple, prostrated himself before her image, and meditated upon the Goddess — how she had crushed the insolent demon Ruru with her eighteen arms, and how she had trampled the demon Mahisa under her lotus-like feet. At the prompting of fate a thought occurred to him.

"People bring all kinds of bloody sacrifices to the worship of Our Lady. Could I not please her then in order to gain the highest end by sacrificing myself?" And he took from the inner sanctum, which was deserted, a sword that had been left by some pilgrims as a votive offering to the Goddess. He tied his head by the hair to the bell rope and then cut his head off with the sword. His dead body dropped to the floor.

When Dhavala had been gone a long time and still did not return, his brother-in-law stepped into the temple of the Goddess to look for him. And when he saw his sister's husband with his head cut off, he was so upset that he cut off his own head with the same sword.

When her brother, too, failed to return, Madanasundari became very anxious, and she likewise entered the temple. As she came in, she saw her husband and her brother, both without heads. Wailing "Oh, what is this? I am lost!" she collapsed on the floor. After awhile she rose, and, mourning her two loved ones who had so suddenly come to their end, she thought, "What use is it now if I live?" And resolving to do away with herself, she prayed to the Goddess: "O Goddess, supreme Queen of all gods, you who dispense happiness and a virtuous life, you who share your body with your Consort the Foe of Love, O refuge of all your devotees, dispelling all their miseries, why have you taken my husband and my brother? I did not deserve it, for I have always been devoted to you. I throw myself on your mercy; hear my dismal prayer. I shall give up this ill-fated body, but grant, O Goddess, that in whatever kind of life I shall be born again, my husband and brother will again be my husband and my brother!" And when she had finished her praises and prayers, she bowed before the Goddess. Then she fashioned a creepervine on an asoka tree into a noose. But when she tightened the noose around her neck, a Voice sounded from heaven above.

"Do no violence to yourself, my daughter, for I am pleased to find such great virtue in one so young as you. Remove the noose. Join the heads of your husband and your brother each to its trunk, and I bestow this boon on you that both will rise and live."

When Madanasundari heard the Goddess' command, she let go of the noose and ran happily toward the temple. But the very young woman was so confused by all the violent things that had been happening to her that she did not look closely, and, as luck would have it, she joined her husband's head to her brother's trunk and her brother's head to her husband's body. And both were raised from the dead and stood up alive and unharmed with the wrong bodies, because their heads had been changed. The men and the woman prostrated themselves before the Goddess and, joyously talking over their experiences, they went their way. But when they had gone for some distance, Madanasundari discovered that she had changed their heads; and she was perplexed and did not know what she was to do.

"Tell me therefore, Your Majesty," resumed the Vampire, "which of those two mixed-up men was really Madanasundari's husband? If you know the answer and keep silent, your head shall burst in a hundred pieces!"

King Trivikramasena had listened to the Vampire tell the story and the riddle, and he replied: "The body that carries her husband's head is her husband; for the head is the most important part of the body, and the rest of the body is identified by the head."

When the king had spoken, the Vampire again mysteriously disappeared from his shoulder, and the king retraced his steps to catch the wizard once more. He found the Vampire again in the sissoo tree, took him on his shoulder, and started anew. And while the king walked on, the Vampire spoke from his shoulder.

"Listen to another of my riddles and forget your labors!"

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Tales of Ancient India by J. A. B. van Buitenen. Copyright © 1959 The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The King and the Corpse
The Faithful Suitors
The Transposed Heads
The Three Fastidious Brahmins
The Three Sensitive Queens
The Man Who Changed Sexes
The King and the Spiteful Seductress
The Son of Three Fathers
The Boy Who Sacrificed Himself
Four Who Made a Lion
The Rejuvenated Hermit
The Insoluble Riddle
The Tale of Two Bawds
The Man Who Impersonated God Visnu
The City of Gold
The Red Lotus of Chastity
Gomukha's Escapade
Two Tales of Destiny
Destiny Triumphant
Destiny Conquered
The Perfect Bride
The Buddhist King of Taxila
The Brahmin Who Knew a Spell
Mahosadha's Judgment
The Prince and the Painted Fairy
Two Kingdoms Won
The First Prince's Story
The Second Prince's Story
The Travels of Sanudasa the Merchant
A Note on the Sources