Chapter LXVIII

INVOCATION

MAY Gaṇeśa protect you, who, when he sports, throws up his trunk, round which plays a continual swarm of bees, like a triumphal pillar covered with letters, erected on account of the overthrow of obstacles!

We worship Śiva, who, though free from the hue of passion, abounds in colours, the skilful painter who is ever producing new and wonderful creations. Victorious are the arrows of the God of Love, for, when they descend, though they are made of flowers, the thunderbolt and other weapons are blunted in the hands of those who bear them.

 

[M] (main story line continued) So the son of the King of Vatsa remained in Kauśāmbī, having obtained wife after wife. But though he had so many wives, he ever cherished the head queen, Madanamañcukā, more than his own life, as Kṛṣṇa cherishes Rukmiṇī. But one night he saw in a dream that a heavenly maiden came and carried him off. And when he awoke he found himself on a slab of the tārkṣya gem, on the plateau of a great hill, a place full of shady trees. And he saw that maiden near him, illuminating the wood, though it was night,^[1] like a herb used by the God of Love for bewildering the world.^[2] He thought that she had brought him there, and he perceived that modesty made her conceal her real feelings; so the cunning prince pretended to be asleep, and in order to test her he said, as if talking in his sleep:

“Where are you, my dear Madanamañcukā? Come and embrace me.”

When she heard it, she profited by his suggestion, and assumed the form of his wife, and embraced him without the restraint of modesty.

Then he opened his eyes, and beholding her in the form of his wife, he said, “O how intelligent you are!” and smiling threw his arms round her neck.

Then she dismissed all shame, and exhibiting herself in her real shape, she said:

“Receive, my husband, this maiden, who chooses you for her own.”

And when she said that, he married her by the gāndharva form of marriage.^[3]

But next morning he said to her, by way of an artifice to discover her lineage, about which he felt curious:

“Listen, dear one, I will tell you a wonderful story.

 

161. Story of the Jackal that was turned into an Elephant

There lived in a certain wood of ascetics a hermit, named Brahmasiddhi, who possessed by meditation supernatural power, and near his hermitage there was an old female jackal dwelling in a cave. One day it was going out to find food, having been unable to find any for some time on account of bad weather, when a male elephant, furious on account of its separation from its female, rushed towards it to kill it. When the hermit saw that, being compassionate as well as endowed with magical power, he turned the female jackal into a female elephant, by way of a kindness, to please both. Then the male elephant, beholding a female, ceased to be furious, and became attached to her, and so she escaped death.

Then, as he was roaming about with the jackal transformed into a female elephant, he entered a tank full of the mud produced by the autumn rains, to crop a lotus. He sank in the mud there, and could not move, but remained motionless, like a mountain that has fallen owing to its wings having been cut off by the thunderbolt. [see notes on the legend of Indra] When the female elephant, that was before a jackal, saw the male in this distress, she went off that moment and followed another male elephant. Then it happened that the elephant’s own mate, that he had lost, came that way in search of her spouse. The noble creature, seeing her husband sinking in the mud, entered the mud of the tank in order to join him. At that moment the hermit Brahmasiddhi came that way with his disciples, and was moved with pity when he saw that pair. And he bestowed by his power great strength on his disciples, and made them extricate the male and female from the mud. Then the hermit went away, and that couple of elephants, having been delivered from both separation and death, roamed where they would.

 

[M] (main story line continued)

“So you see, dear one, that even animals, if they are of a noble strain, do not desert a lord or friend in calamity, but rescue him from it. But as for those which are of low origin, they are of fickle nature, and their hearts are never moved by noble feelings or affection.”

When the Prince of Vatsa said this, the heavenly maiden said to him:

“It is so, there can be no doubt about this. But I know what your real object is in telling me this tale: so in return, my husband, hear this tale from me.

 

162. Story of Vāmadatta and his Wicked Wife

There was an excellent Brāhman in Kānyakubja, named Śūradatta, possessor of a hundred villages, respected by the King Bāhuśakti. And he had a devoted wife, named Vasumatī, and by her he begot a handsome son, named Vāmadatta. Vāmadatta, the darling of his father, was instructed in all the sciences, and soon married a wife, of the name of Śaśiprabhā. In course of time his father went to heaven, and his wife followed him,^[4] and the son undertook with his wife the duties of a householder. But without his knowledge his wife was addicted to following her lusts, and by some chance or other she became a witch possessed of magical powers.^[5]

One day, when the Brāhman was in the king’s camp, engaged in his service, his paternal uncle came and said to him in secret:

“Nephew, our family is disgraced, for I have seen your wife in the company of your cowherd.”

When Vāmadatta heard this, he left his uncle in the camp in his stead, and went, with his sword for his only companion, back to his own house. He went into the flower-garden and remained there in concealment, and in the night the cowherd came there. And immediately his wife came eagerly to meet her paramour, with all kinds of food in her hand. After he had eaten, she went off to bed with him, and then Vāmadatta rushed upon them with uplifted sword, exclaiming: “Wretches, where are you going?” When he said that, his wife rose up and said, “Away, fool!” and threw some dust in his face. Then Vāmadatta was immediately changed from a man into a buffalo, but in his new condition he still retained his memory. Then his wicked wife put him among the buffaloes, and made the herdsman beat him with sticks.^[6]

And the cruel woman immediately sold him in his helpless bestial condition to a trader, who required a buffalo. The trader put a load upon the man, who found his transformation to a buffalo a sore trial, and took him to a village near the Ganges.

He reflected:

“A wife of very bad character that enters unsuspected the house of a confiding man is never likely to bring him prosperity, any more than a snake which gets into the female apartments.”

While full of these thoughts he was sorrowful, with tears gushing from his eyes; moreover he was reduced to skin and bone by the fatigue of carrying burdens, and in this state he was beheld by a certain white witch. She knew by her magic power the whole transaction, and sprinkling him with some charmed water, she released him from his buffalo condition. And when he had returned to human form, she took him to her own house and gave him her virgin daughter, named Kāntimatī.

And she gave him some charmed mustard-seeds, and said to him:

“Sprinkle your wicked former wife with these, and turn her into a mare.”

Then Vāmadatta, taking with him his new wife, went with the charmed mustard-seeds to his own house. Then he killed the herdsman, and with the mustard-seeds he turned^[7] his former wife into a mare, and tied her up in the stable. And in order to revenge himself, he made it a rule to give her every day seven blows with a stick, before he took any food.

One day, while he was living there in this way with Kāntimatī, a guest came to his house. The guest had just sat down to his meal, when suddenly Vāmadatta got up and rushed quickly out of the room without eating anything, because he recollected that he had not beaten his wicked wife with a stick that day. And after he had given his wife, in the form of a mare, the appointed number of blows, he came in with his mind easy, and took his food. Then the guest, being astonished, asked him, out of curiosity, where he had gone in such a hurry, leaving his food.

Thereupon Vāmadatta told him his whole story from the beginning, and his guest said to him:

“What is the use of this persistent revenge? Petition that mother-in-law of yours, who first released you from your animal condition, and gain some advantage for yourself.”

When the guest gave this advice to Vāmadatta, he approved it, and the next morning dismissed him with the usual attentions.

Then that witch, his mother-in-law, suddenly paid him a visit, and he supplicated her persistently to grant him a boon. The powerful witch instructed him and his wife in the method of gaining the life-prolonging charm, with the proper initiatory rites.^[8] So he went to the mountain of Śrī and set about obtaining that charm; and the charm, when obtained, appeared to him in visible shape, and gave him a splendid sword. And when the successful Vāmadatta had obtained the sword, he and his wife Kāntimatī became glorious Vidyādharas. Then he built by his magic power a splendid city on a peak of the Malaya mountain, named Rajatakūṭa. There, in time, that prince among the Vidyādharas had born to him by his queen an auspicious daughter, named Lalitalocanā. And the moment she was born she was declared by a voice, that came from heaven, to be destined to be the wife of the future Emperor of the Vidyādharas.

 

[M] (main story line continued)

“Know, my husband, that I am that very Lalitalocanā, and that knowing the facts by my science, and being in love with you, I have brought you to this very Malaya mountain, which is my own home.”

When she had in these words told him her story, Naravāhanadatta was much pleased, and entertained great respect for his new wife. And he remained there with her. And immediately the King of Vatsa and his entourage learnt the truth, by means of the supernatural knowledge of Ratnaprabhā, and the other wives of Naravāhanadatta that possessed the same powers.

[Additional note: on the story of Vāmadatta]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

See Vol. II, p. 43n². So Balder is said to be so fair of countenance and bright that he shines of himself. (Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, translated by Stallybrass, p. 222.) In Tennyson’s Vivien we find

“A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful,
They said a light came from her when she moved.”

——See Tawney’s Kathākoça, p. 35 (second note). For fuller details regarding the Balder myth see Frazer’s Balder the Beautiful (vols, x and xi of The Golden Bough); and A. H. Krappe, “The Myth of Balder,” Folk-Lore, vol. xxxiv, No. 3, September 1923, pp. 184-215.—n.m.p.

[2]:

In the corresponding passage in Bṛhat-kathā-mañjarī (lamb, ix) Kṣemendra expatiates on the beauty of the heavenly maiden. This is one of the very few cases where he is more prolix than Somadeva.—n.m.p.

[3]:

See note in Vol. I, pp. 87, 88.—n.m.p

[4]:

This probably means that she was burnt with his corpse.

[5]:

Böhtlingk and Roth read sākinīsiddhisamvarā.

[6]:

We have had many transformations of this kind and shall have many more. A very amusing story of a transformation is found in Campbell’s Tales of the West Highlands, vol. ii, p. 60, which may be compared with this. - See the note at the end of this chapter.— n.m.p.

[7]:

I read kṛtvā for kīrtvā.

[8]:

Professor Cowell informs me that there is a passage in the Śaṅkara-dig-vijaya which explains this. A seer by means of this vidyā gains a life equivalent to eleven years of Brahmā. It seems to be a life-prolonging charm.——The above-mentioned work has not yet been translated. See L. D. Barnett, Supplementary Catalogue of Sanskrit... Books in the... British Museum, Ldn., 1908, col. 633.— n.m.p.