Story 154 - The Story Of The Shell Snail

IN a certain country there axe a Gamarala and a Gama-mahange (his wife), it is said. The children of those two are two sons and a daughter. The big son one day having worked a rice field, at noon came home for food. The Gama-mahange was a little late in giving the food. The son quarrelled [with her] over it. That day at night the Gama-mahange spoke to the Gamarala that he must bring and give an assistant (a wife) to the son.

On the next day the Gamarala having gone to seek a girl, while he was going asking and asking from village to village, in even a single place he did not meet with a girl.

Afterwards the Gamarala having come to the village, when he was there a considerable time, again the son of the Gamarala quarrelled with the Gama-mahange. While he was quarrelling, the Gamarala and the Gama-mahange, both of them, said,

“Don’t thou stay making and making quarrels here. Go to any place thou wan test.”

Afterwards the son went somewhere or other. The other younger son is going for rice-field work.

For that elder brother who went away the younger sister had much affection. Because of it, from the day on which the elder brother went away this younger sister through grief does not eat. Having said,

“Without seeing our elder brother I cannot remain,”

she is weeping.

Then the younger elder brother says,

“Why, younger sister ? I am [here]; is that insufficient for you ?”

Then the younger sister says,

“Why, elder brother, are you saying thus ? If two persons give me more assistance than the assistance of one person, how good it is for me !”

Afterwards, that elder brother one day having gone to the rice field, at the time when he was chopping the earthen ridges (myara) met with a Shell Snail (golu-bellek). Having brought the Snail home, and given it into the hand of the younger sister, he said,

“There, younger sister ! I brought for you a small round-backed elder brother. Because of it, don’t you be sorrowful now.”

Afterwards, that younger sister, taking the Snail, having wrapped it in a cloth and placed it in a box, put it away. Having put it away, three times a day having taken the Snail and looked at it, she says,

“Our two parents having quarrelled with our elder brother drove him away. On account of it our little elder brother brought you and gave you to me. Owing to it [also], little round-backed elder brother, there is grief in my mind.”

She having said and said [this], and every day having said thus when putting it away, one day the Gamarala stayed listening.

Having been listening he says at the hand of the Gama-mahange,

“What, Bolan, is this thing that our girl is saying ? You also come and listen.”

Then the Gama-mahange having come and been listening, the two persons spoke together,

“It is through grief, indeed, that her elder brother is not [here]. There is no need to say anything about it.”

Well then, while the girl in that manner for a considerable time is saying and saying thus to the Shell Snail, one day when the girl is saying so again, the snail shell having burst open a Prince was born looking like a sun or a moon.

After that, the girl having thrown away the bits of shell into which the snail shell burst, bathed the Prince, and took him. Having sent milk into a finger for the Prince, he continued to drink milk from her finger. When he was there no long time a tale-bearer told the King that there was a very good [looking] Prince at the Gamarala’s house. Afterwards the King having sent Ministers caused them to look.

The Ministers having looked and having gone, told the King,

“The Prince, indeed, is the royal Prince sort.”

Afterwards the King gave permission^[1] for summoning the Prince and the mother who was rearing the Prince to come to the palace. After that, the Ministers having gone to the Gamarala’s house brought the Prince and the Gamarala’s girl to the palace.

Afterwards, the King taking charge of the Gamarala’s girl and the Prince, when for the Prince the age of about twelve years was filled up, the King died. Having appointed the Prince to the sovereignty he remained ruling the kingdom with the ten kingly virtues.

North-western Province.

 

Note:

The feeding of a Prince from the finger is found in the Maha Bharata (Drona Parva, lxii), in which Indra is represented as thus feeding Prince Mandhatri, who made his appearance in the world out of his father’s left side, as a consequence of the latter’s having drunk some sacrificial butter or ghi, which had the magic property of causing the birth of a son. The food thus provided was so nourishing that the infant grew to twelve cubits in as many days. In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), this Prince was not fed thus, but was suckled by the eighty thousand wives of his father, having been born from a tumour on the crown of the King’s head; his boyhood occupied twenty-one million (and a few hundred thousand) years.

In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 216, in a legend of the founding of the Vaishali kingdom, two children are described as being reared by a religious mendicant by means of a supply of milk which issued from his thumbs.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The “permission” of a King is a command.