Tibetan tales (derived from Indian sources)
by W. R. S. Ralston | 1906 | 134,175 words
This page related the story of “the ivory carver and the painter” from those tibetan tales (derived from Indian sources) found in the Kah-gyur (Kangyur or Kanjur). This represents part of the sacred Tibetan canon of Buddhist literature. Many of such stories correspond to similar legends found in the West, or even those found in Polynesia.
Chapter 50a - The Ivory Carver and the Painter
[Source: Kah-gyur, ii. f. 285.]
There lived an ivory carver in Madhyadeśa who, after he had carved a few grains of rice made of ivory, travelled with them to the Yavana land, and there took up his abode in the house of a painter. In the absence of the husband, he said to the wife, “Wife of my friend, cook this rice and serve it up to me.”
The woman began to cook the rice, but her store of wood came to an end, and yet the rice remained uncooked. When the painter came home, he asked, “Good wife, what is the meaning of that?”
She told him the whole story. The man looked at the rice, perceived that the separate grains were carved out of ivory, and said to his wife, while setting her right:
“Good wife, the water is salt. He must bring us fresh water; the rice will then get cooked.”
“The wife said to the ivory carver, “Fetch us fresh water.” Now the painter had painted a picture of a pond hard by, with a dead dog’s body beside it. The ivory carver took a water jug, and went towards the place where he imagined there was a pond. When he saw the dead dog he held his nose, and then he tried to get the water. But he only smashed his jug, and came to the conclusion that he had been fooled.