Vetāla 19: The Thief’s Son

Click the link to jump directly to the english translation of the nineteenth Vetāla. This page only contains the notes.

The Hindi version^[1] (No. 18) commences as in our text, but after the thief has been married by the daughter’s circumambulation of the stake four times, he asks the mother to deliver her over to a handsome Brāhman and offer him five hundred gold muhars. Thus a son will be born. The daughter, by name Mohanī, soon sees a Brāhman who attracts her, and the mother offers him a hundred ashrafīs if he will spend the night with Mohanī and give her a son. There is no question of marriage, and the courtesan does not appear. The story then continues:

He agreed to remain. As they were conversing, night came on. She set before him a sumptuous supper. It is a true proverb that enjoyment is of eight kinds: first, perfume; second, woman; third, dress; fourth, singing; fifth, betel; sixth, food; seventh, the couch; and eighth, ornaments; and all these were now at hand.

When three hours were passed, he went into the chamber destined for voluptuous enjoyment, and the whole night passed in pleasure. When morning came, he went home; and she, arising, came to her companions. One of them asked her what pleasure she had had with her lover. She replied:

“When I went and sat near him, I felt a palpitation in my frame; but when, smiling and looking lovingly, he took my hand, he quite overcame me, and I know not what afterwards happened.”

It has been said that a woman forgets not either in this or any other birth a husband who is illustrious, or brave, or clever, or a chief, or generous, or who protects his wife. The result was that she became pregnant; and when her time was accomplished, a boy was born.

On the sixth night after her delivery his mother beheld in a vision a Yogī with matted hair, a shining moon on his forehead, ashes of cow-dung rubbed over his body, having a white Brāhmanical thread; sitting upon an āsan of white lotuses, with a necklace of human heads round his neck, and a bandlet of white serpents thrown over his shoulders, holding a shell in one hand, and in the other a trident, assuming a very frightful form, he appeared before her, saying:

“Tomorrow, at midnight, put this child, together with a purse of a thousand gold muhars, in a large basket, and place it at the gate of the palace.”

When she awoke in the morning she narrated the dream to her mother, detailing all the circumstances. The mother, next day, did as had been suggested.

The remainder of the tale follows Somadeva, but in a much abbreviated form, details of the pilgrimage to Gayā being entirely absent. The question and answer are the same.

The story is not found in the Tamil version, and another tale altogether has been substituted.^[2]

In Śivadāsa’s recension Dhanavatī does not bump into the thief at all, but speaks to him out of idle curiosity. There are also a few other trifling differences. See further Oesterley, op. cit., p. 209.

The story is not a very interesting one from the point of view of annotation, the only motif (already noticed on pp. 81n, 82n) being a variant of the “exposed child.”

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Barker, op. cit., p. 295 et seq.

[2]:

Babington, op. cit., pp. 85-86.