Note on the story of the Prince and the Merchant’s son

Note: this text is extracted from Book VI, chapter 28:

“In the city of Puṣkarāvatī there was a king named Gūḍhasena, and to him there was born one son. That prince was overbearing, and whatever he did, right or wrong, his father acquiesced in, because he was an only son. And once upon a time, as he was roaming about in a garden, he saw the son of a merchant, named Brahmadatta, who resembled himself in wealth and beauty...”.

This story is compared by Benfey (Orient und Occident, vol. i, p. 374) with that of the faithful servant Vīravara in the Hitopadeśa, which is also found in the Vetālapañcavinśati (see Chapters LIII and LXXVIII of this work). Vīravara, according to the latter version, hears the weeping of a woman. He finds it is the king's fortune deserting him. He accordingly offers up his son, and finally slays himself. The king is about to do the same when the goddess Durgā restores the dead to life.

The story of “Der treue Johannes” will at once occur to readers of Grimm’s tales (No. 6, vol. iii, pp. 16, 17). It also appears in the Pentamerone, ninth diversion of the fourth day, as “The Crow” (Burton’s trans., vol. ii, p. 449). See also Benfey, Paîichatanlra, vol. i, p. 41 6. Sir G. Cox (Mythology of the Aryan Nations) compares the German story with one in Miss Frere’s Old Deccan Days (No. 5, p. 66). Other parallels will be found in Grimm’s third volume. A very striking one occurs in Bernhard Schmidt’s Griechische Märchen, story No. 3, p. 68. In this story the three Moirai predict evil. The young prince is saved by his sister from being burned, and from falling over a precipice when a child, and from a snake on his wedding day. See also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. ii, pp. 301-302.——Cf. the conclusion of Natēsa Sāstrī’s Dravidian Nights where the faithful minister’s son overhears two owls conversing.

The male bird says:

“My dear, the prince who is encamped under our tree is to die shortly by the falling on him of a big branch which is about to break.”

“And if he should escape this calamity?” quoth the female.

“He will die to-morrow, then,” replied the other,

“in a river, in the bed of which he is to pitch his tent: the river will be dry at the time, but when midnight comes a heavy flood will rush down and carry him away.”

“And should he escape this second calamity also?” said the female.

“Then,” answered her mate,

“he will surely die by the hands of his wife when he reaches his own city.”

“And should he escape this third calamity also?”

“My dear love,” said the male bird,

“he cannot escape it. But if he does, he will reign as a king of kings for hundreds of years”;

adding that if anyone happened to know this secret and revealed it, his head should burst instantly into a thousand pieces.

The incident occurs again in Day’s Folk-Tales of Bengal, p. 40 et seq., where the conversation between the two immortal birds, Bihangama and Bihangami, is overheard; cf. also Pedroso’s Portuguese Folk-Tales, Folk-Lore Society, 1882, p. 26. For the “overhearing” motif see Note 2 at the end of the next chapter.— n.m.p.