Story 234 - How the Daughter-in-law got the Masuran

IN a certain city there was a nobleman.^[1] There had been a great quantity of the nobleman’s goods, but the goods in time having become destroyed, he arrived at a very indigent condition. During the time while he was [thus], existing by his son and daughter’s continuing to strongly exert themselves as much as possible, at last this nobleman died.

After that, at the time when his son arrived at full age, his mother began to say to the son,

“Son, because I am now a person who is approaching old age, you are unable quite alone to provide for me. Because it is so, thou must take in marriage a woman from a suitable family,”

she said.

Well then, after he had married, the woman does not exert herself for his mother. Her husband having succeeded in ascertaining that she does not exert herself in this manner, and having thought that for [counteracting] this he must make a means of success, collected a quantity of fragments of plates that were at the whole of the places in the village; and taking a large skin, and having caused a purse to be made from the skin, and put in the skin purse the quantity of fragments of plate that he collected, he says to his mother,

“Mother, when you have come near that woman, open the box so as to be visible from afar, and having behaved as though there were great wealth in it, and shaken this skin bag, place it in the box [again], and put it away.”

When he said thus, his mother, taking [to heart] her son’s-saying, having made a sound with the skin bag in the manner he said, so as to be noticed by her son’s wife, and having treated it carefully, placed it in the box.

From the day on which the son’s wife saw it, she began to exert herself for her mother-in-law. During the time when she is exerting herself thus, a leprosy disease attacked her mother-in-law. Thereupon the son spoke to his mother, and said,

“Mother, taking that skin bag, and placing it at the spot where you sleep, say in this manner to your relatives and my wife, that is, ‘Beginning on the day when I was little (podi dawase patan) until this [time] I gathered together these articles. For not any other reason but in order to give them at the time of my being near death, to a person who has exerted herself for me, I gathered these together. Should any person out of you exert [herself] for me, to that person I will give these.’ You say [this],”

he said secretly to his mother.

After that, his mother having gathered together her relatives, and having called her daughter-in-law near, while in front of the whole of them she said in the mode which her son taught her, that to the person who exerted herself for her she will give the skin bag of masuran.

Thereupon each one, competing according to the measure of her power, attended on this female leper. That son’s mind arrived at [a state of] much delight. [After] in this manner enjoying pleasure, when a little time had gone this female leper died. Thereupon, anybody among the relatives not having hidden it, the son’s wife, stealing the masuran bag, concealed it.

Having buried the corpse, after the disturbance was done with the son’s wife unfastened the bag of masuran. When she looked [in it], having seen that it had been filled with only the fragments of the plates that were in the village, she arrived at extreme grief.

That woman’s mother also having come at this time, very noisily asked,

“Did my daughter receive the bag of masuran ?”

Thereupon her daughter having told her that she was cheated, when she had shown her the bag of fragments of plates both of them wept; and that woman having become angry with her husband separated from him, and went to her own house.

Western Province.

 

Notes:

In The Orientalist, vol. iv, p. 121, Miss S. H. Goonetilleke published nearly the same story without the introductory part, presumably as it is found in Kandy. The son gave his mother a bag containing stones, telling her to pretend that it held valuables. She threatened to leave owing to her daughter-in-law’s neglect of her, and to go to her own daughter’s house, and she went off while the daughter-in-law was asleep. The son scolded his wife, and told her the hag of gold would now be left to his mother’s daughter, so she went off next morning, coaxed her back, and attended to her carefully afterwards, and only learnt about the trick when the woman was dying.

In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 241, an old man who was wealthy, thinking he was about to die, divided his property among his sons, who afterwards neglected and abused him, and treated Tiim with cruelty. A friend to whom he related his troubles afterwards came with four bags of stones, and told him to pretend that he had returned to pay off an old debt of large amount, on no account allowing the sons to get the bags. This had the desired eflect; the sons attended carefully to him until he died, and then greedily opening the bags learnt how they had been tricked.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Sitanan kenek.