Story 81 - Concerning A Royal Prince And A Princess

^[1]

IN a certain city there were a King, a Carpenter, and a Washerman. There were three male children of these three persons. They sent these three children to learn letters near a teacher a yojana distant, or four gawuwas^[2] distant. These three having at one time set off from the city when they went for [learning] letters, both that royal Prince and the Washer lad went and said the letters; when they are coming back the Carpenter’s son is even yet going on the road. Those two go with much quickness.

Because of it, the Carpenter’s son said at his father’s hand,

“We three having set off at one time from the city, when we have gone, those two having got in front and gone, and said their letters, come back. Having gone (started) at one time, on even a single day having said my letters I was unable to come [with them].”

Thereafter, he made for the Carpenter’s son a [flying] Wooden Peacock machine, and gave him it. He having gone rowing it [through the air], and said his letters, when he is coming back those two are still going [on the road], for [their] letters.

One day the royal Prince said to the Carpenter's son,

“Ane ! Friend, will you let me row and look at the Wooden Peacock machine ?”

he asked.

Thereupon the Carpenter’s son, having said, It is good, and having told him the manner of treading on the chain, gave him it. Just as the Prince was taking hold of the chain, he went [up] in the Wooden Peacock machine, and was fixed among the clouds in the sky. At that time the King of the city and the multitude were frightened.

Thereafter, having assembled the city soothsayers and astrologers, [the King] asked,

“When will this Prince, taking the Wooden Peacock machine, come down ?”

Thereupon the soothsayers said,

“After he has gone for the space of^[3] three years and three months, having come back he will fall in the sea.”

Thereupon the King said to the Ministers,

“Having been marking that number of years and number of days, surrounding the sea (i.e., keeping a watch all along the shore), and having been laying nets, as soon as the Prince falls you must take him ashore,”

he commanded.

Thereafter, at the time when the Prince was holding the cords of the Wooden Peacock machine, it began to descend lower. At a burial ground at another city the Wooden Peacock machine came down upon a Banyan-tree.

Thereupon the Prince, having placed the Wooden Peacock machine on the tree, and descended from the tree, went to the city, and began to walk about. At the time when the Princess of the King of the city, with yet [other] Princesses, was bathing at a pool, the Princess saw him at the time when this Prince also was going walking.

As soon as she saw him, the Princess thought,

“If I marry the Prince it is good.”

The Prince also thought,

“If I marry this Princess it is good.”

Except that the two thought to themselves of each other, there was no means of talking together. Because of it, the Princess, plucking a blue-lotus flower in the pool, placed it on her head after having smelt (kissed) it; and again, having crushed it, threw it down, and trampled on it. The Princess did thus for the Prince to perceive that when he married her she would be submissive and obedient to him. The Prince understood it, and kept it in mind.

Thereafter, at the time when the Prince was going walking in the city, he met with the palace in which is the Princess. At the time when the Prince had been there a little while, the Princess opened a window of the upper story, and when she was looking in the direction of the street, saw that this Prince was [there], and spoke to him.

At that time she said to the Prince,

“After it has become night I [shall] have opened this window. You come [then].”

Then the Prince having come after all in the palace got to sleep, when he looked the window was opened. Having spoken to the Princess, he entered the palace. The two having conversed, the Prince, before it became light, got out of the palace, and having gone away, and waited until the time when it became night, comes again.

Thereupon the Princess, in order to keep the Prince in the very palace, told a smith of the city to come secretly; and having given him also a thousand masuran, and made the man thoroughly swear [to secrecyj, the Princess said,

“Having made a large lamp-stand, and made it [large enough] for a man to be inside it, and turned round the screw-key belonging to it, as though bringing it to sell bring it to the palace. When you bring it I will tell the King, and I will take it.”

The smith having gone, and made the lamp-stand in the manner the Princess said, brought it near the King. Then the Princess having come and said,

“I want this,”

took it, and put it in the palace. To the smith the King gave five hundred masuran.

Thereafter, having put that Prince inside the lamp-stand, he remained [there]. When not many days had gone by, the Princess became pregnant. The King having perceived that the Princess was pregnant, placed a guard round the palace, and having published by beat of tom-toms [that they were] to seize this thief, the King and the guards made all possible effort to seize the thief, but they were unable.

A widow woman said,

“I can seize him if you will allow me to go evening and morning to the palace in which is the Princess, to seize the thief.”

Thereupon the King gave permission to the woman to go and stay during the whole ^[4]of both times.

When several days had gone by, this woman, having perceived that a man is inside that lamp-stand, one day having gone taking also a package of fine sand, during the visit, while she stayed talking and talking with the Princess put the sand of the package round the lamp-stand, and having spread it thinly, came away. The Princess was unable to find this out.

When that woman went on the morning of the following day, and looked, the Prince’s foot-prints were in that sand. As soon as she saw it, the woman went and said to the King,

“I caught the thief. Let us go to look.”

The old woman having gone, said,

“There ! It is inside that lamp-stand, indeed, that the thief is,”

and showed them to the King. At that time, when the King broke the lamp-stand and looked, the thief was [there].

Thereafter the King gave orders that having tortured the thief, and taken him away, they were to behead him, he said to the executioners. Thereupon the executioners [after] pinioning the Prince, beating the execution tom-tom, took him to that burial-ground.

At that time the Prince said to the executioners,

“If you kill any person, having given him the things he thinks of to eat and drink—is it not so ?—you kill him. Because of it, until the time when I come [after] going into this Banyan-tree and eating two Banyan fruits, remain on guard round this tree. There is no opportunity (taenak) for me to bound off and go elsewhere.”

Thereupon, the executioners having said,

“It is good,”

the Prince ascended the tree, and having mounted on that Wooden Peacock machine, rowed into the sky. While the executioners were looking the Prince went flying away.

The executioners having said that blame will fall [on them] from the King, caught and cut a lizard (katussa), and having gone [after] rubbing the blood on the sword, showed it to the King, and said that they beheaded the thief.

From that day, the Princess from grief remained without eating and drinking. Several days afterwards, the Prince, having come rowing the Wooden Peacock machine, and caused it to stop on the palace in which is the Princess, and having removed the tiles, dropped the jewelled ring that was on the Prince’s hand at the place where the Princess is. He also dropped a robe of the Prince’s.

Thereupon the Princess, getting to know about the Prince’s [being on the roof], threw up the cloth [again]. Tying the hand-line to descend by, at that time the Prince, having descended, said to the Princess,

“To kill me they took me to the burial-ground. I having caused the executioners to be deceived, and climbed up the tree—my Wooden Peacock machine was on the tree—I mounted it and went rowing away.”

Thereafter, the Prince and Princess, both of them, went away.

At the time when they were going, ten months were completed for the Princess. While they were going, pains began to seize her. [The Prince] having lowered the Wooden Peacock machine in a great forest jungle, and in a minute having made a house of branches, the Princess bore [a child].

Thereupon the Prince said,

“Remain here until I go and bring a little fire.”

Saying [this] to the Princess, the Prince went rowing the Wooden Peacock machine. Having gone, at the time when, taking the fire in a coconut husk, he was coming rowing the Wooden Peacock machine over the midst of the sea, the coconut husk having burnt, the fire seized the Wooden Peacock machine, and it burnt away.

The Prince having come [there], fell in the sea. That foretold number of years also had been finished on that day. The person who stayed casting nets in the sea [there], as soon as the Prince fell got him ashore. The Prince, planting a vegetable garden at the city, remained there.

While the Princess who bore [the child] in that forest jungle was without any protection from all things (sawu-saranak), this trouble having become visible to an ascetic person who practises austerity in that forest jungle, he came to the place where the Princess was, and spoke to her.

Thereupon the Princess, after she saw the ascetic, having a little abandoned the trouble that was in her mind, said to the ascetic,

“While I walk into the midst of this forest seeking a little ripe fruit, will you look after this child until I come ?”

she asked.

The ascetic said,

“Should I hold the child it is impure (kilutu) for me. Because of it, you having made a stick platform (maessak), and hung it by a creeper, and having tied a creeper to the platform, go after having sent the child to sleep on the platform. At the time when the child cries I will come, and hold the creeper by the end, and shake it; then the child will stop.”

Having done in the manner the ascetic said, the Princess, seeking ripe fruits, ate.

One day, the Princess having suckled the child, and sent it to sleep on the platform, went to seek ripe fruits. Thereafter, that child having rolled off the stick platform and fallen on the ground, at the time when it was crying the ascetic heard it, and came; when he looked, the child having rolled over had fallen on the ground.

Thereupon, because it was impure for the ascetic to hold the child, he plucked a flower, and having performed an Act of Truth for the flower, thought,

“May a child be created just like this child.”

Thereafter, a child was created just like it.

The Princess having come back, and having seen, when she looked, that two children are [there], the Princess asked the ascetic,

“What is [the reason of] it t To-day two children !”

The ascetic said,

“When I was coming, the child, having fallen, was crying and crying. Because it is impure for me to hold the child, I created a child just like it.”

The Princess said,

“I cannot believe that word. If so, you must create a child again, for me to look at it.”

Thereupon the ascetic said,

“According to the difficulty there is for you to rear one child, when there are three how much difficulty [will there be] !”

“No matter. [Please] create and give me it; I can rear it.”

Thereupon, the ascetic plucked a flower, and having performed an Act of Truth, when he put it on the stick platform a child was created just like it.

Thereafter, the Princess having been pleased, reared the children. The children having grown up, walked in the midst of the forest, seeking ripe fruits, and having come back the children gave them to their mother, and [then] began to eat.

One day, at the time when these three are going walking, they met with a great river. When they looked, on the other bank of the river a great vegetable garden is visible. Thereupon these three having said [to each other],

“Can you swim ?”

swam a considerable distance, and came back, saying,

“Let us come to-morrow morning.”

Having gone seeking a very few ripe fruits, they gave them to their mother.

On the following day, early in the morning, taking bows and arrows, the whole three went to the edge of the river. Having gone [there], and the whole three having gone swimming to the vegetable garden, when they looked many kinds of ripe fruits were [there].

Thereafter, these three having plucked [some], at the time when they are eating them the gardeners who watch the garden saw them, and having come running, prepared (lit., made) to seize them. Thereupon these three, taking their bows, prepared to shoot. The gardeners bounded off, and having gone running, told it at the hand of the King.

These three having eaten as much as possible, [after] plucking a great many crossed over [the river], and went away. At that time the King said to the gardeners,

“Should these thieves come to-morrow also, let me know very speedily.”

The following day, also, those three persons came, and at the time when they are plucking [the fruit], the gardeners went and told him. Thereupon the King, taking bows and arrows, came and shot at them. When he shot, the arrow having gone, when near these Princes turned (lit., looked) back, and fell down.

Thereafter, that party shot at the King. Then also, in the very [same] way, the arrow having gone, when near the King turned (looked) back, and fell down.

Thereupon, the whole two parties, after having come near [each other], spoke,

“This was a great wonder. The circumstance that out of the two parties no one was struck, is a great wonder. Because of it, let us, the whole two parties, go near the panditayas [for them] to explain this.”

Thereupon, the whole of the two parties having gone, told the panditayas this circumstance that had occurred. Then the panditayas, having explained it, said to the King,

“You, Sir, now above three or four years ago, summoned a Princess [in marriage]. The Princess’s, indeed, are these three, the children born to you, Sir. Because of it, the Gods have caused this to be seen. Go, and summoning the Princess from the place where she is, [be pleased] to come,”

the panditayas said to the King.

Thereafter, the King having remembered her, at that moment decorating a ship, with the sound of the five musical instruments he went into the midst of the forest in which is that Princess; and having come back [after] calling the Princess, the Princess, and the three Princes, and the King remained at the garden, it is said.

North-western Province.

 

 

Note:

In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 9, a Prince mounted on a magic wooden flying-horse that a friend of his, a carpenter’s son, had brought to the palace, and flew away on it. The carpenter promised that it would return in two months. The Prince alighted by moonlight on a palace roof five hundred leagues away, and fell in love with a Princess whom he saw there. After they had conversed, he flew ofi, fixed the horse in pieces amid the branches of a large tree, and stayed at a widow’s house, returning each night to the palace. In the end he was arrested and condemned to death. When the executioners were about to hang him he got permission to climb up the tree, put the. horse together, sailed back to the palace, and carried ofi the Princess to his father’s home.

In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 158, a Prince who had stolen a magic bed which transported those who sat on it wherever desired, visited a Princess at night by means of it, and afterwards married her.

In the same work, p. 208, a Prince and Princess saw each other at a fair. While the Prince watched her from his tent, she took a rose in her hand, put it to her teeth, stuck it behind her ear, and lastly laid it at her feet. The Prince could not understand her meaning, but a friend explained it, and said that she intended him to know that her father’s name was Raja Dant (King Tooth), her country the Kamatak (karna=ear), and her own name Panwpatti (Foot-leaf).

In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 487, it is stated that while Sita, the wife of Rama, was dwelling at Valmiki’s hermitage with her infant son Lava, she took the child with her when she went to bathe one day. The hermit, thinking a wild beast had carried it ofi, created another child resembling it, from kusha grass, and placed it in the hut. On her return he explained the matter to her, and she adopted the infant, to which the name Kusha was given.

In the same work, vol. ii, p. 235, a girl who came to bathe gave signals to a Prince by means of a lotus flower, which she put in her ear, and then twisted into the form of an ornament called danta-patra, or tooth-leaf. After this she placed another lotus flower on her head, and laid her hand on her heart.

In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 215, a Princess covered her face with lotus petals, and held up an ivory box to be seen by a Prince who was looking at her. By these signals he learnt her name and that of her city. He went to the city, visited her each day in a magic swing, and at length they eloped and were married.

In Sagas from the Far East, p. no, a wood-carver's son fashioned a hollow flying Garuda (possibly in the form of a Brahminy Kite), inside which a friend whose wife had been abducted flew to the Khan’s palace where she was detained, and brought her away.

In the same work, p. 316, a Princess made signals to a King’s young Minister as follows: She raised the first finger of her right hand, then passed the other hand round it, clasped and unclasped her hands, and finally laid one finger of each hand beside that of the other hand, and pointed with them towards the palace.

In the Maha Bharata and Ramayana javelins or arrows are sometimes represented as returning to the sender, who in such cases was a being possessing supernatural power. Thus, according to one story of Daksha’s sacrifice, when the energy of a dart thrown by Rudra at Vishnu was neutralised, it returned to Rudra. In the fight between Karna and Arjuna some arrows which the former discharged returned to him (Karna Parva, lxxxix.).

In performing an Act of Truth such as is mentioned in this story, the person first states a fact and then utters a wish, which in reality is a conjuration, the efficacy of which depends on the truth of the foregoing statement.

Thus, in the Jataka. No. 35 (vol. i, p. 90) the Bodhisatta in the form of a helpless quail nestling^[5] extinguished a raging bush fire that was about to destroy it and other birds, by an Act of Truth, which took this form:—

“With wings that fly not, feet that walk not,
Forsaken by my parents here I lie !
Wherefore I conjure thee, dread Lord of Fire,
Primaeval Jataveda, turn ! go back!”

The account then continues:

“Even as he performed his Act of Truth, Jataveda [the Fire Deity] went back a space of sixteen lengths; and in going back the flames did not pass away to the forest, devouring everything in their path. No; they went out there and then, like a torch plunged in water.”

There are several other examples in the Jataka stories, and one in No. 83 in this volume. In the first volume, p. 140, the Prince cut in two the gem through the efficacy of an Act of Truth expressed in a slightly different form:

“If so-and-so be true, may so-and-so happen.”

This is the usual type of the conjuration; it occurs also in the story numbered 11. See also the Mahavansa, Professor Geiger’s translation, p. 125, footnote.

Other examples are given in the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 330, vol. ii, p. 82; Sagas from the Far East, p. 47; Von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 284; Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. ii, pp. 358, 396; and in the Maha Bharata.

In chapter xvii. of the Mahavansa (Professor Geiger’s translation, p. 118), King Tissa proved the authenticity of the collar-bone relic of Buddha by an asseveration of this kind. In chapter xviii. (p. 125), the Emperor Ashoka severed the branch of the Bo-tree at Gaya, in order to send it to Ceylon, by an Act of Truth, previously drawing a magic line with a pencil of red arsenic round the branch to mark the place where it was to break ofi. In chapter xxv. (p. 171), King Duttha-Gamani by similar means is said to have caused the armour of his troops to take the colour of fire, so that they might be discriminated from the Tamils whom he was fighting.

With regard to the messages given by signals, the reader may remember Rabelais’ account of the argument by signs between Pan urge and Thaumaste (Pantagruel, cap. xix.).

Kandian girls make almost imperceptible signals to each other. If without moving the head the eyes be momentarily directed towards the door, the question is asked, " Shall we go out ?” An affirmative reply is given by an expressionless gaze, a negative one by closing the eyes for an instant.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The text of this story is given at the end of vol. iii.

[2]:

The gawuwa is usually four miles, but in this instance it is evidently the fourth part of a yojana of about eight miles; the boys would still have a walk of sixteen miles each day.

[3]:

Giya taena.

[4]:

Tisse de wele, lit., the thirty of both times—that is, the thirty paeyas into which each day or each night is divided, the paeya being twenty-four minutes.

[5]:

In Cinq Cents Contes el Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 350. the bird was a pheasant, and the fire avoided a space eight feet in radius around the bird.