Story of the father that married the daughter and the son that married the mother.
There was in the Dekkan a king of a small province, who was named Dharma; he was the chief of virtuous men, but he had many relations who aspired to supplant him. He had a wife named Chandravatí, who came from the land of Málava; she was of high lineage, and the most virtuous of women. And that king had born to him by that wife one daughter, who was not without cause named Lávaṇyavatí.[1]
And when that daughter had attained a marriageable age, king Dharma was ejected from his throne by his relations, who banded together and divided his realm. Then he fled from his kingdom at night with his wife and that daughter, taking with him a large number of valuable jewels, and he deliberately set out for Málava the dwelling-place of his father-in-law. And in the course of that same night he reached the Vindhya forest with his wife and daughter. And when he entered it, the night, that had escorted him thus far, took leave of him with drops of dew by way of tears. And the sun ascended the eastern mountain, stretching forth its first rays, like a warning hand, to dissuade him from entering that brigand-haunted wood. Then he travelled on through it with his wife and daughter, having his feet wounded with sharp points of kuśa-grass, and he reached a village of the Bhillas. It was full of men that robbed their neighbours of life and property, and shunned by the virtuous, like the strong city of Death.
Then beholding the king from a distance with his dress and ornaments, many Śavaras, armed with various weapons, ran to plunder him. When king Dharma saw that, he said to his daughter and wife, “The barbarians will seize on you first, so enter the wood in this direction.” When the king said this to them, queen Chandravatí and her daughter Lávaṇyavatí, in their terror, plunged into the middle of the wood. And the brave king, armed with sword and shield, killed many of the Śavaras, who came towards him, raining arrows. Then the chief summoned the whole village, and falling on the king, who stood there alone, they slashed his shield to pieces and killed him; and then the host of bandits departed with his ornaments. And queen Chandravatí, concealed in a thicket of the wood, saw from a distance her husband slain: so in her bewilderment she fled with her daughter, and they entered another dense forest a long distance off. There they found that the shadows of the trees, afflicted by the heat of midday, had laid themselves at their cool roots, imitating travellers. So, tired and sad, the queen sat down weeping with her daughter, in a spot on the bank of a lotus-lake, under the shade of an aśoka-tree.
In the meanwhile a chief, who lived near, came to that forest on horseback, with his son, to hunt. He was named Chaṇḍasinha, and when he saw their footsteps imprinted in the dust, he said to his son Sinhaparákrama, “We will follow up these lovely and auspicious tracks, and if we find the ladies to whom they belong, you shall choose whichever you please of them.” When Chaṇḍasinha said this, his son Sinhaparákrama said to him, “I should like to have for a wife the one that has these small feet, for I know that she will be young and suited to me. But this one with large feet, being older than the other, will just suit you. When Chaṇḍasinha heard this speech of his son’s, he said to him, “What is this that you say? Your mother has only recently gone to heaven, and now that I have lost so good a wife, how can I desire another?” When Chaṇḍasinha’s son heard that, he said to him, “Father, do not say so, for the home of a householder is empty without a wife. Moreover, have you not heard the stanza composed by Múladeva? ‘Who, that is not a fool, enters that house in which there is no shapely love eagerly awaiting his return, which, though called a house, is really a prison without chains.’ So, father, my death will lie at your door, if you do not take as your wife that companion of the lady whom I have chosen.”
When Chaṇḍasinha heard this speech of his son’s, he approved it, and went on slowly with him, tracking up their footsteps. And he reached that spot near the lake, and saw that dark queen Chandravatí, adorned with many strings of pearls, sitting in the shade of a tree. She looked like the midnight sky in the middle of the day, and her daughter Lávaṇyavatí, like the pure white moonlight, seemed to illumine her. And he and his son eagerly approached her, and she, when she saw him, rose up terrified, thinking that he was a bandit.
But the queen’s daughter said to her, “Mother, do not be afraid, these are not bandits, these two gentle-looking well-dressed persons are certainly some nobles come here to hunt.” However the queen still continued to hesitate; and then Chaṇḍasinha got down from his horse and said to the two ladies, “Do not be alarmed; we have come here to see you out of love; so take confidence[2] and tell us fearlessly who you are, since you seem like Rati and Príti fled to this wood in sorrow at Cupid’s having been consumed by the flames of Śiva’s fiery eye. And how did you two come to enter this unpeopled wood? For these forms of yours are fitted to dwell in a gem-adorned palace. And our minds are tortured to think how your feet, that deserve to be supported by the lap of beautiful women, can have traversed this ground full of thorns. And, strange to say, the dust raised by the wind, falling on your faces, makes our faces lose their brightness from despondency.[3] And the furious heat of the beams of the fierce-rayed sun, as it plays on your flower-soft bodies, burns us. So tell us your story; for our hearts are afflicted; we cannot bear to see you thus abiding in a forest full of wild beasts.”
When Chaṇḍasinha said this, the queen sighed, and full of shame and grief, slowly told him her story. Then Chaṇḍasinha, seeing that she had no protector, comforted her and her daughter, and coaxed them with kind words into becoming members of his family. And he and his son put the queen and her daughter on their horses, and conducted them to their rich palace in Vittapapurí. And the queen, being helpless, submitted to his will, as if she had been born again in a second life. What is an unprotected woman, fallen into calamity in a foreign land, to do? Then Sinhaparákrama, the son of Chaṇḍasinha, made Chandravatí his wife, on account of the smallness of her feet. And Chaṇḍasinha made her daughter, the princess Lávaṇyavatí, his wife, on account of the largeness of her feet. For they made this agreement originally, when they saw the two tracks of the small footsteps and the large footsteps: and who ever swerves from his plighted word?
So, from the mistake about the feet, the daughter became the wife of the father, and the mother the wife of the son, and so the daughter became the mother-in-law of her own mother, and the mother became the daughter-in-law of her own daughter. And in course of time, both of them had by those husbands sons and daughters, and they also had sons and daughters in due course of time. So Chaṇḍasinha and Sinhaparákrama lived in their city, having obtained as wives Lávaṇyavatí and Chandravatí.
When the Vetála had told this story on the way at night, he again put a question to king Trivikramasena; “Now, king, about the children who were in course of time born to the mother and daughter by the son and the father in those two lines—what relationship did they bear to one another? Tell me if you know. And the curse before threatened will descend on you, if you know and do not tell.”
When the king heard this question of the Vetála’s, he turned the matter over and over again in his mind, but he could not find out, so he went on his way in silence. Then the Vetála in the dead man’s body, perched on the top of his shoulder, laughed to himself, and reflected; “Ha! Ha! The king does not know how to answer this puzzling question, so he is glad, and silently goes on his way with very nimble feet. Now I cannot manage to deceive this treasure-house of valour any further;[4] and this is not enough to make that mendicant stop playing tricks with me. So I will now deceive that villain, and by an artifice bestow the success, which he has earned, upon this king, whom a glorious future awaits.”
When the Vetála had gone through these reflections, he said to the king, “King, though you have been worried with so many journeys to and fro in this cemetery terrible with black night, you seem quite happy, and you do not shew the least irresolution. I am pleased with this wonderful courage that you shew.[5] So now carry off this body, for I am going out of it; and listen to this advice which I give you for your welfare, and act on it. That wicked mendicant, for whom you have fetched this human corpse, will immediately summon me into it, and honour me. And wishing to offer you up as a victim, the rascal will say to you, ‘King, prostrate yourself on the ground in such a way that eight limbs will touch it.’ Then, great king, you must say to that ascetic,[6] ‘Shew me first how to do it, and then I will do exactly as you do.’ Then he will fling himself on the ground, and shew you how to perform the prostration, and that moment you must cut off his head with the sword. Then you will obtain that prize which he desires, the sovereignty of the Vidyádharas; enjoy this earth by sacrificing him! But otherwise that mendicant will offer you up as a victim; it was to prevent this that I threw obstacles in your way for such a long time here. So depart; may you prosper!” When the Vetála had said this, he went out of that human corpse, that was on the king’s shoulder.
Then the king was led by the speech of the Vetála, who was pleased with him, to look upon the ascetic Kshántiśíla as his enemy, but he went to him in high spirits, where he sat under that banyan-tree, and took with him that human corpse.
[1] i. e., possessed of beauty.
[2] I read viśvasya with the Sanskrit College MS. in place of viśramya which means “having rested.”
[3] I adopt Dr. Kern’s conjecture of hata for ahata.
[4] I read param with the MS. in the Sanskrit College.
[5] This idea is also found in European story-books. See Kuhn’s Sagen aus Westfalen, p. 277; “Diese Unerschrockenheit gefiel dem Teufel so sehr, dass sich sein Zorn nicht nur legte, sondern &c.” See also Grimm’s Irische Elfenmärchen (which is based on Croker’s Tales), p. 8.
[6] Śramaṇa.
Chapter XCIX.
(Vetála 25.)
Then king Trivikramasena came up to that mendicant Kshántiśíla, carrying that corpse on his shoulder. And he saw that ascetic, alone at the foot of a tree, in the cemetery that was terrible with a night of the black fortnight, eagerly awaiting his arrival. He was in a circle made with the yellow powder of bones, the ground within which was smeared with blood, and which had pitchers full of blood placed in the direction of the cardinal points.[1] It was richly illuminated with candles of human fat,[2] and near it was a fire fed with oblations, it was full of all the necessary preparations for a sacrifice, and in it the ascetic was engaged in worshipping his favourite deity.
So the king came up to him, and the mendicant, seeing that he had brought the corpse, rose up delighted, and said, praising him; “Great king, you have conferred on me a favour difficult to accomplish. To think that one like you should undertake this enterprise in such a place and at such a time! Indeed they say with truth that you are the best of all noble kings, being a man of unbending courage,[3] since you forward the interests of another with such utter disregard of self. And wise men say that the greatness of great ones consists in this very thing, that they swerve not from what they have engaged to do, even though their lives are in danger.”
With these words the mendicant, thinking he had gained his end, took the corpse down from the shoulder of that king. And he bathed it, and anointed it, and threw a garland round it, and placed it within that circle. And he smeared his limbs with ashes, and put on a sacrificial thread of hair, and clothed himself in the garments of the dead, and thus equipped he continued for a time in meditation. Then the mendicant summoned that mighty Vetála by the power of spells, and made him enter the corpse; and proceeded to worship him. He offered to him an argha of white human teeth in a skull by way of an argha-vessel; and he presented to him flowers and fragrant unguents; and he gratified him with the savoury reek of human eyes,[4] and made an offering to him of human flesh. And when he had finished his worship, he said to the king, who was at his side, “King, fall on the ground, and do obeisance with all your eight limbs to this high sovereign of spells who has appeared here, in order that this bestower of boons may grant you the accomplishment of your heart’s desire.”
When the king heard that, he called to mind the words of the Vetála, and said to the mendicant, “I do not know how to do it, reverend sir; do you shew me first, and then I will do exactly as you.” Then the mendicant threw himself on the ground, to shew the king what he was to do, and then the king cut off his head with a stroke of his sword. And he tore and dragged[5] the lotus of his heart out of his inside, and offered his heart and head as two lotuses to that Vetála.
Then the delighted hosts of goblins uttered shouts of applause on every side, and the Vetála said to the king from inside the corpse, “King, the sovereignty of the Vidyádharas, which this mendicant was aiming at, shall fall to your lot after you have finished the enjoyment of your earthly sway. Since I have given you much annoyance, choose whatever boon you desire.” When the Vetála said this, the king said to him, “Since you are pleased with me, every boon that I could desire is obtained; nevertheless, as your words cannot be uttered in vain, I crave this boon of you:—may these first twenty-four questions and answers, charming with their various tales, and this conclusion, the twenty-fifth of the series, be all famous and honoured on the earth!” When the king made this request to the Vetála, the latter replied, “So be it! and now listen, king; I am going to mention a peculiar excellence which it shall possess. This string of tales, consisting of the twenty-four first, and this final concluding tale, shall become, under the title of the Twenty-five Tales of a Vampire, famous and honoured on the earth, as conducing to prosperity! Whosoever shall read respectfully even a śloka of it, or whosoever shall hear it read, even they two shall immediately be freed from their curse. And Yakshas, and Vetálas, and Kushmáṇḍas, and witches, and Rákshasas, and other creatures of the kind shall have no power where this shall be recited.” When the Vetála had said this, he left that human corpse, and went by his supernatural deluding power to the habitation he desired.
Then Śiva, being pleased, appeared, accompanied by all the gods, to that king, visibly manifest, and said to him, as he bowed before him; “Bravo! my son, for that thou hast to-day slain this hypocritical ascetic, who was so ardently in love with the imperial sovereignty over the Vidyádharas! I originally created thee out of a portion of myself, as Vikramáditya, in order that thou mightest destroy the Asuras, that had become incarnate in the form of Mlechchhas. And now thou hast again been created by me as a heroic king of the name of Trivikramasena, in order that thou mightest overcome an audacious evildoer. So thou shalt bring under thy sway the earth with the islands and the realms below, and shalt soon become supreme ruler over the Vidyádharas. And after thou hast long enjoyed heavenly pleasures, thou shalt become melancholy, and shalt of thy own will abandon them, and shalt at last without fail be united with me. Now receive from me this sword named Invincible, by means of which thou shalt duly obtain all this.” When the god Śiva had said this to the king, he gave him that splendid sword, and disappeared after he had been worshipped by him with devout speeches and flowers. Then king Trivikramasena, seeing that the whole business was finished, and as the night had come to an end, entered his own city Pratishṭhána. There he was honoured by his rejoicing subjects, who in course of time came to hear of his exploits during the night, and he spent the whole of that day in bathing, giving gifts, in worshipping Śiva, in dancing, singing, music, and other enjoyments of the kind. And in a few days that king, by the power of the sword of Śiva, came to enjoy the earth, that was cleared of all enemies, together with the islands and the lower regions; and then by the appointment of Śiva he obtained the high imperial sovereignty over the Vidyádharas, and after enjoying it long, at last became united with the blessed one, so attaining all his ends.
(Here ends the Vetálapanchavinśati.)
When[6] that minister Vikramakeśarin, meeting in the way the successful[7] prince Mṛigánkadatta, after he had been long separated from him by a curse, had told him all this, he went on to say to him, “So, prince, after that old Bráhman had told me in that village this story, called the Twenty-five Tales of a Vampire, he went on to say to me, ‘Well, my son, did not that heroic king Trivikramasena obtain from the favour of a Vetála the thing that he desired? So do you also receive from me this spell, and laying aside your state of despondency, win over a chief among the Vetálas, in order that you may obtain reunion with prince Mṛigánkadatta. For nothing is unattainable by those who possess endurance; who, my son, will not fail, if he allows his endurance to break down? So do what I recommend you to do out of affection; for you kindly delivered me from the pain of the bite of a poisonous serpent.’ When the Bráhman said this, I received from him the spell with the practice to be employed with it, and then, king, I took leave of him, and went to Ujjayiní. There I got hold of a corpse in the cemetery at night, and I washed it, and performed all the other necessary processes with regard to it, and I summoned a Vetála into it by means of that spell, and duly worshipped him. And to satisfy his hunger, I gave him human flesh to eat; and being greedy for the flesh of men, he ate that up quickly, and then said to me; ‘I am not satisfied with this; give me some more.’ And as he would not wait any time, I cut off my own flesh,[8] and gave it to him to please him: and that made that prince of magicians exceedingly pleased with me. Then he said to me, ‘My friend, I am much pleased now with this intrepid valour of thine, so become whole in thy limbs as thou wast before, and crave from me whatever boon thou desirest.’ When the Vetála said this to me, I answered him then and there: ‘Convey me, god, to that place where my master Mṛigánkadatta is; there is no other boon which I desire more than this.’ Then the mighty Vetála said to me; ‘Then quickly get up on my shoulder, that I may carry thee rapidly to that master of thine.’ When the Vetála said this, I consented, and eagerly climbed up on his shoulder, and then the Vetála, that was inside that human corpse, rapidly set out through the air, carrying me with him. And he has brought me here to-day, king, and when that mighty Vetála saw you on the way, he brought me down from the air, and thus I have been made to reach the sole of your foot. And I have to-day been reunited with my master, and the Vetála has departed, having accomplished what was required of him. This, O bestower of honour,[9] is my great adventure, since I was separated from you by the curse of the Nága.”
When Mṛigánkadatta, as he was going to Ujjayiní to win his beloved, had heard, on the way, from his minister Vikramakeśarin, this account of his adventures since he had been separated from him, that prince rejoiced, as he had in course of time found some of his ministers, who were separated from him by the curse of Párávatáksha, and as he augured therefrom success in all that he had in hand.