Story of Vararuchi, his teacher Varsha, and his fellow-pupils Vyáḍi and Indradatta.
In the city of Kauśámbí there lived a Bráhman called Somadatta, who also had the title of Agniśikha, and his wife was called Vasudattá. She was the daughter of a hermit, and was born into the world in this position in consequence of a curse; and I was born by her to this excellent Bráhman, also in consequence of a curse. Now while I was still quite a child my father died, but my mother continued to support me, as I grew up, by severe drudgery; then one day two Bráhmans came to our house to stop a night, exceedingly dusty with a long journey; and while they were staying in our house there arose the noise of a tabor, thereupon my mother said to me, sobbing, as she called to mind her husband—“there, my son, is your father’s friend Bhavananda, giving a dramatic entertainment.” I answered, “I will go and see it, and will exhibit the whole of it to you, with a recitation of all the speeches.” On hearing that speech of mine, those Bráhmans were astonished, but my mother said to them—“Come, my children, there is no doubt about the truth of what he says; this boy will remember by heart everything that he has heard once.”[8] Then they, in order to test me, recited to me a Prátiśákhya[9]; immediately I repeated the whole in their presence, then I went with the two Bráhmans and saw that play, and when I came home, I went through the whole of it in front of my mother: then one of the Bráhmans, named Vyáḍi, having ascertained that I was able to recollect a thing on hearing it once, told with submissive reverence this tale to my mother.
Mother, in the city of Vetasa there were two Bráhman brothers, Deva-Swámin and Karambaka, who loved one another very dearly; this Indradatta here is the son of one of them, and I am the son of the other, and my name is Vyáḍi. It came to pass that my father died. Owing to grief for his loss, the father of Indradatta went on the long journey,[10] and then the hearts of our two mothers broke with grief; thereupon being orphans though we had wealth,[11] and, desiring to acquire learning, we went to the southern region to supplicate the lord Kártikeya. And while we were engaged in austerities there, the god gave us the following revelation in a dream. “There is a city called Páṭaliputra, the capital of king Nanda, and in it there is a Bráhman, named Varsha, from him ye shall learn all knowledge, therefore go there.” Then we went to that city, and when we made enquiries there, people said to us: “There is a blockhead of a Bráhman in this town, of the name of Varsha.” Immediately we went on with minds in a state of suspense, and saw the house of Varsha in a miserable condition, made a very ant-hill by mice, dilapidated by the cracking of the walls, untidy,[12] deprived of eaves, looking like the very birth-place of misery.
Then, seeing Varsha plunged in meditation within the house, we approached his wife, who shewed us all proper hospitality; her body was emaciated and begrimed, her dress tattered and dirty; she looked like the incarnation of poverty, attracted thither by admiration for the Bráhman’s virtues. Bending humbly before her, we then told her our circumstances, and the report of her husband’s imbecility, which we heard in the city. She exclaimed—“My children, I am not ashamed to tell you the truth; listen! I will relate the whole story,” and then she, chaste lady, proceeded to tell us the tale which follows:
There lived in this city an excellent Bráhman, named Śankara Svámin, and he had two sons, my husband Varsha, and Upavarsha; my husband was stupid and poor, and his younger brother was just the opposite: and Upavarsha appointed his own wife to manage his elder brother’s house.[13] Then in the course of time, the rainy season came on, and at this time the women are in the habit of making a cake of flour mixed with molasses, of an unbecoming and disgusting shape,[14] and giving it to any Bráhman who is thought to be a blockhead, and if they act thus, this cake is said to remove their discomfort caused by bathing in the cold season, and their exhaustion[15] caused by bathing in the hot weather; but when it is given, Bráhmans refuse to receive it, on the ground that the custom is a disgusting one. This cake was presented by my sister-in-law to my husband, together with a sacrificial fee; he received it, and brought it home with him, and got a severe scolding from me; then he began to be inwardly consumed with grief at his own stupidity, and went to worship the sole of the foot of the god Kártikeya: the god, pleased with his austerities, bestowed on him the knowledge of all the sciences; and gave him this order—“When thou findest a Bráhman who can recollect what he has heard only once, then thou mayest reveal these”—thereupon my husband returned home delighted, and when he had reached home, told the whole story to me. From that time forth, he has remained continually muttering prayers and meditating: so find you some one who can remember anything after hearing it once, and bring him here: if you do that, you will both of you undoubtedly obtain all that you desire.
Having heard this from the wife of Varsha, and having immediately given her a hundred gold pieces to relieve her poverty, we went out of that city; then we wandered through the earth, and could not find anywhere a person who could remember what he had only heard once: at last we arrived tired out at your house to-day, and have found here this boy, your son, who can recollect anything after once hearing it: therefore give him us and let us go forth to acquire the commodity knowledge.
Having heard this speech of Vyáḍi, my mother said with respect, “All this tallies completely; I repose confidence in your tale: for long ago at the birth of this my only son, a distinct spiritual[16] voice was heard from heaven. “A boy has been born who shall be able to remember what he has heard once; he shall acquire knowledge from Varsha, and shall make the science of grammar famous in the world, and he shall be called Vararuchi by name, because whatever is excellent,[17] shall please him.” Having uttered this, the voice ceased. Consequently, ever since this boy has grown big, I have been thinking, day and night, where that teacher Varsha can be, and to-day I have been exceedingly gratified at hearing it from your mouth. Therefore take him with you: what harm can there be in it, he is your brother?” When they heard this speech of my mother’s, those two, Vyáḍi and Indradatta, overflowing with joy, thought that night but a moment in length. Then Vyáḍi quickly gave his own wealth to my mother to provide a feast, and desiring that I should be qualified to read the Vedas, invested me with the Bráhmanical thread. Then Vyáḍi and Indradatta took me, who managed by my own fortitude to control the excessive grief I felt at parting, while my mother in taking leave of me could with difficulty suppress her tears, and considering that the favour of Kártikeya towards them had now put forth blossom, set out rapidly from that city; then in course of time we arrived at the house of the teacher Varsha: he too considered that I was the favour of Kártikeya arrived in bodily form. The next day he placed us in front of him, and sitting down in a consecrated spot, he began to recite the syllable Om with heavenly voice. Immediately the Vedas with the six supplementary sciences rushed into his mind, and then he began to teach them to us; then I retained what the teacher told us after hearing it once, Vyáḍi after hearing it twice, and Indradatta after hearing it three times: then the Bráhmans of the city hearing of a sudden that divine sound, came at once from all quarters with wonder stirring in their breasts to see what this new thing might be; and with their reverend mouths loud in his praises honoured Varsha with low bows. Then beholding that wonderful miracle, not only Upavarsha, but all the citizens of Páṭaliputra[18] kept high festival. Moreover the king Nanda of exalted fortune, seeing the power of the boon of the son of Śiva, was delighted, and immediately filled the house of Varsha with wealth, shewing him every mark of respect.[19]
[1] More literally, the goddess that dwells in the Vindhya hills. Her shrine is near Mirzápúr.
[2] Dr. Brockhaus makes parusha a proper name.
[3] Ficus Indica.
[4] Pumán = Purusha, the spirit.
[5] Prakṛiti, the original source or rather passive power of creating the material world.
[6] Prajápati.
[7] The spirit was of course Brahmá whose head Śiva cut off.
[8] It appears from an article in Mélusine by A Bart, entitled An Ancient Manual of Sorcery, and consisting mainly of passages translated from Burnell’s Sámavidhána Bráhmaṇa, that this power can be acquired in the following way, “After a fast of three nights, take a plant of soma (Asclepias acida;) recite a certain formula and eat of the plant a thousand times, you will be able to repeat anything after hearing it once. Or bruise the flowers in water, and drink the mixture for a year. Or drink soma, that is to say the fermented juice of the plant for a month. Or do it always.” (Mélusine, 1878, p. 107; II, 7, 4–7.)
In the Milinda Pañho, (Pali Miscellany by V. Trenckner, Part. I, p. 14,) the child Nágasena learns the whole of the three Vedas by hearing them repeated once.
[9] A grammatical treatise on the rules regulating the euphonic combination of letters and their pronunciation peculiar to one of the different Śákhás or branches of the Vedas.—M. W. s. v.
[10] i. e., died.
[11] Here we have a pun which it is impossible to render in English. Anátha means without natural protectors and also poor.
[12] Taking chháyá in the sense of śobhá. It might mean “affording no shelter to the inmates.”
[13] Dr. Brockhaus translates the line—Von diesem wurde ich meinem Manne vermählt, um seinem Hauswesen vorzustehen.
[14] Like the Roman fascinum. guhya = phallus.
[15] I read tat for táh according to a conjecture of Professor E. B. Cowell’s. He informs me on the authority of Dr. Rost that the only variants are sá for táḥ and yoshitá for yoshitaḥ. Dr. Rost would take evamkrite as the dative of evamkrit. If táh be retained it may be taken as a repetition “having thus prepared it, I say, the women give it.” Professor Cowell would translate (if táḥ be retained) “the women then do not need to receive anything to relieve their fatigue during the cold and hot weather.”
Professor E. B. Cowell has referred me to an article by Dr. Liebrecht in the Zeitschrift der Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.
He connects the custom with that of the Jewish women mentioned in Jeremiah VII. 18, “The women knead their dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven,” and he quotes a curious custom practised on Palm Sunday in the town of Saintes. Dulaure states that in his time the festival was called there La fête des Pinnes; the women and children carried in the procession a phallus made of bread, which they called a pinne, at the end of their palm branches; those pinnes were subsequently blessed by the priest, and carefully preserved by the women during the year. This article has been republished by the learned author in his “Zur Volkskunde” (Heilbronn, 1879) p. 436 and f f. under the title of “der aufgegessene Gott.” It contains many interesting parallels to the custom described in the text.
[16] Literally bodiless—she heard the voice, but saw no man.
[17] Vara = excellent ruch = to please.
[18] I. e. Palibothra.
[19] Wilson remarks (Essays on Sanskrit Literature, Vol. I, p. 165). “The contemporary existence of Nanda with Vararuchi and Vyáḍi is a circumstance of considerable interest in the literary history of the Hindus, as the two latter are writers of note on philological topics. Vararuchi is also called in this work Kátyáyana, who is one of the earliest commentators on Páṇini. Nanda is the predecessor or one of the predecessors of Chandragupta or Sandrakottos; and consequently the chief institutes of Sanskrit grammar are thus dated from the fourth century before the Christian era. We need not suppose that Somadeva took the pains to be exact here; but it is satisfactory to be made acquainted with the general impressions of a writer who has not been biassed in any of his views by Pauránik legends and preposterous chronology.”