Story of Yavanasena.
Fair one, I am a merchant’s son of Mathurá named Yavanasena. And when my father died, I was left helpless, and my relations took from me my property, so I went to a foreign country, and resorted to the miserable condition of being servant to another man. Then I with difficulty scraped together a little wealth by trading, and as I was going to another land, I was plundered by robbers who met me on the way. Then I wandered about as a beggar, and, with some other men like myself, I went to a mine of jewels called Kanakakshetra. There I engaged to pay the king his share, and after digging up the earth in a trench for a whole year, I did not find a single jewel. So, while the other men my fellows were rejoicing over the jewels they had found, smitten with grief I retired to the shore of the sea, and began to collect fuel.
And while I was constructing with the fuel a funeral pyre, in order that I might enter the flame, a certain merchant named Jívadatta happened to come there; that merciful man dissuaded me from suicide, and gave me food, and as he was preparing to go in a ship to Svarṇadvípa he took me on board with him. Then, as we were sailing along in the midst of the ocean, after five days had passed, we suddenly beheld a cloud. The cloud discharged its rain in large drops, and that vessel was whirled round by the wind like the head of a mast elephant. Immediately the ship sank, but as fate would have it, I caught hold of a plank, just as I was sinking. I mounted on it, and thereupon the thunder-cloud relaxed its fury, and, conducted by destiny, I reached this country; and have just landed in the forest. And seeing this palace, I entered, and I beheld here thee, O auspicious one, a rain of nectar to my eyes, dispelling pain.
When he had said this, Rájadattá maddened with love and wine, placed him on a couch and embraced him. Where there are these five fires, feminine nature, intoxication, privacy, the obtaining of a man, and absence of restraint, what chance for the stubble of character? So true is it, that a woman maddened by the god of Love is incapable of discrimination; since this queen became enamoured of that loathsome castaway. In the meanwhile the king Ratnádhipati, being anxious, came swiftly from Ratnakúṭa, borne along on the sky-going elephant; and entering his palace he beheld his wife Rájadattá in the arms of that creature. When the king saw the man, though he felt tempted to slay him, he slew him not, because he fell at his feet, and uttered piteous supplications. And beholding his wife terrified, and at the same time intoxicated, he reflected, “How can a woman that is addicted to wine, the chief ally of lust, be chaste? A lascivious woman cannot be restrained even by being guarded. Can one fetter a whirlwind with one’s arms? This is the fruit of my not heeding the prediction of the astrologers. To whom is not the scorning of wise words bitter in its after-taste? When I thought that she was the sister of Śílavatí, I forgot that the Kálakúṭa poison was twin-born with the amṛita.[5] Or rather who is able, even by doing the utmost of a man, to overcome the incalculable freaks of marvellously working Destiny.” Thus reflecting, the king was not wroth with any one, and spared the merchant’s son, her paramour, after asking him the story of his life. The merchant’s son, when dismissed thence, seeing no other expedient, went out and beheld a ship coming, far off in the sea. Then he again mounted that plank, and drifting about in the sea, cried out, puffing and blowing, “Save me! Save me!” So a merchant, of the name of Krodhavarman, who was on that ship, drew that merchant’s son out of the water, and made him his companion. Whatever deed is appointed by the Disposer to be the destruction of any man, dogs his steps whithersoever he runneth. For this fool, when on the ship, was discovered by his deliverer secretly associating with his wife, and thereupon was cast by him into the sea and perished.
In the meanwhile the king Ratnádhipati caused the queen Rájadattá with her retinue to mount Śvetaraśmi, without allowing himself to be angry, and he carried her to Ratnakúṭa, and delivered her to Śílavatí, and related that occurrence to her and his ministers. And he exclaimed, “Alas! How much pain have I endured, whose mind has been devoted to these unsubstantial insipid enjoyments. Therefore I will go to the forest, and take Hari as my refuge, in order that I may never again be a vessel of such woes.” Thus he spake, and though his sorrowing ministers and Śílavatí endeavoured to prevent him, he, being disgusted with the world, would not abandon his intention. Then, being indifferent to enjoyments, he first gave half of his treasure to the virtuous Śílavatí, and the other half to the Bráhmans, and then that king made over in the prescribed form his kingdom to a Bráhman of great excellence, named Pápabhanjana. And after he had given away his kingdom, he ordered Śvetaraśmi to be brought, with the object of retiring to a grove of asceticism, his subjects looking on with tearful eyes. No sooner was the elephant brought, than it left the body, and became a man of god-like appearance, adorned with necklace and bracelet. When the king asked him who he was, and what was the meaning of all this, he answered:
“We were two Gandharva brothers, living on the Malaya mountain: I was called Somaprabha, and the eldest was Devaprabha. And my brother had but one wife, but she was very dear to him. Her name was Rájavatí. One day he was wandering about with her in his arms, and happened to arrive, with me in his company, at a place called the dwelling of the Siddhas. There we both worshipped Vishṇu in his temple, and began all of us to sing before the adorable one. In the meanwhile a Siddha came there, and stood regarding with fixed gaze Rájavatí, who was singing songs well worth hearing. And my brother, who was jealous, said in his wrath to that Siddha; ‘Why dost thou, although a Siddha, cast a longing look at another’s wife?’ Then the Siddha was moved with anger, and said to him by way of a curse—‘Fool, I was looking at her out of interest in her song, not out of desire. So fall thou, jealous one, into a mortal womb together with her; and then behold with thy own eyes thy wife in the embraces of another.’ When he had said this, I, being enraged at the curse, struck him, out of childish recklessness, with a white toy elephant of clay, that I had in my hand. Then he cursed me in the following words—“Be born again on the earth as an elephant, like that with which you have just struck me.” Then being merciful, that Siddha allowed himself to be propitiated by that brother of mine Devaprabha, and appointed for us both the following termination of the curse; “Though a mortal thou shalt become, by the favour of Vishṇu, the lord of an island, and shalt obtain as thy servant this thy younger brother, who will have become an elephant, a beast of burden fit for gods. Thou shalt obtain eighty thousand wives, and thou shalt come to learn the unchastity of them all in the presence of men. Then thou shalt marry this thy present wife, who will have become a woman, and shalt see her with thy own eyes embracing another. Then, thou shalt become sick in thy heart of the world, and shalt bestow thy realm on a Bráhman, but when after doing this thou shalt set out to go to a forest of ascetics, thy younger brother shall first be released from his elephant nature, and thou also with thy wife shalt be delivered from thy curse.’ This was the termination of the curse appointed for us by the Siddha, and we were accordingly born with different lots, on account of the difference of our actions in that previous state, and lo! the end of our curse has now arrived.” When Somaprabha had said this, that king Ratnádhipati remembered his former birth, and said—“True! I am that very Devaprabha; and this Rájadattá is my former wife Rájavatí.” Having said this, he, together with his wife, abandoned the body. In a moment they all became Gandharvas, and, in the sight of men, flew up into the air, and went to their own home, the Malaya mountain. Śílavatí too, through the nobleness of her character, obtained prosperity, and going to the city of Támraliptí, remained in the practice of virtue.
“So true is it, that in no case can any one guard a woman by force in this world, but the young woman of good family is ever protected by the pure restraint of her own chastity. And thus the passion of jealousy is merely a purposeless cause of suffering, annoying others, and so far from being a protection to women, it rather excites in them excessive longing.” When Naraváhanadatta had heard this tale full of good sense related by his wife, he and his ministers were highly pleased.
[1] i. e. supreme lord of jewels.
[2] i. e. as Indra mounts Airávata.
[3] The modern Tamluk. The district probably comprised the small but fertile tract of country lying to the westward of the Húghli river, from Bardwán and Kalna on the north, to the banks of the Kosai river on the south. (Cunningham’s Ancient Geography of India, p. 504.)
[4] In the 115th tale of the Gesta Romanorum we read that two chaste virgins were able to lull to sleep and kill an elephant, that no one else could approach.
[5] Both were produced at the churning of the ocean.