TALE XXIV.
The sprite said, “Your majesty! in the country of Kaling there was a Brahman named Yagya Sharmã, whose wife’s name was Somadattã. She was very beautiful. The Brahman began offering sacrifices, whereupon his wife had a beautiful boy. When he attained the age of five years, his father began teaching him the Shãstras. At the age of twelve years he had finished the study of all the Shãstras, and become a great scholar; and he began to be in constant attendance upon, and to help his father.”
“After the lapse of some time the boy died, and in their sorrow for him his parents uttered loud cries of lamentation and wailing. On receiving this news all his kinsfolk hastened thither, and fastening the boy upon a bier, took him away to the burning-ground; and when there, began repeatedly gazing at him, and saying to one another, ‘See! even in death he appears beautiful!’ They were uttering words like these, and arranging the pyre, while an ascetic was also seated there engaged in religious austerity. He hearing these words began to think to himself, ‘My body has become very old; if I enter this boy’s body, I can practise religious meditation with ease and comfort.’”
“Having thought thus, he entered the body of the child, turned round, and pronouncing the names of Rãm (Balarãm) and Krishn, sat up as one sits up from sleep. When the people witnessed this, they all returned to their homes in astonishment; while his father lost all desire for the world on witnessing this marvel; first he laughed, then he wept.”
After relating so much of the story, the sprite said, “Say, your majesty! why he laughed, and why he wept.” Thereupon the king said, “Seeing the ascetic enter his body, and so learning the art (of changing one’s own body for another) he laughed; and through regret at having to quit his own body he wept, thinking, ‘Thus shall I too some day have to abandon my own body.’” Hearing this, the sprite went again and suspended himself on that tree; and the king, too, arriving close at his heels, bound him, put him on his shoulder, and carried him away.