The Story of Sindura Gand Garur.
In a certain village there lived a mother and her son. The boy tended goats in the forest. One day he found a spot of ground, where he thought rice would grow well. So he went home, and asked his mother to give him some seed to sow there. She said, “If you sow rice there it will all be destroyed. The elephants, or the wild jungle cattle, will eat it.” But he begged so hard that at length she gave him some seed rice, which he sowed on the small plot of ground in the jungle. It sprang up and grew luxuriantly. Every day he drove his goats there, and spent the long hours in driving the birds and insects away from his little farm.
When the rice had grown to a good height the raja’s son with his companion came and set up a mark near by at which they shot with their bows and arrows. The orphan boy was asked to join them, which he did, and so accurate was his aim, that he hit the mark every time he shot. The raja’s son and his companion were astonished to see such good shooting, and they said, “The fatherless boy hits the mark every time.”
The boy ran home to his mother weeping, and said, “Oh! mother, where is my father?” To keep him from grieving, she told a lie. “Your father,” she said, “has gone on a visit to his relations.”
The next day after he had again shown great skill with the bow and arrow the raja’s son and his companion said, “The fatherless boy hits the mark every time.” Hearing this he again went home weeping, and said to his mother, “Oh! mother, where is my father?” She replied, “He has gone to visit his friends.” Every day the boy came crying to his mother asking where his father was, so at last she told him. She said, “Your father, child, was carried away on the horns of a Gand Garur[1].”
The boy then said to his mother, “Prepare me some flour. I will go in search of him.” His mother tried to dissuade him, saying, “Where can you go in such a jungle as this?” He, however, insisted, and she prepared flour for him, and he set out.
After travelling many hours he entered the primeval forest, and presently darkness came upon him. After a short time he came to the dwelling of Huti[2] Budhi, and requested permission to pass the night there. This was accorded to him, and he lay down and fell asleep. During the night he was awakened by the Huti Budhi eating his bow and arrows. He called out to her “Oh! old woman, What have you been nibbling at since evening?” The Huti Budhi replied, “It is only some roasted grain, which I brought a while ago from the house of the Chief.”
In a short time the nibbling sound was again heard, and he again enquired what she was eating. She returned the same answer as before. “Oh! my son, it is only roasted grain which the chief’s people gave me.” He did not know that all the time she was eating his bow and arrows.
When morning dawned he requested her to give him his weapons, and on his attempting to string the bow it broke in his hands. The Huti Budhi had eaten the heart out of the wood, and had left only the outer shell. He left her house planning revenge.
During the day he had an iron bow and iron arrows made. All was iron like the arrow heads. In the evening he returned to sleep at the Huti Budhi’s house.