The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story

by active 11th century Somadeva Bhatta

But in the night he saw in a dream his necklace suddenly taken from his neck, and his crest-jewel snatched from his head, by a deformed woman. Then he saw a Vetála, with a body made up of the limbs of many animals, and when the Vetála wrestled with him, he hurled him to earth. And when the king sat on the Vetála’s back, the demon flew up with him through the air, like a bird, and threw him into the sea. Then, after he had with difficulty struggled to the shore, he saw that the necklace was replaced on his neck, and the crest-jewel on his head. When the king had seen this, he woke up, and in the morning he asked a Buddhist mendicant, who had come to visit him as an old friend, the meaning of the dream. And the mendicant answered clearly—“I do not wish to say what is unpleasant, but how can I help telling you when I am asked? The fact that you saw your necklace and crest-jewel taken away, means that you will be separated from your wife and from your son. And the fact that, after you had escaped from the sea, you found them again, means that you will be reunited with them, when your calamity comes to an end.” Then the king said, “I have not a son as yet, let him be born first.” Then the king heard from a reciter of the Rámáyaṇa, who visited his palace, how king Daśaratha endured hardship to obtain a son; and so there arose in his mind anxiety about obtaining a son, and the mendicant having departed, the king Kanakavarsha spent that day in despondency.

And at night, as he was lying alone and sleepless upon his bed, he saw a woman enter without opening the door. She was modest and gentle of appearance, and, when the king bowed before her, she gave him her blessing and said to him: “Son, know that I am the daughter of Vásuki the king of the snakes, and the elder sister of thy father, Ratnaprabhá by name. I always dwell near thee, invisible, to protect thee, but to-day, seeing thee despondent, I have displayed to thee my real form. I cannot bear to behold thy sorrow, so tell me the cause.” When the king had been thus addressed by his father’s sister, he said to her: “I am fortunate, mother, in that you shew me such condescension. But know that my anxiety is caused by the fact that no son is born to me. How can people like myself help desiring that, which even heroic saints of old days, like Daśaratha and others, desired for the sake of obtaining svarga.” When the Nágí[5] Ratnaprabhá heard this speech of that king, she said to her brother’s son; “My son, I will tell thee an admirable expedient, carry it out. Go and propitiate Kártikeya with a view to obtain a son. I will enter thy body, and by my power thou shalt support the rain of Kártikeya falling on thy head to impede thee, difficult to endure. And after thou hast overcome a host of other impediments, thou shalt obtain thy wish.” When the Nágí had said this, she disappeared, and the king spent the night in bliss.

The next morning he committed his realm to the care of his ministers, and went, desiring a son, to visit the sole of Kártikeya’s foot. There he performed a severe penance to propitiate that lord, having power given him by the Nágí that entered his body. Then the rain of Kumára[6] fell on his head like thunderbolts, and continued without ceasing. But he endured it by means of the Nágí that had entered his body. Then Kártikeya sent Gaṇeśa to impede him still further. And Gaṇeśa created in that rain a very poisonous and exceedingly terrible serpent, but the king did not fear it. Then Gaṇeśa, invincible[7] even by gods, came in visible form, and began to give him bites on the breast. Then king Kanakavarsha, thinking that he was a foe hard to subdue, proceeded, after he had endured that ordeal, to propitiate Gaṇeśa with praises.

“Honour to thee, O god of the projecting belly, adorned with the elephant’s ornament, whose body is like a swelling pitcher containing success in all affairs! Victory to thee, O elephant-faced one, that makest even Brahmá afraid, shaking the lotus, which is his throne, with thy trunk flung up in sport! Even the gods, the Asuras, and the chief hermits do not succeed, unless thou art pleased, the only refuge of the world, O thou beloved of Śiva! The chief of the gods praise thee by thy sixty-eight sin-destroying names, calling thee the pitcher-bellied, the basket-eared one,[8] the chief of the Gaṇas, the furious mast elephant, Yama the noose-handed, the Sun, Vishṇu, and Śiva. With these names to the number of sixty-eight, corresponding to so many parts of the body, do they praise thee. And when one remembers thee, and praises thee, O Lord, fear produced by the battle-field, by the king’s court, by gambling, by thieves, by fire, by wild beasts, and other harms, departs.” With these laudatory verses, and with many others of the same kind, king Kanakavarsha honoured that king of impediments. And the conqueror of impediments said, “I will not throw an impediment in thy way, obtain a son,” and disappeared then and there from the eyes of that king.

Then Kártikeya said to that king, who had endured the rain; “Resolute man, I am pleased with thee, so crave thy boon.” Then the king, delighted, said to the god, “Let a son be born to me by thy favour.” Then the god said, “Thou shalt have a son, the incarnation of one of my Gaṇas, and his name shall be Hiraṇyavarsha on the earth.” And then the rider on the peacock summoned him to enter his inmost shrine, in order to shew him special favour.[9] Thereupon the Nágí left his body invisibly, for females do not enter the house of Kártikeya through dread of a curse. Then king Kanakavarsha entered the sanctifying temple of that god, armed only with his human excellence. When the god saw that he was deprived of the excellence he formerly had, because he was no longer inhabited by the Nágí, he reflected—“What can this mean?” And Kártikeya, perceiving by his divine meditation, that that king had performed a very difficult vow by the secret help of the Nágí, thus cursed him in his wrath: “Since thou didst make use of deceit, intractable man, thou shalt be separated from thy son, as soon as he is born, and from thy queen. When the king heard this curse, terrible as a thunderstroke, he was not amazed, but being a mighty poet, praised that god with hymns. Then the six-faced god, pleased with his well turned language, said to him; “King, I am pleased with thy hymns; I appoint thee this end of thy curse; thou shalt be separated from thy wife and son for one year, but after thou hast been saved from three great dangers, thou shalt come to an end of the separation.” When the six-faced god had said this, he ceased to speak, and the king, satisfied with the nectar of his favour, bowed before him, and went to his own city.

Then, in course of time, he had a son born to him by queen Madanasundarí, as the nectar-stream is born of the light of the cold-rayed moon. When the king and queen saw the face of that son, being filled with great delight, they were not able to contain themselves.[10] And at that time the king made a feast, and showered riches, and made his name of Kanakavarsha[11] a literal fact on the earth.

When five nights had passed, while guard was being kept in the lying-in-house, on the sixth night a cloud suddenly came there. It swelled, and gradually covered the whole sky, as a neglected enemy overruns the kingdom of a careless king. Then the mast elephant of the wind began to rush, showering drops of rain like drops of ichor, and rooting up trees. At that moment a terrible woman, sword in hand, opened the door, though it was bolted, and entered that lying-in-chamber. She took that babe from the queen as she was nursing it, and ran out, having bewildered the attendants. And then the queen, distracted, and exclaiming, “Alas! a Rákshasí has carried off my child,” pursued that woman, though it was dark. And the woman rushed on and plunged into a tank with the child, and the queen, pursuing her, plunged in also, eager to recover her offspring. Immediately the cloud disappeared, and the night came to an end, and the lamentation of the attendants was heard in the lying-in-chamber. Then the king Kanakavarsha, hearing it, came to the lying-in-chamber, and seeing it empty of his son and wife, was distracted. After he had recovered consciousness, he began to lament, “Alas, my queen! Alas, my infant son!” and then he called to mind that the curse was to end in a year. And he exclaimed, “Holy Skanda, how could you give to ill-starred me a boon joined with a curse, like nectar mixed with poison? Alas! how shall I be able to pass a year, long as a thousand years, without the queen Madanasundarí, whom I value more than my life?” And the king, though exhorted by the ministers, who knew the circumstances, did not recover his composure, which had departed with his queen.

And in course of time he left his city, distracted with a paroxysm of love, and wandered through the Vindhya forest in a state of bewilderment. There, as he gazed on the eyes of the young does, he remembered the beauty of the eyes of his beloved, and the bushy tails of the chamarís reminded him of the loveliness of her luxuriant hair, and when he marked the gait of the female elephant, he called to mind the languid grace of her gait, so that the fire of his love broke out into a fiercer flame. And wandering about exhausted with thirst and heat, he reached the foot of the Vindhya mountains, and, after drinking the water of a stream, he sat down at the foot of a tree. In the meanwhile a long-maned lion came out of a cavern of the Vindhya hills, uttering a roar which resembled a loud demoniac laugh, and rushed towards him to slay him. At that very moment a certain Vidyádhara descended rapidly from heaven, and cleft that lion in two with a sword-stroke. And that sky-goer, coming near, said to the king, “King Kanakavarsha, how have you come to this region?” When the king heard it, he recovered his memory, and said to him, “How do you know me, who am tossed with the wind of separation?” Then the Vidyádhara said, “I, when in old time I was a religious mendicant, of the name of Bandhumitra, dwelt in your city. Then you helped me in my rites, when I respectfully asked you to do so, and so I obtained the rank of a Vidyádhara, by making a goblin my servant. Thus I recognized you, and being desirous to confer on you a benefit by way of recompense, I have slain this lion which I saw on the point of killing you.

“And my name has now become Bandhuprabha.” When the Vidyádhara said this, the king conceived an affection for him, and said, “Ah! I remember, and this friendship has been nobly acted up to by you, so tell me when I shall be reunited with my wife and son.” When the Vidyádhara Bandhuprabha heard that, he perceived it by his divine knowledge, and said to the king—“By a pilgrimage to the shrine of Durgá, in the Vindhya hills, you will recover your wife and son, so go you to prosperity, and I will return to my own world.” When he had said this, he departed, and king Kanakavarsha, having recovered his self-command, went to visit that shrine of Durgá.

As he was going along, a great and furious wild elephant, stretching out its trunk, and shaking its head, charged him in the path. When the king saw that, he fled by a way full of holes, so that the elephant, pursuing him, fell into a chasm and was killed. Then the king, fatigued with toil and exertion, slowly going along, reached a great lake full of lotuses with straight upstanding stalks. There the king bathed, drank the water of the lake, and ate the fibres of the lotuses, and lying tired at the foot of a tree, was for a moment overpowered by sleep. And some Śavaras, returning that way from hunting, saw that king with auspicious marks lying asleep. And they immediately bound him, and took him to their king Muktáphala, in order that he might serve as a victim. The king of the Śavaras, for his part, seeing that the king was a suitable victim, took him to the temple of Durgá to offer him up. And when the king saw the goddess, he bowed before her, and by her mercy and the favour of Skanda his bonds fell off. When the king of the Śavaras saw that miracle, he knew that it was a mark of the goddess’s favour towards him, and he spared his life. So Kanakavarsha escaped the third danger, and accomplished the year of his curse.