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

by active 11th century Somadeva Bhatta

Story of the fool who asked his way to the village.

A certain fool, while going to another village, forgot the way. And when he asked his way, the people said to him; “Take the path that goes up by the tree on the bank of the river.”

Then the fool went and got on the trunk of that tree, and said to himself, “The men told me that my way lay up the trunk of this tree.” And as he went on climbing up it, the bough at the end bent with his weight, and it was all he could do to avoid falling by clinging to it.

While he was clinging to it, there came that way an elephant, that had been drinking water, with his driver on his back. When the fool, who was clinging to the tree, saw him, he said with humble voice to that elephant-driver, “Great Sir, take me down.” And the elephant-driver let go the elephant-hook, and laid hold of the man by the feet with both his hands, to take him down from the tree. In the meanwhile the elephant went on, and the elephant-driver found himself clinging to the feet of that fool, who was clinging to the end of the tree. Then the fool said urgently to the elephant-driver, “Sing something quickly, if you know anything, in order that the people may hear, and come here at once to take us down. Otherwise we shall fall, and the river will carry us away.” When the elephant-driver had been thus appealed to by him, he sang so sweetly that the fool was much pleased. And in his desire to applaud him properly, he forgot what he was about, and let go his hold of the tree, and prepared to clap him with both his hands. Immediately he and the elephant-driver fell into the river and were drowned, for association with fools brings prosperity to no man.

After Gomukha had told this story, he went on to tell that of Hiraṇyáksha.

Story of Hiraṇyáksha and Mṛigánkalekhá.

There is in the lap of the Himálayas a country called Kaśmíra, which is the very crest-jewel of the earth, the home of sciences and virtue. In it there was a town, named Hiraṇyapura, and there reigned in it a king, named Kanakáksha. And there was born to that king, owing to his having propitiated Śiva, a son, named Hiraṇyáksha, by his wife Ratnaprabhá. The prince was one day playing at ball, and he purposely managed to strike with the ball a female ascetic who came that way. That female ascetic possessing supernatural powers, who had overcome the passion of anger, laughed and said to Hiraṇyáksha, without altering the expression of her face,[11] “If your youth and other qualities make you so insolent, what will you become if you obtain Mṛigánkalekhá for a wife.”[12] When the prince heard that, he propitiated the female ascetic and said to her; “Who is this Mṛigánkalekhá? tell me, reverend madam.” Then she said to him, “There is a glorious king of the Vidyádharas on the Himálayas, named Śaśitejas. He has a beautiful daughter, named Mṛigánkalekhá, whose loveliness keeps the princes of the Vidyádharas awake at night. And she will be a fitting wife for you, and you will be a suitable husband for her.” When the female ascetic, who possessed supernatural power, said this to Hiraṇyáksha, he replied, “Tell me, reverend mother, how she is to be obtained.” Thereupon she said, “I will go and find out how she is affected towards you, by talking about you. And then I will come and take you there. And you will find me to-morrow in the temple of the god here, named Amareśa, for I come here every day to worship him.” After the female ascetic had said this, she went through the air by her supernatural power to the Himálayas, to visit that Mṛigánkalekhá. Then she praised to her so artfully the good qualities of Hiraṇyáksha, that the celestial maiden became very much in love with him, and said to her, “If, reverend mother, I cannot manage to obtain a husband of this kind, of what use to me is this my purposeless life?” So the emotion of love was produced in Mṛigánkalekhá, and she spent the day in talking about him, and passed the night with that female ascetic. In the meanwhile Hiraṇyáksha spent the day in thinking of her, and with difficulty slept at night, but towards the end of the night Párvatí said to him in a dream, “Thou art a Vidyádhara, become a mortal by the curse of a hermit, and thou shalt be delivered from it by the touch of the hand of this female ascetic, and then thou shalt quickly marry this Mṛigánkalekhá. Do not be anxious about it, for she was thy wife in a former state.” Having said this, the goddess disappeared from his sight. And in the morning the prince woke and rose up, and performed the auspicious ceremonies of bathing and so on. Then he went and adored Amareśa and stood in his presence, since it was there that the female ascetic had appointed him a rendezvous.

In the meanwhile Mṛigánkalekhá fell asleep with difficulty in her own palace, and Párvatí said to her in a dream, “Do not grieve, the curse of Hiraṇyáksha is at an end, and he will again become a Vidyádhara by the touch of the hand of the female ascetic, and thou shalt have him once more for a husband.” When the goddess had said this, she disappeared, and in the morning Mṛigánkalekhá woke up and told the female ascetic her dream. And the holy ascetic returned to the earth, and said to Hiraṇyáksha, who was in the temenos of Amareśa, “Come to the world of Vidyádharas.” When she said this, he bent before her, and she took him up in her arms, and flew up with him to heaven. Then Hiraṇyáksha’s curse came to an end, and he became a prince of the Vidyádharas, and he remembered his former birth, and said to the female ascetic, “Know that I was a king of the Vidyádharas named Amṛitatejas in a city named Vajrakúṭa. And long ago I was cursed by a hermit, angry because I had treated him with neglect, and I was doomed to live in the world of mortals until touched by your hand. And my wife, who then abandoned the body because I had been cursed, has now been born again as Mṛigánkalekhá, and so has before been loved by me. And now I will go with you and obtain her once more, for I have been purified by the touch of your hand, and my curse is at an end.” So said Amṛitatejas, the Vidyádhara prince, as he travelled through the air with that female ascetic to the Himálayas. There he saw Mṛigánkalekhá in a garden, and she saw him coming, as he had been described by the female ascetic. Wonderful to say, these lovers first entered one another’s minds by the ears, and now they entered them by the eyes, without ever having gone out again.