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

by active 11th century Somadeva Bhatta

Story of the mendicant who travelled from Kaśmíra to Páṭaliputra.

There is in Kaśmíra a famous holy place, sacred to Śiva, called Vijaya. In it there lived a certain mendicant, who was proud of his knowledge. He worshipped Śiva, and prayed—“May I be always victorious in controversy,”—and thereupon he set out for Páṭaliputra to exhibit his skill in dispute. And on the way he passed forests, rivers, and mountains, and having reached a certain forest, he became tired, and rested under a tree. And immediately he saw, as he was refreshing himself in the cool breeze of the tank, a student of religion, who had come there dusty with a long journey, with his staff and water-pot in his hand. When he sat down, the wandering mendicant asked him whence he came and whither he was going. The student of religion answered, “I come from that seat of learning Páṭaliputra, and I am going to Kaśmíra to conquer the Paṇḍits there in discussion. When the mendicant heard this speech of the religious student’s, he thought, “If I cannot conquer this one man who has left Páṭaliputra, how shall I manage to go and overcome the many who remain there?”

So reflecting, he began to reproach that religious student, “Tell me, religious student, what is the meaning of this inconsistent conduct on your part? How comes it that you are at the same time a religious student, eager for liberation, and a man afflicted with the madness of disputatiousness? Do you seek to be delivered from the world by binding yourself with the conceit of controversy? You are quenching heat with fire, and removing the feeling of cold with snow; you are trying to cross the sea on a boat of stone; you are striving to put out a fire by fanning it. The virtue of Bráhmans is patience, that of Kshatriyas is the rescue of the distressed; the characteristic quality of one who desires liberation is quietism; disputatiousness is said to be the characteristic of Rákshasas. Therefore a man who desires liberation must be of a quiet temperament, putting away the pain arising from alternations of opposites, fearing the hindrances of the world. So cut down with the axe of quietism this tree of mundane existence, and do not water it with the water of controversial conceit.” When he said this to the religious student, he was pleased, and bowed humbly before him, and saying, “Be you my spiritual guide,”—he departed by the way that he came. And the mendicant remained, laughing, where he was, at the foot of the tree, and then he heard from within it the conversation of a Yaksha, who was joking with his wife.[1] And while the mendicant was listening, the Yaksha in sport struck his wife with a garland of flowers, and she, like a cunning female, pretended that she was dead, and immediately her attendants raised a cry of grief. And after a long time she opened her eyes, as if her life had returned to her. Then the Yaksha her husband said to her; “What have you seen?” Then she told the following invented story; “When you struck me with the garland, I saw a black man come, with a noose in his hand, with flaming eyes, tall, with upstanding hair, terrible, darkening the whole horizon with his shadow. The ruffian took me to the abode of Yama, but his officers there turned him back, and made him let me go.” When the Yakshiṇí said this, the Yaksha laughed, and said to her, “O dear! women cannot be free from deception in any thing that they do. Who ever died from being struck with flowers? Who ever returned from the house of Yama? You silly woman, you have imitated the tricks of the women of Páṭaliputra.”

Story of the wife of king Sinháksha, and the wives of his principal courtiers.

For in that city there is a king named Sinháksha: and his wife, taking with her the wives of his minister, commander-in-chief, chaplain, and physician, went once on the thirteenth day of the white fortnight to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Sarasvatí, the protecting deity of that land. There they, queen and all, met on the way sick persons, humpbacked, blind, and lame, and were thus implored by them, “Give medicine to us wretched diseased men, in order that we may be delivered from our infirmity; have mercy upon the distressed. For this world is wavering as a wave of the sea, transient as a flash of lightning, and its beauty is short-lived like that of a religious festival. So in this unreal world the only real thing is mercy to the wretched, and charity to the poor; it is only the virtuous person that can be said truly to live. What is the use of giving to the rich or the comfortable?[2] What does the cold moon profit a shivering man, or what is the use of a cloud when winter has arrived? So rescue us miserable creatures from the affliction of sickness.”

When the queen and the other ladies had been thus supplicated by these diseased persons, they said to one another; “These poor afflicted men say what is true, and to the point, so we must endeavour to restore them to health even at the cost of all our substance.” Then they worshipped the goddess, and each took one of those sick people to her own house, and, urging on their husbands, they had them treated with the potent drugs of Mahádeví, and they never left off watching them. And from being always with them, they fell in love with them, and became so attached to them that they thought of nothing else in the world. And their minds, bewildered with love, never reflected what a difference there was between these wretched sick men and their own husbands, the king and his chief courtiers.

Then their husbands remarked that they had on them the marks of scratches and bites, due to their surprising intimacy with these invalids. And the king, the commander-in-chief, the minister, the chaplain, and the physician talked of this to one another without reserve, but not without anxiety. Then the king said to the others, “You keep quiet at present; I will question my wife dexterously.” So he dismissed them, and went to his private apartments, and assuming an expression of affectionate anxiety, he said to his wife, “Who bit you on the lower lip? Who scratched you on the breast? If you tell me the truth, it will be well with you, but not otherwise.” When the queen was thus questioned by the king, she told him a fictitious tale, saying, “Ill-fated that I am, I must tell this wonder, though it ought not to be revealed. Every night a man, with a discus and club, comes out of the painted wall, and does this to me, and disappears into it in the morning. And though you, my husband, are alive, he reduces to this state my body, which not even the sun or moon has ever beheld.” When the foolish king heard this story of hers, told with much semblance of grief, he believed it, and thought that it was all a trick played by Vishṇu. And he told it to the minister and his other servants, and they, like blockheads, also believed that their wives had been visited by Vishṇu, and held their tongues.

“In this way wicked and cunning females, of bad character, by concurring in one impossible story, deceive silly people, but I am not such a fool as to be taken in.” The Yaksha by saying this covered his wife with confusion. And the mendicant at the foot of the tree heard it all. Then the mendicant folded his hands, and said to that Yaksha, “Reverend sir, I have arrived at your hermitage, and now I throw myself on your protection. So pardon my sin in overhearing what you have been saying.” By thus speaking the truth he gained the good will of the Yaksha. And the Yaksha said to him, “I am a Yaksha, Sarvasthánagaváta by name, and I am pleased with you. So choose a boon.” Then the mendicant said to the Yaksha; “Let this be my boon that you will not be angry with this wife of yours.” Then the Yaksha said, “I am exceedingly pleased with you. This boon is already granted, so choose another.” Then the mendicant said, “Then this is my second petition, that from this day forward you and your wife will look upon me as a son.” When the Yaksha heard this, he immediately became visible to him with his wife, and said, “I consent, my son, we regard you as our own child. And owing to our favour you shall never suffer calamity. And you shall be invincible in disputation, altercation, and gambling.” When the Yaksha had said this, he disappeared, and the mendicant worshipped him, and after spending the night there, he went on to Páṭaliputra. Then he announced to king Sinháksha, by the mouth of the doorkeeper, that he was a disputant come from Kaśmíra. And the king permitted him to enter the hall of assembly, and there he tauntingly challenged the learned men to dispute with him. And after he had conquered them all by virtue of the boon of the Yaksha, he again taunted them in the presence of the king in these words: “I ask you to explain this. What is the meaning of this statement, ‘A man with a discus and mace comes out of the painted wall, and bites my lower lip, and scratches my chest, and then disappears in the wall again.’ Give me an answer.”[3] When the learned men heard his riddle, as they did not know the real reference, they gave no answer, but looked at one another’s faces. Then the king Sinháksha himself said to him, “Explain to us yourself the meaning of what you said.” Thereupon the mendicant told the king of the deceitful behaviour of his wife, which he had heard about from the Yaksha. And he said to the king, “So a man should never become attached to women, which will only result in his knowing wickedness.” The king was delighted with the mendicant, and wished to give him his kingdom. But the mendicant, who was ardently attached to his own native land, would not take it. Then the king honoured him with a rich present of jewels. The mendicant took the jewels and returned to his native land of Kaśmíra, and there by the favour of the Yaksha he lived in great comfort.