Story of the rogue who managed to acquire wealth by speaking to the king.[5]
There was a certain king in a city in the Dekkan. In that city there was a rogue who lived by imposing upon others. And one day he said to himself, being too ambitious to be satisfied with small gains; “Of what use to me is this petty rascality, which only provides me with subsistence? Why should I not do a stroke of business which would bring me great prosperity?” Having thus reflected, he dressed himself splendidly as a merchant, and went to the palace-gate and accosted the warder. And he introduced him into the king’s presence, and he offered a complimentary gift, and said to the king, “I wish to speak with your Majesty in private.” The king was imposed upon by his dress, and much influenced in his favour by the present, so he granted him a private interview, and then the rogue said to him, “Will your Majesty have the goodness every day, in the hall of assembly, to take me aside for a moment in the sight of all, and speak to me in private? And as an acknowledgment of that favour I will give your Majesty every day five hundred dínárs, and I do not ask for any gift in return.” When the king heard that, he thought to himself, “What harm can it do? What does he take away from me? On the contrary he is to give me dínárs every day. What disgrace is there in carrying on a conversation with a great merchant?” So the king consented, and did as he requested, and the rogue gave the king the dínárs as he had promised, and the people thought that he had obtained the position of a Cabinet Minister.
Now one day the rogue, while he was talking with the king, kept looking again and again at the face of one official with a significant expression. And after he came out, that official asked him why he had looked at his face so, and the rogue was ready with this fiction; “The king is angry because he supposes that you have been plundering his realm. This is why I looked at your face, but I will appease his anger.” When the sham minister said this, the official went home in a state of anxiety, and sent him a thousand gold pieces. And the next day the rogue talked in the same way with the king, and then he came out and said to the official, who came towards him; “I appeased the king’s anger against you with some judicious words. Cheer up; I will now stand by you in all emergencies.” Thus he artfully made him his friend, and then dismissed him, and then the official waited upon him with all kinds of presents.
Thus gradually this dexterous rogue, by means of his continual conversations with the king, and by many artifices, extracted from the officials, the subordinate monarchs, the Rájpúts, and the servants, so much wealth, that he amassed altogether fifty millions of gold pieces. Then the scoundrelly sham minister said in secret to the king, “Though I have given you every day five hundred dínárs, nevertheless, by the favour of your Highness, I have amassed fifty millions of gold pieces. So have the goodness to accept of this gold. What have I to do with it?” Then he told the king his whole stratagem. But it was with difficulty that the king could be induced to take half the money. Then he gave him the post of a Cabinet Minister, and the rogue, having obtained riches and position, kept complimenting the people with entertainments.
“Thus a wise man obtains great wealth without committing a very great crime, and when he has gained the advantage, he atones for his fault in the same way as a man who digs a well.” Then Gomukha went on to say to the prince; “Listen now to this one story, though you are excited about your approaching marriage.”
Story of Ratnarekhá and Lakshmísena.
There lived in a city, named Ratnákara, a king, named Buddhiprabha, who was a very lion to the infuriated elephant-herd of his enemies, and there was born to him by his queen, named Ratnarekhá, a daughter, named Hemaprabhá, the most beautiful woman in the whole world. And since she was a Vidyádharí, that had fallen to earth by a curse, she was fond of amusing herself by swinging, on account of the pleasure that she felt in recalling the impressions of her roaming through the air in her former existence. Her father forbade her, being afraid that she would fall, but she did not desist, so her father was angry and gave her a slap. The princess was angry at receiving so great an indignity, and wishing to retire to the forest, she went to a garden outside the city, on the pretence of amusing herself. She made her servants drunk with wine, and roaming on, she entered a dense tree-jungle, and got out of their sight. And she went alone to a distant forest, and there she built herself a hut, and remained feeding on roots and fruits, engaged in the adoration of Śiva. As for her father, he found out that she had fled to some place or other, and made search for her, but did not find her. Then he fell into great grief. And after some time the king’s grief abated a little, so he went out hunting to distract his mind. And, as it happened, that king Buddhiprabha went to that distant forest, in which his daughter Hemaprabhá was engaged in ascetic practices. There the king saw her hut, and he went into it, and unexpectedly beheld there his own daughter emaciated with ascetic practices. And she, when she saw him, rose up at once and embraced his feet, and her father embraced her with tears and seated her on his lap. And seeing one another again after so long a separation, they wept so that even the eyes of the deer in the forest gushed with tears. Then the king at last comforted his daughter, and said to her, “Why did you abandon, my daughter, the happiness of a palace, and act thus? So come back to your mother, and give up this forest.” When her father said this to her, Hemaprabhá answered him, “I have been commanded by the god to act thus. What choice have I in the matter? So I will not return to the palace to indulge in pleasure, and I will not abandon the joys of asceticism.” When the king discovered from this speech of hers that she would not abandon her intention, he had a palace made for her in that very forest. And when he returned to his capital, he sent her every day cooked food and wealth, for the entertainment of her guests. And Hemaprabhá remained in the forest, honouring her guests with wealth and jewels, while she lived herself on roots and fruits.
Now one day there came to the hermitage of that princess a female mendicant, who was roaming about, having observed a vow of chastity from her earliest youth. This lady, who had been a mendicant from her childhood, was honoured by Hemaprabhá, and when asked by her the reason why she took the vow, she answered, “Once, when I was a girl, I was shampooing my father’s feet, and my eyes closed in sleep, and I let my hands drop. Then my father gave me a kick, and said, ‘Why do you go to sleep?’ And I was so angry at that that I left his house and became a mendicant.” Then Hemaprabhá was so delighted with the female mendicant, on account of the resemblance of her character to her own, that she made her share her forest life. And one morning she said to that friend; “My friend, I remember that I crossed in my dreams a broad river, then I mounted a white elephant, after that I ascended a mountain, and there I saw in a hermitage the holy god Śiva. And having obtained a lyre, I sang and played on it before him, and then I saw a man of celestial appearance approach. When I saw him, I flew up into the sky with you, and when I had seen so much, I awoke, and lo! the night was at an end.” When the friend heard this, she said to Hemaprabhá, “Undoubtedly, auspicious girl, you must be some heavenly being born on earth in consequence of a curse; and this dream means that your curse is nearly at an end.” When the princess heard this speech of her friend’s, she received it with joy.