A Digit of the Moon: A Hindoo Love Story

by F. W. Bain

Then the King said to Rasakósha: My friend, though I hear but little of your stories, for the beauty of my beloved holds me spellbound and stops my ears, yet methinks her intelligence must be more than human, for as yet even you have not succeeded in posing it. And now eleven of my days are gone, and only ten remain. Never will I forgive you if I lose her. For day by day her looks grow kinder, and the moment of separation more appalling, and the efficacy of the portrait less potent to soothe me in her absence, so that it is doubtful whether I can live till to-morrow. And the King passed the night in a state of sickness gazing at the portrait. And when the sun rose, he rose also, and passed the day with difficulty, aided by Rasakósha and the garden. Then when the sun set, they went again to the hall of audience. And there they saw the Princess, clad in a robe of rose colour, and a bodice studded with ox-eyes[[1]], and her crown and other ornaments, sitting on her throne. And she leaned eagerly forward to see the King come in, and he sank upon a couch, speechless and fascinated, under the spell of her beauty. Then Rasakósha came forward and stood before her, and began again:

Lady, there was once a lordly elephant, the leader of a forest herd. And he rushed through the forest, like a thunderbolt of Indra, and the rain of ichor poured down from his mighty temples in streams, as he broke down the bushes and young trees in his charge. And then, having sported to his heart's content, he marched slowly through the glades like a mountain, with his herd behind him. And coming to an ant-hill, he drove his tusks into it, and cast up the earth. And then going onward, he stood at rest in a little pool, and drenched his sides with clear water collected in his trunk: and running his tusks into a bank, he stood leaning against a lord of the forest[[2]], swaying gently to and fro, with his eyes shut, and his basket-ears cocked, and his trunk hanging down. And the ivory of his tusks showed against his great dark-blue body like a double row of white swans against a thunder-cloud.

But meanwhile, the ants were thrown into confusion by his destruction of their hill, which killed many thousands of them. And they said: What! are we to die for the wanton sport of this rogue of an elephant? So they determined to send a deputation to the elephant, to demand reparation. And they chose seven of the wisest among them, So the ambassadors went and crawled in a row up the bole of the great tree against which the king of the elephants was leaning, till they reached the level of his ear. Then they delivered their message, saying: O king of the elephants, the ants have sent us to demand reparation from you for causing the death of great numbers of their caste. If not, there is no resource but war. But when the elephant heard this, he looked sideways out of the corner of his eye, and saw the row of ants upon the trunk of the tree. And he said to himself: This is a pleasant thing. What can these contemptible little ants do to us elephants? And taking water in his trunk, he discharged it with a blast against them, and destroyed them.

But when the ants saw the destruction of their ambassadors, they were enraged. And waiting till night, they crept out of the ground in innumerable myriads while the elephants were asleep, and gnawed the skin of their toes and the soles of their feet, old and young[[3]]. Then when in the morning the elephants began to move, they found their feet so sore as to be almost useless. So trumpeting with rage and pain they rushed about the forest destroying the ant-hills. But they could not reach the ants, who crept into the earth, while the more they ran about the worse grew their feet. So finding all their efforts useless, they desisted: and fearing for the future, they resolved to conclude peace with the ants. But not being able to find any, they sent a mouse, who went underground, and carried their message to the ants. But the ants replied: We will make no peace with the elephants, unless they deliver up their king to be punished for slaying our ambassadors. So the mouse went back to the elephants, and told them. And seeing that there was no help for it, they submitted.

Then the king of the elephants came alone into the forest, with drooping ears, to deliver himself up to the ants. And the ants said to the Shami[[4]] creeper: Bind this evil-doer, or we will gnaw your roots and destroy you. So the creeper threw its arms round the elephant, and bound him so tightly that he could not stir. And then the ants crawled out in myriads and buried him in earth, till he resembled a mountain. And the worms devoured his flesh, and nothing but his bones and his tusks remained. So the ants remained unmolested in the forest, and the elephants chose another king.

So now tell me, Princess, what is the moral[[5]] of this story? And Rasakósha ceased. Then the Princess pondered awhile and said: Even united, the weak are not always stronger than the strong. For an elephant is still an elephant, and an ant but an ant. But the strength of the strong is to be estimated by their weakness[[6]]. For if the elephants had known this, and protected their feet, they might have laughed at all that the ants could do to them, and even a single elephant would have been more than a match for all the ants in the world.

And when the Princess had said this, she rose up and went out slowly, looking sorrowfully at the King, whose heart went with her. But the King and Rasakósha returned to their own apartments.

[[1]] It is not clear what goméda means.

[[2]] i.e. a tall tree. Our idiom is the same.

[[3]] The author probably knew that the elephant's feet are very apt to go wrong and cause trouble: but whether 'white ants' or any other ants could produce the disease is a point for the natural historian to determine.