Thereupon the King caused both parties to be brought. The King asks the Brāhmaṇa, “How did this occur?”
The Brāhmaṇa says, “Your Majesty (Dēvayan wahansē), having given three masuran, I asked for and got three words [of advice] from a Brāhmaṇa. ‘Having gone to a country don’t require honours,’ he said; ‘Without investigation don’t do a thing,’ he said; ‘To one’s own wife don’t tell a secret,’ he said; thereupon, the masuran being finished, he said without masuran, ‘Don’t tell lies to Kings.’ ”
He then repeated to the King the true story (already given) of his adventures and actions, which I omit; and he ended by saying “On account of [the other Brāhmaṇa’s] saying, ‘Don’t tell lies to Kings,’ I told you the fact.”
The King having investigated the law-suit, set free the Brāhmaṇa and the Brāhmaṇa’s wife.
Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
With this may be compared the advice given to the Prince in the story No. 250 in this volume.
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 213 ff., a poor weaver who went away to improve his fortunes after borrowing forty rupees, met with a man who was silent until paid twenty rupees, when he said, “Friend, when four men give you [the same] advice, take it.” When he gave the man his remaining twenty rupees, and said, “Speak again,” the man warned him not to tell his wife what happened to him. After this, the weaver met with four men sitting round a corpse, and consented to carry it to the adjoining river for them, and throw it in. He found diamonds tied round its waist, appropriated them, returned home, repaid his loan, and lived in luxury. The village headmen wished to know how the weaver became rich, and the man’s wife pestered him about it until he stated that while on his travels he was told to drink half a pint of mustard oil early in the morning, and he would then see hidden treasure. The headman’s wife being told this by her, gave her husband and six children the dose at night, and in the morning they were all dead. When the King held an inquiry she charged the weaver’s wife with advising her to do it; but the latter totally denied it, and the headman’s wife was hanged.
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 32, a Brāhmaṇa’s wife sold to a Prince for a lakh of rupees four pieces of advice written by her husband, and the King banished the Prince for his foolishness in wasting the money thus. The advice was that a person when travelling must be careful at a strange place, and keep awake, (2) a man in need must test his friends, (3) a man who visits a married sister in good style will be well received, but if poor will be disowned, (4) a man must do his own work well. The Prince was saved from murder by keeping awake at night in his lodgings; was nearly executed when he visited his brother-in-law as a poor Yōgī; rid a Princess of two snakes which issued from her nostrils, and was appointed her father’s successor; was then received with humility by his brother-in-law, and cured his father’s blindness by laying his hands on his eyes.
At p. 332, four exiled Princes agreed to keep watch at night over the corpse of a great merchant; the reward was to be four thousand rupees. They had adventures with the corpse and demons.