After that, the Prince, marrying the royal Princess, in succession to the King exercised the sovereignty over the city.
This story with its variants is the first tale of The Story of Madana Kāma Rāja (Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 2. The two sons of a deposed King who became a beggar were educated by a Brāhmaṇa on the understanding that he should keep one of them. By the younger son’s advice he was selected by the parents, his brother being too stupid to learn anything. He first became a hen which the King bought for a hundred pagodas; in the night she became a bandicoot, a large rat, and returned home. Then he became a horse which the Brāhmaṇa bought for a thousand pagodas, and rode and flogged till it was exhausted. At a pool the spirit of the Prince entered a dead fish, and the horse fell down lifeless; then to save himself he entered a dead buffalo which thereupon became alive, and lastly a dead parrot which when pursued by the Brāhmaṇa in the form of a kite took refuge in a Princess’s lap, and was put in a cage. On two nights while she slept the Prince resumed his own shape, rubbed sandal on her, ate her sweetmeats, and returned to the cage; on the third night she saw him and heard his story. As predicted by him, the Brāhmaṇa came with rope-dancers, and as a reward for their performance demanded the bird. By the Prince’s advice the Princess broke its neck when giving it, and his spirit entered her necklace. She broke it, casting the pearls into the court-yard, where they became worms. When the Brāhmaṇa while still in the swing took a second shape as a cock and began to pick up the worms, the Prince became a cat and seized it. By the King’s intervention the enemies were reconciled, the Prince married the Princess, and afterwards recovered his father’s kingdom.
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 216, the first part is similar, the teacher being a fakīr. The youth turned himself into a bull which was sold, without the head-stall, for a hundred rupees, disappeared, and became the youth again. When he next changed himself into a horse the fakīr chased it; it became a dove and the fakīr a hawk, then it turned into a fish and the fakīr a crocodile. When near capture the fish became a mosquito and crept up the nostril of a hanging corpse; the fakīr blocked the nostril with mud and induced a merchant to bring him the body. Then follow some of the Vikrama stories, and at last at the corpse’s request the merchant removed the mud, and the youth escaped. The fakīr then accepted the boy’s challenge that he should be a goat and the fakīr a tiger, and one should devour the other. The goat was tied outside the town at night, men who were stationed to shoot the tiger when it came, fired, and both animals were killed.
In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 134, a Queen bore two sons owing to magical aid given by a Jōgī, who was to have one of them as a reward. The clever younger one whom he wanted ran off. The man first chased him as a leopard, then they were a pigeon and hawk, a fly and egret. The fly settled on the rice plate of a Queen; when the Jōgī induced her to throw the rice on the ground the boy became a coral bead in her necklace. The man then got her to scatter the beads on the floor, and while as a pigeon he was picking them up, the boy took the form of a cat and killed it.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 342, a man became an ox when a witch tied a string round his neck, and regained his shape when it was removed. On p. 340 the animal was an ape; when the string was taken off a spell was also necessary to restore the man’s form. In vol. ii, pp. 157, 168, a man was similarly turned into a peacock, and resumed his shape when the thread was removed.
In Sagas from the Far East, p. 2, the elder son of a Khan studied without result under seven magicians for seven years; the younger son acquired their mystic knowledge by peeping through a crack in the door. The elder one afterwards sold the younger to them in the form of a horse; as they were killing it he entered a fish, which as seven larger fishes they chased. Then he became a dove, which when seven hawks pursued it took refuge in Nāgārjuna’s bosom and told him its story. When the seven men asked for his rosary he put the large bead in his mouth as requested by the youth, and biting the string, let the others fall, on which they became worms that seven cocks began to pick up. On the large bead’s falling it changed into a man who killed the cocks with a stick; they became human corpses.
In the same work, p. 273, when the father of Vikramāditya went to fight a demon he left his body near an image of Buddha for safety. On his younger wife’s burning it on a pyre, he appeared in a heavenly form and stated that as his body was destroyed he could not revisit the earth.
In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. i, p. 118) a Princess-magician summoned an Ifrit (Rākshasa) who had turned a Prince into an ape, and with a sword made from a hair of her head cut him in two as a lion. They then became a scorpion and python, a vulture and eagle, a black cat and wolf. The cat became a worm which crept into a pomegranate; when this broke up and the seeds fell on the floor, the wolf (Princess) became a white cock which ate all but one that sprang into the water of a fountain and became a fish, the cock as a larger fish pursuing it. At last they fought with fire in their true forms, and were reduced to ashes.