The Saga of Ardschi-Bordschi and Vikramâditja’s Throne.
The Boy-King.
Long ages ago there lived a mighty king called Ardschi-Bordschi[1].
In the neighbourhood of his residence was a hill where the boys who were tending the calves were wont to pass away the time by racing up and down. But they had also another custom, and it was, that whichever of them won the race was king for the day—an ordinary game enough, only that when it was played in this place the Boy-king thus constituted was at once endowed with such extraordinary importance and majesty that every one was constrained to treat him as a real king. He had not only ministers and dignitaries among his playfellows, who prostrated themselves before him and fulfilled all his behests, but whoever passed that way could not choose but pay him homage also.
At last the report of the matter filled all the land, and came also to the ears of the King himself.
Ardschi-Bordschi had the whole matter exposed before him, and he inquired into all the manners and ways of the boys; then he said,—
“If this thing happened every day to one and the same boy, then would I acknowledge in him a Bodhisattva[2]; but as every day a different boy may win the race, and it would seem that whichever of them is called king is clothed with equal majesty, it appears manifestly to me that the virtue is not in the boy, but in the hill of which he makes his throne.”
Nevertheless the matter troubled the King, and he desired above all things to obtain some certain knowledge concerning it, not seeing how to search it out.