There is a strong Indian—even Buddhistic—flavour in the story of Abdallah and the Dervish, and the apparition of the twelve whirling fakírs, who when struck with a cane held in the left hand fall into so many heaps of gold coin, has its analogue in the “Hitopadesa” and also in the Persian Tales of a Parrot (“Tútí Náma”). The 10th Fable of Book iii. of the “Hitopadesa” goes thus: In the city of Ayodhya (Oude) there was a soldier named Churamani, who, being anxious for money, for a long time with pain of body worshipped the deity the jewel of whose diadem is the lunar crescent.[[144]] Being at length purified from his sins, in his sleep he had a vision in which, through the favour of the deity, he was directed by the lord of the Yakshas[[145]] to do as follows: “Early in the morning, having been shaved, thou must stand, club in hand, concealed behind the door of thy house; and the beggar whom thou seest come into the court thou wilt put to death without mercy by blows of thy staff. Instantly the beggar will become a pot full of gold, by which thou wilt be comfortable the rest of thy life.” These instructions being followed, it came to pass accordingly. But the barber who had been brought to shave him, having witnessed it all, said to himself, “O, is this the mode of gaining treasure? Why, then, may not I also do the same?” From that day forward the barber in like manner, with club in hand, day after day awaited the coming of the beggar. One day a beggar being so caught was attacked by him and killed with the stick, for which offence the barber himself was beaten by the King’s officers and died.
The same story is differently told, at greater length and with considerable humour, in Nakhshabí’s Parrot-Book, but the outline of it can only be given here: A rich merchant named Abd-el-Malik resolved to give all his substance to the poor and needy before he departed this life. At midnight an apparition stood before him in the habit of a fakír and thus addressed him: “I am the apparition of thy good fortune and the genius of thy future happiness.[[146]] When thou, with such unbounded generosity, didst bequeath all thy wealth to the poor, I determined not to pass by thy door unnoticed, but to enrich thee with an inexhaustible treasure, suitable to the greatness of thy capacious soul. To accomplish which I will every morning in this shape appear to thee; thou shalt strike me a few blows on the head, and I shall instantly fall at thy feet, transformed into an image of gold. From this take as much as thou shalt have occasion for; and every member that shall be separated from the image shall instantly be replaced by another of the same precious metal.”[[147]] In the morning a covetous neighbour named Hajm visited the merchant, and soon after the apparition presented itself. Abd-el-Malik at once arose and after striking it several blows on the head with a stick, it fell down and was changed into an image of gold. He took what sufficed for the day’s needs and gave the larger portion to his visitor. When Hajm the covetous returned to his own house he pondered what he had seen, and concluding it would be as easy for him to convert fakírs into gold, invited to a feast at his house all the fakírs of the province. When they had feasted to their hearts’ content, Hajm seized a heavy club and began to unmercifully belabour his guests till he broke their heads and “the crimson torrent stained the carpet of hospitality.” The cries of the fakírs soon brought the police to their assistance, and a great crowd of people gathered outside the house. Hajm was immediately haled before the magistrate, and attempted to justify his conduct by giving an account of what he had seen done in the house of Abd-el-Malik. The merchant was sent for and declared Hajm to be mad, no better proof of which could be desired than his treatment of the fakírs. So Hajm the covetous was sent forthwith to the hospital for lunatics.
KHUDADAD AND HIS BROTHERS—p. [269].
Readers of The Nights must have observed that a large number of the tales begin with an account of a certain powerful king, whose dominions were almost boundless, whose treasury overflowed, and whose reign was a blessing to his people; but he had one all-absorbing care—he had no son. Thus in the tale of Khudadad we read that in the city of Harrán there dwelt a sultan “of illustrious lineage, a protector of the people, a lover of his lieges, a friend of mankind, and renowned for being gifted with every good quality. Allah Almighty had bestowed upon him all that his heart could desire, save the boon of a child; for though he had lovely wives within his haram-door and concubines galore [far too many, no doubt!], he had not been blessed with a son,” and so forth. This is the “regulation” opening of by far the greater number of Asiatic stories, even as it was de rigueur for the old pagan Arab poets to begin their kasídas with a lamentation for the departure of a fair one, whether real or imaginary. The Sultan of our story is constantly petitioning Heaven for the boon of a son (who among Easterns is considered as the “light of the house”), and at length there appears to him in his slumbers a comely man who bids him go on the morrow to his chief gardener and get from him a pomegranate, of which he should eat as many seeds as he pleases, after which his prayers for offspring should be granted. This remedy for barrenness is very common in Indian fictions (to which I believe Khudadad belongs), only it is usually the king’s wives who eat the seeds or fruit.[[148]] A few parallels to the opening of our tale from Indian sources may prove somewhat interesting, both to students of popular fictions and to those individuals who are vaguely styled “general readers.”
A Kashmírí tale, entitled “The Four Princes,” translated by the Rev. J. Hinton Knowles, in the “Indian Antiquary,” 1886,[[149]] thus begins: In days long since gone by there lived a king most clever, most holy, and most wise, who was a pattern king. His mind was always occupied with plans for the improvement of his country and people; his darbár was open to all; his ear was ever ready to listen to the petition of the humblest subject; he afforded every facility for trade; he established hospitals for the sick, inns (sará’e) for travellers, and large schools for those who wished to learn. These and many other such things he did. Nothing was left undone that ought to be done, and nothing was done that ought not to have been done. Under such a wise, just, and beneficent ruler the people of course lived very happily. Few poor or unenlightened or wicked persons were to be found in the country. But the great and good king had not a son. This was an intense sorrow to him—the one dark cloud that now and again overshadowed his otherwise happy and glorious life. Every day he prayed earnestly to Siva to grant him an heir to sit upon the throne after him. One day Siva appeared to him in the garb of a yogí,[[150]] and bade him ask a boon and it should be granted. “Take these four fruits,” said Siva, “and give them to your wife to eat on such a day before sunrise. Then shall your wife give birth to four sons who will be exceedingly clever and good.” The king follows these instructions and in due course his wife is delivered of four sons at one birth and thereupon dies. The rest of the story is a variant of the Tamil romance “Alakésa Kathá,”[[151]] and of “Strike, but hear!” in Rev. Lal Behari Day’s “Folk-Tales of Bengal.”
This is how the Tamil story of The Four Good Sisters begins (“Folk-Lore in Southern India,” Part iii., by Pandit S. M. Natésa Sástrí[[152]]): In the town of Tañjai there reigned a king named Hariji, who was a very good and charitable sovereign. In his reign the tiger and the bull drank out of the same pool, the serpent and the peacock amused themselves under the same tree; and thus even birds and beasts of a quarrelsome and inimical disposition lived together like sheep of the same flock. While the brute creation of the great God was thus living in friendship and happiness, need it be said that this king’s subjects led a life of peace and prosperity unknown in any other country under the canopy of heaven? But for all the peace which his subjects enjoyed, Harijí himself had no joy: his face was always drooping, his lips never moved in laughter, and he was as sad as sad could be, because he had no son.—After trying in vain the distribution of charitable gifts which his ministers and the priests recommended, the king resolves to retire into the wilderness and there endeavour to propitiate Mahésvara [i.e. Siva], hoping thus to have his desire fulfilled. He appoints his ministers to order the realm during his absence, and doffing his royal robes clothes himself in the bark of trees and takes up his abode in the desert. After practising the most severe austerities for the space of three years, Siva, mounted on his bull, with his spouse Párvatí by his side, appears before the hermit, who is overjoyed at the sight of the deity. Siva bids him ask any boon and it should be granted. The royal ascetic desires to have a son. Then says Siva: “For thy long penance we grant thy request. Choose then—a son who shall always be with thee till death, but shall be the greatest fool in the whole world; or four daughters who shall live with thee for a short time, then leave thee and return before thy death, but who shall be the incarnation of learning. To thee is left to choose which thou wilt have,” and so saying, the deity gives him a mango fruit for his wife to eat, and then disappears. The king elects to have the four learned daughters, whose history is very entertaining.
Another tale in the Pandit’s collection (No. 4) informs us that once upon a time in a town named Vañjaimánagar there ruled a king named Siváchár. He was a most just king and ruled so well that no stone thrown up fell down, no crow pecked at the new-drawn milk, the lion and the bull drank water from the same pond, and peace and prosperity reigned throughout the kingdom. Notwithstanding all these blessings, care always sat on his face. His days and nights he spent in praying that God might bless him with a son. Wherever he saw pípal trees he ordered Bráhmans to circumambulate them.[[153]] Whatever medicines the doctors recommended he was ever ready to swallow, however bitter they might be. At last fortune favoured Siváchár; for what religious man fails to obtain his desire? The king in his sixtieth year had a son, and his joy knew no bounds.
In like fashion does the Persian “Sindibád Náma” begin: There reigned in India a sage and mighty monarch, the bricks of whose palace were not of stone or marble but of gold; the fuel of whose kitchen was fresh wood of aloes; who had brought under the signet of his authority the kingdoms of Rúm and Abyssinia; and to whom were alike tributary the Ethiop Maháráj and the Roman Kaysar. He was distinguished above all monarchs for his virtue, clemency, and justice. But although he was the refuge of the Khalífate, he was not blessed with an heir: life and the world appeared profitless to him, because he had no fruit of the heart in the garden of his soul.—One night, while reclining on his couch, sad and thoughtful, consumed with grief like a morning taper, he heaved a deep sigh, upon which one of his favourite wives (he had a hundred in his harem), advancing towards him and kissing the ground, inquired the cause of his distress. He discloses it. His wife consoles him, encourages him to hope, and assures him that if he prayed, his prayers would be answered; but that at all events it was his duty to be resigned to the will of God. “Prayer is the only key that will open the door of difficulty.” The king fasted for a whole week and was assiduous in his devotions. One night he prayed with peculiar earnestness and self-abasement till morning. The companion of his couch was one of his wives, fairer than the sun and the envy of a perí. He clasped her in his embrace, exclaiming, “There is no strength, no power, save in God!” and he felt assured in his heart that his prayer was granted. In due time a son was born to him, and, eager to show his gratitude, he bestowed munificent gifts and lavished his treasures on all his subjects.
The seventh of Lal Behari Day’s “Folk-Tales of Bengal” opens as follows: Once on a time there reigned a king who had seven queens. He was very sad, for the seven queens were all barren. A holy mendicant, however, one day told the king that in a certain forest there grew a tree, on a branch of which hung seven mangoes; if the king himself plucked those mangoes and gave one to each of the queens they would all become mothers. So the king went to the forest, plucked the seven mangoes that grew upon one branch, and gave a mango to each of the queens to eat. In a short time the king’s heart was filled with joy, as he heard that the seven queens were pregnant.—In Miss Stokes’ “Indian Fairy Tales,” p. 91, Rájá Barbál receives from an ascetic 160 lichí fruits, one of which he is to give to each of his 160 wives, who would have each a son.—Similar instances occur in Steel and Temple’s “Wide Awake Stories”, from the Panjáb and Kashmír, pp. 47 and 290, and in Natésa Sástrí’s “Dravidian Nights’ Entertainments” (a translation of the Tamil romance entitled “Madanakámarájankadai”), pp. 55, 56.—Among biblical instances of women having offspring after being long barren are: Sarah, the wife of Abraham (Gen. ch. xv. 2–4, xxi. 1, 2); Rachel, the wife of Jacob (Gen. ch. xxx., 1, 22, 23); and Elisabeth, the wife of Zacharias, the high-priest, who were the parents of John the Baptist (Luke, ch. i.). Whether children be a “blessing,” notwithstanding all that has been said and sung about the exquisite joys of paternity and maternity, is perhaps doubtful, generally speaking: one thing is certain, that many an honest fellow has had too much cause to “wonder why the devil he got an heir!”[[154]]
Although no version or variant of the story of Khudadad and his Brothers has yet been found besides the one in the Turkish collection “Al-Faráj ba’d al-Shiddah,” yet the elements of which it is composed occur in many European and Asiatic tales. As we have in Galland a story of sisters who envied their cadette, so, by way of justice to the “fair sex,” we have likewise this tale of envious brothers, which is a favourite theme of popular fictions, only in the story of Khudadad, the brothers were not at first aware of the hero’s kinship to them, though they had been informed of it when they most ungratefully cut and slashed him with their swords as he lay asleep by the side of his beauteous bride the Princess of Daryabár.