The result of the thief’s visit was that, after eight or nine months had elapsed, the princess bore a son. When the thief heard of this, he decided that he must not miss his son’s birth-feast, so he assumed the appearance of a courtier [and betook himself to the king’s palace]. As he was leaving the palace he called out to the royal servants, “O friends, by order of the king, plunder the merchants’ quarter!” As the servants thought that the king had given permission for the plundering of the merchants’ quarter in honour of his grandson’s birth, they set to work thereat. In consequence of this a great outcry arose, and the king asked what was the meaning of it. When the ministers had supplied him with a full account, the king said, “If this be so, I also have been taken in by him. Wherefore, if I do not punish him, I shall lose my throne.”
With this idea in view he caused an enclosure to be made, and, after some little time had elapsed, he ordered his ministers to make public through the realm a proclamation to the effect that all men who dwelt in the kingdom were bound to assemble within that enclosure; and that no excuse would avail, but if any one did not appear he should be punished. When the ministers had made this order public, and all the inhabitants of the realm were assembled together, the king gave the boy a wreath of flowers, and told him to give it to the man who was his father; and he gave orders to the watchmen to lay hands upon the man to whom the boy should give the wreath. As the boy walked with the wreath through the assembled crowds and closely observed them, he caught sight of the thief, and, in accordance with the incomprehensible sequence of human affairs, handed him the wreath. The king’s [[43]]watchmen seized the thief and brought him before the king. The king asked his ministers what ought to be done. They were of opinion that the thief must be put to death. But the king said, “O friends, so little does such a hero of a man deserve to be put to death, that he ought much rather to be carefully watched over.” Thereupon he endowed his daughter with ornaments of all sorts, and gave her to the thief as his wife, and bestowed upon her the half of his kingdom.[3] [[44]]
[1] Kah-gyur, iv. 132–135. One of the oldest of popular tales is the story told by Herodotus (bk. ii. chap. 121) of the treasury of Rhampsinitus, which its builder’s two sons are in the habit of robbing, until one of the thieves is caught in the snares set for their feet, whereupon the other, to prevent a discovery, cuts off his brother’s head and runs away. The king gives orders to expose the corpse, and to keep watch so as to see whether any one weeps and wails over it. The surviving son, forced by his mother’s threats to look after his brother’s burial, comes to the spot provided with skins of wine, makes the watchmen drunk, shaves off the right side of their beards, and carries away the dead body. Thereupon the king’s daughter is obliged to yield herself to every one who will relate to her the cleverest and most scandalous trick he has ever played in his life. The doer of the deed comes and betrays himself. But when the princess tries to seize him, he leaves in her hold, not his own hand, but that of the dead man. At last the king promises his daughter’s hand to the doer of this deed, so the thief reveals himself and receives the princess. As a like legend is connected with the treasury of Hyrieus in Orchomenus, where Trophonius cut off the head of his brother Agamedes (Pausan. ix. 37), and as according to Charax (Schol. ad Aristoph. Nubes, v. 508) the same story is told also of the treasury of Augeias at Elis, we can easily understand why some commentators, like C. O. Müller, wish to claim the legend for the Greeks, while Buttmann (Mythol. ii. 228) wishes to trace it to the East. See Liebrecht in his edition of Dunlop’s “History of Fiction,” p. 264, and Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen iii. 260.—S. [↑]
[2] A skull-carrying Śiva-worshipper. [↑]
[3] Compare Loiseleur Deslongchamps, “Essai sur les Fables Indiennes” (Paris, 1838), ii. 124, and Reinhold Köhler in Benfey’s “Orient und Occident,” ii. 303–313. In the Gaelic tale of “The Shifty Lad,” the thief is found out by having a golden apple given to him by a child. R. Köhler adds, “In the story of Dümmling, who wishes that the princess may have a child (Hahn, No. 8; Grundtvig, ii. 308; Müllenhof’s “Sagen,” p. 481; “Zeitschrift für Deutsche Mythologie,” i. 38), the hero is discovered to be the father of the princess’s child, inasmuch as it offers him a golden apple in preference to all the other men who have been invited.” In the variant of the tale in Basile’s “Pentamerone,” i. 3, the boy embraces his father. In a Gaelic story (Orient und Occident, ii. 124), the princess recognises the father of her child among the men of Erin by the fact that a bird alights upon his head.—S. [↑]
V.
SUDHANA AVADĀNA.[1]
In olden times there were two kings in Panchāla, one in the north and the other in the south. The king of North Panchāla, whose name was Dhana, like a law-observing monarch, ruled according to the law in Hastināpura, a city which was endowed with wealth, health, fruitfulness, and greatness of extent and population, and which was free from disquiet, disorder, uproar, and robbery, in which disease had quite come to an end, and which was fully provided with rice, sugar-cane, bullocks, and buffaloes. Moreover in this city there was a great lake, full of blue, red, and white lotuses, and rendered pleasant and beautiful by ducks and geese of various kinds. As the Nāga Janmachitra,[2] who dwelt in this lake, sent down from time to time a torrent of rain, the land was very fruitful; and as the realm overflowed with food and drink, the inhabitants, intent upon gifts, sacrifices, and reverence, bestowed sustenance upon the Śramaṇas and Brahmans, and the poor and needy.