(According to a variant related by a Washerman she joined a poor man and went about with him, getting a living by begging, until she died.)
P. B. Madahapola, Raṭēmahatmayā, North-western Province.
In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 184, this story was given by Mr. H. A. Pieris, extracted from a dramatic work called Kolan-kavi-pota. A King named Maname and his Queen while on a hunting excursion lost their way in the forest. The Vaedda King stopped them, but offered to release the King if he would hand over the Queen. The King refused, they fought, and the Vaedda King got him down. Maname asked the Queen for his sword; but as she had fallen in love with the handsome Vaeddā she held out the sheath, and when the King seized it drew out the sword and gave it to the Vaeddā, who cut off the King’s head. Afterwards the Vaeddā made off with her jewels and clothes at the river. While she sat there, Śakra appeared in the form of a fox (jackal), holding a piece of meat, Mātali as a hawk, and another dēva [Pañcaśikka] as a fish. The jackal dropped its meat on the bank, and plunged into the water to seize the fish as it swam by; the hawk then carried off the piece of meat. The Queen remarked on the stupidity of the jackal, which replied that her folly was greater than his; and she died of a broken heart when she realised it. This story is simply the Jātaka tale No. 374 (vol. iii, p. 145), except that in the Jātaka the woman is not described as dying or being killed.
In the Aventures de Paramārta of the Abbé Dubois, a dog which had stolen a leg of mutton in a village, while crossing a river with it observed its reflection in the water, let go its own mutton, and sprang to seize that of the other dog, of course losing both.
In the Totā Kahānī (Small), p. 81, a young married woman eloped with a stranger one night, and while near a pond he stole her jewels when she was asleep. In the morning a jackal came up, carrying a bone. Seeing a fish that had fallen on the bank, it dropped the bone and rushed to catch the fish, which floundered into the water. In the meantime the bone was carried off by a dog. The woman laughed, quoted a proverb, “He who leaves the half to run after the whole, gets neither the whole nor the half,” and told the jackal her story. It recommended her to return home shamming insanity; she did this, and allayed suspicion by it.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 76, a fool who went to drink water at a tank saw in it the reflection of a golden-crested bird that was sitting on a tree. Thinking it was real gold, he entered the water several times to get it, but the movement of the surface caused it to disappear each time. In Julien’s Les Avadānas this story is No. XLVI, vol. i, p. 171; in this tale the man saw the reflection of a piece of gold which the bird had placed in the tree.
In the Preface to The Kathākoça, p. xvii, Mr. Tawney quoted from Professor Jacobi’s introduction to the Pariśishṭa Parvan the Jain form of the story, in which the robber left the Queen without clothing on the river bank. The Vyantara god, in order to save her soul, took the form of a jackal carrying a piece of flesh. When he dropped it and rushed to seize a fish that sprang on the bank, a bird carried off the meat. The Queen laughed, the jackal retorted, exhorted her to take refuge in the Jina, and she became a nun.
In Les Avadānas (Julien), No. LXXV, vol. ii, p. 11, a woman eloped with her lover, who carried her gold, silver, and clothes across a river and abandoned her. A fox which had caught a sparrow-hawk came up, let go the hawk in order to spring at a fish in the river, and lost both. When the woman remarked on his stupidity, the fox admitted it, and retorted that hers was still greater. This is the form in which the story occurs in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 381; but in vol. ii, p. 367, there is a variant which agrees with the following Tibetan tale.
In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 232, a robber chief for whom a woman abandoned a blind man, sent her first into the river and then made off with her things. A jackal which came with a piece of flesh dropped it in order to seize a fish on the bank; this sprang into the water, and a vulture carried away the meat. After the usual retorts, the jackal agreed to assist her on her promising it meat daily, told her to stand in the water immersed to the neck, and persuaded the King whose wife she had been to pardon her on account of this penance.