After that, the Brāhmaṇa having taken the kitten gave it to the Cat. Then the Cat asked, “What did you bring this kitten for?”
The Brāhmaṇa says, “For you I did not rear this kitten. Having reared it to give [it in marriage] to the most powerful person of all in the world, I took it to give to the Sun, the Divine King. Then he told me to give it to the Rain-cloud. When I took it near him he told me to give it to the Wind-cloud. When I took it near him he told me to give it to the Ground Ant-hill. When I took it near him he said, ‘There is a greater person than I, the Bull.’ When I took it near him he told me to give it to the Leopard. When I took it near him the Leopard said, ‘Because the Cat is my Preceptor give it to the Cat.’ Therefore I brought this kitten to give it to you.”
After that, the Cat having said, “It is good,” marrying the kitten it remained there.
North-western Province.
In the Literary Supplement to The Examiner of Ceylon for 1875, it was stated that the cheetah (leopard) applied to the cat to teach him the art of climbing, but the cat forgot to show him how to descend. From that time the cheetah never spares the cat if he can catch him, but out of veneration for his old teacher he places the body on some elevation and worships it [that is, makes obeisance to it], instead of eating it. (Quoted by Mr. J. P. Lewis in The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 149).
In the short tales at the end of The Adventures of Rāja Rasālu, (Panjāb, Swynnerton), p. 179, the tiger was taught by the cat. When he thought he had learnt everything the cat knew, the tiger sprang at it, intending to eat it; but the cat climbed up a tree, and the tiger was unable to follow it. The story is repeated in Indian Nights’ Entertainment, p. 350.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 56, an ambitious Caṇḍāla girl who determined to marry a universal monarch saw the supreme King bow down to a hermit. She followed the latter, but when he prostrated himself at a temple of Śiva she attached herself to that God. A dog behaved in such a manner at the shrine that she followed the dog, which entered a Caṇḍāla’s house and rolled at the feet of a young Caṇḍāla; the girl therefore was married to him.
In the same work, vol. ii, p. 72, a hermit transformed a young mouse into a girl, and reared her. When she had grown up he offered her to the Sun, saying he wished to marry her to some mighty one. He was referred in turn to the Cloud and the Mountains, but the Himālaya said that the Mice were stronger than he and dug holes in him. She was then transformed into a mouse once more, and married a forest mouse. This latter form of the tale is given in The Fables of Pilpay, in which it was the girl who wished to be married to a powerful and invincible husband.
In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 168, the parents of a beautiful girl of a semi-aboriginal caste determined to marry her to the greatest person in the world. They took her in turn to the Sun, the Cloud, the Wind, the Mountain, and the Ground Rat. When they applied to the rat it informed them that their own people were more powerful than the rats, as they dug out and ate them; so in the end the girl was married to a man of their own caste.