Book Name:

The Ocean of Story Volume 1

Chapter XIV

Accordingly while the King of Vatsa was remain-[M] ing in that Vindhya forest the warder of King Chaṇḍamahāsena came to him. And when he arrived he did obeisance to the king, and spoke as follows: –

“The King Chaṇḍamahāsena sends you this message:

‘You did rightly in carrying off Vāsavadattā yourself, for I had brought you to my Court with this very object; and the reason I did not myself give her to you while you were a prisoner was that I feared, if I did so, you might not be well disposed towards me. Now, O king, I ask you to wait a little, in order that the marriage of my daughter may not be performed without due ceremonies. For my son Gopālaka will soon arrive in your Court, and he will celebrate with appropriate ceremonies the marriage of that sister of his.’”

This message the warder brought to the King of Vatsa, and said various things to Vāsavadattā.

Then the King of Vatsa, being pleased, determined on going to Kauśāmbī with Vāsavadattā, who was also in high spirits. He told his ally Pulindaka and that warder in the service of his father-in-law to await, where they were, the arrival of Gopālaka, and then to come with him to Kauśāmbī. Then the great king set out early the next day for his own city with that Queen Vāsavadattā, followed by huge elephants raining streams of ichor that seemed like moving peaks of the Vindhya range accompanying him out of affection; he was, as it were, praised by the earth, that outdid the compositions of his minstrels, while it rang with the hoofs of his horses and the tramplings of his soldiers; and by means of the towering clouds of dust from his army, that ascended to heaven, he made Indra fear that the mountains were sporting with unshorn wings. [1] fine exaggeration was borrowed by the Persians and appears in Firdausī, where the trampling of men and horses raises such a dust that it takes one

Then the king reached his country in two or three days, and rested one night in a palace belonging to Rumaṇvat; and on the next day, accompanied by his beloved, he enjoyed, after a long absence, the great delight of entering Kauśāmbī, the people of which were eagerly looking with uplifted faces for his approach. And then that city was resplendent as a wife, her lord having returned after a long absence, beginning her adornment and auspicious bathing vicariously by means of her women; and there the citizens, their sorrow now at an end, beheld the King of Vatsa accompanied by his bride, as peacocks behold a cloud accompanied by lightning; [2] and the wives of the citizens, standing on the tops of the palaces, filled the heaven with their faces, that had the appearance of golden lotuses blooming in the heavenly Ganges. Then the King of Vatsa entered his royal palace with Vāsavadattā, who seemed like a second goddess of royal fortune; and that palace then shone as if it had just awaked from sleep, full of kings who had come to show their devotion, festive with songs of minstrels. [3] Not long after came Gopālaka, the brother of Vāsavadattā, bringing with him the warder and Pulindaka. The king went to meet him, and Vāsavadattā received him with her eyes expanded with delight, as if he were a second spirit of joy. While she was looking at this brother a tear dimmed her eyes lest she should be ashamed; and then she, being encouraged by him with the words of her father’s message, considered that her object in life was attained, now that she was reunited to her own relations.

Then on the next day Gopālaka, with the utmost eagerness, set about the high festival of her marriage with the King of Vatsa, carefully observing all prescribed ceremonies. Then the King of Vatsa received the hand of Vāsavadattā, like a beautiful shoot lately budded on the creeper of love. She too, with her eyes closed through the great joy of touching her beloved’s hand, having her limbs bathed in perspiration accompanied with trembling, covered all over with extreme horripilation, [4] appeared at that moment as if struck by the god of the flowery bow with the arrow of bewilderment, the weapon of wind and the water weapon in quick succession; [5] when she walked round the fire, keeping it to the right, [6] her eyes being red with the smoke, she had her first taste, so to speak, of the sweetness of honey and wine. [7] Then by means of the jewels brought by Gopālaka, and the gifts of the kings, the monarch of Vatsa became a real king of kings. [8]

That bride and bridegroom, after their marriage had been celebrated, first exhibited themselves to the eyes of the people and then entered their private apartments. Then the King of Vatsa, on the day so auspicious to himself, invested Gopālaka and Pulindaka with turbans of honour and other distinctions, and he commissioned Yaugandharāyaṇa and Rumaṇvat to confer appropriate distinctions on the kings who had come to visit him, and on the citizens.

Then Yaugandharāyaṇa said to Rumaṇvat:

“The king has given us a difficult commission, for men’s feelings are hard to discover. And even a child will certainly do mischief if not pleased. To illustrate this point, listen to the tale of the child Vinaṣṭaka, my friend:

 

9. Story of the Clever Deformed Child

Once on a time there was a certain Brāhman named Rudraśarman, and he, when he became a householder, had two wives, and one of his wives gave birth to a son and died; and then the Brāhman entrusted that son to the care of his stepmother; and when he grew to a tolerable stature she gave him coarse food; the consequence was, the boy became pale and got a swollen stomach.

Then Rudraśarman said to that second wife:

“How comes it that you have neglected this child of mine that has lost its mother?”

She said to her husband:

“Though I take affectionate care of him, he is nevertheless the strange object you see. What am I to do with him?”

Whereupon the Brāhman thought:

“No doubt it is the child’s nature to be like this.”

For who sees through the deceitfulness of the speeches of women uttered with affected simplicity?

Then that child began to go by the name of Bālavinash-ṭaka [9] in his father’s house, because they said this child (bāla) is deformed (vinashta).

Then Bālavinaṣṭaka thought to himself:

“This stepmother of mine is always ill-treating me, therefore I had better be revenged upon her in some way”

– for though the boy was only a little more than five years old he was clever enough. Then he said secretly to his father when he returned from the king’s Court, with half-suppressed voice: [10]

“Papa, I have two papas.”

So the boy said every day, and his father, suspecting that his wife had a paramour, would not even touch her. She for her part thought:

“Why is my husband angry without my being guilty? I wonder whether Bālavinaṣṭaka has been at any tricks.”

So she washed Bālavinaṣṭaka with careful kindness, and gave him dainty food, and, taking him on her lap, asked him the following question: –

“My son, why have you incensed your father Rudraśarman against me?”

When he heard that, the boy said to his stepmother:

“I will do more harm to you than that, if you do not immediately cease ill-treating me. You take good care of your own children; why do you perpetually torment me?”

When she heard that, she bowed before him, and said with solemn oath:

I will not do so any more; so reconcile my husband to me.”

Then the child said to her:

“Well, when my father comes home, let one of your maids show him a mirror, and leave the rest to me.”

She said, “Very well,” and by her orders a maid showed a mirror to her husband as soon as he returned home.

Thereupon the child, pointing out the reflection of his father in the mirror, said:

“There is my second father.”

When he heard that, Rudraśarman dismissed his suspicions and was immediately reconciled to his wife, whom he had blamed without cause. [11]

 

[M]

“Thus even a child may do mischief if it is annoyed, and therefore we must carefully conciliate all this retinue.”

Saying this, Yaugandharāyaṇa, with the help of Rumaṇvat, carefully honoured all the people on this the King of Vatsa’s great day of rejoicing.

And they gratified [12] all the kings so successfully that each one of them thought:

“These two men are devoted to me alone.”

And the king honoured those two ministers and Vasantaka with garments, unguents and ornaments bestowed with his own hand, and he also gave them grants of villages. Then the King of Vatsa, having celebrated the great festival of his marriage, considered all his wishes gratified, now that he was linked to Vāsavadattā. Their mutual love, having blossomed after a long time of expectation, was so great, owing to the strength of their passion, that their hearts continually resembled those of the sorrowing Chakravākas when the night, during which they are separated, comes to an end. And as the familiarity of the couple increased, their love seemed to be ever renewed. Then Gopālaka, being ordered by his father to return to get married himself, went away, after having been entreated by the King of Vatsa to return quickly.

In the course of time the King of Vatsa became faithless, and secretly loved an attendant of the harem named Vira-chitā, with whom he had previously had an intrigue. One day he made a mistake and addressed the queen by her name; thereupon he had to conciliate her by clinging to her feet, and bathed in her tears he was anointed [13] a fortunate king. Moreover, he married a princess of the name of Bandh-umatī, whom Gopālaka had captured by the might of his arm and sent as a present to the queen; and whom she concealed, changing her name to Manjulikā; who seemed like another Lakṣmī issuing from the sea of beauty. Her the king saw when he was in the company of Vasantaka, and secretly married her by the gāndharva ceremony in a summer-house. And that proceeding of his was beheld by Vāsavadattā, who was in concealment, and she was angry, and had Vasantaka put in fetters. Then the king had recourse to the good offices of a female ascetic, a friend of the queen’s, who had come with her from her father’s Court, of the name of Sānkrityānanl. She appeased the queen’s anger, and got Bandhumatī presented to the king by the obedient queen, for tender is the heart of virtuous wives.

Then the queen released Vasantaka from imprisonment; he came into the presence of the queen and said to her with a laugh:

“Bandhumatī did you an injury, but what did I do to you? You are angry with adders [14] and you kill water-snakes.”

Then the queen, out of curiosity, asked him to explain that metaphor, and he continued as follows: –

 

10. Story of Ruru

Once on a time a hermit’s son of the name of Ruru, wandering about at will, saw a maiden of wonderful beauty, the daughter of a heavenly nymph named Menakā by a Vidyādhara, and brought up by a hermit of the name of Sthūlakeśa in his hermitage. That lady, whose name was Priṣaḍvarā, so captivated the mind of that Ruru when he saw her, that he went and begged the hermit to give her to him in marriage. Sthūlakeśa for his part betrothed the maiden to him, and when the wedding was nigh at hand suddenly an adder bit her.

Then the heart of Ruru was full of despair; but he heard this voice in the heaven:

“O Brāhman, raise to life with the gift of half thy own life [15] this maiden, whose allotted term is at an end.”

When he heard that, Ruru gave her half of his own life, as he had been directed; by means of that she revived, and Ruru married her. Thenceforward he was incensed with the whole race of serpents, and whenever he saw’ a serpent he killed it, thinking to himself as he killed each one:

“This may have bitten my wife.”

One day a water-snake said to him with human voice as he was about to slay it:

“You are incensed against adders, Brāhman, but why do you slay water-snakes? An adder bit your wife, and adders are a distinct species from water-snakes; all adders are venomous, water-snakes are not venomous.”

When he heard that, he said in answer to the water-snake:

“My friend, who are you?”

The water-snake said:

“Brāhman, I am a hermit fallen from my high estate by a curse, and this curse was appointed to last till I held converse with you.”

When he said that he disappeared, and after that Ruru did not kill water-snakes.

 

[M]

“So I said this to you metaphorically:

‘My queen, you are angry with adders and you kill water-snakes.’”

When he had uttered this speech, full of pleasing wit, Vasantaka ceased, and Vāsavadattā, sitting at the side of her husband, was pleased with him. Such soft and sweet tales in which Vasantaka displayed various ingenuity, did the loving Udayana, King of Vatsa, continually make use of to conciliate his angry wife, while he sat at her feet. That happy king’s tongue was ever exclusively employed in tasting the flavour of wine, and his ear was ever delighting in the sweet sounds of the lute, and his eye was ever riveted on the face of his beloved.

Comments:

[1] Alluding to Indra’s having cut the wings of the mountains. – This fine exaggeration was borrowed by the Persians and appears in Firdausī, where the trampling of men and horses raises such a dust that it takes one

[2] The peafowl are delighted at the approach of the rainy season, when “ their sorrow” comes to an end.

[3] It is often the duty of these minstrels to wake the king with their songs.

[4] See note on p. 120. – n.m.p.

[5] Weapons well known in Hindu mythology. See the sixth act of the Uttar a Rāma Charita.

[6] See note at the end of the chapter. – n.m.p.

[7] Sūtrapātam akarot – she tested, so to speak. Cf. Taranga 24, śl. 93. The fact is, the smoke made her eyes as red as if she had been drinking.

[8] Or “like Kuvera.” There is a pun here.

[9] Young deformed.

[10] Durgāprasād’s text reads avispaṣṭayā girā (instead of ardhāviṣṭayā girā), meaning “with his inarticulate voice,” which is perhaps more suitable here. – n.m.p.

[11] Tales of precocious children are widely spread both in the East and West. In the Simhāsana-dvātriṃśikā (or Thirty-two Tales of a Throne) the sagacity of a young boy brings a jewel thief and his accomplices to justice. There is one Enfant Terrible story which is found in several Persian and Arabic collections.

It appears as one of the Prince’s stories in the Sindibād Nāma, and relates how a child of three, speaking from its cradle, rebuked an adulterous king about to gratify an unlawful passion, on whom its words made such an impression that the king abandoned his intention and became a paragon of virtue. It appears in Sindban and Syntipas, and also in the Nights (Burton, vol. vi, p. 208), as “The Debauchee and the Three-year-old Child.”

Another famous story of a clever child is that of “The Stolen Purse.” The outline of the story is as follows: – Three (sometimes four) people enter into partnership. They amass money and deposit it with a trusted woman, telling her she is not to give it up unless all partners are present. One day they are all together and one of the men calls in at the old woman’s house ostensibly for a comb (or other articles for the bath) and says: “Give me the purse.” “No,” says the woman; “you are alone.” He explains the others are just outside, and calls out: “She is to give it me, isn’t she?” They (thinking he refers to the comb) say: “Yes.” He gets the purse and escapes out of the town. The others refuse to believe the woman’s explanations and take her to the judge. She is about to lose her case when a child of five, hearing the details, tells her to say to the Kazi that she intends to keep strictly to her original agreement and will give up the purse when all the partners are present. This could certainly not be done as one had run away, and so the woman is saved.

This story with minor differences occurs in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Greek and Italian collections. It is also found in numerous English jest-books. Burton (Nights, vol. vi, pp. 210, 211) gives a long note on the subject.

Further references should be made to both Clouston and Comparetti’s works on the Book of Sindibād, and also to Chauvin, Bibliographie des Ouvrages Arabes, viii, pp. 62-64. – n.m.p.

[12] Cf. the distribution of presents on the occasion of King Etzel’s marriage in the Nibelungenlied.

[13] It must be remembered that a king among the Hindus was inaugurated with water, not oil.

[14] The word "adders” must here do duty for all venomous kinds of serpents.

[15] A similar story is found in the fourth book of the Pañchatantra, fable 5, where Benfey compares the story of Yayāti and his son Puru (Benfey, Pañchatantra, i, 436).

Bernhard Schmidt in his Griechische Märchen, p. 37, mentions a very similar story, which he connects with that of Admetos and Alkestis. In a popular ballad of Trebisond a young man named Jannis, the only son of his parents, is about to be married when Charon comes to fetch him. He supplicates St George, who obtains for him the concession, that his life may be spared, in case his father will give him half the period of life still remaining to him. His father refuses, and in the same way his mother. At last his betrothed gives him half her allotted period of life, and the marriage takes place. The story of Ruru is found in the Adiparva of the Mahābhārata (see Lévêque, Mythes et Legendes de l’Inde, pp. 278 and 374). – See also Benfey, op. cit., ii, 545, and Chauvin, Bibliographie des Ouvrages Arcibes, viii, p. 119 . – n. m. p.

NOTE ON DEISUL OR CIRCUMAMBULATION

The practice of walking round an object of reverence with the right hand towards it (which is one of the ceremonies mentioned in our author’s account of Vāsavadattā’s marriage) has been exhaustively discussed by Dr Samuel Fergusson in his paper, “ On the Ceremonial Turn called Deisul,” published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy for March 1877 (vol. i, Ser. II., No. 12). He shows it to have existed among the ancient Romans as well as the Celts. One of the most striking of his quotations is from the Curculio of Plautus (I, i, 69). Phædromus says: “Quo me vortam nescio.” Palinurus jestingly replies: “Si deos salutas dextrovorsum censeo.” Cf. also the following passage of Valerius Flaccus (Argon, viii, 243): –

“Inde ubi sacrificas cum conjuge venit ad aras

Æsonides, unaque adeunt pariterque precari

Incipiunt. Ignem Pollux undamque jugalem

Prætulit ut dextrum pariter vertantur in orbem.”

The above passage forms a striking comment upon our text. Cf. also Plutarch in his Life of Camillus: “

It is possible that the following passage in Lucretius alludes to the same practice: –

“Nec pietas ulla est velatum sæpe videri

Vertier ad lapidem atque omnes accedere ad aras.”

Dr Fergusson is of opinion that this movement was a symbol of the cosmical rotation, an imitation of the apparent course of the sun in the heavens. Cf Hyginus, Fable CCV:

“Arge venatrix, cum cervum sequeretur, cervo dixisse fertur: Tu licet Solis cur sum sequaris, tamen te consequar. Sol, iratus, in cervam earn convertit”

He quotes, to prove that the practice existed among the ancient Celts, Athenæus, IV, par. 36, whoadduces from Posidonius the following statement: – The above quotations are but a few scraps from the full feast of Dr Fergusson’s paper. See also the remarks of the Rev. S. Beal in the Indian Antiquary for March 1880, p. 67.

See also Henderson’s Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, p. 45:

“The vicar of Stranton (Hartlepool) was standing at the churchyard gate, awaiting the arrival of a funeral party, when to his astonishment the whole group, who had arrived within a few yards of him, suddenly wheeled and made the circuit of the churchyard wall, thus traversing its west, north and east boundaries, and making the distance some five or six times greater than was necessary. The vicar, astonished at this proceeding, asked the sexton the reason of so extraordinary a movement. The reply was as follows : –

‘Why, ye wad no hae them carry the dead again the sun; the dead maun aye go with the sun.’”

This custom is no doubt an ancient British or Celtic custom, and corresponds to the Highland usage of making the deazil, or walking three times round a person according to the course of the sun. Old Highlanders will still make the deazil round those whom they wish well. To go round the person in the opposite direction, or “withershins,” is an evil incantation and brings ill fortune. Hunt in his Romances and Drolls of the West of England, p. 418, says: “If an invalid goes out for the first time and makes a circuit, the circuit must be with the sun, if against the sun, there will be a relapse.” Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 322, quotes from the Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. v, p. 88, the following statement of a Scottish minister, with reference to a marriage ceremony: – “After leaving the church, the whole company walk round it, keeping the church walls always on the right hand.”

Thiselton Dyer, in his English Folk-Lore, p. 171, mentions a similar custom as existing in the west of England. In Devonshire blackheads or pinsoles are cured by creeping on one’s hands and knees under or through a bramble three times with the sun – that is, from east to west. See also Ralston’s Songs of the Russian People, p. 299.

See also the extract from Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland in Brand’s Popular Antiquities, vol. i, p. 225: “When a Highlander goes to bathe or to drink out of a consecrated fountain, he must always approach by going round the place from east to west on the south side, in imitation of the apparent diurnal motion of the sun. This is called in Gaelic going round the right, or the lucky way. The opposite course is the wrong, or the unlucky way. And if a person’s meat or drink were to affect the wind-pipe, or come against his breath, they would instantly cry out, ‘ Desheal,’ which is an ejaculation praying it may go by the right way.” Cf the note in Munro’s Lucretius on v, 1199, and Burton’s Narratives from Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i, p. 278. – Here Tawney’s note ends. As it deals almost entirely with circum-ambulation in the West, I will confine my remarks chiefly to the East.

In India the custom of walking round objects as part of sacred or secular ritual is known by the name of pradakṣiṇa. In our text Vāsavadattā walks round the fire keeping it on her right – i.e. sunwise or clockwise. This in accordance with the Laws of Manu, where the bride is told to walk three times round the domestic hearth. Sometimes both bride and bridegroom do it, or else they walk round the central pole of the marriage-shed. Similarly in the Gṛhya Sūtras Brāhmans on initiation are to drive three times round a tree or sacred pool.

Before building a new house it is necessary to walk three times round the site sprinkling water on the ground, accompanying the action with the repetition of the verse, “O waters, ye are wholesome,” from the Rig-Veda. (See Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxix, p. 213.) Pradakṣiṇa is also performed round sacrifices and sacred buildings or tombs. In the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa it is set down that when walking round the sacrifice a burning coal is to be held in the hand. When sacrifices are offered to ancestors, the officiating Brāhman first walks three times round the sacrifice with his left shoulder towards it, after which he turns round and walks three times to the right, or sunwise. This is explained in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa as follows: – “ The reason why he again moves thrice round from left to right is that, while the first time he went away from here after those three ancestors of his, he now comes back again from them to this, his own world; that is why he again moves thrice from left to right.” This anti-sunwise movement is called prasavya in Sanskrit, and corresponds to the Celtic cartuasul, or withershins.

The movement from left to right is almost universally considered unlucky and ill-omened, and the English words “sinister” and “dexterous” show how the meaning has come to us unaltered from the Latin.

In his excellent work, The Migration of Symbols, 1894, Count D’Alviella has shown in his study of the swastika or gammadion that the “right-handed” variety is always the lucky one. Sir George Birdwood mentions that among the Hindus the “right-handed” swastika represents the male principle and is the emblem of Gaṇeśa, while the sauwastika (or "left-handed”) represents the female principle and is sacred to Kālī, and typifies the course of the sun in the subterranean world from west to east, symbolising darkness, death and destruction.

The magical effect on objects repeatedly circumambulated is exemplified in the Mahā Parinibbāṇa Sutta. We read that after the pyre on which lay the body of Buddha had been walked round three times by the five hundred disciples it took fire on its own account. Readers will naturally think of Joshua and the walls of Jericho.

The pradaksliiṇa rite was also performed by the ancient Buddhists, and still is, by the modern Hindus for the purpose of purification. In India, Tibet, China and Japan we find galleries, or walls round stūpas or shrines for circum-ambulation of pilgrims. The same idea is, of course, connected with the Ka’bah at Mecca (which we shall discuss shortly) and the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

It has often been suggested by Indian students that the reason for walking round an object three times is connected with the traditional "three steps” of Viṣṇu, as God of the Sun. Evidence does not, however, seem sufficient to attempt any decisive statement on that point.

Three is considered a lucky number among the Hindus, and with seven forms the two most lucky numbers throughout the world.

Turning to the Moslem world we find that in circumambulating the Ka’bah at Mecca, the pilgrims walk from left to right, which is nearly always considered unlucky. The “Tawaf,” as it is called, has been described by Burton (Pilgrimage, 1st edition, 1855-1856, vol. iii, pp. 204, 205, 234-236). He gives full details of the seven circuits with all the elaborate sunnats, or practices, involved. In a note we read the following: –

“Moslem moralists have not failed to draw spiritual food from this mass of materialism.

‘To circuit the Bait Ullah,’

said the Pir Raukhan (As. Soc., vol. xi, and Dabistan, vol. iii, ‘Miyan Bayezid’),

‘and to be free from wickedness, and crimes, and quarrels, is the duty enjoined by religion. But to circuit the house of the friend of Allah (i.e. the heart), to combat bodily propensities, and to worship the angels, is the business of the (mystic) path.’

Thus Saadi, in his sermons, – which remind the Englishman of ‘poor Yorick,’

‘He who travels to the Kaabah on foot makes a circuit of the Kaabah, but he who performs the [Page 193] pilgrimage of the Kaabah in his heart is encircled by the Kaabah.’

And the greatest Moslem divines sanction this visible representation of an invisible and heavenly shrine, by declaring that, without a material medium, it is impossible for man to worship the Eternal Spirit.”

Further references to the deiseil, deasil or deisul in Greece, Rome and Egypt, among the Celts and Teutons, in England, Scotland and Ireland, and among savage tribes will be found in D’Alviella’s article, “ Circum-ambulation,” in Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., vol. iii, pp. 657-659, from which several of the above references have been taken. – n.m.p.

Abstract: