In a certain country there are a Gamarala and a Gama-mahange (his
wife), it is said. The children of those two are two sons and a
daughter. The big son one day having worked a rice field, at noon
came home for food. The Gama-mahange was a little late in giving the
food. The son quarrelled [with her] over it. That day at night the
Gama-mahange spoke to the Gamarala that he must bring and give an
assistant (a wife) to the son.
On the next day the Gamarala having gone to seek a girl, while he
was going asking and asking from village to village, in even a single
place he did not meet with a girl.
Afterwards the Gamarala having come to the village, when he was there
a considerable time, again the son of the Gamarala quarrelled with
the Gama-mahange. While he was quarrelling, the Gamarala and the
Gama-mahange, both of them, said, "Don't thou stay making and making
quarrels here. Go to any place thou wantest." Afterwards the son went
somewhere or other. The other younger son is going for rice-field work.
For that elder brother who went away the younger sister had much
affection. Because of it, from the day on which the elder brother
went away this younger sister through grief does not eat. Having said,
"Without seeing our elder brother I cannot remain," she is weeping.
Then the younger elder brother says, "Why, younger sister? I am
[here]; is that insufficient for you?"
Then the younger sister says, "Why, elder brother, are you saying
thus? If two persons give me more assistance than the assistance of
one person, how good it is for me!"
Afterwards, that elder brother one day having gone to the rice field,
at the time when he was chopping the earthen ridges (niyara) met
with a Shell Snail (golu-bellek). Having brought the Snail home, and
given it into the hand of the younger sister, he said, "There, younger
sister! I brought for you a small round-backed elder brother. Because
of it, don't you be sorrowful now."
Afterwards, that younger sister, taking the Snail, having wrapped it
in a cloth and placed it in a box, put it away. Having put it away,
three times a day having taken the Snail and looked at it, she says,
"Our two parents having quarrelled with our elder brother drove him
away. On account of it our little elder brother brought you and gave
you to me. Owing to it [also], little round-backed elder brother,
there is grief in my mind." She having said and said [this], and
every day having said thus when putting it away, one day the Gamarala
stayed listening.
Having been listening he says at the hand of the Gama-mahange,
"What, Bolan, is this thing that our girl is saying? You also come and
listen." Then the Gama-mahange having come and been listening, the two
persons spoke together, "It is through grief, indeed, that her elder
brother is not [here]. There is no need to say anything about it."
Well then, while the girl in that manner for a considerable time is
saying and saying thus to the Shell Snail, one day when the girl is
saying so again, the snail shell having burst open a Prince was born
looking like a sun or a moon.
After that, the girl having thrown away the bits of shell into which
the snail shell burst, bathed the Prince, and took him. Having sent
milk into a finger for the Prince, he continued to drink milk from
her finger. When he was there no long time a tale-bearer told the
King that there was a very good [looking] Prince at the Gamarala's
house. Afterwards the King having sent Ministers caused them to
look. The Ministers having looked and having gone, told the King,
"The Prince, indeed, is the royal Prince sort."
Afterwards the King gave permission [300] for summoning the Prince and
the mother who was rearing the Prince to come to the palace. After
that, the Ministers having gone to the Gamarala's house brought the
Prince and the Gamarala's girl to the palace.
Afterwards, the King taking charge of the Gamarala's girl and the
Prince, when for the Prince the age of about twelve years was filled
up, the King died. Having appointed the Prince to the sovereignty he
remained ruling the kingdom with the ten kingly virtues.
North-western Province.
The feeding of a Prince from the finger is found in the Maha Bharata
(Drona Parva, lxii), in which Indra is represented as thus feeding
Prince Mandhatri, who made his appearance in the world out of his
father's left side, as a consequence of the latter's having drunk
some sacrificial butter or ghi, which had the magic property of
causing the birth of a son. The food thus provided was so nourishing
that the infant grew to twelve cubits in as many days. In A. von
Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), this Prince was not fed thus,
but was suckled by the eighty thousand wives of his father, having
been born from a tumour on the crown of the King's head; his boyhood
occupied twenty-one million (and a few hundred thousand) years.
In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 216,
in a legend of the founding of the Vaisali kingdom, two children
are described as being reared by a religious mendicant by means of
a supply of milk which issued from his thumbs.