holy in such love. It becomes not only a faith, but the best of
faiths—an abnegation of self which emancipates the spirit from its
straightest and earthliest bondage, the ‘I;’ the first step in the
regions of heaven; a homage rendered through the creature to the
Creator; a devotion solid, practical, ardent, not as worship mostly
is, a cold and lifeless abstraction; a merging of human nature into
one far nobler and higher, the spiritual existence of the supernal
world. For perfect love is perfect happiness, and the only perfection
of man; and what is a demon but a being without love? And what makes
man’s love truly divine, is the fact that it is bestowed upon such a
thing as woman.
‘And now, Raja Vikram,’ said the Vampire, speaking in his proper
person, ‘I have given you Madan-manjari the jay’s and Churaman
the parrot’s definitions of the tender passion, or rather their
descriptions of its effects. Kindly observe that I am far from
accepting either one or the other. Love is, according to me, somewhat
akin to mania, a temporary condition of selfishness, a transient
confusion of identity. It enables man to predicate of others who are
his other selves, that which he is ashamed to say about his real
self. I will suppose the beloved object to be ugly, stupid, vicious,
perverse, selfish, low-minded, or the reverse; man finds it charming
by the same rule that makes his faults and foibles dearer to him
than all the virtues and good qualities of his neighbours. Ye call
love a spell, an alchemy, a deity. Why? Because it deifies self by
gratifying all man’s pride, man’s vanity, and man’s conceit, under
the mask of complete unegotism. Who is not in heaven when he is
talking of himself? and, prithee, of what else consists all the talk
of lovers?’
It is astonishing that the warrior king allowed this speech to last
as long as it did. He hated nothing so fiercely, now that he was in
middle age, as any long mention of the ‘handsome god.’[81] Having
vainly endeavoured to stop by angry mutterings the course of the
Baital’s eloquence, he stepped out so vigorously and so rudely shook
that inveterate talker, that the latter once or twice nearly bit off
the tip of his tongue. Then the Vampire became silent, and Vikram
relapsed into a walk which allowed the tale to be resumed.
[81] Kama Deva. ‘Out on thee, foul fiend, talk’st thou of nothing
but ladies?’
Jayashri immediately conceived a strong dislike for her husband, and
simultaneously a fierce affection for a reprobate who before had been
indifferent to her. The more lovingly Shridat behaved to her, the
more vexed and annoyed she was. When her friends talked to her, she
turned up her nose, raising her eyebrows (in token of displeasure),
and remained silent. When her husband spoke words of affection to
her, she found them disagreeable, and turning away her face, reclined
on the bed. Then he brought dresses and ornaments of various kinds
and presented them to her, saying, ‘Wear these.’ Whereupon she
would become more angry, knit her brows, turn her face away, and in
an audible whisper call him ‘fool.’ All day she stayed out of the
house, saying to her companions, ‘Sisters, my youth is passing away,
and I have not, up to the present time, tasted any of this world’s
pleasures.’ Then she would ascend to the balcony, peep through the
lattice, and seeing the reprobate going along, she would cry to her
friend, ‘Bring that person to me.’ All night she tossed and turned
from side to side, reflecting in her heart, ‘I am puzzled in my mind
what I shall say, and whither I shall go. I have forgotten sleep,
hunger, and thirst; neither heat nor cold is refreshing to me.’
At last, unable any longer to support the separation from her
reprobate paramour, whom she adored, she resolved to fly with him.
On one occasion, when she thought that her husband was fast asleep,
she rose up quietly, and leaving him, made her way fearlessly in
the dark night to her lover’s abode. A footpad, who saw her on the
way, thought to himself, ‘Where can this woman, clothed in jewels,
be going alone at midnight?’ And thus he followed her unseen, and
watched her.
When Jayashri reached the intended place, she went into the house,
and found her lover lying at the door. He was dead, having been
stabbed by the footpad; but she, thinking that he had, according to
custom, drunk intoxicating hemp, sat upon the floor, and raising his
head, placed it tenderly in her lap. Then, burning with the fire of
separation from him, she began to kiss his cheeks, and to fondle and
caress him with the utmost freedom and affection.
By chance a Pisach (evil spirit) was seated in a large fig-tree[82]
opposite the house, and it occurred to him, when beholding this
scene, that he might amuse himself in a characteristic way. He
therefore hopped down from his branch, vivified the body, and began
to return the woman’s caresses. But as Jayashri bent down to kiss his
lips, he caught the end of her nose in his teeth, and bit it clean
off. He then issued from the corpse, and returned to the branch where
he had been sitting.
[82] The pipal or _Ficus religiosa_, a favourite roosting place
for fiends.
Jayashri was in despair. She did not, however, lose her presence of
mind, but sat down and proceeded to take thought; and when she had
matured her plan she arose, dripping with blood, and walked straight
home to her husband’s house. On entering his room she clapped her
hand to her nose, and began to gnash her teeth, and to shriek so
violently, that all the members of the family were alarmed. The
neighbours also collected in numbers at the door, and, as it was
bolted inside, they broke it open and rushed in, carrying lights.
There they saw the wife sitting upon the ground with her face
mutilated, and the husband standing over her, apparently trying to
appease her.
‘O ignorant, criminal, shameless, pitiless wretch!’ cried the people,
especially the women; ‘why hast thou cut off her nose, she not having
offended in any way?’
Poor Shridat, seeing at once the trick which had been played upon
him, thought to himself: ‘One should put no confidence in a changeful
mind, a black serpent, or an armed enemy, and one should dread a
woman’s doings. What cannot a poet describe? What is there that a
saint (jogi) does not know? What nonsense will not a drunken man
talk? What limit is there to a woman’s guile? True it is that the
gods know nothing of the defects of a horse, of the thundering of
clouds, of a woman’s deeds, or of a man’s future fortunes. How then
can we know?’ He could do nothing but weep, and swear by the herb
basil, by his cattle, by his grain, by a piece of gold, and by all
that is holy, that he had not committed the crime.
In the meanwhile, the old merchant, Jayashri’s father, ran off, and
laid a complaint before the kotwal, and the footmen of the police
magistrate were immediately sent to apprehend the husband, and to
carry him bound before the judge. The latter, after due examination,
laid the affair before the king. An example happening to be necessary
at the time, the king resolved to punish the offence with severity,
and he summoned the husband and wife to the court.
When the merchant’s daughter was asked to give an account of what had
happened, she pointed out the state of her nose, and said, ‘Maharaj!
why enquire of me concerning what is so manifest?’ The king then
turned to the husband, and bade him state his defence. He said, ‘I
know nothing of it,’ and in the face of the strongest evidence he
persisted in denying his guilt.
Thereupon the king, who had vainly threatened to cut off Shridat’s
right hand, infuriated by his refusing to confess and to beg for
mercy, exclaimed, ‘How must I punish such a wretch as thou art?’ The
unfortunate man answered, ‘Whatever your majesty may consider just,
that be pleased to do.’ Thereupon the king cried, ‘Away with him, and
impale him;’ and the people, hearing the command, prepared to obey it.
Before Shridat had left the court, the footpad, who had been looking
on, and who saw that an innocent man was about to be unjustly
punished, raised a cry for justice, and, pushing through the crowd,
resolved to make himself heard. He thus addressed the throne: ‘Great
king, the cherishing of the good, and the punishment of the bad,
is the invariable duty of kings.’ The ruler having caused him to
approach, asked him who he was, and he replied boldly, ‘Maharaj! I am
a thief, and this man is innocent, and his blood is about to be shed
unjustly. Your majesty has not done what is right in this affair.’
Thereupon the king charged him to tell the truth according to his
religion; and the thief related explicitly the whole circumstances,
omitting, of course, the murder.
‘Go ye,’ said the king to his messengers, ‘and look in the mouth of
the woman’s lover who has fallen dead. If the nose be there found,
then has this thief-witness told the truth, and the husband is a
guiltless man.’
The nose was presently produced in court, and Shridat escaped the
stake. The king caused the wicked Jayashri’s face to be smeared with
oily soot, and her head and eyebrows to be shaved; thus blackened and
disfigured, she was mounted upon a little ragged-limbed ass, and was
led around the market and the streets, after which she was banished
for ever from the city. The husband and the thief were then dismissed
with betel and other gifts, together with much sage advice, which
neither of them wanted.
‘My king,’ resumed the misogyne parrot, ‘of such excellencies as
these are women composed. It is said that “wet cloth will extinguish
fire and bad food will destroy strength; a degenerate son ruins a
family, and when a friend is in wrath he takes away life. But a woman
is an inflicter of grief in love and in hate; whatever she does turns
out to be for our ill. Truly the Deity has created woman a strange
being in this world.” And again, “The beauty of the nightingale is
its song, science is the beauty of an ugly man, forgiveness is the
beauty of a devotee, and the beauty of a woman is virtue—but where
shall we find it?” And again, “Among the sages, Narudu; among the
beasts, the jackal; among the birds, the crow; among men, the barber;
and in this world woman—is the most crafty.”
‘What I have told thee, my king, I have seen with mine own eyes, and
I have heard with mine own ears. At the time I was young, but the
event so affected me that I have ever since held female kind to be a
walking pest, a two-legged plague, whose mission on earth, like flies
and other vermin, is only to prevent our being too happy. O, why do
not children and young parrots sprout in crops from the ground—from
budding trees or vine-stocks?’
‘I was thinking, sire,’ said the young Dharma Dhwaj to the warrior
king his father, ‘what women would say of us if they could compose
Sanskrit verses!’
‘Then keep your thoughts to yourself,’ replied the Raja, nettled at
his son daring to say a word in favour of the sex. ‘You always take
the part of wickedness and depravity——’
‘Permit me, your majesty,’ interrupted the Baital, ‘to conclude my
tale.’
When Madan-manjari, the jay, and Churaman, the parrot, had given
these illustrations of their belief, they began to wrangle, and
words ran high. The former insisted that females are the salt of the
earth, speaking, I presume, figuratively. The latter went so far as
to assert that the opposite sex have no souls, and that their brains
are in a rudimental and inchoate state of development. Thereupon
he was tartly taken to task by his master’s bride, the beautiful
Chandravati, who told him that those only have a bad opinion of women
who have associated with none but the vicious and the low, and that
he should be ashamed to abuse feminine parrots, because his mother
had been one.
This was truly logical.
On the other hand, the jay was sternly reproved for her mutinous and
treasonable assertions by the husband of her mistress, Raja Ram, who,
although still a bridegroom, had not forgotten the gallant rule of
his syntax—
The masculine is more worthy than the feminine;
till Madan-manjari burst into tears and declared that her life was
not worth having. And Raja Ram looked at her as if he could have
wrung her neck.
In short, Raja Vikram, all the four lost their tempers, and with
them what little wits they had. Two of them were but birds, and the
others seem not to have been much better, being young, ignorant,
inexperienced, and lately married. How then could they decide
so difficult a question as that of the relative wickedness and
villany of men and women? Had your majesty been there, the knot of
uncertainty would soon have been undone by the trenchant edge of your
wit and wisdom, your knowledge and experience. You have, of course,
long since made up your mind upon the subject?
Dharma Dhwaj would have prevented his father’s reply. But the youth
had been twice reprehended in the course of this tale, and he thought
it wisest to let things take their own way.
‘Women,’ quoth the Raja, oracularly, ‘are worse than we are; a man,
however depraved he may be, ever retains some notion of right and
wrong, but a woman does not. She has no such regard whatever.’
‘The beautiful Bangalah Rani for instance?’ said the Baital, with a
demonic sneer.
At the mention of a word, the uttering of which was punishable by
extirpation of the tongue, Raja Vikram’s brain whirled with rage.
He staggered in the violence of his passion, and putting forth both
hands to break his fall, he dropped the bundle from his back. Then
the Baital, disentangling himself and laughing lustily, ran off
towards the tree as fast as his thin brown legs could carry him. But
his activity availed him little.
[Illustration: The king, puffing with fury, followed him at the top
of his speed, and caught him by his tail.]
The king, puffing with fury, followed him at the top of his speed,
and caught him by his tail before he reached the siras-tree, hurled
him backwards with force, put foot upon his chest, and after shaking
out the cloth, rolled him up in it with extreme violence, bumped his
back half a dozen times against the stony ground, and finally, with a
jerk, threw him on his shoulder, as he had done before.
The young prince, afraid to accompany his father whilst he was
pursuing the fiend, followed slowly in the rear, and did not join him
for some minutes.
But when matters were in their normal state, the Vampire, who had
endured with exemplary patience the penalty of his impudence, began
in honeyed accents,
‘Listen, O warrior king, whilst thy servant recounts unto thee
another true tale.’
THE VAMPIRE’S THIRD STORY.
OF A HIGH-MINDED FAMILY.
In the venerable city of Bardwan, O warrior king! (quoth the Vampire)
during the reign of the mighty Rupsen, nourished one Rajeshwar, a
Rajput warrior of distinguished fame. By his valour and conduct he
had risen from the lowest ranks of the army to command it as its
captain. And arrived at that dignity, he did not put a stop to all
improvements, like other chiefs, who rejoice to rest and return
thanks. On the contrary, he became such a reformer that, to some
extent, he remodelled the art of war.
Instead of attending to rules and regulations, drawn up in their
studies by pandits and Brahmans, he consulted chiefly his own
experience and judgment. He threw aside the systematic plans of
campaigns laid down in the Shastras or books of the ancients, and
he acted upon the spur of the moment. He displayed a skill in the
choice of ground, in the use of light troops, and in securing his
own supplies whilst he cut off those of the enemy, which Kartikaya
himself, God of War, might have envied. Finding that the bows of his
troops were clumsy and slow to use, he had them all changed before
compelled so to do by defeat; he also gave his attention to the
sword handles, which cramped the men’s grasp, but which having been
used for eighteen hundred years, were considered perfect weapons.
And having organised a special corps of warriors using fire arrows,
he soon brought it to such perfection that, by using it against the
elephants of his enemies, he gained many a campaign.
One instance of his superior judgment I am about to quote to thee, O
Vikram, after which I return to my tale; for thou art truly a warrior
king, very likely to imitate the innovations of the great general
Rajeshwar.
(A grunt from the monarch was the result of the Vampire’s sneer.)
He found his master’s armies recruited from Northern Hindostan,
and officered by Kshatriya warriors, who grew great only because
they grew old and—fat. Thus the energy and talent of the younger
men were wasted in troubles and disorders; whilst the seniors were
often so ancient that they could not mount their chargers unaided,
nor, when they were mounted, could they see anything a dozen yards
before them. But they had served in a certain obsolete campaign, and
until Rajeshwar gave them pensions and dismissals, they claimed a
right to take first part in all campaigns present and future. The
commander-in-chief refused to use any captain who could not stand
steady on his legs, or endure the sun for a whole day. When a soldier
distinguished himself in action, he raised him to the powers and
privileges of the warrior caste. And whereas it had been the habit to
lavish circles and bars of silver and other metals upon all those who
had joined in the war, whether they had sat behind a heap of sand or
had been foremost to attack the foe, he broke through the pernicious
custom, and he rendered the honour valuable by conferring it only
upon the deserving. I need hardly say that, in an inordinately short
space of time, his army beat every king and general that opposed it.
One day the great commander-in-chief was seated in a certain room
near the threshold of his gate, when the voices of a number of people
outside were heard. Rajeshwar asked, ‘Who is at the door, and what is
the meaning of the noise I hear?’ The porter replied, ‘It is a fine
thing your honour has asked. Many persons come sitting at the door
of the rich for the purpose of obtaining a livelihood and wealth.
When they meet together they talk of various things: it is these very
people who are now making this noise.’
Rajeshwar, on hearing this, remained silent.
In the meantime a traveller, a Rajput, Birbal by name, hoping to
obtain employment, came from the southern quarter to the palace
of the chief. The porter having listened to his story, made the
circumstance known to his master, saying, ‘O chief! an armed man has
arrived here, hoping to obtain employment, and is standing at the
door. If I receive a command he shall be brought into your honour’s
presence.’
‘Bring him in,’ cried the commander-in-chief.
[Illustration: In the meantime a traveller, a Rajput, by name Birbal.]
The porter brought him in, and Rajeshwar inquired, ‘O Rajput, who and
what art thou?’
Birbal submitted that he was a person of distinguished fame for the
use of weapons, and that his name for fidelity and valour had gone
forth to the utmost ends of Bharat-Kandha.[83]
[83] India.
The chief was well accustomed to this style of self-introduction,
and its only effect upon his mind was a wish to shame the man by
showing him that he had not the least knowledge of weapons. He
therefore bade him bare his blade and perform some feat.
Birbal at once drew his good sword. Guessing the thoughts which
were hovering about the chief’s mind, he put forth his left hand,
extending the forefinger upwards, waved his blade like the arm of a
demon round his head, and, with a dexterous stroke, so shaved off
a bit of nail that it fell to the ground, and not a drop of blood
appeared upon the fingertip.
‘Live for ever!’ exclaimed Rajeshwar in admiration. He then addressed
to the recruit a few questions concerning the art of war, or rather
concerning his peculiar views of it. To all of which Birbal answered
with a spirit and a judgment which convinced the hearer that he was
no common sworder.
Whereupon Rajeshwar bore off the new man at arms to the palace of the
king Rupsen, and recommended that he should be engaged without delay.
The king, being a man of few words and many ideas, after hearing his
commander-in-chief, asked, ‘O Rajput, what shalt I give thee for thy
daily expenditure?’
‘Give me a thousand ounces of gold daily,’ said Birbal, ‘and then I
shall have wherewithal to live on.’
‘Hast thou an army with thee?’ exclaimed the king in the greatest
astonishment.
‘I have not,’ responded the Rajput somewhat stiffly. ‘I have first, a
wife; second, a son; third, a daughter; fourth, myself; there is no
fifth person with me.’
All the people of the court on hearing this turned aside their heads
to laugh, and even the women, who were peeping at the scene, covered
their mouths with their veils. The Rajput was then dismissed the
presence.
It is, however, noticeable amongst you humans, that the world often
takes you at your own valuation. Set a high price upon yourselves,
and each man shall say to his neighbour, ‘In this man there must be
something.’ Tell every one that you are brave, clever, generous, or
even handsome, and after a time they will begin to believe you. And
when thus you have attained success, it will be harder to unconvince
them than it was to convince them. Thus——
‘Listen not to him, sirrah,’ cried Raja Vikram to Dharma Dhwaj, the
young prince, who had fallen a little way behind, and was giving ear
attentively to the Vampire’s ethics. ‘Listen to him not. And tell me,
villain, with these ignoble principles of thine, what will become of
modesty, humility, self-sacrifice, and a host of other Guna or good
qualities which—which are good qualities?’
‘I know not,’ rejoined the Baital, ‘neither do I care. But my
habitually inspiriting a succession of human bodies has taught me
one fact. The wise man knows himself, and is, therefore, neither
unduly humble or elated, because he had no more to do with making
himself than with the cut of his cloak, or with the fitness of his
loin-cloth. But the fool either loses his head by comparing himself
with still greater fools, or is prostrated when he finds himself
inferior to other and lesser fools. This shyness he calls modesty,
humility, and so forth. Now, whenever entering a corpse, whether it
be of man, woman, or child, I feel peculiarly modest; I know that my
tenement lately belonged to some conceited ass. And——’
‘Wouldst thou have me bump thy back against the ground?’ asked Rajah
Vikram angrily.
(The Baital muttered some reply scarcely intelligible about his
having this time stumbled upon a metaphysical thread of ideas, and
then continued his story.)
Now Rupsen, the king, began by inquiring of himself why the Rajput
had rated his services so highly. Then he reflected that if this
recruit had asked so much money, it must have been for some reason
which would afterwards become apparent. Next, he hoped that if he
gave him so much, his generosity might some day turn out to his own
advantage. Finally, with this idea in his mind, he summoned Birbal
and the steward of his household, and said to the latter, ‘Give this
Rajput a thousand ounces of gold daily from our treasury.’
It is related that Birbal made the best possible use of his wealth.
He used every morning to divide it into two portions, one of which
was distributed to Brahmans and Parohitas.[84] Of the remaining
moiety, having made two parts, he gave one as alms to pilgrims, to
Bairagis or Vishnu’s mendicants, and to Sanyasis or worshippers of
Shiva, whose bodies, smeared with ashes, were hardly covered with a
narrow cotton cloth and a rope about their loins, and whose heads
of artificial hair, clotted like a rope, besieged his gate. With
the remaining fourth, having caused food to be prepared, he regaled
the poor, while he himself and his family ate what was left. Every
evening, arming himself with sword and buckler, he took up his
position as guard at the royal bedside, and walked round it all
night sword in hand. If the king chanced to wake and asked who was
present, Birbal immediately gave reply that ‘Birbal is here; whatever
command you give, that he will obey.’ And oftentimes Rupsen gave him
unusual commands, for it is said, ‘To try thy servant, bid him do
things in season and out of season: if he obey thee willingly, know
him to be useful; if he reply, dismiss him at once. Thus is a servant
tried, even as a wife by the poverty of her husband, and brethren and
friends by asking their aid.’
[84] The ancient name of a priest by profession, meaning
‘præpositus’ or præses. He was the friend and counsellor of a
chief, the minister of a king, and his companion in peace and
war. (M. Müller’s _Ancient Sanskrit Literature_, p. 485.)