THE FOUR SIMPLE BRÁHMANS.
[As a sort of supplement to the sayings and doings of the silly son, the
following highly diverting Indian tale is here inserted, from the Abbé
Dubois' French rendering of the Tamil original, appended, with others,
to his selections from the _Panchatantra_. The story is known in
the north as well as in the south of India: in the Panjábi version there
are, however, but three noodle-heroes. It will be seen that the third
Bráhman's tale is another of the numerous silent couple class, and it
may possibly be the original form.]
_Introduction._
In a certain district, proclamation had been made of a Samaradanam being
about to be held.[1] Four Bráhmans, from different villages, going
thither, fell in upon the road, and, finding that they were all upon the
same errand, they agreed to proceed in company. A soldier, happening to
meet them, saluted them in the usual way, by touching hands and
pronouncing the words always applied on such occasions to Bráhmans,
"_Dandamarya_!" or "Health to my lord!" The four travellers made
the customary return, "_Asirvadam!_" and going on, they came to a
well, where they quenched their thirst and reposed themselves in the
shade of some trees. Sitting there, and finding no better subject of
conversation, one of them asked the others, whether they did not remark
how particularly the soldier had distinguished him by his polite
salutation. "You!" said another; "it was not you that he saluted, but
me." "You are both mistaken," says a third; "for you may remember that
when the soldier said, '_Dandamarya!_' he cast his eyes upon me."
"Not at all," replied the fourth; "it was I only he saluted; otherwise,
should I have answered him as I did, by saying, '_Asirvadam_'?"
Each maintained his argument obstinately; and as none of them would
yield, the dispute had nearly come to blows, when the least stupid of
the four, seeing what was likely to happen, put an end to the brawl by
the following advice: "How foolish it is in us," said he, "thus to put
ourselves in a passion! After we have said all the ill of one another
that we can invent--nay, after going stoutly to fisticuffs, like Sudra
rabble, should we be at all nearer to the decision of our difference?
The fittest person to determine the controversy, I think, would be the
man who occasioned it. The soldier, who chose to salute one of us,
cannot yet be far off: let us therefore run after him as quickly as we
can, and we shall soon know for which of us he intended his salutation."
This advice appeared wise to them all, and was immediately adopted. The
whole of them set off in pursuit of the soldier, and at last overtook
him, after running a league, and all out of breath. As soon as they came
in sight of him, they cried out to him to stop; and before they had well
approached him, they had put him in full possession of the nature of
their dispute, and prayed him to terminate it, by saying to which of
them he had directed his salutation. The soldier instantly perceiving
the character of the people he had to do with, and being willing to
amuse himself a little at their expense, coolly replied, that he
intended his salutation for the greatest fool of all four, and then,
turning on his heel, he continued his journey.
The Bráhmans, confounded at this answer, turned back in silence. But all
of them had deeply at heart the distinction of the salutation of the
soldier, and the dispute was gradually renewed. Even the awkward
decision of the warrior could not prevent each of them from arrogating
to himself the pre-eminence of being noticed by him, to the exclusion of
the others. The contention, therefore, now became, which of the four was
the stupidest; and strange to say, it grew as warm as ever, and must
have come to blows, had not the person who gave the former advice, to
follow the soldier, interposed again with his wisdom, and spoken as
follows: "I think myself the greatest fool of us all. Each of you thinks
the same thing of himself. And after a fight, shall we be a bit nearer
the decision of the question? Let us, therefore, have a little patience.
We are within a short distance of Dharmapuri, where there is a choultry,
at which all little causes are tried by the heads of the village; and
let ours be judged among the rest."
The others agreed in the soundness of this advice; and having arrived at
the village, they eagerly entered the choultry, to have their business
settled by the arbitrator. They could not have come at a better season.
The chiefs of the district, Bráhmans and others, had already met in the
choultry; and no other cause being brought forward, they proceeded
immediately to that of the four Bráhmans, who advanced into the middle
of the court, and stated that a sharp contest having arisen among them,
they were come to have it decided with fairness and impartiality. The
court desired them to proceed and explain the ground of their
controversy. Upon this, one of them stood forward and related to the
assembly all that had happened, from their meeting with the soldier to
the present state of the quarrel, which rested on the superior degree of
stupidity of one of their number. The detail created a general shout of
laughter. The president, who was of a gay disposition, was delighted
beyond measure to have fallen in with so diverting an incident. But he
put on a grave face, and laid it down, as the peculiarity of the cause,
that it could not be determined on the testimony of witnesses, and that,
in fact, there was no other way of satisfying the minds of the judges
than by each, in his turn, relating some particular occurrence of his
life, on which he could best establish his claim to superior folly. He
clearly showed that there could be no other means of determining to
which of them the salutation of the soldier could with justice be
awarded. The Bráhmans assented, and upon a sign being made to one of
them to begin, and the rest to keep silence, the first thus spoke:
_Story of the First Bráhman_.
I am poorly provided with clothing, as you see; and it is not to-day
only that I have been covered with rags. A rich and very charitable
Bráhman merchant once made a present of two pieces of cloth to attire
me--the finest that had ever been seen in our village. I showed them to
the other Bráhmans of the village, who all congratulated me on so
fortunate an acquisition. They told me it must be the fruit of some good
deeds that I had done in a preceding generation. Before I should put
them on, I washed them, according to the custom, in order to purify them
from the soil of the weaver's touch, and hung them up to dry, with the
ends fastened to two branches of a tree. A dog, then happening to come
that way, ran under them, and I could not discover whether he was high
enough to touch the clothes or not. I asked my children, who were
present, but they said they were not quite certain. How, then, was I to
discover the fact? I put myself upon all-fours, so as to be of the
height of the dog, and in that posture I crawled under the clothing.
"Did I touch it?" said I to the children, who were observing me. They
answered, "No," and I was filled with joy at the news. But after
reflecting a while, I recollected that the dog had a turned-up tail, and
that by elevating it above the rest of his body, it might well have
reached my cloth. To ascertain that, I fixed a leaf in my loin-cloth,
turning upwards, and then, creeping again on all-fours, I passed a
second time under the clothing. The children immediately cried out that
the point of the leaf on my back had touched the cloth. This proved to
me that the point of the dog's tail must have done so too, and that my
garments were therefore polluted. In my rage I pulled down the beautiful
raiment, and tore it in a thousand pieces, loading with curses both the
dog and his master.
When this foolish act was known, I became the laughing-stock of all the
world, and I was universally treated as a madman. "Even if the dog had
touched the cloth," said they, "and so brought defilement upon it, might
not you have washed it a second time, and so have removed the stain? Or
might you not have given it to some poor Sudra, rather than tear it in
pieces? After such egregious folly, who will give you clothes another
time?" This was all true; for ever since, when I have begged clothing of
any one, the constant answer has been, that, no doubt, I wanted a piece
of cloth to pull to pieces.
He was going on, when a bystander interrupted him by remarking that he
seemed to understand going on all-fours. "Exceedingly well," said he,
"as you shall see;" and off he shuffled, in that posture, amidst the
unbounded laughter of the spectators. "Enough! enough!" said the
president. "What we have both heard and seen goes a great way in his
favour. But let us now hear what the next has to say for himself in
proof of his stupidity." The second accordingly began by expressing his
confidence that if what they had just heard appeared to them to be
deserving of the salutation of the soldier, what he had to say would
change their opinion.
_Story of the Second Bráhman_.
Having got my hair and beard shaven one day, in order to appear decent
at a public festival of the Bráhmans, which had been proclaimed
throughout the district, I desired my wife to give the barber a penny
for his trouble. She heedlessly gave him a couple. I asked him to give
me one of them back, but he refused. Upon that we quarrelled, and began
to abuse each other; but the barber at length pacified me, by offering,
in consideration of the double fee, to shave my wife also. I thought
this a fair way of settling the difference between us. But my wife,
hearing the proposal, and seeing the barber in earnest, tried to make
her escape by flight. I took hold of her, and forced her to sit down,
while he shaved her poll in the same manner as they serve widows.[2]
During the operation she cried out bitterly; but I was inexorable,
thinking it less hard that my wife should be close-shaven than that my
penny should be given away for nothing. When the barber had finished, I
let her go, and she retired immediately to a place of concealment,
pouring down curses on me and the barber. He took his departure, and
meeting my mother in his way, told her what he had done, which made her
hasten to the house, to inquire into the outrage; and when she saw that
it was all true she also loaded me with incivilities.
The barber published everywhere what had happened at our house; and the
villain added to the story that I had caught her with another man, which
was the cause of my having her shaved; and people were no doubt
expecting, according to our custom in such a case, to see her mounted on
an ass, with her face turned towards the tail. They came running to my
dwelling from all quarters, and actually brought an ass to make the
usual exhibition in the streets. The report soon reached my
father-in-law, who lived at a distance of ten or twelve leagues, and
he, with his wife, came also to inquire into the affair. Seeing their
poor daughter in that degraded state, and being apprised of the only
reason, they reproached me most bitterly; which I patiently endured,
being conscious that I was in the wrong. They persisted, however, in
taking her with them, and keeping her carefully concealed from every eye
for four whole years; when at length they restored her to me.
This little accident made me lose the Samaradanam, for which I had been
preparing by a fast of three days; and it was a great mortification to
me to be excluded from it, as I understood it was a most splendid
entertainment. Another Samaradanam was announced to be held ten days
afterwards, at which I expected to make up for my loss. But I was
received with the hisses of six hundred Bráhmans, who seized my person,
and insisted on my giving up the accomplice of my wife, that he might be
prosecuted and punished, according to the severe rules of the caste.
I solemnly attested her innocence, and told the real cause of the
shaving of her hair; when a universal burst of surprise took place,
every one exclaiming, how monstrous it was that a married woman should
be so degraded, without having committed the crime of infidelity.
"Either this man," said they, "must be a liar, or he is the greatest
fool on the face of the earth!" Such, I daresay, gentlemen, you will
think me, and I am sure you will consider my folly [looking with great
disdain on the first speaker] as being far superior to that of the
render of body-clothing.
The court agreed that the speaker had put in a very strong case; but
justice required that the other two should also be heard. The third
claimant was indeed burning with impatience for his turn, and as soon as
he had permission, he thus spoke:
_Story of the Third Brahman_.
My name was originally Anantya; now all the world call me Betel Anantya,
and I will tell you how this nickname arose. My wife, having been long
detained at her father's house, on account of her youth, had cohabited
with me but about a month when, going to bed one evening, I happened to
say (carelessly, I believe), that all women were babblers. She retorted,
that she knew men who were not less babblers than women. I perceived at
once that she alluded to myself; and being somewhat piqued at the
sharpness of her retort, I said, "Now let us see which of us shall speak
first." "Agreed," quoth she; "but what shall be the forfeit?" "A leaf of
betel," said I. Our wager being thus made, we both addressed ourselves
to sleep, without speaking another word.
Next morning, as we did not appear at our usual hour, after some
interval, they called us, but got no answer. They again called, and then
roared stoutly at the door, but with no success. The alarm began to
spread in the house. They began to fear that we had died suddenly. The
carpenter was called with his tools. The door of our room was forced
open, and when they got in they were not a little surprised to find both
of us wide awake, in good health, and at our ease, though without the
faculty of speech. My mother was greatly alarmed, and gave loud vent to
her grief. All the Bráhmans in the village, of both sexes, assembled, to
the number of one hundred; and after close examination, every one drew
his own conclusion on the accident which was supposed to have befallen
us. The greater number were of opinion that it could have arisen only
from the malevolence of some enemy who had availed himself of magical
incantations to injure us. For this reason, a famous magician was
called, to counteract the effects of the witchcraft, and to remove it.
As soon as he came, after steadfastly contemplating us for some time, he
began to try our pulses, by putting his finger on our wrists, on our
temples, on the heart, and on various other parts of the body; and after
a great variety of grimaces, the remembrance of which excites my
laughter, as often as I think of him, he decided that our malady arose
wholly from the effect of malevolence. He even gave the name of the
particular devil that possessed my wife and me and rendered us dumb. He
added that the devil was very stubborn and difficult to allay, and that
it would cost three or four pagodas for the offerings necessary for
compelling him to fly.
My relations, who were not very opulent, were astonished at the grievous
imposition which the magician had laid on them. Yet, rather than we
should continue dumb, they consented to give him whatsoever should be
necessary for the expense of his sacrifice; and they farther promised
that they would reward him for his trouble as soon as the demon by whom
we were possessed should be expelled. He was on the point of commencing
his magical operations, when a Bráhman, one of our friends, who was
present, maintained, in opposition to the opinion of the magician and
his assistants, that our malady was not at all the effect of witchcraft,
but arose from some simple and ordinary cause, of which he had seen
several instances, and he undertook to cure us without any expense.
He took a chafing-dish filled with burning charcoal, and heated a small
bar of gold very hot. This he took up with pincers, and applied to the
soles of my feet, then to my elbows, and the crown of my head. I endured
these cruel operations without showing the least symptom of pain, or
making any complaint; being determined to bear anything, and to die, if
necessary, rather than lose the wager I had laid.
"Let us try the effect on the woman," said the doctor, astonished at my
resolution and apparent insensibility. And immediately taking the bit of
gold, well heated, he applied it to the sole of her foot. She was not
able to endure the pain for a moment, but instantly screamed out,
"Enough!" and turning to me, "I have lost my wager," she said; "there is
your leaf of betel." "Did I not tell you," said I, taking the leaf,
"that you would be the first to speak out, and that you would prove by
your own conduct that I was right in saying yesterday, when we went to
bed, that women are babblers?"
Every one was surprised at the proceeding; nor could any of them
comprehend the meaning of what was passing between my wife and me; until
I explained the kind of wager we had made overnight, before going to
sleep. "What!" they exclaimed, "was it for a leaf of betel that you have
spread this alarm through your own house and the whole village?--for a
leaf of betel that you showed such constancy, and suffered burning from
the feet to the head upwards? Never in the world was there seen such
folly!" And so, from that time, I have been constantly known by the name
of Betel Anantya.
The narrative being finished, the court were of opinion that so
transcendent a piece of folly gave him high pretensions in the depending
suit; but it was necessary also to hear the fourth and last of the
suitors, who thus addressed them:
_Story of the Fourth Bráhman_.
The maiden to whom I was betrothed, having remained six or seven years
at her father's house, on account of her youth, we were at last apprised
that she was become marriageable; and her parents informed mine that she
was in a situation to fulfil all the duties of a wife, and might
therefore join her husband. My mother being at that time sick, and the
house of my father-in-law being at the distance of five or six leagues
from ours, she was not able to undertake the journey. She therefore
committed to myself the duty of bringing home my wife, and counselled me
so to conduct myself, in words and actions, that they might not see that
I was only a brute. "Knowing thee as I do," said my mother, as I took
leave of her, "I am very distrustful of thee." But I promised to be on
my good behaviour; and so I departed.
I was well received by my father-in-law, who gave a great feast to all
the Bráhmans of the village on the occasion. He made me stay three days,
during which there was nothing but festivity. At length the time of our
departure having arrived, he suffered my wife and myself to leave him,
after pouring out blessings on us both, and wishing us a long and happy
life, enriched with a numerous progeny. When we took leave of him, he
shed abundance of tears, as if he had foreseen the misery that awaited
us.
It was then the summer solstice, and the day was exceedingly hot. We had
to cross a sandy plain of more than two leagues; and the sand, being
heated by the burning sun, scorched the feet of my young wife, who,
being brought up too tenderly in her father's house, was not accustomed
to such severe trials. She began to cry, and being unable to go on, she
lay down on the ground, saying she wished to die there. I was in
dreadful trouble, and knew not what step to take; when a merchant came
up, travelling the contrary way. He had a train of fifty bullocks,
loaded with various kinds of merchandise. I ran to meet him, and told
him the cause of my anxiety with tears in my eyes; and entreated him to
aid me with his good advice in the distressing circumstances in which I
was placed. He immediately answered, that a young and delicate woman,
such as my wife was, could neither remain where she lay nor proceed on
her journey, under a hot sun, without being exposed to certain death.
Rather than that I should see her perish, and run the hazard of being
suspected of having killed her myself, and being guilty of one of the
five crimes which the Bráhmans consider as the most heinous, he advised
me to give her to him, and then he would mount her on one of his cattle
and take her along with him. That I should be a loser, he admitted;
but, all things considered, it was better to lose her, with the merit of
having saved her life, than equally to lose her, under the suspicion of
being her murderer. "Her trinkets," he said, "may be worth fifteen
pagodas; take these twenty and give me your wife."
The merchant's arguments appeared unanswerable; so I yielded to them,
and delivered to him my wife, whom he placed on one of his best oxen,
and continued his journey without delay. I continued mine also, and got
home in the evening, exhausted with hunger and fatigue, and with my feet
almost roasted with the burning sand, over which I had walked the
greater part of the day. Frightened to see me alone, "Where is your
wife?" cried my mother. I gave her a full account of everything that had
happened from the time I left her. I spoke of the agreeable and
courteous manner in which my father-in-law had received me, and how, by
some delay, we had been overtaken by the scorching heat of the sun at
noon, so that my wife must have perished and myself suspected of having
caused her death, had we proceeded; and that I had preferred to sell her
to a merchant who met us for twenty pagodas. And I showed my mother the
money.
When I had done, my mother fell into an ecstasy of fury. She lifted up
her voice against me with cries of rage, and overwhelmed me with
imprecations and awful curses. Having given way to these first emotions
of despair, she sank into a more moderate tone: "What hast thou done!
Sold thy wife, hast thou! Delivered her to another man! A Bráhmanari is
become the concubine of a vile merchant! Ah, what will her kindred and
ours say when they hear the tale of this brutish stupidity--of folly so
unexampled and degrading?"
The relations of my wife were soon informed of the sad adventure that
had befallen their unhappy girl. They came over to attack me, and would
certainly have murdered me and my innocent mother, if we had not both
made a sudden escape. Having no direct object to wreak their vengeance
upon, they brought the matter before the chiefs of the caste, who
unanimously fined me in two hundred pagodas, as a reparation to my
father-in-law, and issued a proclamation against so great a fool being
ever allowed to take another wife; denouncing the penalty of expulsion
from the caste against any one who should assist me in such an attempt.
I was therefore condemned to remain a widower all my life, and to pay
dear for my folly. Indeed, I should have been excluded for ever from my
caste, but for the high consideration in which the memory of my late
father is still held, he having lived respected by all the world.
Now that you have heard one specimen of the many follies of my life, I
hope you will not consider me as beneath those who have spoken before
me, nor my pretensions altogether undeserving of the salutation of the
soldier.
_Conclusion_.
The heads of the assembly, several of whom were convulsed with laughter
while the Bráhmans were telling their stories, decided, after hearing
them all, that each had given such absolute proofs of folly as to be
entitled, in justice, to a superiority in his own way: that each of
them, therefore, should be at liberty to call himself the greatest fool
of all, and to attribute to himself the salutation of the soldier. Each
of them having thus gained his suit, it was recommended to them all to
continue their journey, if it were possible, in amity. The delighted
Brahmans then rushed out of court, each exclaiming that he had gained
his cause.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A Samaradanam is one of the public festivals given by pious people,
and sometimes by those in power, to the Bráhmans, who on such occasions
assemble in great numbers from all quarters.
[2] In a Sinhalese story, referred to on ["p. 68" in original. This
approximates to the reference to Chapter III, Footnote 5 in this
e-text], it is, curiously enough, the woman herself "who has her head
shaved, so as not to lose the services of the barber for the day when he
came, and her husband was away from home." The story probably was
introduced into Ceylon by the Tamils; both versions are equally good as
noodle-stories.