Apupena hatah chorah
Hata khadgona kesari
Turamgena hatam sainyam
Vidhirbhagyanu sarini
In a remote village there lived a poor Brahman and his wife. Though
several years of their wedded life had passed, they unfortunately had
no children, and so, being very eager for a child, and having no hope
of one by his first wife, the poor Brahman made up his mind to marry
a second. His wife would not permit it for some time, but finding
her husband resolved, she gave way, thinking within herself that she
would manage somehow to do away with the second wife. As soon as he
had got her consent the Brahman arranged for his second marriage and
wedded a beautiful Brahman girl. She went to live with him in the same
house with the first wife, who, thinking that she would be making the
world suspicious if she did anything suddenly, waited for some time.
Isvara himself seemed to favour the new marriage, and the second wife,
a year after her wedding, becoming pregnant, went in the sixth month of
her pregnancy to her mother's house for her confinement. Her husband
bore his separation from her patiently for a fortnight, but after
this the desire to see her again began to prey upon his mind, and
he was always asking his first wife when he ought to go to her. She
seemed to sympathise fully with his trouble, and said:--
"My dearest husband, your health is daily being injured, and I am glad
that your love for her has not made it worse than it is. To-morrow
you must start on a visit to her. It is said that we should not go
empty-handed to children, a king, or a pregnant woman; so I shall
give you one hundred apupa cakes, packed up separately in a vessel,
which you must give to her. You are very fond of apupas and I fear
that you will eat some of them on the way; but you had better not do
so. And I will give you some cakes packed in a cloth separately for
you to eat on your journey."
So the first wife spent the whole night in preparing the apupa cakes,
and mixed poison in the sugar and rice-flour of those she made for
her co-wife and rival; but as she entertained no enmity against her
husband the apupas cakes for him were properly prepared. By the time
the morning dawned she had packed up the hundred apupas in a brass
vessel which could be easily carried on a man's head.
After a light breakfast--for a heavy one is always bad before a
journey on foot--the Brahman placed the brass vessel on his head,
and holding in his hand the kerchief containing the food for himself
on the way, started for the village of his second wife, which happened
to be at a distance of two days' journey. He walked in hot haste till
evening approached, and when the darkness of night overtook him the
rapidity of his walk had exhausted him, and he felt very hungry. He
espied a wayside shed and a tank near his path, and entered the water
to perform his evening ablution to the god of the day, who was fast
going down below the horizon. As soon as this was over he untied his
kerchief, and did full justice to its contents by swallowing every cake
whole. He then drank some water, and being quite overcome by fatigue,
fell into a deep slumber in the shed, with his brass vessel and its
sweet, or rather poisonous, contents under his head.
Close by the spot where the Brahman slept there reigned a famous
king who had a very beautiful daughter. Several persons demanded her
hand in marriage, among whom was a robber chieftain who wanted her
for his only son. Though the king liked the boy for his beauty, the
thought that he was only a robber for all that prevented him from
making up his mind to give his daughter in marriage to him. The
robber chief, however, was determined to have his own way, and
accordingly despatched one hundred of his band to fetch away the
princess in the night without her knowledge while she was sleeping,
to his palace in the woods. In obedience to their chieftain's order
the robbers, on the night the Brahman happened to sleep in the shed,
entered the king's palace and stole away the princess, together with
the bed on which she was sleeping. On reaching the shed the hundred
robbers found themselves very thirsty--for being awake at midnight
always brings on thirst. So they placed the cot on the ground and
were entering the water to quench their thirst; just then they
smelt the apupa cakes, which, for all that they contained poison,
had a very sweet savour. The robbers searched about the shed, and
found the Brahman sleeping on one side and the brass vessel lying at
a distance from him, for he had pushed it from underneath his head
when he had stretched himself in his sleep; they opened the vessel,
and to their joy found in it exactly one hundred apupa cakes.
"We have one here for each of us, and that is something better than
mere water. Let us each eat before we go into it," said the leader
of the gang, and at once each man swallowed greedily what he had in
his hand, and immediately all fell down dead. Lucky it was that no
one knew of the old Brahmani's trick. Had the robbers had any reason
to suspect it they would never have eaten the cakes; had the Brahman
known it he would never have brought them with him for his dear second
wife. Lucky was it for the poor old Brahman and his second wife,
and lucky was it for the sleeping princess, that these cakes went,
after all, into the stomachs of the villainous robbers!
After sleeping his fill the Brahman, who had been dreaming of his
second wife all night, awoke in haste to pursue the remainder of his
journey to her house. He could not find his brass vessel, but near the
place where he had left it he found several men of the woods, whom
he knew very well by their appearance to be robbers, as he thought,
sleeping. Angered at the loss of his vessel he took up a sword from
one of the dead robbers and cut off all their heads, thinking all
the while that he was killing one hundred living robbers, who were
sleeping after having eaten all his cakes. Presently the princess's
cot fell under his gaze, and he approached it and found on it a most
beautiful lady fast asleep. Being an intelligent man he perceived that
the persons whose heads he had cut off must have been some thieves,
or other wicked men, who had carried her off. He was not long in doubt,
for not far off he saw an army marching up rapidly with a king at its
head, who was saying, "Down with the robber who has stolen away my
daughter." The Brahman at once inferred that this must be the father
of the sleeping princess, and suddenly waking her up from her sleep
spoke thus to her:--
"Behold before you the hundred robbers that brought you here a few
hours ago from your palace. I fought one and all of them single-handed,
and have killed them all."
The princess was highly pleased at what she heard, for she knew of
all the tricks the robbers had previously played to carry her off. So
she fell reverently at the Brahman's feet and said:--
"Friend, never till now have I heard of a warrior who, single-handed,
fought one hundred robbers. Your valour is unparalleled. I will be
your wife, if only in remembrance of your having saved me from falling
into the hands of these ruffians."
Her father and his army was now near the shed, for he had all along
watched the conduct of the robber chieftain, and as soon as the
maid-servants of the palace informed him of the disappearance of the
princess and her bed, he marched straight with his soldiers for the
woods. His joy, when he saw his daughter safe, knew no bounds, and
he flew into his daughter's arms, while she pointed to the Brahman
as her preserver. The king now put a thousand questions to our hero,
who, being well versed in matters of fighting, gave sound replies, and
so came successfully out of his first adventure. The king, astonished
at his valour, took him to his palace, and rewarded him with the hand
of the princess. And the robber chieftain, fearing the new son-in-law,
who, single-handed, had killed a hundred of his robbers, never troubled
himself about the princess. Thus the Brahman's first adventure ended
in making him son-in-law to a king!
Now there lived a lioness in a wood near the princess's country,
who had a great taste for human flesh, and so, once a week, the king
used to send a man into the wood to serve as her prey. All the people
now collected together before the king, and said:--
"Most honoured king, while you have a son-in-law who killed one hundred
robbers with his sword, why should you continue to send a man into
the wood every week. We request you to send your son-in-law next week
to the wood and have the lioness killed."
This seemed most reasonable to the king, who called for his son-in-law,
and sent him, armed to the teeth, into the wood.
Now our Brahman could not refuse to go, for fear of losing the fame
of his former exploit, and, hoping that fortune would favour him, he
asked his father-in-law to have him hoisted up into a big banyan tree
with all kinds of weapons, and this was done. The appointed time for
the lioness to eat her prey approached, and as she saw no one coming
for her, and as sometimes those that had to come used to linger for
a short time in the tree in which the Brahman had taken refuge, she
went up to it to see that no such trick has been played upon her this
time. This made the Brahman tremble so violently that he dropped the
sword he held in his hand. At that very moment the lioness happened
to yawn, and the sword dropped right into her jaws and killed her. As
soon as the Brahman saw the course which events had taken, he came
down from the tree, and invented a thousand stories of how he had
given battle to the terrible lioness and overcome her. This exploit
fully established his valour, and feasts and rejoicings in honour of
it followed, and the whole country round blessed the son-in-law of
their king.
Near this kingdom there also reigned a powerful emperor, who levied
tribute from all the surrounding countries. To this emperor the
father-in-law of our most valorous Brahman, who, at one stroke,
had killed one hundred robbers, and, at another, a fierce lioness,
had also to pay a certain amount of tribute; but, trusting to the
power of his son-in-law, he stopped the tribute to the emperor, who,
by the way, was named Appayya Raja, and who, as soon as the tribute
was stopped, invaded his dominions, and his father-in-law besought
the Brahman for assistance.
Again the poor Brahman could not refuse, for, if he did, all his
former fame would have been lost; so he determined to undertake
this adventure also, and to trust to fortune rather than give up the
attempt. He asked for the best horse and the sharpest sword, and set
out to fight the enemy, who had already encamped on the other side
of the river, which flowed at a short distance to the east of the town.
Now the king had a very unruly horse, which had never been broken in,
and this he gave his son-in-law; and, supplying him with a sharp sword,
asked him to start. The Brahman then asked the king's servants to
tie him up with cotton strings tight on to the saddle, and set out
on the expedition.
The horse, having never till then felt a man on its back, began to
gallop most furiously, and flew onwards so fast that all who saw it
thought the rider must lose his life, and he too was almost dead
with fear. He tried his best to curb his steed, but the more he
pulled the faster it galloped, till giving up all hopes of life he
let it take its course. It jumped into the water and swam across to
the other side of the river, wetting the cotton cords by which the
Brahman was tied down to the saddle, making them swell and giving
him the most excruciating pain. He bore it, however, with all the
patience imaginable. Presently the horse reached the other side
of the river, where there was a big palmyra tree, which a recent
flood had left almost uprooted and ready to fall at the slightest
touch. The Brahman, unable to stop the course of the horse, held
fast on to the tree, hoping thus to check its wild career. But
unfortunately for him the tree gave way, and the steed galloped on
so furiously that he did not know which was the safer--to leave the
tree or to hold on to it. Meanwhile the wet cotton cords hurt him so
that he, in the hopelessness of despair, bawled out appa! ayya! [56]
On went his steed, and still he held on to the palmyra tree. Though
now fighting for his own life, the people that were watching him
from a great distance thought him to be flying to the battlefield,
armed with a palmyra tree! The cry of lamentation, appa ayya, which he
uttered, his enemy mistook for a challenge, because, as we know, his
name happened to be Appayya. Horror-struck at the sight of a warrior
armed with a huge tree, his enemy turned and fled. Yatha raja tatha
prajah--"As is the king so are the subjects,"--and accordingly his
followers also fled. The Brahman warrior (!) seeing the fortunate
course events had again taken pursued the enemy, or rather let his
courser have its own furious way. Thus the enemy and his vast army
melted away in the twinkling of an eye, and the horse, too, when it
became exhausted, returned towards the palace.
The old king had been watching from the loftiest rooms of his palace
all that had passed on the other side of the river, and believing his
son-in-law had, by his own prowess, driven out the enemy, approached
him with all pomp. Eager hands quickly cut the knots by which the
victorious (!) Brahman had been held tight in his saddle, and his old
father-in-law with tears of joy embraced him on his victory, saying
that the whole kingdom was indebted to him. A splendid triumphal
march was conducted, in which the eyes of the whole town were directed
towards our victorious hero.
Thus, on three different occasions, and in three different adventures,
fortune favoured the poor Brahman and brought him fame. He then sent
for his two former wives and took them into his palace. His second
wife, who was pregnant when he first started with the apupa cakes to
see her, had given birth to a male child, who was, when she came back
to him, more than a year old. The first wife confessed to her husband
her sin of having given him poisoned cakes, and craved his pardon;
and it was only now that he came to know that the hundred robbers he
killed in his first adventure were all really dead men, and that they
must have died from the effects of the poison in the cakes, and, since
her treachery had given him a new start in life, he forgave her. She,
too, gave up her enmity to the partners of her husband's bed, and
all the four lived in peace and plenty for many a long day afterwards.