and argued and refused obedience. In fact they did everything to make
the king revoke his order.
“The virtue of a woman,” quoth Sita, “is destroyed through too much
beauty; the religion of a Brahman is impaired by serving kings; a cow
is spoiled by distant pasturage, wealth is lost by committing injustice,
and prosperity departs from the house where promises are not kept.”
The Raja highly applauded the sentiment, but was firm as a rock upon the
subject of Sita marrying the treasurer’s son.
Chandraprabha observed that her royal father, usually so conscientious,
must now be acting from interested motives, and that when selfishness
sways a man, right becomes left and left becomes right, as in the
reflection of a mirror.
Subichar approved of the comparison; he was not quite so resolved, but
he showed no symptoms of changing his mind.
Then the Brahman’s daughter-in-law, with the view of gaining time--a
famous stratagem amongst feminines--said to the Raja: “Great king, if
you are determined upon giving me to the grand treasurer’s son, exact
from him the promise that he will do what I bid him. Only on this
condition will I ever enter his house!”
“Speak, then,” asked the king; “what will he have to do?”
She replied, “I am of the Brahman or priestly caste, he is the son of a
Kshatriya or warrior: the law directs that before we twain can wed, he
should perform Yatra (pilgrimage) to all the holy places.”
“Thou hast spoken Veda-truth, girl,” answered the Raja, not sorry to
have found so good a pretext for temporizing, and at the same time to
preserve his character for firmness, resolution, determination.
That night Manaswi and Chandraprabha, instead of scolding each other,
congratulated themselves upon having escaped an imminent danger--which
they did not escape.
In the morning Subichar sent for his ministers, including his grand
treasurer and his love-sick son, and told them how well and wisely the
Brahman’s daughter-in-law had spoken upon the subject of the marriage.
All of them approved of the condition; but the young man ventured to
suggest, that while he was a-pilgrimaging the maiden should reside under
his father’s roof. As he and his father showed a disposition to continue
their fasts in case of the small favour not being granted, the Raja,
though very loath to separate his beloved daughter and her dear friend,
was driven to do it. And Sita was carried off, weeping bitterly, to the
treasurer’s palace. That dignitary solemnly committed her to the charge
of his third and youngest wife, the lady Subhagya-Sundari, who was about
her own age, and said, “You must both live together, without any kind of
wrangling or contention, and do not go into other people’s houses.” And
the grand treasurer’s son went off to perform his pilgrimages.
It is no less sad than true, Raja Vikram, that in less than six days the
disconsolate Sita waxed weary of being Sita, took the ball out of her
mouth, and became Manaswi. Alas for the infidelity of mankind! But it
is gratifying to reflect that he met with the punishment with which the
Pandit Muldev had threatened him. One night the magic pill slipped down
his throat. When morning dawned, being unable to change himself into
Sita, Manaswi was obliged to escape through a window from the lady
Subhagya-Sundari’s room. He sprained his ankle with the leap, and he lay
for a time upon the ground--where I leave him whilst convenient to me.
When Muldev quitted the presence of Subichar, he resumed his old shape,
and returning to his brother Pandit Shashi, told him what he had done.
Whereupon Shashi, the misanthrope, looked black, and used hard words and
told his friend that good nature and soft-heartedness had caused him to
commit a very bad action--a grievous sin. Incensed at this charge, the
philanthropic Muldev became angry, and said, “I have warned the youth
about his purity; what harm can come of it?”
“Thou hast,” retorted Shashi, with irritating coolness, “placed a sharp
weapon in a fool’s hand.”
“I have not,” cried Muldev, indignantly.
“Therefore,” drawled the malevolent, “you are answerable for all the
mischief he does with it, and mischief assuredly he will do.”
“He will not, by Brahma!” exclaimed Muldev.
“He will, by Vishnu!” said Shashi, with an amiability produced by having
completely upset his friend’s temper; “and if within the coming six
months he does not disgrace himself, thou shalt have the whole of my
book-case; but if he does, the philanthropic Muldev will use all his
skill and ingenuity in procuring the daughter of Raja Subichar as a wife
for his faithful friend Shashi.”
Having made this covenant, they both agreed not to speak of the matter
till the autumn.
The appointed time drawing near, the Pandits began to make inquiries
about the effect of the magic pills. Presently they found out that Sita,
alias Manaswi, had one night mysteriously disappeared from the grand
treasurer’s house, and had not been heard of since that time. This,
together with certain other things that transpired presently, convinced
Muldev, who had cooled down in six months, that his friend had won the
wager. He prepared to make honourable payment by handing a pill to old
Shashi, who at once became a stout, handsome young Brahman, some twenty
years old. Next putting a pill into his own mouth, he resumed the shape
and form under which he had first appeared before Raja Subichar; and,
leaning upon his staff, he led the way to the palace.
The king, in great confusion, at once recognized the old priest, and
guessed the errand upon which he and the youth were come. However, he
saluted them, and offered them seats, and receiving their blessings,
he began to make inquiries about their health and welfare. At last he
mustered courage to ask the old Brahman where he had been living for so
long a time.
“Great king,” replied the priest, “I went to seek after my son, and
having found him, I bring him to your majesty. Give him his wife, and I
will take them both home with me.”
Raja Subichar prevaricated not a little; but presently, being hard
pushed, he related everything that had happened.
“What is this that you have done?” cried Muldev, simulating excessive
anger and astonishment. “Why have you given my son’s wife in marriage to
another man? You have done what you wished, and now, therefore, receive
my Shrap (curse)!”
The poor Raja, in great trepidation, said, “O Vivinity! be not thus
angry! I will do whatever you bid me.”
Said Muldev, “If through dread of my excommunication you will freely
give whatever I demand of you, then marry your daughter, Chandraprabha,
to this my son. On this condition I forgive you. To me, now a necklace
of pearls and a venomous krishna (cobra capella); the most powerful
enemy and the kindest friend, the most precious gem and a clod of
earth; the softest bed and the hardest stone; a blade of grass and the
loveliest woman--are precisely the same. All I desire is that in some
holy place, repeating the name of God, I may soon end my days.”
Subichar, terrified by this additional show of sanctity, at once
summoned an astrologer, and fixed upon the auspicious moment and lunar
influence. He did not consult the princess, and had he done so she would
not have resisted his wishes. Chandraprabha had heard of Sita’s
escape from the treasurer’s house, and she had on the subject her own
suspicions. Besides which she looked forward to a certain event, and
she was by no means sure that her royal father approved of the Gandharba
form of marriage--at least for his daughter. Thus the Brahman’s son
receiving in due time the princess and her dowry, took leave of the king
and returned to his own village.
Hardly, however, had Chandraprabha been married to Shashi the Pandit,
when Manaswi went to him, and began to wrangle, and said, “Give me my
wife!” He had recovered from the effects of his fall, and having lost
her he therefore loved her--very dearly.
But Shashi proved by reference to the astrologers, priests, and ten
persons as witnesses, that he had duly wedded her, and brought her to
his home; “therefore,” said he, “she is my spouse.”
Manaswi swore by all holy things that he had been legally married to
her, and that he was the father of her child that was about to be. “How
then,” continued he, “can she be thy spouse?” He would have summoned
Muldev as a witness, but that worthy, after remonstrating with him,
disappeared. He called upon Chandraprabha to confirm his statement, but
she put on an innocent face, and indignantly denied ever having seen the
man.
Still, continued the Baital, many people believed Manaswi’s story, as it
was marvellous and incredible. Even to the present day, there are
many who decidedly think him legally married to the daughter of Raja
Subichar.
“Then they are pestilent fellows!” cried the warrior king Vikram, who
hated nothing more than clandestine and runaway matches. “No one knew
that the villain, Manaswi, was the father of her child; whereas, the
Pandit Shashi married her lawfully, before witnesses, and with all the
ceremonies.[152] She therefore remains his wife, and the child will
perform the funeral obsequies for him, and offer water to the manes of
his pitris (ancestors). At least, so say law and justice.”
“Which justice is often unjust enough!” cried the Vampire; “and ply thy
legs, mighty Raja; let me see if thou canst reach the sires-tree before
I do.”
* * * * *
“The next story, O Raja Vikram, is remarkably interesting.”
THE VAMPIRE’S NINTH STORY -- Showing That a Man’s Wife Belongs Not to His Body but to His Head.
Far and wide through the lovely land overrun by the Arya from the
Western Highlands spread the fame of Unmadini, the beautiful daughter
of Haridas the Brahman. In the numberless odes, sonnets, and acrostics
addressed to her by a hundred Pandits and poets her charms were sung
with prodigious triteness. Her presence was compared to light shining
in a dark house; her face to the full moon; her complexion to the yellow
champaka flower; her curls to female snakes; her eyes to those of the
deer; her eyebrows to bent bows; her teeth to strings of little opals;
her feet to rubies and red gems,[153] and her gait to that of the wild
goose. And none forgot to say that her voice affected the author like
the song of the kokila bird, sounding from the shadowy brake, when the
breeze blows coolly, or that the fairy beings of Indra’s heaven would
have shrunk away abashed at her loveliness.
But, Raja Vikram! all the poets failed to win the fair Unmadini’s love.
To praise the beauty of a beauty is not to praise her. Extol her wit and
talents, which has the zest of novelty, then you may succeed. For the
same reason, read inversely, the plainer and cleverer is the bosom you
would fire, the more personal you must be upon the subject of its grace
and loveliness. Flattery you know, is ever the match which kindles
the Flame of love. True it is that some by roughness of demeanour and
bluntness in speech, contrasting with those whom they call the “herd,”
have the art to succeed in the service of the bodyless god.[154] But
even they must--
The young prince Dharma Dhwaj could not help laughing at the thought
of how this must sound in his father’s ear. And the Raja hearing
the ill-timed merriment, sternly ordered the Baital to cease his
immoralities and to continue his story.
Thus the lovely Unmadini, conceiving an extreme contempt for poets
and literati, one day told her father who greatly loved her, that her
husband must be a fine young man who never wrote verses. Withal she
insisted strongly on mental qualities and science, being a person of
moderate mind and an adorer of talent--when not perverted to poetry.
As you may imagine, Raja Vikram, all the beauty’s bosom friends, seeing
her refuse so many good offers, confidently predicted that she would
pass through the jungle and content herself with a bad stick, or that
she would lead ring-tailed apes in Patala.
At length when some time had elapsed, four suitors appeared from four
different countries, all of them claiming equal excellence in youth and
beauty, strength and understanding. And after paying their respects to
Haridas, and telling him their wishes, they were directed to come early
on the next morning and to enter upon the first ordeal--an intellectual
conversation.
This they did.
“Foolish the man,” quoth the young Mahasani, “that seeks permanence in
this world--frail as the stem of the plantain-tree, transient as the
ocean foam.
“All that is high shall presently fall; all that is low must finally
perish.
“Unwillingly do the manes of the dead taste the tears shed by their
kinsmen: then wail not, but perform the funeral obsequies with
diligence.”
“What ill-omened fellow is this?” quoth the fair Unmadini, who was
sitting behind her curtain; “besides, he has dared to quote poetry!”
There was little chance of success for that suitor.
“She is called a good woman, and a woman of pure descent,” quoth the
second suitor, “who serves him to whom her father and mother have
given her; and it is written in the scriptures that a woman who in the
lifetime of her husband, becoming a devotee, engages in fasting, and in
austere devotion, shortens his days, and hereafter falls into the fire.
For it is said--
“A woman’s bliss is found not in the smile
Of father, mother, friend, nor in herself;
Her husband is her only portion here,
Her heaven hereafter.”
The word “serve,” which might mean “obey,” was peculiarly disagreeable
to the fair one’s ears, and she did not admire the check so soon placed
upon her devotion, or the decided language and manner of the youth. She
therefore mentally resolved never again to see that person, whom she
determined to be stupid as an elephant.
“A mother,” said Gunakar, the third candidate, “protects her son in
babyhood, and a father when his offspring is growing up. But the man of
warrior descent defends his brethren at all times. Such is the custom of
the world, and such is my state. I dwell on the heads of the strong!”
Therefore those assembled together looked with great respect upon the
man of valour.
Devasharma, the fourth suitor, contented himself with listening to the
others, who fancied that he was overawed by their cleverness. And when
it came to his turn he simply remarked, “Silence is better than speech.”
Being further pressed, he said, “A wise man will not proclaim his age,
nor a deception practiced upon himself, nor his riches, nor the loss
of riches, nor family faults, nor incantations, nor conjugal love, nor
medicinal prescriptions, nor religious duties, nor gifts, nor reproach,
nor the infidelity of his wife.”
Thus ended the first trial. The master of the house dismissed the
two former speakers, with many polite expressions and some trifling
presents. Then having given betel to them, scented their garments with
attar, and sprinkled rose-water over their heads, he accompanied them to
the door, showing much regret. The two latter speakers he begged to come
on the next day.
Gunakar and Devasharma did not fail. When they entered the assembly-room
and took the seats pointed out to them, the father said, “Be ye pleased
to explain and make manifest the effects of your mental qualities. So
shall I judge of them.”
“I have made,” said Gunakar, “a four-wheeled carriage, in which the
power resides to carry you in a moment wherever you may purpose to go.”
“I have such power over the angel of death,” said Devasharma, “that I
can at all times raise a corpse, and enable my friends to do the same.”
Now tell me by thy brains, O warrior King Vikram, which of these two
youths was the fitter husband for the maid?
Either the Raja could not answer the question, or perhaps he would not,
being determined to break the spell which had already kept him walking
to and fro for so many hours. Then the Baital, who had paused to let
his royal carrier commit himself, seeing that the attempt had failed,
proceeded without making any further comment.
The beautiful Unmadini was brought out, but she hung down her head and
made no reply. Yet she took care to move both her eyes in the direction
of Devasharma. Whereupon Haridas, quoting the proverb that “pearls
string with pearls,” formally betrothed to him his daughter. The soldier
suitor twisted the ends of his mustachios into his eyes, which were red
with wrath, and fumbled with his fingers about the hilt of his sword.
But he was a man of noble birth, and presently his anger passed away.
Mahasani the poet, however, being a shameless person--and when can we be
safe from such?--forced himself into the assembly and began to rage and
to storm, and to quote proverbs in a loud tone of voice. He remarked
that in this world women are a mine of grief, a poisonous root, the
abode of solicitude, the destroyers of resolution, the occasioners of
fascination, and the plunderers of all virtuous qualities. From the
daughter he passed to the father, and after saying hard things of him as
a “Maha-Brahman,”[155] who took cows and gold and worshipped a monkey,
he fell with a sweeping censure upon all priests and sons of priests,
more especially Devasharma. As the bystanders remonstrated with him,
he became more violent, and when Haridas, who was a weak man, appeared
terrified by his voice, look, and gesture, he swore a solemn oath that
despite all the betrothals in the world, unless Unmadini became his wife
he would commit suicide, and as a demon haunt the house and injure the
inmates.
Gunakar the soldier exhorted this shameless poet to slay himself at
once, and to go where he pleased. But as Haridas reproved the warrior
for inhumanity, Mahasani nerved by spite, love, rage, and perversity to
an heroic death, drew a noose from his bosom, rushed out of the house,
and suspended himself to the nearest tree.
And, true enough, as the midnight gong struck, he appeared in the form
of a gigantic and malignant Rakshasa (fiend), dreadfully frightened the
household of Haridas, and carried off the lovely Unmadini, leaving word
that she was to be found on the topmost peak of Himalaya.
The unhappy father hastened to the house where Devasharma lived. There,
weeping bitterly and wringing his hands in despair, he told the terrible
tale, and besought his intended son-in-law to be up and doing.
The young Brahman at once sought his late rival, and asked his aid.
This the soldier granted at once, although he had been nettled at being
conquered in love by a priestling.
The carriage was at once made ready, and the suitors set out, bidding
the father be of good cheer, and that before sunset he should embrace
his daughter. They then entered the vehicle; Gunakar with cabalistic
words caused it to rise high in the air, and Devasharma put to flight
the demon by reciting the sacred verse,[156] “Let us meditate on the
supreme splendour (or adorable light) of that Divine Ruler (the sun)
who may illuminate our understandings. Venerable men, guided by the
intelligence, salute the divine sun (Sarvitri) with oblations and
praise. Om!”
Then they returned with the girl to the house, and Haridas blessed them,
praising the sun aloud in the joy of his heart. Lest other accidents
might happen, he chose an auspicious planetary conjunction, and at a
fortunate moment rubbed turmeric upon his daughter’s hands.
The wedding was splendid, and broke the hearts of twenty-four rivals.
In due time Devasharma asked leave from his father-in-law to revisit his
home, and to carry with him his bride. This request being granted, he
set out accompanied by Gunakar the soldier, who swore not to leave the
couple before seeing them safe under their own roof-tree.
It so happened that their road lay over the summits of the wild Vindhya
hills, where dangers of all kinds are as thick as shells upon the
shore of the deep. Here were rocks and jagged precipices making the
traveller’s brain whirl when he looked into them. There impetuous
torrents roared and flashed down their beds of black stone, threatening
destruction to those who would cross them. Now the path was lost in the
matted thorny underwood and the pitchy shades of the jungle, deep and
dark as the valley of death. Then the thunder-cloud licked the earth
with its fiery tongue, and its voice shook the crags and filled their
hollow caves. At times, the sun was so hot, that wild birds fell dead
from the air. And at every moment the wayfarers heard the trumpeting of
giant elephants, the fierce howling of the tiger, the grisly laugh of
the foul hyaena, and the whimpering of the wild dogs as they coursed by
on the tracks of their prey.
Yet, sustained by the five-armed god[157] the little party passed safely
through all these dangers. They had almost emerged from the damp glooms
of the forest into the open plains which skirt the southern base of the
hills, when one night the fair Unmadini saw a terrible vision.
She beheld herself wading through a sluggish pool of muddy water, which
rippled, curdling as she stepped into it, and which, as she advanced,
darkened with the slime raised by her feet. She was bearing in her arms
the semblance of a sick child, which struggled convulsively and filled
the air with dismal wails. These cries seemed to be answered by a
multitude of other children, some bloated like toads, others mere
skeletons lying upon the bank, or floating upon the thick brown waters
of the pond. And all seemed to address their cries to her, as if she
were the cause of their weeping; nor could all her efforts quiet or
console them for a moment.
When the bride awoke, she related all the particulars of her ill-omened
vision to her husband; and the latter, after a short pause, informed
her and his friend that a terrible calamity was about to befall them. He
then drew from his travelling wallet a skein of thread. This he divided
into three parts, one for each, and told his companions that in case of
grievous bodily injury, the bit of thread wound round the wounded
part would instantly make it whole. After which he taught them the
Mantra,[158] or mystical word by which the lives of men are restored to
their bodies, even when they have taken their allotted places amongst
the stars, and which for evident reasons I do not want to repeat. It
concluded, however, with the three Vyahritis, or sacred syllables--Bhuh,
Bhuvah, Svar!
Raja Vikram was perhaps a little disappointed by this declaration. He
made no remark, however, and the Baital thus pursued:
As Devasharma foretold, an accident of a terrible nature did occur.
On the evening of that day, as they emerged upon the plain, they were
attacked by the Kiratas, or savage tribes of the mountain.[159] A small,
black, wiry figure, armed with a bow and little cane arrows, stood in
their way, signifying by gestures that they must halt and lay down their
arms. As they continued to advance, he began to speak with a shrill
chattering, like the note of an affrighted bird, his restless red eyes
glared with rage, and he waved his weapon furiously round his head. Then
from the rocks and thickets on both sides of the path poured a shower of
shafts upon the three strangers.
The unequal combat did not last long. Gunakar, the soldier, wielded his
strong right arm with fatal effect and struck down some threescore of
the foes. But new swarms came on like angry hornets buzzing round the
destroyer of their nests. And when he fell, Devasharma, who had left
him for a moment to hide his beautiful wife in the hollow of a tree,
returned, and stood fighting over the body of his friend till he also,
overpowered by numbers, was thrown to the ground. Then the wild men,
drawing their knives, cut off the heads of their helpless enemies,
stripped their bodies of all their ornaments, and departed, leaving the
woman unharmed for good luck.
When Unmadini, who had been more dead than alive during the affray,
found silence succeed to the horrid din of shrieks and shouts, she
ventured to creep out of her refuge in the hollow tree. And what does
she behold? her husband and his friend are lying upon the ground, with
their heads at a short distance from their bodies. She sat down and wept
bitterly.