The woman said, "How shall I go carrying two in the arms, and again
with child? Go and ask about it, and come back."
Afterwards Batmasura, having gone home, asked at the hand of his wife,
"She is carrying two in the arms, and is again with child." Then the
woman told him to summon her and come.
After that Batmasura having come to the place where this woman stayed,
when he looked there was neither woman nor children. Thereupon that
one went away home.
After that, the God Îswara went away to the house of the God
Îswara. Having gone there, when a long time had passed Batmasura died,
and having come was [re]-born inside the God Îswara.
Afterwards the God Îswara went near another deity and asked, "What
is this? My belly is enlarging!"
That deity said, "Another living being (parana-karayek) has been
caused to come inside your body. On account of it, you must split
open your body, and throw it away."
The God Îswara could not split open his body. Having said, "I shall
die," he came home. Having come there, he ate medicine from another
doctor; that also was no good.
Again he went near that very deity. Having gone there, the God Îswara
asked at the hand of that deity, "What, now then, shall I do for this?"
Then the deity said, "There is nothing else to do; you must split
your body."
Then the God Îswara said, "When I have split my body shall I not
be destroyed?"
The deity said, "You will not be destroyed; your life will remain
over."
Afterwards, the God Îswara told him to split open his body. Having
split the body, when he looked there was a lump of flesh. He seized
it and threw it away. After that, the God Îswara having become well,
went home.
When a Lord (Buddhist monk) was coming with the begging-bowl, that
lump of flesh was on the path. Having gathered it together with his
walking-stick it fell into a hole (wala). [46]
Next day, as he was coming with the begging-bowl, that lump of flesh
sprang at the body of the Lord. Then the Lord having said, "Ci! Wala,
ha!" [47] gathered it together [again] with his walking-stick.
Thence, indeed, was the Bear (walaha).
Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
With reference to the last paragraphs, it is strange that a somewhat
similar notion regarding the foetal form of newly born bears was
long current in Europe. In the thirteenth century Encyclopedia of
Bartholomew Anglicus (ed. 1535), cap. cxii, it is stated that "Avicenna
saith that the bear bringeth forth a piece of flesh imperfect and evil
shapen, and the mother licketh the lump, and shapeth the members with
licking.... For the whelp is a piece of flesh little more than a mouse,
having neither eyes nor ears, and having claws some-deal bourgeoning
[sprouting], and so this lump she licketh, and shapeth a whelp with
licking" (Medieval Lore, Steele, p. 137).
This is taken from Pliny, who wrote of bears: "At the first they
seeme to be a lumpe of white flesh without all forme, little bigger
than rattons, without eyes, and wanting hair; onely there is some
shew and appearance of clawes that put forth. This rude lumpe,
with licking they fashion by little and little into some shape"
(Nat. Hist., P. Holland's translation, 1601, p. 215.)