In a certain country the King's elephant every day having descended
into a pool, bathes. In the water a Water Snake (Diya naya) stayed.
One day a beggar went to the pool to bathe. As soon as he came the
Snake came to bite him. When it came, the man having beseeched it and
made obeisance, said, "Ane! O Lord, for me to bathe you must either
go to the bottom or come ashore."
"If so, because thou madest obeisance to me I will give thee a good
assistance," the Snake said. "The King's tusk elephant every day
comes to the pool to bathe. When it is bathing I will creep up its
trunk. Having gone to the city from that place, the tusk elephant will
fall mad on the days when it rains. [170] Then doctors having come,
when they are employing medical treatment they cannot cure it. After
that, you, Sir, having gone to the royal palace must say, 'Having
employed medical treatment I can cure the tusk elephant.' Having heard
it, the King will allow you to practise the medical treatment. Should
you ask, 'What is the medical treatment?' [it is this:]--Having brought
a large water-pot to the place where the tusk elephant is, and placed
the elephant's trunk in the water, and covered and closed yourself
and the tusk elephant with cloths, and tapped on the forehead of the
elephant, [you must say], 'Ane! O Lord, you must descend into the
water-pot; if not, to-day I shall cut my throat (lit., neck).' Then
I shall descend into the water."
This was all done as the Snake said. The beggar tapped on the tusk
elephant's forehead, and said, "Ane! O Lord, you must descend into the
water-pot; if not, to-day I shall cut my throat." Then the Snake came
down the tusk elephant's trunk into the water-pot, as he had promised.
The beggar then took the tusk elephant to the King; it was no longer
mad. The King rode on it along the four streets, and came back to
the palace, and descended.